In the off season, Yankees fans were practically demanding Manny (2.1 WAR) Machado or Bryce (0.9 WAR) Harper, or even both. They wound up getting DJ (3.3 WAR) LeMahieu. He’s batting .331 with an OPS of .875 and plays great defense all over the infield. He might be playing over his head or having a career year, I don’t know, but whichever, he’s been a very pleasant surprise.
Some Yankee fans were, most I know wanted neither of them. In fact, almost no one but a few idiot writers thought Harper made any sense. Yanks Outfield was loaded before all the injuries.
I didn’t like the LeMahieu acquisition, I was wrong. He has been great for the Yanks thus far.
My brother scored luxury box tickets to this past Sunday’s game at Busch. (Yes, I joined the standing ovations for Albert Pujols; he gave us a lot of fucking awesome baseball). So, anyway, I’m sitting there with my eight year old, pointing things out on him the field and scoreboard. As I was pointing to something, my little fella made a startled sound, and I looked over to him. Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky had leaned over the railing from the next box and tapped my son on the shoulder. Hungo handed him a signed baseball card. I was caught totally off guard. I stammered out, “Uh, thanks, Al!”
It was pretty cool. Hrabosky does have a magnificent mustache.
Awesome story!
Send em to Brooklyn. NY can support another team.
I was just looking at division records and it seems nuts to me that the Dodgers are 13 games up on the Rockies at the midway point in the season. I was playing with projecting out their season and they could finish 40 games up on the Giants which also seems pretty crazy though it may not be the biggest difference with the Os looking at less than 50 wins.
In order to keep my hopes in check, I started thinking about epic collapses like the Dodgers losing 16 of 17 a couple of years ago down the stretch or their crazy collapse in '51 from 13 games up in August. If the Dodgers some how didn’t win the division or even make the playoff it feels like it would be the greatest collapse of all time. Do you guys have any challengers I’m not thinking about?
The 2011 Red Sox collapse was pretty epic. In early September they had a 9 game margin to at least get a wild card spot. They, of course, missed the playoffs, fired Terry Francona and suffered an abysmal 2012 season under Bobby Valentine. Then in 2013 they won the World Series, so it’s all water under the bridge.
Speaking of whom, John Farrell’s lifelong dream wasn’t winning a World Series (although he did) - it’s what he’s doing now, running a lobster boat. Okay, good luck with that, John.
Havan and San Juan are objectively ten times worse. I mean, I think it would be cool if they could support teams, but they can’t, so let’s get serious.
Montreal would be a fine place if they built a real stadium. But that’s always the sticking point; it’s about the stadium and whether or not you can fleece the locals for the $500+ million it’ll cost. Austin would be great… if it had a stadium. San Antonio. Portland. Memphis. New York City or LA, actually, could both have a third team quite easily. Charlotte. Vancouver. But who’s building the stadium?
The Washington Nationals are going to be wearing Montreal Expos throwback uniforms on July 6. Very interesting. They picked Independence Day weekend to wear Canadian uniforms in the USA Capitol? I assume it’s some sort of preemptive strike against Tampa Bay and the use of the Expos name.
I can’t wait to see POTUS’s tweet on this. 
Canada Day is July 1. Wouldn’t that have been a better choice?
They have Canada Day off. July 6 is the closest weekend home game. Kind of odd, though; do the Nats lay much claim to their Montreal roots? I hadn’t thought so, but maybe I wasn’t paying much attention.
Washington actually had three numbers retired for Expos greats; 8 for Gary Carter, 10 for Rusty Staub and Andre Dawson, and 30 for Tim Raines. But they were all retired before the Expos moved.
Stanton back on the IL. Tauchmann takes his place on the roster. Yanks won plenty without him this year. Call me crazy, but I think Stanton’s best years are behind him.
Given that 2017 is extremely likely to be the best year he will ever have, that isn’t really a crazy idea at all. It’s the odds on bet.
He has good years left in him, it’s just not usually the case a guy hits 59 dingers.
I don’t know, I’m starting to think Stanton may never see 30 HRs a year or play more than 100 games in a season. I think the Yankees bought high and will have to sell low.
Adam Dunn never had a “Great” offensive season, really. I g uess it depends what you define as being great, but his best year was probably 2004. He was really good, but in a relatively high offense year. Dunn was a useful hitter.
As to his career WAR, Baseball Reference says that one year his defensive WAR was -5.2. I am just going to come out and say it, but that is just impossible. No one is that bad. You would have to literally play without a glove to be that bad.
I wouldn’t give up on Stanton just yet. He’s not quite 30. His 2018 season was solid. This latest injury sounds pretty minor, the 10 day IL is probably just a good reason to not take him to London.
Dunn was consistently in 40 home run, 100 RBI territory during his time with the Nationals. I remember him hitting a ball so far against the Giants that the Giants CF just stared at the bleachers, as if he couldn’t believe someone just hit a ball that far. However, it was painful to watch him play OF. He wasn’t too horrible at first, but we had to watch him lumber around the outfield way too much.
Craig Kembral’s Cubs debut: 1 IP, 1 k, 1 hit, 1 BB. Gets the save while Cubs win 9-7