March 29, 2024

Play Ball!

#fuckyeahbaseball

“Ninety percent of this game is half mental.” Yogi Berra

Technically, the very first pitch of the 2024 Major League Baseball season was thrown almost a week ago, yet today is the official Opening Day. Regardless, baseball is back and with that, I should take the opportunity to enjoy two of my passions, whether, my dear readers, you like it or not, prepare for lots of baseball content coming your way. For now, here’s a few pithy morsels on the narratives and storylines I am either excited for or plan to follow through the year with some predictions and my favorite baseball movie scenes sprinkled throughout.

Sit back, sip your beverage and enjoy.

The Plight of Yankees and are the Youn’ Birds ‘re comin’?

While the Dodgers made sure to keep the spotlight by spending the GDP of a small nation, the baseball’s universe has always focused on the AL East, after all you have one of the most historic franchises in any professional sports, the New York Yankees and arguably the second largest and possibly most annoying fanbases, as well as history of racism, in Boston Red Sox.

After a disappointing last season, the Yankees went out and got the best hitter they could possibly get not named Ohtani in Juan Soto. Seemingly remembering that they are the Yankees, they got Alex Verdugo and Trent Grisham. Antony Rizzo, supposed to lead a core of resurgent vets and with Gerrit Cole, now healthy Carlos Rodon… yeah, that all sounded great before Cole’s elbow started to bark and he is now slated to miss at least a month, likely more. Soto’s acquisition, as good and as need as it was, masked the fact that the Yankees were a rapidly aging, injury-prone team that excessively relies on a handful of oft-injured stars and Cole. I have Verdugo and Rodon in my 28-team dynasty fantasy league1 and while I am tentatively one of the top contenders, I am not feeling any warm fuzzies about these two (or really my entire season, but that’s another post). Most likely outcome for the Yankees is to continue to rely on their offense and keeping Aaron Judge bubble wrapped any time he is not in the batter’s box, flirt with the postseason but fall short in a dramatic fashion in September when Cole, Rodon and Gil all end up going on IL during a 5 day span. I am not even all that pessimistic: Why Baseball Reference projects Yankees for one of worst seasons in franchise history.

The window for the Blue Jays around the core of the 2nd generation of MLBers in Vlad Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, etc. seems to slowly start to close with the free agent years for both young stars no far away. However, I think for as much fun as these young Blue Jays team has been over the past few seasons, there seems to be a universal overevaluation of the team’s talent. Baby Vlad really only had one season where he looked like a budding superstar,

same with Bichette, same with Daulton Varsho and potentially Alejandro Kirk. Don’t get me wrong, they are all exciting and very good young players, I just don’t think they are on the same level as the players who constitute the core for the Orioles for example or if we go outside the division, even less so when compared to the core of Astros and Rangers. With Kevin Gausman already having shoulder issues and Alek Manoah still nowhere to be found, the pitching quickly becomes suspect. They may flirt with playoffs for most of the season, alas, I’ll be surprised if they are still in the race in September.

Now, those young Orioles, who have the luxury to keep Jackson Holliday in the minors because they legitimately have better current options at 2B/SS/3B and arguably have the best catcher in the sport, finally got rid of the Angelos penny-pinching ways and immediately went out and got an ace in Corbin Burnes. Even with Kyle Bradish hurt, the industry is very high on the team, expecting further development from Grayson Rodriguez and others. I loved what the Orioles did when they traded for Burnes (and it’s not like there was plethora of true aces available in free agency or trade), but I don’t buy him as the same dude who won the Cy Young couple of years ago. His numbers slipped a bit last year and while there should be no more penalty on pitchers moving to AL, Burnes is moving from arguably the 2nd worst division (it’s hard to beat last year’s AL Central) to arguably the toughest. The backend of the bullpen is suspect - if you think Kimbrel can still effectively close, I recommend you watch Phillies playoffs fiasco from last year.

They will win the division, the team is too talented and too good not to, but I don’t think this is the year this team brings a parade to the Inner Harbor.

