2018 MLB Thread

[Dewey 3266]

So funny given the shit the Phillies have been given about their shitty shifts.

[DanRydell 799]

I'd like too see a wide shot of the infield of that play.  The way the catcher and pitcher were headed for third, I wonder if Bryant could have kept going home. The first baseman may have gone to cover the plate though.

The catcher was still between third and home maybe 15-25 feet down the base line so I don’t think Bryant could have gotten past him before the ball was thrown to him.

[shnsajax 3589]

Bryant has always been a better base runner than Baez. Baez just better at the slide. Though they were both rubbing off on Heyward. You can take that multiple ways I guess  

 

[Beau Vine 53625]

This is a major league baseball team:

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by Beau Vine
Correction: It was the Cincinnati Reds.

[Beau Vine 53625]

Hysterical:

 

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

June 2:

 

 

 

Yesterday:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by MC Fresh Breath

[Helobious 9393]

119.3mph, hardest hit homer of the year so far. 

[Fozzz 152]

Too bad for him and the Yankees his GB% is at a career high and his contact% is at a career low this season.  

[spystud13 2371]

That Stadium channel from Beau’s clip is now on DirecTV channel 47, at least here in DFW. It’s weird because it used to be one of those lowly local channels that nobody ever watched. 

[Helobious 9393]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

Too bad for him and the Yankees his GB% is at a career high and his contact% is at a career low this season.  

The Yankees were steamrolling along while he struggled, so there’s no worries there. Now he’s finally starting to heat up big time in the past week or so after his horrendous start. Prepare your butts. 

[Beau Vine 53625]

This is great by JoePos:
 

Quote

"Greatest drawing card in history of baseball. Holder of many home run and other batting records. Gathered 714 home runs in addition to fifteen in World Series." -- Babe Ruth's plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame

---

For a week in late April and early May 1969, Babe Ruth actually had 715 home runs. It was a sports scandal. This is the remarkable thing about Ruth's magic number of 714. Even the most minor adjustment will cause a scandal.

In the mid-1960s, as the possibilities of computing power became more vibrant, a man named David Neft came up with the idea of creating the first database of baseball statistics. It was a glorious idea, one that Major League Baseball immediately celebrated and looked to connect to the upcoming baseball centennial.

It also was a ridiculous, daunting, virtually impossible task. There is no way now to fully appreciate just what a mess baseball statistics -- particularly old-time baseball statistics -- were. We love now to glance at the records on Retrosheet or Baseball Reference or FanGraphs and think of baseball stats as this timeless and continuous thing. Look, King Kelly hit .388 in 1886, just like Rod Carew did in 1977! The game is eternal!

Yeah, except nobody knew what King Kelly hit because the game was entirely different. Six balls constituted a walk (and in 1887, for one season, walks were counted as hits). Bats could have a flat side on them. If a hitter was hit by a pitch, he stayed at the plate. Batters were actually allowed by the rules to request pitches to be thrown high or low.

So Neft and his merry band not only had to chase down precise day-by-day accounts for every player out of the statistical morass that had been passed down, they also had to determine how to count various statistics when the rules were different. For instance, during the dead-ball period, there were at least 11 methods for calculating the pitcher win. Eleven. What do you do with that?

It should be added that Neft and his company, Information Concepts Inc., were working with early computers that used punch cards; this wasn't like typing all of the numbers into Google Sheets. This was a Herculean effort, and in late 1969 they released a Herculean book, a 2,338-page, 6 1/2-pound marvel that they called, simply, "The Baseball Encyclopedia."

"Large for a book," one reviewer wrote. "Small for an amusement park."

The Baseball Encyclopedia changed baseball forever in many ways. For one thing, simply listing of the names and numbers of every player ever opened up the nostalgia floodgates across America.

