Turning Holmes into a starter for the Mets has gone well so far. He gave up 1 earned run in 6 innings today and would’ve been in line for his third win if not for a bullpen malfunction.
Maybe Clase will be the Yankees next closer. He’s been horrible this year after a best ever season for any closer last year
In this afternoon’s win over the A’s, the Brewers stole six bases in the first inning (the most stolen by a team in a single inning since 1919), and had nine steals over the first four innings, breaking a single-game franchise record in the process. The six steals in the first included two separate double steals.
Fantasy players, remember that today is the early Boston game. They’re playing the White Sox so the SDMB NL only league isn’t affected
And the Chicago White Sox have lost pitcher Martin Perez for the year following an elbow injury.
The Blue Jays simply can’t hit. Don Mattingly is still there.
Oh, the Blue Jays can hit just fine. Foul balls, popups, dribblers through the infield, line drives right to the shortstop—the Jays are good at those.
What they don’t seem to be able to do is to make the kind of hits that get them on base. Which are the kind of hits that the Jays desperately need.
30 games in and Aaron Judge is batting .415. As Scooter used to say, Holy Cow.
In terms of just getting hits they are actually above the AL average (which is a dismal .233, so Toronto’s .242 looks worse than it really is.)
The problem is they have no power. The average AL team has hit 26 homers. Toronto has only 13.
Home runs matter. Winning teams hit them.
Like I’ve said before. if Judge retired after this season he’d be a Hall of Famer. It’d be short career, but he is the best player in the league, clearly. Has been for several years. The only comparable valuable player has been Shohei Ohtani, and Judge is more valuable when Ohtani can’t pitch. Which he might never do again.
How many players can that be said of? “The best player in baseball?” I don’t mean one MVP Award, I mean in the sense of that a guy for a period of time is clearly tops. Not many. In the 40-45 years I’ve been obsessed with baseball it started out being Mike Schmidt, and then Cal Ripken, then Rickey Henderson was the best there was. Then I guess… Roger Clemens, maybe, though Rickey was very great to the 90s. Then Barry Bonds for awhile. Albert. So on and so forth. It’s a very rare honor. Frank Robinson was never really the best player in baseball, nor was Pete Rose, nor a lot of obvious Hall of Famers.
Aaron Judge is the best player in baseball. He’s also unique. I’ve never seen anyone like him.
The Yankees were wise to move him back to right, IMHO.
Absolutely agree with this. One of the disadvantages to having Soto with Judge was the fielding. Judge is a plus in right and at best neutral in Center. Soto is probably below average fielding.
Now I have to go check the stats and see if they agree with my mind’s eye.
So Soto is a little below average at Right.
| Season | Age | Team | Pos | G | Ch | PO | A | E | DP | Rtot | Rtot/yr | Rdrs | Rdrs/yr | RF/9 | lgRF9 | RF/G | lgRFG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 21 | WSN | RF | 6 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -22 | -1 | -28 | 1.67 | 1.97 | 1.33 | 1.88 |
| 2021 | 22 | WSN | RF | 144 | 306 | 295 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 2.2 | 1.92 | 2.08 | 1.87 |
| 2022 | 23 | 2TM | RF | 151 | 310 | 304 | 3 | 3 | 0 | -10 | -10 | -2 | -2 | 2.13 | 2.07 | 2.03 | 2.04 |
| 2022 | 23 | WSN | RF | 99 | 196 | 192 | 2 | 2 | 0 | -10 | -14 | -4 | -6 | 2.04 | 2.07 | 1.96 | 2.04 |
| 2022 | 23 | SDP | RF | 52 | 114 | 112 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 2.3 | 2.07 | 2.17 | 2.04 |
| 2024 | 25 | NYY | RF | 145 | 300 | 289 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | -1 | -1 | 2.1 | 2.11 | 2.06 | 2.08 |
| 2025 | 26 | NYM | RF | 25 | 42 | 41 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 1.7 | 2.16 | 1.68 | 2.12 |
| RF | 471 | 966 | 937 | 18 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2.11 | 2.04 | 2.03 | 2 |
Aaron Judge doesn’t appear to be better in Right than Soto, interesting.
