We’ll get to the highly underrated pitching star Wade Miley in a minute. Watching Wade work is like a massage for your baseball soul. First, this. . .
I’m starting to hear that the Reds should cash in the season and start selling off assets, for future considerations. Let the rebuild begin. That’s crazy.
One, they’re 6.5 games behind Milwaukee, and 5 out of the second wild card. Not close, but not done, either. I look at the rest of the schedule and see (relatively) easy: 23 games with the Cubs and Pirates, a vast majority against teams now under .500.
Do the Brewers scare you so much, you wanna white-flag the season with 67 games to play?
More to the point: Did you miss the last Reds attempt at a rebuild? Five years of tanking and now they’re. . . here. With you talking about a rebuild.
If current ownership has shown one thing, it’s that it has no appetite or patience for doing a rebuild the right way.
With whom, exactly, would you want to launch the next rebuild? The Reds have a few interesting pieces we think we know about – India, Stephenson, Winker, Mahle – and a few we dream on, Lodolo and Greene. But it isn’t as if this organization is Young Star Central. For a view of what that looks like, turn to San Diego and Toronto and, perpetually, downtown LA. Even the South Side of Chicago.
You want to deal Castellanos? OK. For whom? How much do you think a position player who can be a free agent in a few months will fetch?
Who else? Miley? Maybe, but nobody’s paying top prospect dollar for him.
Suarez? Child, please.
Castillo would be appealing, but even in a rebuild, you have to give people some reason to come to the ballpark on non-bobbler nights when they’re not blowing things up.
This team was built for a 2- 3-year window of winning. At least that’s what we were told. Let this season exercise that option. You’ve seen what rebuilding here looks like. You really wanna do that again so soon?
Now, then. . .
It’s comforting when Wade Miley pitches. When Wade the OG is in the center ring, you can watch the Reds without hiding your eyes. Baseball is a simple game we’ve insisted on overcomplicating. It seems like a million years ago when Tony Gwynn won batting titles following this advice:
See ball. Hit ball. Run like hell.
The quote is also attributed to Pete Rose, but I think it originated with a former Padres hitting coach who worked with Gwynn. Guy named Deacon Jones, whose major-league career consisted of 60 plate appearances. Help me out, Mobsters.
Anyway. . .
There is art in the way Miley pitches, but maybe not a lot of science. He isn’t out there pondering spin rates, or if he is, he doesn’t dwell on it. There’s nothing wrong with learning how to pitch by interpreting computer data. Lots of guys do just that, and do it very well. Derek Johnson has been invaluable to the Reds. Kyle Boddy, too. They’re cutting-edge coaches.
It’s just that sometimes, you like a guy who does nothing more complicated than work fast, throw strikes and change speeds.
When OG Wade deals, you know what you’re going to get. He’s like a trusted mechanic. You find someone who knows your car and doesn’t charge you a mortgage payment to fix it, you hang onto that guy.
When Miley starts, the Reds are 12-5. He hasn’t lost since May 19. That’s two full months of bullpen meltdowns. When we speak of a nominal rotation order for the Club, it starts with Castillo and proceeds to Gray and Mahle. But Miley has been the best starter on this team, easily.
He has made 17 starts. In 14 of them, he has allowed two earned runs or fewer. Five times, Miley has allowed no earned runs. He has made exactly one bad start, a 3-inning, 8-run disaster on May 14.
He has logged 103 innings, six fewer than team leader Castillo, but with three fewer starts. We have fewer questions with him. We don’t ask, is he going to need 100 pitches to negotiate five innings? How’s his change-up working? How long before he injures something?
Well, maybe we wonder a little about that last one. Stay off the bases, big guy. You’re not 21 anymore. Keep those hammies happy.
Tuesday night was vintage OG Wade. Another steady performance when his team needed one, desperately. Guy’s a rock in this rockiest of seasons.
KEEP THE A’S IN OAKLAND. . . Stadium roulette has happened in Oakland for at least a decade, and that’s a shame. The A’s ballpark was a sun-splashed gem until Al Davis brought the Raiders back from LA and turned the Coliseum into a bloated gray monstrosity. It’s been slipping ever since.
