Only four home runs hit this season travelled further than Stanton’s 462 foot blast from last night and, more incredibly, no home run since 2006 has been hit harder. Stanton’s ‘speed off the bat’ mark of 122.4 mph tops every long ball hit over the last 5+ seasons. Of the 518 home runs given up by Moyer in his career, it’s unlikely any of those pitches were crushed as much as this one. It’s just a shame Delmon Young wasn’t in the on-deck circle at the time.

Watch:

All data from Hit Track Online.

Davidson about to say something to Manuel, which seems to begin with: "FFFFFFFFFF..."

Is there an official in any sport who is more desperate for attention than Bob Davidson? Just watch this from last night and this from last year and tell me that both of those incidents aren’t just examples of Davidson interjecting himself onto the game where a half decent umpire would have managed the situation completely differently.

It’s would seem from the infrequency with which umpires are fired, demoted or suspended that MLB has either little motivation or ability to challenge the umpire’s union but Davidson is out there making umpires and the league look silly on a regular basis. He’s also a prime example of how you generally don’t know the names of umpires unless they’re plain bad or their job or they REALLY want you to know who they are. Davidson’s desire to make himself the story has gone on long enough.

Albert Pujols: .197/.235/.275 (46 OPS+)

Erick Aybar: .193/.220/.235 (31 OPS+)

Alberto Callaspo .225/.271/.275 (58 OPS+)

Vernon Wells .233/.258/.408 (87 OPS+)

Peter Bourjos .193/.254/.281 (54 OPS+)

The team clearly had to do something proactive about the hitting situation and firing Hatcher at least shows they are doing something. Pujols has a huge task on his hand to get his numbers anything close to what they have been in the past but he should still be able to turn it around to some extent and have decent end of year numbers even if they won’t be close to his usual standards. Aybar also has a track record which indicates he should improve and he at least plays a decent shortstop. Callaspo has been a decent major leaguer in the past but came into the season as a player the team could look to upgrade and Bourjos’ other worldly defense makes it easier to put up with all but the most putrid of offensive performances.

The real issue here, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, is Vernon Wells and his monstrous contract. Now Mike Trout is proving his belongs at the Major League level, each poor game for Wells must be pushing the Angels towards cutting their losses. Even if they don’t outright release him, he has to be treated like the marginal big-leaguer he’s sadly spent his time in LA proving he now his.

Mike Scioscia is MLB’s longest tenured manager but even he will be feeling some heat for this awful start. He has a reputation as someone who can eke more runs out of an offense than the overall numbers indicate should have been possible but there’s been little evidence of that trick this year. It’s also understandable that Scioscia receives some of the blame for the acquisition of Wells. While clearly not his final call, Scioscia is thought to have more front office influence than many managers around the league and his apparent desire to be rid of Mike Napoli, who was shipped out in the Wells deal, couldn’t have worked out much worse for the team.

If Scioscia does go it seems more likely to happen after the season or at least after the All-Star break but no factors should be overlooked, or persons immune from scrutiny, in the search for answers to this awful offense.

Cole Hamels was suspended for five games.

Last summer, in my first piece for this site, I explained why I thought Major League Baseball’s disciplinary system could at best be described as ‘inept’. I think the last few day’s events have vindicated my point.

Cole Hamels intentionally pinning Bryce Harper, albeit ‘only’ in the back, and then bragging about it to the media has drawn a paltry five game ban from the Commissioner’s Office. With an off day on the docket this week, you could argue that the suspension actually benefits the Phillies given that it means they can just push Hamels back a day while starting Roy Halladay on regular rest. Clearly any punishment that is so easily navigated is really no punishment at all.

There is an argument that Hamels’ crime was essentially his honesty; after all plenty of pitchers plunk hitters intentionally but claim the pitch ‘got away’ from them when confronted about it afterwards. Regardless of that issue, anyone throwing a pitch with the sole intention of hitting the man in the batter’s box should be punished, as should the arrogance and stupidity shown to brag about it afterwards. What Hamels did was incredibly dangerous and could easily have caused serious injury to Harper, who it must be added has handled this whole situation remarkably well. Enough batters get hit and get hurt during the season by pitches that genuinely do ‘get away, without people like Cole Hamels deciding he doesn’t like someone’s reputation and throwing at him. And that is the only complaint Hamels had, by the way. Harper hadn’t done anything to Hamels or the Phillies specifically, Hamels had just heard he had an attitude problem and thought he needed taking down a peg.

