The Cycle, Issue 128: The Big Leap
A recap of the past week—feat. Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, the Guardians, the A's, and COVID-19—a viewer's guide to Week 3, and a look at this year's rookie crop and how they've performed thus far
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
Did You See That? Dominant pitching, hot hitting, and a look at how the standings are shaking out in the early going, featuring Shohei Ohtani, Manny Machado, Freddie Freeman, the surprising Cleveland Guardians and Oakland A’s, and an unwelcome reminder that we’re still in a pandemic.
On Deck: A viewer’s guide to Week 3
Awards Watch: An early look at this year’s Rookie of the Year candidates.
Feedback
Closing Credits
Did You See That?
It’s very early, and it has been a cool April, but the early returns on this season show that slugging and run scoring are down and suggest that Major League Baseball is using a deadened baseball, as was their reported intent last year. Through Thursday’s action, the league as a whole is scoring just shy of four runs (per team) per game and hitting .231/.308/.369. By comparison, last April, the major-league averages (in a season roughly equivalent to 2018 in terms of full-season offensive levels) were .232/.309/.390 with 4.26 runs scoring per team per game. The batting average and on-base percentage there are near-exact matches, but the slugging is down 21 points and run scoring is down by a quarter of a run per game per team.
One side effect of that low-run scoring environment is that we have already seen some tremendous pitching performances, despite the abbreviated Spring Training, which has prevented any starting pitcher from completing a game thus far. Clayton Kershaw’s seven perfect innings last Wednesday remains the best of the season, but this past week saw Justin Verlander flash his own vintage form with eight shutout innings against the Mariners on Saturday, allowing just three singles and a hit batsman while striking out eight and throwing just 87 pitches. Verlander’s game score of 84 ranks second behind only Kershaw’s outing (which was a 90) on the season.
Miami’s Sandy Alcantara and Pablo López turned in consecutive gems against the Cardinals on Wednesday and Thursday, totaling 15 scoreless innings and just eight baserunners while striking out 15, though Alcantara’s eight-inning outing turned into a hard-luck no-decision when Nolan Arenado hit a two-run homer off Anthony Bender in the ninth for a 2–0 Cardinals win. Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff had consecutive dominant outings for the first time this season on Tuesday and Wednesday, though they came against the Pirates and still weren’t as good as what Alcantara and López did.
Max Scherzer turned in his first dominant outing as a Met in the nightcap of Tuesday’s double-header against the Giants, allowing one hit in seven innings and striking out 10, and Max Fried held the Dodgers scoreless on two hits and no walks for seven innings that same night. Kevin Gausman became the fourth pitcher to go a full eight innings with a dominant outing against the Red Sox on Thursday (8 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 8 K), joining Verlander, Alcantara, and Logan Webb.
The signature pitching performance of the week, however, belonged to Shohei Ohtani, who took a perfect game into the sixth inning against the Astros, ultimately holding them to a single and a walk while striking out 12 in six frames. This being Ohtani, before he even took the mound in that game he walked, scored, then doubled in two more runs to start and cap a sixth-run top of the first for the hot-hitting Angels. Oh by the way, that made him the first pitcher ever to bat twice before throwing a pitch in a game (not counting position players used as late-game pitching replacements, of course). Ohtani later beat out a bunt single in the top of the sixth, just in case you forgot he is also one of the fastest players in the game.
On the other side of the ball, third basemen are running the show. The hottest hitters of the last week have been third basemen Manny Machado of the Padres (13-for-27, 3 HR, .482/.533/.889 in 30 PA) and Patrick Wisdom of the Cubs (9-for-21, 5 2B, .429/.478/.952 in 23 PA). José Ramírez and Nolan Arenado, two more third basemen, remain red hot, leading their respective leagues in OPS+. Ramírez, who hit his second grand slam of the season on Wednesday, leads the majors in OPS+ (282), batting (.426), total bases (39), hits and RBI (both 20). Arenado, whose late-game heroics against the Marlins have already been mentioned, leads the majors in slugging (.881) and the NL with a .405 average and 280 OPS+.
