Yasiel Puig’s first appearance in the majors had been fabled for some time. Matt Kemp, the young Dodgers star the team had just signed to an eight-year deal, was hurt for the third time in 14 months, and doubts of his superstardom were already creeping in. “Derek Jeter appeared on the disabled list twice during his 10-year contract with the Yankees,” Bill Shaikin noted in the L.A. Times, for some reason.

Where, it was being asked, would the Dodgers be expected to find their power with Kemp trying to swing through a shoulder injury and maintaining the lowest slugging percentage (.335) in the league among starting outfielders? What silhouette would appear on the horizon, a bat slung over his shoulder, and take the Dodgers to the Promised Land?

“He is not in the major leagues,” Shaikin wrote. “His name is Yasiel Puig.”

Seven years later, his name is still Yasiel Puig, and he is still a ball player, only now, he is available to play for your team. His biblical foretelling led to an explosive debut and a thrilling first two years of his major league career. Puig has gone through a lot since then; his uniform has changed multiple times and his numbers have fallen away so that only his reputation, the parts earned and unearned, has remained. Now, at age 29 and dragging 20.0 career WAR behind him over seven seasons, he is filling an odd little niche on the 2020 free agent market: He is the dream acquisition of last place teams. To invent a word on the spot, we might say that he can increase the “fan-ability” of three teams that could really use it in 2020. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball appeared early enough in history that it has evolved right along with the rest of America. The faces of the game have shifted across time, but one of the few mainstays of its entire existence is that since the beginning of it all, we’ve been talking about its integrity.

In November 1919, a coven of major league owners declared war on American League president Ban Johnson, with White Sox owner Charles Comiskey writing, “We have reached the conclusion that Mr. Johnson is endangering not only the value of our properties, but the integrity of baseball…” (Philadelphia Inquirer, November 22, 1919)

Five years later in 1924, it was Johnson’s turn to point baseball’s innocence like an index finger, as he insisted upon a federal investigation after some attempted bribery between players, saying the misconduct was a “menace to the integrity of baseball.” (The Associated Press, October 3, 1924)

Peter Ueberroth said it before he stepped into the commissioner’s office: “Baseball has more integrity than any other game.” His successor, A. Bartlet Giamatti, brought it up a lot when talking-but-not-talking about Pete Rose. Bud Selig kept saying it, until the word had lost all meaning.

Once more, in the ongoing fallout of baseball’s latest scandal, it’s everywhere: Isn’t the integrity of the game at stake? Has the integrity of the game been damaged beyond repair? What of the integrity, I ask you?!? But the real question isn’t how we can protect it, or what’s been done to it; the question is, at this point in baseball’s history, what the hell is its integrity? Read the rest of this entry »

Early in the 2019 season, Yoenis Céspedes suffered a mysterious injury on his ranch. Described as a “violent fall,” there had been some discrepancy in exactly how the Mets outfielder suffered a fractured ankle (this while still rehabbing from surgery on both heels). According to fresh reports on the matter in the New York Post, he broke his ankle by stepping in a hole while trying to “sidestep a boar.” The story was confirmed by the Mets, as well as officials from MLB and MLBPA.

There have been many questions in response to this information, such as “Why?” and “How?” and “Again, I ask you… why?” But these put the wrong information in focus. Instead, we must look at the historical context of Céspedes’ misstep, and attempt to understand that the paths of men and boars do not easily cross; and yet, even in this niche of the natural world, baseball has a legacy.

We may not know what draws typical ballpark wildlife, the lost squirrels and panicking cats, to our infields and outfields. But we do know that their slashing claws and snapping mandibles have been on display in the realm of big league baseball for generations. With nature’s fury finding its way into man-made structures, it seems unwise to venture out into the domain that birthed it. Beyond our city limits and past the closest tree line, the creatures that spill into our stadiums are in their natural habitat, and that much more eager (and able) to kill or maim.

Boars have about the same reputation as dinosaurs: Their vision is based on movement. They are produced in formidable sizes (a male tusker can be 36 inches tall and weigh over 400 pounds). They can cause damage and be the bane of farmers. An August 23, 1911 report in the Oroville Daily Register warned that valley-dwelling boars are even more dangerous than those that live in the mountains and come equipped with “death-dealing tusks.” Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, look at the Phillies! They’ve been busy! Again! Following their earlier signing of Zack Wheeler, they’ve signed Didi Gregorious to a one-year, $14 million deal, reuniting him with Joe Girardi and planting him at shortstop, a position where he’s generated plenty of value throughout his career. This acquisition bumps current Phillies shortstop Jean Segura over to second base where he, too, has been historically successful; he was worth 5.0 wins for the Diamondbacks there in 2016. Scott Kingery will be hovering somewhere around the Phillies infield too, and Rhys Hoskins will be at first. Not the worst group in baseball! But a certainly a different arrangement than the Phillies had last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.

