The Revisionist History Around Muhammad Ali

A funny thing has been happening over the years as Muhammad Ali was sliding into decrepitude from Parkinson's disease, and now that he has slipped away from all of us. 

For decades, going back even before he ceremoniously lit the torch to the Atlanta Olympics 20 years ago, we have been revising the Muhammad Ali story.

Not so much with respect to Ali himself.
He deserved most of the accolades, though I don't recall anyone contemporaneously -- except Ali himself, of course -- crediting him as the greatest fighter of all time. There were the Sugar Rays -- Leonard and Robinson, the undefeated Marciano, Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey and now there's Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Many at the time thought Joe Frazier was the greater heavyweight, particularly after he knocked down and defeated Ali.

The real revisionism is about Ali the Beloved, America's sweetheart of the boxing world, who stood up against injustice to widespread applause.

In fact, Muhammad Ali was reviled by much of white America during his boxing career. Social conservatives, especially here in the South, hated everything about him. To them he was an "uppity nigger" who pointedly championed civil rights, eschewed Christianity, defied authority, opposed the Vietnam war and bragged about himself ceaselessly. 

Vulnerable and Nonthreatening
Only since Ali became vulnerable and nonthreatening has all of America embraced him. More importantly, the dawning recognition that he was right about everything has created a collective amnesia about all those who opposed him with every fiber of their being. 

It's easy to say now that Ali was the good guy: America was treating blacks unfairly, as his own life demonstrated. Authority was wrong about the Vietnam war, a waste of 58,000 American lives. Athletes can be flamboyant and still lovable. And Ali was the prettiest, and if not the greatest, certainly among the greats.

Injustice, Hypocrisy and Hatred
But in the 60s and 70s, these were highly inflammable issues. In style, tone and message Ali was the anti-Christ, challenging norms everywhere he went. Successful black Americans at the time acted like Booker T. Washington, not like Stokely Carmichael. Remember, Jackie Robinson had to absorb all the abuse without comment in order to break into the Majors successfully.

It's great to celebrate the life and career of Muhammad Ali, and it's heartening that ultimately the good guys won these cultural skirmishes. But let's not let America off the hook so easily. Ali is great because he ran counter to type and paid a heavy price for soldiering on against the injustice, hate and hypocrisy that dominated America not so long ago.

Why the Mets Are Thrilled That Cespedes Might Opt Out

Pity the poor Mets and Cubs. They signed Yoenis Cespedes and Dexter Fowler, respectively, to multi-year deals with first year opt outs. Each is tearing it up and likely to move on to heftier paydays after this season.

Cespedes is slashing .273/.347/.593, among the league leaders in
dingers and playing a lovely center field. Fowler has topped that, slashing .312/.434/.512 in addition to his usual bag of tricks like defense and baserunning.

So you can just imagine Mets GM Sandy Alderson and Cubs management guru Theo Epstein doing cartwheels.

Wait, what?

Yeah, cartwheels.

Both Cespedes and Fowler will be 31 next year. The odds that 2016 is their zenith are strikingly high. That's particularly true because they are currently center fielders, a position that demands youth like a boy band.  In addition, each is playing out of his mind. Cespedes has doubled his walk rate; Fowler has added 60 points of OBP to his career high.

So the Mets and Cubs got great value from the deals they struck with these players, essentially one-year contracts. One great year.

If they leave, someone else will overpay them based on their career-best season, and maybe into their baseball dotage. Sandy and Theo can spend their money on another big outfield bat with a one-year opt out. Cespedes and Fowler win the lottery and the ball clubs get a year each of great performance. Everybody's happy, even the agents, who pocket 10% of bigger numbers.

The player opt-out is now paradoxically the antidote to the late-contract overpay. And when it's inserted after one year, the team gets an extra-motivated player.

Random Observations From An Unhinged Mind

Stuff floating around my brain with nowhere to go...

This is the year of the flexfielder. Ben Zobrist has made a career of playing everything but the battery. This year Cubs slugger Kris Bryant has donned an outfield glove, an infield glove and a first baseman's mitt. The Cardinals are talking about moving Jhonny Peralta and Matt Carpenter about the infield in order to keep shortstop Aledmys Diaz on the field.

The Royals lost two stars for extended periods on this one play. Then they lost their star catcher for a month. Then they stormed back from a 7-1 ninth inning deficit to defeat the division leader. They're just different.