"Go to the pages with the Rs on them," Jimmy Breslin wrote in his glowing review. "Pete Reiser. Now I am on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, running down the hill to Ebbets Field. Right on the corner, there is a gate in the right-field fence. There is a space between the bottom of the gate and the sidewalk. I stop running and I flop onto the sidewalk and look under the gate and here, only a few feet away, is the grass of deep center field. One of the pairs of legs moving around the grass in the pregame practice belongs to Pete Reiser, Pistol Pete!"

For another, The Baseball Encyclopedia had the ultimate answer to every baseball question imaginable. According to Alan Schwarz's superb "The Numbers Game," The MacMillan Company, which published the book, originally intended to market a lock and chain to latch the book to bar tops across America -- so the Encyclopedia would be the last stop for every baseball bar argument.

More than that, it was a little bit of heaven for those baseball people who had much deeper questions, baseball people who wanted to dive deep into the numbers to understand the game's greatest mysteries. A young Kansan named Bill James, right out of college and the army, spent hours and hours going through the pages and looking up every pitcher in baseball history who had won 20 games and also hit .300.

"Player by player, yeah," he said.

"That takes a while," I suggested.

"It takes a while," he agreed.

But that was later. First, Neft and his researchers had to figure out how to create such a book, and that meant they had to figure out what to do with all of the mistakes and inconsistencies in the statistical record. Consider, for instance, the saga of Cap Anson. He's most often brought up now for his role in segregating the game, but he was a singular star of 19th-century baseball. More to the point, Anson was the first player to reach 3,000 hits in a career. He didn't just barely get to 3,000 either. He was generally credited with almost 3,500 hits in his career.

But the Baseball Encyclopedia people actually counted. First, they found that 423 of Anson's hits were before 1876, before the National League had been founded. Those couldn't count for a Major League Baseball record book. That dropped him to 3,055 hits, which was a lot fewer but still good enough to keep him in the 3,000-hit club.

Except for this … remember above how I mentioned that in 1887, walks were recorded as hits? Well, Anson walked 60 times that year. Those were 60 "hits" that weren't hits at all, not by The Baseball Encyclopedia standards.

That reduction dropped Anson to 2,995 hits, knocking him out of the club everyone thought he had founded.

There were a lot of statistical renovations like that. Christy Mathewson, who was considered the NL's all-time leader in wins with 373 (tied with Grover Cleveland Alexander), suddenly lost six of those wins. Walter Johnson got dinged a couple of wins. Ty Cobb was given a 4,192nd hit. Honus Wagner lost 15 hits.

None of these things sparked much more than curiosity, though. There were those who thought the record books should be left alone and others who were thrilled that the mistakes of the past were being fixed. But it was hardly a national outrage.

Then they tried to give Babe Ruth one more home run.

---

In 1969, there was no number in American sports more cherished than Ruth's 714. Every red-blooded American baseball fan knew it by heart. In that year, the number seemed as unreachable as Mars. Willie Mays hit his 600th home run in '69, but he was 38 and clearly fading -- he only managed 13 homers the entire season. It seemed pretty clear that he wasn't going to get to Ruth.

And Henry Aaron? Well, Hammerin' Hank was only 35 and by season's end he had 554 homers, but he made it absolutely clear he had no interest whatsoever in going after any homer record.

"It gets a little bit harder every year," he told reporters. "I'd like to get to 3,000 hits, and then I might retire."

 

 

Aaron ties Ruth with HR No. 714 03:23 Apr. 4th, 1974

 

No, Ruth was alone at the top, exactly where baseball fans wanted him. This is where baseball fans still want him. He has become more folk hero than ballplayer, and while the greatest ever in other sports tends to be a moving target, Ruth has maintained his place at the top of baseball for more than 75 years.

Seven hundred and fourteen was the number that symbolized the legend.

But Ruth actually hit 715 home runs. Of this there is no dispute (well, there's a small dispute, which we will get into).

