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Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Boos, Cheers and Chocolate Bars

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The first full week of the MLB season is now in the books and it’s starting to feel like we’re getting into the swing of it.

Every team has at least one win, albeit still only one win for the Tampa Bay Rays heading into Sunday’s games, whilst every team has at least one loss, albeit still only one loss in the case of the Boston Red Sox (linked to the Rays’ situation) and the New York Mets.

Among the expected favourites, the LA Dodgers have had the slowest start in losing six of their first eight games, with the Cleveland Indians going 3-5 through their first eight games.

But it is still only eight games.

We have to wait for what seems like an eternity for the baseball season to start again and that means it’s difficult to avoid the temptation to draw conclusions from what we’ve seen. Whether good or bad, it’s going to take a couple of months to really get a feel on how teams and players are shaping up this season.

Boos Turn To Cheers

That’s being rational about it, though. It’s easy for fans to lose perspective in the early days of the season, forgetting that a 162 game regular season brings with it plenty of ups and downs.

Giancarlo Stanton got his first taste of the difference between playing in Miami and playing in New York when he was booed in the Bronx on Tuesday for striking out five times. He gave the perfect response the following day by hitting a home run.

Similarly new Phillies manager Gabe Kapler had a rough first few days on the job with his unconventional bullpen management coming under all sorts of scrutiny. Some fans booed him at their Citizens Bank Park home opener on Thursday, partly in jest (I think), but wins like the one they had on Saturday (20-1 over Miami) will soon change that.

The simple rule is that some fan bases are quicker to boo than others and the best way to respond is to give them something to cheer about.

#BonusBreakfastBaseball

In last week’s column I referenced the 17-inning slog between the Cubs and Marlins and that the push for extra inning rules in the Majors may gain momentum over the next ten years.

What I neglected to mention is that for us across the pond there is a perk attached to these long games, especially those on the west coast.

It was about six o’clock on Tuesday morning when I looked at the scores and saw that the game at Chase Field between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks was still in progress. Two hours later and it was still going on. The game lasted 15 innings and took a total of 5 hours 46 minutes to complete, finally being won by Arizona at around 8.25 BST.

That was good fun for neutrals, great fun for D-Backs and quite significantly less fun for Dodgers fans, particularly any that had started watching from first pitch (2.40 am here) and lived through a second Kenley Jansen blow-up early this season.  Again, ‘it’s early’ …

Facebook Freebie that may feel like a blackout

As for watching baseball, a new venture for MLB began on Wednesday when Facebook provided an exclusive broadcast of the day-game between the Phillies and Mets.

Games have been shown live on various platforms before, yet the difference in this case is the worldwide online exclusive part. MLB.TV simply directed you on to the Facebook page where you had to log in to see the game.

It should be said that the Facebook deal isn’t putting anything behind another paywall and MLB will focus on the fact that it makes another weekly MLB live game free to watch.  The issue of course is that you have to sign up to Facebook to watch it and whilst for many people that will be a non-issue, it was coincidental that the Phillies-Mets game was going on precisely when Facebook announced that the number of people affected by the Cambridge Analytica saga totalled a staggering 83 million.

In the UK, we’ve been used to enjoying MLB.TV since its inception without having to worry about any local blackouts that affect subscribers in North America. The Facebook deal is only for one game per week, so it’s not a significant number of games affected over the season, but it is going to be one day-game per week, which has an increased impact on us due to those being the most convenient games to watch live in the British evening.

MLB.TV subscribers are left in the situation of either having to sign up to Facebook – which for many reasons increasing numbers want to avoid – to watch games that they considered they had paid for or miss out. Again, it’s only one game per week, but the concern would be that it sets a precedent that will gradually see more deals being signed that reduce the live action available on MLB.TV.

Twitter are also streaming one game per week live for free again this year; however these are only available in North America so not something we can use to help promote the game in this country.

The Chocolate bars are on Charlie

It’s been a good week for Charlie Blackmon. He signed a new six-year contract with the Colorado Rockies that guarantees him at least $108m.

