the pitch clock is counting down to the MLB 2023 REGULAR SEASON THREAD

i never really thought of it as derogatory, just a meme-ish thing. but maybe it is

I will henceforth refer to them as Matt & Albie’s team rather than Barves

where is the respect for travis d'arnaud

I have no opinion on him except my friend from Daly city called him their second favourite Filipino-American player after you know who

Seems fine no real opinion

Little d is the only thing in the whole braves organisation I can’t muster up even an iota of hate for. What a dude, Dodger legend

also also fuck mlb for getting rid of tiebreaker games

― mookieproof, Tuesday, 3 October 2023 11:04 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is the correct take

Legendary nickname, and his clutch factor (no I’m not looking at the actual stats) for a brief period was unheard of. Felt like every week there was a new “lil d hits a grandsalami walkoff to put the Mets/rays/barves into post season contention” or something of that sort

16 players Mathis'd™ in 2023, perhaps most notably Tim Anderson.

Brenton Doyle led all Mathisers with 0.9 rWAR.

The Mathis™ is a season of at least 200 PA with an OPS+ of 60 or lower. It is named after Jeff Mathis, who had 8 such seasons, the live ball era record. pic.twitter.com/HAuvwUW5ER

— Foolish Baseball (@FoolishBB) October 2, 2023

the fact that they moved out to the suburbs because black people are scary

I don't think this is quite right. The fact of the matter is that the area around Turner Field was just not conducive to development, and it was generally a pain in the ass to get to. The team still gets significant African American turnout--this is Atlanta, after all.

anyone wanna start a playoffs thread? individual threads for every series is kinda annoying…

Sorry

https://www.si.com/mlb/2023/10/03/trevor-bauer-accuser-reach-settlement-legal-dispute

Trying to figure out if an mlb team would pick him up after all this. I mean, Aroldis Chapman and Marcel Ozuna (etc. etc.) are still playing for big league teams so I could see it

still cases pending against him

i think bauer is a unique case in that it played out very publicly over a long period of time, including a half dozen lawsuits, some of which are still active. it’s a different level of toxicity. he was also suspended 194 games vs 30 for chapman and 20 for ozuna.

Yeah I watched that video and it says absolutely nothing new, man remains a piece of shit.

Mets declared to have won that suspended game vs the marlins, despite the marlins taking the lead in the top of the 9th right before the rain came

one last W for buck : /

I was once his biggest fan (not true; I did think he had a brighter future than Aaron Judge), but I find it odd how Cody Bellinger has become such a highly coveted off-season acquisition. I realize there's Ohtani and not a whole lot else out there, but is everyone convinced he's turned a corner based on one good 130-game season in Wrigley? His three previous seasons were miserable. He was MVP in 2019, pretty good in 2018, and really good in 2017. He's quite erratic--who knows what you'd be getting?

Prompted by seeing his photo under a headline about the Jays needing a "fearsome power hitter."

https://jaysjournal.com/posts/the-blue-jays-need-to-land-a-fearsome-power-hitter-in-free-agency-this-offseason

I really like him but your point is valid. I just don’t want him to go to the Yankees cos even if he has a patchy season he could do damage with the short porch.

I do think his return might be for real, I don't know that he would get back to hitting 45 plus home runs in a season again but if he can be a guy who will hit around .300 with about 30 home runs a year, in addition to having plus defense and good speed, he could be a real bargain. He's still pretty damn young too, I mean it's not like he just turned 33.

I know how naive this will sound--money, money, money; follow the money, stupid--but I'm also unsure why he'd be in a hurry to leave a situation where he thrived and that turned his career around. Harper was made for Philadelphia; maybe Bellinger was made for Wrigley. (I'm the last person in the world who still seems surprised when players don't seem to care much about that factor.)

I mean, I assume the Cubs will make some kind of offer, and that it'll be for a lot of money.

I ain't holding my breath but I'd definitely love for the cubs to find a way to keep him. It's not like that team is overflowing with offensive talent otherwise.

Supposedly his great year has been in part due to working with the Cubs hitting coach so hopefully that encourages him to stay.

From the Athletic article about Pitchcom:

PitchCom has four modes, each essentially a playlist offering between 18 and 27 signals, but the most basic setup is this: there are nine buttons arranged in a three-by-three grid. Each button can give two different signals. Press 1, and it might signal “fastball.” Press and hold 1, and it might signal “inside.” Through various combinations of presses and buttons, catchers can signal pitch type and location, call a pickoff play, or simply send a message. Once Hedges got some press, others followed suit. Other teams asked Hankins for their own “F— yeah” track. That was an interesting ask for the voice-over guy. (That track is now available in the library.) One team requested something to the effect of: Throw it over the plate, you (expletive).”

This spring, the Red Sox pranked one of their pitchers by customizing PitchCom to make every button say: Are you mad?

lollllllll

throw it over the plate, you fuck!

Throw it over the plate you cunt :)

A common request Hankins has heard — mostly from fans, but sometimes from teams — is to have a more authoritative voice for PitchCom’s standard tracks. He gets tweets about James Earl Jones a lot. (That one’s not in the budget.) A couple teams tried a voice changer, but in action it always sounded a little off. The Giants had minor league coach Craig Albernaz, who has a thick Boston accent, voice their PitchCom tracks for spring training. “SLYDAH, SLYDAH, BACKFOOT,” catcher Blake Sabol told MLB.com, mimicking Albernaz. “When I was getting quizzed by my fiancée, she was like, ‘Did you change the accent on this thing?’ And I was like, ‘No, that’s my catching coach.’” The Giants switched to Fernando Perez, their director of video coaching, for the regular season so they’d have the same voice for English and Spanish tracks.

fitting that the article started out with scherzer, at one point he had to call time and looked totally lost because he couldn't hear his pitchcom.

News: MLB competition committee approves changes for the 2024 season including:
-18 sec clock with runners on
-4 mound visits, down from 5
-If a P starts to warm up before an inning, he must face at least one hitter.
-The runner’s lane to first has been widened to the inf grass

— Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) December 21, 2023