Friday Rewind: Golden Nugget

Can I just say: I have become entirely obsessed with Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokić. I know it’s weird to kick this mostly baseball thing off with the NBA, and I appreciate that I’m super-late to this — I mean, the guy has already won two MVP awards — but I just wasn’t paying very close attention to Denver Nuggets basketball. And I should have been. Jokić is my new everything.

Here’s why: I do not believe there has ever been a bigger gap in any sport between how a player looks and how a player plays. Jokić looks like a paunchy big guy who sits at the very end of the bench and sometimes twirls a towel in support of teammates and only enters the game to foul people.

And he plays like Larry Bird-Magic Johnson-Bill Walton-Bob Lanier and Shaq combined.

It’s mind-twisting watching him play. He’s an alien; absolutely nothing about him suggests that he would be good at basketball — he looks out of breath half the time — and yet every single time down the floor, he does some genius thing. He’s one of the greatest passers I’ve ever seen. He’s a rebounding force. He has Kevin McHale moves around the basket. He can shoot the three.

It makes absolutely no sense at all. Every moment of brilliance — and the guy just about averaged a triple-double this season, so there are constant moments of brilliance — is a little bit of a delightful surprise, sort of like that moment when Susan Boyle started singing that first time on “Britain’s Got Talent.” Watching Jokić play makes me so happy.

It also makes me happy that his nicknames at basketball Reference are, in order, Joker, Big Honey, Cookie Monster, Yoke and Big Tipper.

Jokić is proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL Update

I have a pretty big update this week: So many of you already have preordered WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL from Rainy Day Books (thank you!) that, in order to make this promotion physically work, we are now going to make Father’s Day the cutoff for inscribed books.

Signed books will still be available for preorder from Rainy Day after Father’s Day. But if you want the book personally inscribed to you or to someone else (makes a great gift!), if you want me to say something about your favorite team or player, if you want me to say something nice about the Yankees or Billy Joel or even pickleball (that would hurt), you just need to get in your order by June 18, which is Father’s Day this year.

WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL is a countdown of the most magical moments in baseball history. I’m looking right now at the complete list of moments — it’s technically a countdown of 50, but there are 108 moments in total — and I honestly get excited just seeing the list. I am trying hard to keep the secret so that you will be totally surprised when you get the book, but I have to admit it’s super-hard for me to not reveal some of the cool and surprising moments in there.

I should add that the book is also available for preorder at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Hudson and Target, among other places. And our fave publicist Jamie is hard at work putting together the book tour.

Marlins, Cubs and one-run games

If you look at the basics with the Miami Marlins — which is to say the fact that they have been outscored 183-129 this year — you would think that they stink. That is the third-worst run differential in all of baseball, ahead only of the White Sox and Athletics, who plainly do stink.

But the Marlins don’t stink … or at least their record doesn’t stink. They are 19-19 and, at the moment anyway, in second place in the National League East. If the season ended today (it doesn’t), they would be tied with the Padres for the third wild-card spot.

The reason for the disparity, in case you’re wondering, is that the Marlins are 12-0 in one-run games this year. How unlikely is this? Well, it’s never happened before. No team has ever started a season by winning their first 12 one-run games. There is no logical likelihood that the Marlins can keep this going, but who knows? You know the Bugs Bunny line when he was floating after walking off a cliff? “I know this defies the law of gravity, but you see, I never studied law.”

The Cubs, meanwhile, have outscored opponents 183-135. You would think that they were doing great. The only teams with better run differentials in the National League are the Braves and Dodgers, and they’re both doing pretty great*. And yet, the Cubs have a losing record … they have a worse record than the Miami Marlins. Why? You know why. The Cubs are 2-8 in one-run games.

*Dodgers fans would probably disagree with the idea that the team is doing pretty great, but, let’s be honest, this is because Dodgers fans have been spoiled over the last decade. They’re 23-15 and three games up in the division; there are worse things.

This stuff normally evens out somewhat over the season. Baseball-Reference gives the Cubs a 49.7% chance of making the playoffs right now and the Marlins just a 4.9% chance, and that’s largely because the National League Central is wide open while the Braves will probably run away with the East. But it’s also a bet that this Cubs team is a lot better than this Marlins team, no matter what their records say.

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

They’re good swings, Brent

So, let’s see if we can follow the path. The Twins drafted Brent Rooker late in the first round in 2017 out of Mississippi State (he won the SEC triple crown) He looked terrific at the plate in his first minor league season — showed a lot of power — and made himself into a top-100 prospect. He kept on hitting home runs, but his strikeouts climbed and the Twins struggled to find a defensive position for him. But, still, he got his first shot in the big leagues in 2020 (homered off the marvelously named Daniel Ponce de Leon) and he got into 58 big-league games in 2021. And he kept on hitting in the minor leagues.

Then in April last year, the Twins traded him to the Padres.

Less than four months later, the Padres traded him to the Royals.

About three months later, he was released by the Royals and picked up by the A’s.

The Royals released Rooker because of some sort of complicated roster thing. He was only getting paid $725,000. And since he hit .338/.424/.775 with nine homers in 20 games in Omaha, you certainly could make the argument that a going-nowhere team like Kansas City might keep him on the off-chance that he could put something together.

