Bryce Harper and Mike Trout are not worth the price of admission.
A season ago, in Harper’s breakthrough campaign, 74 of the 153 games in which he played ended with the MVP going hitless or notching just a measly single. Harper was the best player in his league, yet in 48% of his games, fans could walk away feeling they hadn’t witnessed anything special from a superstar in the sport. No lifetime memories, nothing to tell the grandkids one day or even brag about witnessing on Facebook. So far this season, Trout – who at his current career pace could obliterate a whole host of baseball records one day – has gone hitless in six of his 14 games.
If you want guaranteed excitement and production, it’s a gamble to plunk down 30 bucks to see either of two best young players in baseball today. The numbers bear it out.
That is in no way an attempt to disparage Harper or Trout. When you catch them on a special night, they are as thrilling as any athletes to ever play the game. It’s just the nature of baseball that the special talents of a top hitter can only be appreciated over a full season, viewing game after game, as they pile up numbers and big hits through inevitable slumps and rain delays and nagging injuries that may derail lesser men. But you can’t helicopter into random games and expect to be amazed.
Few other sports are like that. Go to a Golden State Warriors game and Steph Curry is almost guaranteed to put up 20-plus points and rain down the threes. Take in a Patriots game and you’ll see Tom Brady artfully thread some passes through helpless defenders even on his worst day. You can see Harper or Trout go hitless a few dozen times a season. The idea of Curry having an 0-fer night? Unfathomable.
But baseball does have appointment viewing. Starting pitchers. Every fifth day you can see Clayton Kershaw or Noah Syndergaard or Madison Bumgarner or – insert your ace of choice – unleash 90 or more rockets to the plate. Even on the incredibly rare off-night, Syndergaard will still let you witness a few 95mph sliders and Kershaw will paralyze a batter with a curve. Watching a true ace work is seven half-innings of guaranteed entertainment. Harper and Trout are four random crapshoots a night.
Tickets to see a top pitcher work are as good as any in sports. And that’s without even mentioning the entertainment provided in seeing them bat. Love you, Bartolo.
Video of the week
Ha! What a blooper by Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler! I mean, what a brilliant play to get Colby Rasmus off the basepaths and replace him with the plodding Tyler White. How has no other infielder ever taken advantage of this infield fly loophole before? Maybe the play is barred with an unwritten rule that Kinsler didn’t know about.
Quote of the week
Actual story about Madison Bumgarner told by national treasure Vin Scully last night on the Dodgers broadcast. pic.twitter.com/JAKy8Cqiw0
— Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) April 16, 2016
Vin Scully is retiring after this season. That is a tragedy. Unless ... UNLESS ... in his retirement, he uses his free time to narrate great works of fiction while randomly interspersing the text with pitch counts and baseball play-by-play. Who wouldn’t want to hear War and Peace mixed with some Dodgers-Giants action?
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. Hunter Pence steps to the plate.”
Who’s Closer to Victory: Donald Trump or the Cubs?
It was a good week for the Cubs. They have the best record in baseball, are 8-3 since losing Kyle Schwarber for the season and knocked off the hated Cardinals in St. Louis. However, Trump just won New York by 35 points. The Cubs couldn’t even win a single game against New York last October. Advantage: Trump.
How did the kids piss off Goose Gossage this week?
Goose didn’t shake a broom at any whippersnappers this week, probably because he was too busy commemorating the 37th anniversary of injuring himself in a fight with a team-mate. You know, back when players played the right way and respected the game.
Nine thoughts in order
1. Nazi memorabilia collector, famed sock model and former ESPN analyst Curt Schilling has added the transgender community to Muslims and scientists on the list of those he’s gone after on social media. This is, to use a baseball term – hey, appropriate! – Schilling’s third strike and the network obliged and finally fired him. But doesn’t he need a job, especially since his video game company was a disaster? Oh, right. Trump’s running mate. We should have seen this coming.
2. Some people don’t like the St Louis Cardinals. Now more people probably won’t like the St Louis Cardinals.
Make The @Cardinals Twitter Great Again.™ https://t.co/Zol27kWm8t
— Matt Sebek (@MattSebek) April 20, 2016
3. There are two ways for a small market team to be awful. The first is to get stuck under a bad veteran contract. The second is to commit to a youth movement and have the prospects not pan out. Then you have the Twins, current owners of baseball’s worst record. Joe Mauer is making $23m and is on pace for approximately that many extra base hits again and super-prospects Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton are a combined 14-for-80 (.175) with 1 HR, 5 RBI and 34 strikeouts. Both are also struggling in the field. Sano will likely turn it around and Buxton might, but the the Twins will be far out of contention by the time that happens. The Twins are unfortunately going with a little of column A and B with their small market failure. Never go full Dave Littlefield’s Pirates.
4. Last year’s worst team in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies, are showing improvement thanks to one trade. In December they dealt reliever Ken Giles to the Astros for pitchers Vincent Velasquez and Brett Obertholzer and prospects Thomas Eshelman and Derek Fisher. Giles has been rocked all April while Velasquez has an 0.93 ERA and 29 strikeouts through his first 19.1 innings of the season. It’s hard to see how this trade turns out as a win for the Astros. But maybe there’s one silver lining for Houston: other teams will stop trying to hack into their scouting database now.
5. The Phillies aren’t still without problems, of course, as the great Vin Scully told viewers this week when Philadelphia first basemen Ryan Howard tied Joe DiMaggio with 369 career home runs:
Here's Vin Scully ethering Ryan Howard during a pitching change. It's the greatest. He's the greatest. pic.twitter.com/faqA8C7KcV
— Andy Merritt (@A_Merritt) April 16, 2016
Ouch. Vin Scully has 88 years of pent-up shade and unmatched communication skills. If he chooses to go negative in his final season, no one in baseball will live to tell the tale.
6. The Diamondbacks acquired Jean Segura from Milwaukee in January and the second baseman has three home runs and a .957 OPS so far this season thanks to a tweaked batting stance. How did the Brewers not mess with Segura’s batting stance before giving up on him and sending him away? Their manager is Craig Counsell. If he’s not screwing with batting stances, what purpose does he serve?
7. Mark McGwire managed the Padres to a victory over the Pirates on Tuesday night after San Diego’s Andy Green got ejected for arguing a balk call. If any Hall of Fame voters aren’t yet convinced that McGwire deserves to be in Cooperstown, a 1.000 record with this dreadful Padres team should be more than enough to put him over the edge.
8. Bryce Harper has won his first battle in the war to Make Baseball Fun Again, as MLB has lifted its ban on bat knob decals. Harper can use his “keep it 100” stickers again and baseball fans who are 100 will just have to deal with it.
9. Maybe the war to Make Baseball Fun Again is already over and won by the forces of good, because it has been announced that the this June the minor league California and Carolina Leagues will put on a home run derby off the deck of the USS Midway in San Diego Bay. Hitters will launch an estimated 150 balls into the bay, where they will be retrieved by people on paddle boards, kayaks and jet skis. Home runs, jet skis and shark-infested waters. Thank you, Bryce Harper. Baseball is back and better than ever.
Today is the 37-year anniversary of Goose Gossage injuring himself in a fight with a teammate. GET A CLUE, BRYCE. pic.twitter.com/AKixTh1TVO
— Pinstripe Alley (@pinstripealley) April 19, 2016
