Tag Archives: Kansas City Royals

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Rookie Managers Making It Look Easy

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Alex Cora and Mickey Callaway must have their feet up in their respective manager’s office thinking that this managing malarkey is easy.

Cora’s Red Sox sit astride the Major Leagues with a 12-2 record heading into Sunday’s games, with Callaway’s Mets close behind on 11-2 having had their nine-game winning streak brought to an end by Milwaukee yesterday.

Meanwhile, it turns out the Phillies’ manager Gabe Kapler might not be completely clueless – as some declared after his first three games – as his team have won five games in a row to second behind the Mets on an 8-5 record.

The Nationals’ Dave Martinez (7-8) and Yankees’ Aaron Boone (7-7) are holding steady in the early going too, which just leaves veteran Ron Gardenhire among the new managers for 2018 for whom the start of the season is proving to be a struggle.

Gardenhire has been in the game long enough not to be too envious of those whippersnappers. There are only 30 MLB manager jobs at any one time and even being in charge of a rebuilding Detroit Tigers is a post to be proud of.

However, it is interesting that so many potentially plumb positions ended up in the hands of rookie managers.

Sport teams generally will change a manager when things have gone badly, with the manager holding responsibility for the team’s performance and being the easiest big part to change as opposed to making significant changes to the playing staff.

That often leads to an ‘opposite ends’ approach to the recruitment of managers, especially in football.  If a ‘back-to-basics’ experienced British manager gets the boot then a younger continental manager is just what’s needed.  If relegation looms with said younger continental manager’s brand of ‘tippy-tappy’ football not working in England, well of course you need a ‘back-to-basics’ experienced British manager to shake things up.

It’s not quite the same in baseball as the manager here has a different brief to work towards (accepting manager/head coach roles vary among football clubs too), yet you still see that approach being taken and, to varying degrees, that goes for the six new managers in MLB this year.

The situation in Washington was the most extreme. Ex-manager Dusty Baker has his critics from previous managerial stints, yet it’s difficult to see quite what he did in his two years at the helm with the Nationals to deserve to be pushed aside over the off-season rather than to continue with the team. They won 95 and 97 games in 2016 and 2017 and whilst consecutive 3-2 Division Series exits were bitterly disappointing when expectations of a World Series were so high, in the cold light of day there wasn’t much about those series defeats that you could pin on Baker.

His departure was a classic case of the team wanting to change something to get over the Division Series hump and Baker being the easiest option.  They changed from a 68 year-old with 22 MLB managerial seasons of experience to Dave Martinez, a 53 year-old who is taking on his first MLB managerial job after serving an apprenticeship under Joe Maddon at the Rays and Cubs.

The changes in Boston and New York were more understandable.

The Red Sox won 93 games and the AL East before being knocked out of the play-offs by a formidable Houston Astros team, so it was hardly a disaster on the field last year. However, it never seemed like a happy camp under John Farrell and so bringing his five-year reign to a close and moving on to the dynamic young Alex Cora looked like a shake-up move at somewhere that needed a shake-up.

The same could be said for the Mets, although in their case the 2017 season undoubtedly was a disaster.  Terry Collins had outstayed his welcome so bringing him back for 2018 was never going to work. Mickey Callaway’s glowing reputation from his five years as pitching coach under Terry Francona in Cleveland made him an obvious candidate to take over at a team whose fortunes are so heavily invested in the form and fitness of their starting pitching.

Aaron Boone was a left-field choice for the Yankees, yet fits into the ‘opposite ends’ idea by virtue of his excellent communication skills – shown to all in his work with ESPN – being cited as a crucial factor in his appointment. Joe Girardi had served a decade as the Yankees’ manager and many on the New York beat had started bemoaning his increased willingness to say very little in his managerial briefings long before it was announce he would not be returning for 2018.  It wasn’t simply the New York press wishing for someone more quote-worthy – although I’m sure that makes their lives much easier – but more that their experience was indicative of what they were picking up from players too: that Girardi was failing to inspire his team any more.

Those four situations are all about winning now, which is different to the roles that Gabe Kapler and Ron Gardenhire are taking on. In Philadelphia, they are firmly on the way up with a young team and so switched the 66 year-old Pete Mackanin for 42 year-old rookie manager Kapler.  In Detroit, they are at the start of a rebuild and decided that the experienced head of Gardenhire was what was needed at this point to move on from first-time manager Brad Ausmus, whose four-year tenure produced mixed results.

