Soon enough we will know if the first impressions of Major League Baseball in 2020 will be the last impressions. On the best clubs, it is standard operating procedure for teammates to hold each other to a higher standard, to address problems and call out mistakes, and this is what has happened since the Miami Marlins ' coronavirus outbreak last weekend.
From the outset of the March shutdown, the best possible context for an attempt to play baseball in 2020 was a strong, collaborative, cooperative relationship between MLB and the players. This is simply not the reality; rather, that relationship is just one more hurdle to overcome. Theoretically, they are all in this together, but recent tweets by David Price and Anthony Rizzo expressing their concerns reflect the chasm that exists.
Commissioner Rob Manfred's statement to ESPN's Karl Ravech referenced dissatisfaction with players. "We are playing," Manfred said. "The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable."
The Cubs' Jon Lester answered back, "I don't know Rob's situation, and I don't want to put my foot in my mouth on that one. But I do know we -- not only the players, but families -- are making sacrifices, day in and day out ... I'll stop there."
Mistakes have been made on both sides in a daunting situation in which the margin for error is so small. Hundreds of players have been asked to change lifetimes of personal habits and choices, and MLB is learning daily in response to possible weaknesses in the extensive health and safety protocol. Comments from players such as Price and Rizzo about the protocol, on the other hand, pressure the suits to do better, do more, patch over the gaps.
Manfred shared the onus of the challenge with Tony Clark, the head of the players' union, in their call on Friday. Since the March shutdown, there has been too little collaboration and cooperation between management and the players, the two sides often pulling at opposite ends of the industry rope. But if all want to continue in 2020 -- and some agents guestimate that about 80-85% of the players are fully invested in making this shortened season happen, with other players likely to follow Isan Diaz and Lorenzo Cain in opting out of the season -- then the collective discipline must improve.
"It affects every person and staff member, and you don't know those staff members or those players may go back to at home, and who has previous [health] conditions," Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow told reporters Friday. "So to act irresponsibly and go out and do some self-serving act is pretty ridiculous. I hope guys understand that you have to make sacrifices for 60 days or whatever it is, and there's no excuse to just go out and go to bars right now."
Eight teams have experienced postponements; 22 have not. A lot of games are being played. Here is some of what is being seen and said:
• In this unprecedented situation, a lot of teams attempted to find a solution about how to steer their pitchers' preparation through the shutdown, and the Cleveland Indians pitchers and staff might have handled it better than anyone.
"Our guys did an incredible job in our time apart," said Chris Antonetti, who heads up the Indians' baseball operations.
When baseball went dark in mid-March, the Indians reduced the volume of throwing that their pitchers were doing, into April and May. As speculation began to build about when baseball would resume, Cleveland staffers treated June 10 as the effective start of the second spring training, creating a work calendar around that date to have the throwing programs of the pitchers built up as they are in early February.
As it turned out, the summer camp didn't start until the first week of July, but the Indians' starting pitchers were three weeks into regimented preparation, built up to throw 30-45 pitches, and they continued to progress through intrasquad and exhibition games. "The players worked their asses off," Antonetti said. "The coaches did an extraordinary job."
There is only a small sample size of results, and the anecdotal evidence likely built upon at least some degree of good fortune. But while injures have devastated so many teams, the Indians' pitchers have thrived, particularly the starters. Through Friday's games, Cleveland's rotation had contributed 51 innings in eight games, which was 10 ⅔ more innings than the next-best teams (Cubs, Padres and Diamondbacks). Indians' starters allowed just 37 hits and eight walks, with 72 strikeouts -- 27 of those by Shane Bieber.
A rival general manager believes it's obvious that some of the injuries around the game are a matter of players not being physically prepared to make the leap from training to adrenaline-fueled competition. "This is why we play the exhibition games, to ramp up the players gradually," he said. "This year, we weren't able to do that."
• The Mariners' Kyle Lewis appears to have turned the corner, at the age of 25. He was the 11th pick in the draft in 2016 but had his development slowed by a knee injury in the minor leagues. Promoted to the big leagues last September, he is blistering hot at the outset of games, with 15 hits in the Mariners' first eight games, batting .455.
"In a word, I'd say confidence," said Jerry Dipoto, Seattle's general manager. "He's improved in all areas -- he's always made good swing decisions and hit the ball really hard -- but now he's doing it very consistently. He's running well, which has led to continued improvement in the outfield and on the bases, where he looks very comfortable."
• Last year, Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez improved his career OPS from .540 to .798, and one could wonder if this might've been the case of an outlier season. But Vazquez had a great first week this season, clubbing four home runs.
"He is not settling to hit the ball the other way," said one longtime evaluator. "He's looking to do damage. He worked hard in the offseason to change his swing path."
Back when Vazquez, a right-handed hitter, often took the ball the other way, he was often asked to hit and run, but he has become one of Boston's primary sources of power. He and the Red Sox will play the Yankees on Sunday Night Baseball at 7 p.m.
• Giancarlo Stanton continues to look like he's back to the performance level in 2017, when he was the National League MVP in his last season with the Marlins. Stanton played well in the summer intrasquad and exhibition games, and in the Yankees' first six games, he has eight hits in 19 at-bats, with two homers, four walks and four strikeouts.