It’s an interesting deal as it has to be seen in the context of this past off-season’s Free Agent market, with Blackmon’s original contract set to expire at the end of this season. He has decided to work out the best deal he could get with the Rockies rather than test the market and you have to say that seems a wise decision.

Blackmon has been a relatively late bloomer. Whilst his performances over the past few seasons have been excellent, he turns 32 years old in July and so, based on what we’ve just seen, you could imagine teams being wary about offering a contract for more than three years to him, even though his performances would suggest he deserved a bigger investment.

The Rockies don’t have a great track record when it comes to making big signings, from last year’s Ian Desmond deal (that doesn’t make any more sense one year) to the infamous Mike Hampton disaster of December 2000.

In the case of Blackmon, they have been prepared to push the boat out to tempt him away from free agency due to their close knowledge of the player. Come back in six years’ time to see whether it proved to be a wise decision or not.

The Sunday Smasher

The selection here should probably be Shohei Ohtani’s second MLB start on the mound, given how well his debut went and his headline-grabbing, home run hitting we’ve seen this week.

However, I picked his start last week and, as with that one, he’s going to be facing my Oakland A’s so I’ll leave that one alone in the hope that his performance is less eye-catching today.

Instead, I’m going to pick the Marlins-Phillies game that begins at 18.35 BST and is available to watch or listen to via MLB.TV. They may not be teams that neutrals would immediately pick, but I like to make sure I catch a bit of every team early in the season and the reason to choose this one is that it will be Jake Arrieta’s debut for the Phillies.

It looks a very favourable match-up for Arrieta – other than the fear for Phillies fans that they used up all their hits and runs yesterday – and he could do something special.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Ohtani pitches, Honeywell doesn’t

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The weather gods clearly have been reading this column.

After I rejected the meteorological season’s definition of when winter turns to spring last week, in favour of the baseball season version, it looks like we’re going to get a ‘big freeze’ this coming week with snow storms and temperatures down to -8C.

Sorry about that!

Let’s take a positive from it though; it will make watching and listening to Spring Training games from sunny Arizona and Florida all the more appealing.

Ohtani debut

You don’t get many big events in Spring Training, but the first appearance of Japanese star Shohei Ohtani counted as one on Saturday.

Ohtani was on the same plan as the rest of his Angels starting pitchers: two innings or 30 pitches, whichever came first.  He left after 1.1 innings and 31 pitches, one batter after the Milwaukee Brewers’ Keon Broxton took him deep and on to the grass mound behind the left-field fence.

With so little else going on so early in spring, every little last detail was bound to be obsessed over by beat writers and columnists, all whilst accepting that a first start of 31 pitches doesn’t really tell you very much at all.

Watching the Angels’ FWS coverage via MLB.TV, Ohtani showed off one of his fabled splitters in striking out Minor Leaguer Nate Orf (“orf” being the sound some made as the pitch went by) and a big slow curve for a called strike in another at-bat.  His command of his pitches was a bit shaky at times, but that’s to be expected early in the pre-season.

More insightful than Ohtani’s performance was news from the Angels’ camp reported by Terry Smith and Jose Mota about Ohtani’s transition to being an MLB pitcher and also the adjustments the Angels will be making.  The six-man rotation plan seems to still be in play and, with Ohtani also being an option with the bat, it looks like the Angels’ bench will consist of just a back-up catcher, infielder and outfielder.

At first glance that would seem a short bench, not knowing quite how much Ohtani will be used as a hitter in 2018; however, it’s becoming increasingly common for American League teams to only roster three bench players. That allows most teams (i.e. those that don’t have a pitcher who can also hit like Ohtani promises to do) to have an 8-man bullpen to go alongside the 5-man rotation.

‘Bullpenning’ is en vogue in the play-offs and being used more during the regular season too and is one of the key reasons why the length of games has being going up in recent years (time taken for pitching changes, relievers traditionally being more ‘deliberate’ with their pace of play etc).  Whilst limits on pitching changes have not been introduced for 2018, it was mooted as an option being considered by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred in his quest for increasing the pace of play and will be raised again if the trends of 8-man bullpens and lengthening game times continue.

