By Tom
Nolan Arenado is having a career year in St. Louis. The 31 year-old third baseman is posting the best OPS+ of his career, and his 6.7 bWAR ranks second in the National League. If only his teammate, Paul Goldschmidt, wasn’t having an historic year, Nolan would be the next in line for the NL MVP.
Nolan’s importance to the team cannot be understated especially on days when Paul Goldschmidt is resting, like this past Wednesday! Unfortunately, Nolan got ejected after airing his frustrations on a 3-2 check-swing call in the 3rd inning.
MLB loves this kind of stuff, and I don’t mean that sarcastically. People honestly love a good ejection, I mean look at Kyle Schwarber here. Just absolute king-shit. Incredible animation and honesty, plus Angel Hernandez is not only a noted bad umpire, but one who relishes being one.
As far as player ejections go, this one was rather tame. Oli Marmol came out to give home-plate umpire John Libka an earful, and surprisingly stayed in the game. Paul DeJong came on and continued to struggle.
After the ejection all of Cardinals nation proceeded to treat the incident like an act of mass puppy-murder. Ben Frederickson wrote this piece, even though ABS doesn’t track check-swing calls–also that TrackMan has not released any public data about ABS’s accuracy. Dan McLaughlin and Brad Thompson discussed ad nauseam on the telecast about the ejection, with Jim Edmonds putting the cherry on top post-game. Everyone kept talking about the smirk Libka had after throwing Nolan out, HOW UNPROFESSIONAL! This is a war crime and not whiny at all! WHERE ARE MY BLOOD PRESSURE MEDS?!
There are some problems with all this; one it’s Cardinals fans–which I am, sadly. And two the official ruling on check-swings, which offers nothing concrete. The “did the bat break the plane?” question is, sadly, bullshit. OBR leaves the determination of the swing as a subjective calling in the mind of either the home plate or appropriate base umpire on appeal. College rules offer a guide on this; did the bat break the front hip? MLB could apply this rule, just like ABS or an expanded review system. But they don’t, so unfortunately Libka’s called swinging strike is technically correct.
OBR also doesn’t allow teams to appeal called strike check-swings. Appeals can only be made if the home plate umpire calls a check-swing a ball.
So to recap, because I know some of you are going to read this and get so mad your dicks hurt: There is no guide to what constitutes a swing, it’s completely subjective, and it cannot be appealed or challenge.
In regards to what is what is not professional, maybe what Nolan did was funny? The Cubs broadcast sure thought so.
Post-game Oli complimented Libka’s history as a fair and consistent umpire, which is very true, but questioned the quick hook, also likely true. Nolan also had the same thing to say, and remained adamant that he did not swing–hey if we had any of the shit mentioned above we could fix that!
Although the greatest crime to come from all this, is that the Cardinals had to play a game the next day and with this same umpiring crew, AND John Libka was scheduled to work third base this game.
LET’S FUCKING GO! MORE FIREWORKS! CUT HIS HEAD OFF AND THROW IT TO GOLDY, NOLAN!
Hold up.
Turns out it’s also baby season. Congrats to Ryan Helsley, Steven Matz, and JoJo Romero. As for Nolan’s kid, I hope he grows up and realizes that he deprived the world of the greatest showdown since Frieza and Goku.
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