Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh BOY! I have a very special surprise for you today, friends: a post full of baseball content, but free of COVID-19-specific updates! It even has some jokes at the expense of the Houston Astros!
An oasis in the desert. Let’s go.
Wait, sorry, sorry. I have to SET UP the non-COVID-19 stuff with kinda-technically-related stuff first. But you’ll see where I’m going.
Although the “Arizona Plan” remains a more realistic outcome for the 2020 MLB season, the Arizona-Florida plan is like your fun uncle from out of town – he’s not particularly responsible or forward-thinking, but he sure is a lot more fun:
Under this proposal, NL and AL teams would be realigned into two new groups based on their current Spring Training leagues (Grapefruit in Florida and Cactus in Arizona).
Cactus League: Dodgers, Indians, Athletics, Padres, Cubs, Brewers, Reds, Diamondbacks, White Sox, Angels, Rangers, Rockies, Royals, Giants, Mariners
Grapefruit League: Yankees, Astros, Rays, Twins, Braves, Nationals, Mets, Phillies, Cardinals, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Pirates, Marlins, Tigers, Orioles
This alignment would separate the Cardinals and Cubs, but add the White Sox to their regular group of matchups, which would be a lot of fun. It would also almost certainly include a designated hitter in both leagues, which, fine by me. The pros of this plan include more space, comfort, and familiarity for players and their families in either location, the cons include an inability to resume the “normal” regular season if/when things clear up later this summer, no traditional divisions/leagues, no inter-league play, and a less centralized (but possibly less effective) quarantine effort.
But if this is the route down which baseball intends to head, FanGraphs already has you covered. In his latest data dive, Dan Szymborski projected the Cactus/Grapefruit League standings and … surprise! The Cubs make the playoffs by a hair over the Brewers! Overall in the Cactus League, the Dodgers (71-41), Indians (62-50), and Athletics (61-51) are projected to earn a first-round bye in a modified playoff format, while the Padres (61-51) and Cubs (60-52) round off the Wild Card entries. The Brewers (58-54) and Reds (57-55) are right on the Cubs’ tails, but come up short. To see the top-3, Wild Card, and overall playoff odds and projected standings for all 30 teams, check out the FanGraphs post here.
Note: In the restructuring, the Cubs “Cactus League” seems to be the more desirable place to be. Sure, the Dodgers are camping up top, but the Cubs would otherwise avoid five of the six 2019 division winners plus 7 of the 10 2019 playoff teams. Hence, the Cubs’ playoff odds in the Cactus League are 2.5 percentage points higher than in the National League.
The single worst-faring team in this switch? The Cardinals, with a 31.0% shot in the NL, but just 21.6% in the Grapefruit League. Basically, you don’t wanna be in the Grapefruit League this year …
In what is going to eat up as much as your afternoon as you let it, Joe Posnanski has written up The Greatest 100 Players in Baseball History, and you’re going to want to check it out. Not only are the rankings and collections of stats an interesting and deep enough dive, but the list includes LONG write-ups on each individual player on the list. So it’s like one post for the top-100 rankings and 100 additional articles, one on each guy. I’m blown away by the time and effort this must’ve taken. It’s so very cool.
For what it’s worth, Ernie Banks comes in at No. 65 all-time, which feels appropriate. Mike Trout comes in at No. 27. Albert Pujols is No. 23. Proactively (but probably not incorrect), Barry Bonds comes in at No. 3, but I have to admit, I guessed wrong at No. 1. Head over to The Athletic and read up. There’s some awesome stuff in there.
Speaking of Mike Trout, did you know his High School baseball team wouldn’t let him play in their HR Derby unless he did it left-handed? You know what comes next.
An interesting story of retired big league first baseman Travis Lee, who apparently had (and successfully hid) “the yips” for most of his career. It’s a pretty fascinating look into something we don’t hear much about. “He threw me the ball and I chucked it at him, and I couldn’t hit him,” Lee said. “I’d never had that feeling in my life. Once you get that feeling of you can’t even play catch and you’re thinking about it all the time,” he said, “it just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing and growing and growing.”
Cubs fans are familiar with the yips because of Jon Lester, and I experienced a version of it, too (it happens to lots of folks, pro and amateur). For about two years, *every single throw* I made came with this little twinge of concern in the back of head that never existed before, often making me spike it or sail it over my target’s head. And although I worked through it by playing hours of catch (catch is fun), my first throw of every new catch session is filled with that same little twitch of anxiety. Repetition worked for me, but of course the stakes were much lower and my livelihood didn’t depend on it. I can’t imagine what that’s like for a pro ballplayer. And not every trick or tool or repetition works for everyone.
I usually LOVE player trade trees, but they’re a lot less fun when the end result is the Milwaukee Brewers ending up with Christian Yelich – such is the trade tree that began with (2019 Cubs bench coach) Mark Loretta back in 1993. Branches of this tree include (former Cub) Carlos Villanueva, Nelson Cruz, Carlos Lee, Franisco Cordero, Jake Odorizzi, Lorenzo Cain, Jeremy Jeffress, Zack Greinke, Jean Segura, Chase Anderson, Lewis Brinson, and, eventually, Christian Yelich.
At MLB Trade Rumors, Tim Dierkes examines the Mookie Betts (rental) trade between the Dodgers and Red Sox in the event of a totally cancelled season in 2020. Spoilers: It would mostly suck for the Dodgers, who’d have no recourse. And I’m just heartbroken for them.
Finally, LOL … got ’em:
NEWSLETTER
