A Tale Full of Sound and Fury Signifying (Next to) Nothing
PLUS: The Biggest Question Facing Every MLB Team
On Sunday, March 27, 2022, somewhere in America, some guy cracked a joke about a woman, and then that woman’s significant other walked over to that funny guy and decked him. Could have happened in Paducah. Could have happened in Pocatello. Could have happened in Pawtucket. Who knows. But it happened. Everyone who saw it couldn’t believe it happened. Some who were nearby stepped in to cool things down and make sure everyone was OK. Maybe afterwards everything just kind of went back to normal. Maybe someone got kicked out of a bar or a backyard barbeque. Maybe the cops were called. Then word got out. “Someone hit a guy.” “I was there. I saw it all.” “I recorded the whole thing on my cell phone. You wanna see the clip?” Soon enough it became the talk of the town, or the neighborhood, or maybe just a clique of friends.
What and where and when and why all this happened and who was involved…yeah, I wouldn’t know, because I wasn’t there and I don’t know anyone who was. These sorts of things probably happen all the time, and unless you know someone involved or were in proximity to it, you’ll never hear about them. That’s the case with me. On Sunday, March 27, 2022, I woke up, went to church, came home, did my taxes, barely paid attention to a couple boring NCAA tournament games, then sat down to watch the Academy Awards.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is basically an honor society of filmmakers dedicated to promoting the art of cinema. Every year they host a ceremony to hand out awards honoring those who did outstanding work in film over the past twelve months, and they invite you, me, and the rest of the world to watch. That’s how I ended up seeing Academy Award nominee Will Smith walk onstage in real time and slap presenter Chris Rock after Rock made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith. If you somehow haven’t seen a clip of this yet, I’ve included it below. (The clip is from a foreign broadcast of the show; unlike international broadcasters, American broadcaster ABC cut the sound when Smith began using profanities as he yelled at Rock after hitting him. This unedited clip gives you a fuller sense of the chill that went through the theater in that moment.)
Some background: Rock’s G.I. Jane joke is a reference to the 1997 film of the same name starring Demi Moore, who plays a woman recruited to become the first female member of a Navy special operations force similar to the Navy SEALs. Moore famously shaved her head for that role. Pinkett Smith also shaves her head, but does so because she suffers from alopecia, an autoimmune disease that results in hair loss. She has been open about this condition. You can see in the clip that Pinkett Smith does not take kindly to Rock’s joke.
The ceremony continued after this incident. Rock stayed on stage to present the award for Best Documentary to the producers of Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s film Summer of Soul, which is about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. That honor and Questlove’s acceptance speech got lost in the midst of all this, so let me just say Summer of Soul is streaming on both Hulu and Disney+ and it is fantastic. Watch it. (I reviewed it here.)
As for Smith, he remained at the ceremony where he was the favorite to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Venus and Serena Williams’ father Richard Williams in the film King Richard. He did exactly that (and received a standing ovation) within an hour of slapping Rock. His acceptance speech was a hot mess. Through tears, he talked a lot about “protecting” people and how he was motivated by love and apologized to the Academy and his fellow nominees. He did not apologize to Rock onstage but did so the next day on Instagram.
So obviously, everybody’s got a take on this because it didn’t happen in Paducah or Pocatello or Pawtucket but during Hollywood’s biggest night as millions watched from their living rooms. The consensus now is that Smith was in the wrong, which Smith himself affirmed in a statement released on Friday announcing his resignation from the Academy. Regardless what Rock said, most agree Smith should never have laid hands on him. Some chalk it up to toxic masculinity or describe it as a sign Hollywood types are too sensitive to handle jokes anymore. Or maybe Smith just snapped and had a bad moment. I don’t know. People can have their opinion about what they saw, but I’m in no position to play psychotherapist here.
The night of the incident, a few people defended Smith by saying Rock had it coming and that the target of a joke shouldn’t have to put up with humor that hurts or offends them. That take hasn’t aged well, as there are ways to respond to an offensive joke that don’t involve violence.
Still, some have used this incident to raise questions about the appropriateness of comedy. Maybe Rock’s joke was a cheap shot. In truth, I’m rather of skeptical of the idea often broached by comedians that jokes are acceptable so long as they “work,” that is, so long as people find them funny. There are jokes certain people would find funny that are definitely out of bounds. Rock’s joke centered on a disease afflicting Pinkett Smith, and it’s sort of taboo to make fun of someone’s health. But it’s not like alopecia is something like cancer or a mental illness, either, although the condition could affect Pinkett Smith’s sense of self. It may be a very sensitive topic to her. Yet Pinkett Smith has talked openly about her alopecia diagnosis—in fact, she talks very candidly in very public forums about a lot of very personal things—so maybe it was fair game. Or maybe she owns that narrative and no one has the right to talk about it. And maybe Chris Rock, who once made a documentary titled Good Hair, should know better than to joke about a Black woman’s hair. But all of that is really beside the point. It doesn’t justify a physical assault.
