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

In a season where everyone is talking about Ohtani & Betts, Kyle Tucker has quietly snuck past them to the top of the fWAR leaderboard (still waiting for BRef to update their data where he might sneak past Betts for the top bWAR spot).

The notorious slow-starter is already hitting .293/.425/.649, leading MLB in both HRs & BBs, his [Removed Illegal Link] is a sea of RED... except for 2 areas which exposes flaws of statcast:

Statcast rates Tucker 9/100 (!) in baserunning value & 30/100 in sprint speed which suggests Tucker is a liability on the basepaths.

Yet the opposite could not be more true. Tucker is #10 among MLB SB leaders with a perfect 100% SB%.

Illegal link: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/kyle-tucker-663656?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

(still waiting for BRef to update their data where he might sneak past Betts for the top bWAR spot)

ok bref finally updated and Tucker is indeed #1 in both sites' WAR calcs.

Incidentally, Tucker already has two HOF'ers--Walker and Stargell--on his through-age-26 Similarity Score list.

the Royals are 31-19 and are looking to win their sixth straight game today, cole ragans has struck out 12 over 6 innings and had a no-hitter going through 5 2/3

I hate baseball

are you sure you don't just hate blake snell

or Scott "skip camp and hold out for more $$$, who cares if you suck until June" Boras?

oh shastapaws

Jared Jones is really special, I’d love to have seen him in person, but I respected mookie’s wishes 🙃

if only user (redacted) had done the same : /

They did come back after that Snell mess but tied going into the 10th. The Giants will find a to lose this.

chin up, the mets have hit 6 home runs in the last two games and still lost both. it could be worse.

I'm usually positive but this years team drives me nuts.

Thank God for Patrick Bailey!

suddenly you are leading

Are the Philthies for real? Or did I see someone post recently that they've had an unusually cush first 2 months schedule? [citation needed]

bad bullpen fite

― mookieproof, Tuesday, May 21, 2024 9:36 PM (yesterday)

Classic

Grand slam surely

Xpsss They certainly looked for real against the rangers last night

xps they've played a bunch of shitty teams, but also they live in the NL East, so that's who they get to play

anyway 15-3 this month is pretty solid

I also think the Phillies are for real, or at least based on the four game sweep of the Giants recently.

this giants win shouldn't count simply because Bee OK gave up on them

Nothing will ever convince me Michael A. Taylor is in his 30s. He must have done a reverse Pujols and lied about being older than he is so he'd be taken seriously

I’m just so happy they’re in this position after Aroldis Chapman was completely unable to get an out

Lol,

Xxpost

This game is just exercising their demons from last night's lose.

Grandslam still on the table

Whytf am I rooting for the giants?????

The world must be ending

Baseball is far more fun (for the neutral) with bad bull pens

Ridiculously handsome reliever alert ⚠️

Ok, same situation as last night except Daval is coming into a fresh inning with a ghost on second.

Doval

poor man's octavio dotel, surely

Well MLB.TV just added NBC post game shows to the lineup. The NBC one's were not here last week.

Ridiculously handsome reliever alert ⚠️

― H.P, Thursday, 23 May 2024 01:54 (one hour ago) link

where?

Pirates reliever Kyle Nicholas. I might have overstated it, more a first impression and camera catching his good side type of thing. After further camera shot, he has been relegated to: "a particular type of very good looking; not for everyone."

wow, harsh

These things can be situational

Look all I'm saying is the first 5 seconds of meeting this man I thought he was God's masterpiece finally complete, but after a minute of watching a realised there was an element of preference at play here. He's still a handsome man!!!

These things can be situational

These things can be situational

― felicity, Wednesday, May 22, 2024 10:05 PM (yesterday)

Who's your LOOGY?

(RIP LOOGYs)

What’s a LOOGY

They once roamed this Earth

left-handed one out guy

Oh like Javier Lopez

Soooo.... something weird is happening with Atlanta and *people* are starting to whisper... even conspiracy theories concerning the SHOHEI OHTANI & Ippei Mizuhara scandal are being brought back in the fold.

On May 12th (Mothers Day), Braves 3B Austin Riley exited the game with left side tightness after a routine swinging strikeout on some outside heat in his 2nd AB of the game:

https://www.mlb.com/braves/video/austin-riley-exits-with-apparent-injury

The injury was determined to be intercostal muscle inflammation and Riley hasn't participated in any live batting or fielding exercises since the injury.

Former-LAA David Fletcher was supposed to be the recipient of playing item in the event of Riley's inury.

Normally the team would determine if Riley's recovery timeline would be <10 days or 10 days or greater and make a roster move to send Riley to the IL and call up Fletcher from AAA... which hasn't happened.

Here we are 11 days post-injury and Riley is still taking up a valuable spot on the Braves active roster, making progress as of 5/21 by taking dry swings and some tee-ball swings, but still no live pitching ABs nor fielding drills.

So where is Fletcher? Welp remember illegal bookmaker Matthew Bowyer...

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/40184970/mlb-investigation-david-fletcher-angels

Fletcher was Ohtani's "best friend in MLB" [src: r/Angels] and also very close with Ippei. Fletcher allegedly introduced Ippei to Bowyer.

But there are more serious allegations that Fletcher and his friend/associate may have bet on Angels games which would take this to into Pete Rose territory.

Is MLB forcing ATL's hand or just genuine lousy roster management?

~YOU DECIDE~

...but seriously why are Ohtani's 2 best friends degenerate gamblers?