William Locke | The Critic's Corner
Cover Image Credit: Jed Jacobsohn / Associated Press
After a long, cold, and jam-packed MLB offseason, baseball finally made its return this weekend. The aspects of the game that we love so dearly were back in our lives after a long hiatus. Beer vendors patrolling the aisles, the smell of fresh hot dogs and popcorn, bats thumping on impact, gloves popping, pitch clocks ticking (?!), and crowds roaring. It feels so good to have baseball back in our lives for the next seven months. The ups and downs of the season will certainly present an abundance of new storylines and introduce us to a whole crop of new stars. With that, here are my five most important storylines to follow this MLB season (as of now):
1. The Pending Shohei Ohtani Free Agency
There is no bigger star in the game right now than Shohei Ohtani. The 28-year-old Japanese phenom is doing things on the baseball field that haven't been seen since the days of Tungsten Arm O'Doyle (a totally fictional player but the subject of a legendary tweet - see link). The point is, Ohtani is a once-in-a-lifetime player, and he will be on the open market when the season ends in November.
With Ohtani being an All-MLB caliber pitcher AND hitter, it is almost assured that he will receive the first half-a-billion dollar contract in MLB history, with the possibility of that figure climbing up to $600 million depending on which team he ends up signing with. The biggest question this season is: where will Ohtani land this winter?
Ohtani is a private person and little is known about what he is looking for in free agency this offseason (besides a major payday, obviously). We do know, however, which teams he met with in December 2017 and the factors that led to his decision when he made the transition from NPB to MLB that winter. Ohtani made it known that he, as is true with most Japanese players making the transition to the United States, preferred to sign with a west coast team. He met with the Angels, Dodgers, Padres, Mariners, Giants, Cubs, and Rangers before ultimately signing with the Angels for the league minimum of $545,000. Ohtani's agent, Nez Balelo of CAA Baseball, said Ohtani chose the Angels because of a "true bond" that he felt with the organization. Fox and The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal also noted the importance of former Angels GM Billy Eppler in Ohtani's decision to sign with the team:
While Eppler's pursuit of Ohtani before his Internet fame may have helped create that bond Ohtani felt with the Angels, Eppler was ultimately fired by the organization following the 2020 season. Does Ohtani still feel that close-knit bond with the Angels following Eppler's departure? That remains unclear. Does polarizing owner Arte Moreno's decision not to sell the team this offseason have any effect on Ohtani's future with the organization? Also unclear. What is clear, however, is Ohtani's desire to win.
After getting to "know" Ohtani over the course of his first five seasons in MLB, I have a hard time believing that he will simply sign with the team that offers him the most lucrative contract (he is not going to pull a Robinson Cano). Ohtani is a fierce competitor that has a burning desire to win at the highest level and frankly, the game needs Ohtani playing in big postseason moments. The goals that Ohtani set for himself when he was in high school back this up, the Japanese superstar wants to win at least three World Series during his time in the States. He hasn't come close to experiencing that during his time with the Angels, as the team has played to a 330-381 record (through Sunday's games) and hasn't finished closer than 10 games back of a playoff spot. Does Ohtani want to re-sign with a team that he hasn't sniffed the playoffs with or will he jet elsewhere in pursuit of a title?
Of the teams Ohtani met with in 2017, the Dodgers, Padres, and Mariners have the highest chance of winning a World Series in the immediate future. The Cubs, Angels, and Rangers would all boost their title hopes after adding Ohtani, but would still need to do some work to the rest of the roster before they would be considered true title contenders. If Ohtani values winning as much as it seems, the Dodgers should be considered the clear favorites to land him this winter. Not only do the Dodgers have a contending team with loads of star power and young talent, but they were also rather quiet this offseason, only signing a few veterans to one-year deals. Hence, keeping their books open for a potential Ohtani deal. A team led by perennial MVP candidates Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman that also boasts a top farm system in all of baseball should be awfully enticing for Ohtani, a player that wants to win. Los Angeles also has high-earners Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urias coming off the books this offseason, only furthering their ability to offer Ohtani a $600 million deal. The Dodgers' front office has clearly been setting the stage for an Ohtani mega deal this winter, only time will tell if their plan comes to fruition.
West coast teams San Diego and Seattle should also be considered contenders in the Ohtani sweepstakes. The Padres, who met with Ohtani in 2017, are World Series contenders this season and have Ohtani's Japanese countryman Yu Darvish on the roster through the 2028 season. Padres GM AJ Preller recruited Ohtani while he was with the Rangers front office, did that create a similar bond with Preller that Ohtani felt with former Angels GM Billy Eppler? While the Padres have built a contender, they have been splashing the cash lately and currently have five players on $100 million+ deals (Bogaerts, Darvish, Musgrove, Machado, and Tatis Jr.) with the impending Juan Soto free agency in 2025. I have a hard time seeing San Diego finding $600 million to shell out to Ohtani.
