Tag Archives: Los Angeles Dodgers

Rookie Roberts becomes the Dodgers’ new manager

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The one remaining MLB managerial vacancy has just been filled.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have decided to appoint former outfielder Dave Roberts as their new manager, succeeding Don Mattingly who has changed coasts to take over in Miami.

The news has been warmly welcomed by those who know Roberts based on his good nature and he’s got a great opportunity to take on a team built to win.

However, it is curious that a team in that position should hire someone with no managerial experience.

Roberts does have MLB playing experience, of course, and recently served as bench coach to Bud Black in San Diego. That all counts for something, but doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll make the right strategic calls during games, nor does the generally positive quality of being an all-round nice guy necessarily mean he’s the right person to keep this roster of players on the right path.

I know I’ve banged this particular drum several times recently, yet I do struggle to understand the seemingly haphazard way in which MLB teams appoint managers and coaches.

Maybe they really aren’t that important and the difference between one potential candidate or another doesn’t justify getting worked up about it? Certainly it’s the quality of available (i.e. non-injured) players that is the most important factor in a team’s potential in a given season. A manager can only do so much with strategy and pep talks.

Yet if you’re the Dodgers, with the highest payroll in MLB and a host of experienced players on board, why wouldn’t you want the best manager you could get? If he adds 5% above the other candidates, that might be the 5% that makes all the difference.

An MLB manager position is an elite role. The Dodgers clearly were preparing to part ways with Mattingly for a while and in that situation a company would normally have a clear vision on what qualities they were looking for in a replacement and who was currently out there that could fulfil that brief. Normally that would mean sounding out potential interest and then head-hunting the person you want to appoint.

Instead, the Dodgers’ search involved interviewing a wide range of candidates and then whittling them down.

In the news article linked to above, MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick stated that Roberts was “initially considered a long shot until dazzling management in his interview”. Well done to Roberts for earning his new role, but “dazzling” in an interview is very different to making the right relief pitching call in a tight game or being able to get into the head of a talented young player like Yasiel Puig.

If this all seems overly negative then I’ll happily concede that every great managerial career starts with a team taking a chance and giving that person their first opportunity. Roberts may prove to be an inspired appointment, and I’ll wish him the best of luck, but there’s reason to question whether pairing a man who has never been a manager before with a team built to win a World Series is the wisest decision.

Trades completed and qualifying offers accepted as the 2015/16 MLB offseason begins

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It’s been an active start to the MLB offseason, with a couple of notable trades and three potential free agents becoming the first group to accept a ‘qualifying offer’ from their existing teams under the current system.

The idea of the qualifying offer is that it allows a team the chance to keep hold of a player that they’ve had for at least one full season rather than see them leave as a free agent with their contract having come to an end. In practice, that’s not really the way teams see it. They expect the player to leave and get a multi-year contract elsewhere; however by putting a qualifying offer on the table the team will then get an extra draft pick for the following year’s amateur draft as compensation.

The offer is set by MLB based on the average salary of the highest earning 125 players in the league that year. This year the qualifying offer was set at $15.8m, essentially £200k per week at current conversion rates, so it’s a sizeable salary on its own and teams will normally only offer it when they don’t expect a player to take it (i.e. it being judged they will be able to get a contract worth much more than $15.8m on the free agent market).

The Baltimore Orioles will be fine with catcher Matt Wieters accepting their qualifying offer. Had he not missed significant time due to elbow surgery over the past two seasons, Wieters likely would have been off and away, so getting at least one more season from him is a bonus for Baltimore. The Los Angeles Dodgers have more than enough money to make pitcher Brett Anderson’s $15.8m worth paying too.

The one team that perhaps isn’t quite so content is the Houston Astros. Outfielder Colby Rasmus is a decent player, as highlighted by his home-run hitting exploits in the playoffs a month ago, so he is hardly a booby prize, but it certainly looks like they were hoping to get a draft pick out of the offer rather than expecting to give a fair chunk of money to him, bearing in mind they look likely to have a relatively modest payroll again in 2016. That’s the risk you take with making the offer though.

Money is plentiful in MLB so for many teams those sort of risks are ones that can be absorbed easily enough. It’s a different proposition with trades though. The risk there is that the players you give away come back to make you look foolish for years to come.  Still, if you want to sign a good player, you have to accept that you’ll need to part with good players (or more commonly good prospects) to get them.

The two biggest trades of the week resulted in the Los Angeles Angels acquiring shortstop wizard Andrelton Simmons from the Atlanta Braves and the Boston Red Sox getting elite closer Craig Kimbrel from the San Diego Padres. The initial reactions suggest the Padres got a good haul of young talent for Kimbrel – less than one year after they gave up several prospects to acquire him from Atlanta – whilst the Braves’ return for Simmons was slightly underwhelming. As always with trades, only time will tell quite how they will be judged in the end.

There are two main subplots from the trades.

The first is that Dave Dombrowski has been brought into the Red Sox’s organisation as President of Baseball Operations with the intention of the team being aggressive in turning around their fortunes in short order. For a club with such significant resources, both financial and in terms of talented staff, it is incredible that they’ve produced a team that’s finished bottom of the AL East in three out of the last four seasons, even if the glory of their 2013 World Series triumph in the other year has dulled the pain of those losing seasons quite considerably. It should be expected that Boston will be one of the most active teams this offseason as they look to get back to the play-offs.

