2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions

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mfreshm said:
The way the Braves rotation is pitching right now were sending all 5 pitchers to the All Star Game with Aaron Harang as the starter :hat

i think combined the Braves rotation has an era under 1.50 :eek
Click to expand...

Pitching staffing is putting in work... 2 of the games we put up duds on offense losing 1-0 :{ :{
 
Pineda out there on the mound w/ pine tar on his neck like its legal.


:lol

I don't get it, he doesn't even try to hide his actions..
 
the yankees thread usually moves pretty quickly during & after a game...


but during/after last nights game - thread slowed to a crawl


wonder why?
 
Who's next to 500 and 3,000?

Albert Pujols made history Tuesday night, becoming the 26th member of thr 500 Home Run Club. While it represents an impressive career achievement for the future Hall of Famer, any excitement around Pujols' 500th homer is a bit muted, given that it's a milestone eclipsed repeatedly in recent years.

And in the case of Pujols, it comes at a point in his career at which most of the coverage surrounding him has focused on his transformation from Albert Pujols, perennial MVP candidate, to Albert Pujols, ordinary first baseman. We should try and enjoy this one, however, as the decreased offense across the league is already having an impact on the offensive milestones we can expect to see over the next decade.

For Pujols, 500 was simply supposed to be a highlight on the way to challenging Ruth, Aaron and Bonds in that rareified air of legends with 700-plus HRs. His decline along with the decrease in offense throughout baseball has made this now a longshot candidacy. After the 2009 season, the ZiPS projection system had the mean expectation for the end of his career at 681 home runs. A year later, after the first season in what is now clearly a pitchers' era, that dropped to 673.

That number has continued to drop every season since, and was down to 626 before the start of the 2014 season. Pujols still has decent odds of hitting one more homer milestone at 600, but even with an excellent start to the 2014 season, it's highly unlikely that he'll see 700 on his future plaque. The lack of offensive milestones going forward won't just be limited to Pujols, however.

Here's a look at which current players have a chance at hitting some of baseball's most notable milestones.

500 home runs

The home run rate in baseball is now down nearly 15 percent from the 1999-2004 peak of 1.11 home runs per team per game. There's still an occasional 50-homer season, with Chris Davis and Jose Bautista both putting up such years in 2013 and 2011, respectively, but in the new reality, those types of figures are outliers. Go back a decade and the 10th-place home run hitters were around 40 a season; since 2010, Jay Bruce's 34 dingers is the most for a player finishing 10th in home runs.

From a career standpoint, we still haven't seen the full impact of the change of offense, simply because all of the active home run leaders had the majority of their careers before the 2010 season. As we enter the fifth season of lower offense, this is starting to be reflected in the projections, with ZiPS projecting only five active players (not including Alex Rodriguez or Pujols, both of whom have hit 500), to have a 50 percent shot at 500 (Miguel Cabrera, Adam Dunn, David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre and Prince Fielder). After the 2009 season, ZiPS projected 12 players to hit 500.

Looking at the younger generation, only two players, Giancarlo Stanton and Bruce, are a coin flip or better to even pass 400, a home run milestone that was once considered archaic but looks to become relevant in a game of baseball with fewer fly balls making it into the stands. Third place, Evan Longoria, currently projects to finish with a mere 367 HRs, a figure that would place him just 76th all time today.

While some players will no doubt beat their mean projections -- mean projections are just the middle mark of a wide array of expectations -- the record books look to breathe easier than they have in some time.

Best odds at 500 HR (current total)
Miguel Cabrera: 82 percent (366)
Adam Dunn: 57 percent (444)
Adrian Beltre: 53 percent (376)
David Ortiz: 51 percent (434)
Prince Fielder: 50 percent (287)

3,000 hits

ZiPS projects Cabrera to finish with more hits than any player currently active (3,449 projected) and Robinson Cano to pass the mark (3,039), but there is a lack of obvious candidates behind them. ZiPS now projects just three players under 30 to be more likely to pass 2,500 hits than not, including Andrew McCutchen, Starlin Castro and Mike Trout.

