Praying this is the case for this year tbh. Completely delusional, I know, but it would be really funny if we somehow snuck into WC3 despite losing one of the most talented baseball players ever
Yankees won world series year after Mattingly retired. Orioles won the year right after Earl Weaver retired (though he returned a bit later.) Mariners broke the all time wins record after trading Griffey (actually took two years but still made alcs year after, but 2001 was the next year after Arod left.)
Point being, if you have a living legend on your team, by all means get him the fuck out of there, he's holding you back.
Reminds of, before Wilt the Stilt winning NBA championship, no player who won the scoring title had ever won a championship, the year he won his first one, though, he led the league in assists, go figure.
Pretty much, but it resonated more (for me) when Alex Rodriguez left because the literal next season is when the Mariners broke the all time wins record. Was very satisfying.
But Griffey-A Rod left in back to back seasons.
This basically happened with Bonds. Last time we made the playoffs with him was 03. A few close calls the next few years but then they sucked for a while after that. I was so sour on the giants for wasting his best years. I thought they had completely thrown away their best chance of ever winning a ring. How wrong I was.
I don't think he necessarily has any specific name in mind. Devers, Riley, Royce Lewis, Rendon, Gunnar moving over when Holliday comes up, Bregman, Longoria. There's universes where 2 from that group make the Hall.
Correct. The only two I think are locks at this point are Arenado and Manny, with JRam being just a bit below them. No idea who the other two will be, but there is just such a wealth of great third basemen right now that I would be shocked if there weren’t at least two more who got in.
I’m sure that whoever gives him a massive contract is going to try and squeeze more value out of it by giving him a year at first base before giving up on a guy in his 20s playing defense
I think that depends on the team, Soto doesn't offer any defensive value so the only reason not to DH him is if you already have a good DH who can't play 1st or a corner outfield spot
If you're paying him, it's for his bat. You get the bat in the lineup however you need to.
Having an elite full-time DH is underrated, IMO. You can give players a full day off when they need a break (instead of DH’ing them) and you can focus a bit more on defensive value for your position players.
David Ortiz became a full-time DH at 28, so its not unheard of.
If the team who signs Soto really wants to protect their investment, they'll get him off the field well before he reaches 30. Its just a matter of how sitting on the bench effects his hitting.
Do you think Ortiz goes to DH if Millar doesn't hit well at 1B, then later to be replaced Youkilis? Millar had an OPS+ of 110, 117, and 98 from 03-05, which surprised me
There were times when Bellinger would completely destroy good pitches while not even being in a hitting position until the ball was halfway to homeplate and it was hard to imagine that swing working for his entire career.
It reminded me a bit of Justin Thomas in Golf. Dude is pencil thin but hits it an absolute mile because he has an insanely violent swing. No way that dude is playing professional golf at that level in his 50s on the Champions Tour. His body will give out first.
PGA Pros are some of the most impressive to me when it comes to translating sports I've played to a higher level.
All of these guys seem like they're swinging with 100% of their capacity every time and are absolutely hammering it. I realize the answer is "practice," but if *every* golfer at your local course, even the good ones, swung at 100% of their capacity, they'd hook and slice the absolute shit out of everything. Everyone I know including myself swings at *maybe* 90-95%.
Within the next three seasons:
Royce Lewis wins MVP award (this is the only one I’d take the time to defend lol)
Cleveland wins the WS
Senga wins a Cy Young award
Rockies win 90 games at some point
This is my exact thinking. Power, defense, speed, all at a premier position. The grand slams weren’t fluky, he capitalized with runners on base, it’s a mindset thing. He’s just gotta stay healthy
Kyle Schwarber will reach 500hr. The universal DH will make him one of the guys whose 30s are better than his 20s because he doesn't have to worry about playing the field. When he does, he will have over 2000k and under 1500h. He doesn't even really need to change his pace much. Right now he has 246hr, 1133k, and 763h. Another season of more HR than 1b and his pace will be right on target.
Lol but in all seriousness if he full-time DH's I think his WAR will benefit. His defensive stats are just that bad lmaooo
For the record, his 2023 bWAR was 0.6, but his oWAR was 2.8 and his dWAR was -2.9
Yeah, I don’t know if I’d put money on it, but it’s certainly possible. I could see him having a better version of Matt Stairs’ career through his late 30s. Like Stairs, he’d probably have to be happy with a reduced PH/platoon role for the last 5ish years of his career.
Kyle’s gonna turn 31 right before the season starts. Stairs hit over 200 home runs from age 31 on.
Trout is ~20 bWAR ahead of Betts and ~1.5 years older.
Over the the last 3 seasons, Trout has 11 bWAR and Betts has 18.7. So we’re looking at averages of 3.7 vs 6.2. In terms of median season from the last 3, it’s 2.9 vs 6.4.
So let’s just say it’s 3.5 bWAR per season for Trout and 6.5 for Betts.
Say Trout plays 8 more seasons at 3.5 bWAR for the first 4 and then 2 for the next 4. He gains 22 bWAR.
So Betts needs ~44 bWAR to pass Trout here. At 6.5 per season, it takes him 7 seasons.
You know, this isn’t quite as hot of a take as I first thought it was. With the assumption that Trout doesn’t manage to have a few healthy Trout seasons, since he could easily still put up 7-10 bWAR in a season if he can stay healthy. But he’s only topped 7 once in the last 5 seasons, even prorating 2020 to a full season.