Roth off to a good start

Although it didn’t get the fanfare of Ohtani’s debut, understandably enough, Great Britain pitcher Michael Roth got his spring off to a good start by pitching two score-less innings for the Chicago Cubs against the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday, giving up only one hit in the process.

Roth’s unlikely to make the Cubs’ Opening Day roster given the pitching depth that Chicago has, but some good performances in spring can only help his stock.

Non-roster invitee

Roth is classed as a non-roster invitee for the Cubs and is one of many NRI players across the 30 MLB clubs this spring.

If you’re new to baseball, a non-roster invitee is essentially as the term suggests: someone who is not on the club’s 40-man roster but gets an invite to come to their Major League Spring Training camp.

In Roth’s case, he’s an example of a player who signs a Minor League contract with a club over the off-season and then gets given an NRI to try to earn a spot on the roster or at least to impress enough to either remain in the organisation as a Minor League player or to be picked up by another team.

The other main type of NRI is a player who is already part of the club’s farm system and gets given the opportunity to spend some of spring with the Major League team before being sent on to Minor League camp.  Whilst some of those players will be in a situation of trying to earn a roster spot, in the main they will be there to give the Major League coaching staff a chance to work with them for a few weeks and also to help fill out the Spring Training line-ups.

As you’ll notice, Major League regulars often only play four innings or so at the start of spring – or may not play at all if it’s a road game – before being replaced by Minor Leaguers.

One quirk of the transaction rules is that Ohtani, as a non-MLB free agent, technically signed a Minor League contract with the Angels so he is as an NRI currently as he hasn’t yet had to be added to the Angels’ 40-man roster.

More Rays woes as Honeywell heads under the knife

It seems to happen every spring that a top pitching prospect on the verge of making their Major League debut has their progress cruelly halted by an elbow injury that requires ‘Tommy John’ surgery (named after the pitcher the experimental surgery was first tried on in 1974).

Last year it was the St Louis Cardinals’ Alex Reyes, this year it is the Tampa Bay Rays’ Brent Honeywell.

The pitcher took a pragmatic view to the situation, as reported on MLB.com: “We sign up to be pitchers. Bad things happen every now and then. There’s a couple of things that you can prevent, but I don’t think this is one of them. It’s either going to go or it’s not, the way I look at it”.

It was yet another blow this off-season for Rays fans, coming in the same week as Steven Sousa being traded away to the Arizona Diamondbacks in a three-team trade that also included the Yankees.

If we go by Baseball-Reference’s flavour of WAR (Wins Above Replacement), the Tampa Bay Rays’ most valuable players from 2017 were:

  1. Kevin Kiermaier – 5.1
  2. Steven Sousa – 4.2
  3. Logan Morrison – 3.6
  4. Evan Longoria – 3.6
  5. Corey Dickerson – 2.7
  6. Alex Cobb – 2.3.

The best you can say is that at least Kiermaier is still on the club, at time of writing at least.

Cobb and Morrison are free agents and clearly not coming back to the Rays, Longoria and Sousa have been traded, whilst Dickerson was recently Designated for Assignment (DFA’d) and picked up by Pittsburgh.

There’s an argument that when you add it all up, the Rays might not lose too much performance when additions are factored in and that they were unlikely to challenge the Red Sox and Yankees in the AL East this season even with those players.

Such logical thinking doesn’t make it less jarring for a fan who hangs on the results of all 162 games in a regular season.  Honeywell was one of the reasons Rays fans could look at the off-season departures and think ‘well at least we can enjoy watching him starting his Big League career’

Sadly that’s now going to be put off until sometime in 2019.

The Grandyman Can – and did

The first home run of Spring Training came courtesy of all-round good guy Curtis Granderson. He got off to the perfect start by taking a 1-1 pitch into right field whilst batting lead-off for Toronto.

