24 MLB Season Thread

[TrueYankee26]

1 hour ago, Dynasty said:

Willie Mays died. That's another sports legend gone this year. 

Bad news for NY Baseball

 

Good news is Yankees win (and survive a huge Aaron Judge injury scare, x-rays negative, we DO NOT need him injured again after last year)

 

and Mets are still undefeated (7-0) since Grimace threw the first pitch last Wednesday. Yanks are WS champs material and Mets could steal a playoff spot

[FiddySicks]

:censored:.

 

[Sykotyk]

3 hours ago, Dynasty said:

Willie Mays died. That's another sports legend gone this year. 

 

 

[FrutigerAero]

I am lucky to have seen Willie Mays at a Giants game in person!  (as a retired athlete, I'm not that old haha!)

[BBTV]

The upsetting thing is that I bet there's a lot of fans under 30ish that don't know or care about Mays, since they care less about the history of the game as opposed to current players that they can follow on every social media platform, and that his incredible stats have been eclipsed or at least approached by more than a few players who either cheated or were scummy.

 

Growing up, where if we wanted to know about this history of the game, we had to actually check out books from the library, Mays was nearly an unbelievable figure to me.  I couldn't fathom watching a guy with that much ability in every facet of the game.

 

Also, 660 HRs (even with military service, which no current athletes would ever have to deal with) was an unbelievable figure considering only 3 players had ever eclipsed 600.  And he played in mostly non-bandbox parks!  The best power hitter of my generation was probably Mike Schmidt (who like most players pre mid-90s played in non-bandboxes) who hit an unbelievable (at the time) 548.  So 660 was something my brain simply couldn't comprehend - and he wasn't even known as just a power hitter!

 

I really hope younger fans appreciate what a great player he was - better than great - he's in the tippy-top tier.  Though he only won a single World Series, the mark he left on the game is undeniable, and while the record books don't reflect it, he's still #3 to me in all-time HRs (that's not a knock on Pujols at all, just accounting for the eras and circumstances in which they played.)

[dont care]

People are saying the MLB should make Willie Mays over the shoulder catch the new MLB logo. All I have to say about that is are we going to have this same tired argument every time an all-time great dies. Can’t logos just remain the way they are and people can be honored other ways rather than leagues changing their logo every other year when one of these legends inevitably dies.

[Sport]

Willie Mays gets my vote as the greatest baseball player ever.

[leopard88]

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

The upsetting thing is that I bet there's a lot of fans under 30ish that don't know or care about Mays.

 

I consider it a parenting victory that my 22 year old knows how good Mays was.

[FiddySicks]

I had a dog that died about 15 years ago (Willie. Named after Willie Mays, even) and in all of my distraught sadness and grief I said as my mom was hugging me that I was happy at least he could now play fetch with Willie Mays. She paused for a quick second and said, “Oh no, honey he’s still alive. But… it’s heaven, so, yeah I guess he could if he wanted to!” 
 

 

Ok so NOW he can play fetch with Willie Mays. 

RIP to one of the cornerstones of my childhood. My grand dad’s favorite player, and then my mom’s. My mom is the one that got me into baseball and is the reason I’m a Giants fan. She passed away suddenly about two years ago. 

 

 

I just feel so damn thankful for all the happiness this dude has brought me and my family over the years. Like, eternally grateful. 
 

 

RIP to the best ever. Go Giants.

[infrared41]

On 6/19/2024 at 8:58 AM, BBTV said:

Also, 660 HRs (even with military service, which no current athletes would ever have to deal with) was an unbelievable figure considering only 3 players had ever eclipsed 600.  And he played in mostly non-bandbox parks!  

 

If Mays hadn't had to play the bulk of his career at Candlestick, he would have been right there with Aaron chasing Babe Ruth. Hell, he might have gotten there first.

 

I don't know if Willie Mays was the greatest of all time or not. All I know is that I can't think of anyone better than him.

 

 

[Sec19Row53]

Odd watching a game without the strike zone on TV (Giants and Cards at Rickwood Field in Birmingham).

[BBTV]

18 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

Odd watching a game without the strike zone on TV (Giants and Cards at Rickwood Field in Birmingham).

 

Refreshing in a way.  If they don't go with robo-umps, then they should 100% remove the boxes from the broadcasts.  They don't have the technology to make them consistent across networks (I didn't even realize that the home and road broadcast of the same game could have different boxes and ball-placements), and they don't adjust them to each batter's personal zone, which can sometimes put the umps in a no-win situation.

[BBTV]

5 hours ago, infrared41 said:

I don't know if Willie Mays was the greatest of all time or not. All I know is that I can't think of anyone better than him.

 

It's hard to make a case for anyone to be above him.  I think that under different circumstances, the closest we've had would have been Barry Bonds had he not HGHd himself till his head was the size of a beach ball, and Ken Griffey Jr, had injuries not ravaged his career.

 

One reason I hold Mays in such high esteem is that besides playing in Candlestick, he played in an era where there were what - 20 MLB teams?  So relative to his era, he was playing against better competition*.  Now with 30 teams, guys are batting against pitchers who may have barely been AA or AAA back in Mays' days (granted, the influx of international talent may even that out).

 

I really think it's a shame we never got to see how good Bonds or Griffey could have been.  Outside of them, I really can't think of anyone 

 

 

[infrared41]

41 minutes ago, BBTV said:

One reason I hold Mays in such high esteem is that besides playing in Candlestick, he played in an era where there were what - 20 MLB teams?  So relative to his era, he was playing against better competition*. 

