Tag: Adam Wainwright

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What Would a Pitcher Home Run Derby Actually Look Like?

Photo Credit: Jose Luis Villegas/The Sacramento Bee

Recently, there has been much discussion in and around baseball about whether or not Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner should participate in this year’s Home Run Derby.   It seems like a fun idea, but San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy, along with many others, is concerned about the injury potential that comes with swinging the bat as hard as possible once every 15 seconds (as we saw in last year’s Derby).

That being said, it looks like Bumgarner’s participation in this year’s event is at least slightly possible; he told reporters that he would “absolutely” want to take part if he was invited to participate.

I’ll say this right now: it’ll never happen.  There are too many people in the Giants organization telling him not to and the risk of injury is too present.  Both he and the Giants have too much to lose by doing this.  But the debate about Bumgarner got me to thinking: if we were to have a Home Run Derby with pitchers only, who would participate?

I thought it an interesting question; after all, there’s a reason why #PitchersWhoRake is a thing.  So I set out to find eight pitchers to fill my hypothetical, pitcher-only Derby.

So let’s start with the obvious…

Madison Bumgarner

Duh.  This guy is the best-hitting pitcher in baseball; in fact, he leads all active pitchers in home runs… and he’s only in his sixth full season.  His home run rate is comparable to Mike Trout and Bryce Harper (no, seriously) and he has the bona fide power needed to win a Home Run Derby.

For instance, listen to this account of a recent batting practice exhibition in St. Louis, as told to ESPN’s Buster Olney and relayed by Sports Illustrated’s Jay Jaffe:

Prior to Sunday night’s ESPN-televised game between the Giants and Cardinals, Bumgarner put on a show in batting practice at Busch Stadium, hitting more than a dozen homers, including two into the third deck and one into the uppermost fourth deck. A groundskeeper told ESPN’s Buster Olney that Mariners slugger Nelson Cruz is the only other player he can recall reaching such rarefied territory.

That would be perfect for the Derby.  And Petco Park has become more hitter-neutral since its fences were pulled in three years ago; this would give MadBum at least a fighting chance to get his share of dingers.

And that’s exactly what all of us would want to see.

Noah Syndergaard

Here, our Derby gets a solid injection of THOOOOOOORRRRRRRR…..

In any event, Syndergaard hits like a poor man’s Bumgarner; while his strikeout rate is awfully high, he usually finds a way to hit the ball hard when he makes contact.  And when he’s not throwing 100 MPH heat behind people’s backs or at their faces, he’s hitting impressive home runs to the deepest parts of the park (three, to be exact).  In fact, all three of his home runs have approached 400 feet.

While he might struggle trying to hit home runs to center over a wall 400 feet from home plate, a more friendly right field gives him a legitimate chance to compete.

So yeah, Syndergaard is a must for this event.

Jake Arrieta

Here’s another pitcher who seems to want in on the Home Run Derby fun.  This is what Arrieta had to say after Saturday’s win over the Braves, his tenth of the season:

If he’s in it, I need to be in it [….] That’s for sure. He can hit the ball a long way, but I can too.

Arrieta has impressive power to all fields; in a game last season against the Pirates, he hit a home run and a warning track fly at Wrigley.  His power has been majestic at times, and he would surely make the Derby more interesting.

He’d also give it some name recognition; after all, he’s only one of the two best pitchers in baseball.

Zack Greinke

A low-risk, potentially high-reward choice here.  Greinke has six career home runs, including two in the span of ten days last season with the Dodgers.

There’s not a whole lot more to say about this; Greinke has been one of the best hitting pitchers in baseball for several years, so he should be a safe pick for the Derby.

Adam Wainwright

And yet another pitcher seems to want a piece of the Home Run Derby pie.  This is what Wainwright tweeted in the wake of the news about Bumgarner and Wainwright:

Wainwright would be an excellent choice, with seven career home runs to his name.  And if he seems to want to do it, why should he be denied?

Yovani Gallardo

This is another safe choice.  But it brings another layer to this debate: Gallardo has not pitched in the National League since leaving the Brewers after the 2014 season.  He boasted tremendous power during this time, hitting 12 home runs and four in the 2010 season alone.  But how will he fare doing something that he hasn’t really done in almost two years?

He should be able to do pretty well; let’s just hope he isn’t too rusty.

Jose Fernandez

I don’t know about you, but I like my home runs with a little sauce.  This is what Fernandez did (and what ensued) when he hit his first career home run in 2013:

Fernandez in a Home Run Derby would be awesome.  Imagine a more high-energy, emotional version of Yoenis Cespedes from three years ago.  If that’s the Fernandez we get, we’d be in for a very fun night.

And that’s what this is about, not playing the game “the right way”.

Finally, for a bonus…

Bartolo Colon

Please, just please let this happen.  Please?

