Baseball 2024

Remember the chant: Edgar, Edgar, Edgar!

Bring it back in full volume when the team comes out onto the field Friday!

I enjoy the nostalgia of the good ole days. Maybe some of it will rub off....

It never hurts to wish... Right?
 
... Meanwhile, those amazing young Royals, at 71 and 56, have pulled within 2.5 games of the Guardians in the AL Central. Their young superstar, Bobby Witt Jr, leads the world in average (.352), hits (178), runs (110), is second in slugging (.619), and is third in on base percentage (.402) and OPS (1.021). The Royals are likely to have 3 players with 100+ RBIs, Vinnie Pasquantino (currently 95), Witt (currently 92) and Salvy Prez (currently 85). They are second in the AL in starter's ERA (3.54). Their big weakness is their bullpen, but it may be rounding into form with some recent acquisitions. Not at all bad for a team that had 56 wins last year.

Go Royals!!!

See where that young whippersnapper from Texas, Witt Jr, is hitting over .400 in his own ballpark for the year. Currently .350ish which means he’s just mediocre on the road (😅). It appears that the last one to do that was some guy named Buns or Bones, or something to that, then a bunch of guys in that Little League park in Denver.
For your sake I hope the Yankees don’t come calling in a couple of years. I remember when KC was the Yankees’ Fourple AAAA minor league team back in the 50s & 60s.
 
The mariners. Let’s face it the team really needs new owners. The owners realize all they need is a average team and they need lots of promotions and bobble head nights and they let the nice northwest weather set in and the owners are smart enough to realize the mariners fans are suckers and will line the owner’s pockets. The fans really need to just stop spending money on the team. Until that happens what you see is what you will get. One of the worst professional sports franchises in the last twenty some years. I also root for the Phillies fortunately. They spend money to make money and want to win the World Series.
I'm pretty sure the owners would like to see them winning also. It would bring in even more money. I'm pretty sure they are not the type to go fishing to not catch fish.

Servais found out from news reports before the team even told him. Typical M's, can't even fire someone right.
I read that privately they gave him the last road trip to turn things around. I would imagine that he knew he was gonna get the axe by about game 6 of the trip.

We'll see what a rookie manager can do.
 
The 21st manager in 47 years for the M's.
 
I read that privately they gave him the last road trip to turn things around. I would imagine that he knew he was gonna get the axe by about game 6 of the trip.
I suppose both things could be true, he might have known it was a possibility and still found out officially from a news report and not Dipoto himself.

This was from an article in The Athletic:

The Athletic broke news of Servais’ firing Thursday, still morning on the West Coast. Dipoto had not yet met with Servais or DeHart.

“The worst part of it was the fact that Scott and JD found out about this over the crawl of a news channel,” Dipoto said on a video call. “It crushes me. I know it hurts them a great deal.”
M's could have done a lot better here. It says elsewhere that Dipoto has spent over half of his career in baseball with Servais. From teammates on the Rockies, front office with the Angels, to the past 9 years with the M's. You'd think that the guy deserved a heads up call before it happened.

And that doesn't even get into the problematic leak that the M's front office has somewhere.
 
Seattle is where promising players are tuned into mediocre players. If they fail that and become super star players, they are traded to other teams that can put them to productive use. Seattle Mariners, the best damn farm team in MLB.
 
A shakeup was inevitable. I hope Servais lands on his feet. My main complaint with him was that he ran-out veteran players (like Mitch Garver) for too long while they were tanking; not sure why you would pinch-hit or DH someone with a BA < .170. But I'm a guy that chases ghosts with a fly-rod so grain of salt rule applies.

Here's to the next version of the M's. Wilson and Martinez will be fun to see in the dugout and it'll be interesting to see if they're interim or longer-term pieces. I'll proudly wear my Julio and Crawford jersey's at least until the playoffs. Then I'll probably root for an outlier like those amazing young Royals, or just watch football and hockey.

Go Mariners
Erich
 
I'm pretty sure the owners would like to see them winning also. It would bring in even more money. I'm pretty sure they are not the type to go fishing to not catch fish.
Do the Ms owners want their team to win- why of course. But will they spend the money to increase the likelihood of winning or winning the world series? NO.

And why- because just as I said, the owners know their fans will enable them. Enable them to still make money because enough fans seem content with the bobble heads and fireworks etc. Until the fans stop spending the team will continue to be mediocre at best. There is a good article in the Athletic about the Phillies’ owners passion for trying to win the World Series. It is a lot more fun to watch a team like the Phillies who at least you know are doing within reason all they can to win.
 
