The Cycle, Issue 21: Miser-me, Miser-you, Misery
The 2021 Baseball Misery Index, experimental minor-league rules and a must-read rant about the shift, the Rangers’ super-spreader event, Wed/Thursday’s highlights, this weekend’s schedule, and more
This is a free issue of The Cycle, the first since switching to pay subscriptions last week. Free issues will happen on occasion, but they won’t be regular, and they won’t be frequent. To read every issue of The Cycle, which publishes three days a week and contains all the news and analysis you need to keep up with the 2021 Major League Baseball season, upgrade to a paid subscription here:
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
Exactly one year ago today, Thursday March 12, 2020, I sat in this same spot in my office, at my desk, watching the afternoon’s Spring Training games wind down in the wake of the announcement that Major League Baseball had decided to shut down Spring Training and postpone the start of the 2020 season by “at least two weeks due to the national emergency created by the coronavirus pandemic.”
Earlier that week, I had submitted my annual Misery Index, my ranking of the suffering of baseball’s fanbases, to The Athletic. In light of the shutdown, the piece—which was deemed inappropriate given its framing and, as a walk-up piece to Opening Day, irrelevant—was held up. I was soon furloughed by multiple jobs, including The Athletic, and the 2020 Misery Index never ran (though did ultimately get paid for it).
As we all try to put the pieces back together a year into the pandemic, my 2021 Misery Index, included in this issue, takes on a larger symbolic meaning. It’s still a frivolity, a fun confection in anticipation of the coming season, and it is still called the Misery Index, because I have faith that you can understand the difference between the melodramatic misery of baseball fandom and the actual tragedy we have all experienced over the last year. At least to me, however, it is also an important milestone in the return to normal. A year ago, I agreed, the Misery Index was neither appropriate nor relevant as we all came to grips with the severity of the pandemic. A year later, I believe it can once again be both, and, as small of a thing as that is, it gives me hope.
Table of Contents:
Exhibitionism: Wednesday & Thursdays highlights (more than just home runs!)
On Deck: this weekend’s schedule
The 2021 Baseball Misery Index
Newswire: Minors to experiment with new rules; Rangers plan super-spreader event
Aches and Pains: COVID, TJ, Cookie, broken catchers, and the world’s hardest steak
Roster Cuts: Billy Hamilton on the move, Royals option four
Transaction Reactions: Pirates sign Trevor Cahill
Feedback
Closing Credits
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Exhibitionism: Days Eleven and Twelve
Wednesday
Seven games went the full nine innings, three went eight, the other four went seven.
Cyclist Tim Burnell took the time in Wednesday’s comments to thank me for including more than just home runs in these highlights. So, let’s kick off the recap of the last two days’ action with Wednesday’s best defensive play, this ranging, diving catch on the warning track by Dodgers right fielder Luke Raley to rob Daulton Varsho of a two-out RBI or two:
We do need a few home runs, though . . .
Here’s Pirates non-roster centerfield candidate Brian Goodwin hitting a grand slam off fellow lefty (and former Pirate) Justin Wilson:
Here’s Red Sox first baseman Bobby Dalbec hitting a grand slam of his own over the mini-Green Monster at JetBlue Park. That was also Dalbec’s fourth home run, which puts him in third place on the Spring Training leaderboard:
Back in that Pirates-Yankees game, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres went back-to-back off Tyler Anderson in the third inning. Stanton’s shot left his bat at 115 miles per hour at a 21 degree angle and took less than one second to leave the ballpark (watch how quickly it leaves the frame).
Torres’s was pretty good, too.
Not to be outdone, 20-year-old Padres outfielder Joshua Mears, the team’s second-round pick in 2019, hit this one 117 miles per hour:
Rockies pitching wasn’t just the victim in that game. Lefty Austin Gomber continued his excellent spring, striking out five in three scoreless innings. He now has eight Ks against just two walks in seven scoreless frames on the spring.
Better yet, Max Scherzer bounced back from an underwhelming first start to strike out five Cardinals in three perfect innings on Wednesday.
Thursday
Eight games went the full nine innings, one went eight, the five went seven.
Eloy Jiménez entered Thursday’s action without an extra base hit this spring, then tripled and homered against the Reds. Here’s the more compelling hit, the stand-up triple (possibly misplayed by centerfielder Dee Strange-Gordon), which Jiménez hit a mile to the opposite-field gap:
And here’s the homer, which hit the scoreboard in left field at Goodyear Ballpark:
Also in that game, Nick Castellanos and Mike Moustakas went back-to-back in the third inning off White Sox starter Reynaldo López.
Elsewhere, George Springer returned from an abdominal strain and led off the bottom of the first with an eight-pitch at-bat the ended in a leadoff home run, his first with Toronto:
Joc Pederson hit two homers on Thursday to tie Joey Gallo for the lead with five on the spring. Here’s the fist, oppo taco:
And the second, pulled into the gap:
Not to be outdone, Marwin González switch-hit a pair of taters against the Twins:
Eduardo Rodríguez, making his second start of the spring, struck out six over four innings in that game. The only run he allowed was an Alex Kirilloff solo homer.
Back in the Blue Jays’ game, Detroit starter Michael Fulmer was roughed up something awful by Springer and company (2 IP, 3 HR, 7 ER). However, prospect Tarik Skubal worked the fourth, fifth, and sixth for the Tigers allowing just a single and striking out four, his second strong outing in as many turns, and the Jays didn’t put the subs in until the sixth. The Tigers should let Skubal start a game the next time around, as he’s making a case for another crack at the major-league rotation.
Good pitching was the order of the day. Shane Bieber allowed only a Wil Myers home run while striking out five Padres in three otherwise perfect innings. Jesús Luzardo made his spring debut with four scoreless, hitless frames against the Rangers, also striking out five. Gerrit Cole struck out five in three innings against the Phillies, though he did allow three hits and a run.
Jonathan Loaisiga followed Cole into that game and induced a ton of bad contact in three perfect frames, including a pop out and six groundouts. Four of those groundouts in a row were comebackers chopped off the dirt in front of home plate, including all three outs in the sixth. Loaisiga now has five strikeouts and no walks in six scoreless frames on the spring:
Speaking of bad contact in that game, this two-out RBI hit by non-roster utility man Andrew Velazquez gets the Line Drive In The Box Score Award of the day:
Two other pitchers trying to force their way back into the rotation conversation are the Dodgers’ Tony Gonsolin, who struck out five Mariners in three perfect innings of relief on Thursday, and the Brewers’ Freddy Peralta, who struck out seven Royals in just 2 2/3 scoreless frames of relief, allowing two singles and a walk. Peralta now has ten strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings on the spring.
Also striking out seven on Thursday was Tyler Glasnow, who struck out seven Braves in four scoreless allowing just a single and a walk.
And, of course, Jacob deGrom had to show everyone up by striking out seven in three perfect innings against the Astros and reportedly hitting 102 on the radar gun.