These are early days in the 2018 season and none of us can be certain how the six managerial appointments will pan out over the next few years, but it is likely we can take a good guess at the type of manager they will be replaced by when that time comes.

That is, someone the opposite of who they are replacing.

The Sunday Smasher

The Bangles sang that “It’s just another manic Monday”.

In MLB the song goes: “It’s just another Shohei Sunday”.

The Angels’ Japanese star is back on the mound today and after he went six perfect innings against the A’s last time out, he now gets to face the Kansas City Royals who have the worst record in MLB so far this season.

In other words, this has ‘potential no-hitter’ written all over it.  Or it will produce a big shock of the Royals being the line-up to knock Ohtani out of his stride. Either way, it will be worth watching.

First pitch from Kauffman Stadium is at 19.15 BST and the game is available to watch on MLB.TV.

MLB Sleepyhead Summary: Twins = Wins

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The MLB Sleepyhead Summary is a new regular column that helps British baseball fans keep up to speed with MLB despite the time difference!

The Minnesota Twins started last season by losing their first nine games.

An 0-9 start isn’t much fun for anyone, but when you have the word ‘wins’ in your nickname, you’re going to hear about it even more than most.

They briefly responded to the jeers by reeling off four consecutive wins, but that’s where the comeback ended. 2016 was a miserable year for Minnesota as the team ended up with a 59-103 record, the worst in all of MLB.

Unsurprisingly, expectations were not exactly high for the Twins to mount a play-off challenge in 2017, yet they continue to confound the naysayers as we head into the last two weeks of August.

The Twins have won 11 of their last 13 games, including a sweep over the Arizona Diamondbacks this past weekend (Sunday’s win driven by a nine-run first inning), to draw themselves level with the LA Angels for the second Wild Card spot. Baseball Prospectus currently gives them a 33.4% chance of making it to the post-season, which would be a fantastic story if they can pull it off.

Minnesota have a chance to earn some wins this week at the expense of the AL’s worst team. They have a five-game series away to the Chicago White Sox, beginning with a double-header on Monday, and if they can build on their 7-4 season record so far this season against the Sox they could start to win over even more of the non-believers.

More AL Wild Card shuffling

The Angels beat Wild Card rivals the Baltimore Orioles 2-1 in this weekend’s series, with the Orioles’ sole win being powered by the outstanding individual player performance of the weekend. Manny Machado launched three home-runs, the final one being the small matter of a walk-off grand slam, in a thrilling 9-7 victory.

The Angels move on to a four-game series against rivals the Texas Rangers, whilst the Orioles look to gain back some ground in a home series against the Oakland A’s.

Elsewhere in the AL, the Boston Red Sox – fresh off a series victory against the New York Yankees – have a potential play-off preview four-game series against the Cleveland Indians, whilst those Yankees have a three-game set against Detroit.

Seattle and Kansas City will both look to gain ground in the AL Wild Card race by picking up some wins against National League opposition. The Mariners continue their road trip with a visit to Atlanta, whilst the Royals are hosting the Rockies for three games starting on Tuesday.

NL Central race may also become part of the NL Wild Card race

In the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates have the tough task of facing the LA Dodgers four times across Monday to Thursday. The Buccos are now six games back in the NL Central having recovered from a six-game losing streak to win the final two games of their series against the St Louis Cardinals. They need to keep on picking up some wins and that’s not something any team has found easy against the Dodgers this season.

The Cubs and Reds split a four-game series last week and meet up again, this time in Cincinnati, for another three games from Tuesday to Thursday. Meanwhile the Cardinals are hosting the Padres for three games at Busch Stadium and the Milwaukee Brewers are in San Francisco taking on the Giants.

The Brew Crew won two of three at Coors Field against the Colorado Rockies this past weekend and, coupled with the Twins’ sweep of the D-Backs, the play-off picture in the National League is potentially changing. Whereas even just a week ago it looked like the NL Central teams were battling for one play-off spot, Arizona now only has a 2.5 game gap over Milwaukee for the second Wild Card, with the Rockies one game further ahead.