The second is that the Atlanta Braves’ decision to move to a new ballpark for the 2017 season onwards has had a far-reaching impact on the player market. First baseman Freddie Freeman is the only notable player left from their successful 2013 squad now that Simmons has been traded away. Kimbrel will be playing for the Red Sox under the four-year contract that he signed with the Braves back in February 2014 when it looked like he would be with the team for years to come, whilst this year’s free agent class is led by outfielder Jason Heyward who will be testing the market after being traded to the St Louis Cardinals a year ago by Atlanta.

The success of the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros this year has shown the value of stripping everything down and starting again, just as the Braves are now doing. However, teams normally take this route in response to being left with an ageing and expensive roster well past its best. The difference in Atlanta’s case is that their 2013 team had a core of players who looked like being at the heart of a consistent contender for a good few years.

Some dreadful bad luck with injuries to their pitching staff played into the thinking that they should regroup and look to the future, but maybe that will prove to be a mistake. With the two Wild Card format and the apparent absence of any real dominant force in the game at present time, it’s becoming more the case that if there is a realistic chance of making it to the playoffs in a given year, teams will go for it rather than waiting for a perfect year that may never come.

The Braves have now amassed a deep group of prospects from which they hope to form the nucleus of a winning team in a few years’ time, yet they may find they gave up on a group that had a better chance of adding another World Series to the sole 1995 triumph since the franchise moved to Atlanta in 1966.

The unpredictable nature of baseball is summed up by pitcher Kris Medlen. He pitched brilliantly for the Braves as they won the NL East in 2013 and was one of the core players at the heart of the team, before he suffered an elbow injury in Spring Training 2014 requiring Tommy John surgery and a long spell on the sidelines. The Braves are now in a rebuilding spell, whilst Medlen has just earned a World Series ring as a reliever with the Kansas City Royals.

MLB offseason begins with managerial merry-go-round

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While the Kansas City Royals and their fans will be basking in the glory of winning the World Series for weeks to come, the rest of baseball has already turned its attention to taking the title themselves in 2016 or in the years ahead.

The Washington Nationals are one of the teams in the sooner-rather-than-later camp and they made a major change this week to recover from their disappointing 2015 season by appointing Dusty Baker as their new manager.

The role of a manager in MLB was brought into question this year due to the Miami Marlins sacking Mike Redmond and temporarily replacing him with Dan Jennings, hitherto their General Manager and possessing scarcely any baseball coaching or managing experience. To an extent you do have to set the Marlins to one side when it comes to MLB trends as their owner Jeffrey Loria is unconventional, to put it politely, yet we’ve seen numerous other examples in recent years of teams appointing ex-players with little managerial experience.

The Nationals did this with Matt Williams and despite winning the 2014 NL Manager of the Year award, the award voters giving him the credit for their 96 wins with clearly the best roster in the league that year, which backfired as he failed to mould a group of talented individuals into a team producing consistent performances.

As is so often the case with managerial changes, the Nationals have gone for an opposite approach this time in the experienced Baker. However, the process of his appointment looks confusing to say the least, with former San Diego Padres manager Bud Black having been pencilled in to the position only for the team to turn back to Baker when they failed to reach an agreement with Black.

According to CBS’s Jon Heyman, it all started to unravel when the Nationals decided on appointing Black and then acted upon this by offering him a one-year contract.

Teams are entitled to negotiate contracts how they wish, but that either showed disrespect to Black or was an indictment on how unimportant they feel a manager is (or perhaps it was even a bit of both).

The Nationals went into the 2015 season with a 25-man roster payroll of $162m, a mix of veterans and young players who – based on how things played out last season – needed a skilled leader to keep them together whilst also running the strategic side of the game to maximise their chances of winning games and getting back to the postseason. There are only 30 MLB manager positions at any one time, so there are many candidates out there and any team actually in a period of competing for titles should want to get the very best they can.

You don’t attract such quality with a one-year contract offer. What the Nationals were effectively saying was “we’re not sure if this is going to work so we’re just going to give you a one-year deal and then if it goes wrong we can ditch you for someone else”. That’s hardly confidence-inspiring, nor does it help a manager in dealing with a clubhouse that therefore knows he could soon be out of the door.

They’ve ended up with a good manager in Baker, not without his faults but with plenty going for him too, so it may turn out well in the end for them, but potentially more through luck than judgement.

The Marlins meanwhile splashed out on a four-year deal with ex-Dodgers skipper Don Mattingly. He was on a bit of a hiding to nothing with LA, getting it in the neck when his expensively created team didn’t go all the way and yet likely to not receive a great deal of credit if they had done so anyway.  The Marlins have some good young talent so he has an interesting roster to work with, even if he may need to work around his owner’s unpredictable nature.

Mattingly’s replacement at the Dodgers is still to be decided. Plenty of names have been linked to the post and it’s a very attractive job even with the World Series or fail expectations to contend with. That seat on the MLB managerial merry-go-round should be filled soon.

Division Series: Some teams have a leg-up, some have a leg broken

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We’re two games in to each of the four Division Series and there have been plenty of talking points to set up the rest of each series.