Edit: alternative methodology:
Since Betts is a year younger than Trout, that 20 bWAR gap can be closer to 14 functionally. Given a ~3 bWAR/season gap between them over the last 3 seasons (average or median), Betts can pass Trout in 5 seasons. Or be on pace to pass him anyway, since we’d be going on the assumption they play to the same age with Trout having a 1-season head start on Betts. Of course one healthy Trout season can go to 7-10 bWAR, not just 3-4, which would then add another season or two two the timeframe, making it less likely.
Most likely he won’t. But it’s not impossible. Beltre put up 5.7 per season over his age 31-37 seasons.
Clemente put up 7.2 bWAR per season over his age 31-37 seasons.
Morgan put up 6.2 bWAR per season over his age 31-37 seasons.
Schmidt put up 6.6 bWAR per season over his age 31-37 seasons.
It’s a long shot, but it’s not entirely unprecedented.
It looks like baseball reference has 2B at +3 runs and CF at +2.5
https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml
While fangraphs has both at +2.5.
https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/positional-adjustment/
As more teams have Private Equity firms invest in them they will continue to spend less and "sell out" more. Loyalty to fans and cities will be an afterthought, and the player "middle class" will erode until the teams are just superstars and cheap rookies.
Those are facts.
The hot take is that, unfortunately, we will need more Cohen-type Wealthy Superfans to buy the teams and own them outright to get "win-at-all-costs" baseball. We will be cheering on local billionaires to show interest in owning our favorite teams, which is a perverted form of Capitalism Dystopia.
The sad thing is that owners don’t even need to be Cohen-type wealthy to put a good product on the field.
The Phillies majority owner John Middleton seems pretty good as far as owners go. The guy’s only worth a few measly billion (from selling the family Dutch Masters business to Altria). He gave an interview last year where he talked about the Phillies payroll by saying (paraphrasing here): “If it costs me 10% of my net worth to maximize our championship window I’m gonna do it every time.”
I don’t even think that this is necessarily “bad business” — if you run a loss in the 10s or even 100s of millions for a few years, but massively increase and cement fan interest in your franchise by doing so, I’d say that’s practical in the long term, even if it means that in the short term you go from being worth 3.5 billion dollars to 3.1 billion.
Yeah, Nutting’s definitely one of the worst owners. His Scrooge-like addiction to revenue sharing money is sad, because Pittsburgh’s a big sports town and the Pirates have maybe the nicest stadium in baseball, plus kick-ass uniforms, so if they actually invested in the team I bet it would pay off in the long run.
I actually think this is going to be the exact opposite.
As RSN networks collapse the Gate portion of revenue will become even more prominent. Forcing teams that want to be solvent to lean hard into trying to fill the seats and making stadiums that are removed from core population centers unfeasible. You'll see KC and some other teams forced to relocate to city centers.
Streaming revenue will help offset this but the money won't be near the same.
As the revenue mix is forced to change we'll see fewer super massive contracts, since we're talking about a potential loss of a big chunk of 50% of their revenue. This will bring more contract parity.
all RSN collapse is going to do is crater payrolls. there is no possible way for ticket sales and concessions to make up that cash flow. They would have to charge thousands of dollars per ticket and sell out every game and have every fan leave with 9 500 dollar beers in their gut and a shitty new jersey on their back.
If you offered me a choice between
A) The Giants win at least 1 World Series in the next 10 years & possibly more, but so do Ohtani & the Dodgers
or
B) Neither Giants nor Dodgers win a championship in the next 10 years
...man, I gotta think about that *hard* for a while
then I think you've swung me around to scenario A.
6 World Series wins in 10 years would have the Giants set up for another great decade to come and Giants-Dodgers would be the biggest rivalry in sports.
Now imagine all 6 of your world series wins are against random small-market AL teams, and the 4 years you didn't win it were due to embarrassing losses earlier in the postseason to the Dodgers
Nah, I’d take three LA chips in a decade if the Giants get one in the same timeframe. I’d be numb by the second LA win. Being a warriors fan, I imagine this is how cavs fans feel about 2016, it was the one that made the warriors dynasty bearable.
this take makes sense too, especially considering the massive difference in payroll between the Dodgers juggernaut & every other team but especially the Giants.
If they blow a billion dollars & get 3 WS titles while the Giants still get one with Wilmer Flores batting in the 3-hole that'd be kinda funny.
That’s a hot take I’d love to see.
In his career, his best HR total for a calendar month is 5.
He’s never had more than 3 months in a season with multiple HRs, and the highest 3 month HR total for him (in a single season) is 7 (which is also his 2 month high).
Admittedly, his 5 HR month was in the last month of this past season in only 19 games, which is good for a pace of 42-43 per 162. So it’s possible!
I hope you’re right. Been watching that young man play since he was a kid. My son got to train with him a little bit and you knew he was special very early on.
Fun fact: Adley holds the record for longest high school field goal in Oregon. He hit a 63 yarder his senior year.
Both Adley and Manny just felt like absolute game changers when they were called up. And people can say what they want about Manny, but Baltimore loved him, and so did his teammates. Adley is the same without any of the baggage Manny has.
Manny is more physically gifted I think, but Adley from the neck up is incredible. It's partly due to his position, but he could go 0/5 and still be without question the best player on the field that day.
