The 2023 Running Baseball Thread

I'm assuming they limited him to one kid on the field?

 

Not being a Dodger fan, can someone identify these guys? I recognize Cey, Dusty, Garvey and Fernando.

 

7 is Steve Yeager. Rick Monday is between Cey and Russell. Not sure but I think that's Fred Claire on the left.

 

Thanks.

 

Yes, but those balls that are getting through now will inevitably start finding gloves soon enough.

 

Peter O'Malley, Steve Yeager (damn, looking old), Ron Cey, Rick Monday, Bill Russell, Dusty Baker, Steve Garvey, Fernando Valenzuela.

 

Totally agree. A .418 BABIP is not sustainable for an entire season. And striking out just 5 percent of your plate appearances is obscenely low. Regression towards the mean and all. But for fun ...

Arraez is averaging about 4.2 PAs a game. Barring injury, he's probably getting another 380 trips to the plate this season. If he continues to walk at his current rate, that's probably 28 more walks (and that would be in line with his career numbers). So he's got about 352 ABs left this season. To his credit, he's already amassed 109 hits so far.

If he hits .250 the rest of the season (88-352), Arraez ends up 197 for 623, or .316. Or what he hit in 2022 for the Twins.
If he hits the league average for BABIP, which is .294, that's 212 hits, or a .340 average.
If he hits his career BABIP, which is .349, that's 232 hits and a .372 average.

I figure he'll probably wind up somewhere around .340-.350 because he can't beat out ground balls. But every time he's had a mini slump, he comes back and goes 5-for-5. And he's sixth in OPS+ despite only two homers.

 

Joe Posnanski is...Joe Posnanski, but he had a decent piece yesterday in which he wrote the lack of power and lack of speed makes .400 almost impossible. He's not gonna hit balls out of the yard and he's not gonna leg out any infield singles. That he's gotten this far is doubly remarkable.

 

In 1999, Tony Fernandez--having just turned 37 and not likely to beat out a lot of infield hits or hit a lot of balls over the fence--was at .400 for the last time on June 28. He hit .248 the rest of the way to finish at .328.

 

George Brett finished the 1980 season by hitting .304 in his final 13 games--and lost 10 points off his batting average. It's really fucking hard to hit .400!

 

That was my guess too. Went with Claire first while waiting to be corrected.

 

Rick Monday reminds me a lot of Mike Murphy, longtime LA athletes from the same era with great voices.