The Good and Bad of Interleague Play

Interleague play began yesterday. I am not one of those people who hate interleague play. I actually quite enjoy it. I do however see some flaws in the interleague system like the unbalanced schedule (that really should be changed, one division should all play the same interleague team. It’s unfair for some teams to have to play the Pirates and others to play the Phillies.) And I understand why people may dislike interleague. But there are some good things about interleague play; here is why I like it

Pitchers Batting

I love watching AL pitchers batters hit it’s so enjoyable to see. It looks like they just have no idea how to hit (some probably don’t) and I love it. There is such innocence to pitchers when they bat.  You see them look so confident and intimidating on the mound but when they arrive at the plate with a bat they lose that confidence. In most cases pitchers are automatic outs, AL pitchers hit just .105/.134/.120 in 2010. Despite that terrible line you can’t help but root for the AL pitcher to get a hit. When in the rare cases when they do get a hit it’s so exciting to see.

The stars of the opposing league

As a Jays fan living in Canada it’s very rare to see a team outside of the Jays on TV. When there is another game it is usually an AL team like the Yankees or Red Sox. It’s great to see the stars of the NL playing against my favourite team. Last season the Jays played the Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres, San Fran Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Jay’s fans got to see some of the best NL stars like: Troy Tulowitzki, Tim Lincecum, Albert Pujols, and Ryan Howard to name a few. Those NL teams also got to see Jose Bautista in the midst of his historic 54 homerun season. Its god for fans to see the other leagues stars, it’s great to see players that you don’t normally get to see. More fans may come to the ball park and watch games when they can see guys like Pujols or Tulo. More fans in the park is always a good thing for the team and MLB.  

And what I dislike about Interleague

Managers not letting pitchers hit

This really is taking what I like about interleague play and throwing out of the park. I understand late in a game you go to the pinch hitter. Especially with AL teams when they have (most of the time) their DH sitting on the bench. I also get sac bunting with the pitcher when guys are on base that’s perfectly fine with me but I hate when with nobody on base and the pitcher up the manager just tells him to stand there and take pitches until you’re out that’s just stupid. I mean pitchers batting is what I love about interleague, and I don’t like to see it get taken away by a dumb manager. Let the guy swing the bat give him a chance. These pitchers are all competitors and want to do well. You can’t tell me that a guy likes going up there and not swinging. No he wants to do his best and try to get a hit. I hate the reasons managers give for doing that too, the “he’s going get hurt if he swings,” and this leads me to my next hate of interleague.

The pitching injuries suffered by AL pitchers

This just drives me nuts. I already don’t like pitchers not hitting so when they do get a chance and they blow it by getting hurt it kills me to see. I mean these pitchers are professional athletes they should be able to run 90 feet and not get hurt. Pitchers I feel like pitchers are some of the most athletic to players on the field. They should not be getting hurt running the bases. Pitchers run all the time how do you think they get their stamina from. It’s from running sprints and jogging. Pitchers know how to run they should be fine to run the bases. That is why I hate seeing them get hurt, I’m like really how?  The best example of this is probably Chien-Ming Wang in 2008 with the Yankees. He tore a muscle in his right foot and caused him to miss the rest of the season. He hasn’t really been the same pitcher since: pre- injury he had back to back 19 win seasons in 2006 and 07 and post injury he has gone 1-6 and is still trying to come back from the foot problems. That’s why I dislike interleague play.

Overall I enjoy interleague the positives of it outweigh the negatives in my opinion. I will definitely be paying attention to the games tonight when the Jays take on the Houston Astros, yes the Astros are not a good team they provide a different team to watch, a team I don’t normally see, a team I probably won’t see after this series and really that’s OK with me.

Comments are appreciated; let me know how I’m doing and how I can improve.       

Young Starting Pitchers

I was at Justin Verlander’s no hitter on Saturday. As I was watching the game it got me thinking about why hitting has dropped so much. Sure it’s because steroids are out of the game but why haven’t the pitchers suffered the same amount as the hitters? For every Barry Bonds there is a Roger Clemens, for every Mark McGuire there is an Andy Pettite and so on. I decided to look at reasons other than testing to determine why hitting is down and pitching is up. This is the reason why I think hitting has dropped:

The emergence of the premier young starter

Look at all the young starting pitching in the league today: Felix Hernandez (age 25), David Price (25), Trevor Cahill (23), Jamie Garcia (24), etc. Those are just a few who have proven that they can pitch in the Majors. So many top pitching prospects are coming up and having early success: Jeremy Hellickson (4-0 last September 3-2 to start this year), Kyle Drabek (2-2, 4.81 not off to the fastest start but did 1 hit the Minnesota Twins through 7 on April 2). This does not include rookie phenom Steven Strasberg who may miss all of 2011 with Tommy John surgery. These are just a few examples but there are so many other pitchers as well, that are coming up and succeeding in the majors. Teams and GMs are realizing the value of a young starting pitcher who you can control for 6 seasons, rather than trying to sign that big free agent veteran.  Look at the top 10 pitchers this year by baseball references WAR (wins above replacement player).

