General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

[Tryptamine]

22 hours ago, squally1313 said:

Zach Eflin?

Add Felix Bautista to that please. The problem is the O's will definitely want pitching back and the Cubs don't really have any to give unless you're going to give them Wiggins. There's no other pitcher the Cubs have who could headline a deal for those 2. 

Edited May 15, 2025 by Tryptamine

[squally1313]

48 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

Add Felix Bautista to that please. The problem is the O's will definitely want pitching back and the Cubs don't really have any to give unless you're going to give them Wiggins. There's no other pitcher the Cubs have who could headline a deal for those 2. 

Eh….Mullins and Laureano hitting free agency after this year. They’ve got hitting prospects for days but most of them are seemingly infielders/catchers. 
 

(Also, Wiggins isn’t untouchable)

[Tryptamine]

12 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Eh….Mullins and Laureano hitting free agency after this year. They’ve got hitting prospects for days but most of them are seemingly infielders/catchers. 
 

(Also, Wiggins isn’t untouchable)

He's not untouchable, but the Cubs are pretty limited in their upside arms too and after Horton+Wiggins there isn't a lot of exciting.

[Tryptamine]

Baltimore fires their coach in, what has been, one of the most disappointing seasons I can recall.

[Tryptamine]

Colorado now on pace to go 26-136(.159)

[CubinNY]

Jose Alvarado suspended for PED. 80 games

[JHBulls]

21 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

Mick Abel beat Paul Skenes (8 IP CG, 9 Ks, 1 BB, 1 R) in his ML debut: 6 IP, 9 Ks, 0 BBs…Really good 1-0 game

Showe off arm strength, velo, two loud breaking balls

Alvarado’s lost for 80 games to some PED bs…Bullpen’s deep, he’s electric tho they should send to Cubs in rage pls 

 ML managers tend to give young pitchers making their ML debut short outings to get a feel for things and they are usually put on a pitch limit anyway, so I had convinced myself that maybe Mick Abel is old as horsefeathers making his ML debut, like 34 or some age like that.

Colour me surprised that he’s 23. 

[We Got The Whole 9]

This Soto drama is funny. Dude saw 7 pitches in his first 2 AB yesterday and took 6 called strikes mostly right over the heart of the plate. Reports are that he was railroaded into signing with the Mets by his own family.  Can you imagine being 2 months into a 15-year contract and already regretting the decision?

[Tryptamine]

I find Tomoyuki Sugano fascinating. Even by outlier standards he appears to be an extreme outlier.

He's currently sporting a 3.07 ERA through 10 starts(58.2IP) despite an almost impossibly low 4.91 K/9. His peripherals are still saying he has overperformed but they're becoming far more reasonable then they were even a few weeks ago. He's sporting a 4.82 FIP, 4.46 xFIP, and 4.36 xERA. According to baseball savant he's doing a very good job of limiting hard contact, his off speed offerings are elite and induce a lot of chases. We've seen pitchers be fip beaters like our own Kyle Hendricks, but Sugano seems, at least so far, to be in a world of his own in that regard. 

[Bertz]

40 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

I find Tomoyuki Sugano fascinating. Even by outlier standards he appears to be an extreme outlier.

He's currently sporting a 3.07 ERA through 10 starts(58.2IP) despite an almost impossibly low 4.91 K/9. His peripherals are still saying he has overperformed but they're becoming far more reasonable then they were even a few weeks ago. He's sporting a 4.82 FIP, 4.46 xFIP, and 4.36 xERA. According to baseball savant he's doing a very good job of limiting hard contact, his off speed offerings are elite and induce a lot of chases. We've seen pitchers be fip beaters like our own Kyle Hendricks, but Sugano seems, at least so far, to be in a world of his own in that regard. 

I'll say if xFIP and xERA both agree on a guy it takes a *lot* to make me think there's something they're both missing.  Like we're a couple hundred innings into Assad doing this and I still don't feel confident in it being sustainable moving forward.

[Jason Ross]

8 hours ago, Bertz said:

I'll say if xFIP and xERA both agree on a guy it takes a *lot* to make me think there's something they're both missing.  Like we're a couple hundred innings into Assad doing this and I still don't feel confident in it being sustainable moving forward.