Much has also been made about whether Pinkett Smith needed “protecting.” A few people admired Smith’s decision to defend his wife from insult. More noted how antiquated that notion is and that Pinkett Smith is more than capable of defending herself. Sometimes, though, people do need someone to stand up for them. Senator Cory Booker was praised last week for coming to the defense of Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court hearing. But Booker didn’t slap Ted Cruz or Lindsey Graham.
As the week wore on, attention shifted to the Academy’s actions following the assault. Actress Zoë Kravitz and Oscar co-host Wanda Sykes wondered why someone didn’t remove Smith from the theater. Midweek, the Academy released a statement indicating Smith had “refused” to leave, suggesting they wanted him gone but did not take it upon themselves to enforce that. (By comparison, Juwan Howard, the head coach of the men’s basketball team at the University of Michigan, was recently suspended five games for swiping at the face of an opposing coach.) Then came word a higher-up in the Academy or a producer of the show told Smith not to leave. Perhaps Rock’s decision not to press charges in that moment after being approached by the LAPD guided the Academy’s actions. Still, the more the clip of Smith winning his award gets rerun on TV, the worse that standing ovation looks. Definitely not a good look for a town frequently accused of virtue signaling.
There are so many dynamics in play here. Hollywood has made a big push recently to be more inclusive. Surely some in charge that night had to be worried that if they kicked Smith out and ended up being wrong about that decision that they could have denied only the fifth Black man ever to win an Oscar for Best Actor the opportunity to accept that award. By allowing him to stay, though, it seemed to suggest Hollywood still hadn’t learned the lessons of the #MeToo movement, which exposed rampant abuse in the filmmaking industry. Or maybe Smith was allowed to stay because that’s how power works in this world. I can’t help but think, though, that an academy of performers would be very determined to protect the sanctity of the invisible wall separating those onstage from the audience.
But look, I’m getting way too far into this. I’m just an observer with no stake in any of this essentially whistling into a hurricane. I can preach about how they should have behaved and shame the guilty parties but that would really only be me using this really weird thing that happened in front of millions of people to assert my sense of moral self-righteousness. It’s not like I’ll set the moral universe straight by making an example of these folks.
And as for What This All Means and What This All Says About Our Times, well, I don’t think it Means anything and it doesn’t Say anything about Our Times. Crazy things are always happening. It may be possible we see more crazy things happening these days because there are cameras everywhere when there are actually fewer crazy things happening than in the past because those same ever-present cameras discourage crazy behavior. (I’m sure some will tell me no one ever slapped Bob Hope while he was hosting the Oscars, but before we romanticize Hope’s era as an age of decency and civility, let’s also remember very, very, very few people who looked like Will Smith or Chris Rock ever got close to winning an Oscar in Hope’s time.) Maybe all we witnessed Sunday night was a beef between two men not unlike what some people in Peoria or Pensacola or Poughkeepsie witnessed this past weekend followed by a case of institutional confusion over how to handle the completely unexpected misbehavior of the biggest star in the room.
The only thing I think I can add to this whole episode is this: According to people in the know, Rock ad-libbed his joke; in other words, Rock walked out onto that stage, spotted Pinkett Smith, and within seconds formulated that punchline. I suppose it’s possible he put that joke together sometime during the show, but I’m guessing he made the decision to tell it right there on the spot. Now if you look at the clip, you’ll notice Smith actually laughed at Rock’s joke. Maybe that was just a reflex, but by the time the camera cuts away from the Smiths and back to Rock, it does not look like Smith is in a state of mind that would have led him to slap a man. Within eight seconds, however—that’s how long it takes for Rock to notice Smith is approaching him—Smith is. After Smith strikes Rock, about ten minutes pass before the show cuts to commercial (during the first five minutes, Rock introduces the nominees for Best Documentary, a clip of the documentaries plays, Rock announces the winner, and Questlove gives his acceptance speech; during the second five minutes, Sean Combs introduces a tribute to The Godfather, a montage of Godfather clips plays, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro walk onstage and receive a standing ovation, and Coppola delivers a short speech.) About half an hour later, Smith wins his award.
I mention all this to note how quickly these events happened. Rock probably improvised his joke in the moment. It took Smith at most about eight seconds to decide to confront Rock. The producers of the show and the people in charge of the Academy had minutes—five if they had cut to commercial immediately after Questlove finished speaking, ten if they instead waited for the scheduled break—to sort out what had happened and how to respond. The rest of us had hours—even days—to formulate and polish a reaction.
