Aroldis Chapman is Jacked

Aroldis Chapman is best known for throwing baseballs very very fast. Over the last couple of seasons he has thrown baseballs less fast, but still heaves the spheroid at a ridiculous pace. He also just stands there and smiles at nothingness when Jose Altuve hits a premeditated dinger off of him to win the American League Pennant. But, rest assured, this season, you only make Aroldis Chapman look foolish at your own peril.

BBA NL Goose Gossage 2014

Once again, it's Baseball Bloggers Alliance award season! It's a lot like the BBWAA award season with different names because they get litigious with their free time. The fine staff here at Off Base will guide you through our ballots over the next few days. Now up, the NL Goose Gossage or how I learned to stop rooting for blown saves and love relievers striking out the side.

Like my fellow Off Base writer, Mike "I dare you to pronounce my last name" Hllwya, I like voting for a nice inning eating, dominant non-closer for reliever of the year. But the National League didn't have a Dellin Betances or Wade Davis this year. Pat Neshak or Tyler Clippard, maybe. The top closers in the NL were simply strikeout machines and deserve to be rewarded for the dominant force they displayed across baseball.

1. Aroldis Chapman
Chapman only brought the heat for 54 innings (compared to 90 for Betances) but nobody brings the heat like him. The 2.00 ERA and 0.89 FIP are nice and all but that's not why I have to wear a bib to his Fangraphs page. The 17.67 K/9 doesn't even do him justice. Chapman faced 202 batters in 2014 and 106 of them walked backed to the dugout trying to figure out what happened. I didn't do the research but I'm pretty sure only Henry Rowengartner had more success than that.

2. Craig Kimbrel
Kimbrel recorded 47 saves, struck out 13.86 per 9 with a 1.61 ERA and 1.83 FIP. He's the reliever version of Mike Trout. It's become boring how good he is.

3. Kenley Jansen
Similar to Kimbrel, Jansen has basically been the same reliever for the past three seasons. Which is very good and dependable and not that interesting. Um, he didn't hit a batter this season. First time he didn't do that in his Major League career.

LVR: Rex Brothers
Brothers didn't have the worst fWAR for NL relievers but a 5.59 ERA and 4.98 FIP didn't help his case either. Come to Colorado, you say? The air is thin, you say? Well, that might be true and Brothers was worse at home with a 6.67 ERA but the 4.50 road ERA wasn't a bucket of peaches either. With his 6.23 BB/9, I have an idea for a business venture. Rex Brothers Towing: We'll move your car and walk you home.

Curveballs for Jobu 5/16/11

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Randy Knorr.

Blue Jays 11, Twins 3.
American League pitchers continued to throw batting practice to Jose Bautista as he hit three (3!) more home runs to give him 16 on the season. If my math is right, he should break Bonds' record by the All Star break. He also now sports a .368/.520/.868 line that makes me giddy like a schoolgirl. Other players did stuff in this game but, let's face it, it didn't matter.

White Sox 4, A's 3.
The Sox handed Trevor Cahill his first loss of the season knocking him around for 4 runs (2 earned) on 10 hits and a pair of walks. Juan Pierre and his .314 OBP continue to lead of because Ozzie is old school like that. On the other side, the A's just keep running out Daric Barton and a bunch of Quadruple A players. Just a really bad offense.

Red Sox 7, Yankees 5.
The Red Sox swept the Yankees to get back to .500 and just 3 games back of East leading Tampa. Curtis Granderson hit a home run off of Jon Lester for 13 on the season, 6against lefties. If that wasn't enough of a sign of the Apocalypse, Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a homer. Make sure to tell your family you love them.

Reds 9, Cardinals 7.
The Reds swept their division foes by beating up on Chris Carpenter. Ramon Hernandez continued his hot streak with another home run. Aroldis Chapman continued his "I'm broken" streak walking 4 in a third of an inning. GPS couldn't help him find the strike zone right now.

