Tag Archives: San Francisco Giants

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: The Other Teams

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At this time of the year it’s traditional to publish predictions of how the MLB season is going to pan out.

If you asked most fans which ten teams are going to make the playoffs right now, you’re likely to find a lot of similarities.

In the American League, Houston, Boston, New York and Cleveland all look strong favourites, with the LA Angels the trendy pick for the second Wild Card.

In the National League, LA Dodgers, Chicago and Washington are the probable division winners and you can then take your pick from a group of teams to meet in the Wild Card game.

So, rather than focus on the potential division winners, we’ll look at another team of interest in each division.

AL West

Let’s start in the division of the reigning World Series champions with the team that many are awarding the ‘won the off-season’ prize to.

What exactly should we expect from the LA Angels this year? Any team with Mike Trout in it has a chance and they’ve made some good additions, but have they made a big leap ahead or a more modest improvement?

Part of that will be determined by their headline acquisition, Japanese two-way talent Shohei Ohtani. Every team wanted him and it was a coup for the Angels to win his signature. An adjustment period is to be expected and that leads us to Ohtani’s Spring Training, which politely can be described as disappointing. Despite the ever-present caveat this time of year that ‘it’s only Spring Training’, were he not a highly touted player from Japan it’s possible the Angels would have considered sending him to Triple-A given how he has performed.

That’s not a viable option and so he’s going to need to develop his craft in the Majors. Ordinarily it would be fine for Ohtani to take some lumps here and there as he puts together an encouraging debut season to build on, and in isolation that remains the case. The problem with that for the Angels is the rest of their starting rotation comes with plenty of question marks. If Ohtani isn’t really good, will the additions of Ian Kinsler, Zack Cosart and renewing with Justin Upton alone make them more than a potential second Wild Card?

AL Central

The Minnesota Twins proved last year that you can’t always count a team out based on previous form. Few if any picked the Twins to make the play-offs, yet some good performances and other teams not meeting expectations for various reasons meant that the Twins could look around, see no one else was really making a claim for the second Wild Card and take it for themselves.

They did that with no expectations on their shoulders, other than the expectation from others that at some point someone else would overtake them. Now the expectations have changed. That’s not to say they are favourites, but they’ve got something to live up to.

Although they’ve not exactly become big spenders, you can’t accuse the Twins of standing still and failing to add to their roster.

They started with their bullpen, adding Addison Russell and Fernando Rodney, and then took advantage of the slow-moving free agent market by picking up Logan Morrison for their batting lineup and two good starting pitchers in Jake Odorizzi and Lance Lynn. On the negative side, Ervin Satana will miss at least the first month of the season due to a finger injury and shortstop Jorge Polanco will serve an 80-game drug suspension.

The Twins are no juggernaut, yet they are a good team and it shouldn’t be overlooked that they’ll play 57 games combined against the rebuilding Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals. Few seem to be picking them for a Wild Card, but I wouldn’t be so quick to count them out.

AL East

The 2018 AL East looks set to be a heavyweight fight between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. We’ve been there before a few times.

The other three teams have all taken turns at upsetting the order in recent years. I wouldn’t say any had a great chance at doing that this time around, yet if I had to pick a team that would be worth watching it would be the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Edwin Encarnacion-Jose Bautista Blue Jays have gone, with neither player now with the club and fellow star Josh Donaldson heading for free agency at the end of the 2018 season. Nothing lasts forever. Toronto had a really good team there for a few years but many of the leading players are now either gone, past their best or potentially heading towards an exit.

That makes the Blue Jays’ season all the more intriguing. Are they going to slip back again or do they have one last hurrah in them?

They haven’t made any impressive additions to their roster: tinkering with the bullpen, adding a couple of former Cardinals in Randall Grichuk and Aledmys Garcia, and signing veteran Curtis Granderson. They do still have good players on the roster though and will look even better if Aaron Sanchez’s blister issues can be a thing of the past. If not, June and July could be dominated by rumours of where Donaldson will be traded to.

NL East

Picking ‘another team’ from the NL East is a difficult task. The Washington Nationals were a country mile ahead of the rest of their division last year and that doesn’t look like changing in 2018.  The Miami Marlins finished second last year – yes, that surprised me too when I checked – but we all know what’s happened there over the off-season (fire sale number 4 or 5, it’s hard to keep count).

So, you’ve got the young talent of the Atlanta Braves, the young talent and two good free agent additions in the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets.  Let’s go with the latter.

The period from mid-2015 to mid-2016 was a lot of fun for the Mets. They went to a World Series in October 2015 and then saw the Yankees trading away players the following summer.  It looked like the city was the Mets’s.

