2022 MLB General Season Chatter: Ghost Runners On The Half-Billion Dollar Infield

omg

each one of those frames is a fresh terror

depicting a walk-off (??) is pretty smart of the AI huh

look who just became ready to play in the majors

3 innings into his 2022 debut, @Pirates' Oneil Cruz has registered:

🏴‍☠️The hardest throw by an infielder in @MLB this year (96.7 mph)
🏴‍☠️The hardest hit ball of the year by a Pirate (112.9)
🏴‍☠️The 3 fastest sprint speeds of the year by a Pirate (31.5, 30.7, 30.3) pic.twitter.com/nScTK5mD4A

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 21, 2022

It's Oneil Cruz's first game of the season and he already recorded the hardest throw by an infielder this year at 96.7 MPH 🤯 pic.twitter.com/5XUlqHRjac

— MLB (@MLB) June 21, 2022

dang, that first clip. that was a single for almost any player. it was hit so fucking hard that, combined with his crazy speed, it was nearly a triple

O_O

damn, that throw too. dang!

i've heard of Cruz and knew he was on his way, but haven't been paying much attention. looking forward to watching him play now, holy moley

New favorite player

during every home run trot in triple-a this year he would, when passing second, pantomime checking his watch

it is surmised that he was suggesting it was time to call him up, but i kind of hope he keeps doing it

why is it that every time there's an insane young talent they either wind up on the Yankees or some team with a $40 million payroll

Opened up my e-mail right after reading these posts to a shareable Posnanski column on Cruz:

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/the-allure-of-the-one-man-show?r=1imri&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

He's got the wrong link up there--if he fixes it, I'll re-post.

The Rays' Isaac Paredes has three HR in his first three AB--just coming up.

That Cruz is a serious athlete. Does he have an eye or is a total wild swinger? That dude hits the gym and doesn't lose his bat speed, he probably could hit some homers.

The Giants first get walked off by the Pirates on Sunday and then again by the Braves on Monday. Then on Tuesday they score 12 runs and hang on for life.

Baseball is a crazy game.

Me watching the clip of Cruz's throw: "he might want to get to that ball quicker ... he's wasting time getting set for the throw, he's blowing this routine play ... OH!!! Never mind ..."

*NL Central thread detour*

since Nolan Gorman went 4-4 with 2 HRs yesterday, i was looking at his stats this morning and trying to convince myself that the cardinals will win the world series, as one does.

in doing so, i took an early look at his defensive stats, via statcast's Outs Above Average (OAA), and was kind of startled to see Kolten Wong as the very worst performing second basemen in baseball?!

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/outs_above_average?type=Fielder&startYear=2022&endYear=2022&split=no&team=&range=year&min=q&pos=4&roles=&viz=hide

of qualifying players, Wong is 38th out of 38th at the position, with -8 OAA. (Jonathan Schoop is waaaaaay ahead of the rest of the field with, 15 OAA to the second place Santiago Espinal's 7 OAA). Gorman is around the middle of the pack, at -1 OAA.

question for the brew crew: is Wong actually having a bad year, defensively?

OAA is an improvement on earlier defensive metrics, i think, but it still seems to occasionally get certain players way wrong. Paul Goldschmidt, for example, is apparently having one of the worst defensive years among 1B, by OAA. but i've watched almost every single inning this year and he has been rock solid while digging out seemingly every single infield throw in the dirt.

this is pretty great -- he's so happy

14 seasons.
695 appearances.@DRob30 finally gets his chance in the batter's box. pic.twitter.com/d9uXeCcPhx

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) June 23, 2022

had to swing otherwise he wouldn't have had the AB *touches nose*

Nice story:

https://www.mlb.com/news/mark-appel-called-up-by-phillies

lol, Morel really says hi to EVERYONE, doesn't he?

yanks have gone 14 innings without a hit

They got within eight outs of Vander Meer...about what it'll take to make me notice combined no-hitters.

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

^^ jomboy on the angels/mariners brawl

loooool what is with all the angels coaches getting in these one-sided attempted fights

archie bradley lol

phil nevin is not, in fact, better than that

also lol at everyone screaming at jomboy for a breakdown for 24 full hours

Astros 16 innings last week are a preview of Yankees eventual playoffs when they cannot get on base and strike out 14-16 times in a game against matchup bullpen situation.

Yankees and White Sox both look like a couple of beer league softball teams pounding tall boys and going for the chain link fence each swing.

half-billion dollar middle infield:

seager: .227/.299/.422, 15 HR, 106 OPS+, 104 wRC+, 1.4 bWAR, 1.7 fWAR

semien: .224/.285/.343, 7 HR, 81 OPS+/wRC+, 0.9 bWAR, 0.7 fWAR

they are, however, in second place. which is nice

I saw that the other day. Pretty rough start to those contracts.

Are slash lines a bit misleading this year? Lindor is fifth in the majors in RBIs, but his slash line is an average looking .245/.322/.423. 2.6 fWAR though.

118 wRC+

Mark Appel was the No. 1 overall pick in 2013.

In 2018, he stepped away from the game.

In 2021, he started his comeback.

Tonight, he made his big league debut and threw a scoreless inning. pic.twitter.com/adSjTjxinP

— MLB (@MLB) June 30, 2022

for some reason i am watching the 1979 all-star game. i have chosen this special clip, from the pre-game show, to share with all of you

http://i.imgur.com/tA0Mgwkh.gif

fuck, it's too powerful for the internet. too much action. i have to take out some frames, make it a bit smaller, condense the action

https://i.imgur.com/LCv0LEN.gif

there was a competition of nearly 500,000 children across america. this child was one of the finalists

his name? they called him freight train

I wonder how rampant cocaine use was at that point--maybe just the beginning for MLB.

"Every time it's me, it ain't one of those 30 guys -- that's good," Manfred says. "Look, who the hell am I? I don't have $2 billion invested in a team. I'm just a guy trying to do a job. I mean it. They deserve that layer. I believe they deserve that layer of protection. I'm the face of the game, for good or for bad."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34130915/hate-baseball-wants-save-it

Oh god give me a break.

"Look, who the hell am I? I don't have $2 billion invested in a team. I'm just a guy trying to do a job...'

So sayeth mailroom guy at Cooperstown.

Hard to imagine a clearer articulation of Manfred's cynical values than that. Takin a bullet for the billionaires.

Cam Vieaux with a 56-pitch 8th inning for Pirates. 17-1, Brewers. Fans remaining *really* want those postgame fireworks.

— Travis Sawchik (@Travis_Sawchik) July 2, 2022

cristian javier’s last two starts for houston: 14 IP, 1 R, 1 H, 1 BB, 27 K

the one hit was an ohtani homer

That’s two straight games of pretty much striking two guys out every inning!!

They are advertising the royals-tigers game on peacock as having "no booth" (just natural ballpark sound) which, for two teams who have less than a .400 winning percentage, seems like a good gimmick. Conversely, it also looks like they couldn't get a broadcast team to care enough to do the game.

They should do that for an A's home game so as to be without natural ballpark sound too

Here's the Maldonado play. It looked like Ward thought Altuve was throwing the ball playfully at him. pic.twitter.com/RXA9JxocSy

— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) July 3, 2022

the worst qualified hitter in MLB, with a 48 wRC+, is detroit's jonathan schoop. (and it's not particularly close; no one else is under 60.)

fangraphs so loves his defense, however, that he leads all tigers position players with 0.9 fWAR

(b-ref takes a much dimmer view, giving him 0.0 bWAR)

i'd never thought of him as a particularly good defender? (or bad)