MLB 2025

[DSafetyGuy]

On this week's episode of "Hang Up and Listen", Ben Lindbergh does an afterball about the torpedo bats (starts with just over 14 minutes left in the podcast). The word "bandbox" was used to describe Yankee Stadium and he also cited the wind blowing out on the most noteworthy day.

[mister d]

It def wasn't a Yankee Stadium day. 7 of the 9 were HRs in 29 or 30 parks and the lowest, Volpe, was still in 10 (versus one of those Johnny Damon 1/30 deals). Exits velos except Volpe all 99 to 115 mph. The wind was def strong out but the Brewers only hit one. I don't doubt facing a guy who lives on deception that they knew well then a MLB debut helped, but given the swing speed data its hard to rule out the bats being a legit factor.

[mister d]

More like Josh Fail-or, amiright???

[brian]

I’ve been on the record that Oakland moving to Las Vegas is dumb as fuck but if they’re so psyched to move to Vegas why not play in Vegas’ AAA stadium which is at least as new and nice as Sacramento?

[Steve of phpBB]

I’ve been on the record that Oakland moving to Las Vegas is dumb as fuck but if they’re so psyched to move to Vegas why not play in Vegas’ AAA stadium which is at least as new and nice as Sacramento?

Or SLC where the AAA team just left and the stadium is unoccupied. They’d sell out every game here.

[Jerloma]

More like Josh Fail-or, amiright???

Knoblauchian shit right there.

[EnochRoot]

Boston just signed their young 2B prospect, Kristian Campbell (currently ranked #6 in MLB) to an eight year deal worth $60m. After the eight years, the team also has two club options.

Team-friendly deal comes to mind.

[travzilla]

Got half-way back into baseball at the start of last and the Jays went and had one of the more depressing seasons in recent memory. Trying again this year (vibes much improved) but also trying to follow the league more as a whole. Started diving into Fangraphs. Beyond OPS and WAR, which I've got a handle on, what are 2 or 3 metrics you would recommend that I should focus on if my goal is to identify good players (or players playing good) at a glance?
Are all "+" statistics normalized? Always to 100? I like the idea of that.

[EnochRoot]

Got half-way back into baseball at the start of last and the Jays went and had one of the more depressing seasons in recent memory. Trying again this year (vibes much improved) but also trying to follow the league more as a whole. Started diving into Fangraphs. Beyond OPS and WAR, which I've got a handle on, what are 2 or 3 metrics you would recommend that I should focus on if my goal is to identify good players (or players playing good) at a glance?
Are all "+" statistics normalized? Always to 100? I like the idea of that.

I like wOBA (weighted On-base-average), hard hit rate, and exit velocity. For pitchers I like Skill-interactive ERA.

I expect Mister D to chime in when he sees this question.

[travzilla]

Got half-way back into baseball at the start of last and the Jays went and had one of the more depressing seasons in recent memory. Trying again this year (vibes much improved) but also trying to follow the league more as a whole. Started diving into Fangraphs. Beyond OPS and WAR, which I've got a handle on, what are 2 or 3 metrics you would recommend that I should focus on if my goal is to identify good players (or players playing good) at a glance?
Are all "+" statistics normalized? Always to 100? I like the idea of that.

I like wOBA (weighted On-base-average), hard hit rate, and exit velocity. For pitchers I like Skill-interactive ERA.

I expect Mister D to chime in when he sees this question.

wOBA intrigued me. SLG always seemed so easily intuitive, then reading that well no, a triple isn't 3x as valuable as a single, etc was a real "shit, of course!" moment. Love things that get weighted accurately. I just always struggle with metrics that require memorizing new bad-good-great values.

Some things like exit velocity and launch angle come across as trivial to me, though I assume they must have a degree of repeatability and correlation to success for people to be so into them. Just seemed like stuff that would be more interesting to a coach than a fan.

[mister d]

Big fan of xwOBA for hitters which is what “should” happen given exit velo, launch angle, etc. wOBA. So a smoked lineout to CF is good, a broken bat bloop double over an immobile 1B isn’t.

Pitching … I don’t know. Trying to understand the Stuff+ metric but some of those numbers seem so counterintuitive to what I think I know about a pitcher’s repertoire. I don’t love xwOBA for pitchers just because the hitter determines the number. I’m not aware of a stat that measures expected results from velo, movement, location but that’s what I’d be most into. Not even sure how you’d do it since you could theoretically have 0 or multiple expected balls in play per PA.

