Last night, Giancarlo Stanton turned around on a 72 mph Jamie Moyer offering and took it to left field for a grand slam that put the Marlins up 6-4 against the Rockies. It’s fair to say that that description doesn’t quite do justice to the video of the homer in question.

Only four home runs hit this season travelled further than Stanton’s 462 foot blast from last night and, more incredibly, no home run since 2006 has been hit harder. Stanton’s ‘speed off the bat’ mark of 122.4 mph tops every long ball hit over the last 5+ seasons. Of the 518 home runs given up by Moyer in his career, it’s unlikely any of those pitches were crushed as much as this one. It’s just a shame Delmon Young wasn’t in the on-deck circle at the time.

Watch:

All data from Hit Track Online.

Davidson about to say something to Manuel, which seems to begin with: "FFFFFFFFFF..."

Is there an official in any sport who is more desperate for attention than Bob Davidson? Just watch this from last night and this from last year and tell me that both of those incidents aren’t just examples of Davidson interjecting himself onto the game where a half decent umpire would have managed the situation completely differently.

It’s would seem from the infrequency with which umpires are fired, demoted or suspended that MLB has either little motivation or ability to challenge the umpire’s union but Davidson is out there making umpires and the league look silly on a regular basis. He’s also a prime example of how you generally don’t know the names of umpires unless they’re plain bad or their job or they REALLY want you to know who they are. Davidson’s desire to make himself the story has gone on long enough.

Was Mickey Hatcher encouraging Albert Pujols to spend 2012 doing the best Wilson Valdez impression he could? The Angels fired their long-standing hitting coach last night in an attempt to revive an offense that is on pace to set a record for futility in at least one category. It’s an understandable move in some ways; it won’t hurt to change things up even if Hatcher can hardly be at fault for so many Angels hitting quite so poorly:

Albert Pujols: .197/.235/.275 (46 OPS+)

Erick Aybar: .193/.220/.235 (31 OPS+)

Alberto Callaspo .225/.271/.275 (58 OPS+)

Vernon Wells .233/.258/.408 (87 OPS+)

Peter Bourjos .193/.254/.281 (54 OPS+)

The team clearly had to do something proactive about the hitting situation and firing Hatcher at least shows they are doing something. Pujols has a huge task on his hand to get his numbers anything close to what they have been in the past but he should still be able to turn it around to some extent and have decent end of year numbers even if they won’t be close to his usual standards. Aybar also has a track record which indicates he should improve and he at least plays a decent shortstop. Callaspo has been a decent major leaguer in the past but came into the season as a player the team could look to upgrade and Bourjos’ other worldly defense makes it easier to put up with all but the most putrid of offensive performances.

The real issue here, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, is Vernon Wells and his monstrous contract. Now Mike Trout is proving his belongs at the Major League level, each poor game for Wells must be pushing the Angels towards cutting their losses. Even if they don’t outright release him, he has to be treated like the marginal big-leaguer he’s sadly spent his time in LA proving he now his.

Mike Scioscia is MLB’s longest tenured manager but even he will be feeling some heat for this awful start. He has a reputation as someone who can eke more runs out of an offense than the overall numbers indicate should have been possible but there’s been little evidence of that trick this year. It’s also understandable that Scioscia receives some of the blame for the acquisition of Wells. While clearly not his final call, Scioscia is thought to have more front office influence than many managers around the league and his apparent desire to be rid of Mike Napoli, who was shipped out in the Wells deal, couldn’t have worked out much worse for the team.

If Scioscia does go it seems more likely to happen after the season or at least after the All-Star break but no factors should be overlooked, or persons immune from scrutiny, in the search for answers to this awful offense.

Cole Hamels was suspended for five games.

Last summer, in my first piece for this site, I explained why I thought Major League Baseball’s disciplinary system could at best be described as ‘inept’. I think the last few day’s events have vindicated my point.

Cole Hamels intentionally pinning Bryce Harper, albeit ‘only’ in the back, and then bragging about it to the media has drawn a paltry five game ban from the Commissioner’s Office. With an off day on the docket this week, you could argue that the suspension actually benefits the Phillies given that it means they can just push Hamels back a day while starting Roy Halladay on regular rest. Clearly any punishment that is so easily navigated is really no punishment at all.

There is an argument that Hamels’ crime was essentially his honesty; after all plenty of pitchers plunk hitters intentionally but claim the pitch ‘got away’ from them when confronted about it afterwards. Regardless of that issue, anyone throwing a pitch with the sole intention of hitting the man in the batter’s box should be punished, as should the arrogance and stupidity shown to brag about it afterwards. What Hamels did was incredibly dangerous and could easily have caused serious injury to Harper, who it must be added has handled this whole situation remarkably well. Enough batters get hit and get hurt during the season by pitches that genuinely do ‘get away, without people like Cole Hamels deciding he doesn’t like someone’s reputation and throwing at him. And that is the only complaint Hamels had, by the way. Harper hadn’t done anything to Hamels or the Phillies specifically, Hamels had just heard he had an attitude problem and thought he needed taking down a peg.