The major-league home-run leader is Rockies first baseman C.J. Cron, who hit four this past week, as did Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies. Cron has six on the season, besting Albies, Arenado, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. by one. The most notable home run, however, may have come off the bat of Freddie Freeman, who, on Monday, hit his first home run for the Dodgers in his first career at-bat against the Braves. Freeman went 4-for-11 (.364) with a pair of home runs as the Dodgers took two of three from the Braves in L.A. this week.
Also worth noting, after a poor start to his Mets career last year, Francisco Lindor has been raking thus far, including going 3-for-5 with a home run against the Giants on Thursday. He’s hitting .308/.419/.615 in 62 plate appearances on the season with four home runs and more walks than strikeouts. A notable hot start that seems less likely to be sustained is that of Albert Pujols, who has had four good games sandwiched between a pair of 0-fers. Pujols has started six of the Cardinals 11 games, all at designated hitter and appears to be in a soft platoon with Corey Dickerson, as expected. Still, it is fun to see Pujols hitting .333/.417/.667 in a Cardinals uniform, even if it is only over 24 plate appearances.
On a team level, the Mets and Dodgers are running the National League right now with comparable run differentials (the two best in the majors at +30 and +32, respectively) and records (also the two best in the majors). Meanwhile, the Reds, who had their lineup decimated by injury earlier this week, are dead last in the majors with a 2-11 record and a -37 differential. Between free agency, trade, and injuries, the Reds have lost Nick Castellanos, Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suárez, Jonathan India, Tyler Naquin, Tucker Barnhart, Tyler Stephenson, Mike Moustakas, Jose Barrero, Sonny Gray, Wade Miley, Luis Castillo, and Lucas Sims since the end of last season, and that’s an incomplete list, though seven of those players remain in the organization and should return from their injuries in relatively short order.
Beyond a hot start by the Rockies and a cold one by the Braves, neither of which do I expect to last, the NL looks roughly as expected. The same is true for the AL East, but things are a bit more unexpected in the AL West and Central, where the preseason favorites, the White Sox and Astros, are both merely .600 thus far with negative run differentials.
The White Sox were actually 6-3 with three series wins under their belt before running into the surprising offensive juggernaut that has been the Cleveland Guardians thus far this season. The Guardians were quieted by the Giants’ pitchers last weekend, as expected, managing just four runs in a three-game sweep at the hands of San Francisco, but they bounced back with an 11-run outburst against Dallas Keuchel and a butter-fingered White Sox infield on Wednesday in a game in which Tim Anderson made three errors, held the Sox to one run behind Triston McKenzie and the bullpen in the nightcap of that day’s double-header, and umped on Dylan Cease the next day for a 6–3 win. The Guardians lineup has been all-or-nothing this season, scoring two or fewer runs in half of their games and averaging more than 10 runs per game in the other six. They won’t be able to sustain that, but, as things stand, they have the best run differential in the AL and are in first place in the Central.
In the West, the Astros started the season 4-1, but are 2-5 since having just dropped series to the Mariners and Angels, averaging 7.75 runs allowed in the four losses in those two series. Seattle and the Halos are both in the black thus far, with the Angels stinging the ball for five runs a game and a 124 team OPS+, even with Mike Trout on the shelf this week after getting hit in the left hand by a pitch and Anthony Rendon off to a slow start. Trout is due to return tonight against the Orioles.
The big story in the West right now, however, may be the A’s, who took three of four from the Rays last week and fattened up on a four-game set against the Orioles this week to compile the second-best run differential in the league and the second-best record in their division (behind the Angels). That won’t last, and recent spate of COVID-related injury-list moves won’t help, but, for now, catcher Sean Murphy is leading the charge by slugging .574. Sheldon Neuse has some runway to see if he can sustain his hot hitting at third base with Kevin Smith out with a bone bruise in his left ankle, and the pitching staff (with the exception of rookie Adam Oller) is getting the job done even without Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea. If they keep this up, they might even get some fans to show up to the park on occasion.