One team that most are seemingly writing off this year are the Rays. Quite understandable. After all, Tampa’s payroll limitations are historically famous and one potentially historically talent that the team had in Wander Franco, is now lost. Three pitchers at the top of the rotation - Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs - start the season on IL (they are also joined by two top prospects in Shane Baz and Taj Bradley) and nominal ace, with the striking resemblance to an Cillian Murphy, Tyler Glasnow, was shipped out to the Dodgers, simply to increase the degree of difficulty faced by the team.

Somehow, people forget that the three aces who are currently hurt, were essentially middle relievers before the Rays got their hands on them, which is… exactly what the current rotation is. Hmmm.

Yes, outside of the mercurial Randy Arazorena, there’s not a single star player on the team. Yet, the Rays have a perfected a plug-and-play approach with a bunch of young swiss-army knife-like players capable of playing multiple positions and being platooned and essentially producing every ounce of potential value out of the lineup. Some of the younger players will likely take a stop forward, I am looking specifically at Junior Caminero, Isaac Paredes and Curtis Mead. They’ll make the playoffs and then? Then they will be very dangerous.

The Ol’ Man and Tree??

Okay, so the subtitle for round 3 of the Atlanta-Philadelphia heavyweight fight may be a bit rough, but c’mon, Bryce Harper is the epitome of the old school baseball grit and determination (yes, yes, I purposely wrote that) who perfectly symbolizes the city he plays for and represents.

Phillies have a lot of other stars, from Aaron Nola to Zach Wheeler to Trea Turner, but it is undeniably Harper’s team. Meanwhile, some 600 miles south, in the suburbs of Atlanta, the Braves have their own superstar in Ronald Acuna Jr. but are often seen as a team with a great young core of position players and pitchers methodically assembled, developed and signed long-term under the leadership of Alex Anthopoulos.

Strictly by looking on paper, the Braves might be a juggernaut of historic proportions. The team did not really need any major improvements, yet, Anthopoulos, practically embarked on Jerry Dipoto-worthy off-season, trading for players and almost immediately shipping them off, taking on money and they shedding it in convoluted transactions. In the end, the team did improve on the margins, with Chris Sale taking 4th rotation spot and mercurial Jered Kelenic now patrolling the left field. Short of a series of significant injuries, we might as well write Atlanta in as the division champs, in pen, not even in pencil.

While Phillies were able to prevail over the Braves in October two years in the row, they continue looking up at Atlanta in the standings, both actual and the perception ones. You would think that this is the team that would go out and make another splash so common to Dave Dombrowski. Yet, outside of some backups and resigning their aces, Phillies stood pat and there’s a very good reason for that. They simply don’t care for the regular season. Last two years proved to anyone that as long as you make the postseason and have the roster built for October you have as good of a chance as anyone. Well that’s exactly what these Phillies are. This is a team built for the playoffs. They may struggle to win 90 games, but they’ll make the playoff, probably giving their fans a few weeks of heartaches over August and September, but once they get to play for the real prize? For the 3rd year in a row, Bryce Harper and Co will bash and bring back the painful memories of the 1990s to the Atlanta fans.

If a tree falls…

Both of the Central divisions are filled with small market teams constantly slashing payrolls. Of course, these teams (along with Miami and Oakland) represent everything that is wrong with most of the ownership in the professional sports. Outside of Mark Attanasio in Milwaukee, every owner in these two divisions is dead set on making sure that the team is a financially productive enterprise first and foremost, filled with a myriad of excuses in the name of earning every last penny possible - in case of both Chicago teams they can’t even really claim having a small market, yet here we are.

I think that what Milwaukee continues to do, juxtaposed against the rest of both Central divisions, calls for significant admiration. The team ended up trading Burns and letting Brandon Woodruff, their other ace go, yet, somehow they are still the contenders for the division title. These young Brewers may not win a single playoff series, but here’s hoping they do, because they deserve it.

