Who were the best players in the Midwest League this year? I posed that question to some of the circuit’s broadcasters late in the season, with an important qualifier: I wanted them to mostly base their selections on what they saw with their own eyes and not on reputations.

Because the Midwest League is comprised of two divisions, with an unbalanced schedule, a certain amount of sample-size bias was inevitable. I felt that was preferable to having the broadcasters put much too weight on second-hand information. Their expertise is what I was after.

I asked each of the participants for a list of seven players, ranked in order, plus any honorable mentions they cared to include. Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. are partially responsible for the list size. I originally planned on five, but as Lansing’s dynamic duo dominated my initial inquiries, I decided to bump up the number two notches.

Seven broadcasters participated, five from the Eastern Division and two from the Western Division. A pair of them, Alex Cohen and Chris Vosters, augmented their lists with snapshot scouting reports.

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Alex Cohen, Bowling Green Hot Rods (Rays)

1. Bo Bichette (Lansing Lugnuts, Blue Jays): Not sure what position he’ll play in the long run, and Vlad Jr. may have a better/longer career, but he was by far the best player in the league this year and it’s not really even close.

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Today, the off-season begins in earnest, as free agents become eligible to sign with new teams at 5 pm eastern. And given the number of interesting players on the market and which teams look like buyers, it should be a more active free agent atmosphere than we’ve seen in past years. Toss in a number of high-profile trade targets, and we could be in for a pretty interesting winter.

But every year, it seems, a few teams end up driving the off-season action. Last year, White Sox GM Rick Hahn became the most popular guy in town, as he shopped Chris Sale and Adam Eaton around at the winter meetings, eventually making blockbuster trades for both. The Dodgers were the big spenders, bringing back their trio of top-tier free agents, though at rates that proved to be bargains in every case.

Of course, in prior years, teams like the Diamondbacks, Padres, and Tigers have dominated the off-seasons with their aggressive attempts to get better, only to see those moves push the franchise in the wrong direction. So being the hot stove kingpin isn’t always a good thing, and with a particularly risky set of premium free agents, there’s a decent chance that whoever makes the most big moves this winter will also end up wishing they had been a bit more cautious. But as we head into the time when a few teams are looking to remake their franchises in significant ways, let’s take a look at which teams might end up being the ones who have the most impact — one way or the other — on their clubs this winter.

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Since 2000, there have been 101 World Series games played. On average, one out of every eight of those games has gone to extra innings. The most recent World Series produced two such contests. On average, about 60% of World Series games have produced final scores within three runs. For the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers, it was five out of seven. Only about one-third of World Series matchups reach a Game 7, but the 2017 edition provided one of those, as well. The Astros and Dodgers both scored 34 runs. It’s hard to ask for more than we received — and the television ratings from the World Series reflect the appeal of the games.

The only piece really missing from this season’s championship was some real drama in the final game — and we almost got that, as well. Yes, the Astros quickly took a 5-0 lead and conceded just a single run over nine total innings. In five of those first six innings, though, their opponents recorded a run expectancy of at least .86 runs. While they scored a single run in the sixth inning, probability suggests that it “should” have been more. By the numbers, the Dodgers possessed greater than an 80% chance of scoring at least twice and a 50% chance of coming through three times. A 5-3 or 5-4 lead heading into the ninth would have made for some compelling baseball.

As it happened, the Dodgers didn’t live up to their probabilities over the first six innings, and the game lacked the sort of tension that would have drawn a few more eyeballs. Regardless, the World Series performed strongly in the television ratings for the second straight season. In 2004, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals and recorded a very high 15.8 rating That figure probably actually understated interest in the series: had it produced a couple elimination games, the ratings would have been even higher.

In the 11 seasons after the Cardinals-Red Sox contest, the World Series averaged a 9.4 rating, failing to hit double-digits after 2009, when the Yankees won their last championship. Last season reversed the trend, accruing a 12.9. This season followed suit with a strong 10.6, lacking the advantage of a Cubs teams looking to end its 100-plus-year drought.

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Even though the 2017 season officially ended last week, the preparations for next year have been underway for some time. In a sense, teams have been planning for 2018 for years. After all, it can take a high-school draft pick five-plus seasons to receive the sort of development and polish necessary to survive in the major leagues. Balancing the future and the present is a significant task for a front office. And since the close of the season, teams have been gathering and meeting at their respective operational headquarters to narrow strategies on how to attack this winter and how to best position themselves in 2018 and beyond.

Just over a month ago, after an Alex Gordon home run set the major-league record for total homers in a season, I arrived at the (tentative) conclusion that it would be more challenging to plan for the future in today’s game. Consider: just three years ago, the game was in the midst of a depressed run environment. There was this idea that the future of offense was going to be defined by flat swings and line drives.

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The Detroit Tigers are in full rebuild mode, and Isaac Paredes projects as a big part of their future. His bat is the primary reason why. Despite an August swoon that caused his numbers to plummet, the 18-year-old shortstop finished the season with a .725 OPS. Given that he was one of the youngest players in the Midwest League, that’s not exactly chicken soup.

Paredes was acquired by the Tigers, along with Jeimer Candelario, in the trade-deadline deal that sent Alex Avila and Justin Wilson to the Cubs, and the news threw him for a loop. When I talked a him a week and a half later, the Hermosillo, Mexico native admitted to having been shocked and not particularly pleased. His initial thought was “this is something bad.”

