Welcome to "MLB Corner," our periodical look at the current season, complete with knee-jerk reactions, and usually a list or two.
This week, injuries are again the big story. At least this time it wasn’t a pitcher of note hearing the name Tommy John, but Texas 1B Prince Fielder who had been dealing with a sore neck since last year, and has decided to have season ending surgery.
Some Rangers fans would say Fielder’s on field performance this year was indeed a pain in the neck as the team restructured its franchise by acquiring him from Detroit for popular 2B Ian Kinsler this offseason. Fielder’s contract makes this news all the more devastating for the front office; he is owed roughly $130 million dollars over the next 6 years. Texas has seen its pitching staff decimated by injuries, and Fielder’s slow start, after some preseason hype that he could be a sleeper MVP candidate moving to the hitter friendly Ballpark in Arlington, adds to the frustration.
The Rangers are struggling to hover at or around .500 and are ahead of only the lowly Astros in the AL West standings. GM Jon Daniels may be looking at another restructuring this off season as 2B Jurickson Profar is also likely out for the season, making the Kinsler trade look even worse. Note that the Tigers are comfortably in 1st place in AL central.
On a positive injury note White Sox ace Chris Sale came back against the Yankees and promptly carried a perfect game into the 6th inning before giving up a hit. Hyun Jin-Ryu also came off the DL and sparkled; tossing 7 innings of perfect baseball before giving up a hit in the 8th. This corner has said before that the extended time both of these hurlers spent on the DL earlier in the year could be a blessing for their teams as the Dodgers are a hand full of games out of first in the West and the Sox are hovering around .500 in the central.
Old is “In”:
In the last corner update we noted Miguel Tejada had been picked up by the Miami Marlins. Since then 55 year old Julio Franco has resurfaced as a player coach in the Independent League, and Manny Ramirez was given a minor league player/coach contract with the Chicago Cubs by GM Theo Epstein who dealt with Manny for years in Boston. Epstein no doubt has ideas as to how Manny can be of assistance to the franchise, but to extend such an opportunity to Ramirez the GM must have been assured or felt comfortable enough that the days of Manny being Manny are long over. The Cubs have a star prospect in Javier Baez in the minors who the team may feel needs more grooming to be ready for big league pitching, whether it’s this summer or next year when he gets the call up.
This week’s list is more difficult to quantify than previous lists due to the term “surprise” teams and situations two months into the season. This list includes starts to the season the majority of baseball fans didn’t see coming as the season started.
1. Nelson Cruz’s power stroke- Cruz leads the majors with 20 bombs after not being signed until a couple weeks before spring training opened to a 1 year deal for $8 million. To boot his average is hovering around .300, so he can’t be lumped in with the all or nothing hitters that are known for a home run or strikeout when they come to the plate. He has motivation as the PED shadow cast gave him only the one year deal he is playing for a multiyear deal next off season.
2. The Milwaukee Brewers & Toronto Blue Jays- They started so hot that their current cooling down period still has them in first place in the NL Central. All Star Ryan Braun has had a stint on the DL and has a recurring thumb injury that will likely sap him of consistency at the plate as the season goes on. Note he is still hitting above.300 with power since moving to the 2nd spot in the order about two weeks ago. They have a +24 run differential which means the regression they experienced two weeks ago when the differential was at only 11 is over and they are back to winning by going good rather than lucky.
The Blue Jays have taken advantage of poor starts by every other AL East team to lead the division. They are 8 games over .500 and with a run differential of +28; they are the only team in the division with a positive in this category. The starting rotation was a major question mark heading into the season however Mark Buerhle has answered those questions going 10-1 with an ERA barely above 2 and a respectable WHIP of 1.19. It helps when Edwin Encarnacion breaks out of his early season slump hitting 16 home runs in the month of May.
3. Charlie Blackmon- This guy went the opposite of Encarnacion and started the season hitting the lights out (along with every other Rockies regular at home) but has cooled coming into June. We knew he wouldn’t be able to keep hitting above .400 but he has packed the stat sheet through the first two months with 9 home runs and stolen bases. With an OBP of .360 he isn’t elite but is setting the table for the many heavy bats behind him in the Colorado lineup.
4. The pitching epidemic- To be fair every year pitchers go down with bum shoulders or fatigue from years of throwing. This year just seems different due to the early frequency of pitchers going to have Tommy John surgery. Many more pitchers are struggling with arm fatigue which eventually could lead to them down the surgery road. This has led to many teams patching together rotations as teams are trying to be cost effective and not promote players who they believe will be positive additions before the Super Two deadline. This deadline is not a fixed day so teams will have to hold off until the middle of June to promote these prospects and not have them accrue the big league service time and thus hold them off for another year before they become free agency eligible.
5. Arizona’s fall- The Diamondbacks had a nice stable of talent coming into the season. They also have a running feud with the Dodgers which some people thought (me included) might light the fire under them for a playoff push this year. Hasn’t happened. Manager Kirk Gibson’s job came into question; however ownership decided that instead of firing him and hoping that would provide the spark they hired Tony LaRussa to oversee the entire organization.
LaRussa has decided-for now to keep Gibson on and see if there are organizational changes that can be made to fix the problems on the field. Getting Mark Trumbo back sooner rather than later would go a long way in helping spark the offense. Centerfielder A.J. Pollock was enjoying a breakout season until breaking his hand on Saturday night by a Johnny Cueto fastball. See you in 8 weeks Mr. Pollock. They have the worst run differential in the majors and it’s not even close. They were hit with injuries in the starting rotation and have kept phenom Archie Bradley in AAA for more seasoning.
In recent years they have traded away pitching prospects Tyler Skaggs and Trevor Bauer. The front office has long had the reputation that if a prospect falters or does not have the seasonal success deemed necessary they are traded away, often at a major discount for the acquiring team. LaRussa will make sure there are no more of those trades and haphazard decisions being made in the desert.
