Don

Stassi gives a shit.

Upton put a fantastic swing on that ball. I thought he’d be screwed getting two straight sliders out of the zone in that count. Managed to catch one in the zone and put a great swing on it. This is a good sign for him.

I agree from a best lineup perspective, but I get throwing a top 25 ever player an opening day start in the last year of his career.

Best of luck @Dave Saltzer. Hoping you get feeling right soon. You've got an exciting season of baseball to watch.

Fearless prediction: I think Ohtani hits a BOMB tonight.

Yeah, that Albies deal was just a ridiculous steal for the Braves. Same for Acuna too.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm freaking excited for this season. I think this team can be really good if everyone plays to their potential. And for some reason it just feels right this year. Maybe it's just Covid winding down, or the end of a bullshit winter, or having a real freaking opening day for the first time in two years, but I am absolutely pumped for this season to start. I can't wait for Ohtani and Trout to hit back to back HRs with a combined distance of 900 feet, watch Fletch slap bullshit doubles down the right field line, and see Rendon and Iglesias making ridiculous plays on the left side of our infield.

Thanks @Lou. This was a fun read.

It worked out really really poorly for Justin Baughman once.

This seems like a pretty great deal for a dude that put up 1.9 WAR in 49 games in his age 26 season. Not saying he'll keep that pace up, but it's not out of the realm of possibility, and I think 3-4 WAR per season is well within the reasonable expectation range. That is not easy to find for $5 mill/year.

Yeah, if Lindor is still putting up an .850-ish OPS and playing good defense six or seven years from now then it’s not a terrible deal. But I feel like there’s an equally good chance that he’s an average or below average defender putting up a .750-ish OPS by then, and that is not good. Just seems like a risky deal, but credit to his agent for getting in on the mega contract thing while they could.

The KState Xavier game in the 2010 tournament is probably the most insane college basketball game that I was personally invested in that I’ve ever seen. Jordan Crawford and Jacob Pullen were just trading insane long range shots the whole game and through both OTs.

Honestly I’m not sure what any of you are arguing about. The positions being taken are vague AF.

I think Walsh has a good shot of being better than Upton, and I think Iglesias will hit for a pretty decent average, though comparing him and Upton is tough as they have entirely different skill sets.

Dude is just streaky. It's who he is. He's gonna have two week stretches where he slashes 160/200/260 and he's gonna have two week stretches that are 320/400/600. If he's healthy and plays 140+ games he'll probably put up typical Justin Upton numbers, which is perfectly fine if he's hitting 5/6 with Walsh.

I blame this guy:

All the numbers indicate Walsh is for real. His only issue will be having to share time with Pujols in my opinion.

I think all of us as fans have a bit of a bad taste in our mouths from the last several years. The guys we’ve signed/traded for really haven’t worked out, and a lot of the guys we already had have underperformed or gotten injured. It’s understandable for most fans to be apprehensive at this point. That said, I think things look better on the pitching front this year than they have in several years. It looks like Ohtani is finally healthy and could be a true #1. I think real Bundy is closer to what he was in 2020 than what he was in Baltimore. Heaney should be a solid #3. Canning is a question mark, but he might be good for us. Quintana looks really good so far this spring. If all those guys come through and stay healthy we have a decent staff. Maybe not top five in the AL, but probably top ten, and that’s enough with our offense. Add in the fact that we finally have a legit closer in Iglesias, and I feel pretty good about this year on the pitching front. But I certainly don’t fault anybody that’s worried, because we’ve all talked ourselves into this before. But it feels different this year.

I'll add Vlad to that list. To this day he's my single favorite player I've ever seen live. There are some guys I've seen that were objectively better for sure, but peak Vlad was just so much fun. It seemed like he'd do two or three things every week that I didn't think were possible.

I went to a lot of games during the 2002 season, and as much as I enjoyed seeing game 6 of the WS in person, that June series against the M's and the early September series against the A's were some of the best games I've ever seen live. The tension in those series was just so palpable.

Also @Jay I feel fine more than 24 hours post-injection.

I get you, and I agree with you on the offensive side of things. It's just that the stuff he is struggling with defensively, namely tracking balls and taking good routes, are things that most college freshmen are much better at than he is. It's just concerning because he's had a few years of experience in pro ball now and that skill hasn't fully developed yet. Most other OFers would be much more advanced on that front, and I'm sure people have noticed this before and tried to work with him on it. I would find it really hard to believe that they haven't. So while I certainly hope he can improve when it comes to tracking balls/taking routes, I'm not super confident that he will.

Ok. Hate rescinded. Apologies.

Well then I hate you and I think you should be paying @Tank extra rent.

That is awesome. Always nice to get something when you walk away.