Later in that game, Mets centerfielder Albert Almora Jr. made another terrific catch, this one going back to the wall in center:
Speaking of going back to the wall, with the subs in in the ninth inning of the Yankees-Phillies game, non-roster outfielder Matt Vierling of the Phillies robbed 21-year-old Yankee shortstop Oswald Peraza of a two-out grand slam:
Sticking in the outfield, Pirates centerfield candidate Anthony Alford had a big day, with a double, a homer, and this catch, which saw him cover a ton of ground before making a dive toward the warning track:
Finally, in that same game, the Pirates put a microphone on Todd Frazier and let him narrate an at-bat against Félix Hernández. It’s a treat. Here’s Frazier being his gregarious self on the way to the plate, offering a (honestly quite depressing) scouting report on the deposed King Félix and chatting with home-plate umpire Sean Barber:
As for the part of the at-bat that clip leaves out, here’s Frazier in full Crash Davis mode.
On Deck: This Weekend’s action
Friday, March 12
Idle teams: Nationals (FL), Royals (AZ)
Televised games:
Blue Jays @ Pirates, 1:05 pm EST, Sportsnet, AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh
Braves @ Twins, 1:05 pm EST, Fox Sports South, Fox Sports North
Yankees @ Tigers, 1:05 pm EST, Fox Sports Detroit
Marlins @ Mets, 1:10 pm EST, SNY
Dodgers @ Cleveland, 3:05 pm EST, SportsNet LA
Brewers @ Cubs, 3:05 pm EST, Marquee Sports Network
Diamondbacks @ Angels, 3:10 pm EST, Fox Sports Arizona, Fox Sports West
Astros @ Cardinals, 6:05 pm EST, Fox Sports Midwest
Reds @ Mariners, 8:40 pm EST, Root Sports Northwest
Notes: Chris Archer and Luis Castillo make their spring debut, as should Xander Bogaerts and Daz Cameron, while Andrelton Simmons makes his Twins debut and Fernando Tatis Jr. returns from a bout with the flu. Also pitching on Friday: Jameson Taillon, Marcus Stroman, Walker Buehler, Germán Marquéz, and Lucas Giolito.
Saturday, March 13
Idle teams: Astros (FL), Dodgers (AZ)
Televised games:
Twins @ Rays, 1:05 pm EST, Fox Sports North, Fox Sports Sun
Tigers @ Phillies, 1:05 pm EST, NBC Sports Philadelphia
Braves @ Red Sox, 1:05 pm EST, NESN
Pirates @ Yankees, 1:05 pm EST, YES Network
Angels @ White Sox, 3:05 pm EST, Fox Sports West, NBC Sports Chicago
Diamondbacks @ Padres, 3:10 pm EST, Fox Sports Arizona, Fox Sports San Diego
Mariners @ Rockies, 3:10 pm EST, Root Sports Northwest, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain
Rangers @ Brewers, 3:10 pm EST, Fox Sports Southwest Plus, Fox Sports Wisconsin
Pitching notes: Sean Manaea makes his spring debut for the A’s. Also pitching: Shohei Ohtani, Corey Kluber, Casey Mize, and Rich Hill.
Sunday, March 14
Starting on Sunday, teams can no longer waive off an unfinished inning, and all games must go at least seven innings.
Idle teams: Marlins (FL), Cleveland (AZ)
Televised games:
Orioles @ Tigers, 1:05 pm EST, Fox Sports Detroit
Nationals @ Astros, 1:05 pm EST, AT&T SportsNet Houston
Red Sox @ Twins, 1:05 pm EST, NESN
Phillies @ Pirates, 1:05 pm EST, AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh
Cardinals @ Mets, 1:10 pm EST, WPIX
Angels @ Cubs, 4:05 pm EST, Fox Sports West, Marquee Sports Network
Brewers @ Mariners, 4:10 pm EST, Root Sports Northwest
Royals @ Dodgers, 9:05 pm EST, SportsNet LA
Pitching notes: The only pitchers announced when this reached your inbox were Lance Lynn, Dylan Bundy, and Nathan Eovaldi.
2021 Baseball Misery Index
We are now less than three weeks from Opening Day, so, to kick off The Cycle’s season-preview coverage, I’m bringing back the Misery Index, which takes stock of each fanbase’s baseball-related suffering to give readers a sense of how much winning the championship this season would mean to each group of fans. Again, this is about the fans, not the teams, so the Expos’ long history of misery is irrelevant to Nationals fans, ditto the expansion Senators’ to Rangers fans (though the expansion Senators’ history is relevant to some older Nationals fans). Note that these rankings are subjective, with quite a lot of clumping up in the middle of the list (as you can see from last year’s unpublished rankings, which are in parentheses after each team’s name). We’ll take the list in order from the least miserable to the most, starting, as is almost always the case, with last year’s champions.
30. Los Angeles Dodgers (21)
The unadulterated satisfaction of a World Series win has been hard to come by in recent years. The Nationals won, but immediately lost Anthony Rendon, arguably the best player on that 2019 team, to free agency. The Red Sox enjoyed their 2018 championship for just one year before the team traded Mookie Betts, who was inarguably their best player. The Astros’ 2017 title is now adorned with an asterisk in light of their cheating scandal. The Dodgers won fairly last year and have retained all their best players, but their fans waited 32 years for that title, and it came after a 60-game season, which carries its own sort of asterisk. The Dodgers have won eight straight division titles, three of the last four National League pennants, and are the defending world champions. No fanbase is more satisfied than Dodgers fans entering the 2021 season, yet they have good reason for their satisfaction to remain incomplete.
29. Washington Nationals (30)
The Nationals are the last team to win a World Series at the end of a full, 162-game season. They’ve made the playoffs in five of the last nine years, and they boast one of the game’s best young players in Juan Soto and a star-studded rotation.
28. Boston Red Sox (28)
The Red Sox have done so much winning in the 21st century that it’s going to take much more than trading one of the game’s best players, having their manager suspended for a year, and finishing in last place in a 60-game season to get them out of the bottom five, never mind the bottom ten on this list. They are the only team to have won four World Series this century (2004, ’07, ’13, ’18). They haven’t lost a World Series since 1986, and they have made the playoffs ten times in the last 18 years.
27. San Francisco Giants (26)
The Giants have had four straight losing seasons and seem headed for a fifth, but, like the Red Sox, they have just had too much recent success to fall much lower on this list. They are the only team to have won three World Series since 2008 (winning in 2010, ’12, and ’14). For a fanbase that didn’t have a single World Series win prior to that run, those flags will wave a very long time, and several of the stars of those championship seasons are still around, most significantly catcher Buster Posey, who returns this year after opting out of last season.
26. Chicago Cubs (29)
The Cubs’ failure to return to the World Series in the wake of their drought-busting 2016 win is both surprising and frustrating, but that 2016 win still looms large for a fanbase that saw generations pass without a Cubs championship. Besides, the Cubs have won three of the last five NL Central titles and have been in the playoffs in five of the last six years.
25. New York Yankees (25)
Eight teams have won a World Series since the Yankees last claimed the championship in 2009. Still, the Yankees have won so much, and continue to win so much, that it’s difficult to place them any higher on this list. Not only have they won 16 more World Series than the runner-up Cardinals, they won five of them in relatively recent memory (1996, ’98, ’99, ’00, ’09). They have had 28 consecutive winning seasons and seem like a lock to make it 29 this year. They have made the playoffs 22 times in the last 26 years, including in each of the last four seasons, and twice made the American League Championship Series in those last four years. Still, there is some frustration here. They have lost their last four ALCS appearances, were eliminated from the playoffs on walkoff home runs in two of the last four years, and their current 11-year championship drought is the third-longest in franchise history since they won their first championship in 1923.
