MLB Daily: A-Rod Nears History; More National League DH Chatter; Bryce Harper's Plate Discipline
By Mike Cardillo
Welcome to a Monday edition of the world-famous MLB Daily…
On the precipice: What if Curt Schilling was a Game of Thrones character? Wait, never mind. Don’t answer that. While Arya Stark was sweeping the floors of the House of Black and White in Braavos, the Yankees were in the process of taking the first leg of the Subway Series with the Mets 6-4 in the Bronx Sunday night on ESPN. Of note, some guy named Alex Rodriguez hit his 659th career home run, which puts him one away from tying some guy named Willie Mays for fourth all-time.
Sarcasm aside, it’s going to happen sooner rather than later — although A-Rod has cooled off a bit from the start of the season. SportsCenter likely isn’t going to cut away from whatever NFL Draft hype its running to show Rodriguez’s at-bats since his pursuit of Mays is inconvenient for all parties involved. The Yankees don’t want to celebrate it, since it triggers a $6 million bonus in A-Rod’s contract that they don’t want to pay, so they’re trying to avoid calling it a “milestone.” Sportswriters aren’t sure how to lionize the achievement or wrap their heads around the fact a man who twice admitted to using PEDs is going to end up posting career numbers only comparable to a handful of players. In short, it’s going to be another round of awful baseball chatter.
Buckle up.
The easiest way to discuss this is that Alex Rodriguez will achieve something historic, albeit with the help of performance enhancing drugs, which weren’t outlawed under baseball rules at the start of his career. Either we can pretend that the entire Steroid Era of baseball never happened or that A-Rod didn’t hit 650+ home runs, or we accept that it did and move on with our lives. Whatever was injected or ingested by players can’t be undone. It’s just numbers, nothing worth working yourself into a lather over.
Change Change Change: Adam Wainwright is likely done for the year after tearing his Achilles running out a routine pop up. Max Scherzer will miss a start after tweaking his wrist batting. Naturally two injuries to pitchers in the course of batting triggers a wave of thought to bring the Designated Hitter to the National League, because that’s what always happens in baseball — something out of the ordinary happens, so we must litigate and or change the rules so that it might never happen again.
Disclosure: I don’t have any fancy theorems or numbers or anything to back me up, but I simply like that there is still a difference in the National and American Leagues, sorry for harboring semi-irrational thoughts about sports in 2015. That said, with balanced leagues necessitating Interleague play every day of the season, the pitchers in the American League randomly batting is more of an issue than when it took place mostly across that 2-3 week stretch of designated Interleague play. More than that, the stupidity of having the All-Star Game decide home field advantage for the World Series, i.e. three or four potential games with or without the DH is asinine. Still, I’m not rabid anti-DH or pro-DH.
Let’s just look at the Wainwright injury for what it was: a random occurrence during a sporting event. This is a hypothetical, but Wainwright could have suffered the same injury jogging off the mound and if that happens to we amend the rules to stop pitchers from any sort of non-throwing physical activity? For whatever it’s worth, Wainwright posted 520 at bats in his career with the Cardinals before the injury.
Random injuries and such are part of sports, but I can completely see why Scherzer would go on record wanting the DH adopted in both leagues. Baseball seems intent on homogenizing everything, so eventually the pro-DHers will likely win out.
On Hamilton: Late Friday word broke that the Angels are trying to send Josh Hamilton back to the Rangers. If and when it happens, the one thing to watch is if Hamilton leaves any money on the table — something the MLBPA would fight tooth and nail against — and how much Los Angeles ends up paying to get rid of a guy they willingly signed as a free agent. If you’re a contract lawyer or into minutiae this should fascinate.
What got me thinking is if Hamilton returns to Texas and posts adequate numbers during the next couple seasons would he go down as an “all-time” Ranger, or at least merit consideration for the team’s Franchise Four that baseball is running? Texas made its first World Series with Hamilton, then an MVP or MVP-level player. He only played fives years in Texas but in that time he stands fairly high in a couple categories, along with hitting 142 homers.
- Batting Average: .301 (2nd)
- Slugging percentage: .549 (3rd)
- OPS: .912 (2nd)
The Rangers are one of those teams not usually hailed for their history. If you think Texas Rangers, you might think Pudge Rodriguez or Nolan Ryan putting Robin Ventura in a headlock. The team’s all-time best player is A-Rod, but nowadays few aside from Internet contrarians want to hitch their wagon to Rodriguez. Ryan is the lone player enshrined in Cooperstown wearing a Rangers cap, although he only played four seasons in Arlington.
Come to think of it, the “best” player in Rangers history is probably Michael Young. Although he finished his career hitting exactly .300 he probably will not make the Hall. So if nothing else, Hamilton is returning to a place that will appreciate him and his previous contributions.
Familiarity breeds contempt?: On Saturday, baseball handed out suspensions for the Royals-White Sox brawl. Yordano Ventura picked up seven games, which would cost him more than one start and put his team in a bind. Chris Sale and Jeff Samardzija were lucky to only get five games apiece, especially since Sale reportedly tried to fight Ventura afterward which is WWE-level stupidity. (Chicago beat KC twice on Sunday — the first game was the completion of a suspended game from Friday night.)
Ill hat tip this to my Internet friend “Butters” for bringing up a good point that a lot of this hostility could come from the unbalanced schedule, with so many early-season games played within the division. The White Sox have played 17 games so far in 2015 — all against the AL Central. We’re entering the fourth week of the season and nobody from the AL East has crossed over vs. the AL West yet. The Yankees are the only AL East team to play a team from the Central so far.
Something to consider.
Natitude: Would you guess Bryce Harper leads baseball in walks this short into the season? Well, he does with 17 (including 5 intentional passes). Harper is known more for his home runs (and strikeouts) than his patience, but this is worth noting since the Nationals lineup sorely misses Anthony Rendon, who just began a rehab assignment. As it stands Harper is counting on Ryan Zimmerman, Wilson Ramos and a slumping Ian Desmond for protection. There’s a lot of season left and the Nationals 7-12 start will likely be corrected over time, but injuries have left Washington piecing it together, meaning Harper — who did hit his fifth home run in a loss to Florida on Sunday — isn’t seeing very many pitches to hit.
This & That: Baltimore shelled Wade Miley yesterday at Camden. As a result, Boston has a 4.37 team ERA. … Yasiel Puig went on the 15-day DL on Sunday, but that opens up playing time for red-hot Alex Guerrero who has five home runs in 22 at bats. … If you didn’t see Alex Gordon’s great catch on Sunday, check it out. … Houston owns the largest division lead in the AL at 2.5 games. Evan Gattis’ hit a two-run double in the ninth to help the Astros beat the A’s on Sunday, finishing off the team’s first sweep in Oakland. … Mike Trout hit a home run off Anthony Bass. (Tim Salmon, current Angels’ TV analyst, was no doubt watching.) Let’s end on that note since this column is, as always, all wet.
[Whateverwork]