Other Baseball

https://deadspin.com/report-rival-clubs-think-clevelands-trade-for-josh-don-1828940340 Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported the news. Rival teams are asking the commissioner for clarification on this trade. Donaldson was not healthy at the time of the trade, which would have taken him off of revokable trade waivers according to WRITTEN(!!) rules.

The St. Paul Saints evened the American Association Championship series, thanks to eight shutout innings by Eddie Medina in the 6-0 victory over the Kansas City T-Bones in Game 2. Read Recap.

The American Association Championship series got underway on Tuesday night, and Noah Perio, Jr. ruined the opener for St. Paul, homering twice to lead the Kansas City T-Bones to an 11-4 victory. Read Recap.

The St. Paul Saints begin the American Association Championship series against the Kansas City T-Bones starting on Tuesday night. Robert Pannier previews the series, providing analysis and his prediction on who should win. Read Feature.

The St. Paul Saints ended a seven year drought on Saturday night, advancing to the American Association Championship series for the first time since 2011. That came courtesy of Trevor Foss and three relievers, who blanked the Gary Southshore RailCats in the 1-0 victory. Read Recap.

The Gary Southshore RailCats kept their season alive, thanks to seven scoreless innings from Jeff McKenzie as the RailCats downed the St. Paul Saints, 5-0. The Saints still lead the series 2-1. Read Recap.

The St. Paul Saints moved to within one game of the American Association Championship series on Thursday night, thanks to seven outstanding innings from RHP Eddie Medina in the Saints 8-2 victory over the Gary Southshore RailCats. Read recap.

In honor of Rod Allen and Mario Impemba's fight, who would Dick have the best chance to defeat in a throw down?

This seems like a divisive topic for whatever reason. Baseball's "old guard" seems to dislike the idea of a player flipping their bat ten feet in the air and disrespects the pitcher. Meanwhile, you have pitchers like the Dodgers' Kanley Jansen who said after the game "You can do whatever you want to if you hit me out, I don’t care. You got me." (Then you have Yasiel Puig who went the other direction and overtly set the bat down after glancing at the pitcher.) Personally, I love it. I love it so hard. It's a great moment. Baseball is supposed to be fun and, to me, this is a way of expressing that. So, what do you think? Where do you stand on the idea of…

The St. Paul Saints got eight shutout innings from Chris Nunn and a first inning two-run homer by Burt Reynolds in a 4-0 victory Wednesday night. That gave ST. Paul a 1-0 series lead over the Gary Southshore RailCats. Read Recap.

After a rain delay delayed Game 1 of the first round of the American Association between the Gary Southshore RailCats and the St. Paul Saints, the series will get underway on Wednesday. Robert Pannier previews the series with a position-by-position breakdown and analysis.

It appears that the National League will have the better record in interleague play this season. Currently the NL has a 144-127 record with 29 games to go. If this holds up it will be only the fifth time in 22 seasons of interleague play and the first time since 2003 that this has happened.

Atlanta is calling up #5 overall pick from the 2017 draft Kyle Wright to help in the bullpen for the rest of the season.

SABR stalwart David W Smith relates the following nugget which might be interesting to the folks here: I did not do an exhaustive search, but I believe we had a first in Anaheim last night. In the bottom of the 5th inning, the Angels had the same situation on CONSECUTIVE plays and both were overturned. Summary: Bottom of the 5th, 0 outs, Rene Rivera on first after a single.Jefry Marte grounded to third baseman Alex Bregman, who threw to second baseman Jose Altuve to force Rivera and threw to first baseman Yuli Guriel. Marte was called out to complete the double play.The Angels challenged the call at first, which was overturned, leaving Marte on first.The next batter,…

If you haven't seen this yet, check it out. Ronald Acuna has been the hottest player in the game for the last week, hitting 8 home runs over the last 8 games, spanning from last Wednesday through this Tuesday. He'd hit a home run in 5 straight games and led off the game 3 straight games with a long ball. Enter noted head-hunter Jose Urena. Urena has a sub-7% walk rate this season, but he leads the league in hit batsmen. Urena threw the hardest first pitch he's thrown this season, registering at either 97 or 98 miles per hour, depending on which gun you trust. The pitch was not nibbling inside. It was sent directly for the middle of Acuna's back. He happened to drop hi…

Sorry I didn't wanna start a new thread, but I would like a general baseball thread, not just a forum. I wanted to post, watching MLB, that SF had signed Longoria AND McCutcheon. Missed that. Not thread worthy, but would like a low-impact thread to post such tidbits. Perhaps it exists already, but didn't see one in my initial look.

