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Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Back for 2018

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With November and December in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to get my weekly MLB column back up-and-running as we start looking ahead to pitchers and catchers reporting to their 2018 Spring Training camps and beyond.

The planned format for ‘Weekly Hit Ground Ball’ in 2018 is to be a round-up column of the key news stories and moments from the week just gone, with a few personal reflections along the way.

It will be published every Sunday morning and, once we get to the regular season, will also pick out a few of the most enticing games to watch on a Sunday evening in Britain – typically the best time of the week for us to catch live baseball.

The Not Hot Stove

The main news, of course, is the lack of news.  The so-called baseball off-season Hot Stove is barely simmering as the free agent market is taking time to develop, which has a knock-on effect on the trade market (and vice versa).

Now that the Christmas break is over, we’re starting to see an increase in rumoured offers to free agents – the interest of the San Diego Padres and Kansas City Royals in Eric Hosmer being a good example – and the feeling is we’ll start to see the dominoes falling over the next couple of weeks.

Much is being made of next year’s free agent class and the impact it is having on the market this off-season; however, it remains to be seen what effect that will actually have. Whilst there is undoubtedly some outstanding talent waiting in the wings – Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and potentially Clayton Kershaw topping the list – only a small number of teams are going to come out of the 2018/19 off-season with a big prize.

Even though teams will make decisions this year with next year’s market in mind, there is plenty of good talent out there this off-season. We’ll soon start to see teams identifying the right player for them at the right price. Not getting jam today in the hope of better jam tomorrow is smart if it works out, but teams looking to improve will be all too aware of the potential for the Yankees, Dodgers are their ilk to buy up all the best jam next off-season and leave them empty-handed.

Rockies in relief

The Colorado Rockies certainly aren’t waiting around as they have put plenty of money into their bullpen in recent weeks.

They re-signed free agent Jake McGee to a 3-year, $27m contract (approximately £127k per week), gave the same contract to Bryan Shaw (formerly of the Cleveland Indians) essentially to replace the departed Pat Neshek and then signed Wade Davis to a 3-year, $52m contract (approximately £245k per week) to replace Greg Holland (a free agent yet to find another team).

We all know that the performance of relief pitchers can be quite volatile year-to-year so committing this amount of money to three relievers is a risk.  However, the Rockies’ relievers played an important part in the club earning a Wild Card in 2017, so it’s not surprising that they’ve decided to spend money in that area in an attempt to keep that part of the team strong.

Here’s how the Rockies’ bullpen ranked in Fangraphs WAR over the past five seasons, alongside Colorado’s win-loss record:

2017 – 87-74 (2nd NL Wild Card) – Rockies relievers ranked 6th in MLB with a 6.4 WAR
2016 – 75-87, ranked 23rd (3.9)
2015 – 68-94, ranked 22nd (2.0)
2014 – 66-96, ranked 29th (-0.2)
2013 – 74-88,  ranked 10th (4.2).

The 2013 bullpen was pretty good, although not much else on the team was. The relief corps were led by Matt Belisle, Adam Ottavino and Rex Brothers, and looking through their stats reminded me that Roy Oswalt made 3 relief appearances for them that year.

The Rockies had a very positive 2017 despite their major free agent signing from the off-season not working out. Signing Ian Desmond to a 5-year, $70m contract with the intention of him playing first base looked a questionable decision to put it mildly. His progress wasn’t helped by several injuries and that was unfortunate, yet he didn’t play well when he was on the field either.

Desmond’s downturn didn’t scupper the Rockies in 2017, but the same probably won’t be the case in 2018 if their bullpen spending doesn’t produce the goods.  It’s a risk and a package of spending that plenty of writers have questioned, but there’s a bit of me that likes the fact that they’re at least having a go.

Phillies adding too

The Philadelphia Phillies are another team who have made a few dips into the free agent market, signing relievers Pat Neshek and Tommy Hunter and then adding former Cleveland Indian Carlos Santana on a three-year, $60m contract (approximately £283k per week).

The Phillies are a great example of how teams can go in cycles in MLB. They’ve been in rebuilding mode in the last five/six seasons after a dominant five-year run at the top of the NL East between 2007 and 2011 during which they made it to the World Series twice (winning in 2008).  They were in the top three or four of all MLB payrolls between 2010 and 2014 before slashing costs and heading into the bottom third of MLB spending over the past couple of years.

