2025 MLB Season Thread

Skubal just gave up a nuclear grand slam against the A's, putting the Tigers behind in the ballgame, and putting himself behind in the Cy Young race.

With better health, Mike Trout certainly would have passed him. Eugenio Suarez and Paul Goldschmidt have outside shots but I would be very surprised if either gets there.

Among the next generation, Elly de la Cruz has enormous potential, but I am unconvinced that he will be an everyday player in his mid 30s after his athleticism fades.

Suarez has no shot at being relevant enough long enough to pull it off

Oneil Cruz is my once in a generation prodigy of suck I think can pull it off

De la Cruz definitely has the ability to pull it off by a ****ing mile but I definitely agree he projects as a live fast die young mlb player so lacks the longevity needed

Among active players eovaldi easily has the most snakebit career

Bummer

At least he has his opera singing career to fall back on.

Kershaw is the GOAT career winning percentage modern era (since 1950). Just ahead of Whitey Ford, Pedro, Don Gullett, Lefty Grove. And I guess he is a very strong all around GOAT pitcher candidate.

On this date in baseball history...

And according to a quick Google search, the only time it's happened.

Bump Wills was even faster than Michael Cera in Superbad.

All around?

No. He lacked durability (relative to other greats) and his playoff woes are legendary.

Yeah. It's been a decade since Kershaw started 30 games in a season, and five years since he started 25 games in a season. And winning percentage is a poor metric. Gerrit Cole also has an amazing winning percentage for exactly the same reason that Kershaw does.

Kershaw is a first ballot HOFer, but not a legitimate GOAT candidate. A more interesting debate would be to compare Kershaw's peak (2011-2017) to the the peak of other all-time greats. Kershaw's peak was both long and extremely dominant.

Compared to the overall performance of the league, Pedro in 2000 and Clemens in 1997 are probably the best seasons any of us can remember. Pedro has an excellent argument that his peak from 1997-2003 was better than any pitcher in the modern era.

Pedro is the most gifted pitcher I have ever seen. It felt like he threw every pitch under the sun except a knuckleball at a +/++ level.

I would argue Pedro is the greatest pitcher ever with no close second but that’s singularly because there has been no connection to him using roids and has otherworldly stats during the roid era. That is some grading on the scale on a pretty insane level

Secondarily **** Don Zimmer. And even as a 10 year old watching that live I thought it was hilarious

I guess I was always destined to grow up to be an *******

Maddux also pitched in the steroid era and his peak from 1992-1998 was nearly as dominant Pedro's peak from 1997-2003. He had no connection to using steroids. Nor did Randy Johnson, who also was a boss during the steroid era.

I probably agree that Pedro was better than either guy, but he definitely had close seconds.

Randy Johnson put up a 2.13 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP and had 372 Ks during the same year that Barry Bonds hit 73 HRs. That's pretty amazing.

As best I can tell, Randy Johnson had the highest WAR over a continuous four years of any pitcher in the post war era, followed by Pedro, Koufax, Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, and Maddux.

Johnson and Maddux beat Pedro on longevity, but on dominance (which blew my mind cuz my initial stat nerd assumed it was Johnson years ago) neither come anywhere close to peak Pedro

I can’t imagine a single pitcher in the modern era put up a greater 3 year stretch WAR than Pedro

I mean Pedro posted an 11.6 WAR in the absolute peak of the steroid era. I almost have to believe he juiced and didn’t get caught cuz he did that clean (and followed that with a 9.6 season) this is truly the most dominant pitcher who ever lived

Edit: even Clemens only had a single season of double digits and topped at 10.7

It happened. Randy Johnson had a 28.9 WAR from 2000-2002. Pedro's best three year stretch was 28.8 from 1998-2000.

Bob Gibson had a 30.5 WAR from 1968-1970.

Also, WAR accounts for the overall offensive environment.

I definitely give gibson zero credit for that one

Pedro’s numbers are entirely in a vacuum. Gibson wasn’t sitting there pitching for 3 years against a sea of roided players

Pedro pitched against a DH in that 3 year stretch you cited

Johnson pitched against a pitcher in that 3 year stretch you cited

I think Johnson and Pedro are the debatable top 2 in our lifetime, but I’m still leaning Pedro

These exchanges are why I come here. Good stuff.

SRM, often enough our destiny chooses us.

I see Devers has waited for the season to stop mattering to become god

Well played, Boston

Mets own the Phillies’ soul.

If they face off in the playoffs, empty your bank accounts and hammer the Mets.

Ahahhahahahah **** Boston

GOAT modern win % + GOAT modern ERA = ??

Three guys drove in 5 for the Rangers tonight. Was thinking that is rare but not sure if super duper rare, and probably ties the record. Not finding any examples of 4 teammates with 5 or more RBIs in a game and didn't expect to. AI only listed one instance of 3 guys (I"m sure there are more), and listed another with 6 but in error (there were only 2 in that 30-3 game, AI apparently hiccuped there and did 30 divided by 5 is 6, lol).

Schwarber is having a night. Could have used some of these runs in the Mets series.