This means that although the Cubs earned back a small gap at the top of the NL Central thanks to their weekend sweep of the Toronto Blue Jays, the Brewers, Cardinals and possibly even the Pirates might have a second chance at making the post-season aside from clawing back the gap at the top of their own division.

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.

MLB 2016 – American League Preview

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MlbHlSqA new baseball season always creates plenty of excitement, yet 2016 promises to be something a bit special.

There are so many great potential story lines – a part of so many teams that potentially could make it to the play-offs – that it’s difficult to know where to begin in rounding them up.

That’s especially the case in the American League.

Whilst there are teams that likely will be out of the play-off conversation when September comes around (to my reckoning: Baltimore, Chicago White Sox, Minnesota, Oakland and Tampa Bay), none of them are punting on the season and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that one of them could still be in with a sniff if things go their way.

You can put together realistic scenarios for most of the teams to at least have a shot at the Wild Card. Here are a couple of the main stories in the three AL divisions alongside my predictions (i.e. somewhat educated guesses) as to who will finish where.

AL East

The Toronto Blue Jays clearly had a good team last year and the logic of them winning the AL East division in 2015 made many overlook that this was a club that hadn’t made it to the play-offs since their back-to-back World Series triumphs in 1992 and 1993.

It was a tremendous achievement for John Gibbons and his men and they will hope that having taken that leap they are set for a period of success; however, there’s a shadow hanging over the club that may call that into question. Sluggers Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are both out of contract at the end of the season and neither have signed an extension as yet, with their own self-imposed ‘start of season’ deadlines about to expire. If that doesn’t change in the next few days, the possibility that two of their core players could both be leaving at the end of the season will add an extra dimension to their campaign.

The Boston Red Sox know that this will be David Ortiz‘s last season as he is set to retire and they will want him to go out on a high note. They’re an interesting team this year. The starting rotation includes plenty of question marks after the newly-recruited ace David Price, but from there this is a roster that should be competing at the sharp end. The thing is, you could have said the same before the 2014 and 2015 seasons and in both cases they didn’t just miss out on the play-offs, they finished dead last in the division. David Ortiz’s send-off is far from the only reason that 2016 has to be different.

AL Central

The projection systems have written off the Kansas City Royals yet again despite back-to-back World Series appearances and capturing the ultimate prize last year.

The Royals are not an extravagantly talented team loaded with stars and instead very admirably have found ways to work around their limitations to be more than the sum of their parts. Their Opening Day starting rotation of Edinson Volquez, Ian Kennedy, Yordano Ventura, Chris Young and Kris Medlen looks underwhelming, for example, but they’re an excellent fielding side and if they can hand over the game to their bullpen with a lead then that’s normally good enough to win the game. Doubting their ability to make it three Fall Classic appearances in a row isn’t unjust; however you shouldn’t be surprised if they do.

Conversely, the Detroit Tigers are still being looked at favourably despite falling to pieces in 2015 and falling to the bottom of the division. They’ve just become the first MLB team to hand out two $100m+ contracts in the same off-season – signing outfielder Justin Upton and pitcher Jordan Zimmermann – so their worst-to-first intentions are clear. If they get some luck with good health to their key players – and that’s a big if – then they just might do it.

AL West

Look through all the predictions and this is the division that has the most people scratching their head when trying to pick a winner. If in doubt, the best starting place is to look back to how things turned out last season, and that would mean the West being a Texas two-step battle once again.

The Houston Astros’ excellent 2015 was a surprise even to the team itself and they will be an exciting club again this year with Carlos Correa and Dallas Keuchel leading the way. It’s worth remembering, though, that they got off to a dazzling start by winning 15 of their 22 games in April and then played just a shade over .500 the rest of the way (71-69) to an 86-76. They will enter this season with expectations on their shoulders, so we’ll have to say how they carry that load.

The Texas Rangers went in the other direction. They struggled through April and on 3rd of May were bottom of the division on an 8-16 record, 9.5 games behind the leading Astros. The Rangers then swept a three-game series in Houston on their way to a 19-11 May and ultimately swept past their Lone Star State rivals on 15 September to go on and win the division.

All of which means that we shouldn’t overact to how the standings look at the end of the first month. The full 162-game regular season showed that both the Astros and Rangers were good teams in 2015 and, irrespective of their April records this year, that’s likely to be the case again in 2016.

