2019 MLB Season Thread [ARCHIVED] Baseball • Page 971

I think the Twins will play it closer to the Indians. I think the rest of the AL Central will still make it the worst division in baseball. The Royals will probably be the 2nd worst team in the league again.

 

The Royals will be bad. No Salvy Perez all year is gonna make it a long one for Royals fans.

 

Don’t sleep on Adalberto Mondesi. The Royals are geared up to steal a million bases and Mondesi will swipe a ton of them

Plus he’s a graduate from the Javy Baez school of swing big, never walk, so he’s inherently a fascinating player.

 

Is that Raul Mondesis son?

 

Yes! Had a really good year last year in half a season

 

Okay Yankees definitely have the best bullpen but this list is kinda wack after that

Baseball's Top 10 bullpens going into 2019

 

the Twins are making the playoffs

 

what a sweetie

his full speech

 

That press conference presentation, was he also inaugurated president of the team? Lol

 

Not sure if I can watch Josh Donaldson all season with that disgusting mullet.

 

should've been tbh

 

@Zoshchenko I upgraded to OOTP 20 and started a 1871 historical play. I am interested to hear how you play.

 

I am extremely boring. Literally all I do is hit sim to end of season or some other arbitrary point, then look at the stats, standings, accomplishments and see what happened. Sometimes I'll sim day by day during the postseason to see if anything cool happens or watch game 7 of the WS if there is one.

When I first got into OOTP a few years ago, I really liked playing GM and doing all of the wheeling and dealing. Now I just want to run simulations and look at stats. Who hit 3hrs in a game this year? Any no hitters, cycles? Noteworthy hitting streaks?

One thing I do, though, is go to the free agency portion and create random players. Sometimes I'll go into the editor and make one insanely fast/great defense but can't hit at all to see how they do, or some lights out closer. I really like doing that: creating random players from scratch and seeing how their careers pan out.

When doing a historical replay (I start from 1901), I erase all the stats/records because those pre-1900 dudes really fuck it all up. I love a nice clean slate to see how records change.

 

Well too bad he plays for the Angels

 

That's cool. I've played two seasons now managing every AB. With this run, I am just playing GM. I can't let go of the reins, yet.

 

Yeah, it was the first time in at least 5+ years that I spent a lot of time watching baseball games. I would catch one every now and again, or watch some World Series games, but only if I happened to see they were on at a specific moment. In a nutshell, it was one of the best things I did last year and one of the most positive things for my mental health I've done in years.

The main thing was I was looking for something to occupy my brain/time during the day after basketball had ended and was looking for a way to not be so constantly obsessed with checking in on the political world/news/updates and wanting to have something of a distraction. Baseball games, a lot of the time, start mid-day and give me a good 2-3 hour period of happiness right in the middle of my day, right when I want, or need, it most. Just having the sound on, the chatter, the sounds of the game. What started as a test to see if I could trick my brain into really getting into something that wasn't politics, ended up being something I truly loved and enjoyed becoming engulfed in.

I subscribed to a few blogs in my RSS reader and have a Baseball Twitter List (which includes a lot of people I believe you originally recommended to me) that I check frequently, and usually have up and streaming during a game. I haven't gotten into any podcasts though, since I already can't keep up on the ones I subscribe to.

Not really. I read a few basic tutorials and then would simply Google something anytime someone would say something I didn't recognize. If I heard a word on a broadcast, or saw one in a tweet, and was like, what is that? I'd just look it up. If it seemed interesting, I'd read more about it. If it wasn't, I'd just not worry about it and watch the games instead. Like, I remember thinking wRC+ is cool, but I don't really care that much in the grand scheme of things unless I'm looking specifically at comparing players, but when the game is on, it's not something I'm needing to look or or think about. I was more interesting in finding players who I liked to watch, and building relationships with them, to carry forward, especially those early on in their careers.

I'm excited to see the continued progression of some of the Yankee youth, specifically Gleyber, and see what kind of year Judge can have if healthy. The Yankee season in general is exciting to me. I'm also looking forward to Harper's first year in Philly and seeing what he's going to do and how he'll acclimate into a new team and what his numbers will look like. I'm always excited about Trout. I love the idea that he could be our Willie Mays and I love soaking all of that up. Ohtani. Seeing of Guerrero JR. will get a call up, seeing if Carter Kieboom gets a shot, and wondering what the big storylines will be this year. Could the Yankees and Red Sox both win over 100 games again? Will the Yankees break the HR record again? Things like that.

