The Official 2013 MLB Thread

[stevew]

Houston is trying to outdo their Cain 14k perfect game.

[bhlloy]

He's gonna get pulled

[Lathum]

Damn Yu Darvish I need to go to sleep.

[stevew]

Dola-

Under-do instead of outdo maybe

[Crapshoot]

Damnit Rangers stop scoring runs!

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by stevew

Houston is trying to outdo their Cain 14k perfect game.

At this point it feels like if it happens to the Astros it shouldn't even count.

[Crapshoot]

GODDAMNIT !

[DaddyTorgo]

Whoops.

[PilotMan]

awwwwwwww

[kingfc22]

Ohhhh so close.

[mauchow]

Shoot... bummer

[cartman]

Damn it!!! I was this close to seeing it in person!!!

[korme]

Baseball is a cruel game

[stevew]

52million for a Darvish posting fee? Shiiiit, I can buy 25 Astros for that and still have almost enough to buy a carcass of an A-Rod.

[Senator]

damn

[cartman]

My buddy that was with me at the game, this would have been the 2nd perfect game he'd have attended. He was at the old Arlington Stadium when Mike Witt threw the perfect game on the last day of the season.

[cartman]

Dola,

Seeing the pitches in person, Yu's stuff was simply filthy. The batters had no clue what was coming. It might be a 92 mph fastball, or a 58 mph curve, or an 83 mph slider.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by cartman

Dola,

Seeing the pitches in person, Yu's stuff was simply filthy. The batters had no clue what was coming. It might be a 92 mph fastball, or a 58 mph curve, or an 83 mph slider.

Fully expect Yu to be a good contender in the non-Felix, non-Verlander category for the Cy Young.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by cartman

My buddy that was with me at the game, this would have been the 2nd perfect game he'd have attended. He was at the old Arlington Stadium when Mike Witt threw the perfect game on the last day of the season.

Wow, now that's a good reference. That was almost 30 years ago.

[Matthean]

A nice ode to baseball.

Our National Pastime – Kevin DeYoung

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by Matthean

A nice ode to baseball.

Our National Pastime – Kevin DeYoung

Amen (First thing I've ever read on the gospel coalition website!) - baseball is perfect. I always said I'd gladly trade every other Bay Area team winning anything in my lifetime for one Giants WS, and that worked out just fine.

[Ramzavail]

Originally Posted by cartman

My buddy that was with me at the game, this would have been the 2nd perfect game he'd have attended. He was at the old Arlington Stadium when Mike Witt threw the perfect game on the last day of the season.

Awesome!

[fantom1979]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

We have to keep this in perspective though, it is the Astros.

43 batter strikeouts in 3 games for the Astros.

Brett Wallace is 1 for 10 with 8k
Chris Carter is 0 of 11 with 7k

Ouch

[fantom1979]

Horrible way for the Tigers to blow one.

[SirFozzie]

Kuroda leaves a game with a possible hand injury (he got his bare hand on a leadoff single in the second, then hit batsman, walk, hits batsman).

Not a good start for the NYY.

[Big Fo]

Evan Gattis, the post-Upton trade obsession of Braves blogs all through winter and spring, just hit a homer in his first MLB game.

I'm feeling far too giddy with it only being thirteen innings into the season but I can't seem to repress my optimism. This could be a good year.

[SirFozzie]

It looks like half the players in the BOS-NYY game just came from robbing a bank, with the stretchable undersuit over their mouth

[Recoil]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Evan Gattis, the post-Upton trade obsession of Braves blogs all through winter and spring, just hit a homer in his first MLB game.

I'm feeling far too giddy with it only being thirteen innings into the season but I can't seem to repress my optimism. This could be a good year.

Gattis is a great story. I was convinced they were gonna go with Pagnozzi at the beginning of spring training and start Gattis at AAA playing catcher every day. After Evan's spring training performance, I don't think they had much of a choice but to start him in the bigs. It'll be interesting to see the moves they make when McCann returns.

There's no doubt the Braves will score runs, but how will the pitching hold up? The depth at AAA doesn't look particularly deep, so hopefully every one will pitch well/stay healthy until Beachy returns.

[ISiddiqui]

Matt Harvey looks great in his start. Just filthy stuff. Though he is pitching against the Padres.

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by Recoil

Gattis is a great story. I was convinced they were gonna go with Pagnozzi at the beginning of spring training and start Gattis at AAA playing catcher every day. After Evan's spring training performance, I don't think they had much of a choice but to start him in the bigs. It'll be interesting to see the moves they make when McCann returns.

There's no doubt the Braves will score runs, but how will the pitching hold up? The depth at AAA doesn't look particularly deep, so hopefully every one will pitch well/stay healthy until Beachy returns.

Maholm is solid but it's true there are questions everywhere else in the rotation. Hudson's done well over the last few years but he is 37. Medlen was amazing at the end of last season but it was only 12 starts. Same with Minor, I don't know if is he more like first half of 2012 Mike Minor or the guy from the second half of the season. And while Teheran is a bright prospect who dominated this spring, he still has to prove he can do it when it matters.

But I think with the great bullpen and strong lineup the Braves might be able to get away with one or two of these guys struggling a bit.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

Matt Harvey looks great in his start. Just filthy stuff. Though he is pitching against the Padres.

