Tag Archives: Chicago Cubs

Here’s to 2017

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I’ve been on a writing hiatus since October, leaving the incredible World Series to speak for itself, allowing the Collective Bargaining Agreement process to play-out and letting the first couple of months of an underwhelming free agent class pass by without comment.

It’s tough when the baseball season comes to an end because it’s such an all-encompassing endeavour, watching games every day, that the absence of any action really hits hard and all of the transaction rumours feel like a very poor substitute.

It’s a hard stretch of cold turkey, but things always seem brighter once we’ve enjoyed the hot turkey at Christmas and the calendar flips to a new year. We’re in 2017 now and that means the 2017 baseball season is officially on its way.

I’ve put together some plans to get the website back into fighting shape so that there will once again be regular features on MLB and British baseball, in a way that I haven’t been able to dedicate myself to for the last two or three seasons, and I’m really excited about all that there will be to enjoy this year.

So, why not start off 2017 by looking at things we won’t enjoy this year?

No Great Britain team in the World Baseball Classic

Watching Great Britain in the WBC qualifier last September was one of my baseball highlights of 2016. It would have been brilliant to be sat here now looking forward to Liam Carroll’s team heading to Seoul, Korea, competing in the WBC full tournament for the first time.

Unfortunately, despite a great effort to make the final, Israel were worthy winners of the qualifying tournament and it is they who will be joining South Korea, Chinese Taipei and the Netherlands in Pool A.

However that tinge of disappointment won’t stop me enjoying the WBC event. Every year we all get a week into Spring Training and then remember how long a month March always feels waiting for the ‘real’ games to get going. The WBC provides genuine passion and excitement and gives the month a completely different tone.

Anticipation for the event really starts to escalate at this time of year as the rosters start to take shape, with the United States team in particularly looking to have more leading players (at this stage at least) than in previous tournaments. It’s sure to be another thrilling event and one that will kick off the baseball season in style.

No MLB game in London

The high hopes that MLB games would be played in London during 2017 were dashed in the middle of last season when it was announced that this would be postponed. It was easy to be despondent and to wonder if the dream would ever become a reality.

Thankfully, the Collective Bargaining Agreement concluded in December eased those fears with a clear commitment from MLB owners and players in respect of playing games outside of the U.S. and with London being specifically mentioned.

Reports just before Christmas put forward the tantalising prospect of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry heading to London in 2018. Logic suggests that east coast teams are more likely to make the trip and bringing across a ‘big’ team or two would be important in selling the event from a public relations point of view (much as us baseball enthusiasts would love any MLB teams to come here).

My guess is if there are games played here in 2018 then they will be Tampa Bay Rays home games against a team like the Yankees or Red Sox, purely on the basis that they have the lowest home attendance in MLB (an average of 15,878 in 2016), with a potential Yankees-Red Sox match-up (or Mets-Nationals) as a follow-up event a year or two later.

No 100+ year Cubs World Series drought to write about

Where there is a pleasure there is pain and sadly for Chicago’s north-siders the joy of their World Series win in 2016 means they can no longer embrace their ‘lovable losers’ status.

I’m sure their fans are absolutely devastated by that!

As I write this, the lead story on ESPN’s MLB page is a fun open letter to Cubs fans speaking for Yankees and Red Sox fans.

The Boston comparison is the most meaningful because they were similarly under the fabled spell of a curse. The long wait for a World Series was a part of being a Red Sox fan, just as it was for the Cubs, and whilst Boston fans no doubt will be quick to confirm that winning isn’t all bad, it will take some adjusting to for fans in Chicago.

Can’t stand the standings

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As you may have noticed, my opportunities for writing regularly about MLB have been more limited this season than usual for various reasons.

What hasn’t helped through it all has been the poor performances by my chosen team, the Oakland A’s. The MLB regular season is a long journey and when the team you support is on a road to nowhere in a given year, breaking down every few miles and dropping cherished bits (i.e. trading away players) along the way, sometimes you just want to fall asleep and hope that it’s all over when you wake up.

There have been some fantastic stories in MLB in 2016, with more to come as the play-off races head to a conclusion and the post-season begins, but if your morale is low then there’s always a chance to turn each good story into a reason to add to the gloom.

Take the Chicago Cubs. Their magic number for play-off qualification sits at seven heading into Sunday’s games and, after their unexpected post-season run last year, are favourites to make it to the World Series.

