Call me in August and I'll watch for a .400 season. All it takes is a 0-for-4 games in July and August and a hitter cannot recover. The brutality of math.
So I am wondering, perhaps someone here knows. Although the losing streak has gone longer now, the A's won 7 straight, followed immediately by losing 7 straight. Is this the first time this has happened with a streak that long (or longer) followed by an immediate streak that long (or longer)?
It could go either way, the losing streak could be first, but I don't recall it ever happening before.
Also, the A's are right now on a pace to win about 40 games, and have had a 7 game winning streak. They are 12-58 (.179, or a 28 win pace over a full season) outside of that streak. Is this the worst team in modern history?
Good to see the shout-out to Molly Knight for her posting re Manfred. Fortunately she kept her mind, and didn’t lose it so much that she couldn’t give us observations like this: “…the disdain Manfred has for the unwashed masses when he added that he was too busy to watch the game himself because he was out to dinner with MLB owners.”
Why is Farhan Zaidi a genius, and not Gabe Kapler? If nothing else, Kapler seems more distinctive among managers than Zaidi is among GMs.
I enjoyed just thinking about that strikeout rate for Felix Bautista that was provided, but of course it is really 69 in 34.2 innings, not 24.2 innings. It's still perhaps this year's most interesting ratio, after Athletics and Royals wins to games played. Go on an 85-game win streak and win 104 games, A's!
I think part of the job being commissioner is you are the heel, like in wrestling. You take the heat for the owners. I think maybe what Manfred does poorly is he goes too far in doing that. He just needs to take the heat without pouring more gasoline on the fire.
I also wonder if he regrets his decision because he knows the Astros were cheating for longer than they or MLB has admitted.
We just need to be sure to call the new communication device the Astro com.
Originally, the Commissioner's role was to reign in the owners, and act in the best interests of the game. Some time after Kuhn, but certainly by Selig, the role switch to acting in the best interests of the owners.
I'm not mentioning this to pile on with the corrections, I just think it's interesting in light of some of the points made:
Similar to Helton, Nomar Garciaparra hit .394 through 76 team games in 2000 (playing in 61 of them and 140 overall). He peaked at .403 on July 20, but tapered off immediately afterward and, like Helton, finished at .372.
53 qualified players hit over .300 that year, as opposed to nine so far in 2023. It was a radically different hitting environment than what Arraez is working with. Nomar was, of course, famously allowed a more, uh, generous application of the rules regarding time taken between pitches.
As I recall, Ted Williams insisted, probably correctly, that he would have to improve his plate discipline to make a real run at .400. Nomar disagreed amiably and said something to the effect of "I'm up there to swing the bat."
I strongly endorse Manfred’s comments on punishing Astros players and hope a future commissioner uses the comments to retroactively tarnish all the Astros’ reputations.
Small typo to point out - Bautista has 69 Ks in 34 2/3rds innings. Still remarkable. There are only 74 outs in 24 2/3rds innings, which would have meant that out of 74 outs recorded, all but 5 would have come on strikeouts.
The Royals ranking is correct, but I would like to point out ONE good thing happening in KC. Austin Cox, their 5th round pick in 2018 who was always kind of a middling prospect and not really on anyone's radar since that was the draft where the Royals took a ton of highly thought of college pitchers ahead of him, finally made it to the big leagues a few weeks ago as a reliever and faced 39 batters before surrendering a hit, a new major league record. So the Royals do have that going for them, which is nice.
In NYC going to Just For Us tonight! Looking forward to it!
Barry Foote! Sat with him and his dad at a ball game last year. Baseball royalty in Smithfield, NC.
I've never had Skyline chili, so I can't say for certain ... but it looks terrible.
Call me in August and I'll watch for a .400 season. All it takes is a 0-for-4 games in July and August and a hitter cannot recover. The brutality of math.
Hitting .400?
Now that Albert Pujols has retired, there's no-one in the majors who has even had a .350 season. Arraez is...incredible.
Sweet Dave Parker reference.
Dude. The Cubs have won four straight series, and 10 of their last 12 games. they deserve to be at least two notches lower, maybe more.
So I am wondering, perhaps someone here knows. Although the losing streak has gone longer now, the A's won 7 straight, followed immediately by losing 7 straight. Is this the first time this has happened with a streak that long (or longer) followed by an immediate streak that long (or longer)?
It could go either way, the losing streak could be first, but I don't recall it ever happening before.
Also, the A's are right now on a pace to win about 40 games, and have had a 7 game winning streak. They are 12-58 (.179, or a 28 win pace over a full season) outside of that streak. Is this the worst team in modern history?
Good to see the shout-out to Molly Knight for her posting re Manfred. Fortunately she kept her mind, and didn’t lose it so much that she couldn’t give us observations like this: “…the disdain Manfred has for the unwashed masses when he added that he was too busy to watch the game himself because he was out to dinner with MLB owners.”
Why is Farhan Zaidi a genius, and not Gabe Kapler? If nothing else, Kapler seems more distinctive among managers than Zaidi is among GMs.
I enjoyed just thinking about that strikeout rate for Felix Bautista that was provided, but of course it is really 69 in 34.2 innings, not 24.2 innings. It's still perhaps this year's most interesting ratio, after Athletics and Royals wins to games played. Go on an 85-game win streak and win 104 games, A's!
I think part of the job being commissioner is you are the heel, like in wrestling. You take the heat for the owners. I think maybe what Manfred does poorly is he goes too far in doing that. He just needs to take the heat without pouring more gasoline on the fire.
I also wonder if he regrets his decision because he knows the Astros were cheating for longer than they or MLB has admitted.
We just need to be sure to call the new communication device the Astro com.
Originally, the Commissioner's role was to reign in the owners, and act in the best interests of the game. Some time after Kuhn, but certainly by Selig, the role switch to acting in the best interests of the owners.
I'm not mentioning this to pile on with the corrections, I just think it's interesting in light of some of the points made:
Similar to Helton, Nomar Garciaparra hit .394 through 76 team games in 2000 (playing in 61 of them and 140 overall). He peaked at .403 on July 20, but tapered off immediately afterward and, like Helton, finished at .372.
53 qualified players hit over .300 that year, as opposed to nine so far in 2023. It was a radically different hitting environment than what Arraez is working with. Nomar was, of course, famously allowed a more, uh, generous application of the rules regarding time taken between pitches.
As I recall, Ted Williams insisted, probably correctly, that he would have to improve his plate discipline to make a real run at .400. Nomar disagreed amiably and said something to the effect of "I'm up there to swing the bat."
I strongly endorse Manfred’s comments on punishing Astros players and hope a future commissioner uses the comments to retroactively tarnish all the Astros’ reputations.
Completely unrelated: Go Dodgers.
We just need to make sure to call the New walkie-talkie device, the Astro com. Like, forever.
Small typo to point out - Bautista has 69 Ks in 34 2/3rds innings. Still remarkable. There are only 74 outs in 24 2/3rds innings, which would have meant that out of 74 outs recorded, all but 5 would have come on strikeouts.
Love the rankings, but Bautista hasn’t struck out 69 in 24 2/3, that would be 69 of 74 outs, very Sydd Finch-like
The Royals ranking is correct, but I would like to point out ONE good thing happening in KC. Austin Cox, their 5th round pick in 2018 who was always kind of a middling prospect and not really on anyone's radar since that was the draft where the Royals took a ton of highly thought of college pitchers ahead of him, finally made it to the big leagues a few weeks ago as a reliever and faced 39 batters before surrendering a hit, a new major league record. So the Royals do have that going for them, which is nice.