MLB: Nine Very Cool Things to Look Forward to in 2017
These are nine very cool things to look forward to during the 2017 MLB season.
Well hello there, 2017 MLB season. On behalf of the millions of baseball fans across the world, it’s nice to finally meet you. We hope you’re doing well. You should know we’ve been waiting patiently for your arrival ever since your precursor, the 2016 season, left us last November. The 2016 season was a doozy, so you have big shoes to fill.
In the 150 days since the last out of the 2016 World Series, we’ve seen the culmination of a presidential race that seemed to last 10 years, and was about as much fun as watching Jonathan Papelbon stalk around the mound for a half hour between pitches. We saw an incredible College Football National Championship Game that was won by the Clemson Tigers in the final seconds and a Super Bowl in which the New England Patriots came from 25 points down in the third quarter to win in overtime. It’s been a few months of the rich getting richer in every sense of the word.
Now, finally, a new Major League Baseball season is upon us. It will be tough to beat last year, but 2017 will give it a shot. In anticipation of the first pitch in the first game of the year, I hereby present a starting lineup of nine very cool things to look forward to in the 2017 season.
Because this is baseball, the “Nine Very Cool Things to Look Forward to in 2017” will be presented in the order of a baseball lineup. Leading off is a bit of baseball history that almost all of us will be living through for the first time in our baseball-loving lives. Batting second is a look at two players with cult-like followings who were once teammates with the Seattle Mariners and who will meet again symbolically and statistically, most likely in September. Batting third is the greatest player in the known universe. You know who he is.
Then we have to cleanse the pallet a little. We can’t have too much greatness back-to-back, so “Wallowing in the Muck of Mediocrity” gets the fourth slot. Consider this the Saltine cracker between glasses of fine wine. After the pallet-cleanser, we have the greatest pitcher in the known universe, followed by a man simply known as “The Machine.”
In the seventh slot, we have something for the proverbial children of all ages, followed by an acknowledgement of two players who are fighting Father Time. It’s a losing fight because, as we all know, Father Time is undefeated. The list culminates with a happy note, like having that big slice of coconut cream pie after a flavorful dinner, with an appreciation for two pitching teammates known as Big Sexy and the Knuckleballer. Let’s start with some history.
Historic Times
For all but a tiny percentage of people in the world, the 2017 season will be the first time we can refer to the Chicago Cubs as “defending World Champions.” As everyone and his uncle knows by now, the Cubs broke their 108-year curse when they won the World Series last year over the Cleveland Indians (and extended Cleveland’s championship drought to 68 years, currently the longest in baseball). Only people at least 109 years old can say they were around the last time the Cubs were the defending champs.
According to Wikipedia, there are 34 people who are 110 years old or older in the U.S. They are called supercentenarians and 91% of them are female and 82% of them live east of the Mississippi River. The takeaway for those who want to live to be 110 years old is: don’t be a man and don’t live in the west. If you add in the handful of people who are 109 years old to this 34-person group of supercentenarians, you get a tiny sliver of the U.S. population. If you are one of the people who were around the year after the Cubs 1908 World Series championship, you’re in a very select club, and good for you for being on the Internet.
The rest of us are in uncharted territory. This year, for the first time in our lives, we can’t make fun of the hapless Cubs who always find a way to lose. The Curse of the Billy Goat is no longer a thing and the unfairly scapegoated Steve Bartman is off the hook. We’ve just had an off-season filled with stories about the Cubs and their long-suffering fans finally celebrating a championship and now we get to watch “Grandpa Rossy” bust a move in hideous MC Hammer pants on “Dancing With the Stars.”
The Cubs’ championship has already infiltrated America’s favorite game show. During the Jeopardy! College Championships in February, one of the clues was: “This young Cubs third baseman capped off a 2016 MVP season with 2 World Series home runs.” A college senior from LeHigh University, which is an 11-hour drive from Wrigley Field, responded with, “Who is Zobrist?” Of course, every Cubs fan knows that was the wrong answer (it’s Kris Bryant, for those playing at home).
So, baseball fans, unless you’re 109 years old, get out there and enjoy the first post-Cubs World Series championship season in your lifetime. And if you’re wondering how the season after the Cubs 1908 championship played out, you should know that the Cubs had a 104-win season, but still finished 6 ½ games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League. The Pirates then went on to beat the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Maybe history will repeat itself, but I’d estimate the likelihood of that happening to be about the same as the likelihood that Grandpa Rossy wins “Dancing With the Stars.”
