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Weekly Hit Ground Ball: The 2017 MLB Opening Week

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It’s a Scorchio Sunday in Britain today and what better way to relax in the evening after a glorious day in the sun than catching a baseball game or two.

Or maybe catching some more baseball if you’ve spent the afternoon at a British baseball league game.

Games to watch

Every team is playing during the day-time in the States (therefore in the evening for us) other than the usual ESPN Sunday Night game (Marlins at Mets) on at 1am. None of the day-games are being shown on the BT Sport channels, unfortunately, although the MLB.com Free Game (available for everyone to watch via MLB.com) is Dodgers at Rockies from 20.05 BST.

The rest of the games can be watched or listened to on MLB.TV and MLB Gameday Audio.

The first week

The Baltimore Orioles are the one remaining team that are yet to be defeated. They put their 4-0 record on the line against CC Sabathia and the Yankees today looking for their second consecutive series sweep to start the season.

New York suffered a blow yesterday as Gary Sanchez came out of the game, likely on his way to the Disabled List, with a strained bicep injury. Sanchez, Greg Bird and Aaron Judge – their three top young position players – have all scuffled in the first week. Most players will have a week or two when the hits don’t come so we shouldn’t read too much into that, yet it is perhaps a reminder that most young players take a couple of seasons to really hit their stride in the Majors.

The Minnesota Twins took their first loss of the season yesterday having started out 4-0. Even Twins fans will not be putting too much stock in their early wins, but it’s been good to see Byron Buxton and Max Kepler showing their talent in the outfield and, considering they started 2016 with nine consecutive losses, some early victories gives them something to cheer about after a string of dismal campaigns.

In the National League, it’s two teams from the NL West that have shot out of the traps. You might have expected that to be the LA Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, but instead it’s the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies who have picked up the victories and both have 5-1 records.

The D-Backs needed a positive start after their horror show in 2016 and that’s what they’ve had, even getting a mildly encouraging pitching performance from last-year’s flop Shelby Miller in the process.

As for the Rockies, hopes that their third-placed finish (albeit with a 75-87 record) from 2016 could lead to better things in 2017 seemed to have been dashed by a string of injuries. That may still prove to be the case, but when you can get the better of Clayton Kershaw – as they did on Saturday, including Kershaw giving up back-to-back home runs for the first time in his career – then you just might be on to something.

On the other end of the scale, the Giants and Seattle Mariners haven’t given their fans much to cheer about over the first week as they’ve both lost five of their six games played.

The Giants were undone by their bullpen in 2016 and responded by signing closer Mark Melancon to a four-year, $62m contract over the off-season. His first act as a Giant last Sunday was to cough up a  5-4 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning against Arizona.

Matt Cain also looked shaky in his first start of the season on Friday against the San Diego Padres. For all he has done for the Giants, you have to wonder how much more he has left to give. Cain has pitched less than 100 innings in each of the past three seasons and has had an ERA over five in the last two campaigns.

As for the Mariners, it was expected that their batting lineup would be a strength but their bats have been absent in the first week. They lost three from four against the Houston Astros and now the first two games of their series against the LA Angels. More concerning is the sight of losing off-season recruit Drew Smyly to an elbow injury that will see him out of action until June at the earliest.

The M’s could get into the play-off running; however they look like a team that needs plenty of things to break right for that to happen. Maybe they’re just getting their bad luck out of the way early.

Finally, I have to include a mention for the Oakland A’s and Kendall Graveman in particular. He was the A’s Opening Night starting pitcher, with Sonny Gray’s start to the season delayed by an injury, and it would be fair to say he isn’t a classic ace-type hurler.

However, he’s been brilliant in his first two appearances, winning both and taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning of last night’s game against the Texas Rangers. If he can keep that sinker moving the way he wants to and getting ahead of hitters, this could be a break-out season for the right-hander.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two main subplots from the trades.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Padres pad roster, Braves bail out even more

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The San Diego Padres were one of the most active teams over the off-season and they finished with a flourish on Sunday night by acquiring star closer Craig Kimbrel from the Atlanta Braves. Outfielder Melvin (formerly known as B.J.) Upton moved that way as well in the trade as a booby prize, whilst the Braves gained a mix of established Major Leaguers (Carlos Quentin and Cameron Maybin) and some minor league talent.

