Tag: mlb

The Houston Astros are once again alive and well in the AL West the,houston,astros,are,once,again,alive,and,well,in,the,al,west,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb

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It wasn’t all that long ago when I was using this space to talk about how the Houston Astros had yet to really lift off this season and were spinning their wheels in the mud. With most of their rotation dropping left-and-right and their hitters underperforming while combined with the strong start from the Seattle Mariners, it was getting to the point where there were already rumors that the Astros could be considering selling once they got to the trade deadline. It was that rough.

Well, here we are a month later and all of a sudden the questions have changed. Instead of wondering whether or not the Astros are going to fall off and start selling, the question now is whether or not the Mariners can hang on to what was once the largest divisional lead in the AL West. Houston has gone 20-10 over their last 30 games and are now three games over .500 and right in the thick of things in the playoff race while Seattle has gone 16-14 in their last 30 and 3-7 in their last 10 to be specific.

As a result of this sudden change in fortune, the Astros are now only two games behind the Mariners in the AL West and FanGraphs’ Playoff Odds reflect this as well — Houston now has a 60 percent chance of making the Postseason with a 45 percent shot at winning the division again. This is after the Astros finished June 5 with a 40 percent chance of returning to the playoffs with only a 24 percent shot at winning the division. The Astros are even being given more of a shot to end up with a first-round bye (10 percent) than the Mariners currently are (8.3 percent). The boogeyman of this division is well and truly alive once again, to the point where the word “destiny” is being bandied about around here.

So what’s behind this sudden shift in form for both teams? Part of this can be attributed to the natural ebb-and-flow of the long marathon that is baseball’s regular season but at the same time, for things to change this quickly for both teams is still a bit whiplash-inducing. Usually it takes a while to see a shift like this and maybe it would warrant more attention had this shift happened in say, September instead of in June and July. With that being said, it’s still very fascinating to see just how quickly the Astros managed to turn things around and conversely it’s a bit concerning to see this getting away from the Mariners like it appears to be.

The fuel that’s been propelling the Astros back towards the top of the AL West has been the fact that their offense has stepped up their game. I mentioned that the offense wasn’t the reason why they were struggling last month but there was still room for improvement for Houston when it came to hitting the ball. Unsurprisingly, Houston’s lineup did eventually revitalize itself and has been hitting .274/.329/.445 as a collective since June 1. Additionally, they’ve put together a .335 wOBA and a team wRC+ of 119 since the start of June, which is tied for the seventh-best number in all of baseball during that period.

The main man pushing Houston’s revitalization has been Yordan Álvarez, who has absolutely unleashed fury upon opposing pitchers since the start of last month. For the season, Yordan has 2.8 fWAR — however, he’s produced 2.0 of that fWAR since June 1 alone. Álvarez has been hitting .366/.466/.796 since that aforementioned date with a wOBA of .513, 10 home runs over 118 plate appearances and a wRC+ of 240. Folks, that’s Gunnar Henderson territory. Shoot, that’s Aaron Judge territory. It also helps that the usual suspects like José Altuve (152 wRC+ since June 1) and Alex Bregman (128 wRC+ in that same span) have stepped up and are hitting like most baseball observers would expect them to do so. The Astros are a tough team to deal with at the plate but that’s always been the case since their rebuild from the mid-2010s started to pay off.

What makes this return to form for Houston’s offense so impressive is that it’s happening without Kyle Tucker. Tucker went on the IL with a shin contusion back in early June and to let you know just how rough things were going for the rest of the Astros, he’s missed every game since June 3 and he’s still Houston’s leader in On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, wOBA, xwOBA and wRC+ and he’s also still the joint leader in home runs and joint-second place in stolen bases.

Tucker has been the best player in the lineup for the Astros this season and losing him could’ve been a death knell for Houston’s lineup if the rest of the Astros continued to limp along at the plate. Instead, players have been stepping their game up left-and-right in Tucker’s absence and now Astros fans are surely dreaming of what this lineup will look like once Tucker returns and gets this offense working at full strength again.

Houston’s pitching during this span has been intriguing to say the least. This should definitely be the position that is weighing down the Astros since they’ve lost two of their starters for the season and have another one who is currently on the shelf and could potentially lose out on their vesting option in 2025. Instead, the Astros have kind of just kept it pushing in that regard and Hunter Brown’s performances since June 1 has somewhat reflected what the Astros have done on the mound during that span.

As a staff since the start of June, the Astros have an incredible ERA- of 85 — tied for the third-best in all of baseball! Weirdly enough, Houston’s FIP- during that same span has been 104, which is clearly middle-of-the-road. Then you look at what Hunter Brown has been doing during that time and suddenly his ERA- of 25 and a FIP- of 73 since June 1 suddenly makes a little more sense. Combine his performance with Framber Valdez and Ronel Blanco doing their best to keep the rotation afloat and Houston’s rotation is definitely coming together to produce something that’s greater than the sum of their parts at the moment. They’re making it happen and their return to the good side of .500 has made that clear.

While it’s not exactly time to say that the Astros are “back,” they’re absolutely alive and definitely kicking again. General Manager Dana Brown’s faith in his squad is being repaid and suddenly his confidence that Houston would be buying at the deadline is looking clairvoyant instead of simply being the right thing to say in GM-speak. While it’s never really wise to call time on any team’s season during the first half, this is also a bit of a reminder that when it comes to teams like the Astros, the time to count them out doesn’t come until they’ve actually been mathematically eliminated.

Speaking of GM’s, the onus is now on Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto to help revive the Mariners. While their pitching staff is doing just fine, it is plainly obvious that Seattle needs hitting. With guys like Julio Rodriguez, Jorge Polanco, J.P. Crawford, Mitch Haniger and even the “Big Dumper” himself Cal Raleigh all currently doing some serious underperforming at the plate, their lineup needs multiple sparks and they need it in the worst way. Seattle’s pitching should still be good enough to help keep them in the playoff conversation but if they keep struggling at the plate like they have, it won’t be long before the boogeyman from Space City catches them for good.