My predictions

AL East – Toronto, Boston (WC), NY Yankees, Tampa Bay, Baltimore.

AL Central – Kansas City, Cleveland (WC), Detroit, Chicago WS, Minnesota.

AL West – Texas, Houston, Seattle, LA Angels, Oakland.

Off-season so far: American League

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MlbHlSqGetting on for two weeks ago we looked at the off-season so far in the National League.

When I made some notes for this article they began by stating that no major deals have happened since that point, yet on Saturday that changed with reports of Baltimore re-signing Chris Davis.

There are still a number of free agents on the market that you would have expected to have signed by now though and they may prove to be a difference-maker, especially if signed by a team in the American League.

Currently, whilst the National League has clear dividing lines between genuine contenders and the rest (at least so it appears, we’ve all learned that MLB is capable of surprising us), it’s much harder to nail your colours to the mast of many teams and say they are clearly better than their division rivals at first glance in the AL.

AL East: Boston bouncing back?

The main off-season story has been the two big moves made by the Boston Red Sox. After finishing dead last with a talented but underperforming roster, they’ve responded by signing the best free agent pitcher in David Price (taking him from the reigning division champions) and trading for arguably the best closer in Craig Kimbrel.

Bitter rivals the New York Yankees hit back by trading for flamethrower Aroldis Chapman and, even though he is likely to start the season serving a suspension for an alleged domestic violence incident, he will help to give them a fearsome bullpen as they hope their group of veterans can hold together for one more year.

As for the Toronto Blue Jays, there’s no doubt that losing Price is a blow to their hopes of retaining their crown, especially with him staying in the division. They haven’t done all that much over the offseason – the main moves seeing a reunion with pitcher J.A. Happ and a trade for reliever Drew Storen – and the plan is to hope for full seasons from Marcus Stroman (injured for much of 2015) and Troy Tulowitzki (a mid-season acquisition who also lost time to injury) and that their batting strength continues to come through for them.

I don’t think any of those three teams will be exceptional, but they all have a chance to win 91-92 games and take the division. I’d rank them as 1. TOR, 2, BOS, 3 NYY for now, although I just have a hunch that the Blue Jays might not quite live up to their 2015 season.

I’m putting the contender cut-off at that point even though Baltimore appears to have made a big move this weekend by re-signing Chris Davis. They went 81-81 with him last year and haven’t yet replaced starting pitcher Wei-Yin Chen (who has signed with the Miami Marlins), so don’t look a good bet to improve. Neither do the Tampa Bay Rays, who haven’t done little this off-season and look set to put together a good but not great team again, whilst still punching above their weight against teams with vastly greater financial resources.

AL Central: Royals reign, but can Tigers roar again?

The Kansas City Royals won the Central handsomely before winning the World Series and they have to be favourites again in 2016. Although they parted ways with mid-season recruits like Johnny Cueto (signed with the Giants) and Ben Zobrist (Cubs), they kept hold of Alex Gordon when he appeared to be leaving as a free agent and have added pitcher Ian Kennedy this weekend on a five-year contract.

Alongside the Royals winning it all, the AL Central in 2015 was marked by the Detroit Tigers collapsing after their run of dominance. That plays into two storylines for 2016.

The Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians ended up in second and third place respectively, yet being honest you would have to say they were just above average. Neither team has much in the way of money to throw around and they haven’t made significant signings to push forward over this off-season, with the main move being the Twins taking a punt on South Korean slugger Byung-ho Park. The Twins will be looking for youngsters Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton to excel, and the Indians to somehow find some runs to support their strong starting pitching, to try to keep in the running.

That’s going to be difficult because the Tigers have added Jordan Zimmerman to their rotation and revamped their bullpen, including signing closer Francisco Rodriguez. Add in some decent roster additions for depth, including outfielder Cameron Maybin, and they are back to the position of being favourites for second place and a shot at a Wild Card if Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez can stay injury-free.

The Chicago White Sox made plenty of moves over the previous off-season and they didn’t have the desired effect. You can understand why they’ve tried again, trading for Todd Frazier from the Reds and Brett Lawrie from the A’s, through wanting to take advantage of having one of the best pitchers in the league in Chris Sale. They need everything to go right to get back into the race and that’s a bit too much to rely on to predict they’ll do it right now.

