Leading off with an old (sore) subject this week while cleaning out the stretch run notebook and wondering if the Yankees have finally pulled it all together enough to make it back to the World Series for the first time since 2009 …
It’s gotten to the point where estimates, guesstimates and odds for baseball’s postseason awards start in April and run weekly until announcements are made in November. Generally these “predictions” are a waste of the infinite internet space until this time of the year, where one award in each league takes precedence — and then it’s all about interpretation of the grandest of them all.
Do you prefer MOP or MVP? For these eyes and ears there is no question about the Most Outstanding Player in each league — Shohei Ohtani in the National League and Aaron Judge in the American League qualify as hands-down winners.
Most VALUABLE Player? I’m not so sure, though I am almost certain that Ohtani and Judge will prevail when all the swing and misses, home runs and stolen bases are counted. But somewhere along the line a player’s value to his team should come into play if we’re going to call this an MVP award.
It’s not that Judge and Ohtani aren’t legitimate candidates, but each has a strong support cast. And each has very legitimate competition in the valuable department. Bobby Witt Jr. in the American League and Francisco Lindor in the National have almost singlehandedly carried their teams into contention.
Witt has led the Royals from 106 losses last year to serious contention not only with the Orioles for the No. 1 wild-card spot but as a long shot against the Guardians for the AL Central title. Meanwhile the Mets, themselves woeful 87-game losers a year ago, have climbed from a dozen games under .500 in May to the lead for the third wild-card position in the NL.
Judge’s 50-plus home runs and Ohtani’s potential 50-50 season are eye-popping numbers that most likely will dominate the voting. If so, Witt and Lindor will have the best non-MVP seasons in at least a decade — and probably a lot longer than that.
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Speaking of Ohtani, for the life of me I can’t understand what he, manager Dave Roberts or the Dodgers organization are thinking about when it comes to this obsession with stolen bases. This is a guy on the brink, if he’s not already there, of going down as the greatest player since Babe Ruth, if not ever.
The stolen base has proven to be one of the most overrated statistics in baseball, especially in today’s game, where baserunners are practically give carte blanche to take an extra 90 feet.
Here’s a guy who averages 42 home runs per season, has been a 15-game winner and is expected to resume his pitching career next year following a second Tommy John surgery. He’s risking it all (unnecessarily it says here) on the base paths. All in pursuit of landmark numbers that would break a record he already owns.
Give me the risk over reward in this one.
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Don’t kid yourself on this one, folks — the goofy suggestion that baseball might consider a minimum number of innings for a starting pitcher has absolutely nothing to do about improving the game and all about shortening the time of the game.
The desire to make baseball like a Broadway play, over in two hours and 40 minutes after a 10-minute delay of curtain time, has been the reason for every single rule change. The shame of it all is the game could’ve achieved the same result by enforcing the 2:15 time between innings that had been in effect but basically ignored.
The industry, as baseball likes to call itself, has created a two-headed monster — the six-inning starter and the one-inning reliever. You’d be hard-pressed to find many, if any, in those respective roles who average more than those numbers during the course of the season.
The limitations are endless: 100 pitches (25 for relievers), one, two or three times through the lineup, six innings. The new-age statistics have created this embarrassment for baseball: quality starts and saves have become the defining statistics for pitchers.
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Speaking of statistics, here’s one for the ages. When Brewers shortstop Willy Adames hit his 29th home run on his 29th birthday, it was his 13th three-run homer.
Not for his career. For this season! No wonder Milwaukee announcers are calling him “Stephen,” comparing his home runs to Warriors great Stephen Curry’s 3-pointers.
Adames’ pending free agency is the big reason why the Brewers were willing to trade Corbin Burnes to the Orioles for Joey Ortiz, who figures to the shortstop’s heir apparent.
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Oh yeah, forgot to mention this — the Nationals have a lot of room under the luxury tax threshold and are expected to be a player when Juan Soto becomes a free agent at year’s end. If successful, that addition could put the Nats over the top.
The irony here is that the nucleus of the Nats team is made up mostly of players obtained when they traded Soto to the Padres a couple years ago. Entering his age-26 season, Soto will be the one player on the market who might be worth something close to the dollars he will get.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Photo Credit: Colin Murphy/PressBox