24. St. Louis Cardinals (27)
The Cardinals have won four pennants and two World Series since 2004 and have won one of each since the Yankees last won either. They have also made the playoffs 14 times in the last 21 seasons, including each of the last two. On top of all of that, they just traded for one of the best players in the league in Nolan Arenado.
23. Houston Astros (23)
It’s difficult to know what to do with the Astros on a list like this. They are the fourth-most-recent World Series winner, won two of the last four American League pennants, reached the ALCS in each of the last four years, and have made the playoffs in five of the last six seasons. However, their cheating scandal undermined the validity of many of those accomplishments, most significantly of their 2017 championship, and the team seems to be heading south with the erosion of the rotation and George Springer’s departure via free agency this winter. The Astros made it to another ALCS last year, but they also had a losing record during the regular season and only made the playoffs because of the shortened season’s expanded playoffs. Fans of the bottom seven teams on this list have no real reason to complain. This is the spot on the list where we start to find fanbases that have legitimate gripes.
22. Kansas City Royals (24)
The Royals had a losing record in 17 of 18 seasons from 1995 to 2012, were a .500 team in 2016, have had four losing seasons since, and are a lock for fifth. In between, however, they won two pennants and the second World Series championship in franchise history. That 2015 title was recent enough that it still outweighs all of that losing, but the balance is starting to tilt back.
21. Philadelphia Phillies (22)
The Phillies were a very good team from 2007 to ’11, making five straight postseasons and winning two pennants and the second world championship in team history. Yet, for all of the effort they have made toward both rebuilding and restocking in recent years, bringing in legitimate stars such as Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto, the Phils haven’t had a winning record since 2011, and it is beginning to look like the rebuild isn’t going to work, which could mean another half decade or more of middling performances. They’re just barely hanging onto the bottom ten on this list based on the recency of those two World Series appearances, which are starting to get a little dusty.
20. Atlanta Braves (19)
Is this high for a team that has won its division 18 times in the last 30 years, including each of the last three? Or is it low for a team that hasn’t won a pennant this century and has just one championship, in 1995, since moving to Atlanta in 1966? The discrepancy between the Braves’ success in reaching the postseason and struggle to get deep into the postseason (last year’s National League Championship Series was their first since 2001) is something the Braves share with several other teams in the middle third of this list, but few of those teams have been as consistently good as the Braves, who have had just six losing seasons in those last 30 years.
19. Chicago White Sox (15)
The White Sox have just 10 postseason appearances in their entire 120-year history and have never made the postseason in consecutive seasons. However, they did win the World Series in 2005, making them the most recent champion to rank above the bottom 10, they did make the playoffs last year—via the shortened season and expanded playoffs, yes, but as a legitimate wild-card team tied for the fourth-best record in the league with a .583 winning percentage—and their outlook for this season remains very positive. This could be the year that the White Sox finally follow one playoff team with another.
18. Arizona Diamondbacks (20)
This will be the Diamondbacks’ 24th season. They made the playoffs in their second year, won the World Series in their fourth, and have never had more than three consecutive losing seasons. They were last in the playoffs in 2017 and followed that with two more winning seasons before falling off last year. They do seem to be in store for a stretch of misery, but they fixed their uniforms and don’t have all that much to complain about just yet. They’re such a young team that Ketel Marte is likely to crack the all-time franchise top-10 in Baseball-Reference’s wins above replacement this year.
17. Los Angeles Angels (16)
Since 2010, a span of 11 seasons, the Angels have made the playoffs just once, did not win a game in that series, and have had just four winning seasons. Over the same stretch, they have enjoyed the prime of one of the greatest players in major-league history, who has won three MVP awards and deserved many others, and the team has continued to make big investments, bringing in stars such as Albert Pujols and Anthony Rendon. The discrepancy there is its own kind of misery (as is Pujols’ contract, at this point). Still, after an excellent first decade this century, which saw them win their first championship and make the postseason six times in an eight-year span, the Angels have baseball’s version of first-world problems.
16. Miami Marlins (12)
A franchise that is only 28 years old but can boast two championships can only rank so high on this list. Last year, the Marlins snapped a 16-year playoff drought (albeit by taking full advantage of the short season and expanded playoffs, sneaking in with a 31-29 record that stood in sharp contrast to their .434 Pythagorean winning percentage). Not only that, they swept the Cubs in the Wild Card Series and advanced a round. Their subsequent elimination did ruin the fun fact that the Marlins had won the World Series the only two times they reached the postseason, and they have still never won their division, but they’re not the hopeless case they were as recently as 2019. Their fans can also hold their head high over the fact that their team was the one that finally had the guts to hire Kim Ng as general manager. Now if only they would fix those uniforms . . .
15. Tampa Bay Rays (18)
This is a list about the misery of the fans, not the teams, so Tropicana Field factors heavily in the Rays’ ranking, as it is both the least accessible and ugliest ballpark in the major leagues. Still, the Rays are the lowest-ranking team to have never won a World Series. That’s in part because they are only 23 years old and have made the playoffs six times in the last 13 years, including reaching the World Series in 2008 and last year. Eight times in that last 13 years, the Rays have either won 90 or more games or won at a comparable pace. They were on a 108-win pace last year, and they have the best prospect in baseball knocking at the door this spring in shortstop Wander Franco. Rays ownership’s refusal to supplement its best teams by increasing payroll is another source of misery, but even that goes back to the ballpark, to some degree.
14. Minnesota Twins (13)
Twins fans are living in their own, unique circle of baseball hell. The Twins won two championships within the memories of anyone middle-aged or older (1987 and ’91), and have made the playoffs nine times in the last 19 years, including in three of the last four, winning their division in each of the last two. However, in their last eight postseasons, the Twins have won a total of just two games and have now lost 18 consecutive postseason games, 13 of them to the Yankees, dating back to the 2004 Division Series. That’s the longest postseason losing streak in major-league history (the Red Sox had the previous record at 13 from 1986 to 1995). We know that Braves fans in the early 2000s began to lose interest in a parade of fruitless playoff appearances, but the Twins have achieved another level of playoff futility. I have to imagine it is difficult for Twins fans to maintain optimism for a playoff berth at this point, and not being able to get excited about making the playoffs must suck a great deal of joy out of rooting for a contender.
13. Oakland A’s (17)
The A’s are a very similar case to the Twins. Their last championship, in 1989, came in between the Twins’ last two, and their last World Series appearance, 1990, was the year before the Twins’ last. They have been postseason regulars in the 21st century, making it 11 times in the last 21 years. However, they have advanced in the playoffs on just two occasions in those 11 years, and advanced past the Division Series just once, in 2006, when they faced the Twins in the Division Series (someone had to win). I rank Oakland above the Minnesota because of the timing and circumstances of the two teams’ most recent championships. The Twins won two around the time the A’s won just one, and that one A’s championship was interrupted by a local tragedy, the Loma Prieta earthquake. To find an A’s championship untouched by tragedy, you have to go all the way back to 1973.