Yankees’ Aaron Judge is on pace for another record-breaking season yankees,aaron,judge,is,on,pace,for,another,record,breaking,season,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb,dot-com-grid-coverage

Yankees Aaron Judge is on pace for another record breaking season
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Back in 2022, Aaron Judge brought the baseball world back to an era that hadn’t been seen since the late 90s and the early 00s. Those were the days when other shows on ESPN would get cut into whenever a prolific home run hitter was having an at-bat that was deemed to be culturally significant. While Tulane and Houston football fans probably weren’t enthused about having to share half of their screen with one at-bat of a regular season baseball game that they probably didn’t care about, it’s proof that there is nothing like hitting a bunch of dingers that can grab the imagination of fans all over the baseball landscape.

Judge finished 2022 with an astonishing tally of 62 home runs and a scarcely-believable wRC+ of 209 to go along with 11.2 fWAR for the season. His 2022 was so incredible that it was totally understandable when Judge, who was injured and missed time, “fell off” and had a “normal” season in 2023 where he “only” hit 37 home runs and finished with a wRC+ of 174 and 4.8 fWAR over 106 games. That’s still a very fine season for any player in particular but it’s not the type of season that gets ESPN to cut away from college football games in order to show off your live at-bat. With that being said, we might be seeing those days return in September because Aaron Judge is currently in the midst of another absolutely incredible season at the plate for the New York Yankees.

Heading into action on Wednesday, Judge is hitting .321/.440/.718 with a wOBA of .478, an Isolated Power number of .397, a wRC+ of 218 (!!!) with 32 homers and an fWAR of 6.1. There is so much here to talk about that it’s mind boggling. Sir, what are you doing with a .718 slugging percentage? Your wOBA is nearly .500, that is wild. Usually an Isolated Power number of .200 or above is considered to be “serious power hitting” so what are we supposed to make of a guy who nearly has an Isolated Power number of .400? He’s already cleared his 2023 fWAR production with 22 games left to spare, and the fact that he’s already five homers away from matching his 2023 number and the wRC+ being above 200 is all you need to know. Aaron Judge is currently the best hitter on Planet Earth and right now it’s not particularly close between him and the competition.

It is wildly impressive that Aaron Judge is currently on track for another season that could see him finish in double digits as far as fWAR is concerned. Although seasons like that are already rare to begin with, it’s always possible that some of the most talented players in baseball are capable of putting up at least a 10 fWAR season if they can fully lock in for an entire year of crazy production. Mike Trout and Mookie Betts immediately come to mind, and Shohei Ohtani could potentially do it as a two-way player at some time down the road. However, doing it twice would put Aaron Judge in some truly rarefied air as far as baseball greats are concerned. There are many Hall-of-Fame players who never cleared the single season 10 fWAR threshold at any point in their career, so to do it twice (in addition to having a stellar career outside of that) would be as close to punching a ticket to Cooperstown as you could get.

It sounds wild to talk about that while a guy is active but that’s where we’re at with Aaron Judge right now. He is simply hitting at a Hall-of-Fame level at the moment and we also know it’s not just some isolated breakout because he’s already had a season under his belt where he did this before. It also makes you wonder: “Well, if he’s this good and this dangerous at the plate, why is he even getting stuff to hit?” Indeed, Aaron Judge has gotten this hot once again because he’s been getting a level of protection that he’s never had — and as Mike Petriello of MLB.com noted, it’s coming from the front instead of from behind him in the lineup:

He’s seeing somewhat more in-zone fastballs when runners are on as compared to when they aren’t, and he’s seeing more first-pitch in-zone fastballs when runners are on as compared to not, and so on, a dozen other small things that add up to an advantage for him – which is part of why he’s slugging 203 points higher with a runner on base. Why, then, wouldn’t you work around him and risk putting him on? Because more often than ever before, someone is already on.

“What he and Juan are doing as a tandem is hard to wrap your brain around,” said manager Aaron Boone.

So instead of simply giving Aaron Judge first base and calling it a day, managers have decided that they’d be better off actually dealing with Judge and whatever damage he can do with (more than likely) Juan Soto already on the base paths instead of walking Judge and potentially exacerbating the problem if someone behind Judge happens to do the damage. Essentially, since Juan Soto has been so good in front of Judge (and he’s also on 10 fWAR watch for this season, as he’s produced 5.0 fWAR over 83 games so far), it’s been nearly impossible to get Judge in that situation where the bases are clear and you can basically just give Judge the free pass and be done with it. Instead, you get to see scenarios like this one where the Mets were dealing with the Yankees last month.

It’s the top of the eighth, the Yankees are down 9-3 and Judge is at the plate with the bases loaded and two outs on the board. Now, it’s a six-run lead so the Mets have a very solid cushion and can afford to even take a grand slam here and still have a two-run lead. Mets manager Juan Mendoza still admitted after the game to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated that he was thinking about walking Judge, conceding the run and then testing his luck with Gleyber Torres. Instead, Mendoza decided to simply play the matchup straight up. Aaron Judge responded thusly:

It doesn’t matter if it’s an 0-2 count. It doesn’t matter if the pitch that was thrown was 99 mph. If you throw a pitch to that part of the plate against Aaron Judge, you deserve whatever’s coming to you. Here’s what it looked like on MLB’s Gameday tracker:

Oof.
mlb.com

Now, here’s a collection of Aaron Judge’s zone charts for this season:

judge pitch position graphs

OOF!
baseballsavant.mlb.com

So yeah: Aaron Judge is currently on an incredible heater and he’s doing it in an environment that is conducive for him to keep on seeing pitches right where he wants them instead of being pitched around. The combination of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge has proven to be absolutely lethal for most teams and as a result, Aaron Judge himself is on track to have another otherworldly season at the plate.

I’m not going to guarantee anything but I suppose it really wouldn’t be shocking if some mid-tier college football fans are going to be annoyed with ESPN and Aaron Judge once again in September because it appears that Judge is once again on track for another historically great season. As long as opposing teams feel like they have no choice but to test him, Judge is going to continue dropping the gavel upside their heads.

Astros had another moment on road vs. Mets that I cannot stop thinking is destiny astros,had,another,moment,on,road,vs,mets,that,i,cannot,stop,thinking,is,destiny,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb

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The Houston Astros are going to win the World Series. This is a fact.

