then coronavirus happened, 2020 baseball

It’s too late for me to make any money on this or win the bold prediction lottery but I could totally see a team approaching 40 wins in this... event. Between variance and the ongoing threat of death I can see a bunch of high end players just vanishing or developing “symptoms” if the team starts 10-20 or something like that

W. Yacksel Ríos

Playoff spots are determined by winning percentage, so it can be an advantage to miss some games -- fewer games = less regression to the mean. There is no way that the Cards will be forced to make up more than seven games. Cue the controversy when a 30-30 team misses the playoff cut and a 26-25 team makes it in.

Guys I think there might be an asterisk over this season

madison bumgarner: 17.1 IP, 7 HR, 8.62 FIP, hardest-thrown pitch today was 87.7

one day i'll write up a whole thing about how the "if you throw 650 innings before age 24 your arm won't make it to 30" thing is very real

(unless you're sutton or maddux or blyleven and you didn't really need your velocity anyway)

Wasnt Maddux a hard thrower for the first half of his career?

not really, the most generous sources i can find say he occasionally hit 93 in the beginning. his velo still dropped and it didn't matter because he's greg maddux.

i'm hopeful that kershaw can last 5 or 6 more years off his wits and ability to evolve, assuming he can stay off the IL

Hitting 93 in the late 80's/early 90's meant you were a power pitcher! Not many guys threw harder than that, but he didn't become dominant until he found his control and started winning Cy Youngs every year. By that time, he understood that he didn't need to throw hard to succeed.

Bumgarner's velo might go up as the season goes on (he wouldn't be the only guy messed up by the short July "spring" training) but the move from Oracle Park to Chase Field isn't going away.

Clemens and Seaver threw a lot of innings early, but they were under your 650 threshold, and are obviously exceptions anyway.

The league OBP is .311, which would be the lowest since 1972, another year that led to an important rules change. Since the rubber was set at 60'6" in 1893, there have been just 11 seasons of lower OBP.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) August 10, 2020

I wonder if the notion of a 60-game season (and prospect of an even shorter one) is causing hitters to press a little, knowing you can put up some big small-sample numbers

One last note: Until 2018, there had never been a season with more strikeouts than hits. In 2020, strikeouts are now 17% more common than hits.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) August 10, 2020

High speed, bunt/IF-chop for a hit, moves the runner to 3rd and mitigates the double play risk for the following batter.

those guys generally make the starting lineup though

Just opened it up, haven't read it--baseball-related piece from Christgau.

https://robertchristgau.substack.com/p/quarantine-me-to-the-ball-game?r=1jtu0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

those guys generally make the starting lineup though

― frogbs, Monday, August 10, 2020 7:12 AM (two hours ago)

The "You Can't Steal 1st" crew:
Mallex Smith, Alex Engel, Derek Fisher, et al.

Hitting 93 in the late 80's/early 90's meant you were a power pitcher! Not many guys threw harder than that, but he didn't become dominant until he found his control and started winning Cy Youngs every year. By that time, he understood that he didn't need to throw hard to succeed.

Bumgarner's velo might go up as the season goes on (he wouldn't be the only guy messed up by the short July "spring" training) but the move from Oracle Park to Chase Field isn't going away.

valenzuela and drysdale are the models for most hot young things

Clemens and Seaver threw a lot of innings early, but they were under your 650 threshold, and are obviously exceptions anyway.

― clemenza, Monday, August 10, 2020 10:02 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's boras corp's number, though i remember reading about it plenty on fangraphs before that (maybe not with the exact 650/24 cutoff). i've been interested in it since then - there seems to be a lot of truth to it and if a team has any concern for their young pitchers' careers (they don't lol) they should follow it hard

i'm interested in how minor league/college ball fits in though. i've never really bought the idea that those innings aren't as hard on a pitcher's arm, at least before modern times when teams are more cautious

minor leaguers are kept on very short leashes, but there are different incentives at work in college.

nc state had carlos rodon throw 134 pitches on short rest in 2014 and had him pitch 132 innings the year before that at age 20. you probably can't directly blame those facts, but he has had a *lot* of injury problems

lol

Mets starter Marcus Stroman has opted out of the 2020 season. He has accrued enough service time to reach free agency this winter. He'll do so not having thrown a big league pitch this year.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 10, 2020

2020 bases-on-balls:

Carlos Santana (1B, CLE): 23 (17 GP)
The entire Washington Nationals team: 27 (12 GP)

.188/.451/.250 is quite a line

Mike Clevinger will not make his scheduled start Tuesday against the Cubs after violating health and safety protocols this past weekend in Chicago.
Clevinger reportedly went out in Chicago on Saturday night with fellow Indians starter Zach Plesac, who had to take a rental car back to Cleveland once word of his violation came to light. Clevinger instead flew home on the team charter, after sitting through a meeting about Plesac's transgression on Sunday. Clevinger, like Plesac, will be quarantined for 72 hours and tested daily. Adam Plutko is going to take the mound in his place on Tuesday at Progressive Field versus the visiting Cubs. Clevinger could slot back in this weekend in Detroit.

