Major League Baseball

The beautiful and the damned

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 8:53 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

After a big win Monday night, coupled with Tiger and Mariner losses, the Kansas City Royals now have an 87.6-percent chance of qualifying for the postseason. In a losing effort Monday night, the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig uncorked an absolutely breathtaking throw in the 11th inning of a big game. In a moment, I will attempt to connect these things.

In last week’s New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wrote about the legacies of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and made the case that Scott’s intelligence is too often forgotten or underestimated:

Gopnik references Fitzgerald’s memoir of addiction and confession, The Crack-Up, but he doesn’t mention the second-most famous sentence in that book: “The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

Of course, Fitzgerald also (supposedly) said that baseball is a game played by idiots for morons. So what in the hell does he know.

Still, I do come back to that quote about intelligence every so often. Not because it’s a great test of intelligence, but rather because it’s a path, I think, to a sort of happiness.

The Royals, as wonderful as this season has been, have not played as well as they played last season. Our friends at Baseball Prospectus figure something called “third-order wins,” which looks at a team’s underlying statistics and the quality of its opponents and arrives at a sort of neutral record. The Royals third-order record this season is 75-81. Last year it was 79-83. Still not good! But slightly better.

I hope none of this shocks anyone. Last season the Royals outscored their opponents by 47 runs, and finished 87-75. This season they’ve outscored their opponents by 17 runs, and are going to finish ~88-74. Despite going just 22-24 in one-run games this season, they’ve out-performed their run differential by a few wins, and they’re fortunate enough to play in what’s been a weak division.

Here’s Puig killing a baserunner Monday night:

Seriously, my fellow morons ... Does this beautiful game get any more beautiful than that? I’ll also note in passing that it might have been different without Rule 7.13; notice how Drew Butera leaves a thin lane for Brandon Belt, only to slap the tag on him just in time. This is how baseball was, and now is, supposed to be played. This is also why Yasiel Puig just might be the most interesting, the most exciting baseball player on Earth. Sure, you’ll take Mike Trout first if you’re drafting. But if you’re watching? Different story.

In other news, Yasiel Puig’s not a particularly good outfielder. According to Baseball-Reference.com, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus, Puig is actually a below-average fielder. At best.

Do you believe that? Maybe you don’t. It’s not really so important, because you probably don’t make your living evaluating baseball players. On the other hand, you might be a little happier – and by happier, I mean less-often angry or annoyed – if you’re able to accept the possibility that Yasiel Puig is wildly entertaining but also flawed. Because this won’t be the only place you’ll read it.

You might be a little happier if you’re able to accept the idea that the Royals might not actually be one of the six or seven best teams in the American League and still enjoy this grand season of theirs.

Or maybe not. It does work pretty well for me. But then again Scott Fitzgerald drank himself to death. So what do we know.

share

Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

Major League Baseball