The Phillies have been rebuilding, depending on who you talk to, since anytime between 2012 and 2015. The real question now is, when did it end? Did it end? Is a rebuild over when all the pieces are there, but the wins aren’t? Or do they have to win the World Series to complete it? Was it over before, and these are all adjustments? Wait, who is playing third base? And what is Scott Kingery’s job?

This sort of ambiguity has been a component of the Phillies’ infield for years. Two positions have cycled through three different starters in the last three seasons (first base, shortstop); the other two have been occupied by the same starters for the last three years (second base, third base). But both of those players were just non-tendered: the Phillies got some production out of César Hernández at second and at the top of their lineup during some lean years, and Maikel Franco melted from a top slugging prospect into a pool of negative WAR over the course of four full(-ish) seasons at third. Their departures don’t make the Phillies worse, but they do create another situation that makes you continue to wonder, “… what is going on?” Read the rest of this entry »

Jonathan Villar had a good year in 2019. He was second on the Orioles in WAR with 4.0, was really the team’s only effective base-stealer with 40 stolen bases, and hit 24 home runs and 33 doubles. In late November, Baltimore placed 28-year-old middle infielder on outright waivers right before the arbitration deadline. Everyone knew why.

The Orioles, who are still at the part of the rebuild in which good players are worth more to them on other teams, didn’t want to pay the 28-year-old middle infielder the money he would have been owed after the arbitration, which was projected to be over $10 million. They eventually managed to trade him to the Marlins in exchange for a minor league pitcher not listed among Miami’s top prospects.

Instantly becoming the best player on the 105-loss Marlins is quite the penance for a man who played 162 games for the 108-loss Orioles in 2019. Villar, who enters his final arbitration-eligible season in 2020, will have to once more make the best of a non-contending situation. Meanwhile, as their former best player lands in Miami, the Orioles and their remaining fans will stay behind in Baltimore, where the rain continues to fall.

There would be no Orioles FanFest this year at the Baltimore Convention Center, a decision made for approximately 108 reasons. The team likely projected a dip in off-season fan enthusiasm, and determined that the 1,225,000 square feet of the venue would be about a million more than they would need for a winter fan event. So, they set about “looking into other ways of connecting with fans,” and that was how the first ever Orioles Winter Warm-up at Camden Yards came to be, featuring food trucks, vendors, and live music, framed around the centerpiece of a fan Q&A with some of the team’s leadership. Read the rest of this entry »

Wichita’s windy season is said to last from early February to late May, when the gusts change from frigid blasts to hot breaths. The windiest day of the year is historically April 4; a day when hairdos and stacks of loose papers must stand strong against gales blustering at an average of 13 mph.

Occasionally, there will be a spike in velocity that knocks out the power or rolls back a tin roof or tries to tear the awning off of the Valero gas station on Caulfield and Kemp. A fire inspector once cast a wary eye on the 1916 Wichita Fair and Exposition, concerned, per the The Wichita Daily Eagle on October 22, that the flammable structures of the event created a great risk of conflagration due to the “high, dry winds we have in the fall,” his fears rooted in both science and the fact that this very thing had happened the previous year.

So in Wichita, they are aware of the wind. They know that it blows, that it carries the cold and the heat of the plains, and that it occasionally bends a gas station in half. They do not all understand why it is the name of the town’s new Triple-A franchise, the Wichita Wind Surge, an affiliate of the Miami Marlins.

“I guess it’s windy here,” says Wichita resident Eric Pierce, “but… wind’s kind of everywhere.” Read the rest of this entry »

Kole Calhoun stood at his locker near the close of the 2019 season and talked about appreciating every moment of his eight seasons in Anaheim, knowing that any day could have been his last day. A few months later, the Angels declined his $14 million contract option. He departs Los Angeles having played a little bit of left and a smidgen of center, but mostly the Angels kept Kalhoun sequestered to right field, where in 2019 he hacked fiendishly amid frequent swing adjustments. His final season with the Angels produced inconsistency in his monthly outputs, as well as a new career high in strikeout rate (25.6 percent) and a modest 108 wRC+.

Calhoun is a member of the Fraternity of Less Effective Outfielders the Angels Have Put Next to Mike Trout. There have been many others over the years, placed out there in the corners beside the reigning AL MVP: Vernon Wells, Torii Hunter, Josh Hamilton, Ben Revere. And in 2019, Trout’s partners in the grass were Kole Calhoun and Justin Upton. Calhoun is gone, but Upton, another veteran who is not as good as Mike Trout, will remain. He doesn’t need to be as good as Trout to be of use, something that has to be true for him, since it’s true for every other player in the league. The question is, can Upton still be good, despite the obstacles ahead of him, and the comparisons to the outfielders around him?