Now that their young talent is starting to emerge at the Major League level – Rhys Hoskins especially catching the eye last season – the Phillies are being linked with making a big move among the elite free agent talent in the next off-season.

However, there’s value in the Phillies adding some talent around their youngsters this year too and getting back into play-off contention in stages, rather than trying to make a big jump.  Money talks loudest, but a good jump forward in 2018 (maybe to 78/80 wins or so) may also help to convince a big free agent that the Phillies are heading in the right direction and that the new signing will not have to turn them around on his own.

More Marlins misery

The latest instalment in the Miami Marlins saga was revealed by the Miami Herald this week after they got hold of documents that Derek Jeter and his fellow Marlins’ owners sent around to potential investors.

Among other dispiriting revelations was the detail of Project Wolverine as it was called that set out the ownership’s hopes for boosting revenue whilst significantly cutting the MLB payroll and therefore promising investors a healthy return on their investment.

It just adds even more salt to the wounds for Marlins fans that the pain of seeing Stanton, Ozuna and Gordon traded away (with more likely also heading out of the door) and knowing that they will be sitting through more years of poor baseball from their team will all go to help line the pockets of rich investors.

It’s hard to imagine a fanbase being treated more poorly than what those that follow the Marlins have had to endure in recent years.

More writers joining The Athletic

The subscription-based sports-writing site The Athletic is continuing to add impressive names to their baseball coverage.  Most notable for me has been the full-time appointment this week of Melissa Lockard who for years has provided outstanding coverage of Oakland A’s prospects at Oakland Clubhouse.  She’s the new staff writer/editor of the San Francisco section of The Athletic.

If you’re a fan of multiple North American sports then a subscription for The Athletic is quickly becoming close to a must-have.  I only really follow baseball so, as with the ESPN Inside subscription over the years, in that situation it’s a bit more of a decision as to how much value you get when a considerable amount of coverage relates to sports you may not be greatly interested in.  However, the increasing amount and high quality of baseball coverage they offer has tempted me in, so I’ll update in a month or so as to value for money when it comes to pure baseball fans.

First impression is that the website easily allows you to select what sports/teams you’re interested in seeing stories about, so if baseball is your focus you can just choose to display those (and then amend/update it as you like from then on).

Books on the way

We’re also at the time of year when pre-season book purchases are being considered.  The two main titles I buy are the Baseball Prospectus Annual and the Ron Shandler Baseball Forecaster.  The usual UK book outlets have 15 January as the release date for the Forecaster and 9 February for BP.  I’m counting down the days, but you can find that the dates are pushed back a bit when it comes to UK online shops having them in stock.

It’s also worth noting that the price of Kindle versions of baseball books (probably US books more generally) can change quite significantly.  For example, when the Bill James Handbook 2018 was released the Kindle version initially was almost the same price as the paperback version (approximately £18), but a few weeks on the price was revised down to approximately £12. If you’re going the Kindle route – I’ve found over the years I tend to prefer getting paperback versions of stat-based books – you can often end up saving £5 or so just by waiting a bit before Amazon.co.uk adjusts the price.

MLB 2017 Final Day: Everyone gets to play in October

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It’s always a shame when we get to the final day of the MLB regular season and there is nothing significant still to play for.

Looking through the standings, the only potential thing to ‘win’ would be the first draft pick in next year’s amateur draft, which goes to the team with the worst win-loss record.

The San Francisco Giants (63-98) are one loss ‘better off’ than the Detroit Tigers (64-97) in the race to the bottom. If the Giants foolishly go and win today against the San Diego Padres and the Tigers lose then they’ll be matched on 64-98.

Normally with tie-breaker situations you look at the results of the games the two teams played against each other, but I’m not sure quite how that works here.

The Tigers won their inter-league series 2-1, which should mean they finish higher, although in the circumstances they might feel that the victory should result in them finishing last so they get the number one pick. Such is the weirdness that creating an incentive to finish last leads to.

Anyway, despite the Tigers’ protestations, I suspect that the Giants do have the worst record sewn-up already on that tie-breaker (I was going to look it up, but thought better of it), so we are where we are and can enjoy the final day as simply a day of baseball with not much riding on it.

Division winners

Looking at the almost-final standings, you can’t escape the conclusion that the teams most people thought would win the six divisions heading into the year have done so.

Neither the LA Dodgers and Washington Nationals had a strong challenger on paper and so it proved, whilst the Chicago Cubs also came through with a handy gap in the end despite the NL Central being harder work for them than we might have thought.