Hamels’ trite and pathetic argument that he was standing up for ‘old school baseball’ holds no water. Jim Leyland is as old school baseball as it gets and he’s openly said he wants the book thrown at Hamels, suggesting a 15 game ban. That’s exactly the sort of thing MLB needs to consider for pitchers in this situation. It might be an excessive punishment for an everyday player, but the way a team’s rotation works means that anything less than say 7-8 days at a minimum is an utterly meaningless suspension. It’s about time MLB got a grip on it’s disciplinary procedures because the current system is practically worthless.

Of those 14 names:

- 3 began the year in the Majors (Darvish, Montero, Moore)

- 2 have since been called up (Trout, Harper)

- 3 have a very strong chance of being called up this summer (Teheran, Miller, Bauer)

That’s a lot of talent that could or should be missing from next year’s lists. Harper and Trout both getting called up almost simultaneously really put the spotlight on this situation but realistically this was going to happen and some point over the course of the season. Although last year’s draft produced a veritable bounty of talent, this year’s crop is reportedly significantly weaker and I would assume there is a reasonable chance it hasn’t produced any top 10 talents this time next year.

Prospect graduations haven’t just impacted the top of these lists either. Just eyeballing a few names from the 11-25 range, spots where one might reasonably expect to find some of next year’s top 10 talents, there are more players who could well lose rookie eligibility in 2012. These are names like Devin Mesoraco, Danny Hultzen and Jacob Turner.

All of this means that next year’s top spots are there for the taking. Only Teheran featured in the 4-6 slots on all three lists so there is clearly a little disagreement following this year’s clear top 3 of Moore, Trout and Harper. Early favourites to jump into the top 10s include Francisco Lindor, Miguel Sano and Taijuan Walker while possibilities for the top slot include Profar, Bundy and Archie Bradley. A glut of call ups really has thrown next year’s lists wide open.

Despite thumping the Twins 11-2 last night, the Red Sox remain an underwhelming 6-10 on the season. The offense seems to be coming to life behind the surprising double threat of Cody Ross (.283/.350/.623) and Mike Aviles (.333/.365/.567) as well as the usual suspects David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia even while Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Youkilis offer very little in the early going. This may not be the best offense in baseball this year, but it won’t be too far away come the end of the year.

The real issue so far has clearly been the pitching and the bullpen in particular. First the good: Lester, Beckett, Buchholz should, health permitting as always, be a comfortably above average front three even if Buchholz has looked below his best so far this year. At the back of the rotation, Felix Doubront has exceeded just about all expectations so far but there should be understanable skepticism over whether he can keep this up.

Now the bad. Daniel Bard has been wildly unpredictable in the rotation and the bullpen has been a mess, with the sole exception of Scott Atchison. Now Atchison can throw strikes with the best of them but if he’s your most reliable reliever then your bullpen situation is untenable. Alfredo Aceves is better suited to be a multi-inning reliever than he is a closer and likely won’t last the year in the role even if Andrew Bailey never makes it back as an effective option. Franklin Morales, Matt Albers and Junichi Tazawa have the potential to be useful relief arms but probably not a great deal more than that. Justin Thomas shouldn’t be anywhere near a major league roster. Vincente Padilla is as frustrating and enigmatic as ever.

Solutions to the relief mess are available to the Red Sox and they don’t include radical April trades. Mark Melancon is down at Triple-A working out his early season issues and should return to be a solid enough reliever at some point in the not too distant future. Also on the farm is prospect Alex Wilson who has recently been converted to the pen and has the sort of fastball/slider repertoire that could help him make a success of the role. The Triple-A Pawtucket roster also features Rich Hill and Aaron Cook who are both making strides in rediscovering health and form. The latter may even assist with the moving of Bard back to the pen if his opt out date of May 1st can be pushed back a little. If the team want to look externally, Mike Gonzalez is still unsigned and could be with a new team in the next week or so and back in the bigs a fortnight or so after that. Bailey and Daisuke Matsuzaka are both due back later in the year.

The options are there for the Red Sox to address their most glaring weakness. Not all of them will work out as quality MLB pitchers but the options are numerous enough that an improved relief corps should be attainable in short time. The team has been poor in a couple of areas this year, but the bullpen is both the only real disaster and the easiest to address. The majority of personnel, and I include Bobby Valentine in this despite his poor bullpen management on a couple of occasions this year, were seen by the front office as the best and most appropriate options 16 games ago and it is should be very hard to dissuade intelligent baseball professionals that those decisions were wrong after just a couple of weeks worth of games. If the team are scrapping to get to .500 by the All Star break this discussion becomes much more pertinent, but for now those that were entrusted with key roles should be given the chance to perform up to their reputations while possible replacements for those without the same track records can be sought without breaking up what is still a very good team.

Aside from a few minor complaints, and the odd eyebrow raiser, this is stunningly detailed and absorbing game.