[+] EnlargeMiguel Cabrera
Jared Wickerham/Getty Images
Cabrera is a good bet to join the 500-homer, 3,000-hit club.
Players who come up early and get a good head start on the counting stats are some of the best contenders, but none of this generation's younger leaders through age 25 (Justin Upton, Ryan Zimmerman, Elvis Andrus and Delmon Young were all top 100 all-time through 25) look to be solid candidates at this point.
Best odds at 3,000 hits (current total)
Miguel Cabrera: 82 percent (2,008)
Alex Rodriguez: 77 percent (2,939)
Adrian Beltre: 63 percent (2,434)
Robinson Cano: 51 percent (1,669)
Albert Pujols: 47 percent (2,370)

600 doubles

For those looking for some offensive milestones, there's a silver lining when it comes to two-base hits. While threats to Earl Webb's single-season record of 67 doubles have remained almost non-existent, we still live in a era in which the double remains a large part of a team's offense, with the drop-off in the league doubles rate being less than half that of the home run drop-off.

Looking at the percentage of hits in baseball that are doubles, the top 15 seasons have all been since 1998, with 2014 currently ranking 10th. The result is that even with offense dropping off considerably overall, the prominent place of the two-base hit in today's offenses leaves future players with a milestone that they can realistically target.

This feat is rarer than you think, as just 14 players in history have hit 600 doubles. For context, Pujols is the 26th member of the 500-dinger club. Of the 14 who have hit 500 doubles, 11 of them are in the Hall of Fame, with Craig Biggio likely to join them soon and Pete Rose and Barry Bonds out of the Hall of Fame for other reasons that we won't go into here. That number projects to grow rapidly, with Pujols, Cabrera, Cano, Beltre and Ortiz all projected to finish with at least 600 doubles.

They're not the only players with a shot, either, with Jimmy Rollins, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, A-Rod, Matt Holliday, Dustin Pedroia and David Wright all being projected to pass 550.

Best odds at 600 doubles (current total)
Albert Pujols: 91 percent (529)
Miguel Cabrera: 86 percent (417)
Robinson Cano: 77 percent (378)
Adrian Beltre: 75 percent (498)
David Ortiz: 60 percent (523)

300 wins

The demise of the 300-win pitcher is one of the oldest predictions in baseball, broken more often than the prediction that this is the year you'll keep to your New Year's resolution.

No individual pitcher today is projected to have a better shot at passing 300 than falling short, but this has always been the case. While 300 wins has seemingly become the standard that the Baseball Writers' Association of America uses for a pitcher to have a good shot at the Hall, that mark was never all that common. In a 50-year period from 1910-1960, only four 300-game winners debuted. The last four 300-game winners all debuted in a four-year period from 1984-1988.

If he can get his ERA under control -- and ZiPS remains optimistic that he'll at least be acceptable -- CC Sabathia remains a great candidate simply because of the wins he has in the bag, 207 before his 34th birthday. His projected 280 wins doesn't necessitate him being a star, as ZiPS is getting him to 280 wins by pitching like Jeremy Guthrie (75-74, 4.52 ERA in 1,239 remaining innings).

Next in ZiPS' projection comes Justin Verlander at 260 and Clayton Kershaw at 246. While the next group, Felix Hernandez, Madison Bumgarner, Mark Buehrle, Cliff Lee and Jon Lester all end up between 230 and 240, the odds are that at least one of them will get north of 280 (ZiPS says 60 percent chance one of them does it), close enough to hang on for a final push.

Best odds at 300 wins (current total)
CC Sabathia: 40 percent (207)
Justin Verlander: 28 percent (139)
Clayton Kershaw: 22 percent (78)
Felix Hernandez: 18 percent (113)
Madison Bumgarner: 14 percent (51)

New collision rule is protecting catchers.

adjustments with the way that rules are being interpreted, including an affirmation of the new regulations attached to home plate collisions.

The catchers probably will be reminded of what they were told in spring training: If they don't possess the baseball and they are standing in front of home plate, then the run will score. This sort of dictum will lead to a lot of head-scratching and a recitation of the gray area and frustration for some players and managers.

But as one highly ranked team executive noted the other day, there is one thing we aren't seeing these days: Catchers getting hammered by baserunners.

We aren't seeing catchers curled up in a fetal position near home plate, knocked out or conscious but senseless, as a dazed baserunner looks over and trainers and managers run out of the dugouts. We aren't seeing catchers being helped off the field, a teammate under each arm. We aren't hearing about concussions in the way we have in recent seasons.

