Brew Crews, Judgeless Yanks and a Really Fast Kid

Hi Everyone —

Yes, I did spend too much money at the DC Pen Show, thank you for asking. I’d give you a rundown of the pens and paper I bought, I would, except for the fact that this is exactly the opposite of why you’re here.

Instead, by repeated (and possibly sarcastic) demand, I’m bringing back the Monday Rewind, where I go over some stuff that happened over the weekend — either in real life or in my mind — so that you’ll have stuff to talk about at the office/school water cooler!*

I’ve always loved the whole concept of water-cooler talk. I just imagine people meeting in an office, at the drinking fountain, saying, “Hey Jim! Did you catch that kid in the 800-meter race yesterday?” Or “Hey Linda, can you PLEASE explain the Brewers to me?” Or “Hey Mike, why isn’t Freddie Lynn in the Hall of Fame?”

And then some very stern-looking boss walks by and says, “HEY YOU NUMBSKULLS! I DON’T PAY YOU TO TALK ABOUT SPORTS! BACK TO WORK!”

Yes, he always uses the word “Numbskulls.”

Sure, it might be imaginary. But I want to believe. So here are just a few things to talk about while ignoring Mr. Slate’s demand that you go back to work.

THE MARLINS OWN THE YANKEES!

Very fun story at MLB.com after the Marlins sweep of the flailing Yankees — Miami now has a winning record against the New York Yankees. Incredibly, they’re the only team in baseball with a winning record against New York.

Some quick math: Miami is now 21-22 against the Yankees in the regular season, and you will remember that they beat New York in six games in the 2003 World Series — that was the Josh Beckett series. So that pushes their all-time record against the Yankees to 25-24. To borrow from Ralph Kiner — if George Steinbrenner were alive today, he’d be rolling over in his grave.

Here are the top five records against the Yankees:

Here’s my only issue with the MLB story — they list the Minnesota Twins as having the worst record against the Yankees. This totally fits the eye — the Twins are famously terrible against New York, particularly in the postseason, where they are a stunning 2-16. The first person to forward me this story was Mike Schur because, as many of you know, Mike and I are OBSESSED with the Twins’ horrifying inability to beat the Yankees. We have spent many, many hours talking about this, either on the PosCast or just in general conversation.

So he sent me this to say, “Yep! Of course, the Twins have the worst record against the Yankees!”

Except they don’t. MLB.com got it wrong.

Bottom five records against the Yankees:

How about those Cubbies! And they gave up Babe Ruth’s called shot, too

Now, it is true that the Twins’ record includes the old Washington Senators. So what happens if you ONLY talk about the Minnesota Twins, who started in 1961?

Yes, I ran the math on that, too. In that case, the Twins are 270-406, which is slightly worse (.399 win percentage) but still not enough to break into the bottom four.

A QUICK WORD ABOUT THE YANKEES

I’m ready to make this call — the 2025 New York Yankees are the most one-man team of my lifetime. They don’t really do anything well. They have made laughable baserunning decisions all year. They’re below average defensively. Their bullpen has been a fiasco — Devin Williams has been beaten up so badly the Yankees traded for TWO closers at the deadline. They’re playing a 37-year-old Paul Goldschmidt every day, and since the beginning of June, he’s hitting .200 and slugging .303. Sure, they have Max Fried, and Carlos Rodon has been pretty good, yes, and they’ve gotten unexpected pop from Trent Grisham and Jazz Chisholm, but this is an 85-to-90 loss team …

… except for Aaron Judge.

Judge hides all the Yankees’ flaws. He’s that good. They say he will return to hit this week after what they continue to call a “flexor strain,” and they’re even saying that he will begin throwing soon. They'd better hope so. The Yankees’ disastrous weekend against the Marlins did not feel like a blip. It felt like the truth. Without Judge, this team is nowhere.

MURPHY’S WALLTAPPERS

Yes, this all happened against the Washington Nationals, a team that seems ready to take their winter vacation right now, but the Brewers knocked FIFTY-SIX hits in three games against Washington, a team record, and they now have the best record in baseball. Funny thing: The Cubs have the second-best record in baseball this morning, and I’m sure the last thing anyone in Chicago expected was that the second-best record in baseball would only be good enough for second place in the National League Central.

These Brewers are a wonder. I mean, look at who had hot weekends:

That’s a whole lot of numbers, but the point isn’t the numbers — it’s that EVERYBODY on this team hit. Everybody. Jackson Chourio didn’t even play after suffering a hamstring injury, and so they put somebody named Brandon Lockridge in the outfield, and he went four for 11 with three runs and four RBI.

The Brewers just bludgeon you with competence. The Brewers do not have a single All-Star position player and they are a below-average power team, but they lead the league in old-fashioned batting average and are third in the league in runs scored and they just keep coming at you with Vaughns and Frelicks and Turangs and Ortizes and Lockridges until you succumb.

FRED LYNN’S MISSED MVP

This is kind of weird — I was thinking about Fred Lynn missing out on the 1979 MVP award even though he pulled off the rare feat that year of leading the league in batting average, on-base percentage AND slugging percentage. I was thinking about this for a very specific reason, which I’ll explain in a minute, but first, I should say that out of nowhere, I got a text from Mike Schur that reads like so.

How weird is that? Why were we both thinking about the 1979 MVP race on a 2025 August weekend?

