Yankees never got in trouble for sign stealing but karma pays its debts and I look forward to the return of average spin, 4 ERA Pittsburgh Pirate Garrett Cole pitching for them for 7.5 more years at $36mm
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Sports MLB 2021
- Thread starter biggie
- Start date
Yankees never got in trouble for sign stealing but karma pays its debts and I look forward to the return of average spin, 4 ERA Pittsburgh Pirate Garrett Cole pitching for them for 7.5 more years at $36mm
For anyone in the fantasy leagues, we now have a discord server for all of smogon's fantasy sports here:
https://discord.gg/bt7tYM55
Feel free to stop by and talk about your league there, if you want!
https://discord.gg/bt7tYM55
Feel free to stop by and talk about your league there, if you want!
i'm trying to reserve judgement on this stuff until we have a better idea of who's using it and who isn't, but christ you'd think he'd have some sort of answer prepared for a question like this lmao
The people at Cespedes Family BBQ did a 2021 All Star Snubs team and I figured it would be a cool thing to put together my own since I tried going to bed early and the ol' brain-o was like nah.
C - Omar Narvaez (Brewers) - I don't get how people legitimately think that Yasmani Grandal should be an All Star. You cannot be an All Star if you are hitting 200 points below Jacob DeGrom. The guy who I do think legitimately got snubbed is Omar Narvaez of the Brewers. I admittingly was close to hopping off the Brew Crew bandwagon at the beginning of the season because I thought their season was hopelessly destined for a .500 season, but holy moly was I an idiot. I was right that their offense could not hit for dick, as literally no one is preforming for the Brewers AT ALL besides Avisail Garcia ('member when he boned Prince Fielder's wife?) and Omar Narvaez. Narvaez has has SUCH a sneaky offensive season this year that he is actually unowned in our super competitive keeper league here on Smogon. Feel like an All Stat Selection was deserved as he has spent a substantial amount of time as the Brewers 2 and 4 hitter this season and has better numbers than JT Realmuto to this point of the season.
1B - Yuli Gurriel (Astros) - Covered in the article, and not someone I would consider to be a "true snub" as Vlad, Olson, and Walsh have all had better seasons. I really wanted to go over to the NL and find a snub there, as they only have Freeman and Muncy listed as 1B, but everyone else in the senior circuit has been garbage.
2B - Jonathan Schoop (Tigers) - Listen. Whit is the 100% correct snub here but it's lame if I just copy the article when I have some legitimate takes. The Tigers representative to the All Star game was Gregory Soto, who has been great, but lost the closers role for no reason other than they do not want him to get more money in arbitration? Or whatever reason. I have literally no idea why Michael Fulmer is closing other than to "trick" people into wanting to trade for him at the deadline? I do know that big Schoop has been blasting the ball. Schoop hit like absolute squirrel shit during April, slashing .198/.230/.284 in baseballs first month. Since, all he has done is slash .313/.364/.559. I was also SHOCKED to see that Ice Cream Schoop is only 29 years old because I would have guessed he was like 34. Not an actual snub, but he probably deserves the nod over Soto. And I like him more.
SS - Tim Anderson (White Sox) - There are so many SS who were selected to the ASG that picking a snub here is kind of stupid, but Anderson I think would be my pick of the SS who did not make the cut. Anderson is having a pretty typical season for him and has somehow never made an All Star team before. To be honest I laughed when the article mentioned JP Crawford as a snub after looking at his stats, but he's been one of the best defensive players this season. Defense is for nerds though, so give me Anderson.
3B - Justin Turner (Dodgers) - Turner should have been the favorite to start the ASG for the NL this year over Arenado because again, defense if for geeks. Turner is consistently one of the best 3B in baseball year in and year out since he joined the Dodgers in 2014 and has only made it to one ASG. I think he is just overlooked in LA, but that should not have stopped him from being included in the game.
OF - Hunter Renfroe (Red Sox) - None of these OF are real snubs. Since May 1st, Renfroe has had a sash of .281/.339/.467 with 8 HR and 31 RBI. Oops, wrong Red Sox outfielder. That's actually Juilo Daniel Martinez numbers, who made the All Star Game. Renfroe has had a much better production than Martinez this season since May 1st slashing .298/.349/.530 with 11 HR and 36 RBI. The difference in their season is that Renfroe started the year in an OF platoon with Franchy Cordero and hit like absolute dog water for the entire month of April before emerging as the main Red Sox RF. White defense may be for nerds, Renfroe has been ELECTRIC in the field and has a total of 11 outfield assists and no one in baseball is even close to that number. Like... every series it seems some idiot tries to run on Renfroe and he just laser beams them every time. Outfield assists are cool as heck, unlike Vorp-Zorp Zone Efficiency Rating+ or whatever.