Defense FRV from baseball savant. That entire website is amazing for nerds.

[mister d]

Only one I disagree with above is hard hit rate just because it demands a cutoff mph and missing by 0.1 mph and 15 mph is the same. 90th percentile exit velo I like a little better.

[travzilla]

Cool thanks.

Another eye-opener I got was interpreting BABIP not as simply "higher=better player" but actually the bigger deviation from mean as an indicator of luck. Baseball's PDO! (is there also an equivalent beat reporter who claims a team's system is the true cause of their .390 BABIP?)

[A_B]

Baseballs pedo was Pete Rose.

[A_B]

Three straight 0-1 losses for the Redlegs. Team ERA under 2.5

2 wins, 5 losses.

[Giff]

It'll never get old hearing people boo Altuve when they have one of the actual participants in the scheme on their team. It'll be especially funny at Fenway.

[tennbengal]

Three straight 0-1 losses for the Redlegs. Team ERA under 2.5

2 wins, 5 losses.

SIGH

Doing nothing to improve the roster while telling Francona to work magic may not have been the best plan from the Reds' front office of notorious penurious fucks.

[sancarlos]

Giants winning 5 of first 6, all on the road, including a sweep of the Astros, just to get people's hopes up before they inevitably collapse and regress to the mean.

[A_B]

Giants winning 5 of first 6, all on the road, including a sweep of the Astros, just to get people's hopes up before they inevitably collapse and regress to the mean.

At least you get to collapse inevitably and not immediately.

[mister d]

It'll never get old hearing people boo Altuve when they have one of the actual participants in the scheme on their team. It'll be especially funny at Fenway.

More or less funny than Astros fans sending death threats to Mike Fiers?

[Giff]

It'll never get old hearing people boo Altuve when they have one of the actual participants in the scheme on their team. It'll be especially funny at Fenway.

More or less funny than Astros fans sending death threats to Mike Fiers?

Less.

[tennbengal]

Giants winning 5 of first 6, all on the road, including a sweep of the Astros, just to get people's hopes up before they inevitably collapse and regress to the mean.

At least you get to collapse inevitably and not immediately.

The Reds franchise commitment to the bit where they start out horrible is remarkable for its consistency.

[GoodKarma]

Giants winning 5 of first 6, all on the road, including a sweep of the Astros, just to get people's hopes up before they inevitably collapse and regress to the mean.

At least you get to collapse inevitably and not immediately.

The Reds franchise commitment to the bit where they start out horrible is remarkable for its consistency.

Trying to match the Bengals energy

[mister d]

Yankees have a schedule deal I can't ever remember seeing before: Thursday 7:00 PM game at home followed by a Friday road game at 4:00 PM.

[brian]

Yankees have a schedule deal I can't ever remember seeing before: Thursday 7:00 PM game at home followed by a Friday road game at 4:00 PM.

I remember that happening to the Tigers one time. 21 hours for a road game the next day is the minimum allowable in the CBA if I recall correctly.

[mister d]

I don't get why they'd do it. Its not summer, its a big draw opponent. Just makes no sense to me.

[mister d]

Pirates LF is additional support for "every HS baseball league has multiple OFs who (pre-throw) are better defensively than some major league LFs".

[L-Jam3]

We may have lost The Lizard King but now we got The Luzard King!


Also, this is the first time I’m watching a game on Apple+. Is it always this glitchy?

[tennbengal]

Kinda , yeah.

[brian]

LOL. Poor White Sox.

[DSafetyGuy]

LOL. Poor White Sox.

Got back from walking the dog in time for the last three batters.

[GoodKarma]

It should be poor GoodKarma and his White Sox ML bet.

Also have a ML bet on the Pirates…the three they gave up in the 9th isn’t helping either.

[mister d]

But Dev-Will pretending the bases were loaded against Pham versus a walk being a perfectly ok outcome got it all back.

[DaveInSeattle]

Mariners are in mid-season form. 3-7, Team BA at .213, and the the team leader in BA broke his arm trying to catch a foul ball yesterday.

[DSafetyGuy]

Tigers assistant GM resigns after Brett Farving a couple women who worked in the organization.

No, he did not scam welfare funds for a volleyball arena for them.

[rass]

“side profiles” indicates a harasser dedicated to his craft

[mister d]

They should have been forced to forfeit today.

[mister d]

Hard to imagine a more ridiculous picture to use given the case. Like that's his face right after sending the texts.

[brian]

Damn the torpedoes!

[mister d]

Damn the gloves today, huh?