Charlie’s News at Five: Landmarks and remarks dominate
Two milestones, a controversial umpire, a team that took a gamble and a player who never gave up. Charlie takes a look at the five hottest stories from the past week in MLB.
1. Tim Hudson gets his 200th win
Firstly, congratulations to Tim Hudson on his milestone win.
Hudson pitched seven strong innings of one run ball, leading the Braves to an 8-1 win over the Washington Nationals. He also struck out six, helping his own cause with a double, and then a home run in the fifth inning. He escaped trouble in the seventh inning after allowing a leadoff triple and became only the second pitcher in MLB history to hit a home run whilst winning his 200th game. The other was Bob Lemon in 1956.
How exclusive is the 200 wins club? The only other current active pitchers with 200 wins or more are Andy Pettite with 248 wins and Roy Halladay who has 201 wins under his belt and in total only 110 MLB pitchers have reached this landmark. Achieving the milestone as a Brave was extra special for Hudson, as it was the team he supported when he was growing up in Columbus, Georgia.
An obvious question is how many more wins could Tim achieve? He is 37 years old now, but being a finesse pitcher he could have another five years left at the MLB level, presuming he stays healthy. Since 2010, Hudson has won at least 16 games a year and on that estimate 14 wins per year over the next five years should be possible, and puts him at 270 wins aged 42. Who knows – 300 wins could also be within reach.
2. Readers’ choice – Kansas City Royals go all in
As this week was full of individual player stories, I left the question of which team story I should feature up to you, the readers.
Last season, the Royals were 26th in cumulative starting pitching ERA with 5.01, prompting Kansas GM Dayton Moore to take a huge gamble. Moore traded away a package of four good prospects including top hitting prospect and arguably the best prospect in baseball Wil Myers and top pitching prospect Jake Odorizzi to the Tampa Bay Rays for ace James Shields and Wade Davis. Moore then traded for Ervin Santana, an inconsistent starting pitcher who has ace potential.
To round off his rotation, he re-signed Jeremy Guthrie who had been great in 2012 for Kansas after being traded to them. Move forward to 2013 and so far the gamble has paid off. The Royals cumulative starters ERA stands at 3.85, 12th in MLB. Shields, Santana and Guthrie all have ERA’s of 3.06 or lower, although this is slightly tempered by Davis’ 5.55 ERA. Most importantly the Royals are 15-10 and only half a game behind the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central. A year ago, the Royals were 8-16 at this point in time.
I predicted the Royals to win the second wild card spot in the AL. From what they have done so far, it looks like they have a great chance to achieve that goal. Last season, the Detroit Tigers were dogged by inconsistency and problems at the back of their bullpen. Despite the return of Jose Valverde, Detroit still has questions about its closer. I don’t think Kansas are a 95 win team, but if Detroit falls into the 88 – 92 win range then I believe the Royals would have a very good shot of winning the AL Central.
3. Chris Davis – Making the most of his second chance
In 2008, Chris Davis burst onto the MLB scene for the Texas Rangers by hitting 17 home runs, and 55 RBIs in just 80 games whilst also batting .285. Davis was one of the most hyped prospects in the Texas Rangers system. He faced competition for a spot in the Texas lineup from two other highly rated prospects in Mitch Moreland and Justin Smoak. Davis’ main problem seems to have been his high strikeout rate. In 2009 he struck out 100 times in just his 219th at bat, which was the fewest at bats in which anybody has ever been struck out 100 times. Davis spent most of his time going up and down between the MLB level and AAA. On July 30th 2011 he began a new chapter of his career when he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles with Tommy Hunter for elite reliever Koji Uehara.
In 2012, Davis rewarded his manager, Buck Showalter’s faith in him. Becoming an offensive force, slugging 33 home runs and driving in 88 RBIs in 139 games. Davis started 2013 on fire hammering four home runs just in the first week alone, making it a total of ten home runs in his previous ten games going back to the last few games of 2012. So far in 2013, Chris is the joint home run leader in the AL with 9, he is third in RBIs with 29, second in OPS with an amazing, 1.121 as well as being joint third for WAR with 1.7 wins above replacement so far.
I thought Davis would not be able to carry on his blistering form from 2012. My only caveat to believing Chris can carry on this torrid pace is how much he strikes out. He has already struck out thirty times in only 100 at bats. I was thinking that Davis may just have profited from an inflated BABIP, but so far his BABIP is .375 compared to .366 in 2012. His walk rate has also increased by 8% to 14.6% in 2013.
4. Juan Pierre steals his 600th base
Firstly, well done to Juan Pierre on his milestone achievement.
On Thursday 4th May at Citizens Bank Ballpark, Pierre became only the 14th player in MLB history to achieve 600 stolen bases. After being walked by Phillies starter Kyle Kendrick, Juan advanced to second base on Donovan Solano’s single up the middle. Pierre then swiped third base to achieve his milestone record. Since ascending to the MLB level in 2000, Juan has carved himself a very good career out of being a leadoff hitter and stolen base threat. Pierre averages an incredible 51 stolen bases per 162 game season. His single season high of 68 swipes, came in 2010 with the Chicago White Sox. The ballpark where Pierre has had the most steals was the Marlins old park – Sun Life Stadium, where he had a total of 91 steals. In total, Juan has 600 stolen bases in 798 attempts.
The most important tool for a speedster is their legs. The older a person gets, the slower they get, but at age 35 Pierre doesn’t look like he’s lost much in the way of speed, and he also has great base stealing instincts too. He currently leads the NL in steals with 10, and is also second in all of MLB with Jacoby Ellsbury just ahead of him with 11 steals. Presuming Juan can stay healthy, breaking into the all time top 10 list for steals is very much possible. Bert Campaneris currently occupies tenth place with 649 total bags. Ultimately I could see Pierre finishing in eighth place, Joe Morgan currently holds that spot with 689 total swipes. There is a huge gap to seventh place, where Max Carey has 738 steals. At least for Marlins fans, they have something to celebrate in what is going to be a long season.
5. Umpire Tom Hallion allegedly swears at David Price
On Sunday 28th April, the Rays were playing the Chicago White Sox at US Cellular Field. David Price pitched seven innings for the Rays. Price thought the penultimate pitch of the inning was strike three against Dewayne Wise. Price started to walk off the mound, but Hallion called it a ball. Price got Wise out on the next pitch. He walked off the mound frustrated and this is where the accounts of player and official differ. Price claims Hallion said “Throw the ball over the [expletive] plate”. Seemingly also hearing the word in question, the Rays’ dugout erupted in rage. Unfortunately, Hallion threw Jeremy Hellickson out of the game who he may have mistaken for what another player said. Hellickson is known as one of the quietest, politest and mild mannered players on the Rays team. Hallion denied Price’s accusation, saying all he said to the ace was to “Just throw the ball”. Price then took his frustrations to Twitter, saying he was not a liar and asking where Hallion’s accountability was. Consequently, Hallion and Price were fined $1000 each. Jeremy Hellickson and Matt Moore were also fined $1000 each. The Rays pitcher also claimed he did not want Tom Hallion to be punished or fined, he just wanted an apology from the much maligned umpire.
Whatever the Rays did, they were always going to be on the losing end of this situation. As long as Hallion denied saying the swear word, there was nothing MLB were really going to do, especially with the power of the umpires union backing Hallion. It’s inevitable that Tom will umpire a Rays game again.
Although various ESPN Baseball Tonight analysts have always said “You know the umpire has had a good game when he isn’t mentioned” but opinions of fans who were at the game as well as game reports, suggest it was not a good game for Hallion as his strike zone was inconsistent although Price did profit from some of his more dubious calls.
