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The Dodgers juggernaut has roared to life. Plus: why front-office hot seats aren’t that hot, a check on trending teams and learning some Baseball Speak. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!
Standings Watch: Dodgers creating space
It has been a question for months: The Dodgers spent over a billion dollars last offseason; shouldn’t they be winning the NL West by like 50 games by now? Well, they haven’t lost a series since Aug. 5-7 (Phillies), but as recently as last Wednesday, their lead in the division was still just three games.
The Padres and Diamondbacks, you see, also just kept winning.
Over the weekend, L.A. had a chance to take matters into its own hands, and it didn’t miss, winning three of four in Arizona. The Padres are almost keeping pace, but the Dodgers are now 83-55 — five games ahead of San Diego (79-61) and six over Arizona (77-61).
In the process, Shohei Ohtani became the first player in MLB history to get to 43 in both home runs and steals — and he stole three more last night to get to 46.
Meanwhile, Freddie Freeman has returned from a broken finger. (It’s still broken, but he hit two home runs last night, making it three in four games, so it’s … fine?)
Perhaps the only bad news from the weekend: Clayton Kershaw left his last start, and while it wasn’t an arm injury, it was a toe injury (bone spur), and he’ll require a walking boot and some more scans before the team is able to give an ETA for his return.
The Dodgers won’t get another crack at a divisional rival until Sept. 24-26 against the Padres. For now, they’ll head to Anaheim, where Ohtani will return for the first time since departing via free agency.
Ken’s Notebook: Don’t expect mass front-office changes
Fans in a number of major-league cities want change. Ownership changes in many cases, yes. But front-office changes, at the very least. And in many cases, those changes seem unlikely.
“I’m a huge believer in stability and continuity, and those are competitive advantages in professional sports, that reacting and change don’t necessarily mean improvement,” Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro said last month when asked about the job status of his general manager, Ross Atkins.
No one should be surprised in the coming weeks to hear similar comments from other executives with disappointing clubs. Which raises the questions: Why are owners so complacent? Why aren’t more front offices on the hot seat?
Many fans of the Blue Jays are exasperated, if not downright angry. Ditto for fans of the Cardinals, Mariners, Giants, Reds and Pirates. Those teams intended to contend and didn’t. And yet, more trust-the-process blather likely is coming their fans’ way. (Insular, sadsack franchises — the White Sox, Athletics, Marlins and Rockies, to name four — belong in a separate category. Those teams barely even bothered to try.)
For underachieving clubs, managers are always easy scapegoats. The Mariners already fired theirs. The Reds, Pirates and others might, too. But modern managers are glorified middle men, extensions of their front offices. A managerial change often is an act of deflection by the head of baseball operations, a bid to buy more time.
Shapiro had a point. Stability and continuity indeed should be valued. If teams, particularly in this age of social media, reacted to every fan eruption, they would be firing people every three days, if not every three minutes.
Still, the passivity in the sport is disturbing. Part of it might stem from the expansion of the postseason in 2022, and the illusion of contention provided by the addition of a third wild card in each league. Consider the Cubs. A good month of August thrust them into the fringes of the wild-card race, and now things don’t look so bad, if you’re willing to overlook how for four months they underachieved.
Another factor is the analytically based groupthink that pervades front offices. Fire your head of baseball operations, and who will you hire? Probably another executive whose decision-making is not all that dissimilar from the one you let go.
The biggest issue, though, is that many teams face minimal financial pressure, the kind of pressure that would motivate a business to act.
Trending: How are teams faring in the home stretch?
After the long weekend, it’s worth checking in on how a few teams are trending as we close in on the final weeks of the season.
👍 Detroit Tigers (70-69): After trading Jack Flaherty, everyone thought that was pretty much it for the 2024 Tigers. But they’re 18-12 since Aug. 1. They’re still 5 1/2 games out of a playoff spot, but their pitching staff is helping fuel optimism for (probably) next year.