Seattle has a much clearer financial situation than San Diego, with only Julio Rodriguez, Luis Castillo, and Robbie Ray on deals worth north of $100 million. The Mariners have built a roster that figures to be a contender for the foreseeable future; the thought of Ohtani and J-Rod manning a lineup together for the next 10-15 years should strike fear into AL fans' hearts. Seattle is also a popular destination for Japanese players, with icon Ichiro Suzuki spending the majority of his illustrious career with the team. Consider Seattle a contender in the Ohtani sweepstakes, although they do not have a history of shelling out large contracts like the one Ohtani will receive this winter.
Ohtani's free agency is undoubtedly the biggest storyline in baseball this year and the 2023 season is arguably the most important in Angels franchise history. If things finally come together and the team makes a playoff run, they drastically increase their chances of re-signing Ohtani this winter. If the season goes south and the Angels find themselves middling around .500 yet again, Ohtani might decide to look for greener pastures. If the ladder becomes true, do the Angels cut bait and trade Ohtani prior to the August 1st trade deadline to recoup at least something for a generational player instead of letting him walk in the winter? Even though it would be a rental, one would think that any contender would be willing to trade a couple of top prospects to attain Ohtani for a pennant race. The sheer amount of paths this Ohtani story can take makes it one that I will not be able to take my eyes off of all season long.
2. New Rules, New Game
The implementation of a pitch clock, the banning of the shift, and larger bases - three rule changes that changed the fabric of baseball and had its fan base divided heading into the season. After one weekend of baseball, it is glaringly obvious these rules have made the game infinitely more exciting.
Per ESPN's David Schoenfield, through 50 games, the average game time has been 2 hours and 38 minutes, which is down 25 minutes from last year's nine-inning average. The shortest game of Opening Weekend was a 2-hour and 4-minute pitchers duel between the Guardians and Mariners on Saturday night. Jeff Passan highlighted the impact the new rules have had on the game in a tweet on Monday morning:
Shorter games. More action. Less dead time. Emphasis on the LESS DEAD TIME. The pitch clock doesn't eliminate any game action, what it does forbid the pitcher from wandering aimlessly around the mound for 30 seconds before firing his next pitch, or the batter from adjusting his private parts before stepping back into the batter's box. Baseball is getting back to what it was when it was at the top of the sports pantheon in the United States, a fast-paced strategic game. Fans forget, but the average MLB game lasted around 2 and a half hours throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s - when, as the baseball purists would say, "men were men" and "baseball was baseball." These new rules are returning baseball back to where it needs to be, especially at a time when attention spans are shorter than ever. I would argue that true baseball fans want what is best for the sport and its growth, not what suits their personal interest (if sitting on the couch for 4.5 hours watching teams change pitchers constantly and batters adjust their genitals is your form of entertainment you can watch college baseball).
The new rules are everything baseball fans have been asking for for years - how are fans still finding ways to complain? Well, because people love to complain BUT STILL, these new rules make the game so much more enjoyable to watch, especially on television, and open up so many new storylines to follow this season.
With singles and stolen bases much more common this year, all of a sudden hitters that often fell victim to the shift, Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo for example, contact hitters and speedsters have infinitely more value to a team than they did in previous seasons. Will we see guys like Jorge Mateo, Jon Berti, Esteury Ruiz, C.J. Cron, and Nathaniel Lowe be targeted by contenders? Will players such as Joey Gallo, Corey Seager, Kyle Schwarber, and Matt Olson see their numbers skyrocket this season? The rule changes have brought about a different game, one with more action and excitement. They should also change how teams approach roster construction. As fans, we get to sit back and enjoy the show.
3. Will the Mets' Spending Pay Off?
Mets owner Steve Cohen went on a spending spree this winter, dropping nearly $500 million on free agents and bringing the team's 2023 payroll to an MLB record $336 million, according to Spotrac. This is spending the league has never experienced before, and has given Mets fans hope that had been fleeting in Queens for decades. But will it land the Mets their first World Series title since 1986?
