Bet Pujols hits a double tonight ... based on the premise that a guy pushing 700 doubles can't go a full month with none. Maybe first AB.

Twins gonna save us all the exercise of watching them get swept in the playoffs this year. very kind of them

i think it's been mentioned itt but i believe if any of those all time great guys were born today and steered towards baseball and given modern training/coaching then most of them would certainly succeed but few would be all stars

it's not even about modern methodology, it's also just a numbers game, the amount of people born today who grow up playing baseball is easily 100x larger now, not just normal population expansion but now with latin america, asia and black people playing

hell there's even a few token european and australian players in the league today as well

i think it's therefore like comparing college to mlb today, many of those college stars go on to become great mlb players, but most never even get into the minors

i think tedd williams would particularly suffer in today's game as what made him stand out so much iirc was he was the first hitter to really try to scientifically approach hitting and his book on hitting was fundational in bringing baseball into a more trainable process

of course wiliams was a great hitter and had truly exceptional eyesight and reflexes (was reportedly an incredibly talented fighter pilot and could read the seams on the ball as it came to better guess final location) but if everyone had the same resources as him i don't think he'd stand out very much

i say this as someone who views Williams as unquestionably a top 5 player of all time, possibly even 2nd best overall - i don't punish him for the era he played in, but must acknowledge what made him special wouldn't be so special playing against others with similar training

regarding training, i think a primary reason why so many children of athletes go on to also be professional athletes has more to do with their father's prioritizing putting them along a proper developmental path than anything else, look at all the greats, very few took those sports casually as 10 year olds

Baseball!

byron buxton, ted williams and the mick(not necessarily in that order)

top 3 on base plus slugging, 17 games into a season

there's the generational data

I'd love to see how pitchers like Ryan, Weaver, Gibson and Palmer would do in today's game with the way the managers are with pitch counts. Their workload was a huge part of what made them great. 200+ career complete games and around 300 innings every year. That's never happening in today's game. With the way guys strike out today who knows how many Ks these guys would get. Ryan and Gibson might have been moved to closers.

I think Pete Maravich would be a top NBA player in today's game with his size, range and ball handling. He'd have a 3 point line, could carry and travel as much as he wanted and face pathetic (in the regular season) defenses.

Imagine Mahomes and Rodgers playing QB in the 70's or 80's NFL. The philosophy was stablish stablish stablish especially around the goal line and when you did throw it get it down the field. I remember the Dan Fouts Chargers from that era and the announcers were like"OMG they have 3 WRs on 1st down!!!" Not getting all the key 3rd down PI, defensive holding and roughing calls. Having to call a lot of plays yourself because you don't have radio helmets. Also taking huge amounts of punishment compared to today's game. Would they be elite in that era? I have no idea.

A lot of boxing fans consider Ali the GOAT. He was extremely popular and did a lot for boxing but if he's fighting prime Lennox Lewis or prime Klitschko brothers he probably gets KOd.

Of course this is all completely unprovable but it is fun to discuss

*Seaver

Nolan Ryan would've never been a starter in today's game. With the control issues he had early in his career, he'd go straight to the pen. His pitch counts would be too high for his young delicate arm to ever make it past the 4th inning.

We'll never see another workhorse like Ryan. Even if such a specimen came along, the chance to do anything like what did doesn't exist.

I'll always feel a bit ripped off that we didn't get to see what Aroldis Chapman could've done as a starter.

I don't think pitch counts existed back then, but based on all the walls and strikeouts, Ryan was probably throwing over 160 pitches in a start quite regularly, and as many as 200 probably wasn't even uncommon. It's mind-blowing in comparison to pitchers today, and it's undeniable that Ryan's fastball would still be well above average for starters today, maybe in the top ten percent.

+1

and guys like Andrew Miller would be starting 36 games a year if they came up 20 years ago

Not surprised at all by the Alomar news. Back when he got elected to the hall of fame, even then I had this thought that someday he'd be a guy they'd wish they hadn't elected. He had multiple incidents prior to that showing questionable character.

Also interesting how much his career fell off a cliff when he went to the mets. He had just had the best year of his consistently great career, and then suddenly without any injuries of note, he sucked.

Looks like a strong chance he was Roiding with Cleveland, then stopped.

LOL @NL east. Everyone's below .500 and the only team with a positive run differential is in last place. Oh and last place is only 1.5 games out of 1st.

A thread:

I was 3 rows behind them. It was funny watching their phones blow up as it unfolded.

Miguel Cabrera is just so incredibly awful (statistically, I haven't watched any of him in years)

If he continues to be this terrible, what does Detroit do? They can't seriously spend 5 years putting him on the field if he's going to be a .150 hitter with no power and no defense. At least Pujols is a passable major leaguer for the last few years, the Cabrera contract is really going to test what a team will do. The team should be rebuilding, any playing time he gets is experience some younger (and better) player should be getting.

Back in 2009 I was dating a girl whose cousin was in the news suing Robbie saying he knew he was HIV positive and hid it from her during their relationship. Don't recall what became of it.

That's one of the 2 incidents I was referencing (the other one being spitting in an umpires face)

That incident with the HIV is a big issue. I was surprised that didn't affect his HOF status and baseball reputation more than the non factor is seems to have been. The Jays continued to treat Alomar as a hero from the past. If indeed he did that (and it seems a really strange thing for the woman to make up), it's a pretty scummy thing, something that should make it very hard for a person to maintain good public standing. I think it's more problematic than some rape accusations.

Dave Roberts had a pitcher walk two with no outs to load the bases and give up the tying run in the 10th.

Up two in the 11th, he left the same pitcher in to walk two with no outs to load the bases in the 11th and give up three and take the loss.

I just switched to T-Mobile. Is there a deal where you can free mlb.tv or something? Anyone in here have that?

I love it. Any 10-year contract, especially to a player over 30, is so inexcusable and the teams deserve exactly what they're getting.

Yeah, but it is only offered the week before the season starts. So I think if you don't sign up for it during that week the offer expires. They have been doing it for a couple of years now.

That's some awesome Ron Washington style managing.

Miggy is "only" signed through 2023. The '24 and '25 only happen if he finishes top 10 in MVP.

Tigers are ****ed though. They did put something together for a while. Don't remember the timeline, but maybe Verlander got sucky for the wrong years? Two HOF pitchers and peak Miggy should be able to go the distance.

Shouldn’t writers of the Indians or White Sox throw him a few 5th place votes?

One of the first playoff games I remember watching was game 1 (I think) of their 2014 ALDS against Baltimore, Scherzer pitched a gem for 6 or 7 innings and then their LOL bullpen took over and it all went to crap. IIRC that wasn't an isolated incident.

Two Dodgers with 7 or more RBI's today ... gotta be extremely rare.