Giants, Blue Jays face rebuild decision, Red Sox, Orioles do dumb things, power rankings, league leaders and more

Debating whether the Giants and Blue Jays should hit the reset button, if the Red Sox should have tried to hit Orioles star Manny Machado, plus the Nationals, Eric Thames, league leaders, power rankings and more.

Madison Bumgarner has dazzled fans with his abilities as a pitcher and a hitter this season — well, throughout his nine-year major league career, really. However, Bumgarner recently landed on the disabled list for the first time in his career as a result of the way he landed falling off a dirt bike last Thursday when the Giants were in Colorado to face the Rockies.

It’s obviously a big loss for the club. Through four starts, Bumgarner has posted a 0-3 record, but has a 3.00 ERA, having allowed 25 hits and four walks while striking out 25 hitters in 27 innings. He also hit two home runs on Opening Day.

A four-time All-Star, Bumgarner has finished in the top 10 of the National League Cy Young race in each of the past five seasons. It’s unclear how long the 27-year old lefty will be sidelined with the rib and shoulder injuries he suffered, including a sprained AC joint. Nevertheless, Bumgarner is likely to see his streak of top-10 Cy Young finishes come to an end, as well as his run of six straight seasons of pitching 200-plus innings while making at least 31 starts.

Shoulder injuries are tricky. Bumgarner has been one of the most dependable starters in the major leagues over the past six seasons, so he may bounce back quickly and be back on the mound in a month or so. He may even be his same, mostly dominant self. Or, Bumgarner’s freak accident may impact him in such a way that his performance could suffer for years to come.

Despite the obvious concerns, and the nature of the accident (players are generally discouraged from doing things like riding mountain bikes, especially during the season), the Giants aren’t likely to pursue any sort of retribution for Bumgarner’s accident. That’s a smart move since he’s already underpaid after signing a five-year, $35 million contract prior to the 2013 season. But, Bumgarner’s injury might force the Giants hand on another matter: whether or not to tear down the roster and rebuild.

Thanks to a vintage performance from Matt Cain, the Giants beat the Dodgers Monday 2-1 to improve their record to 7-13. The team still owns the worst record in the NL West, and instead of Bumgarner pitching head-to-head with Clayton Kershaw Tuesday night in San Francisco, Ty Blach took the mound against the three-time Cy Young winner. Simply put, things could get worse before they get better.

Aside from the 32-year old Cain, who has a 2.42 ERA in four starts, the San Francisco pitching staff hasn’t been good this season. Overall, the Giants rank 14th in the NL in ERA (4.51) and park-adjusted ERA (125), 12th in runs allowed (90) and 12th in hits allowed (173). Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto and Matt Moore all have ERAs over 5.00. Samardzija and Cueto also happen to be 32 and 31, respectively.

The core of the lineup is also on the wrong side of 30. Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford both celebrated their 30th birthdays earlier this year, Denard Span is 33 and Hunter Pence is 34. Eduardo Nunez will be 30 later this season, and Brandon Belt just turned 29.

In other words, the window to win a fourth World Series is closing. Unless the team starts playing better baseball quickly — a possibility, though Bumgarner’s injury obviously makes it less likely — the Giants will need to make some moves to boost the roster in order to contend for a playoff spot, especially considering the competition in the suddenly very strong NL West.

That could mean going after available players such as Royals outfielder Lorenzo Cain — an impending free agent that would be an ideal fit in center field at AT&T Park — or trying to trade away some of the team’s aging stars to rebuild what has become a uncharacteristically shallow farm system.

Though the team may continue to struggle, there’s no reason to panic. After all, the Giants stumbled through a 76-86 season in 2013 between even-year World Championships. We’re also only three weeks into the season and the Giants have committed a lot of money to core players, most of whom are signed to long-term deals that would be difficult to move.

The Blue Jays on the other hand, should prepare to start over. Toronto is 5-14 through Monday, which is the worst record in baseball, and the club has been even more injury-prone than the Giants. Josh Donaldson, J.A. Happ, and Aaron Sanchez — the team’s three top performers in 2016 in WAR, according to Baseball-Reference – are all on the disabled list, as are shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and reliever J.P. Howell. Only Sanchez is younger than 32.

In fact, the average age of the Blue Jays position players is 31.4, highlighted by 36-year-old Jose Bautista and 34-year-olds Russell Martin, Steve Pearce and Kendrys Morales. The starting rotation features Marco Estrada and Francisco Liriano, both of whom are 33, plus 33-year-old reliever Joe Smith and 40-year old Jason Grilli.