On July 8, 1918, when Ruth was still with the Red Sox, he came to the plate in the 10th inning of a scoreless tie against Cleveland. He faced future Hall of Fame pitcher Stan Coveleski. Ruth's teammate, Amos Strunk, was on first base. Ruth crushed the ball over the right-field wall to win the game. This is now called a walk-off home run.

Ah, but in 1918 … it was ruled a triple, and the final score of the game was 1-0. The thinking then was the game ended the instant Strunk touched home plate. As umpire Hank O'Day said, "There is no way you can score a run after a game is over." This was before anyone knew that counting home runs hit in a season and in a career would become a thing. In 1918, being credited with a triple was just as good as being credited with a home run, maybe even better.

(Side note: If Strunk had been at third when Ruth homered, it would have been ruled a single. The rule was changed in 1920.)

In any case, The Baseball Encyclopedia folks found 37 of these home runs that were not counted as home runs. They thought it would make sense to fix those. Major League Baseball had put together a special records committee to go over such things, and the committee agreed unanimously that, yes, this was an error worth fixing.

Babe Ruth had 715 home runs!

Baseball fans went absolutely bananas.

See, it was one thing to knock Anson out of the 3,000-hit club; nobody much liked him anyway. But you didn't go messing with Ruth. The newspaper columnists screamed murder -- literally in some cases. Dick Young compared giving Ruth a home run to digging up executed murderer Ruth Snyder because capital punishment had been abolished in New York State. Robert Lipsyte called the number-changers "Revisionist Police," and argued that revising the statistics is only "a phase in the historical revisionism of baseball. One day, all the plaques, busts and memorabilia of, say, Cobb, will disappear. Cooperstown, replying to queries, will say, 'Georgia Peach, you say? You have a wrong number, this is the Baseball Hall of Fame.'"

If these arguments seem a bit over the top, well, nobody was more outraged than a man named Joe Reichler, who worked in the Commissioner's Office. Reichler was part of that five-man special records committee, but he had missed the Ruth vote because he was in Japan on business. When he got back, he was a hornets' nest of fury.

"The mission of the computer people, as authorized by baseball's special records committee, was to research all data, correct obvious errors, uncover missing material and clear up gray areas," he griped. "It should not be the function of the committee to tamper with rules which cover baseball records at the time."

Reichler demanded a revote … and he undoubtedly twisted at least a couple of arms because suddenly the NL's Dave Grote and Baseball Writers' Association of America secretary Jack Lang changed their tunes and their votes. That made it 3-2 against adding the home run.

And, like that, after just one week of glory, Ruth was back to 714 home runs.

"Records that were made under the rules of the time should stand," Lang said without explaining why, if he believed that, he voted to change Ruth's homer total in the first place. Grote was more expressive in his explanation.

"A woman has the prerogative of changing her mind, and so do I," he said.

There were and are two compelling arguments against changing Ruth's home-run total. One is that once you start trying to clean up outdated rules, where do you stop?

I mentioned that 714 homers is somewhat in dispute, and this is because before 1930, balls that bounced over the fence were ruled to be home runs. Nobody seems to know how many of these ground-rule homers Ruth hit; best I can tell, nobody has actually found any. But that's out there. It's also true that there used to be a rule that a home run had to land in fair ground. It's also true that balls that hit the foul pole were for a long time recorded as doubles (in "The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs," author Bill Jenkinson wrote that Ruth hit 12 apparent foul home runs in 1921 alone).

There is a difference, though, between those home runs and No. 715. You certainly can't go back in time and turn those foul balls into homers because they were not home runs during the game. The games went on, Ruth stayed at the plate, no runs were put on the scoreboard. But in the case of the game-ending home run, it's a simple counting decision on a scorekeeping rule that was changed shortly after Ruth hit it. I don't think that's the same thing at all.

The second argument is that sports records are more than just numbers. They are living pieces of history. This is the argument that has won the day. As the years have gone on, Mathewson was given back his wins -- he's back up to an NL-record 373. Anson is back in the 3,000-hit club. Cobb lost his 4,192nd hit (and two more that were double counted).

