MLB 2018 regular season thread

AA Arkansas by then.

 

He was the best player in the league this week.

But he actually isn't ready to be playing up here. Needs more seasoning.

 

lolz
Annoyed Shohei Ohtani Had Hoped U.S. Baseball Players Wouldn’t Be This Bad
ANAHEIM, CA—Frustrated with the level of play he has encountered during his first week of competition in the American major leagues, Japanese baseball phenom Shohei Ohtani told reporters Monday that he’d hoped American players wouldn’t be this bad. “When I decided to leave Japan to sign with the [Los Angeles] Angels, I thought I’d have to push myself to compete at the next level, but this has all been way too easy,” said the 23-year-old after a dominant performance on the mound and the batter’s box, adding that his new peers were hardly a step up from the lowly Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks. “At first, I thought the guys were just messing with me, but when I homered three times in three days and took a perfect game into the seventh inning the day after that, well...Turns out I’m just better than everyone else. This honestly wasn’t even worth the money.” Reporters confirmed Ohtani seemed bored and listless throughout the interview, answering questions while tossing 94 mile-per-hour warm-up pitches in the bullpen with his off hand.

 

I could tell by watching the angle at which he held the bat in his hands.

Every sportswriter could, though. I mean duh.

 

There’s Already a Book on Shohei Ohtani | FanGraphs Baseball

As the hitting sample grows in size, we’ll get a fuller understanding of Ohtani’s various strengths and weaknesses. He’s already been pitched in a very particular way, and in the long run, it might even work. Just as it used to be too early to say Ohtani was a disappointment, it’s still too early to say he’s a total success. There is an unbelievable amount of baseball still on the schedule.

 

Fast forward to the start of the 2019 season. Shohei Ohtani has won Rookie of the Year honors for 2018, mostly for his pitching. His 200 strikeouts, 2.95 ERA and 15 wins even got him some Cy Young votes, but he also hit 20 home runs, though he was inconsistent with the bat. After all that, Ohtani begins the 2019 season by going hitless in his first five at-bats and gives up five earned runs in five innings during his first start of the year. Dickie claims he was right all along. Ohtani wasn't ready!

No, I don't really think Ohtani is going to do all that this season. I'm as skeptical as anybody, but Dickie's arguent here is just silly and he will jump on anyhting to support it, even if he has to wait months to do it.

 

This seems like trolling.

 

Yeah, who knows if he'll be ready for the end of the season.

 

It is pointing out the kind of thing Dickie does with baseball arguments. Imagine that I wrote that I think Francisco Liriano's first start doesn't mean he is a good bet to pitch well today against the Indians and Dickie disagreed. If Liriano then went on to get lit up tonight, Dickie would find some reason to argue that he wasn't all that bad. Then if Liriano had a good start two weeks from today, Dickie would claim that was evidence he was right all along.

Now if I continue to taunt Dickie about Ohtani every time he does something positive the rest of the season and even into next year, you might have a point in comparing our behavior.

 

No mention of whether he was ready to start the season in the majors, which was the point of the Passan and Bloom items. You've made up five different arguments because you whiffed the first time. Jesus H. Christ.

 

What did I "whiff" on?

You said that Passan's headline has been proven "spectacularly wrong."

It hasn't.

 

Of course it has.