Ryan Howard has more strikeouts than total bases. This is very hard to do. You need to start with a .172 batting average. Don't try this at home: this man is a professional.

You know how you have to get to a great pitcher early or you miss your chance? New research shows that's poppycock. In fact, almost every pitcher in history was worse the third time through the order, than the first time through, even though he generally had to be having a good day in order to still be in the game the third time through. 

 Are dominant starters more dominant than ever or am I just now noticing it?  Look at this:
Clayton Kershaw -- 7-1, 1.56; 5BB/105K
Jake Arrieta -- 9-0, 1.72; 21BB/67K
Chris Sale -- 9-1, 2.26; 14BB/69K
Madison Bumgarner -- 6-2, 2.12; 22BB/83K
Noah Syndergaard -- 5-2, 1.87; 9BB/79K

A 21-1 K-BB ratio for Kershaw? These are video game numbers.

Big Papi is halfway to matching the WAR of the greatest final season ever before retiring. (Shoeless Joe Jackson earned 7.6 WAR in his final season but he was banned mid-career, not retired. Roberto Clemente earned 4.8 WAR before dying in a plane crash.) At 2.3 WAR, he's closing in on Jackie Robinson (4.5 WAR), Barry Bonds, 3.4 WAR), Hank Greenberg (3.4 WAR), and Ted Williams (3.0). As of Memorial Day. Big Papi was hitting .339/.420/.720, leading the league in OBP, SLG, doubles and RBI.

Mike Trout's 150th home run last week added his name to a list of 18 players who have stroked 150 home runs before age 25 season. Two things to note here:
1. Trout has two-thirds of that season to add to his total.
2. Home run hitting is not his signature skill.

Home field advantage has gone all woolly mammoth on us. Fourteen of the 30 teams have winning road records, including Arizona, which is 8-18 at home. It doesn't include Colorado, which is .500 on the road and a losing record at home; or Atlanta, which is a mortifying 4-20 at Turner but 10-14 away from it.

In the decade of the shift, recent research shows batters actually have higher batting averages when shifted against -- but slug for fewer bases. It sounds as if they are purposely hitting the ball the other way through the hole left for them, but in effect sacrificing opportunities to hit for power. On aggregate, shifts have not been effective. Which means calls for prohibiting them is even dumber than you thought.

Royals rookie Cheslor Cuthbert hails from Little Corn Island about 43 miles east of the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. His home is a mile square. A tropical rain forest, it gets 170 inches of rain a year. Although residents of a Spanish-speaking country, Corn Islanders are English-speaking. A natural Royal, Cuthbert is a direct descendant of the last king of eastern Nicaragua. 

In a game on Saturday, Russell Martin, who had managed just four extra base hits all season, ripped a game-tying double to the wall against Craig Kimbrel, who had allowed just three extra base hits all season. It was Kimbrel's second blown lead of the game, about what he normally does in half-a-season.

Another Accidental Steroid Victim

I feel so sad for Marlon Byrd and his family.

He's yet another unwitting victim of mysterious steroidal substances inserting themselves into the clean-living ballplayer's vitamins. Byrd never knowingly took any illegal substances but is manning up and accepting responsibility, which probably amounts to the end of his career. At 38, he's banned for all of this year and the first two months of next.

Maturity and Accountability on Display
Byrd is particularly admirable because he maturely accepted responsibility a couple of years ago for his positive test for Tomoxifen, which he never knowingly took either but miraculously bored into some supplements he was taking.

So poor Marlon has been twice victimized, lost millions of dollars and the respect of many, and yet, in an unprecedented demonstration of restraint, he has declined to challenge a system that is obviously overzealous and unfair. Perhaps we should start a campaign for a statue of the outfielder outside Progressive Field.

A Chemist and a Writer
On top of that, Marlon is amazingly eloquent for a professional athlete.  Here is, in part, his statement, which you know he wrote himself and comes from his heart:

"I have accepted a one-year suspension by Major League Baseball," Byrd said. "Recently, I was notified that I had tested positive for Ipamorelin, a peptide prohibited by the JDA. In 2012, I tested positive for the medication Tamoxifen, which I was using on the advice of a physician for a medical condition resulting from surgery, and I accepted my suspension without challenge. Since that time, I have paid close attention to the substances that are banned by the Joint Drug Agreement, as I had no intention of taking any banned substances.