I'm excited to have the game on on a random Wednesday and hear the crack of the bat, look down and see the ball go over the fence, and just get a huge smile while doing a little fist pump while working on this website. Or laying on the couch relaxing with a game on and the iPad catching up on my reading. Things like that.

Haha, that's pretty cool. I was never that hardcore about it. I played little league, but when I was drafted to a league above my age, my parents didn't think it would be right for me yet, so they kept me in my age, and I hated that year playing with all these kids that weren't very good. My mom said the game was either I struck out the batter, or I caught the ball, or the other team hit an inside the park home run cause the other kids couldn't field or catch or do anything. I don't know how true that is, but I do remember not having very much fun playing that year. I never played again after that. I wish I would have, I have a lot of good memories of it. Loved playing Over the Line in college with friends. And I'd watch some games with my college roommate, but it was never the same obsession. I got more into soccer during those years (because our college team was pretty good), and my love was always basketball first. I think as time has gone on, that love for basketball is still there, but there's no more love for football, I care a little about the Portland soccer team, but not really, I don't feel the need to go out of my way to watch the games, and I really wanted something else to fill that spot. Baseball feels so perfectly suited for that.

That's interesting, I think to some degree it probably doesn't matter. Maybe it could be something else, I feel like I often get new things to obsess over for a while and then drop them, but at the same time there's something great about the history, about the lineage and legacy, and about what Baseball is, and to some degree represents, is definitely important. I don't think it's a coincidence that when it felt like the world was going to hell, and everything about America was depressing me, I turned to one of the country's oldest games, maybe it's most famous, and wanted something to feel steady; a constant.

And I think right now that's what baseball represents to me: a feeling of joy. A very specific and concentrated effort to just want something that brings me joy in my life and to not worry about the stress and all the extra bullshit of being a "fan." Basketball stresses me the fuck out, especially March and the playoffs. Game 45 in a baseball season does not, because I just want to watch, and enjoy the moment, even if it's a loss, there will be another game tomorrow. (The playoffs are a different story, but even that is in a different way.) And that chase of joy, and not worrying about being the 'right' kind of fan, or only liking a certain team, and really just wanting to embrace the fun in all of it, I think is what it means to me now. And going into a second season of following it on a more regular basis makes me even more excited to see all the stuff I saw last year and build on it. Can Gleyber continue to hit like this? Will Andujar get better at defense? What will Stanton do in his second year in NY? The Yankee's bullpen looks insane on paper, but can they put it all together and close out games? All the little storylines for all these teams that get to play out over the next few months ... to me, it's that chase of the joy and just trying to have no baggage and no extra drama attached to the sport for me. The difference between watching the March Madness games over the weekend, and opening day, will feel like such a relief. Hahah.

And, with that, I've been watching a bunch of baseball stuff to gear up for opening day (finished the awesome Ken Burns documentary last week), and so tonight I'm going to go watch The Natural after listening to the "Rewatchables' podcast about it earlier today.

Hope this kinda answered your questions! It's been a lot of fun talking with you, and others, in this thread about the game again. I always appreciated your 'no judgement' about me just wanting to watch a bunch of different teams for no real good reason and answering silly questions. With all the cynicism online and in the world these days, it's been a breath of fresh air.

 

Thanks for sharing all of that Jason. It sounds super silly to someone who doesn't get it, but it really is so true for me that baseball has a positive effect on my mental health--even when the St. Louis nine play incredibly frustrating baseball, like last year pre-July!

(There's probably a signal vs. noise issue there too though since baseball season is also sunshine season and my brain doesn't do well with the dark midwestern winters that it seems I'll never escape.)

 

The Rise of the Opener Isn’t Just Changing Baseball, It’s Changing How We Analyze the Game

 

I wish I could actually watch baseball games

 

Baseball puts me at ease, it tells me summer is ready to get here.

 

Not me. With wind chill, it was in the mid-20s at the Tribe's home opener last year. haha

 

Bout fukkin time

 

Fuck off and sell the team, Dolan.