The Cleveland Indians blitzed the AL Central, in no small part thanks to their incredible 22-game winning streak, Boston kept the New York Yankees at bay in the East and the Houston Astros took all the fun out of the AL West (for the other four teams at least) by going 38-16 across April and May and never looking back. An 11-17 August counted for little, particularly when they responded with a 20-8 September.

Wild Cards

The above is partly the whole point of having the Wild Card round. We had predictable division winners this year because they were all blatantly going to be really good teams and were only going to be beaten if they had a disaster or two to give someone else a chance.

That’s not a bad thing in my book. Whilst surprises are always fun, ultimately you should want there to be impressive teams that rack up wins in the regular season and make their eventual clashes in the post-season all the more enthralling.

The Wild Card, especially the second Wild Card, adds something else to the play-off pot.

It creates the potential for other strong teams to get in, such as the Yankees this time around. Despite the negatives you can throw at the Wild Card play-in game from a fairness point of view, the AL East was a great example of one of the main positives.

There is a huge potential difference between winning the division and going straight through to the best-of-five Division Series, compared with flipping a coin in the lose-and-you’re-out Wild Card game. Potential is the key word there, as if you manage to win the Wild Card game your odds of winning it all aren’t all that much lower than the other Division Series competitors. However, the risk of your play-offs only lasting one game means that the division is always worth fighting for now, which wasn’t the case when there was only one Wild Card per league.

NL W(ild Card)

The second Wild Card means that if there are three strong teams in one division in a given year, they could all have a chance of making it to the post-season.

That’s happened this year in the NL West. The Colorado Rockies were a somewhat surprising third-placed finisher last year behind the Dodgers and Giants, yet their 75-87 record to get there – after losing 96 and 94 games in the previous two seasons – gave reason to be cautious about being too optimistic for their hopes in 2017.

In fact, it proved to be indicative of the potential that was there at Coors Field and they’ve fully earned their first play-off appearance since 2009.

The Rockies’ progress in 2017 is nothing compared to that of the team that will be hosting them for the NL Wild Card on Wednesday. 2016 was a disaster for the Arizona Diamondbacks after they made big moves in the off-season – spending $206m on Zack Greinke and a king’s ransom in a trade for Shelby Miller – only to lose 93 games. Various people lost their jobs as a result, but there was still some talent at the club and the potential for a quick return to respectability.

They far exceeded that and enter the final day of the regular season with the joint-sixth highest win total across the Majors with 92. No one can say the D-Backs haven’t earned their play-off appearance.

Twins and the AL Wild Card game

As for the Minnesota Twins, well, some people aren’t being quite so generous in their praise of the second AL Wild Card winners.

They’ve earned their spot because they’ve got the fifth-best record in the American League and five teams qualify for the play-offs from each league. However, they enter the final day with a win-loss record of 84-77.

In football people often say the league table doesn’t lie at the end of a season; in other words, where you end up is generally a good reflection on how good your team was.

MLB takes that further by playing a 162-game regular season. Randomness can still come into, but by and large that’s more than enough time for the cream to rise to the top, the chaff to be separated from the wheat, and the middling middlers to settle in the middle.

It is fair to say that Minnesota are more middly than creamy.

That doesn’t matter in the least for the Minnesota Twins, who can smile away any jibes by knowing there are 20 other teams that would love to be in their position. They’ve made it to the play-offs a year after losing 103 games. They’ve won 25 more games than they did last year and can make it 26 if they win on Sunday. That’s a real achievement for Paul Molitor and his team.

And as for the AL Wild Card game

The problem some have with the Wild Card game in a situation like this is that a team that has earned a significantly better record over 162 games than their opponent can be knocked out by losing one game.

There’s no escaping that this isn’t completely fair, but there’s one important thing to note about it this year.

The New York Yankees have won more World Series than any other team and broken more hearts than anyone else along the way too. The ‘Evil Empire’ moniker isn’t being thrown around quite so much now as it had been the previous 10-15 years, but there’s a reason why it became a thing in the first place. Yankees fans, like fans of any all-conquering team, understand that people love to hate them.

So if it does happen and the Twins do dump the Yankees out on Tuesday night – and it certainly could – then whilst the strict analysts may bemoan it, the rest of us can have a good chuckle about it.

#ThumbsUp

April highlights from MLB

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One month into the MLB regular season and there have already been enough stories to last a year.