 

Yes and no. While there were less teams and no AAA level players taking up spots on too many MLB rosters, Mays also played a significant part of his career when MLB teams had unofficial quotas on how many black players could be on a roster, how many could be in a starting lineup, etc. For example, the Red Sox didn't have a black player on their roster until 1958. I'd argue that MLB wasn't fully integrated until the early 70s. None of that is to say that Willie Mays wasn't the best ever (in my book he was) or to detract from any of his accomplishments, but it does need to be noted.

[BBTV]

Why do people make a big deal about "winning the series" during the regular season?  Announcers are always like "well they dropped today's game, but won the series".  I get if it's a division or league game, you want to pick up at least a game over whoever you're playing, but if you go 1-2 against an interleague team or team you're not competing with, outside of wanting to win every game, does it matter any more/less than winning a lot of other games if there's sweeps involved?

 

It's not like you get a point if you go 2-1 in a three-game series.  If the Phillies go 1-2 against Seattle, but then sweep SF, why does it matter that they "lost the series" to Seattle if the end result is the same as if they won both series' 2-1?

[Blast_Brothers]

1 hour ago, BBTV said:

Why do people make a big deal about "winning the series" during the regular season?  Announcers are always like "well they dropped today's game, but won the series".  I get if it's a division or league game, you want to pick up at least a game over whoever you're playing, but if you go 1-2 against an interleague team or team you're not competing with, outside of wanting to win every game, does it matter any more/less than winning a lot of other games if there's sweeps involved?

 

It's not like you get a point if you go 2-1 in a three-game series.  If the Phillies go 1-2 against Seattle, but then sweep SF, why does it matter that they "lost the series" to Seattle if the end result is the same as if they won both series' 2-1?

 

I always assumed it had less to do with standings and more about the perception of relative team quality. "My team is better than your team because we just put up a winning record against you!"

 

My weird rule of thumb is that each game won in baseball is equivalent to one goal in a sport like soccer or hockey. So a sweep is like winning a match 3-0 or 4-0, and splitting a series is like a 2-2 draw. As a casual baseball fan, finding out that my team won any individual game doesn't feel like a meaningful result to me.

[gosioux76]

4 hours ago, BBTV said:

Why do people make a big deal about "winning the series" during the regular season?  Announcers are always like "well they dropped today's game, but won the series".  I get if it's a division or league game, you want to pick up at least a game over whoever you're playing, but if you go 1-2 against an interleague team or team you're not competing with, outside of wanting to win every game, does it matter any more/less than winning a lot of other games if there's sweeps involved?

 

It's not like you get a point if you go 2-1 in a three-game series.  If the Phillies go 1-2 against Seattle, but then sweep SF, why does it matter that they "lost the series" to Seattle if the end result is the same as if they won both series' 2-1?

 

I've always looked at is as storytelling mechanism. 

 

Baseball being the only North American sport to play games against the same team in bunches, broadcasters treat every new series as the start of a new chapter, with different characters and matchups to learn and scrutinize.  As a series starts, the announcers' narration then includes the story of Team A vs. Team B. The story's natural conclusion is to present the results in the context of a series win or loss. 

 

I also think it's sometimes easier for people to think of a long season in bunches, series by series, rather than a slog of 162 individual games making up the whole. 

 

[BBTV]

2 hours ago, Blast_Brothers said:

 

I always assumed it had less to do with standings and more about the perception of relative team quality. "My team is better than your team because we just put up a winning record against you!"

 

My weird rule of thumb is that each game won in baseball is equivalent to one goal in a sport like soccer or hockey. So a sweep is like winning a match 3-0 or 4-0, and splitting a series is like a 2-2 draw. As a casual baseball fan, finding out that my team won any individual game doesn't feel like a meaningful result to me.

 

Yeah since the most consumable way to think of baseball standings is "games above .500" (and that's how games-back is calculated), I guess the goal would be to pick up a game each series (or preferably 3) and I guess you could look at a series of series' as " +1, +3, -1, +1, 0, etc."  

 

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

 

I've always looked at is as storytelling mechanism. 

 

Baseball being the only North American sport to play games against the same team in bunches, broadcasters treat every new series as the start of a new chapter, with different characters and matchups to learn and scrutinize.  As a series starts, the announcers narration then includes the story of Team A vs. Team B. The story's natural conclusion is to present the results in the context of a series win or loss. 

 

I also think it's sometimes easier for people to think of a long season in bunches, series by series, rather than a slog of 162 individual games making up the whole. 

 

 

That makes sense too - the "story telling" vs the relative importance of each game.

[crashcarson15]

1 hour ago, gosioux76 said:

I also think it's sometimes easier for people to think of a long season in bunches, series by series, rather than a slog of 162 individual games making up the whole. 

 

Would also think this aligns some with how the teams themselves think about the season beyond just fans/journalists — it's baseball, you're not going to win them all, so I like the target of the goal being to just win every series. If the whole season was 3-game sets, winning every series 2-1 would put you at 108-54, which is obviously a very successful year. It's certainly how I think about following my team.

[crashcarson15]

On 6/16/2024 at 8:20 AM, BBTV said:

Also, the most idiotic point that any sports fan can make about any team in any sport is "they peaked too soon".  What the hell does that mean?  Should the coach have them coast and play .500 until the end?  I really don't get it.  You can "peak" in May, which allows you to get to October, and even your sub-peak level might be good enough to win it all - but just play and let the baseball gods sort it out.

I can kinda buy this narrative in true team sports, particularly one like college basketball — if a team "peaked too soon" in January let's say, it tells me that they had something they were doing really well that month, but after getting 6-8 conference games on tape, teams started figuring out how to counter it and they weren't able to figure out the right adjustment by March.

 

I don't really buy it as much in baseball, though, which is an individual sport at its core. There's definitely a team element and aspect to it — probably heavily mental? — but "peaking" in baseball is probably a variance thing as much of anything. Also, playoff baseball is so different than regular season baseball that I don't think it's really a fair take.