The Cycle, Issue 13: Triskaidekaphantasma
NL West Spring Training Previews, Desmond Opts Out, Mather Blathers, Transactions, Aches & Pains, more
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
Spring Training Previews continue this week. Today, I take on the heavily bifurcated National League West.
Also:
Newswire: Desmond opts out, Mariners’ President caught being honest
Transaction Reactions: Walker, Gardner, Lamb, Roe
Aches and Pains: Intake testing results, first TJ of the spring
Feedback
Closing Credits
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Spring Training Preview: NL West
Spring Training is underway, but the exhibition schedule doesn’t start until Sunday. To tide you over until we get closer to the actual games, The Cycle is spending this week and last highlighting some of the more compelling spring storylines for each team in my Spring Training Previews.
Because one of the joys of Spring Training is seeing offseason acquisitions in their new uniforms, each preview will start with the player that team and its fans are likely most excited to see in their “New Duds.” I’ll then highlight the “Big Change” for each team, the thing that has changed most from last year to this; the “Big Battle,” that’s the position battle most likely to be decided by spring performance (even if the idea of evaluating players based on exhibition play is ridiculous and outdated); the “Big Question,” that’s the one unknown that might be answered before the season starts; an “NRI That-Guy,” a familiar major-league veteran who is in camp as a non-roster invitee; and, finally, the top prospect on that team whom we have yet to see in the majors but might get a “Sneak Peak” at this spring.
I started in Issue 10 with the American League West, surveyed the National League Central on in Issue 11, and wrapped last week with the American League East in Issue 12. Today, we continue with the National League West. As with my Offseason Report Cards, teams are presented in order of their 2020 finish.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Location: Camelback Ranch, Glendale, AZ
New Duds: RHP Trevor Bauer
Not all Dodgers fans are going to be excited to see Bauer in Dodger Blue, but he is by far their most significant addition (apologies to Sheldon Neuse and Corey Knebel). He’s also the first pitcher to change teams after winning the Cy Young award since the Mets traded R.A. Dickey to the Blue Jays after the 2012 season, and the first pitcher under the age of 35 to change teams the winter after winning the Cy Young award since the Red Sox traded for Pedro Martínez after the 1997 season.
Big Change: Bauer
Regardless of the quality of his pitching this coming season, Bauer will change the Dodgers. If he pitches like he did last year, he’ll change them for the better on the field. Even if he doesn’t, he will be an agent of disruption, blocking talented young arms from establishing themselves in the rotation, changing the tenor of the clubhouse, and serving as a constant distraction because of the things he does and says online, to the media, and on the field.
Fun fact: Trevor Bauer has accumulated fewer wins above replacement in his career (per Baseball-Reference’s numbers) than Yasiel Puig, who almost exactly the same age. Yet, Bauer will make $40 million this year, while Puig can’t get signed. Curious. Someone should have asked Kevin Mather about that.
Big Battle: Starting rotation
The Dodgers won the World Series last year with a rotation of Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Dustin May, Julio Urías, and Tony Gonsolin. Those five pitchers all remain, but Bauer will claim one spot, and another former Cy Young award winner, David Price, now 35, is returning after opting out of last season. Bauer, Buehler, and Kershaw are guaranteed spots in the rotation, but the other four will be competing for the remaining two. I suspect that Urías is headed to the bullpen, both because of his great work in relief during last year’s postseason, and because he is the least stretched-out of the bunch (he has only surpassed 100 combined major and minor league innings once, and that was when he threw 122 back in 2016). I think it’s a shame that any of those three young arms should have to be deferred, and injuries do have a way of clarifying situations like this, but, heading into camp, the Dodgers have some tough decisions to make with regard to their starting pitchers.
Big Question: LHP David Price
Wait, are these also all about the rotation? Almost! Much like the Yankees, the Dodgers are returning with the same lineup and even less turnover in the bullpen. All the drama is in the rotation. Bauer will be disruptive, but his role and his health are not in question. Price is another matter. After opting out of 2020, he is returning at the age of 35. He stayed healthy enough to qualify for the ERA title only once in the three seasons prior to 2020, averaging 21 starts and 119 innings across those three seasons. Price is under contract for just one more season after this one, he was acquired as a salary-dump condition of the Mookie Betts trade (rather than as a pitcher the Dodgers particularly wanted), and he’s left-handed, so a move to the bullpen could be in order. Then again, if Urías also winds up in the bullpen, the Dodgers would already have three lefties out there in Urías, Victor González, and Scott Alexander. Still, if you were running the Dodgers, would you bump one of Dustin May or Tony Gonsolin to the ‘pen to make room for Price? If the long-term benefit of the ballclub is a priority, I would not.
NRI That-Guy: RHP Brandon Morrow
The fifth-overall pick in the 2006 draft, Brandon Morrow had the talent to be an ace in the major-leagues, but his body just wouldn’t hold up. He still authored one of the great single-game pitching performances in major-league history on August 8, 2010 (a 17-strikeout one-hitter) and struck out 203 men in 2011, leading the American League in strikeout-to-walk ratio. His career has been dominated by injury ever since, and he hasn’t thrown a major-league pitch since 2018 due to back and elbow problems. Now 36, Morrow is giving it perhaps one last try with the last team for who he had a healthy season. Morrow spent 2017 in the Dodgers’ bullpen, flashing triple-digit heat and posting a 2.06 ERA (202 ERA+), 0.92 WHIP, and 5.56 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 45 relief appearances.