Here are some of the key things that have happened.

Early struggles

Any team or player can go through a tricky month, so we should be wary of taking a bad April to always be a sign of things to come. It’s not easy to be pragmatic like that when it’s your team in the stir, though.

The Toronto Blue Jays have been a constant source of worry for their fans during the first month. They’ve picked up a bit of late so they no longer hold the worst record in the Majors, but having the second-worst record (8-17) isn’t much of a consolation.

They’ve been bedevilled by injuries – a common theme as we’ll see – and the return of Jose Bautista, who looked likely to leave as a free agent over the off-season, has not started well.  Bautista has always been the sort of player loved by his own fans but hated by opponents, and it’s fair to say his struggles have not evoked much sympathy. He has the sort of attitude that would use that negativity to spur him on; however at 36 years old it’s possible this may not just be a one-month blip and instead a sign of his decline as a force at the plate.

The team that does hold the worst record is the Kansas City Royals. The tragic death of pitcher Yordano Ventura continues to cast a shadow over the club, as does the looming free agent status of a number of core players (Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain being the main ones).  It looks like this is the end of the line for this World Series-winning group and they may be set for a rebuild, which is a shame for their fans but the memories of their 2015 triumph will sustain them for years to come.

In the National League, it’s the Royals’ World Series opponents from 2014 and 2015 that are getting most of the flak.

The San Francisco Giants have started slowly and whilst there’s enough talent on their roster to get back into the Wild Card race, losing Madison ‘I’m just a crashing dirt bike numpty’ Bumgarner for a couple of months at least is a significant blow. Much as it would be just like the Giants, and especially just like MadBum, to defy the odds and stage a glorious comeback, they’re making things very difficult for themselves.

The same could be said for the New York Mets. Injuries, injuries, injuries is the story here and what’s most concerning is the sense that this isn’t just down to bad luck. Yoenis Cespedes and Noah Syndergaard are the latest two stars to reportedly pull rank and play through fitness concerns, only to make matters worse. You don’t like to criticise players who are desperate to be on the field, but it does raise questions as to who is in charge and looking at the bigger picture of a long season.

10-day DL

The Mets’ management of injury concerns comes at a time when we’re seeing a significant change in the approach of teams towards injuries.

One of the many changes brought about by the new Collective Bargaining Agreement signed over the off-season was the introduction of a 10-day Disabled List, down from the 15-days that it had been for many years.

The disabled list is something that can confuse Brits new to MLB. The starting point is simply that the players on the DL are injured; however formally placing them on the DL is part of managing the strict limit of 25 players that a team has at their disposal on a given day.

An MLB team’s 25-man roster is part of their overall 40-man roster of players, and this is then part of an organisation-wide group of players throughout their 5 or 6 Minor League teams (‘feeder’ teams, in a sense).

The Disabled List is there so that teams can’t simply game the system by having a large squad of players to mix-and-match from every single day. If a player on your active 25-man roster picks up an injury, you either have to play short-handed while he recovers or place him on the DL so that you can put someone in his place.

With a 15-day DL, teams were more inclined to keep hold of a player for minor niggles rather than have to be without them for a couple of weeks. The Players Association (union) were keen to change this as it tended to mean players were back out on the field earlier than they probably should have been.

The idea of the 10-day DL is that the shorter time period will make teams err on the side of caution and give the player time to recuperate fully. The first month of the new rule has shown this to be the case. More players are going on the DL and this has a knock-effect in ‘real’ baseball (opportunities for other players to get some Major League service time) and in ‘fantasy’ baseball.

Doing well despite the injuries

The Washington Nationals were many people’s favourites for the NL East division this season and they’ve shown why during April by amassing an MLB-leading 17-8 record. That positivity comes with the recent blow of losing off-season recruit Adam Eaton to a knee injury that looks set to see him miss the rest of the season.

The actual impact of his absence on the Nationals’ play-off hopes is lessened by how strong their roster is, although losing a good player like Eaton is always going to be a blow.

You could say the same about the Boston Red Sox and David Price. They’re not pulling up any trees so far, but a 13-11 April keeps them nicely in the running and Chris Sale has been outstanding.

Price is continuing his rehabilitation from an arm injury that many feared could see him miss the entire season and whilst there’s still no firm timetable for his return, currently it looks like he may be back on a Major League mound at the end of May or beginning of June. There’s no need to rush him, despite the competitive nature of the AL East, and if he can be up to speed for the second-half of the season then they’ll have an intimidating front three to their rotation with reigning Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello an impressive ‘number three’ to call on.