It creates even more excitement around the Padres heading into the season, but we’ve seen in the past that teams who ‘win’ the off-season don’t necessarily convert that into wins during the regular season.

Kimbrel is as consistent as closers come, yet even then he has only averaged 64 innings pitched over the past three regular seasons.  Although adding such a quality pitcher will improve the Padres’ roster, over the regular season there’s only so much benefit that can be gained by adding a closer based on the innings they contribute.

However, Kimbrel is a weapon and manager Bud Black would be forgiven for wearing a devilish grin every time he calls him into a game from the bullpen.

As for the Braves, their fans have been put through the wringer this off-season. Those of us who don’t follow the team can dispassionately assess the major rebuilding work as a job well done, but when that team is a big part of your life it’s never easy to look ahead at a 162-game season that will bring little in the way of things to celebrate. That’s especially the case when your team’s Front Office has basically chosen to make the team worse in the near term.

All fans in desperate times cling to the thought that however bad their situation is, a rival may be having an even worse time. In that sense the Braves are lucky to have the Philadelphia Phillies around.

I’m still not completely sold on the idea that the Braves had to do this rebuild right now, but it’s better to rebuild too early than too late and if you’re taking that route you have to commit to it and follow it through.

Braves fans have loved watching Kimbrel dominating their opponents and so seeing him in a Padres’ uniform will be a blow at first, yet it should be even more painful for Phillies fans to see Jonathan Papelbon still wearing their colours. Philadelphia wasted $13m last year paying Papelbon to collect 39 saves on a team that finished rock bottom in the NL East, 23 games behind the division-winning Washington Nationals, and they’re currently on the hook to pay him another $13m this year too.

The Phillies’ General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr doesn’t need any help to highlight his team’s glaring mistakes over the past two or three seasons, but the Braves’ decisiveness this off-season has really shown up how badly wrong Amaro and his colleagues have got things.

So whilst Braves fans may suffer through 2015, their crumb of comfort is that the Phillies will be just as bad this year and don’t seem to have any plan to improve any time in the next few years either.

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.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Gwynn, Kershaw and more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kershaw close to perfect

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brad Mills for a dollar

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Royals return

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

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

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

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

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.

Rounding the Bases: Deals being made

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One week ago I stated that we may be waiting a few weeks before the MLB Hot Stove started to heat up and teams began making significant roster additions.

It turned out that this past week was in fact quite a busy one, with several free agent signings being completed and one major trade.

Fielder and Kinsler swap teams

At breakfast time on Thursday morning I was tucking into a bowl of porridge and enjoying watching the highlights of Day One of the first Ashes Test on Sky Sports News (enjoy the good times while they last, comes to mind) when I noticed that an MLB news item was about to scroll across the bottom of the screen. I expected it to be news of a minor free agent signing, but instead was taken aback to read that the Texas Rangers had swung a trade to acquire first baseman Prince Fielder from the Detroit Tigers for second baseman Ian Kinsler.

Just two years ago, the Tigers caused a major shock by coming out of nowhere and signing Fielder to a nine-year, $214m contract. Despite having a disappointing 2013 season, Fielder appeared to be set to stay in Detroit for years to come and yet all of a sudden the long-term commitment between player and team had been broken.

At first glance it looks to be a trade that should benefit both teams handsomely, not just in the player each team has required but the knock-on effects for their respective rosters.

The Tigers can now move Miguel Cabrera over to first base, where his limited fielding skills are better suited, and create an opening for their best prospect, third baseman Nick Castellanos. Kinsler will add a combination of some power and speed to the lineup and moving the majority of Fielder’s hefty contract (the Tigers have given the Rangers $30m as part of the deal to cover some of the remaining $168m) gives them some financial flexibility potentially to add another player or two or to add to the pot for a contract extension for Max Scherzer and, down the line, Miguel Cabrera.

As for the Rangers, they were desperate to make a big move after suffering late season heartbreak in the last two seasons. Acquiring a premium slugger is a statement of intent and moving to the homer-friendly confines of Rangers Ballpark should suit Fielder down to the ground. Moving Kinsler also frees up some space for the Rangers to let top prospect Jurickson Profar settle in at second base.

Angels and Cardinals

The Rangers’ AL West rivals the Los Angeles Angels also completed a trade this week, acquiring third baseman David Freese from the St. Louis Cardinals for centre fielder Peter Bourjos, with a couple of young prospects thrown into the deal too.

