Greetings baseball fans across the land!

Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants is 36^th!!!! He could thrash the best sluggers of which he is one. He could make his pitches have given up only 148 home runs in his 9-year career. He has so much stamina that in 2016 he went the distance of 9 innings 4 times. The bad spot is that the Giants will be worse this year because they don’t have him regularly due to a hand injury. He averages 184 Ks in his qualified seasons. He also doesn’t allow that many hits and he could smell the no-hitter’s aftershave almost every time he goes to the hill. He should be 25^th pushing everyone back a spot.

At 37, Lorenzo Cain of the Milwaukee Brewers, the veteran center fielder, has gone north to the Brewers from the KC Royals that are in a rebuilding stage. Cain used to be in the same sentence with Jarrod Dyson and Billy Hamilton. Well, not anymore. He still has a heck of a lot of speed which means that he stole 28 bases last year – when he was 31. No one has ever done that except Tim Raines and Rickey Henderson (No surprise there). He can still hit liners and bombs over the fence in Miller Park. In my book (Which is definitely not SI’s book) Cain just made the 5-tool player list. He is really good, but judging by what players that are in front of him, he is good where he is.

Next is another speedy phenomenon, Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals, is by far the fastest player in the National League (maybe Billy Hamilton is also), and is one of the best shortstops in the MLB. As a rookie, he’s not sarcastic that he got the SS position which is good, but he also has depth in the outfield at center to be precise. I think he has accumulated as much power as he could because he’s focusing on fielding and speed and he could hit them out of the park with 11 in ‘17, but the Nats are not lacking long balls. He hasn’t learned the way of the best swing either. But, I think he is quite worthy of his position or even a better one and in the coming years, he should be put closer to number 1.

Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers has never appeared in an All-Star game and never in the postseason which I think is astonishing but he’s only 26. Yelich and the Brewers have a serious chance of making the postseason. He is an incredible center fielder and he steals bases. He walks well, hits to all fields moderately and is still a slugger with 18 dingers last year, when he was with the Miami Marlins but the Brewers also had Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton. He had 56 extra base hits (XBH) last year and has 118 XBHs over the last two years which is the third-most XBHs by a Marlin in the past two years.  I think Cristian Yelich will be one of the top Brewers’ sluggers and they have many this year. He should get a position closer to one even this year.

At 40^th SI has Cody Bellinger, the rookie first baseman for the Dodgers who hit 39 HRs last year, won Rookie of the Year and was an All-Star – all in the first year of his life in the Show. He shows has some sort of speed in those legs of his and is a rare quality in first basemen these days. He has really good fielding for his age. He can vary by taking grounders himself and flipping it to the pitcher. Like every single player, he makes errors. What I don’t like about him is that I don’t think he tries as hard in the field as he does at the dish, thinking that the hitting will cover up for my decent-to-good fielding, which right now is the case, Dave Roberts sees that and puts him at DH almost every game for Bellinger’s own sake.

With the MLB season coming into about the 15^th game, the Mets are a sizzling hot, record breaking 11:1 and tonight they’ll play the Brewers, a pretty good team. Steven Matz is starting for the Amazins. I think the Mets best hitter is Asdrubal Cabrera who just beat Yoenis Cespedes for the No.1 spot. The best pitcher is Jacob DeGrom – he has the ERA and strikeouts and keeps his hits low over an average of about 6 IP per start. Todd Frazier hit his first two homers in the same game as the Mets get their 11:1 record in a 9-game winning streak. Tim Anderson is still leading MLB in stolen bases, which now is not that big of a surprise for me. Gerrit Cole just keeps on stunning the opponents with a 14 SO game and another win for the slow start for the Astros. Going back to the Mets, they might have just hit a roadblock – Travis D’Arnaud and Kevin Plawecki are both out with injuries, so they’ll call up Jose Lobaton and Thomas Nido from the Las Vegas 51’s. I always knew that Aaron Hicks was really fast, but he also has some big pops, an inside-the-park-homerun, and another homer later with the Yanks cruising into another win. Shohei Ohtani is taking the baseball world by storm which as the Non-American Babe Ruth he is really good, I think he’s better at the plate than on the hill. He’s going to win Rookie of the Year in the AL, he is a 4-tool player – without the speed even though he has some. Yoenis Cespedes had a marvelous night in left, he first made a leaping catch to rob Jesus Aguilar of a double and then gun down Lorenzo Cain at third. Mookie Betts is a complete 5-tool player, he threw to second last night to get Adam Jones going for a double and he’s leading the majors in runs. He’s going to be elite this year and is supposed to lead the Sox in greatness and karma.

I don’t mean to brag but page views of my blog have topped 345 in just three weeks. I’m glad you’re enjoying it. Thanks for your support.

Have a hot dog on me!