If you think things are awkward with Steven Wright, consider that Miguel Sano is playing for the Twins right now...
I actually got a laugh out of Shaughnessy's latest column. It's about baseball in the age of the millenials. He mentions that the Red Sox employ
no fewer than four club mental skills coordinators and Dr. Richard Ginsburg, who is the PhD director of the club’s behavioral health program.
I asked Hall of Famer Jim Palmer if the Orioles provided him with a mental skills coach back in the 1970s.
“If we had one of those, the guy would have spent more time with Earl Weaver than he would have spent with us,’’ said Palmer.
“Motivational speeches? Here’s one. Earl would run out to the mound in the middle of an inning and say, ‘Hey, are you fucking* trying?’ ’’
*It says [expletive] here in the actual article, of course.
Damn millenials: https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.asp...385&position=P
Jerry Moses has recently passed away. RIP Jerry - I remember him very well back in the day.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
With Carlos Beltran retiring after last season, Adrian Beltre and Bartolo Colon are the last remaining active players who debuted in the 1990s. How's that for making you feel old? Makes me feel positively ancient.
Not even domes are safe in this kind of epically shitty weather. The Jays had to postpone tonight's game because ice was falling from the roof in the Rogers Centre.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
Bautista signs a minor league contract with the Braves. How the mighty have fallen.
No-hitters are one of the most overrated events in sports - with one qualifier. Multiple no-hit games are impressive. Nolan Ryan had 7 of them, Koufax had 4. That's impressive.
But one-off no-hitters don't mean much.
Philip Humber pitched one of the 23 perfect games in MLB history back in 2012, in his second start of the season. Nice. Unfortunately in his next start he gave up 9 runs in 5 innings. He went on to finish the season with a 6.44 ERA. In 2013 he went 0-8 with a 7.90 ERA and that was it for him.
The history of no-hitters by Red Sox pitchers says a lot:
Clemens never had one.
Pedro never had one.
But Hideo Nomo had one.
In 1992 Matt Young almost had one, throwing an 8-inning complete game giving up no hits, but 7 walks and a run and losing 1-0.
(As hardcore Sox fans know, Derek Lowe, Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester each had one, and Varitek caught them all, plus the one by Nomo.)
I'm just having fun with this, OK...
One of the all-time classic no-hitters was the one tossed by Edwin Jackson for Arizona in 2010.
Jackson gave up 8 walks in the game and had to throw 149 pitches. There was plenty of talk that maybe they shouldn't have let him throw so many pitches in spite of having a no-hitter going.
Concerns about the number of pitches proved to be justified. In his next 5 starts, Jackson went 1-4 with a 7.24 ERA.
Then Arizona traded him to the White Sox at the July 31 deadline.