You can be mad if you want to, but I am merely the messenger for this Very Important information. Consider that destiny has smiled upon them in the exact same way that it did the last time they hoisted the coveted piece of metal.

Confused? I got you.

The Astros beat the Mets on the road on June 29th and that means a lot

Cards on the table here I am a Houston Astros fan. I cover the Dallas Cowboys here at SB Nation (shout out to Blogging The Boys the GOAT) and that upsets people. Yes, last year’s ALCS was very awkward for me. This is who I am and you will accept me for that or else (I don’t really have an else in mind).

To the point I loved the 2022 Houston Astros because they won the World Series. That season was such vindication and sweet sports honey in every single way and a big part of the journey was a summer trip that took them to New York for road series contests against both the Yankees and Mets.

At the time the New York teams were the most dominant in baseball and yours truly had a great time tweeting about the Astros rolling through Queens and the Bronx relatively untouched. Also let me remind you like my tweet does that Houston’s trip through New York then featured a combined no-hitter from the team led by Cristian Javier, a feat they would replicate in the World Series against the Phillies.

THIS BRINGS US TO JUNE 29TH. OF 2022.

Why does that day matter so much? I’m so glad you asked.

Wednesday, June 29th, 2022 was the final day of that particular Astros/Mets series and it was kind of a super boring game. I remember it very well.

But why do I remember it well? You see in the top of the ninth inning Jason Castro hit a two-run homer for the game’s first runs. Houston won 2-0 and Castro didn’t play at all the rest of that season. My guy walked it off in epic fashion.

You obviously know (because I told you) that the Astros would go on to win the World Series that year and did so against the Phillies as mentioned. Beating Philadelphia was significant as it put an end to Houston’s inability to take down NL East teams in the playoffs (aka the World Series). 2019 saw the Astros lose to the Washington Nationals and 2021 the Atlanta Braves… the NL East was terrifying and the break in the dam was first made by Castro with his home run against the Mets.

I recognize that this is silly but this is sports where things like this matter a lot and basically determine history. These are the rules, I didn’t make them. The June 29th win on the road against the Mets served as the catalyst for the Astros in a significant way that season.

THIS BRINGS US TO JUNE 29TH. OF 2024.

You will recall that last week featured the Yankees and Mets tangoing with one another in the latest edition of the Subway Series. Both New York teams are hot. Things aren’t quite as intense in that sense as they were two years ago, but they are the relative toast of MLB’s town.

The Astros visited Queens last weekend riding a 7-game winning streak themselves which saw them get to .500 for the first time this season (lol). Momentum was up and a loss on Friday night was no big deal given that we are still on the front side of the All-Star break.

Houston and New York squared off on Saturday, June 29th with the Astros looking for a win and unfortunately they fell down early and things were looking rather bleak. This is when a Crazy Sports Thing happened that is clearly and undeniably this year’s Jason Castro moment.

At the top of the eighth inning the Astros were trailing 4-6 and looked set to fall a couple of games below .500. It was a tough scene. Jake Meyers and Jeremy Peña both walked, but then Chas McCormick and Mauricio Dubón upped the pressure by failing to do anything. Jake and Jeremy both advanced to put runners on second and third.

This is when My New Guy entered in Trey Cabbage. Pinch-hitting in a big spot, Cabbage needed to do something special in order to keep this rally alive.

Do you ever wonder how certain things happen in sports? Not amazing things, dumb things.

With a full count Cabbage took a pitch for a ball… that the umpire improperly counted. Seriously. We are making counting errors in the year 2024. He mistakenly called it ball 3.

Cabbage was able to rightfully take first base and shortly after a wild pitch sent Jake Meyers home to narrow the deficit to a single run. Jose Altuve walked to load the bases again and then Alex Bregman broke it open. Houston added to their lead in the top of the ninth for more breathing room and got back to .500 on the season.

Baseball is notorious for producing wild and crazy things and these two happened on the same day between the same two teams in the exact same spot on earth. Destiny!

In case you aren’t already convinced… what if I told you that this year’s win in 2024 (the Trey Cabbage game) at Citi Field was the first time that the Astros won there since the 2022 game with Jason Castro?????

THE HOUSTON ASTROS ARE GOING TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES AGAIN.

Toronto’s poor start leaves the Blue Jays needing to rebuild or retool toronto,s,poor,start,leaves,the,blue,jays,needing,to,rebuild,or,retool,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb,dot-com-grid-coverage

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With the calendar set to flip in a few days from June to July, that means that the looming specter of MLB’s trade deadline is getting larger and larger on the horizon. With each passing day, we’re starting to get a better idea of who’s going to be using the deadline to try to boost their shots at making a World Series run and who’s going to be trying to jumpstart a rebuild for the upcoming season or even longer.

One of the teams that is currently looking likely to end up in the seller’s group is the Toronto Blue Jays. This is actually a bit of an upset (in more ways than one) for the Blue Jays, who have made the Postseason in three of the past four seasons but came away without any wins in each of those appearances. Depressing recent playoff history aside, the Blue Jays still figured to be right in the thick of things in terms of the Postseason race. Sure, they probably weren’t going to be competing for a divisional title (as evidenced by their 16 percent odds in spring training of winning the AL East, according to FanGraphs) but this was at least a team that could realistically harbor hopes of returning to October baseball again as they were sitting on a 49 percent chance of making the Postseason this year according to FanGraphs’ Playoff Odds.

As of right now, it’s a longshot for the team up North to get back into the tournament. Toronto is now 37-43, they’re lightyears behind in the division — 13.5 games behind Baltimore for first place and given a 0.0 percent chance of winning it. Their Wild Card hopes are getting slimmer with each day as well, as they’re currently 6.5 games behind the Kansas City Royals for the third and final Wild Card spot and they’ve got three teams directly in front of them vying for Kansas City’s spot. As such, FanGraphs is giving Toronto a 6 percent shot at making the Postseason now. All you can say is that it’s better than zero!