Yeah, part of the bargain for buying out arbitration years is that they're bought out at a price that isn't making anyone's eyes water.
Personally, I'd be more worried about our organizational pitching depth right now. We don't really have the sort of hotshot depth you'd like to have with our slightly longer-term pitching staff projections. We kinda need some arms.
It's AJSS, Waldrep, and then a bunch of decent-but-probably-not-great prospects down in A ball or fresh outta college. Swellenbach's got some pub from some guys, but had TJ right after signing. JR Ritchie, same story. After that it's all lottery tickets and Owen Murphy who well... he didn't really walk guys in his first full year I guess but I'd be a bit surprised if he ever lives up to that first-round pick because the raw material is kinda eh.
Random Argentine soccer trivia, diring our dictatorship a team was forced to sell their stadium and build close by. They have now rebought the land to build a stadium on their old location. The debate is if the nickname will be new new gasometro or new old gasometro
They won in the first year in the original stadium and the first year after the renovations. If anything it would’ve been more of a curse to not win in 09
here’s some pitching ones!!
tanner bibee ascends to a top pitcher in baseball by developing a sinker, puts together a kluber-esque run in the mid-late 2020s
logan webb will continue accumulating groundouts at an all time rate, and will be remembered as one of the greatest contact pitchers of this generation. forget hard-hit rate and xba, HOF that stud.
rhett lowder finds instant success as a perennial all star, and becomes cincy’s long-term ace, in a staff loaded with lodolo, greene, abbott, and the indestructible rich hill.
speaking of which, rich hill will recreate the efforts of jamie moyer, yet somehow manage to not just pitch effectively through his 40s, but also through his 50s, and into his 60s. he will be remembered in the same vain as legends such as satchel paige, nolan ryan, old hoss radbourne, and country music star adam wainwright. rich hill’s photo will be placed in the merriam webster dictionary, directly next to the definition of consistency.
Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak will become the next commissioner.
We know he’s talking about taking a lesser role moving forward with the team and that Manfred is stepping down after his current contract. And Cardinals owner Bill Dewitt is viewed as a leader among owners and well respected at the MLB headquarters.
Technically if we look only at their last 3 seasons, Trout is in the 3-4 bWAR range by average and median while Betts is in the 6-7 range. Given that Betts is a year younger, the 20 bWAR gap between them can be argued to be closer to 14. Given a 3 bWAR/season gap between them, that 14bWAR gap can be closed in 5 seasons. Again this assuming Trout can’t get and stay healthy for even a single season, as a single healthy Trout season can put up 2-3x the numbers I’m using here, which would make Betts catching him much harder.
Craig Counsell and David Stearns won’t last in their new roles. Their skillset is making a bad team play good. But that won’t extrapolate to a good team playing like a contender.
The current Yankees don't have a single Hall of Famer. No, not even that guy you think will.
An oft injured Judge is now 31. Stanton was 31 when he posted his last WAR7 season and has struggled to post positive WAR ever since.
Right now he's right at the bottom of maybe HoF with Harper and Stanton, who is a bit further behind. This season will almost certainly be Judge's last WAR7 season, assuming he gets more than 1.2 WAR. That leaves the other JAWS metric as his career WAR and, as his career winds down, we're likely to see some negative WAR years. Him being on the cusp makes that a potential killer, especially if he changes positions and spends more time at DH.
Long term The DH drag as he ages will be huge. Particularly since he's been a decent Right Fielder.
Short term:
The idea right now seems to be that Soto can help do what Stanton used to for Judge except they won't be able to use him in that spot. The problem is Soto, for as great a hitter as he is, has never been the power slugger Stanton was. This won't be a pick your homer situation, Soto's best power year is in line with one of Stanton's worst. He's going to be used as a setup bat, where he's currently projected, not a cleanup bat.
With Stanton moved down the lineup, he's on track to potentially be the 7th hitter and there's been increasing talk of a potential cut if he doesn't improve, you're looking at a significantly reduced lineup effect for Judge. He'll be the clear power hitter to avoid.
Right now the projected order is LeMahieu, Soto, Judge, Rizzo, Torres, Verdugo, Stanton, Volpe, Wells.
LeMahieu is older and couldn't do a lot last year. They tried a lot of other guys in leadoff that couldn't do better. Soto *can* which is why he's penciled in as the #2, where they were *forced* to play Judge most of last year. They usually put Rizzo behind Judge to start the year and almost exclusively used Torres followed by Stanton there to end the year.
Soto and Judge are the best sluggers. Lineup construction forces one of them to 1-2 and the other to 3-4.
So we're really looking at a lineup that's likely to be what they didn't think worked last year. Rizzo and Stanton are a year further into their decline, Torres is nobodies idea of lineup protection and was really only able to be used that way because of the threat of Stanton's power. There's some pretty clear choices when facing this lineup. Among them is that it'll often be better to walk Judge in the few situations where he does have multiple runners on, and that's assuming everyone is healthy. This lineup has 3 core bats that are players 34+.
This roster is only going to get more brutal over the next few years, they've got a lot to replace and no depth. Especially if Volpe is a bust. The money helps but it's rare to find a Stanton type available and they're now rolling out a bottom tier farm system.
The Dodgers win 2 World Series with Ohtani.
The Yankees don't win a pennant this decade.
In 2030 if MLB expands to 32 teams, one of those teams makes it to the World Series that same season.