And Ruth has 714 home runs. Maybe he hit one more than that. But everybody just seemed happier with 714.

Joe Posnanski is a columnist for MLB.com.

 

 

 

[Beau Vine 53625]

Gammons on 50 years from theathletic:

Quote

I remember awakening at 5:30 the morning of June 6, 1968, turning the radio to WBZ Boston, and hearing of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination. At first, the news was numbing, as it had been on Nov. 22, 1963, when while waiting for Geography 41 in Chapel Hill, Professor Mondale walked in and said, “President Kennedy has been shot and this class is canceled.” Or on April 4 of ’68, when a friend walked into a record store in which I worked and told me, “They killed Martin Luther King”; I dropped the “Mr. Fantasy” Traffic album I had been trying to sell and asked to go back to St. Anthony Hall.

That June morning I was thinking about growing up, and the fact that in a few days I was going to begin an internship that a mentor named Dean Smith insisted was “important, because you can be good, and you can be a voice.” So, beyond shock, and the low spark of the vacuum of my own life at the age 23, it took me hours to realize that R.F.K. seemingly was the one man who could take the thousands of pieces of the Sixties jigsaw puzzle scattered around the playroom floor, complete the puzzle, and bond the past and the hope that had frayed.

We look back today and wonder where we might be had he not been carried away on that train of murdered dreams — dreams of hope and inclusion and purpose so brilliantly captured in Thurston Clarke’s clever The Last Campaign. As much as Bobby Kennedy seemingly understood the inherent good of an America arm in arm, that understanding may well have died with him, beyond the resurrective powers of humans like his grandson Joe.

Four days later, I drove from Hingham to Dorchester to begin that summer internship at The Boston Globe. On that first morning, I met a fellow intern named Bob Ryan, and we were assigned a task. Because of one of the greatest figures in newspaper history, Tom Winship, Globe sports interns were thrown into the fire. In those days, the Globe had a morning paper and an evening paper, and the editors wanted a piece for the 3:30 late edition—which was an important paper for the thousands who rode the trains and buses home after work—that detailed what teams did and what columnists wrote about baseball’s response to the latest Kennedy murder. Bob was given the National League, I the American. We sat down at phones, were told to dial 8 for outgoing service, and went to work.

They gave us an assignment. We attacked it. And at 3:30 that day, there on the page was the dual byline, in alphabetic order. We left the building and went to the Eire Pub in Dorchester—later made famous by Ronald Reagan—for what I seem to remember was a 20-cent draft and a 25-cent dog, over the same kind of feeling that Eddie Pellagrini and Jason Heyward must have had when they homered in their first major league at-bats.

“It never again occurred to me that I would do anything else,” Bob says. I knew.

The next day, Bob was off to Longwood to the US Pro doubles, and to meet the great Bud Collins. Twenty-nine days later I covered Pelé, the Boston Beacons against Santos of Brazil, at Fenway Park, before 18,431, the largest soccer crowd in Boston history. Later in that building, I covered Yaz and El Tiante; Pedro Martínez and Roger Clemens and the Gold Dust Twins, Jim Rice and Fred Lynn; Wade Boggs, David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Dennis Eckersley, Mookie Betts… and on and on and on… but I was a college intern 29 days into my professional journalism career and covered Pelé. Final score: 7-1, Santos over Boston Beacons. They let me do Patriots training camp and learn from Leigh Montville, the best columnist I ever read.

Bob was right. I wasn’t going to do anything else. No one after Dean Smith had to tell me that this was who I am. When I was still in high school and Peter Magowan was at Stanford, we had our own rotisserie game, by mail; he had the 1960s Giants, my best power hitter was Gary Geiger. Peter was off to Oxford. I was off to Somerset, Mass., to watch Jerry Remy, who was a great high school player and became a lifetime friend.

