Talkin' Baseball

  Ranking MLB’s Closers, Part II If you remember, last time I eliminated four NL closers to get to the top ten. Here I am to narrow it down to the top five. Let’s get down to it. 10: Paul Sewald Once again, as I have said, all of these closers are very good. However, I have chosen to cut Sewald for a number of reasons. He is already 33, and the sidearmer only throws about 93 with his fastball. However, throwing sidearm probably helps him out, because it is harder to pick up the ball on account of the different arm slot. His career ERA is 4.11, although his FIP is 3.74, a bit better. Even so, hitters are batting only .217 against him in his career. However, the OBP of said batters is .287, 70 points higher than the batting average. He is still a solid pitcher, but because of the pitchers that will be competing for the best closer role, I have to pull him (no pun intended). 9: Craig Kimbrel Craig Kimbrel probably has the best career out of all the NL closers being discussed, as h...

Ranking MLB’s Closers Not all MLB teams have closers, but the ones that do have real closers are going to be ranked. If a closer has been traded to another team and has become that team’s closer (like David Robertson), they still count. First off, let’s see who our closers are: NL: Evan Phillips (Dodgers) Camilo Doval (Giants) Paul Sewald (Diamondbacks) Josh Hader (Padres) Justin Lawrence (Rockies) Devin Williams (Brewers) Adbert Alzolay (Cubs) Alexis Diaz (Reds) David Bednar (Pirates) Ryan Helsely, IL (Cardinals) Raisel Iglesias (Braves) Craig Kimbrel (Phillies) David Robertson (Marlins) Kyle Finnegan (Nationals) It would seem that the Mets are the only team without a closer, since they traded away David Robertson. It seems that Adam Ottavino will be getting the saves for them, although I am unsure, and It doesn’t really matter since they aren’t winning any games anyway. Also, the Rockies are a bit cheap because they traded away former closer Pierce Johnson, who hadn’t been ve...

 Just Something Cool  Did you realize that the year the old AL record for home runs was set was 1961, when Roger Maris hit 61 homers? Interestingly,  61 years later Aaron Judge broke that record with 62. That's pretty cool, right? 

THE BEST HITTER IN BASEBALL As of today, August 23rd, the best hitter in baseball is not Ronald Acuña Jr. Freddie Freeman, or Shohei Ohtani. No, the best hitter in baseball is not one who you would probably think of as the singular best. However, though not the best offensive player, he is the best hitter for one singular reason. Being the best hitter does not automatically  mean you are a power hitter, or great at stealing, or great at driving in runs. Being the best hitter implies that you have the best batting average in the league. And for that reason, Luis Arraez is the best hitter in baseball. With his .356 batting average, Arraez is the best hitter by a whole 23 points. This does not make the best offensive player however, as that title has to go to Acuña, the second place in batting average. His average, along with his 28 home runs, major league-leading 58 steals and 113 runs, make Acuña the best offensive player in baseball. Now back to Luis Arraez. Arraez has a v...

  A Great Hitting Pitcher (For A Pitcher) I find Max Fried a very interesting player. For one, he is very talented and plays for the current best team in all of baseball. Aside from that and his .690 career winning percentage, I want to focus on his hitting. Not his career hitting, but one particular season. Max Fried won the Silver Slugger in 2021, and besides being awesome as a pitcher, he was also awesome as a hitter and fielder. Alas, pitchers don’t hit anymore (unless you are Shohei Ohtani). That part of baseball has come to an end. You no longer get to witness pitchers trying to snap bats over their knees out of frustration anymore. But, in the last year pitchers hit, Max Fried hit higher than the league average. He was no Shohei that year, but he had a very very good season, going 14-7 with a 3.04 ERA and 2 shutouts. But, while giving hitters a hard time, he also gave pitchers a hard time. Sort of.  Fried had 55 ABs in 2021, and 15 hits. You may be thinking, ‘15...

  PREDICTING THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPION One thing I love to do is predict who will win the Fall Classic before the MLB season starts. Unfortunately, I am really bad at predicting. Well, usually. I believe that I predicted the Braves winning it all this year, a pretty good prediction. But, now that we are more than ¾ of the way through the season, I am going to predict who will make the playoffs and who will win the World Series. Let’s start with the American League, shall we? Here are all the teams in their corresponding divisions (all records and stats are as of 8/20): AL WEST: Texas Rangers (72-51) Houston Astros (70-54) Seattle Mariners (68-55)  Los Angeles Angels (61-64) Oakland Athletics (34-89) AL CENTRAL: Minnesota Twins (64-60) Cleveland Indians (59-65) Detroit Tigers (56-67) Chicago White Sox (48-75) Kansas City Royals (40-85) AL EAST: Baltimore Orioles (76-47) Tampa Bay Rays (75-51) Toronto Blue Jays (68-56) Boston Red Sox (65-58) New York Yankees (60-63) Let’...

  ROYCE LEWIS? Who is Royce Lewis, and why does he have a Stars of MLB card? He has literally played in 40 MLB games in his whole career.  Royce Lewis was born in 1999, and in his five seasons in the minors he was good, slashing .273/.342/.434. That’s fine, but not Stars of MLB worthy, especially because these stats were in the minors! In his 40 MLB games, he is slashing .331/.362/.507, and I’m not going to worry about most of his other stats, because he has such a small sample size. He has certainly been good, but has only played 40 games, so we really don’t have a great idea of how good he will be in the future, or even in a whole season. I can’t write a lot about him because I just don’t know that much about him. He’s obviously extremely talented, because he is playing in the Majors, but I can’t really call him a Star of MLB yet. If I were making those cards, I would at least see how good a guy has been in a few seasons, not 12 games.  I’m certainly not sayin...

  Who is the Best Starter Currently in the MLB? There are lots of great starting pitchers in the MLB, but I am here to focus on one; the one who I believe is the best starter in the MLB. You may be surprised by who I chose. So, who is the best starter in baseball? Spencer Strider. Strider is a 6-foot 195 native of Ohio. He soared through the minors extremely quickly, and it only took him 1 season to do so. There are some obvious reasons why. There are a lot of great qualities about Spencer Strider besides his facial hair. The one thing that jumps out at you most is his strikeout numbers. I mean, this man has struck out an amazing and league-leading 217 batters through 139 ⅓ innings so far this season, and has a league leading 14.0 K/9, with a career K/9 of 13.8! Now, for a man who strikes out more than half of the outs that he gets, he must have a great arsenal, right? Strider has a 4-seam fastball that can reach 100 MPH. It’s one thing for a closer to throw that fast, ...