But they didn’t. He’s in Oakland. And at the moment, he leads the American League in slugging percentage and OPS. He’s hitting .315/.424/.648 with 10 home runs. And look, I don’t know if he’s going to keep up that kind of hitting all year. But it turns out Rooker is a big-time analytics guy, so he has really worked hard on making the physical and mental adjustments. When you listen to him talk about hitting, you can see him really stepping up. He reminds me of Jose Bautista after he figured things out in his late 20s.

There’s nothing good happening in Oakland right now. The organization seems to have given up. The fans have completely stopped showing up (and who can blame them). They seem ready to make some sort of Bugsy Siegel deal in Vegas so they can play their games in the Tropicana Casino, near the roulette wheels. It’s ugly.

But, hey, Brent Rooker is a lot of fun.

JoeBlogs is a reader-supported venture. Free and paid versions are available. The best way to support us here is by taking out a paid subscription. And hey, we do have a lot of fun, so I hope you’ll come along.

Joe

Soto heating up?

One thing I have never loved is when someone is in a month-long nasty slump and then hits a key home runs and writers say that he “broke out of his slump.” If you’re 0-for-27 and then you hit a big home run, you’re still 1-for-28.

So, the fact that Juan Soto is hitting .412/.535/.735 so far this month is not proof that he has broken out of the doldrums that plagued him since he was traded to San Diego last August. I mean, it’s only nine games. But, yeah, he’s looking a whole lot more like the Juan Soto we have come to know and love. He’s working pitchers. He’s striking out less. He’s hitting the ball hard.

Bottoms Up: The Reverse Power Rankings

1. Athletics (8-31) — I suspect the A’s will own the top spot all season.

2. Cardinals (13-25) — Whew. What’s left to say?

3. Royals (12-27) — Vinnie Pasquantino is hitting, so that something.

4. White Sox (13-25) — Hard to believe they won 93 games just two years ago.

5. Reds (16-21) — I do think Hunter Greene will be a star.

6. Guardians (17-20) — They have 19 home runs as a team. That won’t play.

7. Nationals (16-21) — Josiah Gray has been pretty good.

8. Rockies (16-22) — Red-hot week, they’ve been getting oddly good pitching.

9. Giants (17-19) — A 30-30 season for Thairo Estrada?

10. Mets (18-20) — Scherzer’s health is troubling, but Verlander has pitched well.

11. Tigers (17-19) — Eduardo Rodriguez is making a Cy Young case.

12. Phillies (18-19) — Q for Ellen Adair: What’s going on with Aaron Nola?

13. Mariners (18-19) — Kelenic is such a happy surprise. But where’s Julio?

14. Marlins (19-19) — The one-run miracle cannot last, right?

15. Cubs (18-19) — Playing so much better than record, but record still counts.

16. Padres (19-19) — Tatis is back, Soto’s heating up, are things finally turning?

17. Diamondbacks (20-18) — Zac Gallen is the game’s most underrated player.

18. Angels (20-18) — I want to believe. I want to believe. I want to believe.

19. Yankees (21-18) — Didn’t see it coming, but Rizzo is having himself a season.

20. Astros (19-18) — José Abreu with 0 homers in 151 plate appearances? Huh?

21. Brewers (20-17) — Pitching coming around, but they’re still scuffling.

22. Pirates (21-17) — Disastrous week, but they’re still in first place, right?

23. Twins (21-17) — Sonny Gray still hasn’t allowed a homer all year.

24. Red Sox (22-16) — Somehow, even with that pitching, they keep winning.

25. Blue Jays (21-16) — It just feels like they should be scoring more runs.

26. Rangers (23-14) — No deGrom. No Seager. No problem.

27. Orioles (24-13) — Could Félix Bautista break the sound barrier with a fastball?

28. Dodgers (23-15) — Clayton Kershaw looks reborn, doesn’t he?

29. Braves (25-12) — Definitely aiming for the bottom spot.

30. Rays (30-9) — Wander Franco is looking to be back on the MVP track.

JoeBlogs Week in Review

This was a crazy week. Our younger daughter is graduating high school, our older daughter finished her college semester AND I just did an interview for the upcoming Buck O’Neil documentary that will air on Monumental Sports this summer. So it’s been hard to keep up. These next few weeks will be truly wild.

But, as you know, we don’t slow down here at JoeBlogs:

Monday: Blue Monday. A look around the sports world, starting with a remembrance of Vida Blue, and introducing our new “Brilliant Reader” corner, where I take on a reader challenge.

Tuesday: Shaking off the Speedball. What do Bruce Springsteen and Gaylord Perry have in common?

Wednesday: Joe and Molly talk the first month … Molly Knight and I talked a whole lot of baseball, going all around the league.

Many of you have asked about the PosCast and its return. We’re working on it. You might know that things are kind of hectic in Hollywood these days. But Mike Schur and I will be back with more nonsense soon enough.

What’s coming:

• Finishing up a story now on how two magicians changed baseball.

• Pondering a new series that I think you’ll get a kick out of that I’m tentatively calling “Practical Dreamers.”

• Putting the finishing touches on what I hope will be a regular Q&A with Brilliant Readers. I’ll have more to share on that next week.

• An iPad review.