A Moment About Rangers Second Basemen

 

There's been something I've been thinking about a great deal since January, and I've realized that it applies to Marcus Semien as well.

Ian Kinsler's gonna be up for Baseball Hall of Fame induction next year, and I don't think anybody is prepared for his case as one of the best all-around second basemen of his generation. From 2007 to 2016 there was only one case where Kinsler finished a season with a WAR lower than 4. A grade-A defender with contact perks that could hit 30 homers when he needed to, and played for three different World Series squads, the first two of which he was a postseason standout for. A lot like Scott Rolen, the teams Kinsler was on would not be the same without him, and he's a very big reason why the 2010s Rangers teams contended for the gold. I do not think he's a first ballot Hall of Famer, hell he might even fall off after 10 or so years, but people are gonna have more to say about him than they might be thinking. 

Which brings me to another Rangers second-baseman. Marcus Semien. Right now, at 33, Semien has a career WAR total of 42.7, 18th highest active total in the game, and behind Giancarlo Stanton, who's progressing at a slower rate than he is right now. Like Kinsler, Semien only has one season in a period where his WAR is lower than 4; since 2018 he only has the 2020 season as a subpar frame; everything else has highs even higher than Kinsler's. Hell, the combined total for this period is 34.3, which is a pretty damn good stretch. That includes his colossal breakout year in 2019, his landmark 45-homer year with Toronto, and his 2023 season that ended in a ring. 

And Semien just has higher spikes in individual figures as well. Colossal batting figures, colossal fielding numbers, higher base running marks in the last few years. Semien has become a very consistent, very versatile weapon for any competitive team, and the fact that he's been able to prove that his 2019 year wasn't a fluke has proven his staying power. If pretty much every one of his last several seasons have been the quality of his 2019 season, that just tells you Semien was a late bloomer that needed that one moment to shift into high gear. And he's here, and he's not stopping anytime soon.

Marcus Semien's at the point where if he has a few more years like this he could be an Adrian Beltre-style 'just look at his second act' HOF case. Obviously it's not guaranteed yet, we have to figure out how long his peak years last and what else happens in him, but he's been insanely good the past 5 years in a way few players have been. And right now he's off to a start that would indicate another strong year, with 16 RBIs and 21 hits in 19 games. Semien can just dominate wherever you look now, and he intends to keep doing so.

The Rangers are still in decent shape. I think that losing Cody Bradford isn't ideal, and hopefully Jack Leiter mellows out after his dismal debut earlier today, but this team has the kind of depth that keeps assuring me. Like, their pitching is awesome even without Scherzer or DeGrom. That says a lot. It also says a lot that the team's using Jared Walsh and Josh Smith at the corners and still doing well. Smith might be a hot commodity for buyers once Jung comes back, he'd make a sweet trade piece. 

The Rangers are still one of the best teams in the league, and it's because of people like Seager, Garcia and Semien, most of whom will probably go down in the game's history. Seager for sure, but possibly Semien as well.

Coming Tomorrow- I don't think anybody foresaw his return from the KBO experiment going as well as it has.

William the Conquerer

 

The Brewers are an odd team when it comes to their postseason value. The last time this team was truly terrible was pre-Counsell, back in 2016, they've either won the division or snuck in via a wild card spot 5 times since then, and they've won 90+ games three times. However, the only time they've actually advanced significantly in October has been 2018, where they made it to the NLCS and clashed famously with the Dodgers in 7 games, a match that we all thought would recur in subsequent years. 

And in the last few years, the Brewers have gotten to the playoffs easily but then are usually trounced in round 1. Last year they couldn't even make it out of the wild card round after the Diamondbacks came to life. So with Craig Counsell now managing a division rival, and the managing now handed over to Pat Murphy, who's probably never been toasted in a pub on March 17th, the Brewers are trying to get past a rung that seems to have become unattainable to them since the departure of Ryan Braun. 

Yet somehow, on a Brewers team that is without Brandon Woodruff for the season, has lost Christian Yelich for a couple weeks, and have no timetable on Devin Williams' return, the biggest star on the team has become William Contreras, a guy who Atlanta figured they'd get by without [and that's working...alright for them at the moment].

William Contreras deterred a lot of people because he was a late bloomer, later certainly than his brother Willson, who hit the ground running during his rookie year in Chicago. William's 2021 season was a quiet one, where he batted .215 in 52 games backing up Travis d'Arnaud. Of course, he takes off in 2022, becomes an all-star, is dealt to Milwaukee in the Sean Murphy deal, and was figured to peter off there. However, William's 2023 season was his best yet, and his best overall offensively. And now, as the season picture begins to develop for the Brewers, William's becoming one of their most crucial pieces. So far he's hitting .375 with 17 RBIs and 4 homers, with a 1.1 WAR after 3 weeks. Even on a team with Willy Adames hitting up a storm, Jackson Chourio making the moment his own and Brice Turang stealing all the bases, Contreras is making the most pronounced step forward, which says a lot for a guy I thought the Braves essentially gave up on.

