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

"hey dad...wanna have a catch?"

"you're not my son!"

*running away noises*

Lol

*dull thud of ball hitting back of running dad's lower thigh*

How in the world does Rougned Odor keep a job? What value does he bring to a team?

He brings a certain je ne sais quoi

just remembering now that Rougned has an uncle named Rouglas

i like Scooby Doo names like Rouglas and Rance.

Je ne sais hit, je ne sais field, je ne sais much of anything. He even managed a negative b-WAR in 2019, when he hit 30 HR.

lol

This is it, basically

https://defector.com/rougned-odor-takes-gives-takes-and-gives-again/

As an Orioles fan, I'm absolutely happy to have this guy on the team, even though he is objectively kind of bad at baseball

Nats 4 Sale

At least five interested parties, including mortgage mogul Stanley Middleman and South Korean billionaire Michael B. Kim, have looked through the Washington Nationals’ financial reports and met with team personnel, and the Lerner family will seek initial bids before the end of the regular season for a potential sale of the team, according to multiple people familiar with the process.

The Nationals’ recent trade of star outfielder Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres was an unusual complexity, but the team’s sale process did not directly dictate the decision, those people said. Three people with direct knowledge of the Soto deliberations said the Lerners did not seek input about Soto from any of the potential bidders. All spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about an ongoing process.

Allen & Co., the firm hired by the Lerners to handle the sale, declined to comment for this story, but two people with direct knowledge of the situation said the firm’s only advice was simple: Do what you would do if you were going to continue owning the team and make the best decision for the health of the franchise moving forward. If Soto signed a long-term contract to remain in Washington, he could be a selling point, a cornerstone. If the Nationals traded him and replenished their minor league system in the process, then a would-be bidder could inherit financial flexibility and a clean slate for the future.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/12/washington-nationals-sale-stanley-middleman/

a guy named Middleman getting rich off of mortgages is too much for me; i'm checking out of this

fuck, Tatis suspended 80 games for steroids, huge bummer about a player and team I really like

Wait is this real? The editor of Baseball America tweeted it.

:0

it's real and holy shit

Shit, yeah, apparently real, everywhere now.

Terrible. Maybe that ties in with the Soto acquisition--maybe they knew he was under investigation.

now *that* is a friday news dump

wow

how do dudes think they’re going to get away with juicing in 2022???

or “accidentally taking medications that have steroids in them” in 2022

In a statement, the 23-year-old shortstop said he inadvertently treated ringworm with a medication that contained the banned substance Clostebol, and that after initially appealing the ruling, he decided to drop the appeal.

“I should have used the resources available to me in order to ensure that no banned substances were in what I took. I failed to do so,” Tatis said in his statement. “I have no excuse for my error, and I would never do anything to cheat or disrespect this game I love.”

i've never gotten ringworm (humblebrag), but how common is Clostebol in medication?

xp clemenza

The league’s policy dictates that clubs are not notified of a player’s positive test until the day that player is set to be added to the restricted list, so the Padres did not know Tatis had tested positive when they engineered a franchise-altering deal to acquire Juan Soto from the Washington Nationals at the trade deadline.

Sad day for baseball, I really liked him even tho he wasn't on my team

do not give a crap about this at all tbh, just want him back playing asap

The Curse of Dairy Queen? They selected 4 players this season to market their ice cream and sandwiches:

Bryce Harper: Broken thumb, out since June 26.

Tim Anderson: Broken finger, out 6 weeks.

Cody Bellinger: Hitting .210 with 668 OPS.

Fernando Tatis: Suspended for PED use.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 13, 2022

Bellinger has been cursed since 2020. At least he’s not posting a negative WAR this year.

I'll take the blame for Bellinger.

Doubt Judge not lest ye be Judged

I was trying to think of possible recent parallels for Tatis--players who a) looked headed for the HOF, and b) had to get out from under a scandal. I'll eliminate the first wave of PED players, since that's still murky--only guys who got caught after it was a clear infraction. They're far from perfect matches for Tatis, but:

1) Ryan Braun: clear decline after his 2013 suspension, but not steep. Six years older than Tatis, though, so might have been normal decline.

2) Robinson Cano: obviously, much older, and not a good match at all.

3) Altuve and Correa: hard to say--we still don't know how the sign-stealing thing will be viewed in 10 years, whether it will be as disqualifying as PEDs have (thus far) been.

So, I don't know if there's a good parallel.

Maybe you could add Alex Bregman, too--he looked HOF-bound after 2018/19, and he's declined a lot since the scandal became news. But he's had injuries, too, and COVID complicates the careers of all three Astros. Meant to say that Correa had an MVP-level season in 2021, after the scandal, while Altuve has declined some, but easily attributable to normal aging in your early 30s.

Conclusion I draw from this very exhaustive, scientific study: most all of these players declined some after their scandals, but in every case there are other plausible explanations.

Feels like it’s too early to even think of Tatis as being HOF-bound? I think you gotta have at least 5-7 great seasons under your belt, minimum.

You're right, but he felt (feels?) like one of those players where you know right away. They don't have any Similarity Scores up for him yet on Baseball Reference, but I bet if you found his ten closest comps for first ~1200 PA (.292/.369/.596, 160 OPS+, 8.1 bWAR/162 games), it'd be a pretty imposing list, and almost all HOF'ers. But anything can happen...like getting suspended for PEDs!

reaching the HoF requires playing a lot of games. and a lot of guys don't even become regulars until they're like 25 -- rutschman only debuted at 24. so if a guy puts up 4.2 bWAR as a 20yo (as tatis did) that's a big advantage and big deal

i mean, there's also jason heyward. but we can still dream

A really young jump is definitely a big advantage in giving you a cushion later on. Pujols, Cabrera, Griffey, Jr...there are a number of HOF'ers who were basically able to coast in their 30s because of a fast start. Obvious counter-example, Judge. Obvious horrible example, Bellinger.

