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ut with the dynamic duo of kershaw and greinke out in l a and the remarkable season enjoyed by cubs pitcher jake arrieta who could also make this list perhaps cole may find himself finishing no higher than 4th or 5th in the cy young voting still just 25 years old however cole should have many chances in the future to win that particular award cf kevin kermaier tampa bay rays kermaier was not drafted until the 31st round in 2010 a left handed batting center fielder let me make it clear at the outset that kermaier did not make this list due to his bat as a hitter he s about league average sporting an ops of 98 though he did finish second in the a l in triples with 12 but a 263 batting average and an on base average of just under 300 with little power isn t going to win him any mvp awards in the near future kermaier is on this list instead for his remarkable fielding ability i don t think i ve ever seen an outfielder finish a season with a 5 0 dwar before but kermaier reached that lofty summit in 2015 his overall war of 7 4 makes kermaier a very valuable player even despite the average bat kermaier led a l center fielders in total zone runs 24 while recording 410 putouts and 15 assists if his bat improves during the coming seasons the 25 year old kermaier could become an all star caliber player rp zach britton baltimore orioles drafted by the orioles in the third round of the 2008 amateur draft this 27 year old lefty began his career as a starter but converted to relief pitching before the 2014 season since then he has been one of the best closers in the a l this past season britton finished more games 58 than any other pitcher in the a l while recording 36 saves he recorded an era of 1 92 an era of 217 and a fip of 2 01 his whip was a fantastic 0 990 and he struck out 79 batters in 65 innings while walking just 14 he gave up just three homers all year britton was a first time all star in 2015 and while not a household name outside of baltimore britton seems poised to enjoy many very productive seasons to come 3b josh donaldson toronto blue jays though drafted by the cubs in the first round of the 2007 draft donaldson made his mlb debut with the oakland a s in 2010 but didn t play as many as 75 games in the majors until he was already 26 years old in 2012 since then this right handed batting third baseman has been a one man wrecking crew similar though older than colorado s nolan arenado donaldson has a better batting eye and is nearly as good a defensive third baseman as arenado also like his third base counterpart in the senior circuit donaldson led his league in total bases in 2015 with 352 just two fewer than arenado of the two however donaldson probably has the better shot at league mvp this year donaldson led the a l in both runs scored 122 and rbi 123 while slamming 41 homers and 41 doubles though donaldson will turn 30 years old this december his obvious talent should continue to shine on in rogers centre toronto for the foreseeable future cf 2b mookie betts boston red sox drafted in the fifth round in 2011 this second baseman center fielder has brought life and energy to the red sox despite their losing record mookie turns 23 years old this wednesday october 7th so happy birthday in advance mookie primarily an outfielder these days mookie batted 291 in 2015 with a perhaps surprising 479 slugging percentage he has plenty of pop in his bat as evidenced by his 68 extra base hits this season including 18 home runs mookie scored 92 runs in 145 games and stole 21 bases while accumulating a 6 0 war in his first full year this athletic and deceptively powerful young man may already be the most valuable player on the red sox and figures to man center field for them for years to come obviously there are many more players who i could add to this list but let me put the question to you oh wise readers which players would you include on this list based on their 2015 stats posted in baseball baseball analysis baseball players baseball statistics and tagged boston red sox gerrit cole josh donaldson mookie betts mvp award nolan arenado orioles pirates rogers centre toronto blue jays underrated players zach britton 10 sep 2015 17 comments the last days of summer when i was a kid i used to keep track of my batting average during our extremely informal sandlot baseball season i really didn t know how to figure out a batting average but i knew that one hit in two at bats was a 500 average and i would go from there one year i hit something like 667 but i may have been off by 50 points or more to call it a season really doesn t do justice to our daily habit of roaming around bridgeport looking for a place to play ball moreover if we couldn t find other kids beyond our neighborhood to play against which was often the case then we would split our core group in two and just play against each other in a lot a field or a quiet side street our baseball season would go on without significant