2018 MLB Thread

[ELA]

good day for hooky and some AAA matinee baseball.   Mud Hens in town.   Cristin Stewart/Tyler Alexander might be worth seeing today.  HR or K for Stewart seems to be his m.o.   I know Toledo has a lefty knuckleballer too (Turley?).  He's not starting though.

With Cabrera done for the year I wonder if they call up Stewart and start playing Castellanos some at 1B.  With Victor Martinez off the books next year, you wonder if that is the plan, with Cabrera going to DH.
Probably holding off on Stewart long enough to ensure he doesn't get Super 2 status.
Last night was particularly frustrating, Cabrera with a season ending injury, and at one point Twins had only 7 baserunners, and 5 of them had scored, while the Tigers had left 12 men on base.

[MarqHusker]

Stewart hit two balls pretty dang hard, couple hits, a run and did K.   Alexander didn't have very good stuff today.   Steamy afternoon.  I took an uber back to the office to avoid the very quick heavy downpour which lasted about 5 minutes.

[SFBadger96]

I'd be happy if the Dodgers won 50

Me, too, but I doubt it.

NL West could be interesting with no one really playing great, and depending on what happens with Kershaw and Bumgarner. Those two leave a lot of wins on the table for their teams when they aren't playing.

[OrangeAfroMan]

I was ready to give up on 2018, but the rest of the division went and lost every game in May, lol.  

The thing about LA, though, is that it's got to stay under the cap for this one season to avoid penalties, so that may limit who they can go get at the deadline.  (I'm not sure how that affects such things)

[ELA]

Right or wrong, the thought of Brad Ausmus' face watching this Tigers team so vastly overachieve brings a smile to my face.

[ELA]

Cibs just threw a 41 pitch inning without surrendering a run.  Curious as to the MLB record there.

[ELA]

Cibs just threw a 41 pitch inning without surrendering a run.  Curious as to the MLB record there.

Unofficially per Reddit, that would be 49

[MarqHusker]

That had to be the game where Brandon Belt fouled off 21 pitches or whatever vs Jaime Barria.

[ELA]

Tigers having to put Greene and Martin on the DL, both likely out past the trade deadline, is killer.  Those were two pieces almost certain to be traded by the deadline.

[ELA]

Bob Nightengale reporting the Dodgers are aggressively pursuing Machado and Fulmer?  How many prospects do they have left?

[ELA]

My ASG ballot

		AMERICAN
C		Wilson Ramos		Rays
1B		Matt Olson		Athletics
2B		Jose Altuve		Astros
3B		Jose Ramirez		Indians
SS		Francisco Lindor		Indians
OF		Mike Trout		Angels
OF		Mookie Betts		Red Sox
OF		Aaron Judge		Yankees
DH		J.D. Martinez		Red Sox
	.		.
		NATIONAL
C		J.T. Realmuto		Marlins
1B		Max Muncy (write-in)		Dodgers
2B		Javier Baez		Cubs
3B		Nolan Arenado		Rockies
SS		Trea Turner		Nationals
OF		Nick Markakis		Braves
OF		Lorenzo Cain		Brewers
OF		Bryce Harper		Nationals

[SFBadger96]

Just being a homer here, but for SS, Crawford has higher fielding, batting, on base, and slugging averages.

Story (COL) looks good, too, with 60 RBIs, 21 ahead of the next SS, with a strong fielding percentage. Yeah, he plays in Colorado, but 50% more RBIs than the next guy? That's pretty impressive.

Freeman (ATL) seems to be the guy at 1B: he's crushing it at the plate (tops in every hitting percentage except OBP, where he's second, second in RBIs, third in HRs), and respectably near the top in fielding (where all the 1Bs are pretty high). 

[ELA]

Just being a homer here, but for SS, Crawford has higher fielding, batting, on base, and slugging averages.

Story (COL) looks good, too, with 60 RBIs, 21 ahead of the next SS, with a strong fielding percentage. Yeah, he plays in Colorado, but 50% more RBIs than the next guy? That's pretty impressive.

Freeman (ATL) seems to be the guy at 1B: he's crushing it at the plate (tops in every hitting percentage except OBP, where he's second, second in RBIs, third in HRs), and respectably near the top in fielding (where all the 1Bs are pretty high).

I think that's ignoring the terror that Turner is on the bases though, with 50% more steals than any other NL SS, and he's leading in WAR among NL SS.
Muncy is maybe just me being a little irritated he isn't on the ballot, but he's actually 3rd among all NL position players in WAR, behind only Arenado and Cain.

[SFBadger96]

That's a good point. His 54 runs scored is really impressive--and indicative of his base running prowess. I don't know if it's worth anything, but as an indicator of total offense, Turner has 54 runs scored, but 26 more RBIs (removing the HRs because they are already counted in runs), for a total of 80 runs produced for his team. Crawford has only 69 (40+29), but Story has 90 (45+45)!

Crawford has produced 18% of the Giants' runs; Turner has produced 20% of the Nationals' runs; and Story has produced 21% of the Rockies' runs.

So while I'm happy to see Crawford there, it still looks like Story might have deserved the start.

FWIW, Posey doesn't really deserve to be there, even as the backup. He's a hall of famer, but isn't having a great season.