As you could probably surmise by simply looking at their current lot in baseball life, the Blue Jays aren’t doing anything particularly well at the moment. Collectively, their pitching staff has an ERA- of 106 and a FIP- of 108 — both of those numbers being good for having their pitching staff rated in the bottom 10 of baseball. Yusei Kikuchi and Chris Bassitt are giving it their best in the rotation and you could say the same for guys like Yimi García (before his injury) and Trevor Richards in the bullpen as well. Still, it hasn’t been enough to propel the Blue Jays into a winning position and it’s been a far cry from the great work that this pitching staff did last season.

With that being said, the pitching would simply be a thorn in the team’s side if Toronto was putting up numbers at the plate. As it turns out, they’ve also gotten worse as a collective at the plate here in 2024 — heading into action on Friday, the Blue Jays were collectively hitting .234/.312/.372 with a .304 wOBA and a team wRC+ of 98. They’re hitting for far less power as well, as their Isolated Power has gone down from .161 last season to just .138 this season. That’s a bottom-five number in all of MLB and all the other numbers are mediocre at best. So with the Blue Jays taking a drop in production all across the board on both the mound and at the plate, it’s suddenly very easy and understandable to see how they’ve played themselves into a serious pickle here.

So it’s simple, right? A team with slim-to-no chance of making the Postseason should obviously be selling, right? GM Ross Atkins may as well just go ahead put up the ol’ “For Sale” sign and start working the phones with the full intention of starting a rebuild, correct? As it turns out, it’s not that simple. As Kaitlyn McGrath of The Athletic mentioned in her recent article, the franchise is just coming off of an expensive renovation of the Rogers Centre and would not want to put fans through a rebuild so soon into their tenure at the newly renovated ballpark.

Between that and the large amount of money that’s already been invested into this team to begin with, it’s safe to say that this isn’t simply a matter of flipping the switch and saying “Okay, time to start it all over again.” Atkins told McGrath as such in the aforementioned article:

“Every decision that you make, regardless of a stadium renovation or the state of your organization, you have to be thinking of the future, as well,” Atkins said. “But as you’ve seen over the last four years, we’ve poured a lot into the current team, from a financial standpoint, from a trade standpoint, from a resource standpoint and we’ll continue to do that until it doesn’t make sense to do so anymore.”

With all of that in mind, if the Blue Jays are still in a similar position in both the division and Wild Card race by the time the trade deadline starts to become imminent then I think it would be safe to assume that Toronto would start selling. If that happens, then the question shifts towards whether or not they’ll just stick with moving their impending free agents or if they’ll move their stars as well. If they stick with simply getting what they can for guys like Yusei Kikuchi and Yimi García then it’s clear that they’re probably going to try to run it back in 2025 with a retooled roster.

However, there appears to be a possibility that guys like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette could be on the move. Those rumors received a nice and healthy dose of oxygen when Vladito did an interview with Virus Deportivo and made these comments regarding potentially being traded to a team like the Yankees:

Here’s a translation of those comments from ESPN:

In 2022, Guerrero Jr. said he’d “never sign with the Yankees — not even dead.” In 2023, he told the New York Post that it was “a personal thing that goes back with my family. … I would never change that.”

But never say never.

“Like I tell you, I’m a player and if a team picks me or if they do something, it’s because they need it, obviously, and I’ll be happy to help any team,” Guerrero told Virus Deportivo on Monday. “But right now, I’m just focused on helping my team try to get out of this bad streak.”

If I was a Blue Jays fan, this would have me turning on the alarm bells. While walking back the comments about his beef with the Yankees might just be a sign of growing up and maturing, that’s beside the point. The main point is that it’s never really a great sign for a team potentially keeping a player around when said player is publicly talking about being willing to help any team he’s traded to — even the team that he had “a personal thing” with. Again, it’s not that I have an issue with what Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said — that was about as professional-yet-honest of an answer as you could get to that question. It’s the fact that it was even entertained that says a lot about what’s going on with the Blue Jays at the moment.

With all of this being said, there’s still no signs that a Blue Jays/Yankees trade is on the horizon. All of this trade talk at the moment is smoke with real tangible signs of a fire nearby. With that being said, with each week that goes by without the Blue Jays getting going, it seems like some hard choices might have to be made North of the border. Whether it’s via a retool or a complete rebuild, it’s clear that the Blue Jays can’t keep going like they are and expect the World Series trophy to return to Canada.

Shohei Ohtani saved from line drive to the face by Dodgers ball boy’s catch of the year shohei,ohtani,saved,from,line,drive,to,the,face,by,dodgers,ball,boy,s,catch,of,the,year,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb

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A Dodgers ball boy made the play of a lifetime on Wednesday when he made a bare-handed catch of a ball that was rocketing towards the bullpen — or perhaps more accurately, rocketing towards Shohei Ohtani’s head.

Ohtani hit the deck immediately, realizing that the errant ball was on a collision course with his face, a move that a majority of other players around him did as well. On this day the bat boy became a bat man, casually plucking it out of thin air and protecting the Dodgers’ $700M investment.

“Protecting the most important player in baseball” is right up there in the pantheon of amazing things a bat boy could achieve. If the team didn’t give this dude a bonus of a lifetime then what are we even doing here? It’s not outside the realm of possibility to think that if that ball actually made contact with Ohtani he would have missed signifiant time, but now we don’t need to worry about that.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Elly De La Cruz and Oneil Cruz are must-see TV elly,de,la,cruz,and,oneil,cruz,are,must,see,tv,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb,dot-com-grid-coverage

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If you’re surveying the baseball landscape for games to watch, I have a pretty good idea of how the process should go for tonight. If your favorite team is playing well, you’re probably going to watch them first. Other than that, if you’re going to pay attention to any baseball game that doesn’t involve your favorite team for the next couple of days then your eyes should be locked in for what’s going on in Cincinnati this week.

At first glance, a matchup between two 37-41 teams in what is collectively the most mediocre division in baseball doesn’t seem like much to write home about. It’s especially the case when you consider that the Cincinnati Reds have only been to the Postseason four times since 2010 and won a grand total of two games in those appearances while the Pittsburgh Pirates only made it three years in a row from 2013 through 2015 and also won a grand total of two playoff games during that span. There hasn’t been much of a reason to pay attention to these two clubs and they haven’t really given anybody a real reason to pay attention to them outside of the occasional insane-looking brawl.