OF - Starling Marte (Marlins) - Was covered in the article, and I don't really have much to add. He was one of the better OF'ers to be excluded.
OF - Byron Buxton (Twins) - This is again is not something I see as being a snub, but one of those things where I was looking around baseball and just did not have another better player to fill this spot with. Thought about Randy Arozarena as kind of a nod to last post season, but he has just been solidly okay. Buxton has been fantastic but has been hurt for a huge chunk of the season. There's been so much hype on Buxton for so long that it's hard for me to even say that he has finally "lived up" to his top prospect status. I need to see more than just one hot month to declare someone an All Star, but at the same time it was an absolutely incredible month and the potential that he figured things out finally is there.
SP - Max Scherzer
SP - Freddy Peralta
SP - Taijuan Walker
SP - Framber Valdez
SP - Tyler Glasnow
Going to combine the starters into one group. The first three pitchers here were talked about in the article and all are absolutely having All Star seasons. Tyler Glasnow didn't make it because of injury, but he still deserves an All Star selection. The name that almost no one is arguing for as being snubbed is Framber Valdez. He has made 7 starts and has been stunning in those 7 games. I understand it is a small sample, but if he made it in over some of the AL starters it wouldn't be a travesty.
RP - Emanuel Clase
RP - Josh Taylor
RP - Brad Hand
Emanuel Clase is a genuine snub who should be in over Chapman. Chapman has been bad this year statistically, and while he is a "name" he is also loses the benefit of the doubt with me because he is a scumbag. Clase has been very good and deserves the nod. Josh Taylor for the Red Sox has also been the best reliever in baseball this season. Taylor was dealing with COVID at the beginning of the season and his numbers started off being poop because of it. He has not given up an earned run in 26 straight relief appearances dating back to April 30th and has been used in high leverage sports. To round it out, Brad Hand is just me being lazy and finding a good closer who didn't get selected and calling it a day.
C - Omar Narvaez (Brewers) - I don't get how people legitimately think that Yasmani Grandal should be an All Star. You cannot be an All Star if you are hitting 200 points below Jacob DeGrom. The guy who I do think legitimately got snubbed is Omar Narvaez of the Brewers. I admittingly was close to hopping off the Brew Crew bandwagon at the beginning of the season because I thought their season was hopelessly destined for a .500 season, but holy moly was I an idiot. I was right that their offense could not hit for dick, as literally no one is preforming for the Brewers AT ALL besides Avisail Garcia ('member when he boned Prince Fielder's wife?) and Omar Narvaez. Narvaez has has SUCH a sneaky offensive season this year that he is actually unowned in our super competitive keeper league here on Smogon. Feel like an All Stat Selection was deserved as he has spent a substantial amount of time as the Brewers 2 and 4 hitter this season and has better numbers than JT Realmuto to this point of the season.
1B - Yuli Gurriel (Astros) - Covered in the article, and not someone I would consider to be a "true snub" as Vlad, Olson, and Walsh have all had better seasons. I really wanted to go over to the NL and find a snub there, as they only have Freeman and Muncy listed as 1B, but everyone else in the senior circuit has been garbage.
2B - Jonathan Schoop (Tigers) - Listen. Whit is the 100% correct snub here but it's lame if I just copy the article when I have some legitimate takes. The Tigers representative to the All Star game was Gregory Soto, who has been great, but lost the closers role for no reason other than they do not want him to get more money in arbitration? Or whatever reason. I have literally no idea why Michael Fulmer is closing other than to "trick" people into wanting to trade for him at the deadline? I do know that big Schoop has been blasting the ball. Schoop hit like absolute squirrel shit during April, slashing .198/.230/.284 in baseballs first month. Since, all he has done is slash .313/.364/.559. I was also SHOCKED to see that Ice Cream Schoop is only 29 years old because I would have guessed he was like 34. Not an actual snub, but he probably deserves the nod over Soto. And I like him more.
SS - Tim Anderson (White Sox) - There are so many SS who were selected to the ASG that picking a snub here is kind of stupid, but Anderson I think would be my pick of the SS who did not make the cut. Anderson is having a pretty typical season for him and has somehow never made an All Star team before. To be honest I laughed when the article mentioned JP Crawford as a snub after looking at his stats, but he's been one of the best defensive players this season. Defense is for nerds though, so give me Anderson.