Adrian versus Ichiro
Two of the more entertaining players in baseball in 2017 will undoubtedly be Adrian Beltre and Ichiro, who only needs one name because, well, he’s Ichiro. Beltre has had a long-running big brother/little brother bromance with the guy who plays to the left of him in Texas, shortstop Elvis Andrus. They have a love/hate relationship, with Andrus playing the part of that annoying little brother who is constantly needling big brother Beltre. One of his favorite ways to bug Beltre is by touching his head, which Beltre absolutely hates. They are a joy to watch.
Ichiro currently plies his trade with the Miami Marlins. He’s 43 years old and coming off a season in which he hit .291 and passed the 3,000 hit mark as a major league player. Add in the 1,278 hits he had in Japan before coming to the U.S. and he’s in the elite company of Pete Rose and Ty Cobb as the only professional players to have more than 4,000 hits at the highest levels.
Ichiro has been in the news recently for his training regimen, which includes the use of a customized machine that he kept in a storage trailer at the Miami Marlins’ spring training facility. It looks like an exercise machine an android would use, if androids needed to stay in tip-top shape. Ichiro prides himself on his fitness and says he wants to play baseball until he’s 50, in part because he has no other hobbies. Maybe he’s an android.
This year, Adrian Beltre and Ichiro are likely to cross paths statistically, as well as on the baseball diamond when the Marlins play the Rangers in Texas from July 24 to July 26. This particular statistical connection goes back to the 2005 season, when they were teammates on the Seattle Mariners.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Adrian Beltre began his career as a 19-year-old with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1998. He collected 338 hits in his first three seasons to take a 338 to 0 lead in career major league hits over Ichiro, who was still playing in Japan at that time. In 2001, Ichiro came over from Japan and had 242 hits in his first season with the Seattle Mariners, while leading the league in batting average and winning the AL Rookie of the Year and AL MVP Awards. Beltre had 126 hits that year. The race was on, with Beltre still ahead 464 to 242.
Jumping ahead a bit, we find both players having terrific seasons in 2004. Ichiro broke the single-season record for hits set by George Sisler back in 1920 and once again led the AL in hitting, with a .372 mark. Beltre broke out with a .334/.388/.629 season that included a career-high 48 home runs and 121 RBI. When the season ended, Beltre still led in career hits, but his lead was down to just 25 knocks (949 to 924). As fate would have it, Beltre signed a free agent contract with the Seattle Mariners, so the pair would be teammates in the 2005 season.
With his blazing speed and slashing style of hitting balls to all fields for a high batting average, Ichiro was banging out hits at a faster pace than Beltre and he stalked his teammate like a Puma on the prowl in the first few months of the 2005 season. By the end of June, Beltre’s lead was down to just three hits. Ichiro caught him on July 4, 2005, when he had three hits to Beltre’s one, but Beltre re-claimed his lead the next night when he had three hits to Ichiro’s one. It was a valiant effort by Beltre to hold off the surging Ichiro, but Ichiro would not be denied. Another three-hit game on July 8 put Ichiro in the lead, a lead he has yet to relinquish.
After passing Beltre in career hits on July 8, 2005, Ichiro added to his lead over the next six seasons. He led by 395 hits at the end of the 2011 season, which was also the first season of his major league career in which he didn’t hit .300 or better. That was a sign of things to come. He’s slowed down over the last five years and now Beltre is making a comeback in the career hits competition.
Heading into the 2017 season, Ichiro leads Beltre by 88 hits. Beltre is still going strong as the everyday third baseman for the Rangers, while Ichiro has become a fourth outfielder for the Miami Marlins. Beltre is projected by the FanGraphs Depth Charts to collect 165 hits this year. Ichiro is projected for just 60.
Based on these projections and my back-of-the-envelope mathematical skills, I believe Beltre will once again re-take the lead in career hits over Ichiro. I expect he will do so during the Rangers’ homestand beginning September 8 that includes three games against the Yankees and four against the Mariners. I’m rooting for it to happen against the Mariners, just to complete the circle.
Adrian vs. Ichiro, the back-and-forth race for the most career hits. Ichiro leads by 88, but Beltre is coming on strong. pic.twitter.com/9BHERMuj9k
— BobbyBaseball (@bballonthebrain) April 1, 2017
In related news, if Adrian Beltre reaches his projected 165 hits this year, he will have passed 12 players total this season, including 10 current Hall of Famers and nine members of the 3,000-hit club. He and Ichiro could end the season ranked 22nd and 23rd on the all-time hits list. Of course, if Ichiro plays until he’s 50, he might come back and pass Beltre sometime in 2023. Stay tuned.