The Yankees' staff believes he has been helped significantly by his work with performance coach Eric Cressey, who was hired last offseason to oversee the team's training and strength and conditioning departments. In a phone conversation the other day, Cressey remembered the first conversation he had with Stanton about a new direction with the slugger's training. "We are going to make you do things that are uncomfortable," Cressey said to Stanton, "but are going to help you."
Baseball is a unique sport, Cressey said, in that it is loaded with repetition -- the swings of a hitter, throwing a baseball -- but is also "insanely unpredictable," because of the physical adaptations required in fielding, in running the bases, in adjusting to the movement of opposing fielders.
"He was very open-minded," Cressey recalled. "He's someone who can put on muscle mass quickly ... [but] it's not just how strong you are, but how you use that force? Can you be powerful and not just strong? Can you do it through a significant range of motion?"
At the outset of the Yankees' camp in spring training, Stanton looked suited for a powerlifting competition, but he appears to have dropped about 15 to 20 pounds through the revamped training he has done with Tim Lentych and other Yankees staffers and is now down to about the same weight he played at in Miami.
"He is starting to appreciate that what you did at age 20 doesn't necessarily work at 30, or 35," Cressey said. "He's a very, very quick learner and a very good communicator -- he's not afraid to tell you something that's not a good fit for him."
• Mike Yastrzemski continues to play well for the Giants, in his second season in the big leagues. Just 16 months ago, San Francisco got him in a minor deal with the Baltimore Orioles for pitcher Tyler Herb, and Yastrzemski had a strong rookie showing, posting an .852 OPS in 107 games. So far this year, he's got a 1.321 OPS, and as one evaluator noted the left-handed hitter looks completely comfortable against left-handers, as well as right-handed hitters, and he's very good at consistently getting the ball in the air with authority.
• The Blue Jays hired Dante Bichette as a coach during the shutdown, and with his experience and positive demeanor, he appears to be having an impact with a lineup of young hitters (including Bo Bichette, his son) in honing their hitting approaches to specific ball-strike counts -- sometimes attacking, sometimes cutting down on a swing with two strikes -- to focus on putting the ball in play.
• Mookie Betts' 305-foot throw against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday captured the imagination of people around the game, and among the Dodgers:
Mookie with a HOSE. pic.twitter.com/1CTJpf3nZp
— MLB (@MLB) August 1, 2020
"I got to witness that throw and [Yasiel] Puig's in Colorado," said George Lombard, the Dodgers' first-base and outfield coach. (Here's the Puig throw, in case you missed it.) "Both throws I could only dream about making. I would need a fungo to get it there. Incredible."
I posed this question: Betts' throw was the best you've seen since ...?
Buck Showalter: "The two throws by Rick Ankiel in Colorado. When I said Mookie Betts was the best right fielder I've ever seen, I wasn't kidding. He was such a field-tilter in Fenway."
Ross Stripling: "Puig, 2016 in Colorado. Threw a guy out from the bullpens trying to stretch it into a triple."
The Padres' Ryan Flaherty: "Vladimir Guerrero Sr. against the Mets."
• Jim Crane told USA Today that the Astros didn't tank, which is, of course, ridiculous and incredibly disingenuous. To review: Houston finished the 2013 season with exactly one player making at least $1 million. In the year Crane bought the Astros, in 2011, Houston fielded a team with a payroll of $77 million -- and that was slashed to $61 million the following year, $26 million in 2013 and $50 million in 2014. The Astros were the first team to lose at least 106 games in three consecutive seasons since the expansion Mets did so from 1962 to 1965, and year after year, the Astros picked players such as Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman and touted pitching prospect Mark Appel at the top of the draft.
Their strategy clearly worked, and has been copied by other teams, and Crane can feel good about that if he chooses. But to suggest that they didn't design and groom the team for on-field failure so they'd have greater access to better draft talent (while maximizing profit) in those first formative years of his ownership is absurd.
Baseball Tonight Podcast
Friday: Jessica Mendoza discusses the postponement of the Cardinals-Brewers games, the dominance of Shane Bieber, seven-inning doubleheaders and the suspension of Joe Kelly; Todd Radom talks about the best parts of T-Mobile Park and The Kingdome, before this week's quiz.
Thursday: David Schoenfield on the surprisingly harsh suspension of Joe Kelly, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts; Alex Speier of the Boston Globe on the suddenly murky outlook for the Red Sox.
Wednesday: Karl Ravech talks about Joe Kelly's actions in Houston, and how players are flexing their muscles in pushing the health and safety protocol; Paul Hembekides brings the numbers; and a tribute to Orioles superfan Mo Gaba.
Tuesday: Jesse Rogers talks about the Marlins' COVID-19 outbreak, and Scott Lauber of the Philadelphia Inquirer on the Phillies' difficult situation, and the tart comments from the Red Sox ownership group about the Mookie Betts deal.
Monday: Tim Kurkjian and Sarah Langs on the Marlins' situation; Sarah Langs plays the Numbers Game.