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

same, really

at least he hasn't yet pulled the full realmuto 'i won't let canada tell me what to put in my body' i guess

Basically the Jays right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWk6JcheLMU

i just assume all players are conservative and kind of dumb until i'm proven wrong, which maybe isn't fair, but since the game has a conservative culture in general and players are not encouraged to talk about their social or political beliefs or really express any personality at all that's what i've been forced to do

anthony rizzo being antivax was the frustrating one for me, especially with him being a childhood leukemia survivor you think he'd understand the need to protect the weaker members of our population but i guess not

Arenado was rumored to be unvaxxed (forget why), but Goldschmidt was very surprising. I think everyone assumed Miles Mikolas would be one of the three, though I think it's just because of his mustache.

and yeah, it definitely sucks that i am going to be cheering for these two idiots for the next few years. i don't know, it's a separating the art from the artist kind of thing i guess. i will cheer for the dumb baseball men to play well and try to ignore everything else (which is easy with Goldschmidt because he's a mike pence kind of empty personality).

at least we have sean doolittle i guess

This sounds hokey enough to be made up, but it's not. The reason Arenado gives (or at least originally), that he and his wife were trying to conceive, was the same explanation my barber gave for a few months initially. (He had just remarried.) Not in any kind of defiant way--almost apologetically. But then, at some point, his 12-year-old son asked him why they were more worried about a hypothetical child than the one he had. At which point he and his new wife got vaccinated.

(My only embellishment: I don't think the son used the word "hypothetical.")

I think everyone assumed Miles Mikolas would be one of the three, though I think it's just because of his mustache.

Mikolas on the players who will not be accompanying the #STLCards to Toronto: "I wish I had also not gotten the vaccine, but it's a personal choice." pic.twitter.com/nY3hCCdpLv

— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) July 24, 2022

I actually have not heard of someone regretting getting vaccinated, lol

lol he had no adverse issues, he just thinks it makes him a pussy

https://www.si.com/nba/warriors/news/andrew-wiggins-regrets-getting-vaccinated

A movement of athletes with regrets

about how they got vaccinated

KM is it me or have the cardinals had an inordinate amount of pitcher injuries the last couple years?

Braves lost two games in a row for like the second time in two months. Time to celebrate.

yeah it does seem that way. last year, 2021, was definitely full of injuries. Wainwright was the only starter that made it through the year. Flaherty, Mikolas, and Dakota Hudson combined for about 140 IP, and Carlos Martinez put in about 90 innings before going down for good.

this year seems like more of the same. Flaherty's probably done for the year, Matz was unlucky than injured then became unlucky and injured in the same game a few days ago, when he finally made it back to the mound only to somehow strain every single muscle in his body in fielding a ball crawling down the first base line. he's out for another 6 weeks or something. he's easy to forget because he never plays baseball, but Alex Reyes, who i doubt most of the baseball world will ever know now, was supposed to be a stalwart, potentially ace of the staff, for the past 4 years, at least. he is always injured.

honestly, though, whenever i start to feel down about injuries and bad luck, i remember the mets! not getting to watch degrom pitch must be excruciating, for starters

speaking of matz, i think his injury means that Soto will not be going to the Cardinals. Up until Matz went down, Soto made some sense for the Cardinals. Outfield is not the team's weakness (that would be Starting Pitching and the black hole of production which is Catcher), but they had the depth to trade either Carlson or Tyler O'Neill, plus prospects like Jordan Walker (who is going to be a star, I think, though even then, not an inner-circle star like Soto) to get him. It would have been worth it to have Soto batting in front of covid-deniers Goldschmidt and Arenado for a couple years.

but now, with the team down to 2 reliable SPs (covid-vaccination-regretter Miles Mikolas and Wainwright), going for Soto seems like throwing away this year completely, especially if the Nats still want to include Patrick Corbin in the deal. that would somehow make the rotation even _worse_

Not watching Degrom pitch is upsetting for all baseball fans I’d say. Here’s hoping he is actually back in a week or two.

Yankees are acquiring Benintendi.

— Jack Curry (@JackCurryYES) July 28, 2022

Good. They can’t bring him to Toronto for any potential playoff games and he can regress in NY for the rest of the season.

Hot Stove has begun, last year's trading deadline was so much fun to watch unfold and didn't disappoint. No way will this year do the same but looking forward to this next week.

apparently Benintendi said he’d get the shot if he went to a contender.