As I mentioned in passing there, COVID-19 has become a factor in the last week. As cases rise nationally due to more infectious Omicron subvariants, teams have started to experience clusters of infections and exposures forcing players, and in some cases coaches, into isolation. Mariners right fielder Mitch Haniger, manager Scott Servais, and third-base coach Manny Acta have tested positive, resulting in first-base coach Kristopher Negrón ascending to the role of interim manager. The A’s placed seven players on the COVID list this week, a full quarter of their expanded 28-man roster, including the three players who did not travel to Toronto last weekend due to their failure to get vaccinated for the virus (backup catcher Austin Allen and lefties A.J. Puk and Kirby Snead). The Guardians, Red Sox, Mets, Reds, and Astros have all made use of the COVID-19 IL this week. Many of those players, including Allen and Puk and some who tested positive, such as Mets outfielders Brandon Nimmo and Mark Canha, have already returned to action, but this all serves as a reminder that we are still in an active pandemic. More than 400 Americans are still dying of this disease every day. The good news is we now have the tools to control and beat the disease, including vaccines, masks, and the antiviral pill Plaxovid. The trick is we have to use them.
Speaking of which, Red Sox righty Tanner Houck will not be able to make his scheduled start against the Blue Jays in Toronto next week because he is not vaccinated for COVID-19. I can’t say I’m upset about Canada’s vaccine requirement outing baseball’s vaccine hesitant. Unless he has a legitimate medical reason not to, Houck (and Allen, Puk, and Snead) should get the vaccine, if not for his own health or public safety (which are the best and most important reasons to do it), then out of a sense of duty to his team. I want to avoid inflammatory language here, but missing a start against a top division rival because you’re refusing life-saving medicine is among the most moronically selfish things I’ve ever seen a baseball player do, and baseball players, as a group, are hardly strangers to moronically selfish behavior.
As a palate cleanser, check out this throw from early this week by Braves Triple-A outfielder (he’s not really much of a prospect, unfortunately) Justin Dean:
On Deck
Note that all pitching matchups are probable and subject to change.
This Weekend
Series to Watch:
Dodgers @ Padres: These two teams have two of the four best records in the National League thus far, and one of the other two teams is the Rockies, who are sure to fade, and likely soon. Last year’s early Dodgers-Padres games were absolutely thrilling. These won’t be quite the same without Fernando Tatis Jr. in the mix, but they should still make for some top-notch baseball and the series concludes on Sunday with the best pitching matchup of the weekend: Clayton Kershaw vs. Sean Manaea (more on that below). Nick Martinez and Yu Darvish, the latter of whom has already had a wild season, get the first two games for San Diego. The Dodgers will counter with Julio Urías and Tyler Anderson, the latter filling Andrew Heaney’s vacated rotation spot.
Blue Jays @ Astros: The defending American League champions host the team favored to claim this year’s pennant, but are the Astros up to the challenge? They just lost four of six to the rival Mariners and Angels, the latter series at home, scoring a total of five runs in those four losses. The good news for Houston is that Justin Verlander is kicking things off Friday night against Toronto’s sixth starter, Ross Stripling. Verlander has been dominant thus far, allowing just one run (on a solo home run) in 13 innings while striking out 15 against just three walks in a pair of starts against those same Mariners and Angels. In his last outing, Verlander shut out Seattle for eight innings on just 87 pitches. Worth noting: the Angels have thus far had a far more productive offense than the Blue Jays.