Seeing the ‘lovable losers’ in such great shape is brilliant for baseball, but as an A’s fan I watch Addison Russell demonstrating why Oakland selected him in the first round of the 2012 amateur draft, see Jon Lester spinning seven score-less innings against the Astros on Friday, and even Chris Coghlan getting a couple of key hits on Monday against the Brewers, and can’t help but think of ‘what might have beens’.

To most people, the big story from Saturday – Rich Hill being taken out of the game after seven perfect innings – was a classic chance to second guess a manager, the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts in this case. To me, it was another case of seeing someone who was wearing the green and gold earlier this season performing outstandingly well for a team looking towards the play-offs. To save you looking it up, the A’s have just been mathematically eliminated from the AL West race with over three weeks of the regular season to go.

However, in a lost season when hope is in short supply, even a hardened pessimist can end up with a smile on their face. Whilst Hill looks like being a good rental for the Dodgers for the rest of this season before he becomes a free agent, Jharel Cotton – one of the players the A’s got back from LA in the Hill-Josh Reddick trade – made his Major League debut for Oakland in a day-game on Wednesday and was terrific.

Cotton earned a win against the Angels with 6.1 innings of work and the standing ovation he received as he walked from the mound – loud despite there being less than 12,000 in attendance – was enough to warm even the most cynical heart. The prospect reports show that he doesn’t project to be a front-line starter, but it’s always fun to watch a player achieve his dream of becoming a Big Leaguer and hopefully Cotton can develop into a steady back-of-the-rotation guy.

Watching the A’s take a 14-3 pounding from Seattle last night wasn’t quite so much fun and I can’t help but grimace every time I look at the AL West standings (although a 60-81 record with our roster is probably easier to take than the Angels’ marginally better 62-79 whilst wasting Mike Trout’s unmatched excellence yet again).

Yet baseball is for life, not just one season. You can’t enjoy the good days without going through the bad ones.

Just ask Cubs fans (although if you’re an A’s fan you’ll want to walk away if they start talking about Addison Russell).

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Colon, Miller and a Windy City World Series

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WHGB11Many of us in the UK have been treated to a weekend of glorious weather, so this week’s column will be short and to the point on three stories that caught my eye from Saturday’s games.

Bartolo Colon hit a home run

The pro-DH/anti-DH arguments are well known and many are firmly set in their position. For some people, the many wasted plate appearances of pitchers without much of a clue or hope with a bat in their hands just add up to too much to make the occasional bright spot worthwhile.

Not for me. Let’s be honest, there are a significant minority of position players in the Majors right now who aren’t much to write about with the bat so creating an extra 15 batting positions (i.e. all 15 NL teams adding an extra hitter to replace the pitcher) every day won’t lead to 15 more stars being created.

I am quite happy to live with aimless at-bats when it leads to occasional moments like this …

Shelby Miller won a game

I’ve cursed this man’s name many times over the past month having ignored my gut feeling and drafted him on my BGB Fantasy League team. Miller hasn’t just been disappointing considering what the D-Backs gave up in the trade to acquire him, he has been terrible on any measure.

The Yahoo fantasy competition had regularly been publishing notes of ‘x’ number of managers having dropped Miller, but I felt like if I was going to drop him after a few bad games, I should never have drafted him. That’s not to claim this is disciplined fantasy management in action – quite the opposite, I’ve been blindly hoping he will come good out of a combination of stubbornness and desperation – yet I had chosen my path and I was going to keep going down the road until I really had no choice but to call it a dead end.

Miller’s scheduled start on Saturday against the Atlanta Braves, his former team, was the moment of truth. If he couldn’t look vaguely useful against this current Braves batting lineup then I’d be left with little choice. Maybe it was the pressure of potentially being dropped from my Cheddar Chasers that inspired him, maybe not; either way his 6 innings pitched with 4 hits and 2 runs allowed meant he finally contributed something positive.

The 2 walks to 1 strike-out don’t bode so well for this continuing, but he’s earned another week on my team at least.

A Windy City World Series?

That the Chicago Cubs beat the Washington Nationals again to move to 23-6 wasn’t much of a surprise as Joe Maddon’s men are playing exceptionally well.

It’s the way that the White Sox are continuing to confound predictions that is really standing out. Chris Sale moved to 7-0 by mowing down Minnesota in a 7-2 victory on Saturday, leading his team to a 21-10 record.

Few people saw the White Sox’s emergence coming and the doubts around them may prove to be valid; however for now it’s fun to imagine a World Series between the two Chicago teams.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Cubs and Arrieta getting even better

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WHGB11My start to the day involves making some breakfast, turning on my iPad and then clicking on MLB At Bat to start reading and watching what happened overnight in MLB.

