Fact: Corey Seager is the only rookie in this year’s Home Run Derby. He has the chance to become the first rookie to ever win the competition outright.*
*Wally Joyner was a co-winner in 1986.
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Source: B/R Insights
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With the Colorado Rockies struggling this season, the team could find itself as a seller before the trade deadline. One player contending teams will be interested in potentially acquiring is star outfielder Carlos Gonzalez.
Continue for updates.
“I got a call this morning from Scott Boras, my agent, asking me what happened,”Gonzalez said, per Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post. “I was surprised because I didn’t know what was up. I guess there was a story in a newspaper saying that I’d ask the front office, saying I want out. I don’t know when that happened. Maybe I was asleep. Obviously, it didn’t happen.”
Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball reported:
Word is that in a recent meeting with team higher-ups, Gonzalez expressed an interest in going elsewhere (Rockies GM Jeff Bridich said he would keep all those conversations “private”), and the Rockies will likely float not one but two outfield stars, Gonzalez and also Charlie Blackmon (Carlos and Charlie seem to go together), just as they did this winter.
Gonzalez, it’s said, badly wants to win, and has become frustrated by the difficulties of doing that in Colorado. It won’t necessarily be easy for the Rockies to deal him, however, as they consider him a plus in the clubhouse as well as the field. Plus, they are showing signs of real improvement (the last week or so notwithstanding).
Gonzalez, 30, is having another excellent season for the Rockies, hitting .319 with 18 home runs, 51 RBI and 54 runs scored. He’s coming off a career year in 2015—his 40 home runs were a career high—and has totaled at least 20 home runs and 70 RBI five times in his career.
He was chosen as an NL All-Star reserve Tuesday.
“You have to prove to yourself sometimes, remind yourself that you’re a great player,” Gonzalez told Nick Groke of the Denver Post after learning he was chosen for the Midsummer Classic. “That was big for me last year, knowing that my abilities were still intact. Right now, I feel healthy, and I feel strong. That’s all I can ask for.”
Prospective buyers will be happy to hear that, though Gonzalez won’t come cheap. The Rockies will likely demand a pricey package of prospects in any trade for the star outfielder, and he’ll be due $20 million next season, per Spotrac. He also has a history of injuries, though he’s been largely healthy over the last two seasons.
Because he’ll be a free agent after the 2017 season, Gonzalez will be more than simply a 2016 rental—a benefit for any buyers. So it isn’t hard to envision a scenario in which the longtime Rockies star is finally dealt.
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Right now, the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ focus is aimed intently at Clayton Kershaw‘s lower back.
Until the three-time Cy Young Award-winner and 2014 National League MVP returns from the disabled list, little else matters for the Dodgers.
The left-handed ace said he felt better after receiving an epidural on June 30, per MLB.com’s Jack Baer, but there’s no timetable for his return.
“I’m going to be very impatient and try to pitch tomorrow,” Kershaw said prior to Saturday’s game, per Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times. “The DL [stinks]. There’s no getting around it; it’s awful. You come to the field every day and feel like you let the team down by not pitching. It’s just the way it is, and you have to get through it.”
Let’s get real, though. Even if Kershaw comes back immediately after the All-Star break when he’s eligible and resumes his dominant ways, Los Angeles’ frequently anemic offense could still doom the team to an also-ran finish.
Before we delve into that, let’s remember what Kershaw was doing before his balky back put him on the shelf. There’s a grab bag of ludicrous stats to choose from, but Joon Lee of the Washington Post summed it up neatly after Kershaw‘s most recent start:
As it stands, Kershaw’s WHIP ranks as the best all-time for a single season among all pitchers with more than 120 innings pitched. Earlier this season, the Dodgers lefty passed Cliff Lee for the best K/BB ratio at the 100-strikeout mark. Lee had walked seven batters when he reached 100 strikeouts; Kershaw had walked only five. At the moment, Kershaw is on pace to strike out 305 batters and walk 19.
Kershaw has been so great for so long, it’s easy to take him for granted. But even if you step back and fully appreciate his transcendence, it’s impossible to ignore what a drag the Dodgers’ bats have been.
It may seem an odd moment to lodge this particular complaint, considering the Dodgers just hit their way to a 7-5 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Monday.
Overall, however, Los Angeles ranks 17th in runs scored, 25th in OPS and 28th in team batting average in MLB.
