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Aaron Boone didn’t deserve this one, Mookie Betts is a legitimate shortstop, Jared Jones is flying to Pittsburgh, and Bernie Williams is taking on another New York institution. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!
Aaron Boone ejected for …¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Aaron Boone is no stranger to ejections. Before yesterday, the Yankees manager had been ejected 34 times in his six-plus seasons. Some of them – OK, most from these – were won. Yesterday, that was absolutely not the case.
Aaron Boone was thrown out two batters in today’s Yankees game.
Boone: “I didn’t say anything.”
Referee: “I don’t care who said it. You’re gone.”
🎥 @TalkinYanks pic.twitter.com/Nsx7XtpryY
– The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 22, 2024
You can watch the debacle above (or read a more detailed account here), but the short version goes something like this: Five pitches into the game, home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt told Boone, in so many words , to calm down after Boone questioned. a call.
That’s exactly what Boone, to his credit, did. Television cameras showed Boone standing in the dugout, not saying a word.
And then he was kicked out of the game.
Boone insisted a fan behind the dugout was to blame. A microphone caught Wendelstedt saying he didn’t particularly care WHO say it. After the match, the veteran referee offered this defense:
“I know what Aaron was saying, that it was a fan above the dugout. It is very good. There were a lot of fans yelling at me before I called a pitch until the end of the game. What happened was it wasn’t him, it wasn’t over where (bench coach Brad) Ausmus was. That wasn’t where the coaching staff and Aaron were, but Aaron Boone is the manager of the New York Yankees and is responsible for everything that happens in that dugout.
Listen, sometimes communication problems it can be funny, but what happened yesterday was absurd. It was another example of something that happens several times a year: referees make a situation worse unnecessarily.
If sports are meant to be a metaphor for life, here’s the moral of the story, as far as I’m concerned: If you are in a position of authority over someone else – parent-child, police officer-civilian, referee-player/manager – you do not have the moral right to escalate conflicts. Authority is a privilege and the price of power is maturity.
Make no mistake: Managers (like children) can get irritable, and sometimes the rules need to be enforced — calmly. The referees are right path more often than they are wrong. But while a blown ball/strike calls sometimes is an understandable mistake, the escalation of conflict is either a conscious decision or a lack of self-control.
Neither should ever happen, and the continued lack of apology or accountability from referees when it happens is simply inexcusable.
Ken’s notebook: Marveling at Betts’ shortstop transformation
Dave Roberts can admit it now. During spring training, the Los Angeles Dodgers manager doubted that Mookie Betts could even be an average shortstop.
“Just watching him back then, he was a great athlete trying to play one of the most demanding positions on the field outside of receiver. It happened quickly. It was hard to imagine,” he said last weekend.
“As much as you want to believe in Mookie and everything he can do, this is just something really unprecedented. But when I look here today, he looks like a shortstop. And I think this happened within the last week or 10 days ago.
“Now I see a shortstop standing in that position. He went from an athlete to an outfielder playing outfield, then to a second baseman playing across the diamond and now he looks like a shortstop. I marvel at how quickly he did this.
Defensive metrics are notoriously unreliable in small samples, and the two major public systems evaluate the former right fielder very differently. In 18 starts at shortstop – his other six starts have come at second base – Betts is tied for second in defensive runs saved, but ranks 24th in outs above average. He also has four errors in total, but overall he handled them well. Until last season, he had not held this position since 2013.
Of course, Roberts had his doubts. How could he not?
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have hope. If there’s anyone you can bet on, it’s him,” Roberts said. “But anyone who says they can’t doubt something that’s never been done is a lie. You haven’t seen it, even less in this little window. I think he doubted it. I know he doubted it. But he didn’t run away, I promise you. And I saw it every day.
Betts, 31, takes the first ground balls with teammate Miguel Rojas, then goes through his usual set of drills with the Dodgers infielders. If anything, the Dodgers fear he’s working too hard. But Betts told club officials he wouldn’t slow down until he was fully comfortable in the position.
His transition to short after winning six Gold Gloves in right field remains one of the most fascinating stories of the first month. I wrote more about this move during spring training.
Do you have a question for Ken? Send it to us – he’ll answer a few in a future Windup mailer.
Pirates rookie Jared Jones shows he belongs
OK, it’s time we talk about Pirates starting pitcher Jared Jones.