We were two kids from Lawrenceville and Groton who, as a few of my Groton classmates at our 50^th reunion in 2013 said, “did what they wanted to do.” In the process, were able to stick to our core beliefs—never slow down, never grow old, and, in the words of friend Randy Galloway, “know you can only be young once, but you can always be immature.”

Which is why, in this 50^th ink-stained wretch reunion, MLB Network allowed me to cover the baseball draft, which has fascinated me from the first time I covered one, in 1969. That year the Red Sox drafted Noel Jenke, an outfielder from the University of Minnesota who was also drafted by the NHL and NFL. Jenke eventually retired from baseball and went on to play in four Super Bowls, but didn’t kill the buzz.

Days before this year’s draft opened, I called Reggie Harris, whom the Red Sox took in the first round in 1997 and bought out of a scholarship to play point guard with his cousin and best friend Dell Curry at Virginia Tech. Harris is currently looking for a pitching coach job, which he will find. He stays in constant touch with Dell, who was off watching his son Steph in the NBA finals. Reggie, who pitched for the A’s, Red Sox and four other teams over six seasons, watches every Golden State game. Dell was drafted by the Orioles but opted for an NBA career. I will admit that Harris, who threw 98 mph, was the reason I first watched Steph Curry, long before he became one of my favorite athletes in any sport. “Dell and I were very close,” said Harris. “We played baseball and basketball together growing up, and now to watch his great boys is a joy to our entire family.”

This week of the draft is Billy Beane Week. I was staying in a small hotel in Farmington, Conn., the week of the 2002 draft. My phone rang at 6:30 a.m. It was Billy. And it was 3:30 Pacific time.

That was, of course, the famous “Moneyball Draft,” which Michael Lewis turned into a financial success. Nick Swisher was the A’s first pick at 17. He had a good career, on and off the field. Joe Blanton had a solid run. “The idea we had was right—it was an information-based draft, which was ahead of its time,” said Beane. “The problem was we didn’t have the information yet. We tried to merge scouting with information. It was just hard to get the information.”

Beane had scout Matt Keough following players like Swisher and Blanton and Mark Teahen. “We had concepts for the information,” said Beane.  We understood spin rate. We knew there was a distinct difference between contact and hard contact. Rafael Bournigal is one of my favorite people of all time, and he had contact, he just made contact that didn’t result in balls going very far. Now we have an incredible amount of information available. We all have PITCHf/x data and video available.”

Swisher represented the Yankees on the first night of the draft on Monday. “I was just excited when Billy called me and told me that if I were there at 17 they were going to take me,” he said. Did he get some extra cash out of the movie? “Of course not,” said Swisher. “Once I heard Brad Pitt was playing Billy, I knew no one but Scott Hatteberg would get paid.”

Representing the Royals at this year’s draft was Bo Jackson. “I’m here as a pinch hitter for Art Stewart,” Bo said. “He was the heart and soul of this part of baseball. I’m honored to take his place.”

Arthur Lee Stewart spent his life in baseball. He loved the game, he loved the draft; he still does, but his knee doesn’t allow him to travel. When Jackson visited Kansas City a couple of years ago, he went to the Royals offices, looking for Stewart. Dayton Moore told him Stewart had knee problems and was living in Milwaukee. “I’ll go visit him,” Bo told Moore. The following weekend Jackson was in Milwaukee, visiting Stewart.

One year Zack Greinke, who was with the Royals at the time, went to a college doubleheader in Surprise, Ariz., and scouted Arkansas pitcher Ryne Stanek. “I love doing that,” Greinke said. “But it also was an excuse to spend the game with Art Stewart.”

The game evolves, and it remains the same. A lot has happened for Bob Ryan and me in these 50 years. When he speaks at colleges, he doesn’t ask for a fee; the requirement is the school must have a home basketball game. I still love going to Cape League games, as 49 years ago I loved going to Somerset, Mass., to watch a really good high school player named Jerry Remy.

