~2024 MLB Thread~

[FearlessF]

George Brett and Rod Carew pose before a game, May 1, 1980

[847badgerfan]

Carew is probably the best pure hitter of my lifetime of watching baseball (which ended 4 years ago).

[FearlessF]

I'd agree and also tip my cap to Tony Gwynn

[847badgerfan]

Yep, he's up there.

Frank Thomas too. Prolific walker, hit to all fields, hit for power.

[FearlessF]

the Big Hurt

[MrNubbz]

Carew is probably the best pure hitter of my lifetime of watching baseball (which ended 4 years ago).

Yrs ago I read "The Umpire Strikes Back" By Ron Luciano(RIP),an entertaining guy telling tales from his yrs as an UMP - gotta read it - classic.Prolly the 2nd funniest book I've ever read after "FATSO" by Art Donovan.Any way Ron regales that if Carew didn't swing he'd call it a ball
Some of Ronnie's quotes

"Throwing people out of a game is like learning to ride a bicycle--once you get the hang of it, it can be a lot of fun."

"One reason I never called balks is that I never understood the rule."

"Like some cult religion that barely survives, there has always been at least one but rarely more than five or six devotees throwing the knuckleball in the big leagues . . . Not only can't pitchers control it, hitters can't hit it, catchers can't catch it, coaches can't coach it and most pitchers can't learn it. The perfect pitch."

"No one ever grew up intending to be an umpire, except perhaps my friend Bill Haller. His brother Tom wanted to be a catcher, so an affinity for masks must run in that family."

"Any umpire who claims he has never missed a play is . . . well, an umpire."

"Being an umpire is like being a king. It prepares you for nothing."

"Umpiring is best described as the profession of standing between two seven-year olds with one ice cream cone."

“Umpire’s heaven is a place where he works third base every game. Home is where the heartache is.”

[FearlessF]

Yrs ago I read "The Umpire Strikes Back" By Ron Luciano(RIP),an entertaining guy telling tales from his yrs as an UMP - gotta read it - classic.Prolly the 2nd funniest book I've ever read after "FATSO" by Art Donovan.Any way Ron regales that if Carew didn't swing he'd call it a ball

can't hit 300 with the bat on your shoulder

[MrNubbz]

Or when Ryan was pitching "that sounded high"

[FearlessF]

when Ryan was pitching you didn't want to hear any chin music, but you knew there would be plenty of high heat

[ELA]

https://twitter.com/MLBONFOX/status/1798410755425124447

[OrangeAfroMan]

The Carew-Gwynn pairing reminded me of this article.  Idk if the link will work, but I'll share some of the info here.
Families of Hitters

James found you could group hitters into their 2b-3b-HR ratios.  Not a discovery, per se, but a fun exercise which yields results that make some sense.

McGwire and Killebrew were the only 3-0-7 (30% 2b, 0% 3b, 70% HR) hitters.  Small family.

The best group is the 415 family (Bonds, Ruth, Griffey, Aaron, Mays, ARod, Ott, Foxx, Schmidt).
Here you can see BA isn't part of this, just ratio of XBH.

So the reason I'm sharing this is that in my mind, Carew-Boggs-Gwynn are all basically the same kind of hitter....but are they?
Gwynn is 712
Boggs is 811
Carew - 721

So, all in the same neighborhood, but perhaps not as homogenous as I had thought.

My favorite players are 505s:  Frank Thomas and Ted Williams...along with Manny Ramirez, Bagwell, Chipper, and Sheffield.  Btw, Thomas and Williams both had 521 career HR.

Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell are the same in many ways (exact birth date, position, 1994 MVPs,...and 505s here.

[FearlessF]

first number is singles and doubles combined?

[ELA]

https://twitter.com/DexsTweets/status/1798429838279381304?t=SLqrGgXUqkZZJjvCFduwyw&s=19

[ELA]

Angels comfortably have the best city connect unis.  Only thing theyve done right, but at least they have that.