3B - Justin Turner (Dodgers) - Turner should have been the favorite to start the ASG for the NL this year over Arenado because again, defense if for geeks. Turner is consistently one of the best 3B in baseball year in and year out since he joined the Dodgers in 2014 and has only made it to one ASG. I think he is just overlooked in LA, but that should not have stopped him from being included in the game.
OF - Hunter Renfroe (Red Sox) - None of these OF are real snubs. Since May 1st, Renfroe has had a sash of .281/.339/.467 with 8 HR and 31 RBI. Oops, wrong Red Sox outfielder. That's actually Juilo Daniel Martinez numbers, who made the All Star Game. Renfroe has had a much better production than Martinez this season since May 1st slashing .298/.349/.530 with 11 HR and 36 RBI. The difference in their season is that Renfroe started the year in an OF platoon with Franchy Cordero and hit like absolute dog water for the entire month of April before emerging as the main Red Sox RF. White defense may be for nerds, Renfroe has been ELECTRIC in the field and has a total of 11 outfield assists and no one in baseball is even close to that number. Like... every series it seems some idiot tries to run on Renfroe and he just laser beams them every time. Outfield assists are cool as heck, unlike Vorp-Zorp Zone Efficiency Rating+ or whatever.
OF - Starling Marte (Marlins) - Was covered in the article, and I don't really have much to add. He was one of the better OF'ers to be excluded.
OF - Byron Buxton (Twins) - This is again is not something I see as being a snub, but one of those things where I was looking around baseball and just did not have another better player to fill this spot with. Thought about Randy Arozarena as kind of a nod to last post season, but he has just been solidly okay. Buxton has been fantastic but has been hurt for a huge chunk of the season. There's been so much hype on Buxton for so long that it's hard for me to even say that he has finally "lived up" to his top prospect status. I need to see more than just one hot month to declare someone an All Star, but at the same time it was an absolutely incredible month and the potential that he figured things out finally is there.
SP - Max Scherzer
SP - Freddy Peralta
SP - Taijuan Walker
SP - Framber Valdez
SP - Tyler Glasnow
Going to combine the starters into one group. The first three pitchers here were talked about in the article and all are absolutely having All Star seasons. Tyler Glasnow didn't make it because of injury, but he still deserves an All Star selection. The name that almost no one is arguing for as being snubbed is Framber Valdez. He has made 7 starts and has been stunning in those 7 games. I understand it is a small sample, but if he made it in over some of the AL starters it wouldn't be a travesty.
RP - Emanuel Clase
RP - Josh Taylor
RP - Brad Hand
Emanuel Clase is a genuine snub who should be in over Chapman. Chapman has been bad this year statistically, and while he is a "name" he is also loses the benefit of the doubt with me because he is a scumbag. Clase has been very good and deserves the nod. Josh Taylor for the Red Sox has also been the best reliever in baseball this season. Taylor was dealing with COVID at the beginning of the season and his numbers started off being poop because of it. He has not given up an earned run in 26 straight relief appearances dating back to April 30th and has been used in high leverage sports. To round it out, Brad Hand is just me being lazy and finding a good closer who didn't get selected and calling it a day.
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Rangers baseball is fun for the first time in like, a decade.
We probably won't make the playoffs next year, but at least we'll be watchable again.
Lockout looking inevitable friends:(
Super curious to see where the rest of the fellas end up.
Thoughts so far:
AL west too competitive for the Rangers to do anything. Their 3 best players are all middle infielders and IKF is the best one defensively by a wide margin.
Angels buffed their pitching up but Loup (read relivers) tend to be unreliable. Thor is also a huge question mark, the breaking stuff probably isn't there and his 2 innings were nothing to write home about.
Tigers were a super pleasant surprise last year and the central is really anybody's game. I don't see the Sox as an actual contender atm, does depend how Robert and Eloy pan out, they are one big signing away from being really solid and as good as Gravemenn is, I've already made myself clear on where I stand on relivers. Back to DT, Javy is a great pickup and torkelson is coming in a few years, hopefully they can string something together down the line.
Buxton might benefit more from sabermetrics than any player in MLB history. He would've been viewed as a bust in like any other era, his contract isn't super expensive tho and I like him a lot.
Paxton to the sox could work.
Mets are killing it so far but theyre gonna find a way to fuck it up. Hopefully universal DH will be instituted and Dom smith can play w alonso while having a defensively sound OF, losing conforto sucks. Sherzer and Degrom shud be historically great.
