Category Archives: ‘Weekly’ Hit Ground Ball

Matt Smith’s Monday morning column, looking back at the previous week in MLB and looking ahead to the ‘early’ games scheduled for the week ahead

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Wrong turn on replay

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We’ve known for a while that MLB was considering an expansion of its currently limited use of instant replay and MLB Commissioner Bud Selig revealed their plans at a press conference last week.

It wasn’t feasible for MLB to continue to use video evidence only for fair/foul home run calls, as they have done since September 2008, as it only served to increase the frustration and fury of teams at every other crucial incorrect decision made.

Expanding it to other calls is therefore an improvement; however the proposal, which still has to be agreed but seems likely to be in effect for the start of next season, has little else going for it.

MLB didn’t want every potentially debatable call to be reviewed so it was inevitable that the sport would go down the route of allowing challenges. We’ve seen in the Ashes this summer what a mockery they can make of the game.

One of the compelling reasons for using technology is to reduce the occasions when the post-game chatter is not about a skilful pitching display, a timely piece of hitting or a dazzling fielding play, but focused on an incorrect umpiring decision.

Sadly now we’ll have nights when everything gets overshadowed by discussions over a manager’s use – or non-use – of a replay challenge. Maybe some will see that as an addition to the tactical side of the game, but it’s more akin to a game show than sport in my eyes.  MLB might as well introduce a ‘double runs in a half-inning’ joker card to go alongside it.

The ridiculous nature of challenges will be increased in baseball through the arbitrary allocation of three challenges per team: one challenge in the first six innings, two in the final three innings.

It won’t necessarily be the case that the game-defining decision takes place in the seventh, eighth or ninth inning. A team may make a reasonable, but ultimately incorrect, challenge in the second inning and then suffer an absolute howler of a decision with bases loaded in the sixth that they cannot do anything about.

It doesn’t matter that the team could have had a chance to challenge the call. It is the umpiring crew’s responsibility to make the decisions and it shouldn’t be incumbent on the managers to know when and when not to use a challenge. The whole point of introducing instant replay is to get the key decisions right, not to create a silly gimmick.

Personally, I would have left it up to the umpires to decide when they were not completely sure on a tight call (as in rugby, admittedly a very different game, or cricket umpires checking if the ball went for a 4 or 6 etc). There may be cases when an umpire faces criticism for not reviewing a decision, and perhaps a ‘safety-first’ approach may creep in to cover this, but it keeps the process among the umpires and ensures that they are still completely accountable for their decision-making, good or bad.

The new system should lead to some cases of teams getting wrong decisions overturned and that’s a good thing; however I have a bad feeling that the overall effect on the game is going to be a negative one.

Manuel moved aside

Charlie Manuel will be hoping he gets a chance to use the new challenge system next season, although that seems doubtful after he was sacked by the Philadelphia Phillies.

The 69-year-old was out of contract at the end of this season and the club clearly were not planning to extend his nine-year tenure at the helm.  A run of 19 losses from 23 games had left the Phillies a long way off the playoff pace and General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr. decided to install Ryne Sandberg as manager rather than leave Manuel in charge the rest of the way.

Sandberg has taken on the role on an interim basis and Amaro no doubt is hoping his desire to win the job on a permanent basis will help to light a fire under the team.

As for Manuel, his country drawl and portly appearance – a classic example of how jarring, and slightly humorous, it can be for Brits to see veteran managers suited up in full uniform, however unflattering the look – were part of what made him a likeable character. For Phillies fans, he was the man who guided them to only their second World Series triumph in the team’s 131 history and presided over a five-year domination of the NL East division after years of seeing the Atlanta Braves riding high.

Manuel wants to manage again next season, although the market for 70-year-old managers is not particularly strong.

Amaro’s tears as he announced Manuel’s departure called to mind ex-Newcastle owner Freddy Shepherd’s comments in 2004 that sacking Sir Bobby Robson made him feel like ‘the man who shot Bambi’. In Amaro’s case, he may find the root of some of the sadness in roster decisions made in recent years that have left the team with an ageing and increasingly injured core.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Teams on a charge

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Now we’re firmly into August, there are a number of teams putting together some runs of form that are setting them up for a postseason berth.

The Atlanta Braves are the most prominent example. They came shooting out of the traps with a 17-9 record in April, new recruit Justin Upton leading the way by smashing the cover off the ball on a nightly basis. Upton then cooled off and the team kept up a steady if unspectacular pace, adding wins to their total without necessarily wowing anyone with their dominance.

Tim Hudson then suffered a gruesome fractured ankle on 24 July in a win against the New York Mets, putting the pitcher out for the rest of the season. Hudson had been struggling so losing him from the rotation wasn’t quite the blow you might initially expect, but he is a leader on the team and it could have had a wider negative effect. The Braves lost the next day against the Mets and everyone looked on wondering if a wobble was on the cards.

Not a bit of it; Atlanta reeled off a 14-game winning streak only ended on Saturday in a 1-0 loss to the Miami Marlins. Prior to Sunday’s games, they had a 14.5 game lead over the Washington Nationals in the NL East and the playoff odds on the ESPN.com standings had their chances of making it to the postseason at 99.9 per cent.

Three of those 14 wins came in a series sweep against the Nationals last week and Washington’s most notable contribution came via a bench-clearing incident when tensions boiled over after Bryce Harper was hit by a pitch.

