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

i'll be watching Waino pitch this afternoon!

VERY NICE! are you there right now? god, to hear the organ and see the clydesdales is just the best

going to the home opener in Milwaukee, pretty excited

KM you and I are now enemies until October

oh goodness no. I'm in Toronto. i just want to watch baseball, and I choose Wainwright over Witt.

JOIN THE LIST FROGBS, let's fukken do this

also, check this out, lol

Noah Syndergaard calls #Angels new team to beat in LA, says slumping Mookie Betts "could use a protein shake" 👀 pic.twitter.com/n0WZke885U

— FAX Sports: MLB  (@MLBONFAX) April 5, 2022

is that real?!

shit. i posted on the hot stove thread that ke'bryan hayes had just gotten an eight-year extension. he struck out, missed a couple close plays in the outfield (it's very windy though), and just came out of the game with an apparent wrist injury. all in the first inning.

what list

oh, i was just kidding. the legions of people who don't understand that the cardinals are america's team

;)

Cheers from this Ruthian Omni Canine and Ever-Slumping Human Vegan
https://i.imgur.com/iocS7vH.png

whats a better nickname for Chicago, Scrubs or Cubes

<3 francisF

Scrubs is perfect

Cubes is funnier though

scrubs sounds better spoke out loud, cubes reads better on a screen

aw, i ain't got no dog :(

Bring on more dog/owner opening day photos.

2022 version of a shutout from Wainwright, Goldschmidt on base all five AB.

Half-serious about the first part...should they redefine what constitutes a shutout from the starter, or do you just close the book on that stat forever (or at least let it become the equivalent of triple play)?

is this for sure Wano's last season?

also: me and the bean in our finest Jay gear:
https://i.imgur.com/7w8vWqA.jpg

it isn't for sure his last season. pujols and molina both claim they will retire, but waino hasn't. it's widely assumed he will, but i'm not sure why. i could see him going until the next big arm injury, and he's had a lot of them. don't want to jinx him but i think this is the longest he's been non-injured since like 2014. so feels like he's due, ugh. but on the other hand, he often said last season, in reply to the "how you still throwing well when you're old?" questions, he would often say that his arm had hurt badly the last several years, and that he hadn't felt truly 100% for so long, until now, etc.

if he has a repeat of his 2021, i think he would be tempted to stick around for 2023 to try to run the win total up into the low 200s. not sure how important the HoF is for him (seems to be important for a lot of them), but he's kind of a 0-2% edge case contender right now, whereas a decent 2022 and 2023 makes it slightly more plausible that he sneaks in and is one of the pitchers ever selected, etc. that would rule

aw, super Jays fans! should be an excellent season all the way to the end

my 2022 projection for the season is: it's going to be great all the way to the end, a real classic

sorry, not sure where a bunch of words went, but i meant

he sneaks in as one of the worst pitchers ever selected, etc. that would rule

you know KM when you were in Chicago I was gonna ask if you wanted to see a baseball game...baseball ILX is not as great as hoops ILX but it would be fun anyway

i still make trips up to chicago and milwaukee pretty often! or at least, i will at least a couple times a year, i bet. :) i'll let you know if i'me ever near when there's a game! gotta check off watching a game with all the ILBers

Anyone else trying to watch an MLB game through apple? I was watching earlier and then it suddenly stopped.

I am, it did stop for like 2-3 minutes but then came back.

Mine hadn't come back and I keep getting an error message, but it must be on my end. Switched to the laptop.

i got MLB Extra Innings through DirecTV again this year for 139.99 and includes MLB.TV and i have never had an issue streaming

so i jinxed myself as i tried to listen to the radio while taking a shower and it kept fucking up and then the problems continued in my car as well

not sure what to do with my baseball fandom these days

grew up in pittsburgh, met willie stargell at spring training, but there's no point at all in supporting the pirates these days

worked for mlb for 13 years and, having been laid off last year, refuse to spend any money on them

honestly disappointed that the CBA showdown didn't result in the destruction of baseball because the way the pirates/orioles/a's/clevos operate is absurd

kinda rooting for the mets tho! FFS

One of us one of us

It’s only been two (long) games but I’m really enjoying the addition of Starling Marte

The Mets seem like they have a few more grinders than in years past/

"To have the....I'm trying to think of a clean way to say it....the NERVE to change."
-Jim Edmonds#STLCards    #stlcardinals #JimEdmonds #JimEdmondsisms

— Jim-Edmondsisms (@jimedmondsisms) April 9, 2022

mookieproof I didn't know you worked for the league!!!

2022 non-MLB update:

Roki Sasaki delivered arguably the greatest pitching performance in Japanese baseball history last night. The 20-year-old Lotte Marines phenom not only threw a perfect game — NPB’s first since 1994 — he tied an NPB record with 19 strikeouts. Sasaki also set a record. After retiring the first two hitters he faced on ground balls, the right-hander fanned 13 consecutive Orix Buffaloes batters. Pitch counts weren’t a problem. Sasaki reportedly completed his perfecto having thrown just 105 pitches.