Kluber prolly gna see a career resurgence in tampa cuz why not. Wander contract is cool,
Super curious to see where the rest of the fellas end up.
Thoughts so far:
AL west too competitive for the Rangers to do anything. Their 3 best players are all middle infielders and IKF is the best one defensively by a wide margin.
Angels buffed their pitching up but Loup (read relivers) tend to be unreliable. Thor is also a huge question mark, the breaking stuff probably isn't there and his 2 innings were nothing to write home about.
Tigers were a super pleasant surprise last year and the central is really anybody's game. I don't see the Sox as an actual contender atm, does depend how Robert and Eloy pan out, they are one big signing away from being really solid and as good as Gravemenn is, I've already made myself clear on where I stand on relivers. Back to DT, Javy is a great pickup and torkelson is coming in a few years, hopefully they can string something together down the line.
Buxton might benefit more from sabermetrics than any player in MLB history. He would've been viewed as a bust in like any other era, his contract isn't super expensive tho and I like him a lot.
Paxton to the sox could work.
Mets are killing it so far but theyre gonna find a way to fuck it up. Hopefully universal DH will be instituted and Dom smith can play w alonso while having a defensively sound OF, losing conforto sucks. Sherzer and Degrom shud be historically great.
Kluber prolly gna see a career resurgence in tampa cuz why not. Wander contract is cool,
man i just wanna resign freeman this dumb fucking team lol
it's really hard to overstate how absurd it is that ortiz can get in the hall first ballot but barry bonds can't get in at all. even if you try to argue that bonds isn't getting votes because of the domestic violence stuff (which i could kind of sympathize with), that doesn't explain why arod, who as far as i'm aware has no such history, can have basically the same career wrc+ as ortiz while being a good defender for most of his career and not get in. not that the hall doesn't have a history with people getting in or not getting in for less than legitimate reasons, but to see the voters just playing favorites to such an absurd degree in current year under the guise of it only being about steroids is really disheartening.
on a much brighter note, thank god the stupid sister city montreal garbage is finally dead good riddance
on a much brighter note, thank god the stupid sister city montreal garbage is finally dead good riddance
You should look up the story of Alex Rodriguez going to his cousin's house and pissing all over his carpet and belongs to prove the point to him that he is Alex Rodriguez and he can do whatever he wants. One of my personal favorite absurd baseball stories.
David Ortiz is the most important and impactful player to ever play his position in the history of the sport of baseball. That makes him a first ballot Hall of Famer in my book. I mentioned this on the discord, but saying that a DH didn't play defense so they were impactful to their club is like saying that an elite closer is not valuable to their club because they don't go 7 innings. The DH exists. It's a position. And the best to ever play deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling all failing to get into the Hall of Fame on their final year does sour me to the meaning of the Hall of Fame. There is at least a baseball reason to not vote for Bonds and Clemens. I absolutely would vote for both of them if I had the shot understanding baseball history and it's history with substances. At the very least though I see the baseball related argument to holding them out of the Hall.
The worst thing to me continues to be what happened to Curt Schilling. Him not getting in just exposes what absolute detritus the entire system of the hall of fame voting is. Dude has every statistical measurement you could ever want in a Hall of Fame pitcher except for win total, which at this point is rightfully disregarded as an important statistic. He has the best postseason pitching pedigree in baseball history. Yet he is being kept out of the Hall of Fame because voters only because people disagree with him politically and want to punish him for that fact. If you do not think Curt Schilling deserves to be in the Hall you're just an asshole and there's really no arguing otherwise.
David Ortiz is the most important and impactful player to ever play his position in the history of the sport of baseball. That makes him a first ballot Hall of Famer in my book. I mentioned this on the discord, but saying that a DH didn't play defense so they were impactful to their club is like saying that an elite closer is not valuable to their club because they don't go 7 innings. The DH exists. It's a position. And the best to ever play deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling all failing to get into the Hall of Fame on their final year does sour me to the meaning of the Hall of Fame. There is at least a baseball reason to not vote for Bonds and Clemens. I absolutely would vote for both of them if I had the shot understanding baseball history and it's history with substances. At the very least though I see the baseball related argument to holding them out of the Hall.