The Millville Meteor
First of all, I don’t know any baseball fan who refers to Mike Trout as the “Millville Meteor.” The nickname refers to the city in which he grew up, Millville, New Jersey, but it’s a truly awful nickname for a player as historically great as Mike Trout. And Mike Trout is historically great.
Mike Trout will play most of this season as a 25-year-old (he’ll be 26 in August). In his five full seasons in the major leagues, he’s won the AL MVP Award twice and finished second three times. He could easily have five straight AL MVP Awards if not for the fickleness of voters who docked Trout because his teammates weren’t very good. Yes, I know, what sense does that make? Talk to your local BBWAA member. Along with his two MVP Awards, Trout was the Rookie of the Year in 2012. Let’s pause a moment to appreciate his 2016 season:
Over his five full seasons, Trout has been worth an average of 9.6 Wins Above Replacement (WAR, per Baseball-Reference). He already has more career WAR than Hall of Fame outfielder Jim Rice, who played 16 years in the major leagues. In fact, he’s already ahead of many Hall of Fame players, including Lou Brock, Dizzy Dean, and “Get Off My Lawn” Goose Gossage.
If Trout has another Mike Trout season, he will pass Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Ralph Kiner, and Larry Doby in career WAR sometime in April. Orlando Cepeda and Kirby Puckett will fall by the wayside in May. In June, old-timer Joe Tinker, of Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance fame, and Harry Hooper, who played with Babe Ruth, will be in Trout’s rear-view mirror.
As the All-Star break comes and goes in July, Trout will pass Tony Perez, Wee Willie Keeler, Bill Terry, and Max Carey. The dog days of August will see Trout track down Joe Medwick, Luis Aparicio, and future Hall of Famer, David “Big Papi” Ortiz (who will have produced the same amount of WAR in 20 years that took Trout six years to produce). Finally, by the end of the season, Trout will be ahead of “The Chairman of the Board” Whitey Ford and sluggers Hank Greenberg and Willie Stargell.
Willie Stargell! He was my favorite player when I was an 8-year-old falling in love with baseball in 1979. He was the leader of the “We R Fam-A-Lee” Pittsburgh Pirates who came from down three-games-to-one to beat the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. I loved watching him whirl the bat around in a big windmill pattern and blast balls completely out of stadiums and into swimming pools. He was my guy. He was good, too. Hall of Fame good. And yet, it’s very likely that Mike Trout will have more Wins Above Replacement after six full season in the big leagues than Willie Stargell had in 21 years. Mind. Blown.
Baseball fans, enjoy Mike Trout. Enjoy every last moment that we get to watch this guy play. Appreciate everything he does on the field, from the batter’s box to the basepaths to the plays he makes in centerfield. And while you’re enjoying his excellence, try to come up with a better nickname the “Millville Meteor.”
The Claw, Kid K, or The Minotaur
Once again, we have an incredible player in need of a better nickname than any of the three nicknames listed at his Baseball-Reference page. The Claw brings to mind either a WWE wrestling move or the thing Jim Carrey did in the movie “Liar Liar.” Kid K isn’t terrible, but I don’t hear many people saying it. As for Minotaur, it took some research to find the origins of that nickname. According to this post, it goes back to 2007 and a blog called Dodger Thoughts.
At the time, Kershaw had not yet made his major league debut, but the reviews were glowing and fans were excited about what he might become. Writer Phil Gurnee had been burned too many times before by Dodgers pitching prospects, so he was not ready to believe in the greatness of Clayton Kershaw. During spring training in 2008, Gurnee wrote about Kershaw:
“Sometime today the Dodgers will be unleashing the Minotaur upon major league baseball. The prospect ghosts of Kiki Jones, Dan Opperman, and Greg Miller look on and hope the beast will feast upon the National League bats like they were never able to.”
For a select group of fans, Kershaw is the Minotaur, but I don’t believe it’s widespread. A Google search of “baseball player Minotaur” produces a MaxPreps page on a high school baseball team and an article about Alex Rodriguez denying he had paintings of himself as a Minotaur hanging over his bed (everyone knows it’s a Centaur).
Anyway, enough about nicknames. Mike Trout is indisputably the best position player on the planet and Clayton Kershaw is the world’s greatest pitcher. No one else is in the conversation. Kershaw has an ERA of 1.88 over 816 innings since 2013. That’s a four-year stretch during which he’s allowed an average of just under two runs per nine innings.