Granderson signed a $5m contract with the Blue Jays over the off-season after spending time with the Mets and Dodgers last year.  He’s a fan favourite wherever he goes and has a place in the hearts of British baseball fans due to his Ask Curtis appearances on Baseball on 5 years ago.

 

MLB Sleepyhead Summary: Yankees sweep whilst the Rangers keep winning

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

Yankees sweeping up New York

The New York Yankees have had to sit back and take the jibes over the past few seasons as the New York Mets got to a World Series in 2015 and became the team everyone was talking about in the Big Apple.

That must have made this week’s Subway Series sweep all the more satisfying.

The Yankees won all four games against the Mets in one of the weird inter-league series that has two games at one venue, followed straight away by two games at the other. It makes more sense in a single-city match-up than it does when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros are paired together, as happened this week, at least.

That sets up this weekend’s series against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium perfectly, with the Red Sox leading the AL West by four games after defeating the St Louis Cardinals twice (victories including a triple-play and a three-run rally in the ninth inning).

You would be forgiven for assuming that the third game will be the ESPN Sunday Night contest, but they will be showing the Cardinals-Pirates game from the Williamsport Little League site, so instead we can catch the game at 18.30 BST. Sonny Gray, who got his first win in pinstripes on Tuesday, and Doug Fister are the probable pitchers for Sunday.

Rangers making a run for it

The team that’s really on the march right now is the Texas Rangers.

They’ve won 11 of their last 13 games, including a three-game sweep over Detroit and defeating the Chicago White Sox on Thursday in the first game of a four-game series.  The White Sox have lost their last five games and have the worst win-loss record in the American League, 45-73, so it’s a prime opportunity for the Rangers to continue their climb towards an American League Wild Card.

Whilst the Yankees have a 3.5 game gap for the top Wild Card, the rest of the group is very closely bunched, with the LA Angels currently holding the second spot and then seven teams sitting within three games of the Halos.

WC – NY Yankees (65-55) 3.5
WC – LA Angels (62-59) –
Kansas City (61-59) 0.5 Games Back
Minnesota (60-59) 1
Seattle (61-61) 1.5
Texas (60-60) 1.5
Tampa Bay (60-63) 3
Baltimore (59-62) 3
Toronto (59-62) 3

To illustrate how close it is, the Baltimore Orioles currently have five teams ahead of them before they get to the Angels, but if they can sweep their three-game series against LA this weekend they’ll have the same record as the team currently holding the second Wild Card. The Mariners have a chance to climb as they take on the out-of-form Tampa Bay Rays this weekend, whilst Kansas City and taking on the AL Central-leading Cleveland Indians.

The Toronto Blue Jays are still in with a shout of an AL Wild Card despite their terrible start to the season and they go into their weekend inter-league series against the Chicago Cubs on the back of winning three of four against the Rays.

NL Central remains close

As for the Cubs, they split a four-game series with the Cincinnati Reds this week, losing the final game 13-10 despite slugging six home runs. Jon Lester had a day to forget, giving up nine runs in 1.2 innings before leaving the game with an injury. All three games against the Blue Jays at Wrigley Field are 19.20 BST starts. Friday’s game should see Jake Arrieta and J.A. Happ on the mound.

The Cardinals defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates last night in the first of an important four-game series. The Pirates have now lost five in a row, including both games of a short two-game series against Milwaukee on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Cubs now hold a one-game lead over the Cardinals, and a 1.5 game lead over Milwaukee in the NL Central. The Pirates have slipped to 5.5 games back and whilst there’s still plenty of games left to play, getting some wins back against the Cardinals this weekend will be crucial to avoid the gap increasing.

Milwaukee have bounced back from an indffierent spell coming out of the All-Star break. They’ve won four in a row heading into this weekend’s series in Colorado against the Rockies.

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 – American League Preview

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

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

That’s especially the case in the American League.

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

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

AL East

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

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

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

AL Central

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

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

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

AL West

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

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

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

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

My predictions

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

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

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

MLB heads to Havana as live games return to BT Sport

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Live baseball returns to British TV screens this week with two games to watch.

