2023 MLB Season Thread

[GirlySports]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1694788121756635197

[Samonadreau]

Crazy you can just retire and keep getting paid your contract.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

It's these cutters and focus on spin rates that's making these guys into running backs. Used to be if you threw 95 and straight, it was hard to hit. Now guys need late movement to avoid having 3 straight hit into the bleachers. A guy like Greg Maddux might not even get into junior college now.

Guy I play ball with has a 17 year old attending the academy in Okotooks. They recruited him entirely on size and body type. He's like 6'-3 and by year end was up to 90, and looking to add another 5-6 over the course of the year. We manufacture athletes nowadays.

You aint seen nothing yet. Wait until gene editing enters the picture.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Samonadreau

Crazy you can just retire and keep getting paid your contract.

I don't believe you can just retire, If a player walks away from the sport because he no longer has interest in it, he walks away from the contract as well. If a player is forced to retire due to injury incurred on the baseball field, he is entitled to the full amount of the contract. The team is free to argue that it was a combination of things that include activity outside of baseball that forced his retirement, in which case they would settle.

Strasburg has had countless surgeries, muscles trimmed from his neck and a rib removed in order to keep pitching. He can no longer hold his children without feeling numbness to the point he has to lay down. He will not have to settle.

The Nationals problem is that they couldn’t find an insurance carrier to back the contract. For example: Albert Belle was forced into retirement, and he got paid the remainder of his deal. The contract was insured though, so despite the fact Peter Angelos tried to use that as a cudgel against signing monster contracts, he wasn’t on the hook for it.

[Drake]

A fan just ran onto the field and tackled Ronald Acuña in Denver. Like WTF. Too bad Acuna couldn't have punched in his face in.

EDIT: Watching that live hearing what the announcers were saying isn't exactly accurate after seeing video. Two jackasses tried to hug Acuña Jr and nearly tackled him.
https://twitter.com/44billyg/status/...jx6gs4pGg&s=19

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Drake

A fan just ran onto the field and tackled Ronald Acuña in Denver. Like WTF. Too bad Acuna couldn't have punched in his face in.

Where have you gone Morganna?
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morganna

[JBR]

Yankees release Josh Donaldson.

In the most dreadful of seasons.. this is my World Series!

[Senator Clay Davis]

Lol at the Angels. One month after going all-in and ensuring they'll lose Ohtani for nothing, comes this...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1696632481099755613

[GirlySports]

The Rockies recently traded Grichuk to the Angels for prospects. Now they could get him right back on waivers!

[troutman]

Cobb two outs from no-hitter for SF.

6-1.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Lol at the Angels. One month after going all-in and ensuring they'll lose Ohtani for nothing, comes this...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1696632481099755613

They bungled the Ohtani situation about as badly as they could have. I can't believe people still defend their decision to be buyers at the deadline instead of moving him to the highest bidder. I get the whole "don't want to go down in history as trading the best player ever" argument, but if properly done this could have brought back a number of quality futures to the Angels. Instead, they will probably lose Ohtani to free agency anyway and they don't have much of a future to look forward to. Besides, even if Ohtani stays, his days as a starting pitcher are likely over.

Just because Edmonton bungled the Gretzky trade, doesn't mean generational players shouldn't ever be traded.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

They bungled the Ohtani situation about as badly as they could have. I can't believe people still defend their decision to be buyers at the deadline instead of moving him to the highest bidder. I get the whole "don't want to go down in history as trading the best player ever" argument, but if properly done this could have brought back a number of quality futures to the Angels. Instead, they will probably lose Ohtani to free agency anyway and they don't have much of a future to look forward to. Besides, even if Ohtani stays, his days as a starting pitcher are likely over.

Just because Edmonton bungled the Gretzky trade, doesn't mean generational players shouldn't ever be traded.

Well it’s easy to laugh at them now when everything is going totally wrong. But they did what they thought they needed to do to keep him.

I don’t really get the Gretzky comparison since Ohtani was a rental. It’s obviously turned out horribly for them but without improving their ability to draft and develop, acquiring a couple more prospects wasn’t a difference maker IMO.