12. Toronto Blue Jays (9)
The Blue Jays snapped a 20-year playoff drought in 2015, returned to the postseason, and the ALCS, in 2016, and made it back again last year via the expanded playoffs. This year, they have added George Springer and Marcus Semien and look to be serious contenders to make a more legitimate playoff appearance. However, at least to start the year, they will be playing outside of their home country for the second consecutive season (in Buffalo, New York, last year; Dunedin, Florida, this year) due Canada’s travel restrictions during the pandemic. Meanwhile, that 20 years of futility still lingers as the Jays haven’t been to the World Series since they last won it the year before the 1994 strike.
However unintentionally, the strike stands as a sharp dividing line on this list. Every one of the bottom 15 teams has won a World Series since the strike. Of the top 14, not one has won a championship since the resumption of play in 1995.
11. New York Mets (14)
This year marks 35 years since the last Mets championship, and the team has had just three winning seasons in the last dozen years. Admittedly, they made the playoffs in two of those seasons, and won the pennant in 2015, but the mismanagement of the Wilpons’ ownership cast a shadow over those accomplishments, as did David Wright’s back injury and early retirement and the failure of that young 2015 rotation to fully flower (only Jacob deGrom has done so). Things are looking up considerably this year, with a new, engaged, free-spending owner in Steve Cohen, the acquisition of superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor, and genuine hope for a return to both the postseason and a new era of contention and competence. The expectation is that the Mets will sink in these standings in coming years as they rise in the actual standings. However, changing the culture of a team whose name is often synonymous with “mess” takes more than one impressive offseason.
10. Cincinnati Reds (8)
The Reds snapped a six-year playoff drought last year, thanks to the expanded postseason, only to become the first team in major-league history ever to be shutout in a multi-game postseason series. They then lost the NL Cy Young award winner to free agency, traded their closer, and failed to replace their free-agent shortstop. They have made the playoffs just four other times since winning their last championship in 1990. In their last four postseason appearances, they have won a total of just two games, and those wins came when they went up 2-0 on the Giants in 2012 and still lost the best-of-five Division Series. Prior to last year, the Reds had six straight losing seasons, they did not outscore their opponents last year, and now that they’ll have to face the better teams in the East and West again this year, another winning record is far from a sure thing.
9. Detroit Tigers (10)
The Tigers won four straight AL Central titles from 2011 to 2014, and won the pennant in 2006 and 2012, but none of that resulted in a championship more recent than their 1984 crown. That run of first-place finishes looks much shorter and further away than I remember. The Tigers have now had four straight seasons with a winning percentage below .400 with little expectation of snapping that streak this year, their last championship is now 37 years old, and they’re still wearing the wrong D on their jersey.
8. San Diego Padres (3)
The Padres are usually one of the top two or three teams on this list given that they have never won a World Series and, prior to last year, had a 13-year playoff drought and nine consecutive losing seasons. The experience of being a Padres fan has changed dramatically in the last year, however. In 2019, the Padres were perennial losers in generic-label uniforms. In 2020, they introduced a gorgeous new brown-and-yellow color scheme, restoring the team’s long lost sense of identity, then went out and played .617 ball (that’s a 100-win pace), snapping both the playoff drought and streak of losing seasons. General manager A.J. Preller’s continued aggressiveness added significantly to that team over the winter, such that the Padres now enter 2021 in a virtual tie with the Dodgers as the consensus best team in baseball. They also just locked up their young superstar, Fernando Tatis Jr., for the next 14 years, so there’s no fear of this team being broken up in five or six years. Did I mention the Padres still have one of the best farm systems in baseball? Given that the Padres’ two World Series appearances (in 1984 and ’98) were largely isolated events, it’s very possible that there has never been a better time to be a Padres fan than right now.
7. Colorado Rockies (11)
This is a pretty high ranking for a team that didn’t even exist in 1992. Still, of the other four expansion teams from the 1990s, the Marlins and Diamondbacks have both won the World Series, and Rays have been there twice, including last year. The Rockies got there in 2007 and were swept, making them one of just two teams in the majors never to have won a World Series game. In the last ten years, they have had eight losing seasons, they had a .388 Pythagorean winning percentage last year, they practically gave away their franchise player, Nolan Arenado, over the winter, and they seem very likely to lose their best remaining player, Trevor Story, to free agency this fall (if they don’t trade him first). The Rockies have been a lousy team over the last two years and the future appears to promise only more of the same.
6. Texas Rangers (5)
Of the six major-league teams that have never won a World Series, the Rangers got the closest, which only makes their lack of a championship hurt more. In 2011, the second of two consecutive World Series appearances, the only pennants in franchise history, the Rangers were twice one strike away from winning the World Series only to fail both times. They haven’t won a playoff series since and have now had four straight losing seasons, with a fifth likely this year. Worse yet, last year they replaced a beautiful, 25-year-old ballpark with an ugly warehouse with a ballfield in it, and, on Opening Day this year, their ownership is going to try to fill it with fans despite the ongoing pandemic (see Newswire below).
5. Baltimore Orioles (6)
The Orioles haven’t been to the World Series since they last won it in 1983. They have made the playoffs in consecutive seasons just once since then, in 1996 and ’97. They had 14 consecutive losing seasons from 1998 to 2011, and they’ll extend their current streak of losing seasons to five this year. That recent streak includes a total of 123 losses in the 2018 and ’19 seasons alone, as no team in baseball over those last four seasons has made a more conspicuous lack of effort to put a quality team on the field at the major-league level. Maybe that will all payoff with a quality team built around top-overall 2019 pick Adley Rutschman in the coming decade, and they do still have a beautiful park and excellent uniforms, but for now, being an Orioles fan is pure misery.
4. Milwaukee Brewers (4)
The Brewers’ lone World Series appearance came a year before the Orioles’ last, and Milwaukee didn’t even win theirs. They have made three straight playoff appearances, but since coming a game away from the 2018 World Series, they are 0-3 in postseason games over the last two years. Last year, they backed into the expanded playoffs with a losing record and an even worse .470 Pythagorean expectation. They’re not a terrible team, like the Orioles, but they can’t compete with the elite teams in their league, which largely removes any real hope of winning that elusive first championship any time soon, and, of the six teams never to win the World Series, only the Padres have been in their current city longer, and only by one year.
3. Cleveland Baseball Club (2)
Cleveland owns the longest World Series drought in the majors. They last won in 1948, the year my father was born. That was 13 years before expansion. Fourteen teams have joined the major leagues since then, eight of them have won the World Series. Cleveland has not. There is only one living player from the last Cleveland World Series winner; he turned 100 in December (and he has a podcast! listen here). Cleveland won 111 games in 1954 and was swept in the World Series. It then went 40 years without another pennant. In 1997 and 2016, Cleveland reached extra innings in Game 7 of the World Series and lost. Cleveland’s drought, now in its 73rd year, has been marked by both long stretches of futility and painful near-miss heartbreak, much of it adorned by a racist mascot and a team name that, at absolute best, was insensitive an inappropriate. This winter, they traded their best player, shortstop Francisco Lindor, a young, joyful superstar, along with another fan favorite, pitcher Carlos Carrasco, and they are playing this season still using the team name they have already announced will finally be discarded next winter, muddling the team’s very identity. There’s a reason Cleveland was the team chosen for the classic comedy Major League. The team is an avatar of baseball misery that spans generations.
