You can’t spell ‘no big contracts’ without RSN: 2024 regular MLB season thread!

jay jaffe reports that every starting position player for the padres, except the catcher, was once a shortstop prospect

i guess this might be why they moved

tbf i guess it’s not cronenworth’s fault his glove failed

that is true

nice little ad for mlb’s owned and operated equipment mfg

I had to look at the replay after I saw Stats tweet this:

How does your glove break on a soft ground ball on opening day

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) March 20, 2024

Not me going through pictures of him like the Zapruder film trying to identify the glove

Wilson A2000, I apologise for my Rawlings slander

you sure? i thought i saw a rawlings logo

Very sure. 😎 A2000 in saddle tan.
https://i.postimg.cc/W4VVZw0V/IMG-7447.jpg

https://www.wilson.com/custom/gloves/a2000/

ah nm cronenworth REPLACED it with a rawlings.. fair enough

good sleuthing

Lotta weird ones for the first game: multiple pitch clock violations, broken gloves on soft grounders, umpire interfering and calling back an easy steal, no xbh's, a below 1 SO/W ratio, Korean stadium atmosphere, Tyler Wade

vry excited for yamamoto x musgrove tomorrow

Not great, Yamamoto

9 pitches, 2 hits, 1 hbp, 2ER, no outs

omg

Not a great 24hrs for the Dodgers billion dollars

Yamamoto’s probably going to be fine but MLB hitters are much better than NPB and used to his pitch mix more I guess. Yoshida hit like Tony Gwynn for like half the year last year and then trailed off for a while when the schedule and travel got to him. Japanese players usually take a while to adjust. There was so much hype around this signing and nobody ever says the second part though it remains true: it takes time to adjust!

Okay Ohtani is still Ohtani, that's good

Send him back out you cowards

Why is Manny Machado DHing? Is he injured? I assumed he’d play 3B today if they DHed him yesterday but maybe he’s actually hurt.

Jackson Merrill, 20 years old, 1st major league hit. They’ll have to keep that ball for him!

He had surgery on his elbow at the end of the season last year. Think he should be back soon.

Yeah, Freddie threw it over to him, Ken Griffey Jr. taking photos of it too

hour and a half and we still haven't finished the 3rd. Love this sport

Easy to question Lux's spot as an everyday bat looking at his stats to date, but man that swing puts away all doubts. So smooth, vry pretty

WTF was Bogaerts doing sliding in face first on his dodgy wrist like that

Mark Prior screenshot that looks like it could be a reaction image for user felicity
https://i.postimg.cc/jjQHdZwL/IMG-7580.jpg

"I would have taken the over on this game"

-Shohei Otani Ippei Mizuhara

how is this game 1. still going, 2. currently 12-11?

Got some dismal mid august baseball in march

I guess this seals JMont coming to LA...

I would have said infield was the weakest part of this team. Pitching is probably still rusty. They’ve used a ton of pitchers though and have to play on Sunday. Guessing that’ll be triple A kids mainly.

The dodgers infield defense is real bad. Front office just hoping and praying that muncy/lux can somehow get themselves to league average after half a season and Mookie can settle into a new role well

Yamamoto's spring was dismal (8.38 ERA/1.97 WHIP) but his debut made his spring line look impressive in comparison.

Insane to think Spencer Strider (also 25yo) signed for effectively 60% less ($75M/6y=$12.5/y vs. $375M/12y=$31.3M/y)

Savant doesn't have 2024 data yet but saw some reports that Yamamoto averaged 100.7mph exit-velo against.

Aaron Judge led MLB last year with 97.6mph exit-velo.

😬 😬

I mean, you can blame infield defense til the cows come home but when you're allowing Tyler Wade to barrel the ball like Barry Bonds...

imo give yamamoto another month and check back in

Every team in the league needs to do this so I never hear commentary butcher a player’s name again

The Sox just published a page of every player pronouncing their own name:https://t.co/1kAKW0zZqa

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) March 21, 2024

Savant doesn't have 2024 data yet but saw some reports that Yamamoto averaged 100.7mph exit-velo against.

Aaron Judge led MLB last year with 97.6mph exit-velo.

😬 😬

xp
i think every team does have a mlb media guide, which almost always include either a single page that lists the pronunciations of every players name, or at least include pronunciations on a page dedicated to each player's stats/background. most of them are available online somewhere for free, but i'm not sure there's a single repository. there should be!

there is (pressbox.mlb.com), but it requires approval

xp I didn’t know that, what are commentators excuses then!

it's kind of mean but i think a lot of them just don't care about baseball anymore. it's a slog, in a way, traveling all the time, constantly being at the stadium. the tv crew all wants to go home. listening to the cards announcing team the last 10+ years, it seems clear that none of them really follow the game, not just "advanced stat" stuff like you might find of fangraphs, but even the minor league system, prospects, that kind of stuff.

there was an infamous spring training game a while back, 20212, when uber-prospect oscar taveras was making his first appearance. i remember, i was watching and was psyched to see taveras play (he had an incredibly graceful and beautiful swing). the cardinals broadcasters had no idea who he was, so when he reached first base they referred to him as "minor league guy" and made a bunch of dumb jokes about it. the previous year, 2011, oscar 'minor league guy' taveras had a wRC+ of 190 (!) as a 19 year old at A level, destroying everything he touched, was near the top of all the prospect lists, etc. just an unbelievable "we don't actually know anything about this team" moment from the entire crew

https://i.imgur.com/nsTkuW5.png

anyway, imo all the information is there for the broadcasters; some of them just no longer care

Yeah that’s fair. I only watched last year ofc but I got an idea of good and bad. I remember the Tigers commentators last year had some fella with a voice that could cure insomnia. I know Tracer Hand always watches Sox games with the radio commentary on (Joe Castiglione and Will Flemming). Obviously, SF has great broadcasters on both TV (Kruk & Kuip) and the radio (Jon Miller & Dave Flemming). It really adds so much to a game when they have interest and passion in the subject.

On that note, this was cool!

Red Sox announcer Will Flemming and his brother, Giants announcer Dave Flemming, share the booth with each other for an inning of Sunday's series finalepic.twitter.com/EVgdKvdx5g

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 30, 2023

the Giants / Dodgers / NYM broadcasts are so good, i'm very jealous of fans of those teams

I can’t recall the Mets off the top of my head but I’ve heard that. I don’t know who does the Dodgers now but I will tell you I’ve watched old Giants/Dodgers games on YouTube purely to hear what Vin Scully said.

Dodgers fantastic when you get Jorel (Joe Davis and Orel Hershisher). The two have great chemistry and you can tell they have a deep friendship outside of the job. Sadly Joe is away doing the fox broadcast a lot and Orel doesn't fly solo so you get a bunch of fill in, perfectly serviceable guys and girls for half the games

i grew up with harry kalas and richie ashburn, whom i only now know to be among the all-time greats

the current mets guys are OK but they're no kalas/ashburn!

tigers should be much better with jason benetti this year

feel bad for steve stone -- after all those years with hawk, he seemed reborn with benetti. guess we'll see how schiffren is with him

Whenever Gary Cohen (life-long passionate Mets fan) is not calling a Mets tv game, it is really a drop off. I don’t know how they will be able to replace him.