If a minor leaguer had a .400/.535/.916(1.451) slash line with 72 home runs and 224 RBI in 138 games, everyone would be begging for him to be called up immediately. Anyone know the story of Joe Bauman and why he didn't make it to the majors?? Baseball reference says he was playing C level baseball in 1954. Not sure what level that would correlate with today?

Burdi is on a rehab assignment with Pittsburgh. But he's been pitching since July 16th, and I believe pitchers get 30 days on assignment, meaning the Pirates are going to have to call him up by the end of the week. Here's to a continued push for a WC spot for the Pirates so as to make keeping a freshly TJ'd pitching with a history of control issues a tough ask of the team!

Wasn’t sure where to stick this, so I figured this can be a catch all for playoff talk for now. So, Cleveland, even without Trevor Bauer - who may be back for the playoffs - might have the best rotation in the AL. They have 4 of the 10 highest bWAR for pitchers. They have one of the league’s top offenses. And maybe the worst bullpen. Although, Hand has helped and Miller certainly will also. Here’s my thought provoking question: If you are Francona, would you consider using Bauer out of the pen (if he makes it back) in the playoffs? There is no way he can miss that much time and jump right into the rotation IMO. BUT, an inning or two at a time might be something he …

For those who like ERA, he has an ERA under 3.00. His FIP is 3.88, but the kicker is, half his games are played at Coors Field. Another example of how the supposed experts, and people in general, are so quick to minimize Rockies batters' numbers no matter how great because of the Coors effect, but then completely disregard the Rockies starters even though the Rockies pitchers have the disadvantage of pitching at Coors.

A place for baseball's many amusements that don't warrant a thread of their own. http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/ericchavezcodyeppleyballhead.gif

I thought of this out of the blue and I don't want to take the time to research it but here's the question: Beginning in 1901, which is considered to be the first year of the modern era of baseball, what is the shortest overlapping chain of players who played in the majors? By overlapping I mean players would have to play in the same year to be part of the chain. To illustrate what I mean, here's the hypothetical scenario. Say there was a player who played every year from 1901 through 1921, another who played 1921-1941, another who played 1941-1961, another who played 1961-1981, another who played 1981-2001, and another who played 2001-2018. That would be a chain of 6 pla…

From ESPN:

He made 70 million in contracts over the years. Damn. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/08/brandon-mccarthy-to-retire-at-seasons-end.html

https://deadspin.com/outfielder-carlos-gomez-takes-mound-pitches-exactly-li-1827946357 It went exactly as you would imagine it would.

Does anyone know if Tor is able to bring him up at any point this year without losing service time? Just curious if we have to wait until next year...

So, apparently Topps has made this (Aug. 11) "National Baseball Card Day," and one can stop in at one's favorite participating shop to pick up a free pack. Which got me thinking -- what are your favorite baseball cards and/or card memories? Here's three for me: 1. I was eight when my older brother went to college. I'd heard of baseball cards, but never had any of my own. When he came home for Christmas, he said he had "just happened" to pick up a pack, and would I like to have this Rod Carew. Uh, yeah. 2. I was hooked. And my friendship with Doug was cemented when we both accumulated enough cards to spread them out over the floor, make trades, and sort them by p…

Just came across this fun story on ESPN website. http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24329670/jayson-werth-rails-super-nerds-killing-game I will agree that some of the recent developments in baseball have made the game more boring, but I'm really tired of hearing players, analysts, etc say that these "nerds" don't know anything about baseball. It would be nice to see some credit thrown their way for helping their teams win more games. If games are too long or too boring, don't blame the nerds- blame MLB for not making changes that make the game less boring.

Fun little article with a nice mention of Mauer. https://www.mlb.com/news/who-can-reach-3000-hits/c-289546398 Also, it's been such a crap baseball season that I hadn't bothered to even notice what a big year Nick Markakis is having. I thought he was washed up.