Category Archives: Commentary

Baseball, Commentary, Paid Content

Monthly honors 6-21

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No, not the official ones selected by someone nominated by the awards’ insurance company sponsors but the jballallen.com position players and pitchers of the month. I’ll give defense its due when NPB’s hitter award doesn’t, and put less emphasis on feel-good anecdotes the way they did in May — see “3 hits and a near miss.”

Central League

Tyler Austin of the DeNA BayStars was ignored by the insurance company guys in May, but in June, he gets a second straight jballallen.com CL position player of the month award. Unfortunately, no cash prizes are awarded.

In June, Austin tied for second in the CL in home runs with nine, was second in RBIs with 25, tied for second in runs scored, posted a CL-best .506 on-base percentage, led in slugging by a wide margin, and by batting .406, all but ensured the insurers will pay off on his claim.

Koyo Aoyagi of the Hanshin Tigers led the CL in ERA and innings pitched with 30 and was second in strikeouts with 24. He also went 4-0.

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Pacific League

Yutaro Sugimoto of the Orix Buffaloes will probably also get the insurer’s stamp of approval. His 15 runs were second in the PL, while he led with 19 RBIs, and tied for third with five homers behind the six hit Hotaka Yamakawa and Yuki Yanagita. Sugimoto’s .438 OBP was third behind Buffaloes’ leadoff man Shuhei Fukuda’s .466 and Kensuke Kondo’s .456, and he led the league in slugging. So a complete package.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Orix Buffaloes, threw together a league-best 0.64 ERA over 28 innings while striking out 39 batters. The only real contender for the June award is 19-year-old rookie teammate Hiroya Miyagi, who had a monthly MVP-caliber season, but that happens sometimes.

NPB’s batter and pitcher of the month awards will be announced Wednesday, and if they get these ones wrong, I’ll be really surprised.

Baseball, Commentary, News, Paid Content

MLB’s ‘full support’

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Major League Baseball loves to tout its “full support” of baseball in the Olympics. Unfortunately, MLB’s help has been about as rigorous as the 30 teams’ full support of sexual assault victims.

On Friday, however, we saw a change to MLB’s long-standing policy of using the Olympic squad as a kind of summer instructional league team. This Olympic team roster, for the first time, includes a bunch of veterans who know how to play but who aren’t affiliated with MLB teams.

Until now, MLB’s “full support for the Olympics” meant using young minor leaguers while ignoring quality competitors playing abroad whose leagues’ had a less hypocritical take and allowed players to compete for their countries.

So to our surprise, the United States’ team for Tokyo includes slugging DeNA BayStars outfielder Tyler Austin, who will be playing in his home park, Yokohama Stadium, Yakult Swallows closer Scot McGough, SoftBank Hawks starter Nick Martinez, and former Orix Buffaloes starter and closer Brandon Dickson.

Dickson played for the U.S. in the Premier 12 as Team USA’s typical token veteran and helped the U.S. qualify for the Olympics. He’s now with the Cardinals in Triple-A, but you get the picture.

This is so welcome because of a conversation I had in 2003 with the late Bob Watson. At that time, Watson was an MLB vice president who was put in charge of MLB’s Olympic “full support.”

  • JA: Have you considered using American players abroad for the Olympic team?
  • Watson: Our goal is winning. We’ll consider anyone.
  • JA: Did you know that players in Japan are available?
  • Watson: No. I wasn’t aware of that. Who’s playing there?
  • JA: Alex Ochoa is tearing it up here. I talked to him and he said he’d love to play for you.
  • Watson: You mean we could get Alex Ochoa? Wow. That IS interesting.

The U.S. failed to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics without asking any overseas veterans to participate at the Pan Am games to help secure a spot.

In 2008, the U.S. could have included Tuffy Rhodes or Tyrone Woods or Rick Short or pitchers Marc Kroon and Colby Lewis, who all tore it up that year in Japan.

Instead, thanks to MLB’s “full support” won a bronze medal with a team of minor league prospects and the token veteran, pitcher Brandon Knight.

All I can think of is this. If MLB offers you its “full support” it’s probably a good idea to seek legal counsel.

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