2. Pittsburgh Pirates (7)
Of the 29 major-league teams that have appeared in a World Series, none has gone longer without a pennant than the Pirates, who last reached the Fall Classic during the Carter administration in 1979. Their recent string of three consecutive playoff appearances, from 2013 to ’15, is already a fuzzy memory, as it has been followed by four losing seasons in five years, and it didn’t include a single division title or Championship Series appearance. You have to go back to 1992 to find either of those in the Pirates’ history. They have had just four winnings seasons in the 28 years since 1992, lost at a 111-loss pace last year, and have since traded two of the most talented players on last year’s team. For Pirates fans, a Game 7 loss in the World Series is an unattainable fantasy.
1. Seattle Mariners (1)
Despite last year’s expanded playoffs, the longest playoff drought in North American team sports remains intact. The Mariners won 116 games in 2001, lost that year’s ALCS to the Yankees, four games to one, and haven’t been to the playoffs since, a drought that has now reached 19 years and is all but guaranteed to reach 20 this year. Since 2004, the Mariners have outscored their opponents just twice (in 2014 and ’16), and since the Nationals won the World Series in 2019, Seattle stands as the only major-league franchise never to have appeared in the Fall Classic. That’s 44 years without a pennant, the longest pennant drought in the majors, besting even the Pirates (and 45 if you want to add the 1969 Pilots, who left town after a single last-place season, to Seattle’s amassed misery).
The Mariners’ outlook isn’t all that much brighter. The organization does have one of the best farm systems in the majors, but translating that talent into major-league wins is easier said than done. Besides, team president Kevin Mather was just forced to resign after admitting the team’s reluctance to deploy that minor-league talent at the major-league level out of concerns about service time, poisoning the team’s relationship with its top prospects in the process. The Mariners aren’t just awful, they’re embarrassing.
Newswire
Minor leagues to experiment with new rules
Just when you thought Commissioner Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball were done futzing with the minor leagues, MLB announced on Thursday a slate of experimental new rules that will be put in place at different levels of the minor leagues this season. This is a continuation of the experimenting that MLB did with the Atlantic League’s rules in recent years, and it could be a preview of things to come in the majors. Here’s a quick run down of the new rules with my thoughts on each:
Triple-A: larger bases
The standard base is 15 inches by 15 inches square. This year, Triple-A will use bases that are 18 inches by 18 inches square. The primary purpose of this rule is safety: larger bases should help reduce collisions. The secondary purpose is to aid the running game.
My take: A few technical notes on this: First, the famous 90 feet between the bases is not between the closest edges of the bases, but between the anchor points of the bases. In the language of the official rules, the bases are those points; the white things the runners touch are the base bags. Thus, while making the bags larger will make the distance between base bags shorter by a few inches, it will not alter that mythic distance of 90 feet between the bases.
As to how much shorter: In the official rules (2.03 The Bases) it says that “the first and third base bags shall be entirely within the infield.” That means in fair territory. (And that means that first base, the point not the bag, is technically the center of the right side of the base bag, and third base the center of the left side of that base bag.) If MLB maintains that rule in Triple-A, that will mean that the additional three inches at first and third will all be toward second base, thus the distances between first and second, and second and third, will be reduced by 4 1/2 inches, while the distance between home and first and third and home (assuming the bags are still centered on the base point) will be reduced by just 1 1/2 inches.
However, there is a long-standing argument about the runner’s lane down the first base line, that the bag is in fair territory but the lane is in foul territory. It would thus seem to make sense to either keep the anchor point of the corner bases where they are and allow the bags to extend 1 1/2 inch into foul territory, or even to keep the leading edges where they are and extend all of the new three inches into foul territory. Indeed, some have called for an entire 15-inch base in foul territory, like you sometimes see in softball, to avoid collisions at first base. If first and third base are both placed so that the extra three inches extends into foul territory, each of the four baselines would be shortened by the same distance, a mere 1 1/2 inches. That scenario makes the most sense to me, though it may be the least aesthetically pleasing and the most noticeable change.
All of that said, this is a very small change that, as far as I can see, will only have positive benefits. As someone who came to baseball as a Yankee fan during Rickey Henderson’s time with the team, I long to see stolen base numbers climb back up and speed on the bases regain some prominence (it will never be unimportant, but it used to be a more prominent feature of the game). If this helps in that regard, I wouldn’t complain.
Double-A: limits on defensive positioning
To begin the year, teams will be required to have four players (I assume not counting the pitcher and catcher, though the announcement skips that detail) within the outer boundary of the infield dirt. That eliminates four man outfields and the rover position that has become common place in shifts. Per the release, “depending on the preliminary results of this experimental rule change,” the league may add a rule requiring two of those players be on each side of second base in the second half of the season. The goal here is explicitly stated as “to increase the batting average on balls in play.”
My take: Pure, face-melting hatred. That line about BABIP puts me over the top. Using the data from The Bill James Handbook, we started to see the number of shifts increase in 2012. Here’s what that increase has looked like in graph form (with 2020’s total pro-rated to 162 games):
If the shift was the direct and exclusive cause of a reduction in league-wide BABIP, we’d expect a graph of BABIP over the same period to be the inverse of the above, a line curving steadily downward. So what does it actually look like?
That big drop in 2020, a fluky season in numerous ways, is deceptive. Before you latch on to that drop at the end, I want you to notice a few things:
First, this is a close-up of the data, with .288 at the bottom of the y-axis, so it exaggerates small changes. Second, despite shifts increasing every year from 2011 to 2016, BABIP also increased or stayed the same every year from 2011 to 2016.
Now, cover up 2020 for a moment. That’s actually a pretty flat graph, isn’t it? The league-wide BABIP in 2019 was .298. It was lower every year from 2011 to 2013 (.295, .297, .297). There were 13,809 shifts in those three seasons combined. In 2019, a year with a higher league-wide BABIP than any of those three seasons, there were 49,390 shifts, more than seven times more than in any season from 2011 to 2013. Yet, BABIP in 2019 was higher.
I cannot say this loud enough THE SHIFT IS NOT REDUCING LEAGUE-WIDE BABIP! There’s no way to look at those two graphs and conclude that it is.
I can go a step further. Do you know what league-wide BABIP rates look like over the last 120 years? Wanna take a guess?
Check it out:
Well, look at that. BABIP rates since 2011 have been among the highest in the last 80 years. Even that fluky low .292 in 2020 is higher than any season from 1940 to 1992, which is the period that most likely contains whatever ideal state of balance the people making these decisions are trying to return the game to. The cumulative BABIP over that period pictured above, from 1901 to 2020, is .288. From 2012 to 2020, the period during which use of the shift has been skyrocketing, it has been .298. Ten. Points. Higher.
How can anyone possibly say that the shift is reducing league-wide BABIP? It is not.