interruption until the dawn of another school year at that point as the summer sunlight began to slant away from us retreating into an early dusk fewer and fewer of us would regularly be available after school to play ball a terrible disease called onset algebra now vexed us in the short hours between our after school snack and bath time it was often accompanied by a sharp pain of anxiety in the gut as we realized those moments lost daydreaming in the classroom when we should have been paying attention to the teacher were probably a fatal mistake the darkness of the dreaded spelling homework doomed us rendering pointless our pathetic protests to mom mom can t i go out and play now not until after you finish your homework but scott and johnny are outside playing ball already i don t care if scott and johnny are out there all night now go finish your homework mister there were still those infrequent moments where on a surprisingly warm september afternoon just after labor day my friends and i would sweat out the school day like alcoholics sobering up in the sunshine and revel in the smell of leather gloves and the sound of the ball smacking into our mitts these the last days of summer passed over us through us around us the aroma of dead august still scenting the air we would fight a losing battle to hang onto september knowing full well that october portended thicker jackets shorter days and frostier mornings funny thing about the last day of summer by our unwritten definition it was the final day we were all available to play baseball together but we never knew in advance which day that would be and we never marked its immediate passing with ceremony or scroll yet for some odd reason after several slippery decades and another labor day have passed me by denoting another dying summer i still half expect to look out my kitchen window and see scott and johnny tossing around a scuffed ball waiting for me to come out and play now my son about the same age as the boys i remember playing with all those years ago faces his own after school homework demons his lazy summer afternoons already just hazy memories but the bat and ball buried deep in the closet beckon and my arm feels good today the math problems will still be here when we get back and i doubt scott and johnny will wait around out there forever in baseball it turns out there are no last days merely irregularly scheduled off seasons posted in baseball baseball memories and tagged another dead summer baseball batting average bridgeport labor day 24 aug 2015 21 comments a mets anniversary of sorts sometimes coincidences have a way of falling into your lap a little while ago i was replying to a comment on the fine baseball blog misc baseball where a conversation about no hitters as they relate to the padres and mets was taking place i happened to recall that san francisco giants pitcher ed halicki tossed a no hitter against the mets in 1975 curious about the date of that no hitter i decided to look it up strangely enough today is the 40th anniversary of that game here are some bits of trivia i discovered while researching halicki s no hitter the mets manager that day was roy mcmillan who had replaced yogi berra whom the mets fired just 18 days earlier the mets had gone 56 53 up to the point berra was fired under mcmillan they went 26 27 the giants manager was wes westrum westrum had managed the mets from 1965 67 after 1975 neither mcmillan nor westrum ever managed in the majors again entering the 75 season both ed halicki and mets starting pitcher craig swan had pitched fewer than one hundred innings apiece in the majors they went on to have not entirely dissimilar careers halicki posted a career record of 55 66 with a war of 11 6 craig swan finished his career with a 59 72 record and a 12 6 war in 1978 halicki won just nine games but led the n l with a 1 060 whip in 1978 swan won just nine games but led the n l with a 2 43 era halicki s no hitter at candlestick park in san francisco was the second game of a double header that day the mets behind jon matlack won the first game 9 5 in the first game the giants didn t even attempt to steal a base off of lefty matlack and catcher jerry grote in the second game they ran wild notching five steals off of swan and catcher john stearns the most controversial play of the game occurred in the top of the 5th inning mets batter rusty staub hit a liner off of the leg of pitcher halicki which then bounced over to second baseman derrel thomas who picked up the ball then dropped it the official scorer ruled this an error on thomas but mets beat writer dick young was outraged by this scoring and complained loudly about it he believed this play should have been scored a hit though the no hitter stood official scorer joe sargis of upi lost his part time job as an official scorer giants first baseman willie montanez drove in the giants first two runs of the game in the bottom of the first inning though the giants would go on to win 6 0 those first two