Hamels’ trite and pathetic argument that he was standing up for ‘old school baseball’ holds no water. Jim Leyland is as old school baseball as it gets and he’s openly said he wants the book thrown at Hamels, suggesting a 15 game ban. That’s exactly the sort of thing MLB needs to consider for pitchers in this situation. It might be an excessive punishment for an everyday player, but the way a team’s rotation works means that anything less than say 7-8 days at a minimum is an utterly meaningless suspension. It’s about time MLB got a grip on it’s disciplinary procedures because the current system is practically worthless.

Using the lists produced by Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus, Jonathan Mayo at MLB.com and the team at Baseball America, the following players could all consider themselves to be ‘Top 10′ prospects entering the 2012 season: Matt Moore, Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, Jurickson Profar, Julio Teheran, Dylan Bundy, Jesus Montero, Manny Machado, Gerrit Cole, Shelby Miller, Jameson Taillon, Trevor Bauer and Yu Darvish. As only 14 different names feature across the three top 10 lists (13 if you discount Darvish from consideration as Goldstein and Mayo did) there seems to have been a good amount of consensus between the experts on who the top minor league talents were pre-season.

Of those 14 names:

- 3 began the year in the Majors (Darvish, Montero, Moore)

- 2 have since been called up (Trout, Harper)

- 3 have a very strong chance of being called up this summer (Teheran, Miller, Bauer)

That’s a lot of talent that could or should be missing from next year’s lists. Harper and Trout both getting called up almost simultaneously really put the spotlight on this situation but realistically this was going to happen and some point over the course of the season. Although last year’s draft produced a veritable bounty of talent, this year’s crop is reportedly significantly weaker and I would assume there is a reasonable chance it hasn’t produced any top 10 talents this time next year.

Prospect graduations haven’t just impacted the top of these lists either. Just eyeballing a few names from the 11-25 range, spots where one might reasonably expect to find some of next year’s top 10 talents, there are more players who could well lose rookie eligibility in 2012. These are names like Devin Mesoraco, Danny Hultzen and Jacob Turner.

All of this means that next year’s top spots are there for the taking. Only Teheran featured in the 4-6 slots on all three lists so there is clearly a little disagreement following this year’s clear top 3 of Moore, Trout and Harper. Early favourites to jump into the top 10s include Francisco Lindor, Miguel Sano and Taijuan Walker while possibilities for the top slot include Profar, Bundy and Archie Bradley. A glut of call ups really has thrown next year’s lists wide open.

Despite thumping the Twins 11-2 last night, the Red Sox remain an underwhelming 6-10 on the season. The offense seems to be coming to life behind the surprising double threat of Cody Ross (.283/.350/.623) and Mike Aviles (.333/.365/.567) as well as the usual suspects David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia even while Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Youkilis offer very little in the early going. This may not be the best offense in baseball this year, but it won’t be too far away come the end of the year.

The real issue so far has clearly been the pitching and the bullpen in particular. First the good: Lester, Beckett, Buchholz should, health permitting as always, be a comfortably above average front three even if Buchholz has looked below his best so far this year. At the back of the rotation, Felix Doubront has exceeded just about all expectations so far but there should be understanable skepticism over whether he can keep this up.

Now the bad. Daniel Bard has been wildly unpredictable in the rotation and the bullpen has been a mess, with the sole exception of Scott Atchison. Now Atchison can throw strikes with the best of them but if he’s your most reliable reliever then your bullpen situation is untenable. Alfredo Aceves is better suited to be a multi-inning reliever than he is a closer and likely won’t last the year in the role even if Andrew Bailey never makes it back as an effective option. Franklin Morales, Matt Albers and Junichi Tazawa have the potential to be useful relief arms but probably not a great deal more than that. Justin Thomas shouldn’t be anywhere near a major league roster. Vincente Padilla is as frustrating and enigmatic as ever.

Solutions to the relief mess are available to the Red Sox and they don’t include radical April trades. Mark Melancon is down at Triple-A working out his early season issues and should return to be a solid enough reliever at some point in the not too distant future. Also on the farm is prospect Alex Wilson who has recently been converted to the pen and has the sort of fastball/slider repertoire that could help him make a success of the role. The Triple-A Pawtucket roster also features Rich Hill and Aaron Cook who are both making strides in rediscovering health and form. The latter may even assist with the moving of Bard back to the pen if his opt out date of May 1st can be pushed back a little. If the team want to look externally, Mike Gonzalez is still unsigned and could be with a new team in the next week or so and back in the bigs a fortnight or so after that. Bailey and Daisuke Matsuzaka are both due back later in the year.

The options are there for the Red Sox to address their most glaring weakness. Not all of them will work out as quality MLB pitchers but the options are numerous enough that an improved relief corps should be attainable in short time. The team has been poor in a couple of areas this year, but the bullpen is both the only real disaster and the easiest to address. The majority of personnel, and I include Bobby Valentine in this despite his poor bullpen management on a couple of occasions this year, were seen by the front office as the best and most appropriate options 16 games ago and it is should be very hard to dissuade intelligent baseball professionals that those decisions were wrong after just a couple of weeks worth of games. If the team are scrapping to get to .500 by the All Star break this discussion becomes much more pertinent, but for now those that were entrusted with key roles should be given the chance to perform up to their reputations while possible replacements for those without the same track records can be sought without breaking up what is still a very good team.