In the AL Central, Tigers are known to spend but have been in the rebuilding purgatory for nearly a decade, multiple high first round draft picks are still on the proverbial brink of a breakthrough and perhaps this is the year we see Spenser Torkleson, Riley Greene, Tarik Skrubal, Casey Mize, Matt Manning and Co. put it all together and win the division? I won’t lie, while I am honestly excited for the bright future of this team, I do have three of these young players on that dynasty team and my own success does largely depend on the success of their development.

The Death Star

What can one say about the off-season that the Dodgers had that has not already been said? If the Yankee dynasty under George Steinbrenner was the Evil Empire, then these LA Dodgers are the Death Star. Forget the obscene amount of money spent and deferred, when fully healthy, this team would not have a rotation spot for Clayton freaking Kershaw! If that’s not an embarrassment of the riches, they also will likely roll out the lineup featuring three former MVPs who are sure-fire Hall of Famers and likely 3 out of the top 5 candidates for the MVP this season. Simply because spending a bazillion dollars on pitching was not enough, Dodgers also signed their all-start catcher Will Smith, arguably the best hitting catcher this side of the league, to a 10 year extension, making at least two top 100 catching prospects in Daulton Rushing and Diego Cartaya into immediate trade bait for more help that I am not even sure is really needed.

However, not all is peachy in Dodgerland. The scandal with Ohtani’s friend and interpreter gambling away $4.5 million dollars leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I don’t know and honestly don’t care whether this is simply a horrible cover up for Ohtani’s own gambling or a perfect example of how detached from the real life celebrities are that neither Ohtani nor anyone in his entourage even noticed millions of dollars missing!! I admire Ohtani the player, he is truly a marvel that we have never seen and may not see for a very long time. Every single comparison made between him and Babe Ruth is an admission of either not knowing or understanding baseball and its history or of racism. Ruth had only one season of playing as a full time pitcher and hitter when he displayed his talents, whereas Ohtani has multiple seasons and provided he fully recovers from the off-season surgery, likely has a handful more in him at his current age. Moreover, Ohtani is doing this against the best of the best in the world, there’s hardly a player worth mention nowadays who is not in the MLB. When Ruth played, MLB was a segregated league where he faced an inferior completion. It is a pure joy watching Ohtani on the field, whether he is taking batting practice before the game, pitching on the mound or facing the opposing team’s pitcher.

He seems to truly love being on the field and playing the game, he exudes this positive energy that is difficult not to like or root for… and yet, off the field, he made sure to remain an enigma, carefully protecting his brand and limiting any information related to him, as is his right. Athletes are often put on pedestals and I don’t hold grudge against any professional athlete who prefers a life of anonymity. However, the way Ohtani’s camp goes about it, create this completely artificial world around the player where he is often seen emotionless and detached to a point that it was necessary to inject “humanity” into the brand, first by introducing a puppy out of the blue, and now, conveniently, right before the interpreter story broke out, by a bland romantic narrative of his recent marriage. The contrast between the jovial and fun Ohtani on the field and what his brand made him into is well… creepy. Granted, Dodgers are not strangers to creepiness.

That said, while the investigation into Ohtani will drag on and likely will cause some annoyance to players and the team, it won’t impact the results on the field much. No matter what the truth is, MLB will never let it’s biggest star ever be found guilty of.. well anything short of murder I guess? What will impact the result is the years-long disregard for the rotation. Yamomoto will be an ace, but he is not used to the pace of the game here, nor pitching every 5th day. Glasnow never pitched 150 innings in a season. Walker Buelher’s return keeps getting pushed back. Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin are not likely to help this year. Bobby Miller will be great, perhaps even this year, but how many innings can he provide? Gavin Stone, Emmet Sheehan, Landon Knack, River Ryan and may others are ready to contribute but is this really the same rotation that looks so amazing on paper:

SP1: Shohei Ohtani

SP2: Yoshinobu Yamamoto

SP3: Tyler Glasnow

SP4: Bobby Miller

SP5: Walker Buehler

The bullpen is also a bit suspect. Blake Treinen is still hurt, Brusdar Graterol and his unseemly easy 104mph fastball is already hurt and beside Evan Phillips and Alex Vesia, who do you really trust in that bullpen, The Joe Kelly Experience??

