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USATSI

Welcome to the MLB Star Power Index -- a weekly hootenanny that determines with awful authority which players are dominating the current zeitgeist of the sport. While one's presence on this list is often celebratory in nature, it can also be for purposes of lamentation or ridicule. The players listed are in no particular order, just like the phone book.

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Fernando Tatis
SD • SS • #23
BA0.317
R25
HR12
RBI29
SB6
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Fernando Tatis Jr. is one of the most compelling young players in the game, and this season he's been perhaps the best player in all of baseball. If follows, then, that he should be reduced to solemnly explaining himself for authoring the best of all possible outcomes at the plate: 

You're doubtless familiar with the backstory by now -- familiar to the point of closing your eyes, rubbing your temples, and invoking the name of the nearest available deity at the mention of it -- but for purposes of narrative cohesion, we'll recap. 

In a recent contest of baseball, in which the stated objective is to score more runs than the opposition, Tatis hit a grand slam against the Rangers. He did so on a 3-0 pitch with his team up seven runs in the eighth inning. Somehow, Texas manager/human divining rod for affronts Chris Woodward found this to be untoward. He arrived at this stance despite knowing that this is highest level of professional baseball, in which no mercy rule darkens any clubhouse door, and he arrived at this stance despite knowing that baseball has no governing clock and thus no lead is entirely safe. He arrived at this stance despite knowing that one day Tatis will reach arbitration and that his salary will in large measure be determined by the numbers he's churned out. In that sense, Woodward would seem to want Tatis to mess with his own money in the service of sparing the pudding-soft emotions across the way. 

Look, this scribe gets that sports outcomes in the moment can cause the killer inside to punch its way out of one's skin. Indeed, this scribe once threw a chair out of the open window of a fourth story dormitory room on account of a Christian Okoye fumble in Super Tecmo Bowl. One would hope a 44-year-old Leader of Men like Woodward would be a bit more measured than a preposterous teen who's smart enough for college but not smart enough for anything else, but reality does not accommodate. 

So, sure, Woodward's dugout snit is understandable in "heat of the dumb moment" context. Less understandable is dialing up a purpose pitch because, again, a player hit a home run. Less understandable still is saying this post-game, after you've had plenty of pulls on the bulbous pacifier that is the passing of time and tide: 

"I didn't like it, personally. You're up by seven in the eighth inning; it's typically not a good time to swing 3-0. It's kind of the way we were all raised in the game. But, like I said, the norms are being challenged on a daily basis. So just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's not right. I don't think we liked it as a group."

Still with this? All that time to realize you filled your britches over nothing and rather than cop to it you set about adding more to the foul-smelling load? "The mad are mad because they deserve to be mad," the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximander did not say but probably should have. So it is with Chris Woodward. And we are to thank Fernando Tatis Jr. for exposing Woodward as living and working among the so very mad.

In the end, the punishment for getting unduly pouty over a grand slam is having three more grand slams hit against you in as many games by the same team, which is precisely what happened. Spankings administered, the Rangers and Woodward are free to go and most especially to do and be better. "Hush and go to sleep," the wet nurse told the colicky Rangers after the series ended, "or Fernando Tatis Jr. will get you."

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Javier Baez
DET • SS • #28
BA0.189
R10
HR3
RBI10
SB1
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Javier Baez has long been a purveyor of high-quality color television baseball footage. When we think of Baez's finest highlights, we of course think of that tag from the 2017 World Baseball Classic -- the tag they should probably write a new Bible verse about: 

Although he doesn't get as much attention for his sliding, Baez is, it says here, the game's most aesthetically pleasing slide practitioner. He's one of the masters at the "swim move" slide, but perhaps more impressive is when he slides as though undertaking the Nestea Plunge in reverse: 

via Gfycat

Or when he slides as though he's being conveyed to the bag by a 16th-century French Rococo chaise lounge: 

That chaise lounge? 'Tis upholstered in butter. 

No let us appreciate the latest addition to Monsieur Baez's slide canon, which comes from a very recent contest against the Brewers: 

First, know that Baez was called out upon review, as Josh Hader's tag appeared to nick him at the last instant. Second, know that that's not the point. Baez's sliding chops turned what should've been a routine putout into a safe call by the first-base ump. Note that he goes from full sprint to point guard-level hesi to a foot-first attack of the first base bag, and for his efforts he almost pulled off a minor baseball miracle. The lidless eye of the camera said he was out, but the People of Baseball say he was safe. 

Some veteran observers are fond of airily declaring that no runner should slide into first base. However, if the fielder is attempting a tag play instead of, you know, just stepping on the bag, then sliding is often advisable. It's advisable in that situation even if you can't slide as well as Javy Baez. On that note, just look at yourself. Of course you can't slide as well as Javy Baez. You absolute loser. 

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Jose Alvarez
SF • RP • #48
ERA1.5
K/99
WHIP1.67
S0
BS0
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We could rightly place Star Power Index laurels upon the bowed head of Jose Alvarez for being The One Good Phillies Reliever in 2020. So let's give a nod to that reality before moving on. Now here's what's what when it comes to Jose Alvarez right about now: 

"Maybe off the thigh?" now numbers among the most quixotic of human hopes. No, it was not off the thigh. People, that was a 105.3 mph low liner straight off the rascal basket. Given the shuddersome point of impact, It's wonder enough that Alvarez was able to speak later on and tell reporters this: 

"It was pretty bad. Obviously, it hit me in my private parts. It's a pain that's hard to describe. But thank God I feel much better now. Everything was good in the hospital. Nothing wrong. Nothing bad. Hopefully, I'll be good in a couple days."

Don't let it go unnoticed that Alvarez -- with a pain threshold that ascends far beyond where even cup-wearing eagles dare -- actually made the play at first base before submitting to an agony that hath no name other than what it's called in the original German, which is grongüsloppatrakkamargggrucksack. 

So welcome to these august pages, Jose Alvarez. Our hope is that this helps; our knowledge is that it does not.