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Nicknames
Colorful nicknames have a long, storied history in Major League Baseball, so much so that they’ve been woven into the very fabric of America’s past time. The most famous player in MLB history is known by just his nickname, ‘the Babe’. Baseball-Reference maintains a massive list of almost every single current and historical nickname. Wikipedia also maintains a list of baseball nicknames, which has some real gems as far as info goes.
The nickname “lefty” has been the most common nickname, with 153 players having that nickname, with the second most common nickname being “Red” with 120 players. Its a steep drop off to the third most common nickname, ‘Doc’, which has had 61 players. Surprisingly, ‘Big’ is not the even the fourth, or fifth most common nicknams, its actually the sixth most common with 41, although its unclear if ‘the Big Unit’ or ‘the Big hurt’ are included in that number. I can’t imagine we’ll see a lot more players with names like ‘Bud/Buddy*'(#4), ‘Dutch'(#5), ‘Whitey’ (#8), Chick (#9), or ‘Heinie’ (#15).
It’s probably a good thing that naming anyone with Native American heritage as ‘Chief” and anyone deaf as ‘Dummy’ is no longer in fashion.
*Buddy Kennedy does apparently count though, his real name is Clifton apparently.
Stadium Drama
Although Missouri did get a funding bill passed a little over a week ago, the state of Kansas extended the deadline for the Royals/Chiefs to accept their own financing bill for another year, after both teams asked for an extension of that deadline.
As a result, Missouri lawmakers have taken offense to that request, with Governor Mike Kehoe’s office hinting that neither team will get additional funding, though his office also insisted that Missouri is still very much in the game, with his assistant Gabby Picard saying in a statement. “This request means that Missouri is still in the game to retain these teams and critical economic drivers.”
An interesting wrinkle in all of this is that Kansas may not even be able to afford to fund a stadium regardless, as the STAR bonds the state issue require people to actually visit the state of Kansas and spend money there. There might be some truth to that, as I have zero interest in ever visiting Kansas, and I’d expect the majority of people in this country feel that way.
Heading west to Las Vegas, Nevada, doubts are starting to emerge about the Athletics actual ability to finance the planned stadium there. Although Atheletics team owner John Fisher and MLB comissioner Rob Manfred both attended the groundbreaking of the new stadium at the site of the former Tropicana hotel back in late June, there were a few glaring issues. The construction equipment at the groundbreaking ceremony won’t be used for any actual construction, and instead were just rented to be background props purely for show. The other glaring issue is construction costs. Initial estimates were that the stadium would cost around $1.5 billion to build, and that number shot up to $1.75 billion by the end of 2024. With ever-increasing construction costs and inflation, it’s possible that total expenditures could reach $2 billion. Fisher almost certainly doesn’t have the money or financing to pay it, as his net worth is at the bottom of MLB owners, and he’s struggling to attract outside investors to the project. It’s becoming clear to outsiders that the project is showing real signs of trouble, and its now a question of if the stadium will be built at all. The Guardian had a fantastic story that goes into further detail, that I highly recommend you read.
With all of that stadium drama happening with other teams, it’s nice to not have to worry about that as a Dbacks fan, now that Gov. Hobbs has signed the stadium renovation bill into law.
Awards Frontrunners
In the AL MVP race, Aaron judge continues to hold a sizeable 1.3 fWAR lead over Cal Raleigh, but the latter has closed the gap a little in my opinion, especially considering he now has 36 HRs to Judge’s 34. Not that it matters that much, but Raleigh also has nine stolen bases to Judge’s six. The one thing that makes what Cal Raleigh is accomplishing even more impressive is that his primary position is catcher, which is the main reason why he still stands a chance in the AL MVP race.
Over in the NL, Pete Crow Armstrong has a .4 fWAR lead over Shohei Ohtani, but now the the latter is starting to pitch again, I’d imagine he’ll quickly eclipse him in value. Most of Crow-Armstrong’s value is derived from his defense, which definitely puts him at a disadvantage considering Ohtani leads the NL with a 170 wRC+, 31 HRs, and a .615 slugging percentage. The only advantage Crow-Armstrong has over Ohtani, aside from the superb defense, is his 27 stolen bases compared to Ohtani’s twelve.
On the Cy Young front, Tariq Skubal and Paul Skenes are both still the clear frontrunners for the award in the AL and NL respectively.
In the NL Rookie of the Year race, the Milwaukee Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski has continued to shine, and is picking up steam. In his five starts he’s 4-1 W/L, with a 2.81 ERA and 141 ERA+. He’s also got a ridiculous 33.7 strikeout percentage, which definitely adds to his mystique in the race.
In the AL, Boston Red Sox catcher Carlos Narvaez is still leading with 2.8 bWAR, but Astros rightfielder Cam Smith is hot on his heels with 2.3 bWAR, passing the Athletics Jacob Wilson and his 2.2 bWAR.