I’m sitting in a sports bar in Chicago watching the rain. I bought bleacher tickets for Wrigley today. I’m off work for a week with a very badly needed vacation.
It’s a 2016 World Series rematch and yet life has been so crazy since then, 2016 seems like a long time ago.
Hard to fathom what happened to the Mets in June. If they scored 6 runs, they lost (it happend 6 times). If they held the opponent to 2 or 3 runs, they lost. When they got reliever Drew Smith back after a 10 game suspension, he gave up the game losing HR. His ERA, and that of Adam Ottovina, is a full point above last year. The pen has blew 11 leads in the month.
Aloso hit .152 with a .586 OPS. McNeil, last year’s batting champion, hit .196 with a .550 OPS. Alvarez hit .151 with a .534 OPS. Tommy Pham was, by far, their best hitter. Tommy Pham! Other than Pham, only Lindor and Nimmo were close to their career numbers.
The season is over, with Yogi’s caveat. The Mets only hope is for the Marlins, Brewers and Phillies to end up at .500. They are not picking up 9 games on the Giants and Dodgers. Might not pick up any. If the Mets, for the rest of the year, play at a 90 game win percentage, they end up at .500.
They have the talent to do that, even with a shaky pen. Not counting on it. But my boycott has worked for one game. Didn’t watch the game today and will not watch any for a week. It worked a couple of years ago.
Some info on why Willson Contreras was removed from the starting catcher position earlier this year:
That’s kinda scary. Has Contreras suffered concussions?
According to FoxSports, his injury history seems to be limited to the lower body: knee, ankle, hip, hamstring, foot.
Kinda surprised Lane Thomas didn’t make the NL All Star team, he’s fifth in the league in BA.
Somehow the Royals took 2 of 3 from the Dodgers over the weekend. That was their first series win since mid-May, when they took 2 of 3 from the Padres.
Their winning percentage for the season is almost .300.
The Padres must be grateful to the Mets for taking much of the attention away from their own highly disappointing season.
There are a lot of reasons Thomas could be an All Star, but his batting average is pretty far down the list. The outfielders the NL has put out are pretty damn good. When Juan Soto is on the bench and Tatis Jr. didn’t make the team, Lane Thomas’ 136 OPS+ isn’t quite as shiny (though he definitely should have gotten in above Gurriel Jr. - Arizona already has a rep in with Carroll, so it wasn’t a case of being the only Diamondback).
Gurriel was a very weird choice. He had a tremendous May but has fallen off a cliff since (which is how he’s always been; he’s as streaky a hitter as I have ever seen in my life) and he remains a mediocre outfielder, so I’m not exactly sure why he’s going. I’m happy for him, he always played his best in Toronto.
The way they select players is weird now and I don’t fully understand it, but I think how it works is that if you finish as the runner up in fan voting, they HAVE to select you as a reserve, if the roster still needs to be filled out at that position, after considering if all teams are represented. Or something. I think that’s why the Blue Jays are (in addition to a few other guys, some deserving and some not) sending Whit Merrifield… maybe? Merrifield is a decent player, but an All-Star? Really? Come on.
Back in the day, the fan voting only selected starters and had no bearing at all on the other selections.
Farther back in the day (1958-1969) the players did the voting. Prior to that (1947-1957), it was the fans voting, but that practice was ended when the Cincinnati fans stuffed the ballot boxes and voted their players to all 8 fielding positions in the 1957 all-star game.
I read this morning that there are currently just 10 players batting .300 or better. Last year, only 11 players finished above .300. The lowest number was in 1968 (the year of the pitcher) when six players batted above .300. In fact, Carl Yastrzemski won the AL batting crown with an average of .301.
I think I’d prefer this over what we’re doing now.
I totally agree.
Last year the AL champ was Luis Arraez, who hit .316; that was the lowest in the AL since Yaz. This year it’s a dogfight right now between Yandy Diaz and Bo Bichette and they’re just a hair above that, .318 and .317 respectively. Arraez and Ronald Acuna are the only two players in MLB above .318.
The days of really high batting averages may be behind us.
Agreed. While this year’s rules changes have done a lot to make the game better to watch – better pace of play, more stolen base attempts* – batting averages haven’t gotten substantially better. So far, the league average is .248, which is only slightly above last season (.243).
What didn’t change is the prevalence of relief pitchers, and teams rarely letting starters pitch deep into games, both of which have helped to depress batting averages in recent years. Teams are striking out an average of 8.6 times per game, which is actually a smidge higher than in 2022 (8.4).
*- Esteury Ruis and Ronald Acuna Jr. are on pace to steal ~80 bases each, and there are another dozen-plus on pace for 40+.
There is also just the fact that the approach of taking more pitches and trying to drive the ball, trading away hits and strikeout avoidance for a few walks and way more power, WORKS. Batting averages are very low by historical standards, but run scoring is not low by historical standards, it’s pretty good. Presently it’s about 4.5-4.6 per game per team, a fairly healthy level. They’re not going to ask Max Muncy or Kyle Schwarber to change when what they’re doling works pretty well for them.
If you caused batting averages to rise to a historically normal level, say 15 points higher, without changing anything else, scoring would be substantially higher.
Very true. With the exception of the increase in stolen base attempts (0.91 this season so far, versus 0.68 last year), it doesn’t seem like there’s any real return to “small ball” – and, as you note, the reason is that the stats have proven out that the “hit for power” strategy is more effective.
I don’t know the numbers, but I feel like I’m seeing more bunts. And even a couple of attempts to steal home.
The Blue Jays have announced that Alek Manoah has been recalled from the minors and will start Friday against the Tigers in Detroit.
This follows a disastrous rookie league outing in which he gave up 11 runs in less than 3 innings, followed by a good performance Sunday in Double-A, allowing 1 run in 5 innings.
His return to the majors should be interesting.