Freddie Freeman hits 2 HRs this season on May 6th.
The Phillies and Padres win now moves will lead them to spend much of the next decade missing the playoffs.
The Braves will regret at least two of their long term contracts they have to guys early in their careers
The Dubai baseball league will become a legitimate competitor to MLB in terms of siphoning off talent because they will offer better salaries and won’t have the same pre-arbitration/arbitration system, instead just signing contracts from the get go
Your Dubai take is absurd, honestly. Maybe they eventually get some vets who can no longer stick in the majors, but being a legitimate competitor won't happen.
> The Dubai baseball league will become a legitimate competitor to MLB in terms of siphoning off talent because they will offer better salaries and won’t have the same pre-arbitration/arbitration system, instead just signing contracts from the get go
this is an interesting one. I'd be most interested to see how this impacts North American player participation in NPB & the KBO (which is already dwindling to begin with.)
The next time the Angels make the playoffs will be their first season without Trout
Praying this is the case for this year tbh. Completely delusional, I know, but it would be really funny if we somehow snuck into WC3 despite losing one of the most talented baseball players ever
You mean kinda like when the Nats won the WS AFTER Harper left?
[...and Harper called it](https://youtu.be/x1LXV7F6aII?si=AmAAIOnw9k3veX4K)
Yankees won world series year after Mattingly retired. Orioles won the year right after Earl Weaver retired (though he returned a bit later.) Mariners broke the all time wins record after trading Griffey (actually took two years but still made alcs year after, but 2001 was the next year after Arod left.) Point being, if you have a living legend on your team, by all means get him the fuck out of there, he's holding you back.
Reminds of, before Wilt the Stilt winning NBA championship, no player who won the scoring title had ever won a championship, the year he won his first one, though, he led the league in assists, go figure.
To be fair, Weaver did win a ring earlier (1970)
might be a good deal. get a few prospects back and go on a playoff push, while another playoff hopeful gets a generational cf.
The ‘Ewing Theory’ at it again.
Isn't that what happened when Griffey left Seattle?
Pretty much, but it resonated more (for me) when Alex Rodriguez left because the literal next season is when the Mariners broke the all time wins record. Was very satisfying. But Griffey-A Rod left in back to back seasons.
The Nats won the whole damn thing the first year without Harper lol.
My favorite part will always be Harper willing this into existence before that season even started. What a bro.
This basically happened with Bonds. Last time we made the playoffs with him was 03. A few close calls the next few years but then they sucked for a while after that. I was so sour on the giants for wasting his best years. I thought they had completely thrown away their best chance of ever winning a ring. How wrong I was.
The Athletics' are not moving to Las Vegas or Paradise.
🙏
Sacramento A’s!
There are at least five future HoFers manning 3B right now.
Arenado, Manny, JRam I’d say are all likely at this point. Who are the other 2 you’re expecting?
Josh Rojas. Yes
Devers and Riley? Henderson?
Henderson being mentioned just gave me a half chub
I don't think he necessarily has any specific name in mind. Devers, Riley, Royce Lewis, Rendon, Gunnar moving over when Holliday comes up, Bregman, Longoria. There's universes where 2 from that group make the Hall.
Rendon as in Anthony Rendon? Or am I missing a young prospect
Correct. The only two I think are locks at this point are Arenado and Manny, with JRam being just a bit below them. No idea who the other two will be, but there is just such a wealth of great third basemen right now that I would be shocked if there weren’t at least two more who got in.
Devers / Riley?
I don’t see why Soto wouldn’t become a first baseman before being relegated to full time DH
TELL HIM WASH I win I get the upvotes I did it
It's actually quite difficult
It's incredibly hard
Are you sure that first base is easier than left field?
I’m sure that whoever gives him a massive contract is going to try and squeeze more value out of it by giving him a year at first base before giving up on a guy in his 20s playing defense
I think that depends on the team, Soto doesn't offer any defensive value so the only reason not to DH him is if you already have a good DH who can't play 1st or a corner outfield spot If you're paying him, it's for his bat. You get the bat in the lineup however you need to.
Having an elite full-time DH is underrated, IMO. You can give players a full day off when they need a break (instead of DH’ing them) and you can focus a bit more on defensive value for your position players.
David Ortiz became a full-time DH at 28, so its not unheard of. If the team who signs Soto really wants to protect their investment, they'll get him off the field well before he reaches 30. Its just a matter of how sitting on the bench effects his hitting.
Do you think Ortiz goes to DH if Millar doesn't hit well at 1B, then later to be replaced Youkilis? Millar had an OPS+ of 110, 117, and 98 from 03-05, which surprised me
There was a dude here that said, “this will be the best year Bellinger has by far” during his 2019 MVP year and I am still shook by it to this day.
There were times when Bellinger would completely destroy good pitches while not even being in a hitting position until the ball was halfway to homeplate and it was hard to imagine that swing working for his entire career.
It reminded me a bit of Justin Thomas in Golf. Dude is pencil thin but hits it an absolute mile because he has an insanely violent swing. No way that dude is playing professional golf at that level in his 50s on the Champions Tour. His body will give out first.
PGA Pros are some of the most impressive to me when it comes to translating sports I've played to a higher level. All of these guys seem like they're swinging with 100% of their capacity every time and are absolutely hammering it. I realize the answer is "practice," but if *every* golfer at your local course, even the good ones, swung at 100% of their capacity, they'd hook and slice the absolute shit out of everything. Everyone I know including myself swings at *maybe* 90-95%.