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/24/2025.
| Season | Age | Pos | G | Ch | PO | A | E | DP | Rtot | Rtot/yr | Rdrs | Rdrs/yr | RF/9 | lgRF9 | RF/G | lgRFG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 26 | CF | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -135 | 0 | 0 | 1.13 | 2.59 | 1 | 2.5 |
| 2021 | 29 | CF | 23 | 42 | 40 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | -1 | -8 | 2.39 | 2.53 | 1.83 | 2.47 |
| 2022 | 30 | CF | 78 | 165 | 162 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 4 | 2.35 | 2.58 | 2.12 | 2.54 |
| 2023 | 31 | CF | 18 | 44 | 44 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 2.96 | 2.54 | 2.44 | 2.51 |
| 2024 | 32 | CF | 105 | 252 | 248 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -9 | -12 | 2.51 | 2.64 | 2.4 | 2.61 |
| 2016 | 24 | RF | 27 | 38 | 35 | 2 | 1 | 0 | -2 | -9 | 0 | 0 | 1.54 | 2.1 | 1.37 | 2.08 |
| 2017 | 25 | RF | 141 | 275 | 265 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 20 | 20 | 9 | 9 | 1.96 | 2.04 | 1.91 | 2.02 |
| 2018 | 26 | RF | 90 | 182 | 170 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 11 | 16 | 18 | 27 | 2.04 | 2.07 | 1.99 | 2.05 |
| 2019 | 27 | RF | 92 | 184 | 177 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 28 | 21 | 33 | 2.14 | 2.07 | 2 | 2.06 |
| 2020 | 28 | RF | 25 | 46 | 45 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 19 | 2.21 | 2.07 | 1.84 | 2 |
| 2021 | 29 | RF | 114 | 217 | 206 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 10 | 13 | 9 | 12 | 2.11 | 2.13 | 1.88 | 2.08 |
| 2022 | 30 | RF | 73 | 116 | 113 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 14 | 3 | 7 | 2.12 | 2.19 | 1.59 | 2.16 |
| 2023 | 31 | RF | 54 | 89 | 86 | 2 | 1 | 0 | -6 | -17 | -3 | -8 | 1.8 | 2.17 | 1.63 | 2.14 |
| 2024 | 32 | RF | 8 | 17 | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 1 | 18 | 2.28 | 2.11 | 2.13 | 2.08 |
| 2025 | 33 | RF | 20 | 34 | 33 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1.78 | 2.2 | 1.7 | 2.17 |
| RF | 644 | 1198 | 1147 | 38 | 13 | 7 | 59 | 13 | 61 | 14 | 2.02 | 2.1 | 1.84 | 2.07 | ||
| CF | 225 | 504 | 495 | 9 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 3 | -8 | -5 | 2.47 | 2.6 | 2.24 | 2.56 |
Speaking of teams which can’t hit – remember last year’s White Sox, which spent the entire season pursuing the all-time losses record, and were pathetic at the plate?
They aren’t any better this year; they are, as a team, hitting exactly at the Mendoza line (.200), at the bottom of the league. It’s still early, but at 5-19, they’re on pace for 128 losses. Good thing for them this year that the Rockies are even worse.
Judge has a legitimate shot at .400 this year but he can be streaky and get into a slump. I agree that RF is by far his best position and CF was a bit of a waste of a good arm. He is almost absolutely on the way to Cooperstown, if he had to retire this year it wouldn’t be a dead certainty quite yet in my book.
He absolutely does not have a shot at batting .400. Luis Arraez is the best contact hitter in baseball, and he doesn’t have a shot at batting .400. No one does.
Yeah, I agree. He strikes out way too much to even bat .350. Barry Bonds batted .370 in 2002 with 46 homers, 198 walks and 47 strikeouts. Judge slowly brings down his K total year by year, but he’ll still probably whiff 150 times this season.
Nobody is going to bat .400 in the foreseeable future, mostly, imo, because of defensive postiioning and starting pitchers throwing fewer innings.
I don’t think we can say his shot at .400 is all that legitimate after only 25 games. It’s fantastically unlikely.
Many, many players in reasonably recent have been closer than this.
Judge’s BAbip is currently .500.
IMO, any of the top hitters probably has a non-zero chance of hitting .400 for a season, but it’s extremely unlikely, and even more unlikely now than it was a few decades ago.
It’s been 23 years since anyone has even hit .370 (Barry Bonds, .370, 2002), and 31 years since anyone’s hit .390 (Tony Gwynn, .394, 1994).
As noted, baseball is a different game, strategically, than it was a few decades ago, and hitting, overall, is more difficult. The league-wide batting average has been hovering in the mid-.240s for the past five years, the institution of the pitch clock and the banning of the defensive shift did nothing to increase batting averages, which, overall, continue to be about 20 points lower than they were in the '90s and 2000s.
Boone-o-matic strikes again. “We have a one run lead in 9th inning… it says here he is the closer… must bring in closer for the ninth… I don’t care if he has sucked donkey dick so far this year… must bring in closer… must bring in closer…”
Williams needs a trip to Scranton to get his act together.
It was only the 26th game of the season. Boone is likely under direct order to use Williams as the closer until further notice. But blowing another lead against a team that normally couldn’t hit the earlth falling out of an airplane might be the trigger.