Hank Chinaski

Goddamn Diaz what a fucking horrid AB

Damn nice work Neris

Goddamnit Pena

They look like hammered dogshit

Cease is obviously on his game but Astros have had some shitty ABs too.

The question was “what NL team will you be watching.” That doesn’t imply that your “heart beats for” them. It implies that you have some degree of interest in watching them for some reason.

I live in Albuquerque, and honestly I have no idea. I’ve purchased the mlb.tv package every year since I’ve lived here and I’ve never had traditional cable here. The D-Backs and Rockies are blacked out on mlb.tv. That hasn’t been much of a problem but AZ looks to be interesting this season. Ironically, I’d probably have legit interest in the Rockies by now because their AAA team is here and I go to a fair number of games every season, but since they’re blacked out, I’ve really never developed that interest.

D-Backs should be interesting with their high-end young talent, though I can’t say I’ll be “watching” them because they’re blacked out on mlb tv where I live. Padres will be fun because of the possibility of getting the Soto/Tatis of 2019-2021, which would be incredible. Plus they have another future HOFer in his prime.

He legitimately looked nothing like he did when he coached at Texas even when he was still coaching at Texas.

My prediction: I’ll make some asinine post comparing this year’s team to some shitty Astros team from years past, like how I astutely compared last year’s team to the 2006 Astros. Let’s ruin everybody else’s entire goddamned summer and fall and win the whole goddamned thing again.

Fangraphs has him ranked #79 overall as a 50 FV prospect - meaning an average MLB starter. Their #39-100 are all considered 50 FV prospects, so that could be considered a tier, with the difference between any of them being very minor, perhaps negligible (but rankings get clicks). I think that’s fair. He’s 25…top prospect lists are always going to be dominated at the top by the young, tooled-up guys or the highly-drafted college players who are big-league ready. Anyway, one thing I really like about the Fangraphs prospect list is that they include a “probability of outcomes” chart for each guy, which provides more context (not sure how they’re calculated, but I’d assume it’s based on age, performance in minors across key metrics like K rate, etc). For Diaz, they have him as about a 25% chance of being a 50/55, 15% chance of being a 60/65 (all-star-ish), and about a 10% chance of being a 70+ (MVP-ish). That feels about right to me, and if you told me right now he’ll be an average MLB starter, I’d take it in a heartbeat.

Dirden is an interesting guy. He mashed in AA last year but struggled in 32 AAA games (73 wRC, 28% K rate). Then had the big spring.

Pena makes outs 70% of the time. Bregman makes outs 63% of the time. Their power is a wash. Do we want to start the game with an out less frequently or more frequently? Put another way, do we want Yordan/Tucker/Abreu to bat with runners on base less frequently or more frequently? It’s really not complicated. Yet here we are.

Metric is park-adjusted.

Last 2 seasons: Webb: 8.3 fWAR Cole: 8.5 fWAR

We really need a rep emoji that somehow conveys “I really didn’t want to laugh at this but I did.”

I agree w 2019 WS being the biggest disappointment. That team was so, so good. Last year took a little sting off of it, though. I’d put 86 NLCS next. Probably 80 NLCS after that, but I was 3 and have no recollection of it. The Oilers game was obviously shitty, but we were accustomed to their underachievement. And while that team was good, it wasn’t all-time great like the ‘19 Astros. I dont specifically remember the Phi Slamma Jamma loss, though I remember how fun that team seemed. I guess I just care way more about the Astros than any other team.

I just hope Bijan gets picked by a team with an elite QB. It sucked when Edgerrin James went to play with Manning (and then Kurt Warner later in his career) while Ricky played with Billy Joe Tolliver and Aaron Brooks and Jay Fiedler and the like.

PAC CEOs/Commissioners:

I did love Bourn though. He had a few really good years. He was fun, but yeah, that era was dreadful.

Bregman / Pena / Yordan / Tucker / Abreu / Brantley / Chas / Maldy / 2B (I’d have Yordan 2nd but I know Dusty won’t.)