Now I’m not suggesting the speed at which all this happened is an excuse for bad behavior. Someone who does something wrong on the spur of the moment or because they’re overcome by their emotions or because they’re swept away by the current of events remains responsible for their actions. Maybe the fact someone made or had to make a quick decision can help explain why they made a poor decision, but again, unless their action is practically reflexive, it doesn’t get them off the hook for that decision. They remain responsible.
All I’m observing is that decisions of moral consequence are often made on the spot and under the crunch of time. There may be a tendency for some to think of moral decisions as things people have a lot of time to ponder, and sometimes they are. But frequently we’re asked to make a decision concerning right and wrong in the moment. It’s often not easy, but it’s important to be able to do that well, particularly since such decisions often involve matters of much greater consequence than what we saw unfold at the Academy Awards. To increase one’s chances of making good moral decisions, it wouldn’t hurt to have good moral instincts, but I think what really matters is practice, or at least having spent a fair amount of time thinking deeply about different moral situations, the pressures we might face in those situations, how we should respond, and what that will require of us. We’ll never be prepared for every situation we encounter, but we’ll probably be more likely to get those questions right if we have a mental moral shorthand we can quickly reference when necessary.
This is the point where this essay could get really heavy but I don’t feel like going in that direction with a story whose subject is basically tabloid fodder. I also don’t want to suggest the people involved in this particular drama have not given much forethought to moral questions; maybe they have, but just failed to act properly in this particular moment. I don’t know them, so I don’t know. I’ll leave it at this: What we saw Sunday night amounted to a strange nationally televised event. That’s it. But if you take anything from it, see it as a reminder that it never hurts to take the time to imagine how you would want to react to all sorts of morally fraught situations just in case you ever would ever need to deal with one some day.
Signals and Noise
“It was a coup in search of a legal theory.”—U.S. District Court Judge David Carter in a ruling ordering the release of 101 emails from John Eastman, a law professor who advised Donald Trump on attempts to overturn the 2020 election. To justify his ruling, Carter wrote it was “more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” which may mark the first time a sitting federal judge concluded there was enough evidence to believe a sitting president committed a crime.
Back in 1973, it was a big deal when the country found out there was a suspicious 18-and-a-half minute gap on a Nixon White House audio tape that had been recorded three days after the Watergate break-in. We learned this week there is a 7-and-a-half hour gap in the Trump White House phone logs lasting from 11:17 am to 6:54 pm on January 6, 2021. People have said they talked with Trump over the phone in that time frame so we know with certainty there should be a record.
You can call what Biden said about Vladimir Putin (“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”) a gaffe, but that same day the front-runner to win the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2024 was at a political rally in Georgia praising Vladimir Putin for his intelligence. Putin has a 6% approval rating in the U.S. See also: “Are Only Dems Guilty of Gaffes?” by Eric Boehlert.
So Donald Trump hit a hole-in-one this week. Read all about it straight from the source himself here (not that he’s bragging, of course, because he doesn’t like people who brag.) The weirdest thing about this—and it is weird—is that Trump hasn’t hit at least one hundred holes-in-one before. If anyone’s claiming to have recorded an 18, it’s this guy.
It’s likely Ukraine and the economy will dominate the news for the foreseeable future, but if you want a sense for how the next three months are going to play out, consider these headlines: “Homeland Security Is Making Plans to Handle a Record Surge of Migrants” (New York Times); “Manchin Suggests July 4 Deadline for Democrat-Only Spending Bill” (Politico); “Prosecutors Advance Tax Probe of Hunter Biden” (Wall Street Journal) and “Inside Hunter Biden’s Multimillion-Dollar Deals with a Chinese Energy Company” (Washington Post). And remember, the January 6 committee is still working, and the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade by the end of June.
Here’s an interesting clip from an interview of TV journalist Chris Wallace on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Colbert asked him what he would change presently or historically to restore the American public’s trust in the media. Wallace’s answer involved blaming his dad Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes for the problem, and while I don’t think that TV show is the main offender here, I think he does correctly identify a big part of the problem.
The upcoming vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson will demonstrate why Democrats can’t throw Joe Manchin under the bus even though he gave them another reason to do so this past week. Joe Biden proposed a 20% minimum tax on billionaires Tuesday and Manchin killed it immediately because it would tax unrealized gains (the value of assets) rather than income. (“You can’t tax something that’s not earned. Earned income is what we’re based on. There’s other ways to do it. Everybody has to pay their fair share.”) All right, he has a point. But why not do this: We know billionaires borrow huge sums of spending money against the value of their stocks to avoid paying income tax. So why not just tax the loan? If someone with wealth>X borrows $>Y against that wealth, tax it at the capital gains rate.
