bkzwhitestrican

Today's HR was super clutch and against a very good reliever too. Hope he keeps it up but I highly doubt it's anything more than a hot streak.

Sox would be in 3rd place in the Central or West. The East has come out very strong. In total their record is 36-19 (65.5% winning percent), and they're 11-2 against the Central (84.6% winning percent) and 9-2 against the West (81.8% winning percent). Of course Tampa is boosting that record quite a bit, but 4 of 5 teams are over .500 and Boston is only one game below .500

Gleyber isn't especially fast. I think he's been taking advantage of the pitch clock and getting a jump when the timer reaches 0. I'm sure pitchers will adjust by starting to throw over right as the timer hits 0.

Would you guys like to take Tyler Danish back as well? He'd fit right in.

I think it's set so that games won't count towards the matchup until 4/10. Not sure if settings can still be adjusted to make 4/3 the first week of matchups.

Boston feels like an 80 win team to me, but I've learned from history to never discount them until they're eliminated. Hopefully by the ASB!

I'm down. Will be at opening day Yanks game Thursday but should hopefully be back (and sobered) in time for a night draft

I did a bunch of brackets and in my final one picked Uconn to win as my "just for fun" bracket. It's now my only one with a shot.

And Sevy to start the season on the IL with a low grade lat strain. Accounting for setbacks in rehab he should be ready to pitch out of the bullpen by September

They sent Ohtani and Darvish (the two best Japanese pitchers in the MLB), Sasaki (21 year old phenom who throws 102, almost threw 2 consecutive perfect games last season, 2.02 ERA/0.79 WHIP/12.0 Ks per 9), and Yamamoto (24 year old ace who won 2021 NBP MVP, 1.95 career ERA). The US sent Lance Lynn (35 years old, 3.99 ERA last season, probably the 5th best US pitcher on his OWN team [behind Cease/Giolito/Clevinger/Kopech), Nick Martinez (32 years old, career 4.50 ERA, swingman who might not even win a rotation spot this season), Adam Wainwright (40 years old - actually ok having him on the roster for his leadership, but not as our #1 starter), and Merrill Kelly (34 years old, career 3.96 ERA, probably a #3 or 4 starter on most MLB teams that aren't the Dbacks). The difference in quality is evident, at least on the starting pitching side. The US sent their old dogs to play while Japan sent their top players who are in their prime. The equivalent for the US would've been sending a rotation along the lines of Burnes/Cole/Fried/Gallen. Hopefully next WBC our top starters will be more inclined to play.

I guess this is a no-go this season?

I know Japan didn't send their version of Nick Martinez (competing for #5 spot in SD rotation) or Merrill Kelly (34 year old declining player who is at best the #2 starter in a s***** Dbacks rotation) to start a game.

Pitching was solid enough to win the game despite trotting out Merrill Kelly and Kyle Freeland as our top 2 starters. The lineup fell short today though. 0-7 with RISP, felt like I was watching the Yankees play Houston again. Props to Japan though, they brought their stars to play and they showed up for them.

What are you talking about? Kyle Higashioka is the 3rd catcher on Team USA!

Yeah it's disappointing, but maybe next WBC pitchers will be more inclined to join since they got to see what they missed out on this year. I can see why some guys might skip it because they're injury prone or recovering (deGrom/Buehler/Bieber/Sale). Would be cool though if at least some of the top guys played (rotation of Burnes/Cole/Nola/Scherzer/Fried would be awesome to watch). Also would've loved to see Judge playing in it and introducing himself to an international audience.

That was a crazy good game

No GM is as consistent as Cashman

Rodon fitting in with the Yankees already.

Lol

If it was keepers you guys would be toast. I'd have Judge/Vlad/Alvarez/Alcantara/Manoah

Gotta be Bill Buckner

I am

I'd say it's more optimism than anything, at least in my case. On paper they're bringing back basically the same team as last year that at its best played like the #1 team in the league, and at its worst played like a mediocre team. Nobody knows how things will play out but the thought of our players staying healthy and playing up to their potential (like they did in the first half of last season) is exciting, and like all fan bases we're looking forward to the youngsters getting more playing time and hoping they live up to their prospect hype.

True but I'm lazy and I think ERA (over the course of a season) is a pretty good indicator for pitching performance. You can disagree with that if you want but then that's a whole separate conversation.

The point I'm trying to make isn't about who is healthier, but what can you reasonably expect from either pitcher if they were actually healthy. Severino pitched 102 innings last year with a 3.18 ERA. He's still only 28 years old. Sale will be 34 years old this year and his last sort of healthy year was 2019 when he pitched to a 4.40 ERA. Paxton is also 34 years old and his last sort of healthy year was 2019 when he pitched to a 3.82 ERA. If both were healthy this year should we expect them to pitch better than when they were 3 years younger? Maybe marginally since they should be "fresh" from not pitching for so long, but to say a healthy Sale/Paxton/Kluber is on par with a healthy Cole/Rodon/Severino seems a little delusional.