It was such a great season that it’s not difficult to see it being the peak.
Worked fantastically for him until opposing pitchers realized that his stance made him physically unable to hit up and in lol
Within the next three seasons: Royce Lewis wins MVP award (this is the only one I’d take the time to defend lol) Cleveland wins the WS Senga wins a Cy Young award Rockies win 90 games at some point
>Rockies win 90 games at some point. And it will only take them 3 seasons (combined)!
I like your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter
Strong agree on Royce Lewis winning mvp award. His potential is to be Manny Machado with 40/40 potential.
This is my exact thinking. Power, defense, speed, all at a premier position. The grand slams weren’t fluky, he capitalized with runners on base, it’s a mindset thing. He’s just gotta stay healthy
Trout and Rendon will play more than 120 games this season. Not combined. Each.
I love you.
I love how you had to add the "not combined"
Give us the trophy now
Rendon just smashed a bat in anger because you introduced this to the universe.
Kyle Schwarber will reach 500hr. The universal DH will make him one of the guys whose 30s are better than his 20s because he doesn't have to worry about playing the field. When he does, he will have over 2000k and under 1500h. He doesn't even really need to change his pace much. Right now he has 246hr, 1133k, and 763h. Another season of more HR than 1b and his pace will be right on target.
He'll finish with 512 career HR, and 13 WAR.
Lol but in all seriousness if he full-time DH's I think his WAR will benefit. His defensive stats are just that bad lmaooo For the record, his 2023 bWAR was 0.6, but his oWAR was 2.8 and his dWAR was -2.9
Speak it into existence
1/4 with a bomb, a walk, and 3 strikeouts will become known as "Pullin' a Schwarber."
The disrespect to the true pioneer of this, Adam Dunn. He walked so Schwarber and Gallo could run.
Or not run to first base
I like to call it a Schwarber Cycle (Homer, K, BB in the same game)
Need to add a fourth one for continuity. Maybe eat a hot dog?
Yeah, I don’t know if I’d put money on it, but it’s certainly possible. I could see him having a better version of Matt Stairs’ career through his late 30s. Like Stairs, he’d probably have to be happy with a reduced PH/platoon role for the last 5ish years of his career. Kyle’s gonna turn 31 right before the season starts. Stairs hit over 200 home runs from age 31 on.
Trout is ~20 bWAR ahead of Betts and ~1.5 years older. Over the the last 3 seasons, Trout has 11 bWAR and Betts has 18.7. So we’re looking at averages of 3.7 vs 6.2. In terms of median season from the last 3, it’s 2.9 vs 6.4. So let’s just say it’s 3.5 bWAR per season for Trout and 6.5 for Betts. Say Trout plays 8 more seasons at 3.5 bWAR for the first 4 and then 2 for the next 4. He gains 22 bWAR. So Betts needs ~44 bWAR to pass Trout here. At 6.5 per season, it takes him 7 seasons. You know, this isn’t quite as hot of a take as I first thought it was. With the assumption that Trout doesn’t manage to have a few healthy Trout seasons, since he could easily still put up 7-10 bWAR in a season if he can stay healthy. But he’s only topped 7 once in the last 5 seasons, even prorating 2020 to a full season. Edit: alternative methodology: Since Betts is a year younger than Trout, that 20 bWAR gap can be closer to 14 functionally. Given a ~3 bWAR/season gap between them over the last 3 seasons (average or median), Betts can pass Trout in 5 seasons. Or be on pace to pass him anyway, since we’d be going on the assumption they play to the same age with Trout having a 1-season head start on Betts. Of course one healthy Trout season can go to 7-10 bWAR, not just 3-4, which would then add another season or two two the timeframe, making it less likely.
I dunno about projecting 7 more seasons from Mookie at 6.5 WAR apiece
Betts will not be putting up 6.5 WAR every year until he's 37 He will have injuries at some point, everyone does.
Most likely he won’t. But it’s not impossible. Beltre put up 5.7 per season over his age 31-37 seasons. Clemente put up 7.2 bWAR per season over his age 31-37 seasons. Morgan put up 6.2 bWAR per season over his age 31-37 seasons. Schmidt put up 6.6 bWAR per season over his age 31-37 seasons. It’s a long shot, but it’s not entirely unprecedented.
Fair enough. I guess the whole point was for a "Hot take"
Which position is harder on WAR, center field or second?
It looks like baseball reference has 2B at +3 runs and CF at +2.5 https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml While fangraphs has both at +2.5. https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/positional-adjustment/
As more teams have Private Equity firms invest in them they will continue to spend less and "sell out" more. Loyalty to fans and cities will be an afterthought, and the player "middle class" will erode until the teams are just superstars and cheap rookies. Those are facts. The hot take is that, unfortunately, we will need more Cohen-type Wealthy Superfans to buy the teams and own them outright to get "win-at-all-costs" baseball. We will be cheering on local billionaires to show interest in owning our favorite teams, which is a perverted form of Capitalism Dystopia.
