Bill Parker

Read in the normal Western way of reading things, the above logo says “2012 Royals All-Star Game.” Yet, while it’ll be held at Kauffman Stadium, and while I’m sure we’ll have plenty of shots of George Brett in the crowd, the actual game and surrounding festivities seem likely to have as little to do with the 2012 Royals as the rules make it possible to.

Every team is required to be represented by at least one player in the game, and the Royals will be represented by exactly one, Billy Butler. Butler isn’t starting the game or contending in the Home Run Derby (and he’s not much of a HR hitter, frankly, but Larry Granillo doesn’t think it should matter). He’s listed as a DH, so it’s far from a guarantee that when he does play, you’ll see him in the field (though Konerko is the only reserve 1B, so it’s certainly possible), and Adam Dunn is also on the reserve roster as a DH, both backing up David Ortiz, so it’s not a guarantee that he’ll get more than one plate appearance (or even that, technically, except it seems safe to assume that Ron Washington will find a way to get the one hometown guy in there). There are close to seventy-five All-Stars; only one of them plays for the Royals. In fact, only one other of them used to play in Kansas City: Carlos Beltran, who was last a Royal in mid-2004 and had his two best seasons (by rWAR) in a Mets uniform.

It’s a great city with what I’m told is a great, recently-remade stadium, and it should be a terrific showcase for the city and the organization. But if you’re a lifelong Kansas Citian and Royals fan who has the opportunity to head down the street and check out the game, there’s not much to keep you interested. Part of every All-Star Game in living memory (and probably not an essential or even necessarily a good part, but unmistakably a part of the experience) is the mostly-hometown crowd going nuts over their own hometown players, and there will be very little opportunity for that tomorrow night.

Does this actually have a chance to be the least involved a host team has ever been in an All-Star Game? Here are what I see as the fifteen current contenders: Read the rest of this entry »

Catchers, as a group, are not good hitters. We all know this. And I don’t have the research to back this up, but it seems to me that the way in which they’re not good is that they tend to be poor at getting on base; it’s not that hard to find a catcher that has a little home run power, but they run slow and hit a lot of fly balls and/or strike out a ton, so they hit for poor averages, and they don’t draw walks. As a group. You Toronto folks have kind of an extreme example of the type of player profile I’ve got in mind.

A lot was made of the fact that Joe Mauer became the first (then the second and the third) catcher to lead the American League in batting average, but between the two leagues, that’s been done eight total times now; only three catchers have ever led their league in OBP, and only one of those (Mauer, in 2009) came in 1934 or later.

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I’ve never been a huge fan myself, so I kind of hate to admit this, but Jerry Seinfeld has basically become this generation’s Shakespeare. He’s said a lot of things, and a lot of them are brilliant, but they’re heard and interpreted by so many people that eventually, someone thinks of ways to make them even better. So at the end of the day, like Shakespeare, Seinfeld gets credited with saying a lot of things he almost said. One of those things is the concept that, as North American sports fans, what we’re really doing is “rooting for laundry” — a really perfect phrase the origin of which I can’t pin down. Here’s what Seinfeld actually said:

Loyalty to any one sports team is pretty hard to justify. Because the players are always changing, the team could move to another city. You’re actually rooting for the clothes, when you get right down to it. You know what I mean? You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes…to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player, but if he goes to another team, they boo him! This is the same human being in a different shirt [and] they hate him now! Boo! Different shirt? Boooooo.

Seinfeld wasn’t the first to notice the phenomenon, either. Here (courtesy of John Thorn in his excellent book Baseball in the Garden of Eden, which I’m currently reading) is Pliny the Younger, writing about chariot races more than 1900 years ago:

If indeed it were the swiftness of the horses, or the skill of the men that attracted them, there might be some pretense for [the passion of the crowd]. But it is the dress they like; it is the dress that takes their fancy. And if, in the midst of the course and the contest, the different parties were to change colors their different partisans would change sides and instantly desert the very same men and horses whom just before they were eagerly following. . . . Such mighty charms, such wondrous power reside in the color of a paltry tunic!

It was a good observation in 109 C.E. and a funny joke ca. 1995 because it encapsulates an almost universally true, and really bizarre, aspect of spectator sports. As a Minnesota sports fan, it’s not as though Torii Hunter or A.J. Pierzynski were ever my favorite players (very far from it), but it sure became a lot easier to take note of their less desirable qualities once they were wearing different uniforms. It was incredibly easy to hate Brett Favre, until he put on a purple jersey and started winning a bunch of football games. And so on. In almost every instance, we root for “our team” to win, above (and generally to the exclusion of) everything else: the only things that identify “our team” are the city it plays in and the colors of the clothes they wear.

So it doesn’t happen often, but when you find yourself rooting for something other than laundry, it’s worth taking a second and thinking about why. And that happened to me on Friday night, when the Mets’ Johan Santana threw a no-hitter.

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Entering 2010, Jose Bautista was a 29 year old journeyman. He’d spent most of his career as a third baseman, but had more or less aged out of that position, and didn’t really hit well enough to justify making him an everyday player in the corner outfield positions he could still handle. But then he changed his swing and plate approach, and immediately became one of baseball’s best hitters.

After 59 homers in 2038 plate appearances across his first six big-league seasons, Bautista very nearly doubled his career output in 2010 alone, with 54 in 683 PA, and followed that up with an even more brilliant 2011. From the first day of 2010 through this weekend, Bautista had hit .273/.401/.591 (164 OPS+), with a HR every 14.2 PA, compared to his 2004-2009 standard of one every 34.5.

Entering 2012, Edwin Encarnacion was 29 years old, and something of a journeyman himself. He’d spent most of his career as a third baseman, but was dizzyingly poor at it, and he didn’t hit well enough to justify making him an everyday player at the only position he can play (designated hitter). But then he worked to shorten and use both hands in his swing, and so far in 2012, he’s been one of baseball’s best hitters. He hit his 16th home run on Monday night, and comes into this morning hitting .274/.335/.579, which I’m guessing will be good for approximately a 146 OPS+. On a per-game basis, he enters today on pace for about 53 home runs, almost exactly Bautista’s 2010 total, and has hit one for roughly every 13 PA.

Can this really happen again? Has lightning struck twice for the Blue Jays? Read the rest of this entry »