If your At Bat is set to default to the scoreboard, as mine does, there is a handy feature in which a special event gets flagged so you know which game to start at. That was the case when checking the scores on Friday morning and the ‘No hitter’ sign was there in red next to the game between the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds.

It wasn’t as surprising as most no-hitters because the match-up suggested it was more than a possibility. Jake Arrieta no-hit the Dodgers on the way to a Cy Young Award last season and the rebuilding Reds are not in great shape, so put the two together and the odds of Cincinnati coming out on top weren’t great.

No-hitters don’t happen every day though and as the innings roll on the pressure builds.

In some ways they’re a bit like a 147 maximum break in snooker, appropriately enough with the World Championships currently ongoing in Sheffield. As the feat comes into view, pots that otherwise would be approached with ease suddenly become more difficult because of what’s at stake.

The difference with a no-hitter is that it’s not just the pitcher that’s under pressure as the outs start to mount, but all of the fielders behind him too. It’s an individual achievement but one made possible due to the work of a team.

Arrieta’s performance against the Reds was an escalation of excellence following his first three starts. He held the Angels score-less over seven innings in his season-opener on 4 April, went seven innings again in his second start against the D-Backs where he did allow three runs but got the win all the same, and then pitched eight score-less innings against Colorado.

The signs are ominous for the rest of the National League. It couldn’t be denied that the Chicago Cubs had an excellent squad of players heading into the season and to argue against them meant somehow trying to construct plausible scenarios in which things could go wrong. The season-ending injury suffered by Kyle Schwarber early in April was one example of how the best-laid plans could come undone, but the depth that the Cubs have meant that their opponents needed several players either not to take a step-forward (such as Kris Bryant and Addison Russell) and/or others to take a step back.

Arrieta was the highest profile name among the latter group. It was not that you could reasonably hope for him to suddenly become an average pitcher, just that he might regress from being ridiculously good to merely good.

Four starts into his 2016 season and Arrieta looks determined to match, if not somehow better, what he did in 2015.

His complete dominance of the Reds came after the Cubs took two from three in St Louis in what was arguably the first strong test they’ve had so far this season. It must have been galling for the Cardinals to have former teammate John Lackey come back and beat them 5-0 not only with the ball but with the bat as well and even more so when they lost the second game of the series 2-1 with both of Chicago’s runs being batted in by pitcher Jason Hammel.

The Cubs have won two of three against the Reds heading into the final game of the series on Sunday and they will then start a home-stand including 3 games against the Brewers and 3 against the Braves. If the Cubs win today and then go 4-2 in their six-game stay at Wrigley – a quite reasonable projection – they’ll be on an 18-7 record at the end of play on 1 May.

The month of May will bring sterner tests, not least six games against Pittsburgh and series against the Nationals, Giants, Cardinals and Dodgers, but the Cubs are doing exactly what the pre-season projections suggested they might.

Although no team wins a division in April or May, opponents may already be raising the spectre of the Billy Goat Curse as the only thing that could prevent Arrieta and Chicago from making a return to the play-offs this season.

MLB 2016 – National League Preview

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MlbHlSqAfter looking at the American League yesterday, our attention now turns to the Senior Circuit.

The most significant difference between the two leagues coming into the 2016 season is that whilst every team in the AL at least has some chance – however small – of competing for a Wild Card place, 5 of the 15 teams in the National League are deliberately looking towards future seasons.

‘Tanking’ is the word people like to use, essentially where a team deliberately trades away its best players, slashes the payroll and prioritizes the acquisition and development of prospects over challenging for a play-off spot. It’s controversial given the amount of TV money these teams are banking – under the assumption that they would be fielding a team worth watching – yet the truth is the current MLB landscape doesn’t just allow teams to do this, it rewards them for it.

Nothing illustrates that better than the 2015 seasons had by the Chicago Cubs and the Houston Astros.

The Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies are all prepared to take some pain today for jam tomorrow.

The good news is that there are plenty of strong teams left in the NL to create a captivating regular season.

NL East

This time last year many onlookers had penciled-in the Washington Nationals as not only the team to beat in the NL East, but the team to beat across the whole league. They had won 96 games in 2014 and responded to an early play-off exit by signing ace pitcher Max Scherzer, so the hype was not unwarranted; however it was something the team singularly failed to live up to and ultimately cost manager Matt Williams his job.

