CLEVELAND -- Sandy Leon was raised by his parents to be respectful, to treat others the right way, to act the right way. He could have fun and run around and play with his friends in Maracaibo, Venezuela, but at the Leon dinner table, children were expected to be quiet unless addressed by others.
Years later, after the catcher first joined the Boston Red Sox in 2015 in a series of events that have turned out to be freak luck for the franchise, he was reticent at the outset of pitching meetings, in which strategy for beating opposing hitters is discussed. Leon is reserved in his words, anyway, to a degree that Rick Porcello notices Leon sometimes expresses his displeasure over a pitcher's execution by throwing the ball a little harder back to the mound rather than saying something.
But in those first meetings, somebody would ask Leon for his thoughts on a particular matter, and what emerged in Leon's relatively sparse utterances was uniformly substantive, saturated in thought and preparation and nuance.
"That's where the pitchers learned to trust him," recalled former Red Sox manager John Farrell. "His steadiness is a constant for all of them."
Leon, 29, is now regarded as one of the majors' best defensive catchers, and his preeminence behind the plate is why Porcello, a Cy Young award-winner, has worked almost exclusively with Leon in recent years -- and why the Red Sox staff sometimes will use Leon in situations in which they need a pitcher to affect a specific adjustment. Boston will carry a staggering record of (105-50) into Sunday Night Baseball against the Cleveland Indians -- with a higher winning percentage in games in which Leon has played.
Leon slow-cooks his preparation as Red Sox catcher, two days of marinating a game plan. If Rick Porcello is set to start on a Friday, then Leon will watch videotape of the opposing lineup on the Wednesday before that start. In Leon's mental man cave, swings and streaks and slumps are noted, the pre-start appetizer.
Over the 48 hours that follow, Leon likes to mull over that information and sprinkle other intelligence fragments he gleans, within the context of that particular start. Who is swinging well, who is not, what pitch might confound. Leon envisions pitch sequences to specific hitters, as seen through the perspective of the pitcher he will see on the mound. It's elementary to know that Francisco Lindor is red-hot and is killing inside fastballs, and it's next-level -- the place where Leon exists -- to develop an understanding how Porcello's fastball will play against Lindor's current swing and how Porcello's fastball could be augmented and complemented by the order of pitch selection.
Dana LeVangie, a longtime Red Sox staffer who is now their pitching coach, remembers watching Jason Varitek in the pitching meetings when Varitek was the catcher. Varitek would have notes and reports laid out in front of him, looking over those as he listened to what was being said by others in the room. When somebody said something that snagged Varitek's attention, the catcher lifted his eyes and would pose questions or thoughts to flush out the information. In the quality of engagement in the pitching meetings, LeVangie says Leon is second to only Varitek among all of the catchers he has seen. "He's very consistent in his approach," said LeVangie.
Leon didn't really start collecting the acumen required at his position until he was 18 years old. He had been an infielder and was surprised, at age 16, when he was asked by a scout to attempt to catch. He was dubious, but his mother woke him at 6:30 a.m. on the day of the workout and told him this was something he needed to do. Leon remembers having a terrible showing that day, running and throwing very poorly, but the Nationals signed him anyway. The first time he caught in a game was at age 18, in the Gulf Coast League.
But Leon drew upon Venezuela's fraternity of catchers, including former Braves catcher Eddie Perez and former Giants catcher Guillermo Quiroz, asking a lot of questions. When he played in the minors, Bob Henley -- then a Class-A manager and currently a coach for the Nationals -- made a point of offering him some bit of knowledge daily. "He's my dad for me here," Leon said of Henley, laughing.
At the outset of spring training in 2015, Leon had played in just 34 games in the majors and was out of options, and other teams anticipated the Nationals might try to deal him. The Red Sox believed they were set at catcher, with Christian Vazquez and Blake Swihart on the rise -- but Vazquez tore his ulnar collateral ligament. Former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington remembers scout Bob Hamelin's strong reports about Leon's defense, and the Boston bought him from the Nationals at the end of camp. After the 2015 season, he was taken off the roster, exposed to waivers and eligible to be claimed by any team -- but stayed with Boston, which is fortunate to still have him.
Craig Kimbrel spun the breaking ball that clinched the AL East title the other night at Yankee Stadium, the pitch swerving under the desperate swing of Giancarlo Stanton, and Leon's reaction was everything anyone who has worked with him would expect.
Leon caught the pitch on a bounce and quickly tagged Stanton, affirming the out, then Leon jabbed a clenched fist in celebration and pointed at Kimbrel for just an instant, for executing the pitch. He moved toward the mound and happily threw his arm around Kimbrel's neck, another acknowledgement of the pitcher's preeminence in that moment. Aid and defer; aid and defer.
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As more and more relievers are deployed and the 200-inning starting pitcher becomes more and more of an endangered species, the Cy Young voters will be faced with philosophical choice: What is more worthy of the award -- a high volume of excellence, or the highest quality?
Justin Verlander has not dominated hitters the way Chris Sale has in 2018. Sale has a better strikeout rate, a better ERA, a lower WHIP. But he also has thrown about 50 fewer innings than Verlander's 202. The Astros righty is having an outstanding season with a 2.67 ERA, a league-high 32 starts, 269 strikeouts and only 36 walks. Verlander has faced 792 batters this season, Sale almost 200 fewer -- 595.