Now, the A’s say they might be headed to Vegas, same as their NFL brethren:
Team officials have continued exploring Las Vegas and its surrounding areas as an alternative. Kaval and A's owner John Fisher have made three trips to southern Nevada this year and plan to return there on Wednesday. Manfred said before last week's All-Star Game that it would be "a mistake" to refer to the Las Vegas option as a bluff, calling it "a viable alternative for a major league club." Other relocation options -- including Portland, Oregon; Nashville, Tennessee; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Montreal -- could materialize if the team's deal with the city falls through. (ESPN.com)
Baseball shouldn’t let this happen. The franchise has a rich history and is a model for how small-money organizations can compete. The East Bay is entirely overshadowed by its big bro across the water, but is actually a more pleasant place to be.
Frequent perusers of This Space will recognize my affection for Oakland and its delightful ‘burbs. Bury my heart in Walnut Creek. Give me one more hike up Mt. Diablo. The weather is mostly San Diego-esque. The area lacks San Francisco’s pretense. The ball team and its fans have suffered the worst ballpark in baseball for way too long. Do right by them.
No one here cares, Doc.
I know. But I do, and it’s my blog. And our club could learn more than a few things from that club.
WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? Alabama football coach Nick Saban hasn't officially named Bryce Young the Crimson Tide's starting quarterback, and yet Saban says that Young is already approaching $1 million in endorsement deals.
According to reports, Saban told the Texas High School Coaches Association's convention on Tuesday that Young, a sophomore, is due to make "ungodly numbers."
While Saban wouldn't divulge the specifics of the deals Young has signed, Saban said the total compensation is "almost seven figures.
"And it's like, the guy hasn't even played yet," Saban said, according to The Athletic. "But that's because of our brand." (ESPN.com)
I mean, that’s fine. Good for Young, I guess. Who wouldn’t want to have a mil in the bank before his first fraternity rush party? I guess he won’t lose sleep worrying about paying for his date’s movie ticket.
But the devil’s advocate could ask this: What is being accomplished here, really?
A college education never has meant less in quasi-am sports than it does now. I’d be good if we simply did away with the pretend notion that Young and his big-time peers are students, and call them what they are: Employees. Give their scholarships to kids who don’t make the school any money, but whose brains might change the world. Don’t use a seat in a classroom to support the sham notion that the newest millionaire QB has a keen interest in molecular biology.
Remember when a free ride to college was seen as a valued commodity, priceless even? When playing sports was a privilege, not a right?
Me, neither, but I’m told such a time really existed. Now it finishes 2nd to endorsement dollars from a taco stand.
MY SON HAD A COOL IDEA when baseball season started. He lives in Brooklyn, has a small season-ticket package to the Yankees. Every game he’s been to this year, he has taken one cell-phone pic of something representative of the game he’s watching. He has been to five games. Recently it was Ohtani at bat. Last night, it was the haze over The Stadium, a byproduct, incredibly, of the fires raging in Oregon, nearly 3,000 miles west.
Kelly is going to put all the pics in something of a collage and frame them.
Man, I wish I’d done something similar when I started this gig. Quirky snaps, evocative snaps, snaps to make me smile. I’ve been to Lambeau Field maybe 10 times. . . and have not one picture.
The Palestra in Philly. Dodger Stadium at dusk. Wrigley. The Jordan statue, the Rocky steps, the Dean Dome, Pauley Pavilion. The Pit on a Friday night, for goodness sake.
I have lots of photos of Cooperstown, but none at the Pro Bowl in Honolulu.
I’ve prided myself on never wasting an opportunity to seize moments on the road. How I let this obvious one pass is beyond me.
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . On the subject of Bests here yesterday, I listed the four best Jackson Browne albums. Got good response, so how about this:
Your favorite album.
Not what might be considered your best record. Your favorite. Exile on Main Street is my best record. Idlewild South is my favorite. It’s the second set from the Allman Brothers and it features a near-seamless Side 1, which kicks off with this tune.
If you have an hour to spend with rock-n-roll perfection I suggest Idlewild and the Brothers self-titled debut album. They’re paired in a double set called Beginnings, which you can find almost anywhere, for a scandalously low price.
Source link