Mets offseason arrivals/extensions (per NBC sports):
Brandon Nimmo (8 years, $162 million)
Edwin Diaz (5 years, $102 million)
Justin Verlander (2 years, $86.7 million)
Kodai Senga (5 years, $75 million)
Jose Quintana (2 years, $26 million)
Adam Ottavino (2 years, $14.5 million)
David Roberston (1 year, $10 million)
Tommy Pham (1 year, $6 million)
Danny Mendick (1 year, $1 million)
Key Mets offseason departures:
Jacob deGrom (to Texas)
Chris Bassitt (to Toronto)
Taijuan Walker (to Philadelphia)
Michael Conforto (to San Francisco - didn't play in 2022)
Despite spending more money on a team than any front office has in the history of baseball, the Mets' current roster does not make them World Series favorites. In fact, it doesn't even make them favorites to win their division. Seriously! DraftKings has them as the fourth largest favorite to win the World Series behind the Astros, Braves, and Yankees, and has them behind the Braves to win the NL East. So why aren't the books buying the Mets?
For starters, betting on 40 and 38-year-olds to lead your rotation is risky business. While Justin Verlander is coming off another Cy Young season in Houston, he turned 40 in February and is already on the IL with a muscle strain. 38-year-old Max Scherzer has been a workhorse his entire career but struggled with injuries last season, only making 23 starts. He will turn 39 in July and should be considered more of an injury risk at this stage of his career. Offseason signing Jose Quintana, who was projected to be the team's fourth starter, will be out until at least July with what has been diagnosed as a lesion in one of his ribs. He underwent bone graft surgery in March. Kodai Senga, who was signed from NPB in Japan, had a worrying elbow in his physical with the Mets and also carries a bit of an injury risk. Following a rocky first inning, however, Senga did look electric in his first start for the Mets on Sunday against Miami. Every starter in the Mets rotation carries an injury risk and/or is up there in age. Unfortunately, this is not a recipe for success over the course of a 162-game schedule. If everyone can manage to get healthy for the playoffs, this rotation is formidable. The question is "if".
Then there's the lineup. I'm sorry Mets fans, but it just doesn't strike fear into my heart the way Houston, Atlanta, the Yankees, St. Louis, San Diego, and even Cleveland's lineups do. Cohen knew his lineup was missing a bat when he made such a hard push to sign Carlos Correa in free agency this winter. He had him and then didn't thanks to that damn physical. The Mets are relying on guys such as Daniel Vogelbach, Eduardo Escobar, Mark Canha, and Brandon Nimmo to be key cogs in their lineup. Call me crazy, but I'd rather be relying on Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris II, Sean Murphy, and Travis d'Arnaud.
What the Mets lineup doesn't have that the above teams do is a perennial MVP candidate. Houston has Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve, Atlanta has Ronald Acuna Jr and Austin Riley, the Yankees have Barry Bonds.. I mean Aaron Judge, St. Louis has Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, San Diego has Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Manny Machado, and Cleveland has Jose Ramirez. I'm sure the Mets thought they were getting that guy in Francisco Lindor when they traded for him in January 2021. Lindor was a perennial All-Star in Cleveland but has yet to find the same form in Queens, not once making an All-Star game and seeing his numbers fall. Mets fans are probably screaming "PETE ALONSO!!!" at the computer screen right now, and I see that point. Alonso, however, has not finished in the top-6 in MVP voting in his career (something that all of the players listed above have done at least once) and his biggest highlights have come in the Home Run Derby. He also just isn't the game-changing player that all of those players listed above are. I'll believe it when I see it with Alonso.
The Mets also opted for an Omar Narvaez-Tomas Nido catching platoon instead of promoting top-5 prospect in all of baseball and elite bat, Francisco Alvarez, to the big league squad. Manager Buck Showalter said that he expects Alvarez to spend most of the season in Triple-A Syracuse while praising the Narvaez-Nido platoon. While I understand wanting to prioritize defense at the catcher position, Francisco Alvarez would have been a quality bat in a lineup in need of production. Oh, and Alvarez already has MLB experience, playing 14 games with the Mets prior to getting hurt last September. Why not give him a chance?
The Mets also have questions surrounding their bullpen. New York's closer and 2022 NL Reliever of the Year Edwin Diaz is expected to miss the entire 2022 season with a torn patellar tendon sustained celebrating Team Puerto Rico's win over the Dominican Republic in the WBC this March. A total fluke injury not only hurt the Mets' title hopes but also caused a painful dialogue between baseball fans regarding the WBC's presence in the baseball calendar. A bullpen that was already middle of the pack is now relying on 38-year-old David Robertson as its closer, with Adam Ottavino, Brooks Raley and Drew Smith playing key roles in relief.
Soooo... yeah. For a team that spent as much money as it did, there certainly remain holes to fill. Mets fans have suffered so much over recent decades and were filled with so much promise when Steve Cohen bought the team from the Wilpons that it almost hurts me as a Yankee fan to see them continue to struggle. We have a long way to go in the 2023 season and the Cohen era, but maybe the franchise is just cursed.