"I relied upon a medical professional for assistance and advice with respect to the supplements that I was taking. However, certain supplements I was taking were not on the NSF Certified for Sport list, and therefore, I assumed certain risks in taking them. When I learned that I had tested positive for Ipamorelin, I retained the services of private counsel and an independent chemist to determine the origin of the Ipamorelin test result, because I never knowingly ingested Ipamorelin.

Isn't it heartbreaking? Poor Marlon. At least he has a future career as a college English professor or a professional publicist.

And now for something completely different...
Here's what I don't understand: the guy's career is over. He has nothing to lose. Why can't he actually take responsibility and acknowledge what everyone knows. 

"Yeah, I took steroids. I'm only sorry I got caught. Steroids helped me enjoy a 16-year Major League career and make $38 million. Where else am I gonna sign a contact for $1 million plus incentives -- stocking shelves at the local food mart? You'd do it for a million bucks too. See ya, suckers."

I'd like him so much better if he did. Now I just think he's a fool and a liar. Good riddance, chump.

Stuck in the Middle With You: The NY Yankees

Remember when Brian Cashman was a sort of onomatopoeia? He was named for the main power source of baseball's Evil Empire.

That would make him Brian Conflictedman now. The Yankees are mired in Middle Earth, an elevator stuck between floors, an oxymoron in pinstripes -- whatever metaphor you prefer.

They're Old, Expensive and Mediocre
Their average age is as low as 32 only because of a handful of babes dragging down the mean. Their average performance is average, as befits a 24-25 record. Their upside is down; their downside is up; they are upside down.

Underdog is not coming to save the day. The farm system is, say it with me now, middling. (You were going with average. Tomato tomahto.) As incumbent teams ink their top hurlers to deals, there isn't any pitching on the free agent horizon. Scott Kazmir and James Shields are shaping up as the top names in free agency after this season. In any case, the Yankees are more than a player or two away.

The youngsters on the roster have mostly fizzled: Nova, Severino, Gregorious, Castro -- building on that base gives you the face pictured above.

Rebuilding? Fuggetabouit!
A selloff is untenable, which is just as well, because it's unthinkable. These are the Yankees after all. For once, their legend is a hindrance. What would they trade anyway? If you stuffed Sabathia, ARod, Texeira, Headley, Beltran and Ellsbury in a bag and threw them over the railing of the Circle Line cruise ship, no other team would fish them out, even if Cashman ate the contracts. Gardner, McCann and the relievers would fetch some second rate prospects, but the immediate results would be really ugly and the farm would still need a couple of years of seeding.


The Yankees are stuck in the middle. They have to cash in all their chips this year knowing they likely don't have a winning hand. Baseball Prospectus has their odds of making the playoffs -- including the play-in game -- at roughly one in six, last in the division. 

If they can pick up a starter and a reliable first or third baseman without crippling the future, they should and will. Otherwise they are stuck in the unenviable role of also-rans in both the present and the immediate future. How's it feel to be the Padres, New York?

Thor Losers In L.A.

So, according to National League umpires, throwing a retaliation pitch twelve feet behind a hitter's back is the same as burrowing it dangerously in his ribs.

As you may have heard, umpire Adam Hamari tossed Noah Syndergaard from a scoreless game in the third inning after Thor buzzed Chase Utley.
Utley, you may recall, sparked a rule change last year when he ended Reuben Tejada's post-season with a late takeout slide at second base. Ever since, Utley has been Pubic Enemy #1 in New York, even ahead of James Dolan.
 
It's no coincidence that the Dodgers abused the cobbled-together relief effort in a 9-1 win. Utley smacked two homers in the victory, including a grand slam to put the game away. 

The Larger Issue
The larger issue, though, is this: isn't this how we want pitchers to "retaliate"? Make some lame statement with a wild pitch and move on. Utley suffered no pain. No batter earned a free pass. No heads were hunted. Syndergaard's action put a period at the end of the retribution story.

Instead, the pitcher and manager got tossed, the Dodgers won a game unfairly and the Mets feel more aggrieved than before. 

Nice job, ump.

A Troubling New Trend: Trashing A Perfectly Good Stadium

I live in Charleston, SC, where history lives. We love our old buildings, and so, evidently, does the rest of America. The 300-year-old buildings are a draw for millions of tourists who grace our city.

I owned a house in Upstate New York that was born in the Depression, 63 years before I bought it. All the houses in the neighborhood were roughly the same age. Buildings can last for 100 years if properly maintained. Ask the Wrigleys and the Yawkeys.

