The Major League Baseball season is just finishing its first week. Teams have hardly completed one run through their starting rotations, and already tornadoes of questions are circling teams. In this day and age–where every pompous sports fan, arrogant writer and bored college student can post their thoughts for the world to see–it’s never too early to jump to crazy conclusions.
Of course, the natural reaction is to dismiss these questions and point out that every team is still in the first 5 percent of its schedule, meaning that anything can happen and that the first week will be rendered virtually moot. But where’s the fun in that? Instead, let’s buy into every last bit of hype, throw in the towel when things look rough and jump to every conclusion we can after the first week of the season.
Playoff teams: If the season ended today (thankfully it does not), the Orioles, Royals and Blue Jays would all be rolling into the ALDS. That’s pretty much what most people expected, considering the Orioles have not won the AL East since 1997 and the Royals have not won their division since they were in the AL West way back in 1985. The Blue Jays would be back in the playoffs for the first time since winning back-to-back World Series in 1992 and 1993.
Non-playoff teams: As most people expected, the Red Sox, Rays and Athletics have combined for fewer wins (one) than Kevin Correia (two), while the Twins and Giants are currently last in their respective divisions. The Brewers and Cardinals, the favorites in the NL Central, have combined for the same number of wins (four) as the Pirates, who aren’t even winning the division.
One player is a whole team: Howie Kendrick has scored as many runs (seven) as the Rays, while John Lackey gave up as many runs with one pitch (four) as the Orioles’ staff gave up through four games. Fausto Carmona gave up as many runs (10) in his Opening Day start as the Braves did through five games (two of which they lost). Two different part-time catchers, Ryan Hanigan and J.P. Arencibia, had as many homers in one game (two) as the Cardinals have had in six games. And they’ve got a guy on their team named Albert Pujols. Oh, and one more thing about the Rays: Alex Gordon and Carlos Quentin have combined to outhit the entire Tampa Bay lineup 22-21 through five games.
Absurd numbers: Forget going for Ted Williams’ .406 mark; Quentin is sitting on a .500 batting average thanks to 11 hits in his first five games along with 10 RBI, putting him on pace for 324 runs knocked in. Mark Teixeira and Nelson Cruz each have four home runs already, putting them on pace to shatter Barry Bonds’ pathetic record of only 73 long balls.
Light-hitting Willie Bloomquist (give yourself a pat on the back if you knew he currently plays for the Diamondbacks) has five stolen bases in five games despite the fact that he has only stolen more than 16 bases in a season once in his nine-year career. Jonny Gomes has only two hits in 10 at-bats, but he has already drawn a MLB-high seven walks. But perhaps most impressive of all is Jarrod Dyson (give yourself a slap in the face if you knew he plays for the Royals, or if you even knew who Jarrod Dyson was), who has managed to steal three bases this year without a single plate appearance.
What does all this mean? The obvious answer is nothing, because there are still almost six more months of the regular season. But it does mean that baseball season is here upon us, which means the floodgates of useless knowledge and even more useless statistics have just been opened.
Will the Rays go 0-162? Will Joe Mauer finish the season with the second-worst batting average among catchers? Will Albert Pujols finish with a worse OPS than both Peter Bourjos and Mark Trumbo? Will the Orioles run away with the AL East? Probably not. But with over 2,000 MLB games left this season, who knows what will happen?
Jacob Jaffe does know that teams who start the season 0-4 only have a 24 percent chance of making the playoffs, though. Remind him of this fact at jwjaffe “at” stanford.edu.