Let’s go back to the leaderboard for Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-Reference). Clayton Kershaw, who has nine big league seasons under his belt, has produced 54.4 WAR (per Baseball-Reference). He’s tied with 13-year veteran Zack Greinke and well ahead of 19-year veteran Bartolo Colon (48 WAR). Kershaw has averaged around 7 WAR per season over the last six seasons.
If Kershaw has another 7-win season, he’ll pass some of the same Hall of Fame players that Mike Trout will pass, including Whitey Ford, Willie Stargell, and Hank Greenberg. He would also pass future Hall of Famers David Ortiz and Mariano Rivera. This could be accomplished by the All-Star break.
In the second half, Kershaw would put Hall of Fame catchers Mike Piazza and Yogi Berra behind him, and he might be able to catch the ageless Ichiro before the dog days of August. By the end of the 2017 season, Kershaw could have more Wins Above Replacement in his 10 seasons than 300-game winner Early Winn had in 23 seasons.
The Dodgers play the Angels in back-to-back home-and-home two-game sets at the end of June. If you have a chance, you should get out to the ballpark and watch the two greatest players in the game face off against each other. Trout has faced Kershaw 12 times in his career and is 2 for 11 with 4 strikeouts. Advantage: Kershaw.
The Machine Keeps On Machining
Albert Pujols emerged fully-formed as a 21-year-old rookie in 2001 with an incredible .329/.403/.610 season. He was an All-Star, a Silver Slugger, the NL Rookie of the Year, and finished fourth in MVP voting. Then the player known as “The Machine” was put on repeat and had nine more seasons just like it. Along the way, he won three MVP Awards and finished twice four times.
The Machine played his final year with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011. It was still Machine-like, but at a slightly lower level. He left St. Louis after that season to play for the Los Angeles Angels and continued to hit homers and produce runs, but his on-base percentage dropped to the level of mere mortals and his defense and base running cut into his value. In five years with the Angels, The Machine has averaged 29 homers and 98 RBI per year.
So here we are, 16 years into The Machine’s career and he’s about to move past some of the most productive hitters in the history of the game in runs scored and RBI. Pujols is 30th in baseball history with 1670 runs scored. He’s projected to score 75 runs this year. If he reaches that projection, he’ll pass, in order, Mickey Mantle, Bid McPhee, Billy Hamilton (the one from the 1800s, not the current Billy Hamilton), and Wee Willie Keeler, who liked to “hit ‘em where they ain’t”. He’ll also pass Jesse Burkett, Jim O’Rourke, and the great Honus Wagner, also known as The Flying Dutchman.
Pujols would end the year 23rd on the all-time list in runs scored. That’s pretty good for someone who runs with the labored footsteps of a man angry at the ground for existing. In related news, Pujols has 107 career steals and is projected to add three more to that total. If he does so, he will pass such illustrious players as Wayne Tolleson, Joe Birmingham, R.J. Reynolds, and Brian Giles.
Of course, driving in runs is where Pujols makes his money. He’s already 20th in history in RBI, with 1817. He’s projected to drive in 103 runs this year, which would move him all the way up to 10th place. The players he will pass if he reaches his projection make up a “Who’s Who” of slugging greats: Al Simmons, Manny Ramirez, Dave Winfield, Rafael Palmeiro, Ken Griffey, Jr., Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Mel Ott, Willie Mays, and Eddie Murray. He would end the year two RBI short of Jimmie Foxx.
Mascot Madness
In the mascot world, the Godfather of them all is the Famous San Diego Chicken, who was hatched by radio station KGB-FM in San Diego in 1974. The Chicken worked for KGB-FM until 1979, when a contract dispute ended the relationship. The Chicken had his born-again moment at a packed house of 47,000 fans at a San Diego Padres game at Jack Murphy Stadium that summer and has been entertaining fans around the world for the last four decades.
For most of those years, the San Diego Chicken had competitors in the mascot arena, including two entertaining mascots from the state of Philadelphia who were born in the late 1970s—The Phillie Phanatic and the Pirate Parrot. Over time, many teams crafted their own mascots, from Fredbird in St. Louis to the Mariner Moose in Seattle to Lou Seal in San Francisco. According to a Sports Illustrated article from last September, 27 of the 30 MLB teams now have “official” mascots.