Following that first day, a dual byline, a beer and a dog at the Eire Pub, I’ve worked at the Globe, Sports Illustrated, ESPN and The MLB Network, and everywhere I’ve worked, I have been treated well.

Fifty years on, MLB let me work the draft again and, essentially, do the same things I wanted to do the day I first walked into The Boston Globe, before I had any idea what I would do.

 

[spystud13 2371]

Who’s currently the tallest CF in baseball? Because Gallo is starting there tonight. 

[Pato del Muerto 51914]

Dunno currently but I just looked and Dave Winfield played in 223 games at cf. mostly with the padres. 82 in1978, so I’ll assume he started at least once there. Listed at 6’6. 

[spystud13 2371]

Blackmon was my current guess, but he’s only listed @ 6’3”. 

 

Dale Murphy & Josh Hamilton both listed @ 6’4”. 

[spystud13 2371]

Judge has started one game there this season, he wins so far. 

[David Dennison 17660]

Jake Marisnick is 6'4", but he's only pretending to be a major league baseball player.

[huge 3766]

Jake is plus plus defense and minus minus minus minus minus minus at the plate

Wonder what his WAR splits are if that’s such a thing

[spystud13 2371]

Career oWAR 1.1, dWAR 7.0. 

[spystud13 2371]

 

 

Welp. 

[shnsajax 3589]

Is this the same injury they found right after signing him? I’m lazy.

[UTexasFight 9288]

Milestones coming up:

Bartolo Colon collected the 243rd win of his career Wednesday night picking up the victory as the Rangers beat the A’s. That win tied him with Hall of Famer Juan Marichal for the most wins by a pitcher born in the Dominican Republic.

That’s no small thing. Marichal was just the second Dominican-born pitcher in major-league history and debuted just 16 days after the first, Rudy Hernández of the Washington Senators. Hernández, who pitched exclusively in relief in his two major-league seasons, debuted on July 3, 1960. His first win came on July 9, 1960. By the time Hernández won his second game, on July 29, Marichal, who debuted on July 19 with a one-hit shutout of the Phillies, was 3-0, all of them complete games, the last spanning 10 innings.

The record Colon tied is one that Marichal has held since his second major-league game, on July 23, 1960, a span of nearly 58 years. The only other Dominican pitcher to come within 90 wins of Marichal, since his retirement, is fellow Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez, who fell 24 wins shy with 219.

Colon will break Marichal’s record with his next win, but that may not be the last milestone he reaches in his 21st major league-season. Nor will it necessarily be the most impressive.

With three more wins, Colon will pass Dennis Martínez as the winningest Latin American pitcher in major-league history. It took the Nicaraguan Martínez 23 seasons to eclipse Marichal, doing so in 1998 at age 44 as a member of the Atlanta Braves. He tied Marichal with a shutout of the Brewers, then slipped past him with a pair of relief wins.

If Colon can manage to win seven more games this year, he will reach 250 career wins, making him the first pitcher to reach that total since Andy Pettitte in 2013. Seven more wins will give him 10 on the season, a total he reached every year from 2012 to 2016.

Colon is the active leader in wins, but he is not the only pitcher with an outside shot at reaching 250 this season. His former Indians and Yankees rotation-mate, CC Sabathia, is just 10 wins shy of 250, and while Sabathia is on pace to win only five or six more games this year, given the quality of the Yankees’ lineup and bullpen it’s not out of the question that he could pick up those 10 wins.

Colon and Sabathia are similarly on the verge of significant strikeout milestones. Colon needs just one more punchout to reach 2,500 for his career, so that’s a lock. Sabathia, however, needs 110 to reach a far more significant number: 3,000. Given that Sabathia struck out only 120 men last year and is on pace for a mere 123 this year (44 of which he already has in the books), he likely won’t get there in 2018. But if he returns next season, Sabathia should get to 3,000 easily. Why is that significant? Because the only pitchers with 3,000 career strikeouts who aren’t in the Hall of Fame are Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling, both of whom had Hall-worthy careers.

