We’re through the trade deadline. August is hours away. Joe Kelly did good work out there but I don’t think the Dodgers are coming back tonight. It’s time for an MLB Vibe Check.
The last time we did one of these, it was Opening Day. The sun was out, the grass was green, and the White Sox weren’t in last place. I had fun. It sounded like you had fun. I am excited, when I die and/or make living contact with the afterlife, to ask Jim Thorpe if he had fun.
I can only hope that these are also fun. (For Jim Thorpe.)
Vibes, from worst to best, with preseason ranking in parentheses:
30. Chicago White Sox (29)
Holy shitting shit, these are the worst vibes I’ve ever seen. The White Sox are like if you took 2016 Aleppo and placed it on the Titanic and then dropped that James Corden street performance into the middle of it. Good golly gosh, are these vibes bad.
There are a lot of red flags around Garrett Crochet, but the biggest one is that he didn’t offer to play for free for whoever would take him. That man could have left the White Sox, but he stayed.
*shudders*
29. Anaheim Angels (27)
From 1961 through 2004, the Angels averaged what we would now call a 79-win season (the length of the season changed, not the language we use to describe wins or seasons). Ever since, the Angels have played at a…hmm. This isn’t helping the point I was trying to make.
Hey look! Mike Trout might go back out on his rehab assignment again soon!
28. Oakland Athletics (30)
Impressive climb, honestly. Before the season started, it sounded like the FCC might censor the A’s for the sake of public safety.
Do you think it’s starting to dawn on these players that they’re going to be playing at a minor league stadium in Sacramento next April?
27. Colorado Rockies (23)
So the thing about the Rockies is that Coors Field is beautiful. The other thing is that everyone involved with the Rockies gave up on this season a long time ago. The third thing is that the White Sox are really providing excellent cover these days for terrible baseball teams. The next time a presentation’s going badly for you at work, bring up the White Sox.
26. Miami Marlins (26)
The Marlins might eternally exist in 26th place on these vibes rankings. I should go back and check. In at least the last two, they have remained 26th, and that feels perfect for them. Anyway, they’ve got better vibes than usual right now, because everyone on their roster just got traded to Miami. Isn’t it funny how different that sounds if you imagine this is the Dolphins or the Heat?
25. Toronto Blue Jays (13)
It’s never good when a team’s front office says, “Hell no, we aren’t blowing this thing up!” and the team’s fanbase groans.
24. Chicago Cubs (14)
It is odd, coming off a 13–4 victory by one’s favorite team against the Cincinnati Reds, to picture Great American Ballpark and say aloud, “Yeah, the Reds own our ass.”
23. San Francisco Giants (17)
Maybe Blake Snell’s cooler in person than he is as a member of a baseball team as viewed from the public space, but I wouldn’t want to hang out with Blake Snell. Also, is it actually impossible to put up good offensive numbers in that ballpark or does it just feel that way? Why does my brain conceive of PacBell Park as a good place to hit and Oracle Park as a bad pla–
Oh.
Right.
There was that Bonds fellow.
22. Cincinnati Reds (11)
Speaking of Bells, I think Reds fans might try to get extrajudicial justice on David Bell. Does he deserve it? Well, no. Does he deserve heavy and intense criticism? I don’t know. If I was a Reds fan I’d probably have a couple beers and just watch Elly De La Cruz reels on Instagram, then stay up too late and feel like shit the next morning as I walked into Kroger HQ.
21. Detroit Tigers (20)
*whispering to the Yankees tugging on my arm that I’ll get to them soon*
20. Minnesota Twins (12)
Look, I’m sorry, but Carlos Correa has terrible vibes, ok? He just does. That’s not a hater take. That’s just observing Carlos Correa.
A problem for the Twins is that an odd number of their players are always at least a little bit broken. Another problem for the Twins is that despite winning two World Series in most baseball fans’ lifetimes, the Twins feel way less successful than the Guardians. This might be the biggest non-Yankees gap between performance and vibes.
19. New York Yankees (15)
Yes, they just swept the Phillies, but give it three days and Yankees fans are going to be trying to push Brian Cashman in front of a subway. I know. I’m sorry. This is a violent vibe check. Those are the vibes right now!
18. Atlanta Braves (5)
Even when things are going well for Atlanta this year, it feels really, really forced. They might miss the playoffs. They might actually miss the playoffs. Imagine going to all those lengths to defend domestic violence and drunk driving and losing in the NLDS after doing that weird Ronald Acuña Jr. stolen base montage only to maybe miss the playoffs.