The Braves’ good form has only served to heighten the sense of disappointment around the Nationals. After winning 98 games last year, they appeared to have a well-rounded roster set up to have a battle royal with the Braves all season long. Instead, they have fallen a long way short of expectations for a variety of reasons, in particular with off-season acquisitions Denard Span and Dan Haren playing poorly and the re-signed Adam LaRoche failing to repeat his success of 2012.

They’ve got enough talent and resources to get back into the race next season, but their handling of Stephen Strasburg’s innings last year looks worse by the day. If 2012 was their year, the Nationals failed to take advantage.

You could make the same argument about the Detroit Tigers, who played so well to get to the World Series only to end the season with a whimper by being swept in four-games by the San Francisco Giants (who themselves are having a very disappointing season, but that’s much easier to take when you have won two World Series recently).

The Tigers put together a 12-game wining streak recently, ended by the New York Yankees on Friday night, in a run that included a four-game sweep over the Indians in Cleveland. Whilst Terry Francona’s team are falling away, the Tigers are putting their foot down and their playoff odds (98.7%) were only marginally less impressive than the Braves before Sunday’s games.

Losing Jhonny Peralta to a 50-game suspension will have an impact because he had been arguably their second-best hitter so far this season behind the incredible Miguel Cabrera. However, General Manager Dave Dombrowski planned ahead by adding shortstop Jose Igelsias before the trade deadline and although he doesn’t figure to offer too much with the bat, his glovework will certainly improve what was a pretty dicey infield defence.

With Victor Martinez looking like he’s now knocked off the rust from missing all of 2012 with a knee injury, and a very impressive pitching staff even with Justin Verlander not performing quite at his best, Detroit look well set to make amends for their Fall Classic flop.

The recent form of the Tigers and Braves has helped cement their division leads, but the most impressive turnaround over the last month or so has come from a team that was dead-last in their division on 30 June. The Los Angeles Dodgers were 9.5 games out in the NL West on 22 June and although they had cut that to 4 by the team they had played their 81st game of the season on 30 June, they were still nowhere near where they should have been considering their sky-high payroll and array of talent.

Less than two months on, and a period of 28 wins from 35 games, the Dodgers sat atop the division with a 6.5 game lead before their series finale against the Rays on Sunday. What’s more, their 7-6 walk-off win against the Rays on Friday was one of those games that makes you think that destiny is on a team’s side.

L.A. were 6-0 down at the seventh-inning stretch and although they had cut the deficit in half by the time the bottom of the ninth came around, they still looked out of it with Fernando Rodney coming into the game and the 8, 9 and 1 hitter coming up to bat. Somehow the Dodgers rallied and when Rodney inadvertently chucked the ball into the outfield on an attempted force-out at second base, Adrian Gonzalez gleefully crossed home plate to seal one of the stranger walk-off wins you’ll see this season.

Manager Don Mattingly was able to ride out a rough spell earlier in the season when, considering the ‘win-now’ mentality that must exist in L.A. following their spending spree, it looked like he would be cast aside. He’s now leading a team that has every chance of making it to the playoffs.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Dead at the deadline

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Sky Sports News has an unmatched ability to hype up even the most mundane of events; however even they would have been stretched to bring too much drama to last week’s MLB non-waiver trade deadline.

It wasn’t simply that the final couple of weeks of the unrestricted trade period passed with relatively few deals being agreed. This year’s deadline came and went without even the normal flurry of ‘potential blockbuster’ rumours.

The quiet deadline was expected though as it reflected the current state of MLB’s competitive position.

There were only a small number of teams looking to trade away quality players as most can put together an optimistic argument that they might just get themselves into to Wild Card race over the final two months of the regular season. More teams are also getting wise to the importance and value of good young (and therefore cheap) talent making them less willing to trade away top prospects for short-term fixes.

Add in the prevalence of contract extensions, reducing the pool of potential free agents, and the rule change that means teams now only gain compensation for losing a free agent if they’ve been with the team for the whole of the preceding season, and finding a match when you want to add a player or two is becoming increasingly difficult.

The one trend we did see was in the steadfast rebuilders continuing to trade away any MLB regulars to further add to their stocks of players for the future. The Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros and Miami Marlins were the teams everyone else was looking towards and this showed that there is value in rebuilders taking a chance on a few rental free agents each year.

Even the worst team in the league claws in millions of dollars in shared revenue so they have surplus cash to spend even while diverting money to prospects and building for the future. These teams are then in the position to take advantage of the scarcity of available players at the deadline (or, more accurately, players available at a cost teams are willing to meet).

The Baltimore Orioles’ hopes of repeating their surprising playoff appearance of 2012 were at risk of being thwarted by a scuffling starting rotation. The Cubs and Astros then came into view. Scott Feldman was acquired from Chicago and Bud Norris came across from Houston to add two decent starting pitchers to go straight into the Orioles’ rotation.

You could look at the Cubs and Astros’ records this season and wonder why a playoff hopeful would be keen to take on any of their players, but baseball is a game where individual performances cannot make up for a team’s failings on a daily basis (see Matt Harvey and the New York Mets). It’s also true that a good team doesn’t necessarily have to add a star to improve the overall strength of their roster.