ESPN in the States starts to cover a few Spring Training games once we get to the latter stages of the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues. On Monday, they are broadcasting a game between the Boston Red Sox and St Louis Cardinals and BT Sport/ESPN in the UK will be picking up the feed with coverage starting at 17.00.

The Red Sox are scheduled to send plenty of ‘name’ players to the game, including starting pitcher Clay Buchholz. He has been a frustrating figure for Red Sox fans in recent seasons by mixing occasional brilliance with more regular rubbish. Spring Training stats don’t count for much, so we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on him allowing 6 walks in 5.1 spring innings so far, but it would be encouraging to see him hitting his spots and generally starting to gain some sharpness as the regular season approaches.

Fine tuning is what spring training is all about and so you could consider the games as a whole to be relatively meaningless.

That will not be true for the live game on Tuesday. The Tampa Bay Rays’ trip to Havana to play the Cuban national team is absolutely packed full with meaning, much greater than a mere game of baseball.

President Obama’s visit to Cuba is gaining headlines across the world and it is fitting that a baseball game is part of the overall occasion. Whilst baseball may be referred to as ‘America’s National Pastime’, it has long been an engrained part of Cuban culture.

The political situation between the two countries has meant that Cuban players have had to defect from their homeland, often taking great risks in doing so such as in Orlando ‘El Duque’ Hernandez’s fabled boat trip, to play in the Major Leagues. Current Yankees pitcher Aroldis Chapman famously scarpered from a Rotterdam hotel in 2009 whilst his team was competing in the World Port Tournament, unfortunately for me just a couple of days before I got there to take in some games.

Most recently, at the start of February Yulieski Gourriel – long seen as the best position player in Cuba – and his younger brother Lourdes snuck away from a hotel in the Dominican Republic and are now pursuing opportunities to potentially sign with Major League teams.

There is hope that the thawing of relations between the two countries will result in a regulated and legal path for baseball players in the not-too-distant future, although quite how much freedom of movement (and freedom on the player market) that will result in is yet to be determined. Hopefully it will be a step in the right direction at least.

The Rays’ visit should be a momentous occasion and the game is live on BT Sport/ESPN from 17.30 on Tuesday.

With Baseball Tonight episodes returning to BT Sport channels on a regular basis this week, and Nat Coombs’ new All American Sports Show on talkSPORT2 beginning on Tuesday at 18.00, excitement for the season ahead is really starting to build.

Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Living in a fantasy world

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WHGB11It’s two weeks from today that the 2016 MLB season will get underway and we’re starting to see managers using Spring Training games to get their opening series lineups set.

The same goes for many of us that play fantasy baseball.

Our BaseballGB league had its draft on Friday night, as recapped by Mark George. You always like to set a draft as close to Opening Day as possible so that there’s a bit more certainty on which players will be making teams. Having Easter fall on the weekend before the season starter makes that slightly trickier this year so, like many others, we’ll be keeping an eye on the MLB news over the next two weeks in the hope that key selections don’t have any last-minute accidents before the games get underway.

The BGB League is a 14-team, MLB-wide, Head-to-Head setup and Yahoo was quite kind to me in randomnly selecting me at #5 in the drafting sequence. Clayton Kershaw was there for me to select in the first round, but I’m always wary of going for a pitcher so early – even one of the class of Kershaw – and couldn’t look past the all-round package that Josh Donaldson provides at third base, so he was the first name on my team sheet.

My first dilemma came in the next round where the stolen base collector Dee Gordon was a tempting option, yet Buster Posey‘s consistency and ranking as the best catching option seemed too good to turn down.

There are always moments in a draft when you’re left watching 4 or 5 other people and hoping that they haven’t got designs on the player you want to take.

The first of these occasions came in the 9th round when I thought that Hanley Ramirez might fall into my lap. Now that the disastrous left-field experiment has been ended by Boston, I can see Ramirez having a bounceback year at the plate. He’s currently listed as an outfielder on Yahoo, yet I had designs on bagging him and then moving him to first base. Unfortuantely, no sooner had I double-checkd Yahoo’s rules on when a player obtains eligibilty at a different position than the Mighty Slugs proved none-too sluggish in nabbing in him three picks ahead of me. Brandon Belt wasn’t a bad second prize though.