Shortstop Corey Seager is the National League Rookie of the Year front-runner with a .305/.363/.540 slash line and 17 home runs.
Fellow rookie Trayce Thompson has chipped in 13 home runs and 32 RBI, and sophomore Joc Pederson has 13 home runs and 33 RBI of his own.
But first baseman and key lineup cog Adrian Gonzalez owns a pedestrian .384 slugging percentage, the second-lowest mark of his career. Catchers Yasmani Grandal and A.J. Ellis are hitting .188 and .196, respectively.
And despite raising his average 25 points since the start of June, Cuban slugger Yasiel Puig remains a mercurial enigma whose up-and-down performance could soon make him an ex-Dodger, as Bleacher Report’s Zachary D. Rymer outlined.
When things click, this Dodgers offense can look competent bordering on dangerous, with veterans such as Justin Turner, Howie Kendrick and Chase Utley chipping in.
But it hasn’t been enough, particularly with the archrival San Francisco Giants rolling to a 53-32 record and a five-game lead over L.A. at the close of Independence Day.
The Dodgers haven’t consistently raked anywhere, but their offensive woes have been more pronounced at Chavez Ravine, where they sport a .233 average, as opposed to .244 on the road.
“Obviously, the numbers don’t lie, and where we are on the calendar, it’s enough of a sample size,” manager Dave Roberts said in June of his team’s home futility, per ESPN’s Doug Padilla.
On June 30, Los Angeles acquired right-hander Bud Norris from the Atlanta Braves, a move ostensibly aimed at plugging the leak caused by Kershaw‘s injury. You could argue that’s like replacing a bazooka with a Super Soaker, but Norris did win his first start in Dodger blue.
Now, however, the Dodgers and Andrew Friedman, the team’s president of baseball operations, need to add a hitter or two.
They’ve been linked to Cincinnati Reds outfielder Jay Bruce. And they could likely land other sluggers—including the Milwaukee Brewers‘ Ryan Braun—without sacrificing any blue-chip prospects, provided they’re willing to eat some salary.
Or Los Angeles could dip into its deep farm system and go for a top trade target like Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy, who boasts a .296/.355/.484 slash line and an attractive $5.25 million team option for 2017.
Regardless of the route they take, the Dodgers need to do something. They’ve got baseball’s gaudiest payroll. And they employ the game’s best pitcher.
The Kershaw window won’t stay open forever, as this recent injury has made clear. And while the Dodgers have won three straight division titles, they haven’t advanced past the National League Championship Series in that span and haven’t won a title since 1988.
Recent results like Monday’s seven-run showing shouldn’t cloud Friedman’s judgement or lull him into complacency. This team needs offensive reinforcements—period—or it runs the very real risk of coming up short yet again.
The Dodgers’ first objective is to get Kershaw back on the bump. Once he’s there, however, he’ll need some backup in the batter’s box.
All statistics current as of July 4 and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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The hottest team in baseball is spending less than $14 million on a starting rotation that might turn Cleveland into the city of champions. The richest team in baseball has more than $36 million tied up in starting pitchers who aren’t healthy enough to pitch.
Uh, make that more than $70 million, because the Los Angeles Dodgers added Clayton Kershaw to their hefty disabled list Thursday.
Remember when the Dodgers’ problem was they didn’t have a good enough rotation behind Kershaw? Well, now they don’t have a good enough rotation at all, at least until Kershaw returns from the back injury that has sent him to the 15-day DL.
The Dodgers can’t, or won’t, say when that will be. As a result, we can’t, or won’t, say whether the Dodgers have any chance to keep this season from falling apart.
Los Angeles did get a good start from Kenta Maeda on Thursday afternoon in Milwaukee, and it got an 8-1 win over the Brewers that gave it a 44-37 record. If the season ended now, the Dodgers would be in the playoffs as a wild-card team.
Good thing for them the season doesn’t end now, because if the National League Wild Card Game were Friday night, they wouldn’t have Kershaw to pitch in it.
They’d have Bud Norris, the 31-year-old right-hander they announced they acquired Thursday from the Atlanta Braves, where he was in and out and back in the rotation. Norris has a 2.15 ERA in five starts this month, with wins over both the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets, but it’s hard to forget his 8.74 ERA in five starts in April.
He’s no Kershaw, but who is? Not Maeda, although Orel Hershiser said on Dodgers television that the Japanese rookie has been “impersonating an ace” lately. Not anyone in the rest of the pieced-together Dodgers rotation, which for now includes Scott Kazmir, Julio Urias and Brock Stewart after Maeda and Norris.
