then coronavirus happened, 2020 baseball

With Goldschmidt having taken half a step back and Freeman half a step forward, they've done what they always looked like they'd do eventually, merge into the same player.

PG - 249 HR, .293/.393/.524, 142 OPS+, 44.8 WAR
FF - 237 HR, .294/.382/.508, 138 OPS+, 37.8 WAR

Goldschmidt still has the edge, but Freeman has two years on him. Their birthdays are two days apart, and they're number-one on each other's similarity scores.

without knowing much about freeman, he must have the edge on personality. goldschmidt is that guy in high school who is nice and excels but no one knows a goddamn thing about

also, very small sample size but it's been a real pleasure to watch him be his old goldschmidty self on the field this year. Last year's model was a little fidgety, this seems to be the real deal, for the moment

he must have the edge on personality

Because he's a Freeman in Atlanta; he feels unfettered and alive.

Huh that was a take I wasn't expecting. PG has been a decent player the last couple seasons while FF is one of the best hitters in the game, and certainly the best 1B in baseball. While FF benefits from being in a much better lineup, seems like PG has been figured out for the most part... just by looking at the trends in their ISO over the last few seasons.

at the same time, PG is running the best OBP of his career right now (.439). watching him, fwiw, he seems to be on fire all year - he either walks or makes solid contact on just about everything, is always on base.

but yeah, i'd take FF in a heartbeat over PG, moving forward. i think clemenza was comparing the two in terms of their career stats, saying that they're very similar right now

Major League Baseball today announced the schedule for the 2020 Postseason, which is set to open with the American League’s inaugural Wild Card Series on Tuesday, September 29th and the National League’s first Wild Card Series openers on Wednesday, September 30th. In the first neutral site Fall Classic in modern history, Game One of the 2020 World Series on FOX is set for Tuesday, October 20th at the new home of the Texas Rangers, Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. A potential Game Seven of the World Series is scheduled for Wednesday, October 28th.

All best-of-three Wild Card Series, which are presented by Hankook, will be played at the regular season home ballparks of each league’s top four seeds and be televised exclusively by ESPN and TBS. Then, beginning with the Division Series, Clubs will shift to neutral site locations for the duration of the 2020 Postseason due to health, safety and competitive considerations. American League games from the Division Series forward will be held in Los Angeles and San Diego, and National League games from the Division Series forward will be played in Arlington and Houston.

Freeman used to be really emotional, demonstrative and a big huggy bear — his full-body hugs of teammates were written about by the big sports sites. At some point he put on his game face and quit the joshing and hugging, which was sad to me. He's still a smiling presence, not a stoneface like Markakis, but not a big cuddlebug anymore.

saying that they're very similar right now

Yeah--that while they look to be travelling in opposite directions, their career stats have intersected for the moment. And I bet Freeman's career stats in two years are almost identical to Goldschmidt's right now.

I also heard that they’re trying to have fans come in person for the WS in Texas

just Rob Manfred, and i hope he greets each one personally

shit is getting desperate. the phillies just called up mickey moniak

Giants' ps odds up to 53%, so Bee OK should stop by soon.

13 total pitchers used thus far in 8.5 innings of this LA v SD game that's not even a blowout (7-4).

it is a travesty that kolarek got the win in that game. ban the official scorer

Kyle Higashioka is the first Yankees player in franchise history with a 3-HR game batting 9th

And I think Voit is the first Yank with a home run in six consecutive games ?

Mattingly had 8 I thought

This clip of Don helping himself to some kid’s popcorn during a game is great

https://youtu.be/OvSmfyRc3pM

Mattingly had 8 I thought

Yeah I got my stats mixed up. It’s six home runs in back to back games that’s a Yankees first

this playoff format incentivizes a lot of team behavior that isn’t very good for fans’ enjoyment of baseball https://t.co/ofyKPsB5Cz

— Meg Rowley (@megrowler) September 16, 2020

whoda thunk manfred would use covid to get his agenda through

I think I may be out

i'm not saying this as a "listen to me, the fan, or i will punish you" thing, but this might just kill my interest in baseball. i can't imagine caring about 162 games if over half the league is going to make the postseason. it's not worth the time investment, there are a million other things i could care about instead.

gonna root hard for a sub-.500 team to win the WS this year

lol xp

also imagine what a 4-series postseason would do to pitcher's arms. aces already get leaned on way too much, this is going to kill careers.