The ‘nice’ start for Boston comes with the ominous signs of a young New York Yankees team that doesn’t see 2017 as a rebuilding year. They’ve looked really impressive in April, Aaron Judge in particularly showing off his incredible power at the plate, all whilst being without Didi Gregorious for most of the month and their best young player, Gary Sanchez, heading to the DL. He could be back in the lineup by the end of this week so this could be much more than just a good start.

If they can keep it up, the Yankees will be in a very different position at this year’s trade deadline than they were in 2016. Whilst last year they were shopping veteran players for prospects, this year they may use some of their prospect depth to add a starting pitcher (Jose Quintana would be the obvious one) to make a play-off push.

The Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks also shouldn’t be overlooked as they’re the NL West front-runners in the early going.

The Rockies have started well despite their main off-season recruit, Ian Desmond, only just making his debut yesterday due to recovering from a fractured left hand. As for the D-Backs, they’ve suffered the blow of losing pitcher Shelby Miller to an elbow injury that will almost certainly require Tommy John surgery and over a year on the sidelines. It’s a cruel blow considering he’d shown positive signs in his first couple of starts after a miserable 2016 and will add to the case of Arizona signing him being one of the worst trade decisions by a team in recent history.

Other players standing out

Marcus Thames has been the big story of April, swatting 11 home runs for the Milwaukee Brewers in his first month back in the Big Leagues after a three-year stint in the Korean league. Sadly his power surge has prompted the inevitable sniping from some that drugs may be involved, but Thames came back with a great response (“If people keep thinking I’m on stuff, I’ll be here every day. I have a lot of blood and urine”).

The Houston Astros’ Dallas Keuchel beat the Oakland A’s on Sunday to make it a perfect 5-0 record from his first five starts. Painful as it was to watch for this A’s fan in some ways, you have to appreciate a pitcher like Keuchel who doesn’t rely on 95+ mph fastballs to mow down opposing line-ups.

Ervin Santana will look to equal Keuchel’s record 5-0 record on Tuesday night starting against, of course, the A’s (Sonny Gray will make his much-anticipated first start of the season for Oakland in that game too). Santana’s strong start for the Minnesota Twins has been a great surprise for his team and, as is the way, puts him in the shop window for a potential trade later in the season.

Finally, Chris Coghlan deserves a mention for what he did against Yadi Molina and the St Louis Cardinals. Dives in football are rightly condemned; in baseball, they can be a thing of wonder.

Who’s gone where?

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The first weekend of February is a good time to take stock of the baseball off-season and to get your head around the question of ‘who’s gone where?’.

That led me to go through the essential MLB section on RosterResources.com and to chart out the main additions and losses for every team so far this off-season.

I started with two transactions in mind as the most important and the exercise confirmed that to be the case.

The Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians were two of the best teams in the Majors in 2017 and they’ve each made a notable signing this winter to reinforce their status as favourites to battle for the American League World Series spot.

Chris Sale’s trade to Boston from the Chicago White Sox adds an ace to a rotation that already boasted David Price and reigning Cy Young winner Rick Porcello. So long as Sale doesn’t get frustrated and go all Edward Scissorhands on us again, he should be a genuine difference-maker in the AL East.

As for Cleveland, they’ve responded to narrowly losing in the World Series by making an uncharacteristic splash in the free agent market. Few would have put much money on the Indians winning the bidding war for Edwin Encarnacion, but the former Blue Jay is indeed a new member of the Tribe and one of several reasons to be confident that their successful 2016 season will not prove to be a one-off.

What the winter hasn’t provided though is a clear case of a team making a big leap forward into the play-off reckoning.

That’s not a complete surprise as the 2016/17 free agent class was one of the weakest of recent years. Additionally, three of the most appealing free agents had come to the end of their contracts with the Los Angeles Dodgers: Kenley Jansen, Rich Hill and Justin Turner. The Dodgers used their financial clout to keep the trio out of the clutches of any potential rivals and made a small quality free agent pool even smaller.

We should also not forget that the team that made the biggest noise over the previous winter was the Arizona Diamondbacks. To say that their plan – if we can call it that – didn’t work out would be a huge understatement. Winning the off-season doesn’t offer guarantees that you’ll win in the regular season.