Sneak Peak: RHP Josiah Gray
As if the Dodgers didn’t have enough young starting pitchers vying for a spot in their rotation, here’s Josiah Gray, the last remaining piece from the December 2018 Yasiel Puig trade. The Reds’ second-round pick out of Le Moyne College in June 2018, Gray went from being a two-way collegiate shortstop in 2017 to dominating on the mound across three minor-league levels in 2019, reaching Double-A in his first full professional season. On a team with less pitching talent, he might have made his major-league debut last year. Given how crowded the Dodgers’ rotation is, Gray will open this season in the minors, most likely Triple-A, and a lot would have to go wrong for him to get a big-league start. Still, per Baseball Prospectus, the Dodgers think his offspeed stuff improved at the alternate training site last year, and he ranked 52nd on my aggregated list of the top-145 prospects in baseball
San Diego Padres
Location: Peoria Sports Complex, Peoria, AZ
New Duds: RHP Yu Darvish
The Padres can’t brag about adding the NL Cy Young award winner, only the runner-up in last year’s voting. Darvish was a superstar in Nippon Professional Baseball before he ever got to the major leagues, and, while he has had his ups and downs in the States, he is back on the upswing coming off a legitimately dominant 76-inning performance with the Cubs last year.
Big Change: Starting rotation
I promise we’ll move away from starting pitchers after this entry. Still, the Padres added Yu Darvish, Blake Snell (a former Cy Young award winner last seen dominating in the World Series), and Joe Musgrove (a talented former first-round pick coming off his best season), in a single winter, transforming a rotation that was pretty good last year into one that could be great this year. Gone are Zach Davies (sent to the Cubs in the Darvish trade) and Garrett Richards (to the Red Sox as a free agent). Last year’s deadline addition, Mike Clevinger, is out for the year for the year following Tommy John surgery. Still in place are Dinelson Lamet, who finished fourth in last year’s Cy Young voting, and Chris Paddack, who was last year’s Opening Day starter. Paddack is now San Diego’s fifth-starter. That’s a Big Change.
Big Battle: Left field (with possible overflow to second base)
The Padres signed star shortstop Ha-Seong Kim out of the Korea Baseball Organization this winter with the idea that he would be their starting second baseman. Kim, who is 25, hit .308/.399/.526 with 30 homers, 75 walks, and 23 stolen bases in 25 attempts for the Kiwoom Heroes last year. However, the Padres’ incumbent second baseman, Jake Cronenworth, also a former shortstop, hit .285/.354/.477 in the majors and finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Cronenworth, 27, deserves a place to play. That place might be left field, but without the designated hitter this year, Tommy Pham might have something to say about that. Cronenworth, who can play just about anywhere and was even a part-time pitcher with the Rays’ Triple-A team in 2019, could get significant playing time as a super-utility guy. However, in that role, he will run into Jurickson Profar, who posted a 112 OPS+ last year and whom the Padres re-signed in January for $21 million over three years, not a far cry from Kim’s $28 million over four years. As a left-handed hitter, Cronenworth has the platoon advantage over the right-handed Pham and Kim, but Profar is a switch hitter. Might the Padres platoon both left field and second base? Does Profar’s contract suggest that he, not Pham or Cronenworth, has the inside track to start in left field? The Padres have four legitimate starters for two positions. It’s a good problem to have, but manager Jayce Tingler will have to come up with some sort of solution this spring.
Big Question: RHP Dinelson Lamet
Kim is a curiosity, but not really an unknown. Catching prospect Luis Campusano was charged with felony possession of marijuana in October, when Georgia police found 79 grams in his car, but the Padres say they don’t expect that to limit his participation in camp or the season (perhaps he has a plea worked out?).
The largest area of concern is thus the right elbow of Lamet, who was pulled from his final regular season start last year and unavailable in the playoffs due what was described then as tightness in his biceps. Upon arriving in camp last week, Lamet said that his doctors told him if he had kept pitching last year he ran the risk of Tommy John surgery. Lamet had a platelet-rich plasma injection in October, and began throwing again in December. So far so good, but how Lamet’s arm reacts to the build-up to the season and the reintroduction of his slider will be important to watch.
NRI That-Guy: IF Pedro Florimón
The 34-year-old Florimón has been bouncing around the league, and the diamond, since 2011. He was the Twins’ starting shortstop in 2013, and has had stints with the Orioles, Pirates, and Phillies, while also passing through the Nationals’ and Braves’ organizations. He has played every position but catcher and first base, even making two relief appearances for the Phillies in 2018. Florimón hasn’t been in the majors since that season, doesn’t seem likely to make the Padres out of camp, and is very close to the definition of a replacement player, but on the that-guy scale, he rates very highly.