This would undoubtedly be the best part of a pitcher Derby.  Not much would be expected from Big Sexy, and any home run he hits would bring Petco Park to the ground.  Add that to the fact that he hit his first career home run at Petco and you get a no-brainer pick who would become the sentimental favorite just by stepping onto the field.

And we know that even if he doesn’t make contact, he’s still going to try really hard.  Sometimes even laughably hard.

But he’d make this Derby even more fun than it already is.

This is the Home Run Derby we will never have, but it’s the one we need. But according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, maybe there is a chance of it happening after all:

So you’re saying there’s a chance?  Count me in.

Let’s make this work and make baseball fun again in the process.

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In Support of the Universal DH

Over the years, there has been much debate about whether the National League should keep up with its counterpart American League in adopting a Designated Hitter.  The American League first adopted the DH in 1973.  The National League never has.  Another thing that has caused all this debate has been recent injuries to pitchers Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals and Max Scherzer of the Nationals, both suffered while at the plate.  Scherzer jammed his wrist while batting while Wainwright severely injured his Achilles while leaving the batters’ box after hitting a ball into the field.  After the Wainwright injury, Scherzer came out in favor of the DH, telling CBS Sports, “I wouldn’t be opposed.”  These injuries to two of the game’s best pitchers have rightfully brought up an important question: why are we making our pitchers hit when so few of them create offense anyway?

In the very early portions of this season and going into tonight’s action, pitchers in both leagues are hitting a combined .089.  This underscores an important fact: most pitchers, except if they are bunting, are not even interested in hitting.  After all, we’ve learned a cautionary tale over the past week:  if pitchers try too hard, they can potentially get injured.  I believe that these injuries will lead to pitchers giving an even more apathetic effort at the dish, leading to that number getting even lower.  Another disadvantage to National League (or American League, in a National League Park) pitchers having what amounts to an almost automatic out is that it tips the scales even more towards the pitchers in a game that already favors them.  No, I don’t want a repeat of the steroid era: I just want an evenly balanced game between offense and pitching.  It pitchers going to try even less at the plate, fans will be less likely to be interested and hitting numbers in the NL will continue to stay the same or decline.  But they’ll continue to be interested in this guy, at least:

bartolo-colon1

Another point needs to be made here: why do two different leagues have a set of rules?  Hypothetically, what if the NBA’s Western Conference allowed a sixth player on offense?  Teams could plan for that luxury.  How many three-pointers could the Warriors hit then?  Or what if cornerbacks in the NFL’s NFC could get away with more hand contact/pass interference than in the AFC?  Would the Seahawks ever allow a point again?  Look, the point is, teams that are better at pitching in the National League are set.  Take the Mets, for example.  Their team ERA is collectively, under 3.  Actually, take the entire National League.  Three of the top 4 teams in ERA hail from the NL, but the top five teams in runs come from the American League.   Also, in 19 games, the American League has scored seven more runs, has hit three more home runs, and has an OPS twenty points higher then the National League does. This can clearly be attributed to the added production of having a Designated Hitter in one league, and making a position of players that have hit a combined .089 this season hit in the other league.

The bottom line here is that two pitchers got injured this week doing something that they are not comfortable doing. One will be back soon.  The other is not coming back this season.  While he could have torn his Achilles going out to his car or walking a flight of stairs, he did it at the plate.  There’s a tragedy in that.  What if a team’s franchise middle-of-the-order hitter was made to pitch and got severely injured and missed the rest of his team’s season?  His team might not reach its expectations for this season.  That may happen to the Cardinals without Wainwright, just in the opposite scenario.  Why should a team have to deal with this when it could be easily avoided by a simple rule change? This rule should be changed as soon as possible.  Another famous injury we cannot forget about the Yankees’ Chien- Ming Wang, who suffered a foot injury while running the bases in the then-National League Houston Astros’ stadium in June of 2008.  After that injury, Wang was never the same.  He went from a Cy Young Award-winning caliber pitcher to one who averaged a 5.31 ERA in the four years that he pitched after the injury.  He hadn’t been used to running the bases, and it can be speculated that we were robbed of one of the best pitchers in the game in his prime due to his having to run the bases and suffering the injury.  There’s a tragedy in that, too.

While I understand the argument that “baseball purists” may make for National League baseball being superior to that of the American League, I think the rules should be the same in both leagues: there should be a DH, all the way around.  We cannot allow any more pitchers to be injured over the course of a baseball game doing anything other than pitching.  I’m sure this article will probably be met with disagreement by purists and those who generally like to watch pitchers hit (I don’t know anyone who does, unless it’s Bartolo Colon), but there should be a DH in all of Major League Baseball, and this rule should be enacted as soon as possible.

I wouldn’t be opposed.