Thanks to all who came out to my WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL event here at Coachella, er, Rancho Mirage, Calif., on Thursday. It was, and I say this with love, sort of the opposite of Coachella… a bunch of us older folks talking about baseball. It was like First Base Coachella.
What bothers me is the unstated assumption in so much of the commentary on this that prop bets are a necessary evil we cannot regulate even at the margins. Let me make this clear: there was never a reason to allow a bet of that size on the exploits of Jontay Porter in any game he's played since he left Rainier Beach High School. Any bet on his performance over $100 is probably a tell and any bet over $1000 is certainly a tell that there's something going on. The coach of the opposing team was not spending ten seconds talking about how to deal with him when he was on the court. The idea that a bet of that size was permitted to be made tells me that no one has a brain in their head. That they caught it and the gambling sites didn't lose any money does not excuse the fact they set a line on it and they allowed bets on it. They shouldn't have.
Salvy Perez in the Hall?? I know a lot of people have a soft spot for him, but it’s hard to ignore that FanGraphs doesn’t have him as a top 100 catcher all time. Even if you accept bWAR, he’s not top 25 all time. He had a nice career but he’s not close to the Hall.
I don't understand why teams like the Pirates (or Royals or Rockies or Rays or whatever other usual suspects) are so heavily invested in limiting innings for their young pitchers. It sure doesn't seem to help with injuries. And more importantly, why are the saving them? For the Dodgers to sign them in 6 years?
I'm not saying the Pirates should call up Skenes and run him out for 250 innings. But why not call him, start him every 5th day and let him pitch as long as he's effective.
The reason the Porter story has no legs is that the first anyone heard of it was when it was announced that he was banned. That doesn’t leave all that much to clutch your pearls about.
I appreciate the love Royals fans have for Salvy. He’s been great for the franchise and totally deserves to be in the team HOF with his number retired. But Cooperstown? No way. Nowhere close, unless you think that Harold Baines was a great pick and there are another 150-200 players unjustly kept out. Salvy has only four seasons of 3 or more WAR on B-Ref, and it’s only one on Fangraphs. Only one above 5 on B-Ref, zero on Fangraphs. WAR is not the alpha and the omega, but it’s not meaningless, either.
Asked about Willie's first homer, his manager, Leo Durocher, said, as Vin Scully might have translated it, "I never saw a participle ball get out of a participle park so participle fast in my participle life."
The White Sox lost 101 games last year. They had a fire sale where they unloaded half of their cromulent pitchers. They traded Dylan Cease during preseason. There was ample reason to believe we could be looking at a historically bad pitching staff.
But the pitching has on the whole been better than than the hitting. The big refrigerator magnet they handed out opening weekend with the season schedule has pictures of four guys, and at one point all three were injured, two of them likely to be out for months. The only one not injured was recently batting .135 until he got a couple more hits. They’ve got one prospect that anyone is at all excited about so no help is forthcoming. The new GM was the guy who had been in charge of player development and it’s not really clear which players received any development.
This also isn’t the kind of bad team which is still somehow scrappy and energetic and where you feel like there are signs of life, like the Royals of the last couple years.
I felt coming into the year that we were for sure seeing another 100 loss team and was just hoping that the overall roster churn would address how low things seemed at times in 2023. I’m at the point now where I think this is a probable 110 loss team and possibly worse.
Here’s the thing though: people don’t seem shy about continuing to wear their Sox gear. What they’re unwilling to do is shell out for an inferior product where they have zero faith in ownership or management.
The glaringly obvious solution is for Reinsdorf to sell the team.
I love that the overhyped coach of a team that went 1-8 in conference last year is still talking as if he's Saban plus Lombardi. Maybe he'll end up creating a good program in Boulder, but I doubt it. He's running his mouth so much and got so my early season hype last year that he's easily my least-favorite coach (non-scandal division; there are some dudes who've done actual bad stuff).
I had a friend who met an NBA ref at traffic school. The ref told him that before each game there is a meeting at which the directive from the league about which fouls we are calling tonight and which ones we are not calling was discussed.
Obviously I want to see Skenes up ASAP, but I have to point out that the rotation has been by far the strength of the team: they haven't had a bad start since game 6, with 3 GameScore gems along the way. Jared Jones is pitching the way we're all dreaming Skenes will and had the Mets' TV booth rhapsodizing on Tuesday. They were absolutely incredulous when he was pulled after 59 pitches (GameScore 72—I didn't know it was possible to get a gem in 5 IP).
So here's my idea: piggyback Jones & Skenes the rest of the year. Let them swap starting and going 5 while the other one comes in and goes 4. 126 ML IP for Paul, 144 for Jones, nice modern rookie workloads. They'll average 16K and 0.5 ER, but I'm sure they'll have good games as well.
