Free For All Friday #15

Hello and welcome to Free For All Friday.

Ooooohhhh no Ohtani

I got into bed Thursday night and checked Twitter one more time before going to bed. Always, always a bad idea. When I saw the news that Shohei Ohtani has a torn UCL in his right (throwing) arm, I moaned. Loudly.

Ohtani is the best, most exciting, and most interesting player in baseball. The combination of what he can do on the mound and what he can do at the plate was unimaginable just a few years ago. He’s a spectacular baseball unicorn and he makes our favorite sport so much more enjoyable.

The Angels’ season was already a disaster, so this news—coupled with Mike Trout’s return to the injured list—doesn’t change much, except add fuel to the argument that the Angels acted recklessly in emptying their farm system at the trade deadline to bolster the team’s postseason chances this season. As I’ve written, given what they knew at the time, the Angels had no choice but to try and win this season, if only as part of an effort to keep Ohtani this winter. But those moves backfired spectacularly.

The baseball intelligentsia has rushed in with all sorts of opinions about how this will affect Ohtani’s free agency during the upcoming offseason. But here’s the thing: nobody knows what will happen. Even the folks who’ve talked to baseball insiders to form their opinions do not know how this will play out.

Ohtani will be seeking a second opinion before deciding whether to have Tommy John surgery or try to rehab the UCL tear injury without surgery. We don’t know what Ohtani will decide, what the timing will be, and how those two factors will affect his free agent value. In other words, we do not yet know whether Ohtani will primarily be an extraordinary hitter going forward or continue to be an extraordinary hitter and a possibly less than extraordinary starting pitcher. We just have to wait before rushing to judgment.

Take a deep breath and savor what we watched Ohtani do this season. We may never see it again.

What paid subscribers read this week

On Monday, I wrote about the Giants’ long, long drought without a 30+ home run hitter. The last one to do it was Barry Bonds, in 2004. Every other team has had a 30+ dinger season at least once since 2016. The Giants need to stop complaining about park factors and draft and develop—or trade for—a consistent power threat.

On Wednesday, I dove into the Cubs’ amazing second-half turnaround, which has landed them squarely in the hunt for a postseason berth.

Stephen Strasburg to retire

Stephen Strasburg announced on Thursday that he will retire in September.

Before Ohtani took baseball hype to a stratospheric level, Stephen Strasburg’s debut for the Washington Nationals on June 8, 2010 was the most hyped baseball event this century. Dubbed “Strasmus,” Strasburg struck out 14 batters in 7 innings and allowed only 2 runs in a Nationals’ victory against the Pirates.

The hype was real. As longtime Washington Post sports reporter Barry Svrluga wrote yesterday, Strasburg put the Nationals on the baseball map, two years before Bryce Harper arrived.

Strasburg tore the UCL in his throwing arm in August 2010, underwent Tommy John surgery, and returned to pitch 24 innings across 5 starts in 2011. The Nationals took what many considered to be an overly cautious approach to Strasburg in 2012—limiting his innings and shutting him down entirely as the Nationals pushed for a postseason berth. The Cardinals beat the Nationals in the NL Division Series that season.

Strasburg peaked in the six seasons from 2014 to 2019 when he averaged nearly 200 strike outs per season and kept his ERA under 4.00. In my view, Strasburg’s peak never reached the heights expected of him. He was a very good starter for those six seasons, but only occasionally spectacular. He never won a Cy Young Award, although he was an All-Star in 2012, 2016 and 2017.

Strasburg’s biggest moments came in the Nationals’ surprise run to win the World Series in 2019. He out-dueled Clayton Kershaw in the Division Series, helped the Nationals sweep the Cardinals in the Championship Series, and then beat Justin Verlander and the Astros twice in the World Series on his way to being named Series MVP.

Strasburg was never the same pitcher after that.

He threw just over 30 innings, total, in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons while battling a host of injuries to his shoulder, ribs, and nerve damage that wasn’t ameliorated by thoracic outlet surgery. He has not thrown a single pitch this season.

Strasburg is 35 years old.

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The Yankees avoided making history, barely

In last week’s Friday Free For All, I wrote about the Yankees’ terrible season and how they are in danger of ending the season in last place in the AL East for only the third time in franchise history.

Things then went from bad to worse.

The Red Sox swept the Yankees at the stadium in the Bronx over the weekend to send New York to its eighth consecutive loss. Then the Nationals beat the Yankees 2-1 in the opening game of that series on Tuesday. Nine consecutive losses. Three more losses and the Yankees would tie the franchise record for consecutive losses in one season at 12—a record set in 1908.

Three home runs by Aaron Judge saved the Yankees. They beat the Nationals Wednesday night to end the losing streak, only to start a new one on Thursday after a 6-5 loss to the Nationals.

Poor Yankees fans.

“Ownage is ownage.” — Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow, on many occasions

For most of the season, the Blue Jays were firmly in position to claim one of the American League Wild Card spots. Even now, Toronto, at 70-58, sits only 1.5 games behind Seattle and Houston, who are statistically tied for second and third position. Seattle is surging (as I wrote last Friday) and Houston is hanging on for dear life.

But the Blue Jays? They just can’t beat division rival Baltimore and those losses might keep them out of the postseason. (Hat tip to fellow Substack writer Andrew Stoeten at The Batflip for tipping me off to this).

Toronto is 3-10 against the Orioles this season and many of the games haven’t been particularly close. Five of the Orioles’ wins over the Jays have been blowouts—wins by five runs or more. Those five blowouts account for 30% of Toronto’s 17 blowout losses this season. Overall, the Orioles have outscored the Blue Jays 75-40 in the 13 games.

When you look at each team’s overall batting and pitching stats for the season, you have to scratch your head at how these games have played out so heavily in Baltimore’s favor.

As measured by wRC+, the Jays’ offense has been slightly better than the Orioles’ offense.

And as measured by pitching fWAR, the Jays’ pitching has been slightly better than the Orioles’ pitching.

It’s only when you look at Win Probability Added and Clutch stats that the big differences emerge. The Orioles’ offense has put up the highest clutch score in the majors. The Blue Jays’ offense has posted the second worst clutch score. You can see the full chart here. When the game is on the line, in the highest leverage situations, Orioles hitters perform at a much higher level than in all other game situations. For the Jays, the exact opposite is true.

That has made all the difference.

Have a great weekend. Go watch some baseball.