Tag Archives: Baseball

Thoughts on Major League Baseball

On This Year’s Hall of Fame Ballot

The Hall of Fame ballot has been released, and there’s one question on the mind of pretty much every baseball writer and fan.

Is ANYONE going to get elected this year?

Of the newcomers to the ballot, only Cole Hamels really stands out – and that’s only due to his helping the Phillies win the World Series in 2008. The “crop” is so weak I don’t even feel like doing brief recaps of their careers.

There are quite a few holdovers from last year, but the most likely candidates all have “problems”. Steroids for Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez; the “sign stealing” scandal for Carlos Beltran.

By the way, the sign stealing thing was several years ago. Can we STOP holding it against the current Astros team already?

There are plenty of “Hall of the Very Good” players on the ballot, some of whom should easily make their team’s “Hall of Fame” or even have their number retired – if they haven’t already. But enshrined in Cooperstown? I’ve seen a suggestion that one could approach the nominees by asking “Would it be an outrage or travesty if this person was NOT elected?” I don’t see anyone raising a fuss over any of them. Gossip among the baseball writers hints that it’s going to be hard to use up all ten of the votes that they are allotted.

I suspect Carlos Beltran will make it in; but that’s it.

Next year should be better, when Buster Posey becomes eligible. The year after that will see Albert Pujols (a shoo-in) and Yadier Molina, then Miguel Cabrera, Zack Greinke, and Joey Votto will hit the ballot for 2029.

On the 2025 World Series

The Dodgers were luckier than the Blue Jays.

That’s all that needs to be said.

You can blather all you want about the cliches like “good hitting beating good pitching, and vice versa”, or intangibles like “grit” and “resiliency”, but when you play more than eight games worth of innings in a seven game series, it’s going to come down to some pure random chance.

A ground ball hits a lump of dirt on the infield, takes a crazy hop to elude a fielder, and a game-winning rally is ignited.

On a blustery day, a gust of wind comes in at just the right time to turn a home run into a flyout on the warning track.

A ball smashed to left field with “run scoring triple” written all over it jams itself into the space between the padding and the ground on the fly for a “stuck ball, runners advance only two bases” ground rule double, and the Dodgers get out of the inning with their lead intact.

Yes, the Blue Jays had their share of lucky moments, too.

But the Dodgers had just enough more to give them the championship.

Congratulations to everyone on both teams.

Who to Root For

Now that the preliminary rounds are over and we’re down to the Very Good teams, it’s time to choose sides. Serious baseball fans – even those whose teams have already fallen by the wayside – have picked the teams they’ll be rooting for over the rest of the way.

For the rest of you, here’s a quick guide to help you decide. Naturally, it will be biased towards my own preferences. If that’s an issue for you, let me know in the comments.

Continue reading →

Playoff Time

I don’t know about you, but I really can’t get excited about the baseball playoffs this year – and not just because the Mets are blowing what little chance they have of sneaking in.

There are just too many mediocre teams vying for a spot this year. “Wild Cards” were introduced back in the 90s, after two teams in the same division each won over 100 games. That the sport expanded to fifteen teams per league soon after that season helped, but that year there was a good deal of whining about how the second best team in all of baseball had to go home.

There’s not a singe team this year with a real chance to win more than 100 games, and even winning 95 games seems a stretch for most teams. While the races for divisional crowns are still not completely settled, a LOT of the “wild card” spots have people talking about which teams have won the season series against the other teams. When you have to start bringing tiebreakers into the mix at the lower levels, you have to admit it’s not that interesting….

And as we’ve seen recently, it’s all too likely that one of the lower seeds can get hot at the right time and defeat a much better team that’s having a cold spell and win the pennant. Having a pair of just barely above average teams playing in the World Series is not really what you want.

Even the “awards races” are pretty much locked up, so there’s not much excitement there. “Will Paul Skenes win the Cy Young with a losing record?” is about all there is. Maybe Cal Raleigh will get the AL MVP if he hits 60 home runs, but too many writers are still favoring Aaron Judge.

As to what World Series matchup would be coolest to see? I’m going to root for Mariners vs Brewers. There’d better be a LOT of talk about the Seattle Pilots in the lead-in!

(Yes, this is a blatant “space wasting” post…..)

At the Halfway Point

Well, not literally, the teams have already played Game Number 81. But it’s still close enough, and the usual time to take a break and assess the season so far.

There’s the usual chatter about Surprises (Tigers) and Disappointments (Orioles), First Half Award Winners – and can they keep it up in the second half (Cal Raleigh), which teams will be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline….but I’m not enough of a fan to speak with any sort of expertise on any of that.

With regards to the All Star Game, we’re so used to interleague play that the prospect of seeing the stars of the two leagues facing each other holds no special attraction to many fans. And 24/7 sports media coverage means we’ve already had the chance to at least become familiar with any star players (even if we haven’t seen them in a game).

As much as some might try to, making the actual All Star Game exciting is a wasted effort. Forcing things so that every player on the rosters – all 70 (is that how many there are these days?) of them – gets into the game means there’s not that much chance for excitement (we were lucky this year). Paul Skenes won’t be staring down Aaron Judge with the game on the line in the late innings…. Heck, the high point of the whole thing is the player introductions – which FOX made a mess of as usual. You had those nice little name and team graphics for the starters; would it kill you to have them for all the other players, too?