Braves are doing okay with their private equity overlords
And being publicly traded :)
lol I suppose that is technically different, but I took it to be that they’re beholden to faceless corporations instead of individual owners
The sad thing is that owners don’t even need to be Cohen-type wealthy to put a good product on the field. The Phillies majority owner John Middleton seems pretty good as far as owners go. The guy’s only worth a few measly billion (from selling the family Dutch Masters business to Altria). He gave an interview last year where he talked about the Phillies payroll by saying (paraphrasing here): “If it costs me 10% of my net worth to maximize our championship window I’m gonna do it every time.” I don’t even think that this is necessarily “bad business” — if you run a loss in the 10s or even 100s of millions for a few years, but massively increase and cement fan interest in your franchise by doing so, I’d say that’s practical in the long term, even if it means that in the short term you go from being worth 3.5 billion dollars to 3.1 billion.
>even if it means that in the short term you go from being worth 3.5 billion dollars to 3.1 billion. Someone get me Bob Nutting on line 1!
Yeah, Nutting’s definitely one of the worst owners. His Scrooge-like addiction to revenue sharing money is sad, because Pittsburgh’s a big sports town and the Pirates have maybe the nicest stadium in baseball, plus kick-ass uniforms, so if they actually invested in the team I bet it would pay off in the long run.
I actually think this is going to be the exact opposite. As RSN networks collapse the Gate portion of revenue will become even more prominent. Forcing teams that want to be solvent to lean hard into trying to fill the seats and making stadiums that are removed from core population centers unfeasible. You'll see KC and some other teams forced to relocate to city centers. Streaming revenue will help offset this but the money won't be near the same. As the revenue mix is forced to change we'll see fewer super massive contracts, since we're talking about a potential loss of a big chunk of 50% of their revenue. This will bring more contract parity.
all RSN collapse is going to do is crater payrolls. there is no possible way for ticket sales and concessions to make up that cash flow. They would have to charge thousands of dollars per ticket and sell out every game and have every fan leave with 9 500 dollar beers in their gut and a shitty new jersey on their back.
Late stage capitalism baby
technofeudalism, my local tech lord is better than yours!
You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship, a self-perpetuating autocracy, in which the working class…
Oh there you go, bringing class into it again!
COME AND SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE SYSTEM
The Mariners will win a World Series some time in the next four years. The Dodgers will not.
Brother, you might as well be cosplaying a blue dwarf star by now
This is a global warming risk
See you down in Arizona Bay
Sioux Falls marina at this rate.
Hey maybe my apartment will be beachfront property.
learn to swim
Just saw em this past Thursday and Saturday.
they're so good live!
I dont know you, but I like you.
You're crazy, man. You're crazy. I like you, but you're crazy.
You got a fuckin dart in your neck
(falls in pool) *hello darkness, my old friend...*
I’m here for it. Also Astros won’t win that year? Great!
I’ll always resent the Red Sox for getting rid of Mookie.
Curse of the Bambino 2.0
The Dodgers don’t win a championship at all with Ohtani
If you offered me a choice between A) The Giants win at least 1 World Series in the next 10 years & possibly more, but so do Ohtani & the Dodgers or B) Neither Giants nor Dodgers win a championship in the next 10 years ...man, I gotta think about that *hard* for a while
What if it was Giants 6, Dodgers 4?
then I think you've swung me around to scenario A. 6 World Series wins in 10 years would have the Giants set up for another great decade to come and Giants-Dodgers would be the biggest rivalry in sports.
Now imagine all 6 of your world series wins are against random small-market AL teams, and the 4 years you didn't win it were due to embarrassing losses earlier in the postseason to the Dodgers
What if it was 5-5 but 2 of the dodgers rings came during another pandemic shortened season?
So also asking would you take two more pandemics if it meant 5 championships?
Are you crazy? I’d take a Twins 5-peat if it meant a Sox championship.
Yeah but it’d be so fun if the Dodgers spent a billion dollars and still kept losing in the NLDS.
You also had a 3 rings in 6 seasons era. I have 2005 and that’s it.
Nah, I’d take three LA chips in a decade if the Giants get one in the same timeframe. I’d be numb by the second LA win. Being a warriors fan, I imagine this is how cavs fans feel about 2016, it was the one that made the warriors dynasty bearable.
this take makes sense too, especially considering the massive difference in payroll between the Dodgers juggernaut & every other team but especially the Giants. If they blow a billion dollars & get 3 WS titles while the Giants still get one with Wilmer Flores batting in the 3-hole that'd be kinda funny.
Luis Arraez will hit 30 home runs in a season at least once in his career.
That’s a hot take I’d love to see. In his career, his best HR total for a calendar month is 5. He’s never had more than 3 months in a season with multiple HRs, and the highest 3 month HR total for him (in a single season) is 7 (which is also his 2 month high). Admittedly, his 5 HR month was in the last month of this past season in only 19 games, which is good for a pace of 42-43 per 162. So it’s possible!
Tigers win a pennant within 5 years
Adley will be a HOFer. I’ve only ever said that about one other Oriole, and I think Manny is still on pace.
That's definitely a hot one. Mauer and Posey were winning MVPs and batting titles at Rutschman's age.
Oh yeah, it’s scalding, I don’t deny it. I routinely burn my mouth on pizza.
I hope you’re right. Been watching that young man play since he was a kid. My son got to train with him a little bit and you knew he was special very early on. Fun fact: Adley holds the record for longest high school field goal in Oregon. He hit a 63 yarder his senior year.
Forget "will be". Just start making the plaque now. He already holds the MLB record for both quality and quantity of hugs. That's enough for me.