(xpost) Also intrigued--tell us more.

meant to make a joke yesterday about how the pirates were 0-2 but having been outscored 15-2 meant their pythagorean was like 0-5. then they ruined it by scoring runs today

so yeah i started working for m1bam in 2007. my group ran the m1nor league baseba11 website, so we were way (too much) into prospects. like it was a huge deal for us when matt wieters made his big league debut. and also when harper tore through the minors but seemed to do most of his damage in parks where there was no TV.

worked nights for a while, where you instantly developed a hatred for the california league (and the pacific coast league only slightly less). west coast games start at 10 eastern, where i live, except for bakersfield, where the field was built facing into the sun, so it started at 10:30 in high summer. also the entire cal league, apart from san jose, is a fucking launching pad, so those games would stretch into the late morning for us.

the main thing that's weird is that m1nor 1eague games mean absolutely nothing. (which is why the extra-inning ghost runner is awesome. unless you want to call it a tie, which is even better.) i mean it's more fun winning than losing, but the guys on each m1nor league team are competing *against each other* to be promoted.

when someone had a big day, we did a phone interview. these guys are so inculcated with 'just trying to help the team' that's it's always an exercise to get anything interesting -- you had to come out of nowhere with, like, 'you just got promoted from huntsville, alabama to rochester, ny in april -- do you even have any appropriate clothes to wear?'

i wasn't very good at interviewing, tbh. i hate phones.

brad e1dred was an enormous power-hitting quad-a guy who at one point played in colorado springs (which is in itself a joke). so one day he hit four homers or something, and i was the only person monitoring all the games, and i missed it, so i ended up calling his cell phone like two hours later. he was at home with his wife, and i could hear kids in the background, and he was so fucking nice. to this day i love him.

anyway the whole m1nor league structure was indeed half-assed. so it wasn't *entirely* unreasonable for MLB to just . . . subsume it. and if you look at it in portions -- attendance at appy league or pioneer league games was negligable -- it makes financial sense. but the finances required to support those teams is basically a rounding error for MLB teams, and now MLB has a significantly smaller footprint throughout north america. they are in the process of financially incentivizing themselves out of existence.

at one 'town hall' meeting (hate that term) years ago, manfred opened by saying what an 'honor' it was to represent 'these 30 owners'. and that's exactly what the commissioner's office is. they may have stopped literally awarding a title belt for teams who best stifle arbitration salaries, but that is absolutely who they are -- and it's a much more meaningful trophy to manfred than the 'piece of metal' world series trophy.

Fwiw i watched g4ri bettm4n forge his wife’s signature on the back of a check

Both these men are monsters

i do appreciate that g4ri bettm4n gets booed at all his public appearances

Ill see manfred in 6 months

what are you going to do

Boo

that sounds about right

The Orioles are so bad that the Rays sweeping them, but with two of the games close, worsened the Fangraphs projection for the Rays by 3 wins

— Jordan Ellenberg (@JSEllenberg) April 11, 2022

ha ha wow, that is amazing.

Braves in a really good spot apparently, but would suggest teams that do this as a rule will eventually get dinged by a 1-2 season wonder. Would the Mets have been right to do this with Ike Davis after one good season?

Bellinger is the biggest example of how things could go wrong. Scott Kingery got a six year/$24M extension before he even played a MLB game and that went south pretty fast, even if that is pocket change compared to other deals.

Not sure how well our “Wander Franco will be an MVP by 2025” thread will age tbh

oh any number of things could go wrong! but as previously mentioned, braves rookies posted more WAR than several entire teams. and isn't it nice to have a young player do well and then offer him good money as opposed to waiting three years and then trading him away for garbage?

unfortunate that the whole franchise is basically a fount of racism tho

Agreed on both fronts.

MLB.com has a poll up for 2022's signature moment. For the regular season, they've got Pujols' 700th and Judge's 62nd--sounds right. For the post-season, it's the combined no-hitter and Harper's NLCS-winning homer. I won't get into the first again, but I'd definitely go with Alvarez's G6 HR over Harper's, and maybe even with his HR over the Mariners in G1 of their ALDS.

Not Realmuto's HR in WS game 1?

That'd be a contender too, but personally, I found both of Alvarez's home runs majestic and thrilling.

doesn't schwarber seem like he should be at least 34 years old? i was just reading something that mentioned he debuted in 2015 and it seemed impossible, like...was he 29 when broke in or something? but no, schwarber was 22 in 2015!

i think it's the beard

Vogelbach seems like he should be 40 fwiw

Rob desantis is only two years older than me.

Some white people do be looking like that

Kind of interesting: longest-tenured player on each team.

https://www.mlb.com/news/longest-tenured-player-on-each-mlb-team-c275256634

Mariners have no one who's been around longer than 2016.

i think that might be pretty common. for the cardinals, at least, they only have adam wainwright (who is old and retiring after 2023) from the 2016 season. and even going to 2017, only wainwright and paul de jong, who will hopefully possibly be traded this off-season

wow @ the orioles, though, in the other direction!

Orioles: Ryan Mountcastle
Date acquired: June 8, 2015
MLB debut: Aug. 21, 2020
There is no better example of just how young the Orioles are, and how much they’ve turned over their entire organization, than their longest-tenured player is still 25 years old.

The New York Yankees today announced that they have appointed Brian Sabean as Executive Advisor to Senior Vice President and General Manager Brian Cashman. pic.twitter.com/VZ5HHlWDOi

— New York Yankees (@Yankees) January 3, 2023

this is just Baseball Guys Looking Out For Each Other imo

cashman is the best baseball executive of the last 25 years*; he doesn't need help, he's hooking a bro up

*okay maybe theo, but also theo seems to become scarce when things get tough