Hello Baseball Fans,
Well, here we are kids. The eve (as in day of) of the 2016 Fall Classic. It’s a great feeling every year when we get ready to watch the best two teams in the world square off in a best-of-seven World Series. Big fans tune in. Little fans tune in. Old fans tune in. Young fans tune in. Even so-called non-fans tune in and talk about the games in the mornings. However, the series is even better when your absolute favorite team is taking part. Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs fans, take this series in. And not just because ‘you’ don’t go there often, or hardly ever rather. Embrace it. Be proud regardless of the results. We too often shame the 2nd place club in the four major North American sports.
The Orioles didn’t quite make it this year. Neither did the Blue Jays, Red Sox, Rangers, Mets, Giants, Dodgers, or Nationals. And that was just the other eight playoff teams. There’s another twenty who golfed their way through the beginning rounds of the postseason and watched from the local country club’s clubhouse. And since we’re speaking of designated favorite team, we here at the VFTD like to think outside the batter’s box when it comes to that. What do we mean? Well, a big ball fan needs a favorite every year. True, you go down with your team, but once they go home, you need a team. There are two kinds. It can be a team to root for or against. Trust me, we all need to take this line of thinking to heart. Why? Because unless you pulled for the Yankees in the 1930s, ’40s, ’50s, and even the late 1990s, your team probably wasn’t there EVERY single year. You know what I mean?! We’ll get back to who ‘our team’ for this year is after a few playoff reflections.
Baseball needs instant replay. Why doesn’t baseball have instant replay? Why not use the technology to ‘get it right’? Those three lines were typical of fans and pundits alike prior to MLB instituting the ‘challenge’-inspired style of utilizing cameras that are commonly installed that display all 360 degrees of major league fields. We at VFTD like the current replay system. And we aren’t even going to talk about amending it. We’re here to talk about how baserunners in particular need to wise up and practice up as a result. The cameras are on at all times fellas. You get to first, hand the base coach your ‘hitting’ gloves, and then put on your ‘sliding’ gloves. Head first slide is no doubt what you’ll do once the steal sign is given or when your teammate bounces an easy one to an infielder. Sure, head first slides are fast. They offer more options for ‘grabbing the bag’. They’re also the defense’s favorite. Why? Because there’s a great chance the ridiculous eye of the cameras these days can see if your stomach broke contact with the bag for one nanosecond after your arm and hand slid past it while the alert (and trained to do so) middle infielder held the tag on your back after he slapped it on unnecessarily hard (few people realize how hard tags are applied on runners; it’s not that fun). Runners need to get better with the technology by either grabbing the bag better or sliding feet first when ‘you know you’re in there’. Otherwise, more often than not, you’ll be safe–for a split second–and then called out after the requested review. And then you’ll be embarrassed by poor execution on your part as a final result. In the future, we predict more feet first sliding. Look for this trend at a ball park near you.
Another new thing we’ve seen this postseason is usage of the pitching closer. Buck Showalter, of Orioles managing fame, did not use his closer in the Wild Card game vs. the Blue Jays. It was a road game. It was a tie game that went extra innings. The O’s used six pitchers in relief including a starter, Ubaldo Jimenez. However, they did NOT use Zack Britton. He’s the guy who went 47 for 47 in save opportunities this year. AND his ERA was a microscopic 0.54. WOW! His season was right up there with the all-time best. A rookie manager might be tempted to let him pitch the entire one game playoff against the Blue Jays!!! This guy was lights out ALL year LONG! He’ll likely finish in the top 3 of the A.L. Cy Young Award voting. But in the 11 inning playoff game, he didn’t pitch due to his team being on the road and never having the lead. Showalter was scrutinized, second guessed, and even satirized by this decision and the team’s ensuing loss. We’ll say that criticism was at least worthy of heavy questioning. But did you notice what happened after that ‘odd’ non-move to the closer by Showalter? Playoff managers like Dave Roberts of the Dodgers and Terry Francona of the Indians used their closers in non-traditional ways. L.A.’s clsoer, Kenley Jansen, threw 51 pitches and entered in the 7th inning of a game that Clayton Kershaw eventually closed out vs. the Nationals. Francona has swapped iron man reliever Andrew Miller and ‘closer’ Cody Allen based on situational settings. It’s the best-man-for-the-job approach in the playoffs. Keep an eye on this trend as well. It makes sense to throw your best bullpen guy more often. As a result, there could be a throw-back style of closer usage where we see guys close out games by pitching five or more outs compared to the traditional three outs of the last twenty-five plus years.
The final trend of the postseason is that of ‘new’ teams playing in the Series. It’s been 71 years since the Cubs played in one. You knew that. And you know manager Joe Maddon wears jersey number 70. And you also know there was no Series in ’94. Therefore, you must know it was meant to be that the Cubs would be led to the Series by number 70 after not being in one after 70 chances. Whew! On the other hand, the Indians haven’t won one in 68 years. That’s also the same number of Cub outfielder Jorge Soler’s jersey. In addition, Cubs Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Tinker had 68 RBI during the regular season of that last coveted championship of 1908.
And while we’re talking about old Cubs, catcher and clubhouse leader, David Ross, is set to retire following the Series after 19 combined minor and major league seasons. That’s the same number in terms of years since the Indians last played in a Series. Ross is the pal and personal catcher for Jon Lester. They both used to play for the Red Sox. So did the Cubs’ John Lackey along with Tribe members Coco Crisp, Mike Napoli, and Andrew Miller. Plus, Francona also used to manage in Beantown. And we can’t forget that the Cubs’ analytics and club-builder extraordinaire, Theo Epstein, used to general manage the BoSox. That makes 8 people who are key contributors to this year’s Series who were a part of the BoSox organization at one point in their careers. Eight is also the jersey number of tonight’s starting right fielder for the Cubs, Chris Coghlan. As it turns out, he’s in his 8th MLB season. Coghlan has appeared at 6 different defensive positions throughout his career. They include all three bags and all three ‘out’ yonder spots, to be exact.
So, you may be thinking, what do the numbers 71, 70, 68, 19, 8, and 6 have to do with the outcome of the 2016 World Series? Probably not much is the honest answer. The fun answer requires some math. Let’s throw out the ’68’ since it represent a piece of both clubs. While we’re at it, let’s add the ’71’ and ’70’ together, which gives a total of 141 and also happens to be nearly a full regular season’s worth of games at the Triple-A level (but that’s just a meaningless distraction). The ’19’, ‘8’, and ‘6’ seem like they go together well. Let’s add them up and work with their sum of 33. For more fun, let’s mix it up and do a subtraction problem. Hmmm, take the ’33’ from the ‘141’ and we get the haunted 108!! Yikes, that’s the finite length of the Cubs’ beyond historical championship drought. Since it’s a finite number all right, we’ll say the drought ends this year in six games, which again, is the number of positions the soon to be more famous Chris Coghlan has played at. There you have it, in a nutshell.
Later Baseball Fans.