Clem Fandango

Holy crap, Tommy Pham was stabbed the other night. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30102832/padres-tommy-pham-good-condition-stabbing-san-diego

It'd be too weird to like that post for the joke, so I'll just say it's tragic he's passed as I don't think anyone wished this kind of ill will towards the man despite his antiquated views on the sport and he's a legit legend of the game, but that joke made me laugh.

Https://bleacherreport.com/post/mlb/bad22321-4aa9-4254-be7f-c590bac8115f [tweet] [/tweet]

Pirates top prospect Oneil Cruz was the drunk driver in an accident that killed 3 people in the Dominican a few nights ago.

I know everyone more or less hates Trevor Bauer, but his Bauer Bytes series on his Momentum youtube channel is great. It's just baseball players sharing stories and talking shop. It's like Dinner for Five but for baseball and I kinda love it.

I had no clue he was even in the White Sox org. Wow.

Some Pepe Silvia horsefeathers going on in this thread.

This is insane. Figured it needed it's own thread https://www.mlb.com/video?utm=mlbfilmroom-redirect The search criteria is bonkers. You can search by which player was on a specific base.

I get that Baseball-Reference is a high traffic website that needs ads in order to stay afloat since it's not a profit-generating entity, but the sheer volume of ads I've been getting on the site lately, even with an adblocker ON, is absurd. I've got 8 ads on the page right now, and my AdBlocker continually keeps blocking ads as the page remains on the screen. It has blocked 272 ads on Baseball-Reference. oh, 283 now, it goes up when you scroll through the page. 315 now. The ads that do squeak through make the user experience horrible. I go to click on something and it keeps moving around the page because ads keep loading and shifting it all over the place. What the horsefeathers, BR? 350 ads now.

Yeah I've never really looked at deep into Brock's stats, I kind of assumed he was an all-around beast but his numbers are shockingly underwhelming. Obviously one of the greatest base threats of all time and certainly deserving of the HOF with those SB's and 3,000+ hits, but for some reason, I thought he had some power in his game or at least elite contact or defensive skills, and he had none of that. Still a legend and from the stories I've been reading a genuinely good human being. Baseball lost a good one.

Nice fluff piece on the Yusurgence? Yunnaisance? Whatever, his comeback to elite status: https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29804825/inside-yu-darvish-return-elite-status-chicago-cubs-ace

Even after his 2016 MVP season, he has still been the 6th most valuable 3B in all of baseball by fWAR, and the 3rd most valuable in the NL behind Rendon and Arenado. And obviously you don't pay for past performance, but since his rookie year in 2015, he's been the most valuable 3B in baseball by fWAR. If you keep shrinking it down, he gets less and less valuable of course, but a lot of that was because he missed half a season in 2018. Between 2018 and now, he's been the 10th most valuable 3B in baseball, only Justin Turner put up a comparable fWAR in the same amount of games played (266 games and 8.3 fWAR to Bryants 265 games and 7.2 fWAR). All other 3B above him had at least 50-60 games played more, and of those above him, a couple were not true 3B the whole time (Machado and Moncada out fWAR him but Moncada split time at 2B and Machado was almost exclusively a SS in 2018) This is all to say the following: In my opinion, he is only seemingly trending downward because he is not playing enough. When he is on the field and healthy, he is a Top 10 3B in baseball, even during his down years, and certainly a top 5 3B in the NL. Given he'll be 29 next year he can, and should, be extended if possible. If his injuries knock that price down, excellent. Even last year when he was coming back from his power zapping shoulder injury, he still hit 31 dongs. He was obviously fucked up this year, too, but I honestly couldn't care any less about this year and this stupid embarrassment of a major league baseball season. If he comes back healthy next year, he should be extended. Kris Bryant is really really good at baseball. Will he be a 6 win player again? Probably 50/50 and it hinges entirely on his health, but a 4-6 win player is still incredibly valuable and far more likely even with nagging injuries to keep him out 20-30 games a year. I don't know that I'd want to extend him beyond 5 years, but a 5/$100-$120 deal with an opt-out after 2 seems like a fair offer if he's willing to sign before the offseason and it gives him an opportunity to cash in on comeback performances to get one last big contract before he starts to hit his decline hard.

I'm sure they're going to do the right thing and fire... the producer who left his mic on.

His UZR is gonna be off the charts

I love the “that’s not who I am” part. Like, anything you’ve said at your job, you’ve almost certainly said or expressed in your private life also. Also it's like "that's not who I am"... Mf'er you literally said it like 10 minutes ago. That's EXACTLY who you are. These aren't unearthed comments from 1997.

8,112. Which is what it was a few months ago. Looks like I got another year or two depending on how people respond this offseason. Honestly, if you (or anyone for that matter) need extra people to split them with I may be interested until my number is called. I live 7 blocks away from Wrigley but I probably wouldn't go all the time even if I could so actually having a limited number of tickets at a lower cost makes sense for me until I can get my own.

Bold strategy, Cotton.

Wasn't there a Cubs walk-off against Colorado back in the Sosa days where the Rockies made a series of horrible defensive plays which led to a walk off on like 3 errors in one play? I can't find the video clip and I don't remember if it was against the Rockies or not

To be fair, the catcher didn't do him any favors with that one. Reminds me of the Gary Sanchez one from a few years back that was almost exactly like this one.

I get what he's saying and that it was for aesthetics, and I appreciate it very much, but a 0.88 batting average would be very good.

[tweet] [/tweet] Pitching Ninja post [tweet] [/tweet]

I'm more of a ghost runner man myself