The second occasion came in the 13th round and once again it was those dammned Slugs that foiled my plans. This one was especially painful because it concerned Addison Russell. As an A’s fan, it’s painful enough to see our former top prospect playing in a Cubs uniform, but at least I thought I could enjoy his first full season in the Majors with him picking up points as my fantasy second baseman. Alas, it seems destined that Russell will always be out of my reach.

I responded by taking a flyer on Dustin Pedroia regaining fitness and form. Apologies to Red Sox fans if I’ve jinxed him.

My one shaky selection came in the 12th round when I drafted Shelby Miller. It’s shaky because my hunch is that the D-Backs’ all-in gamble will backfire and, if it does, part of that is likely to be down to Miller failing to live up to his 2015 performance with the Braves. All things considered Miller looked like a good option at that point in the draft so I went against my hunch and added him. We’ll see how that one plays out.

The other starting pitcher conundrum came in the 17th round when I selected Andrew Cashner. I was very optimistic about Cashner’s prospects last year and drafted him in the 11th round, only for him and many other Padres to disappoint. One year on and I’ve decided to give him another chance. Whether it’s his impending fee agency at the end of this season that inspires him, or my show of faith, I’m hoping that he won’t let me down again.

All in all, I achieved my modest drafting objective of not completely stuffing myself up from the beginning. Looking at my roster, I’m aleady taken by the fact that there will be a whole host of teams that I’ll be keeping a keen eye on that I otherwise may not concentrate on so much. It doesn’t get in the way of my actual supporting interest in the A’s (Josh Reddick is my A’s fantasy pick this year, and I adhered to my ‘no Angels but Trout’ stance – top fantasy tip: don’t touch Jered Weaver with a smelly stick), but one of the great things about fantasy baseball is that it gives you a reason to care about games that have little meaning to your ‘real’ team.

Add it to the list of reasons to be excited about the coming season.

Other thoughts

There’s always a late injury before a fantasy draft to keep on top of and this year for the BGB league it was the Rays’ project closer Brad Boxberger, who faces at least eight weeks out following abdominal muscle surgery. Tampa Bay needs good health to compete against the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Yankees this year (I’m underwhelmed by the Orioles’ prospects) and this isn’t a great start for them.

The Adam LaRoche retirement fiasco over the past week has been completely bizarre and the way executive vice president Kenny Williams has handled it all has shown a surprisingly poor lack of judgement for such an experienced member of the Front Office. The general idea of limiting La Roche’s 14-year-old son’s time in the clubhouse seemed reasonable enough; however confronting the first baseman about it half-way through Spring Training has needlessly caused a significant amount of discontent and aggravation.

There were already some doubts about the White Sox’s competitiveness this season and manager Robin Ventura‘s job security as a result. Irrespective of what actual impact this issue has, if they start slowly over the first 6-8 weeks then Ventura, General Manager Rick Hahn and the players will all be pointing the finger in the same direction.

Finally, don’t forget that Nat Coombs’ new All American Sports Show begins on Tuesday at 18.00 on talkSport2, taking place at the same time that the Rays take on the Cuban national team in a historic game in Havana (broadcast live on BTSport/ESPN) . The show will also be available as a podcast if you can’t catch it live.

Rays In Review 2015 – Steady May Suits The Rays

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After making a promising start to the 2015 Major League Baseball campaign it was imperative that the Tampa Bay Rays kept momentum up into the month of May.

Confidence was high throughout the new look Rays roster and they managed to build on their solid start to the season by recording a record of 14 wins to 15 losses within the month. On paper this doesn’t look impressive but when we look at the standings at the end of May in the American League East the Rays sit tied for first with a record of 26-25!

This is a remarkable achievement given the winter upheaval throughout the club, but I am not sure how much of our success are down to the major underachievement’s from our divisional rivals.