Beyond that, from an aesthetic perspective, the shift is just fun. Wacky defensive alignments, four-man outfields, empty left sides, they add an additional strategic wrinkle to the game and force even casual fans to pay attention to defensive alignment. The shift not only isn’t hurting BABIP, I believe it’s good for the game. I also believe it is in the pure spirit of the game. If the batter’s job is to hit ‘em where they ain’t, the fielder’s job is to play ‘em where they hit ‘em, and that adds another bit of cat and mouse to every at-bat that I welcome and think baseball should be celebrating, not trying to snuff out.
High-A: Step-off rule
This is pretty simple. A pitcher must disengage with rubber to throw to any base or be charged with a balk. Under the current rules, a pitcher can throw to a base while on the rubber if he steps directly toward that base and his front foot does not cross the back edge of the rubber. If he steps off the rubber, he is free to act like any other infielder. This rule would require a pitcher to always step off the rubber to throw to a base. Per MLB’s press release, this rule was in place in the Atlantic League in the second half of the 2019 season and resulted in “a significant increase in stolen base attempts and an improves success rate.”
My take: In 2018, there were 1041 stolen bases in the Atlantic League at a 76 percent success rate. In 2019, there were 1197 stolen bases in the Atlantic League at a 79 percent success rate. That’s 156 more stolen bases. However, the Atlantic League season was 14 games longer in 2019. On a per-game basis, the increase was from 1.03 steals per game to 1.07 steals per game. Except that the rule change was only in the second half of the 2019 season. I don’t have those splits, but let’s assume all 156 of those extra steals came under the new rule, meaning that the first half of the 2019 season still had 1.03 steals per game. That would mean the rate under the new rule was 1.11 steals per game. That is still not a radical change, and Henderson’s records seem far enough out of reach that an increase of that magnitude shouldn’t disrupt the game’s record books. The last player to steal more than 64 bases in a major-league season was Juan Pierre with 68 in 2010. If this rule unleashes the game’s fastest players to start stealing 70-plus bases again, I would enjoy that, though I’ll admit that I would always apply a mental asterisk to those steal totals.
Low-A: Multiple rules
Under the restructuring of the minors, there are now three Low-A leagues, the 12-team East, the 10-team Southeast, and the eight-team West. One new rule will be in place in all three. The West and Southeast will each have one additional new rule. The East will not.
All Low-A Leagues: Pickoff limitation
Pitchers will be limited to two “step offs” or pickoff attempts per plate appearance with a runner on base. If a pitcher attempts a third, he must successfully pick off the runner or be charged with a balk. “Depending on the preliminary results,” this rule may be reduced to one free step-off or pickoff attempt.
My take: I suppose the idea is to see how this rule contrasts with the High-A step-off rule with regard to boosting stolen bases and stolen base attempts. This one requires a little playing out. Let’s imagine a pitcher uses up his allotted pickoff attempts. The runner then knows that the pitcher can’t throw over, so he can take as long a lead as he likes, right? Not exactly. That’s where the “must successfully pick off the runner on the third attempt” bit comes in. If the runner wanders so far off the base that the pitcher can easily pick him off, the pitcher can still throw over to do exactly that without penalty. If that goes awry, the runner was likely to take the next base anyway, so the threat of a balk doesn’t really put much more doubt in the pitcher’s mind than the threat of a misplay would. That said, the runner still probably gets an extra step or two after the first two attempts, which is about as much as he could get knowing that the pitcher has to step off the rubber to throw over. I like the step-off rule better on paper. It’s simpler and more intuitive. I’m curious to see how the two rules contrast in practice.
Low-A West: Pitch clocks
Via three on-field “timers,” one in the outfield, two between the dugouts behind home plate, this will enforce time limits between pitches, as well as on pitching changes and inning breaks.
My take: We’ve had the latter two in the majors since 2015, at least technically. I’ve never seen them enforced. Even during the first year they were in use, when attending games in person, I often noticed umpires just plain ignoring the timers. Similarly, pitch clocks have been used in Double- and Triple-A since 2015. However, the press release states that this timer “will include new regulations beyond the system used in Triple-A and Double-A to reduce game length and improve the pace of play.” That could mean shorter times between pitches, etc., but it sounds like we don’t have the full story here, so I’ll withhold judgement, other than to say that I’m generally against pitch clocks but fine with putting timers on pitching changes and inning changeovers.
Low-A Southwest: Automatic Ball-Strike System (ABS), a.k.a. digital strike zone
ABS has been used in the Atlantic League and the Arizona Fall League. Per the announcement’s wording it “assist[s] home plate umpires with calling balls and strikes [to] ensure a consistent strike zone is called.” The system will be used only in “select Low-A Southeast games,” and one purpose of that implementation will be to “determine the optimal strike zone for the system.” That is, to improve the technology and the implementation of the technology.
My take: One of the things former Mariners President Kevin Mather said in the Rotary Club video that cost him his job (and his ownership stake, we have since learned) was that the major leagues would have “an electronic strike zone within two years.” I still think he’s wrong on the timing, but this suggests that ABS assisting umpires in calling balls and strikes is something we will see in the majors, likely before the end of the decade. I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. Now if only we can do something about check swings.
Rangers plan full-capacity Opening Day crowd
The Texas Rangers announced on Thursday that they would be opening Globe Life Field to full capacity to start the 2021 season and will not have socially distanced sections for the home opener on April 5. On twitter, I called this criminally irresponsible. I stand by that. Just as the end of the pandemic is coming into sight, the Rangers have decided that each of their home games will be a super-spreader event which could potentially recharge it.
This is a failure of leadership on multiple levels, as it comes in the wake of Texas governor Greg Abbott’s March 2 executive order permitting the state’s businesses to reopen “100 percent.” I had hoped that the Rangers would be responsible enough to do what’s right, even if more is legal. The Astros still plan to limit capacity (their initial plan was 25 percent, though it seems Abbott’s announcement has prompted them to consider increasing that; the Astros also are not social-distancing their season ticket holders in April and will only make limited socially distanced seating available, so they’re hardly a shining example here). Among the other teams that have announced their intended stadium capacities to start the year, none has surpassed the Rockies’ limit of 21,000 fans, which is 41.7 percent of Coors Field’s capacity. The Rangers are taking off all limits.
Globe Life Field will still require all fans to wear masks, but the team will allow fans to remove their masks to eat and drink at their seats and use a gentle three-strikes policy of polite reminders before taking any meaningful action to discipline violators, so I can guarantee that compliance and enforcement of that mask mandate will be very poor.
The issue here is that, while the infection and vaccination rates are all heading in the right direction, we are not yet at the point where it is safe to have 40,500 people gather in close quarters, particularly in a situation in which many of them will spend large periods of time unmasked (consider how much of the average visit to the ballpark you spend eating or drinking). To begin with, the seven-day average of new cases of COVID-19 in Texas just dropped below 5,000 on March 9. It was below 5,000 from August 29 to October 19 of last year. That means that throughout the month of September, when no fans were allowed at Globe Life Field, and into the postseason, when it was limited to roughly 25 percent capacity, the case rates were comparable to where they are now, when the team has decided to reopen to full capacity.