runs would be the only runs halicki would need to win three years later the well traveled montanez would lead the mets with 96 rbi other than staub reaching on an error in the 5th the only other base runners the mets would have that day were pinch hitter mike vail s walk in the 6th inning and a one out walk in the 9th to center fielder del unser this was the last no hitter ever pitched by a giants pitcher at candlestick park it would be another 37 years until johan santana would throw the first no hitter by a mets pitcher in history june 1 2012 june 1st is also the birthday of rick baldwin who pitched three innings in relief of craig swan on that august day in 1975 at candlestick park look closely enough and baseball is always full of quirky stats and surprises posted in baseball baseball history baseball players baseball statistics historical accounts and tagged candlestick park craig swan ed halicki new york mets no hitters san francisco giants yogi berra 16 aug 2015 36 comments remnants of all things dying the slushy streets sounded hollow as my boots clicked on the pavement as if the subterranean world below bridgeport was a cracked eggshell just waiting to collapse into itself i imagined the bones of workers clubbed to death in labor disputes by company goons a half century before my father was born rotting down there shovels and picks in mummified hands awaiting a battle long ended dead buildings of gray brick and grime stood sentinel along wide deserted streets they called this time of year spring i felt both sweaty and chilled in my dark blue fleece as the remnants of a sun dissolved behind black cherry clouds my dad once worked in one of these vacant buildings where cold metal machinery claimed fingers hands and even the occasional arm in its vast unforgiving maw guys got bandaged up and went back to work the next day the blood of men in their thousands greased the wheels of industrial america my dad called it going to work my friend james lived up on washington ave about a mile or so from my house but a frayed ribbon of bridgeport mile was a showcase of all that had once been and now only the scattered battered remains were apparent a vast industrial cemetery graveyard that i called home it started to drizzle i had hoped james and i could play some catch i d even brought along an extra glove in my denim duffle bag i d inherited from a gnarled aunt whose favorite pastime was collecting stamped envelopes from places others had been of which she could only imagine the worst calamities befalling her if she d ever set foot outside her two room apartment triple locks on her front door i couldn t say i blamed her james didn t answer the door at first he never did apparently allergic to the light even in a refracted nightmare of a town like ours asthmatic james finally cracked the door open stretched and yawned in his undershorts and without a word allowed me to enter his darkened sanctuary he coughed as he pointed to a pile of papers on a desk on the edge of a shallow kitchen it was a story he and i d been working on but it wasn t coming together like our story he and i would soon go our separate ways connected only by the fiction that friendship lasted forever so what did you think i asked although i already knew the answer james sighed a lot only my dad sighed more often there were levels to his sighs small sigh meant things were typically o k but never would be great medium sigh shorter in duration but more intense meant he had actually given the subject some thought and predictably wasn t impressed long sighs followed by a trip to the refrigerator for a glass of milk indicated categorical failure on your part from which there might be no return what followed was a long sigh followed by a trip to the bathroom that was a new one and i wasn t sure what to make of it but i knew it couldn t be good good times with james only happened more or less by accident now a friendship formed between a pair of fourteen year old loners in a catholic high school populated by medieval nuns creepy lay teachers and sadistic jocks was a friendship defined under duress in the trench warfare of adolescence now that we d been freed from the petty tyranny of our education our bond had begun to dissipate though neither of us had the guts to completely face up to it getting on each other s nerves was about all we had left when he emerged from the bathroom several minutes later dressed in blue jeans and a pink floyd tee shirt i chose not to ask for specific feedback on my portion of the story it would be a hopeless and depressing waste of time so i pulled the glove out of my duffle bag and tossed it over to james he briefly examined it without surprise or excitement where the hell d you get a left handers mitt he asked because i was right handed babe ruth s fucking grave what the hell difference does it make babe ruth s grave in gate of heaven cemetery photo credit wikipedia without a word and to my everlasting astonishment james led the way ...