That's the thing about this Brewers team, and I think it's something I like: this is an insanely rookie-centric squad for a competitor. Oliver Dunn, Jackson Chourio, Joey Ortiz and D.L. Hall are all integral parts of this team, and at the very least Chourio and Ortiz are playing like regulars. You also have to factor in all the second-year guys: Blake Perkins, Brice Turang, Abner Uribe, Sal Frelick, Joey Wiemer and Andruw Monasterio. And a lot of them are improving on their 2023 numbers; Turang and Perkins are better at the plate, while Uribe's looking like a fun closer. And remember, Jefferson Quero's on the 40-man waiting for somebody to drop. So this is a very young team, with a lot of players establishing themselves right now. Which is why it's so cool that, at the moment, the people seen as veteran authority figures are still-young guys like Contreras, Freddy Peralta, Willy Adames and Rhys Hoskins.

I think the Brewers could get a lot done, but part of me worries how much they'll be able to accomplish without Yelich, and how their inexperience could undo them long-term. Still, if William Contreras keeps it up they'll at least have another confident pillar to rely on.

Coming Tonight: The last few seasons he's gotten off to a slow start and started dominating midyear, and this year he decided with a ring under his belt he can just skip to the good part.

Yes They Canha?

 

There's three teams that are currently turning heads in the AL Central. The Guardians, out in first, the Royals, who've been very hot recently...and the Detroit Tigers, who've mellowed to 10-7 but are still very much a factor in this race. It is very cool that I get to write about this team in a positive light after a good decade or so of dreary baseball.

The funny thing about this lineup is that there's not a lot of middle ground in it. People are either hitting .300 or so or hitting .210. Some people, like Javier Baez and Parker Meadows, aren't hitting whatsoever. And there are people who are producing a lot of runs for this team but aren't hitting for average, and that's how you'd describe two of their best hitters right now, Riley Greene and Mark Canha. They both have 3 home runs and 7 or 8 RBIs, but aren't hitting enough to top .250. Canha has been a fun little addition for Detroit, and he's one of those guys that it helps to have around because he does so much, but I think everyone wishes he was hitting a little better. And Greene is supposed to be the hero of this team, but with the way he's striking out he's worrying people.

Meanwhile, the people hitting .300 aren't they ones you'd expect. Gio Urshela's hitting .300, and he's doing it without many XBHs or defensive perks. Matt Vierling's hitting .300, he's more an extra hand than a real star. And Kerry Carpenter's hitting .300, and he's supposed to be the power guy. So I think things do need to be ironed down a bit more, which should happen with time. We also need to see if people like Colt Keith and Carson Kelly are the answers in the long term this year, or if they'll be phased out.

The good news is that the pitching's doing literally everything it needs to right now. Skubal, Olson and Mize have formed a solid homegrown three-headed-dragon, and Jack Flaherty's having a comeback season after struggling in Baltimore. Foley, Holton, Lange, Miller and Faedo are all awesome in the 'pen. Basically, having this many excellent pitchers is keeping this team from falling further under, and the prospect of guys like Matt Manning and Sawyer Gipson-Long coming back and further improving it at some point fills me with optimism.

The Tigers are going to outpitch their opponents. They need to work on outhitting them, because as they are right now I don't see them as a double-digit scoring team, and to win this division they need to get there.

Coming Tomorrow- It's so weird how he's the Contreras brother with all the power now..

Bear Witness

 

Marcell Ozuna being able to finish out the entirety of his Braves contract says a lot about the MLB response to abuse allegations. I'm still not exactly where the threshold is where 'he'll come back from it' turns into 'he'll never play again'. Like, forgive me if I'm wrong but isn't it all bad? It's weird that Aroldis Chapman and Marcell Ozuna have enough clout to come back from this sort of thing and Julio Urias, Domingo German and Trevor Bauer didn't. I have no idea how it works. 

Genuinely, after his 2021 suspension, I kinda figured that'd be the last anyone would hear of Marcell Ozuna. The Braves had been too quick to sign him to an extension after an incredible 2020 season as a hard-hitting DH, and they'd have to eat the rest of the contract. But after another truncated 2022 campaign besieged by scandal, he just sort of popped back into the lineup in 2023 like nothing had happened...and proceeded to have a 40-homer/100+ RBI year, his first. And I know that the Braves were trying really hard to sweep Ozuna under the rug, but when a season like that happens, even if other Braves are hitting 100+ RBI, you kind of have to draw attention to it. 