Freese will forever be a hometown hero in St. Louis for his 2011 World Series heroics, yet it looks like a good time for him to move on to a new challenge with the Angels. The Cardinals will probably move their infield players around so that Matt Carpenter shifts over to third base and Kolten Wong moves into second base full-time, potentially with former Detroit Tiger Jhonny Peralta joining the team as their new shortstop if the rumours from Saturday night are accurate. Bourjos, if he can stay fit and on the field, will be a better option in centrefield than the disappointing John Jay for the Cards, whilst Mike Trout will no longer be moved aside to the Angels’ left field and will instead be the number one centre fielder.

Pitchers getting paid

David Freese should be a good addition for the Angels, but their most pressing need over the offseason is to bolster their pitching corps. Another opening in the rotation has been created by Jason Vargas departing as a free agent as he agreed a four-year, $32m contract with the Kansas City Royals.

The signing was met by a fairly lukewarm response. In part this was because of the Royals rumours swirling in the hour before it was announced:

A “major-baseball announcement” immediately created visions for some of Carlos Beltran donning the ‘KC’ cap once again, so when the reality was a player you can neatly file under the words ‘solid’ and ‘dependable’ there was bound to be some disappointment.

Giving a four-year contract to a less-than-spectacular player also raised a few eyebrows, yet $8m per year for a good starting pitcher looks like being a good deal for the Royals on the current pitching market.

The San Francisco Giants spent $23m this week to sign 38-year old Tim Hudson on a two-year contract (£137k per week). Hudson’s 2013 season was ended by a horrible freak accident when the Mets’ Eric Young accidentally landed on the pitcher’s right ankle as he was covering first base. The Giants are confident that Hudson will come back from his fractured ankle as good as new and if he does then he should help the team in their attempt to get back to the postseason and to win a third World Series in five years.

Elsewhere in the NL West, the San Diego Padres have also signed a pitcher whose 2013 was impacted by injury. Josh Johnson has spent most of his career so far battling the tag of being an ace when not injured. Recently he’s spent more time injured than being an ace but the Padres have little to lose in signing him to a one-year contract worth $8m and, with Petco Park being a great place for a pitcher to ply his trade, it’s also a good setting for Johnson to have a good year and then earn a more lucrative contract in a year’s time.

Another veteran for the Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies played at the Veterans Stadium for 33 seasons before moving to Citizens Bank Park in 2004. The team’s General Manager Ruben Amaro Jr has done a good job in recent years of honouring their old home by building rosters dominated by veterans and, just a week after signing 36-year-old Marlon Byrd to a two-year contract, he added another this week with the re-signing of catcher Carlos Ruiz.

Ruiz has spent his whole Major League career with the Phillies and even when his contract ran out at the end of the 2013 season, there always seemed a very good chance that he would carry on with the club.

Amaro’s decision to hand the 35-year-old a three-year contract worth a guaranteed $26m (annual salaries of $8.5m – approximately £101k per week – with a $500k 2017 buyout fee) made sure of that and immediately led to the GM’s thought processes (or more precisely lack of) being questioned.

Giving a three-year contract to a 35-year-old catcher isn’t ideal, but Ruiz is a good all-round player, not spectacular at anything but solid enough at the plate and behind it, at a position where merely being good carries plenty of value. Additionally the risk involved is mitigated slightly by the Phillies’ familiarity with him, from how he fits into the group as a personality to a detailed knowledge of his fitness.

And finally …

The Phillies kept hold of their catcher, but it looks like the Atlanta Braves have lost theirs. Brian McCann has been with the Braves for his entire professional career and his nine-season Major League run with the team always looked likely to come to an end this offseason when he became a free agent. Sure enough, late on Saturday night it was being reported that he has agreed a five-year, $85m contract (just over £200k per week) with the New York Yankees.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Shouldering responsibility

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The list of baseball incidents likely to catch the attention of the British press is a short one, topped by steroid scandals that over the past decade have sadly ‘won’ the sport a fair few column inches across the pond.

A 50-man plus, bench-clearing brawl is on that little list – who doesn’t enjoy seeing a good old dust-up? – and if you add in an injury to an expensively-acquired player an extra paragraph or two will be tacked on to the story.

As Carlos Quentin charged into Zack Greinke recently and everyone else began the familiar shoving match, the thought that came to mind was that it’s a wonder so few brawls (if we can really call them that) end up with an injury being suffered. In Greinke’s situation, you would not expect the player to come out from underneath the heap unscathed.

