2019 Rolling "Hey Chatter Chatter" chatterthread

regular season games should probably end in a tie after 12 innings

No! This isn't hockey.

would be better for pitchers (and rosters) and no one needs a 17 inning game in july imo

The Indians went 18-1 against the Tigers this year (a record).

The Astros tied that record with yesterday's win (18-1 vs the Mariners).

top 5 in bWAR, all players

Bellinger 8.6
Trout 8.3
Bregman 8.2
Semien 8.0
deGrom 7.9

Ask me if I care Pete

— Mike Minor (@MikeMinor36) September 26, 2019

Jaffe on the remaining chances for ties

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/team-entropy-2019-hey-theres-still-meat-on-this-bone/

lmao that Mike Minor game was incredible, much respect to the Red Sox for repeatedly popping up on the first pitch to try to stop him from getting it

Congrats to the Rays making the playoffs despite having the lowest payroll in the league, and the second lowest attendance. They deserve more.

i know essentially nothing about tampa bay-area geography, but some local columnist recently called out the fans and the response was like 'it takes multiple hours to get there unless you live in st. petersburg'

between that and the money and the catwalks, might as well watch it on tv

one sad thing about pete kozma is that he was not good enough to play on the 2019 detroit tigers

Yarbrough is such a crap pitcher... good luck Rays.

what to watch for today besides NL Central?

Nice moment:

https://www.mlb.com/news/madison-bumgarner-s-final-at-bat-vs-clayton-kershaw

:,(

The Angels have fired Brad Ausmus.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) September 30, 2019

That’ll get Albert fired up!

No Angel pitched more than 100 IP in 2019, is that Ausmus fault?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFuzxyUUYAEuNdM?format=jpg&name=small

as time goes by i am certain that very few managerial changes are tied strongly to "fault"

longest tenured manager with their current team in the NL is now.....Craig Counsell

did maddon ever get any shit for basically stealing rick renteria's job? it's not illegal or anything, but some people would not have done it

In the position player’s top 30 in fWAR, nine are third basemen.

lol... can't wait to see which 3B defense buff is being applied.

if you look at just wRC+ (hitting only), 7 of the top 30 are 3B, and 9 of the top 34.

there are just a lot of good 3B right now, and many of them are also excellent defenders in addition to being good hitters.

in baseball's reference oWAR, there is 9 3b in the top 30. As Karl said, I really don't think it's a fluke.

oWAR counts positions too, but yeah 3B is a deep position right now

https://cdn-blogs.fangraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Strikeouts-and-Walks-Per-Plate-Appearance.png

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/verlanders-twin-milestones-cap-a-year-of-record-strikeouts/

weirdly this was the first season since 2005 that a player didn't "break" Bobby Bonds' previously held record of strikeouts by a batter in a season (Eugenio Suarez tied him w/189!).

after adjusting for the average strikeout% per season, rob deer's 1987 is the modern single season strikeout record. he struck out the modern-day equivalent of 923 times that year

that graph clearly indicating the only thing in baseball that needs to be "fixed"

we need to walk more people, clearly.

i appreciate the added breeze from whiffing on a humid day

i have to admit i'm curious what a sudden return to late 1920s baseball (post-deadball, low strikeouts+walks) would look like in the modern era

general charlie morton / lol pirates question (for mookie, probably): why is he so good now when he was so mediocre in the NL for so long?

i haven't really seen enough of AL morton, but for one thing, he seems to be throwing significantly harder. the pirates/ray searage (rip) theory dictated pitching inside and throwing ground balls, which morton was theoretically perfect for -- i mean his nickname was ground chuck. maybe he was trying to paint the edges too much? the astros seem to have freed him (and cole) to simply throw the ball by people.

two years old, but: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/charlie-morton-now-dictating-his-own-fate

Sinker usage rate went from high 50% to 20%

BREAKING: Angels employee tells DEA about extensive opioid use with Tyler Skaggs, that he told two team officials about Skaggs' abuse, and named other players as having used opioids, sources tell OTL.https://t.co/YGmF58mX7M

— T.J. Quinn (@TJQuinnESPN) October 12, 2019

Kay told DEA investigators that hours before Skaggs' death in July, Skaggs was in his Southlake Hilton hotel room and texted Kay to visit him, according to a source familiar with what Kay told the DEA. Kay also told investigators that Skaggs snorted three lines of crushed opioids in front of him, the sources said. Kay recognized that two of the lines could have been crushed oxycodone, but the third was not a substance he recognized, the sources said. Kay said he did not take any drugs despite being offered them by Skaggs, the sources said, because he was on a medication that would have negated the effects.

Holy shit. I wonder if this will blow up bigger than just Skaggs or if this was just a dude with a problem.

this piece argues the latter


https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/10/12/major-league-baseball-has-an-opioid-problem-now-what/

er the former, sorry.

Phillies' mgr candidates:

Buck Showalter
Joe Girardi
Dusty Baker

2 lols outta 3

Phillies hire Girardi.

It's his next logical stop on Morbs' personal shitlist.

padres hire Jayce Tingler, which i'm pretty sure is a made-up name

I have a real soft spot for Girardi, it's funny he's only 55 but w/ how much the game's changed he might as well be Connie Mack

He'll be good for them

I heard the two fucking morning morons on WFAN interviewing Jon Heyman (who seems like a genius in that context), and they are livid that Girardi didn't go to the Mets. Among other things, it never occurred to them that he doesn't want any part of the Wilpons.

i forget which recent thread (hof?) had some good discussion on catching framing/metrics, including the big boost in fWAR that some players got in the process. but resuming that discussion here, i guess, i share the skepticism about the numbers, and even if they're reliable, i agree that it sucks that it's only incorporated for games back to 2007 (or whatever year it goes back to), for comparative purposes.

but i thought this was a good, simple explanation of how the numbers really can be so dramatic:

http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/article/statcast-lab-catcher-framing-wowy-at-the-individual-game-level

i'd excerpt some of it here but there are images that are important and i'm lazy right now

Meet Mason Saunders, the secret rodeo identity of Madison Bumgarner

https://theathletic.com/1629527/2020/02/23/meet-mason-saunders-the-secret-rodeo-identity-of-madison-bumgarner/?source=shared-article