In 2016 it’s the New York Mets who are receiving the same platitudes, yet it seems highly unlikely that they will buckle under the weight of expectations. Their young pitching staff is genuinely outstanding and, having unexpectedly made the World Series last season, figure to only get better in 2016. That’s a scary thought for everyone else.

Where does that leave the Nationals? The one true success of 2015 for them was the MVP season put together by Bryce Harper and just as you can count on the likes of Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard to pitch like aces for the Mets, so you can expect Harper to do the near-impossible and challenge Mike Trout for the honour of the best player in MLB.

The experienced Dusty Baker has been brought in to pull the team together and create a happy ship out of what was a combustible crew. Whether they will challenge the Mets, or at least win a Wild Card spot, will come down to good health and how effectively they take advantage of the 38 games that they will play combined against the rebuilding Braves and Phillies.

NL Central

It’s been an off-season diet of the Cubs, Cubs and more Cubs in the NL Central. Joe Maddon and his team are the new media darlings and you can understand why. They’ve amassed an enviable group of young talent and supplemented it with free agent signings in the form of Jon Lester in the 2014/15 off-season and now again with Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist and John Lackey.

They were really good in 2015 and will be again in 2016.

What we shouldn’t lose sight of, though, is that the Pittsburgh Pirates were just as good last season and the St Louis Cardinals were even better. Neither team has added the experienced talent that the Cubs have acquired, and Chicago’s gain has very directly been St Louis’s loss with Heyward and Lackey moving to the other side of that rivalry, but they still have strong rosters and the way things are shaping up could really suit them.

The Cubs are the team with all the expectations. It’s been very noticeable in Spring Training that the Cardinals are almost enjoying the way everyone is jumping on the Chicago bandwagon, ready to prove exactly why they’ve won the division for the past three seasons and have no intention of letting the upstarts crash their party.

As for the Pirates, you’ll struggle to find a team more determined to win a division having experienced the pain of a one-game-and-gone play-off exit in each of the past two seasons.  This is going to be a true three-way battle.

NL West

Will there be a three-way battle in the West?

The Arizona Diamondbacks are intent on making that so. Their audacious signing of Zack Greinke mirrored the Cubs’ Cardinal clear-out job by taking him away from the LA Dodgers, with the added benefit that the San Francisco Giants lusted after the free agent too. They followed that up by trading for Shelby Miller and whilst the package they gave up for him may prove to be a high price to pay, it’s given them a front three with Patrick Corbin that stacks up well against their division rivals.

The D-Backs are confident, although it’s often been the case that the team that ‘won the off-season’ in recent years has gone on to win precious little else. What Arizona needed was for their existing players to either repeat or improve on their previous performances to make the additions count. That hope took a hammer blow last night with outfielder A.J. Pollock breaking his elbow. Pollock quietly developed into one of the best players in the National League last year. He will be out for an extended period – a similar injury cost him the entire 2010 season – and whilst it’s not fatal for the D-Backs’ chances, it certainly reduces them.

Injuries are also the story in LA where the Dodgers have been devastated by a succession of setbacks. At time of writing, MLB.com’s injury report lists no fewer than 13 Dodgers suffering notable ailments with as many as 10 of them being a doubt for Opening Day, if not out of action for much longer. They’re Major League-leading payroll ensures that sympathy will be in short supply and the Dodgers still have a solid group to compete with. As players return to health during the season, alongside the always-present potential for them to acquire new players and to up the payroll even further, you would be wrong to write them off even if they are in third place by the end of May.

As for the Giants, they’ve added starting pitchers Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija to their rotation and it’s an even year, so the omens are good for them.

My predictions

NL East – NY Mets, Washington, Miami, Philadelphia, Atlanta

NL Central – St Louis, Chicago Cubs (WC), Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Milwaukee

NL West – LA Dodgers, San Francisco (WC), Arizona, San Diego, Colorado

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Good Friday by name …

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WHGB11Good Friday loomed like a bad omen this week.

The schedule of MLB Spring Training games that day included starts for four pitchers on my recently-drafted fantasy baseball roster. Poor performances, or worse an injury or two, seemed a certainty.

Jon Lester was on the mound for the Cubs against the Brewers, Jose Quintana was pitching for the White Sox against the Mariners, and the Indians-Diamondbacks game featured Corey Kluber and Shelby Miller.

