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.
If you watched the All-Star Game, you saw the moundsman who last year didn't even give up anything to the opposition for Lent allow a pair of runs and absorb the loss. Because the All-Star Game is an exhibition asymptotic to not mattering at all, no one could accuse him of choking in a big moment. In fact, he was responsible for the loss in a meaningless contest.
On the other hand, when he allowed a couple of ill-timed home runs in the playoffs last year, the prevailing narrative was that he "isn't a big-time pitcher" or "isn't a great post-season pitcher" or whatever colloquialisms get spewed to indicate transparent nonsense.
Compared to his regular season, when he went 21-3, 1.77 and led the NL in basically everything that mattered, Clayton Kershaw could hardly have measured up in the playoffs. In fact, other than the home runs, Kershaw was the same magician in the post-season, fanning 19 and walking two. (I recognize that I've just made an "other than that Mrs. Lincoln" kind of statement, but it's relevant to understand that over 12 innings the result of three pitches can get exaggerated.)
Making matters worse, the Claw was being compared to Madison Bumgarner, who got filthier in the playoffs than Pig Pen. Leading the Giants nearly single-handedly through the playoffs to a World Series championship, MadBum's six starts and one long relief appearance stand in contrast to Kershaw's struggles.
But maybe you've noticed, those struggles have continued in 2015, at least relative to Kershaw's previous four Cy Young seasons. He's halfway through his worst full season, with the lowest ERA+ (i.e., relative to league average) since his rookie campaign.
Would you like to guess why that is? Right: his home run rate has doubled. He's dominating batters in every other way just as he had the previous two seasons, but Mr. Big Fly has already visited him more times this season than all of last. That's led to more crossings of the plate than all of last year, which makes him look a lot more human.
So here's the big reveal: Clayton Kershaw didn't become a different pitcher in last year's playoffs. He started to become a different pitcher then and has continued that way this season. Despite his pinpoint control and knee-buckling curve, he's lost that patina of invincibility, either because he's doing something different or because batters have adjusted in some small way to him. He's still an ace, an All-Star, a Cy Young candidate, but he's not the undisputed best in the game, at least not now.
So, there goes the idiotic narrative -- based on two starts! -- that Clayton Kershaw is a great regular season pitcher, but not the guy you'd want in a big game.
It's that time of the baseball schedule when every team is undefeated and shiny like a minted dime. When every day is March perfection in Florida or Arizona, as opposed to early April dreck in Chicago or Cleveland or Boston or, God Almighty, Toronto.
Every region's representative is a contender, even Phoenix's and Philadelphia's. No one's manager requires a vote of confidence.
So when Madison Bumgarner appeared on an ESPN radio show today (where the hosts pronounced that every baseball analyst in their stable considers him the best pitcher in baseball; let's hope that it is two hosts, not 20 baseball experts, who are morons) he declared that he felt great about his team and liked the moves they had made this off-season.
We could, charitably, assume that MadBum was referring only to the moves the team made, rather than the moves that former players made away from the team. Michael Morse took his power bat to Baltimore. Pablo Sandoval waddled off to Boston. That's 32 homers and 4.3 WAR to replace.
What were the Giants' giant moves? They brought fourth outfielder Nori Aoki aboard and traded a farmhand for cornerman Casey McGehee. That recoups five homers and two WAR, less if both fill reserve roles as expected.
In the meantime, star outfielder Hunter Pence broke his arm. Jake Peavy's arm is "dead." And the competition got meaner. The Padres rebuilt a contender. The Dodgers purchased excess firepower.
Heavy weighs the crown in San Francisco, as it did in 2011 and 2013. And Madison Bumgarner knows that as well as anyone. (Even better than two ESPN hosts.)
News item: Madison Bumgarner named Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year
It's a cliche that baseball is a marathon: it begins with the first stirrings of spring when hope has a heartbeat in every city. It runs through the blooming of flowers, then the dog days of summer and into the changing leaves of Fall. In this long race patience is a virtue and trends earn coherence only over the long haul.
So why do we ignore all but the final 100 yards?
Madison Bumgarner rewrote the history books in the post-season, leading the Giants almost single-handedly to the World Series crown. His 4-1, 1.21 performance over 58 frames of playoffs, with two shutouts and a five-inning save on two days' rest was sparkling and unprecedented. He won the World Series with 21 innings at an 0.43 ERA and 17-1 K/BB ratio.