The Jays counter with sophomore Alek Manoah on Saturday. Manoah hasn’t been Verlander-level dominant in the early going, but he has been very good, allowing just two runs in 12 innings with 13 strikeouts in a pair of low-scoring Toronto wins. He goes against Jose Urquidy, who has had one good start and one bad. The finale and likely rubber-game goes to lefties Yusei Kikuchi and Luis Garcia, neither of whom has yet completed six innings in a star this season (though both have only started twice).
Red Sox @ Rays: The AL East is already shaking out much like we expected, with the Blue Jays on top, the top four teams all within two games of one another, and the Orioles in a relatively distant last place. This weekend’s big AL East matchup (there will be one more often than not in this space this season) is the opening salvo in this year’s Red Sox–Rays series, a three-game set in St. Petersburg that will find Michael Wacha and Rich Hill starting for Boston in the bookend games against the team that employed them in 2021 (or for most of ’21, in Hill’s case). The Rays counter in those games with veteran Corey Kluber and sophomore Shane McClanahan.
The Saturday matchup has yet to be announced, but with hill being pushed back a day from his regular turn after returning from the bereavement list after the death of his father, it is believed that the Red Sox will give Garrett Whitlock his first major-league start. Whitlock, dominant again thus far this season, has thrown as many as 39 pitches and four innings in relief this season and would start Saturday on three day’s rest after throwing 12 pitches in a perfect frame to pick up his first save of the season on Tuesday against the Blue Jays. The Rays, who have five starting pitchers on the injured list (Tyler Glasnow, Shane Baz, Luis Patiño, Ryan Yarbrough, and Yonny Chirinos), are likely to counter with a bullpen game.
Rockies @ Tigers: It’s not a lock that Miguel Cabrera is going to get his 3,000th hit in this series, but he enters the weekend at 2,999 for his career and I don’t see Antonio Senzatela, Auston Gomber, Chad Kuhl, and the Rockies bullpen as a group likely to make even the 39-year-old Cabrera go 0-for-a-series. Cabrera has had three hitless games in a row twice since, but the last time he took the collar in three-game set against a single team was a the end of May last year against the Yankees. Once Miggy gets that hit, you can stop watching this series.
Friday, April 22
For Hunter Greene watchers, he’ll make his first home start in Cincinnati against Steven Matz and the Cardinals on the early Apple TV+ game at 6:40 pm ET, but, for me, this one is the . . .
Game of the Day:
Blue Jays @ Astros, Ross Stripling vs. Justin Verlander, 8:10 pm ET
Saturday, April 23
There’s not much particularly compelling going on in Saturday’s pitching matchups, though I am fascinated to see what Yu Darvish does in his start against the Dodgers at 8:40 pm ET. You’re probably best off sticking with Blue Jays @ Astros here: Alek Manoa vs. Jose Urquidy at 4:10 pm ET.
Sunday, April 24
Game of the Weekend:
Clayton Kershaw vs. Sean Manaea, Dodgers @ Padres, 4:10 pm ET
If you only watch one game this weekend, make it this one. In his season debut, Kershaw threw seven perfect innings, striking out 13. He was hit around a bit by the Braves in his next turn, but, on the season, he has 20 strikeouts against no walks in 12 innings. Manaea, meanwhile, also thew seven hitless innings in his first start of the year. He has been excellent in his two starts since, as well, allowing just three runs in 19 innings on the year and going 3-for-3 in quality starts. This is a legitimate marquee matchup of charmingly scruffy lefties and two of the best teams, and division rivals, in the National League.
Next Week
Series to Watch:
Mets @ Cardinals: It’s early, of course, but after making a big splash this offseason, and even without Jacob deGrom, the Mets have the best record in the majors (10-4, .714) and second-best run differential (+30, two runs behind the Dodgers). The Cardinals, meanwhile, have the best winning percentage (.636) and run differential (+15) in the NL Central. Both clubs have new managers (Buck Showalter and Oliver Marmol, respectively) and legitimate postseason hopes.