The worst thing to me continues to be what happened to Curt Schilling. Him not getting in just exposes what absolute detritus the entire system of the hall of fame voting is. Dude has every statistical measurement you could ever want in a Hall of Fame pitcher except for win total, which at this point is rightfully disregarded as an important statistic. He has the best postseason pitching pedigree in baseball history. Yet he is being kept out of the Hall of Fame because voters only because people disagree with him politically and want to punish him for that fact. If you do not think Curt Schilling deserves to be in the Hall you're just an asshole and there's really no arguing otherwise.
you don't have to convince me that arod is a terrible person, i already hate him lol. i was just using him as an example of why i think it's so absurd that ortiz can get in ahead of a bunch of much more valuable players that aren't getting in for a reason that also applies to him. i'm not losing sleep over the steroid users as a group not getting in, but it should either be all of them or none of them, none of this "we can excuse it for some of them but not the others because we like these guys but these other guys suck" that got ortiz in, deserving or not.
this also leads into the point that the fact that these guys are being kept out of the hall while the commissioner who enabled all of it is in it is absurdly hypocritical, but that's a different topic i guess
this also leads into the point that the fact that these guys are being kept out of the hall while the commissioner who enabled all of it is in it is absurdly hypocritical, but that's a different topic i guess
David Ortiz is not a steroid user though. No one ever has these facts straight. He was never suspended for steroids. He was not on the Mitchell Report, the Biogenesis List, or any of the other PED busts. No one from the Red Sox, Twins, or Mariners organizations has ever come out and accused him of doing it. When you listen to them, they actually say that he was one of the most "randomly selected" participants for drug tests out of anyone they ever played with. And he never failed one.
The ONLY time his name was ever connected to steroids was when he was named in a 2009 New York Times story that's about as credible as twitter allegations are today. The story is a joke when you read back through it. The point of the story was that people in New York had a conspiracy theory that because Senator George Mitchell of the Mitchell Report was from Maine, he covered up the names of players from the Red Sox and targeted the New York markets to damage the Yankees. To prove that, this anonymous source claimed to leak the names of an investigation conducted in 2003 that looked to determine if the MLB had a PED problem. Just to keep the timeline straight, the MLB Joint Drug Testing policy was created in 2006. When the 2009 NYT story was leaked, most of the names dropped were players who were already known steroid users, such as Manny Ramirez who was already busted and serving his first PED suspension and Alex Rodriguez whose receipts of steroid use from former teammates, coaches, doctors, and family members were already swirling. The MLB came out and said that many of the names on that 2009 leaked list did not match up with the actual list.
There's nothing damnable there at all to connect David Ortiz with PEDs at all. If there was another sliver of evidence to mount a case against him, you could throw him into the steroid bunch. But none exists.
Even if you want to take the 2009 story on face value, and say Ortiz was taking a supplement in 2003 that was legal at the time to take but later banned in 2006, he never tested positive for anything ever again. Was never leaked to anything again. And he still has a Hall of Fame Career from 2004 until 2016.
David Ortiz is as much of a steroid user as Derek Jeter or Griffey or Frank Thomas or literally anyone else that played during the Steroid Era. Nothing ever has been said or documented that he did anything to violate the integrity of the game. Out of all the people that wanted to see him be taken down, whether that was Yankee fans or the people who tried to fucking assassinate him in cold blood... nothing has ever been found on this man to do with him cheating.
Also if you're in the camp of "2003 is when David Ortiz became a superstar and he was nothing before" you really know nothing of David's career. The dude when he was a teenager in Mariners camp destroyed prime Griffey and mvp caliber ARod in a home run derby. When he went to the Twins, they gave him irregular at bats and he was still mashing home runs and hitting .280ish in a platoon/bench role.
Dude always had crazy power, hitting talent, and was a top prospect. The Twins just wanted to play Doug Meintkeivicz over him and didn't want to pay Ortiz what he would have made in Arbitration and that's why they're a joke organization who haven't won a single playoff GAME since 2004.
Dude always had crazy power, hitting talent, and was a top prospect. The Twins just wanted to play Doug Meintkeivicz over him and didn't want to pay Ortiz what he would have made in Arbitration and that's why they're a joke organization who haven't won a single playoff GAME since 2004.
This lockout has been bugging me out for a hot minute now. The needle is hardly moving and it’s been doing so at a snail’s pace. It seems inevitable the season will be cut short at this point if recent reports hold any weight and as a fan who already witnessed a 60 game season in 2020, that’s a shame. Also, fuck the owners
Very excited for the frenzy of free agency moves and signings right after this ends, but I hope they don’t compromise player safety with a rushed spring training and we end up with an onslaught of injured pitchers again
Very excited for the frenzy of free agency moves and signings right after this ends, but I hope they don’t compromise player safety with a rushed spring training and we end up with an onslaught of injured pitchers again
People forget that the Texas Rangers are a powerhouse in the AL West again.
baseball is back, lockout over