"Wasn't that the point of the rule change?" the executive asked, rhetorically.

The whole conversation mirrors what has taken place with National Football League wide receivers. Once that league ruled that defenders cannot hit defenseless receivers, safeties, cornerbacks and linebackers have complained and argued that they cannot do their jobs as they have in the past, and that the effort to protect receivers has gone too far.

But the number of injury-causing hits on receivers has seemed in decline. The alteration was about player safety, and almost certainly about the attached liability, particularly given the staggering information that has been developed about concussions in recent years. Jacksonville linebacker Russell Allen is only the latest player to describe the head injury he suffered, and the reasons he will never play football again.

Sometime today, you may see a play at the plate in which the runner appears to tiptoe uncertainly toward home plate, confused about what he can and cannot do to the catcher in his attempt to score. You might see the catcher step in the way of home plate inadvertently, causing an umpire to rule that a run counts. You may see players and coaches grimacing in frustration over how the play is called.

But remember this: The rule change is succeeding in preventing what Major League Baseball and the players' association no longer find acceptable -- catchers (and baserunners) being sent off for neuroimaging.

Around the league

• Albert Pujols had a special moment, becoming only the 26th player in MLB history to club his 500th homer.

• An Angels fan caught Pujols' milestone home run.

Pujols said it may have been the best swing he has taken this year, as Brian McNally writes. He called his shots, writes Jeff Fletcher.

• On the Tuesday podcast, Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times talked about how different Pujols has looked this year; Royals GM Dayton Moore discussed the decision to move Danny Duffy into the bullpen, and his take on all of the Tommy John surgeries that are occurring; and Jayson Stark wonders if baseball's culture drains the personality from its players, like Carlos Gomez.

• Gomez, of course, was suspended for his actions in the Brewers' brawl with the Pirates. The Brewers were not happy with the decisions made.

• Matt Harvey deleted his Twitter account. Anthony Rieber writes that it's time for Harvey to grow up.

• Thomas Boswell writes that teammates have noticed some stuff about Bryce Harper.

• Agents have received a document retention notice, stemming from the ongoing investigation of the Kendrys Morales/Stephen Drew column April 9. Wrote about the issue in Sunday's column.

• Cole Hamels is ready for his first start of the season.

• Another day, another collection of ridiculous pitching performances, from:

1. Johnny Cueto, who shut down the Pirates. He got 15 ground ball outs, his most in any game over the past six seasons. He was close to perfect, writes John Fay.

2. Masahiro Tanaka, who limited the Red Sox. His splitter proved baffling, writes Bob Klapisch. His 35 strikeouts through four starts are tied for third-most in history, behind Herb Score (40) and Stephen Strasburg (41).

3. Jose Fernandez and Alex Wood. From Elias Sports Bureau: The Braves and Marlins combined for 28 strikeouts and zero walks in Tuesday's game. This is the first time in the modern era (since 1900) that two teams combined for at least 28 strikeouts and zero walks in a game.

Fernandez couldn't find his breaking ball as he warmed up, as Manny Navarro writes -- but he found it.

From ESPN Stats & Information, how Fernandez won:
A. He threw 36 sliders, his second most in a game in his career; the Braves were 0-for-12 with 10 K's in at-bats ending in a slider.
B. Overall he threw just 48.6 percent fastballs, matching his fewest in any start in his career; the Braves were 0-for-15 with 11 K's against his off-speed pitches.
C. The Braves missed on 45.6 percent of their swings, the highest swing-and-miss percentage by Fernandez in a game in his career.

From ESPN Stats & Info, why Wood could have won:
A. He threw first-pitch strikes to 22 of 28 batters faced (78.6 percent), his highest rate in a start in his career.
B. He retired all six batters that he started with a 1-0 count, including three via strikeout.
C. He threw 47 of his 101 pitches (46.5 percent) on the outer third of the plate or further outside; the Marlins were 0-for-8 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending in a pitch to that location.

4. Adam Wainwright, who lowered his ERA to 1.46 before coming out after only 79 pitches because of a hyperextended knee. He told Derrick Goold he's fine.