Another major pitching milestone in the offing this season, one that is also a near lock, is Justin Verlander’s 200th win. Verlander, who recorded his 2,500th strikeout in May, will enter his Friday night start against Colon’s Rangers with 195 wins. When Verlander reaches 200, he’ll join Colon and Sabathia as the only active pitchers to have reached that threshold. Next on the active wins list is Zack Greinke, who needs 24 more to reach 200.

Meanwhile, diminished though he may be, Félix Hernández is just 96 strikeouts away from 2,500 and should get there this season if he stays healthy and in the Mariners rotation, though both are significant ifs at this point.

In the bullpen, Boston’s Craig Kimbrel is on pace to save 50 games this season. If he does, he’ll match Rollie Fingers’ career total of 341. That carries its own significance, at least for older fans, as Fingers was the career saves leader from 1980 until 1992. With the advent of the one-inning closer, Fingers has fallen to 13th on the all-time list, but given that Kimbrel just turned 30 last week, that’s still a milestone worth acknowledging.

At the plate, the most compelling milestone chase is the slow-motion race to 500 homers between Miguel Cabrera and Adrián Beltré. Neither will get there this year, as they need 35 and 36, respectively, and there’s a chance that the 39-year-old Beltré might retire before ever hitting his 500th, but both could get there next year. If they do, Beltré would be just the seventh player with 3,000 hits and 500 homers, and just the second from that group with at least five Gold Gloves, joining Willie Mays.

One homer milestone likely to happen this year is Giancarlo Stanton’s 300th of his career. Stanton, who already has 14 on the season, needs just 19 more to reach that mark. If he does, he’ll be just the 10th player in major-league history to reach 300 home runs by the end of his age-28 season, joining Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Mathews, Juan González, Ken Griffey Jr., Álex Rodríguez, Andruw Jones, and Albert Pujols. Of those nine, only González and Jones, both of whom finished with 434 homers, failed to reach 500 home runs.



Mike Trout is likely to join that list by 2020, but for 2018, the Mike Trout career milestone to watch — beyond his absurd ascent up the career wins-above-replacement list (he is on pace to finish the season with a career bWAR better than Ernie Banks’) — is his stolen-base total. Trout has an outside shot to get the 22 more steals he needs this season to reach 200 for his career. If he does, he’ll become the first player in major-league history with both 200 home runs and 200 stolen bases by the end of his age-26 season.

Meanwhile, Trout remains on pace to equal or surpass the single-season record for bWAR by a position player. By Baseball Reference’s calculations, Babe Ruth was worth 14.1 wins above replacement in 1923, when he hit .393/.545/.764 (239 OPS+) in 152 games and had his best season in the field, per total zone rating. Entering Friday’s action, Trout is on pace for 14.14 bWAR this season.

Incidentally, the pitcher Mike Trout has had the most success against in his career, minimum 20 plate appearances, is none other than Bartolo Colon. Trout is 11 for 20 (.550) career against Colon with a double and three home runs and has gone 2 for 3 with a double against Colon this year. Given that the Angels and Rangers have four series remaining this season, here’s hoping we get to see that matchup several more times.

[ScottishHorn 172]

18 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Jake Marisnick is 6'4", but he's only pretending to be a major league baseball player.

That's funny.  He doesn't look that tall.  Thats correa size who looks huge in comparison 

[Beau Vine 53625]

That's Brent Suter being way too good at his role.

[Beau Vine 53625]

The Rockies just intentionally walked Jeff Mathis. 

Jeff.  Mathis.

Zack Greinke then hit an RBI single.

 

Mathis has a .564 career OPS.

Greinke has a .574 career OPS.