Trashing A 20-Year-Old Building
In Arlington, TX, the baseball team has announced it will trash its ballpark for a new one, just 22 years after moving in. Unlike the Braves, who are abandoning their 24-year-old stadium for the suburbs, the Rangers hope to occupy a new, domed, air-conditioned home field nearby. 

Why? Is the current edifice decrepit, anachronistic or dysfunctional? No, it's a perfectly good baseball venue, enjoying the bloom of youth. Apparently they were not aware that it's hot in the summer in Dallas when The Ballpark at Arlington, as it was originally known, was built.

$1 Billion Investment for Something The City Already Has
The good people of Arlington shelled out $305 million (in 2016 dollars) for Globe Life and will bear the brunt of the $1 billion price tag for the new ballpark. City fathers and Rangers' brass will spin the accounting, but no matter how they fund the project, it's a massive new burden. The bonding authority or sales tax hike, or user fees employed to cover the cost can't be used to build schools, fix roads, invest in real economic development or anything else.

In the meantime, the old ballpark will be trashed and condos or somesuch will rise in its place, a waste of much of the original investment. At least the 30-year bonds were paid off early, or they'd be paying for a perfectly good baseball stadium while tearing it down.

A Disturbing Trend
It's their money, so folks around Dallas should allocate their dollars any way they want. But econometric studies have demonstrated that baseball stadiums, which host maybe 100 events a season, are rarely good financial investments for communities, even accounting for all the ancillary benefits beyond the sports team. And if you think Arlington's reputation would suffer without the ballclub, ask yourself this: is Arlington, TX now on your personal radar? 

Two teams have now made plans to ditch their home parks before they reached Mike Trout's age. This is a travesty of public policy. I hope it doesn't catch on.

Stuff Worth Noting in 2016

As of May 22...

After starting 25-6, the Cubs have gone 4-7. So shut up.

Bryce Harper had 31 walks. That's four fewer than . . . the entire Kansas City Royals roster.

Last year, Jon Jay managed five doubles one home run and no steals for the Cardinals. As of May 22 he had contributed 12 doubles, two steals and a homer for the Padres.

The Mariners have 18 road wins after 43 games. Last year they didn't get their 18^th road win until game 77.

Injuries limited Hunter Pence to nine homers and 40 RBI last year. He's at seven homers and 32 RBI already this season.

According to Baseball Prospectus calculations, the fifth, sixth, and seventh most valuable hitters on the Phillies are pitchers.

Through August 6th last year, Jackie Bradley had popped one pair of homers and a single double among his six hits. Now in a 26-game hitting streak, he has eight homers and 10 doubles among his 52 safeties. And we're two-and-a-half months from August 6th.

Cardinals rookie Jeremy Hazelbaker is four years older than Mike Trout, who is playing in his fifth season and has 149 home runs. 

Dee Gordon and AJ Pierczynski were stars last season. In 2016, Gordon is banned for 80 games. Pierzynski is hitting .211 without power.

Cameron Maybin hit .194/.313/.367 in a month of rehab games, then .600/.652/.750 in a week of Major League games.

Albert Pujols hit .312 or better for 10 straight years. He hit .244 last season and is at .221 this year.

The Phillies are six games over .500 despite being outscored by 31 runs. 

Tanner Roark won four games all last season and allowed 17 home runs in 111 innings. We're just in May of 2016 but he's already won three games and limited opponents to three homers in half as many innings.

Second basemen are outhitting left fielders this season by 28 points of OPS. That's a 78 point reversal of the norm.

Rockie Rookie Trevor Story was the big story in April with 10 homers, 20 RBI and 19 runs scored in April. In May, he's hit just two homers with 11 RBI and eight runs scored. Of course he's still the Story, but he's also still the story, because this month he's batting .313. Add it all together and annualize it: the 23-year-old shortstop is hitting .285-48-124 with 44 doubles, 16 triples and 108 runs scored. Quite a Story.

Dallas Keuchel (first in Cy Young voting last season), David Price (second), Sonny Gray (third) and Chris Archer (fifth) combined for a 2.71 ERA in 2015. They are at 5.70 today.

Some of this information came from Baseball Prospectus and Sports on Earth.

Who Has Invaded Mark Reynolds' Body?

