2018 regular-season game chatter

oof

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Cardinals center fielder Tommy Pham was removed from St. Louis’ game against the New York Mets on Wednesday night in the bottom of the third inning due to a head injury sustained earlier in the day.

Pham got a cut on his head before the game when he accidentally hit himself in the indoor batting cage.

Pham, who has been battling hamstring issues, missed games on Saturday and Sunday against Cincinnati. He returned to the lineup Monday and went 3 for 3 with a home run and two RBIs in a 6-5 loss to the Mets.

Pham hit a fly ball to right field in the first inning. Harrison Bader then pinch-hit for him in the third.

Pham injured himself in the batting cage when a “hitting contraption” of his design snapped the bat barrel back and caught him in the head. “Blood started gushing. I need to get that fixed,” he says. https://t.co/5gbneoZoND

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) April 26, 2018

i mean i knew pham was injury-prone but

acuna debuted today and got a hit! even more impressive was him going from first to third on this normal-ass single:

https://www.mlb.com/video/statcast-acunas-epic-speed/c-1977034883?tid=240568594

statcast put his "sprint speed" at 30.3 ft/sec, which would put just behind byron buxton in the MLB: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sprint_speed_leaderboard

Clayton Kershaw W-L
2016: 12-4
2017: 18-4
2018: 1-4

acuna go boom

xpost to A.R. Broccoli

pham gave kind of an odd interview about the injury after the game where he casually mentioned that he had been stabbed before so he was used to blood. turns out it was his father who stabbed him, about 5 years ago:

Tommy Pham gave me the back story on being stabbed. He said about 5 yrs ago his step father stabbed him just below the rib cage while they were fighting. Tommy said he was Ok, but there was quite a bit of blood.

— Jim Hayes (@TheCatOnFox) April 26, 2018

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_PPgU44tBL8E/SX5SNKzQ-HI/AAAAAAAAAYc/ZvQm8brOXbs/s400/The_Stepfather.jpg

photoshop

that's pretty messed up!

yeah, i'm rooting for tommy pham so hard. if injuries don't ruin everything, he is my pick for the little-discussed Least WAR accumulated in 20s / Most WAR accumulated in 30s award

who are some of the previous recipients of this prestigious award?

i think he'll be good for a few years, and he's made Cards fans forget about Jason Heyward (though Jason Heyward is doing a good job of that too.)

xpost
lol, i just started looking it up to see. i guess maybe one way to calculate it would just be (30s WAR) - (20s WAR), and the competition is stiff. Barry Bonds had 99.6 fWAR in his 30s (and 65 more in his 20s)! but you know, steroids.

i have to run an errand but when i get home i might dump it all into a spreadsheet and see who really turned it up a notch in their 30s

one that came to mind: your homie Jim Edmonds had almost a 40 WAR in his thirties

Bonds' (30s - 20s) WAR is 34.6. Jackie Robinson put up 48.8 of his 57.2 career WAR during his 30s, for a (30s - 20s) score of 40.2

if Pham can somehow keep up this pace for 6-7 full seasons, he could win this prestigious prize that has such a great name: The 30s - 20s WAR score, presented by Honda

r.a. dickey: 0.7 WAR in his 20s, 17.2 WAR in his 30s, 5.1 WAR in his 40s

one that came to mind: your homie Jim Edmonds had almost a 40 WAR in his thirties

45.5 WAR, according to fangraphs! but he also put up 19.4 WAR during his 20s, leaving him with a (30s - 20s) score of 45.5 - 19.4 = 26.1. Sorry Jimmy.

here's a sorted list: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=1871&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=30,58&filter=&players=0

Raul Ibanez wasn't exactly a WAR beast but he didn't start hitting until he was almost 30. I think his 20s WAR was 0.something and in his thirties it was a robust 20.something.

Would 30s WAR as percentage of career WAR be a better yardstick? Maybe with a career minimum of 25 or something.

Edgar might be the winner by those criteria, judging by the data in Karl Malone's list.

just me or are there an unusual number of day games today?

Would 30s WAR as percentage of career WAR be a better yardstick? Maybe with a career minimum of 25 or something.

Yeah, that’s a good idea! I’ll check that out too, once I get home

That @Braves fan who caught Ronald Acuña Jr.'s first home run? He drove up from Atlanta just to see the game. @KelsWingert has more: pic.twitter.com/ADHVr3fVil

— FOX Sports: Braves (@FOXSportsBraves) April 26, 2018

this is incredible. braves fan drives from atlanta to cincinnati to see acuna play. catches his first career home run, without missing a beat grabs his backpack and sprints out of the stadium. negotiations with braves ongoing. fucking hero

awesome.

Pham is okay apparently

lol twins

the moment we've all been waiting for: the leaderboard for highest percentage of career WAR attained during a player's age 30-to-39 seasons:

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

(minimum 25 WAR, as suggested by WilliamC)

that is a list of baseball players

good ol' gavvy cravath

i looked him up because i was intrigued by his name and check out this beautiful baseball card:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8b/Gavvy_Cravath_Baseball_Card.jpg/250px-Gavvy_Cravath_Baseball_Card.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DbvYJXwXUAAz_y-.jpg

Outstanding

one thing i've always heard about cravath - he really hit his stride in his 30s

Cool! Thanks for running those numbers, Karl. (Of course now I'm curious about players with significant WAR in their 40s.)

phil niekro: 25.5 in his 40s
roger clemens: 22.2

i can't imagine any hitters coming close to that . . . unless they'd let bonds play

Nolan Ryan: 31.1

nolan ryan had 30+ fWAR in his 40s

xpost oops! but yep

Could somebody remind me how age-season is calculated for birthdays in the middle of the season? If someone's birthdate is, say, 7/24/64, is 2004 their age-39 season or age-40 season?

from baseball-reference: player's age at midnight june 30th of that year

(you can see it if you hover over the age column)

Ah, thanks. Tough luck for Barry Bonds, then, who had 11.9 WAR in his age 39 season and 7.1 in his 40s.

Reds pitching staff is a grease fire but watching the four game Braves series, I was pretty impressed by the Cobb County lineup. Ender Inciarte also has a really good arm in the outfield, he played some impressive center field.

WATCH: @RaysBaseball Denard Span circle the bases at Fenway Park after an in-the-park home run. All of today's action against the Red Sox is live now on FOX Sports Sun and FOX Sports Go! #RaysUp #MLB pic.twitter.com/wNfPuzwkzN

— FOX Sports Florida (@FOXSportsFL) April 28, 2018

Definitely some wear on the Twins bullpen treads. They successfully went Zach Duke, Addison Reed and Fernando Rodney to close out the Reds today.

Gary Sanchez HR barely clears the left field bleachers fence...

A-Rod: "That blast just landed in the Bronx"

corey seager: out for the season