Even more so,  I can't find any system that thinks Sugano has really great stuff. BP's systems both think his stuff is real-real mediocre to poor, and Stuff+ agrees. His 13.8 K% is nearly unsustainably low and he's running an 87.5% LOB%. 

I guess "never say never" but this dude feels like there's no chance he's a FIP beater and is running some combination of "luck" and "never seen him before" to get some good ERA results up front.

[squally1313]

The Pirates scored more than four runs last night. The last time they scored more than four runs in a game was April 23rd. 

[JHBulls]

On 5/22/2025 at 10:17 PM, We Got The Whole 9 said:

This Soto drama is funny. Dude saw 7 pitches in his first 2 AB yesterday and took 6 called strikes mostly right over the heart of the plate. Reports are that he was railroaded into signing with the Mets by his own family.  Can you imagine being 2 months into a 15-year contract and already regretting the decision?

It would be funny if Juan Soto went full Kris Bryant…

“It’s like, ‘Oh shoot, I need to get there [to Spring Training].” Bryant was quoted as saying, “There were other teams interested, but I didn’t want to wait around … It was a completely different situation for a lot of free agents at the time. I guess I didn’t do as much research into the prospects as I could.”

”As a player, it’s an easier spot to be in,” Bryant said. “Because you don’t really have that outside pressure, like the Dodgers are going to have. They invest a lot of money in good players. So they have to go out there and win. For us, we can be someone that nobody talks about.”

[PackLandVA]

[We Got The Whole 9]

Holy horsefeathers his last pitch was 102.6

[We Got The Whole 9]

Cruz broke his own statcast record for hardest hit HR. 122.9. It cleared the stadium into the river in like 2 seconds. 

[Regular Show]

5 hours ago, PackLandVA said:

 

[We Got The Whole 9]

28 minutes ago, Regular Show said:

 

Striking out 20 and only allowing a deflected infield single and a HBP will always be the greatest game ever pitched. Sorry.

[Rex Buckingham]

7 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Striking out 20 and only allowing a deflected infield single and a HBP will always be the greatest game ever pitched. Sorry.

In a completely different offensive environment against a darn good lineup. 2 HOFers and a dude who I think was leading the NL in batting average at the time (Derek Bell)

[Rcal10]

 Besides being. a Cubs fan so obviously hoping the. Brewers lose all the time, another reason to hope they fall out of the race is maybe they will be open to trading Peralta. He would be the TOR starter the Cubs can really use. He has a team option next year but after that is a FA. Brewers are not afraid to trade top end guys. Last few years they have dealt Burnes, Hader and Williams. 

[Hot Sauce]

On 5/25/2025 at 10:46 PM, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Striking out 20 and only allowing a deflected infield single and a HBP will always be the greatest game ever pitched. Sorry.

And in only his 5th major league start. 

[soccer10k]

The Rockies are 1/3 of the way through their season and are 9-45, which is a pace of 27-135. To match the White Sox mark of 41-121, the Rockies would have to go 32-76, which is a 48 win pace.

The Rockies have a RD of -173. The WS last year were 15-39 with a -116 RD through 54 games, but were in the midst of a 14 game winning streak with 21 and 12 game losing streaks still to come. So it seems pretty bleak. However, the 2023 A's were 10-44 with a -190 RD through 54 games but they went 40-68 the rest of the way and only lost 112 games. 

[Tryptamine]

2 hours ago, soccer10k said:

The Rockies are 1/3 of the way through their season and are 9-45, which is a pace of 27-135. To match the White Sox mark of 41-121, the Rockies would have to go 32-76, which is a 48 win pace.

The Rockies have a RD of -173. The WS last year were 15-39 with a -116 RD through 54 games, but were in the midst of a 14 game winning streak with 21 and 12 game losing streaks still to come. So it seems pretty bleak. However, the 2023 A's were 10-44 with a -190 RD through 54 games but they went 40-68 the rest of the way and only lost 112 games. 

The As has some emerging bats. Amongst those with at least 100 PAs, the Rockies currently have 3 players with a wRC+ over 100. Goodman at 102, Tovar at 109 and Beck at 129. Their 4th best hitter is McMahon at 83.

[cl smooth]

Why is Carlos Santana wearing hot pants?

[NorthsideAvenger]

29 minutes ago, cl smooth said:

Why is Carlos Santana wearing hot pants?

To show off those mantyhose, of course.