However, there have been some interesting transactions completed and here are three teams worth keeping an eye on.

The Houston Astros were a relative disappointment in 2016 after their play-off appearance the previous year. They completed most of their off-season work early, making it easy to forget that they have made some decent additions. Carlos Beltran, Josh Reddick and Brian McCann have joined a batting lineup that was already one of the better units in the Majors. Whether their pitching staff will take a step forward could be the key question for their 2017 prospects.

The Seattle Mariners’ General Manager Jerry Dipoto should simply referred to as ‘The Trader’. He is always keen on making a deal and has completed plenty of trades this off-season, with the most notable additoins being Drew Smyly, Yovani Gallardo, Jean Segura, Mitch Haniger and Jarrod Dyson whilst Taijuan Walker, Nathan Karns and Seth Smith head the list of players that have been moved on. They finished second in the AL West in 2016, albeit a fair way behind division-winners Texas, and we’ll see if the cumulative effect of the trades have made them better or not.

Finally, the Colorado Rockies managed a surprising third-placed finish in the NL West last year, although their 75-87 win-loss record showed that was more down to Arizona and San Diego’s poor play than their own positive performance. Undeterred, they decided to up the ante by signing Ian Desmond to a five-year, $70m contract and then announced that the intention is for him to play at first base. It ranks as one of the more baffling decisions made in recent years, worth keeping an eye on for the ‘so crazy it just might work’ potential it has.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Opening week stories

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WHGB11Whether it was Rajai Davis battling the snow to make a catch in the outfield, Tom Wilhelmson getting smacked around by his former teammates – and then thrown out of the game for throwing at one of them – or Kyle Schwarber suffering a season-ending knee injury, the Opening Week of the 2016 MLB season has not been easy for some, but it’s certainly been eventful.

Story of the week

Where else could we start than Trevor Story’s first four games in the Major Leagues. Whilst his home-run hitting streak came to an end on Saturday, his six long-balls had already made him the big story of the week, all the more so thanks to him having a surname ripe for puns and headlines.

It will be said time and time again this month that we should not get caught up in April performances. Players and teams can get hot for days or a few weeks at any point during the season and it’s easy to exaggerate the real significance of this when that hot streak comes so early in the season.

We saw a similar event ten years ago. Then it was the Detroit Tigers’ Chris Shelton who hit five home runs from the first four games of the season. He hit only 11 more across the rest of the season and played just 50 further Big League games across 2008 and 2009 before his Major League career came to an end.

Later that same month, the Texas Rangers’ Kevin Mench hit a home run in seven consecutive games and left some wondering if the streak would ever come to an end. It did, of course, and he subsequently hit only five more bombs across the rest of the season with the Rangers and Milwaukee Brewers before playing out the final 179 games over the next four years during which he hit eight home runs in total.

Not much was expected of Shelton or Mench. In Story’s case, it was already thought that he could provide some legitimate power to the Rockies’ offence. His Baseball Prospectus 2016 capsule noted that he had amassed some high strikeout totals in the minors that could carry across the Majors, but “in between some awkward flails at wayward breaking balls he’ll inflict serious damage”.

Six homers in four games certainly falls under the definition of “serious damage”. Like all young players he will go through some growing pains as pitchers learn and exploit his weaknesses and he will then have to adjust his approach, but there’s reason to believe that Trevor’s story won’t end on these first four games and there will be plenty of chapters to enjoy in the years ahead for him at Coors Field.

Slide rule

After Chase Utley broke Ruben Tejada’s leg in the high-profile 2015 NLDS game between the Dodgers and Mets it was inevitable that a new rule would be introduced.

It was also inevitable that it would cause some problems early in the season; however, few could have predicted those problems would come in two game-ending plays during the first week.

The first occasion between the Rays and Blue Jays was more clear-cut once the emotion of the game was removed and John Gibbons’ embarrassing ‘wearing dresses’ comment was rightly condemned. Jose Bautista made his slide into second base and then clearly went to grab Logan Forsythe’s leg with his hand. That’s not breaking up a double-play, that’s intentionally interfering with a fielder.

 

The ruling that ended the Houston Astros’ ninth-inning rally against the Brewers on Friday night was not so clear-cut. It was clear in the sense that Colby Rasmus broke the new rule by sliding past second base, but not in the sense of complying with the reason for bringing the rule in. The infielder was at no risk and had no intention of trying to turn a double-play, yet the umpires correctly applied the rule as it’s now worded and awarded the Brewers a double-play to end the game.