That changes this week, as we’ve now got two very good reasons to tune in to this series: Elly De La Cruz and Oneil Cruz. One of my favorite things about baseball is that despite the everyday nature of the sport, there’s always a chance that if you tune in or go to the ballpark then you’re going to see something that you’ve never seen before. It’s true for any game, it’s especially true when any one of De La Cruz or Cruz is playing in the game and it only doubles when both of them are going to be sharing the same field for at least two-and-a-half hours for the next couple of nights.

While Elly’s exploits on the diamond have been widely documented right here on SB Nation, it’s somewhat understandable that Oneil Cruz’s action has kind of gotten lost in the shuffle when it comes to the Pirates. After all, Bryan Reynolds is still the face of the franchise over there, Andrew McCutchen has returned to wear the only uniform that he’s looked completely right in (outside of maybe these throwback Phillies uniforms) and Paul Skenes has exploded onto the MLB scene and has quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with on the mound. While this hasn’t translated to the Pirates winning ballgames on a regular basis, it’s not completely boring to keep up with the Pirates nowadays.

However, Oneil Cruz is absolutely worth paying attention to because his highlight reel consists of stuff that is scarcely believable at times. This is the guy who currently holds the record for the hardest-hit ball in the Statcast Era of MLB at 122.4 mph and used to hold the record for the hardest throw from an infielder during the Statcast Era with a 97.8 mph laser that he uncorked as a rookie back in 2022. His arm strength is in the 99th percentile. His bat speed is in the 100th percentile, which naturally means that his Average Exit Velocity is also comically high, his Barrel percentage is just as lofty and his Hard-Hit percentage is in the same neighborhood. While he’s not up there with the real burners in terms of foot speed, his 87th-percentile Sprint Speed seems to indicate that he still blaze across the basepaths if needed.

Cruz is still in the process of putting all of these facets together in order to become a truly great baseball player but his potential is right there for everybody to see. It’s very difficult to figure out who has a higher ceiling than than Cruz and it’s one of many reasons why he doesn’t just have Pirates fans excited about any progress that he can make. If Oneil Cruz can realize his full potential at some point, it’ll be essentially as if a fully maxed-out create-a-player from the video games has come to life.

Millions of baseball fans have always dreamed of somehow becoming a physical force of nature who could run like the wind, throw harder than some pitchers and hit dingers nearly 500 feet while basically leaving a mark on everything else he hits. The difference between aspirational video gamers and Oneil Cruz is that he has the real and tangible chance to actually become what was always figured to be a digital wild dream for most fans.

Speaking of players who have ceilings that are higher than the Empire State Building, that’s where Elly De La Cruz came in. While there’s debate as to whether or not Oneil Cruz is the top star for the Pittsburgh Pirates, there’s no debate when it comes to the situation in Cincinnati. Elly De La Cruz is the man around there — whether we’re talking name recognition, highlights or production, Elly has got it all in spades.

As I alluded to in the aforementioned links to other articles about Elly De La Cruz, the guy just appears to be a sentient highlight reel. You want tape-measure home runs? He’s got em. You want Web Gems that would’ve made him a staple on Baseball Tonight? He’s got those, too. You want to see him tear up the basepaths? He’s got you on that as well. You want to see him do it all in the process of terrorizing the Dodgers? It’s funny you should ask because there’s video evidence of that as well.

What makes it so gratifying to watch Elly De La Cruz do the things that he does on a nightly basis is that it was plainly obvious from the moment that he showed up in Major League Baseball that he was capable of becoming this type of player. However, just like Oneil Cruz right now, it was also evident that he still needed to put it all together. After all, you can do plenty of amazing things on the field but it won’t particularly matter all that much if you’re hitting .235/.300/.410 with a .305 wOBA and only 89 wRC+, which is what he finished with in 2023 after playing 98 games. Heading into action on June 25, De La Cruz is now hitting .249/.342/.464 with a .352 wOBA and a wRC+ of 123. It’s clicking for him even when he’s not doing anything spectacular and his team leading fWAR of 3.3 is also proof that he hasn’t sacrificed any other portion of his game in order to improve in another facet.

He’s still stealing bases at an absurd clip — he’s already surpassed his stolen base total of 35 last season, he’s currently sitting on 37 stolen bags and the sky is the limit when it comes to how high that number can get. His defense has also improved as he’s no longer simply leaning on his prodigious arm strength. He’s currently in 95th percentile of fielders with an OAA of 6. He’s steadily turning into a complete baseball player, which should be exciting for both Reds fans when it comes to potentially turning the ship around in Cincinnati and it’s also exciting for us neutral fans since that just means he’s capable of doing something truly absurd no matter if he’s hitting, fielding or running the bases. Stuff that was figured to be impossible in the past is just part of another day at the ballpark for Elly De La Cruz.

Elly De La Cruz and Oneil Cruz may not be miracle workers who can drag their respective teams to the promised land but they’re both doing more than their fair share of the work in making their respective teams fun to watch. While Oneil Cruz is still in the process of showing quick glimpses of his potential, we’re starting to see Elly De La Cruz fully blossom into a real-deal superstar in baseball. Both of them will be on the same field this week when the Pirates and Reds face off with each other in Cincinnati. While these two teams may not command your attention, these two players certainly should.

Did Don Draper invent Grimace in 1971 to help the Mets in 2024? An investigation did,don,draper,invent,grimace,in,to,help,the,mets,in,an,investigation,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb,draftkings

Did Don Draper invent Grimace in 1971 to help the
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The Mets were a hapless mess of an organization until Grimace came into their lives. The husky blob of unknown density arrived at Citi Field to throw out the first pitch on June 12, and since the team has gone 9-and-2 — now in legitimate striking distance of grabbing a wild card.

Everyone has wondered how the hell Grimace has been able to turn the Mets around. More importantly: Why Grimace? What if I told you that this was a plan 53-years in the making, all set into motion by Don Draper of Mad Men fame in an effort to help his beloved team win before his 100th birthday?

