MLB 2023

[The Buscher]

Scherzer said that in addition to changing his glove, he washed his hands off with alcohol in front of an MLB official between innings to try and remove any residual tackiness.  Clearly it wasn't to the ump's liking as they threw him out anyway.  Phil Cuzzi told the press after the game that he doesn't care if Scherzer was only using rosin, he felt his hand was still too sticky.

Will be interesting to see what happens now.  There's an automatic 10-game suspension for an illegal foreign substance ejection, but rosin isn't an illegal substance.  The metrics didn't show anything different about Scherzer's spin rates today compared to the rest of his season.  And Cuzzi and his crew are literally the only crew that have ejected people in the three years they've done checks, so either every other crew are too lenient or this one is just extremely hardass.

Given all of this I'm sure Max will appeal but he probably won't win as MLB almost never overrules its umps.  Best case for the Mets would be they can drag this out for a week or two until Verlander is back.

[gunnar hendershow]

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/36241520/oakland-agree-purchase-land-las-vegas-strip

The Las Vegas Athletics are all but official now.

[Krabby]

Sounding like the As might be Las Vegas bound

[Draevyn]

Las Vegas is really digging into the sports scene. I never thought I'd see a hockey team there. At least a baseball team seems a bit more realistic.

[gunnar hendershow]

MLB and the A's ownership have both wanted a move out of Oakland for the better part of the last decade, and it sure looked like all "negotiations" with Oakland were done in bad faith. Basically they just lied in wait until an opportunity in an up-and-coming metro area opened up.

Very unfortunate for fans on the East Bay who have seen a ton of success derailed over the last 25-30 years by insanely cheap ownership. It's rather impressive how long they got away with it in Oakland, but easy for MLB to turn a blind eye. Tampa Bay is up next, and then (hopefully) Baltimore gets resolved with a new lease in the coming months.

At that point it's the start of the all-out expansion bidding war. Nashville feels a lock for a team either through relocation or expansion, will be very interesting to see if Austin, Portland, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, or Montreal (and I might be forgetting a rumored city) gets team 32.

[The Buscher]

The statement that A's ownership put out was so cringe.  And they released it at 10:30 PM local time.  So there are probably some diehard A's fans out there who haven't even woken up to see the news yet.

Relocation has to be the most devastating experience as a fan.

[The Buscher]

The D-Backs have DFA'ed Madison Bumgarner after he started the year with a 10.26 ERA over 4 starts.  He finishes his Arizona career with a 5.23 ERA across four seasons, and the D-Backs will eat $34 million over this year and next.

It's weird because part of me feels like he's "only" 33 in an era where starters are pitching a lot later into their careers.  But he's got a ton of mileage on his arm.

In his last three seasons in San Fran, his FIP was nearly 4 in all of them.  The signs that he was heading toward regression into more of a back-end starter are there.  Then you add in that he went from one of the more pitcher-friendly parks in the league to one of the most hitter-friendly and yeah.  It was a statement move to sign a guy like him away from a division rival, but there's a reason the Giants never offered him anything close to what Arizona did.

[gunnar hendershow]

Never sign a guy whose original team isn't even attempting to offer him what you are.

[GhostMachine]

6 hours ago, damhausen said:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/36241520/oakland-agree-purchase-land-las-vegas-strip

The Las Vegas Athletics are all but official now.

I'm all for changing the team name to the Vivas if they move.

[Meacon Keaton]

No way. They've been the Athletics in three different cities. They should be the Athletics until they have relocated to every major metropolitan area without a team.

[The Buscher]

Francisco Alvarez had 2 hits yesterday and easily his best day behind the dish.  Right back on the bench tonight.  Arguably baseball’s best prospect has barely played since his call up two weeks ago and an apparent stalemate with the front office continues.

Meanwhile Brett Baty is benched for the second time in four days because a lefty is starting and despite him hitting lefties at a .300 clip in the minors, because Eduardo Escobar and his .150 hitting, -0.5 WAR ass automatically has to be a better choice because of the handedness of the pitcher.  Assuming a lefty hitter can’t hit lefties only becomes a self-fulfillling prophecy.

Buck’s a good guy but it’s gonna be an absolute nightmare trying to develop players with him at the helm.  He loves veterans way too much.

[Gabriel]

That's the same issue the Calgary Flames had this year. Young players, ready to step in and take the reigns, get called up and then proceed to watch the game from the press box because the coach would rather play an incredibly limited veteran instead.

They gotta fix that, or just like Calgary, they'll be watching the post-season instead of participating.

[gunnar hendershow]

1 hour ago, Justin Buschlander said:

Francisco Alvarez had 2 hits yesterday and easily his best day behind the dish.  Right back on the bench tonight.  Arguably baseball’s best prospect has barely played since his call up two weeks ago and an apparent stalemate with the front office continues.

Meanwhile Brett Baty is benched for the second time in four days because a lefty is starting and despite him hitting lefties at a .300 clip in the minors, because Eduardo Escobar and his .150 hitting, -0.5 WAR ass automatically has to be a better choice because of the handedness of the pitcher.  Assuming a lefty hitter can’t hit lefties only becomes a self-fulfillling prophecy.

Buck’s a good guy but it’s gonna be an absolute nightmare trying to develop players with him at the helm.  He loves veterans way too much.

Manny Machado was an absolute miracle.

Hope you don't have any major pitching prospects coming through the system, Buck will ruin each of them.

[The Buscher]

1 hour ago, damhausen said:

Manny Machado was an absolute miracle.

Hope you don't have any major pitching prospects coming through the system, Buck will ruin each of them.

Well, for better or worse the Mets don’t really have any exciting starters in the upper minors.  Part of the reason they decided to invest $80+ million into Scherzer and Verlander is because they think most of the pitching prospects are a year or two off.

Buck’s only under contract through 2024 and who knows if he’ll want to retire by then.

[The Buscher]

Oh my god what a way to lose a perfect game

[Schlitzbrille]

lolmets...

 

...wait wrong team

[Your Mom]

16 hours ago, Justin Buschlander said:

Oh my god what a way to lose a perfect game

We stomped the Dodgers so I'm not mad but that was a very Cubs way to end a Perfect Game huh?  

[Pooker]

On 20/04/2023 at 06:23, damhausen said:

At that point it's the start of the all-out expansion bidding war. Nashville feels a lock for a team either through relocation or expansion, will be very interesting to see if Austin, Portland, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, or Montreal (and I might be forgetting a rumored city) gets team 32.

There's a massive push here in Utah to bring a MLB team to Salt Lake City, backed by the former owners of the Jazz. Already have a stadium site, designs, etc. I'm not going to get my hopes up, as I feel the A's moving here would have been our best hope, but it would be awesome to have a pro team here. 

[GhostMachine]

If Salt Lake City gets a team, it'll be a damn shame they won't be named The Lickers.

[gunnar hendershow]

Surely they'll just "promote" the minor league Salt Lake Bees team name... maybe go with Utah Bees.