2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa Claus this Christmas

Some 2019 performances that deserve punishment from Santa this Christmas

The 2019 season may have been a very good one for most of baseball, but there were also instances of bad behavior of the kind Santa Claus isn’t likely to forget this Christmas.

So while good boys of the stripe of Stephen Strasburg and Anthony Rendon await some extremely choice presents under their trees, a few of the game’s notables can’t expect to be treated as kindly by the jolly man in the red suit.

Yes, there will be coal awaiting some of the game’s mischief-makers this holiday season … and we’re not talking about Gerrit, either.

While the bad deeds weren’t numerous, they were noteworthy. Some involved simple poor performance, while others were behavior-oriented. Yes, we mean you, Pirates and Reds. Now go and apologize to one another for being such spoiled brats.

One player’s suspension for PED use seriously compromised his team’s post-season plans. Another, following a frustrating inning in July, displayed his arm strength in an entirely inappropriate fashion.

A noteworthy relief pitcher sat out the entire first half of the season, insisting that he was worth a boatload of more money than anybody else thought. Then when he got it, he stunk up the place and sabotaged his team’s post-season prospects.

Nor were umpires immune to perdition. Sam Holbrook’s highly questionable call during the seventh inning of the sixth game of the World Series might have changed the entire event’s outcome.

Then there was the entire Houston Astros organization, subject at season’s end of an ongoing probe into allegations that they cheated their way to victories in 2017, possibly including that year’s World Series, and possibly since then.

Here’s a quick look at some of the game’s noteworthy figures who ought to be looking ahead to Santa’s trip down the chimney with more than a bit of trepidation.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa

The Houston Astros

Santa’s apparently not the only one who sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake. The difference is the Astros have cameras installed to monitor things…sign-stealing things.

When former Astro Mike Fiers revealed in early November that the team had used electronic surveillance methods to steal pitch information during the 2017 season, MLB launched a full investigation of the Astros. The results of that investigation have not yet been announced.

But the best possible spin that can be put on Fiers’ revelations – which no Astro has attempted to deny – is …well, there is no best possible spin. It’s all bad.

Electronic sign-stealing is against MLB rules because it substitutes outside forces for good old human ingenuity. Commissioner Rob Manfred has promised serious consequences if the allegations are found to be valid. He has not said what those consequences might be, but the options – fines, loss of draft picks, administrative suspensions or even firings – could threaten the future of the dominant program in the game’s recent past.

What remains to be known is how long the electronic surveillance went on whether it was used during the 2017 post-season, and whether it extended into 2018 or 2019. The longer and more active the surveillance, the deeper the doo-doo is for Astros team officials and executives.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa

Tony Clark

The president of the MLB Players Association laid down a bright marker in November when he ordered an investigation by his organization into possible collusion by team owners.

What got Clark’s goat was a statement by Braves general manager Alex Anthopoulos acknowledging that his team had conferred with other teams about, among other things, their free-agent interests. What most saw as a bow to throwaway research, Clark saw as evidence that teams were conspiring to fix the free-agent market.

“We had a chance to get a sense of what the other clubs are going to look to do in free agency…,” Anthopoulos had said of his conversations.

Somebody with a suspicious mind – Clark, for example – could read collusion into that. More objective minds might see it as simple due diligence by Anthopoulos with no deeper meaning than, “what are you going to be looking for?” GMs are not allowed to collude, but they are allowed to ask general questions.

In short order, reality intervened. Free agents, among them the most-coveted – soon were flying off the availability shelf for staggering sums that exceeded even the most enthusiastic forecasts.

If collusion was afoot, it was a highly incompetent form of collusion.

All Clark actually succeeded in doing was poisoning relations between owners and the MLBPA at a time when both sides are utterly awash in money, and with the start of negotiations on a new basic agreement only about a year away.

Obviously there is a history at play that creates some level of wariness on the part of the association. But that history is now 30 years old. Clark should have been more careful to live in the present.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa

Sam Holbrook

Holbrook was assigned to work the World Series, and happened to be behind the plate for Game 6, played in Houston with the Astros holding a 3 games to 2 Series lead.

Behind Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals held a narrow 3-2 advantage at the start of the seventh inning. Yan Gomes opened the inning with a soft line single to right field, bringing up Trea Turner. He managed only a weak roller between the mound and third that Astros pitcher Brad Peacock fielded hastily and heaved in the direction of first base. The ball sailed past first baseman Yuli Gurriel, Gomes advancing to third base and Turner to second.

Or not. Holbrook waved the play dead, apparently ruling the Turner had illegally run out of the running lane, effectively interfering with Peacock’s throw. He called Turner out and sent Gomes back to first base.

Replay showed that Turner had run with the left part of his body in fair territory, but also left plenty of room for doubt whether that had affected Peacock’s throw, which was both off-balance and offline. Nats manager Dave Martinez protested Holbrook’s decision so vehemently that Holbrook ejected him. For five minutes the umpiring crew debated whether the play was reviewable, eventually deciding it wasn’t.

Holbrook’s decision amounted to punishing Turner for Peacock’s poor throw. The only person who saved Holbrook from a stint as Series goat was Anthony Rendon, the game’s next batter, who homered into the Crawford boxes. Washington overcame Holbrook’s poor ruling to win the game 7-2, and one night later won the World Series.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa

Craig Kimbrel

Kimbrel did his best to cash in on his post-2018 celebrity status by demanding more money and more years than any rational owner was willing to offer him, as a result sitting out the start of the 2019 season.

