Free Friday: Brilliant Reader Questions!

OK, baseball season is rolling along, the Masters is in full swing, etc… so it’s time to bring back Brilliant Reader Questions! Remember, you can send questions here. Let’s get to it!

BR Mike: Are the Astros actually bad?

Corresponding question: Are the Royals actually good?

The Astros have been playing very bad baseball ever since the start of the season; they began by getting swept at home against the Yankees. As I write these words, they are 4-10, their worst start since 2013, when they were indeed atrocious—they lost 111 games that year.

Of course, it’s just 14 games, and while 14 games is plenty to tell you exactly how good or bad a football team might be, it’s not even one-tenth of a baseball season. Heck, the Astros could be in first place by the end of the month.

But I don’t think we should be dismissive of this rough start, either, for two reasons, one which I call the “Dusty Baker Effect.” In 2017, his Nationals won 97 games and lost in the postseason. They Nats got rid of him, and in 2018, they won 15 fewer games and were one of the biggest underachievers in recent baseball memory.

In 2013, Dusty’s Reds won 90 games and lost in the postseason. The Reds got rid of him, and in 2014 they went 76-86, the first of five consecutive losing seasons.

This, obviously, means nothing, but I want “Dusty Baker Effect” out in the world.*

*It should be added that the Dusty Baker Effect did not take place in 2006, when he left the Cubs, or 2002, when he left the Giants, but I chalk that up to Dusty being younger then.

Can Abreu and the Astros recover from their rough start? (Tim Warner/Getty Images)

The second reason that we should not dismiss this dismal start is that the Astros are kind of old, and that’s even before Justin Verlander returns. They have 30-somethings at first base (and, boy, does José Abreu look toasted), second base, and third base, and they have three more in their rotation. Their closer is 30. I mean, more and more, baseball is becoming a young person’s game.

It’s also not a great sign that individual Astros are off to really good starts but the team keeps losing anyway. Often, when you see a team unexpectedly struggling, you look at the roster and go, “OK, yeah, but those guys are going to start hitting and pitching soon…” but the Astros don’t really have anyone who’s wildly underperforming. Jose Altuve is absolutely mashing the ball, so is Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Peña is hitting .315, Cristian Javier has been pretty unhittable, etc. I mean, yeah, you might expect guys like Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman to pick it up, and Abreu might not slug .081 all season, and Josh Hader might do better than 0-2 with a 6.00 ERA, but there are some less-than-positive signs.

I think the American League West will be a season-long dogfight, and I still predict that the Astros will be in the middle of it. But, I will say, I kept thinking the 2023 Cardinals would turn their season around after their horrendous start, and they never really did.

As for the Royals… did I think they would lead the league in runs and be second in ERA after 13 games? Well… yes. Totally thought that. Bobby Witt Jr. for MVP, baby!

BR Andrew: Can you tell me who is the last player to drive in over 100 runs in a season while hitting just single-digit home runs? Also, in your opinion, who is the most likely current player to do so?

While I instinctively knew that he wasn’t the last, the person who immediately came to mind when you asked this question was the great Tommy Herr. I so vividly remember how blown away I was in 1985, when he drove in 110 runs and hit only eight home runs. I have never forgotten that.

As it turns out, I wasn’t far off… only two players have done the deed since 1951, and one of those was, indeed, Herr in 1985. But the last player to do it was a 39-year-old Paul Molitor in 1996 for the Twins. He drove in 113 that year with only nine home runs.

As for the most likely person to do that today, the unsatisfying answer is almost certainly: nobody. It has always been a rarity, as you can see, but the game has also changed too much to make such a thing possible now. Do you know how many every-day MLB players hit single-digit home runs in 2023? Nine. And all nine played for losing teams. The home run is just too much a part of every team’s run-scoring strategy now; very few players without power can get 500 at-bats today.

But, since you asked about “most likely,” I’d say that’s probably Cleveland’s Steven Kwan. I mean, no, he’s not going to drive in 100 runs, but he is that rare player who offers enough other skills—he’s a Gold Glove outfielder, a good baserunner and a hitter who walks about as often as he strikes out (he’s leading the league in hitting at the moment), so he will stay in the lineup.