Neither Norris or Feldman are going to set the world alight, but the O’s couldn’t have acquired even one pitcher of Cy Young award standing without giving up so much talent that it would be a risky proposition. Adding these two ptchers provides some stability at an affordable price, whilst the Astros and Cubs get some extra talent by trading away players who aren’t going to make them contenders in the next year or so anyway.

Matt Garza was another player on the Cubs’ roster to fall into that category. There were rumours that Chicago had hoped to trade him at last year’s deadline, only for an injury to scupper those plans. This time around they were able to dangle him in front of the eyes of contenders and it was the Texas Rangers that bit, allowing the Cubs to add Mike Olt to their collection of young talent.

The Miami Marlins did the same thing with Ricky Nolasco, this time with the Los Angeles Dodgers being the contender keen to further improve their odds of success this year. The way the Marlins have gutted their roster so soon after opening a largely publicly-funded new ballpark is shameless to say the least, but they’ve had success in retooling before and if Jose Fernandez is any indication then some very bright times could be ahead. Until they come around, the Marlins will keep on exploiting their position as a team that can have contenders coming to them looking for that one final piece which could determine if their season ends in success or failure.

As we’ve seen, it’s a position that is especially relevant to teams with pitching to trade. There were no premium bats on the market – the Cubs trading away Alfonso Soriano to the desperate New York Yankees was one of the main trades for a hitter – but it’s always the case that playoff hopeful teams are seeking an extra arm. The Red Sox acquired Jake Peavy in arguably the one big-name trade and it’s one that could bring rich reward in Boston.

The Red Sox’s change in fortunes after a miserable 2012 shows just how quickly things can turn around for a team. In most cases that situation has led to teams keeping hold of players rather than trading them this year. We’ll have to wait and see whether those who opted to stick, or those who opted to trade, made out the best when the Fall Classic comes around.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: BT Sport and the new ESPN

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If the online stories hadn’t yet registered, or a letter from your current TV provider had got lost in the post, the news ticker scrolling across the bottom of ESPN America’s screen will have ensured that you know what’s coming.

ESPN America will cease to broadcast at the end of this coming Wednesday (31 July).

The channel has been the only source of MLB TV coverage in the U.K. since the sad demise of the ‘Baseball on 5’ show at the end of the 2008 season.

It has moved about over the years, from the ill-fated ‘Setanta Sports’ bundle to the current ‘ESPN UK’ bundle, but it has been a welcome option to allow us to follow plenty of North American sports.

You could normally look to ESPN America to provide at least four or five live MLB games during the British evening over the course of the week, with several other games shown live in the early hours of the morning. Those games were often repeated ‘as live’ at a more sleep-friendly time during the day, alongside ESPN’s Baseball Tonight programme and other baseball-related features.

As the calendar moves from July to August, so ESPN America will disappear and MLB fans in the UK will be looking towards the ESPN-branded channel as part of the new BT Sport package.

The ESPN channel will be showing the F.A. Cup this coming season and some of the various football leagues from around the world that used to be shown on the main ESPN channel may stay here rather than move to one of the two BT Sport channels. In short, the ESPN channel will not be a strict U.S. sport focused affair and therefore it’s possible that the MLB coverage could reduce slightly to what we’re used to.

However the first three days of the ESPN schedule (Thursday to Saturday) provide reason for optimism that there will be a decent amount of MLB coverage. There are a couple of ‘as live’ games as well as a live game on Friday evening (Cubs v Dodgers at 21.00) and a game at midnight on Saturday/Sunday morning between the Reds and Cardinals. These will be shown despite the live X-Games coverage which always reduced the live MLB offerings on ESPN America for a short while every season.

We’ll have to wait and see how things develop as the BT Sports operation kicks into gear with the start of the football and rugby seasons, but there’s no immediate concern that the current MLB coverage on the channel will be significantly affected.

Of course, that’s still dependent on buying the new BT Sport package.

Virgin Media customers are the main casualties here as no deal has yet been reached between the two companies, meaning that any existing subscribers desperate to keep MLB on their screens in this way will have to change their provider. Sky Digital subscribers can add the bundle for £12 per month (plus a £15 activation fee), whilst there are various deals on the table from BT that can be explored on their website.

It is these deals that are driving BT’s expansion into broadcasting sport. The rights are just one part of the bigger battle with Sky and other TV and broadband providers to attract customers to their services. Amid it all, MLB coverage is a very minor detail – even though it’s very important to us – and that should always be borne in mind when looking at BT promotional materials and the potential absence of ‘MLB’ references. ESPN will be carrying MLB games for the rest of this season and beyond.

What does it all mean for MLB’s presence in the U.K?

It may be annoying to pay for MLB coverage as one small part of a bigger bundle, but that’s better than it not being available at all or even for it to be part of a less attractive package.

NHL fans will appreciate the latter point more than most. They have to subscribe to a minor channel called Premier Sports, only available via Sky and charging £10 a month for a limited, and to this sports fan, uninspiring portfolio of rights. What’s more, the Premier Sports deal greatly restricts what NHL fans in the U.K. can watch via the NHL GameCenter service, their equivalent of MLB.TV.

BT’s plan to challenge the dominance of Sky, particularly when it comes to live Premier League football, unsurprisingly is touted by the company as being good news for sports fans, but the reaction of many is to wish that there was a way to buy an online subscription to watch Premier League games alone rather than pay for two packages.