The Cardinals are powered by one of the major-league’s hottest hitters in third baseman Nolan Arenado and the majors’ best team defense, but they are running right into the top three men in the Mets’ rotation in Max Scherzer, Chris Bassitt, and Carlos Carrasco, the last of whom seems fully rejuvenated thus far this season. St. Louis counters with Miles Mikolas, who has been very good, Jordan Hicks, who threw 46 pitches over three innings in his first major-league start on Thursday, and ex-Met Steven Matz, in just his second start against his old team, in Wednesday’s finale.
Red Sox @ Blue Jays: The Blue Jays just took two of three from the Sox in Boston this week, with José Berríos and, especially, Kevin Gausman dealing in the two Toronto wins on Wednesday and Thursday. Those two will be on turn to kick off this series on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, with Ross Stripling and Alek Manoah likely to follow.
The Red Sox, meanwhile, will have to figure out how to jigger their rotation to play a four-game set without Tanner Houck, who won’t able to travel to Toronto because of his failure to get vaccinated for COVID-19. The Sox will have Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, and Michael Wacha on turn for the first three games, but Houck’s turn would otherwise have fallen between Pivetta and Wacha, and Rich Hill will only have had three day’s rest by Thursday. That likely means that Garrett Whitlock will get another turn in the rotation, which isn’t a huge hardship for the Sox, but is less than ideal, given Whitlock’s relative lack of experience and length, in a road game against arguably the best team in their own division.
Guardians @ Angels: I don’t know if it will still be true when this four-game set commences on Monday, but, heading into the weekend, this is a matchup of two first-place teams. The Angels, who just took two of three from the Astros in Houston, are tied with the Blue Jays for the league’s best record and have a better run differential than Toronto. The Guardians, meanwhile, have the league’s best run differential at +25. What’s more, through Thursday, these two teams have had the two most productive offenses in the American League per OPS+.
Cleveland has been all-or-nothing thus far this season, scoring five runs total in its five losses, but reaching double digits in runs four times in its seven wins. José Ramírez is hitting the absolute snot out of the ball and already has a pair of grand slams. Mike Trout, who was hit on the left hand by a pitch on Sunday, is due to return to the Angels’ lineup this weekend, and Shohei Ohtani, who is due to be the starting pitcher in Wednesday’s game, is back in god-mode. If you can only catch one game, make it Ohtani’s start, though Cleveland fans may prefer to catch Shane Bieber on Monday.
A’s @ Giants: You have to give it up to the A’s thus far this season. Gutted by the front office in the brief window between the end of the lockout and Opening Day, left for dead by the fans (barely more than 2,000 of whom showed up for Thursday’s series finale against the Orioles), they have responded to losing their first two games of the season by going 8-4 since without another pair of consecutive losses. They have the second-best run differential in the AL (+16) and the fifth-best record in the league. Yes, they just took three of four from the Orioles, but their other opponents this season have been the Phillies, Rays, and Blue Jays, all of whom have playoff aspirations, and two of whom are expected to be among the best teams in the AL (and have been thus far).
So let’s give the A’s the honor of tagging this Bay Series opener as a Series to Watch. In broad strokes, they have been comparable to the Giants thus far, going 8-6 to San Francisco’s 8-5 with a similar run differential. This is just a quick, two-game set on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the pitching matchups aren’t likely to be terribly compelling, but until they cool off, somebody should be watching the A’s.
Monday, April 25
Carlos Rodón vs. Corbin Burnes, Giants @ Brewers, 6:10pm ET
This is a one-off makeup game and it just happens to line up as a matchup of the two team’s aces. With apologies to Logan Webb, Rodón has been dominant thus far, allowing just two runs in 17 innings across three starts while striking out 29 and not allowing home run. Burnes, meanwhile, has struck out 18 in 14 innings against just one walk in his last two starts, each of them lasting seven innings, and has lowered he ERA to 2.37 on the season in the process. There are other good matchups on Monday—Nathan Eovaldi vs. José Berríos, Max Scherzer vs. Miles Mikolas, not bad for a day with just seven games—but Rodón vs. Burnes, if it does indeed line up that way (and it should with Thursday’s off-day giving Burnes that extra day of rest that allows the Brewers to maintain their six-day, rather than six-man, rotation) is a must-see.