What bothers me is the unstated assumption in so much of the commentary on this that prop bets are a necessary evil we cannot regulate even at the margins. Let me make this clear: there was never a reason to allow a bet of that size on the exploits of Jontay Porter in any game he's played since he left Rainier Beach High School. Any bet on his performance over $100 is probably a tell and any bet over $1000 is certainly a tell that there's something going on. The coach of the opposing team was not spending ten seconds talking about how to deal with him when he was on the court. The idea that a bet of that size was permitted to be made tells me that no one has a brain in their head. That they caught it and the gambling sites didn't lose any money does not excuse the fact they set a line on it and they allowed bets on it. They shouldn't have.
Salvy Perez in the Hall?? I know a lot of people have a soft spot for him, but it’s hard to ignore that FanGraphs doesn’t have him as a top 100 catcher all time. Even if you accept bWAR, he’s not top 25 all time. He had a nice career but he’s not close to the Hall.
He has had a heck of a hit start this year.
I love the Spahn quote about Willie Mays.
How lovely it would be if EVERYONE entered the transfer portal to escape Coach Slime.
Joe, I thought you were going to send the intro of WWLF to people who preordered the book? Is that still the case?
I don't understand why teams like the Pirates (or Royals or Rockies or Rays or whatever other usual suspects) are so heavily invested in limiting innings for their young pitchers. It sure doesn't seem to help with injuries. And more importantly, why are the saving them? For the Dodgers to sign them in 6 years?
I'm not saying the Pirates should call up Skenes and run him out for 250 innings. But why not call him, start him every 5th day and let him pitch as long as he's effective.
The reason the Porter story has no legs is that the first anyone heard of it was when it was announced that he was banned. That doesn’t leave all that much to clutch your pearls about.
I appreciate the love Royals fans have for Salvy. He’s been great for the franchise and totally deserves to be in the team HOF with his number retired. But Cooperstown? No way. Nowhere close, unless you think that Harold Baines was a great pick and there are another 150-200 players unjustly kept out. Salvy has only four seasons of 3 or more WAR on B-Ref, and it’s only one on Fangraphs. Only one above 5 on B-Ref, zero on Fangraphs. WAR is not the alpha and the omega, but it’s not meaningless, either.
Where will you be in Chicago??
Salvy is only 66 homers behind George Brett on the Royals all-time list. If he can stay healthy, I think he's got a shot.
(Bobby Witt Jr is already 33rd on that list!)
Asked about Willie's first homer, his manager, Leo Durocher, said, as Vin Scully might have translated it, "I never saw a participle ball get out of a participle park so participle fast in my participle life."
The White Sox lost 101 games last year. They had a fire sale where they unloaded half of their cromulent pitchers. They traded Dylan Cease during preseason. There was ample reason to believe we could be looking at a historically bad pitching staff.
But the pitching has on the whole been better than than the hitting. The big refrigerator magnet they handed out opening weekend with the season schedule has pictures of four guys, and at one point all three were injured, two of them likely to be out for months. The only one not injured was recently batting .135 until he got a couple more hits. They’ve got one prospect that anyone is at all excited about so no help is forthcoming. The new GM was the guy who had been in charge of player development and it’s not really clear which players received any development.
This also isn’t the kind of bad team which is still somehow scrappy and energetic and where you feel like there are signs of life, like the Royals of the last couple years.
I felt coming into the year that we were for sure seeing another 100 loss team and was just hoping that the overall roster churn would address how low things seemed at times in 2023. I’m at the point now where I think this is a probable 110 loss team and possibly worse.
Here’s the thing though: people don’t seem shy about continuing to wear their Sox gear. What they’re unwilling to do is shell out for an inferior product where they have zero faith in ownership or management.
The glaringly obvious solution is for Reinsdorf to sell the team.
I think sports gambling is still not legal in California.
I love that the overhyped coach of a team that went 1-8 in conference last year is still talking as if he's Saban plus Lombardi. Maybe he'll end up creating a good program in Boulder, but I doubt it. He's running his mouth so much and got so my early season hype last year that he's easily my least-favorite coach (non-scandal division; there are some dudes who've done actual bad stuff).
I had a friend who met an NBA ref at traffic school. The ref told him that before each game there is a meeting at which the directive from the league about which fouls we are calling tonight and which ones we are not calling was discussed.
Obviously I want to see Skenes up ASAP, but I have to point out that the rotation has been by far the strength of the team: they haven't had a bad start since game 6, with 3 GameScore gems along the way. Jared Jones is pitching the way we're all dreaming Skenes will and had the Mets' TV booth rhapsodizing on Tuesday. They were absolutely incredulous when he was pulled after 59 pitches (GameScore 72—I didn't know it was possible to get a gem in 5 IP).
So here's my idea: piggyback Jones & Skenes the rest of the year. Let them swap starting and going 5 while the other one comes in and goes 4. 126 ML IP for Paul, 144 for Jones, nice modern rookie workloads. They'll average 16K and 0.5 ER, but I'm sure they'll have good games as well.