Today, all 30 Major League Baseball teams are playing their 162nd games, on the 839th day of the season. You might think, if judging only by the number of fans who show up, that few of Wednesday’s games are meaningful.
Searching For Today’s Most Meaningless Game
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Which made me wonder which of these last games is the least meaningful.
There are any number of things that might make a game meaningful, including but not limited to:
- draft positionyoung players trying to make a good impression
- postseason teams angling for home-field advantage
- players trying to reach personal milestones
- teams trying to reach .500 or better
As it turns out, even by these limited criteria there’s nothing like a meaningless game today. When you think about it, isn’t that really something? That on the last day of your regularly scheduled season, there’s not a single game about which you can say, “Pshaw. Why should anyone care about that game?”
Anyway, you know about the four Wild Card-relevant games tonight. That leaves 11. In both leagues, there are still home fields up for grabs. If the Brewers lose and the Diamondbacks win, the D'backs get the edge. If the Tigers win and the Rangers lose, the Tigers get the edge. So we can knock out four more games, leaving only seven potentially meaningless games.
Stephen Strasburg is starting for the Nationals, which automatically makes that game both interesting and relevant.
Bruce Chen is starting for the Royals; if he pitches well against the Twins and the Red Sox wind up losing a one-game playoff to the Rays tomorrow, Chen will forever be a footnote in Red Sox lore.
That leaves five games.
The Rockies (Drew Pomeranz) and Giants (Eric Surkamp) are both deploying top prospects to start, which makes that game inherently interesting. Also, both teams are tied with other teams in MLB's overall standings, so their game is going to impact the order of next June's amateur draft.
If the Blue Jays beat the White Sox, they'll finish at exactly .500. Which is no great feat for them, as they've been winners in four of the last five seasons. Still, nobody wants to finish with a losing record. Also, every White Sox game merely adds to the Legend of Adam Dunn. Then there's the whole Ozzie Guillen soap opera.
That leaves three games: Mets/Reds, Cubs/Padres and Athletics/Mariners.
The thing about the Cubs and Padres is they’re right in the middle of a big cluster of teams right around 71 wins; the Cubs have 71, the Padres have 70, and four other teams entered Wednesday with 71 or 72 wins. So there’s a lot of play in the 2012 draft order. And picking 18th instead of 23rd can make a big difference.
Which makes this game at least somewhat meaningful.
We can say something of the same about the A's and M's. The A's have 73 wins, and could be caught by one of the 72-win teams ... which could improve Oakland's draft position, if the right team(s) catch them. The M's, on the other hand, are set; even if they win and the Orioles lose -- leaving them tied with 68 wins apiece -- the Mariners will own the second pick in the draft, by virtue of their worse 2010 record.
Still, this game gets a bonus point for featuring Gio Gonzalez, who's having a really good-but-underappreciated season.
Which leaves one game: Mets vs. Reds. The Reds' draft position is still in question, but the Mets is not. And it's sorta hard to get excited about starting pitchers Edinson Vólquez (5-6, 5.84) and Miguel Batista (4-2, 4.24).
It would be different if this were the 40-year-old Batista’s last appearance. But considering his career and MLB’s fascination with old pitchers who keep their ERAs below 5, I suspect we’re not seeing the last of him.
The nice thing? The Mets and Reds are, as I write these very words, playing the only purely afternoon game of today’s slate. And once we get this one out of the way, it’s Meaningful Baseball for everyone!
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