5. David Price, who struck out 12 in firing a complete game against the Twins.

6. Collin McHugh of the Astros, who extended Seattle's losing streak. He is the first Astros pitcher with 12 strikeouts, no walks and no runs allowed in game since Randy Johnson against Pirates in 1998.

• The losing continues for the Diamondbacks, who are now 5-18 after dropping the second game of their series against the Cubs. From Nick Piecoro's story:
For the Diamondbacks, who are spending around $110 million this year, each night seems to represent a new low. They haven't just been losing. They've been getting destroyed. Of their 18 losses, only one has come by one run.

"Even teams that I've lost on, we've been competitive," veteran Eric Chavez said. "We haven't even been competitive this year. It's been tough. I've never seen anything like it."

The tiny visiting clubhouse at Wrigley Field was deathly quiet when reporters were allowed inside after the game. Players kept their heads down, eating their postgame meals, and when they did speak, they spoke in hushed tones.

Chavez said there was a different feel in the room, something he hadn't sensed before. He said it's getting harder to remain positive, to come to the park believing this would be the day things turn around.

"We've had so many meetings," he said. "Talk is really cheap at this point. We need some performances on the field. We've had probably more team meetings and people saying stuff more than I've ever been a part of, which is all great, but we need some guys to step up and have some big days and try to get it rolling in the right direction."

Piecoro wonders: Can the Diamondbacks really be this bad?

Moves, deals and decisions

1. The Padres are discussing possible trades of Nick Hundley.

2. J.D. Martinez has slugged his way into a Detroit lineup lacking in home run power.

3. Ron Gardenhire is not happy about losing an outfielder.

4. Lucas Harrell cleared waivers.

Dings and dents

1. Manny Machado is set to begin his rehab assignment.

2. Yet another pitcher has been diagnosed with a torn elbow ligament.

3. Wandy Rodriguez landed on the disabled list.

4. David Robertson is raring to go.

5. Tommy John surgery has been recommended for Ivan Nova, writes Anthony McCarron.

6. A top prospect rolled his ankle.

7. Chris Sale is confident he'll be back soon.

8. Mike Minor will make one more minor league start.

9. The Rangers got good news about Shin-Soo Choo's ankle.

Tuesday's games

1. Typical day for the Rangers: A win, and two injuries. Pedro Figueroa has an elbow issue, as Evan Grant writes.

2. The Mets were done in by a great catch. Here's Matt Holliday's grab.

3. Miguel Cabrera went into Tuesday's game with more strikeouts (15) than hits (13), but he had a great game.

4. The Orioles blew another lead.

5. The Blue Jays blew a game wide open, writes Ken Fidlin.

6. The Royals' offense broke out.

7. Franklin Morales had a strong outing.

8. Oakland had a problem closing out a win again.

9. The Dodgers gave it away, as Steve Dilbeck writes.

NL East

• One of the Marlins has been nicknamed Prime Time.

NL Central

• Ike Davis is savoring the opportunity to play regularly.

• Travis Sawchik writes about the progress of Neil Walker.

• So far, the Reds have had the worst bullpen in the majors.

• Mike Olt is making the case to remain as the Cubs' third baseman.

NL West

• Bruce Bochy is thinking about shaking up his lineup, and as Henry Schulman writes, Brandon Belt might be right in the middle of it.

• Hanley Ramirez remains in a hitting slump.

AL East

• Jacoby Ellsbury took down the Red Sox with some great play, writes Ken Davidoff. An AL player who isn't with the Red Sox or the Yankees: "The Red Sox miss him a lot."

• The Fenway Faithful gave him a Bronx cheer, writes Dan Shaughnessy.

• Jon Lester had a really bad day.

• Near the end of last season, the Red Sox relied more and more heavily on David Ross at catcher, to the degree that he took over completely in the postseason, because they preferred the defense. So far this season -- it's a small sample size -- the Red Sox have a 4.17 ERA when A.J. Pierzynski catches, and a 2.76 ERA when Ross catches. What does all that mean? It's not clear. But here are a couple of things to remember:

A. Ross is 37 years old and the Red Sox cannot rely on him indefinitely to be the sort of problem-solver he's become.

B. The organization loves the defense of Christian Vazquez, their No. 1 catcher in Triple-A. The Red Sox have a long ways to go with this season, says Lester.

