Messy National League’s upcoming standings chaos, plus why Aaron Judge loves center field

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Our “Missing Bats” project continues. Plus: notes on Aaron Judge in center field, Clayton Kershaw suffers a setback and we dive into the (currently) mild National League. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal, welcome to The Windup!

Standings watch: Chaos in the National League

If you add up every team’s win-loss records at the end of the season, you’ll find a .500 record. It is the first law of thermodynamics, but for wins and losses — they cannot materialize out of thin air, they can only be transferred from one team to another.

Therefore, I must ask … [straightens tie, clears throat in a calm and collected manner, pointing at the National League standings]: HOW ARE THEY ALL BAD?! EXPLAIN THIS, SCIENTISTS.

Of the 15 NL teams, nine have losing records.
As recently as last night — before the Padres’ dramatic 7-6 walk-off over the Nationals — you didn’t even need a winning record to hold an NL playoff spot.
No fewer than seven teams with losing records sit within 3 1/2 games of a playoff spot, leaving only the Rockies and Marlins (both 27-51) as the only two hopeless cases in the NL.

My first thought was: The American League must be dominating interleague play, right? Nope. The AL does have a winning record overall, but it’s only 168-167.

The real answer is not that the National League is full of awful teams, but that there are only two truly bad teams. The rest are experiencing what we call “parity.” Check out the non-playoff standings by winning percentage:

Arizona / Washington / New York: .487
Cincinnati / Pittsburgh: .474
San Francisco: .462
Colorado / Miami: .346

Rather than a three-horse race between elite teams, we’re seeing a whole herd of stubborn stallions, bucking their way toward the finish line in one jumbled herd.

Is it pretty? Haha, no. Nooooo, no, no it is not. But is it shaping up to be a chaotic and exciting September? Oh, absolutely.

Ken’s Notebook: Why Aaron Judge loves center field

Mookie Betts prefers playing infield in part because he runs a shorter distance from the dugout to his position than he does to right field. Aaron Judge, in becoming the Yankees’ regular center fielder, took on what generally is considered the most demanding spot in the outfield. Yet, just as he did in 2022 while playing more center than right, he is putting together a mind-boggling season.

Judge’s major-league lead in OPS, home runs and RBIs is all the more remarkable considering how much energy he also expends on offense. Only his teammate Juan Soto is on base more often. And while Judge needs only to trot on his homers, he also pushes himself running the bases and sliding, all at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds.

After the Yankees acquired Soto in December, former hitting coach Sean Casey said on his podcast that he hated the idea of Judge playing center, pointing out the increased risk of injury. Judge, however, relishes being in the middle of the diamond, just as he was in college at Fresno State.

“You’ve got a great view (from there),” Judge said. “When they were talking to me about getting (Alex) Verdugo and Soto, (I said) wherever I need to play, whether it’s left field, center field, second, DH, whatever I’ve got to do, I’ll do it so these guys can feel comfortable and come in here play their game. I love center field.”

Judge, who has started 58 games in center and 13 at DH as well as four each in left and right, is holding his own defensively according to the leading public metrics, Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved. And, in an effort to conserve energy, he has reduced his pregame work.

“Coming out here, the steps you take, hitting BP, going out there on defense, it wears on your body,” Judge said. “I’ve kind of tweaked the workload a little bit. But it’s just about being smart. After six, seven, eight years playing the game up here, you start to figure out little things.”

Hawk-Eye, which powers Statcast, is the main technology teams use in-game to track player movement. Some teams supplement that information with GPS technologies pregame. Yankees manager Aaron Boone has suggested Judge is running the same amount or less in center than he does in right. And with Giancarlo Stanton out for at least the next month with a strained left hamstring, Judge figures to get more time at DH.

Bummers: Kershaw suffers minor setback

The Dodgers were meant to get a built-in boost to their rotation between Opening Day and the trade deadline, as Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler, Emmet Sheehan and (sometime in August) Dustin May came off the IL.