That’s not going to happen anytime in the near future because the sky-high rights deals the Premier League is able to obtain are driven by the likes of Sky and BT ‘investing’ in the rights so that they can sell other products to the subscribers. So long as there’s more money for the Premier League in this model than a direct selling method, that’s the way it will stay.

In North America, MLB.TV works as a service by providing fans with online access to games that they would otherwise not be able to watch (via national or regional networks, or attending the game in person). For places such as the U.K. where MLB coverage is very limited, MLB.TV becomes a god-send allowing access to any game you ever wish to watch. Although you need a decent broadband package to take full advantage of the service, it’s something that even more fans are likely to gravitate towards following the demise of ESPN America and I’ve no doubt that anyone taking that step will soon be left thinking ‘how did I live without this?’.

MLB offers a wonderful subscription service to us converts, but the real challenge is how to get the sport in front of the eyes and ears of potential new fans. Promotional ideas and potential MLB games played in Europe will help; however, MLB’s continued presence on British TV screens is still very important.

The ESPN UK channel never really convinced that it could be a long-term player in the market and the only question was whether ESPN America would once again become a stand alone channel upon its likely demise or if it would also cease to exist. Sadly for some in other European countries the Wednesday night shutdown leaves them at a loss.

At least for us there will be a continued TV service for some, if not all. BT’s significant infrastructure and bidding power gives them a much better chance of competing with Sky and even though MLB is only a small part of the overall package, the fact that it is a part of it should, on balance, be good news for the sport heading forwards.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: The face of MLB?

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Last week’s All-Star Game at Citi Field in New York brought together most of the biggest names in the sport today.

From veteran legends like Mariano Rivera to blossoming youngsters like Matt Harvey that are now bursting onto the scene, there was plenty of star quality on show.

However, prior to the game, ESPN’s Jayson Stark posed the question as to who the ‘face’ or ‘faces’ of MLB are today in the general consciousness of American sports fans. Stark’s article suggested that MLB currently cannot match the star power generated by the NFL and NBA and that there’s actually an inherent reluctance among ballplayers to push themselves forward as that type of personality.

Baseball produces the captivating duel of the pitcher versus the hitter, but ultimately it’s a sport that likes to portray itself as the ultimate team game, one that values the ‘productive out’ and sacrificing yourself for the greater good.

The marketing value of using a small group of players to promote a sport is clear and it seems to be particularly important in the North American market.

When I first started watching U.S. sport years ago, the way in which upcoming games were referenced seemed quite jarring. It was never “the Atlanta Braves at the San Francisco Giants” as you would typically have it in the U.K., it was always “Chipper Jones and the Atlanta Braves against Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants”, or something similar. They couldn’t just mention the teams, they had to refer to a star on each side.

Despite this attempt to promote certain players, Torii Hunter makes the point in Stark’s article that you never know on any given day who is going to be the key player. Miami Heat can make sure LeBron James has the ball in his hands with 15 seconds to go and Peyton Manning can be in charge of the Denver Broncos’ final drive when chasing a game, but it’s much more difficult to engineer such a situation in baseball.

It may not be perfect from a marketing perspective, but the fact that baseball can, and often does, produce unlikely heroes is part of its appeal. This is a game where Marco Scutaro can win an NLCS MVP with the San Francisco Giants after struggling for the Colorado Rockies earlier in the season. It’s a game where the glorious folklore of the New York Yankees has a place for all-time greats such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle but also for a hardworking player like Aaron Boone thanks to one swing of the bat in Game Seven of the thrilling 2003 ALCS against the Boston Red Sox.

MLB certainly does try to promote its leading players. Their series of “I play” promos has highlighted the likes of Trout, Bryce Harper, David Price and Andrew McCutchen between innings on ESPN America this season, showcasing their talent on the field and their passion for the game. Still, whilst clever marketing campaigns undoubtedly can help, what MLB really needs is for one or two of its young stars to achieve something that captures the imagination.

That’s easier said than done during regular season baseball. Take Mike Trout as an example. In 2012 he put together one of the best all-round seasons in recent memory and did so as a mere 20 year old. Yet whilst dedicated baseball fans can appreciate the body of work over the campaign, it wasn’t the type of performance that would grab the casual fan, let alone the people who only pay a passing interest in sport.

Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa’s ‘run for 61’ will forever be looked back at with huge regret due to the tainted records they set, but at the time what they did was precisely the shot in the arm (pun not completely unintended) that MLB needed after the misery of the 1994-95 strike. McGwire, Sosa and then Barry Bonds became the household names that MLB arguably doesn’t have right now and they reached that status by making non-baseball fans talk about the game.

The next true star will be born when – or if – one of the great young players in the game is close to batting .400 heading into September, or they get a hit in their 46th consecutive game to close to within 10 of Joe DiMaggio’s seemingly unreachable record.

It will be the player who gets baseball on the front page of the paper as well as the back page, who makes people who rarely venture near a ballpark sit down in front of a TV to see if the story everyone is talking about will continue or come to an end.

Who is that going to be? Trout, Harper or someone else yet to make it the Majors, perhaps. The beauty of baseball is that we just don’t know.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Unwritten Rules and the Spirit of the Game

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The MLB All-Star Final Vote for the National League team was not the Yasiel Puig landslide that many – including myself – predicted.