The Toronto Blue Jays are the team in the biggest hole, trailing the Texas Rangers 2-0 having lost the first two games in their home ballpark. The second game on Friday night was a real killer as their 14-inning effort went for nought.

Both teams had their issues with the strike zone being called and there was certainly some variance there during the course of the game. However, the MLB Network coverage was no help at all. On numerous occasions their commentators, Bob Costas and Jim Kaat, confidently complained about the strike/ball call only to then see a replay including their ‘Strike Zone’ box that showed either the umpire had got it spot on or that the pitch was very close (so hardly a grave error by the umpire).

Time and again, they chose to make excuses when the evidence before them didn’t match their original comments, only making themselves look ridiculous in the process. Kaat was particularly bad at this and it was symptomatic of a disappointingly poor presentation by MLB Network that can be summed up as being ‘by the over-50s, for the over-50s’ (right down to the pre-advert music that included such current acts as Phil Collins).

MLB knows its audience in America tends to be on the older side, but they rightly have the ambition to market the game for a younger audience too. It’s a shame that despite bringing in features such as Statcast, the strikezone box and their defensive shift graphics, the overall tone of their own TV coverage is old fashioned.

In the other American League series, the Kansas City Royals won a crucial Game Two at their Kauffman Stadium to level the series at a game apiece. Every team is desperate to avoid losing the first two games at home, but in the Royals’ case it was more imperative than ever to ensure Game Three couldn’t seal their fate.

Dallas Keuchel will start for the Houston Astros on Sunday night (a 21.05. BST start, although unfortunately on MLB Network coverage) and he has been unbeatable at home this season. His home record – 15-0 with a 1.46 ERA – shows just how tough it will be for the Royals, yet, as you always find in these extreme situations, there is a positive spin that they can put on it. If they can somehow find a way to beat him, or perhaps more likely to knock him out of the game and then get the better of the Astros’ bullpen, that will be a huge blow for Houston and you’d fancy the Royals to go on and take the series from there.

It will be a similar scenario in Chicago for the St Louis Cardinals. They have to face the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta in Game Three, whose masterful display in the Wild Card win against the Pittsburgh Pirates only enhanced the seemingly invincible force that surrounds him right now. The Cardinals at least now Arrieta can’t knock them out on Monday, although a 2-0 series lead rather than a 1-1 series split would have made a potential Game Three loss easier to recover from.

The added ingredient here is this being the first ever play-off game between the two teams at Wrigley Field. Cubs-Cardinals is one of the game’s most publicised rivalries and I’m sure that I am far from the only baseball fan who didn’t realise until a few days ago that the two had never actually met in the postseason during their 100+ year existences.

The LA Dodgers and New York Mets have their own rivalry due to both claiming a link back to the Brooklyn Dodgers. As two teams from mass-media markets, they didn’t need anything extra to hype this series up but their Game Two on Saturday produced it anyway thanks to Chase Utley’s slide into second that left the Mets’ Ruben Tejada with a fractured fibula.

We’ve been here before recently with the Pirates’ Jung Ho Kang suffering a similar fate to Tejada in mid-September. In this case, it was a decisive moment in the contest as it fed into a game-winning inning for the Dodgers that allowed them to draw level in the series 1-1. The Mets are rightfully aggrieved by the incident, although had the shoe been on the other foot, or more accurately the protective splint on the other leg, they would be making the same supportive comments as the Dodgers in the aftermath.

The added issue here came in replay being used to call Utley safe and the ruling that it wasn’t a ‘neighbourhood play’. It has long been accepted that an infielder turning a double-play just needs to be close to second base to record the out, rather than actually touching it, precisely because of the risk of injury that is inherent in forcing the player on the pivot to leave their legs in harm’s way. Consequently those plays cannot be challenged on replay and the explanations as to why it was allowed here have not been convincing. It’s definitely an area that needs to be clarified or else you will just see more players in hospital.

So, we have a bit of controversy thrown into the mix here even before the Mets’ self-made controversy around Game Three starter Matt Harvey. Much was made about a potential innings limit on the ace pitcher following his return from elbow surgery, something stirred up in part by Harvey’s own apparent taste for the limelight. Actions always speak louder than words and we all know how dominant Harvey can be. How he performs on the mound at Citi Field on Monday night could go a long way to determining the outcome of this series.

NL West: Off-season so far

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Now that the calendar has moved from 2014 to 2015, we’re past the mid off-season hump and it’s downhill all the way towards Spring Training games in March and the MLB regular season getting underway at the start of April.

That makes it a good time to review where all the teams are in terms of their off-season recruits and what they may be looking to do over the next six or seven weeks before teams report back to their Spring Training camps.

I’ll be looking at each division in turn over the next week, starting with the home of the reigning World Series champions.

The story of the NL West offseason so far begins with the surprising San Diego Padres.

Back in November most rumours surrounding the Padres concerned their leading three starting pitchers – Andrew Cashner, Tyson Ross and Ian Kennedy – and the potential that one or more might be traded away.

Instead, San Diego has decided to add rather than subtract by completely revamping their outfield through trading for Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Wil Myers. Whether they have done enough to push their way into Wild Card contention remains to be seen, but it’s great to see another team going for it rather than dreaming of a better year that may take a long time to come.