Oakland A’s (3): Catcher Austin Allen, reliever A.J. Puk, and reliever A.J. Snead
Boston Red Sox (2): Outfielder Jarren Duran, reliever Tanner Houck
Seattle Mariners (2): Starting pitcher Robbie Ray, reliever Drew Steckenrider
Cincinnati Reds (4): Outfielder Albert Almora, infielder Brandon Drury, reliever Joel Kuhnel, starting pitcher Tyler Mahle
Chicago White Sox (2): Starting pitcher Dylan Cease, reliever Kendall Graveman
Minnesota Twins (4): Outfielder Max Kepler, reliever Trevor Megill, reliever Emilio Pagán, reliever Caleb Thielbar
Baltimore Orioles (2): Reliever Keegan Akin, outfielder Anthony Santander
Tampa Bay Rays (2): Reliever Brooks Raley, reliever Ryan Thompson
Philadelphia Phillies (5): Infielder Alec Bohm, pitcher Bailey Falter (Falter was optioned to the minors instead of being placed on the restricted list), starting pitcher Kyle Gibson, starting pitcher Aaron Nola, catcher J.T. Realmuto
Kansas City Royals (10): Outfielder Andrew Benintendi, utility player Whit Merrifield, catcher M.J. Melendez, designated hitter Hunter Dozier, starting pitcher Brad Keller, starting pitcher Brady Singer, outfielder Michael A. Taylor, outfielder Kyle Isbel, reliever Dylan Coleman, catcher Cam Gallagher
St. Louis Cardinals (3): Infielder Nolan Arenado, infielder Paul Goldschmidt, catcher Austin Romine

robbie ray played for the blue jays last year? (they didn’t play in toronto until the end of july, but still)

The restriction wasn't in place last year, this was supposedly the reason Toronto didn't attempt to re-sign him

Orioles 40-man is now fully vaxxed. Or at least in ownership of a convincing vax card.

BREAKING: The Seattle Mariners are finalizing a deal to acquire right-hander Luis Castillo from the Cincinnati Reds, sources tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 30, 2022

Good for Seattle

didnt expect that, tbh

Reds and Mariners have traded a few times in the past few seasons. I think it is reparations for signing away Junior (which in the end really did not work for anyone).

Christian Yelich hasn't been hitting a lot of HRs but he's been pretty good since he got moved to leadoff

Cano DFA’d from his third team this year.

looking at that list of un-vaxxed players and that's a hell of a lot of melanin

*hell of a **lack** of melanin, obv

not necessarily. vaccine uptake among minorities was famously tardy although tbf i think it's pretty much evened out now in most places

Man, I didn't realize how much Cano had fully stopped hitting.

xp true, but i look at that list and see dumb white guy after dumb white guy

I know Spencer Strider's stache is what most people talk about but I can't get over those massive Earl Campbell thighs.

sheesh, what a disaster series for the Brewers, they blew 3 late leads vs. the last place Pirates and got walked off twice

The Angels hit 7 home runs today and still lost to the A’s 8-7.

The @Angels are the first team in MLB history to hit 7 solo home runs and score no other runs in a game.

They are also just the 6th team all-time to hit 7 homers in a game and lose.

— Stats By STATS (@StatsBySTATS) August 4, 2022

ohtani needs to get to a real team asap they are so embarrassing

mike trout zero career playoff wins. shohei ohtani zero career playoff appearances. the angels are a crisis of a franchise

you gotta hand it to matt carpenter. his OPS is above 1.200!

unless something goes haywire, he's a shoo-in for Comeback player of the year, I think?

Unlikeliest comeback player, considering how he bad he fared the last two years.

Which team would win a seven-game series?

A. 26-man roster of only MLB pitchers
B. 26-man roster of only MLB position players

(for these purposes Madison Bumgarner and Shohei Ohtani are ineligible)

— Justin Wick (@justwick) August 6, 2022

just thinking this through a bit. one side of the equation is easy to figure out. if it's a team full of pitchers vs a team full of position players, then half of the innings are going to go as usual - the pitchers will throw to the position players, and let's say the position players put up an average of 5 runs per game.

it's the other side that's more difficult. how well will the team of pitchers hit against a team of position players throwing? can the pitchers score more than 5 runs per game?

i don't know if it's possible in baseball-ref (no longer have a sub), but i wonder if there's a way to get the stats for position players throwing to pitchers, prior to the DH

That's a great question...It might not make a difference, but would it be worth knocking that down a full run to four runs a game, since presumably it wouldn't be hard to trot out one guy after another airing it out like Josh Hader for an inning? You could send out eight fresh arms every game.

here's a fun list of all the stats of position players pitching: https://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/fieldPitch.shtml

if i make very basic calcs are right, in the post-integration era the ERA of position players is 6.29. but that was position players throwing to other position players, overwhelmingly. if they were throwing to pitchers, their ERA would be better. but how much better?

also, you have to figure out how to get a 7-game series of innings (if it goes that far) from your position players.

i'm starting to think Pitchers is the correct answer

but would it be worth knocking that down a full run to four runs a game

oh for sure! Yeah, 4 seems like a better assumption. i figured somewhere between 4 and 5, but yeah, if you're facing a team with 26 pitchers, their pitching is probably going to be above average!

oh shit, though, something i didn't think about -- the defense of the team of pitchers is going to be awful. there are going to be tons of errors, possibly a lot of injuries. it's gonna be awkward out there. that might raise the runs per game back up to 5 (or even higher) for the position players