MLB 2018 regular season thread

Passan had a very busy spring training writing about Ohtani. In between his "Verdict: Not Good" column and his mea culpa column, Passan also wrote this.

10 Degrees: The upbeat treatment of Shohei Ohtani's spring is a joke -- and entirely unnecessary

1. Shohei Ohtani did not have a “great outing” in his final start of the preseason, unless the definition of great outing has changed since the calendar turned. One official who saw it summed it up as: “He looked pretty much like he’s looked all spring.” The struggles of Ohtani since he arrived stateside have been glaring. There are plenty of ways to describe his lack of fastball velocity and difficulty commanding the pitch Saturday against a coterie of minor leaguers. Great does not crack the top, oh, 5,000?



No, Shohei Ohtani didn’t have a “great” final spring training start despite what manager Mike Scioscia said. (Getty Images)
Whether the positivity is simply reflexive defensiveness or something orchestrated for a reason is a fair question – and perhaps important. If the Angels know Ohtani well enough and believe that he responds better to a sunny perspective than an honest one that may sound sour, that balance may be worth striking publicly at the risk of sounding blinkered. If it is just the Angels not speaking the truth in hopes that no one is noticing – well, people are noticing.

 

OK, well in your defense 19 PA within the first 10 games is not enough to qualify in BA standings, IIRC, as the standard is 3.1 per scheduled games.

 

As a raw number, 19 plate appearances is not a large enough sample size to prove or disprove anything.

 

And ... he's not in the lineup tonight.

Ugh, get hurt, Pujols.

 

He's not going to be in the rotation and play every other day as DH. He's not good enough for that.

 

Shohei Ohtani is now the AL MVP favorite according to one oddsmaker

My headline: Casino offers sucker bet

 

Kluber wasn’t ready to face Ohtani. Should have a few starts in the Minors.

 

As that Fangraphs article showed, Ohtani hit a mistake pitch. Once pitchers forever stop throwing mistake pitches to him, since they never throw them to anyone else, Ohtani is done.

 

The ultimate player to be named later

Pirates Reliever Felipe Rivero Changes Name To Felipe Vázquez

 

Jose Gonzales, uh, Uribe Gonzales, uh, Jose Uribe wonders what the fuss is about .

 

Spot on, this. There was a guy I used to read who relied heavily on scouts (or evaluators, as he often called them) for his columns and they always seemed to tell him everything he wanted to hear, never seemed to be any dissent about a player among the guys (or maybe it was just one) that he talked to. I have spent enough time around hockey scouts to know that unless you are talking about elite level players there will often be a difference of opinion among guys as to a players' merits.

 

Ahem. *pats self on back*

For the further record, I am highly suspicious of Japanese arms, but not Japanese bats. If you can hit in Japan, you can probably hit here. How pitchers are raised means their arms will likely fall off at some point. Ohtani has had some early elbow issues. We'll see if he's Dice-K or Yu. That's the better question about him. Not whether he can hit.