The “for now” is key, because both Brandon McCarthy (coming back from Tommy John surgery) and Hyun-Jin Ryu (coming back from shoulder surgery) are pitching on minor league rehabilitation assignments. Neither of them is Kershaw, either, but at least they’ve pitched in the big leagues before.
Counting Norris, the Dodgers have had 10 starting pitchers this season—only the Cincinnati Reds and Oakland A’s have used more—and four of them made their major league debut in 2016.
That’s part of the reason that while the Dodgers are 14-2 when Kershaw starts, they’re 30-35 when he doesn’t.
The without-Kershaw record was a problem before Thursday, when we were all thinking Kershaw was going to keep starting every fifth day. Besides being the best pitcher in baseball, the Dodger ace has been remarkably durable, averaging 32 starts and 215 innings in the seven seasons before this one.
He leads the major leagues this year with 121 innings, including six on Sunday in Pittsburgh. He apparently complained of discomfort Monday, flew home Wednesday and was diagnosed with what the Dodgers called a “mild disc herniation” in his lower back, per Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times. The team said Kershaw received an epidural injection for pain relief.
What it didn’t say was when he’ll pitch again. Perhaps it honestly doesn’t know. Perhaps it’d rather not even think about it.
“How his body responds to the epidural, that’s the most telling,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters, including McCullough. “I don’t know how it’s going to be. I don’t know. I’m hopeful. But I can’t say either way [whether this will be 15 days or longer].”
The Dodgers, for all their money, wouldn’t spend enough of it to keep Zack Greinke from leaving for the Arizona Diamondbacks last winter. For all their prospects, they wouldn’t part with enough of them to add Cole Hamels (or any of the top rental pitchers) last July.
They have what they have, and if they make it through whatever time Kershaw misses without sinking in the standings, it would be a major accomplishment—and something of a surprise.
As catcher A.J. Ellis told McCullough after the Kershaw news came out, “That’s probably why he hurt his back, he’s been carrying us so long.”
Kershaw was always the Dodgers’ guarantee against a long losing streak. Streaks are usually built on starting pitching, although few teams have ever done that as successfully as the Indians have over the last two weeks.
According to a stat cited on the Indians’ TV broadcast Thursday night, they were the first team since the 1916 New York Giants to win 12 straight games while never allowing more than three earned runs. They did it again for number 13 Thursday, with Carlos Carrasco striking out 14 in a 4-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Indians have a five-man rotation that right now qualifies as baseball’s best, but they don’t have a Kershaw.
For at least the next two weeks, the Dodgers don’t have one, either.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers announced Thursday that they have acquired starting pitcher Bud Norris along with outfielder Dian Toscano, “a player to be named later and cash considerations” from the Atlanta Braves for minor league pitchers Philip Pfeifer and Caleb Dirks.
Norris, who was in his first year with the Braves, is 3-7 with a 4.22 ERA in 22 appearances this season.
The deal comes just hours after the Dodgers placed ace Clayton Kershaw on the 15-day disabled list because of a lower-back issue, per ESPN.com.
It’s just the latest injury to hit the Dodgers’ pitching staff, which was already dealing with an Alex Wood triceps injury that landed him on the 60-day DL. L.A. has also been without Hyun-Jin Ryu for the past two seasons because of a shoulder issue.
The Dodgers have already had nine different pitchers start through the first 81 games of the season, and without the 11-2 Kershaw, the starting rotation has been nothing more than mediocre, per ESPN Stats & Info:
While Norris isn’t a top-end starter, he can eat up innings and add some depth to Los Angeles’ rotation.
In five of his first seven major league seasons, Norris compiled a losing record and never posted an ERA better than 3.65. In fact, he put up a career-worst 6.72 ERA last season with the Baltimore Orioles and San Diego Padres.
That being said, Norris has been pitching well lately, per Fox Sports 1’s C.J. Nitkowski:
Arriving with Norris is Dian Toscano, a light-hitting outfielder who’s batting .226 in Double-A this season.
In Dirks, the Braves are getting the Dodgers’ 30th-ranked prospect, according to MLB.com. The reliever was 3-2 with a 1.44 ERA and 35 strikeouts in 31.1 innings while playing in Double-A with the Tulsa Drillers. Pfeifer did not make MLB.com’s top-30 list, but he was 3-1 with a 2.67 ERA in Single-A ball.