The Famous Chicken is no longer a spring . . . chicken, but was still appearing at ballparks last summer. At the time, the Chicken admitted, “It’s not the end, but I can see it from here.” As the Famous Chicken’s legendary career comes to a close, he will become Grand Mascot Emeritus, which leaves the question for mascot fans around the world is: who will ultimately take his place as the current best mascot in the baseball world?
The Sports Illustrated article linked above ranked the 27 MLB mascots last summer. Cleveland Indians fans may be sad to hear that their mascot, Slider, was ranked at the very bottom. Sports Illustrated’s comment on Slider was, “What even is this? It looks like someone spilled yellow paint on Barney.” Others near the bottom of the list were D. Baxter the Bobcat of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Southpaw of the Chicago White Sox, and Homer the Brave of the Atlanta Braves. These mascots need to step up their game.
That being said, I have some real issues with the Sports Illustrated mascot rankings. They have the Pirate Parrot ranked 17th, behind the boring Oriole Bird of Baltimore. That’s ridiculous! The Pirate Parrot is much more entertaining than the stupid bird in Baltimore. Sports Illustrated also has San Francisco’s Lou Seal (#14) and Houston’s Orbit (#8) way too low and Toronto’s Ace (#7) and Detroit’s Paws (#5) way too high.
Perhaps the most egregious ranking by Sports Illustrated is the #2 ranking of Mr. and Mrs. Met. I get it. Mr. Met was one of the first baseball mascots and Lady Met came along not too many years later. Kudos to them for being pioneers. But then they disappeared altogether in the 1980s. Where were they? What did they have to do that was more important than entertaining children of all ages at Mets games?
Some years later, Mr. Met showed up at Mets games but Mrs. Met was nowhere to be seen. Was their marriage on the rocks? Did Mr. Met commit mascotdultery? In 2005, Mrs. Met suddenly came out of hiding, but then immediately disappeared again. Where did she go? Finally, she came back for good at the 2013 All-Star Game at Citi Field. The Mets explained that she had been “working as an event planner and was ready to return to full-time work now that her children are grown.” Despite this claim, Mrs. Met does not consistently show up for work at Mets games even today. She’s kind of flaky.
I do have to give credit to Sports Illustrated for their #1 choice, the Phillie Phanatic. The Phanatic is brilliant. Over the years, he’s sky-dived, zip-lined, and roller-bladed his way into the hearts of Phillies fans. He can drive an ATV with the best of them and his battles with Tommy Lasorda were epic. In 2011, he danced and strutted to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” with incredible grace. He’s also used his Jedi mind powers to defeat Darth Vader in a light saber battle.
While acknowledging that the Famous Chicken is the Babe Ruth of mascots, I have to say the Phillie Phanatic is the Willie Mays of the species. He’s a legend. He’s been doing it for many years and has produced many incredible moments. With the Famous Chicken no longer associated exclusively with the San Diego Padres, the Phillie Phanatic is the current grand champion of MLB mascots.
Of course, the Phanatic is also getting a little long in the tooth and there are always fresh mascot faces trying to take over the #1 spot in MLB mascot land. One of the leading contenders currently calls Houston home, but hails from outer space. He is Orbit, the Houston Astros’ space alien mascot, and he is working hard behind the scenes to improve his skills.
Orbit has already received one of the game’s highest honors when he was named Mascot of the Year by GameOps.com after the 2014 season. When he won that honor, Orbit became the first MLB mascot to win the award since it came into existence in 2001. If he continues on his current pace, Orbit could vault to the top tier with the Phillie Phanatic during the 2017 season. For now, the Phillie Phanatic is the heavyweight champion of baseball mascots and Orbit is the inter-galactic champion, looking to de-throne the Phanatic.
Fighting Father Time
“Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre”—Philip Roth
One day you’re a teenager in the 1980s listening to the Bob Seger song “Like A Rock” and appreciating the lyrics: “I was eighteen, didn’t have a care. Working for peanuts, not a dime to spare. But I was lean and, solid everywhere, like a rock.” Then, in what seems like an instant, you’re the old man looking back thinking, “Twenty years now, where they go? Twenty years now, I don’t know. I sit and I wonder sometimes, where they’ve gone.”
Aging can be difficult for everyone, but especially so for the great athlete. We’ve seen age defeat the once great Tiger Woods, who last won a major in 2008, when he won the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. That was his 14th major and it was only a matter of time until he would catch and pass the 18 majors of Jack Nicklaus . . . or so we thought. He hasn’t won a major since and looks like a shell of his former self on the golf course. He’s 41 years old, which isn’t old by society’s standards, but athletes live under a different calendar.