Consequently, the latter had to be my choice for the evening’s entertainment, forgoing an Oakland A’s appearance for pitching prospect Sean Manaea against the Angels in the process. Such was my enthusiasm that I grabbed a pencil and a blank scorecard and got stuck into some Spring Training score-keeping practice.

Shelby Miller was a bit sketchy to start with, including plunking Cleveland’s catcher Yan Gomes on the shoulder in the second inning, but his defence helped to keep runs off the board. Wellington Castillo negated a first-inning lead-off single by Tyler Naquin by foiling an attempted stolen base and Miller’s infielders turned a double-play in the second inning.

Miller settled down from there and produced the highlight of the game with a reflex catch on a come-backer between his legs to end the fourth inning. It’s not often that I would dish out a scorecard star for a Spring Training game, but this effort deserved one.

Cleveland’s Naquin did hit a homer off him to lead-off the sixth inning and to celebrate being told that he would make the Indians’ opening day roster earlier that day. He was their first-round draft pick in 2012 and should be a good stand-in whilst Michael Brantley continues his recovery from shoulder surgery.

As for Kluber, the 2014 AL Cy Young winner gave up 11 hits across his six innings of work, yet that was predominantly due to the way he was pounding the strike zone and that’s far from a negative in the pre-season period. He struck our four D-Backs around Jake Lamb‘s second-inning home run before things unravelled a bit in the sixth inning.

Yan Gomes showed off his excellent arm behind the plate by gunning down Socrates Brito twice and also pouncing on a swinging bunt by Castillo in the fourth inning to get the lead runner at second rather than taking the safe out at first. Gomes’s 2015 campaign was hampered by a knee injury, yet he appears healthy now and is one of many reasons why Cleveland shouldn’t be overlooked in the AL Central and Wild Card races this year.

Miller and Kluber’s outings left me breathing a sigh of relief, as did Lester’s strong start against the Brewers and Quintana’s seven K’s against the Mariners.

It wasn’t such a good day for the A’s, as Mike Trout smacked a first-inning homer and the Angels prevailed 11-3 whilst Oakland made four errors to go alongside the three they coughed up the day before.

Friday might not be the last time this season that I turn to my fantasy team players to offer some crumbs of comfort following a bad day at the office for my ‘real’ team.

The scorecard

Here’s a scan of my scorecard, completed up to the middle of the seventh inning when Shelby Miller came out of the game. The ‘fch’ reference at the start of Cleveland’s seventh inning stands for fielding changes. It’s standard practice in spring games for managers to make plenty of player changes in the later innings and – knowing that this was almost certainly going to be the last half-inning I was going to keep score of – I didn’t bother to make a note of them.

You can download and print off the scorecard I used here.

Other MLB notes

For all the grief that Arizona’s front office has received this off-season, their aggressive winter could pay-off especially if the Dodgers’ terrible luck with injuries continues. It was announced this week that Andre Ethier will be out for 10-14 weeks with a fractured tibia, whilst catcher Yasmani Grandal is unlikely to be ready for Opening Day due to an arm injury and Howie Kendrick battles with a leg injury.

The New York Yankees are another big spender who go into the final week of Spring Training with some significant question marks over their roster. Ivan Nova is in a battle with CC Sabathia for a spot in the rotation that appears to be coming down to which one doesn’t look quite as bad as the other. Nova didn’t do much to help his case on Friday by giving up three home runs against the Orioles. Sabathia is a far-from-ideal candidate to move to the bullpen so that may factor into the equation.

Things are very different for the other New York team. Earlier on Friday, Noah Syndergaard was in dominating form against the Cardinals, striking out nine over six innings.  Yankee fans will be sick of hearing about the stunning starting pitcher lineup of the Mets, yet in Syndergaard’s case that may be preferable to him competing against them with the Blue Jays. Toronto wanted to win in 2013 and so gave him up in the package to acquire the 2012 NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey in 2012/13 off-season, but it’s hard not to think about the 1-2 punch they could have had with Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman.

Finally, ESPN covered the Mets-Cardinals game on Friday and there was plenty of talk about the Redbirds’ rivalry with the Chicago Cubs. You get the sense that St. Louis are charged up by everyone hailing the Cubs as the best team in MLB heading into this season. Every one of the 19 games they will play against each other during the regular season will be an event.

Off-season so far: National League

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MlbHlSqIt’s a good time to review how the MLB teams are shaping up now that we’ve passed the end-of-calendar-year hump in the baseball off-season

Some teams have already completed the bulk of their winter shopping; however there are still some good free agents on the market and where they end up could have a domino effect in encouraging rival teams to keep up.