The Atlanta Braves’ Freddie Freeman won the final place on the roster, gaining an incredible 19.7 million votes, just ahead of the Dodgers’ Cuban sensation.

Over 15.6m people voted for Puig so talk of a backlash against him would be an exaggeration, but there are signs that some are not so enamoured by his style of play, views on which range from him being exciting and flashy to plain arrogant.

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ Ian Kennedy and Miguel Montero were critical of Puig’s play this past week, not surprisingly perhaps with them being division rivals. Puig is adamant that he’s just playing the way he has always done from his time in Cuba and some of the comments about him are reminiscent of the clucking among the baseball chattering classes at the exuberant celebrations by the Dominican Republic team in the World Baseball Classic this past Spring.

A player’s behaviour is judged against the fabled ‘unwritten rules of baseball’. Like any set of values, they mean different things to different people and often seem bizarre to outsiders. You might think it would be easier for all concerned if the unwritten rules became written; however the first Ashes Test showed that things aren’t quite so straightforward.

Since 2000, the Laws of Cricket have included a preamble that codifies the idea that cricket “should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game”.

The preamble understandably doesn’t cover every eventuality, which leaves them open to interpretation. Section 5 states that it is against the spirit of the game “to indulge in cheating or any sharp practice” (what a wonderful nod to antiquity those last two words are) and gives a few examples, such as “(a) to appeal knowing that the batsman is not out”.

With that in mind, is it cheating to stand your ground as a batsman after being given ‘not out’ by the umpire, knowing that you had blatantly hit the ball and should have been out? In such a situation, England’s Stuart Broad decided to stay where he was, prompting much debate on whether this amounted to cheating and/or was against the spirit of the game.

Bringing it back to baseball, what’s most interesting about this example is how the Decision Review System (i.e. instant replay in baseball terms) impacted upon the process. Umpire Aleem Dar made an inexplicable error in not giving Broad out and the whole point of using technology in sport is so that important games do not turn on howlers by officials.

MLB is likely to introduce an expanded form of instant replay for the 2014 season and this first Ashes Test has highlighted some of the complexities baseball will have to face.

Firstly, whatever replay system is brought in will not be perfect and mistakes will still be made. England felt hard done by on two review decisions on Thursday (Australia’s Ashton Agar not being given out when he was on 6 and England’s Jonathan Trott being given out LBW despite his insistence he had hit the ball), so tight calls will always cause controversy and the equipment (or more specifically it’s use, in the case of Trott) is not completely fool proof.

Secondly, if the replay system is there, how should a review be instigated? In cricket, each team has two challenges. Australia burned their final challenge by taking a chance on a ‘not out’ decision and therefore could do nothing to reverse Dar’s dreadful mistake with Broad. If the aim is simply to get the big decisions right, should challenges have any place in it? There’s an argument that an off-field umpire should spot potentially dicey decisions, call down to the field so that play doesn’t re-start and then review the play.

Thirdly, if you have team challenges, how many should they get? In the wake of the Broad debate, the BBC’s Jonathan Agnew proposed that a cricket team should only get one review as that way they would be more likely to save it for the genuine umpiring error rather than taking speculative punts on marginal decisions.

If each baseball team got two challenges per game and the only penalty for an incorrect challenge was to lose one in that game, would we end up having four challenges in every single MLB game with teams using them because they are there? It’s very likely that we would and the result would be 60 challenges per day when all teams are playing. Whether that’s a price worth paying for – potentially – getting more decisions correct remains to be seen, but it doesn’t sound an appealing prospect to this baseball fan.

Finally, bringing this back to the opening gambit, what effect will instant replay have on the unwritten rules of the game? Naively, I had assumed that the greater use of technology – not just through instant replay but simply through incidents being highlighted – would leave players no hiding place and therefore less likely to wrongly claim a catch or similar. The Broad example suggests that the opposite may be true, that if the opposition burns their challenges and/or the technology doesn’t find you out then you’re entitled to take whatever luck comes your way.

Let’s propose a scenario: a player is wrongly called out on the basepads and his team has used up its challenge(s). The fielder knows full well that he had dropped the ball and hadn’t tagged the baserunner out and we all see this on the replay. Has the fielder cheated by giving the impression of making the play? Will keeping quiet in that situation contravene an unwritten rule or will the greater level of inspection mean that whatever you can get away with is fair game?

Perhaps we’ll have to wait for next season, and a disputed catch in the outfield by Yasiel Puig, before we find out.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Seasons made by trades

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The MLB regular season picks up momentum in July.

Teams pass the half-way mark in regular season games played, inching us closer to the crunch time in the season.  The All-Star break arrives to provide a momentary breather as we all get ready for the second half. The non-waiver trade deadline looms large at the end of the month.

Last year’s deadline carried an extra subplot as many pondered whether the increase in postseason spots, from eight to ten, would affect the trade market.

Theoretically more teams would be in with a shout of making it to the playoffs, but the consequences of that needed to be discovered.

Whilst more teams might be keen to complete a trade that could be a difference-maker, potentially there would be fewer teams with no realistic chance of playing in October and therefore willing to part with a key player.

The trade deadline in 2012 didn’t provide any conclusive answers, although the general impression was that the market was broadly the same as in previous years. Most teams were out there searching to find a player or two who could improve them and that will be the same this year.