I’m still skeptical. David Wright (who started at 21) had about 10 great seasons in a row and looked very much on the way to Hall of Fame, and then injuries derailed it so quickly. You need to be really good for a really long time.

That said, looking forward to seeing where Soto is at in like 5 years.

david wright seems like he had almost the worst case scenario re: injuries. injuries just _destroyed_ his career, and just as he only needed maybe 2-3 more of his typical years in order to make it. unless you're at a koufax-level, you have to stick around and keep doing it through your early thirties as well, or at least make a late-career comeback. Wright was juuuuust before the point where he could have pulled a Pujols level, who was at a Pujols level because of his early start and Koufax-like level

sorry, left out some words

he was juuuuuuuust before the point where he could have pulled a Pujols-level total fuckup in his 30s. Pujols was able to completely fail in his 30s and still make the HOF first ballot because he was at the Koufax level for so long, unlike Wright

I think Altuve is the right comp because, like Tatis, he was broadly liked and admired by tons of fans who had no relationship with his team.

https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/08/11/patrick-corbin-nationals-historically-bad-the-opener

The Nationals are off Thursday. That is merciful both generally, with the state of this roster, and specifically, with the fact that it would have been a start day for Patrick Corbin. The club announced earlier this week that it would take the opportunity to skip him in the rotation—but, lest fans grow too excited, they clarified he would still make his next start as scheduled on Tuesday. And then manager Dave Martinez offered something vaguely chilling.

“I want to leave this year with a positive moving forward to next year,” said Martinez, according to Andrew Golden of The Washington Post. “Because, regardless of what anyone thinks, he’s going to be one of our starters next year and the year after that.”

yikes. i understand that a big contract usually equals playing time no matter what, because the concept of the sunk cost is too frightening to even consider, let alone act upon. but if i were a nats fan i would be extremely dismayed to hear that Corbin has a spot in the rotation through 2024 no matter what

every single team in the AL East is closer to first place than the padres are in the NL West

i guess i'm happy that the padres are exciting and will make the playoffs, but also i wish they weren't so utterly pathetic vs the doyers

Nothing all that eye-opening here, but its one of Posnanski's shareable columns, so here's a link:

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/checking-in-on-the-mvp-races?r=1jtu0&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

this is so basic that it seems silly to even bring up, but: i would like to read an explainer on how catchers, pitchers, and non-players work together to choose pitches in the PitchCom era

I know that Winning Pct. is one of the key sabermetric stats for pitchers these days, so the excitement around Tony Gonsolin is deafening...He might set some kind of unofficial record this season. There are 29 pitchers listed at 1.000 on Baseball Reference's single-season leaders (including Max Fried during the COVID season), but only one of them pitched over 100 innings: Ray Brown for the Homestead Grays in 1938, 14-0, 11 games started, 9 in relief. Elroy Face was 18-1 in 1959, strictly relief; Connie Rector was also 18-1 in 1929, 22 starts and 4 relief appearances in the American Negro League. Next is Johnny Allen in 1937, 15-1, 20 GS, 4 relief appearances.

That's where Gonsolin is after winning tonight: 15-1, 22 GS, no relief games. If you discount all the 1.000 guys as relief pitchers, or for not having pitched much, and discount Elroy Face for the same reason, then the record comes down to Connie Rector and Johnny Allen. Gonsolin should get 8-10 more starts after tonight.

I was wondering how lucky he's been this year. Just going by runs allowed, he's had one cheap win: three runs in five innings on July 31. He pitched poorly in two of his six no-decisions, well in the other four; his ERA in no-decisions is 3.25. In his loss, he gave up four runs in six innings. So he's had a little luck. Oh--and he pitches for the Dodgers.

Baseball Reference has him 9th in WAR among NL pitchers; Fangraphs, 18th.

Tomorrow, I tackle game-winning RBI.

looks like yadier molina has his first managing gig lined up

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/sports/baseball/yadier-molina-retire-manager.html

Paul DeJong, a Cardinals shortstop, said he was surprised that Molina was headed to Venezuela to manage this winter since he thought his teammate would end up spending his time on his charitable efforts in Puerto Rico or coaching his professional basketball team (Bayamon Vaqueros) on the island.

But Molina said he couldn’t do the latter because he is the owner. He said he wanted to manage a baseball team in Puerto Rico but didn’t get the opportunity. So when two of his Venezuelan friends — José Martínez, a former teammate, and Pablo Sandoval, another former major leaguer — heard Molina was looking for a shot after playing, they tried to recruit him to their respective Venezuelan winter league teams. Sandoval’s team won.

And with that, Molina will dive into managing right away with the Navegantes del Magallanes, the defending champions of the eight-team Venezuelan Professional Baseball League.

“It’s something different, and I’d like to try it early and see how it goes,” Molina said recently in Spanish, adding that he was grateful the Magallanes gave him a chance. “And then after, I can decide if I want to do it over here.”

in case the URL and the excerpt suggests otherwise, this will be after this MLB season, not "right away"

tlr just intentionally walked *another* guy in a 1-2 count