Once his head stopped spinning, his attitude shifted to “this is a good thing.” Paredes realized he was going to an organization that would be relying heavily on players just like himself. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oakland A’s gave up a pair of quality relievers when they traded Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Washington Nationals in July. The trio of players they got in return are pretty talented themselves. One is already established — Blake Treinen logged 16 saves this year — while the others are promising prospects.

Sheldon Neuse, a 22-year-old infielder out of the University of Oklahoma, recorded a .321/.382/.502 slash line in his first full season of pro ball. The 2016 second-round pick did his damage at three levels, hopscotching from Low-A to High-A to Double-A.

And then there’s Jesus Luzardo, whose ceiling would be best described as “lofty.” While getting his feet wet at the lowest rungs of the minors — Rookie-level ball and the New York-Penn League — the polished-beyond-his-years southpaw struck out 48 and walked just five in 43.1 innings. His ERA was a smooth-and-shiny 1.66.

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Congratulations to the Houston Astros! After distinguishing themselves as one of the best teams in the regular season, they managed to survive the giant Plinko board that is the postseason. Truly a worthy champion.

There will certainly be much attention paid to the World Series winner in the wake of their victory. For the moment, however, I’d like to consider the team that fell just short — and, specifically, to examine their much-maligned ace, Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw stepped onto the mound in Game 7, his team needing him to hold the wall in the worst way. The Dodgers were already down five runs when Kershaw entered, their win probability reduced to just 10%. It was pretty dire.

Kershaw responded, throwing four innings of shutout ball, striking out four, unintentionally walking none, and limiting hard contact along the way. He looked like the guy who’s established himself as the best pitcher of this generation. As the game unfolded Wednesday night, the fans who joined the Game 7 live blog grasped three central points of Kershaw’s performance in very short order, as illustrated by the following excerpt from that chat:

These six comments are representative of observations made by other readers, observations which fell into the three following categories:

1. That Kershaw pitched effectively.
2. That naysayers would comment about the low leverage of the moment.
3. That, however well Kershaw fared, it wouldn’t alter The Narrative.

I’d like to address those points in a moment. However, before we descend (as Jonathan Yardley would put it) “into the Void,” let’s take a quick step back and appreciate Clayton Kershaw’s performance on Wednesday, in what will likely be a lost chord in his playoff opus.

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Following one of the most remarkable World Series of all time, in the wake of a matchup defined by historically wild swings in win probability, the Houston Astros engaged in a relatively subdued title celebration on the infield turf of Dodger Stadium. Given that Game 7 was one of the few four-hour stretches in the series that lacked constant tension and drama, it makes sense. As Charlie Morton finished off the Dodgers in the final innings, the conclusion seemed inevitable.

Following the game, the architect of the title, Astros GM Jeffrey Luhnow, briefly took the post-game microphone, addressing an emptying stadium and a national television audience. He did what most winning executives do in such situations: he thanked ownership for their patience and support.

As mundane as Luhnow’s words might have seemed, it’s likely that they transcended mere cliche. Because, where other clubs typically experience ebbs and flows, the Astros took one of the most extreme routes to a title in the game’s history. Ownership had to be open to a lot of losing. Because of the result, however, it’s a path down which other clubs will likely attempt to travel. In a copycat industry such as this one, everyone wants to be like, or at least learn from, the last team standing.

How can your team be like the Astros?

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On Wednesday night, a team from the AL West won the World Series. That team possesses more long-term value than any other organization in baseball. On Thursday, a rival team from the AL West agreed to contract terms with Justin Upton. It’s hard to see how the Angels might knock the Astros off of their perch, but, I guess, of course it would be hard, given what the Astros just did this past month. The Angels didn’t want to give up. They don’t want to concede the future, which you couldn’t in good conscience do, as long as you’re paying Mike Trout.

This is newsworthy only for the answer it provides. It was unclear whether Upton was going to opt out from his remaining four years, worth $88.5 million. It was known there was a chance he could stick around. Now stick around, he will, with the Angels adding on another year, and another $17.5 million. It’s not quite that simple — the Angels have also made the five years slightly backloaded. But the sides have agreed to turn a possible four-year commitment into a five-year commitment. That was all Upton needed to get in order to forego another round of free agency. The terms are agreeable. This is neither wildly good, nor horribly bad.

So then. Why did the Angels want to keep Upton in place? Because he can do this to the occasional baseball.

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Look, I don’t want to dwell on this too much. I’m not sure there’s anywhere to take it, and I’m a natural skeptic with these theories, anyway. I’m not sure why the World Series baseball would feel unusually slick, and, even if it’s true that it did, well, both teams got the same baseballs. You adjust and you deal. The Astros won one more game than the Dodgers did. Every single baseball game is played under its own unique conditions. The Astros are the rightful champions, and the Dodgers are the rightful runners-up.

But there’s always going to be that what-if element. It would be there anyway. What if Clayton Kershaw started Game 7, instead of Yu Darvish? What if Cody Bellinger had actually walked off Game 2? What if Yulieski Gurriel had been suspended immediately, instead of having it delayed until 2018? What if a million things. Baseball seldom makes it clean. What if there truly was something weird about the ball? What could’ve happened if there weren’t?

There’s no closure to be found through entertaining these questions. The games will never be replayed, and the Astros will stand as the 2017 champs forever. I just wonder. I see the argument against the ball being different. I made it just the other day! And yet, I’m not sure how to explain Brad Peacock.

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