It’s safe to say that some clarification on how the rule should be interpreted will be provided by MLB in the next couple of weeks to bring it more in line with expectations.

It’s equally safe to say that having games end on a replay review is one of the most jarring compromises to be accepted alongside the benefits of the replay system.

DH in the NL? Not for MadBum

The debate around whether the Designated Hitter rule should be extended to the National League has some very entrenched views on either side.

Personally, I like to see professional athletes having to work on different facets of their chosen sport – skillful rugby players needing to get their tackling and positional sense up to a level where they’re not a liability etc – and I’m quite happy to live with pitchers getting over-matched if that means they have to develop their ability to get a good bunt down.

It also means that the pitchers that can hit get to enjoy themselves occasionally. Madison Bumgarner did just that against Clayton Kershaw yesterday with a home run to left-field, the second time he’s taken Kershaw deep.

MadBum won that battle, but Kershaw and the Dodgers won the war that day with a tenth-inning 3-2 victory.

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

WHGB: Notes from MLB Opening Week

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WHGB11There were 15 MLB games yesterday, 15 today and then another 14 tomorrow. After so many months without it, you very quickly get back into the swing of having baseball to enjoy every day.

I’m planning to publish articles a bit more regularly this season rather than bringing everything together into a weekly column, but there will still be weeks when I have a range of things to comment on that don’t fit into their own article.

I’ll badge them up under my usual ‘Weekly Hit Ground Ball’ theme, so just bear in mind that they might not be quite so weekly as the name suggests.

Good starts for some

It happens every season: several teams get off to good or bad starts and there’s an overreaction as to how representative that early record is compared to the true talent of the team concerned.

It’s not just baseball this happens in either. Aston Villa took 10 points from their first four games of the 2014/15 Premier League season and ridiculously gave manager Paul Lambert a contract extension on the back of it. “We can look to the future with real optimism”, Lambert said at the time. When reality set in (and considering their early good form included an unconvincing 2-1 home win against Hull and a 0-0 home bore draw against Newcastle, it shouldn’t have needed much thinking time) he ended up being hounded out in mid February with the team fighting a relegation battle.

So, nobody should be too quick to put money on the 4-1 Colorado Rockies winning the NL West, nor to laugh at the Washington Nationals’ pre-season favourites tag due to their 1-4 start.

Having written that, the Atlanta Braves should be celebrating their 5-0 start considering their lowly expectations for the year ahead, just as Cincinnati Reds can delight in their 4-1 start at home, and the Kansas City Royals can see their 5-0 start as a thumb in the eye for all who considered their 2014 World Series appearance to be a fluke.

Those starts to the season may not be the least bit indicative of the year ahead, but that doesn’t mean fans of those teams can’t enjoy them all the same.

Breakfast baseball

One part of following MLB in the UK that I neglected to mention in my recent article was the wonderful bonus of breakfast time baseball that we occasionally get to enjoy. This is typically when a west coast game runs on for a while – perhaps going into extra innings or due to a rain delay – so that the game is still ongoing around 7 a.m. BST.

We got our first dose of Bonus Breakfast Baseball on Wednesday morning and it was a memorable way to start as it featured Craig Kimbrel making his San Diego Padres debut. Kimbrel didn’t disappoint, striking out all three LA Dodgers batters he faced and leaving his new teammates like James Shields laughing in the dugout at the ease in which he can make Major Leaguer hitters look so helpless.

Rodriguez record approaching

Pitcher Masahiro Tanaka captured most of the attention from the New York Yankees’ opening game as concerns about the state of his elbow continue to keep the Yankee beat writers occupied. However, the other main story coming out of the game was the largely positive reaction Alex Rodriguez received from the home crowd following his year-long drug-related suspension.

Rodriguez undoubtedly will be booed at every other stadium he plays in – although that’s nothing new – but it was less certain quite how the Bronx faithful would respond to him wearing pinstripes once again.

The majority appear to have taken the stance that he has served his time and so long as he is trying to help their team win games from here, they will support him like they do the rest of their players. That may well change if he starts slumping at the plate as the season progresses.

The interesting story will come if Rodriguez does have a decent season and continues to add more home runs to the one he hit against Toronto on Thursday. The Yankees spent much of the off-season seemingly trying to find ways to get out of their contract with him and particularly in respect of the marketing bonuses he will receive as he reaches new home run landmarks.