Don Draper is a die-hard Mets fan

This is established throughout Mad Men. The Mets are a fundamental piece of Don’s identity, which establishes him as a modern man who has no particular reverence for the past, which is why he supports the upstart Metropolitans over the historic and vaunted Yankees.

A Mets pennant is a proudly displayed part of Don’s office, and remains a feature of the show until late in the series. The last we see Don’s allegiance to the Mets he finds the pennant under an old desk, electing to throw it out — but as we’ll come to realize it’s a love that never dies.

mets

There are some Mad Men spoilers coming up, but at this point the finale was in 2015. You’ve had more than enough time to watch Mad Men.

Don Draper, Coca-Cola, and Grimace

The series finale of Mad Men left with Don finally finding the inner-peace that alluded him throughout the series. More importantly to the tale of Grimace and the Mets, it establishes that Don came up with the groundbreaking “Buy the world a Coke” campaign, which reshaped advertising in 1971, and is one of the most influential commercials of all time.

This tells us that Don was back on top in 1971. He didn’t leave the ad game, but instead rose like a phoenix to deliver the best work of his life after getting his own like in order. Now, it’s not difficult to imagine that after reshaping Coca-Cola he wouldn’t have landed another massive account to guide them into the future: McDonald’s.

When was Grimace created? You guessed it… 1971. The same year as the Coca-Cola campaign. But this goes so much deeper.

Debuting as “The Evil Grimace,” the initial portrayal of Grimace was as an evil entity who stole all the cups from McDonald’s to prevent children from getting … you guessed it: Coke.

See, Grimace was the part of Don’s psyche he left behind. The negative energy that he jettisoned. If the new, enlightened Don Draper wants to buy the world a Coke, the old Draper wanted to horde all the cups to himself and prevent the world from having Coca-Cola.

Don created “The Evil Grimace” to be the precise counterpoint to the last image we have of him from Mad Men — smiling. Then, in 1972 Grimace is re-introduced as Ronald’s best friend, and not a bad guy anymore. This was Don telling the world that he had changed. That he was different. That he was a happy, contributing member of society.

There are more hints of Draper’s involvement in McDonald’s too

Draper creates Grimace in 1971 and continues to work on the McDonald’s account, pulling more and more examples from his own life into the ad campaigns.

  • Hamburglar is a manifestation of Peggy Olson, created in 1971. With red hair and prominent teeth, Draper posits that Hamburglar is both mischievous and lovable, while also stealing the literal heart of out McDonald’s by taking their hamburgers. This is a metaphor for how Peggy ripped Don’s heart out, and he never recovered.
  • The Fry Kids from 1972 represent Don’s children.
  • Birdie is introduced in 1980, named after Don’s nickname for his ex-wife Betty. The full name “Birdie, the early bird” is a scathing critique of Betty’s self-absorption and his resentment at how self-reliant his children needed to be to support their mother’s life of sloth.
  • Mayor McCheese represents Bert Cooper, while Officer Big Mac is Roger Sterling — for obvious reasons.

How do the Mets fit into all this?

The number 100 is key to all of this. Don, despite being such a die-hard Mets fan, endured four consecutive 100-loss seasons from 1962-to-1965. When Draper was in his prime, the Mets were disgustingly awful — and yet he remained a fan.

Draper’s beloved team finally managed to win in 1969, but at that point Don was too far in the depths of despair and alcoholism to truly enjoy it. By the time he got his life back on track (and created Grimace) in 1971, the Mets had firmly become a middling team, which was present for most of his life.

There was only one World Series that Don truly got to enjoy in 1986. This coincided with Grimace’s rise to popularity, in which Grimace’s universe was expanded to highlight his family. It’s here that Draper, now aged 61 is coming to terms with his own mortality and wanting to wind down his advertising career by showing that family is important.

The “Grimace Shake” unveiled by McDonald’s on June 12, 2023 to commemorate the character’s birthday means inherently that the shake is there to celebrate Don’s birthday. HE. IS. GRIMACE. The two are one in the same.

Fast-forward to 2024

It is established in Mad Men that Draper was born in 1925, and we now know his full birthday is June 12, 1925. This is significant because 2024 is the last season the Mets can win the World Series before Don turns 100, a chance to exorcise the memories of those horrible 100-loss season where it all began, a chance to experience some sporting joy before he shifts off this mortal coil.

Don calls in a favor. He tells McDonald’s to dispatch Grimace to the Mets. Don is too old and frail to make it to Queens in person, but Grimace will be his spiritual medium to help the team in their time of need.

Grimace throws out the pitch on June 12, 2024 — Don’s 99th birthday. He witnesses as the team begins to turn it around and become relevant once more. The man who bought the world a Coke has now thrown the Mets a bone.

As an inside joke both McDonald’s at the Mets poke fun at Don’s womanizing past by having Grimace hit on Mrs. Met, and post it on social media.

Don Draper created Grimace as an extension of himself, and now Grimace is helping the Mets achieve what was previously thought impossible. It’s all because of one advertising executive and his checkered past.

The Brewers have refused to leave the top of the NL Central the,brewers,have,refused,to,leave,the,top,of,the,nl,central,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb,dot-com-grid-coverage

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Back in spring training when we were previewing each division, my view of the National League Central Division was that it was anybody’s game where anybody could win. That was also to say that this probably would be the end of the two-season run as NL Central champions for the Milwaukee Brewers. Here’s my reasoning below:

If they’re going to do it again in 2024 then it’ll be a bit of an upset because it appears that they’ve fallen right back into the pack after the offseason that they had. Corbin Burnes is in Baltimore now and Brandon Woodruff is likely to miss the entire season as he recovers from shoulder surgery. They also lost their manager to their rivals on the North Side of Chicago, as the Cubs snatched away Craig Counsell almost immediately after his contract with the Brewers expired. That’s a lot to lose in a division that’s as wide open as the NL Central is.

