If only Harry Kalas was around to call this Philly
championship.
It’s the story of a team that was falling apart down the
stretch, but did enough early in the season to still make the dance where he
cruised through a pair of Walters by a combined score of 27-11-6 and edged the
mighty Choo with a late save on Sunday afternoon to win his first World Series.
For Choo, it’s the worst possible scenario as he becomes the
Buffchoolo Bills of the JLB. There are more kids in third-world nations with
T-shirts boasting Choo Championship laurels than there are players he put on
his roster in 2015.
Choo made 124 acquisitions and 129 drops to go with his
JLB-high 15 trades in 2015. The Cheese Steaks were right behind him with
95/94/10.
In total, Choo rostered 133 players at one point this
season. (Yoenis Cespedes, Prince Fielder, Brian Dozier, Billy Burns, Brian
McCann, Ian Desmond, Matt Carpenter, David Ortiz, Ben Zobrist, Yasiel Puig,
Yasmani Grandal, Marcus Semien, Jorge Soler, Dexter Fowler, Jose Abreu, Trevor
Plouffe, Shin-Soo Choo, Ryan Zimmerman, Jackie Bradley, Jimmy Rollins, Nori
Aoki, Juan Lagares, Jarrod Dyson, Josh Hamilton, Marlon Byrd, John Jaso,
Domingo Santana, Mike Napoli, Brock Holt, Robinson Cano, Yangervis Solarte,
Travis Shaw, David Wright, Aaron Hicks, Steven Souza, Carlos Beltran, Wilin
Rosario, Kyle Schwarber, Alex Guerrero, Carl Crawford, Brad Miller, Enrique
Hernandez, Alexei Ramirez, Robert Refsnyder, Chris Coghlan, Matt Adams, Victor
Martinez, Mark Canha, Jed Lowrie, Chris Parmelee, David Peralta, Chris Young,
Jayson Werth, Aaron Altherr, Seth Smith, Ben Paulsen, Wilmer Difo, Jason
Bourgeois, Ryan Flaherty, Khris Davis, Nomar Mazara, David Price, Danny
Salazar, Clayton Kershaw, Dan Haren, Michael Pineda, Hisashi Iwakuma, Jimmy
Nelson, Erasmo Ramirez, Gio Gonzalez, Aroldis Chapman, Aaron Sanchez, Andrew
Miller, Jeff Samardzija, Jake Arrieta, James Shields, Jonathon Niese, Ivan
Nova, CC Sabathia, Rubby De, Trevor May, Vincent Velasquez, J.A. Happ, Wade
Davis, Joe Smith, Robbie Ray, Brandon Morrow, Alex Colome, John Axford, John
Lamb, Joe Kelly, Tyler Duffey, Williams Perez, Matt Wisler, Drew Smyly, Arodys
Vizcaino, Will Smith, Rafael Montero, David Robertson, Brett Oberholtzer, Matt
Shoemaker, Liam Hendriks, Andrew Heaney, Nick Tropeano, Zack Godley, Andrew
Cashner, Nathan Karns, Carson Smith, Jeff Locke, Chad Billingsley, Steve
Cishek, Jason Vargas, Kyle Lobstein, Odrisamer Despaigne, Yimi Garcia, Brandon
Beachy, Jake Peavy, Kyle Ryan, Franklin Morales, Ricky Nolasco, Sean Doolittle,
Tony Cingrani, Tim Cooney, Trevor Cahill, Pedro Strop, A.J. Cole, Carlos
Villanueva, Keone Kela, Arquimedes Caminero, Jerry Blevins, Jason Motte, Pedro
Baez, J.P. Howell, Jose Berrios.)
And none of them are getting a championship ring.
Well, I take that back.
Drew Smyly, Dexter Fowler, Trevor Plouffe and Pedro Strop
will all get rings as they finished the year with the Cheese Steaks. Strop’s
three strikeouts was the exact margin of victory in the strikeout category,
94-91, and Smyly had seven strikeouts in his scoreless 6.1 innings of work that
helped Steaks win ERA by the narrow margin of 2.84 to 2.94.
Those two stats categories were among at least 12 categories
— depending on the way you look at it — that were extremely close and
could have gone either way on Sunday.
Choo’s biggest mistake may have been benching his young stud
Danny Salazar, who’s three strikeouts would have at least forced the Steaks to
play his Sunday night players.
I’m sure he’ll be kicking himself all winter if the Steaks’
two Cubs strike out four times and/or if Pedro Strop blows a save Sunday night.
He may be better off never looking at the boxscore to Sunday
night baseball.
He also may never want to look back to Monday when he had
the start of all starts, getting a complete game shutout from David Price.
But the Cheese Steaks battled back with the great waiver
moves he made early in the season. He didn’t balk on Jeurys Familia, Jaime
Garcia or Erwin Santana when others did, and they were pivotal pickups all
year, especially in the World Series.
Santana pitched to a 1.29 ERA in 14 innings with 12
strikeouts, while Garcia had a 1.20 ERA in 15 innings with 13 strikeouts.
Familia collected one of his 42 saves on the season to help keep that category
tied at 2 until Santiago Casilla nabbed his second save of the week late in the
afternoon Sunday to give him the 3-2 edge and the 10-9-3 series win.
Jose Bautista also had a big week, smacking three homers to
lead the Steaks to an 11-11 tie in that category.
The other noteworthy stat is the Sept. 22 pickup of Rajai
Davis, who provided two triples to nullify the two three-baggers Choo had.
So congrats to the Cheese Steaks on a great season, and
here’s to the offseason.
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