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

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

Julio Rodríguez sure seems like a budding superstar, but I'm still surprised 21-year-olds are getting these massive extensions after playing like....half a season. That seems like throwing a big mix of pressure/risk/expectations into the equation right at the start. Hearing about this made me realize that I can't remember the last time I heard about Wander Franco (turns out he is on the IL).

This Mets season has been so great that most of my stress has been directed at the Braves' inability to lose for the last two/three months.

re boston it’s going to be an interesting offseason. not sure why xander would feel like sticking around at this point. killer b’s all gone, pitching a shambles. it feels like the real rebuild is yet to come. looking back on the betts deal… one of the worst i can remember

just reading about the julio rodriguez deal:

Basically, the extension starts off as an eight-year, $120 million deal. After seven years, the Mariners have to decide whether to pick up a club option that starts after the eighth season. The specific length and value of that option depends on how Rodríguez fares in MVP voting, but it can run for eight or 10 years and range in value from $200 million to $350 million. If the Mariners don’t pick up the option, Rodríguez has a five-year, $90 million option that he can exercise, providing him some financial security on the back end if he gets injured or goes the way of Cesar Cedeno. The contract maxes out at 18 years and $470 million. At a minimum, Rodríguez can guarantee himself $210 million. Per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the deal also comes with a full no-trade clause, giving Rodríguez veto power over any trades in the event that another team comes to like the terms of his deal a lot more than the Mariners do.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-ms-and-julio-rodriguez-write-the-most-expensive-choose-your-own-adventure-book-ever/

has there ever been a player option that is so long? after 8 seasons, if Rodriguez goes full-on Bellinger, he could still give himself another 5 years, $90M. by then, in the distant year of, 2030, that will probably be a pittance compared to the cost of living in the nuclear charred landscape, where mordor meets the road and everyone is crying. but still! it's hard to imagine doing that to fans, too -- they've watched you suck for so long, and then you press the "5 more years of my bullshit" button, lol.

then again, a lot of players who are as good as julio rodriguez, at his age, turn out to be worth the investment. this is pure speculation and i know nothing about baseball or life, but to me this seems like the kind of contract a GM puts together when they know they're not going to be there 8 years from now for the repercussions, lol

Rodriguez isn't even the best rookie in the American League, where's Adley's megadeal

coming, probably! and man, betting on a catcher to stay healthy for a long time also sounds like a bad idea, lol. i guess it's easier now in the post-buster posey injury era, though.

NO FUTURE!

jeez, this is a lot of money riding purely on MVP votes!

At minimum, Seattle will be deciding on whether to extend the contract by eight years and another $200MM. That figure could escalate as follows, depending on Rodriguez’s finishes in MVP balloting over the next seven years:

$240MM over eight years with two or three top ten finishes
$260MM over eight years with four top ten finishes
$280MM over eight years if he wins an MVP and finishes in the top five once more or finishes in the top five of MVP balloting on three occasions
$350MM over ten years if he wins two MVP awards or finishes among the top five in balloting on four occasions
In the event Rodriguez hits that highest threshold and the Mariners exercise the option, the contract would max out at 18 years and $470MM in total value.

rodriguez should go full cheater and pay each of the 30 writers who vote for AL MVP. just give them each a million or whatever, it'll be worth it for everyone

These super early megadeals feel a bit like reading the first half-chapter of a book and finding it so amazing that you don’t need to read the rest to know it will be one of the best books. Definitely possible, but does not seem advisable. No one could have predicted a Bellinger megadeal after his 2019 MVP season would have turned out horribly from the Dodgers perspective.

Btw the dodgers have gone 41-9 in their 50 games, and I believe 115-47 over their last 162 regular season games.

coming, probably! and man, betting on a catcher to stay healthy for a long time also sounds like a bad idea, lol.

good point, save the money for gunnar

Hader has been a disaster for the Padres

very surreal top of the tenth as the espn broadcast has given way to a full playback of a new adam wainwright original song