👍 Oakland Athletics (60-78): They’re not contenders, but the A’s are 23-17 in the second half, led in part by Lawrence Butler (.329, 1.026 OPS, 11 home runs in the second half going into last night’s game) and Brent Rooker (.303, .969, 12 HR). Even Seth Brown is hitting .304 in the second half after a demotion earlier this season.
👍 Everyone vying for the third NL wild card: I don’t know how the Braves (74-63) are doing it with all the injuries, but they still hold the final playoff position, holding off two very hot teams. The Mets (74-64, 1/2 game back) are 7-3 in their last 10 with a Kodai Senga return possible soon. And despite last night’s loss to the Pirates, the Cubs (71-67, 3 1/2 games out) have been red-hot — 12-4 since Aug. 17 behind a torrid offense.
👎 Kansas City Royals (75-64): Reliever Lucas Erceg is “day-to-day” after Thursday night’s disaster, but first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino suffered a broken right thumb. He’ll miss six to eight weeks. After pulling into a tie for first place in the AL Central, the Royals have now lost six straight and are 4 1/2 games back. On the upside, they’re still in the third wild-card position in the AL, because …
👎 Boston Red Sox (70-68): They had an opportunity to pounce over the last week, but even with a series win over the Blue Jays, they’re still 3-7 over their last 10 games, and sit 4 1/2 behind Kansas City for the final AL wild-card spot.
👎 Minnesota Twins (75-62): This one’s a bit harsh, since (in keeping with the theme) they just took a series from the Blue Jays and beat the Rays last night. But they’ve gone 4-6 in their last 10, sitting just a game up on Kansas City and 3 1/2 back in the division. Good news: Royce Lewis hit a game-winning home run in his second-base debut, and Pablo López is looking much better of late. (Maybe this one should be a 👉 instead.)
Word Games: A guide to baseball slang
“I was gonna ask yesterday, but it looked like you were having a conversation,” I said. I was talking to minor-league manager Matt Hagen, who was living in his van in the parking lot of the team complex for spring training in 2018.
“That’s good feel,” he said, baseball syntax that wouldn’t pass a spell-check outside the baseball world. But I knew exactly what he meant: “Your instincts were right; you read the situation well.”
Understanding what he meant was more than just “good feel,” it was another confirmation that I grasped the axioms and shibboleths that make up Baseball Speak.
Tyler Kepner has a fun one today, filling us all in on some phrases you’ll hear regularly if you find yourself in one of the many baseball clubhouses (not “locker rooms”) around the country.
Here’s one that has crept into text conversations with my baseball-adjacent friends:
“The thing that comes to mind for me is the scouting scale, 20 to 80,” (Brewers GM Matt) Arnold said, referring to the Branch Rickey grading system — still widely known — in which 20 is the low and 80 the high.
“So I’ll be like, ‘That’s a 70 sandwich’ or ‘That’s a 35 restaurant’ – like, it’ll play, but not a regular. And no one understands what we’re talking about.”
Read Kepner’s full piece.
Handshakes and High Fives
This week’s Power Rankings identify each team’s September priorities.
The Yankees have (thus far) declined to call up Jasson Domínguez. Chris Kirschner says it’s a missed opportunity for the Yankees, but also explains why it’s not for service time manipulation.
Fernando Tatis Jr. returned to action last night. Here’s how the Padres roster is shaping up for October.
Zack Wheeler is really looking like a strong NL Cy Young candidate with a month left in the regular season.
Is Emmanuel Clase the best closer in Cleveland history?
After nearly three months on the IL, we have the real diagnosis on Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker, who suffered a fractured shin in early June.
Caden Dana made his big-league debut on Sunday. Sam Blum has the story of the 20-year-old’s roller-coaster draft day experience in 2022.
Speaking of debuts, Darren Baker — son of Dusty — got a hit in his debut after being called up by the Nats.
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(Top photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