Well, here we are in mid-June and it’s looking like this division may not be as wide open as I had expected it to be. While there are still plenty of questions as to whether or not any of the other four teams in the NL Central will have what it takes to go on the type of run that could propel them into the Postseason, it’s obvious who currently has the massive upper hand when it comes to winning the division. As it turns out, the more things change, the more they stay the same — manager Pat Murphy’s Milwaukee Brewers once again look like they’re the class of the NL Central.

Heading into this season, the Brewers were only given the third-best odds from FanGraphs to win the division at 18 percent. They were given a 30 percent shot to make the Postseason, which is a perfectly fine chance to have going into any season but it was definitely a bit low for a club that had made it to the Postseason in five of the past six seasons.

Now, Brewers fans can’t complain about the odds being against them since their team has surged their way into the position of being massive favorites. Heading into action on June 20, the Brewers are now being given a whopping 73 percent chance to make it three divisional titles in a row and are also being given an 86 percent shot to make the playoffs either way. Most importantly, the Brewers 44-30 and are 7.5 games ahead of the Cardinals for first place in the Central and also hold the second-largest divisional lead in the National League.

While a lot of this may have to do with the fact that the Cubs and Cardinals both have yet to really put it together like most observers expected them to, it also has to do with the fact that maybe the Brewers themselves didn’t get the memo that they were supposed to fade away into the pack. At the very least, Willy Adames and William Contreras both definitely missed the memo as both of them have been fantastic in Milwaukee’s lineup so far this season.

Willy Adames in particular has been killing it both at the plate but out in the field as well. Adames currently has a wRC+ of 118 to go with a wOBA of .336 and 12 home runs as well. If he can keep on producing at the plate at this rate, then he’ll be celebrating a career year once the season ends. Combine that with the fact that he’s currently in the 98th percentile of all fielders when it comes to Outs Above Average and you’ve got a player who has been the total package for the Brewers here in 2024. Adames has rarely had a season where he’s put it together with both his bat and his glove so it’s definitely encouraging for Milwaukee that this appears to be the year where it’s all connecting in his favor.

Meanwhile, William Contreras has simply just been mashing the ball like crazy this season. If he’s made contact with a ball, there’s a very good chance that it’s going to fly long and far and get to where it’s going in a hurry. Contreras is in the 95th percentile of all hitters when it comes to both Average Exit Velocity (93.1 mph) and Hard-Hit percentage (53 percent). Combined with his 89th percentile average bat speed and suddenly it’s easy to envision how Contreras got to a point where he’s sporting a 134 wRC+, which is second-best among all qualified catchers and only one point behind Salvador Perez for first place. While Wild Bill’s defense has taken a step back compared to where he was at last season, you aren’t going to hear anybody in Milwaukee complain about what he’s been doing with the bat this season.

Adames and Contreras haven’t been the only ones killing it for Milwaukee this season. Joey Ortiz has gone from struggling mightily in his first 34 big league plate appearances back in 2023 as a member of the Orioles to succeeding wildly as a breakout candidate for the Brewers. He might be doing it in a weird way (and for more on that, check out this article from Ben Clemens of FanGraphs) but you aren’t going to hear about anybody trying to “fix” what he’s doing when it’s working to the tune of a .369 wOBA and a 140 wRC+ so far. Brice Turang has also turned things around in a major way, though he didn’t have a change of scenery like Ortiz did. Instead, he appears to have found his footing in the bigs and is now sitting on a .328 wOBA and 112 wRC+ after struggling through 137 games with a 60 wRC+ in 2023. It also helps that Turang has been a terror to deal with on the basepaths as well, as he’s already stolen 26 bases this season.

The Brewers have also been getting positive contributions in the outfield from guys like Blake Perkins (and his 97th percentile-rated OAA) and even Christian Yelich. As it turns out, his resurgent 2023 campaign wasn’t just a flash in the pan and Yelich looks primed to improve upon a season that saw him start to look like the old dynamo that was playing MVP-caliber baseball just a few years ago. Yelich’s wOBA is currently at a lofty .394 and his wRC+ is at 157, which is easily as high as it’s been since the halcyon days of 2018 and 2019 when he was truly among the game’s elite players. While Yelich probably won’t fully return to that level again, the Brewers don’t need him to be a world-beater — they just need him to continue being what he is, which is a reliable hitter to slot into what’s been an impressive lineup for Milwaukee so far this season.

Between the high level of production that Milwaukee is getting from impact guys and the fact that they’ve already built up such a large lead in the division, it’s hard to see the Brewers messing this up as we get into the actual second half of this season. Additionally, the Brewers currently have the joint-fifth-easiest strength-of-schedule going forward at .492 while their divisional rivals in Chicago (.508 remaining strength-of-schedule) and St. Louis (.514) each have tougher roads ahead. The Pirates have a similarly-tough SOS remaining (.507) and while the Reds have a slightly-easier road ahead (.491), they also need to get their act together outside of Elly de la Cruz doing cool stuff on a nightly basis.

All this means is that the Brewers have bucked all the odds and have managed to play themselves into a very good position for another season. It’s all coming up sunshine and roses for the Brewers and the only thing that’s really gone wrong for them here in 2024 has been one of their employees getting caught failing miserably in an attempt to do assassination work as a side job. I didn’t make up a single word of that last sentence, either. I’m not going to hold that insane bit of news against the Brewers though since I believe that this squad is smart enough to not find themselves in such an incredibly hot mess. Either way, y’all should keep an eye on Milwaukee this season as they are once again right in the thick of the Postseason conversation.

The story of baseball can’t be told without Willie Mays the,story,of,baseball,can,t,be,told,without,willie,mays,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb

The story of baseball cant be told without Willie Mays
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When someone who was larger than life passes on from this life, you often hear people say that it’s “impossible to put into words” just how important that particular person was. While that might be 100 percent true when it comes to the legendary Willie Mays, it’s also true that maybe words are the best way to talk about The Say Hey Kid and his impact on the game of baseball. Simply put, you can’t tell the story of baseball without talking about Willie Mays — it is impossible to overstate just how much of an impact he had on the game.