Well that didn’t last very long, did it? The Yankees, in a way that only the Yankees could, rapidly turned a rebuild into a strong Major League roster and loaded farm system.  The Mets lost the 2016 NL Wild Card game and then fell apart in 2017.

Frustratingly for their fans, they haven’t responded aggressively to this turn of events.  Jay Bruce and Todd Frazier are solid, experienced players, but they’re not going to convince a fan base that a team that lost 92 games last year is going to explode back into life.

As ever with these Mets, it all comes down to the starting rotation. If Syndergaard, deGrom, Harvey and Matz can make 100+ starts, and more starts than not reflecting their talent, then they’ll be a Wild Card threat. Mets fans have seen enough to be excited whilst also not being willing to bet their own money on it happening.

NL Central

Just as the Twins sprang a surprise in the AL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers were more competitive than most predicted in the NL Central last season.

Just as the Twins, the Brewers now have some expectations to live up to and, just as the Twins, they’ve not sat back and let the pack pass them.  However, they haven’t made the depth of signings as others and that may be their undoing, especially with Jimmy Nelson working his way back from shoulder surgery.

Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich are an excellent pair of signings to add to the outfield and the top of their batting order. It’s still not completely clear how the roster will shake out from there, with the original plan for Ryan Braun to play some first base already looking like an experiment too far.

It’s far from the worst problem to have as the outfield recruits offer plenty of reason to be excited for the Brew Crew, yet you get the sense that having started to push chips into the middle of the table, Milwaukee might have been better off – if not quite going all in – at least reaching for another starting pitcher to add to the group.

Within their division, you could argue they haven’t given up much to the St Louis Cardinals as they’ve also added an outfielder from the Marlins (Marcell Ozuna) but little else. Whether that’s going to be enough to beat others to a Wild Card remains to be seen.

NL West

I started planning this column in the middle of the week and had already decided to pick the San Francisco Giants for this spot.

Little did I know that the last few days would add more uncertainty to the Giants’ season.

Looking at 2017 in isolation you could say that everything fell apart for San Francisco and that wouldn’t be far from the truth.  What that disguises somewhat is that things started going awry in the second half of 2016. There was no ‘even year’ World Series that time around, they lost 11 of 13 after the All-Star break, and went 30-42 in total, to go from a 6.5 game lead at the top of the West to finishing four games behind the Dodgers.

Over the current off-season there was a clear decision to give it one last go with the Posey-Bumgarner-Crawford team and so trades were made to bring in experienced campaigners Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen.  Reliever Tony Watson was also signed as a free agent to add a quality lefty to the mix, hopefully behind last year’s big recruit Mark Melcancon if he’s fully recovered from forearm surgery.

But then it was announced that Jeff Samrdzija will miss several weeks with a strained pectoral injury and Madison Bumgarner took a line drive back on his left hand that fractured his little finger and could keep him out for the best part of two months.  Their Opening Day four-man rotation will consist of Johnny Cueto followed by Ty Blach, Chris Stratton and Derek Holland, which is a clear drop-off from what might have been.

The two starters shouldn’t have any lingering issues from their ailments so if the team can hold steady then they could build into the season and make a Wild Card run in the second half.  However, there’s an increased injury risk with a veteran team and their chances will depend on keeping their best players on the field, something that hasn’t started well.

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.

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 returns for 2017

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Here we are at last: baseball is back.

Whilst Andy Williams may sing that Christmas is ‘the most wonderful time of the year,’ the start of the MLB regular season is every bit as exciting for those of us that follow the sport.

It feels a long time coming, even with all of the off-season trades, signings and rumours, and the fact that the 2016 season ended up with a thrilling World Series makes the anticipation all the stronger for it all to get going again.

Who’s going to win?

No sport is predictable, least of all one with a regular season containing 2430 games, yet it’s fair to say the 2017 MLB predictions currently going up online are following a similar pattern.

There’s no hiding that the five National League play-off teams from last season are most likely to be playing post-season baseball again this year.

The reigning World Series champions Chicago Cubs are the team to beat in the Central, with the Washington Nationals and New York Mets, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, looking good to battle it out for the East, West and two Wild Card spots.

That doesn’t mean it’s going to be uneventful, even if those teams do come out on top.

As for the outsiders, the St Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates are the obvious teams that could get in the Wild Card mix. The Arizona Diamondbacks could get into the running too if their bad luck from 2016 turns to good luck in 2017. It will also be worth keeping an eye on the rebuilding Atlanta Braves who have now built their new ballpark and are getting closer to building a team that can get them back to their glory days.

The American League looks more open, other than the strong likelihood of the Cleveland Indians winning the Central division (with the Detroit Tigers probably set to trade a few players away before the August deadline).

There are genuinely three teams that could win the AL East, never mind compete for a Wild Card, in the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays. It’s possible the New York Yankees could also make a play-off push if their young players continue to impress enough to make the team make some further additions in the summer.