It certainly won't increase my interest

pretty sure the players will have to approve that?

anyway yes, in manfred's perfect world on-field and financial success will have no relation at all to money spent . . . so why would anyone bother spending

(and steve cohen is going to have to work hard to convince the other owners that he won't go crazy and bid up players' salaries, or they won't approve him)

players took about 2 seconds to approve it this year even though it was one of their only bargaining chips in a long drawn out bargaining process that they lost

maybe they learned something

Bizarre:

https://www.mlb.com/video/josh-donaldson-homers-5-on-a-line-drive-to-left-field

Has that ever happened before?

i know of a minor league game in which miguel sano homered and was tossed for yelling at the opposing dugout on the way to first. the run still counted, which i doubt was correct

and then there's yadi, which could have gotten *really* weird: https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2015/07/09/yadier-molina-got-ejected-for-arguing-with-an-ump-as-a-play-was-going-on

i'm not saying this as a "listen to me, the fan, or i will punish you" thing, but this might just kill my interest in baseball. i can't imagine caring about 162 games if over half the league is going to make the postseason. it's not worth the time investment, there are a million other things i could care about instead.

absolutely my feeling too. even the wildcard devalued the regular season a bit to me, it's not so much fun to watch a playoff chase every day for a month knowing you could just be one-and-out against some insanely good ace pitcher. with 16 teams in it becomes like the NBA where no regular season game matters all that much, all those August/September series between the leading teams in the division become way way less important. not only that but baseball is the worst sport for expanded playoffs since there's so much variance in it, any team can lose to anyone

NHL is a better comparison than then NBA, where the best team wins 80% (stat check me) of the time. NHL becomes Goalie for 3 months after an 82 game season

there are no good comparisons because no other sport depends on starting pitchers

at least this year's bubble system means there are no off days; the yankees (for instance) won't be able to pitch CC in every other game

also there is nothing better than hockey playoffs. back me up jimmy

It’s true NHL playoffs are the best but variance is hiiiiiiiiigh

white sox are calling up 2020 first-rounder garrett crochet, a flame-throwing lefty

he'll be the first drafted player since mike leake in 2010 to reach the majors without first playing in the minors. before leake was xavier nady in 2000, although he was sent down after just one game

Tim Anderson took Trevor Bauer deep and then told the broadcast team to tell Bauer to put it on his YouTube channel. Savage. pic.twitter.com/QjYn8heZqj

— Jared Carrabis (@Jared_Carrabis) September 20, 2020

nats have started their season 19-31 for the second straight year

well they'll just have to turn it around again

Here's what the first round of the expanded playoffs would look like, based on the standings entering play Sunday, Sept. 19.

No. 1 Rays* vs. No. 8 Blue Jays
No. 2 White Sox* vs. No. 7 Indians
No. 3 Athletics* vs. No. 6 Astros
No. 4 Yankees vs. No. 5 Twins*
No. 1 Dodgers* vs. No. 8 Reds
No. 2 Cubs vs. No. 7 Phillies
No. 3 Braves vs. No. 6 Cardinals
No. 4 Padres vs. No. 5 Marlins

Jesus Christ, even a global pandemic can't stop first-round Yankees-Twins series

dan szymborski had an idea in his last fangraphs chat for weighing a 16-team postseason that i would probably tolerate:

Dan Szymborski: To win the first round, you have to *sweep* the better teams. Two games for the five seed, three games for the six seed, four games for the seven seed, five games for the eight seed.

"and it would make the LDS would probably have to be bumped" imagine i wrote this better

F the Twins

The sweep model or some variant of it already exists in Taiwan i think? Maybe the KBO.

that's kind of silly. cool your team finally made the postseason, now you just gotta beat the MegaSox five times in a row

yeah it would suck, which is why middle-of-the-pack teams would still be incentivized to improve. would also incentivize the mega teams to keep getting better because there's a jump in value between each of the top seeds. i'm talking myself into liking this!

Alejandro Kirk?!?!

i like him