Jason Heyward Breathes New Life into the Baseball Myths of Rebirth
by reader Charlie
It's April 27, and despite the Cubs off day following a frustrating loss, 'tis the season of renewal.
Some Christian holiday relating to this theme recently passed. I don't know. I'm a grad student, so this time of year is always a blur--and holidays don't exist, and neither does spring break, and what have I done with my life? April, on a university calendar, is a time we merely try to survive and see through to the other side. In other words, it's kind of like Jason Heyward's 2016 season.
Ah, but Heyward's April 2017—now this resembles the rebirth myths we so cherish in baseball. After a year of frustration for fans and the player himself, Heyward spent the winter training like Rocky in snowy Russia prepping for a fight with Ivan Drago. Except instead of pulling a dog sled and doing sit ups from the edge of a hayloft, he hit baseballs off a tee or something. Again, I don't know. This seems like normal baseball stuff. I also don't see a big a difference in his mechanics. The hands are different in the setup or something. I can't even track a big difference in his peripheral stats. But his recent homerun binge along with the unscientific eye test say he's a hitter this year. And he definitely wasn't a hitter last year.
Heyward's story is prominent for Cubs fans, but Eric Thames's emergence in Milwaukee and Bryce Harper's early dominance for the Nationals are bigger stories across baseball. These two sluggers are putting up terrifying numbers. Thames has already produced the full value of his 3-year contract in wins! Everything else is gravy for the Brewers. The production from these two players could shape the futures of their respective franchises. Thames won't carry the Brewers into the playoffs, but he might already be the most valuable trade chip they have. And it's obvious that the Nationals are going to be extremely dependent on Harper's performance in the middle of their lineup, with recently remade-men Ryan Zimmerman and Daniel Murphy playing supporting roles.
These stories have their roots in what we want from baseball players. Every fan wants to believe their team's prospects will turn the corner to realize their ceiling. That is why all prospect trajectories always seem to make reference to Hall of Fame players. And we especially love stories of the player who has remade himself deliberately and through hard work. Knuckleball, which is shaped around R.A. Dickey's career, is one of my favorite baseball films and a solid example.
Experience and statistical analysis tell us to temper—or entirely dash—these hopes. Few prospects reach their ceilings and outlier performances regress toward the mean. I know this, yet I couldn't help but laugh when Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan recently described Eric Thames as resembling the player that would result if Aaron Judge came from a high-gravity planet to play on normal-gravity Earth.
I laughed because the analogy tapped into an overtly silly touchstone from my youth: Goku doing high-gravity training in Dragon Ball Z. The Dragon Ball series is an oddly beloved anime series for those who grew up in the 80s and 90s. I've been surprised to see it re-emerge in the meme-driven internet of the 2010s. I had forgotten until recently that I used to get up before dawn to catch reruns of this show before school. As a kid, before academe made me (often appropriately) suspicious of all cultural myths I can be aware of, I loved the idea of a boy scout underdog training himself up to the point of being totally overpowered. As an adult, I still do. But I also hide that under a layer of ironic detachment.
On this day off, deprived of the reality of a baseball game, I think we should choose to believe Heyward didn't spend the winter hitting off the tee and that he hasn't merely returned to his career norms. Instead, I'm pretty sure he caught flies with chopsticks, boxed underwater, and chased a chicken around his yard. And Ian Happ has most certainly eaten at least one can of spinach himself.
Happy off day, everyone. May Heyward finally go Super Saiyan against the Red Sox.
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