Additional shout-out to Colombian right-hander Nabil Crismatt, now on his fourth organization, whose name sounds like something out of a Douglas Adams book and sticks in my mind like peanut butter on the brain.
Sneak Peak: LHP MacKenzie Gore
Gore is the fourth-best prospect in all of baseball and the top pitching prospect, according to my aggregated list. The individual top-100 lists may dispute that, but they all agree that he is the best pitching prospect who has yet to throw a pitch in the majors. Gore throws in the mid-90s with a hellacious curveball. The third-overall pick in 2017, Gore obliterated the hitter-friendly High-A California league in 2019 and finished that year in Double-A. He turns 22 later this week, and will be wearing number 1 in camp. With the rotation now stuffed to the gills, he’s likely headed for Triple-A to start the year, but anything can happen from there.
Incidentally, the Padres’ system is so rich that there are many other elite Padres prospects worth keeping an eye out for this spring, including shortstop CJ Abrams (2019’s sixth-overall pick) and outfielder Robert Hasell III (last year’s eighth-overall pick). Also, Ha-Seong Kim technically qualifies here, as he has yet to make his major-league debut.
San Francisco Giants
Location: Scottsdale Stadium, Scottsdale, AZ
New Duds: 2B Tommy La Stella
La Stella was an All-Star in 2019 and hit .281/.370/.449 (127 OPS+) for the Angels and A’s last year, including a .296/.367/.444 line for the cross-Bay A’s in the postseason. Add in his time with the Cubs, and La Stella has appeared in five of the last six postseasons, including as a pinch-hitter against the Giants in the 2016 Division Series. In 22 regular-season games, he has hit .286/.392/.548 against San Francisco. So, while the 32-year-old might not be a true star, he’s a compelling addition.
Big Change: Buster’s back!
Buster Posey was one of 23 players to opt out of last season. That was interesting, in that it gave Joey Bart an unanticipated major-league opportunity, but Bart didn’t do much with the chance. Posey turns 34 in late March, and it’s not clear how much he has left given that he slugged just .368 in 2019. Still, he’s a franchise icon, a likely future Hall of Famer, and was still a superlative defensive catcher when we last saw him behind the plate, so it will be good to see him back there again.
Big Battle: Starting Rotation
Kevin Gausman has a spot, and Johnny Cueto probably does, even though he had a 5.40 ERA last year. I think Logan Webb should be more of an automatic, but it seems the Giants are going to make the 24-year-old fight for his spot with the three additions they made this offseason: righty Anthony DeSclafani, lefty Alex Wood, and righty Aaron Sanchez. Three of those four should open the season in the rotation, but Sanchez is coming off shoulder surgery and chronic blister problems, Wood posted a 6.39 ERA last year, and DeSclafani posted a 7.22 mark, so it’s not impossible that this battle could be throw open to a wider field. That could include right Matt Wisler, lefty Caleb Baragar, and non-roster invitees Nick Tropeano, Anthony Banda, and Shun Yamaguchi, the last of whom posted a 2.78 ERA in 181 innings in the NPB in 2019, but pitched exclusively (and, admittedly, poorly) in relief for the Blue Jays last year.
Big Question: RHP Reyes Moronta
Moranta posted a 2.66 ERA (151 ERA+) across 125 relief appearances for the Giants in 2018 and ’19, striking out 11 men per nine innings, but he had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his pitching shoulder in September 2019 and missed all of last year as a result. Now he’s back, and reportedly healthy, and could battle lefty Jake McGee for closing opportunities, but how effective will he be? Moronta was already walking more than five men per nine innings before his surgery. Will he be able to keep those walks under control post-surgery and be a significant high-leverage reliever again?
NRI That-Guy: RHP Dominic Leone
Leone posted a 175 ERA+ over 70 1/3 innings for the Blue Jays in 2017 and was promptly traded to the Cardinals for Randal Grichuk. He appeared in 69 games over two years for St. Louis but with inferior results, then just a dozen for Cleveland last year, and was even worse. He has struck out 10.5 men per nine innings over those four seasons, but his home run and walk rates are heading in the wrong direction. Still, he’s a guy with parts of seven major league seasons under his belt who was briefly compelling.
Sneak Peak: SS Marco Luciano
As a 17-year-old in 2019, Luciano hit .322/.438/.616 in 178 plate appearances in Rookie ball. Still a teenager, Luciano famously hit a 119 mile per hour homer in the instructional league in November, and he arrived in camp this spring looking “thicker,” according to manager Gabe Kapler, who knows a thing or two about bulking up. Luciano is a still a long way from the majors, but he ranked 16th on my aggregated list and is considered a true blue-chipper who could rank higher in future years. Giants fans won’t want to miss a chance to get a look at him this spring.
Colorado Rockies
Location: Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, AZ
New Duds: LHP Austin Gomber
Sorry, Rockies fans. This is what happens when your team is the only one in the majors not to sign a free agent to a major-league contract this offseason (hat tip to Joel Sherman for that bit of info), and when your only big transaction is trading away your franchise player for salary relief and collection of non-prospects. Would you have preferred Robert Stephenson or Elehuris Montero? The 6-foot-5 Gomber might actually break camp in the starting rotation, and he’s a bit of a groundballer, so that’s something. Just try to ignore the fact that he’s already 27.