What 2012 did show is that it isn’t necessarily the big names that will produce the best returns.

A good example of this can be found in two separate trades completed on 27 July last year: Zack Greinke moving to the Los Angeles Angels and Marco Scutaro moving to the San Francisco Giants

Greinke was the type of ace pitcher that every potential playoff team would love to add down the stretch. He did pitch well for the Angels in his 13 regular season starts (6-2 with a 3.53 ERA), but it wasn’t enough to get them into the playoffs, let alone help them to the World Series, and Greinke then signed with Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent over the offseason.

Even though they had acquired an excellent pitcher, the Angels didn’t get the overall benefit they hoped for. Furthermore, those two months from Greinke will look very expensive if Jean Segura, the young shortstop the Angels traded to the Milwaukee Brewers to sign Greinke, carries on the brilliant form he has shown so far this season and develops into one of the better infielders in the Majors in the years ahead.

The Giants’ signing of Marco Scutaro was the polar opposite of the Angels’ signing of Greinke.

Scutaro was a long way down the list of desirable trade targets. His career prior to 2012 could best be described as solid without coming close to being spectacular and his mediocre first half of last season playing home games in the hitter-friendly Coors Field ensured that his trade to the Giants was little more than a ‘by the way’ news item.

No one could have foreseen just how greatly such muted expectations would be exceeded.

The ‘Legend of Scutaro’ will forever be one of the memorable storylines from the 2012 season. His move to San Francisco suddenly turned him into a hitting machine. He put together a batting line of .362/.473/.859 during his 61 regular season games with the Giants and won the NLCS MVP award as he helped the team win their second World Series in three years.

As the trade rumours go into overdrive in the next few weeks, don’t be quick to overlook some of the so-called lesser deals. You never know when one team might just catch lightning in a bottle.

All-Star rosters

The 2013 All-Star rosters were announced on Saturday and there were not too many shocks, unless you were one of the Yankee fans on Twitter who didn’t think the fact that Derek Jeter has been out injured all season should count against his candidacy.

From an A’s fan perspective, having only one player on the AL roster isn’t a fair recognition of the team’s performances over the past twelve months, but there’s nothing to say the rosters have to be ‘fair’.

Individual fans vote for whoever they want to see in the game, players make their selections too based on their own preferences and the managers then have to juggle the requirements of making sure every team is represented and that the roster has enough flexibility so that no other manager has room to complain about the way their players were used during the game.

There is still one place on each roster that is up for grabs in the Final Vote. There won’t be much interest in either ‘race’ although that will be for completely different reasons in the two leagues.

On the American League side you have five relief pitchers who – team bias aside – will not generate any voting enthusiasm whatsoever.

On the National League side you have Yasiel Puig who, judging by the MLB.com promotional campaign, is sure to win in a landslide.

 

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: First to Fifty

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We’re in a golden period of the sporting calendar.

This past weekend has brought us the second instalment in a gripping Lions series against Australia, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and Valentino Rossi standing on the top step of a MotoGP podium for the first time in nearly three years (with Britain’s Cal Crutchlow in third place).

Wimbledon is in full swing, the Ashes is just around the corner and football teams are returning to pre-season training.

There’s no such thing as too much sport for us fans, but amidst the competition for eyeballs each individual sport has to find something to capture attention. MLB has a raft of storylines that can draw people in and none better than the lead headline on Sunday morning.

The Pittsburgh Pirates were the first team in the Majors to reach fifty wins.

Their performances over the past twenty years would make you believe that there had been some mistake. Had the headlines said fifty losses the only question would have been why the editor had bothered to turn it into a lead story. The Pirates of recent years are simply not a team associated with winning; an entire generation of Buccos fans has grown up without seeing their team even reach the minimum mark of respectability: winning as many games as they lost in a given season.

It’s no mistake though, the Pittsburgh Pirates woke up on Sunday morning having secured their eighth win in a row the previous night. They had a win-loss record of 50-30, not just good enough to lead the NL Central by a game over the St. Louis Cardinals, but good enough to lead every other team in the Majors too.

The underlying message was one that every sport wants to be able to put across but few can: every fan has a reason to hope that this year may be their year.

Like every other statement, this has to be put into context. MLB’s structure – 30 franchises, no relegation, the best amateur player draft picks going to the worst teams – clearly allows a team’s fanbase to suffer through 20 years of hopelessness to finally arrive at a moment of hope. There’s no penalty against awful owners and feckless Front Offices, no threat of relegation, potential financial ruin and being ran out of town by thousands of protesters to focus the mind.

Then again, the desperation to stay in the Premier League, and the desperation to get there, produces many a negative consequence too (ask fans of Portsmouth FC). There are pros and cons to every sporting set-up, yet the central point of the MLB model is the acceptance that there will always be the mega-rich and the rest. Without allowing the rest to put a longer-term plan in place, leaving current Major League results second in the list of priorities for a while to build for the future, they may never stand a chance of competing.

The Pirates have taken much longer than usual to rebuild, but that’s down to a litany of poor decisions by the club itself rather than a knock against MLB. They are firmly in the running this year and right now the years of hurt only make it all the sweeter.

The Buccos allow MLB to show that money isn’t everything in their competition. The Pirates’ Opening Day payroll was $67m, 25th highest out of the 30 teams.