7 IP, one hit, 10 Ks. Not bad kid.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Logan

7 IP, one hit, 10 Ks. Not bad kid.

Really excited to see what he will do with some run support.Excited to finally watch young kids get a shot instead of washed up free agents.

[Crapshoot]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Really excited to see what he will do with some run support.Excited to finally watch young kids get a shot instead of washed up free agents.

Mets are going about re-build the right way. Harvey, Wheeler (bitter as a Giants fan about that deal), D'Arnaud, Syndegard - this is a team on the up, and Niese is a good young MLB starter. Need some star power, but Wheeler and Harvey could both do that.

[Crapshoot]

Also, Pablo Sandoval just hit a fastball at shoulder level for a line-drive HR. Justin Verlander understands.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Crapshoot

Mets are going about re-build the right way. Harvey, Wheeler (bitter as a Giants fan about that deal), D'Arnaud, Syndegard - this is a team on the up, and Niese is a good young MLB starter. Need some star power, but Wheeler and Harvey could both do that.

The Madoff thing may end up being the best thing that could have happened to the Mets. The Wilpons had to go out and find a GM and front office capable of rebuilding from the ground up rather than finding another Omar Minaya that could really do nothing more than write checks.

[ISiddiqui]

It also gave the team cover for doing a youth movement and sucking for a few years, rather than having the fan base push for big signings and being competitive every year.

[Shkspr]

The Astros should take another look at their decision to score all of this month's runs on Monday.

[stevew]

The Mets have really been good about 7 times in the past 22 or so years. It seems like they've been doing that youth movement sucking thing more often than not.

[bhlloy]

I think the point is they haven't been doing that, they've been doing the veterans getting paid way too much money and still sucking for most of that time.

[stevew]

Maybe they just needed Bob to step in and start negotiating all their long term deals

[NorvTurnerOverdrive]

the omar minaya era led to much wheel spinning. minaya's reputation was based off his connections in latin america during his time with the expos. when those pipelines dried up he was exposed as a poor decision maker. i could run down the list but it would give me a headache.

iirc, there was a couple pages in moneyball dedicated to mianya's cluelessness

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by bhlloy

I think the point is they haven't been doing that, they've been doing the veterans getting paid way too much money and still sucking for most of that time.

Ding! Ding! They felt that the fans would be satiated with a big name, even though in no way would one big name make a breakthrough (and you'd kill the farm system).

The Mets for too often thought they had to directly compete with the Yankees in the FA market. Hence any youth movement was usually squashed too soon.

[MizzouRah]

Cards - D Backs

Fell asleep in the 12th.. just saw we lost in the 16th.. ugh..

[bhlloy]

I don't know if the stats reflect this but the pitching explosion sure seems to have resulted in far more games going deep into extras in the last few years. May just be my perception but feels that way

[sposfan]

Congratulations! If you're reading this, then you have scored as many runs as the Marlins this season!

[Subby]

Yeah not getting to excited about the Nats start. They need to play a team first.

Although Gio sure did make Gianarlo look silly a few times.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by stevew

The Mets have really been good about 7 times in the past 22 or so years. It seems like they've been doing that youth movement sucking thing more often than not.

you don't pay attention to the Mets then ( most people don't). They haven't gone with a youth movement in a long time, the Big 3 was the last thing I remeber that was even close, unless you count Wright and Reyes coming up together.

Johan, Bay, Mo Vaughn, etc..., guys like this have been their M.O., not stockpiling yourn talent and letting that talent develop

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by stevew

The Mets have really been good about 7 times in the past 22 or so years.

The neighbor behind me is a Mets / Red Sox fan (yeah some combination) and with me being a die hard Yankees fan we have plenty of interesting discussions over the back fence.

Yesterday he had some thoughts that I just found weird. He seemed to insinuate the Mets were biased because they got rid of their Latin American players in favor of white guys who should be in the minors or were washed up (Jason Bay).

Went on to say that they needed to have a demographic that represented the surround community or the fans would desert them. Just found this a really weird take as couldn't car less where the players on my team come from, I just want to see them win and that pretty much all fans I know seemed to share that sentiment. Just bizarre, especially since their main problem the last few seasons has been a bullpen that can't hold a lead.

BTW, baseball has to be the best radio sport there is. Love these afternoon games on Sirius right now, can listen and work without getting distracted.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Lathum

you don't pay attention to the Mets then ( most people don't). They haven't gone with a youth movement in a long time, the Big 3 was the last thing I remeber that was even close, unless you count Wright and Reyes coming up together.

Johan, Bay, Mo Vaughn, etc..., guys like this have been their M.O., not stockpiling yourn talent and letting that talent develop

Not sure Bay really belongs on that list.

I mean, the Mets signed him after the 2009 season - 4yr/$66m. He was coming off an All-Star & Silver Slugger season, 30+ HR for 4 of the previous 5 seasons and was still only 30 yrs old.

That's certainly not to say he didn't disappoint once he got to NY, and they might have hung on a year too long but with that investment in him I don't know that they could have dropped him before 2012 nor did he look like a terrible investment at the time they signed him.

[fantom1979]

Originally Posted by sposfan

Congratulations! If you're reading this, then you have scored as many runs as the Marlins this season!

The Marlins have almost 1/3 of the strike outs the Astros do. The Marlins as a team have a BABIP of .163 and amazingly two teams (Blue Jays and Reds) are worse.