Upton, at 32 years old, is a once fearsome slugger from the National League whose turf toe, wonky knee, and brief, passionate encounter with an outfield wall left him hurt and unproductive for most of 2019. Upton will be baseball’s active leader in errors among outfielders in 2020, and he may be entering the part of his career in which expectations are lowered, especially given how he got beat up so much and only made it into 63 games last season — the first time he’s played in fewer than 100 since 2008.

His durability has been one of his strengths; that, and his ability to do this. At 30 years old, he was worth 3.8 WAR for the Angels before baseball sent him into a wall this past season, so it’s not foolhardy to think Upton could be one of the Angels’ “new” contributors moving forward, or at least play a key role, even though he ended 2019 with a shot in the knee and a pair of crutches. Read the rest of this entry »

Not a lot of people know this, but every baseball diamond is carefully balanced on a fulcrum and tilts in the direction of chaos. A ball is misplayed, a runner trips over a base, a swarm of wasps is unleashed from within a rolled-up tarp. A cat or squirrel runs onto the field in a precocious moment of levity that only later do we realize is the start of an ancient curse (this happens quite often in baseball). Whatever occurs in the game slants the playing field in a new direction, which is why baseball, a very normal, very boring activity, is always quietly teetering on the verge of going quite wild.

Your toughest opponent isn’t an eerily calm Mike Trout or a possibly rabid Max Scherzer; it’s the sheer volume of variables that can scatter even the most strategic and well-laid plans. You can stare at a spreadsheet until your brain melts before yelling “Aha!” with an index finger in the air, believing you’ve uncovered the formula to prevent strained hamstrings, but there’s no accounting for the back-up catcher tapping into some as-yet untapped power, or one of the teams recreating the musical “Stomp” only for it to be revealed that this is actually a highly technical form of cheating.

To possess the agility to evade poor luck and the skill to barrel through outside factors to achieve a moment of perfect balance in this silly game is the rarest of accomplishments. But on September 13, 2007, Martín Prado would do so.

I don’t know enough about how science works to say whether what happened during his at-bat was in line with or against physics. But what we do know is that what happened never happened again, and after a casual amount of research, we can say that it probably never happened before, either. And in baseball, that alone makes it an exceptional anomaly. This is a sport that loves to repeat itself, and having existed for so long, everything we see appears to be a repetition to the last time it happened.

Not this one. Read the rest of this entry »

The Orioles will not be hosting a FanFest this year; the team has indicated it will be “looking into other ways of connecting with fans,” according to the Baltimore Sun.

Perhaps there’s just isn’t really much to say right now. Adam Jones, Manny Machado, Zack Britton, Jonathan Schoop, Buck Showalter, and all the team’s other recognizable names have been shipped out or moved on. But Chris Davis remains, and he found a big way to connect with Baltimore this offseason, as he and his wife, Jill, recently donated $3 million to the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital. While talking to reporters, Davis said that the Orioles’ reshaping their franchise in the front office and the dugout had already made him feel more “hopeful.” Where in previous winters, he’d set about his workouts with motivation but no direction, there now seems to be a plan, devised by him and manager Brandon Hyde to keep him moving toward a goal.

And yet, it seems like we’re looking at a winter of hard truths for the Orioles slugger. Davis will turn 34 years old in the middle of spring training. He’s on a well-known and oft-despised seven-year deal worth $161 million that is scheduled to end in 2022. Even better-known are his struggles, which have seen him drop from an All-Star and Silver Slugger in 2013 to asking for the game ball after breaking an 0-for-54 hitless streak this past April.

At this stage in his development, he’s developed. The swing either works or it doesn’t. Once a hitter gets some experience and establishes his mechanics, his later years are the work of mental tweaks rather than physical ones. Sure, older players can make adjustments, but Davis is apparently not going to do that: Read the rest of this entry »

Nationals manager Dave Martinez was ejected from Game 6 of the World Series last night. According to Jayson Stark, his simmering rage was set aflame by third-base umpire Gary Cederstrom telling him to “control your dugout,” which had come alive with criticism of the events of the evening, chiefly the squabble that erupted in regards to Trea Turner being called out at first for interference in the seventh inning.

Normally, a manager getting ejected isn’t incredible news, but everything with “World Series” in front of it becomes more distinct and historic, including the screaming.

To learn how Martinez’s ejection measures up with his equally ejected World Series predecessors, we can find plenty of singular instances dotting history. The first occurred in 1907, when Tigers manager Hughie Jennings was “shooed” away by the umpire for “back talk” regarding a play at second base, according to the St. Louis Dispatch. This characterized the majority of the disputes that ended in aggressive thumb-movements by the umpires over the next two decades in the Fall Classic, except in the case of “Wild Bill” Donovan, who was ejected from a World Series game in 1909 for talking to his third base coach for too long. But to be a part of the golden age of World Series ejections, there’s no question that we have to go back to the 1930s. Read the rest of this entry »