Big Change: No more Nolan
With all due respect to Trevor Story and Charlie Blackmon, Nolan Arenado was the Rockies for the last six years. He’s gone, and he hasn’t been replaced. That blows a Hall of Famer-sized whole in a roster that couldn’t afford to lose a player half as good as Arenado. That’s a massive, devastating change, and it will take this team years to recover.
Big Battle: Most of the lineup
We know that Trevor Story will play shortstop, Charlie Blackmon will play right field, and Raimel Tapia and Brendan Rodgers will likely be in there somewhere, probably left field and second base, respectively. Beyond that, it’s open season. Arenado, David Dahl, Daniel Murphy, Ian Desmond (see below), Tony Wolters, and Kevin Pillar are all gone, and the only position player the Rockies added to the 40-man roster is third baseman Elehuris Montero, a 22-year-old third baseman who has yet to play above Double-A.
Elias Díaz seems to have the inside track at catcher, but he’s 30 years old with a career 74 OPS+. Will Tapia get a look in center field? If not, last year’s playing time suggests a Sam Hilliard/Garrett Hampson platoon. Ryan McMahon and Josh Fuentes could platoon at either of the infield corners, but not both, which could mean an opportunity for Montero or Colton Welker, or non-roster first basemen C.J. Cron and Greg Bird. None of those positions will feel settled even after they’re settled, so look for this to be more of a season-long battle for playing time, but it will start in camp in what feels like open tryouts for the 2021 Rockies.
Big Question: Trevor Story
Arenado is gone in part because he had an opt-out at the end of this season, a situation complicated by the fact that Story is also due to hit free agency in the fall. Ostensibly, the Rockies traded Arenado so they could afford to keep Story, but it’s difficult to imagine Story willfully chaining himself to this team (a team, it’s worth remembering, that only gave Story a chance to be the everyday shortstop because José Reyes beat his wife and got suspended). Still, this is extension season. I’m sure the Rockies are making their pitch. Then again, Fernando Tatis Jr. just exploded the market for shortstops, even if he is six years younger than Story, so don’t hold your breath for that Story extension.
NRI That-Guy: 1B C.J. Cron
I already mentioned Cron and Greg Bird, both of whom will get a real chance to claim the Rockies’ first-base job in camp. The Rockies also have Hall of Fame offspring Dereck Rodríguez (son of Iván) in camp, a collection of 2020 Rockies (Chris Owings, Chi Chi González, Jesus Tinoco, and Joe Harvey), and corner man Connor Joe, who has just one major-league hit, but made an impression with the Giants in 2019 because of his Tony Bautista-like batting stance (which immediately prompted an imitation from Gar Ryness, a.k.a. Batting Stance Guy). Cron gets the nod here, though, because he has a career 111 OPS+ and 118 career home runs, including 55 from 2018 to 2019 alone. Just don’t ask him to work a walk.
Sneak Peak: LHP Ryan Rolison
Outfielder Zac Veen, the ninth-overall pick in last year’s draft, is the Rockies’ top prospect, but the 19-year-old is not listed among the teams’ non-roster invitees, and Brendan Rodgers has spent parts of the last two seasons in the majors, so this honor falls to lefty Ryan Rolison, who was listed as the 82nd-best prospect in baseball by Keith Law, but did not appear on the other major top-100 lists. University of Mississippi product Rolison was the 22nd overall pick in 2018, but he may have a bit of a home-run problem. He gave up 22 in 131 innings at High-A in 2019, and that 119-mile-per-hour blast that Giants prospect Marco Luciano hit in instructs in November? That was off Rolison. This is where the Rockies are right now. Their top teenage prospect isn’t even in camp, while their division rivals’ top teenage prospect is hitting bombs off their 23-year-old top pitching prospect.
Arizona Diamondbacks
Location: Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, AZ
New Duds: RHP Joakim Soria
The only choices here were Soria and infielder Asdrúbal Cabrera. The only other new addition to the 40-man roster is 23-year-old righty Humberto Castallanos, who isn’t likely to break camp with the major-league team. Cabrera has been a major-leaguer for 14 years and made two All-Star teams and five postseasons. Soria has been a major-leaguer for 14 years, but missed one due to Tommy John surgery, and has made two All-Star teams and four postseasons. Cabrera won a World Series with the Nationals two years ago. Soria has not pitched in the World Series. Cabrera has a slight edge there, but he might be limited to a utility infielder role this year, while Soria should be pitching high-leverage relief innings. Also, MLB.com hasn’t added Cabrera to the Diamondbacks’ roster yet, so to save myself some time with Photoshop, we’re going with Soria, who, frankly, is also the better looking of the two veterans.
Big Change: The lack of hope
The Diamondbacks have barely changed at all since the close of last season. The big names that are gone—Robbie Ray, Archie Bradley, Starling Marte—were all traded away at last year’s deadline. The new additions are Cabrera and Soria. Almost nothing else has changed that hasn’t also changed for every other team in the National League (the loss of the designated hitter, the return to a full-length season). If anything is different for the Diamondbacks heading into this season compared to last it’s that their expectations have been drastically lowered.