For years, the Sheriff of Swattingham was also the Constable of Whiffshire. Mark Reynolds could be counted on to fan 200 times, swat 30+ homers and get within handshake distance of Mario Mendoza's batting average. 

The total package averaged out to a mediocre, if dangerous, hitter. Combined with weak defense at third, first and the outfield, Reynolds had become a below average player and has been losing playing time since 2012.

The big Virginian has meandered to Colorado, his seventh team at age 32, where they're plugging any body they can find into a last place roster. The thin air would seem to be the last place you'd want a guy who doesn't make a lot of contact.

Which is what Reynolds may have said to himself. And so, through a quarter of a season, he's been someone else.

To date, Reynolds is channeling -- I don't know, Rod Carew? He's slapping singles all over the yard, eschewing the long ball and holding his own at the cold corner. 

In 129 plate appearances so far, Reynolds has struck out just 36 times -- a mere trifle by the standards of a guy who fanned on 641 times in three seasons. He's hitting .330 -- 100 points above his lifetime mark -- with only two dingers. 

Playing less than fulltime, Reynolds is having his best season since '09 when he pounded 44 homers and swiped 24 bases. If necessity is the mother of invention, the necessity of extending a career that appeared to be waning has been the mother of Mark Reynold's reinvention.

In Praise of Bud Selig

The Baseball InterVerse is aflutter this week with doomsday discussion of the . . . Yankees. The questions being flitted about -- can their top prospects rescue the team, should they trade their veterans to restock the farm, are they the worst team in the American League -- have to be making Boss Steinbrenner spin furiously in his grave.

That's the New York Yankees we're talking about, lord overseers of the horsehide world. The franchise that has appeared in 40 World Series and won 27 of them, and earned playoff berths every season from 1995 to 2012.

It's the Evil Empire of baseball that flaunted the built-in advantages of the nation's largest market, its media capital and its massive financial power to bully its competitors.

The Drew Henson Case
Case in point: In 1998, the Yankees could afford to draft star Michigan quarterback and third baseman Drew Henson in the third round and sign him to first round money. Henson appeared headed to the NFL, but the opportunity to play for the flagship franchise enticed him to start in the minors.

After a year on the farm, the Yankees traded Henson to the Reds. He immediately packed his gear and announced his intention to attend Houston Texans training camp. Reluctantly, Cincinnati traded Henson back to the Yankees for pennies on the dollar and he immediately rescinded his departure.

That it all came to nothing in either sport -- he completed five NFL passes and had one big league hit -- is beside the point. The Yankees ruled the baseball world at every level not too long ago. Teams in "small" markets like, well, everywhere else, but certainly the likes of Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Minneapolis and San Diego, could do little more than develop the players who would sign as free agents in the Bronx.

The World Is Upside Down
Today, all the Yankees' strength is reserved for holding up the AL East standings from the bottom. Their roster is decrepit, expensive and way past its expiration date. The promising pitchers like Nova, Tanaka and Severino don't seem to have panned out. The future is no longer now, or at least that's how it appears 40 games into 2016.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals are the World Champs and teams like the Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, cash-strapped Mets, and Pittsburgh Pirates were all playoff teams in 2015. Everyone has a chance to compete every year. 

Your nose runs and your feet smell. The world is upside down.

Thank You, Bud
How did this happen? Hate the commissioner emeritus all you like, but this Bud's for us. Following the destructive lockout that cancelled the 1994 World Series, Selig was able to wrest some measure of control from the free-spending teams and institute brakes on franchise costs. The luxury tax, reinforced in subsequent negotiations, and the co-opting of revenue streams to MLB, like all the digital properties owned equally by the teams, has dramatically smoothed the revenue curves and negated much of the financial advantage that big market teams used to enjoy.

At the same time, the Internet has made it possible for top stars to shine from any home base. The entire slate of games is available to any American with the proper cable/satellite deal or with $150 for MLB-TV on their computer. Bryce Harper, Mike Trout and Manny Machado can enjoy superstar brand status from DC, Anaheim and Baltimore just the same as if they were standing right on Madison Avenue.

More money is still a useful tool, but the game is awash in it, from Phoenix to Cleveland and St. Petersburg to Denver. Today, if your team perennially stinks, it's not the market's fault, it's management's, even if they blame the manager and fire him.

And if they're perennially contending, thank the people running the franchise, and Bud Selig too. Even if you hate him for cancelling the World Series.