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A memorable game at Dodger Stadium last night! Tampa Bay led 3-0 most of the night but were tied up late by a 3 run Dodger home run. The next innings were nail biters with both teams threatening to score but falling short. During this time Ohtani stole his 40th base of the season, a tremendous accomplishment for such a big man. Not many 6'4'' guys are suspected of being base stealers but Ohtani is breaking a lot of molds in his brief MLB career so far.
The game remained tied into the bottom of the ninth with some spectacular defense keeping the Dodgers from winning it. They loaded the bases with 2 outs and it looked like extra innings for sure but Ohtani was batting and he rose to the occasion by hitting a grand slam on the first pitch! It was his 40th home run of the year making him only the 6th man to ever go 40/40 in a season and he did it over 20 games earlier than it had ever been done before. Both in the same game. It was the most dramatic home run I have seen since an injured Kirk Gibson beat the A's in 1988 with a walk off shot on a 3-2 count in the bottom of the 9th.
 
Interesting stat I just heard, given the M's great pitching and documented offensive struggles, this year in games they have scored 5 or more runs their record is 41 and 4, the best in the majors. Gotta find a dh who bats more than .200.
 
There are some folks who seem to take particular joy in dumping on umpires, well, I am going to highlight some outstanding umpiring. Last night home plate umpire John Tumpane initially called a foul tip/strike 3, but he immediately took and inspected the ball and changed his call to a foul ball after finding dirt on said ball (although replay is not allowed for balls and strikes, the replay from multiple angles did show it to be the correct call). On the next pitch, Salvador Perez slammed for a 2-run home run - never would have happened had Tumpane not done a simple, but often unrecognized bit of solid umpiring - now there will be folks who will say I'm just saying this because it helped the Royals and while it did help the Royals, I would still call it a great job had it been for the opposing team (Guardians). The Umps are far better than many want to give credit for, we only highlight the bad calls but fail to recognize the 95% that are the correct.

Cheers and Go Royals
 
There are some folks who seem to take particular joy in dumping on umpires, well, I am going to highlight some outstanding umpiring. Last night home plate umpire John Tumpane initially called a foul tip/strike 3, but he immediately took and inspected the ball and changed his call to a foul ball after finding dirt on said ball (although replay is not allowed for balls and strikes, the replay from multiple angles did show it to be the correct call). On the next pitch, Salvador Perez slammed for a 2-run home run - never would have happened had Tumpane not done a simple, but often unrecognized bit of solid umpiring - now there will be folks who will say I'm just saying this because it helped the Royals and while it did help the Royals, I would still call it a great job had it been for the opposing team (Guardians). The Umps are far better than many want to give credit for, we only highlight the bad calls but fail to recognize the 95% that are the correct.

Cheers and Go Royals
Ya calls ‘em as ya sees ‘em… 😉
 
There are some folks who seem to take particular joy in dumping on umpires, well, I am going to highlight some outstanding umpiring. Last night home plate umpire John Tumpane initially called a foul tip/strike 3, but he immediately took and inspected the ball and changed his call to a foul ball after finding dirt on said ball (although replay is not allowed for balls and strikes, the replay from multiple angles did show it to be the correct call). On the next pitch, Salvador Perez slammed for a 2-run home run - never would have happened had Tumpane not done a simple, but often unrecognized bit of solid umpiring - now there will be folks who will say I'm just saying this because it helped the Royals and while it did help the Royals, I would still call it a great job had it been for the opposing team (Guardians). The Umps are far better than many want to give credit for, we only highlight the bad calls but fail to recognize the 95% that are the correct.

Cheers and Go Royals
And then something like this happens and erases all the good feels.
 
And then something like this happens and erases all the good feels.

Yeah, but what happened next, and this was obviously a game that was already way out of hand - had no bearing whatsoever on the outcome

Go Royals
 
There are some folks who seem to take particular joy in dumping on umpires, well, I am going to highlight some outstanding umpiring. Last night home plate umpire John Tumpane initially called a foul tip/strike 3, but he immediately took and inspected the ball and changed his call to a foul ball after finding dirt on said ball (although replay is not allowed for balls and strikes, the replay from multiple angles did show it to be the correct call). On the next pitch, Salvador Perez slammed for a 2-run home run - never would have happened had Tumpane not done a simple, but often unrecognized bit of solid umpiring - now there will be folks who will say I'm just saying this because it helped the Royals and while it did help the Royals, I would still call it a great job had it been for the opposing team (Guardians). The Umps are far better than many want to give credit for, we only highlight the bad calls but fail to recognize the 95% that are the correct.

Cheers and Go Royals
They do not get even close to 95% of balls and strikes correct. Not even close. Robo umps can't get here soon enough.
 
They do not get even close to 95% of balls and strikes correct. Not even close. Robo umps can't get here soon enough.
These are all of the games played yesterday, check the "acc" column
Screenshot_2024-08-28-10-42-38-33_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg

Out of all pitches not receiving a swing, MLB average is 94% called correctly.

Yesterday's Mariners game, in which I thought the ump was overly generous on the outside corner, but went both ways
GWE4SPqXAAAEp47.jpeg
 
Beat me to it, thanks

Go Royals!!!
 
If the post office operated at mid 90% success rate, there would be a mutiny at every mailbox.
 
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