For this dominance he was rightly rewarded with the MVP of both the league championship series and the World Series. No one could credibly dispute either.
And Bumgarner was no 1972 Gene Tenace or 1969 Al Weiss. At age 24 and already in his fourth full season, MadBum went 18-11, 2.98 in 217 innings, with a 5.1 K/BB ratio en route to a fourth place finish in the Cy Young voting.
In other words, Madison Bumgarner is a bonafide star who had pitched out of his mind in the playoffs. But sportsman of the year? He was fourth in Cy Young voting.
Allow me to introduce you to The Claw, whose entire season looked like Bumgarner's final 58 innings. Clayton Kershaw missed six starts in the first weeks of 2014 and still managed to unravel the record books. He terrorized NL batters to the tune of 21-3, 1.77 and a 7.7 K/BB ratio, earning him the Cy and the MVP. Kershaw's value, despite a lost month, was twice Bumgarner's during the regular season.
It's true that Kershaw blew up in his post-season starts. Maybe he can't handle cold weather; maybe opponents figured him out and maybe he's a sissy-ass choker who can't handle the pressure. Or maybe he just endured a four-game skid, as every other pitcher in baseball has done. Thirty-five frames of work aren't sufficient information to draw conclusions.
But one thing is for sure. Madison Bumgarner, great as he is, couldn't pack Clayton Kershaw's lunch. In their careers, Kershaw owns three Cy Youngs and a second place finish. Fourth is Bumgarner's peak so far. Kershaw owns a 2.48 lifetime ERA; Bumgarner, 3.06 in 420 fewer innings. Kershaw has posted 41 wins against replacement to MadBum's 17. Etc. etc. etc.
Naming Bumgarner Sportsman of the Year exalts his final seven starts (including 21 innings against the light-hitting Royals) over Kershaw's full body of work, which was not just superior but vastly so. The tournament that follows the season may decide who gets to call themselves "champion," but it doesn't determine who's best.
Clayton Kershaw was the transcendent star of baseball in 2014. If Madison Bumgarner was second he was light years behind, making him a terrible choice for that award.
As a former Royals fan and a supporter of cities enduring long sports droughts, the conclusion of the World Series was painful for me. But it should have been more painful for Kansas City's hitting coach, Dale Sveum. He should have lost his job.
Madison Bumgarner is an awesome pitcher. He doesn't need help from batters to produce outs. But KC batters gave away strike after strike in Game 7 of the World Series, indicating that they had learned nothing from MadBum's previous outings or from the at-bats before them. That's got to be the hitting coach's fault. Either Sveum isn't seeing what some third-rate blogger in a Charleston bar is seeing, or the two have similar amounts of influence on KC hitters.
Bumgarner is a southpaw who slots from behind lefty batters. Several of the Royals' best hitters -- Gordon, Hosmer, Aoki, Moustakas -- are left-handed. His pitches that look like strikes to lefties end up unhittably near third base. Royal after Royal swung futilely at those offerings. Jarrod Dyson took one hack in Game 7 that had to have missed by the length of two baseball cleats. How many Royal batters have to swing at pitches two feet off the plate before the hitting coach orders them to lay off?
Likewise, Bumgarner used a ladder-climbing approach with his heat against righties. By strike three, several KC batters were whiffing at hardballs nose-high. Again, the hitting coach's job is to instruct his charges to lay off anything that appears to be above the navel.
Bumgarner was on a history-making streak in the Series. His 21 frames, 0.43 ERA and 17-1 K/BB ratio were the best ever. He'd been on a roll throughout the playoffs, allowing just six earned runs in 53 innings. So a light-hitting outfit like the Royals weren't going to tally many runs without outfoxing him. Instead, their deer-in-headlights approach sealed their fate.
In the bottom of the ninth of Game 7, with a one-run Giants lead, two outs and Alex Gordon charitably invited to third by momentarily inept San Francisco defense, Royals catcher Sal Perez stepped to the plate. The game, the series, the World Championship were on the line. We were three strikes from San Francisco victory; 90 feet from advantage Royals.
I observed then to my compadres (because all my observations are audible) that Perez's approach at the plate would determine the outcome. Seeing Perez attack strike one chest high, I began gathering my belongings to head home. "He has no chance," I said. "He's learned nothing." Sure enough, Bumgarner threw pitches ever higher until Perez popped up an offering at eyeball level for the final out.
It took a fat helping of luck and bottled lightning for Kansas City to reach that point. They squandered it all with sheer stupidity.