I could go on and on about his on-field exploits. If you’ve watched baseball on TV for, let’s say, the past 70 years then there’s a near 100 percent chance that y’all have seen the astonishing over-the-shoulder catch that he made in the abyss that was deep center field at the Polo Grounds during the 1954 World Series a million times now. Even now, watching him make that catch is just like how commentator Jack Brickhouse describes it: It’s like looking at an optical illusion.

It’s also one of those plays that only gets more impressive the more you watch baseball since it becomes clear that this isn’t the type of thing that happens often — or at all, really. Jim Edmonds made an absolutely incredible catch back in 1997 — a catch that was immediately compared to what Willie Mays had done 43 years earlier and both catches are still firmly implanted in every baseball fan’s imagination here in 2024. What sets Willie Mays apart from the rest of the pack is that if you ask him, that wasn’t even his best catch.

Instead, he told Bob Costas on MLB Network back in 2010 that his actual best catch happened on April 11, 1970. That was when he took flight and robbed not only Bobby Tolan of what would’ve at least been extra bases but he also robbed Bobby Bonds of making the catch on his own merits. That’s because Mays sped towards where the ball was going to land, took flight and made like the Jumpman logo about 18 years before the Jumpman logo came into existence in order to rob the home run and keep the Giants up 1-0 at that point in the game. If the man himself says that this was the best catch that he ever made, then who are we to argue with him? I’m not about to argue with Willie Mays!

The fact that Mays himself was 100 percent certain that he was going to make that catch says everything about the unique type of ballplayer that Mays was — right along with the fact that both he and Bonds stayed in the game after Mays essentially knocked himself out while making the catch. Everything about that sequence of events shows just how much Willie Mays loved baseball and the fact that we’re still talking about it to this day is an example of how the game loved him back. It’s also amazing to consider that he did this when he was 39 years old!

The circus catch took place during the season before his age-40 season in 1971, which is when he proceeded hit .271/.425/.482 with a .406 wOBA, 18 home runs and a 157 wRC+ for the season. His 5.9 fWAR as a 40-year-old in 1971 is still the best single season by a player 40-or-older in MLB history. Most baseball players could only dream of producing a six-win season at any point in their career but Willie Mays was not like “most baseball players.” There was only one Say Hey Kid and Willie Mays absolutely left a unique mark on the game of baseball like few other players could.

Photo by Charles Hoff/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

When I say that the story of baseball can’t be told without Willie Mays, I really and truly mean it. If you want to talk about Barry Bonds and what he did to the record books, you can’t go long without mentioning that Willie Mays was his godfather and served as a constant source of wisdom and inspiration for the future career leader in home runs. If you want to talk about Ken Griffey Jr., it’s impossible to do so without eventually bringing up how The Say Hey Kid influenced The Kid on both a professional and a personal level. Griffey and Bonds are two absolute titans of the sport and as great as they were, they’ll also be the first two people to say that Willie Mays was the best to ever do it in the game of baseball.

The story of baseball also includes Negro League baseball and Willie Mays will forever be a part of that legacy as well. Even though he’s only credited with 13 games played in 1948 with the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League, those 13 games are now formally considered to be the beginning of Mays’ big league career. It would’ve been incredibly fitting to see Willie Mays in attendance for the big game at Rickwood Field on Thursday. It’s where the legend started his illustrious career and it would’ve been an incredible moment to see him get recognized at the newly-revitalized gem of a ballpark with the eyes of the baseball world set squarely upon Birmingham, Alabama.

Instead, the Rickwood game will now surely be a tribute to not just all of the Negro League baseball players from the past but it will especially serve as tribute to Willie Mays and the impact that he left on the sport of baseball. While he wouldn’t have been able to make the trip had he hung on for a bit longer, that doesn’t change the fact that he will be remembered like the baseball royalty that he was. The recognition that he will receive won’t be enough, just like the recognition that the baseball world gave him wasn’t enough even while he was still with us.

That’s not for lack of trying — I’m sure that whatever is in store for the game at Rickwood Field on Thursday will be spectacular and one good thing I can say about the culture of baseball is that Willie Mays definitely got his roses from the baseball community while he could still smell them. This sport truly idolizes its legends and Willie Mays was treated as such even long after he had retired. We’re talking about a legend who was banned from baseball for life for simply taking on a job as a part-time greeter at a casino, only to get reinstated (alongside Mickey Mantle) almost immediately as soon as Bowie Kuhn’s successor took the job. The new commissioner didn’t even make any changes to the rules or anything like that — this was just a case of restoring the feeling. Baseball just ain’t baseball without guys like Mickey Mantle and especially Willie Mays and that’s why they were both reinstated.

Willie Mays lived to be 93 and it’s obvious that he made the most of every single one of the years that was blessed to live for. There are very few baseball players who captured the imagination like The Say Hey Kid did when he played. He continued to live on as a legend long after he finished playing and to say that his impact on the game is still being felt to this day would be a complete and utter understatement. The game lost a legend with his passing but as the fictional version of Babe Ruth put it, “Legends never die.” As long as baseball exists then Willie Mays will be remembered. If you don’t believe me, then come back to this article in 2054 when they’re celebrating 100 years since that catch at the Polo Grounds and then we can chat again.

The ‘Gay Grimace’ Mets are the hottest team in baseball the,gay,grimace,mets,are,the,hottest,team,in,baseball,sbnation,com,front-page,mlb

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On June 12, the New York Mets’ entire season took a shift.

Entering the day eight games under .500 despite having the payroll of a world superpower, the Mets were struggling and on the brink of digging themselves into a hole that they couldn’t get themselves out of.

Then a hero came along. A purple blob of a hero.

After Grimace threw out the first pitch, the Mets have simply been one of the best teams in baseball. New York has been on a seven game win streak, including a come-from-behind victory over the defending champion Texas Rangers. Baseball players can be superstitious sometimes, but the Grimace-led vibes are something even Mets players can get behind.

This also comes in conjunction with the Mets celebrating Pride Month, and since posting the Pride flag and hosting Grimace, the Mets have been the hottest team in baseball.

It’s gotten to the point now where even McDonalds is in on the Grimace Mets.

Mets fans are loving it:

The Mets need to keep Grimace around for them to keep winning. If New York makes the playoffs, Grimace has to throw out the first pitch.