5 Biggest Takeaways from Week 5's MLB Action
Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, the arguable face of the league, feels like he should be older than 23. New York Mets starting pitcher Bartolo Colon, who owns a 2.56 ERA, feels like he should be younger than 42.
Suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs feel like they should be longer than 80 games. And it seems like an eternity could pass and Nationals manager Dusty Baker will always have to answer for how he handled the 2003 Chicago Cubs.
If there’s one big thing to take away from this week’s MLB action—you’ll get five here, just for the record—it’s that age and time are the most useless numbers in a sport obsessed with them.
MLB Needs Harsher Punishments for PED Use
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The use of performance-enhancing drugs may have quieted compared to the pervasiveness of the 1990s. But that’s like Dale Earnhardt Jr. saying he almost finished a race.
This is pass-fail for MLB. Baseball can’t kick a field goal on PEDs. It needs to finish the drive. The game needs to rid itself of performance-enhancing cheaters.
After this week’s news, that hasn’t been accomplished. MLB suspended both Miami Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Josh Ravin 80 games for testing positive for a PED. T.J. Quinn of ESPN.com reported more suspensions are coming.
MLB’s punishments for PED users aren’t enough to deter use. They need to be harsher to the point where players fear the risk of using them.
Right now, the upside is too high. For a current MLB player, slipping through the cracks of baseball’s testing policies could net them huge contracts. For fringe major leaguers fighting for a career in the game, using PEDs could help them fulfill a lifelong dream—and, more importantly, rid them of financial worry.
It’s possible MLB may need to go to yearlong bans for first-time offenders. Quite possibly, the league may need to look at hefty fines, where, in addition to losing salary during a suspension, the player needs to pay a percentage of his salary for a set period of time after he returns from suspension.
This all needs to be collectively bargained with the Players Association. But it should be a priority for a league that is failing in an area that has no gray.
Father Time Is Losing to Bartolo Colon
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Father Time may be undefeated, but New York Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon is doing his best to blemish the record.
Colon, who will turn 43 on May 24, pitched eight scoreless innings on May 2 in a win against the Atlanta Braves, which gave him his 220th career win, second-most among Dominican-born players. That number is good enough for 76th in all-time wins, passing Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez.
"You know, he hasn't shown much emotion, but I think he should," Mets manager Terry Collins said to Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. "I think it's truly a great honor. Pedro, as great as he was—to move ahead of him in wins, it shows the durability of what Bartolo's had to go through to get to this point."
Not to mention that, currently in his 19th MLB season, he is the oldest player in MLB.
Colon has a remarkable 2.56 ERA through six games (five starts) this season. Jamie Moyer, who played 25 seasons, pitched well into his 40s, but he never finished a season with an ERA under 3.00. With Matt Harvey struggling with a 4.76 ERA, Colon’s stellar play could prove vital as the Mets look to chase their second straight National League East crown.
But considering all the athletic 20-somethings with live arms clawing to just get into MLB, it’s astonishing that Colon is able to play at such a high level.
Sure, Father Time will win out here. But Colon has him in a fight.
Dusty Baker Still Feels the Need to Defend the 2003 Chicago Cubs
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Nearly 13 years after guiding the Chicago Cubs to within one game of the World Series, Washington Nationals manager Dusty Baker still can’t shake the reputation that has followed him after that ill-fated 2003 season.
After heavily utilizing pitchers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood that year, both promising starters suffered injuries the following season. Prior only pitched three more MLB seasons after that 2003 run. Beginning in 2007, Wood was forced to finish out his career as a reliever, though he did have two solid seasons as the Cubs closer.
Some felt that Baker ruined Prior and Wood.
In a wide-ranging interview on Friday, Baker was asked to compare this year’s promising Cubs team to that in 2003. His answer to the question specifically addressed the reason he used his starting staff so much in 2003.
“They had a better bullpen than we had then, which is no consolation but it’s why I stretched out my starters longer than I even wanted to is because we didn’t have the bullpen,” Baker said.
“I like to think I had an impact [on the franchise]. I kind of wish at the end, I’d have felt a little more that I had a positive impact. But sometimes people appreciate you more when you’re gone than when you’re there. On the other hand, I think many times that I wanted to be the guy that won it in Chicago.”
Of note, when Baker took the job in Washington, he hired pitching coach Mike Maddux, considered among the best in the game at his craft.
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Bryce Harper Is Becoming a Pop Culture Icon
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If it seems like we’ve been hearing about Bryce Harper for a decade, it’s because that’s nearly true. Which makes the fact that he’s 23 as head-scratching as the Seven Wonders of the World.
But Harper hype has been pervading the baseball world since he was 15 and playing high school baseball in Las Vegas, two years prior to him getting drafted. Harper took his GED after his sophomore year and enrolled in junior college so he could be eligible to be taken in the 2010 draft.
Of course, the Washington Nationals took him with the No. 1 overall pick, a unanimous no-doubter among baseball’s talent evaluators.
As expected, Harper has delivered on the field. He was promoted to the majors at 19 and won his first NL MVP Award last season. But what is somewhat shocking is that the sweet-swinging lefty has become more than a star in the game.
He is becoming a pop culture icon.
Harper is a brand ambassador for New Era in addition to deals with Gatorade and Warrior Eye Black. This week, Darren Rovell of ESPN.com reported that he signed a 10-year contract with Under Armour, the largest endorsement deal in history for a baseball player.
Despite public perception, few athletes get national endorsements. Even fewer have that extensive of a roster of companies associated to their names.
It all suggests that Harper is entering an elite company of athletes who have transcended the natural celebrity of their sports. Like LeBron James, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, the litany of endorsements suggests these companies feel that Harper is as much an A-list celebrity as a popular musician or actor.
Couple his endorsement deals with his dominance in the game, and Harper is as recognizable as any athlete today.
The New York Yankees Are Falling Apart
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As if things could get any worse for the AL East’s last-place club, a litany of injuries hit the New York Yankees this week, which is leaving the club scrambling to plug holes in its lineup.
On Wednesday, designated hitter Alex Rodriguez was placed on the disabled list with a hamstring strain. Then Friday, starting pitcher CC Sabathia joined him on the 15-day DL with a left groin strain.
In a busy day for the team’s training staff, outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury left Friday’s game against the Boston Red Sox with a “tight right hip,” according to ESPN.com’s Wallace Matthews.
Matthews also reported that an MRI later revealed a strain in the hip. The report later indicated that manager Joe Girardi expects both Sabathia and Rodriguez to be out longer than 15 days.
The injury comes at a particularly unfortunate time for Ellsbury, who seemed to be redeeming himself after a rough 2015 campaign. In the three games heading into Friday night, he was 6-for-11 with three doubles and two walks.
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