MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

Minor League Game Turns Into All-Out Brawl After Prospect Gets Nuked At The Plate

One of the rare instances when the person responsible for the brawl ends up the worse for it. Pitcher hits batter, yells at the ump, batter minds his own business until the pitcher comes at him - and THAT was a bad idea. Pitcher gets floored, gets up and goes after another opposing player for some reason, gets hammered again, even though he had four teammates helping him out.

 

Patrick Corbin has to be finished.

Of course he's due about $60 million the next two years.

 

It feels like the Nats ruined him with that playoff use but flags fly forever

 

FYI: AppleTV+ puts the score bug in the upper left corner of the screen because the AppleTV hardware puts notifications about trending sports and news in the upper right corner.

What do we think of AppleTV+ using advanced stats in the corner of the screen for every at-bat?

 

A couple of things on OPS:

1) While I use it as a quick and dirty way to compare players, it is an abomination of math. It smashes together two percentages that don't even use the same denominator.
2) If you accept OPS as a valid stat when in is a mathematical abstraction from pure counting stats, why wouldn't you accept even more refined mathematical calculations that are based on granular study of play-by-play data? You can't accept one statistical approach and then say another goes too far without any reason.

And in defense. Why do players drafted a shortstops or third baseman end up as 1B? Because they cannot play the position and 1B is easier. A guy playing 1B is taking away a spot to move a player who isn't good defensively at another position. There is a cost to that and a value for being a very good hitter at a defensively valued position. Mike Trout would be a much better 1B than Cabrera and the latter would be a much worse CF. That's huge value.

 

From Jayson Stark

 

"If you can play catch, you can play first" -- Gene Mauch. Yes, center field is a more important defensive position than first (my own old position, BTW). But in any given season, or over an entire career, a first baseman can be more valuable than a center fielder because hitting is much more important than fielding. Trout and Cabrera are both obvious first ballot Hall of Famers. Arguing which of the two was more valuable in a year where both were great seems like a "how many relief pitchers can dance on the head of a pin" dispute to me.

 

It seems like the arguments that year went like this:
Both Cabrera and Trout were great but Cabrera was historic vs. Trout’s great and Cabrera sucks
The Trout people had to put Miggy down as part as the argument

 

In real time this was fun to watch as Muncy pushed for the replay in the dugout.

In other Dodgers news, Bellinger will be fine.

He's not swinging wildly at everything and actually takes a lot of what look like juicy pitches before they move out of the zone.

 

Ken Griffey Jr.: Today there isn't a number small enough to quantify the chances of MLB's best player and free agent going to... Cincinnati.