AL Central

• The Tigers expect to find someone who can fill in for Jose Iglesias. From Lynn Henning's piece:

[Tigers GM David] Dombrowski believes he has it right, for now, with Romine and Worth. He is keeping an eye on Perez (Triple-A Toledo) and Suarez (Double-A Erie) with thoughts either might be ready later this season for duty in Detroit.

Without naming names, he is not -- for now -- interested in Stephen Drew, the expensive free agent who is unsigned and who would become even more expensive if he is signed before June 8, which could require forfeiture of this year's first-round draft pick.

"If you get a guy everyone's talking about," he said, referring to Drew, "you're paying an arm and a leg for a guy who's only going to be playing for a year."

Meaning, whoever signs Drew might well sign him only for 2014. And the Tigers have no such plans. For all the commotion at an enormously difficult position, Dombrowski believes the Tigers will survive 2014, and well beyond when Iglesias returns next spring, legs healed.


• Danny Salazar is struggling, and suggested he might be tipping his pitches.

AL West

• Maybe the Mariners' fate is intertwined with some bad mojo promos, writes John McGrath.

Lastly

• A can of worms opened: The Jays asked that the glove of Miguel Gonzalez be checked.

• There was a mistake on replay, and it was a little embarrassing. Leave it to Joe Maddon to put a capper on it. From Roger Mooney's story:
Still, Rays manager Joe Maddon was puzzled by the botched replay review.

"In theory, by reviewing that, there's two options: either he struck out or was walked," Maddon said. "There was no other option that the at-bat would continue."

The more Maddon talked about it after the game, the more confused he seemed by the umpires' decision.

"The guys just looked at the video and I'm thinking I must be seeing things or imagining things," Maddon said. "We just came off a day off. A couple of Guinnesses, I don't know? It might have messed me up."

• Two Florida lawmakers are trying to change the way ballplayers are escaping from Cuba, and tying it to ballpark construction. It's an interesting concept.

• The A's will not accept the offer of a 10-year lease.

And today will be better than yesterday.

MLB can fix a sticky situation.

BOSTON -- Michael Pineda ambled into the visitors clubhouse here at about 4:30 Wednesday wearing a polo shirt and jeans, white earplugs stuffed into each side of his head, and a smile on a face that was closer to the ceiling than any face in the room. The 6-foot-7 Pineda always seems cheerful, is always pleasant to talk to, to the degree that he reminds me of the main character in "The Story of Ferdinand."

Ferdinand is a massive bull, and given his immense power, everybody else wants Ferdinand to fight. But Ferdinand wants to lie under a tree and smell the flowers. His is a simple outlook in a complicated world.

A few hours later, after Pineda had been ejected, he had told his teammates that he was sorry, and when reporters filed into the small visitors clubhouse, Pineda was waiting for the inquisition. He towered over the horseshoe of reporters, his smile gone, and gave simple explanations for why he had smeared pine tar on the right side of his neck before going out to pitch the bottom of the second inning against the Red Sox. "It was cold," he said. "I didn’t want to hit anybody. I didn’t feel the ball, and I don’t want to hit anybody."

Throughout the first inning, you could see at field level how much Pineda was struggling to get a feel for the baseball, on a night when wind ripped through Fenway Park. Between pitches, he dabbed at the back of his neck for some perspiration, at his forehead. He tried to blow on his hand, at one point seemingly spitting on it.

"I don’t think anybody can feel the ball when the weather is like this," said Yankees catcher Brian McCann, who said he was struggling to control the ball while throwing it back to the pitcher.

After a long first inning in which Pineda allowed a couple of runs and was badly missing the target, he returned to the dugout apparently intent on finding a solution to a problem that a lot of pitchers -- OK, probably most pitchers -- have long ago solved. Just about everybody uses something, as some of the Yankees and Red Sox have said in private conversation over the past week, as if they were talking about drivers who go beyond the speed limit. But as Pineda went out to the mound for the second inning, he became the guy who zooms past a state trooper in the left lane at 80 mph.
[+] EnlargeGaylord Perry
AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy
Gaylord Perry had his neck checked more than once. He's also in the Hall of Fame.

He had a swipe of pine tar on the right side of his neck, and after Aaron Boone pointed it out on our broadcast -- immediately, as the inning began -- the phone of Yankees general manager Brian Cashman lit up as he sat in the stands by the visitors dugout, and Cashman got up to go to the clubhouse. Presumably, he was going to initiate the same sort of conversation that was had with Pineda April 10, after he started a game with pine tar apparent on his right hand.

