Outside The Confines: Don’t punch walls

I love to hear about weird and wacky baseball injuries. Did someone get hurt building a barn? Playing video games? Moving a statue in their bathroom? To be clear, I don’t love it when players get hurt, and you want to see guys make it through the whole season, but I’m often absolutely gobsmacked by the myriad ways professional athletes can injure themselves.

This past week, Devin Williams joined the ranks of players who managed to seriously injure themselves in completely stupid ways.

Brewers pitcher Devin Williams, during the teams’ postseason clinching celebration, evidently became frustrated with... winning... or something... and punched a wall with his pitching hand. He will now require corrective surgery. I just have to ask: do you think he considered not punching a wall during a victory celebration? Or ever?

Also while I respect Todd’s reporting here, I have a very hard time believing someone will be able to pitch in the World Series less than a month after surgery.

Here’s a bit more on the whole debacle:

• Madeline Coleman walks us through the events that led to the outburst.
• Will Sammon shares a reaction from Williams after the fact. (The Athletic subscription required.)

Now onto the rest of the links! (And don’t worry, Cubs baseball might end for the season this weekend, but we’re going to be here with new stories and fun happenings all offseason long.)

• Andrew Beaton looks at the soaring value of Fanatics’ new foray into trading cards.
• In a story it feels like we’re telling a new version of every year, Joon Lee looks at the miserable status of minor leaguers, and asks if a union could help turn things around.
• Ben Lindbergh looks at the incredible power of pitch deception. (I asked my followers on Twitter what the best baseball stories they read this week were, and within SECONDS multiple people shared this one, so I knew it had to be included.
• Ben Clemens reviews how well FanGraphs playoff odds went at predicting playoff-bound teams.
• A.J. Hinch is going to save the Detroit Tigers. He shows how well he knows his young pitching staff in this MLB dot com interview.
• Jay Jaffe assesses the super-tight NL MVP race.
• On that not, Tom Verducci looks at the incredible season Bryce Harper is having, even though he’s largely being underrated.
• Two Marlins rookies were left injured after a recent game against the Mets, reports ESPN.
• Frederic J. Frommer looks back 50 years to when baseball LEFT Washington DC.
• Frank Thomas is looking to buy his way into the Field of Dreams. AP report via ESPN.
• Aw, bummer, the Cardinals lost. How terrrrrrible.
• At least Jeff Passan took it well.

• Jim Callis, Jonathan Mayo and Sam Dykstra determine who the prospect of the year was for every single team.
• Breaking more ground, Melanie Newman co-hosted the first all-female national broadcast this week alongside Jessica Mendoza. Dan Connolly looks at the bumpy road that brought Newman to where she is today. (The Athletic subscription required.) Total side note, but if you’ve never had the pleasure of listening to Melanie call a game she is an absolute pro and deserves every single opportunity she’s been given.
• Keith Law offers up his best predictions for which players will take home the big awards this offseason. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Environmental change is something we don’t talk about a lot in connection with baseball, but these players are taking it very seriously. Story by James Wagner.
• In spite of reaching base on an error, rookie phenom Wander Franco’s epic on-base run has ended. He is tied for first at 43 with Frank Robinson. (1st in terms of players under 21) Story by Adam Berry.
• The Orioles are having WAY too much fun on Twitter this week.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Make it so.