drewski6

In most cases, yes. And btw , I lean yes on Saberhagen too. But Johans 5 year stretch might be the best ever 5 year stretch for a pitcher not in HOF. And someone has to have that, i get that. If Johan were to be in, there would be another guy who had the best 5 year stretch of all pitchers not in hall. But Johan had finished in top 5 cy young voting , 5 years running and was heading for a sixth when career ruining injuries started. Saberhagen had close to as many dominant years but they were spread out and he had the benefit of not getting so hurt so young. I understand the danger of scaling for health and luck. But I do think that sometimes , in rare cases, you have to contextualize it. If A dude came up at 22, and was the best pitcher until age 29 and died in a plane crash, he'd prob get in. In rare cases, I am willing to consider what a pitcher/player did over a span even if the longevity isnt there. And for some of those guys, I tend to think they are underrated. Only the ones who were dominant in that stretch but something happened outside of their control that zapped their career short. I would prefer an A++ player for 8 years than an A- player for 20 years. I would consider a guy like Johan underrated in my eyes but that doesnt mean I think hes a no doubt HOF'er. I just get more jazzed about peak upside/dominance than longevity. But not as much as I use to. I have recently started givng more props to the dudes who were very good for very long because thats just as hard to do as be completely dominant in a short window.

Love Greinke. Another guy who I feel gets underrated by the historians is Johan Santana. I understand his career was cut short by injury but man did he dominate in that window. I dont even think hes in MLB HOF.

Glavine is a good comp. Some differences (Glavine was a 2-seam primary vs 4-seam for Early) but both very fluid, lefty, good secondaries, lack of 100 mph, control, poise. Im not sure if Early can field like Glavine did but Im not sure they even teach pitchers to field these days.

Yes, the tone of that post was not 100% serious.

I think the only pitcher who I would comfortably say was clearly better than Kershaw is Maddux. I think that you can make very storng arguments for RJ, Pedro, Steve Carlton and Seaver. Maybe 1-2 others. I would rank Kershaw like top 10 all time, but back half. I think Kershaw was better than Nolan Ryan, Verlander, Doc Halladay, Glavine

I would give Walter Johnson a "too far back, disqualified" just because I just dont have the apatite to try to force a comparison between two pitchers from such different eras spread so far apart. And I would take Kershaw firmly over the rest. Gibson has a career 127 ERA+ and 3 top 5 cy young finishes and Kershaw has a career 154 ERA+ and like 7 top 5 cy young finishes. I would take Gibson firmly over Bob because even though I love my some heater from Van Meter, he was famous for being awesome yet incredibly wild and he was. I think he led the league in strikeouts and walks and HBP like 8 years in a row. I lean Gibson over Koufax but thats a lot because Koufax retired at 30 years old after 2 cy youngs in a row. Not sure why exactly (injury or jsut going out on top)

I find that at a team level, runs scored is very correlated to RBI's. Hmmmm HAHA I was trying to think of the ways of ways to score a run without an RBI with a budy recently. I know that if bases loaded no outs, and you hit into a double play with a run scored = no RBI I feel quite confident that if you are at bat and there is a wild pitch or passed ball resulting in a runner scoring = no rbi. I feel you would get it drawing a walk or even getting plunked with bases loaded. I feel like it can get a bit murky with errors and it would depend on the error. So if I hit a single with a slow runner on second, but there is an error on the play. Lets say I was going to be safe at first anyways (so its a hit) but the throw to first sails into the dugout (the error allows me to advance to second) and the runner scores and he probably still would have scored without the ball sailing into the dugout but its impossible to know for sure.......I assume it would give the hitter the benefit of the doubt RBI because its a hit. Maybe not though if the scoring runner was full stopped at third and then the throw to first sails into the dugout and the full stopped runner on third is granted home cuz ball out of play, maybe no RBI in that case? So maybe it becomes a judgement call in this rare example.

For my money, Kershaw is the best pitcher since RJ.

I think this closes the book on the great OBP vs SLG debate. Our OBP perspective, we are like 16....From a slg perspective we are 26th.....From an overall runs scoring perspective.....hey look, smack dab in the middle. Maybe there is something to this OPS thing.

Im not going to hold my breath. Seems like this dude has a lot to figure out.