4. Fernando Tatis Jr.'s Return
Fernando Tatis Jr. was a rising star, a player that MLB was marketing as one of the faces of the game. He became known for the passion he plays with, signed a 14-year $340 million contract with the Padres prior to the 2021 season, was named as the cover athlete for MLB The Show 2021, and then led the National League in home runs that year with 42 and finished third in MVP voting. Then it all went south for Tatis.
Prior to the 2022 season, the Padres announced that Tatis suffered a fractured wrist and would miss up to three months. It became known that he sustained the injury in a motorcycle incident, which apparently was a common occurrence for the then 23-year-old:
As the wrist injury lingered longer than expected, Tatis missed all of the 2022 season leading up to August, when he was suspended 80 games after testing positive for a PED called Clostebol. Tatis claimed he was using the banned drug as medication to treat ringworm. The suspension further hampered his relationship with the organization and his teammates; people around the baseball world viewed him as immature and irresponsible. Some fans even wanted Tatis traded away from the Padres (do they dare do this if Tatis can't gel back into the Padres clubhouse?). For a player that rose to the forefront of the sport so quickly, it was an even faster fall from grace.
It's now a new season and an opportunity for Tatis to bounce back from what were certainly some of the darkest days of his life. After playing 16 games in Spring Training, Tatis is set to start a stint in Triple-A El Paso on Tuesday before he is eligible to return from suspension on April 20th when the Padres will be in Arizona for a 4-game set. Not only is Tatis returning from a PED suspension, but he also underwent shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder in September AND a second wrist surgery in October. Tatis has gone through the wringer over the past year.
The Padres, who currently sit third in the league in payroll, are going to be relying heavily on Tatis when he returns. Manager Bob Melvin has already indicated that Tatis will likely be the team's leadoff hitter and will be manning right field, with Juan Soto in left and Xander Bogaerts at shortstop. Despite being in a smaller market, San Diego is spending in a similar stratosphere as the Mets. With that comes lofty expectations and Padres fans expect this team to win its first NL West since 2006 and its first pennant since 1998. Even with all of its star power in Machado, Bogaerts, Soto, Musgrove, and Darvish, I still think this team needs Fernando Tatis Jr. to be producing at an MVP level if it wants to win the World Series. Tatis' integration back into the fold in San Diego is must-watch TV this season.
5. Anthony Volpe's Arrival
Admittedly a bit of a homer pick, but the Yankees are the sport's most prominent franchise and shortstop is the most important position, outsider of the pitcher, in the game. The Yankees have been unable to find a long-term solution at short since Derek Jeter retired following the 2014 season. Yes, Didi Gregorius had his moments (and is one of my favorite Yankees ever), especially in the playoffs, but he only played four full seasons in the Bronx before a UCL injury hurt his production in 2019. Following a couple of rough Gleyber Torres seasons in 2020 and 21, and whatever the hell happened with IKF in 2022, the Yankees may finally have their guy. Enter Anthony Volpe.
Volpe, MLB.com's fifth overall prospect for 2023, was not expected to be the Yankees' Opening Day shortstop. Many thought IKF or Oswald Peraza, who played 18 games with the Yankees last season, would win the job. Volpe, simply put, took the job away from those two guys and earned the starting role in Spring Training. He slashed .309/.415/.618 with 3 HRs, 5 SBs, and 9 BBs in 19 games while flashing a quality glove at short this spring, leaving absolutely no doubt that he needed to be in the Bronx last Thursday for Opening Day. Volpe's presence changes the complexion of the Yankees' lineup.
Anthony Volpe provides something that has been sorely missed from the Yankees lineup since Brett Gardner retired: speed. Elite speed. Volpe stole 50 bases in 132 games across Double and Triple-A last season and that has already translated to the big leagues, where he stole three bags in his opening three games. That put him in rarified air:
For a lineup that has plenty of power, what has hurt the Yankees in the playoffs has been their inability to put pressure on defenses (aka lack of speed), putting the ball in play with RISP and the two true outcomes - home run or strikeout. Volpe has a great eye and should have a high OBP in the bigs and will immediately put pressure on defenses with his speed. He will be a huge benefactor of the new disengagement rule as well. Volpe adds an entirely new dynamic to a Yankees lineup that should help them come October if his first full season in MLB goes according to plan. As Aaron Judge goes, the Yankees go, but Anthony Volpe could play a huge role in this team's success throughout this season and into October. Keep an eye on the young star.
BASEBALL IS BACK (and better), folks. Take it all in for all of its glory. Go to a game. Enjoy its unique quirks and irregularities. Experience the new and exciting brand of baseball. It is going to be a great 6-7 months.
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