Pitcher (Team)	WAR	Age
Trevor Cahill (OAK)	2.5	23
Roy Halladay (PHI)	2.3	33
Jered Weaver  (LAA)	2.2	28
Josh Johnson (FLA)	2.2	27
Dan Haren (LAA)	2.1	30
Josh Becket (BOS)	1.9	30
Zach Britton (BAL)	1.9	23
James Shields (TBR)	1.8	29
Tim Lincecum (SFG)	1.8	26
Jon Jester (BOS)	1.7	27

Of these pitchers 7 of them are under 30, 7 of them are in there prime years (28-32). No pitcher is older than Halladay at 33 years old.

Compare this with 2001 (WAR will be higher as it is for a full season)

Pitcher (Team)	WAR	Age
Randy Johnson	8.4	37
Curt Schilling	7.3	34
Mike Mussina	6.5	32
Joe Mays	5.9	25
Roger Clemens	5.4	38
Mark Buehrle	5.3	22
Mark Mulder	5.2	23
Javier Vazquez	5.0	25
Wade Miller	4.9	24
Pedro Martinez	4.6	29

There are 6 pitchers under 30; only 2 pitchers are in their prime and 3 pitchers are over 33.

This proves the point that pitching is getting younger, the best pitchers in the league are no longer veterans like Johnson and Schilling; it’s now more pitchers in their prime, like Weaver and Johnson. More young starters are getting the opportunity to pitch and they are thriving, that is why I think hitting has dropped as much as it has.

Comments are appreciated let me know how I’m doing, if I’m doing well let me know, if not what am I doing wrong and how can I improve.

The White Shortstop: A dying breed?

I was looking at my latest issue of Sports Illustrated and it had a picture of the cubs Starling Castro on the cover. As you know and in case you don’t Castro is African-American or black. This got me thinking about other shortstops in the league and I trying to figure out how many starting shortstops in the league are white. The most obvious one I thought of were Derek Jeter and Troy Tulowitzki.  But that’s all I could think of off the top of my head. As for black SS I thought of Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, and even my Toronto Blue Jays Yunel Escobar. This got me thinking that if you want to be a SS in the Major Leagues you will have a better chance if you are black.  I looked at all the shortstops in the Majors at the beginning of 2011 and found some interesting results.

National League Shortstops   

NL East

Alex Gonzalez (Atlanta Braves)	Black
Hanley Ramirez (Florida Marlins)	Black
Jimmy Rollins (Philadelphia Phillies)	Black
Jose Reyes (NY Mets)	Black
Ian Desmond (Washington Nationals)	Black

NL Central

Edgar Renteria (Cincinnati Reds)	Black
Starlin Castro (Chicago Cubs)	Black
Yuniesky Betancourt (Milwaukee Brewers)	Black
Ryan Theriot (St. Louis Cardinals)	White
Ronny Cedeno (Pittsburgh Pirates)	Black
Clint Barmes (Houston Astros)	White

NL West

Troy Tulowitzki (Colorado Rockies)	White
Rafael Furcal (LA Dodgers	White
Stephen Drew (Arizona Diamindbacks)	White
Jason Bartlett (San Diego Padres)	White
Miguel Tejada (San Francisco Giants)	Black

American League

AL East

Derek Jeter (NY Yankees)	White
Marco Scutaro (Boston Red Sox)	White
Reid Brignac (Tampa Bay Rays)	White
Yunel Escobar (Toronto Blue Jays)	Black
J.J. Hardy (Baltimore Orioles)	White

AL Central

Alexei Ramirez (Chicago White Sox)	Black
Asdrubal Cabrera (Cleveland Indians)	White
Alcides Escobar (Kansas City	Black
Alexi Casilla (Minnesota Twins)	Black
Johnny Peralta (Detroit Tigers)	White

AL West

Elvis Andrus (Texas Rangers)	Black
Erick Aybar (LA Angels)	Black
Cliff Pennington (Oakland Athletics)	White
Jack Wilson (Seattle Mariners)	White

As you can see there are 16 black SS and 14 white. My original though was wrong as not every SS is black. Some interesting things to note the NL east consisted of all black SS, the AL East however had 4 outta 5 black. Of the 8 playoff teams last year (Atl, Phi, Cin, SFG, NYY, TB, Min, Tex), 6 out of 8 SS were black. Of the teams who finished last in their divisions (Was, Ari, Pit, Bal, KC, Sea), 3 out of 6 were white.  So basically I have come to the conclusion that not all shortstops are black but if you want to have a playoff team you are better off going with a black player over a white player.