Toronto’s window isn’t just closing, it’s nearly shut.

The Blue Jays also parted with slugger Edwin Encarnacion over the offseason, which has hurt their run production, and will likely hurt their ability to bounce back this season. Only the Royals (another should-be rebuilding club) have scored fewer runs so far than the Blue Jays.

Sometimes baseball players do dumb things

In case you were under a rock this weekend — or climbing mountains and cave diving in the Puerto Rican rainforest like I was (unlike Bumgarner, no employer or fan would care if I fall and hurt myself) — you saw that the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles engaged in the traditional (and silly) back-and-forth following a run-in between Manny Machado and Dustin Pedroia at second base Friday night.

Machado slid late into second base, coming in with his spikes high. His cleats caught Pedroia in the leg, and the Red Sox second baseman was injured and hasn’t played since.

Machado has a reputation for putting himself in these types of situations, but the play itself was relatively innocent. Of course, because of Machado’s reputation, many Red Sox fans claimed Machado’s slide was dirty and that Machado is, has been and always will be a dirty player. To be fair, there has also been some concern from other corners of the baseball universe. Nevertheless, as Ken Rosenthal wrote for FoxSports, Machado and Pedroia are the least at fault for the situation — and the (at least) two dumb decisions that followed.

Dumb Decision No. 1: Matt Barnes dangerously threw at Machado Sunday, and instead of hitting him in the backside as has become custom in the unwritten code, he sailed a fastball over the head of the star third baseman. As a result, Barnes was ejected and suspended.

Eduardo Rodriguez apparently tried to hit Machado in the backside earlier in the game. Had Rodriguez not missed three times, or had the Red Sox determined that Rodriguez’s failed attempts sent enough of a message that they were unhappy with Machado for his role in injuring Pedroia, Barnes would have stayed out of the situation completely.

Instead, Barnes put himself at the very center by throwing behind Machado’s head. The 27-year-old right-hander apologized afterward, and pointed out that throwing at someone’s head is a line no pitcher should cross. It’s very possible Barnes was trying to hit Machado in the backside, or possibly between the numbers.

Nonetheless, pitchers aren’t as accurate as we sometimes expect them to be, which is why intentionally trying to hit someone with a pitch is a very bad idea and could have done irreparable harm to Machado.

Dumb Decision No. 1.5: Red Sox manager John Farrell came out of the dugout to argue whether or not the ball, which hit Machado’s bat (and not his head, thankfully), was fair. This was done in poor taste given the fact Machado had newly been hit in the head by a major-league fastball.

Dumb Decision No. 2: Orioles relief pitcher Zach Britton was quoted by Dan Connolly of BaltimoreBaseball.com basically calling Pedroia out for not being a good enough leader to stop this foolishness.

Pedroia, to his credit, didn’t seem happy about the incident. However, even this move received backlash from fans and observers upset that Pedroia didn’t appreciate Barnes sticking up for his teammate. Britton’s take was off the mark, however.

There was also an incident in Minnesota over the weekend. Twins pitcher Justin Haley hit Tigers center fielder JaCoby Jones in the face with a pitch Saturday, which, though scary, seemed completely accidental. Still, Detroit pitcher Matthew Boyd threw behind Twins slugger Miguel Sano in retaliation.

Sano, upset at the situation (and rightly so), pointed and yelled at Boyd before catcher James McCann got involved, which led to the two players shoving one another and Sano taking a swing (side note: much like a football player shouldn’t try to punch another player wearing a helmet, baseball players shouldn’t throw a punch at a catcher wearing a mask, especially of the hockey goalie-style).

Sano has been suspended, and will appeal. Jones has been placed on the disabled list.

Three things we learned

1. The Washington Nationals are a World Series contender

The closer situation has yet to resolve itself, but with 13 wins in their first 19 games, the Nationals have opened up a 2.5-game lead in the NL East and have already taken control of the division.

An 8-4 loss to the Rockies Monday ended the Nats seven-game winning streak, which included sweeps in Atlanta and New York. The three wins in Queens are particularly important given the banged-up Mets were expected to be Washington’s top competition in the NL East. As it stands heading into Tuesday’s games, the Mets are five games back.

Bryce Harper looks like an MVP again, hitting .394/.518/.803 with seven home runs and 20 RBI through Monday. Ryan Zimmerman also has seven homers, and has hit .379/.431/.788 with 18 RBI, and Daniel Murphy has driven in 14 runs while hitting .308/.341/.513.