The Padres’ pursuit of a playoff place would be helped by the LA Dodgers and San Francisco Giants taking a step back. The Boston Red Sox have done their best to help by taking away Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval as free agent signings and in the case of the Giants the loss of the Kung Fu Panda may hurt the most.

Sandoval’s overall contributions haven’t really matched his lofty star status forged by postseason exploits and his position as a fan favourite; however replacing him with the underwhelming Casey McGehee isn’t a good start and that comes as part of a disappointing offseason so far, highlighted by the failed pursuit of Jon Lester.

The Dodgers meanwhile have had a shake-up in the Front Office and on their Major League roster, with Jimmy Rollins and Howie Kendrick now manning the middle infield, Yasmani Grandal taking over catching duties and Brandon McCarthy joining the rotation. They haven’t made a glamour move or significantly improved what was already a talented roster, but they have freshened things up whilst giving themselves a bit of flexibility (such as trading Kemp to allow top prospect Joc Pederson to take over in centrefield) so that they remain the best team in the division.

The Giants still have plenty of talent and experience too, yet so far judging their offseason – and adding in their now traditional World Series swoon – you would give the Padres a fighting chance at grabbing second place and a potential Wild Card.

Colorado are still stuck in limbo with the too-often-injured Troy Tulowtizki and Carlos Gonzalez, whilst Arizona have made managerial changes (on the field and at General Manager level) and moves on the margins, so that both teams look set to battle for the fourth and fifth spots. Watching how the D-Backs’ new Cuban recruit Yasmany Thomas gets on will be the main sub-plot.

Above them, the main thing to look for over the next couple of months is what the Giants do, if we accept that the Padres have probably finished their main moves and the Dodgers will tinker to help cement first place. Adding another impact starter would really help the Giants and that remains a possibility with the likes of Max Scherzer and James Shields on the market.

If the awards matter, why announce them like they don’t?

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MlbHlSqDerek Jeter’s retirement had many scribes pondering who will become the new ‘face of MLB’ and how the sport could do a better job at promoting its stars.

Consequently it was wonderful to see Mike Trout, unquestionably one of the most dazzling young players the sport has got, receiving his first Most Valuable Player Award a couple of weeks ago.

The news stories, online videos and TV coverage garnered by him receiving a trophy from a legend of the game in front of a packed crowd at a gala event would have been a good way to keep MLB fresh in the mind.

That’s not how the awards are dished out in baseball, though.

Instead, there was a bland press release and various TV networks interviewing him on a video link from his parents’ house. From the point of view of demonstrating Trout is really just ‘a regular guy’ then that approach may have some merit.

From the point of view of celebrating a great baseball talent, and convincing people he’s someone special they should be excited about watching, it’s as much use as a chocolate teapot.

A televised gala award evening to celebrate the recent MLB season is a blindingly obvious way to present all the major trophies, reliving the pennant races, the postseason and also all the other smaller stories that made up the year, as well as acknowledging again the people elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame that year.

Getting everyone together in a single place in the offseason might not be the simplest task, but it is certainly achievable and would be a great way to send-off the season in style, whilst getting people excited about next season in the process.

MLB does many things very well. Promoting its players is not one of them.

It was only recently that MLB decided it might be worth making a show of the early rounds from the amateur draft. They are starting to build that up as a televised event now and an end-of-season review extravaganza would be a positive next step to further promote the game’s emerging young stars and established names.

Quite simply, if MLB can’t be bothered to make a big thing of the awards, why would a casual sports fan care about them either?

Evaluating achievements

Irrespective of the ropy way they were announced, this year’s selections for the four main awards all gave reason to consider some of the subtleties around how achievements should be weighted when selecting a winner.

With the MVP awards, the main talking point was the decision to crown LA Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw as the NL’s MVP alongside his now traditional Cy Young award. The fact that pitchers have their own prestigious award, and that they play in significantly less games over the season than a position player, does call into question whether a pitcher should win the MVP award.

The voting criteria makes clear that pitchers are eligible for the award; the case from there is how you measure a position player’s contribution against that of a starting pitcher. Starting pitchers may only take the ball one day out of five, but on that day they have a far greater impact on the game (delivering 100+ pitches) than a position player taking four or five at-bats and making a couple of fielding plays.

Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen both had great seasons, yet neither were exceptionally above Kershaw’s outstanding performance for the Dodgers and consequently that made him a fitting choice.

There were fewer arguments around Kershaw’s NL Cy Young award success. In the AL version it was Corey Kluber who came out on top over Felix Hernandez. Both had excellent years so whichever way you went with those two there was a good case to say you had the right answer.

King Felix clearly has the more impressive track record over a number of seasons, which could be argued as being a crucial factor rather than just focusing on one exceptional campaign. Ultimately there’s a good case that Kluber had the slightly better season – for example, using Baseball-References’ WAR as a guide Kluber added 7.4 wins to his team over a replacement player, compared to Hernandez’s 6.8 – and if the award is there to honour the best pitcher that season then previous seasons should only come into it if there is really nothing else to separate them.

In the Rookie of the Year stakes, Jacob deGrom gave the New York Mets a rare reason to be cheerful and Jose Abreu was a similarly uplifting presence for the Chicago White Sox.

