José Berríos and the Human Element in Baseball

First and foremost, he’s nasty. I know this is baseball in 2020 so everyone is nasty, but just check out some of these pitches:

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1303433346278662151

Now that’s a curveball with demonic intent.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1301347377320730625

Pretty sure that this pitch was made illegal by the Geneva Convention.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1301341466904735744

It’s a shame none of you can see my face while typing because I am grinning like an idiot watching these pitches.

Yet, there’s more to it than him just being plain nasty. A large part of my appreciation for Berríos is the fact that he was drafted and developed entirely by the Twins.

That makes his experience unique. No other starter currently in the Twins’ rotation was drafted by them. Yeah, it’s been fun watching Kenta Maeda shove every few days. Ok, it’s been really fun to do that. But Maeda spent the majority of his time developing either in Japan or with the Dodgers. This Twins Maeda was already an established player. It’s like buying a guitar that’s been modified to look old and worn instead of beating up your own guitar over years. It’s just not the same.

We’ve been keeping tabs on Berríos ever since he was drafted by the Twins in 2012. We’ve seen him rise to the top of prospect lists for longer than any of us have even likely thought about Maeda. That creates a connection. Then we of course watched Berríos get destroyed in his first MLB starts in 2016 before coming back in 2017 to find his groove. That creates a connection. I actually specifically remember his May 18th start against Colorado in 2017. He went 7 shutout innings while striking out 11 batters and it was the first time we saw the true overpowering ability he possessed. It was time to get excited.

The final reason why I love watching Berríos so much is that he’s not perfect! It’s odd, why would I prefer to watch a player who wasn’t the very best in his field?

When Jacob deGrom goes out and punches out 14 with mind-bending stuff, I’m obviously impressed, but ultimately unaffected. When Berríos goes out and occasionally gets kicked for 6 runs over 3 ⅔ innings, well, I can relate to that! Lord knows that I’m far from perfect at my own craft every single time I try. There’s a certain humanity to it-a vulnerability that attaches me to a player like Berríos. I want to root for him because I see a lot of me in him (to an extent, he still can throw about 50 MPH faster than me).

Even his mechanics aren’t perfect. He’s all spinny and comes from kind of an awkward slingshot across-his-body angle. Yeah, get a load of Justin Verlander who was cyber-genetically molded to be ideal in every single way, big deal. Give me Berríos every single day of the week. I mean it.

Sports are supposed to be an escape for most. We watch these games because none of us can hit like Nelson Cruz or run like Byron Buxton but, well, it’s fun to see people who can do these things! For me, there’s a lot of relatability in my favorite athletes and a lot of relatability in baseball as a whole. The entire game is centered around the premise that literally anything can happen on a given day.

Gerrit Cole could get shelled today or Philip Humber could throw a perfect game. We don’t know! That’s part of the fun. But the sport offers everyone a chance to go to bed, wake up the next day, and try all over again. And the same is true for life. Even when we mess up we know that the sun will rise again tomorrow.

Yes, Berríos is not a perfect pitcher. It would be better for the Twins franchise if he was but I personally don’t mind. Once you step back and realize that the games themselves are ultimately pretty meaningless, you gain a sense of attachment to the players personally. These people have families, dreams, aspirations, failures, and struggles just like all of us. They just happen to be incredible athletes. And once you learn to appreciate that, you begin to appreciate each player not as a player, but as a human.