The team’s four primary starters all have an ERA of 3.65 or better in four starts. Stephen Strasburg has posted a 2.89 ERA with 29 strikeouts in 28 innings. Max Scherzer is 3-1 with a 1.95 ERA and 33 K’s in 27.2 frames. Gio Gonzalez has a 1.35 ERA.

It’s worth pointing out that the Nationals played the Sunday night game in New York and travelled to Colorado for a game with the first-place Rockies the very next day. It’s a tough stretch, and the Nats have a four-game series in Denver before heading home and beginning play against the Mets Friday, but this team should be just fine.

Actually, given the lack of strength throughout the division, especially with the Mets hurt and struggling, the Nationals should be considered the favorites to be the first MLB team to clinch its division in September.

2. The Marlins will have new owners soon

It’s okay Marlins fans. Jeffrey Loria can’t hurt you anymore. Well, once the sale goes through, that is.

According to Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg, Yankees legend Derek Jeter and former Florida governor Jeb Bush are part the group that won an auction to purchase the Miami Marlins. We don’t yet know the price of the sale, but it is expected to be in the $1.3 billion range. The franchise was recently valued at $940 million by Forbes. Fans in Florida will wait patiently for the details, especially the timeline for the new ownership group to take place.

It’s exciting news, especially the connection to Jeter, who as a future Hall of Famer is likely to have a big role in the operation, and will likely insist on building a first-class organization. Also, there shouldn’t be any worry that the Fish will try to relocate after the sale given Jeter’s and Bush’s ties to the Sunshine State.

3. The Braves are right to build around Freddie Freeman

Keeping with the NL East theme, the Atlanta Braves entered Tuesday on a six-game losing streak, and with an NL-worst .333 winning percentage. Only the Blue Jays are off to a worse start.

However, the Braves still have an MVP candidate, as Freddie Freeman has opened the 2017 season hitting .381/.494/.810 with seven home runs, 16 runs scored, and nine RBI. Freeman also has two doubles, one triple and two stolen bases.

As Atlanta reporter Grant McAuley pointed out, Freeman’s hot start is just a continuation of where he left off last year. After all, he did finish sixth in the MVP voting last season despite the team’s 67-94 finish.

The Braves are off to a bad start this season, and are in the midst of a rebuild. But, the 27-year old Freeman has been one of the few “untouchable” players on the team for good reason. With a new ballpark, many of Atlanta’s top prospects at or near the major league level, and an improving offense, the Braves should have a contending team soon.

Quotable

"“If people keep thinking I’m on stuff, I’ll be here every day. I have a lot of blood and urine.”"

-Brewers 1st baseman Eric Thames following a random drug test administered after Tuesday’s game.

Whatever Eric Thames has been doing is working. The 6-foot, 210-pound left-handed hitter, in his first season with the Brewers after a three-year stint in Korea, homered twice more Monday night and again Tuesday to raise his major league-leading mark to 11 home runs this season.

Thames now has eight dingers against the Cincinnati Reds in six games this season, including at least one long ball in each contest. Also, no other player has eight home runs total. Finally, Thames took Reds rookie Amir Garrett deep twice Monday, which pushed his total to four home runs against lefties in 16 plate appearances to date.

Play of the Week

Blue Jays base runner Chris Coghlan did something we haven’t seen since Major League 2 when he jumped over Yadier Molina to score.

Of course, Kole Calhoun’s dive early in the week is worthy of a mention also.

League Leaders

Every week we set aside one advanced statistic for position players and another for pitchers to dip our toes into the deep end of the baseball analytics pool. Most of the time, the stats related to position players are offensively based. However, defensive metrics are becoming better each year and help us better understand a player’s value in the field.

Today, we take an early look at this year’s Defensive Runs Saved leaderboard. Calculating DRS is very complicated, but the description of the stat itself is self-explanatory. DRS tells us how many runs a player has saved with his defense. It is also a plus/minus metric, in that players with negative DRS actually allow more runs than they’ve saved, and therefore hurt their team when they play the field.

As an example, Andrew McCutchen posted the worst DRS in baseball (-28) last season, which was six runs more than No. 2 J.D. Martinez, the slugging Tigers outfielder. No wonder the Pirates moved McCutchen over to right field and gave Starling Marte (who ranked seventh in the majors with 19 runs saved last season). Also, that helps explain why Marte’s suspension is such a big deal to the overall success or failure of the Pirates this season.

Last season, Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts was the runaway leader in DRS with 32. White Sox outfielder Adam Eaton (now of the Washington Nationals) was the runner-up with 22, followed by Blue Jays center fielder Kevin Pillar (21) and Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado (20).