Abreu doesn’t quite fit the traditional image of a young, fresh-faced rookie. He made his Major League debut this year as a 27-year-old having defected from Cuba and came into the Big Leagues with considerable experience of playing in his homeland and on the international stage.

His unanimous selection as Rookie of the Year showed that his strict definition as a Major League rookie regardless of his previous experience was good enough for the voters. Considering the challenge he faced in competing against MLB pitchers and in adjusting to life in the States, it was a decision few could find much fault with.

Finally, the Baltimore Orioles’ Buck Showalter and Washington Nationals’ Matt Williams took home the Manager of the Year honours for the AL and NL respectively.

Showalter’s work with the Orioles has cemented his reputation as an excellent, experienced manager. In some respects this contrasts considerably with Williams for whom 2014 wasn’t simply his first year as a Major League manager, but a manager at any level.

His team led the National League with 96 wins and that’s a good starting point for any discussions on how successful a year a manager has had. Still, the impact that a manager can have in the standings is always largely determined by the roster of players he has at his disposal.

There is a school of thought that Williams made his share of mistakes this year. Had Williams been given his managerial break by the Arizona Diamondbacks – for whom he was a coach for several years before joining the Nationals – or perhaps a team like the Colorado Rockies, then I’m betting he would not have been any part of the Manage of the Year conversation.

The problem with that stance is that you end up penalizing a manager for having the benefit of a talented group of players to call on, as trying to put some subjective value on what a manager brings to a team is devilishly difficult.

Bruce Bochy would have been an obvious alternative for his postseason exploits, yet let’s give Williams some credit for leading the Nationals to 96 wins and wait and see if he can do it again in 2015.

A Friday filled with Division Series drama

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MlbPostseason2014We are only a few days into the 2014 postseason, but it’s safe to say that when we look back over the offseason Friday’s bonanza of baseball will turn out to be one of the most memorable days from it.

It was the only day on the Division Series schedule in which we were guaranteed games from all four series – Monday could provide that too if the two American League series both go to a fourth game – and all four served up the sort of drama and excitement that playoff baseball is all about.

The MLB.com Game Recap videos combined provide a great way to spend 15 minutes re-living the action from the four Friday contests.

Detroit and Baltimore got the day underway with Game 2 of their series starting at 17.07 BST. The Orioles staged an incredible comeback to turn around a 5-1 deficit and to put themselves in the best possible position of a 2-0 series lead heading to Detroit.

The loss for Detroit highlighted the flaws of a team containing several outstanding players, yet having weak links in other parts of their roster despite it being put together at considerable expense. Although a home win for the Tigers in Game Three will put a completely different spin on the series, you would expect the Orioles to complete the job based on their regular season performance and the first two games of the series.

San Francisco and Washington went next and the Giants showed the World Series-winning magic of 2010 and 2012 may still be with them by grabbing the advantage by winning Game One.

One big change from those two title triumphs and this year is the introduction of the Video review challenge system. We saw the huge benefits of that in the third inning when the Giants’ Travis Ishikawa was called out on a close force-out play at second base only for the review process to prove that he was safe.

Ishikawa came around to score the opening run of the game two batters later and that’s exactly why replay is so important; getting potentially crucial calls right rather than relying on the hoary old tosh of ‘luck evening itself out’. Just as importantly, the umpire was able to come out of the game knowing that even though his professional pride may have taken a very slight dent by getting a tricky call wrong, the mistake didn’t cost the Giants and he didn’t have to deal with a bunch of reporters and irate fans.

Two other things stood out from the game for me. Firstly, there was the monumentally important bases-loaded strikeout by Hunter Strickland to end a Nationals threat in the sixth inning. Save-compiling closers apart, relief pitchers tend to fly under the radar until the playoffs come along. Strickland’s 100MPH punch-out pitch will certainly have gained him some attention last night.  Secondly, the Bryce Harper hype is something I’ve written about before, but even the naysayers have to admit that he has enormous talent. Mark down his gargantuan moonshot in the seventh inning – off Strickland, such is the hero/zero highwire act that relievers walk – as his first real playoff highlight.

Then came the ding-dong drama of the series opener between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Cards beat Clayton Kershaw in the playoffs yet again and whilst their fans will be desperate to take the next two games in as trouble-free a manner as possible, the rest of us can only look at all that happened in Game One and ask for four more of those, please.

It was a game that had everything, not least the sort of amped-up aggro that looks certain to turn the rest of the series into a passion-filled tussle that may well spill over from a figurative fight to a literal one.

In every best-of-five-game series, the home team that has lost Game One is desperate to win the next game rather than head to their opponent’s backyard in an 0-2 hole, yet it must carry even more weight here. The facts are simple: the Dodgers somehow lost after knocking out the Cardinals’ ace Adam Wainwright and handing a 6-1 lead to Kershaw to protect. If ever a team needed a win to wipe away the memories of yesterday with a win today, it’s these Dodgers.

A small crumb of comfort for the Dodgers is that they’re not yet in as big a hole as their cross-town rivals, the Los Angeles Angels.

After two games at home, they’ve now suffered two extra inning defeats to Kansas City as the completely spurious but always-attractive feeling of a ‘team of destiny’ really starts to take hold around the Royals.