Arizona last made the playoffs in 2017, but they finished third in 2018 and improved to second place and 85-wins in 2019, the latter a season in which they might have had a playoff shot if they hadn’t opted to sell at the trading deadline. Their Pythagorean win expectations in those two seasons were 86 and 88 wins. That was not a bad team. Last year, however, they sank all the way to last place and played at a 94-loss pace with a Pythagorean win expectation of just 74 wins. This offseason, they did almost nothing to improve on that roster. Meanwhile, they find themselves in a division topped by arguably the two best teams in baseball, whom Arizona will have to play in nearly a quarter of their games. The D’backs are in a three-way race for a distant third place with no real hope of a playoff berth. That is at least some kind of change, I suppose.
Big Battle: Daulton Varsho’s battle for playing time
Is Varsho the incumbent centerfielder? Is he going to battle fellow left-handed hitter Stephen Vogt for the strong side of a catching platoon with righty Carson Kelly? Is he a bench piece who can play both positions? Or is he headed to Triple-A for the first time in his career? A top-100 prospect before he lost his rookie eligibility in the shortened season, Varsho is a well-regarded 24-year-old who crushed Double-A two years ago and slugged .484 over his final 19 games last year. However, he may have to fight to keep his spot on the team heading into the new season.
Big Question: Is Madison Bumgarner washed up?
Madison Bumgarner was a mess last year in the first year of his five-year, $85 million contract with the Diamondbacks. He posted career worsts in nearly every category, including walk, strikeout, and home run rates, ERA (6.48), ERA+ (71), FIP (7.18) and DRA (8.91), and he struggled to reach 90 miles per hour on the radar gun, averaging 88 miles per hour with his fastball. As those fielding-independent pitching and deserved run average marks indicate, Bumgarner was way worse than even that awful ERA last year. Does this question overreact to nine starts in a short, injury-plagued season from a 31-year-old pitcher? Maybe, but despite his relative youth, Bumgarner is 16th among active pitchers in innings pitched, and that both counts Ervin Santana and Edwin Jackson as active and does not count Bumgarner’s 102 1/3 postseason frames. Bumgarner is in obvious decline. The question is how far down the hill has he come already. Diamondbacks fans will want to keep a close eye on him and his radar readings this spring.
NRI That-Guy: RHP Chris Devenski
Devenski was a dominant swing man as a rookie in 2016, and an All-Star and world champion as a multi-inning reliever with the Astros in 2017. Gopheritis and a declining strikeout rate have undermined him since, though he did pitch the final inning of a combined no-hitter in 2019. Devenski threw just 3 2/3 innings last year, and his velocity was down a couple of miles per hour in those frames, but he had bone spurs removed from his elbow toward the end of the season, so there’s hope that he’ll be throwing better coming into camp this year. If so, that upside may still be there.
Sneak Peak: SS Geraldo Perdomo
Teenage outfielders Corbin Carroll, Kristian Robinson, and Alek Thomas are not among Arizona’s announced invitees this spring, so we drop down to their fourth-best prospect, shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, who still made all four top-100 prospect lists this spring (Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB Pipeline, and Keith Law), grading out as the 85th best prospect in baseball in the aggregate. The 21-year-old Perdomo is good in the field and walks more than he strikes out, but hasn’t shown any real power thus far. He’s likely headed to Double-A to start the season.
Newswire
There’s a Pandemic Going On: Ian Opts Out
Rockies outfielder Ian Desmond opted out of the 2021 season on Sunday, making his announcement on Instagram. By way of explanation, Desmond, who also opted out of the 2020 season, wrote, simply, “My desire to be with my family is greater than my desire to go back and play baseball under these circumstances.” Adding, “I'm going to continue to train and watch how things unfold.”
Desmond may decide to return later in the year if infection rates continue to fall. Braves outfielder Nick Markakis opted out of, then back into last season over a much shorter period of time. Desmond isn’t the compelling part of this story, however. I mean no particular offense to Desmond or his team, but not much was expected from either this season, and Desmond’s absence won’t materially alter the course of the 2021 baseball season. Unless, of course, it serves as a reminder to the rest of the league that we are still in the middle of a pandemic, and that, in some places, including Colorado, the case numbers are higher now than they were last July, when many, myself included, were arguing that it was irresponsible to play a major league season of any length.
The relative success of the abbreviated 2020 season and the dramatic nationwide decline in infections since early January have bred a certain level of denial with regard to the realities of the ongoing pandemic. According to the New York Times, the seven-day average for new cases as of Saturday was 67,629. On July 23 of last year, which was Opening Day of the abbreviated season, the seven-day average was 65,794. Things are trending downward now as vaccination rates are up to 1.46 million doses per day, per the Times. However, the vaccines are racing against new variants of the disease that are, at the very least, more contagious, so the possibility of another surge remains despite the current trend.