This is bad news for Democrats: In October 2021, they trailed Republicans in measures of voter enthusiasm by 11 points. In January, it had risen to 14 points. A new NBC poll finds the gap is up to 17 points. Fortunately for Democrats, there are fewer competitive House districts nationwide than in the past, but numbers like that can endanger a bunch of lean- and likely-Democratic seats.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—a white supremacist who is House Republicans’ most in-demand fundraiser—is also a homophobe, telling Pete Buttigieg and his husband to “stay out of our girls bathrooms” at Trump’s Georgia rally.
A Republican state legislator in Nebraska has apologized for claiming school districts have placed litter boxes in bathrooms for students who identify as cats. Dude either believes everything he reads on Facebook or thinks this
is a documentary.
Guess who’s running for a House seat in Alaska. Just a few months ago she was trying to convince a jury she was nothing more than a single mom and grandmother retired from politics.
Paging Joe Rogan: Ivermectin does nothing to alleviate COVID.
This week in cool space news: The Hubble Space Telescope has detected light from a star that was emitted 900 million years after the Big Bang. It travelled 12.9 billion years to reach the telescope. This is the most distant star ever detected.
And wow, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski was effectively retired during the national semifinals of the NCAA Final Four men’s basketball tournament by, of all teams, North Carolina. That’s stone cold nasty. If you’re NC, who cares about the national championship; that was the greatest victory in school history. It’s like they just snapped Thanos.
Garbage Time: The Biggest Question Facing Every Major League Team (A 2022 MLB Preview)
(Garbage Time theme song here)
AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST
Baltimore Orioles—Why, God, did you put the Orioles in the American League East? It’s a question worthy of Job. The O’s have to play 76 games against their fellow AL East division mates, and each is eyeing the postseason. Put Baltimore in any other division except the NL West and they’d probably hold their own or at least not lose prodigiously. It’s gotten to the point where every time I look at that cartoon logo—the greatest logo in all of professional sports, by the way—I always end up asking myself why it is that people suffer.
Boston Red Sox—If your five-man rotation consists entirely of No. 3 starters, that’s average right? The Red Sox infield consists of Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, and Trevor Story, the latter of whom might turn out to be the most consequential free agent signing of the offseason. Boston could end up with a sneaky good offense, particularly if they make a move midseason to fill any holes that emerge. But their pitching is meh. Their ace, Chris Sale, came back from Tommy John surgery midseason last year and looked sharp (and at times unhittable again) in the last couple months of ‘21. He’s got a broken rib and no timeline to return, though, meaning a bunch of streamers will have to hold down the fort until Sale gets back. I’m not sleeping on this team, but they’ll need to improve their pitching if they hope to make any noise in the postseason, let alone get there.
New York Yankees—Why didn’t the Yankees do more this offseason? It’s not like they don’t have the money. Somehow they couldn’t net free agents Trevor Story, Carlos Correa, Kris Bryant, and Corey Seeger. The weird thing is those are the sort of players the Yankees desperately need: Someone who can give pitchers fits, force the defense to make a play, spark a rally. Instead, that responsibility will fall to aging veterans Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson, and DJ LeMahieu, who may yet have a few tricks up their sleeves but aren’t nearly as feared as they once were. With Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton (owner of the mightiest swat in baseball; see below), and Joey Gallo in the lineup, this team definitely won’t have trouble hitting home runs. They just feel very one-dimensional. Ace Gerrit Cole will help them get over 90 wins, but that’s going to feel like underachieving to a lot of fans. Everybody wants an L.A.-N.Y. World Series. I don’t see it in the cards.
Tampa Bay Rays—I know this team was in the World Series two years ago and had the best record in the American League last year, but who plays for them again? Well, you should know shortstop Wander Franco because he’s a rising star. But yeah, Brandon Lowe (2B), Austin Meadows (DH), Randy Arozarena (LF), Ji-Man Choi (1B), Yandy Diaz (3B), Mike Zunio (C), Manuel Margot (RF), and Kevin Kiermaier (CF) aren’t even household names in Pinellas County. I checked MLB’s annual rankings of the top 100 players in the league and only three of those guys landed on that list, the highest (Franco) at #40. Put them together, though, and it’s a Moneyball version of Voltron. I don’t know how they do it, I don’t expect them to do it, but do it they do, and no one should be surprised if they win the World Series.