Chicago’s Nico Hoerner is another Gold Glover who will stay in the lineup even if he doesn’t hit double-digit homers (he hit nine last year, with 68 RBIs).

BR Andy: I’m a songwriter in Nashville and a big fan… I have a song releasing on 4/4 called “The Hammer,” and I’d like to share it with you.

Hi Andy. Very cool song. I do think it’s going to be up to our Brilliant Readers to come up with the great American baseball song, so that we can finally be rid of the scourge that is “Centerfield.”

BR Sara: When will you start scheduling your WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL tour, and will you finally come to Seattle?

Thank you Sara… and thank you to other BR readers who have asked about the next tour, and if this time I will come to, among other places, Chicago, Minneapolis, Austin, Little Rock, Portland, Toronto (specifically), Canada (generally) and Spain.

So, a couple of bits of news on the WHY WE LOVE FOOTBALL front: First, I am sending in the final, fully copyedited version of the book today; going through it all again has made me even more excited for all of you to see this one. I really believe that no matter where you come down on the football fan scale, you’ll get a big kick out of it.

Second: After I send in the final version of the book, I’m putting together a small teaser selection for anyone who preorders a signed and inscribed copy from the good folks over at Quail Ridge Book. A lot of you have already done this, but if you have not, well, you still have a few more days—all you have to do is preorder from Quail Ridge (and I will sign it and inscribe it any way you like) and then Gmail the receipt to JP at JoePosnanski.com.

Finally, specific to Sara’s question, I’m having a kickoff meeting with our ultra-amazing publicist, Jamie, on Monday, to start discussing the Football Tour. I don’t know much yet, other than Jamie said we have received A LOT of requests from, in Jamie’s words, “Florida to Washington State.” I definitely want to get to some new cities, and also come back to some of the same spots, because the “Baseball” Tour has been a truly extraordinary experience.*

*Actually, a few other quick travel notes: You know I’ll be in Dayton for an event this weekend. And I’ll be in Rancho Mirage, Calif., next week for an event (link to come for that one). The following week, I’ll be in Chicago for a couple days. There’s no event scheduled—I’m in town to catch a Cubs game and see my buddy Joshua Jay’s incredible magic show at the Rhapsody Theater—but I do plan to stop in at a couple bookstores (Roscoe Books and Unabridged Bookstore) to sign some copies, and I hope I’ll see you there!

Happy Friday! Our Friday posts are free so everyone can enjoy them. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.

BR Greg: I know you said that you have really lost touch with golf, but do you still care about the Masters?

I really do. It’s funny, I was never particularly emotional about the whole LIV/PGA Tour break. I thought it was ridiculous and self-destructive, but, honestly, I wasn’t angry about it. That is to say, I never thought: OK, THAT’S IT, I’M NO LONGER A GOLF FAN!

No, I just kind of stopped caring about pro golf. I used to check in a lot; maybe not every week, but certainly two or three times a month. I don’t do that anymore. When I do check in on the PGA Tour (the LIV thing never interested me for even a millisecond), I find that there’s almost nobody in contention I care about. I don’t think all of this is the split. Some of it is just that the players I was invested in have gotten old or are no longer at the top of their games. Whatever the reason, I stopped paying any attention.

Then the Masters begins… and I’m riveted again. Part of this, of course, is Tiger Woods—when he plays, golf means something again. Part of this is that the gang is all back together again, so while I might not particularly like Bryson DeChambeau or Brooks Koepka or Dustin Johnson or Sergio Garcia or Phil Mickelson or Jon Rahm or Charles Schwartzel, seeing them somewhere on the leaderboard makes the whole thing feel complete in exactly the way that a PGA Tour event, to me, feels wanting and unsatisfying.

Finally, the Masters is just home for me. I started my column-writing career at The August Chronicle more than 30 years ago, and I’ve been to the Masters something like 23 times since then, and seeing the clubhouse, seeing the scoreboard at 18, seeing Rae’s Creek, seeing the giant sloped green at No. 9, all of it, feels a bit like watching old home movies. This is weird to me, because I grew up in Cleveland, loathing golf, believing it to be a sport for richie-rich people, and I still don’t play. But I developed a love for it in Augusta, and while that love fades in general ways, the Masters bring me back.