Much had been made about the signings made by the Blue Jays and Red Sox but with both teams struggling it has been the Rays and Yankees who have profited thus far. I do expect both rosters to come good on their potential soon but for now all the Rays can do is keep up the high efforts and just play for themselves.

David De Jesus had a solid month for the Rays batting .368 with 4 home runs and Brandon Guyer also impressed with a .364 average whilst also scoring 11 runs. The Tampa Bay offence has something that has really impressed me this season. There were so many gaps to fill and runs to make up given the lengthy list of departures in the off season but the way in which the new line up has instantly come to the fore is remarkable and is one of the main reasons we sit pretty at the top of the AL East.

The Rays pitching game had always been our strong point and another month has gone by with respectable figures within the rotation. I believe Alex Colome got the best results this month as since returning from injury he has gone 3-1 in May. His ERA was slightly high at 4.55 but put that down to lack of competitive game time.

He is beginning to complement Chris Archer superbly and given the fact that the return of Matt Moore is scheduled for the not so distant future you really get a sense that if everything clicks there is no reason as to why the Rays can’t stay competitive.

As the months go by the season will obviously unveil further but as we enter June it’s fair to say that the Tampa Bay Rays are in a very positive position. The way the team is playing steady baseball is something not to be frowned upon this early in the campaign.

We all know the season pans out to a long and arduous 162 games but for the first 50 or so the Rays are performing well above their expected levels and as a fan long may it continue.

Rays in Review 2015 – Solid Start For April

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The Tampa Bay Rays kicked off their 2015 season with a somewhat successful month that went relatively under the radar. Kevin Cash went about his business like a man relishing the very opportunity to be a major league skipper and in turn managed to steer the Rays to a winning record of 12-10 and now find themselves one place adrift of the summit of the AL East, trailing the Yankees by just one game.

Tampa Bay ended up playing 19 of their 22 games in April versus fellow AL East rivals and to say there was a mixed bag of results would be an understatement! Woeful against the Yankees with a record of 1-5 yet dominant over the Blue Jays at 6-1 is a total reverse in fortunes to what I had predicted pre-season. What I do know is that with a little more consistency against New York we would be topping the standings after a month. It’s early days on in the season I know but the more times you play the teams in your division the more there should be a will to win. The better we play early on the better the chance to cement the Rays in the race for postseason baseball come October.

Another one of my pre-season worries was how the Rays would cope with the loss of power in the batting line-up but those fears have been somewhat lessened with good Aprils for Kevin Kiermaier batting .306, Logan Forsythe batting .282, and the ever reliable Evan Longoria breaking out with a solid .293 average.

The need for solid at bats has long been an issue within the organization and even though Steven Souza Jr and Tim Beckham have lit up the month with their collective 7 home runs it will be up to the likes of these players to steadily raise their averages, get on base more and then in turn aid the overall production of run scoring.

One area we knew that Tampa Bay weren’t going to struggle was in the pitching department and once again the loss of major players around the camp hasn’t distracted Chris Archer. He has single handedly risen to the role of star pitcher for the Rays and his phenomenal ERA of 0.84 through his 5 starts in the month were exactly what was needed. On paper his 3-2 record isn’t one that jumps out as an ace in the line-up but that’s what he truly is. When he’s tossed the ball for a start there is that immediate sense of control and rhythm and this in turn should now lift the team in order to put the runs on the board to make his record even more favorable for the month of May.

There’s even more encouraging news on the pitching front for the Rays as Drew Smyly and Alex Colome have come through their injuries to retake their places in the rotation and now that leaves only Alex Cobb on the DL with tendinitis in his right pitching arm. An early return to the frame for Cobb could really see the Rays make a move in May and gives all us fans something to cheer about.

So when the dust settles on the first month of the major league season none of the headlines will be about the Tampa Bay Rays and that’s just how they will like to keep it. It’s better to be a sleeping giant and saunter quietly to success than to be widely fancied and having to deal with all the added pressures that accompany such a title. If the Rays can manage to sort out their form against the Yankees and put together a decent amount wins in a row then look for my May review to be just as positive as my April one.