Toronto Blue Jays—Is Joe Carter busy this October and has he been vaccinated? Because he’s going to have to throw out the first pitch of a World Series game in Toronto. This team is loaded. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will probably hit 50 home runs and make a run at the Triple Crown. Bo Bichette will probably hit .300 and top that off with 30 home runs. Matt Chapman, George Springer, and Teoscar Hernandez are all All-Stars. Even playing in the AL East there’s a good chance they crack 100 wins. Toronto did lose AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and they’ll probably need to tighten up their pitching at the trade deadline, but that’s a price a team of this caliber ought to be willing to pay.
AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL
Chicago White Sox—Can they win the World Series? Their formidable line-up (Tim Anderson, Luis Robert, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Yasmani Grandal) is largely unchanged from last year. The success of their pitching staff, which includes Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito, and Dylan Cease, will probably hinge on the development of Michael Kopech, who could be an ace in the making. Their closer, Liam Hendriks, is close to the best in the business. Last year, the White Sox started hot then faded down the stretch, when the injury bug caught up to them. If they can invert that this season by pacing themselves in a limp division in April and May before turning it on down the stretch, this is a team that could definitely take home the trophy. But boy, the White Sox—skippered by a 77 year old Tony La Russa (still a couple years younger than Joe Biden)—feels like it’s got to win now.
Cleveland Guardians—Who? Oh yeah, I forgot! Good for you, Cleveland, it’s about time. The weird thing about Cleveland is even when they try not to be very good, they do all right. And they have some really good players. Third basemen Jose Ramirez is elite. Shane Bieber is a bona fide “I don’t want to face him” ace. Make a few moves by the trade deadline and they could easily land a wild card spot. Or they could just do that on accident.
Detroit Tigers—Let’s say you’re facing Miguel Cabrera and he’s one hit shy of 3,000 career hits and you’ve got an 0-2 count on him. If you throw a curveball in the dirt, do you think Javy Baez will chase it? Yes. As for Cabrera, Miggy crossed the 500 home run mark last season. He’s 13 hits shy of 3,000 to start this season. Only six other players (Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Rafael Palmeiro, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and Eddie Murray) have those numbers. His resume includes AL batting champ in 2011-13 and 2015, AL home run leader in 2008 and 2012, the Triple Crown in 2012 (which he didn’t get enough attention for at the time), 11x All-Star, and World Series champ in 2003.
Kansas City Royals—How good is Bobby Witt Jr.? Pretty dang good apparently, maybe even the future of Major League Baseball. He’s the top prospect in MLB and the Royals plan to have him on their opening day roster, which is a big deal because that suggests he’s too good to stash away in the minors for a few weeks to save the club some money. He’s also the son of Bob Witt, who only a kid who collected baseball cards in the late 80s and early 90s would remember. (Bonus throwback: The Royals have re-signed Zack Greinke. Is Greinke a Hall of Famer? Discuss.)
Minnesota Twins—How much of a difference can one player make? Actually two, if you count Byron Buxton, who finally lived up to his All-Planet potential and was fire through 61 games before an injury ended his season last year. If he’s healthy (big if) watch out. But this question revolves around Carlos Correa, the very good former shortstop for the Astros who signed with the Twins this year (leaving the rest of the league to ask why their team didn’t sign him, as if no one would choose to play baseball in Minnesota if given a choice.) Suddenly everyone’s talking about how the Twins are going to make a run at the AL Central, which, yeah, if any team is making a run at Chicago it’s probably Minnesota (although again, Cleveland might do that on accident) but that also means Minnesota would have to improve on their 73-89 fifth place finish and Chicago would have to underperform. Minnesota is a better team than last year but do Correa and a healthy Buxton make them better by about 17 games? Doubtful.
AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST
Houston Astros—Can this team get Dusty Baker a World Series ring? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’d like to see Dusty Baker finally win a World Series. He’s been close so many times in the past. Barry Bonds and Co. couldn’t do it for him in 2002. The Cubs’ great teams of the mid-00s were maybe definitely too jinxed to pull it off. The Nationals let him go the year before winning their title. The Astros couldn’t top the Braves last year to deliver Baker that championship. There’s two ways to think about Houston’s prospects this year. The first is that the Astros have a good young core—Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez—and Alex Bregman in his prime and a scrappy veteran in Jose Altuve who can find a way to put an October run together. The second is that the holes in the Astros lineup are starting to show and that the team can’t count on a 39-year-old Justin Verlander returning from Tommy John surgery to power them through the postseason. The rub on Baker is that he’s an old school manager who data-minded coaches run circles around. That take overlooks Baker's ability to literally “manage” a team over the course of a 162-game season. It just feels like the Astros are caught between eras when they should be considered favorites to win a World Series, which means Baker probably has the skills to get this team into the playoffs but will struggle to make the in-game moves that will get him doused with champagne come Halloween time.