This is the kind of deal the Dodgers needed to keep their healthy arms fresh as the dog days of summer approach. For the Braves, getting anything for Norris was a positive as they continue to try to collect prospects and pieces in an attempt to rebuild.
Minor league stats courtesy of MiLB.com. Major league stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
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Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig left Wednesday’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers after he collided with the right field fence and suffered a minor knee contusion, per MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick. However, he has been cleared to return.
Continue for updates.
The Dodgers announced Puig will play against the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.
Puig was scratched from the Dodgers lineup on May 31 with a sore left hamstring, and the injury raised some eyebrows since the slugger was limited to just 79 games during the 2015 season due to recurring right hamstring troubles.
Over the course of the truncated campaign, Puig batted just .255 with 11 home runs, 38 RBI, 66 strikeouts and 26 walks.
Entering Wednesday night’s clash, Puig was batting .248 with six home runs and 23 RBI over the course of 60 appearances.
Joc Pederson suffered a shoulder injury on Tuesday night after he collided with the outfield wall while making a spectacular catch, so Puig’s return is a welcomed sight for the Dodgers.
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It’s happening a year later than they would have liked, but Wil Myers has become a star for the San Diego Padres in 2016.
Given the state of things in San Diego, though, all this does is raise the question of when Myers will be starring on a different team.
The Padres are not only terrible, but are clearly tanking. Their big effort to strike it big in 2015 ended in failure, and they didn’t bother to keep the dream alive. The departures of Ian Kennedy, Justin Upton and Craig Kimbrel over the winter signaled the start of a full-on rebuild.
Now the Padres are in last place in the NL West at 33-45, and their rebuild has already led to James Shields’ exit via the trade market. If they were willing to get what they could for Shields while they could, their best trade chip may indeed be next.
That’s Myers, of course. The 25-year-old has an .874 OPS and a career-high 18 home runs through 76 games. Throw in 11 stolen bases and strong defense, and you get a guy Baseball-Reference.com WAR and FanGraphs WAR agreed was an elite first baseman entering play Tuesday:
This is a departure from what Myers did the last two years. In 2014 with the Tampa Bay Rays and in 2015 with the Padres, he OPS’d just .675 with 14 home runs across 147 games. He seemed to be damaged goods, hurting his right wrist in 2014 and then having surgery on his left wrist in 2015.
However, this is also the kind of player Myers teased he could be when he won American League Rookie of the Year in 2013. He had an .831 OPS and 13 homers in only 88 games that year, numbers that were in tune with what he did as Baseball America‘s Minor League Player of the Year in 2012.
Regaining his health always had to be Myers’ first step toward reclaiming his former glory. Not surprisingly, he’s taken that step. He was optimistic in an interview with Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune just before Opening Day and was singing the same tune a few weeks later, according to Dennis Lin, also of the Union-Tribune:
One of the biggest things is really finding that feel and finding what it was like to be healthy and be good at the same time. I’ve been so far removed from that, since 2013 and at the beginning of last year, but I’m finally feeling that again. … I’ve started to find that approach, I’ve started to find that confidence again, I’ve started to find that reassurance that I can play at a high level in the big leagues.
A mechanical change could have just as much to do with Myers’ turnaround as having his health and confidence in a better place. As AJ Cassavell of MLB.com reported, hitting coach Alan Zinter is having Myers start his load “a split-second earlier.” As a result, some key weaknesses have disappeared.
“He’s had that opposite-field power all year,” Padres manager Andy Green said. “But now he’s got the ability to cover all pitches at this point in time. He looks great.”
Myers is indeed doing a better job of going the other way, entering Tuesday with a career-low 36.5 pull percentage. According to Baseball Savant, this is the first time in his career that he’s hit pitches in and pitches away with equal efficiency:
Those are the details, but the big picture is simple. Myers was a talented young player who got bad for good reasons and is now good again for good reasons. Factor in the Padres’ dire situation and the sign that says they’re open for business, and the trade winds swirling around Myers haven’t come out of nowhere.
There’s no guarantee Myers will actually go anywhere. Judging from what Jon Morosi of MLB Network reported recently, the Padres aren’t desperate to flip him:
At Today’s Knuckleball, Jon Heyman added Myers figures to stay in San Diego at least through the All-Star break. That way he can be the local hero in a game played at Petco Park.
