The 2024 NFL Week 4 Roundup | Catcher in the Eye
It was an unseasonably reasonable 81 degrees in Atlanta on August 2, 1996 as gloomy, overcast skies earlier in the day gave way to bright sunshine and tolerable humidity that together enshrouded Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. That evening, 22-year old Andrew Jay “AJ” Hinch looked up to the azure Southern sky to see his American flag fluttering patiently in the Summer breeze, just beneath the national flag of Japan. Though the Japanese nation anthem blared from the stadium’s speakers, his heart was overflowing with emotion, his watery eyes reflecting the moment. He and his teammates comprising Team USA had just clinched the Bronze medal in baseball (defeating Nicaragua) and this was the first time his deferential adroitness as catcher caught up with and smothered reality. A solid, if-middling, career in the MLB quickly materialized for him with clubs including the As, Royals, Tigers and finally the Phillies in 2004 where at 30, the weary, physically taxing reality had caught up to his dream. A smart segue into managing followed and proliferated with opportunities in Arizona and San Diego before glory and catastrophe in Houston. With the Astros, he guided the team to two World Series appearances in three Seasons (winning the Commissioner’s trophy in 2017) and four consecutive ALCS residencies spelled out in all caps. Not until a sordid cheating scandal exploded in 2019 did AJ’s world begin to quickly unravel. On the same day MLB metered out a one-year suspension from the League, the Astros terminated his employment. Left with little else to do than reflect, AJ took inventory, took responsibility then ultimately took action in restoring public trust in him and personal confidence in himself. The time off was well-spent where in 2024, he’s commanding an unexpected and revelatory thunderous renaissance in Detroit with the Tigers who just as recently as August were completely written off, a poetic allegory impossible to ignore. The Tigers have secured their first post-season appearance in a decade and are the talk of baseball. AS they do, AJ looks on and thinks about the clarity of purpose that crystalized for him on the podium that fateful day in Atlanta decades ago. 28 years later, AJ is beginning again.
Knowledge. Strength. Agility. This Holy Trinity of non-negotiable attributes serves as the backbone of a lifelong design philosophy for any catcher in the major leagues seeking athletic greatness. Encyclopedic knowledge of defense componentry, pitch types and speeds for both home and opposing teams. Strength of arm and mind to combat a fusillade incoming artillery, equally physical and unspoken. Agility to pivot and flex at a moment’s notice to any given or surprise variable in service of neutralizing any offensive threat, actual or perceived. In the mid-1990s, AJ Hinch was just that athlete who naturally exhibited all of the above. A proud son of Nashua, IA, the 1992 Gatorade Player of the Year displayed preternatural gifts of a catcher beyond his years. So much so that he was drafted in the second round after graduating from high school. AJ instead opted to attend Stanford University where he continued to hone his skills as a Cardinal. Incredibly, AJ was drafted again in his junior year at Stanford (third round) and again chose to return to Stanford. It wasn’t until the conclusion of his senior year was his clarion call officially recognized. He signed with the Oakland As upon his graduation and made his major league debut in 1998. He journeyed eastward with successive and chronological pitstops in KC, then Detroit before hanging up his catcher’s glove for good in 2004 with the Phillies. Ten pounds of gear and years of bruises and battering will and do take their toll. To say nothing of barking knees punished with eons of squatting.
Which is why an opportunity the next year in 2005 with The Arizona Diamondbacks managing the team’s minor league operations proved so irresistible and unnerving simultaneously. He had no serious experience managing anything approaching a baseball operation but his background and reputation were enough for Arizona to take a chance on him. The risk was well worth the reward as the front office watched with pleasure his natural alacrity with players acquitted itself just as nicely as it did with winning. In 2006, he was named director of player development. Three years later in 2009, AJ was tapped to become the team’s manager, a stint that would go on to culminate in a losing 89–123 record; the worst record for a manger in Diamondback history. There was no love lost as the team dumped him at the end of the season. Where Arizona saw failure, The Padres sensed promise. The team picked up AJ as VP of Scouting in 2010 where he was seriously considered for GM before abruptly quitting the team in 2014. And for good reason. The Astros, deep in a decade-long slump, were looking for a switch-up, really anything to escape the doom loop within which they had become enmired. The signing signaled a fortuitous offramp for the Astros as AJ’s first season with the team produced head-spinning results, a winning 86–76 record and a playoff berth. A love affair was born and the Astros would catapult into the stratosphere for years to come much to the chagrin of competing clubs both in the AL and NL. That success begat derision and soon questions; later an embarrassing self-inflicted implosion. And AJ was swallowed up whole in the aftermath.
A bombshell 8-page, 2504-word article in the Athletic landed deafeningly in November 2019. In it, former aggrieved Astros pitcher Mike Fiers explosively detailed how Houston employed rudimentary (and later, tech-savvy) techniques to steal signs. He knew so much because he was a willing participant in the debauchery and clearly had an ax to grind after he and the team parted ways at the end or the team’s propulsive ascent in 2017. Knowing what pitch was coming naturally afforded the opposing batter crucial offensive information. The cheating began brazenly in 2017 and comprised a live feed of catcher signs being beamed in real-time to a monitor hung steps from the home dugout. A spotter would translate the signs, relay the intel to a co-conspirator who would then bang on a trash can with a bat to signal to the awaiting batter whether a curve ball, fast ball or sinker was on deck. The cheating went on undetected for the entirety of 2017 and part of 2018, abruptly halted due to suspicions that other teams were onto them. Yankees, we see you. Crucially, the Astros were crowned World Series champions in 2017 at the expense of the Dodgers. Houston would have gone on be THAT hated team of spoilers were it not for the ugly revelations in the Athletic expose.
What was worse was AJ’s role in the cheating scandal. A subsequent MLB-led investigation (where all players were granted immunity in exchange for testimony) revealed that as manager, he supposedly knew nothing of the player-conceived plan to steal signs despite twice destroying the live-feed monitor that clung to the wall just outside the dugout forcing both to be replaced. AJ certainly heard and was aware of team members banging on trash cans from the sidelines and was complicit by not asking any questions of the team he actively managed. Not a good look for a former catcher whose core strengths are knowledge, strength and agility. He admitted he should have done more and ought to have policed then bench coach Alex Cora, who supervised the complicit plan with a myriad of players, much more aggressively. It’s hazy to this day what exactly AJ knew and when he became aware of it. But the MLB-certified investigative report is damning nevertheless and voluminous in its accusations that AJ’s hard-fought reputation evaporated into thin air. He was instantly unemployable and stained with a scarlet C…for Cheater. Not that employment mattered, what with a one year League suspension. Whatever role in the scandal he played (assuredly more than was printed on MLB letterhead), AJ will have to reconcile with his Maker. In the meantime, vociferous public opinion had already reconciled AJ’s standing in baseball. This soiled stigma would have been enough to force a career forfeiture but in the MLB there are always extra innings.
Upon the expiration of AJ’s suspension in Fall 2020, he was heartened to learn of warm interest from the White Sox as team manager. His candidacy sailed through all the requisite gateways and was on the verge of being papered before owner Jerry Reinsdorf reconciled legacy versus reputation and killed the deal. AJ wasn’t devastated too long as his one-time home in Detroit swooped in sign the rehabilitated manager. Tired of stinking up the AL Central with barrel-scraping records to prove their futility and not having appeared in the post-season in 5 years, the Tigers were ready for a reset their very own. They saw an underappreciated, overlooked, pre-judged, ready-for-redemption leader in AJ and offered him an opportunity for that great big reboot he’d been preparing for.
With AJ in the wheelhouse, Detroit’s bottom-heavy W-L record slowly started to throw the ballast overboard. His magical powers of working with young players and adapting their talents to life in the major leagues famously made superstars of Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa in Houston. That prowess travelled well to Detroit where AJ traded away aging veterans (Mark Canha and Jack Flaherty) in favor of youthful, unproven upstarts like shortstop Trey Sweeny. Today, AJ is overseeing the youngest team in MLB (at just 26 years), including breakout pitcher Tarik Skubal who is the likely this year’s AL CY Young Award designee. The Tigers were as recently as August 10 reverting to their dubious past when the team went on an uproarious tear winning 13 of 16 games. When Detroit’s regular season ended this past Sunday, they’d prove victorious in 31 of their final 44 games. AS such, they’d become only the second team in history to secure a post-season berth after being 8 or more games below .500 in August. Baseball, gotta admire its obsession with byzantine statistics. The Tigers are no longer paper in nature and are roaring into the post-season as one of the most intimidating teams in baseball this side of Los Angeles. And with their star ascent, AJ is on the mend and capably directing the team’s celestial trajectory. Knowledge. Strength. Agility. This trio of core strengths have always done him well and they continue to do so as AJ and Tigers stick to a script indelibly colored with redemption. AJ is aware of his frail relationship with history and is beyond grateful for a second chance. In baseball, there are always extra innings. And a flag fluttering patiently in the Summer breeze.
Turning now to Week 4 in the NFL, there were no extra innings this week but were just as many surprise-and-delights as there were despair-and-disappointments. Among the former were Vikings at Packers where the NFC North powerhouses met only to hoist an even brighter klieg light on the career resurgence MIN QB Sam Darnold is enjoying so far this season. Leading the NFL with 11 unlikely TD passes so far, Sam (alongside trusty WR Justin Jefferson) is applying offensive code that competing teams have thus far been unable to crack. A blowout 28 point three quarter run resulted before Jordan Love and his Packers almost battled back in one of the most incredible come-from-behind victories that wasn’t to be. The Vikings took the game 31–29 and cling onto their perfect record, one of only two teams in the League who can claim such a headline. The other lossless team in the NFL is, of course, the Chiefs who are so far this season making winning look painful. Sure Ws are Ws but their margins of victory are whisper thin and not of the easy, commanding variety of years past. Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: KC was behind the entire game before they weren’t in the waning minutes of the 4th. Patrick makes his trademark comeback and Travis Kelce finally looks like Travis Kelce and a WIN ensues. The victory, and the 4–0 record that comes with it, might ring hollow as critical REC Rashee Rice left the game on four wheels and a busted knee joining Marquise Brown and Isiah Pacheco on the outside looking in. KC’s secondary is still top notch, but teams are coming for them as the Chiefs plug along with a few less cylinders.
Over in Baltimore, the Ravens reclaimed their dignity in a punishing 35–10 victory over the off-again Bills. This was a game in which BAL dominated so thoroughly on both sides of that ball that they practically turned BUF’s lights. That’s the power the Raven’s wield when playing in synchronicity. And in last night’s true game (despite ESPN’s billing of its “doubleheader”), the Lions ripped apart Seattle’s previously unbeaten record and in doing so left the city’s Hawks waking up this morning to a sobering reality. A reality that cushy, bubbly publicity surrounding Geno Smith and his squad’s early season momentum are only cosmetic and reactionary. For a team worth its weight in pigskin, headlines are made on the field. And the only news coming out of Ford Field was the offensive and defensive excellence radiating from the home team. DET QB Jared Goff went off, as did Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery and Jameson Williams among many. DET’s 2023 season ended in the NFC Championship in a 31–34 squeaker to SF. They’re determined to make it to New Orleans in early February.
In our weekly Round Robin, the Cowboys threw a much-needed win on the board (to the topsy turvy Giants) and the much-injured Rams uncharacteristically circle the NFC West drain, losing to the Bears who are on a mini-surge. The Steelers lost their platinum 3–0 record and along with it their matchup with Indy where PIT QB Justin Fields descended markedly with twin costly fumbles. Over in Tampa Bay, it took the Eagles a 102 minute plane flight to look disheveled on a national stage. The team’s offense came apart like a cheap suit; a failing QB Baker Mayfield and his Bucs took to the bank with a workman-like quality, 33–16. The Jags continue in their profoundly losing ways, 4–0, as Washington fans are careful today to not jinx themselves after another Jayden Daniels showout. Might there be an afterlife for the Commanders post-Dan Snyder? WAS tugs at rabbits feet and squint through their fingers at what can be.