Tuesday, April 26
The pitching matchup that should be worth watching on Tuesday is Marcus Stroman vs. Max Fried (Cubs @ Braves, 7:20 pm ET), but Stroman has given up 13 runs in 8 1/3 innings in his last two starts (albeit with solid peripherals). If Stroman gets lit up early, switch to Chris Bassitt vs. Jordan Hicks (Mets @ Cardinals, 7:45 pm ET on TBS). If things take a little longer to go south, you still have Guardians @ Angels (Triston McKenzie vs. Patrick Sandoval, both having had good results thus far, at 9:38 pm ET) and A’s @ Giants (Daulton Jefferies vs. Anthony DeSclafani, 9:45 pm ET) as fallbacks.
Wednesday, April 27
Wednesday night is Ohtani night in the Guardians-Angels series, but you could sneak in most or all of Zack Greinke vs. Dylan Cease (Royals @ White Sox, 7:10 pm ET) before the Ohtani game starts at 9:38 pm ET. Grienke has been an effective five-inning starter for the Royals through five turns thus far, while Cease was excellent in his first two starts before running into the mighty Guardians his last time out.
Thursday, April 28
Only one new series starts on Thursday (Diamondbacks @ Cardinals), and 11 of the 13 games on the schedule are day games, so give the finale in Toronto (likely Garrett Whitlock vs. Alek Manoah, 3:07 pm ET) a shot, though Hunter Greene fans will want to catch him against Nick Martinez and the Padres at 12:35 pm ET.
Awards Watch: The Rookie Field
One of the big stories coming into this season, both as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations and teams’ final decision-making at the end of Spring Training, concerned top prospects making Opening Day rosters. The first big decision made on that front in the wake of the new CBA, which contained what I, among others, considered to be very weak incentives and deterrents regarding service-time manipulation, was the Pirates’ decision to send shortstop Oneil Cruz, who had made his major-league debut last September, back to Triple-A to start the season. One excuse the team used for that decision was that they wanted to acclimate Cruz to left field to give him some positional flexibility, and just in case he wasn’t able to stick at shortstop in the majors. Through his first 11 games, however, Cruz has played just one in left field (the rest have come at shortstop). So Cruz isn’t playing left field, but he’s also not hitting, and, given that he did have just six games at Triple-A prior to this season, it seems likely that the Pirates will game his Super-Two arbitration eligibility next.
The Cruz decision proved not to be a harbinger, however. In the wake of Cruz getting sent down, most of the other top prospects fighting for Opening Day jobs landed them. By my count, this year’s Opening Day rosters included 81 rookies. Many of those are no-name relief pitchers, of course, and their number was increased by the expansion of April rosters to 28 players. Still, included among those 81 are many of the game’s top prospects.