And so far this year, Ozuna's hit 7 homers and 22 RBIs, which are both league bars at the moment. Also, Ozuna's .365 average is second only to Jarred Kelenic on the Braves, and I could not have pointed out these two as the players to be hitting the best after nearly 3 weeks of MLB play on one of its best teams. Almost as if Seattle shouldn't have given up Kelenic to clear space for an Ohtani deal that never happened or something. 

But yeah, Ozuna's notoriety stands out in a bad way next to the nearly-uniform likability that populates the rest of the team. The Braves aren't a great team, but I don't exactly consider them league villains, solely because of how much I appreciate the gameplay of people like Ronald Acuna, Michael Harris, Matt Olson and Charlie Morton. I'd hate them more if they were mean. The Astros are easy to hate, because more of them are actually mean. The Braves don't have that problem...save, mainly, for Ozuna, who has never been able to completely outrun the abuse charges, and even if he has another 40-homer year will still have that cloud around him.

The Braves, meanwhile, are off to a nice start in all areas. I think they wish their rotation wasn't as troublesome, but getting Darius Vines in there seems to have helped, and Reynaldo Lopez actually turning out to be a solid 5th choice was the twist of the century. Hopefully they'll keep it up.

Coming Tonight: He helped Oakland get to the playoffs, he helped the Mets get to the playoffs, he helped the Brewers get to the playoffs. Now comes his toughest task yet, and so far it seems to be working out.

The 'O'utcome You Hope For

 

The Baltimore Orioles' youth movement rollout has reached mode 'all systems go'. With the exception of Kyle Stowers and Heston Kjerstad, pretty much every prospect that made somebody go 'WOW' over the past few years is up in the majors and performing well. And this happening at the exact moment the team can actually spend money on free agents and extensions makes this perhaps the single best time to be a Baltimore Orioles fan in, like 10 years.

This week alone, you've seen Jordan Westburg and Colton Cowser jump to the front of the narrative, after everyone sort of assumed they'd be lower-tier forces this year. Westburg is a really handy guy to have around, he's flexible in terms of where you put him in the infield, and he can hit for average. Right now he's hitting .302 with 12 RBIs and 2 homers, as well as 2 steals. Cowser had the bigger exclamation point, having that incredible 2-homer game against the Red Sox. Overall he's cooked up 13 RBIs and 15 hits in 38 at-bats, which is pretty damn cool for a guy everybody assumed would be the extra OF guy. The way Austin Hays has been hitting so far, Cowser might have just finagled his way to an everyday job, which is pretty cool.

It's been helpful that these two have taken charge of the narrative recently because the rookie that everyone thought WOULD be leading the charge, Jackson Holliday, is taking a slower route to stardom. Now, granted, Gunnar Henderson was also quieter in his first month or so in the bigs last year, then he took off and became a hero, so it's not immediately indicative of anything. But after Holliday essentially torched the minors after not making the O's out of camp, everyone thought that he was overqualified for the majors, and now...he's hitting .053 with only one hit, and as many strikeouts as Ryan Mountcastle's had in triple the at-bats. All things take time, yes, and Holliday will probably be ready soon enough, but if they didn't have an entire team of people actually playing well [Rutschman, Henderson, Mountcastle, Mullins, Ryan O'Hearn still], it'd stand out a lot more. 

The one thing that's kept the Orioles from being stellar is the injuries to the pitching staff, which has become evident. The rotation is fine, but after Burnes and Rodriguez there isn't as much depth, and Cole Irvin has lost whatever he had with Oakland. If Kyle Bradish and John Means were around this might be a different story, and getting Bradish back in the next couple weeks will certainly help, but the back half of the rotation might be trouble if Kremer and Wells don't pick things up. Not having Felix Bautista and Cionel Perez hasn't hit the bullpen quite as hard, as Cano, Akin, Tate, Coulombe and surprisingly Craig Kimbrel are all playing really well. Kimbrel actually working in Baltimore is a pleasant twist, as it maybe just...confirms how snakebitten the Philly pitching coaches are.

The O's are doing a lot right, and the development is helping. I sincerely hope they stay at it, and that Holliday improves over time.

Coming Tomorrow- Every time you think he's done being relevant he just keeps smacking home runs.

