The 2024 MLB Season Thread

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by quiet life

I am a Mets fan and I think Lebonte18 and 7express need to say no to drugs. Seriously, I am just hoping the Mets can be competitive this season. Play ball!

you are a strange man.. And you have our pity.

hate to pull back the curtain, but.. Around here, seems it can be necessary when people can't figure out that you're joking to just say.. All in good fun here. The opening day in good fun jabs sent from supporters of one team to another..

You know.. Opening Day. The day the Mets are officially eliminated from the playoffs.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by case44

it's high time we make some 2024 season predictions:

Here's how i believe the teams will finish the year. Might see a few surprises along the way.

And away we go:

american league

east
1. Baltimore
2. New york yankees*
3. Toronto
4. Tampa bay
5. Boston

central
1. Minnesota
2. Detroit*
3. Cleveland
4. Kansas city
5. Chicago white sox

west
1. Houston
2. Seattle*
3. Texas
4. Los angeles angels
5. Oakland



national league

east
1. Atlanta
2. Philadelphia*
3. New york mets
4. Miami
5. Washington

central
1. St louis
2. Chicago cubs
3. Cincinnati
4. Milwaukee
5. Pittsburgh

west
1. Arizona
2. Los angeles dodgers*
3. San francisco*
4. San diego
5. Colorado

*denotes wild card entry

all-star game winner: National

alcs: Houston-baltimore
nlcs: Arizona-atlanta

al pennant: Houston
nl pennant: Arizona

world champion: houston

and there you are.

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[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by stevem85

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[case44]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Opening Day!

I have a necktie with a baseball scene that I used to wear to the office on Opening Day. . . .

You should have had a picture of that to share with us....

Originally Posted by SteveM85

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While it's disappointing from my perspective, we'll give your Yankees credit for this series. Juan Soto is proving to be a very good pickup, and he made the most of it to start off the year. Let's also remember that there are 158 more games to play. Let's see how your guys respond to Baltimore and Toronto as your division title has to go through those two places. It's early. Oh, and the Pittsburgh Pirates are also 4-0.

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

One writer at the NY Times thinks the O's will win the World Series this year, per this article.

Such predictions aren't worth the paper they're printed on but it is fun reading. The O's do have the best record so far in Spring Training, but we've seen that happen before then fade in the regular season.

I doubt that these guys will fade. Baltimore's been rebuilt from the ground up very similar to what Houston went through a decade ago. They've got guys who want to win (They've got studs), so we'll find out how they get through September now that they've learned last year how to play through a long season. If there's one team that's certainly due, then it'd be the Orioles.

[SteveM85]

Originally Posted by case44

While it's disappointing from my perspective, we'll give your Yankees credit for this series. Juan Soto is proving to be a very good pickup, and he made the most of it to start off the year. Let's also remember that there are 158 more games to play. Let's see how your guys respond to Baltimore and Toronto as your division title has to go through those two places. It's early. Oh, and the Pittsburgh Pirates are also 4-0.

Oh I'm fully expecting the injuries to take hold at some point. Rizzo and Stanton are always on borrowed time, but I love how Minute Maid is now the Yank's Field of Dreams. 7-0 last 7 games there.

[quiet life]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

you are a strange man.. And you have our pity.

hate to pull back the curtain, but.. Around here, seems it can be necessary when people can't figure out that you're joking to just say.. All in good fun here. The opening day in good fun jabs sent from supporters of one team to another..

You know.. Opening Day. The day the Mets are officially eliminated from the playoffs.

Reality has kicked in. Jesus! It supposed to rain in NY for the next 3 days so that's a reprieve. Maybe they'll get the first game in against the Tigers on Monday but the next 2 days should be postponed rain. That'll give the Mets time to recalibrate.

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by quiet life

Reality has kicked in. Jesus! It supposed to rain in NY for the next 3 days so that's a reprieve. Maybe they'll get the first game in against the Tigers on Monday but the next 2 days should be postponed rain. That'll give the Mets time to recalibrate.

Eh.. Phillies at 1-2 after a 3 game series against the Braves.

Bad Nola showed up, the second game was over before it started.. But they wasted a fine performance by Wheeler in the first game.

Ranger Suarez is an unsung hero of that rotation.. And they hardly give him a quality start in the playoffs.



Bullpen issues.. Still around. Better than in the past, but.. Still there.

[case44]

We now have the first no-hitter in the major leagues this year, and it's at Minute Maid Park in Houston. The Astros' Ronel Blanco threw a no-hitter, allowing only two walks in the game. Astros win 10-0, and that also gives Joe Espada his first full victory as a big-league manager.

Seventeenth no-no in Houston history.

[Mike from back east]

Yes, and his no-hitter is also the earliest occurrence of a no-hitter in any given season.

[Mike from back east]

Fun topic today in the WaPo about the use of AI in baseball. Link here, it's a paywall site.

Excerpts:

Once you declare something the best, there’s not much more that needs to be said. So I’ll keep my praise for Michael Lewis’s 2003 “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” brief. It’s the best nonfiction book I’ve ever read, and on the short list of the most impactful. Until “Moneyball” revealed how Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane used statistical analysis to beat richer, dumber opponents, baseball was the realm of witch doctors. A’s first baseman Scott Hatteberg told Lewis that his previous team, the Boston Red Sox, brought in motivational speakers to awaken their hitters’ mystical sides. One delivered a lecture on the virtues of the thymus gland. “You were supposed to bang your chest before you hit,” Hatteberg said, “to release all this untapped energy and aggression.”

As a new season begins, the victory of stats over the thymus gland is so complete that there are few analytical mountains left to climb. Every team in every major sport employs mathematicians and engineers to find a strategic edge that keeps shrinking because of all the other mathematicians and engineers doing the exact same thing. ... Some teams have better data science and player performance models than others, but “Moneyball” demonstrated the insanity of competing against probability with intuition. It bounced all the schmucks out of the casino.

Seems that baseball (and the NFL too) are using stats to try and gain an edge. The article talks about using an "Edgertronic" camera which shoots thousands of frames per second to slow down and see just how the mechanics of a pitchers grip affects ball movement or how the bat strikes the ball, etc. Fascinating stuff, well worth the $11/month I spend on this paper. Mentioned in the article are Kyle Boddy, Trever Bauer and a software called Driveline that gets smarter when more data is added to it.

Relative to baseball I feel a need to say what Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz: "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore." The Wizard behind the screen has been replaced by AI, and this time we need to pay close attention to what the Wizard tells us.

Accordingly:

The Tampa Bay Rays put a uniformed analytics coach in the dugout.

The future has arrived, at a baseball park near you.