According to my aggregated list of the game’s top prospects, 17 players who made one of the four major top-100 prospects lists prior to this season opened the season in the major leagues, including four of the game’s top 10 prospects. Here are those 17:
#2 – Bobby Witt Jr., 3B, Royals
#3 – Julio Rodríguez, CF, Mariners
#4 – Spencer Torkelson, 1B, Tigers
#10 – C.J. Abrams, SS, Padres
#25 – Hunter Greene, SP, Reds
#33 – Reid Detmers, SP, Angels
#42 – Keibert Ruiz, C, Nationals*
#51 – Jeremy Peña, SS, Astros
#54 – Bryson Stott, 3B, Phillies
#56 – Josh Lowe, OF, Rays
#64 – Joey Bart, C, Giants
#84 – Cristian Pache, CF, A’s
#94 – Steven Kwan, OF, Guardians
#98 – Geraldo Perdomo, SS, Diamondbacks
#118 – Josh Winder, RHP, Twins
#121 – Joe Ryan, SP, Twins
#130 – Spencer Strider, RHP, Braves
That list doesn’t include Tigers outfielder Riley Green (#8), Rays starter Shane Baz (#9), or Blue Jays righty Nate Pearson (#67), all of whom who opened the year on the injured list. Nor does it include Reds starter Nick Lodolo (#37), who earned a rotation spot out of camp but wasn’t called up until his turn came around, Reds shortstop José Barrero (#66)—who is both on the IL and, like Keibert Ruiz, *lost his rookie eligibility last year yet still made multiple lists—MacKenzie Gore (#132, but #4 a year ago), who has since been added to the Padres’ rotation, or Pirates righty Roansy Contreras (#71) and Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos (#124) both of whom have since been called up, Ramos for his major-league debut, and returned to Triple-A. It also doesn’t include Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki, who is a veteran of Nippon Professional baseball and more comparable to a major-league free agent in terms of his Opening Day status, but is nonetheless in the mix (and the lead) for this year’s NL Rookie of the Year award.
That’s quite an impressive crop of rookies a mere two weeks into the season. However, the crop hasn’t impressed as much as their mere presence in the league has. Here’s another look at the 17 top-“100” prospects above, minus non-rookie Ruiz, but plus Lodolo, Gore, and Suzuki, along with a snapshot of their performances thus far, ranked according to OPS+ or ERA+ (since both of those stats are on the same scale, I’ve mixed the pitchers and hitters on this list of 19 rookies). As always, bold text indicates league leaders, bold and italics indicates major-league leaders:
Those are all tiny sample sizes, of course, especially for the pitchers, and you get some odd results, such as Joey Bart posting a 124 OPS+ despite striking out in more than half of his plate appearances. Still, it’s a snapshot of how things have started off for these elite prospects.
It’s not the full rookie picture, however. Here are eight other rookies currently on big-league rosters who bear watching based on their early-season performances:
It’s too early in the season to say that any of the above performances (both in this rookie section and the Did You See That? section up top) mean anything, but they’re in the books and a part of the overall story of these players’ rookie seasons. I’ll check back in on them in about a month or so, when most of them are likely to be in very different places.
Feedback
I want to hear from you. Got a question, a comment, a request? Reply to this issue. Want to interview me on your podcast, send me your book, bake me some cookies? Reply to this issue. I will respond, and if I find your question particularly interesting, I’ll feature it in a future issue.
You can also write me at cyclenewsletter[at]substack[dot]com, or @ me on twitter @CliffCorcoran.
Closing Credits
They say the move from Triple-A to the majors is the hardest leap to make in baseball, and some of the game’s top prospects have been proving that in the early going this year. So, in recognition of their struggles, let’s end things today with Blondie’s “The Hardest Part.”
A song from Blondie’s fourth album, 1979’s Eat to the Beat, “The Hardest Part” is about knocking over an armored car, and, musically, it owes more than a little to Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff,” the lead single from Summer’s blockbuster double-album Bad Girls, which came out in April 1979, just as Blondie were heading into the studio to record Eat to the Beat.
“The Hardest Part” was the third single from Eat to the Beat, following the underplayed classics “Dreaming” and “Union City Blue,” the latter of which was not released as a single in the U.S. Released in early 1980, “The Hardest Part” stiffed as a single, but we got a video out of the deal, this one with Debbie Harry (who co-wrote the song with guitarist and boyfriend Chris Stein) belying the band’s name via a long, brunette wig, and the rest of the band seemingly paying tribute to Devo in matching painters’ jumpsuits and sunglasses, playing their instruments with gloved hands. The set is evidence of the band’s growing appreciation for New York’s graffiti artists, presaging their tribute to hip hop with “Rapture,” which would come out later that year on their next record, Autoamerican.
The Cycle will return next Friday. In the meantime: