2013 Regular Season General Chatter

Coming soon to a tv or computer monitor near you.

Just wanted a thread where I could post this tidbit from Crashburn Alley: 81% of the Phillies payroll is going to players 32 and older.

i would have thought it higher than that!

Yanks have to be pretty close on that same type percentage too.

i am so ready for the season to start, the wait is killing me

i just want to be able to put the game on the radio in the background as i get home from work.

is it too early to start making predictions?

i was making predictions almost three months ago!

Happiness is watching a home/night Dodgers telecast with the windows open.

cardinals press conference momentarily, reportedly to discuss 'chris carpenter's future with the team' or lack thereof

"It is very unlikely he's going to pitch for us in the 2013 season."

Uuuuuuuuuugh.

Good thing he heroically rushed his rehab last fall so that he could suck ass for a few important games

On the plus side, it'll be cool to see rosenthal or shelby miller in the rotation. (Please not joe kelly, pleeewease not joe kelly)

paging Kyle lohse?

anyway, RIP carp. :( such an angry, angry man. i'll miss watching him swear over and over again.

someone just linked to this awesome moment from 2010 when he was ready to start the inning and brendan ryan wasn't even on the field yet: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100809&content_id=13255756&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb&fext=.jsp

then when ryan came out, he had the wrong glove. after the inning dad took his son into the locker room hallway to have a good old fashion yellin'

todd helton arrested for dui

mlb is still blacking out local games via their mlb app right? I just got an ipad and my gf would more than appreciate me being able to watch the games on it rather than the goddamn tv.

I think so. I would sign up in a heartbeat if it weren't for stupid blackout rules.

yeah, i hate that so much. really screws people over who don't have tvs.

They could at least tighten up the zones. The idea that I'm going to jump in the car and drive 250 miles, losing an extra hour crossing time zones, because the Braves game is blacked out is really stoooopid.

i've tried messing around with proxy servers, but don't know enough/haven't been willing to pay to make it work.

http://espn.go.com/espn/photos/gallery/_/id/8915324/image/1/mlb-stars-devo-mlb-stars-re-create-devo-freedom-choice-espn-magazine-music-issue

I had no idea Victorino was such a tiny little dude!

i wonder if any of them had ever heard of devo

wow @ the King Felix contract...

what was the Devo photoshoot all about??

holy shit, look at this picture from the nyt story on people waiting for Derek Jeter to sign shit in a parking lot:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/08/sports/08jeter1/08jeter1-articleLarge.jpg
David Cramer spent his 11th birthday hoping to catch a glimpse of Derek Jeter.

this grizzled old man is 11? jeezus kid, go cartwheel across the park or something, you're too young to fall in with this crowd!

ESPN the Magazine doing a music issue, for whatever reason.

next thing you know they'll be doing a car issue

*is funny*

so todd helton got his DUI because he was driving to a gas station to buy lotto tickets

who sez pro athletes are unrelatable

just in case the whole "baseball thing" doesn't pan out, huh?

red sox prospect bryce brentz accidentally shot himself through the leg

The line for advance sales of Florida Marlins tickets, ~30 mins before opening:
http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusmlbexperts/marlinstickets020913.jpg

geez even the Mets will do better in the cold

"Build it and they Won't Come - MARLINS BASEBALL 2013"

i'll leave this here...

Man from future: And in 2013, the Indians will have ... Dice-K and Scott Kazmir!!!

Person from 2008: Wow! Amazing! They'll be unstoppable! Let me ask some more questions, though. Do they re-sign CC after this season?

Person from 2008: They keep Cliff Lee, right?

Person from 2008: Grady Sizemore stays on the Hall of Fame track, I'm assuming.

Person from 2008: Lebron sticks with the Cavs, doesn't he?

Person from 2008: The Browns are probably good by then, right? Man, that'll be nice.

Man from future: ...

Man from future: And in 2013, the Indians will have ... Dice-K and Scott Kazmir!!!

-grant brisbee

The FOX broadcast network will air 24 Major League Baseball telecast windows during the 2013 regular season, the network announced Tuesday. The schedule includes eight straight weeks of baseball in primetime (May 25 to July 13), marking the second straight year the network has aired such an extensive primetime slate. FOX has adjusted the schedule to accommodate college football, going dark on August 31 — the first Saturday of the season — and airing games at 1 PM ET throughout September. 2013 is the final year of the current MLB TV deals; starting in 2014, FOX will air 12 telecast windows per year.

D’Backs 81½ ov -120 / un -110
Braves 86 ov -115 / un -115
Orioles 76½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Red Sox 79½ ov – 120 / un – 110
Cubs 72 ov – 115 / un – 115
White Sox 80½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Reds 88½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Indians 77½ ov – 120 / un – 110
Rockies 71½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Tigers 90 ov – 115 / un – 115
Astros 59½ ov – 120 / un – 110
Royals 79 ov – 115 / un – 115
Angels 89½ ov – 120 / un – 110
Dodgers 90 ov – 115 / un – 115
Marlins 64½ ov – 110 / un – 120
Brewers 79½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Twins 64½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Mets 74 ov – 110 / un – 120
Yankees 86½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Athletics 83 ov – 110 / un – 120
Phillies 81½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Pirates 79 ov – 115 / un – 115
Padres 74½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Giants 86 ov – 115 / un – 115
Mariners 76½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Cardinals 85½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Rays 86 ov – 115 / un – 115
Rangers 87 ov – 115 / un – 115
Blue Jays 86½ ov – 115 / un – 115
Nationals 90 ov – 115 / un – 115

http://forums.viewfromvegas.com/user/discussion.aspx?id=359608

would probably take under on the Nats and over on the Cards

I would take the under on the Dodgers and the Astros.

over on cards seems too obvious, am i missing something that made them a lot worse?

have to look at rosters for the padres and mariners this year but they both seem like the type of team that could unexpectedly overperform

ok mariners are still shitty

over on padres and marlins. under on pirates.

pretty brutal for the astros when vegas is using 102 1/2 losses as a baseline

over on the A's too, they won 94 games last year and the Astros got added to their division.

but it's hard to win 94 games, so you're not often gonna set the mark there.

w/ non-contenders I don't understand such bets, cuz you never know who's gonna be on the roster in Aug/Sept.

Since Votto debuted, there have been more than twice as many no-hitters as Joey Votto pop-ups. Since 2009, there have been two (or three) more perfect games than Joey Votto pop-ups.

I know the Astros are awful but hitting the over if they go 60-102 seems awfully generous. A straight 0.0 WAR team wins 45-46 games if I recall correctly.

well they won 55 games last year, are perhaps worse now on paper, and are moving to a much harder division

the entire astros team is formerly-well-regarded-prospect types, there's definitely a scenario where they end up going .500

i would be interested in seeing that scenario

i just took a look at the new scheduling for the first time, and there's a lot less interleague than i thought there'd have to be - maybe like 9-10 series per team instead of the previous 6

anyone have a good link to something analyzing the opponent strength of schedules this year? i forget if that's the right term, but i just mean something that looks at the winning percentage of the opposing teams that a certain team is facing this year.

they compiled 9.6 hitting WAR and 8.0 pitching WAR. I think that suggests that they'll win 61 games if those numbers stay consistant. I'm not convinced that they're worse on paper this year though it is surprising how many 29-31 year old guys they have.

formerly-well-regarded-prospect - kind of want that t-shirt

perhaps a Houston FWRP jersy?

Are we talking about the Trevor Bauer diss track aimed at Miguel Montero anywhere?

https://soundcloud.com/consummate4sight/you-dont-know-me

haha amazing

http://25.media.tumblr.com/158121ce964425d85771c1be9220a8d9/tumblr_mi8as7QjcK1qzb8z0o1_400.png

We are off to a great start.

‏

@jaysonst
Jose Reyes says 2 days before he got traded had dinner with Jeffrey Loria & Loria told him to get a nice house in Miami. 2 days later: gone

@DKnobler
Reyes also said he feels sorry for Giancarlo Stanton.

Bryce Harper spent the off-season getting swole up.
http://www.natsinsider.com/2013/02/harper-driven-to-reach-new-heights.html

And physically ... well, Harper doesn't just look like he belongs in a big-league clubhouse. He looks like he belongs in an NFL locker room, having bulked up over the winter to 230 pounds to fill out his 6-foot, 3-inch frame.

"I lift as hard as I can, get as big as I can in spring training," he said. "Because I know I'm going to lose a lot of weight, because I'm a guy who comes in and loses a lot of weight quick. I'm about 230 right now, and I'll probably drop to 220 before spring training is over and be at a good playing weight myself."

Right on Bryce, let's stress-test the hell out of those joints.

mat gamel is an unfortunate man

no kidding. that means if all goes well he's going to be playing his first full season at 28, barring the complications that usually stem from "tearing your surgically repaired ACL"

gamel's gonna be arbitration-eligible next winter with 269 plate appearances, most of which came in 2009

hunter morris has a ton of power but i'm sure he'll need to prove he can hit triple-a pitching first

weeping

guessing there's a good chance his pro career might be over at this point? how many people come back from tearing the same ACL twice?

i dunno, you hear shit about repaired ligaments supposedly being stronger than the originals, etc., and it's not like his game was particularly reliant on mobility.

i think just flat out missing two years is the bigger problem, particularly when he's gonna be 28. especially at 1b, someone else will come along and close his window.

I think this is spring training general chatter. Anyway, from Tampa via NYT:

http://xmmlbchat.blogspot.com/2013/02/chamberlain-jumped-into-laundry-basket.html

what a nut

i think just flat out missing two years is the bigger problem, particularly when he's gonna be 28. especially at 1b, someone else will come along and close his window.

exactly; even if his ACL heals completely I kinda feel like 28 year old unproven first basemen are super replaceable. in fact they are probably the most replaceable players in the entire league.

still, getting a million bucks plus being arby eligible is not a bad consolation prize

jurickson profar turns 20 today

http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/joba-chamberlain.jpg

love you Zack

"I could play for the worst team if they paid the most," Greinke said in an interview with CBSSports.com. "If the last-place team offers $200 million and the first-place team offers $10, I'm going to go for the $200 million no matter what team it was."

what if the last-place team offers $200 million and the first-place team offers $202 million?

exactly what I was thinking - I would think Zack would take the $200 million (assuming you got your hypothetical mixed up). I never thought Zack was less than 100% honest and I always thought that he really, really wanted to win in Kansas City

http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/joba-chamberlain.jpg― Andy K, Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2:17 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW17mVZqnjI

what if the $200M team required that you shave your beard

what if the $189MM team required that you shave your pubestashe

Wait, I fucked that up. I meant last place 202 million / first place 200

dusty baker on a certain reds prospect: "i like big lutz"

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/33333/war-a-case-study-fielder-vs-ryan

not sure where to put this, but it's an article explaining how brendan ryan's bWAR last year was almost identical to prince fielder's 2007 season when he hit 50 home runs

"It's funny. There's just something about a guy who's your number one guy," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "There's just a special aura, and it was there when he was out on the mound. It was just really fun to see him out there."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/gameflash/2013/02/28/47001/#recap

awful lot of prospects with enormous asses played today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xiqjbrX9DE

This is a heck of a catch.

impossible to find any info on him outside of the catch, wanna know if he's a legit target on draft day. except nvm here's this:

Brett Williams: Williams, a 25th round selection by the Diamondbacks in 2011, is a plus defender in CF who led the Pack in triples and runs scored in 2011. He played in exactly one game in 2012 before blowing out his knee. Season over. Hopefully he will get drafted again or receive a medical redshirt and resume his Pack career in 2013.

also

Personal
• Majoring in science, technology and science

haha

can't find any info on how old he is, but being a senior (plus one for the injury) is a bad sign.

catch was weird looking -- was a somersault really necessary? also that sounded like a wooden bat?

college profile said he graduated HS in 2008, so i assume he was born 1990

hope everyone caught Miguel Tejada's mad dash vs the Yanks

?

i enjoyed how yankees double-a farmhand vidal nuno no-hit them for four innings

tommy hanson just came out after something 'got tweaked' warming up for the fourth

your los angeles angels of whateverthefuck no. 3 starter: joe blanton ladies and gentlemen

kyle lohse's spidey sense is tingling

was this ghostwritten by a long time ILB'er?

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/33941/the-all-haiku-season-preview

hahaha NOPE

i'm trying to get my business analyst wife more interested in baseball and i think i inched my way a bit closer via a ten minute presentation last night on why a very impressive-seeming career like dante bichette's was actually mediocre and often terrible.

pre-humidor coors is such a bizarro world (post-humidor not much worse)

bichette in 99: .298/.354/.541, .37y wOBA, 34 HR, -1.8 fWAR

*.379 wOBA

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?c_id=cin&content_id=25825925&partnerId=as_mlb_20130323_6604484

vo_0tto

Jon Morosi ‏@jonmorosi
Jon Garland and Rick Porcello are somewhat similar in profile, so it won’t surprise me if the Rangers and Padres check in on Garland.

What's nine years?

domonic brown is hitting .382/.447/.676 in 68abs this spring.
if this dude lives up to his expectations and protects utley & howard... watch out nationals and braves.

lol

Spring training

More like sprung insaning amirite?

I made that up, Saturday niiiiiite

ha ha!

"I don't remember the last time I was pitching like that—probably Little League when I was, like, 13 years old. I just forgot about it and [focused on] the hitters. It felt a little weird when he called, 'Ball!' behind me. It was like, 'Oh, God!'"

—Brewers reliever Wily Peralta on an unorthodox umpire setup during a spring training game Tuesday. When home plate umpire Seth Buckminster left with an injury, veteran Tim McClelland positioned himself behind the mound to call balls and strikes. (Adam McCalvy, MLB.com)

its snowing today, all I can think is "christ, isn't baseball supposed to start in a week?"

was it three years ago - the indians had to move their home games to another city to start the season because of some crazy blizzard(s)?

lohse to the brewers

daaang, will have to see the specifics for the brewers, but it seems really shortsighted for them, particularly because they're in the same division as the cardinals. lohse is 34 and coming off an unusually good year for him. now the brewers have locked him in for a few end-of-career/regression years, and most likely overpaying. they also give up their 17th overall pick in the draft and hand the cardinals the 28th. in the near-term this might get them in the running for 2nd place, and in the long term it hurts them. oh well, i guess they have to throw their fans a bone every once in a while too.

seeing rumors of ~3 years/$30m. doesn't seem horrendous if he stays healthy

They've always had a Jeff Suppan/Braden Looper/Randy Wolf mid-30's type starter, but usually those deals don't really work out. Suppan's deal was a disaster, Looper gave up a record number of HRs, Wolf was...decent in his first two years, kinda awful his last. That said I do kinda understand it, going by the same logic that people upthread were defending the Soriano deal - you have to spend that money somewhere and I guess the Brewers feel they're good enough to nab a playoff spot (kinda how they've felt every year since 2005). Outside of Gallardo they don't really have a proven starter - just a bunch of dudes who started for a season or less (and Chris Narveson, coming back from injury), some of which have put up good numbers in limited time (see: Mike Fiers), some with big question marks (Mark Rogers), or guys like Wily Peralta who could be incredible but don't have much MLB experience. I am guessing that Lohse is going to be average or maybe even a little above average but I really hope this isn't a 4-year deal like the Suppan one was.

If it's 3/30 then I think we're fine.

yeah, for some reason i thought the scott boras corporation (when did he become a corporation btw?) was looking for more like 15 million a year or something. 3/30's not awful.

I can't imagine any major league team not thinking that his 2012 was an illusion

He was pretty good in 2011 as well.

$33m/three years for lohse, so a little bit more

vernon wells to yankees
what is cashman doing

the Angels are going to cover like 80% of that salary right

Angels get Exicardo Cayones and Kramer Sneed for Vernon Wells

I like both of those names a lot.

those are concession vendors, right?

ahahaha the Brewers just brought back Yuniesky Bentancourt for another go-round. I missed you, Yuni B!!

I'm surprised the Angels didn't try to make this a 3 team deal involving Smerling Lantigua and Rougned Odor

frogbs have you seen the comments section on BrewCrewBall today? People were throwing in the season towel already after the Lohse signing, and now this. I've seen calls for Melvin's firing!

I try not to read too much there before the season starts because they tend to be a depressing bunch (same with any of those team-specific blogs with a comment section) but I will have to check out the comments on this because those guys hated Yuni so damn much on the first go-round. Serves 'em right for talking so much shit about him!! Baseball is such a funny sport.

I knew they'd be against the Lohse signing because they tend to be against signing any FA 32+ starter, primarily because of Jeff Suppan (and maybe a little because of Braden Looper). I tend to side with Fangraphs on this one, it's a decent signing and he's better than many of the guys they've got, and it looks like they didn't overpay - I just don't like losing the draft pick, but structuring the deal to pay him after the contract expires actually seems kind of shrewd if they're expecting new TV contract money (no idea if this is true btw). They also seem to hate the Gomez signing, as they hate anyone who doesn't walk enough (and to his credit he's been much better with this lately). I'm not sure what they really want now, seems they want the team to go into rebuilding mode and try again in 2015 or 2016. I actually like Melvin's approach to this - he knows that the postseason is a lottery, so you just want to have as many tickets as possible.

As for Yuni, well their 1B situation sucks now with Gamel done for the year and Hart out till May, so it looks like Gonzo is going to play there, and in the meantime they need another SS because they won't want to play Segara every day. I doubt Yuni was really the best option but he's going to be dirt cheap and has a little value as a pinch hitter. Maybe he can play 1st base too. I don't think he'll be on the team after Hart gets back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=MZ0BbN3m7bU

www.youtube.com/watch?&v=MZ0BbN3m7bU

^^ the pope taking batting practice, 1987

keeps stepping in the bucket

he's pretty good, though! imagine the pope rounding third base, barreling down the line and SLAMMING into the catcher like pete rose?

keep that back foot down!

thats not even a partic sound lookalike, also been previously posted this winter

"your holiness, we have an official energy drink of grand slam rpm, and perhaps you would like some of that, i think you'll find it will satisfy your thirst"

they serve it to him on a silver platter, and he drinks it and taps his stomach!

they don't make popes like they used to

Wainwright, #STLCards in agreement on five-year, $97.5M extension that will run from 2014 to '18.

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/317040267502948352

more: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/03/cardinals-agree-to-extension-with-wainwright.html

...Wainwright's new deal falls short of the six-year, $127.5MM extension signed by Matt Cain with the Giants a year ago as well as Zack Greinke's six-year, $147MM deal with the Dodgers achieved in free agency. Aside from the shorter term, Wainwright's average annual value of $19.5MM is short of Cain ($21.25MM) and Greinke ($24.5MM). One potential reason for the difference in the extended pitchers: Wainwright's extension begins with his age 31 season, while Cain's began with his age 27 campaign. It should be noted that with Cain's deal, it was actually five years and $112.5MM in new money, since he was already under contract for 2012. Greinke's contract, of course, was signed after open bidding.

sorry, one more thing:

With the contracts of Chris Carpenter and Jake Westbrook set to expire after this season, Wainwright will be the elder statesman of the rotation. He's signed through 2018, and Jaime Garcia potentially through 2017. Lance Lynn is under team control through 2017, and promising youngsters such as Shelby Miller and Trevor Rosenthal through 2018. Well-regarded prospects Carlos Martinez and Michael Wacha are also waiting in the wings.

:D :D :D :D

just so i can make 5 posts in a row and feel like shit, let me clarify that :D :D :D :D was about the positive vibez from having a relatively cheap, talented rotation for the next 4 years, not about the wainwright extension itself. the deal itself is just ok. of course 5 years is too long for a guy who's already 31. but that's pretty much par for the course these days, and $19.5 million a year isn't terribe, isn't great. but the stl fan in me is really happy to see him locked down for the rest of his career. he's fun to watch pitch, he's good, and he's also just funny.

just so i can make 5 posts in a row

u bastard

you have to admit it is unseemly

seems like weird timing for this....

unless they're convinced that they're getting some sort of discount before wainwright has a massive 2013 season or something

you have to admit it is unseemly

yeah i kind of feel that way when i'm the only guy on the hockey thread

hey, look who's starting.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/3/27/4151064/mlb-rosters-opening-day-chance-graffle-stats

Jason Parks' organizational rankings: Cards, Rangers, Pads lead; Angels last.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20025

verlander gets massive extension

Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers have reached agreement on a new contract that could exceed $202 million, sources told ESPN's Buster Olney.

Verlander's deal, which would make him the highest-paid pitcher in the game, is for seven years and worth $180 million. A vesting option for an eighth year could push the deal to $202 million.

I'm sure the seams were ripping
Xpost

posey got paid too.

a lot of massive extensions today

rrrrrip

Alex Rodriguez's 2013 contract of $29 million is more than the Astros' entire team salary of about $25 million.

lol at everyone involved

rumor from a dodger blogger

Mike Petriello ‏@mike_petriello
Ready for some fun? hearing reliably that today’s extension-fest isn’t quite over. I believe LAD & Kershaw are getting close on 8/$200m deal

rrrrrrrrrrip

whose extension will be the longest and most massive of all???

http://i.imgur.com/ksEs1Yf.jpg

a mustachioed cole hamels, manning the hot dog gun

fuck Pierzynski, I hope Texas loses 120

anyone know a good place to stream games that wont get smacked down by work IT crap? I assume the answer is no..

whoa

http://www.mlbdailydish.com/2013/4/1/4169482/rangers-elvis-andrus-extension-eight-120-million

so what does that mean for Jurickson Profar? is he pretty much openly trade-bait now? or are they thinking he would play at 2B?

Andrus deal is pretty smart for both sides - locked up through his prime and he might opt out of the later years. Sounds like they'll move Profar to 2nd.

so this whole Strasburg/Harper thing seems a little unfair

Mauer threw out only eight of 61 runners last year?

profar should play at 2B or anywhere really

profar should be traded ugh

this Brewers game seems awfully familiar

Neyer suggested trading Profar for Stanton! BP podcast puzzled over Andrus today, figured Kinsler moving somewhere.

BP roundtable going all day....

Russell A. Carleton (1:48:05 PM PT): Frenchy hitting 8th...

Colin Wyers (1:48:38 PM PT): If your starting right fielder is batting eighth, isn't that a pretty good sign he shouldn't be your starting right fielder?

Leyland's suddenly concerned about Verlander's pitch count because...

is jonathon broxton (3 years/$21 million) the most expensive set up man in history?

i don't even mean that pejoratively, really, although i'm kinda pissed because he was supposed to be my closer on my fantasy team. in terms of overall pitching value, he may actually pitch more innings as a set up man and be in more high leverage situations. but still, it seems rare for teams to pay that much for a non-closing reliever.

Yankees signed Soriano at 3 years/$35 million to back up Rivera, so no.

do the Angels encourage all their pitchers to coif like surfers?

I swore Weaver was still in there.

zobrist 4 mvp

he just turned it into a 1-run game which basically guarantees an o's victory

longoria 4 gold glove

is there a rangers thread yet? oh well

Yu: 3 IP, 6 K, 3 ground ball outs

9 K thru 4

just 61 pitches

'just'

this is just stunning

just wait until the astros pinch hit with matt dominguez

*rubs hands together*

Tonight's attendance at Minute Maid Park is 22,673

fuckin mlb.tv is 'unavailable'

that's a surprisingly high attendance for day 2

Even Pierzynski has forgotten about Philip Humber's no-hitter.

Pierzynski's also like, "That ain't Josh Fields. Josh Fields don't pitch."

It's up on the MLB site now.

pitch count 107

PULL HIM NOW

DO THE RIGHT THING RON

of all the managers in the world, i don't think ron is the one to pull him

Derek Lowe: "I got this, Wash."

it's on MLB TV

nolan ryan: '107 is for pussies'

re: francouer

fangraphs said the oryals should just sign micah owings!

Derek Lowe: "I got this, Wash."

HAHAHAHAHA

have they used up all the good yu puns. that's my concern

i'm paranoid buy yu's warmup pitches made it look like his arm is dead

ok not sure it matters?

also yu was my #1 must-have fantasy sleeper, got him in both leagues because i KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

THAT WAS MY FAULT

I AM SORRY YU

SO SORRY

Can you believe that?

dammit

Yu blew it

lool

OMGWTF

who the fuck is marwin gonzalez

FIELD YUR POSITION

jurickson would've caught that

jk

Flashbacks to every time I lose a no-hitter in MLB The Show. Always a dinky grounder up the middle.

my first ballgame was a mussina no-hitter broken up in the 9th by a dinky sandy alomar hit

also fuck, michael kirkman if yu ends up with an ER i will be v mad @ u

First game I really remember was Nolan's 7th no-hitter

/win

second game i went to was koufax coming out of retirement to pitch on yom kippur, stuff it

calm down children

fell asleep after 6

some interesting stuff in ESPN's anonymous survey of 110 players. among other things:

Do you know any gay players?

The vast majority answered no (94.6%), with about an equal split then saying some version of "Nobody would care" or "It wouldn't bother me, but it would be a problem for other guys" when asked to elaborate. Then there are the 5.4% who already know of a gay colleague. "Yes, but that's as far as I want to go, even if this is anonymous," says one NL player.

Who is the last player you'd ever want to add to your clubhouse?

Says an NL pitcher: "I'll go with A-Rod, and I love saying it. For the money he makes, he brings nothing but headaches. I don't know who else could be in the conversation." After Alex Rodriguez (28.4%), another 14.9% tab Texas' A.J. Pierzynski (below left) and a surprising 10.8% select Brewers star Ryan Braun (center). "Nobody likes Braun," says an AL slugger. "He cheated, and the only reason he got off is that the old owner of the team is the commissioner."

Who has the most creative infield chatter in MLB?

Players are loud and clear about the loudest yappers: Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips (25.8%) and free agent utility guy Orlando Hudson (24.7%). Most players laugh about the two infielders, saying that even though their mouths always run, nobody can quite follow what they say. "It's very close," says an NL outfielder. "I'll go with Phillips because he's so creative that I don't even know what he's talking about. With both guys, though, it's just a bunch of words."

In your opinion, what percentage of players are still taking PEDs?
Average answer: 9.2%

ogando rolling the astros too.. opening day was but a dream, stros fans

matt joyce, in the terminology of my high school baseball coach, just hit the cripple

mike morse is mashing shit

all right why is mike scoscia pitching to joey votto with first base open in the bottom of the ninth

with a guy on second and the game tied i mean

from tues night:

Top 7th: St. Louis
- H. Bell relieved T. Sipp
- P. Kozma homered to deep left center
- S. Robinson walked
- J. Jay homered to deep right, S. Robinson scored
- M. Carpenter doubled to shallow right
- M. Holliday struck out looking
- A. Craig singled to shallow left, M. Carpenter to third
- M. Prado in left field
- E. Chavez at third
- J. Collmenter relieved H. Bell

boy I hope we aren't seeing the end of John Axford's big league career

i love the little automated "scout" comments that come up on mlb gameday

Hector Santiago is really trying to keep Eric Hosmer close; he is 1-for-1 in stolen base attempts this season.

hahaha, yeah those are funny sometimes. the other day it said something like "he really trusts his catcher as he threw a curve into the dirt with runners on first and second". of course, he also threw a curve into the dirt to the first batter of the inning on...it's possible he may just suck at pitching!

this is kinda interesting. i was thinking about fastballs and changeups. using 2012 pitch f/x data, here are the top 30 pitchers with the largest velocity discrepancy between avg fastball velocity and avg changeup velocity:

Name               Team                    Delta FB    Change
Ian Kennedy	    Diamondbacks	11.7	92.2	80.5
Ricky Romero	    Blue Jays	        11.6	91.3	79.7
Paul Maholm	    - - -	                11.4	92.4	81
Cole Hamels	    Phillies	                11.3	95.5	84.2
Ryan Dempster	    - - -	                10.3	87.3	77
Ubaldo Jimenez	    Indians	                10.2	92.6	82.4
David Price	    Rays	                10.2	91.1	80.9
Anibal Sanchez	    - - -	                 9.9	93.4	83.5
Trevor Cahill	    Diamondbacks	 9.8	91.8	82
Adam Wainwright Cardinals	         9.7	92.4	82.7
Jeremy Hellickson Rays	                 9.5	92.3	82.8
Aaron Harang	    Dodgers	         9.4	90.4	81
Jeff Samardzija	    Cubs	                 9.4	89.2	79.8
Cliff Lee	            Phillies	                 9.4	89.6	80.2
Jered Weaver	    Angels	                 9.3	89.4	80.1
Ross Detwiler	    Nationals	         9.3	92.2	82.9
Scott Diamond	    Twins	                 9	93.3	84.3
Tim Hudson	    Braves	                 9	92.3	83.3
Gavin Floyd	    White Sox	         8.9	94.2	85.3
Clayton Richard    Padres	                 8.9	93	84.1
Wandy Rodriguez  - - -	                 8.9	92.7	83.8
Ivan Nova	            Yankees	         8.9	89.7	80.8
Mat Latos	            Reds	                 8.9	86.7	77.8
Gio Gonzalez	    Nationals	         8.8	92.5	83.7
Jeremy Guthrie	    - - -	                 8.7	92.8	84.1
Jake Peavy	            White Sox	         8.7	83.7	75
Matt Moore	    Rays	                 8.7	94.1	85.4
Chris Sale 	    White Sox	         8.6	95.1	86.5
A.J. Burnett	    Pirates	                 8.6	93	84.4
Rick Porcello	    Tigers	                 8.6	88	79.4

i'm assuming the formatting is going to be all fucked up, sorry.

ugh, that's so frustrating. i don't understand how it gets so fucked up. for reference, here is a screenshot showing exactly how i entered the previous post:

http://i.imgur.com/iUq8Wfk.png

Not surprised Maholm is close to the top -- his 58 mph eephus to strike out Hamels the other night was worth a couple of lols.

anyway. next i'm going to see if i can do a quick and dirty analysis comparing the discrepancy in velocities, and see if serves as a statistically significant predictor of WAR/innings pitched.

whoops, that "anyway" was in reply to my whining about the formatting, not to your post WilliamC!

no prob, that's what I assumed

kinda crazy peavys avg fb is only 83.7mph!

oh for christ's sake. that's not right at all. i'm looking at my spreadsheet now and none of the numbers are matching up. ugh, i hate myself and excel 2011 for mac. it always seems like the sort doesn't work how it's supposed to. i'm going to ask a mod to delete everything i posted today (except for this) so that i don't spread my disinformation disease any farther. for confused people who see this post in the future, i tried to do an analysis of pitch speeds and messed up terrrrrrribly.

hi, in 2013 Regular Season General Chatter i ran an incredibly flawed analysis and then posted a bunch of misleading stuff based off of that. could a kind mod please delete the several posts that i made after 4pm EST today on that thread, leaving only the last one that explains what an idiot i am? thanks!

FOR FUCKS SAKE THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO GO ON THE MOD BOARD
jesus

this is good chatter

the mod request thread is starting out well too

my flag post count just went up by 30+

alright, hit the bench. you need to clear your head for a while.

at this point, if i am ever to be put back in the game, i deserve to be forced to lay down a sacrifice bunt with a runner on first and no outs in the second inning of a game in which my team is trailing by 5 runs. smh at myself

i'm in love with fangraphs' new live stats feature. apparently pujols (2 HR, 3 BB) was worth 0.8 WAR today?? o_0 i didn't know that was possible for a hitter, let alone a 1B.

Taco Night in Arlington

Orel says Jered needs to "put the chin strap on."

Angels slugger Albert Pujols says that he won't let his massive contract become an albatross for the club and indicated that he will retire if his skills diminish too much, writes Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times. "God has given me ability and talent, but the day I feel like I can't compete any more on this level, I'm not going to embarrass myself," Pujols said. "I'm going to walk off. Whether that's next year, two years from now, only God knows."

jeez, he's gonna start sucking relatively soon, probably (he's already 47 years old), but 1-2 years from now?

he's already 47 years old

Steve Shasta, is that you?

his OPS (in 23 PA) is 1.016. come down off that ledge, bro!

before the first inning tonight, some small part of me was imagining Yu ripping off the most dominating season in modern baseball finishing with a sub-1.00 ERA or something insane

will now settle for him just being crazy-good if he can throw strikes

The Padres are really getting me excited about the NFL Draft

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8118/8632771029_037cfd4de4_o.gif

Rays-Rangers ended on a bad weather, mercy rule imminent, children's rec league called third strike.

Xpost

God hates you, Ben Zobrist.

didn't realize it was called a strike and it looked like he was bowing to the fans

so is halladay really cooked?

i watched that game tonight and he looked awful. so sad

didn't think this would happen to him

i mean the METS were lighting him up

"kinda crazy peavys avg fb is only 83.7mph!"

That is hard to believe.

I got to wonder if there is still not something wrong with Halladay.

That's not his average fastball speed. God I wish that series of posts could disappear

i mean the METS were lighting him up

hardee ha har

@Ken_Rosenthal
Sources: #Angels RHP Jered Weaver out 4 to 6 weeks with broken left (non-pitching) elbow.

We need robots calling balls and strikes and we need them NOW.

polyphonic how do you feel about the san diego broadcasters? I watched the SD feed of opening day and I wanted to die. I give Enberg a pass because he's ancient but the other guy they have doing color commentary is fucking dumb.

Generally I don't care for them.

I think Enberg is awful at baseball, but he does have an iconic voice, and that makes up for a lot. He sounds confused a lot.

Jerry Coleman doesn't appear much anymore. Huge homer, famous for broadcasting errors ("Winfield goes back... back... his head hits the wall! It's rolling toward second base!"), but generally beloved by the fans. It helps that he was a "war hero" [citation needed]. Had a few decent catchphrases.

Ted Leitner was a local tv sports anchor, and over the years he's weaseled his way into play-by-play work. I think he kinda sucks but he's generally pretty good with the facts, and is fairly engaging.

Andy Masur is some journeyman they got from the Cubs. He's nothing special but at least he isn't as smarmy as Matt Vasergian was.

Mark Grant is a color guy. He's nothing special but he doesn't offend me. Kind of an oaf.

I haven't had mlb.tv for a few years so I don't hear these guys as much as I used to.

Have any of you with MLB.tv had any success working around blackouts?

MLB Extra Innings - C/D?

Gracias!

whoa coming into tonight rick ankiel was 1-14 with a homer and 12 ks(!)

http://deadspin.com/bench-clearing-brawl-erupts-between-dodgers-and-padres-472600148?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

lol kemp

fractured collarbone for greinke

Surprising that someone who once broke his wrist after popping out or whatever would lose it over a none-out, runners on first and second in a one-run game HBP.

Surprising that someone who once broke his wrist after popping out or whatever would lose it over a none-out, runners on first and second in a one-run game HBP.

Thanks, random Fox graphics.

still angry postgame:

After the game, Kemp confronted Quentin as the two players were leaving Petco Park. Kemp walked up to Quentin near the players' exit and the two went nose-to-nose. Padres pitcher Clayton Richard separated them, and security and police quickly broke it up.

Kemp was angry after finding out the severity of Greinke's injury.

"I'm asking Greinke if he's OK and he said his shoulder's messed up. That kind of took me over the edge right there," Kemp said.

"I think Carlos Quentin went to Stanford, something like that?" Kemp said. "I heard there's smart people at Stanford. That wasn't too smart. Greinke didn't do anything wrong. That stuff happens in the minor leagues. It doesn't happen in the big leagues."

"I think Carlos Quentin went to Stanford, something like that?" Kemp said. "I heard there's smart people at Stanford. That wasn't too smart.

sigh

lol matt kemp didnt even go to college

There are four pitches that were plotted against the upper corner of the strike zone, to the point where we wouldn’t have been surprised if they had been called strikes had they not hit Quentin.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/carlos-quentins-hbp-zone/

so - should Q be suspended?

mets @ twins tnght shd be good

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1314235.1365714148!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/metsweb12s-1-web.jpg

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1314233.1365714137!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/metsweb12s-2-web.jpg

i sure as hell would suspend him if i'm the MLB

so - should Q be suspended?

Throw the book at him imo

they are playing at Target Field: 34 degrees, "flurries getting a little harder." Fucking farce.

good hitting conditions so far

let's play 5 inn.

should go abt 4 hours and end 20-13, as befits a freezing game in Minn.

can't wait for Yu's game.

10-2

Top of the 2nd.

JOHN BUCK

it's grilled cheese time

after an impressive spring training, twins rookie aaron hicks is now 2-for-43 with 3 walks and 20 strikeouts: .047/.109/.047

Mets-Twins mercifully postponed to tom'w

make that August

http://i.minus.com/ibsK2U1WMpYzyY.gif

cardinals-pirates: where bullpens go to die

and middle infield defense

jeezus you guys

rockies are 10-4.

the Giants man handled them when they played and went 2-1. that in turn accounts for half of the losses the Rockies have had so far this year.

watched the highlights of det/sea - damn, felix & scherz were dealing

40 Ks in that game.

Hell of a finish, too.

“If they’re looking for a guy to push the button when they blow the place up, I’ll do it ... Chicago’s one of the worst places in baseball … really for anything.

Lance Berkman OTM

wow.

ha what prompted that?

Assuming he's talking about Wrigley, he'll have to get in line behind Chipper Jones, who said exactly the same thing in almost exactly the same words last year.

he is. and he's not wrong.

well he's wrong about Chicago being the worst place for anything

Yeah, I should say that CJ confined his opinion to the stadium.

yeah there are things I like about Chicago but I've been to 3 games at Wrigley and it's pretty horrible

“He threw at him on purpose, OK?” Garfinkel told an estimated crowd of 40 or 50 at Petco Park on Friday, a day after the fight. “That’s what happened. They can say 3-and-2 count, 2-1 game, no one does that. Zack Greinke is a different kind of guy. Anyone seen ‘Rain Man’? He’s a very smart guy.”

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/18/padres-ceo-blames-zack-greinke-for-his-own-broken-collarbone-calls-him-rain-man/

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Content/Image/10-19-2007/Tom-Garfinkel.jpg

What an idiot.

With recording:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/padres-president-ceo-blames-zack-greinke-for-brawl--apologizes-for--rain-man--comment-about-pitcher-042033786.html

yeah there are things I like about Chicago but I've been to 3 games at Wrigley and it's pretty horrible

― frogbs, Thursday, April 18, 2013 8:53 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what's horrible about it? i don't have much to compare it against, having only been to games at wrigley and the cell (and camden yards 25 years ago)

no one voted for wrigley in this poll btw: Worst MLB ballpark to see a game

mostly the fans. the park itself also feels like its falling apart. maybe I'm just always sitting next to the wrong people but the whole "we hate everyone" shtick really grates after 9 innings

i prefer falling apart to mallparks

the stereotype about cubs fans isn't "we hate everyone" it's "we're here to drink and meet people of the opposite sex, not watch baseball"

wrigley is better than pretty much every ballpark i've been too, plus a cool locale for a park.

come to miller park!!

the players hate wrigley because it has the worst visitors clubhouse in the league. the home team clubhouse is no great shakes either.

i've been in the home clubhouse on the tour; obv not as palatial as say Target Field, but hey, with 1913 space you can only knock out so many walls.

so after cain's crap showing today pretty much every established ace has been splitting their starts between perfect and complete meltdown, it's weird

cain:

1. 6IP 0ER 8K 1BB
2. 3.2IP 9ER 2K 2BB
3. 7IP 2ER 6K 2BB
4. 6IP 7ER 4K 0BB

kershaw: 3 ER in first 24.1 IP, no homers, 25:4 K:BB. last night, 3 homers and 4 walks in 5.1 IP, at dodger stadium, against the padres

4 of the padres 5 wins are against the dodgers =(

just making way for new ace Matt Harvey

xp

price: 3 ER in starts 1 and 3, 8 ER in start 2
verlander: doing fine nvm
felix: no atrocious starts but 1 and 4 were perfect, 20:1 K:BB and no runs, where 2+3 involved 7 ER in 13 innings and an 8:4 K:BB with 2 HR
dickey had a 7 run disaster but he hasn't been great in any start
chris sale: 3 ER, 14:3 K:BB in first 14.2 IP, 8 ER in last start vs CLE
gio: 1 ER in first 11 IP, 7 ER in last start vs ATL
hamels had an 8 ER start but also a 5 ER one

just a freakish amount of 7+ ER starts

speaking of freakish, I'd love to see a graph of the pct of players who are 6'4" or taller over the last 30 years, maybe one for pitchers too. This year it's just unfuckingbelievable.

i don't know if josh johnson counts, but last week he managed to give up 6 ER in 1 1/3 innings

josh johnson has looked like ass since coming back from injury

2013 Regular Season General Butt Chatter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTGnh0rcQsc

that's a few years old, but awesome

Hudson going for win #200 vs. Wandy/PIT.

OK, hope this Strasburg-Harvey stream lasts.

well Braun is clearly on the roids again

Twilight zone first inning for Rick Porcello.

Two hard-hit balls:

P Bourjos reached on infield single to shortstop.	0	0
P Bourjos to second on wild pitch by R Porcello.	0	0
M Trout singled to center, P Bourjos to third.	0	0
A Pujols singled to center, P Bourjos scored, M Trout to third.	0	1
J Hamilton walked, A Pujols to second.	0	1
M Trumbo singled to right, M Trout scored, A Pujols to third, J Hamilton to second.	0	2
H Kendrick singled to center, A Pujols and J Hamilton scored, M Trumbo to second.	0	4
C Iannetta grounded into double play, third to second to first, H Kendrick out at second, M Trumbo to third.	0	4
B Harris singled to left, M Trumbo scored.	0	5
L Jimenez reached on infield single to third, B Harris to second.	0	5
P Bourjos reached on infield single to shortstop, B Harris to third, L Jimenez to second.	0	5
M Trout homered to center, B Harris, L Jimenez and P Bourjos scored.	0	9

ouch

http://espn.go.com/mlb/blog/_/name/stark_jayson/id/9193265/baserunning-adventures-milwaukee-brewers-shortstop-jean-segura

can't find a video for this...

gif thread

kudos 2 jay stark for writing 3k words on it

he must get paid by the word. he MUST.

Neil Diamond sucks and this song always has, btw

Was this actually legal?

The answer, amazingly, is yes.

"Some people are saying he violated the rules by running the bases backward, but he really didn't," said Retrosheet founder Dave Smith.

Incredibly, that's true. Yes, there is a rule in the books -- good old Rule 7:08(i)  which prohibits runners from running the bases backward "for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game."

haha would you be called out for backwards-trotting (directionally correct i mean just facing oppositely) a homer

lol

how is there not a video of this, what effin year is it

see if this works: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=26416825&c_id=mlb

what's funny is that it looks like segura should have been out when he slid back into 2B (with Braun standing on it) - he was really sloppy while he was standing up and came off the bag, and it looks like he tagged out by the infielder.

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?c_id=mlb&content_id=26416825&tcid=tw_video_26416825

thanks ZS!

i was pretty sure from looking at the gif that he was out at second the first time, and it looks like he definitely was

xp yep

RaysJoeMaddon

Day Rave 1. Just another way of getting ready for a game. Thank you to DJ Fresh. pic.twitter.com/w7Bj9Zp0x1

huh

maddon is so absurd

― fapper don (J0rdan S.), Sunday, June 3, 2012 11:28 AM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jimmy Piersall backwards-trotted his 100th career HR

only the Brewers could have 1st and 2nd with no outs and end the inning before the on-deck guy gets a chance to swing

predicting this is the only time all yr i'll think 'i wish that clev/hous game was on mlb network'

how to win fantasy baseball 2013: pick up whoever's vs the astros

i'm glad i didn't pick kazmir, he actually had a really bad start

DID pick up arroyo vs the marlins tho

You definitely can tell Wrigley is a stadium that's old as dirt, but that is what is kind of cool about the place, it's a living antique. For sitting and watching a game, it's pretty good. I'm sure there are some funky seats in there but most o fthem feel pretty close and intimate to the field. The thing that really sucks is the parking.

I'm sure if you are a fan of the visiting team, sure...they are a bunch of drunken louts. I can get that not being much fun, but it's not like the only stadium with that kind of vibe.

timmy is vintage thru 6. it's the padres, but still.

well it is 4/20

loooooool

https://twitter.com/RaysBaseball/status/326017719092797440/photo/1

The look on Zim's face in that picture is classic.

Zim and Price!

Is Zimmer the new clubbie?

There's no 2013 Rockies thread!

Also, it's 23 degrees at gametime -- for a day game. Hope we're above zero for the nightcap!

it's never been more obvious that the Lords of Baseball don't give a shit about the studio audience -- I mean the fans in the stands.

It's like a generation goes by and completely forgets why they moved the Twins into a dome. Yeah...let's make a big open looking stadium and play baseball in it in April and October in Minneapolis, which happens to have the same climate as Moscow.

Team that was smart about that stuff was Milwaukee. That is a pretty well designed dome style stadium and it has paid off with better attendance on crappy weather nights.

yup. people bitch about the dome here in Toronto, pinning for some imagined glory days of always-perfect-weather outdoor baseball.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/where-have-all-the-stolen-bases-gone/

(stolen base attempts per stolen base base opportunity)
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/SBArates.png

alright, fess up. who took them?

and if your first reaction is the same as mine, the answer is: yes, this stat appears to stabilize early on in the season.

wtf even bob melvin is walking around with sunglasses on the brim of his hat

where does one find/generate hitters' heat maps?

hmm, brooks baseball has a bunch of stuff for pitchers...(here's wainwright: http://brooksbaseball.net/player_cards/player_card.php?player=425794)

not sure how you generate heat maps for hitters. i'll do some searching.

http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/

wow, lots of stuff here!

whoa, thx

here's clint barmes:

http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/ferguson/spinal-tap/smell-the-glove.gif

Michael Roth vs Yu, now

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/26/mets-phillies-game-delayed-because-umpire-brian-onora-swallowed-his-chew

best url

interesting dave cameron article brings some quantitative analysis to situational/clutch hitting, using the April 2013 cardinals as a case study. short version is that the cardinals are near the top of the NL in runs per game despite hitting pretty terribly by most other hitting metrics, and the reason is that they're hitting very very well with people on base (aka good "sequencing"). there's a handy table that shows how each team is doing (blue jays, angels and dodgers at the bottom. also, surprisingly, the braves!).

he also talks a little bit about the value of considering offensive sequencing along with pythagorean winning % when thinking about if a team is over or under-performing:

The Cardinals +27 run differential in 21 games means that their pythag winning percentage is .637. However, we know that 25 of those runs are due to their offensive sequencing, so if their distribution of hits had been more normal, they’d have a run differential of +2, and their pythag winning percentage would be .512. If the Cardinals had a .512 pythag and a .637 winning percentage, you’d probably see some comments about how they’re headed for regression. Because their .637 pythag is actually better than their .619 winning percentage, you probably won’t see anyone write about the Cardinals over performing in the first few weeks of the season.

At the same time, though, we don’t think the Cardinals are really the most clutch offensive team in baseball. We expect their situational hitting will regress as the year goes on. At the same time, we expect that Allan Craig, Jon Jay, and David Freese will hit better than they have so far, so there’s positive offensive regression coming for the Cardinals too. Those might end up offsetting, and who knows, St. Louis may very well average 4.9 runs per game all year long.

But, it’s worth remembering that pythagorean record isn’t really context neutral, and quoting it as a true talent measure at this point in the season isn’t really accurate either. There’s a lot of noise in both runs scored and runs allowed too, especially in small sample sizes. Let’s not solely focus on regressing one aspect of performance while holding all the rest steady.

that's interesting, though, because hitting with RISP would seem to quickly regress by mid-season. sadly, the cardinals wRC+ with RISP won't be 149 for long, and likewise their wRC+ with bases empty shouldn't continue to be 59. as a result, it would seem that looking at situational hitting's value as a means of evaluating a team's over or under-performance would diminish as the season goes on. whereas pythag winning % seems to, if anything, gain value as a metric throughout the season. dunno.

Many xps - I keep waiting for the Rangers to retrofit a dome. The design of the stadium makes for no breeze on the fans and when 7pm game-time temps are 90 and humid it gets pretty miserable in there.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/26/mets-phillies-game-delayed-because-umpire-brian-onora-swallowed-his-chew

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Friday, April 26, 2013 7:22 PM (4 days ago)

Apparently his chew was pretty jagged -- http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9225588/umpire-brian-onora-recovering-intestinal-tear

well, another fine scoop for NBC Sports

marlins have called up marcell ozuna, who has played exactly 10 games above class a (although he does have five homers and 15 rbis in those 10 double-a games)

meanwhile, wil myers played his 122nd triple-a game today. he is .302/.379/.532 with 26 homers and 95 rbis in those games.

whens the last time a team scored in every inn'g? tigers almost did. i think the rockies did it @ some pt probably

Clay Buchholz, Jack Morris and spitters:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=20460

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/buchholz-morris-and-a-brief-history-of-spitball-accusations/

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130505&content_id=46665676¬ebook_id=46678676&vkey=notebook_was&c_id=was

bryce harper getting thrown out in the first inning. some A+ umpiring here

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/5/6/4304120/bryce-harper-nationals-john-hirschbeck-ejection

https://twitter.com/msimonespn/status/331429009588121600

league leaders in hard-hit balls per AB

Confirms my suspicion that Victor Martinez has had some exceptionally bad luck.

http://thestacks.deadspin.com/thin-air-in-the-mountains-with-steve-carlton-armed-co-478492324

i have a signed steve carlton baseball that a friend from my mom's work gave me when i was like 6 or 7

that can't be real?

thats fantastic

very real, Pat Jordan is a good writer

(also it's 19 years old)

love that McCarver's defense was yeah, Carlton's a nut, but not an antisemite.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/61199/doc-halladays-a-game-rides-off-into-the-sunset

keri on halladay's legacy

well that was a little sad to read.

yeah watching him struggle is tough

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher J.A. Happ was taken off the field on the stretcher after being struck in the lead by a line drive in Tuesday's game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

With one out in the bottom of the second inning, Happ was drilled in the side of the head with a shot off the bat of Desmond Jennings. The ball caromed down the right field line for a triple.

A bloodied Happ was immobolized on a stretcher by medical personnel before leaving the field. The left-hander was moving his arms and waved to the crowd as he was taken off the field.

Successful replay avoidance thus far. A triple off a pitcher's head. Damn.

@BlueJays
We anticipate that he will be discharged today after testing and will provide an update later on with further information.

i was at the orioles game in '98 when sandy alomar broke mike mussina's nose with a line drive. the worst part was *hearing* it, and i wasn't sitting particularly close

i was at the game in '97 when sandy alomar broke mike mussina's no-hitter in the ninth! i've never liked sandy alomar.

mussina is a huge fan, though

so the solution of the Buchholz 'spitter' mystery may be... sunscreen + rosin

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/08/90-percent-of-pitchers-are-using-spray-on-sunscreen-buchholz-style/

joe west is a vision in pink wristbands

that may be the reason f1rstrow doesn't have the game

so i just realized James Loney is leading the AL in AVG!

wtf?!

Verlander vs. Darvish tonight (MLB Network)

funny how these ace faceoffs often turn out.... I'm sure it's just selective memory, but I don't remember Seaver-Carlton letdowns.

Verlander's last couple starts have been very 2008.

yu isn't doing so hot either

really hate extreme park conditions sometimes

since when does trout have a 2.3 WAR?

http://www.wezen-ball.com/tater-trot-tracker/tater-trot-tracker/welcome-to-the-30-second-club-todd-helton.html

i've always thought that "tater" is probably one of the baseball's worst terms for anything. tater trot!

It's even worse than "yicketty"!

Walt Yicketty?

Good thing Showalter waited for Johnson to blow the lead prior to pulling him. Wouldn't want to wreck his confidence after giving up a home run and back-to-back walks.

J Johnson relieved B Matusz.
L Scott grounded out to second.
K Johnson homered to left.
J Lobaton walked.
Y Escobar walked, J Lobaton to second.
D Jennings singled to left, J Lobaton to third, Y Escobar to second.
M Joyce doubled to right center, J Lobaton and Y Escobar scored, D Jennings to third.

D O'Day relieved J Johnson.
B Zobrist doubled to right, D Jennings and M Joyce scored.
E Longoria doubled to right, B Zobrist to third.
J Loney intentionally walked.
L Scott walked (ON FOUR PITCHES), B Zobrist scored, E Longoria to third, J Loney to second.

loney was already at 3-0 when they decided to walk him

given the o's record with saves and johnson/o'day's huge successes this year and last, this isn't really a big deal?

they've had like one meltdown like this in the past calendar year, meanwhile the cubs' closer is kevin gregg

i have both johnson and o'day on my fantasy team. HAHAHA OH SHIT

For some reason, there is no more daily recaps on mlb.com. At least for me. I liked those. It sucks.

endy!

NL Central leaders W/L so far in May:
43-16 .729

Cardinals 15-5 (got LA for 3 , KC for 4, then SF for a game to finish month)
Pirates 14-6 (got Milw for 3, Det. for 4, then Cin for a game to finish month)
Reds 14-5 (got Cubs for 3, Clev. for 4 then Pitts for a game to finish month)

Meanwhile Milwaukee is like 0-21

the cubs have actually lost more games than they've played

each oakland batter has an rbi. they are in the fourth inning

Astlols.

pitt/det look like theyve played some competitive games here (2 games that have gone scoreless into the 11th)

Fister with 12 Ks in 7 innings. one walk. no win.

So what's the best division in MLB right now?

It'd have to be the NL Central. Three teams at .600+ is better than four teams between .500-.600, no?

Too early to say (ie fuck the schedule).

tht's sort of hat i was thinking but i was not confident about my choice xp

AL East also has 4 teams w/ positive run differentials, and I believe they've had more interdivision games.

Total wins by division: NL central 150, AL East 149, NL East bringing up the rear with 124.

had literally no clue dom brown has 16 hrs

yup. pretty much cam out of nowhere half way into the season

garret jones became the second player and first pirate to hit one into the allegheny on the fly, 463 feet

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/6/3/4390174/josh-hamilton-angels-slump

Over the last calendar year, 61 outfielders have at least 500 plate appearances. Among those 61, Josh Hamilton's .323 wOBA ranks 37th; his Wins Above Replacement -- thanks to poor fielding numbers -- makes him look even worse. This was just going to be about Hamilton, but this list is interesting to me so I'm going to share the bottom nine outfielders, according to FanGraphs' Wins+ ...

9. Ichiro Suzuki (superstar)
8. Josh Hamilton (superstar)
7. Drew Stubbs
6. Rajai Davis
5. Matt Kemp (superstar)
4. Michael Morse
3. Dayan Viciedo
2. Delmon Young
1. Jeff Francoeur

i only care b/c i have him in lol fantasy ;_;

in all fairness to Ichiro, he's not really considered a superstar any more. quasi-star at this point perhaps. starish.

For some reason, this bit in an otherwise incredibly boring story about the sounds of baseball stands out in a disturbing way:

"I don't want to hear a sound out there; I don't hear a sound," says Rangers pitcher Derek Holland. "Have you ever seen the movie 'For Love of the Game'? I try to watch it the night before every start."

Derek Holland tries to watch For The Love of the Game before every start?

he's started 101 games so far in his career!

well i've only watched that before each of my major-league starts, too.

I only watch The Rock, not just before my big league starts but also before every meal. god damn that's an exciting flick!

someone once told me that in the military theyd watch Zoolander every single night. maybe not so farfetched eh?

cargo- Bottom 1st - walk, Bottom 2nd - triple, Bottom 3rd - triple

how about this Patrick Corbin, huh?

(is there no Dbacks thread?)

goldschmidt too, dude is killing it

This is kinda startling -- Ned Yost asked the stat-analysis guys what his best lineup would be, and the Royals implemented it.

"I had our statistical guys make up an optimum lineup for us by the way we're going against right- and left-handed pitching to take any advantage of it," Yost said.

As a result, the latest lineup wrinkles on Wednesday night against Twins right-hander P.J. Walters had Eric Hosmer moving up to the No. 2 spot behind Alex Gordon and Salvador Perez going to the No. 3 spot ahead of Billy Butler.

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130605&content_id=49736006¬ebook_id=49737334&vkey=notebook_kc&c_id=kc

mets/fish going to the 14th

rangs/bjays in the 15th

i srsly need someone to physically prevent me from watching mets/marlins games for the rest of my life plz

Yeah, I wanted to see Harvey play and that's what I got.

xposts

i was going to make some comment about how yost shouldn't have mentioned anything stats about until the end of the season, or at least several weeks, because there's always the danger that the royals would have a few off nights and all of the doofuses would blame the losses on sabermetrics. but it looks like they won on wednesday, thursday and friday! so i think we can all agree that the royals will never lose again.

that's a very un-sabermetricy thing to say!

Where were you sitting, VHS? I was in Sec 512 but moved around a lot after the 11th (when I stopped keeping score cuz, well, I'm not that fucked in the head).

http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2013/06/09/no-particular-place-to-go/

Oh I checked the game on mlb.tv, still strained in southern France.

Another lazer from Puig, also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKY5fmDGVLs

That's excellent.

"HE'S THROWN THE WRONG WAY!"

When I lived in England in 1998, I used to stay up late to watch the live baseball broadcasts of the playoffs. That is pretty similar to what the actual broadcast sounded like. They had british broadcasters over the MLB feed.

The studio show was a british dude who knew nothing, and a canadian "baseball expert" who was wearing an NHL team sweater.

we should all move to england and be on the telly for baseball

i really want to hear that

that vid is amazing.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/three-thoughts-on-one-vernon-wells

Vernon Wells' 18 pop-ups this year are seven more than Joey Votto has in his career. Above, you see him hitting three of them in three consecutive plate appearances, or one more pop-up than Votto has since the start of the 2010 season.

did we talk about Votto's pop-up's (or lack thereof) earlier or somewhere else? amazing.

there's something else, like he's hit a foul down the RF line once in his career?

he's nuts. wish he'd had his first full season before age 25.

James got a question on Votto just today:

In a recent Sunday night game, Orel Hershiser and John Kruk were talking about how seldom Joey Votto pops up. Twice only this season. Edwin Encarnacion pops up once a game. Is there a skill involved, or is it something else?
Asked by: DavidTodd

Answered: 6/18/2013
It's a manifestation of a very central skill. Batters have to make decisions at an extraordinarily high rate of speed. There are three or four common mistakes they make--because they are making decisions at a fantastic rate of speed--which lead to 90% of pop ups: Chasing high pitches, triggering late on a pitch inside, trying to pull an outside pitch and letting it get too deep on you. If Votto never pops out, that reflects a remarkable high-speed decision-making process.

noooo don't say 'rate of speed'

All my decision-making clocks in around 120 kilometres per hour (75 m.p.h. for most of the rest of you).

Classic NY vs. LA interleague matchup: Kuroda v. Ryu, with the offense provided by Ichiro.

belisario doing an interpretive dance performance of the dodgers 2013 season

congratulations to francisco 'k-rod' rodriguez on the occasion of his 300th save

that was quite a win, eh? Trout on his way to having a better year than Miggy, AGAIN.

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Friday, June 21, 2013 10:29 AM

Chris Davis has been a godsend to Cabrera, sparing him the albatross of a second Triple Crown.

sooo uh the Jays are 2 over .500, guess they haven't lost in a long ass time

yup. i have enjoyed it.

darvish vs kuroda 2night

NEW YORK -- Livid over Alex Rodriguez's decision to tweet an update on his rehab process, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman had a message for the third baseman.

"You know what, when the Yankees want to announce something,

[we will]

," Cashman told ESPN New York. "Alex should just shut the f--- up. That's it. I'm going to call Alex now."

loooooool

dammit, i was trying to use formatting code to put the "we will" in brackets like it is in the original article, and somehow messed it up.

i don't get why he wouldn't at least call Alex first – seems pretty douchey to me.

in case you were wondering how the A-Rod/Yankees relationship was going

"You know what, when the Yankees want to announce something,
[͇͈̲͐͂̍̄ͬ̏ͣ͡͝w͔̟̿̅̇̿ͤ͟͢ḛ̩̰͓̝͈̱͍̒̎ͩ ̶̮̖̰̤͚̲͚̯̬̽ͪͩ͛ͥͪ́̀͡w͙̦͙͉̞͆ͩ͜͡͞ȋ̱͙̞̙͔͔̰͎̉͗̏̌͜͡ͅl̠̩͎̠͓̜̪̱̐̒̔ͨ̊̐̿̀͝l͔̮̹̲̥̹ͥ͂̈̊ͯ̌ͮ̀]͔̦͕̮̑ͫͨ̈̃̀̚͝

nailed it

125 pitches thrown through two innings of a White Sox-Indians doubleheader.

Chipper Jones is getting his onstage blowjob right now.

Justin Miller - dead.

Interesting -- only 5 of 15 teams in the NL have a + run differential right now.

neil diamond is now debuting his new song ('the freedom song') between the third and fourth at nationals park

it's no 'america', that's for sure

I turned that off just in time

baseball broadcasts REALLY stinting on the militarism today, huh?

I'm hoping the Braves get rained out.

fuckin' twins are useless

Chipper Jones on twitter: "I will not watch a game, any game, officiated by Angel Hernandez! His incompetence amazes me and I'm tired of MLB doing squat about it! Nite"
...
"Our only recourse, as fans, is to turn the station whenever he, or his crew, are on the field. When viewer numbers go down, MLB will notice."

never change, Larry.

did mlb.tv just go all fuckyducky for everyone? "There are no games scheduled"!

espn wednesday night baseball - oakland @ pittsburgh!

tremendous throw by aaron hicks to throw out vernon wells trying to stretch a double

Is this the first year the All-Star break extends through Thursday for everybody? I seem to remember a few Thursday games in previous years.

i think so? i guess i don't really care, but it's kinda weak.

triple-a all-star game *started* at 9 eastern in reno last night and the international league has a full schedule on the east coast tonight (though i guess i'd be surprised if many of the all-stars were playing)

it's always been one day off. it's the one special day of the year with no games from any of the 4 big sports! i learned this in hebrew school.

well, there are no games monday either

hr derby? maybe the trivia is "nothing resembling anything from any sport to be televised, the one day where all the athletes just sit at home and watch tv"

can't believe yr hebrew school was so dismissive of the norfolk tides/bowie baysox/frederick keys/delmarva shorebirds/aberdeen ironbirds

that's birdist j/k

they don't play those on tv! the point still stands, it's the one day of the year you can go on espn.com and there won't be any scores at the top. maybe. i haven't checked lately, maybe they put some weird shit up there when there's nothing else.

tbh espn.com will have half its top news stories about nfl (which okay, it's the usa's most popular sport) or nba (fuck you bill simmons) at any given moment whether it's in season or not

i have considered starting a thread about this but i'm not sure i want to commit to checking espn.com that much

There was a Jayson Stark column yesterday quoting some marketing 'genius' about how MLB needs a Face to get all the attention and make everybody sick of him, like LeBron James.

i saw that one. but it's hard to have a "face" because unlike heroic basketball moments, when you know lebron is going to get the ball and dictate the ball, baseball games often end up with players like pete fucking kozma pulling something out of his ass to win the game.

and somehow stark ends up writing about 8000 words on this concept.

not to mention that baseball is the one sport where the best players often don't make the playoffs because there's only so much they can do, you still only get 4-5 at bats a game and a few defensive opportunities. some of the game's best players - like Votto, Braun, Grienke, Mauer, McCutchen, King Felix, etc have not really had any postseason success, whereas you know that the Lebrons and Peyton Mannings of the world are going to be in the playoffs year in and year out regardless of what team they wind up on.

Bosox looking sharp tonight.

From one of Deadspin's stories about Braun's suspension:

When MLB fines players for their roles in fights or confrontations with umpires, those fines are donated to charity. But baseball fines are small potatoes—Mike Gonzalez was docked $1,500 for his role in a Red Sox/Orioles brawl a few years back—and fines are not the same as unpaid suspensions.

I've been wondering about this for years, glad to finally have an answer.

pirates dfa brandon inge -- seems like a perfect fit for the yankees

Nice pitching in DC tonight... Time to forget about most Mets games so I don't miss these.

I could almost become a Mets fan because of the barking hot-dog vendor at Citi. Reminds me of the barking beer vendor at my first MLB game, '85 in Atlanta.

I've only encountered that vendor IRL once, and hafta say he annoys me.

strasburg + liriano = 15 2/3 ip, 4 hits, 20 k

Tim Hudson out of the Braves game, looks like a really bad injury -- Young stepped on the back of his ankle/leg when he was covering first.

laz diaz is terrible

xp EY nearly ran into hudson covering 1st earlier in that game, very odd; def not saying it was dirty, he just really gets down the line fast & runs thru the base, it's reasonably dangerous on plays like that

both managers tossed in washington

i called that harper homer

that makes #3, after barry bonds off lee smith in like '91 and joey votto at citifield two years ago (in morbs' presence)

david cone is talking abt hanging out w/ just blaze @ a jayz concert for some reason

not just talking about, but praising as one of the best producers of all time

pretty sure kenny had no idea what cone was talking about

If I wanted to look at a team's strikeout rate for the season shown as a graph, what site would I go to?

WOW:

Don't want to hear the announcers talk over the game? This is your dream

During tonight's Tigers-Nationals game, Fox Sports Detroit will offer an alternate broadcast on Fox Sports Detroit Plus that does not include broadcasters Mario Impemba and Rod Allen. They're calling it "Natural Sounds at Comerica Park."

The network announced:

"Natural Sounds at Comerica Park will feature extra microphones around the park so viewers can hear more of the sounds of baseball -- the bat cracks, ball popping in the mitt, vendors chiming in from the stands and the crowd's reaction to every play on the field," senior vice president and general manager of FOX Sports Detroit Greg Hammaren said.

Fox Sports Detroit will still have the normal broadcast of the game.

If you miss tonight's broadcast, you'll have another chance to hear a game without announcers: Fox Sports Detroit will use the concept again Aug. 30 when the Tigers play the Indians.

Tonight's game will be broadcast at 7 p.m. and features Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg against the Tigers' Anibal Sanchez.

i've heard the Tigers announcers, and this indeed has got to be an improvement either way

i would like the ability to watch the television feed of the game with the radio broadcast as the audio accompaniment. i've attempted to do this by opening up two separate mlb.tv windows with different feeds, but there's always a 20 second discrepancy so that the action on the field takes place long after the radio announcers call it.

If the video feed is ahead, you can pause and start to sync it. I use the ball hitting the mitt/bat as a sync point, usually works pretty well.

but that's janky and I would love love love it if I just had the option on mlb.tv

ah, that's not a bad idea!

yeah, the cardinals tv team is just awful. for some reason, they switched to a rotating cast of 3 people. only 2 are on the tv broadcast in a given night, so every night is a new, awful combination. i think maybe the idea was to give them all a chance and see if one particular duo would stand out, but really all it's done is prove that they are all terrible and annoying, no matter who you match them up with.

a lot of my friends are cards fans and I've been subjected to this many times. we often end up watching the opposing team's feed

I almost always watch the opposing team's feed, but then you get the same anecdotes over and over again. "Yadier Molina has always been a great defensive catcher, but his hitting has really came a long way...", "...hitting with scoring position has been phenomenal this year...", "Albert Pujols left and it wasn't necessarily a bad thing..."

still, that's a dramatic improvement over the usual routine of Rick Horton and Dan McLaughlin attempting to make sniping remarks about each other but coming across like rivals at eagle scout camp who don't realize that they actually love each other

still nothing beats Uecker, surprisingly sharp even as he nears 80

last night's note-ripping was pretty great xpost

"great"

http://vine.co/v/hqbDdr1gb7U

Was that a 1-2-3 inning for RHP Jamey Carroll?

that is awesome

39 years old, never kissed a girl pitched as a pro

kurkjiantitter.wav

Masterson has beaned Santiago (knee) and Martinez (ankle). Both pitches were off-speed, but the Tigers get upset about anything within a foot of the head, so...

Meanwhile, in DC...

McCann and Teheran were both ready to pound Harper into baby food on that one. There was a great shot of Teheran hissing "what you gonna do...what you gonna do...what you gonna do..." at Harper.

what happened?

http://images.ftw.usatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/harperplunked.gif

<3 bryce

such an entertaining tool

kinda have to side with harper on that one. i wouldn't say he hurried on his home run trot, but i didn't see anything egregious, and throwing at someone's knee *is* bullshit

also harper's got 50 pounds on teheran -- just as well mccann is there

@jaysonst
The #Tigers have given up 13 runs in their last 10 games. The #Astros gave up 13 last night in a span of 24 hitters. #uselessinfo

@TaterTrotTrkr: A look at Bryce Harper's career slowest trot Tues night - that was still 4 secs faster than JUpton's trot from Mon! http://t.co/7jTEaKIKAE

I feel like I should be surprised there's a website just for keepIng track or home run trot times. I am not, of corse.

jose fernandez > gerrit cole

Detroit and Atlanta have the first simultaneous 12-game winning steaks since 1884. Considering all the bizarre things that occur in the course of a baseball season, I would never have guessed you'd have to go that far back for something like that.

reddick ab literally right now w/ a chance at 4th homer

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130810&content_id=56561040&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

the hidden ball trick!

https://vine.co/v/hhTlmlaarWl

whoa @ that hidden ball vid, had no idea greinke was batting over .400. knew he loved batting and all, but he's been worth 2.1 fWAR this season and 1.0 of that is from hitting!

Grant Brisbee: "A Royals/Pirates World Series would be incredible, except for all the locusts."

pedroia, saltalamacchia and gomes are sitting behind home plate on the first-base side watching the jays-a's game today

guess the hockey hall of fame must be closed mondays

the strip clubs don't open until 4.

I'm guessing this won't happen unless one has a meltdown or other 'incident'

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/39072/will-any-manager-get-fired-this-year

Soriano became only the third player ever today to knock in six in consecutive games.

was at that game! was nice to see the soriano of 10 years ago

his wRC+ today was 934

I'm guessing (a managerial change) won't happen unless one has a meltdown or other 'incident'

Well, that didn't take long! Not even useful for Ryno 'getting to know the team' when he's already been the 3b coach. Or is it?

oh wow - had no idea Sandberg was on the team!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmqOlyknUsI

harold reynolds and cliff floyd talking about how votto walks too much and doesn't get enough RBIs

SweetSpot had something on this just yesterday:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/39186/despite-low-rbi-total-joey-votto-is-great

read joe girardi's lips: http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5463/9543471792_a93acd9bcd_o.gif

The whole RBI thing is so screwy. Marty Brennaman has been honking about it too. Well you keep batting so many guys at #2 hitting like .220 and you don't have a thumper batting right behind Votto, what do you expect? Dusty has his ways and that includes if a middle infielder plays, he should bat #2 no matter what (see Cesar Izturis today). Although just total failure has had Dusty getting exotic and trying struggling 3b Todd Frazier there.

The freaking obvious thing would have been just to bat the two lefties back to back with Votto and Bruce and move Phillips to #2, but noooooo, don't want to mess with a LOOGY on the opposite team getting to face two batters back to back. Mind you, it never hurt the Bronx Bombers doing that with Gehrig and Ruth, but hey now...that is verboten.

frenchy dfa'd

Francoeur was even worse than expected, which was pretty bad considering we were expecting Ricky Ledee with mercury poisoning.

what're you ppl doing, having Harold R unmuted?

http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/9590940/david-ortiz-sticks-alex-rodriguez-disapproves-boston-red-sox-teammate-ryan-dempster-plunking-new-york-yankees-slugger

mega weird for a baseball player to say this about his own teammate

Some unknown force binding Ortiz and A-Rod together.

well, ortiz would be the likely guy to get plunked on sept. 5

ha true

we obv have 2 poll all the mariano parting gifts @ end of season

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BSYfxg7CYAA8slR.jpg

nailed it

thats pretty impressive

really captured the unspeakable horror that envelops mariano rivera's face

i have no idea what one says when confronted with such a thing, but i guess that's one of the many reasons i'm not a hall of famer

for some reason i immediately roleplayed my reaction as rivera when i saw that photo. i believe i said, with some difficulty, "this is really astonishing. it must have taken a great deal of effort to make, i'm blown away. thank you."

i would be such a great hall of famer.

"we obv have 2 poll all the mariano parting gifts @ end of season"

You could even go a step further and have Mariano's gifts vs. the schwag that Chipper got last year on his operation shutdown.

http://larrybrownsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/minnesota-twins-mariano-rivera-rocking-chair-broken.jpg

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/mariano-rivera/mariano-rivera-s-retirement-gifts-1.5712032#4

vs.

http://www.totalprosports.com/2012/10/02/the-15-most-awesome-retirement-gifts-given-to-chipper-jones/

god that sandman pic is killing me

I'd like to think there are reasons why this isn't as horrifying as it looks at first glance:

http://tracking.si.com/2013/08/26/houston-astros-most-profitable-team-mlb/?sct=mlb_t2_a3

it's yet another good thing to show the citizens/politicians of tampa, florida whenever bud bitches about the trop

Enter Zardoz

http://static.tumblr.com/udzkica/IJ4m5oefk/zardoz.png

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/23332281/forbes-2013-astros-most-profitable-mlb-team-ever

The Astros are on pace to rake in an estimated $99 million in operating income this season. That is nearly as much as the estimated operating income of the previous six World Series championship teams — combined.

As the Forbes piece notes, that estimated $99 million in operating income (i.e., total revenues minus operating expenses) make the 2013 Astros the most profitable team in MLB history, at least according to the educated guesses of Forbes.

this is the Forbes piece: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2013/08/26/2013-houston-astros-baseballs-worst-team-is-most-profitable-in-history/

meet the Astros' GM!

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/Mostel(1).jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXoxjXzuIk

the problem is they're not 99 million in free agent salaries away from fielding a championship team, so why would they bother spending any of it at all until they have a worthwhile core developed.

i can't watch that video with sound right now, but why is the rockies 1B coach reprimanding the little boy? or is saying that he'll give him the baseball, but only on the condition that he join the military as soon as he turns 18 and grows up to be a ragoddamned hero?

he conveys some wisdom

Colin Wyers at BP finds Forbes' claim about the Astros dubious:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=21644

Soriano's 400th last night. Is he possibly an example of an underrated overrated player?

His flaws are obvious and significant. #1: doesn't walk, career OBP of only .321 (and consequently unimpressive run totals). #2: not much of a fielder. #3: wildly overpaid.

On the other hand...his recent rejuvination gives him a (very) outside shot at 500 HR, if he can somehow find someone to pay him through his 38/39/40/41 seasons. He also has a ton of doubles, a slugging pct. still above .500, and almost 300 SB with a pretty good success rate. He's sort of been a mid-'80s Juan Samuel stretched out to a full career.

no, accumulating counting stats is not an Underrated alert. Fred McGriff is not underrated.

Similar Batters

Matt Williams (899)
Aramis Ramirez (897)
Shawn Green (887)
Jermaine Dye (887)
Torii Hunter (875)
Vinny Castilla (871)
Fred Lynn (864)
Jim Edmonds (862)
Derrek Lee (862)
Reggie Sanders (861)

Not a HOFer in the bunch, except a mild case for Hunter, maybe?

Well, I didn't exactly say he was underrated; I tried to make a distinction in my second sentence. And I'm definitely not saying he belongs in the HOF, although that list looks better than I would have guessed.

(actually, Edmonds has a slightly better case than Torii, but Soriano isn't close to either of them overall)

xp