NL is interesting right now. Less than 10 games separate the worst record from the best.

Eric Hosmer was DFA’d for the second time in less than a year and his career is probably over. He had a meh 2021, was bad with the Red Sox after being OK with the Pads for the first part of the year, and was bad enough this year to, well, get designated. Sometimes aging happens faaaaast in baseball…

Funny, as far as former Royals first basemen go, just yesterday I thought of "Country Breakfast" Butler.

The franchise that brought you Disco Demolition Night is still having great ideas. First, the White Sox' broadcast shows the teams' lineups with the batters' OBP, without context the most useless of the slash line stats, and then they have this entirely obnoxious pitch timer superimposed over the mound.

I like having the timer in the score box, but that's just annoying.

Eh. I find it more annoying someone out there thought "Beggars Pizza" sounded appetizing.

They will get smashed by the Rays in the WS.

[QUOTE=dsvitak;5008307]The Cardinals are HUGELY better than their record.[\QUOTE]

Well they did go on a nice winning streak; but they are still in last place in a notoriously weak Division. Speaking of which, this year they are playing a “balanced schedule” with many more games outside their Division. No longer can they beat up on Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and the Cubs and pretend to be good. They were no match for the Phillies in the Wild Card last year. Their only path to the playoffs would be winning the Division; but even that seems unlikely.

The Mariners are also better than their record. They will probably wake up in July or August.

I guess I won't be able to excite you for the White Sox Hawaiian Shirt presented by Beggars Pizza then?

The death penalty should defo remain on the books, for coming up with carcinogenic designs like THIS:

I got a seizure just looking at that monstrosity.

That looks like my shirt after sloppy pizza and three beers. :)

1. It’s literally the most useful of the three primary rate stats.

2. Everyone is showing the pitch clock this year.

Not superimposed on the mound. I may not have seen broadcasts on all channels, but it's the first time I've seen *that*. I am still in inner turmoil over which one is worse - that timer or the Hawaiian shirt. (barfs a little in his mouth)

(dead serious expression) No.

Going off bb-ref (last night's games aren't even included yet, as of now) I see Luis Robert has a .322 OBP, and Adam Haseley has a .324 OBP for the Sox. In isolation, that tells me nothing useful. They are both decidedly average, I guess.

In real life though -
Luis Robert: .266/.322/.550, 134 OPS+
Adam Haseley: .258/.324/.323, 79 OPS+

"Haseley has only 34 at-bats and so on", yeah, but if you give me enough time I'll find an example of two or even more qualifying batters on the same team with the same-ish OBP that are at least that far apart in OPS/OPS+.

OPS is not “one of the three primary rate stats”.

A high OBP player with an average batting average can keep his value for a long time.

An average hitter, with a below average OBP is gone..like Hosmer, who sports a lifetime .335 OBP, just .280 this year, in 100 PA's.

I was building Strat teams, close to 60 years ago, using OBP as a pretty important factor.

Bill James opened my eyes still further, back in the '80's, as to the critical importance of getting on base.

And yet would tell me more about how a guy's doing than OBP.

Rough sketch of player data in terms of single-stat usefulness, in descending order:

OPS
Batting average
Homers
Eye Color
OBP

Unrelated, what happened with Tim Anderson, and have the Sox noticed yet?

LOL! You kid of course, but there's actually something to it. People with blue or green eyes are apparently much more sensitive to sunlight than those with brown eyes. I only learned this recently. It was first a story about Kiermaier, IIRC, and then my dental hygienist, who has brown eyes, told me the same thing. And yes, while players often wear shades while fielding, I don't think we often see many of those same players wearing them while batting. Maybe more should. I have greenish-grey eyes and I don't feel like I'm super sensitive to light, but I definitely prefer dark rooms and wearing sunglasses as much as I can. I wouldn't dare drive without them.

Cards just finishing up taking 3 of 4 from the Dodgers, while scoring the most runs in a four game series in the entire history of their franchise.

This puts the Cards in THIRD place, five games out. No doubt Milwaukee and Pittsburg are hearing footsteps.

The Orioles just swept the Jays and have the 2nd best record in baseball at 31-16. How are they doing this? Yes, Rutschman is a star and they've got a number of other good players, but a .660 W% in almost a third of the season? Good for them and their fans.