Meanwhile, my Cubs are only 1 game back from the Tigers and are 4-3 over the Dodgers. Early days, but this team is playing its ass off.
8 homers today against the Cards. New franchise record.
I don’t know if you were aware of this fact, which I got from ESPN:
Michael Busch is the third Cubs player with a three home run game against the Cardinals. In an odd twist, all three did it on Independence Day: Moises Alou on July 4, 2003 and Hank Leiber on July 4, 1939.
That is rather amazing.
Almost sounds like it could be a trivia question…
Cal Raleigh hit his 34th and 35th homers today.
Three ahead of Aaron Judge to stay on top of the league in HRs, and tied with Seiya Suzuki for the lead in RBIs right now.
And still unlikely to get MVP.
Worst Dodgers home loss ever. 18-1
Interesting that the Cubs with the 8 home runs and the Dodgers with the home loss set franchise records both on July 4 and these are franchises which have been around a very long time
Being on the Mariners makes that the case, yeah.
Steve Carlton had more than 3000 Ks with the Phillies, to be accurate. He did get additional Ks with other teams. John Smoltz had more than 3000 with the Braves, but had a handful with other teams. There are no other examples.
Two games now.
Pythagorean projections:
Jays 47-45
Yankees 54-34
Rays 51-37
How can the Jays keep this up?
Hardly. It worked out fine for Griffey jr. and Ichiro. I don’t think there’s been a deserving Mariner since then who wuz robbed.
Well, then I guess I can hope.
I don’t know, but I’m sure it would help if they had the same production as 2024 Anthony Santander. Is he out for the year?
Right now Judge leads in WAR and batting average. Raleigh leads in HRs and RBIs. Judge is second in HRs and RBIs. But Raleigh is 28th in BA and, while second in WAR, is still almost 2 wins behind Judge. If the voting took place today, I think Judge would have to be the clear favorite.
Yeah; all else being equal, playing in a big media market (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.) probably make it a bit easier to get votes for an end-of-year award. And, if the Mariners were a cellar-dwelling team, it’d also make it harder for Raleigh (but they aren’t, at least not at this point).
As was discussed in the June thread, Raleigh is having an amazing year, and is absolutely having a “career year”: he’s hit more home runs in half a season than he has ever hit in a full season, is hitting about 50 points above his career average, and, at this moment, is leading the majors in home runs and RBI.
But, even so, he has the misfortune of playing in the same league as Aaron Judge, who has been even better. Judge is currently just behind Raleigh in HRs and RBIs, while hitting almost 100 points higher in batting average, with a large lead over Raleigh in slugging and OPS+.
In the old way of doing these things, Raleigh would probably win even if he had less WAR than Judge (assuming Raleigh is able to carry the Mariners into the playoffs.) But WAR seems to rule these days; nearly all of the MVPs of the past 10 years have led that stat.
It’s kind of funny that Judge has won two MVPs, considering how much the Yankees have spent over the years and he wasn’t even a highly touted prospect.
I was thinking about that as I was writing my earlier post: if Seattle makes the playoffs (even more so if they somehow win their division), and it’s largely because Raleigh is carrying them, then it’s a really good narrative for his candidacy.
But, that said, the Mariners have three other position players (Julio Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena, J.P. Crawford) who are sitting at around a 3.0 bWAR. And, their pitching staff is a bit above average on ERA and WHIP. So, I’m not sure how much the Mariners are entirely being carried by Raleigh, at least so far.
If it were 30 or 40 years ago (i.e., before sabermetrics and advanced stats), and the season ended today, I think Raleigh would have had a serious shot at the AL MVP award. But, with the modern stats, if the season ended today, I think that Judge walks away with the award.
Ugh, Clarke Schmidt headed for his second Tommy John Surgery. Pitcher’s elbows are baseball’s Achilles heel.
Astros must’ve worn out a lot of trash cans last night.
The thing with Raleigh is Catchers are supposed to be selected more on defence ability, and I am sure being involved in almost every defencive pitch is draining so the best batters are rarely catchers. While Judge is the better batter I am somewhat surprised his WAR is so much ahead of Raleigh given the nature of being a catcher but I don’t know enough to challenge the numbers.