Los Angeles Angels—What’s Mike Trout’s sell-by date? Everybody knows about Shohei Ohtani, the hitter/pitcher combo whose only analogue is Late Red Sox-era Babe Ruth. But let’s contemplate this stat line from the Angels’ analogue to Mickey Mantle: 1-12, 1 HR, 1 R, 15 AB. That’s Mike Trout’s postseason production, all compiled during a three-game sweep of the Angels by the Royals back in 2014. Trout is the greatest baseball player of his generation and one of the greatest of all-time, but he’s only had a glimpse of October baseball. This is a player who can single-handedly win games if given the opportunity and the Angels have spent his career to date flailing in obscurity. Trout turns 31 in August. That puts him on the downside of his career, although whatever regression we could see this season would amount to a modest descent from a towering height. (He’s still ranked by MLB as the second-best player in baseball, trailing only Ohtani.) Someone with Trout’s talent can remain a productive hitter deep into his thirties, but the Angels know full well from their experience with Albert Pujols and his massive decade-long contract what can happen when the greatest players of their generation start aging out. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look like a team trying hard to win now when they should have been working overtime to win then.
Oakland Athletics—Don’t you mean the Las Vegas Athletics? Actually, maybe the A’s will finally get a new stadium in Oakland, but MLB wants this finalized soon. Part of me is with MLB on this because the Coliseum is a dump (they’ve had problems with sewage backing up into the stadium, leading a team at one point to complain about the E. coli) but the other part of me is with civic leaders in Oakland trying to get a stadium built in a way that doesn’t fleece taxpayers. But as for this season, GM Billy Beane has traded all his good players as he does every three years to work his Moneyball magic. It’s currently a team of nobodies. They’ll either win 40 games or make the playoffs or both because why not, they let everyone into the playoffs these days.
Seattle Mariners—Is this the year the Mariners finally make it back to the playoffs? In 2001, the Mariners tied the 1906 Chicago Cubs for the MLB single-season record for wins with 116, which is amazing because up to that point I had no idea the Cubs had won that many games in their entire history. The Mariners have not been back to the postseason since. Last season, though, the Mariners crept into the playoff race and were only eliminated on the last day of the season, finishing the 2021 campaign with 90 wins. This year, MLB has added an extra wildcard spot for the postseason; had that spot been there last season, it would have gone to the Mariners. They got it, right? They added 2021 AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and starting NL All-Star right fielder Jesse Winker. Maybe Jarred Kelenic will live up to the hype. Finish in the top 40% of the standings and you’re in Seattle. Let’s do this!
Texas Rangers—Of all the architectural styles you could have adopted for your two-year old stadium, why did you settle on “Practice Facility”? Corey Seager: Solid addition, good hitter, not a star, but a steady part of any lineup so long as he’s not hurt. Marcus Semien: Forty-five HRs last season, but he’s 31, don’t know how much longer he can keep that up, but hey, you’re going for it. But your stadium! What were you thinking?
NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST
Atlanta Braves—Can they repeat as World Series champs? I doubt it. I didn’t even think they’d peat. Fans were disappointed they let go of first baseman Freddie Freeman, the team’s heart and soul, but they moved quickly to replace him with Matt Olson, who, at 28, is four years younger than Freeman. Olson isn’t a contact hitter like his predecessor but could easily clobber 40+ home runs each of the next three seasons. What makes it easier for the Braves to give up Freeman is the fact that they can surround Olson (who’s going to whiff a lot) with hitters like Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna Jr. I still see holes all over this team. They don’t have a certified ace. New closer Kenley Jansen has to be running on fumes. The Braves got hot at the right time last year, and they’ll have to do so again this fall to win back-to-back World Series titles. Their talent alone isn’t going to get them across the line.
Miami Marlins—Where did Derek Jeter go? Yeah, Jeter just up and left the team this past February. Stepped down as the head of baseball operations and even sold his ownership stake. In the four seasons he ran the organization, Miami went 218-327. In that time, he got rid of Giancarlo Stanton, J.T. Realmuto, Christian Yelich, and Marcell Ozuna. The young players he focused on developing remain works in progress. Their farm system seems respected, though, and he hired baseball’s first female GM. He also changed the Marlin’s color scheme. I don’t know why Jeter left. OK, I’ve said more than enough about the Marlins.