I don’t know why Mike was thinking about it, but, yes, in 1979, Don Baylor played outfield and designated hitter for the California Angels (he was much more adept at the latter, being honest) and he hit .296/.371/.530 with a league-leading 139 RBI. This was a time when RBI was one of the two leading indicators in MVP voting — the other being “Did he play on a contender?” — and with the Angels winning the AL West, Baylor ran away with the award ahead of Baltimore’s Ken Singleton and Kansas City’s George Brett.

Meanwhile, there was Fred Lynn in fourth place — despite hitting .333/.423/.637 with 39 homers and a not-too-shabby 122 RBI. The Red Sox finished a distant third in the AL East (though they actually also finished with a better record than the Angels), so, no, he didn’t really have any chance to win the award in those days (even though the Red Sox actually finished with a better record than the Angels that ye

But if the voting happened today, I think Lynn would win. That would have given him two MVP awards.

So why was I thinking about this? It is because, Dear Reader, I’ve been putting together a fun little thing for you loosely called “Most Famous Players Not in the Hall of Fame.” The idea is to go decade by decade and, yes, pick out the most famous players of that time who are not in the Hall.

Fred Lynn was very famous in the 1970s. He wasn’t quite as famous as Pete Rose or Steve Garvey, but those two have their own issues — I think when you talk about pure ballplayers, Lynn is now the most famous 1970s player not in the Hall (especially now that Dave Parker has been elected).

I’ll have a lot more to say about this when (and if) I ever get this series figured out (I’m trying to come up with a way to quantify fame), but for now I was thinking: Would Fred Lynn’s Hall of Fame case been more interesting to voters if he’d actually won that 1979 MVP? Lynn only lasted on the ballot for two years, and there really hasn’t been a whole lot of momentum behind his case … but I think there’s a strong argument to be made that he had a significantly better career than Dave Parker.

If you look at advanced numbers, there’s little doubt about it — he has about 10 more bWAR than Parker, 8 more fWAR, and that’s even with Parker playing 500 more games. His career OPS is 35 points higher. But even looking at stuff like All-Star Games, All-Star starts, Gold Gloves, etc. — Lynn has more.

Both of their careers took a significant downturn around 1981 — Parker because of personal issues, Lynn because he was traded away from Fenway Park and couldn’t stay healthy. Parker whacked a bunch of home runs in his mid-to-late 30s. Lynn turned into a metronome who hit 23 home runs every single year, no matter where he happened to be playing. Neither was Hall of Fame quality by then — they both did their damage in the 1970s.

And in through 1980, Lynn hit 308/.383/.520, 141 OPS+, with one MVP and one should-have-been MVP.

Through 1980, Parker hit .314/.365/.512, 139 OPS+, with one MVP and a couple of third-place finishes.

I see no real difference there. Dave Parker was cool, and I’m glad he’s in the Hall. If you want to give him all the extra credit for compiling more than 2,700 hits — while Lynn could not quite reach 2,000 — you can do that. But I can’t help but wonder if Lynn might have gotten more Hall consideration if he’d won the 1979 MVP award.

MIDDLE SCHOOL TACTICS!

I love 800-meter races. I mean, yes, we all know the grandaddy of them all is the 100-meter dash, and there’s something to be said for 200-meters, 400-meters, 1600-meters, etc. But 800 meters is its own thing. And this weekend, we saw something beyond belief.

I’m a huge fan of 800 meters because the strategy is essentially “run as fast as you can for 800 meters.” I mean, yes, there’s more than that; I’m not pretending to be a Malcolm Gladwell expert when it comes to track and field tactics (Malcolm lives and breathes this stuff). But at that distance, there isn’t time for a lot of jockeying or conserving energy. You gotta go until you can’t go any longer.

With that in mind: Check out this 800-meter race at the U.S. Track and Field Outdoor Championships:

The big story should have been the incredible comeback of Donavan Brazier, the first American to ever win the 800-meter World Championship (in 2019). He had a whole bunch of injuries and only returned to racing two months ago. Brazier ran a personal best 1:42.16 — the eighth-fastest time in the world this year.

Somehow, though, that wasn’t the biggest story.

No, the biggest story was a kid named Cooper Lutkenhaus. He’s a rising high school junior at Justin Northwest High School in Fort Worth, Texas. He’s 16 years old — he won’t turn 17 until December. It was truly mind-boggling that he made it to the final. Nobody expected that. He started in the inside lane, and he quickly fell to the back of the pack, and that seemed to be how things would go. With about 200 meters to go, he was in seventh place and seemingly set for a nice finish that would impress the Gladwellesque track insiders and nobody else.

Then, he took off.

“I kind of just decided to go back to middle school tactics and with 200 to go just give everything I had left,” Lutkenaus told reporters afterward.

It’s astounding. If you want to skip ahead, just go to 3:00 on the video and watch from there … it might be the most remarkable athletic thing you see this week. He starts passing world-class athletes like they’re lamp posts. And he just keeps on flying until, at the end, it’s him and Brazier at the line. Brazier barely held him off — and needed to run 20 milliseconds faster than he did when winning the gold to do so.

Obviously, Lutkenhaus set all sorts of age records — fastest ever under-18 record, almost a second faster than the collegiate record and so. on — but just on its own terms, this was the fourth-fastest 800-meter run ever by an American.

And, again, he’s SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. We’ve seen the future of roll and roll.