17. Tampa Bay Rays (2)
Had the Rays won today, I would have been liable to rank them very highly here. Christopher Morel does something to a man.
16. Washington Nationals (28)
Look at these guys rising! They’re in such a fun spot. The best place to be in life is a year away from being a year away. All the young guys doing well, no pressure on them to continue doing well these next two months, only mild expectations for next spring. The Nats blew a six-run lead two nights ago, then lost 17–0 last night, and they still have peppy vibes. What I would give to be a year away from being a year away again.
15. St. Louis Cardinals (8)
Honestly, the vibes get pretty good from here. I wouldn’t say the Cardinals have mediocre vibes right now. They just don’t have as good of vibes as the next 15 teams on this list.
14. Houston Astros (6)
Houston does have a “they might get away with it” thing going on, but it’s ringing a little hollow. There is plenty of space for these vibes to improve, and there’s time to do it, but the Astros’ vibes are lacking. They’re behind the Royals in the standings, you know?
13. Seattle Mariners (7)
These should fall back soon. They’ve been pretty bad over the year as a whole. But right now, the Mariners can still hope that the offense is going to be ok. Is it? No, of course not. But they don’t have to know that yet.
12. Texas Rangers (3)
The thing about the Rangers is Bruce Bochy. The Rangers could lose fourteen games in a row, and Bruce Bochy could come out and talk about how it sucked and it’s not even a good life lesson or something like that, and I would say, “Damn, that was cool. Bruce Bochy!”
11. Milwaukee Brewers (22)
Maybe I’m wrong, but my perception of the current state of the Brewers is that they’re starting to gear up for a frustrating Wild Card Series. Maybe I’m overweighting how much they’re weighting last year, but that’s my read on the mood in the Brewers milieu.
10. Los Angeles Dodgers (10)
These would be way worse if they hadn’t just acquired Kevin Kiermaier. That’s such a handsome roster now. Kiermaier. Joe Kelly. Look at that list!
But yeah, they struck out a ton in Houston and the Padres are punking them. Not a great week. Should recover, but currently tenth. This is scientific.
9. Arizona Diamondbacks (4)
These should also recover, as the D-Backs have been playing really well, but Christian Walker is a big deal in the vibrational universe. Alien species know about Christian Walker’s oblique injury. They knew about it before he did.
8. Boston Red Sox (21)
You would say something here about the writing on the wall, but the wall in this case has the standings on it, and the standings show the Red Sox only needing to pass the Twins or the Royals to make the playoffs. Kinda hard to argue when they put it like that.
7. New York Mets (18)
The Mets had the best vibes on the planet for a few weeks there, during the Grimace Mets/Gay Mets/Mariachi Mets fever dream. There’s probably a little bit of a letdown right now, right?
6. San Diego Padres (19)
I hope Peter Seidler could see last night’s game. Either this blog’s bloggers are really missing something about Peter Seidler or that man did not get his due during his earthly years.
5. Baltimore Orioles (1)
James McCann wearing a pitch on the nose yesterday and then staying in so Adley Rutschman wouldn’t have to catch 17 straight innings? That was cool. That was really, really cool. The pressure and the injuries are mounting, but maybe pressure will work with these guys.
4. Kansas City Royals (24)
You have to remember that the Royals just played the White Sox. There is vibe inflation going on. That said, have you heard of Bobby Witt Jr.?
3. Cleveland Guardians (16)
In forty years, I feel like there are going to be a lot of “first time since José Ramírez did it” stats. Similar to the Tungsten Arm O’Doyle meme, but with a real person. Home run pitch.
2. Pittsburgh Pirates (25)
I tried to be a Paul Skenes hater, and I still have an inclination towards that behavior, but dammit, that guy has the people going. Looking at Pirates fans right now is like watching a four-year-old going 20 mph downhill on a bike and speeding up. It is going to end in so much pain and blood and wailing, but damn, are they flying right now.
1. Philadelphia Phillies (9)
I don’t care that the Yankees swept them. I don’t care that the division’s not entirely locked up. When Kyle Schwarber’s on the roster, you never have to worry about the vibes. Schwarber, Air Bud, the movie version of Herb Brooks, and Derrick White. There’s your all-vibes playoff rotation.
Etc. – Olympics
- I haven’t been watching as much Olympics the last four days as I aspire to watch, but I do adore Stephen Nedoroscik, just like the rest of you, and I am of course also a massive fan of Stephen Nedoroscik’s girlfriend’s social media presence. At the risk of sounding like a millennial co-opting slightly outdated Gen Z online linguistics, is there another picture that goes as hard as Tess McCracken’s cover photo on Twitter? Or at least, is there another picture with a gap as wide between 1) how hard it goes in context and 2) how hard it goes out of context? If you showed me that three days ago, I would be oddly perturbed. Now, I want it painted and hung on my wall.