They’ll win the division, even with Giants suddenly waking up in February out of their slumber to spend well in excess of a quarter billion dollars on their own and last year’s pennant winning Diamondbacks significantly improving their starting pitching, Dodgers will sleepwalk through the regular season with another 95 if not 100 wins, only to lose in the first round of playoffs.

It would not be Hollywood though, if there was not yet another great story in Dodgerland this year. This story, I am all in. I’ve been a fanboi of Mookie Betts ever since the diminutive second baseman showed up as a “very deep sleeper” on some prospect lists back in the early 2010s. While I don’t remember what caught my eye, I did draft Betts in my dynasty league and took all the jokes for wasting a 2nd round pick on 5’9 second baseman with no path to a major league job since Dustin Pedroia was in his prime. My high draft selection, unlike the real life 5th round, paid off soon. Betts made his debut in 2014 splitting his time between 2B, RF and CF. Next season he played mostly in CF and in his first full season as a 22 year old garnered some down ballot MVP votes. He was even better over the next two seasons, finishing 2nd and 6th in the MVP race before finally winning it in 2018. Mind you, no shame in his 2nd place finish in 2016, after all it was to some bum named Mike Trout who put up 10.5 WAR (BR version)2. After a somewhat less successful season, Red Sox shocked the world and traded Betts to the Dodgers. It was a match made in heaven. While Betts did not win another MVP while wearing Dodger Blue, he did finish 2nd two times and has another top 5 finish. But this story is not about the awards or accomplishments.

You see, after being drafted as a second baseman, and moonlighting as one in his first season, his entire career, Betts played in the outfield, consistently being among the best defensive players first at center and then right field. That is until last season. Couple of years ago, Dodgers let Corey Seager walk as a free agent… because they just happened to have traded for Trea Turner to play 2B for a couple of months as a bonus while getting Mad Max. Once Turner became a free agent himself, Dodgers made a half-assed attempt to resign him but the plan was to hand over the reign to Gavin Lux, another young budding star… until Lux tore his ACL in a Spring Training game. That left Dodgers with a ton of crappy options at SS supporting rookie Miguel Vargas at 2B. To their credit, Dodgers realized that if they mean to contend, they need to improve on struggling Vargas and whatever shit they happen to throw at the wall… I mean shortstop.

Enter Mookie Betts.

He simply offered to help the team and started to play 2B and at times even moonlighting as a SS. Not only was he passable, he was good and he looked good while doing it. Think about it, he hasn’t played in the infield since his rookie season a decade ago and there he was, making it look easy. Acuna may have gotten the most votes for the MVP award, but Betts was the real MVP last season - both players produced the same WAR, 8.4 vs 8.3 per Fangraphs, but Betts did it by playing at the MVP level all over the field, thus allowing the team to platoon imperfect players at other positions to maximize the results. In other words, when considering the value created by a player, we should account for the additional value Dodgers received through playing better hitters via platoons with Betts moving from OF-2B-SS. This was already a great story, even if the writers decided to award the wrong player yet again, but Mookie is not done surprising us… Gavin Lux returned from his injury but along with him, the yips came back too and here we have, Mookie Betts, closing in on his 32nd birthday going to play SS for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a position, he played a total of 116 innings in his entire illustrious career and you know what? I bet Mookie is going to be more than just fine. How much more? See the predictions section.

History Repeats itself?

The Seattle Mariners are one of the most tormented franchises in baseball history. It’s not an exaggeration, it’s simply a fact. The Mariners are yet to win a World Series, but they have one of the most historic seasons of any baseball franchise. They’ve developed or prominently featured more generational talents - Ken Griffey Jr., A-Rod, Ichiro, Randy, King Felix, Adrian Beltre, Jamie Moyer to name a few - in my lifetime than almost any team I can think off and yet they have been to playoffs only five times in the entire history of the team.