Well … Sheehan was due to return early in the season, but has since undergone Tommy John surgery. Buehler returned in early May, but wasn’t great; he’s back on the IL (hip inflammation), joined by Yoshinobu Yamamoto (strained rotator cuff).

And now, it appears Kershaw’s return may be delayed, even if slightly.

He pitched three innings for Single-A Rancho Cucamonga on Wednesday, striking out five and walking one, allowing one run.
He was scheduled to make his second rehab start today but has since been shut down with “lingering soreness” in his shoulder.

The good news: There doesn’t appear to be any new damage, and manager Dave Roberts said the plan is to hold off until the soreness goes away, then build back up. We won’t know Kershaw’s new ETA in Los Angeles until that happens, but it appears a return by the All-Star break is no longer a possibility.

For now, the Dodgers’ rotation will consist of Tyler Glasnow, Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone, James Paxton and rookie Landon Knack, who has pitched well (1-1, 2.10 ERA) in five starts.

Investigations: Dissecting a pitching revolution, part II

I wasn’t planning on leading every day this week with our “Missing Bats” series (this section was up top in today’s newsletter edition), but sometimes you gotta go where the good stuff is. And today’s masterpiece by Zack Meisel is good stuff.

As the analytics revolution began, there was a war in baseball: “Old School” vs. “New School.” White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson famously lampooned the new statistical acronyms by harrumphing that the most important stat was TWTW: “The Will To Win.”

I mean, sure. But if there were a thing called The Will To Fly, I could have it, and it still wouldn’t get me anywhere without a science lab of technicians building jet packs or wings.

But here’s the thing about that analogy: Jetpacks already exist. And (funding aside) do you know why I won’t ever fly with one? Because — it pains me to say it — Harrelson was partially right. I do not have The Will To Fly. It seems really scary! I feel like it could go very wrong for me!

This also exemplifies how some pitchers, who had invested their whole lives into pitching, felt about being told by a statistician how to pitch. But it only takes one thing to change the minds of an entire sport. As Meisel puts it:

“Transforming the game required data and technology to provide long-awaited reference points, and then it required front offices investing in those resources, coaches embracing the information they spit out and, ultimately, players buying into the new ways of thinking about pitching. It also required success.”

As Tampa, Houston and — the focus of this article — Cleveland began to dominate the pitching world by using new analytical tools, the argument quickly shifted from “Is this even effective?” to “How can we effectively communicate this information to the players?”

TWTW wasn’t completely wrong, but the war was. It was always both. Toughness? Yes, and … a better understanding of how to refine it. The will to win now includes the will to keep up with the warp speed of progress. What was once revolutionary is now de rigueur.

… Except for the jetpacks (so far). Read Zack here, and here’s the link to check for new editions each day this week.

Handshakes and High Fives

Congrats to the Tennessee Vols, who bested Texas A&M in the Men’s College World Series last night with a 6-5 win in Game 3.

This week’s Power Rankings examine each team’s “MDP” (that’s Most Defining Player, for better or worse).

Initially thought to be a quad strain, it’s a “stress reaction” that has now landed Fernando Tatis Jr. on the IL, as the Padres continue to find new adversities.

Our trade deadline team is at it again. Today, they discuss more on Luis Robert Jr.’s market, and tell us why Mason Miller seems unlikely to be traded. For a roundup of all the trade rumors from the last week, here you go!

We’ve talked a lot about the Astros’ pitching injuries, but as Chandler Rome points out: the offense is also swinging at too many pitches. Before yesterday’s Phillies-Tigers game, had you ever seen a 1-3-5 — that’s pitcher-to-first-baseman-to-third-baseman — triple play in a big-league game? Unless your age is in triple-digits, it’s highly unlikely; this was the first one since 1929.

🚨 TRIPLE PLAY 🚨 pic.twitter.com/eHmPP4ejv6

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) June 24, 2024

(Photo: Rich Schultz/Getty Images)