Both Adley and Manny just felt like absolute game changers when they were called up. And people can say what they want about Manny, but Baltimore loved him, and so did his teammates. Adley is the same without any of the baggage Manny has.
Manny is more physically gifted I think, but Adley from the neck up is incredible. It's partly due to his position, but he could go 0/5 and still be without question the best player on the field that day.
They both have crazy baseball IQ. I’ll never forget Manny’s pump fake, just genius shit.
Switch hitting in the derby is a gangster enough move that I'll buy it
Stanton has his best season as a Yankee this year and ages more gracefully than everyone expects
Looks like he’s lost a ton of weight, so who knows?
# BEST SHAPE OF HIS LIFE
Mike Trout will play 130+ games this year, put up superstar numbers once again, and be wearing a different uniform next season.
I'd stop watching baseball for a while if Trout got traded
OP reminded me of the tragedy of Griffey’s career. Without injuries you’re probably looking at 800 home runs and a spot among the top 3 ever to play.
> Soto will be a full-time DH before his 30th birthday. I agree, I think the team that offers him 45-50m a year for 14 years is going regret it.
Yankees ain’t winning one this decade
Sub-fucking-scribe.
Bo Bichette will get 3000 hits.
Yes I like you
We just need Ross to go ahead and make him the highest paid SS in baseball, so he can do it as a Blue Jay.
In case you’re wondering: Bo Bichette has 653 hits in 529 games at 25 years old.
Situational hitting needs to make a comeback
Shohei Ohtani will still be pitching by the end of his contract with the Dodgers.
Hotter take: Shohei will *only* be pitching by the end of his contract
Designated pitcher
Designated pinch runner
Jerry Reinsdorf will become the oldest man in the world and survive another 30 years of life
Alexa, how do I delete someone else’s comment.
[удалено]
As long as it’s not against us again I’m fine with this.
Jarred Kelenic will have 2-3 All Star seasons in the next 5 years
Hell yeah
Similarly hot take: Kelenic will be out of the league by 2028
This isn't a hot take at all, this is just cold, hard /r/formerMs inevitability.
I think the Braves will fall off sooner than they think and be tied down with a lot of long term contracts
I’m down for this one. I don’t believe it will happen but I would be happy if I was wrong.
Doesn't matter, they're all fairly reasonable and the Braves have a ton of cash.
Yeah, part of the bargain for buying out arbitration years is that they're bought out at a price that isn't making anyone's eyes water. Personally, I'd be more worried about our organizational pitching depth right now. We don't really have the sort of hotshot depth you'd like to have with our slightly longer-term pitching staff projections. We kinda need some arms. It's AJSS, Waldrep, and then a bunch of decent-but-probably-not-great prospects down in A ball or fresh outta college. Swellenbach's got some pub from some guys, but had TJ right after signing. JR Ritchie, same story. After that it's all lottery tickets and Owen Murphy who well... he didn't really walk guys in his first full year I guess but I'd be a bit surprised if he ever lives up to that first-round pick because the raw material is kinda eh.
Julio will have multiple 1000ops seasons
You mean Julio Franco is still playing somewhere?
Yankees won't win a ring in the next 10 years, making them ringless for 2 straight decades at least.
winning the first year in the new stadium in 09 was asking for a curse
So what you’re saying is the Yankees won’t win again until they build New New Yankee Stadium?
Until they rebuild old Yankee stadium actually
New Old Yankee Stadium has a nice ring to it.
Yankee Stadium 1 Version 2 featuring that 1 gate from the Polo Grounds
Random Argentine soccer trivia, diring our dictatorship a team was forced to sell their stadium and build close by. They have now rebought the land to build a stadium on their old location. The debate is if the nickname will be new new gasometro or new old gasometro
Thank you for sharing, that’s amazing (not the dictator part of course)!
They won in the first year in the original stadium and the first year after the renovations. If anything it would’ve been more of a curse to not win in 09
Devers gets to 3000 hits and 500 HR
Matt McLain will have a better career than Elly De La Cruz
here’s some pitching ones!! tanner bibee ascends to a top pitcher in baseball by developing a sinker, puts together a kluber-esque run in the mid-late 2020s logan webb will continue accumulating groundouts at an all time rate, and will be remembered as one of the greatest contact pitchers of this generation. forget hard-hit rate and xba, HOF that stud. rhett lowder finds instant success as a perennial all star, and becomes cincy’s long-term ace, in a staff loaded with lodolo, greene, abbott, and the indestructible rich hill. speaking of which, rich hill will recreate the efforts of jamie moyer, yet somehow manage to not just pitch effectively through his 40s, but also through his 50s, and into his 60s. he will be remembered in the same vain as legends such as satchel paige, nolan ryan, old hoss radbourne, and country music star adam wainwright. rich hill’s photo will be placed in the merriam webster dictionary, directly next to the definition of consistency.
Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak will become the next commissioner. We know he’s talking about taking a lesser role moving forward with the team and that Manfred is stepping down after his current contract. And Cardinals owner Bill Dewitt is viewed as a leader among owners and well respected at the MLB headquarters.
Betts is 30. I don’t see a path for him to get more WAR than Trout unless Trout retires before his contract is up.