Case rates are dropping steadily in Texas, and that is encouraging, but two of the state’s highest infection rates are in Dallas County’s neighboring counties of Denton and Ellis. What’s more, Texas has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. Mix in Abbott’s decision to reopen statewide, and we could see the improvements the state has been making slow down or even reverse as a direct result of that decision, which the Rangers’ decision only exacerbates.
Has it completely escaped the attention of the Texas Rangers that their opponent for their April 5 home opener is the Toronto Blue Jays, a team that can’t even play in their own stadium when it’s empty because they’re not allowed back in their country until the infection rates drop to a lower point? So the Blue Jays have to play their home games in Dunedin, but the Rangers can pack 40,500 people into their retractable-roof stadium, which gets a lot less air circulation than a fully open-air stadium like the beauty they played in just two years ago, even with the roof open.
And before you tell me that the Rangers are a lousy team and won’t fill their ballpark, they had 48,538 fans on Opening Day in 2019 and 46,238 the next day, both numbers that exceed Globe Life Park’s 40,300 capacity. I suppose there’s always the chance that Rangers fans will do the right thing and stay home, but I have no reason to believe that will be the case. They will fill that stadium, the virus will spread in ways it otherwise couldn’t have, people will get sick who wouldn’t have, and some may have long-term complications or even die.
Here’s the tell: Per TheDallas Morning News’s report, the team will install plexiglass dividers on top of the dugouts and bullpens to allow fans to sit in the first few rows of seats, which was previously prohibited by MLB’s protocols. The purpose of those dividers is “to help further protect against the spread of COVID-19.” Never mind how ineffective those barriers are likely to be, the message they send is loud and clear: they will protect the players by keeping the virus in the stands. Sure seems criminally irresponsible to me.
Aches and Pains
Reds 1B Joey Votto (IL): COVID-19
Votto was placed on the injured list on Wednesday. (source)
Tigers SS Zack Sort: COVID-19 protocols
Short is away from camp due to COVID-19 protocols, but we don’t know exactly why. Manager A.J. Hinch said that Short did not violate any rules. (source)
Orioles OF Heston Kjerstad: myocarditis
The second-overall pick in the 2020 draft was diagnosed with myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, last year. That’s a common side effect of COVID-19, most famously diagnosed in Red Sox lefty Eduardo Rodríguez. Rodríguez appears to have recovered completely and is on track to open the season in the Red Sox’s rotation. It’s not known if Kjerstad had COVID-19, but he will start to work his way back at the team’s alternate training site April. (source)
Mets RHP Carlos Carrasco: right elbow soreness
Carrasco had discomfort in his pitching elbow after throwing live batting practice on Monday. He’ll try to play catch on Sunday, but seems like a long shot to be ready for Opening Day given that he has yet to see any game action. The team has yet to rule him out. (source)
Padres CF Trent Grisham: hamstring
Grisham hurt himself running out a grounder in Thursday’s game and immediately exited. Manager Jayce Tingler called it a “slight” strain and said they would see how Grisham felt Friday morning. (source)
Astros C Jason Castro: strained oblique
Manager Dusty Baker said Castro won’t play this weekend. (source)
Nationals RF Juan Soto: illness
Soto was scratched from Thursday’s lineup. Manager Dave Martinez says Soto tested negative for COVID-19 but might have a sinus infection. (source)
Nationals LHP Jon Lester: thyroid surgery (update)
Lester had a parathyroid gland removed, not his actual thyroid. (source)
Braves CF Ender Inciarte: thumb
Inciarte can’t grip a bat, but manager Brian Snitker said the thumb is improving. (source)
Reds LHP Wade Miley: left hamstring
Miley faced two batters in his second inning of work on Thursday before coming out of the game. (source)
A’s RHP Mike Fiers: back
Fiers has yet to get into an exhibition game due to what manager Bob Melvin calls “a little thing with his back.” Fiers has been throwing in simulated games, however, so it’s unclear how behind he really is. (source)
Royals CF Michael A. Taylor: back tightness
Taylor was scratched from Thursday’s lineup. The Royals are off on Friday and he’ll be reevaluated on Saturday. (source)
Twins RF Max Kepler: bruised left thigh
Kepler fouled a ball off his leg on Thursday but remained in the game and isn’t expected to have any lingering issues. (source)
Twins CF Byron Buxton: broken tooth
Buxton reportedly cracked a tooth on a steak (my guess is he more likely cracked it on his fork or his other teeth, unless he somehow got the bone in his mouth). He had a root canal and the tooth crowned on Wednesday and is expected back in the lineup soon. (source)
A’s 2B Tony Kemp: right hip
Rangers lefty Taylor Hearn hit Kemp in the hip with the first pitch of Thursday’s game. Kemp was stranded at first and played the bottom of the inning in the field, but was replaced when the A’s returned to the field for the bottom of the second be cause it “tightened up a bit” on him, per manager Bob Melvin. Melvin hopes Kemp can return to the lineup on Saturday. (source)
Orioles 3B Rio Ruiz: illness
It’s not COVID-19, but it has kept Ruiz out of the lineup for four straight days. The Orioles hope he can return to action on Friday. (source)
Cubs C Austin Romine: right knee sprain
Romine hasn’t played since Saturday. The sprain is not considered serious, but there is no timetable for his return. (source)
Brewers 2B Mark Mathias: right shoulder
Mathias hurt himself diving for a ball on Tuesday, had an MRI (results not yet announced) and is expected to miss a fair amount of time. (source)
Yankees C Robinson Chirinos (IL): fractured right wrist
This surely ends Chirinos’s attempt to beat out Kyle Higashioka for the Yankees’ backup job (or to force his way onto the 26-man roster as a third catcher). He is in camp as a non-roster player. The Yankees have not said how long they expect him to be sidelined. (source)
Marlins RHP Jorge Guzman: right elbow inflammation
Per general manager Kim Ng, the 25-year-old will be out “for a while.” (source)
Angels RHP Luke Bard: hip discomfort
Bard got “an injection” in his hip on Thursday. That was to help with the discomfort, not the source of it. (source)
Reds RHP Ryan Hendrix: sore intercostal
Manager David Bell said that Hendrix might only miss a few days. (source)
Reds IF Max Schrock: right calf
Schrock hurt himself on a single in the second inning of Wednesday’s game and was lifted for a pinch runner. (source)
Astros RHP Forrest Whitley (IL): Tommy John surgery
Whitley, the team’s top pick in 2016, was a top-10 prospect prior to 2019 but had a bad year in 2019 and a worse one in 2020, which ended with him being shut down in August with forearm soreness. Now, the 6-foot-7 right from San Antonio won’t get another chance to prove himself until next summer, when he’ll be 24. (source)
Angels RHP Gerardo Reyes (IL): Tommy John surgery
Reyes turns 28 in May, and his only major-league opportunity saw him post a 7.62 ERA in 27 relief appearances for the Padres in 2019. He’s on the 40-man roster, but that might not last long. (source)
Angels RHP Brendan McCurry (IL): Tommy John surgery
McCurry is a 29-year-old career minor leaguer who was in Angels camp as a non-roster reliever. Most likely, the Angels will release him, leaving him to rehab on his own dime. He will be 30 when he returns to a mound, if he returns to a mound. This could be a career-ender for him. (source)
Padres RHP Jacob Nix: right elbow
