Mega Thread MLB season 2024

[RPCB]

 

[largebus]

Soto is back in Washington and is 0 for 8 in 2 games. It's a sign he wants to come back.
Come on Nats, give him that half a billion dollar contract.

 

[RPCB]

Baseball is fun these days.

Cubs beat the Pirates 18-8, 9-5 and trailed today 3-10 before winning 14-10.

41 runs scored in a 3 game series. God damn.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Infielder Nick Senzel will be looking for his third team this season, after he was designated for assignment by the White Sox earlier this week and he's now cleared waivers. Senzel has more than five years of service time, so he has the right to elect free agency while retaining his salary. Senzel started the season with the Nationals, hitting .209/.303/.359 in 235 plate appearances, translating to a 88 wRC+. The Nationals designated him for assignment in July and he was released, since he had signed a one-year contract with a $2 million guarantee that no other team was prepared to take on.

The White Sox gave him a major league contract, but he played only 10 games in a month on the roster, with 32 plate appearances. He was terrible at the plate, hitting .100/.129/.133, dropping his season slash line to .195/.283/.331, and a 73 wRC+.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

The Cincinnati Reds intend to promote RHP Rhett Lowder to make his MLB debut this week (on Saturday, Australian time). The Reds will need to clear roster spots on the 40-man and active rosters to accommodate the promotion of Lowder, 22.

The various prospect evaluators all rate Lowder highly, with Baseball America ranking him the 38th overall player, FanGraphs at #73, MLB Pipeline at #35 and ESPN at #55. Provided he does not exceed 50 innings for the rest of the season, he will retain his rookie status going into 2025 and would therefore continue to be ranked as a prospect, giving the Reds the potential to take advantage of the prospect promotion incentive.

The Reds also announced that they have called up LHP Evan Kravetz to the majors, optioning Casey Legumina to Triple-A and putting OF Stuart Fairchild on the 60-day IL to create roster space for Kravetz. Kravetz is a fifth round draft pick of the Reds in 2019, and has been making his way through the minor leagues since, subject to the COVID-inspired interruption to the minor leagues in 2020. Kravetz is a strikeout machine but also issues plenty of walks. In 2024, he has pitched 42 1/3 innings at Triple-A with a 3.40 ERA, a 25% strikeout rate and a 11.7% walk rate.

Fairchild will now miss the remainder of the season for the Reds, with a left thumb sprain that initially put him on the 10-day IL. Fairchild is set to stay on the 60-day IL for the rest of the season but will need to be reinstated to the 40-man roster when the season is over, with the IL suspended five days after the completion of the World Series to the start of Spring Training.

 

[Jatz]

Huge series for us. We beat the DBacks yesterday, need to keep taking games off them if we're to catch them in the wildcard race. Especially since the Braves have remembered how to win.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

The Baltimore Orioles have announced that they have claimed OF Forrest Wall off waivers from the Miami Marlins, sending him to Triple-A Norfolk. The Marlins had designated Wall for assignment earlier in the week. The Orioles designated RHP Dillon Tate for assignment to open a spot on the 40-man roster for Wall.

Originally a draft pick by the Rockies, Wall has appeared in the majors with the Braves and Marlins, mostly as a pinch runner and defensive replacement in the outfield. Wall has only 50 MLB appearances under his belt, with a .311/.380/.432 slashline, but that inflates his production at the plate, compared to his Triple-A career where he has hit a combined .269/.355/.380 across five seasons in the minors.

Wall brings speed on the field and around the base paths, as he is ranked in the 93rd percentile for the sprint speed, which is something that the Orioles lacked, with Jorge Mateo on the 60-day IL for a subluxation in his shoulder.

Tate bids farewell to the Orioles after being with Baltimore since the 2018 season. Between 2020-2022, Tate pitched 158 innings with a 3.65 ERA, a 19.1% strikeout rate, a 6.8% walk rate and a gigantic 57.9% ground ball rate. However, Tate missed the entirety of the 2023 season with a flexor strain, and since coming back, he has lost speed on his fastball and has seen both his strikeout and ground ball rates drop.

Tate will now go on waivers and be exposed to a claim from another club who might be interested in bolstering their bullpen at a relatively low cost, since the new club would only owe Tate the prorated portion of his salary for 2024, which equates to $250,000 to the end of the season. He is also under control through arbitration for another two years.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

The Los Angeles Dodgers designated OF Jason Heyward for assignment last week and he has now signed with the Houston Astros.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

The Oakland Athletics announced that they have reinstated infielder Jacob Wilson from the 10-day IL and recalled infielder Armando Alvarez from Las Vegas. To create roster space, the Athletics optioned infielder Darrell Hernaiz to Triple-A after their game against the Reds, and designated infielder Abraham Toro for assignment. The A's subsequently announced that Toro went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Las Vegas. Toro is set to become a free agent at the end of the season, per MLB rules that provide for all outrighted players becoming free agents if they have at least three years of service.

 

[CURVE]

The Braves recent form has been encouraging, despite all the injuries they have managed to hold onto the final NL Wildcard spot and are now only 5 games behind the Phillies in the NLE Division race, and with a 4 game series in Philadelphia starting tomorrow. This should be interesting.

 

[MatthewB]

Not your standard double up

 

[hotchilli]

Not a fan of this trade at all.

Have changed my tune on this a fair bit Kikuchi has been pitching brilliantly.

 

[RPCB]

99 runs scored in the last 10 games for the Cubs.

That might not be sustainable.

 

[JLC]

Boone worked his magic with the bullpen today.

If the Midas touch is real then Boone is the opposite when it comes to the bullpen. Brought on Kahnle and the game spiralled.

 

[kaiserchief13]

Why do Atlanta batters choke constantly? Their pitching is unreal but batters are choke artists. They only seem to win by large scores or lose close games, especially against division rivals

 

[JLC]

Why do Atlanta batters choke constantly? Their pitching is unreal but batters are choke artists. They only seem to win by large scores or lose close games, especially against division rivals

They do have RAJ and Riley out?

Atlanta have done well to compete imo when you consider Spencer Strider is also out.

 

[Jatz]

Started with a win against the Red Sox...we're certainly applying pressure in the wildcard spots.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Shea Bangeliers!

Shea Langeliers' walk-off homer (25) | 09/02/2024

Shea Langeliers belts a walk-off home run to left field, securing the A's 5-4 win

www.mlb.com

 

[Dixie Flatline]

 

[Dixie Flatline]

 

[Jatz]

Man can Schwarber hit a baseball. 3HR game again for the 3rd time in his career.

 

[RPCB]

Man can Schwarber hit a baseball. 3HR game again for the 3rd time in his career.

You only need to go back one month for his second.

 

[JLC]

Another bullpen implosion for the Yankees.

 

[Constantgin]

 

[Jatz]

That's little league stuff ffs.

Apparently they're 5-45 in their last 50 games. Even accidentally they should be able to win more than 5 out of 50.