Salt of the Murph

Man, some people just know the right moment to jump ship.

Daniel Murphy was the moral anchor of the Mets for a few good years back there, and was one of the defining forces behind the World Series run they made last year. However, the Mets decided not to re-sign Murphy, so he went to another team.

That team being the Washington Nationals.

Right now the Nationals are absolutely ruling the NL East, thanks in part to efforts from an outrageously-hot Bryce Harper, and, yes, Daniel Murphy hitting .400. The Mets are working back to the top, but are currently working to stay in second.

Which means Daniel Murphy must have hired a soothsayer or something, because that was scary. He knew exactly the right place to go. The Nats were more than willing to give up on re-signing Ian Desmond to accommodate him, and the infield of Zim-Murph-Espinosa-Rendon is a pretty spiffy one. The Nats are pretty strong right now, and it's looking like they're for real this year, unlike the infamous deflation of 2016.

The big variable here is Murphy, and whether or not he's gonna stay hot the whole season. I know he can hit, but he also likes to strike out, and this could work against the Nats. Still...I'm getting some good vibes from these guys.

Coming Tonight- I've done customs of all 30 teams...except for the one who took the longest amount of time to get a win. Here's their ace.

Custom Card of the Night: Donaldson Edition

Billy Beane still must be shaking his head over letting Josh Donaldson go. That's something you just don't do.

It's not exactly one of those 'how could you have known' kind of things. Josh Donaldson in 2013 was electric. Josh Donaldson in 2014 was even more electric. Unless Billy Beane was intentionally purging talent, he couldn't have seen someone even better in Brett Lawrie. And yes, Lawrie's capable of quite a bit, and he's kind of killing it in Chicago right now, but he wasn't Josh Donaldson.

Donaldson became even more of a home run beast than he was in Oakland...the EXACT SECOND he got to Blue Jays, and got an MVP for it. Now, Donaldson's next trick is going to be proving that he does indeed have staying power outside of a three-year run. Because the Blue Jays, while predicted to lead again, have a rocky divisional battle ahead of them, and need Donaldson to be his hard-hitting self again.

So far...the guy's leading the league in Home Runs and RBIs, and he's still looking exactly like he did last year. I'm not the hugest Jays fan, but I know how much Donaldson means to the Jays, and I know how huge they're gonna become if he sticks around and stays as powerful.

Coming Tomorrow- He's pretty close to .400. I know it's April, but that's a pretty big deal, especially considering how stacked the odds were against this guy after landing in D.C.

Custom Card of the Day: Samardzija Edition

I didn't think, like, three years ago, that this guy would end up becoming one of the definitive names in pitching.

Mostly because I couldn't spell his name three years ago.

This guy worried me starting out, because his tenure as a starter back in the late 2000's was...not great. Kind of concerning. So him coming back from the bullpen around 2012, 2013 was kind of surprising, but those times were desperate for the Cubs so it kind of made sense. I did enjoy the fact that he did eventually become a strikeout machine for them, so much that he became a commodity for traders. The guy's played for four teams since 2014.

The oddest thing about Shark, as he's lovingly referred to, is that, as a starter, he's never won more games than he's lost. He's never been on a great deal of 'winning' teams, and when he has, he hasn't been the most winning part. Shark's a strikeout artist, simple as that.

Shark has got to remind Giants fans of another long-haired strikeout artist in orange and black, one that just left the team. Unlike Tim Lincecum, Shark's been pretty solid so far on the Giants, being a solid #3 to Johnny Cueto and Madison Bumgarner. This could work out, because the Giants are almost definitely going to be a winning team in 2016, and it's just a question of how far they get. Samardzija should just enjoy the ride, because it's gotta be a great one.

Coming Tonight (?)- The hard-hitting third baseman that has all of the AL East frightened.

Cano Reservations

Robby Cano is reminding me a lot of someone like Albert Pujols or Rod Carew. They both spent the first half of their career with one team, and with that one team they moved mountains and completely ruled, and then when they joined a second team they became...okay.

Robinson Cano is still a great player, and still hits a ton of home runs, but I don't think he's still one of baseball's elite. However, unlike Pujols and Carew, I don't think the sportswriters have counted him out yet. The guy's leading the AL in home runs right now, and he's still trying so hard this season, but 2015 also happened, and was a bit of a setback for the big man.

