2026 MLB Season

Don Wassall said:
Griffin was demoted all the way to the eight spot in the batting order today. He's played all of three major league games, this can't be good for his confidence. . . does anyone have patience anymore?
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At least he's still in the starting lineup. Sometimes batting at the back of the order is a good thing to take some pressure off. A good example is Royals CF Kyle Isbel. He's a tremendous defensive player but was struggling at the plate. The Royals moved him to the 8th-9th spot last year and he became one of the most reliable hitters for the team. Made it so that the back of the order was still dangerous.
 
FootballDad said:
At least he's still in the starting lineup. Sometimes batting at the back of the order is a good thing to take some pressure off. A good example is Royals CF Kyle Isbel. He's a tremendous defensive player but was struggling at the plate. The Royals moved him to the 8th-9th spot last year and he became one of the most reliable hitters for the team. Made it so that the back of the order was still dangerous.
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You probably nailed it; reason he was likely moved back is to take the pressure off him. Mets young, top prospect Carson Benge is also batting at the bottom of the order, after a torrid spring training. He's currently batting about .100 and could be demoted to AAA if it doesn't turn around. Benge's issue is he hit a deep HR in his first game and is probably swinging for the fences every at bat. Not good, for an average sized player! I'd assume Griffin will have similar pressure on him, if his average continues to drop. Hopefully he turns it around soon, as I'd like to see the Bucs do well.

By the way, the Dodgers are currently batting .299 as a team. The other 29 teams combine are batting .232 thus far. Since, about the 2nd half of the 2015 season**, batting anywhere close to .300 has become very rare, even for the best MLB players. It's basically 3 outcomes: Walk, Strikeout or HR. As even small players swing for the fence -- around that time, Scotter Gennett hit 4 HR's in a game. When he came up with Milwaukee, 4 HR's in a month would've been a pleasant surprise.

**Early 2015 there was a lot of grumbling (probably from ESPN and Fox (((execs))) that there was not enough offense in baseball. Come 2nd half of that season, balls started to fly out of parks with much greater frequency: 2015 mlb juiced balls - Google Search
 
24 year old second baseman Colt Keith hitting .364 to start the season. Here’s an excerpt from some fantasy geek…

Keith is another player I covered in that article this week on hitters who have changed their stance or approach. The 24-year-old has had the second-biggest jump in bat speed, up 2.8 mph from 70.7 mph to 73.5 mph. Keith has also made some changes to his batting stance, closing his stance off by eight degrees. He has also improved his Ideal Angle Attack Rate significantly, which might be why Keith has seen his line drive rate improve by almost 3%, and his hard-hit rate is up from 43.7% to 56.5%. I don’t love that he sits versus lefties and can also be removed mid-game when a lefty comes in, but this is a former top prospect who is playing nearly every day and hitting the ball well. I think that’s worth buying into.
 
Mason Miller pushes scoreless streak to 28 2/3 innings

Miller extended his overall scoreless streak to 28 2/3 innings, dating back to last August. It’s the longest active streak in baseball and five shy of Cla Meredith’s franchise record. Only Meredith (33 2/3) and Randy Jones (30) have posted longer scoreless streaks as Padres.
Beyond that, Miller is striking out just about everyone he faces. This season 24 hitters have come to the plate. He’s punched out 19 of them. That 79.2% strikeout rate is the highest by a pitcher in his first seven appearances of a season since at least 1900.
 
This fast-rising prospect just homered farther than any Tiger in the Statcast Era
2024 first-rounder Rainer clubs 477-foot moonshot at 116.2 mph off the bat
Rainer's roundtripper, his first of the year, was truly historic. Since the start of the Statcast era (in 2015), it's both the longest measured homer by a Tigers Major or Minor Leaguer (surpassing Colt Keith's 473-footer for Triple-A Toledo on June 30, 2023) and the hardest hit (surpassing Chris Meyers' 115.7 mph for Lakeland on April 8, 2022).
 
Trout leads the league in BB with 14 and has a nice OBP of .385 but has a lousy .184 BA. He's always been streaky, and the fact that he's still producing even when he's not hitting is impressive. He's at +0.6 WAR so far this year. Not bad at all. Playing CF this year instead of all the years stuck at DH is really helping his WAR.