AL West: Your guess is as good as mine

The West was taken over by Texas Rangers and Houston Astros in 2015 (strange as that is based on their locations, but that’s how the divisions shape up in the AL), so the question is can they stay in front?

They can as neither team has got worse over the winter, yet neither has made additions that would clearly keep them ahead either. The Astros have added Ken Giles as their closer in a trade with the Phillies, whilst the Rangers’ main move actually came before the mid-season deadline last year when they brought in Cole Hamels (also from the Phils).

So what about the chasing pack?

The A’s have completely revamped an awful bullpen and resisted the temptation to trade Sonny Gray, but it would be a stretch to push them too high up the predicted standings based on that. Last year’s third placed team the LA Angels traded for star shortstop Andrelton Simmons and will always be dangerous with Mike Trout and Albert Pujols at the heart of their lineup, although that potential makes it all the more surprising that they haven’t added further (yet) to really take advantage of the talent they do have.

In contrast, the Seattle Mariners have been very active this off-season. They re-signed Hisashi Iwakuma after it looked like he was off to the Dodgers and also traded for Wade Miley from the Red Sox to give them a potentially strong starting rotation. What will define their season is if their position player additions (including Nori Aoki, Adam Lind and Leonys Martin) provide a solid complement to the Cano-Cruz-Seager core, of if they make that trio’s contributions count for little.

I can genuinely see a way in which the Mariners get into the race here, and it’s not completely beyond the realms of possibility that the A’s could as well, so this is the most difficult division to predict. I’ll duck the issue and keep the five teams in their finishing positions of 2015 for now, as Spring Training injuries or late off-season additions could have more bearing on this division than any other.

What’s Missing from the World Series

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We’re four games into the 2015 MLB World Series and baseball fans can have few complaints about the action that the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets have given us so far.

The Royals took advantage of being at home by jumping out to a 2-0 series lead, only for the Mets to hit straight back when the series shifted to New York with a win in Game Three. Noah Syndergaard’s opening salvo provided an immediate spark to Friday night’s game, taking ownership of the first pitch away from Alcides Escobar and the Royals and showing that the Mets were intent on putting their stamp on the series.

However, the Royals’ eighth-inning exploits in Game Four on Saturday night swung the contest firmly back in their favour. A 3-2 deficit became a 5-3 lead and reliever Wade Davis took over from there with two scoreless innings to put Kansas City ahead 3-1 in the series, one win away from claiming the championship.

Whilst the action on the field has been great to watch, it’s only served to emphasize what a shame it is that we no longer have British baseball coverage of the Fall Classic (let alone the rest of the regular season). The games are shown live on BT Sport, with MLB.TV subscribers able to view online too, and that’s infinitely better than having no access to the games at all on these shores.

Still, former Baseball on 5 (and MLB on Five Live Sports Extra) presenter Josh Chetwynd summed up the feelings of many during the 14-inning opening game

Where we now have repetitive mid/between inning adverts, we used to enjoy Jonny, Josh and/or Dave wearing tuxedos dissecting the game and leading the club of baseball nuts watching the game we love in the early hours of the morning. Michael Brown has a petition going to get Jonny Gould back on the airwaves precisely because of the sheer enjoyment he and the rest of the crew provided for many of us over the years.

With the NFL hosting yet another game at Wembley this weekend, it goes to show how far back baseball has slipped that we don’t have our own coverage even just for the marquee event of the year.

Here’s hoping that may change one day and we can once again enjoy presenters awarding marks out of ten to the national anthem rendition, seventh inning stretches, sneaky bites of chocolate not quite concealed quickly enough when cutting back to the studio, and the great community spirit that only dedicated coverage can foster.

2015 World Series: Mets vs Royals

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The 2015 MLB World Series begins on Tuesday night in Kansas City, with the home town Royals looking to go one better than last year against the New York Mets.

The Royals hadn’t made it to the postseason at all since their triumph in 1985 prior to their heart-breaking 4-3 series loss to the San Francisco Giants a year ago. Few people expected them to get so far and the surprising nature of their postseason run meant there were plenty of doubters who saw them slipping back down the standings as we came into the 2015 season.