Jones, a 2020 second-round pick, made his big league debut in the Pirates’ opening series against the Marlins, striking out 10 batters in 5 2/3 innings, but the Marlins had the looks dark. How would he fare against a team with a little more offensive firepower?
GOOD …
Jared Jones’ hot start
OPPONENT | IP | EAST | H | K | BB |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
MIA |
5 2/3 |
3 |
3 |
ten |
2 |
BALL |
6 |
2 |
6 |
7 |
0 |
PHI |
6 1/3 |
3 |
6 |
8 |
0 |
new York |
5 |
0 |
1 |
7 |
0 |
MIL |
6 |
1 |
4 |
7 |
2 |
Total |
29 |
9 |
20 |
39 |
4 |
After the Marlins, Jones faced the teams that entered last night’s games ranked fifth (Orioles), ninth (Brewers), 13th (Mets) and 16th (Phillies, who are currently 15-8). I’m not saying Jones is an early favorite for NL Rookie of the Year (hello, Shota Imanaga, c and Jackson Merrill), but the 22-year-old deserves to be in the conversation.
The success is not a huge surprise; Jones accumulated 391 strikeouts in 315 minor league innings from 2021-2023 and entered the season ranked 39th on Keith Law’s Top 100 prospects list. In March, Eno Sarris and Andrea Arcadipane listed him as one of four potential pitchers likely to break into the big leagues this year.
But there’s a huge difference between those numbers in the minor leagues and what he’s doing in the big leagues. In those 315 innings, he walked 135 batters, or about one every 2.3 innings. In 29 big league innings, his four walks equate to one every 7.25 innings.
At the helm, Jones induced 25 whiffs against the Brewers yesterday – the most in a single game by any major league pitcher this year, and by MLB.comthe largest number of hackers in the pitch-tracking era (2008-present).
He’s not the Pirates’ only exciting young arm. Paul Skenes, the Pirates’ first overall pick in the 2023 draft, has had a heavily controlled per-game workload at Triple-A Indianapolis, but in 12 2/3 innings in four starts, he hasn’t allowed a run and had 27 strikeouts (57.4 percent of the batters he faced) against just four walks.
Bernie Williams plays at the New York Philharmonic
As a former touring musician who migrated to the world of baseball, I always had an affinity for Bernie Williams going the other way (admittedly at a much higher level in both arenas).
In 16 seasons with the Yankees, Williams was a five-time All-Star, a four-time Gold Glove winner, and the 1996 ALCS MVP. His 80 postseason RBIs are still the best in sports history (and his 22 home runs ranks third, behind only Manny Ramirez and Jose Altuve). His baseball bona fides are unquestionable.
But his musical CV is also quite impressive. Of course, anyone with more than $130 million in career earnings can record a few albums, an EP, and a few singles. But a Latin Grammy? An initiation to AthleticismAthlete Music Hall of Fame? They don’t just hand them out.
Tonight, Williams will perform with the New York Philharmonic. Dan Brown spoke to Williams before the show and tells us how Williams learned to play guitar (spoiler: it came off a ship from Spain) and the steps he took to hone his skills after the end of his baseball career.
(Bonus: Brown also includes the best pun I’ve seen in print in months.)
Handshakes and High Fives
There’s a new number 1 in our power rankings, as our team selects a standout stat for each team.
Rex Hudler joins the Starkville crew to talk about Bobby Witt Jr. and the Royals.
Here’s a list of pitchers who have ever thrown a seven-inning, zero-walk, no-more-than-one-hit game at Coors Field: Dylan Cease (who has looked like an ace thus far for the Padres).
Jackson Holliday’s big league career is off to a rocky start. He’s hitting .033 (1 for 30) after nine games.
The Cardinals hit a home run! Two of them, in fact, including a goal by Nolan Gorman, as they beat the Diamondbacks 5-3. Meanwhile, in a “Stars of Monday’s Windup” game, the Giants defeated the Mets 5-2.
Jim Bowden lists 15 players considered for Comeback Player of the Year.
Before you go: While researching Bernie Williams’ numbers, I learned a fun stat that I have to share. Now that the Negro Leagues stats have made it into the record books, here are the two all-time leaders in postseason batting average, according to Baseball Reference:
(Henry Aaron is now third, at .362.)
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(Top photo of Boone arguing with home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt: Mike Stobe/Getty Images)