 

[Goo Punch 4275]

Happ/Almora/Heyward is the best defensive outfield in baseball. A joy to watch.

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/06/09/2133645083/1528510399090/asset_2500K.mp4

 

 

Lorenzo Cain.

 

 

[miguelito 11061]

the ol' 6-8 popup.

[spystud13 2371]

Hoskins broke the right side of his jaw, so now he gets to wear this sweet helmet. 

 

[Goo Punch 4275]

Who dives into the 3B stands to make a catch on Wednesday and then dives into the 1B stands to end the game on Saturday? Javy Baez of course.

 

 

[Rustic Horn 885]

 

[miguelito 11061]

[Scraps 13461]

Well that was pretty homosexual

[Beau Vine 53625]

Furk.

 

[Beau Vine 53625]

lolMets...

[Rustic Horn 885]

 

[WBT 20131]

Two consecutive pitches...two consecutive foul ball catches, no sleeves

[spystud13 2371]

Probably the end of a damn good career. 

Quote

The Mets shook up their roster following a 1-8 homestand, granting first baseman Adrian Gonzalez his unconditional release. The team also announced that it plans to designate backup catcher Jose Lobaton for assignment, and call up first baseman Dominic Smith and utility man Ty Kelly from Triple-A Las Vegas.

Gonzalez, 36, signed with the Mets this offseason. He hit .237 in 54 games, striking out in all three of his plate appearances in the Mets' 2-0 win Sunday night over the Yankees.

 

Dude was involved in some crazy fucking transactions. Where art thou, Akinori Otsuka? 

[TheFlagship 432]

 

[miguelito 11061]

I'll always remember Fernando Tatis as the only player ever to hit two grand slams in one inning.

[Pato del Muerto 51914]

I remember when he was a rangers prospect.  Getting older is weird. 

[Vic Mackey 46581]

Damn

[henrygandorf 28616]

On 6/7/2018 at 9:56 AM, Beau Vine said:

Hysterical:

 

this post and the hoskins helmet reminded me of a different story, that i may not get exactly right.

but basically rickey henderson joined the mets at some point late in his career, and john olerud had a locker near him.  after a game or two, when rickey saw that olerud wore a batting helmet while in the field (he had some sort of condition), he came over to him in the clubhouse to ask him about it.  olerud explained it, and rickey said something to the tune of, "yeah, i had a teammate in toronto that did that too."

that teammate was also john olerud.

 

[shakahorn 1600]

10 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

this post and the hoskins helmet reminded me of a different story, that i may not get exactly right.

but basically rickey henderson joined the mets at some point late in his career, and john olerud had a locker near him.  after a game or two, when rickey saw that olerud wore a batting helmet while in the field (he had some sort of condition), he came over to him in the clubhouse to ask him about it.  olerud explained it, and rickey said something to the tune of, "yeah, i had a teammate in toronto that did that too."

that teammate was also john olerud.

 

Yeah I remember that story as well.  Olerud's response "that was me."

[huge 3766]

Yeah, here is the original as told by Kurkjian

 

In spring training 1999, Rickey Henderson of the Mets was reunited with first baseman John Olerud, who had been his teammate with the Blue Jays six years earlier. As most people know, Olerud had an aneurysm in college, which required brain surgery. So to protect his head, he was allowed to wear a helmet in the field. As the story goes, Henderson was talking to Olerud one day, noticed the helmet and said “You know, when I played in Toronto, we had a guy who wore a helmet.”

“Rickey,” said Olerud, “that was me.”

[henrygandorf 28616]

cue tony gwynn's rickey impression.

[MC Fresh Breath 4074]

oh gawd, tears.

 

 

[Goo Punch 4275]

 

[Fudge Nuggets 18825]

8 hours ago, henrygandorf said:

cue tony gwynn's rickey impression.

One of the best interviews of all time. 

[shnsajax 3589]

When the Cubs and Brewers play its always worth checking out Kati Kaelin’s twitter account.