Heading into Sunday, Rodriguez is fifth on the all-time MLB home run list with 655 and just five homers behind Willie Mays. The Yankees will have to pay him $6m if he gets to 660 and the next man on the list to catch is Yankee legend Babe Ruth with 714. Ruth’s tally will likely prove to be out of reach as Rodriguez turns 40 in July, but 660 should be only a matter of time and as pessimism over the team’s 2015 prospects already starts to grow, we may find the Yankees make more of the event than you might have thought just a few months ago.

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.

Offseason so far: NL West

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We complete our round-up of the offseason so far in the National League West division, home of the big-spending L.A. Dodgers.

Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers pushed past the Yankees last season with the highest payroll in the Majors. Their big spending this offseason has largely been based around keeping hold of their Cy Young-winning ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who earned himself a seven-year, $215m contract extension.

Despite the investment in Kershaw, they still pushed hard to sign Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, only for the Yankees to show they’re still the Yankees and to beat them to the punch on Wednesday.

The Dodgers had already added a pitcher to their starting rotation in the shape of Dan Haren who will take over the spot vacated by Ricky Nolasco after he left as a free agent to join the Twins. In the infield, Mark Ellis and Nick Punto have moved on and been replaced by Cuban free agent second baseman Alexander Guerrero.

The pursuit of Tanaka may well have been a case of the Dodgers looking at any opportunity to add a top talent, so they’re not guaranteed to jump back into the market to spend some of that money on someone else. Don’t rule it out completely though.

Arizona Diamondbacks

The D-Backs were another finalist in the Tanaka talks and they are much more likely to get straight back out there to try and add a starting pitcher. They have some good pitchers on the staff, yet it’s certainly an area that they would want to strengthen if they are to make a strong challenge for a Wild Card, let alone keeping up with the Dodgers.

Their main moves so far this offseason have concentrated on the trade market. Mark Trumbo was acquired from the Angels and will take over in left field and Addison Reed was obtained from the White Sox to take on the closer role, with Heath Bell being traded away to the Rays.

San Francisco Giants

The Giants recent form has been to win a World Series, then have a disappointing season, then win a World Series and then, last year, have a disappointing season. Giants fans will be quite happy to have gone through the sub-.500 season of 2013 if that trend continues, although they haven’t made too many significant changes to the roster to bring that about.

Tim Hudson has been added to the starting rotation on a two-year, $23m contract which could turn out to be one of the best value deals of the offseason. ‘Best value’ isn’t something you’d associate with the seven-year, $126m contract the Giants signed with Barry Zito back in December 2006, but mercifully that has now come to an end and Zito’s still looking to catch on with a new team.

They’ll hope for better luck with their decision to keep hold of Tim Lincecum. The fan favourite has been patchy in recent seasons and it looked like his time with the Giants might be up, but they were able to come to an agreement on a two-year, $35m contract.

San Diego Padres

The Padres may have made one of the better one-year deals of the offseason in tempting Josh Johnson to Petco Park. The pitcher had another injury-hit season in 2013, his one year with the Blue Jays before becoming a free agent, and that made it likely he’d be available on a short-term deal. Johnson gets a chance to get his career back on track in a good pitcher’s ballpark, whilst the Padres could get an impressive return on an $8m investment.

San Diego have also added Joaquin Benoit on a two-year deal to serve as set-up man for closer Huston Street. He’ll take over from Luke Gregerson who was traded to the A’s for outfielder Seth Smith.

Colorado Rockies

The Rockies have been quite busy over the offseason, although they haven’t looked like they’ve had much of a plan in recent years to make their fans feel confident that the team is going in a defined direction.

Their pitching additions include Franklin Morales and Brett Anderson slotting into the rotation, whilst LaTroy Hawkins and Boone Logan will join the bullpen. Dexter Fowler has been traded to the Astros, with Drew Stubbs being acquired from the Indians to take his place in the outfield mix. The biggest change will be at first base as Todd Helton decided to retire after playing his entire 17-year career with the team. Justin Morneau will take his place on the roster.

Brew View: Dregs at the bottom of the glass

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We’re back! The all-singing, all-dancing half time spectacular that is the All Star Game is over and we embark on a whole new half-season.

Brewers vs Rockies

For my Brewers that means celebrating our first ever All Star MVP – Prince Fielder, as well as appearances from Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun, making the Brewers the most-represented team on the National League elected starting roster. Continue reading →