There could also be three teams in the mix in the West. The Texas Rangers are the team to beat, but arguably they over-performed with their 95 wins last season and both the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners have been active over the off-season.

For what it’s worth, I’m going for:

NL East: Mets, NL Central: Cubs, NL West: Dodgers, WC: Nationals and Giants.

AL East: Red Sox, AL Central: Indians, AL West: Astros, WC: Blue Jays, Orioles.

Getting ready for Opening Week

1. Make sure MLB.TV is up and running

BT Sport offers plenty of games across the season so that there is a good TV option for UK-based fans; however ‘plenty of games’ isn’t the same as ‘all the games’ and that’s what makes MLB.TV such an essential purchase for me.

Monday will show that straight away as MLB.TV subscribers can flick between a whole host of early starts during the British evening. I’ll then be able to get up in the early hours and watch the Oakland A’s season-opener too.

Rule #1: there’s no such thing as too much baseball.

2. Book some days off work

Okay, not much use as a ‘to-do list’ for you reading this now, but hopefully you’ve already planned ahead. I book up the first few working days of the MLB season as annual leave as soon as I can to make sure I can enjoy the first few evenings (and early mornings) without having to get up to go to work straight after.

3. Check out the schedule for the first week

This will be my twelfth season running BaseballGB and regular visitors will know that one of the features here is a guide published every Monday setting out the ‘early’ games (day-games in the States and that are in the evening UK time) for the week ahead.

There are 25 early starts from Monday to Friday this coming working week. I refer you back to rule #1!

4. Sort out my Oakland A’s schedule

Much as I try to catch all of the teams on a regular basis, my primary focus is on the Oakland A’s.

The first two series in my Oakland A’s schedule

I’ve printed out an A’s game schedule for April that lists the games with start times in BST, blocks them into each individual series against different teams and highlights the day-games.

The A’s have eight series in April and all but one – a mid-week three-game set in Anaheim near the end of the month – have at least one day-game scheduled.

I find it’s useful to have those set out so that you can plan around them and work out when best to add in some early-hour contests too (if, like me, your work gets in the way of watching every one).

5. Set your fantasy team(s) for the first week

It’s not just the regular season you need to focus on, the fantasy season is important too.

I’m not the most obsessive fantasy baseball player and my in-season strategy predominantly involves simply making sure I don’t make too many mistakes in leaving players on my active team that aren’t playing. So, setting up my pitching staff for the week ahead, mindful that plans may still change mid-week, is a key preparation job for me to remember.

Sunday’s triple-header

Although Monday will feel like the true Opening Day, the recent switch to a triple-header on a Sunday to start the season was a great move. Here are the games we can enjoy:

18.10. Yankees at Rays (Tanaka – Archer) *BT Sport/ESPN
21.10. Giants at Diamondbacks (Bumgarner – Greinke) *BT Sport/ESPN
01.35. Cubs at Cardinals (Lester – Martinez) *BT Sport/ESPN

Tropicana Field isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing place to get the season started, but the play on the field should soon make us forget the surroundings. Tanaka faced the Rays five times last season and was dominant against them, whilst Archer’s 0-3 record against the Yankees in 2016 conceals how well he pitched against them.

Zack Greinke and the D-Backs will be intent on putting a hugely disappointing 2016 behind them and they would get an immediate confidence boost if they can get the better of MadBum and the Giants to start the season at Chase Field.

Finally, the Cubs enter an MLB season as reigning champions for the first time since 1909 and where better to celebrate that than at the home of their bitter rivals. I’m sure St Louis will be gracious hosts.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Opening week stories

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

Story of the week

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slide rule

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

DH in the NL? Not for MadBum

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

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

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

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

MLB 2016 – National League Preview

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

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

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

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

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

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

NL East

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

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

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

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

NL Central

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

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

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

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

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

NL West

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

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

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

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

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

My predictions

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

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

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

Off-season so far: National League

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

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

This part of the review focuses on the National League.

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

NL Central – Cubs on the prowl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NL East – Waiting for a big move

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loads of money equals loads of drama

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MLB’s Winter Meetings event takes place next week and, up until a few days ago, it was shaping up to be the usual annual cattle market where the big names were finally going to find a new home.

Instead, the two leading free agents, David Price and Zack Greinke, have been taken off the market before any of the teams have booked into their hotel rooms.

The Boston Red Sox always looked like a frontrunner for Price’s services. A last-placed finish in the season just gone came after an offseason when they lost Jon Lester and spent their money on hitters, Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval, rather than acquiring an ace starting pitcher.

The Red Sox have plenty of money to spend and a change in their Front Office, bringing in ex-Detroit Tiger General Manager Dave Dombrowski, signalled that they were going to be aggressive in turning their fortunes around.