DRS

• Rougned Odor, 2B, Texas Rangers (6)
• Lorenzo Cain, OF, Kansas City Royals (5)
• Addison Russell, SS, Chicago Cubs (5)
• Austin Hedges, C, San Diego Padres (4)
• J. LeMahieu, 2B, Colorado Rockies (4)

Hedges and LeMahieu are actually with five other players: Tigers second baseman Ian Kinsler, Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon, and outfielders Aaron Judge of the Yankees, Marcell Ozuna of the Marlins and the Mariners’ Mitch Haniger.

As for pitchers, ERA is a commonly used metric — so common that we don’t have to preface the use of the acronym by explaining Earned Run Average. FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is far less common, but does a better job describing the pitcher’s true value. E-F (ERA-FIP) shows us which pitchers are actually pitching better than their ERA would indicate.

Last season, Diamondbacks left-hander Robbie Ray led the major leagues in E-F (1.14), Yankees starter Michael Pineda led the American League (1.02) and Rockies right-hander Jon Gray (1.00) rounded out the top three.

E-F (Qualified starters)

• Jeff Samardzija, San Francisco Giants (3.06)
• Danny Salazer, Cleveland Indians (2.35)
• Jason Hammel, Kansas City Royals (1.98)
• Justin Verlander, Detroit Tigers (1.89)
• Kevin Gausman, Baltimore Orioles (1.85)

Jeff Samardzija has obviously struggled this season. A 0-4 record with a 7.40 ERA in four starts is not good by any means. Samardzija leads the majors with 20 earned runs allowed in 24.1 innings. However, he hasn’t quite as bad as his ERA would suggest. Samardzija has struck out 30 hitters this year, and is actually posting a career high 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings to date. His 3.3 strikeouts-to-walks ratio is better than any he has posted in a full major league season other than his 2014 All-Star campaign.

Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect that — assuming he continues to strike hitters out and limit his walks — Samardzija’s ERA will come back down to earth as the season progresses. The same goes for the rest of the players on this list, who have all struggled this season, and have also posted higher ERA’s than expected.

Little League Home Run Alert!

Random MLB Power Rankings

Ranking the top 10 players currently on the disabled list

1. Madison Bumgarner, SP, San Francisco Giants
2. Josh Donaldson, 3B, Toronto Blue Jays
3. Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Detroit Tigers
4. David Price, SP, Boston Red Sox
5. Aaron Sanchez, SP, Toronto Blue Jays
6. Adrian Beltre, 3B, Texas Rangers
7. Zach Britton, CP, Baltimore Orioles
8. Gary Sanchez, C, New York Yankees
9. Chris Tillman, SP, Baltimore Orioles
10. Garrett Richards, SP, Los Angeles

We’ve spent a lot of column inches this week talking about players on the DL. Might as well rank ’em.

Next: 50 Best Teams Never To Win The World Series

Useless Info

In his Freddie Freeman research, McAuley found that only 24 players in big league history have hit 40 or more home runs and driven in fewer than 100 runs in a season.

Major league teams have averaged 8.11 hits per game through Monday, which is the fewest since 1968, and would ranks as the sixth fewest in the modern era.

With thanks to Joe Peta, the Giants have been the second-worst team in baseball since the 2016 All-Star break. Before Monday’s win over the Dodgers, San Francisco was on a 98-loss pace during that span.

Curt Schilling holds the record with 65 strikeouts in the month of April, which he set in 1998, according to research from Baseball-Reference’s Play Index. As of Monday, Chris Sale leads the majors with 42 strikeouts. He starts Wednesday.

As Padres beat writer Dennis Lin pointed out, San Diego is 10-5 in its brown throwback-type uniform set since it was introduced last year. The Padres are now 66-101 in all other games.

Ryan M. Spaeder pointed out that Andrew Benintendi, who recorded five hits Sunday, became the youngest Red Sox hitter to achieve the feat in a game since Tony Conigliaro in 1967.

The Pirates beat the Yankees 2-1 Sunday. The last time Pittsburgh won a one-run game against the Yankees was Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, when Bill Mazeroski walked it off. Doug Kern pointed out the fact.

Cincinnati Reds prospect Tyler Mahle threw a perfect game for Double-A Pensacola Saturday. The 22-year old right-hander struck out eight in the 1-0 win over Mobile.

Giants prospect Domenic Mazza tossed a perfect game for Class-A Augusta Tuesday. He struck out nine against Lexington.

According to Elias Sports Bureau, Ichiro Suzuki broke Carlton Fisk’s record as the oldest player to hit a home run against a team he spent more than a decade playing for.

If that’s not useless, I don’t know what is.