I played a previous incarnation of the Out of the Park series a few years ago and, frankly, I wasn’t hooked. The depth of data was impressive but the game was a diversion rather than something to fully engrossing you for hours at a time. Even while allowing for my missing a number of updates, this year’s installment is a significant leap forward from my last experience with the franchise.

For anyone that’s played the Football Manager (nee Championship Manager) series of soccer games, this is the nearest to a baseball equivalent it would seem possible to get*, you can just click and go with a new season or you can spend hours customizing every aspect of your league with historical players, game tendencies and finances. Want to see Babe Ruth in Coors Field for the 1998 season? It can happen here. I’ve been playing around with the game for around a week and still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface as new options and tweaks regularly seem to spring from nowhere and demand that you play around with them and see what happens.

*For those unfamiliar, just Google some Football Manager fan sites to see how committed people get to mastering every fine detail of that series

Once you’re actually into a game and running a team as their GM (or GM / Manager if you prefer and have the spare time to micro-manage every game) the options available are no less impressive. My biggest quibble with the previous version I played, which like I said was a good couple of years ago now, was that player’s attributes were all rated on the 20-80 scouting scale. This would have been fine for prospects but at the big league level it just didn’t leave enough room for the sort of nuance the game needed with too many players sharing the same attribute ratings it became a bit of a lottery trying to upgrade your roster. Fortunately the game now uses a 1-20 scale and all players have far more component attributes featured, allowing you a much greater impact on changing the roster via trades and free agency.

The impact of budgets, the new CBA and prospect status are all felt through every decision you make in the game and trades take a good amount of thought and tweaking before you have something that works for both sides. This is not the trade engine of MLB The Show.

Aside from a few minor complaints (it would be nice if the season started in Spring Training rather than the day before Opening Day to give you some time to make adjustments) and the odd eyebrow raiser (I’m not sure catcher Dusty Ryan is quite the ‘must sign’ free agent he is presented as at the start of the 2012 season) this is stunningly detailed and absorbing game. Anyone who plays in one of the main extremely deep and detailed fantasy leagues around today will be instantly at home with OOTP 13 and the strides they have made in the few years since I last played the series are quite incredible.

• Yoenis Cespedes is box office. His Carlos Peña-esque .212/.350/.545 line doens’t really do justice to the excitement his at bats seem to be generating at the moment. Twitter is acting as my personal ‘Cespedes Alarm’ during every A’s game, alerting me to when the Cuban import is due to hit and very grateful for it I am too. Cespedes still has plenty of the unknown about his game but the huge power we heard about has already been in evidence, as have the huge strikeouts. He’s the type of hitter whose slumps are going to look ugly but what we’ve seen has been tantalizing.

• Keeping with the Cuban theme, Aroldis Chapman may just have figured something out. In 8 innings over 5 appearances he’s allowed just two singles and a triple. That’s the extent of the base-runners against the Reds fireballer. He’s also struck out 15 of the 27 batters he’s faced. If the Reds are insistent on using him in relief at least they are sending him out there for multiple innings, but it’s hard not to ask yourself what he could do if given a chance to start.

• Derek Jeter isn’t going to hit .400.

• Vernon Wells might be owed $63m or so over the next three years, but Mike Trout is doing his best to force the Angels into making a decision about their outfield alignment. Possibly the top prospect in the game, Trout is hitting .435/.491/.652 through his first 11 games at Triple-A and would likely be starting at the big league level right now for a number of clubs. Perhaps the fact that it was current GM Jerry Dipoto’s predecessor Tony Reagins that was responsible for bringing Wells to California will make Dipoto more comfortable with moving the overpaid veteran aside for the young future star.

• It seems that Brian Matusz’s excellent spring was a mirage after all. After pitching himself into consideration as a sleeper comeback player while in Florida, the young lefty hasn’t been able to carry over those results into the regular season. In 9.2 innings so far he’s walked 8, struck out 5 and given up a couple of homers. It’s been a sad fall for the former top prospect and most baseball fans should be pulling for him to turn things around.

MVP – Justin Upton

When trade rumours began circling around Upton just over a year ago, there were some  impressive packages of young talent being (theoretically) together as fans and analysis lined up to work out what it would take to acquire the Diamondbacks right fielder. Upton’s excellent 2011 stats offered a glimpse, and I believe it was just a glimpse, of what he’s capable of. Still just 24 and a couple of years away from his expected peak, Upton put up .289/.369/.529 line thanks to a career high in isolated power and a career low in strikeouts. Those are strong sides that Upton is maturing as a hitter and that there is more to come from an already outstanding player.