1-3 with 2 BB and 2 RBI yesterday.
 
knightedsoldier5000 said:
Trout leads the league in BB with 14 and has a nice OBP of .385 but has a lousy .184 BA. He's always been streaky, and the fact that he's still producing even when he's not hitting is impressive. He's at +0.6 WAR so far this year. Not bad at all. Playing CF this year instead of all the years stuck at DH is really helping his WAR.

1-3 with 2 BB and 2 RBI yesterday.
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Trout 2-2 with 2 R, 1 2B, 1 RBI so far today
 
The Pirates (10-6) are hitting much better so far this season and Paul Skenes is finally getting some support. He's 3-1 despite having a less than sparkling 4.00 ERA. The Buccos put up 16 runs against Washington last night and the Nationals ended up using outfielder Joey Wiemer to finish the game. He was throwing 35 mph blooper pitches, pretty funny to see.
 
knightedsoldier5000 said:
Trout had 2 HR yesterday and so far today he's 1-3 with another HR. Leads league in R.
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I'm happy be he is out his rut. He has had so many batting slumps the last 4 or 5 years. He needs to get back to being more consistant. Well he is on fire for now so that will help the stats look alot better aside from the walks. Thanks for the update brother.
 
Shortstop Kevin McGonigle is off to a great start in his first season at age 21. He is hitting .311 and leading the Tigers with a .908 OPS and a 1.1 WAR.

Also, at just 17 games into the season, he just signed an 8-year, $180m extension.
 
White Lightning said:
I'm happy be he is out his rut. He has had so many batting slumps the last 4 or 5 years. He needs to get back to being more consistant. Well he is on fire for now so that will help the stats look alot better aside from the walks. Thanks for the update brother.
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Trout another HR tonight against the Yankees. Six already this season. 410 career. 500 easily reachable if he stays healthy. 2/4 2 RBI, HR, R tonight.
 
Freethinker said:
Glad you are getting to enjoys a competitive Bucs teams for once.

I’ve been especially impressed with their all White rotation, which is missing Jared Jones who is another very good young player. Ashcraft and Mlodzinski have been under the radar and excellent so far.

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My interest in baseball has been rekindled after a long hibernation away from it. Having Skenes and Konnor Griffin on the Pirates and what looks to be a possible playoff team has helped.

It's still quite difficult to find time to watch much, however. Playing fantasy baseball, which I did for several years, would help me keep track of the players much more efficiently. Lots of people think "fantasy" automatically means childish but it's a great way to stay on top of things. That's a main reason why I play fantasy football; knowing virtually all the players in the NFL on both offense and defense helps a lot in tracking the Caste System.
 
Don Wassall said:
My interest in baseball has been rekindled after a long hibernation away from it. Having Skenes and Konnor Griffin on the Pirates and what looks to be a possible playoff team has helped.

It's still quite difficult to find time to watch much, however. Playing fantasy baseball, which I did for several years, would help me keep track of the players much more efficiently. Lots of people think "fantasy" automatically means childish but it's a great way to stay on top of things. That's a main reason why I play fantasy football; knowing virtually all the players in the NFL on both offense and defense helps a lot in tracking the Caste System.
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So... you're saying there is chance for the Bucs? :)
 
NolanCromwell said:
So... you're saying there is chance for the Bucs? :)
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Haha, would be nice to see. They were a dominant franchise in the 1970s and again in the early '90s but they've had long stretches of bottom feeding during their 140 year history. When the 1960 team upset the mighty Yankees in the World Series, the town went crazy as there had been nothing to celebrate sports-wise since the Pirates won the pennant in 1927 (and lost to the Yankees). The Steelers were even more hapless, not making the playoffs for their first 40 seasons.

Pittsburgh became the "City of Champions" for a while with the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins all being very successful, but yeah it would be great to see the Pirates and their relatively White friendly team be a genuine contender again after 34 years of deliberate mismanagement by Bob Nutting.
 
Don Wassall said:
Haha, would be nice to see. They were a dominant franchise in the 1970s and again in the early '90s but they've had long stretches of bottom feeding during their 140 year history. When the 1960 team upset the mighty Yankees in the World Series, the town went crazy as there had been nothing to celebrate sports-wise since the Pirates won the pennant in 1927 (and lost to the Yankees). The Steelers were even more hapless, not making the playoffs for their first 40 seasons.

Pittsburgh became the "City of Champions" for a while with the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins all being very successful, but yeah it would be great to see the Pirates and their relatively White friendly team be a genuine contender again after 34 years of deliberate mismanagement by Bob Nutting.
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Andy Van Slyke was one of my favorite players in the 90's.
 
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