Is it really necessary to analyze the Home Run Derby and give us all sorts of pointless stats and “takeaways”? Let the thing be nothing more than what it is – a fun, cool, awesome – and pointless – thing. But a “Home Run Derby” as a tiebreaker is a stupid way to end a game. I understand why they had to do it, but you still can’t make me like it. Especially since there was no hint that it was how a tie would be resolved in the broadcast of the game. By the way, how is the final score recorded in the record books? 6-6? 7-6? 10-9???

At least they didn’t have those garbage special “All Star Game Uniforms” and let the players wear their actual, normal ones during the game.

City Connections

So Major League Baseball is starting Version 2.0 of the “City Connect” uniforms. Some of the new versions are clear improvements (e.g. Dodgers (though it wasn’t hard to come up with something better for them)); others are along the lines of “What were you thinking? Your first ones were great!” (e.g. Boston) Cynics can see them as just another way to suck money away from fans; others can see them as cool and fun ways to try something different on occasion.

I, of course, have my own Thoughts on the Matter.

Continue reading →

Going to Overtime

The NBA and NHL Playoffs are in full swing, and with a couple of local (to me) teams involved, it’s hard to avoid hearing the latest results. My mind started to wonder – have any Game Sevens in the final championship round gone to overtime? Have the two teams ever been so evenly matched that they needed to keep going past the normal limit to determine a champion?

(NOTE: The year given refers to the year in which the game was played, not the year the regular season began)

Continue reading →

Opening Day 2025

Another season is about to (formally) begin – with all the hope and optimism that entails.

While everyone is looking at the teams in order of Most Likely to Win the World Series, there are still other things worth discussing.

Which team will be the worst? The Chicago White Sox can’t possibly lose as many games as they did last year (can they?). Giving them a run for their money as bottom dwellers are the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins. In the former case, team management can’t seem to assemble a team that can take advantage of Coors Field. In the latter, team management just doesn’t seem to care. At least the A’s have an owner that seems to be putting in some effort to get a fair team on the field.

And speaking of the A’s, what effect will playing in Sacramento have on the team? The same question can be asked of the “Tampa Bay” Rays, who will be calling another team’s spring training facility “home”. At least the Rays have an excuse – hurricane damage rendered The Trop unusable. John Fisher is just screwing around with the A’s.

On a nicer note, Dodgers’ pitcher Clayton Kershaw needs a mere 32 strikeouts to reach the magic 3,000 level for his career. It’s not a matter of if he’ll get them, but when. And which opposing player will be the victim. It’s highly unlikely he’ll reach the other major milestone of 300 wins – he’s 88 away, and 37 years old….. The closest pitcher to that Magic Number is Justin Verlander, at 262. And he’s 42 years old…. We can probably say goodbye to seeing any more 300 game winners. Verlander’s the only active player with more than 250…..

If I can stay with the Dodgers for one last thought, it’s pretty clear they are the best team in baseball this year. But that means very little when it comes to the playoffs. Is there a team that can stop them from repeating as World Champions? I’d bet that there is. But which one?

We’ll have to wait for all of that. But in the meantime, PLAY BALL!

A “Town Ball” All Star Game – 3

And here’s where it all went kablooey.

I ran through the simulation, and things were going nicely. However, I completely forgot that if the home team is still leading after the visitors have had their six innings, there’s no reason at all to play the bottom of the inning (other than satisfying the gamblers), and so you won’t get to see some of the All Stars take their chances against the other league’s best pitcher.

I suppose that one could play the bottom half of the inning anyway, and then give the visitors one last crack at it. Send the home team’s best closer out to the mound, and then the visitors can send up whoever they want, in whatever order they want, to score as many runs as they can given the standard three outs. Should they actually take the lead, then the home team gets to do the same thing in the bottom of the “extra inning”. Continue as needed.

Or perhaps the format could be that the Visitors bat until they score a run (with commercial breaks and pitching changes after every five batters), then the Home Team comes to bat and hits until they take the lead (same thing about breaks every five batters), then the Visitors get to bat, etc. – but that sounds too much like a weekend softball league game.

At this point, I’ve put WAY more effort into the thing than was called for. If you want to play with the idea and run some simulated games, go right ahead.

And if you really want me to post the record of the game, just ask….

A “Town Ball” All Star Game – 2

Yeah, yeah, I get it – you want more than seven or eight All Star pitchers. But let’s be honest – most pitchers are just average, and no one (other than their specific fans or stat nerds) really wants to see a “set up man” in an All Star Game. I’d wager most casual fans can’t even name one. So the pitchers will be the top five or six starters, with a couple of closers of note.

As far as the players that will actually be out there on defense, we’ll leave that to fan voting. We’ll keep the rule that each team must have at least one representative. Maybe we’ll leave that up to the actual players on the team, or some sort of local poll. Or just the player with the highest WAR; it’s no big deal. The rest of the batting side of the roster can be filled out by the team’s manager, choosing from runners-up in the fan voting – with a decided bias to the big name stars. At least we won’t have to worry about having too many players at the same position – the starters voted in by the fans will be expected to be out there for all six innings.

Continue reading →