Braves 3, Phillies 2.
Dan Uggla hit the go ahead homer in the 8th inning to ruin Roy Halladay's day. Halladay was a mess anyway tossing all 8 innings but allowing 8 hits, 3 runs and 2 walks while only striking out 7. He should be ashamed of himself.

Brewers 9, Pirates 6.
Ryan Braun (2-3, 2 BB, HR) bailed out Zack Grienke (5 IP, 6 H, 5 ER). I'm almost 83% sure that the Pirates Andrew and Daniel McCutchen are not related.

Other games, but down here...
Rangers 5, Angels 4.
Mariners, Indians PPD. This is the M's new strategy for the season. Rain outs.
Tigers, Royals PPD.
Orioles 9, Rays 3.
Nationals 8, Marlins 4.
Mets 7, Astros 4.
Giants, Cubs PPD.
Padres 8, Rockies 2.
Diamondbacks 4, Dodgers 1.

Curveballs for Jobu: Nyjer Morgan Edition

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Tim Belcher and he's here because he's still upset about being drop kicked by Chan Ho Park.

Hey kids, I'm covering Jobu today because I know a little more about bench clearing bralws than Derwood. The summer of '93 was not a good time to be playing Wiffle Ball in my backyard.

Marlins 16, Nationals 10. Nyjer Morgan is having an interesting week. He might still end up being suspended for firing a ball into the face of a fan in Philly. Then he ran over 2 different catchers in shady at best behavior and cursed out a fan in Florida. But his coup de gras was his instigation of a benches clearing brawl that contained actual fighting.

Chris Volstad hit Morgan in the 4th and threw behind him in the 6th. Morgan charged the mound, grazing Volstad with a punch. Gaby Sanchez, running over from first base, hit Morgan with a closesline before looking to climb up on the top turnbuckle for his finishing move. Benches cleared, managers yelled and players were ejected. I don't even know if there was any baseball played.

Twins 2, Tigers 1 (10). Max Scherzer continued his hot streak post All Star break. He went 9 innings while giving up 1 run and striking out 9. In his last 83 innings, he has a 1.73 ERA and 76K/29BB. But it wasn't enough for the Tigers last night, the Twins would get a walk off single from Danny Valencia in the 10th.

Reds 6, Brewers 1. Aroldis Chapman got his first career win pitching a clean 7th inning, striking out 2. He would celebrate the win by lighting up a cigar and throwing a ball into the moon. Weeks, Hart and Braun combined to go 0-11 with a walk.

Chris Valaika's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Oh, I had to look Chris Valaika up. We here at Off Base have a both coasts bias. We often overlook what's going on in your precious midwest. So I'll occasionally miss a prospect from Cincinnati or Milwaukee or Pittsburgh. Basically anyone from the NL Central. But we're bringing in an intern to help us out with the divisions we don't care about.

Valaika, a 25-year-old second baseman, was called up a week ago and wasted no time collecting his first Golden Sombrero. The Sombrero almost got past me because it was slightly overshadowed by Aroldis Chapman's debut and 103.9 MPH fastball. Aroldis couldn't have gotten to the bigs at a better time after baseball recently lost that pitching prospect for the Nationals. I already forgot his name. I want to say Sam Steinberg. Anyway, Chapman will be all the talk until he has surgery when his elbow explodes.

I guess we might as well take a look at Valaika's poor night at the dish before Chapman completely hijacks this post...

Bottom 3rd: Valaika struck out swinging against Yovani Gallardo. He actually singled in the first so the night was "Mark Reynolds terrible."

Bottom 5th: Valaika struck out looking against Gallardo. Gallardo gave up 8 runs in 5 innings but it was better than his last start. I assume he wasn't robbed at gunpoint again last night.

Bottom 6th: Valaika struck out swinging against Gallardo.

Top 8th: Chapman strikes out Jonathan Lucroy by ridiculousness. Lucroy might as well have been swinging a spoon against the last pitch.

Bottom 8th: Valaika struck out swinging against Todd Coffey.