New York Mets—How long will it take for this team to turn into a dumpster fire? I already smell smoke. Jacob deGrom, the best pitcher in baseball, was diagnosed with a stress reaction in his right shoulder and will miss at least four weeks. He won back-to-back Cy Youngs in 2018 and 2019 and came in ninth last year even though he was injured for the entire second half of the season. (His season stats: 1.08 ERA, 92 innings, 146 Ks.) That means the pitching staff will be anchored by the recently-signed Max Scherzer, who is great but 37 years old and owed $130 million over the next three seasons. Money talks, I guess, but Max, that is Met money. This is an organization that has to pay Bobby Bonilla (who was a Met from 1992 to 1995) $1.19 million every July 1 until 2035. The Mets have Chris Bassitt, Edwin Diaz, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Dominic Smith, Starling Marte. They’re good on paper. New manager Buck Showalter can probably get the most out of this team. But these are the Mets. Something’s gonna go haywire. (By the way, if you have not seen the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Once Upon a Time in Queens about the 1986 Mets, you’ve got to watch that. Wild stuff.) UPDATE: ESPN reported Saturday afternoon that Scherzer has injured a hammy and isn’t sure when he’ll be able to pitch again. Live footage from the Mets’ spring training facility follows below:
Philadelphia Phillies—Who let my neighborhood beer league softball team into the Big Leagues? Bro, look at the heart of this lineup: Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto, Nick Castellanos, Kyle Schwarber. Those are some big boys! They’re gonna hit a lot of home runs! They’re gonna strike out a lot! But if Buck Showalter can’t keep that meteor from Don’t Look Up from crashing into Citi Field between April and November (how’d that movie end?) the Phillies can probably win the NL East. They’ve got Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler in their rotation. They’ve got three former closers (Corey Knebel, Brad Hand, and Jeurys Familia) in their bullpen. They’ve got Prime Harper in the middle of their lineup. Of course, their one-dimensional offense could completely collapse, but boy, on those days when the opposing team calls up a starter from AAA to give their starters a rest, buy seats in the outfield because you’re getting souvenirs.
Washington Nationals—If Juan Soto hits 45 home runs this season and Nelson Cruz (he’ll turn 42 in July) hits 40 home runs this season and Josh Bell hits 25 home runs this season, will the Nationals as a team score more than 110 runs this season? Probably. I mean, Soto will likely be on base for a few of those homers hit by Cruz and Nelson.
NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL
Chicago Cubs—Are the Cubs actually trying to be good this year? The Cubs tore themselves down in the middle of last season, trading away the core pieces of their 2016 championship team. Then they turned their team over to a bunch of players they brought up from Des Moines that Cubs fans probably got unreasonably excited about. Then they signed a bunch of players in the offseason, some of whom (Wade Miley, Andrelton Simmons, Yan Gomes, Jonathan Villar) remind me of the sort of veterans they used to sign back when the Cubs played a lot of day games and attracted players who wanted to get home early to put the kids to bed, and others (Marcus Stroman, Japanese outfielder Seiya Suzuki) that make me think the Cubs have something up their sleeves. And then it turns out when you calculate WAR, the Cubs added more Wins Above Replacement than any other team. So, maybe the Cubs finish 71-91 with a team like that. The Cubs aren’t going to hang their hopes on those free agent signings when there was so much more talent to go after this offseason if they really wanted to compete. My theory: Those guys are chips the Cubs plan on using at the trade deadline to steal some much-coveted prospects from teams desperate to crack the postseason.
Cincinnati Reds—How many prospects could they get in return for Mr. Redlegs? I’m pretty sure the Reds just underwent a rebuild a couple seasons ago and here we are again. They’re hanging on to Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle for now. The talent they added may have made them marginally better. But I don’t think they’re trying to win, but who knows, maybe all it takes to end the season on top of this division is a couple of players who know first base is the one down the right field line. (Don’t stare into those eyes for long, dear readers.)
Milwaukee Brewers—I’m sorry, what? Who? The Brewers? Josh Hader? They were good last year? Yeah, they were pretty good last year! They were good even though former MVP Christian Yelich wasn’t that good at all. Neither was Lorenzo Cain. How were they good again oh, their pitching. Corbin Burnes won the NL Cy Young Award (I remember that, he was on my fantasy team!) Brandon Woodruff was great, Freddy Peralta was solid (I had him too!) and Hader shut things down in the ninth. The Brewers will probably win this division because no one else wants to and their pitching is too good but I’ve already forgotten, who plays for this team again? Andrew McCutchen! I didn’t know Andrew McCutchen was still playing!
Pittsburgh Pirates—Who’s going to replace Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback?
