MLB Thoughts

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As you’ll all surely remember, I spent way too much of my time breaking down every division in baseball before the season began. Well, now that we’re about 20 games in, I’d say we can clearly see how this season is going to go and that absolutely nothing will change. Since baseball doesn’t really lend itself to the big, juicy storylines basketball and football do on a daily basis, I think the best way to handle my award-winning baseball coverage is just a brain dump every couple weeks or so. Some rapid fire takes on the first few weeks of the season:

First off, I have to put this here:

RT .RedSox: Never Forget: Chris Sale DOMINATED yesterday. https://t.co/7SzzcQyAbs pic.twitter.com/gZXxPwDOg2

— Never Forget Bot (@forgetmebot) April 21, 2017

If you’ll excuse me, I need a few minutes to myself

I’d like to congratulate myself for having the foresight to take Eric Thames in the 20th round of my fantasy draft. They always say you can’t teach height and you can’t teach speed, well you also can’t teach a champion’s intuition.
While we’re here, I’m getting sick of everyone being so jaded about everything. It’s mostly led by the Unwritten Rules Gestapo and John Lackey who can’t understand why someone who hit 40 homers a year in Korea can hit meatballs thrown right down the middle out of a major league ballpark. I don’t know, John, maybe because he’s clearly got Luke Cage-like strength and you’re grooving a dick-high fastball down the heart of the plate at like 91 mph. Maybe that’s why he took you deep? Why don’t you go leave your wife when she has cancer again, asshole. Baseball can be so annoying at times like this. When Jeremy Lin came out of nowhere, the NBA celebrated him and promoted him and he became an international star. Baseball gets a great story (guy couldn’t hack in the bigs, goes to Korea and dominates, then comes back and starts hitting longballs left and right, showing he always had the talent) and instead of embracing him, they start lobbing steroid accusations at him and look for any way to discount his success. Great job, MLB! No point in capitalizing on a great opportunity to appeal to Korean fans who might want to follow him to the majors or giving the people of Milwaukee something to be happy about this season since he’s probably cheating anyway! And people wonder why Mike Trout ranks 10th in jersey sales. Baseball is just totally clueless when it comes to marketing and promotion, and making games shorter isn’t going to change that.
Taking a quick look at the standings, and who is that at the top of the NL West? The Colorado Rockies? In first place? And they’ve allowed the fourth fewest runs in the National League? Did anyone predict that? Oh, wait, I did? Weird how that worked out.
Since I know everyone is dying to know about my player in MLB 17 The Show, here’s a quick career recap: I was drafted by the Pirates as a power hitting outfielder, which I wasn’t thrilled about, but I wasn’t about to go to college and come in to the league as an old man, so I accepted it. I was such a stud they called me up to the majors in June and I won Rookie of the Year at the ripe age of 18. Midway through my second season, I was traded to Oakland for some reason, which I was fine with, since if I have to be stuck somewhere for 6 years, might as well be somewhere I can look good. The team sucked but I was playing well. Then, after like a month, they trade me to Tampa Bay. Add in a season ending injury after the All Star break, and, needless to say, I was unhappy with my situation. But I just finished my third season, where the team predictably was under .500 and I hit 51 homers. Were my other numbers like on base percentage, strikeouts, and fielding percentage just as good? Well, it’s hard to say. But my confidence is riding high, even if I have to spend the next four goddamn years playing in Tropicana Field.
“Blue Jays are the best team in the American League East!”
We don’t really need to talk about the Rangers and Mariners sucking, right? I mean people are allowed to get a few things wrong.
Is Bryce Harper Back? Sure looks like it.
Remember when Avisail Garcia was supposed to be the next Miguel Cabrera and then everyone bailed on him because he sucked? Well, jokes on you because now he’s going to hit .400 this year. Glad I never left the bandwagon.
Shout out to fellow UConn Husky George Springer for hitting a million leadoff home runs. His mother and I are very proud of him.
I know the Braves are trash but do people realize how good Freddie Freeman is? He’s pretty much been the best player in the NL since last year’s All Star break. 259 OPS+ to start the year.
R.I.P. Starling Marte fantasy owners.
I really like how many pirate puns the Pirates’ broadcast team uses every game.
Am I worried about what the Red Sox are going to do at third base since it looks like Pablo Sandoval isn’t Back? A little. Am I worried that Mookie Betts cares more about not striking out than hitting home runs? Kind of. Am I worried that David Price seemingly wants to get surgery so he can steal $30 million this year? Yes. Yes I am.
What were the designers thinking when they made the backs of the Diamondbacks’ jerseys a darker shade of gray than the already dark shade of gray they use for their away jerseys? It makes the black numbers virtually illegible. If they just used a normal gray they’d look fine.
Every time I pull up Padres highlights and hear Don Orsillo dejectedly call the action in front of a half-full NL West crowd I just get depressed. Then I hear him start to crack up with Mark Grant more than he used to with Jerry Remy and I get mad at Red Sox ownership again.
Yes, the Yankees have started out great. Somehow I heard about it. But instead of rolling my eyes at the typical, Joba-esque media driven hype train, I’ll remind everyone that I said before the season that they’d make the playoffs before the season started.