Kauffman Stadium is going to be absolutely electric on Sunday night as Kansas City hosts their first postseason game since 1985. The Angels didn’t win 98 regular season games by chance and so a comeback cannot be counted out, yet they are going to need C.J. Wilson to find a quality start from somewhere after an inconsistent patch of form. Despite his nickname, ‘Big Game’ James Shields hasn’t been particularly impressive so far in his playoff appearances. Sunday night would be the perfect time for the Royals’ starting pitcher to live up to his billing.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Gwynn, Kershaw and more

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WHGB11There was very sad news to start the week with Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn passing away at the age of 54.

Gwynn was one of those players that everyone liked, regardless of which team they supported. He was a brilliant hitter, had an infectiously cheerful character and was a one-team man for his entire career.

It’s rare in most sports now for a player to stay with a single club, especially when they are not playing for one of the big-name teams.

Players are shown little loyalty if a team decides to move them on, so we shouldn’t let emotion cloud our thoughts when a player does decide to move onto a club that can offer more chance of success and more financial security for their family. Whilst it may not seem like ‘real work’, it is a career for these men and they have every right to make a career-minded decision.

However, it always makes for a nice story if a player does decide to stay where he is. Gwynn and his family were happy in San Diego so any offers from other teams were put to one side. He weighed up what was most important to him and his family and did what he thought was right for them.

The 1998 World Series was the first one I saw and I vividly remember that, even though the New York Yankees swept their way to the title, there was a real sense of joy that Gwynn had finally gotten the chance to play in the Fall Classic. Typically, even though his Padres couldn’t get the better of a formidable Yankee team, Gwynn went 8-for-16 at the plate. He knew it might be the only chance he’d get at playing in a World Series and he didn’t let that chance pass him by.

It’s a great shame that such an intelligent hitter and generous person, who had already done so much in helping the next generation in his role as baseball coach at San Diego State, wasn’t given the chance to share even more of that wisdom and warm spirit.

Kershaw close to perfect

More cheerful news arrived on Wednesday night in the form of a glorious no-hitter by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw.

This wasn’t a no-no built on near misses and a handful of walks; Kershaw’s effort was absolutely masterful and it was only an errant throw by shortstop Hanley Ramirez – who has seemed to take a step back defensively this year after showing improvement last season – that allowed a single Colorado Rockies hitter to reach base on the throwing error.

If we wanted to classify it, perhaps we could say it was a ‘resume’ no-hitter.

For some pitchers, a no-hitter is the ultimate moment in their career, one game in which skill and a dash of luck come together and take a solid Major Leaguer into the headlines. When you think of a Phillip Humber or a Dallas Braden, it’s their one great day that always comes to mind and the slight unlikeliness of their feat makes it seem all the more enjoyable.

For a pitcher like Kershaw, it’s yet another thing to add to his list of great accomplishments. He is unarguably one of the very best starting pitchers around and if you wanted to single him out as the best of the best currently you’d get no arguments from me. The word that instantly springs to mind when you watch him at times is ‘unhittable’; you wonder in amazement how anyone could ever manage to square a ball up against him.

So there’s no real surprise when a seemingly unhittable pitcher puts together nine innings when he is exactly that. The lack of surprise doesn’t make it any less thrilling when it unfolds though, especially with the legendary Vin Scully on hand to call the action.

Brad Mills for a dollar

It is still obligatory for MLB commentators to refer to Moneyball when covering the Oakland A’s, even though it’s now 11 years since Michael Lewis’ book of that name was first published. The 2011 film version starring Brad Pitt naturally brought it into the spotlight again, but still it’s a bit of a tired platitude.

The Oakland A’s under General Manager Billy Beane look to put together the best team they can with the limited budget they’ve got and, beyond that simple premise, they are not necessarily wedded to the specific ideas espoused in the book (such as stealing bases being an overly risky strategy).

Moneyball ultimately can be summed up as one repeated motto: “how can we make the most out of every single dollar we spend”.

You don’t tend to get much for a pound these days and I’m sure the same applies to a dollar, yet the A’s excelled themselves this past week by acquiring a new pitcher for that princely sum.

Brad Mills had the dubious honour of moving from the Milwaukee Brewers to the A’s for ‘cash considerations’ that amounted to a token gesture of 1 dollar. Whilst a precious personality may take offence at being ‘valued’ so lowly, in this case Mills is wise enough to know that the move gives him an opportunity to play, which is all any Minor Leaguer asks for.

He didn’t feature prominently in the Brewers’ plans and the A’s needed to add a pitcher cheaply following Drew Pomeranz’s unwise decision to punch a chair (injuring his hand in the process), so this was the quickest way to get him to a new team.

Mills’ debut start came against the Boston Red Sox on Friday night and he lasted only four innings whilst giving up three runs, but even if that’s his only contribution then the A’s can say they’ve more than had their money’s worth.

Royals return

The A’s hold the best win-loss record in the Majors currently and whilst they are doing a terrific job, it is fair to say that so far this season has been characterised by there being no truly exceptional teams.

You could argue, as Tom Verducci has recently, that the parity MLB is keen on has created a landscape of mediocre teams with every much of a muchness. There is some truth to that, although that doesn’t necessarily mean the season is any less exciting. Having teams bunched together keeps lots of them in the running and a good winning streak can really turn their fortunes around.