Is it any less irresponsible to play now than it was then? You could argue that, more than six months later, we know more about the disease. We have better treatments and better and more consistent leadership with regard to safe practices. Baseball has better protocols in place, at least for players and employees. The vaccines are happening. Players and team employees will get theirs at some point during the season (the 780 players on active rosters at any one time represent .05 percent, that’s five one-hundredths of one percent, of the daily vaccine doses, so there should be no delay in vaccinating the entire league once they are eligible, and some players who are higher risk are already eligible).
Still, some of the other guardrails put in place last year have been removed. Teams will be crisscrossing the country on road trips again, and many teams plan to allow partial-capacity attendance at their games (in accordance with local guidance). If one of the more infectious variants gains steam, Major League Baseball could Johnny Appleseed it across the country with alarming speed. That’s a risk they should not take, and one I’ve been ignoring. Having lost the battle to cancel the 2020 season outright, I ceded the debate about whether or not it is responsible to play the 2021 without even having it.
Of course, I’m no infectious disease expert. Perhaps the league’s protocols are sufficient to keep MLB from stoking another surge. Asked about these issues by the Times a week ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci—who, it should be noted, is both a leading infectious disease expert and a hardcore baseball fan—didn’t come down strongly in either direction with regard to playing the season as scheduled or delaying it, saying that, “it would be a really close call,” as to which is the right thing to do. Some of that was Fauci not wanting to get in the middle of the dispute between the owners and players, but if there was an obvious right thing to do, I hope and assume he would have said so. Still, in the case of “a really close call,” I would think the smart thing to do would be to err on the side of caution, rather than just hope you don’t provoke a spike in our ongoing public health catastrophe.
Then again, things have already improved from where they were when Fauci spoke to the Times. Speaking of the decline in cases, he said then, “for the last few days in a row, we’ve had less than 100,000 cases, which is remarkably diminished [from a high of 300,000 on January 8].” Well, we’ve now been below 100,000 cases for nearly two weeks, and the seven-day average has steadily declined over that span. If the trend continues, we should be well below 50,000 cases a day before Opening Day, which might have been enough to tip Fauci’s opinion to opening the season on schedule (though he spoke quite optimistically about anticipating that continued decline). On the other hand, if the trends flatten out or reverse, Major League Baseball should revisit the idea of delaying the season.
Whatever happens on the macro scale, I continue to fully support the decision of any player who decides the risk is not worth taking. Last year, 23 players opted out of the season (including Markakis, who opted back in). I wasn’t expecting another slate of opt-outs this year, but if there are more to come, I welcome them, both as examples of the players putting their health and the health of their families and the community first, and as a reminder that we are not back to normal, and that we all need to continue to be as safe and as diligent as we possibly can.
Stay safe. Wear your masks. Get vaccinated. Watch the ballgames on TV.
Mather Blather: We Need to Talk About Kevin
There was an uproar online Sunday evening about some comments that Mariners team president and chief operating officer Kevin Mather made via videochat to a Bellevue, Washington, Rotary Club. The video (which you can watch, or read the transcript of, here) actually dates to February 5, so Mather has some facts wrong (such as saying there will not be seven-inning double-headers this year). Still, this is one of those situations in which a powerful person speaks honestly and candidly for a change and gets in trouble for saying what we all assumed he was thinking anyway, then apologizes, not for the substance of his comments, but for saying them out loud.
For example, Mather tells the seniors at the Rotary Club, at several points, sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, that roster decisions involving prospects hinge on service-time concerns. Queue up Claude Rains in Casablanca: “I’m shocked. Shocked!” Of course, it is against the rules to manipulate service time, but teams do it all the time without making much effort to hide it. Kris Bryant’s delayed debut in April 2015 was one of the most blatant examples, but Bryant lost his grievance, so those rules aren’t worth the time it took to write them. Perhaps Mather’s admissions on this video could serve the union well in trying to negotiate stricter regulations with regard to service-time manipulation, but I have yet to hear a foolproof way to legislate against that kind of manipulation in an environment in which something like the Bryant case isn’t seen as a violation.
Mather also talks about gouging parking prices (“there’s not enough parking, so I can get away with charging $30, $40, $50 to park in my tiny little parking garage across the street”) and about the state of the neighborhood around T-Mobile Park in a way that doesn’t sound charitable (“We’ve got to do something about our neighborhood”).
He also tells the Rotary that there will be an electronic strike zone in the major leagues “within two years,” which strikes me as more speculation than inside knowledge given the fact that he didn’t even get the 2021 rules correct earlier in the conversation.
Where Mather really steps in it is when he speaks candidly about some of his players in less than flattering ways, though, in almost every case, he does so in the midst of praising them in other ways. He says that this will probably be third baseman Kyle Seager’s last year as a Mariner (it is the last guaranteed year of Seager’s contract, but the Mariners hold an option on him for 2022) and that Seager is “probably overpaid.” Mather spills some tea on former Mariner Mike Leake without mentioning him by name (but giving a pretty big clue as to his identity) in the service of praising Marco Gonzales’s leadership. He repeatedly mispronounces Luis Torrens’s last name as “Torres.” He calls Yusei Kikuchi “our Japanese pitcher,” which may not be racist, but it sounds racist. He says that outfield prospect Julio Rodríguez’s “English is not tremendous,” and that he “probably won’t be [in the majors] until 2022 or 2023,” which Rodríguez took personally and as motivation.