By June, though the Chicago Cubs were sufficiently desperate for closer help to court and then fall in love with Kimbrel. They offered him a three-year, $48 million deal, which Kimbrel took.

There is nothing on this good earth more mercurial than a relief pitcher, a fact Kimbrel proved anew in 2019. In exchange for the $16 million he received in 2019, he gave the Cubs an 0-4 record, a 6.53 ERA and nine home runs allowed, all in just 20 innings of work.

It would be possible to cite several plausible reasons for why the Cubs failed to qualify for post-season play for the first time since 2014, but it would not be possible to compile that list without including the decision to sign Kimbrel.

After two months of trying to extract some value from Kimbrel, the Cubs consigned him to September mop-up duty…which probably wasn’t what they paid that $16 million for. In his only three appearances down the stretch, Kimbrel recorded seven outs while allowing six earned runs, four of them on home runs.

Fortunately for Kimbrel, while he can’t expect much from Santa, there’s enough in his bank account to fund his own Christmas presents…not that he deserves any.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa Claus

The Pirates and Reds

Three words that were not heard during any of the 19 occasions when the NL Central rivals met during 2019: Play nice, boys.

The meetings between the division’s two worst teams basically amounted to an ongoing slugfest. Although both sides confirmed that the bad will carried over from 2018, it broke out in the open in April when Derek Dietrich slammed a Chris Archer pitch into the Allegheny and then took time out to admire his own work. The next time Dietrich came up, Archer threw behind Dietrich, precipitating a benches-clearing brawl in which Reds outfielder Yasiel Puig challenged the whole Pirates dugout.

A month later, Pirates pitcher Clay Holmes hit Eugenio Suarez. Knocking him out of the game. Holmes was ejected.

Then during a Reds pitching change in the ninth inning of their July 31 game, the ousted pitcher, Amir Garrett, left the mound on course for the Pirate dugout, where he proceeded to challenge the team.

In the brawl that ensued, managers David Bell and Clint Hurdle squared off with each other. Puig, Garrett, and Bell were ejected, as were Archer and Pirate teammates Kyle Crick and Francisco Cervelli.

Two days later, MLB handed out suspensions to Garrett, Crick, Puig, as well as Keone Kela, Jose Osuna, and Jared Hughes. Bell and Hurdle were both also suspended.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa Claus

Pirates pitchers

The only upside to the ongoing Pirates-Reds feud was that it gave Pittsburgh pitchers a chance to prove they could actually hit something. In Chicago, for a mid-September three-game series with the Cubs, it was very decidedly the other way around.

In that series, the Pirate staff managed to surrender an astonishing 47 runs, a giveaway that amounted to a hair under two runs per inning for the duration. Did they lose all three games? Absolutely.

The carnage began, fittingly enough, on Friday the 13th, when manager Clint Hurdle sent Steven Brault out to face a Cubs team trying to hold its tenuous runner-up status in the NL Central and wild card races. Brault did everything possible to assist in that pursuit, surrendering eight hits and 10  earned runs in just two and two-thirds innings. Brault even made his mound opponent, Jon Lester, look good, notwithstanding that Lester gave up four earned run (plus three unearned runs) in just five innings.

The Cubs scored five in the first five more in the third and seven in the fifth to win 17-8. It was the 27th time Pirate pitchers had surrendered double-digit runs, and most assuredly not the last.

The following afternoon, rookie James Marvel – in just his second major league appearance – was sent out to slaughter. The Cubs touched him for four in the second and three more by the time he exited after four innings, trailing 7-1.

His relievers fared no better. There were four of them, and they combined to allow another seven runs as Chicago won 14-1.

Trevor Williams was the Sunday starter, and the Cubs made equal sport of him. He allowed seven earned runs in two and one-third innings of what would eventually become a 16-6 Cubs victory.

The most surprising thing about the Pirate staff’s utter collapse is that it’s not a major league record. Although the data on this sort of thing isn’t complete, it’s known that in June of 1950 the St. Louis Browns managed to allow Boston to score 55 runs in a three-game series, those scores being 20-4, 29-4 and – astonishingly  — a 12-6 Browns win.

2019 MLB figures getting coal from Santa Claus

Trevor Bauer

If this were one of those junior high school field day events, Trevor Bauer would have won the baseball throw.

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Angered by Cleveland manager Terry Francona’s decision to remove him in the fifth inning of an eventual 9-6 Indians loss to the Kansas City Royals July 28 in Kansas City, Bauer heaved the ball literally over the center-field wall before he trudged off the field.

From a purely physical standpoint, it was an impressive heave, carrying, more than 300 feet and clearing an eight-foot barrier. From a wisdom standpoint, not so much; Francona not only removed Bauer from the game but about as quickly as it was possible to do so the pitcher was exiled to the Cincinnati Reds in a trade.

You did have to sympathize with Bauer’s frustration level; he had just suffered through a dreadful half-inning made far more so by bad luck. After the first batter lined a clean hit to right-center, the next lofted a fly ball to deep center that was lost in the sun for a cheap double. A walk on a close three-ball pitch preceded a weak tap between the mound and home that Bauer unsuccessfully tried to flick toward catcher Roberto Perez for the play at the plate.

With Bauer’s lead reduced to a single run and the bases loaded, the next Royals hitter dropped a base hit into short right field inches out of reach of the Indians second baseman. One more hit, this one clean, sent two more runs home, put Kansas City in front to stay, and sent Francona to the mound.

From there it was ‘lookout in the bleachers.’