Against the odds, often a few bumps and bruises are the sum total of the damage done, but it wasn’t long after the bitter Dodgers-Padres clash ended that we found out Greinke had not been so lucky. Initial estimates propose that he will be out of action for at least eight weeks after undergoing surgery on his broken left collarbone.

Manager Don Mattingly’s emotional post-game opinion that Quentin should be banned for as long as the time Greinke has to miss was understandable, if never the least bit likely. When you invest $147m in a top-line pitcher, you’re going to be upset to see him injured in such a bizarre way.

Plenty of debate has been had about any intent on Greinke’s part with the high-and-inside pitch and Quentin’s decision to charge the mound, but in hindsight you would also have to question Greinke’s decision to meet Quentin by putting his shoulder into the well-built outfielder. It has shades of the macho stance that still leads some catchers to block the plate as a baserunner comes barrelling down the third-base line trying to smash him into next week.

That approach may please the masochists, but it isn’t clever to put yourself at such an extreme risk of injury that could cost your team dear. The smart catcher can skilfully tag the runner without putting himself in harm’s way. Greinke would have been wise – rather than a wimp – to have displayed a quick bit of footwork to sell Quentin the dummy before the cavalry came to smother out the danger.

Some may see it as a kill-joy, health-and-safety-gone-mad stance, but this isn’t rounding the edges off those dangerous pointy flapjacks. The Dodgers aren’t paying Greinke $147m to be a nightclub bouncer, they are paying him to pitch and he won’t be doing that for the next couple of months.

Replay the instant replay debate

The Premier League announced last week that they will be implementing HawkEye technology for goal line decisions from next season. MLB has apparently ruled out the use of such technology for fair/foul line calls, but it is expected that an increased use of instant replay will be adopted for the 2014 season.

The game-ending call between the Rays and Rangers last Monday raises an interesting question as to how that should be implemented.

At first glance, umpire Marty Foster’s decision to call the Rays’ Ben Zobrist out on strikes is exactly the sort of play that instant replay should be there for. It came at an important time (the final out of the game with the Rays trailing 4-3 with a runner on first) and was a clearly incorrect call. Nobody wants to see a blatant mistake by an umpire play a crucial part in the outcome of a game, especially the umpire that has to live with the mistake.

However, we don’t yet know whether an expanded instant replay referral system would include balls and strikes calls. My guess would be that the Umpires’ Union, and quite probably the MLB Commissioner’s Office too, would be dead-set against it.

The incorrect strike call on Zobrist was a freak event; most disputed calls on balls and strikes are more marginal. Most, if not probably all, cameras looking towards home plate do so at an angle that distorts the perception of the path of the pitch, so you couldn’t use the standard camera angles. That brings in the prospect of a PITCHf/x type tracking system being used and whilst some fans would be happy for computers to call all pitches, it’s safe to say the umpires would not agree.

As things currently stand, any new referral system would need to be introduced with the approval of the Umpires’ Union and opening the door to the use of a pitch-tracking system is likely to be refused.

It’s possible that the new system would give the umpires ultimate discretion to check any call and therefore a completely baffling error such as the one Foster made could be rechecked (i.e. with the umpire knowing that they had blown it and so referring it themselves), but don’t be surprised if the new system still results in such a call being met only with the consolation of an apology from the umpire.

Which for the team in question is no consolation at all.

Replay on Rajai

Another potential replay scenario cropped up during last week’s series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers.

The Blue Jays’ speedster Rajai Davis attempted to steal second base and was called safe. On first viewing I thought the umpire had got the close call exactly right and I maintained that view having watched a replay. However, a second angle revealed that after narrowly beating the throw, Davis actually came off the bag briefly whilst Omar Infante kept the tag applied.

Infante didn’t make a big deal of it, but maybe he would have done had there been an option to refer the decision to a replay process.

Rule changes typically lead to changes in the way a game is played and the expanded use of instant replay will be no different. Every baserunner tries to stay on the bag when sliding in, just as every infielder knows they should keep the tag applied, but once instant replay comes into effect you should see players refining their technique.

The demand for additional replay has grown deafening as technological developments in TV coverage have hugely magnified the slightest error by an umpire. What shouldn’t be overlooked is that expanded replay will cast the same level of inspection on the players and slight mistakes that they presently get away with may come back to haunt them.