Also considered – Joey Votto, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzski, Matt Kemp, Ryan Zimmerman

Cy Young – Zack Greinke

After the season, team’s will have a rare chance to bid on three different young, top of the rotation starters when Greinke, Matt Cain and Cole Hamels all hit the open market at the same time. There may have been years with an equally talented free agent pitching class but, in an era where teams are more determined than ever to lock up young players, I don’t remember a year with a year where the top free agent arms has so many high impact years left in the tank. Greinke’s FIP and xFIP where both below 3 last year, indicating that his ERA of 3.83 could and probably should have been around a run lower. Another Cy Young would make him only the sixth player ever to win the award in both leagues.

Also considered – Clayton Kershaw, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Madison Bumgarner, Cole Hamels

Rookie of the Year – Trevor Bauer

He may be starting the year in the minors, but once the Diamondbacks have had a month or two to manipulate his service time, Josh Collmenter isn’t going to stop Bauer from claiming a spot in the team’s rotation. The owner of the one of the more interesting player YouTube channels you’ll see, Bauer’s unorthodox training regime has put him under the spotlight since before he was even drafted. The comparison to Tim Lincecum is entirely unfair but he could come up and pile up big strikeout numbers from day one. Despite picking the Diamondbacks to have the MVP and the Rookie of the Year, I actually think the Snakes are in for a season of regression from last year.

Also considered – Zack Cozart, Tyler Pastornicky, Devin Mesoraco, Robbie Erlin

Manger of the Year – Ozzie Guillen

Because why not?

Comeback Player of the Year – Carlos Zambrano

It sounds like the Marlins new park is going to be a good pitching park and working with Ozzie Guillen is either going to work out brilliantly or completely blow up in the face of every involved. Either way it’ll be fun to watch play out.

American League

MVP – Evan Longoria

Although there are no division winners being picked here, the Rays would be my choice to take the AL East this year as I’m anticipating a big year from their third baseman. Longoria took a big step forward in his walk rate last year, taking a free pass in 3% more of his plate appearances than he had previously managed, but his numbers were held down by an incredibly low .239 BABIP. If that number normalizes as it should, Longoria should find his batting average back up around the .280-.290 mark and career highs in all three triple slash numbers wouldn’t be a surprise. He’s also, along with Adrian Beltre, the class of the defensive third basemen in the American League. The rest of the Rays line up is good enough to give him the RBI and runs scored numbers that many voters still look for and if the Rays can win the AL East behind a good year from Longoria he’ll have the strong narrative behind him that any MVP candidate needs.

Also considered – Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Albert Pujols, Ian Kinsler, Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Bautista

Cy Young – Dan Haren

Whether it’s a result of a career spent almost entirely on the west coast, being the perceived second fiddle to the likes of Brandon Webb or Jered Weaver or something else entirely, it seems that Dan Haren never quite gets the credit he deserves. He’s second among active pitchers in strikerouts to walk ratio behind Kevin Slowey (yes, really) and ahead of Roy Halladay, he’s never been hurt and pitches comfortably over 200 innings every single year. He’s a completely different type of pitcher but he produces similar (if lesser) results to what Curt Schilling used to put up year in, year out. Haren is, however, much more handsome than Schilling. By putting up the sort of strong numbers he does every year there’s good reason to think he’s the sort of player for whom one day everything will click and his stats will separate him from the pack.

Also considered – Jon Lester, Felix Hernandez, Justin Verlander, David Price, CC Sabathia

Rookie of the Year – Matt Moore

Moore’s ridiculous minor league numbers (sub 2 ERA and over 12 strikeouts per nine in the upper minors) have left him with nothing to prove on the farm and he’ll begin the season in the Rays rotation. Job and playing time opportunity are usually bigger factors in who wins this award than either current or future talent but Moore is blessed with all of those attributes. The Rays will likely handle him carefully but even if he ‘only’ pitches 160 or so innings he should have more than enough opportunity to stake his claim for the hardware. On a per innings basis he could well be the Rays best starter this year.

Also considered – Mike Trout, Yu Darvish, Jesus Montero, Addison Read

Manager of the Year – Joe Maddon

No-one seems to have much of an idea of the criteria for winning the manager of the year award so I’ve gone for the man I believe is the best manager in the game and whose team also has a chance to win more games than some might expect.

Comeback Player of the Year – Adam Dunn

As with the manager award, the criteria for this award is pretty fuzzy. What exactly do you need to be coming back from to qualify? Assuming a player essentially needs to have been bad or hurt the previous year to stake a claim for the award, I’ve gone for the one player who surely can’t be any worse than in 2011. Dunn’s precipitous fall in production was as dramatic as I can remember any player having in recent years. Maybe it’s over optimistic of me but I could see a .230/.350/.430 type year with 25 homers from Dunn in 2012.

Also considered – Alex Rios, Brett Anderson