The biggest spenders at $214m are the Los Angeles Dodgers and prior to Sunday’s action they were bottom of the NL Central with a 37-43 record. Dreadful luck with injuries is partly to blame, yet the Dodgers are showing that it’s not simply how much you spend, but how you spend it. The Boston Red Sox got themselves into an expensive muddle in 2011 and 2012 and their resurgence this year is in part due to the Dodgers taking the multi-year contracts of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett off their books, giving them the flexibility to reconstruct their roster.

And then there are the perennial big-spending New York Yankees. They are still in the playoff race despite a luckless run of injuries; however this is not the sort of roster that fans in the Bronx have come to expect. Their position is epitomized by the walking car-crash that is Alex Rodriguez; their decision to re-sign the third baseman to a 10-year, $275m contract in December 2007 arguably the ultimate sporting example of a player and team being brought down by hubris.

The Yankees’ multi-year investment in star free agents has meant that even they have had to let good players go of late, to the benefit of other teams such as the Cleveland Indians who were able to sign Nick Swisher over the recent offseason.

The Pirates have also been beneficiaries. The Yankees declined to match the Pirates’ contract offer to Russell Martin over the offseason and he’s been a good addition to the Buccos so far this season, whilst the Yankees have been weighed down by the likes of Chris Stewart and Austin Romine taking at-bats in the catching role. Meanwhile A.J. Burnett, current injury notwithstanding, has been a major contributor to Pittsburgh since being acquired in a trade with the Yankees prior to last season. Burnett will earn $33m over the years 2012 and 2013, but the Pirates are only having to pay $13m of it. The Yankees are chipping in the other $20m.

The Evil Empire clearly has a benevolent side.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start planning for World Series games in Pittsburgh just yet. There is a long, long way to go before they get near to that stage and their late season collapse last year will hang over them at every turn. However, the Baltimore Orioles confounded all expectations that their promising first half in 2012 wouldn’t hold up, just as they have proved the pre-season doubters wrong that they would turn back into a pumpkin in 2013.

Maybe this is the year that Pittsburgh becomes a playoff team again for the first time since 1992. If it happens, it will rank alongside any great storyline other sports will produce this year.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Kawasaki power

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Munenori Kawasaki’s surname may be on plenty of bright green superbikes, but his name is unlikely to feature prominently in any baseball history books.

In fact, the current Toronto Blue Jays player may not even have his name on a Major League roster in a few weeks time when Jose Reyes returns from the Disabled List and regains his starting spot at shortstop.

However, whilst we all love watching the bright stars of the game doing things that leave us speechless in admiration, it’s sometimes players like Kawasaki that can make watching a ballgame so much fun.

Rajai Davis got the walk-off, game-winning hit for the Blue Jays against the Orioles on Friday night – securing the team’s ninth win in a row – but it was Kawasaki’s game-tying home run in the seventh inning that gained pride of place in the highlight reel.

The Japanese infielder came over to the States last year as a 31-year-old after a ten-year career in the Nippon Professional Baseball league. Whilst he showed some good fielding skills at the demanding shortstop position with the Seattle Mariners, he managed only one extra base hit in his 61 games with the club and was released at the end of the season.

Kawasaki signed a Minor League contract with the Blue Jays over the offseason and figured to only find time with the Big League club as a defensive option if temporary cover was needed in the infield. He might have expected to be with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons – playing alongside ex-Great Britain catcher Mike Nickeas – for quite a while, yet opportunity knocked after he had played only two games.

Jose Reyes was the most exciting addition among all of the players acquired by the Blue Jays over the offseason. Seeing him suffer an ankle injury on 12 April, just ten games into the season, was a sickener for Blue Jays fans and came to typify a deflating start to the season that had been preceded by so much optimism.

As the losses piled up and the days spent at the bottom of the AL East continued to mount, so those turning up at the Rogers Centre searched for any crumb of comfort they could find to put a smile on their faces. Kawasaki soon won them over with his personality; his shortcomings were accepted and every hit, good fielding play or stolen base provided a reason to cheer.

The fans were cheering when he stepped into the batter’s box in the seventh inning on Friday, more in hope than in expectation. The Blue Jays trailed 6-4 with two outs and a runner on first base and they were running out of time to keep their winning streak going.

There’s always a rush of anticipation and excitement when a ball flies off the bat, heading high into the sky and potentially over the fence for a home run. In this case, it was almost a collective gasp, 35,000+ people thinking ‘he couldn’t have, could he?’ all at the same time.

Kawasaki’s 2-for-4 night still left him hitting only .229 over his 57 games (with a mere .333 slugging percentage) and even fans holding up signs bearing his name will be keen for Reyes to be back on the diamond as soon as possible in his place.

However, in ten years time, something will spark one of those 35,000 fans to dig back into the memory banks, turn to a friend or loved one and say ‘hey, do you remember when …’.

Those are the moments that make watching any sport so much fun, whether it’s an all-time great making history or a bit-part player having an unlikely brush with glory.

Injured All-Stars

My daily ritual of logging onto MLB.com over breakfast is currently being spoiled slightly by the nagging fear that the News headlines will show that yet another player on one of my fantasy teams has suffered an injury.