They’ve proved them all wrong, including myself, and now they look like a team that is primed to build on all of the lessons learned last time and to take the final step to glory.

The only problem the Royals have in being a team of destiny is that there’s another club who can lay claim to the same title.

The New York Mets have had a similarly long wait for another World Series victory having last taken the prize one year after the Royals (1986). They have at least made the postseason on a number of occasions since then, but not since 2006. Despite a devastating 4-3 NLCS loss to the St Louis Cardinals that year, things still seemed bright in Queens with a new ballpark opening and every reason to think that the team was going to keep competing for years to come.

Instead, the financial crash caught out the Mets’ owners and the big-market team started acting more like paupers, to the increasing anger of their fans.

2015 was thought to herald more of the same disappointment, yet they surprised many by starting out well and the addition of outfielder Yoenis Cespedes at the trade deadline suggested that they may be able to last the pace. Sure enough, a 20-8 record in August saw them take a commanding lead in the NL East and here they are.

Having swept past the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, the New York Mets come into the World Series full of confidence and their exciting young starting pitchers give them a great chance of proving correct the old adage of pitching being the difference in the postseason.

The series really is too close to call, with the advantage the Mets have in starting pitching being levelled out by the Royals’ proven ability to stick to their plan and get the better of an ace in the end. Both teams have shown great skill on the bases in the play-offs so far and that should set up an exciting contest, alongside the incredible story of the Mets’ Daniel Murphy seeking to extend his scarcely believable home run exploits.

America doesn’t move out of day-light saving time until this Sunday, so the first four games of the World Series – Tuesday night, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – will get going at just gone midnight UK time, with just a four-hour time difference to contend with. The potential three games afterwards would begin an hour later on Sunday and the following Tuesday and Wednesday. Coverage can be found in the UK on the BT Sport range of channels on online via the MLB.TV subscription.

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.

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.

AL Central: Off-season so far

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The Kansas City Royals were the surprise story of the 2014 season. Quite simply, every other team could look at them and think, ‘well if the Royals can finally turn things around, there’s a chance for us all’.

Repeating the feat will not be so easy though and if Royals fans thought that their World Series run would herald a new era of success, after so many years of hard times, they haven’t exactly been bowled over by the moves their Front Office has made to make that dream become a reality.

Kendrys Morales and Alex Rios have been added to the offence, signings that may have been more exciting four or five years ago, whilst Edinson Volquez has recently joined a pitching staff with a James Shields-shaped hole in it. Shields is still out there on the free agent market so a return isn’t completely out of the question; however it seems unlikely and Kansas will be looking to their younger players to replicate their late season form.

Shields is the number two starting pitcher on the market behind Max Scherzer. At some point over the next few weeks we will find out if the Detroit Tigers’ owner Mike Ilitch does delve into his sizeable coffers once again, this time to bring Scherzer back.

That seems unlikely considering the annual salaries they are already committed to with Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and the re-signed Victor Martinez over the next four years (see the payroll commitment spreadsheet on the Tigers’ page at Cot’s Baseball Contracts), but if they don’t feel they can keep hold of David Price before he reaches free agency at the end of 2015, maybe they will stretch to a fourth big contract. The Tigers have added Alfredo Simon and Shane Greene to the rotation already, whilst trading away Rick Porcello to acquire outfielder Yoenis Cespedes from Boston.

The Cleveland Indians have been quiet so far this off-season, just adding Brandon Moss and Gavin Floyd, and are banking on their good core of young(ish) players to be backed by returns to form by 2012/13 offseason free agent signings Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, there is a new manager at the helm in Paul Molitor after Ron Gardenhire’s 13-year spell with the team was brought to an end. The Twins were not expected to be too active this off-season, biding their time as young players like Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano (both hampered by lengthy injuries in 2014) make their way through the Minor Leagues. They have brought back veteran outfielder Torii Hunter, signed Ervin Santana as a free agent and agreed a contract extension with Phil Hughes, who was a terrific signing for the team last winter.

All of which leaves us with by far the busiest team in the division and one of the most active across the Majors. The Chicago White Sox have added players to the batting lineup, starting rotation and bullpen (as noted recently) and how well they mesh together in 2015 will be one of the factors in determining if the Royals’ World Series appearance was the start of a play-off run or just a one-and-done affair.