But by the time Cashman got to the clubhouse, Red Sox Manager John Farrell was out of the Boston dugout asking the umpires to check Pineda for a foreign substance. Home plate umpire Gerry Davis reached for the spot on the side of Pineda's neck, felt it, and said, "That's pine tar."

And Pineda walked off the mound, facing a suspension.

Nobody in the Yankees clubhouse tried to pretend that Pineda hadn’t broken the rules, and nobody blamed the Red Sox; in fact, Cashman exonerated Farrell, saying that he would want his manager to do the exact same thing under the circumstances. The violation was so blatant, in full view of every fan watching on television, that the Red Sox really had no choice.

Girardi didn't sound like someone devoted to retaliation against the Red Sox. "If there's something really obvious, maybe you do it," he said. "I don’t know."

Said Cashman: "It's certainly failure on our organization as a whole that he took the field with that on his neck."

But in the big picture, the semantics seem increasingly ridiculous, and inevitably will be borne out by the ever-improving technology.

Since Major League Baseball has nothing else going on at the moment -- like, say, the implementation of a revolutionary replay system, or a dramatic shift in how umpires interpret the transfer of the ball from the glove to the bare hand, or issuing document retention memos -- here’s something for the good folks on Park Avenue to work on. It’s time for them to identify a substance they will approve for pitchers so that they can improve their grip on the baseball, something that can be for them what pine tar is to hitters.

Everybody knows that written Rule 8.02 is violated constantly, but that there are unwritten rules on how pitchers should violate it to avoid the sort of scrutiny and suspension that Pineda faces. After Pineda departed the game, you could see other pitchers basically doing the exact same thing he had done, only doing it more subtly than having a glop of stuff on their neck. You could see them quickly rubbing the back of the wrist of their gloved hands, which appeared shiny, perhaps from some clear substance.

As I wrote last week, in this world of high definition and zoom lenses, baseball pitchers are now monitored by viewers in the way that golfers are, where any wrong move can be spotted and reported on Twitter immediately. I will watch games and see pitchers dabbing at substances under the bill of their caps, on their forearms, under the hair on the back of their necks and wonder: Is somebody going to notice? Is somebody going to complain?

All the players see it, all the managers see it, everybody knows it goes on, and eventually, somebody will go one step further than the reluctant Farrell, for strategic advantage. And Major League Baseball will be left in a really awkward position.

Once an acceptable substance for pitchers is identified -- something that is tacky enough to help with the feel of the ball, but not so thick that it can be glopped onto the ball and affect its aerodynamics -- it could be placed on the forearm of the glove hand. It could be preapproved by the umpires, as a pitcher goes to warm up for the first time, in the same way that umpires have given the OK in the past for pitchers to blow on their hands on a cold day.

Elsewhere on Pineda

• Pineda’s incident could leave a scar on the season, writes Ian O’Connor. Pineda was foolish for breaking the rule a second time, writes Joel Sherman. The obvious violation forced the hand of the Red Sox, writes Ken Davidoff. The Yankees were embarrassed, writes Nick Cafardo.

• Joe Girardi, arbiter of television angles. Here's a simple solution: Players, coaches and managers could always move another few feet to get out of view of cameras that have fixed placements.

The controversy also obscured just how great John Lackey pitched for the Red Sox. From ESPN Stats & Information, how Lackey won:

1. 75.7 percent of his pitches were strikes, his highest rate in the past six seasons.
2. He threw 60.4 percent of his pitches in the strike zone, the second-highest rate in the past six seasons.
3. One batter reached a 3-ball count, tied for his fewest in any start in the past six seasons.
4. The Yankees went 4-for-20 with seven strikeouts in at-bats ending with a fastball, tied for second-most K's with a fastball in his past six seasons.

Notables

• Before the Diamondbacks' win over the Cubs Wednesday, manager Kirk Gibson and general manager Kevin Towers addressed their job security, as Nick Piecoro writes.

We had Nick on Wednesday’s podcast and he discussed the circumstances hovering over the Diamondbacks these days. Oh, yeah, and they just lost Mark Trumbo to a stress fracture.