[KelVarnsen]

Wander Franco MLB career is over
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...-wander-franco

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Well it’s easy to laugh at them now when everything is going totally wrong. But they did what they thought they needed to do to keep him.

I don’t really get the Gretzky comparison since Ohtani was a rental. It’s obviously turned out horribly for them but without improving their ability to draft and develop, acquiring a couple more prospects wasn’t a difference maker IMO.

A few things

1) Their chances of making the playoffs even with the deadline acquisitions was very low, due to the combination of them not being in a playoff spot at the deadline and having a harder remaining schedule than the teams they were chasing.

2) Their chances of keeping him were probably low even if they had made the playoffs. Why would he want to stay with a team that had repeatedly been a bottom feeder despite two of the best players in the game playing for them for many years?

3) The difference wasn't just "a couple" of prospects. It was the prospects they traded away to buy at the deadline PLUS the prospects they would have got from trading Ohtani. It adds up to quite a bit. And no you can't just hand wave it away saying "it's just prospects". The whole point of drafting/acquiring/developing prospects is that you don't know beforehand who will become a star and who won't, but nevertheless, some ultimately will.

4) What is their ultimate goal anyway? Keep Ohtani at all costs, even if it means laying waste to any and all other considerations? Continue being a clown show baseball team for another decade, that rarely if ever makes the playoffs, yet always consoled in the fact that they have the best player in the world on their roster?

5) I only brought up the Gretzky thing because someone mentioned that the Angels owner doesn't want to go down in history as trading away the best player ever. It's not actually a bad thing to be remebered by if the trade is good and works out well for your team.

[Strange Brew]

I don’t know. I think the time for making a lot of those arguments was at the deadline, not after they go in a tailspin and the guy gets injured. Hindsight shows it was a disaster obviously.

But I maintain that major league teams have ample draft picks to stock their prospect pool. One sell off at the deadline is relatively insignificant towards building a contender whereas Ohtani is the definition of a generational talent. You want to argue the Angels aren’t well run, sure. That was true before the deadline IMO, not because they want to do everything they could to keep the guy.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I don’t know. I think the time for making a lot of those arguments was at the deadline, not after they go in a tailspin and the guy gets injured. Hindsight shows it was a disaster obviously.

But I maintain that major league teams have ample draft picks to stock their prospect pool. One sell off at the deadline is relatively insignificant towards building a contender whereas Ohtani is the definition of a generational talent. You want to argue the Angels aren’t well run, sure. That was true before the deadline IMO, not because they want to do everything they could to keep the guy.

I think a deal for Ohtani would have always needed to include at least 1 roster player of quality with some team control, along with some top tier prospects.

For the Jays something like Vladdy+prospects.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I don’t know. I think the time for making a lot of those arguments was at the deadline, not after they go in a tailspin and the guy gets injured. Hindsight shows it was a disaster obviously.

But I maintain that major league teams have ample draft picks to stock their prospect pool. One sell off at the deadline is relatively insignificant towards building a contender whereas Ohtani is the definition of a generational talent. You want to argue the Angels aren’t well run, sure. That was true before the deadline IMO, not because they want to do everything they could to keep the guy.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this I guess. I think you're underestimating the kind of return they could have got for Ohtani in a trade and also underestimating the damage they've done to their organization by pissing away some of their top prospects.

[Strange Brew]

Well I think you have to at least look at the situation at the time, not with total hindsight. They brought in some good players. A top of the rotation starter, a solid bullpen guy (who cost them good prospects yes) and the two players from the Rockies have helped their lineup (who didn’t cost much). And at the time of the trade they were ahead of the Mariners. If the Angels go on the run the Mariners have, everyone is calling them geniuses. And in addition to the players they traded for, they were hoping to add a healthy Mike Trout to the lineup.

I can’t think of MLB championship teams that were built through selling off parts at the deadline.

Anyway yes we can agree to disagree, I just think this would have been a more honest debate a month ago. Who else screwed up at the deadline? A ton of teams traded away top prospects.

[Mathgod]

It was my position since before the deadline, even though I don't have a post on here to prove it.

[KelVarnsen]

LOL
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...ffs-find-homes