Joey Bat Flip and the Unwritten Rule

So let me see if I have this right:

Flipping your bat after hitting the winning homer in a critical playoff game: a crime against baseball.

Throwing a hardball 90 mph at a person's ribs: part of the game.

The first action is a demonstration of excitement. It is an outrage.

The second is the equivalent of felonious assault and battery. It's merely a plunking.

Flip your bat and there will be months of ill will and eventual retaliation.

Fire a fastball at a batter's head and there will be a warning. To both teams.

I understand. I just don't understand. 

David Ortiz Is Talking To Me

I wrote off David Ortiz's career after a hand injury sidelined him in '08 and robbed him of bat speed in '09.

I've written an open letter to him advising him to shut up.

I've justified the whispers about steroid use.

I've observed how his strict adherence to the DH role has a negative impact on his team's defense.

I've called him a fringe Hall of Famer.

And now, he's answering.

Big Papi's Retirement Tour follows a 2015 campaign in which he posted a .304 True Average. He blasted 37 homers and walked 95 times.

This year, at age 40, he's turned 2015 into a preview. He's on pace* to bat .320, slam 48 home runs and 76 doubles, for a .343 TAv.

* I feel like a doofus just writing those words. But you get the point.

For good measure, he's turned the Clutchalizer to 11. Twice last week he supplied the winning hit in the last inning. On Saturday, he tied the game in the 9th with a triple and won it in extras with a double. He had homered earlier in the game.

Ortiz has joined Barry Bonds and Hank Aaron as the only players in MLB history with 500+ homers and 600+ doubles. He'll likely pass Mickey Mantle in long balls.

And given the ball-crushing hijinx of the RSox, he has a chance to lead his charges to another World Series, or at least make some noise with the lumber in October.

It's as if Big Papi is advising me to shut up. Although in his case, it would be "shut the #@!$%! up, *&%$#@!.

It doesn't really change the equation: by the numbers, David Ortiz is a borderline case. But the narrative is pure Hall of Fame gold and it's getting more golden the more he demonstrates that he's leaving near the top of his game.

I have a new message for Big Papi: Okay, I'm convinced. You're a Hall of Famer.

Which Nice Teams Are Starting Out Naughty?

Welcome to Atlanta, where your 8-25 Braves stand as the 2016 poster boys for mortgaging the present. It's hard to believe now, but the Cincinnati Reds have to wish they were the Braves.

The Reds tried to play both ends against the middle two off-seasons ago and ended up getting toasted both ways. After a 76-86 campaign in '14, they unloaded their second and third best starters but left the rest of the team intact, en route to a 98-loss season.

Having flipped ace Johnny Cueto for some future chips at last year's trading deadline, GM Walt Jocketty sent Todd Frazier to Chicago for more prospect goodies this off-season. And that was it.

Hanging on to middling veterans like Brandon Phillips, Jay Bruce (getting tagged out, left) and Zack Cozart, he left Joey Votto and the Seven Dwarfs to compete this year against the likes of Pittsburgh, St. Louis and the Cubs. By failing to convert veterans into promising youth, the Reds lack the prospect-laden farm system that hints at a brighter future.

At least the residents of Marietta, Georgia have a future to look forward to.

Others Worthy of Relegation
In short, neither Atlanta nor Cincinnati is surprising anyone with their wretchedness so far this season. Nor are the Twins, who blinded themselves into a false sense of hope with a moment of incandescence last season, nor the Padres, a basket case of a different weave, nor the A's, whose management seems to have run out of ideas about how to convert trash into energy. The Brewers are sowing the bad karma that building around Ryan Braun reaps, not to mention a pitching staff of the following luminaries: Taylor Jungeman, Jimmy Nelson, Willy Peralta, Chase Anderson and Zach Davies.

Then there's the Angels, despite a gargantuan payroll and two inner-ring Hall of Famers, who can't buy a run and whose best starter, now that Garret Richards got laid up is...um...the smoldering ruins of Jered Weaver? Dude hasn't fanned a Major Leaguer batter since 2014.*

It's possible we'll see some dead cat bounce out of Minnesota this year, but that's about the best this pile of owl upchuck can hope for. The real question for these franchises is whether they are on the way up or the way down, or whether they even have a way.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other
All that leaves us with one head-scratcher, the Houston Astros. If ever a team was tailor-made for a season in which runs are being scored off big flies, it's this ultimate three true outcome team. Houston finished second in homers and fifth in walks last season, and first in whiffs, with seven batters accumulating 100+ Ks, including Colby Rasmus and Chris Carter, who fanned more than 300 times between them. (They also led the league in steals. Go figure.)

