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Reasons your team won’t win | NL second-half edition
As with our preseason version, the goal here is to be
completely, unfairly cynical. If we do things correctly, by the time we’re
done, you’ll believe that no one can win.
ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
Years ago, before Joe Gordon had been added to the Hall of
Fame, I asked Bob Feller why his former teammate had never made it. “LIFE ISN’T
FAIR,” he shouted. (I’m not sure if Rapid Robert, now departed this mortal
realm, was a little deaf or just thought I was an idiot.)
I can hear Feller
saying that about this year’s D’backs, who are somehow receiving one of the
best staff-wide pitching performances in the game but are still stuck behind a
Los Angeles Dodgers team that is performing at a historic level. Life would be
more fair if the offense didn’t have so many vulnerabilities: The D’Backs are
arguably the worst team in baseball against left-handed pitching, and they’re
hitting only .236/.304/.391 out of the desert, a figure that also flirts with
worst-of status.
ATLANTA BRAVES
Flirting with .500 a year after losing 93 games is a kind of
victory in itself. Though perhaps the BBWAA should hand out a “Most Improved”
award, doing so without courting future embarrassment when every other winner
regresses in the following season is a deterrent. Is John “The Sun Will Come
Out” Camargo going to hit .333 going forward? How about Matt Adams slugging
.600? Is Freddie Freeman as a third baseman, making room for another bat (and
blocking off mediocrities like Adonis Garcia) an ongoing thing? Is Sean Newcomb
going to keep dancing around those walks? Will there be a starting rotation at
all? The Braves have a fine farm system.
They’re racing Ronald Acuna up the
ladder like they’re trying to make a deadline, Ozzie Albies awaits, and Mike
Soroka and Koby Allard aren’t all that far away. One still expects an
additional step back before the true step forward.
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CHICAGO CUBS
They won’t win because they got far enough behind the
Milwaukee Brewers that it will take roughly a 95-win pace the rest of the way
to take the division title, and that’s only if Milwaukee fades. If the Brewers only
play .500 the rest of the way, they’ll finish 86-76. That’s weak, but the Cubs
would still have to go 41-30 (.577) to pass them by one. If the Brewers keep
doing what they’ve been doing, the Cubs will have to win nearly two-thirds of
their remaining games.
The same math applies, give or take, to the wild card.
This team has the capacity to go crazy the rest of the way, so you can’t rule
them out; the acquisition of Jose Quintana certainly won’t diminish that
possibility. But wait—John Lackey is about to come off of the disabled list.
Can they prevent that?
CINCINNATI REDS
The Reds have the worst starting rotation in recent memory,
although the always-ambitious Baltimore Orioles are now contending with them
for the title. Raw ERA is a crude measure, but for the purposes of this survey
course it will suffice: The best rotation baseball ERA-wise is the Dodgers at
3.23. The average rotation has an ERA of 4.48. The Reds have an ERA of 6.04.
The Orioles are at 6.02. The Miami Marlins are next at 5.05, or about a whole
run better. This is an accomplishment, given the competition includes bankrupt
1930s Phillies and Browns teams. Neither of those franchises even exist
anymore! If you see this getting better any time in the near future, please
share your euphoria-inducing drugs with me care of FanRag.
Winning percentage by month: .615, .586, .556, .417 (July,
incomplete). Eureka, they pitch — er, pitched. Since May, they’ve been carting
a 5.09 ERA. As usual, it would be fascinating if they had players who were
sufficiently patient so they could have a road offense, but no, they’re hitting
.251/.314/.386 when having to order room service. They might hold a wild-card
spot by default, and then anything might happen if the pitchers remember how to
overachieve.
LOS ANGELES DODGERS
They’re presently 10.5 games up and on a pace for 111 wins.
Clearly they’re going to win something. As with the Houston Astros, winning it
all is less of a sure thing just because there are two-to-three layers between
the regular season and the World Series. Injuries could happen. Alex Wood’s
Fairly Godmother (not a typo) could repossess his magic ball gown.
Clayton
Kershaw could continue to pitch to a 4.55 ERA in October. As Eric Stephen
suggested a couple of Infinite Inning episodes ago, Adrian Gonzalez could come
back and the manager insist he plays. Maybe they could stand to have one more
reliever, so that Chris Hatcher need never wear a Dodgers uniform again. Read
the Book of Job. Stuff goes wrong because Divine Providence is capricious and,
at times, outright mean.
When bad things happen, some people will say, “I’m
being tested,” as if the test-maker were doing them a huge favor. Who needs to
be tested? What’s wrong with a pancake breakfast followed by a long nap, and
when you wake up, everything is just where you left it? You might even have an
even number of socks in the drawer. We can dream.
Ann Coulter slams airline for giving her seat to another passenger. DELTA AIRLINE
MIAMI MARLINS
Paraphrasing Adam Ant: Don’t hit, don’t pitch, what do you
do? Actually, with the seas rising, Miami puts one more in mind of Donovan, but
never mind; forewarned, forearmed, and the team is for sale, but these assets
won’t be moved inland.
With a weak starting rotation (see the Reds, above) they
won’t win now, and add in a desolate farm system and they might not win in the
future, even if Derek Jeter or some other august personage takes over from
Hell’s Ambassador, Jeff Loria. A possible salvation/price-enhancer would be to
unload their better position players, but given that some of them are signed
through the end of time (or the end of Miami, whichever comes first), Jeter
might have to take out another mortgage to subsidize the rest of Giancarlo
Stanton’s career.
MILWAUKEE BREWERS
I was this close to writing “Trade Eric Thames now!” at the
end of April, because there was nowhere to go but down. Given that he’s hit
.206/.333/.452 since, I’m not entirely sure I would have been wrong. Still,
part of my reasoning there was that, contra Buffalo Springfield (last music cue
for a while, I promise) nothing was happening here.
My bad, because this is
real. Now, what “real” means is complex, because recently they’ve been romping
against the Marlins, Orioles, Yankees, and Phillies. Starting in about a week
they’ll see the Nationals, Cubs, Cardinals, and Rays, and “real” may look more
like breaking even. Fortunately for them, breaking even will likely be enough
to make the postseason. That they can get through a long series at that point,
well, as the Magic 8-Ball used to say, ask again later.
NEW YORK METS
They’re 13 games out of the division lead, 9.5 behind a wild-card
spot, and somehow still fascinating. They say they’ll be sellers now, and
whereas the focus will be on rent-a-players (you know the list), let’s assert
that potential departures should include Yoenis Cespedes because (A) he’d
arguably bring a bigger return then that aged lot, and (B) as good as he is, as
much fun as he can be, the dude can’t stay healthy.
That’s not the kind of
thing that will get better between now and 2020, given those will be Cespedes’
age-32 through age-34 seasons. His contract gives him no-trade protection, but
maybe he’d enjoy being a member of the Dodgers for a while.
There are
approximately 85.5 million reasons to think about it. Otherwise, ready produce
includes not a great deal more than Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith, though
apparently they will never, ever be ready. At least they could have some
high-quality company in Las Vegas as the big-league team continues to
suppurate.
The Phillies are one of the truly exciting teams of 2017,
because they have the potential to be the mirror-image, the negative
doppelgängers of the Astros or Dodgers. Those teams might win 110 games. The
Phillies might lose 110. If they meet, the universe will end, as in that Star
Trek episode. Sayeth Mr. Spock, “Jim, madness has no purpose, or reason, but it
may have a goal.” Seems like there’s an internal contradiction there, Leonard,
but OK, let us assert that the Phillies do have a goal — to improve. Last
season, they went 71-91 with a team that in a fairer world would have lost 100
games. Their current pace is for 108 losses, and you’d be hard pressed to say
madness’s goal is being served.
With the exception of Aaron Nola, the starters
have been bad, and here’s the thing about good starters on bad teams: All
you’ve done is wind the clock closer to the big arm injury; good season or bad,
it’s still mileage. Player-wise, Nick Williams is up, but Rhys Hoskins waits
behind a weak player, Maikel Franco has died in the majors and J.P. Crawford
has died at Triple-A. Yes, yes, Scott Kingery, yes, Sixto Sanchez, but they’re
not enough. The revolution is not coming.
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PITTSBURGH PIRATES
They regained Andrew McCutchen’s bat and lost seemingly
everyone else. Just to be part of the gang, McCutchen sacrifices most of his
offense to bad defense, so it all evens out. Otherwise, this is very much a
team in stasis. The players to win a World Series aren’t here in sufficient
depth on either side of the ball. Key prospects, such as Austin Meadows and
Kevin Newman, are rowing backwards this year.
The return to relevance that
began in 2013 may be over. The question is (A) will the pitching reinforcements
(Tyler Glasnow, Mitch Keller) surface in time to form a real rotation before
the current major-league starters entropy (that is, are injured, traded,
raptured), and (B) even if they do, will there be hitters around to support
them? They’re not in evidence now.
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Their chances are just a little worse than that of the Cubs,
so it’s probably time to think about next year. They’ve been properly pragmatic
about salvaging their season — some teams embrace a self-defeating loyalty that
defeats real improvement. No so with the Cards, who have had no hesitation
about pushing Almedys Diaz, Randal Grichuk, Matt Adams and Jhonny Peralta to
the margins (or out entirely) when they failed to perform.
You can argue that
if they had figured these things out as the end of spring training they might
actually be winning their division right now, given the weakness of the teams
above them and a Pythagorean record that suggests they be over .500 with better
luck. By that standard, we might also admit that Alex Reyes’ torn UCL might
have been a deal-breaker before things had even gotten started.
SAN DIEGO PADRES
They’re out-playing their projected record by seven games,
which is kind of a disaster given they were counting on another top-three draft
pick. Yes, the Padres can’t even tank right. They’ve given a great many kids
playing time, which is what they should be doing, but none has exactly run with
the opportunity. Maybe we have to wait for SD:TNNG, San Diego: The Next Next
Generation. Fortunately, that show
includes Fernando Tatis and Cal Quantrill, so maybe it will be the one to take.
SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS
The Giants are on their way to losing 100 games for the
first time since 1985. That’s an accomplishment, because this organization has been so good
for so long it was also the team’s only season over 98 losses. That edition had
Will Clark, Robby Thompson and Chris Brown waiting to contribute. This one
doesn’t. The good news is everyone except Eduardo Nunez is signed for another
year (arbitration eligibility notwithstanding).
The bad news is that everyone
except Eduardo Nunez is signed for another year, even Denard Span. We’re all
Span-fans here, not least because his beard has more grey than mine does.
Unfortunately, grey also describes his defensive play these days. This helps
explain one of the Giants’ problems, specifically that they’re second to last in
the league in defensive efficiency. Since they can’t hit, undermining a weak
pitching staff with shoddy glovework seems like a bad idea.
WASHINGTON NATIONALS
They’re nine games up in the loss column, so clearly they’re
going to the big dance. The back end of the rotation is weak, but that will
matter less in October, when they can lean on Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez, and
Stephen Strasburg. Their weekend trade with the Oakland A’s for Ryan Madson and
Sean Doolittle may finally patch the leaky bullpen.
It suggests that ownership
is actually interested in winning a championship, which heretofore had not been
certain. Whether that translates into a championship or not is obviously TBD,
and also waits on future injuries for which replacements may not be on hand.
“Wilmer Difo?” is a complete sentence, albeit you have to know what the verb
“to Difo” means and who Mer is. It’s not a puzzle you want to try to solve
between April and October, which is why Stephen Drew is playing a lot.
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