This part of the review focuses on the National League.

In 2015, the Central division was the star of the show as the St Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates all made it into the post-season. The LA Dodgers and New York Mets were relatively comfortable winners in the West and East respectively, with the latter being crowned as the NL Champions in the play-offs before losing to the Kansas City Royals in the World Series.

NL Central – Cubs on the prowl

Although the Cardinals won the division last year, all of the talk was about the success of their bitter rivals the Chicago Cubs and how their exciting young group of players had blossomed ahead of schedule.

If Cards fans didn’t like the Cubbies getting all the attention then, the off-season has been even more painful.

The Cubs have added three quality players to their roster in Ben Zobrist, Jason Heyward and John Lackey, with the latter two leaving the Cardinals as free agents and deciding to go to the other side of the rivalry. Heyward’s defection was particularly painful as he reportedly took less money from the Cubs than offered to him by the Cardinals and explained his decision by saying he felt the Cubs had the brighter future.

The Cubs’ first trip to St Louis in 2016 comes in mid-April, so we won’t have to wait long into the regular season to see what Cardinals fans think of that.

The Pirates have been relatively quiet this off-season and even though they still have the bulk of their roster that won 98 games in 2015, repeating that feat will not be easy without making much in the way of improvements. St Louis has added free agent pitcher Mike Leake, but they’ve also lost Lance Lynn for the season due to Tommy John elbow surgery and rumours of them adding a bat in the form of Alex Gordon or Chris Davis have yet to result in an actual deal being made.

Without another decent batting addition for the Cardinals, it would be fair to say the Cubs have pushed ahead of both of their main division rivals on paper.

NL West – major upgrades in Arizona, but to what extent?

The biggest division shake-up has come in the NL West courtesy of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ capture of Zack Greinke.

For the D-Backs to come out of nowhere and sign an elite free agent pitcher was a big statement in itself, to do so by signing a player that their two main division rivals were desperate to obtain (or retain in the LA Dodgers’ case) made it all the more significant.

It made sense for the D-Backs to follow up that signing with another bold move and that’s exactly what they did by completing a trade with the Atlanta Braves for pitcher Shelby Miller. Whilst Arizona have been criticised for what they gave up in the deal – including shortstop prospect Dansby Swanson who they signed with the first overall pick in the amateur draft earlier this year – in the short-term they’ve improved their team in a major way.

The important thing from there in the division was how the Giants and Dodgers responded.

San Francisco have added two quality free agent pitchers in Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, whilst LA have recently signed a good pitcher in Scott Kazmir and reportedly are close to agreeing a deal with Japanese pitcher Kenta Maeda.

The difference has been that whilst the Giants’ moves have appeared decisive, the Dodgers have seemingly ended up with players down their pecking order after yet more deals fell to pieces (Hisashi Iwakuma’s three-year deal was taken off the table due to injury concerns and a trade for Aroldis Chapman went down the pan when news broke of a potential suspension coming his way due to an alleged domestic violence incident).

It looks like being a very tight division between these three teams. Adding in the inexperience of new manager Dave Roberts and I’d have the Dodgers slipping behind the Giants, with the D-Backs pretty even with LA for second place. The Dodgers are still a threat to add further players this off-season though, so that could change quickly.

NL East – Waiting for a big move

There are three genuine contenders in both the Central and West, but in the East we can bring that down to two with the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies in rebuilding mode and the Miami Marlins being neither fish nor fowl (or perhaps more accurately they are fish and foul, depressing as that is considering some of the superb young players they have).

The Washington Nationals were an almighty disappointment in 2015 and that suggested there would be some major changes over the off-season. Not so, at least not so far. Dusty Baker has been brought in as their new manager and Daniel Murphy, the Mets’ play-off hero last year, has signed on as a free agent, but that’s about it.

They reportedly made a big play to sign Jason Heyward, so potentially there’s some money there to be spent and it wouldn’t be a big surprise if one of the available outfielders, Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Upton in particular, ended up in the U.S. capital over the coming weeks.

The Nationals’ hopes of regaining ground on the Mets has been helped by the latter keeping out of the main free agent mix. New York has revamped their middle infield by trading for Pittsburgh’s second baseman Neil Walker and signing free agent shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera, which are solid enough moves but not ones to get many pulses racing in Queens.