The other difference is that Cano can definitely change his destiny this season by becoming big again, and keeping this April momentum through the whole thing. That's gonna help his Hall of Fame chances down the road, if he has as many good seasons with Seattle as he did with New York. And damn if Seattle doesn't need someone to make some big moves. They're struggling right now, because Felix and Cruz are so far kind of down. Cano needs to not only prove to himself he's great, he needs to prove it to his team.

Coming Tomorrow- He's back into dominance in San Francisco, and he might be on the way to a title.

Cubs vs. Cardinals: Civil War

Most of the big rivalries are kind of sitting out this year. Yanks-Sox is kind of quieter because both are kind of rebuilding this year. Mets-Phillies is a bit one sided on days where Vince Velasquez isn't pitching. Dodgers-Giants is one of the few that still is pretty heated.

This year, for the first time in a while, both the Cubs and the Cardinals are going for the division from the beginning. The Cubs are, somehow, the favorites, but the Cardinals have built a foundation, and are throwing more rookies and newer faces into the mix with some success.

I like the fact that it's so even, because you can get behind either team, and either one can have the upper hand at any given point. Plus, you've got a genuine hero or two on each team, so you can have people like Holliday and Wainwright squaring off against Rizzo and Arrieta.

Heck, this rivalry might be even more heated and evenly-matched than the new Captain America: Civil War movie that's coming this year.

How does Jeremy Hazelbaker fit in, then? Well, he's young, he's hot, and he's just recently arrived in town, so I'd have to equate him to Spider Man. He's on the wrong side, not because he knows better, but because it's the side that works for him.

Hazelbaker's been pretty dangerous as of late, and he's given the Cardinals some nice at-bats. I don't know what this means for his future as a ballplayer, but it's helping the Cardinals right now.

The rivalry might be in a completely different place in a span of days or weeks, so I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Coming Tomorrow- Working on a solid comeback in the West, don'cha know.

Royal Repeat?

The Kansas City Royals, a team that had been the goat of the AL Central for the longest time, have just been to two World Series in a row, winning the last one.

The big question- will the Royals be able to reach the very top again?

Well, let's look at the big picture. This is a team that's not drastically different from the 2015 squad. The two guys they picked up at the trade deadline, Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto, aren't there anymore, and some smaller pieces like Alex Rios aren't there anymore, but, if anything, this is a stronger team. Wade Davis is in place as the closer from the get-go, instead of running Greg Holland until he runs out of steam. Paulo Orlando and Reymond Fuentes are currently switching off at RF, but Orlando's likely gonna be the full-time starter.

This is a fully formed team, one with a generally strong pitching staff, one where one guy isn't outdoing everybody else on the team. The guys they've kept are all doing pretty well so far, especially Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez.

This is a solid core, one that has stayed intact over the past two seasons, and has gotten stronger. Not too much is stopping them from making another run at the top spot. The Tigers are looking kind of intimidating right now, and the White Sox could be a late-season sleeper, but if the Royals can stay at first for the remainder of the season, we could be in for a ride.

The trick is outdoing whoever ends up in the top spot in the NL. It's 2016, so that might be the Giants again, which could be a pretty tough battle. I want to see what happens to the Royals over the course of the season, to see how plausible WS #2 is. Here's hoping they can snag it.

Coming Tomorrow- The big Cardinals rookie who's been hitting like crazy lately.

Custom Card of the Day: Chen Edition

Not a very good sign when the Phillies can get more wins than you right off the bat.

This is the sad part about the Marlins. This makes two years now. Here they go farming a really good lineup from scratch, getting good young players, piping more in every year. Offseason, they go and get some really good players, they look good in the Spring.

And then they just fall apart. Every time. I thought the Marlins were going to move mountains in 2015, but they made it to third, which, in the NL East, was 4th lite. This year's even worse, because right now they're in fourth, behind the Phillies who are miraculously staying afloat.

Wei-Yin Chen is the guy I really feel sad for, because last season he was great for Baltimore, and now he's doing...okay for the Marlins. He's not getting a ton of run support, and opposing hitters are eating him up. It's very sad, because I don't want him to go the Chien-Ming Wang route of bouncing between rosters until irrelevancy hits.

The Marlins are going to need more effort to jump start, or else they'll end up closer to the Braves than to the Nationals.

Coming Tonight- One of the best catchers in baseball.