They're doing it again this year -- first in strikeouts, first in walks and fourth in going yard. The problem for the Astros is that the guys throwing the most innings are their worst pitchers. Starters 1-4, including last year's Cy Young, have been scorched fora combined 4.87 ERA. Starters #5 and #6 rock a combined 2.48 ERA and the bullpen has neither added nor subtracted.

The all-or-nothing offense combined with a pitching rotation regressing well beyond the mean have spelled doom for Houston, but there is good news in both the immediate past and on the horizon. They've won seven of their last 11 in large part because scads of ill fortune foisted upon them in April is settling out in May. The Astros have played sub-.400 ball so far but Baseball Prospectus projects them to play .543 the rest of the way. Projection systems are for movie theaters, but at least this suggests that the underlying conditions are there for a real recovery.

The early bottom feeders really do appear to be the sport's worst, with one exception. But baseball is a funny game and five months is an awfully long time.

*mild hyperbole but his average pitch speed is 82.7, or roughly how fast I can spit.

Which Teams Don't We Trust

About a fifth of the way through the season we see some trends emerging at the macro level. The Cubs, Mets, Nationals, White Sox, Orioles, Red Sox and Mariners have broken strong from the starter's gun. The Braves, Astros, Padres, Twins, A's, Angels, Brewers and Reds have all scuffled badly.

Thirty games is longer than a phase but too short to be definitive. We know that over that period, the cream and the sludge tend to find their way near the top and bottom respectively, but not always. An injury or a raft of weak individual performances can cripple a good team over 30 games while a soft schedule or a few hot bats can catapult an otherwise suspect team.

There are some surprises on those two lists. Which of the hot listers don't we have confidence in?

Recent history has told us never to count out Buck Showalter's Orioles. They have defied expectations and the odds several times in the 2010s. In a year of long balls, they are among the long balliest.

As I've mentioned before, the White Sox had more potential than people were giving them credit for coming into the season. They're fifth in the league in runs scored and first in runs allowed; the latter feels reasonable given the lineup but it's unlikely that Chris Sale -- much less Jose Quintana and Mat Latos -- will go all season without losing, especially as Latos needs to become acquainted with the strikeout.

The Nats, Mets, Cubs and Red Sox have so far exhibited truth in advertising. That leaves the Mariners, at 21-13 the leader in the AL West despite an upside-down charge out of the gate. Seattle, long a contingent of whiffle ball bats, is scoring the fourth most runs in the junior circuit. Their pitching has been even better, led by a lights-out bullpen and not by King Felix's paltry 1.5 K/BB ratio.

Relief pitching is notoriously subject to the winds, and after Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz, there aren't a whole lot of everyday players you'd bet your Starbucks money on (unless you count Adam Lind and his three walks in 93 PA.) The AL West is up for grabs, especially with Houston's putrid start, but the Mariners are the best bet to collapse back into the pack.

Are the Cubs This Good?

The Chicago Cubs, everybody's choice for 2016's best team in baseball, promptly lost one of their top sluggers and consequently have skidded to a 25-6 record. Can they keep this up?

The obvious answer is no, no team is winning 80% of its games over a 162-game schedule. It's unlikely the Cubs win 25 in any other 31 game stretch this season.

That said, here's something else we know about a team that starts 25-6: it's not just a fluke. This is not only the best start for the franchise in 109 years, it's also a harbinger.

For one thing, the Northsiders have assembled a formidable roster on both sides of the ball. They've scored the most runs and allowed the fewest. Their run differential of +103 is not only 50 more than the next best team, it's more runs than the Braves have scored.

For another thing, mediocre teams don't win 25 of 31. That 1907 Cubs contingent? A not-too-shabby 107-45 and a World Series title. In fact, since 1936, eight teams have kicked off the season winning 24 of their first 30; seven of them made the World Series.

Is there anything that suggests this Baby Bear squad will fall back to the pack? Not with a young lineup, a veteran pitching staff, plenty of ready reserves on the farm, a top-3 manager and one of the best front offices in the game. 

But what Spring sows, Summer and Fall can burn. Joe Maddon has to navigate his team through 130 more games during which complacency and injury will be constant threats.