It’s also hard not be sceptical about the Mets’ ownership. They have such an exciting young (and therefore relatively cheap) group of pitchers that it would be criminal not to take advantage of the opportunity they have over the next few years. Maybe a reunion with free agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes will come about soon, especially as they’ve had a stroke of luck with Michael Cuddyer deciding to retire with a year remaining on his contract, but it’s just as likely they will make another minor move or two and hope for the best, which really isn’t good enough for a New York team.

They would still be favourites for the division right now, but a big signing for the Nationals and a Spring Training injury or two for the Mets (if the owners are reluctant to invest to replace missing players) could close the gap and make it a tighter race than you would expect considering the Mets’ dominance in 2015.

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.

The 2015 MLB Wild Card games

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Twenty MLB teams saw their 2015 season come to an end on Sunday, but for the other 10 the excitement has only just begun.

It’s rare that we get a postseason that disappoints in MLB and, based on this year’s entry list, we’re going to be in for another treat this time around.

It all gets going late on Tuesday night (technically 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning for us in the UK) with the American League Wild Card between the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees, followed the next night by the National League version between the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates.

Baseball is a game for the traditionalists and so the introduction of the Wild Card ‘play-in’ game was, like most changes, not universally welcomed in 2012. However, it has been a success from the off, producing exciting races down the stretch in the regular season and then the thrilling, excruciating all-or-nothing Wild Card games themselves.

I’ve felt the bitter disappointment that this cruel contest can bring having suffered through the Oakland A’s Wild Card loss to the Kansas City Royals last year. It’s a crushing blow, as if you’ve hardly made the play-offs at all.

From a personal point of view, the Royals’ run to the World Series made it all the harder to take, only enhancing the feeling that it could have been my team in the Fall Classic. Still, the Royals’ success, and that of their nemesis the San Francisco Giants – who also got there having come out alive from their Wild Card showdown – showed that whilst a team would always prefer to qualify without the Wild Card worry, so long as they win it they have as good a chance as any to go all the way.

That will be the mantra for all four Wild Card teams this year.

Although this is far from being a vintage New York Yankees team, the aura of the fabled Pinstripes may still come into play now they’re in the play-offs again after – for them – a long two-year absence.

The Houston Astros meanwhile have been one of the great surprise stories of the season. We all knew that their recent years of abject uselessness, handing them a bevy of high amateur draft picks with which to stock up on the best young talent, was designed to bring about better days such as these, but few of us realised that those better days would come so soon.

Dallas Keuchel, Houston’s starting pitcher for the Wild Card game, may have a lumberjack beard, but the only thing that’s merely “OK” about him is the abbreviation of his home state, Oklahoma. The Astros’ ace has been outstanding this season and the left-hander should match up well against the left-leaning (in the handedness rather than political sense) Yankee batting lineup. The question mark is simply whether pitching after only three days’ rest knocks him out of his usual stride.

There are more question marks against the Yankees’ expensively acquired Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. Injury fears have plagued him for the past year or so and he’s been effective rather than outstanding this year in his second MLB season. This would be a good time to show that he was worth the considerable investment.

In the National League Wild Card, it’s the Chicago Cubs that take the Houston Astros role. Like their old NL Central rival, the Cubs deliberately chucked several seasons away as they rebuilt a team that had got old and expensive, and have climbed back into competitiveness earlier than most expected.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone coming into a Wild Card game in more relentlessly brilliant form than the Cubs’ pitcher Jake Arrieta will do. In 12 starts from 4 August to 2 October, he has allowed a total of four earned runs. Honestly, four earned runs. Those 12 starts include a no-hitter against the NL West division-winning LA Dodgers, and two impressive appearances against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He’s been so good that Pirates fans have been wondering out loud whether they have much of a shot of winning the game ever since it became clear he would be lined up by the Cubs to start it.

The Pirates have good reason to fear yet another dominating start by Arrieta, but they know they’ve got a great young pitcher on the mound too in Gerrit Cole. This might just be the start in which things don’t quite go Arrieta’s way. Certainly the Pirates would like to believe that he’s due an off-night and, as is the way in this Wild Card game showdown, that could be all it takes for Arrieta’s excellent season to – whilst far from going to waste considering all he and the Cubs have achieved to get here – come to a disappointing end.

This is the third consecutive year in which Pittsburgh has hosted the NL Wild Card game, so everyone – from manager Clint Hurdle, the players and the PNC Park fans - knows exactly what to expect. They beat the Cincinnati Reds in 2013 and lost to the Giants last year, so they’ve got direct experience – if it was really needed – of just what this game means.

