One final World Baseball Classic thought before the image of that thrilling Shohei Showdown with Los Angeles teammate Mike Trout for the final out of Japan’s title-game win over Team USA fades fully into the background of this MLB season.
Will the U.S. team actually be able to put together a pitching staff representative of the country’s best arms — like the other powers in the WBC do?
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred recently suggested that persuading teams and players of the value of that for the whole game is part of it and added that from a team standpoint the league provides insurance to protect their investments (see: Edwin Diaz, New York Mets).
But, really, it might all come down to guys like Mike Trout.
The best American player chose to play this year for the first time and proved an able recruiter to attract other top hitters to the roster.
But when it came to pitchers, Team USA might have had a competitive staff but nothing close to the front-end caliber of Japan’s Shohei Ohtani-Yu Darvish tandem or Sandy Alcantara with the Dominican Republic, Julio Urias with Team Mexico, or Venezuela’s Pablo Lopez-Martin Perez-Luis Garcia trio.
“The national pride issue really drives players to say to their clubs, ‘I need to do this; I really need to do this.’ It’s part of nationalism and patriotism,” Manfred told Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman on their New York Post podcast. “That’s another powerful force.”
So how powerful is Trout?
“Mike Trout said he wanted to play next time. I hope that turns out to be true. He usually is very good to his word, ad I’m sure it will be,” Manfred said.
“But I bet he’s gonna want to make sure he has the very best arms with him, and I think the U.S. team is going to have more of that peer pressure to participate in the event give its significance internationally.”
This year’s WBC — six years after the last one because of pandemic delays — already had the largest field (20 teams) and set attendance and viewership records, according to WBC officials.
“We’ve got work to do, but I think we can make the next one even better than the one that we just had,” Manfred said.
Related: Sportsnaut’s updated MLB power rankings
Way too early NL Cy Young watch
After a first season with the Chicago Cubs marked by first-half health issues, look whose Opening Day starter hasn’t allowed a run in 12 innings over two starts to beat alleged contenders in the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers.
Marcus Stroman, a 2019 All-Star, even has a robust 10.5-per-9 strikeout rate to go with all those ground balls through two starts.
He credits the ramp-up to, and competition of, the World Baseball Classic for the strong start.
“I feel it puts you in that competitive mind frame and gets you going much earlier than spring training, where you can go through the motions at that time,” he said after Friday’s win over the Rangers.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Stroman, who pitched for Puerto Rico in the WBC this year, had a career year in 2017 after his first foray into WBC play (for Team USA), winning a career-high 13 games with 201 innings for the Toronto Blue Jays and earning Cy Young votes and a Gold Glove.
Of note: Stroman, who signed a three-year, $71 million deal before last season, has an opt-out clause he may exercise after this season.
Way too early AL MVP watch
The irrepressible Rays have won all nine games to start the season, and get a load of the budding superstar leading the way a year after signing that 11-year, $182 million deal.
Shortstop Wander Franco is 13-for-37 (.351) with a 1.157 OPS through those nine games, with his fourth homer of the year in Sunday’s blowout win over the Oakland A’s.
Now we’ll see what happens when the Rays move on from the woeful Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals and A’s.
In with the old
Throwback Thursday? It’s throwback everyday in baseball this year with the quicker pace of play, increased action and all the nine-figure contracts promising big paydays to players into their late-30s and beyond.
Just how hip and new is old looking these days?
Witness:
Forty-two-freaking-year-old Nelson Cruz, one of the best hitters of a generation or two, just hit a three-run homer and drove in three more runs Sunday night to help the San Diego Padres whup the Atlanta Braves 10-2. He’s the third-oldest player in history to drive in six runs in a game, behind only Carlton Fisk (43 in 1991) and Barry Bonds (42 but two months older, in 2007). He’s also the second-oldest Padre (Rickey Henderson) to ever hit a homer.
They oughta be offering senior discounts Friday at Minute Maid Park when the Texas Rangers open a three-game series against the Houston Astros. At 73, Houston’s Dusty Baker is the oldest manager in the game; Bruce Bochy, who was hired out of retirement by the Rangers this year, turns 68 Sunday. Few who have ever managed in the game have been more successful than either of them.
Baker and Bochy haven’t faced off as managers since Baker’s Nationals beat Bochy’s Giants in a three-game series in August 2017.
“I’m glad he’s back,” Baker said when Bochy was hired. “One more for the old dudes.”
Short hops
Surprised this issue didn’t get more attention in the run-up to the pitch clock/quicker games this season. Leave it to the team with the beer maker for a mascot to extend alcohol sales at the ballpark past the seventh inning — “for the first time in memory,” according to one longtime Brewers beat writer.
They’re “experimenting” with a one-inning extension of beer sales, through the eighth inning, to offset “the fact that the games are shorter,” business operations president Rick Schlesinger told Adam McCalvy of MLB.Com.
The Rays have the longest season-opening winning streak since the 2003 Kansas City Royals also won nine. The last to start the season with a longer streak: The 1987 Brewers (11). The Rays also lead the majors with 75 runs scored and have allowed the fewest among AL teams (18).
The most anticipated MLB prospect debut of the early going was so anticipated in Baltimore that the Orioles plan a “Welcome to the Show” T-shirt giveaway at home for Grayson Rodriguez’s second big-league start Tuesday.
Rodriguez, Baseball America’s sixth-ranked prospect in baseball when the season began, was called up after Kyle Bradish was forced to the injured list because of a foot injury suffered when hit by a line drive in the fourth game of the season. The Orioles’ rotation ERA when Bradish left that game: 9.88.
Jason Heyward, the Gold Glove outfielder signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers after the Cubs released him with a year left on his $184 million contract, has three homers in his first four starts for the Dodgers with a 1.375 OPS in his first 16 plate appearances overall. “New environment sometimes sparks a little bit of change, a freshness, a willingness to change, to make adjustments,” former teammate, manager and longtime friend David Ross of the Cubs said, ”and new voices can help out anybody.”
Heyward hit just one homer last year, among 62 in seven seasons for the Cubs (.700 OPS as a Cub). The Dodgers visit the Cubs at the end of next week.
The Cubs had the women’s national soccer team’s game against Ireland in Texas on TV in the clubhouse Saturday when Mallory Swanson, wife of Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, suffered a serious knee injury and was carted off the field in visible pain. “I asked him if he was all right,” Ross said. “He said, ‘Yeah, it’s time to go to work.’ … He was playing with a lot of emotion, a heavy heart.” Swanson delivered two hits and a walk to key a victory over the Rangers that afternoon.
Speaking of the Cubs, anybody who’s been to a game at Wrigley Field that last 50 or 60 years has heard the old ditty “It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame” played before pregame activities. One slight change to the song was made this year, as noticed by observant Chicago Tribune columnist Paul Sullivan: The line “It’s a beautiful day for the ladies, so throw all your dishes away” has been edited to remove the second half about the dishes. About time.
Is it a coincidence that the change comes after the first full season both major daily newspapers in Chicago have employed women to cover the team as full-time beat writers? About time for that one, too.
Quote of the week: Bochy, when talking about what he missed during his three seasons away from dugout: “A lot of things. Seeing you guys [in the media]. I haven’t see you all in a while.” He mentioned a few other things, but they weren’t important.
Gordon Wittenmyer covers Major League Baseball for Sportsnaut. You can follow him on Twitter.
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