- I saw someone theorizing that America might be ready for a major women’s rugby sevens league, and I’m down. Spiff Sedrick and Ilona Maher and the rest of them: American heroes. Surely, we could get this into the prominent–summer–sport mix? (I went to Premier Rugby Sevens’s Austin tournament last summer. It was great, but I don’t know that the touring format can work. Let’s brainstorm sometime.)
- I love how easy it is to trust athletes like the U.S. women’s gymnastics team and Katie Ledecky. In both cases, I found out about the performances after the fact, and I realized that had I known ahead of time, I wouldn’t have been stressed at all. Those women take care of business, and they stand on business. We have to worry about the men’s basketball team. We do not have to worry about Katie Ledecky. I appreciate that.
- Speaking of basketball, Derrick White might be the greatest living American male. It’s a developing situation, and we’re monitoring it. (Oh sure everybody get mad at me for not giving this award for Stephen Nedoroscik. If I said this in June you’d be behind it one hundred percent. Fuckin’ hypocrites.)
- The tennis has been more enticing than I expected, maybe because of Roland Garros, maybe because of the Rafael Nadal/Carlos Alcaraz doubles partnership. Should all Olympic tennis be doubles? How do I justify preparing to call Jack Draper soft for complaining about the water bottles yesterday now that Danielle Collins also complained about them today? Is Emma Navarro going to kick Zheng Qinwen’s ass, and if so, when?
- There’s a Brazilian soccer player named Marta, and honestly, I don’t know how good she is or was. Greatest player ever? Brazilian legend? No idea. I guess she got a red card for kicking a woman in the head (on accident!) in what might have been her last international appearance ever. She was inconsolable, but honestly, what a way to go. In most professions, I think the optimal way to spend your last day is to kick someone in the head. (Other soccer news: Canada made it through to the knockout stage despite getting two of their wins taken away. I’m going to assume this means they’re still spying.)
Etc. – Etc.
- The Big Ten announced today that it’ll hold its basketball tournament in Las Vegas in 2028, continuing a recent college basketball tradition of putting tournaments in Las Vegas that don’t belong there. I’m sure we’ll come back to this premise a million times over the next eight months, but these tournaments usually draw very few people. Nevertheless, the college basketball industry is obsessed with them. It might be the epitome of Dumb College Basketball, a philosophical movement which inserts groupthink in place of reality and believes Andy Enfield still has some good teams left in him. As it goes with Andy Enfield, there is a time and a place for Las Vegas college basketball tournaments. As it goes with Andy Enfield, Las Vegas college basketball tournaments are great until you start paying attention.
- Nate Sestina spent most of his college career at Bucknell, but he parlayed one season at Kentucky into a spot on UK’s alumni team for The Basketball Tournament, and through that he managed to reinvigorate the Louisville/Kentucky rivalry? Amazing scenes in Freedom Hall on Monday night, as Sestina flashing L’s Down (think Horns Down, but Louisville) led to Chinanu Onuaku spitting on him in the postgame handshake scrum. On this topic: Freedom Hall doesn’t get its due. We need to figure out more uses for Freedom Hall. If Hinkle Fieldhouse didn’t exist, I’d suggest the NIT Final Four be held at Freedom Hall, but Louisville doesn’t have any advantages on Indianapolis. We have something like eleven basketball tournaments in Las Vegas and none at Freedom Hall. Fix this, Andy Beshear!
- Evidently Manchester United’s considering building a new Old Trafford (I know, this is bullshit), and they’re considering building one big enough to house 100,000 people. In honor of the
occasionspeculation, the New York Times ran a blog post listing the eight biggest stadiums in the world. It starts, of course, with something North Korea built because they were jealous of the Seoul Olympics. Then? Obviously, a cricket ground in India. After that? Six straight college football stadiums. Get fucked, England and the NFL!!!! (The first three are in the Big Ten; the next three are now in the SEC.) - Little League World Series regional broadcasts start tomorrow on ESPN+. At least for baseball. It’s possible softball’s been on there too and that ESPN just didn’t get a post up about it ahead of time. And people say ESPN’s gotten too liberal.
- Last, in a pivot towards sentimentality, George Kirby pitched at Fenway Park this afternoon, and in tribute to the late great, the longtime Tim Wakefield fan opened the game with a knuckleball.