After the A’s heart-breaking meltdown a year ago, there’s a part of me that’s glad to be able to look forward to the two Wild Card games this time around without the potential emotional distress of tiredly peering out from behind a cushion at 5.45 a.m. as your hopes of glory – we were 7-3 up heading into the bottom of the eighth inning, don’t forget, then took an 8-7 lead in the top of the twelfth – crumble to dust.

But then again, oh how I wish we were there with the chance to experience the other side of it.

For two teams the Wild Card play-in will seem like a cruel joke. For the other two it will seem like the sweetest thing imaginable, an exhilarating start to a potential World Series and a season that will never be forgotten.

Both games are live from 1 a.m. on BT Sport/ESPN and online for MLB.TV subscribers (don’t forget, whilst U.S. fans are ‘blacked out’ from watching the postseason live on MLB.TV, those restrictions don’t apply in the UK).

WHGB: Bryant creates a buzz

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WHGB11There was a buzz around Major League Baseball on Friday as the Chicago Cubs called up top prospect Kris Bryant for his debut.

After his booming home runs in the Minor Leagues and during the recent Spring Training, Bryant’s 0-for-4 performance at the plate (including three strikeouts) may have seemed an anti-climax, but that didn’t deter any of the MLB news outlets.

From MLB.com onwards, Bryant’s debut was the headline story and a couple of decent bits of fielding at third base – good, but nothing particularly special at the Major League level – were latched onto with gusto in lauding a new star.

You could try to argue that the Cubs’ cynical decision not to promote Bryant for Opening Day was a marketing masterstroke; a perfect example of making people wait and building up anticipation.

That would be wrong. In fact, all the hubbub just goes to prove exactly why the Cubs’ actions were a great shame for the sport.

If you missed the back story, it all came down to the way in which Major League teams are able to keep a player under contract for six full seasons when they start their career in the Big Leagues. By delaying Bryant’s debut by 11 days, the Cubs ensured that he would not build up enough days on their roster to gain a full season of credit this year. The result is that instead of potentially becoming a free agent at the end of the 2020 season, Bryant will now not be eligible for free agency until the end of the 2021 season.

From a business standpoint the Cubs’ decision was understandable. The small number of games he has missed will not affect their 2015 season to any significant extent and the value of getting an extra year from a player of Bryant’s calibre is potentially huge. They have put forward their arguments as to why it was a genuine baseball decision and could probably fund a team of sharp lawyers to state a strong legal case if needed, despite everyone knowing full well that the position is completely false.

However, as part of agreeing to the cut-off point at which a full-season cannot be claimed, the Players Association are adamant that there is an element of fairness that needs to be applied. Deliberately holding down a player who clearly should have been on the roster just to stop them accruing service time is a blatant act of bad faith.

As a committed baseball fan I can find many things that demonstrate the sport is in rude health, but concerns have been raised in the States that the sport’s standing is slipping among the casual ranks. The new ‘pace of play’ modifications introduced this season, designed to tackle the increasing length of games, were an acknowledgement of this.

Making changes to stop games drifting along is a positive step, but any such modifications are only going to have marginal benefits. When it comes to getting more people to take an interest, we should remember that sport is above all else a source of entertainment and entertainment is driven by stars.

It’s already recognised that MLB needs to do more to market its stars in a way that the NFL and NBA have done so successfully. Let more people know how great it is to watch Mike Trout or Andrew McCutchen making amazing catches in the outfield, Giancarlo Stanton launching mammoth home runs or Matt Harvey carving up Major League lineups and interest will take hold. The spike in ratings and at the turnstiles for Harvey’s home season debut for the Mets on Thursday is testament to the star talent being there and having an impact.

The 2015 MLB season opened up at Wrigley Field as the Cubs hosted the Cardinals in a marquee U.S. national TV match-up on ESPN. Instead of potentially seeing Kris Bryant send a stunning walk-off home run into the stands in a prime-time debut and immediately announcing himself to a national audience on every sports news outlet, his only impact was in the ESPN announcers telling us what an exciting talent he is and explaining why we weren’t able to enjoy that talent there and then.

The Cubs held down Bryant because it made business sense and they will receive no penalty as a result. If new MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is serious about getting more youngsters in America excited about baseball once again that needs to change so it doesn’t happen again.

The MLB Commissioner has an overriding power that allows him to take action in the best interests of baseball. A situation where it benefits a team to hold down a young potential star for even a few days is clearly not in the best interests of baseball and needs to be rectified.