There are plenty of players on the Disabled List right now and with the All-Star voting now in full swing, I tried to put together DL All-Star teams for both leagues. I couldn’t quite manage it as I found only one All-Star outfielder in the AL (Curtis Granderson) and no All-Star catcher in the NL. That still left plenty of All-Stars to include though.

American League

C. Alex Avila, 1B. Mark Teixeira, 2B. Brian Roberts, 3B. Alex Rodriguez, SS. Jose Reyes (or Derek Jeter), OF. Curtis Granderson (Austin Jackson and Franklin Gutierrez would be the non-All-Stars to make up the team). SP. David Price, Jake Peavy, Clay Buchholz, Matt Harrison, Michael Pineda. CL. Neftali Feliz.

National League

C. (Wilson Ramos as the non-All-Star), 1B. Corey Hart, 2B. Aaron Hill, 3B. Pablo Sandoval, SS. Troy Tulowitzki, OF. Matt Kemp, Ryan Braun, Bryce Harper. SP. Chris Carpenter, Roy Halladay, Chad Billingsley, Ryan Vogelsong, Johan Santana. CL. J.J. Putz.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Off to Aus

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Major League Baseball’s efforts to increase the popularity of the sport worldwide will take another significant step forward in March 2014.

It was announced last week that the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers will play two regular season games in Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

MLB has staged season-openers in Japan, Mexico and Puerto Rico in recent years but the trip to Australia will be the first time that they have ventured into a country where baseball isn’t already a major sport.

It could be considered to be the start of the second phase of MLB’s globalization and is a great boost for baseball fans around the world, hopefully setting the stage for MLB games to be played in Europe in the near future.

Australia is a natural fit to be the latest country to welcome Big League baseball to its shores.

MLB has backed the resurrection of the Australian Baseball League since 2009 and taking two Major League games to Sydney should have the effect of not only promoting MLB, but also the ABL. That gives MLB the chance to do more than just build a bit of interest and good will with the visit by having a competition and some infrastructure in place to capitalise on the sport’s exposure.

Twenty-eight Aussies have made it to the Major Leagues so far including current Oakland A’s closer Grant Balfour, who is one of seven Sydney-born players to make it all the way to The Show. With a further 60 players currently under contract with MLB organizations, there’s a healthy crop of Aussies plying their trade in North America and you can be sure that MLB will use this as a way to drum up interest in the games and to encourage even more youngsters to take up the sport.

Here’s hoping that two more demoralizing Ashes series defeats between now and next March will also help to make the next Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and Glen McGrath decide to take up a different bat-and-ball game too. The Fifth Test in the Ashes series in Australia will be played at the Sydney Cricket Ground in early January 2014 and that should be a great launching pad from which to sell the MLB experience, focusing on how the iconic cricketing venue will be transformed into a ballpark in just a couple of months’ time.

Just a few weeks ago, I considered the potential of MLB coming to the U.K. as part of Manchester City’s tie-up with the New York Yankees. My mocked-up picture of the Etihad Stadium with a diamond at one corner suggested one – probably imperfect – way of putting baseball into a sporting venue here, but a cricket ground arguably offers a more suitable playing field on which to build a temporary Field of Dreams.

The Oval in London would be the most obvious choice of venue and it has hosted baseball before. Back in 1993, 5,190 spectators went to the Oval to watch a game played by minor leaguers from the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox. In his book ‘British Baseball and the West Ham Club’, Josh Chetwynd notes that the game created some enthusiasm, quoting reporter Richard Weeks’ view that “but for the gasholders and the spires of Parliament, the 5,190 gathered here yesterday might have thought they had parachuted into downtown Cincinnati or St. Louis”.

More recently, Somerset County Cricket Club transformed their County Ground into a ballfield to stage a game in October 2008 between Great Britain and Marcus Trescothick’s ‘Bangers’ as part of the former England international’s testimonial festivities.

If MLB can create good quality playing conditions in Sydney then that would show something similar could be created at the Oval. Unfortunately the problem would still remain that MLB would ideally want to bring games over in the second half of March, so that the two teams can travel back to the States in time with no ill effects before the full regular season begins at the start of April.

Holiday-weather.com introduces its summary of March in Sydney as follows:

“March is the beginning of Autumn in Sydney and the lovely weather means it is one of the best times of year to visit the city.

Many tourists find the weather in Autumn in Sydney is the most pleasant and therefore choose this time of year to come to the city”.

As for London:

“March sees temperatures in London become slightly more mild than previous months, but it can still be fairly wet and chilly.

Daytime temperatures now reach a high of 10°C (50°F) but can fall to around 3°C (37°F) in the evenings. There are five hours of sunshine each day.

You are likely to experience rain during your stay, with the average this month being 15 days’ worth. So warm clothing would be essential, with hats, gloves and scarves, as well as a waterproof jacket and an umbrella.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Australia is the more enticing target for MLB, then.

It must have been slightly embarrassing for MLB that just a couple of days before the official ‘Aussie Opener’ announcement, the two teams picked to be ambassadors for the sport had an almighty bust-up with beanings and two bench-clearing brawls. If MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was worried about any negative publicity, he need not have been.

At least one former England cricketer would likely suggest the aggro would actually be a selling point to the Aussies. And a current England cricketer would no doubt agree.

Whether the benches clear or the two teams are on their best behaviour, the sports-mad Aussies are sure to make it a great event and that can only be good news for the growth of the game.