St. Louis Cardinals—Do you expect me to care about the St. Louis Cardinals? Seriously. I couldn’t even remember if the Cardinals were good last year. I thought they were but they fired their manager so I wasn’t sure. I don’t even know who plays for them anymore. I’ll say Yadier Molina, Ozzie Smith, Stan Musial, and Albert Pujols. I think I got about half that right. Rooting for the Cardinals is like rooting for your local cable company to turn a respectable quarterly profit. To the virtuous goes the spoils of commerce! Milwaukee will probably fall apart and then this collection of high school health teachers will win the pennant. God help us all.
NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST
Arizona Diamondbacks—Will Ketel Marte regain his 2019 form? Nobody pays attention to the DBacks but I pay attention to their OF/2B Ketel Marte because he scores runs and hits for average and has been on my fantasy league team for the past three seasons. He keeps getting hurt though! He’s a sparkplug and has multi-positional eligibility! I need him to deliver!
Colorado Rockies—How many home runs will Kris Bryant hit this season? Bryant won the NL Rookie of the Year award with the Cubs in 2015 and the NL MVP in 2016, the year the Cubs won the World Series. He was the centerpiece of a Cubs dynasty. Since that time, though, he’s kind of plateaued and even declined a bit, never becoming that marquee star everyone thought he’d turn out to be. He got traded to the Giants during the Cubs’ fire sale last season, and now, at the age of 30, he signed for seven years with the Rockies. Air is thin in Colorado. The Rockies won’t be all that good, but Bryant’s a good bet to reclaim his 2015/2016 moxie.
Los Angeles Dodgers—What will keep them from winning 100+ games and the World Series? Clayton Kershaw could run out of gas, but their rotation is good enough to make up for that. The holdovers from their 2020 title—Justin Turner, Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger, Chris Turner, Mookie Betts—could continue to fade rather than recover their form. New first baseman Freddie Freeman might start to age out. But as last year showed, a lot has to go wrong to knock this team out of contention, and their ownership seems willing to spend to win now. (They already shored up their bullpen during spring training by bringing Craig Kimbrel over from the White Sox.) Also: Trea Turner. Also also: Get to know the name Walker Buehler. He’s a star already but this looks to be the year he becomes MLB’s ace of aces. Give him the chance and he could pull some Hershiser-level work on the mound for the Dodgers in the postseason.
San Diego Padres—When does Fernando Tatis Jr. come back? When last we left the Padres, they were in self-destruct mode, having gone 13-34 down the stretch after compiling a 66-49 record as late as August and contending for not only the NL West division title but also the best record in baseball. Their late-season swoon dropped them under .500 for the ‘21 campaign. Fans have to be wondering if their collapse is indicative of their team’s true nature or the sort of growing pains a perennial contender experiences. They may not know for sure until this summer when SS/OF (they should just leave him at SS) Fernando Tatis Jr. returns from rehabilitating a wrist he broke sometime in the offseason. Tatis is quite possibly the most exciting player in baseball, a freakish athlete (he’s all limbs) who does freakish things on the baseball field with ease (look at his double-jump catch below). Tatis is complemented at the top of the Padres’ lineup by Manny Machado, and if their rotation lives up to their potential (Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Mike Clevinger) they may not need to score a lot of runs to win a string of best-of-7 series. But they’ll have to weather Tatis' absence first and then keep it together through September to do that. Ceiling is high, though. (PS: I had no idea brown could work so well as a uniform color. The Cleveland Browns use the color brown, but they’re also like, “Our main color is orange,” which is so on-brand for the Browns. The Padres’ yellow and brown color scheme is sharp, though, and while I wouldn’t call the look refreshing, it does seem like a refinement.)
San Francisco Giants—Was last season a fluke? The Giants, a team anchored by a handful of guys who were in their prime during the Obama administration, won 107 games last season. That’s a lot! No one saw it coming. No other NL team hit more home runs; no other NL team gave up fewer home runs. But outside of the addition of Carlos Rodon, they haven’t done much to get better. The wheels have to come off, right? But even if they did—let’s say they’re 20 games worse than they were last season—they still finish above .500. A team that good can’t suddenly fall apart, can they?
Predictions
AL MVP: Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. (Toronto Blue Jays)
NL MVP: Juan Soto (Washington Nationals)
AL Cy Young: Lucas Giolito (Chicago White Sox)
NL Cy Young: Walker Buehler (Los Angeles Dodgers)
AL East Champion: Toronto Blue Jays
AL Central Champion: Chicago White Sox
AL West Champion: Houston Astros
AL Wild Cards: Tampa Bay Rays, Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees
NL East Champion: Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central Champion: Milwaukee Brewers
NL West Champion: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wild Cards: San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets (why not?)
AL Championship Series: Blue Jays over White Sox
NL Championship Series: Dodgers over Phillies
World Series Champion: My heart is with LA, but I’m going with TORONTO.