BR John: What has surprised you in the early part of the baseball season?

Well, before I get to surprises, I want to briefly mention one great early-season thing that has not surprised me: The reemergence of Tyler O’Neill in Boston. When the Red Sox made the deal for O’Neill in December, I immediately thought, “Ooh, that could be really good for the Red Sox.”

O’Neill was such a terrific all-around player for the Cardinals in 2021. He did just about everything—he hit, hit with power, he was a top-notch base runner, he won a Gold Glove, I just thought he was likely to become one of those super-solid baseball stars, kind of like what Kyle Tucker has become in Houston.

Things went south pretty quickly for a variety of reasons—injuries, lack of plate discipline, internal Cardinals issues… it was hard to keep up. But O’Neill is still young enough (he doesn’t turn 29 until June) that I thought: “Oh, he could have a huge rebound year with Boston and at Fenway Park.” So far, so good: He’s hitting .308/.460/.769 with a league-leading six home runs through 12 games, and he hasn’t really even gotten used to Fenway yet. I think that was a super-shrewd pickup for the Sawx.

OK, surprises? Obviously, I’m surprised by the Astros’ dreadful start. The Royals, Guardians and Pirates are all off to hot starts, which I think qualifies as a surprise. I’m a little bit surprised at how well the Brewers are playing; I might have underestimated just how much energy and excitement Jackson Chourio would bring, and, wow, it’s so great to see Christian Yelich hitting with power again.

But I’d say the biggest surprise early on might be how unsurprising things have been, with those few exceptions. Most of the very bad teams—the White Sox and Rockies, in particular—have not wasted any time and gotten to the bottom right away. The Dodgers and Braves came right out of the gate playing great baseball. The Angels are 2-3 in games Mike Trout has homered in. The Marlins are coming off their super-lucky season by being unlucky (as well as bad).

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

BR Thom: OK, give it to me straight: Will the A’s ever play in Las Vegas?

I’m putting the percentage chance at 50. And falling.

It is stupefying—utterly stupefying—just how badly A’s owner John Fisher has bungled things every single step of the way. I mean, you would think he would get something right by mistake. The latest fiasco involves the A’s decision to play the next two years or three years or four years or 100 years in Sacramento, in a 14,000-seat, minor league ballpark that they will share with the Giants’ Class AAA River Cats.

Maybe if Fisher keeps at it, he can next move his team to Richmond and share a stadium with the Giants’ Class AA Flying Squirrels. Then to Eugene, Ore., to share a season with the Class A Eugene Emeralds.

Sure, it takes quite the mastermind to cut a deal to play Major League Baseball for the foreseeable future in a shared minor league stadium in Sacramento. But, beyond that, Fisher had to share his excitement about how everyone in Sacramento (a few thousand at a time) would soon be able “to watch some of the greatest players in baseball, whether they be Athletics players or Aaron Judge and others launch home runs out of this very intimate, most intimate park in all of Major League Baseball.”

There are so many incredibly dumb statements in those few words that, honestly, I’m kind of in awe. As terrible as you might think John Fisher is at this, he’s so much worse.

This guy is an embarrassment to baseball, and the other owners and Rob Manfred should have pressured him to sell the team years ago. They didn’t, they won’t, and now they’re stuck watching him humiliate the game at every turn.

So will the A’s ever actually play in Vegas? Look: My gut tells me no. Nothing about the Vegas deal seems locked down, absolutely nothing… not the site, not the money, not the stadium plan, not even Vegas’ viability as a baseball market. But, we have to be realistic about how such things work. John Fisher does seem to have fully developed his failing upward act, and I’d say there’s probably a 50-50 shot that by simply being super-rich and owning one of 30 big-league clubs, and being part of a sport that seemingly wants to go all in on gambling, he will somehow stumble his way into Vegas.

JoeBlogs Week in Review

Monday: No. 4: Philadelphia Phillies and No. 3: Baltimore Orioles.

Tuesday: Hearts, Minds and Arms.

Wednesday: No. 2: Atlanta Braves and No. 1: Los Angeles Dodgers.

Thursday: A Modest Proposal.