I assure you, he was not pitching in major league games like they were AAA untethered to results. If he has an ERA of 2.1 vs 4.1 and hes in arbitration the difference is 1 mil vs 5 mil and he wasnt rich at the time.

When Crochet was the closer in CWS, he was the best one in MLB. So, Im not really understanding this argument about being free to throw what he needs to work on. Its not what happened. He was an awesome closer. The whole notion that there isnt pressure, I cant get behind. He now makes millions upon millions of dollars more than he would have , if he stunk. Whether or not Tolle gets called up to pitch in relief this year will likely depend on 2026 variables, not looking way far into the future. I actually think being in a ML pen is BETTER for Tolles development of secondaries than being in AAA. He'd be around major leaguers and major league coaches and could potentially pick something up. Like learn circle change or something FROM A MAJOR LEAGUER And if he wants to test out a new sweeper or change or curve, he can ask his teammates to pick up a bat. You dont have to be in AAA to learn new pitches or practice them. Personally, I wouldnt call him to pitch in relief yet. But Im not like dead set against it happening at some point. And I do not think it would like stint him or set his development back or anything like that. I think playing in games is overrated for development. You can work on your swing, pitching mechanics all that stuff outside of a game.

That escalated quickly.

To start the year, yes. I thought he would get less than 40% PA's.

I think you missed his point 2x. I think he was sarcastic when saying he was happy Masa was getting run and its a plan coming together. I also think he meant that Raf and Abreu will be benched one at a time, next 2 games, not bench both this game and next.

I meant more PT than I thought he would get entering the season, not compared to when we signed him in 2023 and thought we were getting a high impact stud.

I think that because of the improvements we've made at the plate, we can afford to give it some more time before we jettison one of our better bats on a team that is expected to struggle for offense, even though it has been a juggle to fit in all the OF'ers.

The rules on time travel are similar to the rules of sign stealing. You can do it, but not with the aid of technology. So like if you are superman or the flash and you can run/fly around the Earth backwards fast enough to spin the earth the other way or outrun the speed of light and go back in time that way.....You can do that and make trades with the advantage of knowing the future (or at least how the future played out in that former timeline). But you cant like scour the galaxy for quartz crystals and build a time machine to undo a bad trade. Gotta do it without the tech.

My only nitpick here is that I would argue that Masa's start has resulted in increased playing time. But I agree with the general premise here. That these offensive struggles are too pervasive to be fixed by a minor tweak. And guys are going to have to work themselves out of funks. And the thing that I would also like to point out is that guys have. Story, Duran are waking up to go with Abreu, Contreras. Guys like Durbin - not sure what we will ultimately get there and whether he'll keep the full time starting job all year, but Story and Duran swinging the stick better takes some pressure off Durbin. Just need more time to assess. Especially because the second week of the season has been better than the first week, so now we need 2 more weeks to figure out which of the first 2 weeks more accurately represented where we are.

Right, this is where the whole "we have too many good outfielders and not enough infielders" arguments fall short. There are more good hitting outfielders than infielders.

Fenway crowd is still disinterested in the sport being played, but its no longer a place to pick up hotties - A guy who has picked up hotties at Fenway

In 2006, you could get social media points by taking selfies at fenway. Look at me in my hat, dont I look so cute. Theres not much of that in 2026. Fenway park isnt the preferred backdrop of hotties taking selfies anymore. Hotties, these days, are trying to monetize their thirst trap photos and thats hard to do with trademarked brands in the background.

Its not 2006 and this isnt true.

It didnt warrant a serious response or defense. I didnt make Jordan Walker 6'6 , 260 lbs but it was always a huge part of the reason why he went so high in the draft. James Woods, Jordan Walker, Aaron Judge. Having a big body and a lot of muscles helps. Even the 6'5+ shortstops like Elly and Oneil (before they moved him). Size helps. Judge wouldnt be Judge if he was 6'1 , 190 and neither would Jordan Walker. Jordan is a giant of a man, bigger than 100% of NFL linebackers and now he is hitting HR after HR and his wrists are the size of my calves and his calves are the size of my house. And you cant talk about the guy fairly while glossing over that. The fact that he use to play infield now he plays outfield is not what defines him.

4 sets of 7 per day, until you can do 10, then 3 sets of 10 ......every day......2 months from now, you'll be rolling strikes and thanking me.