In response to a question about helping foreign players learn English, Mather relates this anecdote about Hisashi Iwakuma, which largely captures the tone of the video. Here, again, Mather is being exceedingly frank and both praising Iwakuma and making remarks that undercut that praise and are at least racist-adjacent:
We just re-hired Iwakuma. He was a pitcher with us for a number of years. Wonderful human being. His English was terrible. He wanted to get back into the game. He came to us. We, quite frankly, want him as our Asian scout, interpreter, what’s going on with the Japanese league. He’s coming to spring training, and I’m going to say, I’m tired of paying his interpreter. When he was a player, we’d pay Iwakuma X, but we’d also have to pay $75,000 a year to have an interpreter with him. His English suddenly got better. His English got better when we told him that!
So, not great. Mather issued an apology Sunday night. Read it if you want. It mentions his “terrible lapse in judgement,” and takes ownership of the comments to make clear he wasn’t speaking for the organization. In other words, Mather is sorry he said those things out loud in a setting in which they could be recorded (that’s the lapse in judgement) but he was speaking honestly (that’s the ownership). He’s not saying he doesn’t think Iwakuma was faking his struggle with English; he’s just apologizing for having said it out loud.
Transaction Reactions
Mets sign RHP Taijuan Walker ($20M/2yrs + $6M player option)
Walker wasn’t as good last year as his 2.70 ERA makes him look. He gave up too many home runs, particularly in the first half of the season with the Mariners, and had a weak 2.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio, due in part to issuing too many walks in the second half of the season with the Blue Jays. Deserved run average suggests he should have allowed 4.85 runs per nine innings, which is not good. Still, that was his first extended work since his April 2018 Tommy John surgery, and he recovered some extra-effort velocity (his average fastball was the same as in his one inning of work in 2019, but his top speed was a couple of ticks faster, per BrooksBaseball.net). He’s still just 28, so there’s reason to hope he can build on last season, which, if nothing else, proved his arm was healthy. He doesn’t have to be any more than the Mets’ fourth starter (at least, to start the season), but he may not be any better than that, even at his best.
Yankees sign LHP Brett Gardner ($4M/1yr + player and club options for 2022)
Gardner isn’t really a stolen base threat anymore, and he has hit just .241 over the last three years, but he can still grind out long at-bats and force his way on base, he’s still well above average in terms of footspeed, and he’s still an excellent defensive outfielder and particularly adept at getting the ball back to the infield with a quickness that often catches runners by surprise. For a fourth or fifth outfielder, which is what the 37-year-old Gardner will be in his 14th season with the Yankees, a team could do a lot worse.
Speaking of which, in a development few anticipated when he entered the league, Gardner is climbing up the Yankees’ all-time leader lists in several categories. He’s currently 16th in games played, 20th in plate appearances, 19th in both walks and runs scored, tied with Charlie Keller for 11th in triples, eighth in times hit by pitch, sixth in strikeouts, third in stolen bases (he needs 56 to catch Rickey Henderson, which is very unlikely), and should crack the franchise’s top 20 in Baseball-Reference’s wins above replacement this year.
Braves sign 3B/1B Jake Lamb (details TBA)
The details of Lamb’s contract had not been made public at the time of publication, but Joel Sherman reported that it is expected to be a major-league deal, and it seems safe to assume it would be a one-year deal for a low seven-figure sum. Lamb hit 59 home runs between the 2016 and ’17 seasons and was an All-Star in the latter year, but in parts of three seasons since, he has hit just .205/.309/.351 (74 OPS+). He’s a poor defensive third baseman, so I see no reason why he should be considered a serious candidate for the Braves’ third-base job. Honestly, I don’t see much reason for him to be getting a major-league deal, either. He had a nice 13-game run with the A’s to finish the 2020 season, but his last 169 games, which include those 13 and his 1-for-7 performance in the postseason, speak much more loudly.
Rays sign Chaz Roe ($1.15M/1yr)
The slender, 6-foot-5 Roe has posted a 114 ERA+ over the last six seasons while striking out more than 10 men per nine innings. His control can wander, but he largely avoids the longball. He made 132 appearances for the Rays in 2018 and ’19, but was limited to 10 games by elbow discomfort last year. Given a clean bill of health, he’s back with Tampa Bay, which needed a little extra depth in the bullpen.
Aches and Pains
Major League Baseball and the Players’ Association announced the results of the first round of mandatory COVID-19 intake testing of players and staff on Friday. Out of 4,336 samples, 13 individuals tested positive, nine of them players. In Friday’s Cycle, I listed six of those players, two of whom, A’s righty Frankie Montas and Diamondbacks’ righty Luis Frías, have since been placed on the COVID-19 injured list. Since then, two other names have been revealed, one a player and one a coach. They start a much shorter list of aches and pains today.
