Ketel Marte is one of the best players in baseball and not enough people acknowledge this.

6 run lead
9 runs given up

Good thing I’m a brewers fan now.

The Dodgers now only have the 8th best record in baseball.

It would appear skubal has decided it is no longer worth it to try

Money doesn’t buy happiness, and it doesn't buy a World Series championship.

The Texas Rangers are going to be the 1st team in MLB history to have the best starting pitching in the league and a great bullpen.

AND NOT MAKE THE PLAYOFFS

If Riley Greene doesn't win a Gold Glove then I figure the award has no merit. He sacrifices his body 100/100.

George Springer should be back for the Jays in a couple of days. He's returning from another concussion, good to see etc...

Now is as good a time as any for Manfred to get serious about headhunters. If I were commisioner I would tweak a few of the rules enhancing discipline for guys who do more than buzz people's towers.

Among hitters with his level of success or better, I actually think Stanton has one of the least aesthetically pleasing swings in the last thirty years. More than almost anyone I have ever seen, he looks like a elite football player who was turned into a baseball player. His natural swing is very mechanical and stiff like a lumberjack, which leads to a lot of Ks. Over time, I'm almost certain that he has been taught to do anything he can to keep his contact % above catastrophically bad levels. His set up is wide and closed. His swing plane is flattish for a guy with 400 home runs. His load is very minimal. He is doing whatever he can do to put the bat on the ball and avoid getting exploited, all based on the assumption (admittedly a correct assumption) that he will hit a lot of HRs if he can manage to avoid striking out more than 1/3 of the time.

If I were grading swings, I would say:

Most athletic looking -- Ronald Acuna
Most stylish and aesthetically pleasing -- Yordan Alvarez
Best swing to show to an aspiring 14 year old baseball player -- Corey Seager

Yordan's body is already starting to betray him, and he started late, so he won't make the HOF, but he is a truly great hitter and nearly unexploitable. And it shows in his splits. In every respect, he is as good a hitter against LHP as against RHP, which is almost unheard of for a left handed hitter, especially a left handed hitter as big as Alvarez.

Interesting post. I can't disagree with arguments about aesthetics.

What makes Stanton have a special swing is his batspeed.

Also, regardless of what 'most athletic looking' means, Ronald Acuna when healthy is the best all-around player in baseball not named Ohtani.

That an interesting look at the numbers, but I can't go there with you. That late start is just the near death knell for such pursuits, it's always seemed to me. True you gotta have it all -- early start, sick peak, great longevity -- but it seems nobody is going to have all three in the A+ range. These 55 type seasons aren't going to be the norm going forward, they are super peak. Doubtful he will average 40 over the next 7 or 8 years.

I guess Bonds, Ruth and Aaron must have the most homers post age 30? We can hardly just assign that to Ohtani except for just a 1% shot or something. I realize you aren't assigning that to him, but he's going to need it, right?

There's the thing that taller hitters don't age as well. A brother of mine is big on that theory, and projects it for Judge and Ohtani. Hmm. McGwire, Kingman, Stawberry and Adam Dunn come to mind. (Hero bro played against Stawberry in the minors.) As the reflexes slow, it seems to be more trouble for the very long limbed.

The projection for Ohtani would kind of be, "If he sets the record for dingers after age 30, he'll set the all-time record." Doesn't compute with this codger.

And I've seen it all. My dad was a doc and he occasionally took me on his rounds at the hospital after church. One guy is laying there in bed and dad says to me, "Son (he called me son, lol), this guy played centerfield for the Yankees when Babe Ruth was in right field." I looked up at Dad totally incredulous, as Babe Ruth, in my mind, was at least a thousand years ago. There laid Earle Combs, the "Kentucky Colonel."

So obvioulsy I'm an expert at all this. You're out on a limb on this and I ain't with ya. Sorry to disappoint you. Don't be crushed, like say a fastball in Ohtani's wheelhouse gets crushed.

I hate to rain on your parade, but I adjudicate a 1.5% chance that Ohtani hits 700 homers.

Besides, he may end up in prison over this real estate thing. Just saying.

I didn't know he hit into a triple play. Too bad that wasn't the night he broke his triple drought with his 8th triple, was it? Next game, I think. He could have been the first player to hit into a triple play and hit a triple in the same game ... a triple double.

Wow. Total career homers for very tall world class power men Mark McGwire, Daryll Strawberry, Adam Dunn, Dave Kingman and Frank Howard after age 37 season: 0.

No one in the history of baseball has ever consistently hit HRs that got out more quickly than Stanton's HRs. His 2-iron shots are something to see. No arguing that point.

By most athletic, I guess that I mean a cool-looking swing that seems like it wouldn't work if executed by a mere mortal. Eric Davis had that sort of swing. Acuna does as well.

You can add Matt Kemp and Dale Murphy to your list.

37 is pretty old, especially for guys who played as long ago as Frank Howard. Almost no position players were playing at age 38 in his era. There are exceptions. Dave Winfield and Jim Thome come to mind, but you are probably correct that tall hitters age more quickly as a group.

Speaking of Jim Thome, Nick Kurtz gives me some pretty strong Jim Thome vibes, especially the easy power, patience, and all-fields approach. Thome hit a bunch of HRs the other way, especially in the first half of his career.

Shoot. Ohtani broke an August long hitting streak of 12 games and a streak of 13 runs scored in his last 8 games last night. Bummer. On top of everything else if he put a hitting streak up that would be Paul Bunyan stuff.

Ohtani is too dangerous a hitter to be a truly great candidate for a hit streak. A guy like Arraez is a much better bet.

Skubal and Skenes are still in the valuebet range getting -300 and -340 Cy Young Odds respectively. (Fanduel)

I was on both at the start of the year; no idea what their original chances were, just not enough guts to pull the trigger.

I also made a serious comment to all-inmclovin last year that Skubal would win the next 3 Cy Youngs.

If anyone wants to explain to me wtf happened with Jhoan Duran last night that would be greatly appreciated.

I didnt' see it, but from recollecting last night on Twitter:



- Duran also hadn't pitched in 3 days. He's a big momentum type guy and needs nightly work to have his A++ stuff, imo.

I could debate the pitching decisions for a while. Why was Luzardo left in too long the day before and Duran probably could have closed that out? Nola is scheduled for tomorrow with what has been noted as a big reliever game.

But my bigger question is why was Duran standing without help for like 10 minutes, with like 8 people around him, until the baseball helmet cart had to carry him off?

x-rays are negative.

Nobody can argue it? Here comes nobody, as Dandy Don famously said on Monday Night Football. I saw McGwire hit a liner back at the pitcher that he almost caught, and it ended up a 500 foot dinger. Like a golf shot that has jets on it, tiers to it. Those two gotta be the sickest.

Very tall sluggers as they age category:

Dave Winfield kept hitting late and had a little over 100 homers after age 37.

Dave Parker about 50.

Certainly exceptions to the Zero Rule.

This source can confirm that.