Nix’s elbow injury dates back to spring training 2019, when he was diagnosed with an ulnar collateral ligament tear and received platelet-rich plasma injections. He made a few rehab starts that year and made one start in the Arizona Fall League that fall, but, while there, he was arrested for criminal trespassing. Apparently, Nix got wasted and crawled through a stranger’s doggy door around 4 a.m. The homeowner kicked him in the face and tased him. Nix was caught fleeing the scene and later sentenced to 18 months probation and alcohol counselling. The Padres dropped him from the 40-man roster the next month. The expectation is that the 25-year-old will need Tommy John surgery. Coincidentally, the teammate Nix was out with that night in October 2019 had his arm in a brace due to a recent Tommy John surgery. (source)
Nationals C Welington Castillo: shoulder
Non-roster catcher Castillo was slowed by a shoulder issue earlier in camp and is now trying to get up to game speed, per manager Dave Martinez. (source)
Nationals RHP Jefry Rodriguez: stiff shoulder
Non-roster righty Rodriguez is in a similar spot to Castillo, trying to catch up after an early shoulder issue. (source)
Mariners LHP Roenis Elías: discomfort in left arm
The non-roster Cuban lefty got one out on Thursday, then called for the trainers and came out of the game. He’ll be evaluated today. (source)
Giants OF Luis Alexander Basabe: left wrist (update)
Basabe’s wrist injury is a muscle sprain, which is good news, but could still keep him out long enough to eliminate any chance of him making the Opening Day roster. (source)
Yankees 1B Luke Voit: sore knee
Voit was scratched from Tuesday’s lineup, but returned as the Yankees designated hitter on Thursday and went 1-for-3. (source)
Padres UT Jurickson Profar: leg tightness
Profar missed three games with leg “tightness,” but returned to action on Thursday. (source)
Roster Cuts
This year, because minor-league camp doesn’t start until the major leaguers leave, cut players will remain in major-league camp and may even continue to appear in games as needed. Still, these moves help clarify who is and isn’t still in the running for the Opening Day roster. Note: players on the 40-man roster must be optioned to minor-league camp, that’s an official move that makes this one of their option years. Non-roster players are simply reassigned, as they were already in camp as minor leaguers.
Angels optioned LHP Hector Yan to Triple-A
Cleveland told CF Billy Hamilton he won’t make the Opening Day roster
Royals optioned OF Edward Olivares, C Meibrys Viloria, and RHPs Scott Blewett and Ronald Bolaños to Triple-A.
Transaction Reactions
Pirates sign RHP Trevor Cahill ($1.5M/1yr)
A highly regarded starter in his early twenties, and an All-Star in 2010, Cahill has been the rare modern-day swing man over the last seven years. Since 2014, he has made 72 starts and 126 relief appearances for eight teams, posting an 88 ERA+, 1.42 WHIP, and 2.07 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Now 33, he’s instantly the oldest player on the Pirates’ 40-man roster. A low-90s sinker, change, curve, slider guy, he’s purely a depth move, a bad pitcher for a bad team. At best, he as a fluke season and can instill some wisdom in the team’s younger arms from his dozen years of experience in the majors.
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Closing Credits
Soul Asylum had an odd career. Formed in Minneapolis as a hardcore trio called Loud Fast Rules in 1981, with lead singer Dave Pirner on drums, they quickly evolved into a more conventional four-piece and emerged as a significant band in Minneapolis’s indie/alt/college-rock scene (whatever you want to call it), a distant third place finisher to the Replacements and Hüsker Dü, but still big enough to play First Avenue when that was still Prince’s house. Indeed, Hüsker’s Bob Mould produced Soul Asylum’s first two records for local indie Twin/Tone, which also put out the Replacements’ records. A&M Records signed Soul Asylum after their third album, a signing the band celebrated by parodying label owner Herb Alpert’s famous Whipped Cream & Other Delights album cover with the EP Clam Dip & Other Delightsfeaturing bassist Karl Mueller as the cover model (when Mueller died of throat cancer, in 2005, the band recruited the Mats’ Tommy Stinson as his replacement).
Though they were both strong efforts, particularly 1988’s Hang Time, neither of the band’s A&M records sold much, and Soul Asylum was on the verge of dissolution when they were picked up by Columbia Records. Under the guidance of producer Michael Beinhorn, who helped the Red Hot Chili Peppers break through with their 1989 album Mother’s Milk, Soul Asylum toned down their hard rock/hardcore hybrid a bit, foregrounded Pirner’s songwriting, and had a massive grunge-era hit with 1992’s Grave Dancer’s Union. Released in October 1992, the album went triple platinum the next year on the strength of the top-5 hit “Runaway Train,” a ballad that sounded like R.E.M. with a video that doubled as a public service announcement about missing children, which MTV played incessantly in the summer of 1993.
“Runaway Train” both made Soul Asylum’s career and wore out their welcome in one foul swoop. So much so that, when I saw them on MTV’s Alternative Nation Tour in 1993, on a bill with the Screaming Trees and Spin Doctors, I was dreading their set. Of course, I new nothing of their earlier material, and they blew me away at that show. Pirner, skinny, frenetic, with his upturned nose and blonde dreads, sweating through a white t-shirt as he and lead guitarist Dan Murphy traded riffs and he rasped into the mic like a country version of Joe Strummer. Soul Asylum rocked! Who knew?
I still cringed at “Black Gold” and “Runaway Train,” but perhaps because of that experience, I greeted the band’s next single, two years later, with more of an open mind than the average mid-90s teenager. As it turned out, that single was practically written with me in mind.
The crossover success of Nirvana, grunge, and ‘80s indie darlings such as R.E.M. made the success of Grave Dancer’s Union possible, but Soul Asylum clearly felt no debt when they sat down to write their next album, Let Your Dim Light Shine, as the lead track and lead single was a vicious take down of all of the po-faced grouchiness of the grunge bands that had taken over charts.
Pirner gets his point across in the first couplet:
They say misery loves company
We could start a company and make misery
The message is that all of this moping is just a pose, maybe not for Kurt Cobain, who died by suicide the year before, but for the legions of sad-faced pretty boys who followed him up the charts. As someone who likes my rock ‘n’ roll to be fun and celebratory, I ate it up:
We could build a factory and make misery
We’ll create the cure. We made the disease.
Frustrated, Incorporated
Well, I know just what you need
I might just have the thing
I know what you’d pay to see/feel
Some people thought those lyrics were corny. I thought they were vicious. To underscore the point, the video intercut performance footage of the band with film of compact discs being pressed. That’s the misery factory: the recording industry circa 1994.
“Misery” in its original form was better satire than the Weird Al parody from the following year, “Syndicated Inc.,” which, sadly, is just another series of lazy television references. It is also the song I get in my head every year when I write my Misery Index, because both have their tongue placed firmly in cheek.
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The Cycle will return on Monday with the start of my regular-season Division Previews series.
While we may never see average game times south of 2:30 again, I’m all for the experiments, their incorrect assumptions about shifts/BABIP notwithstanding. I have always loved the silence between the notes that baseball offers ... but, we’re in an era of a little too much silence.