Denverboten

 

I just talked about the White Sox stockpiling former Houston catchers [they have three], and I think it's wild looking at how many 'bad' teams have managed to recreate a catching battery from a past 'better' team. For instance, the 2024 Colorado Rockies have managed to reunite Elias Diaz and Jacob Stallings, who were a catching battery for a few years in Pittsburgh. Diaz left for Colorado because he lost a starting gig to Stallings, and now Stallings is backing up Diaz, which is poetic justice if you ask me.

Which is to say that the Rockies aren't very good this year. They signed Kris Bryant to be the hero and are now trying to unite behind Ryan McMahon. That's not the same thing.

Look, I don't even know what to tell you. Marquez and Senzatela are injured, Bard's out for the year, and Freeland's cooked. The rest of this pitching staff is just sort of getting by, and that is not what you want in a stadium where balls fly out more than usual. The hopes of this team are resting on the shoulders of Dakota Hudson and Austin Gomber, two people who couldn't be trusted in St. Louis, and Ryan Feltner, a guy who seems to need a full season like he needs a hole in the head [and he very nearly got one of those last year]. And unsurprisingly...it's not going well. 

This Rockies team is a lot better when the pitching staff is sturdier and healthier, and it's decidedly not that this year. So that's already stacked against them. Then you have to factor in that the other 4 teams are much better, even the Giants, who are struggling recently. And then you have the fact that despite the fact that a lot of these guys are actually playing well, like Blackmon, McMahon, Diaz, Tovar and somehow Jake Cave, the guys who you want to start playing well to fuel the next stage of the team are...taking their time. Elehuris Montero hasn't really had his breakout moment yet. Nolan Jones is hitting .200, not quite disputing theories that his 2023 season was his peak. Brenton Doyle is producing a lot but not terrific defensively, which is not something you want for such a young, foundational guy.

There is a chance that things go from 'unbearable' to 'acceptable' with this team, but it probably won't happen in any way that truly challenges the rest of the division. The season for the Rockies is no longer about trying to compete, it's really about making enough progress to not lose 100 games and carry something over to 2025. And with this many contracts, it would be nice to have a palpable vision of a future for a team this dire.

Coming Tonight: A lower-tier young player who's proof that if you want to build a competitor, every step counts. 

A Minus

 

It's surprising to a lot of people that the Oakland Athletics, after 2 weeks of play, are not in last place. Thanks to poor starts by the Mariners and Astros, the A's and their 6-9 record are actually in third place. And while many organizations would be quick to try to build on that and retain that, John Fisher probably would rather do whatever he can to ensure that the team actually DOES finish in last.

The battle between the ownership and the fanbase in Oakland has been depressing to watch, because Fisher is not only wrong but completely incompetent, and because he's the one with the money he's not under pressure to change anytime soon. He's also had this habit of removing anyone who speaks out against the team from the team entirely, which has been gaining him a lot of friends [I assume]. Esteury Ruiz has worn pro-Oakland wear on team signage, and now he's conveniently back in triple-A, despite an excellent start to the season. Brent Rooker also has worn pro-team stuff, and he's conveniently injured at the moment. Tony Kemp and James Kaprielian were also removed from the roster pretty unceremoniously.  

I'm not saying it's new for an Oakland executive to just trade players away once he perceives them as defying him, as...Charlie Finley did this all the time back in the day. But now it seems more personal, and more spiteful, on the part of Fisher. He knows that his moves have been unpopular, like moving the team out of Oakland and settling in Sacramento for 3 years in a smaller stadium as he waits for Vegas taxpayers to foot the bill for his stadium, but he still doesn't want to settle. He's worth billions and he doesn't want to fund a stadium himself, or put any of his own money into the team, because...he's not Steve Cohen or David Rubenstein and doesn't actually care about the baseball team he owns. So it's Jeff Loria again, essentially.

And I'm getting a lot of 2004 Expos vibes from this A's team, because...the hell else is left? They have a definitive ace in Paul Blackburn, but like usual it's a race to see if he'll get injured before they can trade him. They actually do have some nice hitters, like J.J. Bleday, Zach Gelof and Shea Langeliers, but nobody's hitting for average. They have Mason Miller, who throws 100mph and is now a relief asset, but...again, they're holding their breath and waiting til he throws his arm out. 

The depressing part is you can see the future peeking through, people like Joe Boyle, Lawrence Butler, and Darell Hernaiz, but the future for this team is...playing in a dumpy minor league stadium in Sacramento and continuing to fall to last because the owner won't spend money on the team. And you kinda want better for them than that.

It's gonna be a depressing year for A's fans, and for the A's. I hope for some highlights, some cool moments, but I'm not sure how many they'll be given the tepid mood of the first two weeks.

Coming Tomorrow- A member of a team that may be an early favorite for 'dullest team I have to write about every two weeks'.