Beyond that, there’s the obvious reason the Padres aren’t in a hurry to deal Myers. In Heyman’s words: “Another reason that they want to hold on to him altogether is that he’s emerging as the slugging star they’d hoped.”
Find a place to wedge in “young and controllable,” and the gist is that much easier to get. Like all rebuilding teams, the Padres need to accumulate as much young and controllable talent as they can. At 25 and with three years of club control beyond 2016, Myers fits the bill.
Myers is the only Padre who does, though. The young talent they’re looking to build a winner around is still mostly in the minors, and there’s not enough of it for the Padres to plan on having built a winner before Myers’ time with the club runs out. At the start of 2016, Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus and ESPN.com all had the San Diego farm system ranked in the bottom half of the league.
A Myers trade could fix that. According to Heyman, the Padres have four A-grade prospects in mind as his sticker price. Getting that return or something close to it on this summer’s market isn’t impossible.
As Aaron Gleeman highlighted at Baseball Prospectus, 2016 is shaping up to be a bad year for production at first base. The haves are feeling the effects just as much as the have-nots. Among the teams that could potentially be in the market for a first base upgrade are the New York Yankees, Washington Nationals, Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, Miami Marlins, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox. Whenever there are that many prospective suitors, the seeds for a bidding war are there.
Simply getting Myers as a quick fix isn’t the only reason teams could stay in the fray.
With this winter’s free-agent market due to feature few impact bats, Myers’ three extra years of controllability should look attractive. There are also the alternatives to consider. Jay Bruce and Ryan Braun look like impact trade chips for teams seeking bats. Ditto for Jonathan Lucroy. But none of those three offer much value beyond 2016. And if a team is looking strictly for a first base upgrade, the best option after Myers might be Chris Carter. He has more power than Myers, but that’s it.
For now, odds are the Padres will indeed hold on to Myers through the All-Star break. But after that, the August 1 trade deadline will be near. Trade winds that are only blowing now could start howling.
Come August 2, Myers could be donning new threads.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson was removed from Tuesday night’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers after crashing into the outfield wall and bruising his AC joint. It is uncertain when he will return to action.
Continue below for updates.
The Dodgers announced that Trayce Thompson would take Pederson‘s place in center field for Thursday’s matchup with Milwaukee.
Manager Dave Roberts implied that Pederson would go on the disabled list if he doesn‘t respond to treatment in a timely manner, according to Andy McCullough of the Los Angeles Times.
The injury occurred when Pederson made a spectacular catch in center field with the Dodgers holding a two-run lead:
The young slugger experienced a tale of two halves last season.
He was elected to the All-Star Game and participated in the Home Run Derby after putting up a nice first half in which he hit 22 home runs. But after the All-Star Weekend, Pederson struggled, hitting just five home runs and ending the year with a .210 batting average. He had difficulty just getting the ball in play at times as well, seeing his strikeout total hit 170.
Pederson went through a span of 13 games to end the month of September when he recorded just three hits.
He and the Dodgers have been looking for new ways to get his bat going. Pederson‘s practiced with new pitching coaches and made stance tweaks, per Pedro Moura of the Orange County Register.
Pederson spoke with Moura about his work: “It’s about feel and confidence, and a new feel sometimes brings that confidence back up and puts you in a better position to put together a quality at-bat. Sometimes what you once did great doesn’t feel good, and you’ve gotta go out there and do something to grind that at-bat out.”
This season, Pederson is batting just .236 with 13 home runs and 33 RBI. He’s also struck out 66 times while drawing 30 walks.
If he wants to see long-term success in the majors, he will have to get that average up and those strikeouts down. Now that his weaknesses are exposed, he is going to have to make major adjustments while trying to develop into more of a contact hitter.
Still, the 24-year-old has shown over his short time in the league that he has the prospect of power and playmaking ability. Now the Dodgers will rely on Enrique Hernandez and Trayce Thompson to split time in center while Pederson recovers.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
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The Arizona Diamondbacks‘ big offseason acquisition has gotten off to a so-so start this season and is now on the shelf, as right-handed ace Zack Greinke suffered an injury to his oblique.
Continue for updates.
Grienke’s injury is being descried as tightness in his oblique, according to Bob McManaman of AZCentral.com.