And after another St. Louis player tested positive, the Cardinals’ series against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates, which was to have run Monday through Wednesday, was postponed Sunday. On Monday, MLB announced that St. Louis’s doubleheader at the Detroit Tigers on Thursday also had been postponed. The Cardinals have not played since July 29; 17 members of the organization (10 players and seven staff members) have tested positive since last week.

Manager Mike Shildt revealed Sunday that some members of the organization have had to seek treatment in an emergency room after experiencing symptoms. John Mozeliak, the team’s president of baseball operations, said one player and one staff member had gone to a hospital, but neither was admitted for treatment and both are at home.

“There are people that have symptoms and have had a few visits to the ER for some IVs and a little more clarity,” Shildt said during an interview with KMOX Radio. “Nobody has had to stay [in the hospital]. But there are people dealing with — I mean, this is real. And people are experiencing a lot of the symptoms that we hear about, that are associated with this. A variety of them. Most of them are experiencing multiple ones. Seems like they rotate with them. And, again, nobody is in close to any critical shape, but people are having to deal with some things that aren’t comfortable at all.”

'you went to the emergency room? what??'

'i needed a little more clarity'

Plesac and Clevinger to Francona and Carrasco: Drop Dead

Wearing a neck gaiter may be worse than no mask at all, researchers find

...“These neck gaiters are extremely common in a lot of places because they’re very convenient to wear,” he said. “But the exact reason why they’re so convenient, which is that they don’t restrict air, is the reason why they’re not doing much of a job helping people.”

The high droplet count could be linked to the neck gaiter’s porous fabric breaking up bigger particles into many little ones that are more likely to hang around in the air longer, Fischer said in the video. This effect makes wearing them possibly “counterproductive,” he added.

“It’s not the case that any mask is better than nothing,” he said. “There are some masks that actually hurt rather than do good.”

https://i.imgur.com/vWmX7Pt.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/pI29DnS.jpg

i'm unhappy with the word 'gaiter'

me too. i didn't know what it was until reading that article, but somehow i immediately knew which kind of mask it referred to

i feel like snoods are getting erased from history

https://i.imgur.com/7lDCJc3.jpg

Tuning into Toronto's first "home" game of the season...

Blue Jays are wearing their retro baby blues instead of whites.

(a cutout of) geddy lee is in the crowd

Was thinking it probably takes as long to drive from Toronto to Buffalo as it does from Los Angeles to where the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" play.

dylan bundy has become the dylan bundy he was always meant to be

― ℺ ☽ ⋠ ⏎ (✖), Thursday, August 6, 2020 8:21 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

25:2 K:BB

― ℺ ☽ ⋠ ⏎ (✖), Thursday, August 6, 2020 8:22 PM (six days ago) bookmarkflaglink

35:3

i'm very happy about the Bundy that showed up this season!

didn't bundy have that breakout year like 3 years ago before he went to tits again?

he started 2017 strong but nothing like this - 59:23 in his first 83 innings with 11 HR (and that was lucky)

then had a blazing hot start in 2018 closer to this before imploding - 40:9 with a single home run in 32 innings despite playing all games in hitters parks with a high FB%. and then he allowed 12 HR in his next 5 starts.

looking a lot more reasonable this year, just a low BABIP and a high LOB. his homers are probably low but he plays in LAA now.

he's throwing his fourseam 19% less than he did in baltimore. wish someone just told him to give that a try for a few starts when he was here

andrew benintendi has a .103 batting average and a higher on base percentage than six of the nine hitters in the red sox starting lineup today.

aw he means well

literally

Things are getting chippy at Citi Field. David Peterson opens the fourth inning by drilling Juan Soto with a pitch, an inning after J.D. Davis was plunked.

Umpires warn both benches, then warn Luis Rojas to stay in the dugout and not to argue.

Mets 1, Nationals 1, top fourth.

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) August 13, 2020

When Rojas was warned not to come on the field, Keith Hernandez pleaded, "What have we lost?" or somesuch.

OF prospect Lane Thomas tested positive the other day, and now this from this morning:

Friday Cards game looks like it will be postponed. Hear a STL coach tested positive. Saturday not ruled out yet. https://t.co/tJwjPDJQU4

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 13, 2020

warning: john heyman rumor

hold on a second, let me put on my magical thinking hat. ok, now we're good:

What I said on Fox: League working with union on setting full Cardinals schedule. Players want additional doubleheaders to create off-days. League believes STL still could get close to 60 games, and maybe even to 60 by making up doubleheader if necessary day after season ends.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 13, 2020

awesome news! turns out the cardinals will play 60 games this year! also they just put another starting pitcher on the IL for Covid-19, even though he hasn't tested positive yet. looking forward to watching 5 double-headers each week until they all die!

how bout a tripleheader. play an entire series in one day. three five-inning games

first team to complete 60 games without the whole team dying wins, play as many games as quickly as possible, go

Holy sh*t I didn't know that STL has only played 5 games this year.

the Pirates are 4.5 games behind them lmao

people on an outside cardinals baseball thread are currently fantasizing about going for JD Martinez at the trade deadline because "the team is a game under .500 but only 5.5 games back in the standings."

great idea, deal some prospects for 30 games of JD Martinez during the dumbest baseball season of all time so the cardinals can have a better chance of making it into "who fucking cares" playoffs of 2020