Price is exactly the type of elite talent that a well-heeled team like the Red Sox should be spending their money on. It’s required a huge commitment from them, a seven-year contract worth $217m (approximately £20.5m per year, or £394k per week), yet they can afford it even if a major injury comes along at some point and takes him off the field for an extended period.

That’s perfectly illustrated by looking at the dealings of the reigning AL East champions, and Price’s former team, the Toronto Blue Jays.

There’s a vast difference in committing $217m in a player to $36m. However, look past the headline figures and Price is much more likely to be worth $30m or so per year to the Red Sox than J.A. Happ will be worth the $12m per year that the Blue Jays will be paying him over the next three years. Limit it to the next two years and add Marco Estrada, who like Happ has been little better than average for most of his career, to the mix and you’ve got the Red Sox paying Price $30m per year, with the Blue Jays spending $25m combined on Estrada and Happ.

Which scenario would Toronto fans prefer?

It’s important to explain that the $25m figure is averaged out a bit by me there, as Estrada’s two-year $26m contract pays him $11m in 2016 and $14m in 2017, whilst Happ will earn $10m in 2016, then $13m in 2017 (and again in 2018).  So in reality it’s $30m against $21m in 2016, then $30m against $27m in 2017.

What we’re seeing in Toronto’s contracts is how they are structuring deals as part of their wider payroll and the other commitments they have, including the small matter of a potential extension for Jose Bautista and/or Edwin Encarnacion in the near future.

All the same, Toronto are not a small market team that need to scrimp and save around the edges, or at least they shouldn’t be operating in that way. Putting money into one pitcher rather than two brings additional risk, but it appears as though the Blue Jays made this choice and never really got into the final running to re-sign Price. They may live to regret that decision, particularly as Price has stayed in the AL East to potentially haunt them.

That’s even more the case when we consider that Price’s seven-year/$217m deal is actually more likely to be a three-year/$90m deal. The pitcher can opt out of the contract at that point and, as we’ve just seen with Greinke, if he’s healthy and performs as he can during that period then he will opt out of the remaining four years and $127m to get another – i.e. longer and more lucrative – contract.

The opt-out is becoming a standard part of major free agent contracts precisely because it serves the player so well. The risk is all taken on by the team; if Price gets injured or has a sudden drop-off in performance then the Red Sox are committed to the additional $127m regardless.

There is a potential benefit for the team in this scenario if they are taking a gamble that the player will be well worth the money initially and opt out, only to then see the ageing process reduce his effectiveness with another team being lumbered with paying him at that point.

You’ve got to think, though, that the only real benefit in the opt-out for Boston is that they got Price at all. The chances are that the opt-out was close to non-negotiable, other than Boston significantly increasing the average annual value of the contract, which would have raised the risk and really raised the bar for the next ace pitcher free agent’s demands.

If they believe in Price’s future, and there’s no reason not to other than the usual doubts about pitcher health, the Red Sox are left delighted to have him, but with the slight sense of foreboding that he might ‘do a Greinke’ in three years time.

Whilst Price’s signing with the Red Sox was no surprise, Zack Greinke signing for the Arizona Diamondbacks was a genuine shock.

The six-year, $206m contract (approximately £22.7m per year, or £436k per week) is completely out of kilter with the D-Backs’ recent dealings. ESPN summed it up best when they noted that the $206m they’ve committed in Greinke is more than all of their Major League Free Agent spending over the last eight off-seasons combined.

The splurge reportedly has not impressed some of the big market teams. You can understand the unhappiness of teams that commit sizeable sums to the shared revenue money pool, only to have a team like the D-Backs pocket it for several seasons and then use the financial flexibility to outbid them for an elite starting pitcher. That’s certainly not what teams like the L.A. Dodgers believe the ‘fairness’ of revenue sharing is about and it will be a significant point of contention among the 30 MLB ownership groups over the next year as a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Players’ Union is negotiated.

For the rest of us, the D-Backs jumping in to, and winning, what had appeared to be a personal battle between the titans of the NL West division, the Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants, for Greinke’s signature is a remarkable outcome that should spice up the division no end.

The Giants have already responded (and perhaps that should be started to respond) by signing Jeff Samardzija to a five-year, $90m contract. Meanwhile the smarting Dodgers are not going to sit idly by with their huge financial reserves sitting in the bank.

Whilst we won’t have the futures of Price and Greinke to debate during the Winter Meetings this coming week, the way those signings have panned out – 2015’s last-placed Red Sox retooling in the AL East and the D-Backs taking Greinke away from the first-placed Dodgers in the NL West – are only going to make the free agent and trade market all the more exciting.

 

NL West: Off-season so far

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evaluating achievements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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