“Baseball has an influencer that needs to be suspended, for the good of the game and all who pitch. His name is Max Effort.

He sidles up to young pitchers in the midst of a bullpen session and whispers, “You need to throw harder.” He sets up computers and tracking devices and tells pitchers to concentrate on those, rather than hitters. He tries to convince them that the infielders and outfielders behind them are just there for decorative purposes, and that the pitcher’s purpose, beyond all else, is the strikeout. He is an evangelist for the Three True Outcomes — strikeout, walk, home run — when the Real Outcome he pushes is surgery. “

Billy Wagner emerged from the tiny town of Tannersville, Va., to become one of the most dominant closers in big league history. He’ll likely be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday, writes Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker.

“Terry Francona measures his years by waking moments. No anesthesia? No problem..

He just got through a year without surgery. The fact that he wasn’t around baseball for that year doesn’t seem to have gotten through. At his first opportunity, Francona jumped back into the manager’s chair. He is the new boss of the Cincinnati Reds, an organization that needs to wake up.”

“The Mets improved their roster by signing Juan Soto this week, but their upgrades weren’t the biggest.

The Cooperstown Plaques did even better. They picked up two Most Valuable Players. They got faster, more powerful and definitely more flamboyant. They improved their box office and they scared a lot of pitchers. They didn’t lose anything, at least not compared to the players themselves, who won’t ever replace the years they’ve spent waiting.

Dick Allen and Dave Parker were both punished by the Baseball Writers Association of America for behavior. Neither of them came close to the 75 percent of the vote required for induction. That meant they had to slog through the anonymous muck of the Veterans Committee, in which 16 former players, executives and media members meet in chambers. Allen had been through six of those rituals without success. Parker had gone through three. But on Sunday, Parker got 14 votes and Allen 13, and they will be inducted next summer.”

The New York Yankees’ “Fifth Inning Follies” in Game 5 may have helped the Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series, but Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker says the Dodgers were always the better team in this series.

"They give out the Ken Hubbs awards in San Bernardino, Ca.

The best high school players in the area are eligible. In 2019 Jayden Daniels, the quarterback from Cajon High, was the football winner. The actual award is probably deep in Daniels’ closet by now, since he won the Heisman Trophy and made the grand post-season banquet tour after he finished at LSU last year. Now a rookie with the Washington Commanders, there’s a chance Daniels hasn’t quite grasped who Ken Hubbs was."

“Jim Leyland was like your first favorite car.

It started like a dream every morning. But all the miles were hard.

He managed 11 years in the minor leagues. His first stop was Bristol, in the Appalachian League. He was “stylin,’’’ as he recalled, with a new pair of white shoes that he unfortunately placed on the top of the hot water heater in the clubhouse.

Pretty soon they were bubbles.

“And I paid 40 bucks for those suckers, too,” Leyland said. He was 26.”

“For those of a certain age, the death of Willie Mays was a ride in the Wayback Machine. America knew him through black-and-white film clips, since major league baseball was rarely televised nationally, and through the power of oral history. People were transfixed by the catch he made in the 1954 World Series, off Vic Wertz in the Polo Grounds. They were stunned, and thrilled, to learn that Mays thought other catches were better. Through such limited visibility, people came to think that Mays brought a bag of thrills every time he came to the ballpark.”

“Like most players who leave Anaheim, Shohei Ohtani has thrived.

Thriving is not something that’s automatic after you’ve already won two MVP awards, because the threshold of thriving is already at 30,000 feet. Yet Ohtani, as a Dodger, is hitting .364 with a .676 slugging percentage, a 1.108 OPS, a 211 OPS-plus (compared with the league average), 12 home runs, 16 doubles, and 63 hits, as of Wednesday night. The averages are all career highs, and the batting average is 60 points better than his previous high, set last season in his farewell to Orange County.”

Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker makes a case for the Detroit Tigers being one of the best up-and-coming young teams to watch in 2024.

“Long before there was Bill James and his vast acolytes of baseball codifiers, there was Earnshaw Cook.

He was the subject of a Sports Illustrated piece called “Baseball Is Played All Wrong,” based on his computerized analysis. That piece ran in 1964. In those days, computers themselves were about as big as Boog Powell, the Orioles’ lefthanded slugger. Yet Cook’s theories has somehow trickled down to the major league dugouts of today.

Cook found that starting pitchers should work a couple of innings, be removed for a pinch-hitter, and be relieved by a better pitcher who would work five or so innings. Then the guy whom we now know as the “closer” would work the eighth and the ninth. The theory was that pitchers should not hit, and pinch-hitters would increase the run totals by a dramatic margin.”

“Spring training is the original fantasy league.

Under the friendly skies of Florida and Arizona, the road to October seems unimpeded. No one has lost a game that mattered since November, and, for most teams, September. And no matter how many times those peaceful days are invalidated by the chill of April, the optimism keeps bubbling up.

Those who write about spring training need a serious Geiger counter to find actual news. There are injuries, signings, the occasional tantrum, but most spring days are spent watching people who will never get to a major league game without a ticket competing against others in the same boat.”