The fates have started to smile again on this tortured franchise, the team made playoffs in 2022, came close last year and once again has another generational talent in Julio Rodriguez. What’s more, Mariners are in the enviable position of the embarrassment of riches whereas the starting pitching is concerned. George Kirby is a pitching savant who we may end up speaking off in the same vain as Greg Maddux and he is joined by two ace-level talents in Logan Gilbert and Louis Castillo. A couple of teams can claim having three top-of-the-rotation starters, but Mariners also feature two young, exciting and very promising arms in Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo with more on the way in the minors.

A franchise with such a disappointing history and owners with deep pockets should want to try and capitalize on a once in a lifetime opportunity to surround a generational positional player and a young dominant rotation with a supporting cast capable of making the team into a serious contender. Alas, Jerry Dipoto spent the winter as usual, wheeling and dealing and in the end objectively the team is marginally better, but really Josh Rojas and Luis Urias is the best you could have done at 3B? That’s even before we get to Mitch Haniger. No, really, I am dying to know whether once was not enough or there were no other RFs available???

This team will be fun to watch because of J-Rod and the pitching and they’ll make the playoffs again, but until they get some help, any help, they’ll keep coming up short and writing more sad chapters to the already nightmarish history of the franchise.

Et tu Brutus!

The economic structure of the MLB is not crumbling only because of the silly TV money that continues to roll in and even when it seemed the the well ran dry, it did not. Practically every small market team screams bloody murder and then pockets millions of dollars in revenue sharing every year. Those are the good guys as far as the MLB owners are concerned. Cuz if you want the bad guys look no further than Oakland where the owner literally ran the team into the ground Major League style in order to move to Vegas and build a monstrosity of a real estate development or Boston where a team that by any objective major should and historically used to be a large market behemoth decided one of a sudden that they play in a small market and there is a budget that must be adhered to.

These small market owners had a pretty good gig going too, collect the millions and then blame the market economics for not being able to spend and if anyone questioned, you were easily able to deflect by mentioning literally every other small market team. Until Peter Seidler purchased San Diego Padres and decided that he wants to win, money be damned, markets too. San Diego is a small market and recently lost it’s NFL team but the Padres did not seem to pay any attention to the size of their market or their critics or other small market owners screaming bloody murder. They spent and spent and spent - dollars and prospects, year after year and by last season they had a borderline super team akin to the NBA: Tatis Jr, Machado, Bogaerts, Soto, Darvish, Snell, Musgrove, Hader… Unfortunately, no matter how much star (and actual on-field) power Padres collected they kept coming up short.

Seidler passed away last year.

The bill came due.

Snell and Hader left as free agents.

Soto was traded to the Yankees before he left as a free agent himself.

It almost looked like the team on a decline. Until, at the 11th hour A.J. Preller once again pulled a shocker, trading for Dylan Cease, essentially replacing Snell and telling the haters that no, we are not going to go quiet into the night, we might be a small market team but we are here to try to win at all costs and to put the best product on the field to entertain our fans, something that no other small market team this side of Milwaukee has done. You know what, maybe the Ewing theory works for owners and this Padres team will surprise us all? I sure as hell hope so, not because I like any of the players, as a matter of fact I actually dislike most of the Padres star players, but because I want this Padres team to finally shut up the greedy arseholes that were full of glee over the winter.

Predictions

American League

Division Winners: Baltimore, Detroit, Houston

Wildcard teams: Tampa Bay, Seattle, Texas

MVP: Kyle Tucker

Cy Young: George Kirby

Rookie of the Year: Jackson Holliday

National League

Division Winners: Atlanta, Milwaukee, Los Angeles

Wildcard teams: Philadelphia, San Diego, Arizona

MVP: Mookie Betts

Cy Young: Strider

Rookie of the Year: Jung Hoo Lee

World Series

Philadelphia over Tampa Bay