MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

Justin Upton playing against the Angels tonight for the Mariners, who just called him up from the minors.

 

The Angels still have not been no-hit this century!

 

Should have been an error on Ray, preserving his no-hitter. It was a routine play. While most people were waiting for the call to be changed to an error, Lagares led off the eighth with a triple and Velazquez doubled him home.
Oddly, the Angels have been nearly no-hit twice in their past 3 games and the legitimate hits that broke up both no-hitters were triples -- Ohtani in the ninth inning on Wednesday against the Dodgers and Lagares in the eighth on Friday night.

 

Cleveland is the youngest team in baseball and…might be good?

They’ve built a team based on contact hitting, the otherworldly hitting of their Oompa Loompa superstar Jose Ramirez, yet another shut-down bullpen full of nobodies and a rotation that could be better than it has shown.

Starting to wish I’d bet the over on their season win total and a longshot bet at winning the AL Central. They’ve feasted on patsies lately, but took down the Dodgers last night while LaRussa’s more talented team snoozes through this season and a Twins team that was awful a season ago is just ahead of them.

 

One game is a sweep now?

 

There were 2 1-0 games and 1 2-0 game yesterday. All took between 2:40 and 2:49. That’s about 30 minutes too long.

 

Both games also had scoring decisions that affected the status of the no-hitter. Ray's play in this one. And in the first inning against the Dodgers there was a ball where two outfielders collided and it was dropped. It was initially ruled a hit, then quickly changed to an error, and it wound up preserving the no-hitter until the ninth inning.

 

I think the larger point with free agency should be that you're almost always paying top dollar, and usually for the back end of a player's career, given how long his original team has his rights for. No team has a perfect record when it comes to FA, so it's all the more important to minimize how much you need to use it, via proper prospect development and scouting, and using trades to get assets from other teams. The fact that the Angels have had to go to FA so often isn't great.

 

Greg Maddux ain't walking through that door.

 

Mark Buehrle might, but he'll be drunk and probably 50 lbs heavier than he was as a player.

 

The Guardians never miss on their big decisions and big trades. Francisco Lindor is doing fine in NY after a rough first year, but if you're only going to pay for one guy, they chose correctly. And Andres Gimenez is better almost across the board than Lindor this season and making at or near the minimum.