No team epitomises that better than the Kansas City Royals. On 1 June they were bottom of the AL Central, seven games behind the Detroit Tigers and with manager Ned Yost and General Manager Dayton Moore being castigated by all and sundry.

A 10-game winning streak, ended this past Thursday, rocketed them up to the top of the division, past the much-fancied Tigers. Even though Detroit seem most likely to win out in the end, the recent run has at least giving the Royals fans something to cheer about of late.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Spring Training begins

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We’re into March already and whilst some may be left wondering how the first two months of the year have flown by, us baseball fans have no need to get weighed down by such trivialities.

March means Spring Training, which means baseball is finally back for another year after the long winter months.

The games began on Wednesday with the Blue Jays and Phillies meeting in the first contest shown on MLB.TV.

Whilst the MLB.TV service is generally fantastic, it isn’t faultless all of the time and many fans eager to start their baseball-watching year were left frustrated by paid-for subscriptions not registering and apps failing to show the presence of any live games on a variety of connected devices.

Thankfully most of the problems were ironed out within an hour or so and we were able to get on with enjoying the games.

Just as good as you imagined

With a more limited selection of televised games to watch during Spring Training, it’s a good time of the year to get reacquainted with the joys of listening to radio commentary of ballgames via MLB Gameday Audio. The best crews bring a sense of fun to the occasion whilst painting a vivid picture of the events unfolding, allowing you to use your imagination to create the scenes.

Sometimes when you get to see the TV replay you find that a play wasn’t quite as spectacular as you envisioned it. There was no danger of that being the case with the two highlights from the Oakland A’s spring opener against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday.

The A’s lead radio commentator Ken Korach was sounding quite matter of fact when describing Michael Morse’s flyball to right field, even getting most of the way through his “and this one is …” call before stopping himself from saying the final word. He couldn’t say “gone” because it wasn’t. Instead. he said “did he catch it?”, with an air of incredulity, before shouting “HE DID! AN INCREDIBLE CATCH SCALING THE WALL!”

There was nothing forced about the call, no hint that he was hyping it to the hills like the best (or worst, depending on your viewpoint) Sky Sports commentator. You knew Josh Reddick has just pulled off a stunning catch, which was quickly backed up by various A’s writers taking to Twitter to: a) state how incredible it was, and b) to bemoan the lack of TV cameras which meant you’d just have to take their word for it.

What they didn’t know initially was that the ballpark did have one TV camera filming from behind home plate. Barely a few hours into the 2014 baseball season and we already had one of the best fielding plays we’re likely to see all year. Reddick then proved it wasn’t a one-off by doing it again, to the same unfortunate Morse, later in the game.

Not your average Spring Training game

Spring Training games are normally a low-key affair, but not when they involve a Japanese star making his North American debut.

Japanese baseball reporters were out in force on Saturday to see Masahiro Tanaka’s first appearance for the Yankees and he showed plenty of poise in two score-less innings. The highlight of his outing came when he used his much-talked-about splitter to strike out the Phillies’ Ben Revere. The early signs are that Revere will be the first of many hitters flailing at that pitch with two strikes against their name.

Say it ain’t so, Sano

Long-term injuries are always a sad part of the game, but it feels all the more cruel to happen to an exciting young player. The Minnesota Twins were hoping 2014 would bring some positive developments as they try to build themselves into a contender again; however it’s started in the worst possible way with third base prospect Miguel Sano needing to undergo Tommy John surgery.

The rehabilitation process following the elbow surgery isn’t quite as lengthy for position players as it is for pitchers, but Sano will be out for the whole season and will already have next year’s Spring Training camp as his focus, rather than potentially competing for a Major League roster spot this season.

Greinke grounded

Dodger fans held their collective breath on Thursday when pitcher Zack Greinke lasted only four pitches before leaving the team’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks with an injury.

Fortunately the ailment was a minor calf strain that shouldn’t hold him back for long. Greinke appeared to suffer the injury on the mound, although he perhaps might have done it whilst putting his foot in his mouth over his less-than-enthused comments on the prospect of going to Australia. The injury may make it less likely he will be heading Down Under, potentially avoiding the risk of some of the locals giving him the Stuart Broad treatment.

Setbacks for Seattle

Seattle Mariners fans that hadn’t made the trip to Arizona got their first chance to see Robinson Cano playing in their uniform on Saturday, courtesy of MLB.TV.

That was where the good news ended as it was confirmed on the same day that pitchers Hiashi Iwakuma and Taijuan Walker are both unlikely to be ready for Opening Day due to lingering injury concerns. The Mariners need to see an improvement on the field after investing so heavily in Cano; however he’s only one piece in the puzzle and the team will be desperate for their pitching rotation to be at full strength as soon as possible.

If the Face fits

Finally, the MLB Network decided to run a strange competition this past week in which fans were asked to vote for ‘the Face of MLB’. Quite why anyone would want to declare one single player as the face of MLB is a bit of a mystery, but in the face of such absurdities sometimes the internet can come up trumps.

The A’s bespectacled fringe infielder Eric Sogard became the subversive vote and his #nerdpower campaign got him all the way to the final where he was just beaten, some would say suspiciously so, by the New York Mets’ David Wright.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: O’s add 2

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Much as I enjoy all the news and rumours that the offseason ‘Hot Stove’ brings, there’s a certain joy in knowing this is the last column I’ll be writing for just over eight months that is not influenced by actual games being played.

