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

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

Yanks sure have taken a tumble. Lost 13 out of their last 16.

lol

lol to tlr

i think it’s fair to lol at both

maybe the tlr intentional walk on 1-2 count thing is like...bear with me...the thing where you do something really dumb and inexplicable, and then realize someone saw you do it. but they don't indicate that they saw you do it, and you don't indicate that you know that they saw you do it. and then later -- the truly dumb part -- you do the dumb thing AGAIN, while they're watching, as if to prove that you don't know that they're watching you, because no one who knew anyone was watching would do this dumb thing once, let alone twice.

ok, bad analogy. but what i mean is when you something dumb is done intentionally for the second time, as if to prove by doing it again that the first one was also valid and that it might happen at any time, in fact

No way my Dad got Tony to pinch run Engel in the 8th 😭 @JomboyMedia @MLBONFOX @JamesFox917 @NBCSChicago @SoxMach_pnoles pic.twitter.com/CTr7aeUumL

— David (@WeinoChi) August 16, 2022

Bad Headline HOF (mlb.com): "Tyler, the creator of wins, on the mound in LA"

It’s too early to fully say but the Padres sure seem snakebit since the trade deadline, going 6-10. Not just the Tatis suspension. Hader has been awful (16.20 ERA in 5 games), Bell and Drury have not hit at all aside from one grand slam, and Soto, while hitting better, has 3 RBIs in 16 games.

The NYY meltdown is really remarkable

i dunno, they're still +7 games in the NL East, and i expect that they're still a pretty good team

the dodgers are obliterating records for being consistently good. it's getting old as shit, fuck you dodgers

it probably doesn't matter -- they were still 90% likely to win the division and get a bye coming into today's game -- but trading jordan montgomery for a guy who hasn't played in two months and only just got out of a boot may yet become an exemplar of great hubris

https://i.imgur.com/Scmkk61.png

i was at the bottom of the barrel. my life was shambles. then i met a wonderful couple that really changed things

Interesting font choice for the ampersand

i do appreciate when the tv lawyers ask 'have you or a loved one been dismembered by a runaway combine' as if i, having been rendered into constituent parts, were still watching shitty local tv ads

*left leg watches from a hospital bed*

i would like legal representation from a married couple, a man and a woman, in a traditional marriage

i can't sleep well at night unless i know that my lawyers are having children with the penis in vagina method

unrelated, but i used to google fangraphs + player

but now google the player + fangraphs

huge changes in my life

f + tab + player

As virtually every team scrambles around with their pitching staffs, the Dodgers reactivate Dustin May from Tommy John surgery, and the next day, in his first game of the year, he pitches five shutout innings, with 1 hit, 1 walk, and 9 strikeouts.

apropos of nothing, this white sox season has been such a bummer. some positives (cease, vaughn, robert when he's been healthy) but mostly just slogging around the middle of the (very weak!) AL central with a bunch of injuries and mediocre dudes. they still have a decent chance of taking the division if they can get healthy and hot for a week or two but it's hard to feel optimistic about it at this point.

p.s. fuck tony larussa

apparently he started a clearly injured michael kopech today and left him in for like 20 pitches despite a rapidly declining pitch speed

he definitely sucks

did you see that tweet just a bit upthread? it shows a fan near the dugout yelling to TLR to pinch-run for someone in an obvious situation (he was snoozing)

No way my Dad got Tony to pinch run Engel in the 8th 😭 @JomboyMedia @MLBONFOX @JamesFox917 @NBCSChicago @SoxMach_pnoles pic.twitter.com/CTr7aeUumL

— David (@WeinoChi) August 16, 2022

how many teams have turfed their manager mid-season this year? three, i think? and TLR has probably the best case out of anyone to lose his job. yet here we are...

i'm not going to pin all the white sox problems on him but it does seem like having a younger manager who could relate and motivate the players better couldn't hurt

i don't follow the central closely (or the sox obvs) – but i feel like the players would be glad to be rid of him. more relatable would be nice, but he's clearly not all there anymore.

Jordan Montgomery tossed a 99-pitch 1-hit Maddux. not sure what the game score was, but 7Ks, 0 walks.

Hardest-hit batted balls tracked by Statcast (since 2015):

Oneil Cruz: 122.4 mph, today
Giancarlo Stanton: 122.2 mph, 8/9/21
Giancarlo Stanton: 122.2 mph, 10/1/17
Giancarlo Stanton: 121.7 mph, 8/9/18
Giancarlo Stanton: 121.3 mph, 7/25/20

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) August 24, 2022

it was a single off of the top of clemente wall in RF in pittsburgh and would have been a home run (and obviously the hardest hit one in the statcast era) in 26 parks

also it reminds me of a weird career stanton has had

Weird how? Been pretty consistently solid slugger with a few outlier good years and a bunch of injury hampered years

yeah, weird is not the right word. he's amazingly consistent on the hitting side, when he plays. a career 141 wRC+, never below 118 in a season, never higher than 161 either. maybe it's his injury history that's notable? i don't pay any attention to his injury status, i just always assume he's injured, and he usually is. despite all that, he always comes back, year and year, hitting the ball harder than anyone. maybe what's weird, if anything is, is that he's quick to break but he's also quick to repair

It's weird that he could pass 500 HRs, frequently achieves these bizarre feats of strength that shouldn't be possible, plays for the Yankees, and also I constantly forget he exists when I'm not watching him do something. He seems like someone who should be a high-impact gamechanger type but he hasn't been that in years. Kinda just a dude now

i don't get to see him play that often. by stats he kind of seems like he verges on one true outcome, and that's a boring kind of player to watch when they're not hitting the one most truthful outcome. especially if they're not a superlative defender. he needs to do some roy hobbs shit

hit hard, throw hard, be 6'7"

In his last 10 ABs, Corey Dickerson is 10-for-10! 😱 pic.twitter.com/b7RVNdz6ro

— MLB (@MLB) August 25, 2022

i think this is tied (10) with the most in NL history, if i'm reading this right? record is 12 in the AL (Walt Dropo and Matt Diaz -- baseball is weird)

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/rb_bstrk.shtml

er, just Dropo, not Diaz. and also, it's a three-way tie for first, between Dropo, Pinky Higgins, and Johnny Kling. loving these names

icymi

A 99 MPH cannon. 🔥

Run on Aquino and you will get punished. 💀 pic.twitter.com/9eQLZn9bG8

— MLB (@MLB) August 25, 2022

as of monday the red sox, despite being 3.5 games behind the orioles and having a far worse run differential, were still ahead of baltimore in fangraphs' odds to make the playoffs

that finally changed on tuesday, although today they still give the sox a 0.1% chance to win the world series while the o's are at 0.0% (despite their 5.5-game lead over boston)

i mean obviously neither are going to make it, but it does seem like the model should adjust to the 77% of the season that's been played and in which the sox have been awful