Quarterback Peyton Manning may have won the Super Bowl in his final season, but he was no longer the player he’d once been. At 39 years old, Manning was a below-average quarterback who threw nine touchdown passes and 17 interceptions during the regular season. Even his Super Bowl performance was lackluster. He completed 13 of 23 passes for 141 yards, with no touchdown passes and one interception. The Denver defense won that game. Peyton, who had always been the one driving the car, was just a passenger sitting in the back seat going along for the ride.
During the 2017 season, there are two aging major league players who will try to fight off Father Time in an attempt to keep their career batting averages over .300. Victor Martinez is 38 years old and has a career batting average of .301. He’s precariously close to dropping below that mark. Matt Holliday is one year younger and hitting two points higher, but with a career mark of .303 and coming off a season in which he hit .246, there’s a chance he could also drop below .300 by the end of the year.
Victor Martinez goes into the 2017 season with 1936 hits in 6438 at-bats. To the fourth decimal place, he’s hitting .3007. He’s projected to get 152 hits in 559 at-bats by the FanGraphs Depth Charts, which would drop his career batting average to .2984. If he gets the number of at-bats he’s projected for, he’ll need to hit .286 to maintain his .300 average, if you’re willing to round up from .2996. Martinez hit .289 last season, so it’s possible that he can hold off Father Time for another year.
Matt Holliday has a little more wiggle room. He has 1995 hits in 6583 at-bats, for a career average of .3031. He’s projected to get 108 hits in 430 at-bats (a .258 batting average), which would drop his career average to .2999. Mathematically-speaking, that’s below .300, but we can round up and give him the .300 recognition. If he gets those 430 projected at-bats and only hits .244, he would drop to .2994. There’s no rounding up there, Matt Holliday.
Big Sexy and the Knuckleballer
Trivia time!
- Can you name the pitcher who threw fastballs the lowest percentage of the time in 2016?
- Can you name the pitcher who threw fastballs the highest percentage of the time in 2016?
- Did you know they are teammates on the Atlanta Braves in 2017?
Let’s look at the easy one first. Last year, 73 pitchers pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. The median rate of fastballs thrown was 55%. The player at the very bottom of the list, with just 12% of his pitches being fastballs was . . . R.A. Dickey. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Dickey is a knuckleball pitcher. He threw the knuckleball nearly 84% of the time. That’s what knuckleball pitchers do, they throw knuckleballs. They throw knuckleballs because they don’t have good major league fastballs. Dickey’s fastball averaged 82.3 mph. That’s why he only threw it 12% of the time.
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Dickey is coming off his worst season since 2009 and is 42 years old. With knuckleballers, though, age is unimportant. Knuckleballer Phil Niekro has the most innings pitched and wins of all pitchers after the age of 40. Fellow knuckleballers Charlie Hough, Hoyt Wilhelm, and Tim Wakefield are also high on the list of innings pitched for pitchers over 40. Dickey could have a few more years left in him. Maybe he’ll be like Ichiro and try to play until he’s 50.
So what pitcher led all of baseball by throwing the fastball 89.5% of the time? Was it Mighty Thor, Noah Syndergaard, whose fastball averaged 98 mph? Was it the late Yordano Ventura, with an average fastball velocity of 96.1 mph? Or perhaps the also tragically-deceased Jose Fernandez, with a 95.2 mph fastball?
Nope. The pitcher who led all of baseball by throwing fastballs 89.5% of the time is the guy known as Big Sexy, Bartolo Colon. The man is fearless. His fastball ranked 67th of 73 qualified pitchers in velocity, yet he just kept pounding it in there, like the Chuck Knox Seahawks of the 1980s who ran the ball up the middle on first, second, and third down, then punted on the fourth. Not only did Bartolo Colon pound the plate with fastballs, he was effective while doing so, even at the age of 43. He also hit his first career home run in his 20th year in the big leagues, and it was a thing of beauty.
According to the All-Time Tater Trot Tacker Leaderboard, it took Colon 30.58 seconds to run around the bases on his epic home run. That ranks as the 12th-slowest since the metric has been tracked going back to 2010. When you’re nickname is Big Sexy, you know how to take your time.
Next: Top 100 players for 2017
R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colon will be teammates on the Atlanta Braves this season. If they pitch on back-to-back days, Braves fans can watch 43-year-old Big Sexy throw fastballs almost 90% of the time on one day and watch 42-year-old knuckleballer R.A. Dickey throw fastballs around 10% of the time the next. That’s pretty cool.