2024 MLB Season Thread

GOATani

Verlander's final tryout to actually make the Astros playoff roster. So far 5h, 3er, 3ip, 1 nut on that chubby SI model that was supossedly hot and not just another random 18 year old girl that we all went to high school with.

I'd take Bonds for any single game, but Ohtani is the best baseball player of all time.imo.

I’d walk Bonds every AB then.

You walk Ohtani and he’ll steal 2nd.

And 3rd.

So would bonds when he was young.

I'm wondering what the WAR would be for a guy with .700 slugging, 1100 OPS, 54 homers, 57 steals with the greatest % in history, 130 RBI's, 130 runs, 100 XBHs, 15 wins, 50 saves running him in as closer from his field position, leading the league in ERA, 2 or 3 perfect games and no-hitters. Let's get jiggy with it.

There's a legit fourth decimal place sweat on this triple crown race. I wonder if Padres will start / sit Arraez based on the scenarios tomorrow.

****ing Mets

2/3 with a walk and a steal through 6 innings. he's not really slowing down....31 times on base in 8.66 games....

Looks like he's setting that franchise slg mark.

ok only 2/4 with singles tonight guess he's not surging anymore.

the Arraez 3 batting titles with 3 different teams in 3 years is a cool achievement if he gets it.

I'm thinking Skubal might be the AL MVP. The Tigers have no power hitters, no average hitters, and no other pitchers with double digit wins. And it looks like he might be singlehandedly taking them to a World Series title. Just saying.

I'll say. But spoiling Ohtani. 😡

I wonder what the GOAT base stealing season all around is. I've always been a bit skeptical of too many outs made stealing. Ohtani doesn't have that problem. Coleman's 107-for-121 might be it.

WTF, dbacks

Snakes and Mets in a true WILdcard battle.

was surprised to learn that Coleman's SB % was only 81. When he played for the crads I don't ever remember him being thrown out.

if he didn't strike out so much, he probably would be the current all time SB leader. dude should have been a better drag bunter.

Dude was Billy Hamilton of the 80s.

Unfortunately you can't steal 1st base.

mets-barves doubleheader on Monday is looking a lot more likely now

I remembered that Ken Singleton once got 10 hits in a row from TWIB making a big deal about it at the time. So I looked up consecutive ABs with a hit:

https://www.mlb.com/news/most-consecutive-at-bats-with-a-hit

MLB.com

These players got how many hits in a row?

It boggles my mind that somewhere in my brain a bunch of connections between neurons have stored that piece of utterly useless information since 1981.

I’m curious why Ohtani wouldn’t serve the Doyers better as a closer. As it is in a best case scenario they still have to skip starts for him to keep him healthy. Why not abandon plans to have him in the rotation and just have him demoralize you at the end of the game same as he did during it

Being a closer is unpredictable. It would distract him during the game not knowing whether he'd pitch or not or wondering when it would happen. And then after all that closers pitch very few innings so their value isn't that much. When does he warm up in the bullpen if he's also in the batting lineup? It's problematic in many ways. Being a starter is significantly easier in his case especially if you want to maximize his bat.

At some point in baseball history, they got this idea that speed should go at the top of the lineup. I argued for years that this made no sense and finally that trend seems to have mostly gone away.

For one thing, speed is of a value that changes over time. In the steroid era, when everybody was slugging the ball, it didn't make sense to risk an out to gain 1 base, especially when your best hitters were at the plate. If you steal a base before a guy hit a home run or double that would've scored you from 1st anyways, you've gained nothing. If you get caught, you cost your team a full run. If you steal 2nd before guy draws a walk you've basically gained nothing also. But in an era where runs are harder to come by, especially in a more "dead ball" game, the value of base stealing goes way up.

This is also true in the lineup. The value of stealing bases goes up significantly if you do it when weaker hitters are up. Guys like Coleman and Hamilton should've batted 7th in the order, so that if they got on base, they could run wild and try to cause havoc when the weak 8 and 9 hitters are up.

The idea of sticking a weak hitting speedster at the top of a lineup followed by sluggers is completely backwards in logic, and I argued this on all the message boards 20-25 years ago.

Coaches eventually understood some of this, and guys like Schwarber are batting leadoff now, which would never happen 25 years ago.

If anything, in most eras, the fact that a guy has speed should be a reason to avoid putting him at the top of the lineup, where the benefit of his speed is wasted.

Note: This also means that the breakeven stolen base rate is not set in stone. In some eras and in some lineups or situations, a 70% success rate might be worth running, whereas in some situations, it's not worth running unless the success rate is 90% or higher. Kind of like how you pretty much should never steal try to 3rd base when there's 2 outs.

Didn't the stat nerd sabrmetricians decide best speed and OBP goes in the 2 hole and best power and OBP goes in the 4 hole?

for OBP sure. But I highly doubt that the maximum benefit of speed would be from using while your power hitters are at the plate, there's just no sense to that. Power hitters tend to hit home runs and doubles, and have more walks and strikeouts. In pretty much all of those results, a stolen base has gained you close to nothing.

High OBP in front of high SLG makes the most sense, with the weakest hitters all going down at the bottom of lineup. But generally as long as your best hitters are at the top of the order and your worst hitters are at the bottom, you've got the right idea and the details make minimal difference. If any of those weak hitters have speed, put them in front of the other weak hitters, which means the 6 and 7 spot in the lineup should be the best spots to put them. This seems like basic logic to me.

For some reason in the 80's and 90's there was some idea set in stone that leadoff man should be all about speed, and then the number 2 hitter should be a guy with good bat control who is good at moving his over. But why do that if your 3 and 4 hitters are then mostly going to have a swing for the fences style of hitting. It was the dumbest logic. If you're on 1st base and Mark McGwire or Aaron Judge are batting, why would you ever run? But if a Louis Arraez style hitter is batting, stealing 2nd is the difference between scoring on his single or just advancing.

Shohei needs a 4 hit game to get 200 hits. If he does that he probably gets the batting title and triple crown also.

Seems silly but the guy has 26 hits in the last 9 games...