Similarly, the Rays' Blake Snell and the Indians' Trevor Bauer -- two other pitchers mentioned in the Cy Young Award conversation -- will finish the season with anywhere from 30 to 45 innings fewer than Verlander.
Snell, Bauer and Sale will not come close to reaching 200 innings. Only one starting pitcher has won a Cy Young Award for a non-strike season while throwing fewer than 200 innings -- Clayton Kershaw, who threw 198⅓ innings for the Dodgers in 2014. It's possible that with starters generally throwing fewer innings and relievers absorbing more, and with fewer starting pitchers achieving 200 innings, the volume of work won't be seen as important as it once was.
But the writers then would have to take a much different look at relievers than they have in the past quarter-century of Cy Young Award voting. In '16, the Orioles' Zach Britton constructed arguably the best season of work for any reliever ever, and he got only five first-place votes and finished a distant fourth place. This year, Josh Hader is as dominant a reliever as the sport has ever seen, striking out 136 of the 283 batters he has faced, allowing only 13 extra-base hits. In counts with two strikes, he has overpowered opponents:
0-2 count: 2-for-43, 32 strikeouts.
1-2 count: 3-for-75, 57 strikeouts.
2-2 count: 1-for-42, 32 strikeouts.
3-2 count: 3-for-25, 15 strikeouts.
Totals: 9-for-175, 136 strikeouts.
Hader's possible inclusion in the Cy Young Award discussion probably ended the night of the All-Star Game, when racist and homophobic words from his Twitter past emerged. But voters have veered away dramatically from relievers over the past quarter-century. Mariano Rivera, widely regarded as the best reliever of all time, never won a Cy Young Award and finished second in the voting once. Former closer Trevor Hoffman, recently inducted into the Hall of Fame after finishing his career with a National League-record 601 saves, finished second in the Cy Young voting twice and received votes in only four of his 18 years.
As the production gap between the best relievers and the best starting pitchers grows smaller and smaller, the bullpen guys probably should gain greater consideration -- and if not, the high-volume production pitchers like Justin Verlander should get extra credit for the additional work they take on.
• Since A.J. Hinch and Dave Roberts managed against each other in the World Series last fall, Hinch received a long-term extension from the Astros. Houston held a club option on Hinch for 2019, but as the two sides negotiated during the summer, there was an understanding: Either they would work out a deal, or Hinch would move on to his next opportunity.
The Dodgers hold an option on Roberts's deal for 2019, but to date, the two sides haven't really talked about an extension or the option. For now, the focus has been on trying to win the organization's first championship in 30 years.
But the longer Roberts' situation drags out, the more leverage he might possess. Soon enough, the San Francisco Giants will be looking for their next manager. The contract of Bruce Bochy, a future Hall of Famer, is set to expire after next year, and with the club's championship window apparently closed after three straight seasons of missing the playoffs, Bochy has been answering questions about whether he'll return next year.
Whenever and however Bochy departs, Roberts would be a natural candidate for the Giants because of his experience, his exposure to analytics through his work with the Dodgers' front office and his success. The Dodgers appear poised to win the NL West again. And because of Roberts' time with the Giants, the folks who run that organization know him and he knows them.
A jump of a manager from the Giants to the Dodgers is not without precedent. Leo Durocher managed the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939-46, and not long after Durocher quashed a player petition against Jackie Robinson in spring training in 1947, he was suspended for a year by commissioner Happy Chandler for off-field behavior. Durocher returned in 1948, but his relationship with Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey had frayed; midway through that season, Rickey arranged Durocher's move to the New York Giants, a team Durocher managed for 7½ seasons. Durocher was in the third-base coach's box when Bobby Thomson hit his pennant-winning home run against the Dodgers in 1951.
• Speculation about possible change in San Francisco has centered around the future of Bochy, but the Giants have also quietly asked around about adding a high-profile baseball operations executive to their front office. Last winter, the Giants' ownership asked Brian Sabean to assume more of the day-to-day work, but that is regarded as only a temporary adjustment. The Giants are looking for someone who would assume significant responsibility.
• The Indians' journey to the playoffs this year has seemingly looked and seemed somewhat joyless. With the Royals, Tigers and White Sox all rebuilding, Cleveland went to spring training as heavy favorites to repeat as the AL Central champions. And as the Indians steadily took care of business over the summer, they've worked through various injuries and issues -- Andrew Miller's knee, a thin bullpen, a need for improved production from right field, Trevor Bauer's late-season stint on the disabled list after he was hit by a line drive. But the Indians seem to be gathering momentum in their effort to get through their pre-playoff checklist.
Miller is back and showing good stuff again, with his fastball in the mid-90s, and he has another two weeks to refine his command. The same is true for Bauer, who looked fine in a short first outing Friday. Josh Donaldson, acquired Aug. 31 by the Indians, has gradually improved in the quality of his at-bats, and he has been running the bases aggressively, an important step for a player who has contended with calf problems.
And today will be better than yesterday.