The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

It's been a while since I've pissed in everyone's popcorn about something in baseball that everyone else likes. So here I am to gripe that I'm getting sorta tired of hearing about Ronald Acuna Jr's 40/50, 40/60 and 40/70 season. Is he awesome? Yes. Is he the MVP? Yes. (I'd say this even if it didn't bother the ever-annoying Jeff Passan, who keeps sucking up to Mookie Betts, who is also awesome) But there needs to be an acknowledgment that the steals are inflated by the new rules that make it almost impossible to get caught (and also did a nice job of surface-level injecting some offense into a game that is sneakily still the same as it's been throughout the Moneyball generation). Acuna's previous career-high for steals was 37, set four years and one knee surgery ago. He didn't get THAT much more prolific. Again, good for him for taking advantage of the rules. He is the best player in the league. But when it comes to power and speed, he's no Barry Bonds or Eric Davis. And seeing him raise the base tonight makes me wish Rickey Henderson, the only guy who should ever raise a base, could get a prime year with these silly rules. He might steal 200 bases.

*done pissing in everyone's popcorn...for now!*

 

The Astros? With homophobic/racist/sexist pieces of shit? In this economy?

 

Would Acuna steal 70 with 1980s managing philosophies? We’ll never know.

Would Acuna hit 40 HRs with 1980s hitting philosophies? We’ll never know.

Would Acuna star for the Night Ranger football team? Yes. Yes he would.

 

Thank you. Someone needed to say it.

For a sport that was so insistent on asterisks… everything is an asterisk now.

 

The next MLB expansion team that comes in, their team name should be the Asterisks.

 

Ford Frick nods his head.

 

Well, since expansion usually comes in pairs, I guess it would be the Asterix and Obelix.

 

May he prance around the bases on his next walk-off.

 

I really thought I was gonna piss people off with that one! I guess later today I'll bitch about how fast games go now.

And it's funny, I was going to mention an asterisk...not in a serious Ford Frick sense, but in the sense that this is an entirely different game than it was just a year ago. But hopefully enough people get that w/o the actual asterisk.

 

YOU CAN STILL STEAL IN AMERICA MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!!

 

Congrats O's fans here. It'll be nice to see orange in the playoffs again.

Hey Siri, what is the Orioles record?

The Orioles are 99 to 59 right now. That's 1st place in the AL East.