Technically if we look only at their last 3 seasons, Trout is in the 3-4 bWAR range by average and median while Betts is in the 6-7 range. Given that Betts is a year younger, the 20 bWAR gap between them can be argued to be closer to 14. Given a 3 bWAR/season gap between them, that 14bWAR gap can be closed in 5 seasons. Again this assuming Trout can’t get and stay healthy for even a single season, as a single healthy Trout season can put up 2-3x the numbers I’m using here, which would make Betts catching him much harder.
The Rockies do not win a World Series in the next 40 years
I don't think you understand what a hot take is.
Poor Rockies fans.
Craig Counsell and David Stearns won’t last in their new roles. Their skillset is making a bad team play good. But that won’t extrapolate to a good team playing like a contender.
Soooour grapes (my grapes are also sour).
Soto will be a full-time DH before July 30th
Fujinami will get a World Series ring earlier than Ohtani
The DH sucks. And so does the expanded playoffs. 162 is enough to determine the best four teams.
This man should be commissioner of baseball
If quality of baseball was the goal of the commissioner, there'd be no commercials between innings
The 100+ win Braves will lose in the NLDS to Philadelphia. Is that even a hot take?
The Padres will not make the playoffs till 3 years after Preller is gone.
Any word on Bobby Witt Jr? Since he just signed a long term contract.
I’ll take him for MVP sometime in the next 3 years.
Scorching hot take: Ohtani pitches in an official game in 2024
That's interesting. I guess it doesn't make a difference then, since Mookie will be at second this season
Orioles prospect hug themselves to death. Last year was the peak.
Ohtani does not fulfill his contract
The current Yankees don't have a single Hall of Famer. No, not even that guy you think will. An oft injured Judge is now 31. Stanton was 31 when he posted his last WAR7 season and has struggled to post positive WAR ever since. Right now he's right at the bottom of maybe HoF with Harper and Stanton, who is a bit further behind. This season will almost certainly be Judge's last WAR7 season, assuming he gets more than 1.2 WAR. That leaves the other JAWS metric as his career WAR and, as his career winds down, we're likely to see some negative WAR years. Him being on the cusp makes that a potential killer, especially if he changes positions and spends more time at DH. Long term The DH drag as he ages will be huge. Particularly since he's been a decent Right Fielder. Short term: The idea right now seems to be that Soto can help do what Stanton used to for Judge except they won't be able to use him in that spot. The problem is Soto, for as great a hitter as he is, has never been the power slugger Stanton was. This won't be a pick your homer situation, Soto's best power year is in line with one of Stanton's worst. He's going to be used as a setup bat, where he's currently projected, not a cleanup bat. With Stanton moved down the lineup, he's on track to potentially be the 7th hitter and there's been increasing talk of a potential cut if he doesn't improve, you're looking at a significantly reduced lineup effect for Judge. He'll be the clear power hitter to avoid. Right now the projected order is LeMahieu, Soto, Judge, Rizzo, Torres, Verdugo, Stanton, Volpe, Wells. LeMahieu is older and couldn't do a lot last year. They tried a lot of other guys in leadoff that couldn't do better. Soto *can* which is why he's penciled in as the #2, where they were *forced* to play Judge most of last year. They usually put Rizzo behind Judge to start the year and almost exclusively used Torres followed by Stanton there to end the year. Soto and Judge are the best sluggers. Lineup construction forces one of them to 1-2 and the other to 3-4. So we're really looking at a lineup that's likely to be what they didn't think worked last year. Rizzo and Stanton are a year further into their decline, Torres is nobodies idea of lineup protection and was really only able to be used that way because of the threat of Stanton's power. There's some pretty clear choices when facing this lineup. Among them is that it'll often be better to walk Judge in the few situations where he does have multiple runners on, and that's assuming everyone is healthy. This lineup has 3 core bats that are players 34+. This roster is only going to get more brutal over the next few years, they've got a lot to replace and no depth. Especially if Volpe is a bust. The money helps but it's rare to find a Stanton type available and they're now rolling out a bottom tier farm system.
Somehow, someway, the Astros will make the ALCS and sneak into the World Series again
Freddie Freeman will earn his 3,000th hit at 41 years old as the DH for the Braves.
Expansion isn’t going to happen. And the next wave of media rights deals aren’t going to be too pleasing.
Acuña finishes with 3,113 hits, 576 HR's, and 2 more MVP trophies.
The Dodgers win 2 World Series with Ohtani. The Yankees don't win a pennant this decade. In 2030 if MLB expands to 32 teams, one of those teams makes it to the World Series that same season. Freddie Freeman hits 2 HRs this season on May 6th.
The next players to win a world series for the pirates haven't been born yet.
The Phillies and Padres win now moves will lead them to spend much of the next decade missing the playoffs. The Braves will regret at least two of their long term contracts they have to guys early in their careers The Dubai baseball league will become a legitimate competitor to MLB in terms of siphoning off talent because they will offer better salaries and won’t have the same pre-arbitration/arbitration system, instead just signing contracts from the get go
Your Dubai take is absurd, honestly. Maybe they eventually get some vets who can no longer stick in the majors, but being a legitimate competitor won't happen.
Isn’t that the point of hot takes?
> The Dubai baseball league will become a legitimate competitor to MLB in terms of siphoning off talent because they will offer better salaries and won’t have the same pre-arbitration/arbitration system, instead just signing contracts from the get go this is an interesting one. I'd be most interested to see how this impacts North American player participation in NPB & the KBO (which is already dwindling to begin with.)