Twins LHP J.A. Happ: COVID-19
The Twins say Happ is asymptomatic. (source)
Angels interim pitching coach Matt Wise: COVID-19
Wise replaced Mickey Calloway, who was suspended for sexually harassing reporters, so the Angels are now down to their third-string pitching coach, bullpen coach Dom Chiti. Here’s hoping we get no further news about Chiti. (source)
Cleveland RHP Shane Bieber: COVID-19 (update)
Bieber, who reportedly had “very mild sympoms,” has rejoined the team. (source)
Blue Jays RHP Patrick Murphy: AC joint in right shoulder (update)
This is an update of Friday’s item in which Jays’ manager Charlie Montoyo had no specifics about Murphy’s injury. Murphy is shut down for now but expected to heal with rest. (source)
Reds RHP Brandon Bailey: Tommy John surgery
The 26-year-old Bailey’s circuitous route to a hopeful big-league career takes another turn. Drafted in the sixth round by the A’s in 2016, he was traded to the Astros for Ramón Laureano in November 2017, selected by the Orioles in the Rule 5 draft in December 2019, returned to Houston last March, and sold to the Reds in November. He’ll now miss all of this season and most likely part of next and will thus be 27 before he takes a mound again. He made five major-league appearances with the Astros last year, that is his only big-league action to date.
Pirates LHP Austin Davis: elbow soreness
Davis won’t be ready for the start of the exhibition schedule, per general manager Ben Cherington (source)
Marlins RHP Edward Cabrera: inflamed nerve in right biceps
Cabrera, who ranked 49th on my aggregated prospect list, is shut down for now. The Marlins will give him time to heal. (source)
Rays LHP Brendan McKay: “in camp as a hitter”
McKay, who was developed as a two-way prospect by the Rays, had surgery to repair the labrum in his pitching shoulder in August, so pitching is not an option until he’s fully healed. McKay started two games at designated hitter for the Rays in 2019 and played some first base in the minors, but seemed to be headed toward pitching exclusively, so it’s exciting to hear that manager Kevin Cash said McKay was “in camp as a hitter” on Friday. (source)
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Closing Credits
Did you hear about the boys? The ones that are back in town? No, not the Quality Street Gang from the Thin Lizzy song, this is the BusBoys’ “The Boys Are Back In Town,” which you probably know from the Eddie Murphy movie 48 Hrs. As the song’s author, BusBoys keyboard player Brian O’Neal, told Songfacts, the band was commissioned to write and record some songs for the movie, and “The Boys Are Back In Town” was almost an afterthought during the session.
It was 2:00 AM and the band was tired and ready to go home when I say “Guys, I’ve got one more song.” Groans. “It’s going to be an easy, blues type shuffle with a little gospel opening piano lick—and it’s going to be called . . .” [me looking around] “. . . ‘The Boys Are Back . . . In Town.’”
It doesn't have any connection with the Thin Lizzy song [which is six years older] other than the title. I always liked their track, but wasn’t thinking anything about it when I composed ours. I’ve since come to think of theirs as an English approach and ours an expression of American rock, roll and soul.
48 Hrs. was Eddie Murphy’s first film and a huge hit. It was the seventh-highest-grossing film of 1982 and earned Murphy a Golden Globe nomination for best acting debut, male. The BusBoys play “The Boys Are Back In Town” on screen during a club scene in the movie, and it plays again during the closing credits. However, there was no soundtrack album, no single release, and the song didn’t appear on a BusBoys record until 2000.
The BusBoys were a Los Angeles-based group who had released two records before working on the film. Their shtick appears to have been dressing like actual busboys, and their first two albums were called Minimum Wage Rock & Roll and American Worker. The band did get a profile boost, not only from the movie, but from Murphy, who brought them along as the opening act on his Delirious tour (that’s the red leather one, not the black-and-purple leather one) and sang backup with them when they appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1984 (some of that footage is in the video below). They also had a song on the Ghostbusters soundtrack, “Cleanin’ Up The Town,” which you could buy and went to 68 on the Billboard Hot 100. However, they didn’t put another BusBoys album out until 1988, by which time that wave of attention had faded (though Murphy appears on that album, as well). That was it for the BusBoys until they released a re-recorded version of “The Boys Are Back In Town” on a record titled (The Boys Are) Back in Town in 2000.
The song itself is much as O’Neil described, a blues shuffle with some Little Richard-style barrelhouse piano and a chugging, heavily distorted guitar. Both instruments peel off solos during the break. Lyrically, it’s just about having a party and getting out on the dance floor. It’s actually kind of corny, in retrospect. However, in 1982, when “Happy Days” was still on the air, Sha Na Na (a band that would later share members with the BusBoys) had just finished its five-year run on syndicated television, the Stray Cats were about to hit the charts, and that early rock ‘n’ roll sound was still capable of having a massive commercial impact, it must have been exciting to see a band of Black musicians attempting to reclaim it. It’s only too typical that the BusBoys never got the chance to properly cash in on their biggest hit with, you know, an actual record people could buy.
So, as you might have heard, the boys are back in town, and their ain’t no foolin’ around: