The home run derby was the best ever, in my opinion. The clock kept the thing going, no longer do we have to watch guys take 5 pitches in a row. The biggest addition was by subtraction- never have I missed anyone less than Chris Berman trying to make it all about himself.
You should keep old Carlos around, though. He might have one more magical postseason in him.
As for the Dodgers, they’re a little off the pace, but they could make a run at the 2001 Mariners record 116 wins.
I somewhat accidentally watched it last year: I happened to be in a bar on the night the Derby was being played, and reluctantly paid a bit of attention to it. It turns out you’re absolutely right: making it a race against the clock, alng with having the bonus time for long balls makes it a lot of fun. I actually made plans to go out and watch it this year. Too bad the two most exciting parts of the event happened in the first round, with Sanchez beating Stanton and then Bour and Judge each cracking over 20 homers apiece.
One thing that did surprise me was that players are still bringing their kid brothers or their dads to pitch to them. When you can wait for a decent pitch, it doesn’t matter who’s throwing it, but it really seemed like some of the players, Sano especially, were really done a disservice by their pitchers
I love watching Taylor, but I’m not convinced he’s this good, yet. I’m anticipating cooling off from both him and Bellinger in the second half (you could argue Bellinger is already cooling off in some ways). But the pitching and the offense is good enough that they will still win the majority of their games. While Arizona is a solid team, I also don’t think they’re quite as good as they’ve been playing either.
I also love that Puig, who is on pace to hit 25-30 homers this season, is legitimately slotted in the 8-hole.
Switching to my other team, I can’t figure the Indians out. They keep showing flashes of last year’s brilliance, and my boy Lonnie Chisenhall, Bradley Zimmer and Jose Ramirez are playing lights out. But they can’t seem to put it together for any sustained period. I don’t think Minnesota is going anywhere, but the Royals scare me. The AL Central is no gimme for the reigning champs this season.
Well, there’s the fact that they’re a really good team.
People may not LOVE the Dodgers, but you really don’t have to spend a lot of effort building a case for a team that’s 61-29. They do everything really well, and do nothing badly.
The thing is, they haven’t had any luck going 61-29. That is really how well they’ve played; their Pythagorean projection is 62-28. They haven’t even been lucky injury-wise, which winning teams usually are - the Dodgers have in fact had a fair number of injuries.
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The clock kept the thing going, no longer do we have to watch guys take 5 pitches in a row.
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They added the clock last year or the year before, IIRC. The clock is such a brilliant idea you wonder why no one thought of it 20 years before. It never even occurred to me, and I think about baseball basically all day every day 365 days a year, and when they did that I was like “holy crap, that is just the smartest damn idea.”
Aaron Judge is ludicrously strong, and I wonder if teams aren’t going to rush out looking for giants now. Being very tall is disadvantageous in baseball in terms of expanding your strike zone, but Judge’s enormous strength allows him to hit home run distance baseball with relatively little movement and effort; his swing is extremely economical, which allows him to use precision to hit the ball with X force that would require a normal sized man to swing right out of his shoes.
AS to this, I am kind of puzzled as to why Fisher is still in the minors, too - he’s tearing up the PCL - but I guess you don’t want to mess around too much with success. If Fisher replaces Beltran, the moment the Astros have a 2-8 run everyone will say it’s because they replaced old Carlos the “leader.”
I really love this version of Puig too. He’s thriving and it’s great to have a genuine threat down in the lineup and not have to worry about losing at bat’s.
I think this is Bellinger cooled off. He’s hitting 2 or 3 dingers a week. His power is legit and his ability to draw walks has been consistent as a prospect. He’s always been kind of an all or nothing hitter. But his defensive quality surprised me. He looks good in the outfield.
They talk on the broadcast (which I can watch because I’m out of market) about the hitting philosophy that LA has and I think that is helping everyone. The team seems to walk like crazy. Now that I’m thinking about it I should probably check the stats to see if that’s actually real or just perception. But anyway they talk a lot about how the teams ability to not chase forces them to see more strike which is at least partly why they hit so much.
Now I should go check and see if Orel is actually trustworthy when he talks about that.
Judge is amazing; he has so much power that when he gets under the ball it still leaves. I noticed early in his time last season that I had to adjust for his power. What sounds like an easy fly ball can and often does still go for a homerun.
He won his rounds in the derby with time left on the clock.
If he stays healthy he is going to be a huge star. It took him a while to get to the majors but I noticed each step of the way, he would struggle and then adjust and get very hot. Last year was a struggle with the 50% strike out rate; this year will go down as the greatest rookie season ever if he matches even 80% of his first half.
We baseball folk don’t think in terms of game clock. Clock? Pfft. Some basketball guy probably came up with the idea. I agree, however, that for the HR Derby event the clock is great. But when we play whiffle ball HR Derby in the backyard (which I just did 2 days ago) we still play 10 outs.
I feel like someone like Bryce Harper had a ten minute round a year or two before they instituted the clock, just watching pitch after pitch sail by him.
This is actually an interesting claim; what ARE the best rookie seasons, and could Judge top them?
First, where is Judge? Right now he has 5.3 WAR and his team has played 86 games, so he is on pace for 10 WAR, an astounding season. If he matched “Even 80%” he’d still be at 9.1 WAR, a remarkable, MVP level year. Has any other rookie ever had 9.1 WAR?
WEll, as you likely know there have been two rookie MVPs, Fred Lynn and Ichiro. Ichiro had 7.7 WAR in his rookie year, which is great but Judge would top that. Fred Lynn was a hair below that at 7.4.
One rookie won a Cy Young: Fernando Valenzuela. Regrettably that was in 1981, a two-thirds season, but Fernando had 4.7 WAR, which extrapolates out to 7.2 so I think it very safe to say he would not have equalled our proposed Aaron Judge year.
Other notable rookie seasons:
MIKE TROUT. Trout in 2012 posted a 10.8 WAR, which so far is the modern record for a rookie hitter. Trout’s year was stupid; he led the league in OPS+ and stolen bases, had a great year in the outfield, everything. Judge would if anything have to pick it up a little to match Trout’s year. That said, part of the reason Trout gets to 10.8 is that he is rated as a wonderful defensive outfielder, but since then has never been rated especially highly as a fielder, so there COULD be some illusion there. If Judge can get close to 10 WAR I’d be happy to say they’re equal, espeically if Judge can drag his team to the playoffs.
DICK ALLEN. Allen in 1964 had a ludicrous year for the Phillies, posting abut 9 WAR, so Judge would match him if he does 80% the rest of the way.
SHOELESS JOE JACKSON: Jackson would not have been a rookie by modern rules but he was at the time and wrecked the league, batting .408 and posting 9.2 WAR. Okay, it’s not “modern,” but man that’s some year.
TED WILLIAMS: Williams had a monster rookie year, batting .321 and driving in 145 RBI, but onply clocks in at a mere 6.9 WAR; he was a poor outfielder and it was a high offense environment, I guess. Still, hell of a rookie.
I can’t find a lot of better rookie years. I was intrigued to note the best rookie season for a pitcher I can find in recent history was by - you wanna guess? - Mark Eichhorn, of all people, who posted a ludicrous 7.4 WAR in 1986. Eichhorn actually pitched so much he finished just 5 IP shy of winning the ERA title; he was offered the chance to start on the last day to ensure he’d win it, but refused.
Wow, great analysis. I didn’t even think about Trout’s which was dumb of me. I was actually thinking about Mark McGwire and Joe DiMaggio when I added that bit in. I see McGwire’s WAR was only a 5.1 but the 49 homers & 118 RBIs stand out to me. Joe D. had .323 BA/29HR/125RBIs and only a 4.6 WAR.
Is WAR really the best determination? That is largely player vs other players at the same position for the same year isn’t it? It is a good metric but for a great rookie season I think it should just be measured against other Rookies.
In the end though, it looks like Judge would be 2nd best Rookie after Trout at an 80% second half and maybe even a 100% for that matter. He wouldn’t win WAR; but his Runs, RBIs, Homers & OPS should be more than enough to override WAR in this case.
I actually would have totally missed Trout had he not come up in one of the lists I Googled. It is easy to forget he was a rookie that year because he juuuuuust barely qualified.
I should add that I’m not saying WAR is everything - it’s not a perfect measure (though no, it’s not just versus other players at the same position.) As I pointed out in IIRC the June thread, WAR says Madison Bumgarner is worth 1 WAR this year despite the fact the Giants have lost every game he’s been in, which makes no sense. WAR tends to overvalue players on teams that underperformed their Pythagorean records and vice-versa, and the defensive metrics aren’t as accurate as the offensive ones. It works in general though. Shitty players don’t post 8.5 WAR years.
So if Judge ends the year with 9 WAR but swats 53 homers and the Yankees win a playoff series in which he hits two more homers, and you wanna call that the best rookie year ever, I would not argue for an instant.
Suppose the following comes to pass for Judge: Triple Crown, MVP, Rookie of the Year, World Series Ring, World Series MVP, Gold Glove (probably not in reach) on top of the Home Run Derby crown. I would say without question the best rookie season ever.
I like Judge a lot, he seems to have a great attitude and humility. I just fear that the pitchers will figure out how to handle him and when that gets out, he’ll be a very good player. At the moment, I see him passing Aaron’s home run record (still the king in my book) and maybe Maris for a single season.
Nice dream, but the ROY & MVP are the only ones that look reasonable. Next on the list would be Triple Crown. The Yanks have little chance of getting into the World Series this year. I would be very happy with first rookie to hit 50+ homers.
Only one other rookie has been MVP. Judge would only have to outperform Fred Lynn, which he’s doing, and he’d have the best rookie season ever.
Anyway, a guy with that tall a strike zone must have a hole in it somewhere. The opposition just hasn’t found it yet.
Sure, of course. He would be an atrocious choice for Gold Glove (there have been worse, but Judge is just a good, not great, outfielder) but yeah, if he wins the bloody Triple Crown as a rookie and hoists a World Series trophy, I think most would agree that would be the no-holds-barred best rookie year ever, in ANY sport.
I will literally bet my house - I mean, I will actually agree to this bet, betting my house against an equal amount of cash - Judge does not pass Aaron. He is a wonderful talent but he is 25 years old. By the time he was 25, Hank Aaron had been in the major leagues for five years, had already hit 140 home runs, and won an MVP Award.
Well they found it last year with ease. He is very good at adjusting. If they figure out a hole, he’ll probably adjust in a few weeks.
I agree with RickJay, Aaron passing Aaron is very unlikely. But hey beating Maris for a single season seems reasonable.
We literally mentioned Ichiro Suzuki in this thread, who won the MVP Award in his rookie season.
If you seriously think Ichiro was a rookie, there’s nothing more to discuss.