What’s going to happen in Toronto is Vladdy Jr will have a tremendous year, and then a team committed to investing money in winning will sign him. Or the Jays will trade him in July for a bunch of prospects who won’t work out. Their first baseman going forward will be a low ceiling talent like Will Wagner and they’ll brag about how they have “years of control” while he bats .265 with 14 home runs.
The team was utterly loaded three or four years ago and they have somehow taken what could have been a terrific window of contention, with lifetime superstars, and just blown it.
And still made metric boatloads of money. That’s part of the problem, there’s not enough reward for winning and nowhere near enough penalty for losing.
Newly acquired New York Met Nick Madrigal looks to be sidelined for the entire season after dislocating his non-throwing shoulder during a spring training game.
Nice to see the success he had with both the Cubs and the White Sox is continuing.
The first was Dick Allen in 1971 – sideburns & mustache. Reggie Jackson then followed suit. As a combat strategy, Charles O. Finley offered bonuses to all of the A’s players to wear facial hair so Jackson would switch back to being clean-shaven. I am not entirely sure I believe Charlie’s scheme: 1.) because it’s a terrible strategy, makes no sense whatsoever; 2.) it’s Charles O. Finley saying this.
I don’t get why Alex Verdugo has not received an offer from any team. He did have an off offensive year but he’s a plus outfielder. Someone has to have a spot he can fill.
Gallo was vocal about how the infield shift should be banned, since he didn’t know how to hit the other way. His batting average actually got worse after it was banned.
He’s a classic example of the fact that things that work in computer baseball sims don’t work in real life. Power and walks are great, and they’re more important that batting average or stealing bases in normal parameters. The problem is that in real life, there is a physical limit as to how dependent you can be on power and walks without being able to make contact regularly. Pitchers adjust and learn to exploit things. Your numbers can only be so unbalanced; the game IS played in physical reality. In a computer simulation you could have a guy who bats .075 but draws 300 walks a year, because you just set the probabilities to do that, but in reality you can’t.
If Joey Gallo’s hitting skills translate to equivalent pitching outcomes, we could expect him to log 200 strikeouts a year to go with a 6.88 ERA and a WHIP of 2.734.
It doesn’t feel quite right starting the Regular Season thread just yet, but it has started. Dodgers lead the the league, Cubs with the worst record in baseball this season.
After watching Gallo daily I can say without hesitation he sucks. He doesn’t hit nearly enough home runs to make up for the rest. No one going after Verdugo surprises me. Even with an off year last year he’s a .277 career hitter and a good defensive center fielder. Do all the teams have 3 outfielders better than him? I suppose he’s a little expensive for a 4th outfielder.
A lot of people think Shohei’s homer was interfered with and should have been ruled a double.
Note I don’t think any American ballparks have the fans capable of interfering like this anymore (usually because there is a 5’ foot ledge between the first row of seats and the in-play portion of the outfield fence, or something).
As a platoon lefty who indeed has pretty sizable splits, you’d think he’d be worth a roster spot. But platoons are mostly extinct in today’s game even with the new 26th man, even if back in the day Earl Weaver would have made him John Lowenstein 2.0.
Speaking as a Yankees fan, I’m glad Verdugo is gone. He played decent defense in Left but was a black-hole at the plate. He doesn’t strike out or walk a lot. His specialty seems to be the weak, roll-over grounder to the second. Mostly because Soto and Judge were constantly getting on, he came to bat with the fourth most runners on base in MLB (293) in 2024 and managed just 61 RBI. Verdugo might be one of those guys who peaked in their early 20s and were out of the game by their early 30s.
Good outfield defense doesn’t seem that important until you don’t have it anymore. Either Dominguez gets much better on defense or his bat has to make up the difference or else this year is going to be ugly. Instead of Verdugo they have Trent Grisham on the bench who is probably a bit better in the field but much worse than Verdugo at the plate. Trent hasn’t hit over 200 since 2021. All for a savings of $3million.
I’m perfectly happy giving Dominguez a shot this year, and I think he’ll be average on defense but but markedly better at the plate than Verdugo. There’s no optimism like spring training optimism, I know. If he’s not hitting, he’ll be at the bottom of the line-up or sent down. One of the problems last year was having dead-weight like Verdugo getting way too many at-bats in the middle of the line-up.
In other news, I saw a rather startling stat in The Athletic today: Home team winning percentage in extra innings 1901-2019: .523. From 2020 to 2024: .493. That’s 917 games, so not nothing as a sample. Death to the ghost runner!
I’m all for giving Dominguez a chance to prove himself. I just can’t forget that all optimism for him is because he did well over 8 games two seasons ago before he got hurt.
I watched him a number of times in AA playing centerfield and I never saw a problem with his defense. I don’t know why he’s having so much trouble in left.
The optimism is mainly based on the fact he’s beaten up every minor league he’s been in despite being way younger than the competition. He’s got legitimate All Star upside.