The Spring Training leagues begin on Wednesday. These are the main stories of the week or so leading up to umpires shouting ‘play ball’ once again.

O’s2

Baltimore Orioles fans had sat through the majority of the offseason waiting for their team to do something to give them hope for the season ahead.

That hope may have been about to run out before the O’s revealed their London Bus approach to the free agent market: waiting around for ages and then signing two at once.

Baltimore, like every team, was keen to add a starting pitcher and they did so in the form of Ubaldo Jimenez on a four-year, $50m contract.

Jimenez is an enigmatic player, switching between ‘Ubaldo the Magnificent’ and ‘Ubaldo the Mess’ like a change in the weather. Scouts explain that his complicated pitching mechanics make him more susceptible to ‘losing’ his delivery, as you sometimes see with cricket bowlers (England’s Stephen Finn would be a good recent example). When a pitcher struggles to repeat his delivery, he struggles to put the ball where he wants to and the result is walks and ‘hit me’ pitches.

Jimenez is a quality pitcher when everything is in synch, such as during his 19-8 season with the Colorado Rockies in 2010 and last year with the Cleveland Indians. It’s unlikely, although far from impossible, that the Orioles will receive four consecutive seasons of Jimenez at his best, but one such season along with three decent ones would still make for a good return on their relatively modest $50m investment.

Jimenez was one of the group of players still on the free agent market in part because signing them involved giving up a valuable amateur draft pick. Nelson Cruz was also on that list until he agreed a one-year deal worth $8m with Baltimore and it’s no coincidence that the Orioles doubled-up on their free agent signings. Having already lost their 2014 draft first round pick due to signing Jimenez, Cruz will only cost Baltimore their less-valuable second round selection. He is slated to be the team’s Designated Hitter this season.

Bailey bonanza

The Cincinnati Reds signed pitcher Homer Bailey to a six-year, $105m contract extension this week (roughly an average of £202k per week).

Bailey was drafted out of High School by the Reds in 2004 and he has come through some growing pains since making his Major League debut as a 21 year old in 2007. The past two seasons, both of which included him pitching a no-hitter, have seen the big Texan develop into the quality starting pitcher that the Reds always believed he could become.

You could argue that he’s not quite an ace, even factoring in that his home ballpark is hitter-friendly (his career ERA is a full run less on the road than it is at the Great American Ballpark – 3.73 compared with 4.74), but if so then he’s at least very close to being one.

Last season he was 24th among pitchers in the Majors with his combined performances measured at 3.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), as per Fangraphs, a mark that put him 10th in the National League and second on his club behind Mat Latos (4.4 WAR).

Securing his services for the next six seasons at what is, based on the current market, a sensible annual cost is a good piece of work from the Reds, made all the more welcome due to it coming in an offseason where the team has been relatively quiet.

Add Bailey to the list that’s no longer on the list

As noted by ESPN.com’s David Schoenfield, Bailey is the latest player to be taken off the potential free agent list as part of a growing trend in which teams are signing their key players to contract extensions.

The most positive part of this development is that, as in the case of Cincinnati, it’s not just the clubs with the biggest pockets that are able to do this now.

The Reds’ 10-year, $225m contract with first baseman Joey Votto, signed in April 2012 and coming into effect from this season onwards, was the most significant deal  so far in that regard, alongside the eight-year, $184m contract that the Minnesota Twins agreed with Joe Mauer in 2011.

Thanks to rising national and local TV contracts, even teams outside of the leading media markets such as New York and Los Angeles have a chance of funding contracts that allow them to keep hold of at least some of their best players. That can make the free agent market a bit less exciting, but few fans will mind this if it means that there’s a better chance that their favourite players are not inevitably going to be snapped up by the big boys.

Braves keeping hold of their own

The Atlanta Braves are yet another example of this trend. They followed up their contract extensions with Freddie Freeman (six-years, $135m) and Julio Teheran (six-years, $32.4m) this week with a four-year, $42m contract with closer Craig Kimbrel and a seven-year, $58m contract with shortstop Andrelton Simmons,.

The performance value of a closer is always hotly debated when weighing up the amount of innings they pitch (including the postseason, Kimbrel has averaged 70 innings per season over the past three years) against their perceived importance and the fact that reliable outstanding closers are a very rare breed.

Kimbrel has been so dominant in the role that the Braves’ desire to keep hold of him is understandable, although the ever-present fear of a year lost to Tommy John surgery will make it more important than normal to wait and see if it was money well spent once the contract comes to an end.

As for Simmons, watching him play shortstop is one of the delights of the game and if he can at least hold his own at the plate, Braves fans will be delighted to have him on their team for years to come.

Greinke the Grouch

Finally, Spring Training will have a different feel to it this year for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers as they head over to Australia for two regular season games on 22-23 March.

The Dodgers’ Zack Greinke is not greatly enthused by the prospect, stating to ESPNLosAngeles.com “I would say there is absolutely zero excitement for it … there just isn’t any excitement to it. I can’t think of one reason to be excited for it”.

Hopefully he’ll enjoy it when he gets there.