McManaman provided additional details regarding how Greinke left:
The right-hander appeared to wince in pain while throwing a warm-up pitch to catcher Welington Castillo to start the inning. Manager Chip Hale and head athletic trainer Ken Crenshaw came out to the mound to check on him.
After a few short moments, Greinke left the field and appeared to go inside the Diamondbacks’ clubhouse at Chase Field. He re-emerged quickly and threw a couple of warm-up pitches. He reached for what appeared to be his back area after one of them and then left the field again, this time for good.
Greinke had one the best seasons of his career in 2015, posting an ERA of 1.66, a 0.844 WHIP and a 5.9 FanGraphs wins above replacement. That prompted the Diamondbacks to swipe him away from the National League West rival Los Angeles Dodgers with a six-year, $206.5 million deal.
However, Greinke’s tenure in the desert got off to a rocky start, as his ERA was over 6.00 for most of April. Despite the rough start, Greinke entered Tuesday’s game with a 10-3 record, a 3.62 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP.
While the Diamondbacks don’t have another pitcher on their roster capable of dominating like Greinke at his best, the front office did do a good job of adding quality depth behind him. Shelby Miller, who has also struggled early this season, is a good No. 2 starter. Patrick Corbin, when healthy, has been a quality mid-rotation arm.
The Diamondbacks went all-in by signing Greinke and trading for Miller to win in 2016. Losing Greinke for even a short period of time puts a huge dent in their plans, in addition to giving the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants an advantage in the division race.
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The San Francisco Giants scratched second baseman Joe Panik from the starting lineup ahead of Tuesday night’s game against the Oakland Athletics, and on Wednesday, they placed him on the seven-day concussion disabled list.
Continue for updates.
With Panik unavailable for the next seven games, the Giants recalled Ruben Tejada, according to Alex Pavlovic of CSN Bay Area.
On June 18, Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher Matt Moore hit Panik in the head with a pitch:
According to CSN Bay Area’s Amy Gutierrez, the Giants evaluated Panik for signs of a potential concussion for three days following the hit by pitch. Although he didn’t initially show any markers indicating he had suffered a concussion, he started showing symptoms Tuesday.
The 25-year-old Panik is a key player for the Giants, as he has put up seven home runs, 36 runs batted in and a .256/.321/.407 slash line thus far in 2016.
His health has been an issue at times, though, as he missed action earlier in the season with a pulled right groin.
He made the National League All-Star team for the first time in his career last season, and he finished the campaign with a batting average of .312 to go along with eight home runs, 37 RBI and 59 runs scored in just 100 games played.
Panik burst onto the scene in 2014 by hitting .305 in 73 regular-season games before serving as the Giants’ starting second baseman during their run to a third World Series title in five years. He has built upon that momentum ever since, although injuries have been somewhat of a concern.
The bulk of the 62 games Panik missed last year were because of a vertebrae fracture in his back, but he was healed in time for spring training and gained an even greater appreciation for the game because of what he went through in 2015, per MLB.com’s Chris Haft:
Just being able to get back out on the field again, put on the spikes and get out there with the guys again is a good feeling. Being on the disabled list last year, the way everything happened, was a different experience for me. I’m learning not to take the game for granted. Because anything can happen at any time; it doesn’t matter how old or how young you are, things can happen.
Along with shortstop Brandon Crawford, the Giants boast perhaps the most productive all-around middle infield in the majors. Both players excel at the plate and in the field, and they were each rewarded with deserved All-Star nods.
Manager Bruce Bochy has also taken notice of the young second baseman’s continued development. In fact, he compared him to one of the Giants’ best and most consistent players—catcher Buster Posey—with regard to his plate discipline, according to Pavlovic:
“He reminds me of Buster,” Bochy said. “He’s got a calmness about him. You see him take pitches, and he’s got a plan there, but if they make a mistake, he’s ready for it.”
Panik plays like a wily veteran despite being just 25 years of age, and that is a big part of what makes him such a valuable contributor to a winning cause in San Francisco.
Potentially losing him is made even more devastating by the fact that the Giants don’t have much in terms of depth at the middle infield spots, which means they may ask Ramiro Pena to step up.
Panik is unquestionably among the best second basemen in the National League, and the former first-round pick’s emergence has arguably made the Giants an even more well-rounded team than they were during their previous championship runs.
That is why they can’t afford to be without him for an extended period of time. He brings so much to the table that a lengthy absence could do serious damage to San Francisco’s playoff aspirations.
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