Also on Wednesday’s podcast: Tim Kurkjian discussed superstitions in baseball and Albert Pujols, and the Marlins' Christian Yelich explained what it's like to be in the same hitting group as Giancarlo Stanton.

• Josh Johnson is out for the season. Which means that San Diego has lost 40 percent of its projected rotation to Tommy John surgery.

Dings and dents

1. Aroldis Chapman faced hitters.

2. The Cubs' best pitching prospect is going to see the team doctor.

3. Angel Pagan's knee is hurting.

4. Gio Gonzalez felt some shoulder tightness.

5. Ivan Nova will get a second opinion.

6. Shane Victorino is coming back.

7. Freddie Freeman is battling eye dryness.

8. Here are a couple of updates on Manny Machado and Dylan Bundy.

Moves, deals and decisions

• Neil Walker was moved into the No. 2 spot in the lineup.

AL Central

• The drop in Aaron Crow’s velocity doesn’t concern the Royals.

• Terry Francona says Danny Salazar isn’t tipping his pitches.

• A Twins hitter is crazy hot at the plate right now.

AL West

• Texas swept Oakland. Martin Perez continues to be outstanding.

From ESPN Stats & Info, how he won:

1. 77.1 percent of his pitches were fastballs, the highest rate of any start in his career.
2. Batters hit .130 (3-for-23) off the fastball, the second-lowest average Perez allowed in any start in his career.
3. 47.7 percent of his pitches were in the outer third or further of the strike zone, the third-highest rate in any start in his career.
4. Oakland hitters were 0-for-13 with a walk in at-bats ending with an away pitch.

• Ernesto Frieri had a really bad night.

NL Central

• The Cardinals' offense is completely stagnant.

• Bud Selig weighed in on the Cubs' revenue issue.

NL West

From ESPN Stats & Info: The last time Zack Greinke allowed more than two earned runs in a start was July 25, 2013. Here's a look at his numbers in his 17 games since then. Since July 30, Greinke is first in MLB in wins (11), fourth in ERA (1.82), third in WHIP (0.95), fifth in K/BB ratio (5.7) and third in chase percentage (33.9). Not too shabby.

Lastly

• There is sad news about a former big leaguer.

• Dodgers fans are really frustrated.

• Bret Saberhagen and Kevin Costner are set for a "Field of Dreams" party.

And today will be better than yesterday.
 
green rhino123 said:
the yankees thread usually moves pretty quickly during & after a game...


but during/after last nights game - thread slowed to a crawl


wonder why?
Click to expand...

700


We hold our own doe.
 
Tommy John on surgeries: 'Unreal'


Former major league pitcher Tommy John says it's "unreal" that so many pitchers need elbow surgery 40 years after he was the first to undergo the procedure that now bears his name.

"It's unreal," John told the Watertown Daily Times. "And it's crazy that they would pick 2014 to be an epidemic year, it seems like guys are going down right and left."

Bobby Parnell (Mets), Brandon Beachy (Braves), Kris Medlen (Braves), Patrick Corbin (Diamondbacks), Jarrod Parker (Athletics), Luke Hochevar (Royals) and Josh Johnson (Padres) are among the pitchers this season to have been sidelined with elbow-ligament injuries that require Tommy John surgery.

"Throwing pitches in the big leagues will not hurt your arm," John told the Daily Times. "It's what you did down the road when you were younger. ... In essence, the injury itself is a buildup of overuse. And not overuse as an adult, but overuse as a kid.

"What I would like to see these guys do, these surgeons and all, is ask all the guys who have had the surgery -- 'How much did you pitch as a kid and how often, and did you pitch year-round?' And nowadays, probably 70 to 80 percent of the pitchers today have been pitching 12 months a year since they were seven, eight or nine years old. And your arm is not made for that."

John, a left-hander who won 288 games playing for six teams over 26 seasons, moved to Watertown in northern New York this past December.

He attended the April 7 memorial service held at Dodger Stadium for Dr. Frank Jobe, who died in March. In 1974, Jobe operated on John's pitching arm, becoming the first to perform the elbow procedure that became known as Tommy John surgery. John pitched 15 more seasons.
 
Dude super concerned about the NYY thread lmao.

Pro- Do u have the top 25 under 25 available o.0?
 
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