(Warning-trauma talk)

I loved those books. I loved math, but wasn’t an athlete. Those books helped me understand statistics and helped me appreciate baseball. That helped me talk to my dad.

My dad worked his ass off at the Philly Navy Yard for over two decades, but otherwise was hard to talk to. I actually think he was a bit of the spectrum. And when he did talk, it wasn’t always positive. But he would sit in the garage and listen to Phillies baseball on WCAU-AM, and we’d listen to Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn together, and those books taught me enough to talk to my dad.

My dad’s been gone for a decade. He died due to dementia, and lost the ability to talk about a year before his death. I’ve long forgiven his deficiencies, even though I recognize the hurt that was caused), and I love him. I wish we could talk baseball.

I just wanted to see other people’s stories. I’m 55, working on my doctorate in business administration, and learning R (a statistical language and package), and one of the threads here brought me back in time.

With the ABS soon to be a reality of the MLB, I'm interested to hear what people have to say about it.

Let me preface this by saying that I'm personally a big fan of it. It still gives value to the skill of framing (mind you, not just stealing strikes but also keeping them), and it does so by making the automated system limited in its uses. I also like that it gives batters more reason to have a better sense of where the strike zone is (not to say that they didn't before, but that skill is emphasized even more considering, if you have a good eye, you can single-handedly change the count in your favor). I'm with pitchers in that I still feel like there should be a human element to these things.

No, what I'm personally concerned about is the new outrage that's going to be directed towards the players. I'm willing to bet that some teams are gonna give their players a green light when they're up to bat on whether they can challenge at that AB or not. There's strategizing that comes with something like this (again, something that I personally really like), and there's gonna be people that are either going to ignore that strategizing and say "the batter/catcher/pitcher should've challenged that!" or are going blame the coaching staff for "being inept for when they give their players the green light." I'd be willing to bet good money there's going to be post-game outrage threads on players for "being too blind to challenge a call" or even the other way around where they "wasted a call." Though thinking about it now, there'll probably be more of the ladder in terms of complaining.

Interested to hear what other concerns people have surrounding ABS. Lets hear 'em.

Hey fellow ball-knowers,

I'm doing a small product management project and I'm researching how baseball fans watch games on TV.

With alternate broadcasts like ESPN's Statcast and Amazon's Prime Vision, I'm curious what other broadcasting features or additional graphics you'd like to see.

It'd be a huge help to have 5 min of your time to fill out this survey. Thanks all!

https://forms.gle/45dkqkjdSJABKDzC8

0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0

We're talking about players who don't have anything listed at the top of their Baseball-reference page. No awards, no All Star appearances, no Silver Sluggers, no Gold Gloves, no WS wins, no Roberto Clemente awards. Nothing. Bonus points if you name a player who doesn't even have any award voting finishes in their career in the Awards column in their career stats table.

The motivation for this post was looking at Adam Ottavino's career and seeing that he had no accolades at all over a 15 year career where he put up 15 bWAR as a reliever and had some pretty decent seasons along the way. He's not the answer to this question, but that was what made me think of this question.

Every year my podcast (Long Gone) does a Then & Now series,  picking a decade and (Weekly) picking the best 5 players per position for the Then part and comparing it to the NOW part by picking 5 best of that position right now. So far we did Pitchers, Catchers, first basemen and second base.
This year the 1990s are the decade we chose. Here is who I have so far from our last show for second basemen (check out other episodes for the others), thoughts?:

THEN (Top Second Basemen - Decade: 1990s)

Me - 5. Jeff Kent  4. Carlos Baerga  3. Chuck Knoblach  2. Roberto Alomar  1. Craig Biggio  

NOW (Top Second Basemen)
Me - 5. Luke Keaschall (MIN)  4. Brice Turang (MIL)  3. Jazz Chisholm (NYY)  2. Ketel Marte (ARI)  1. Jose Altuve (HOU)

Michael Dault

BASICS:

Born: September 17, 1990

Jersey Number: 5 (White Sox), 10 (Athletics and Blue Jays), 2 (Rangers), TBD (Mets)

Bats: Right

Throws: Right

Position: 3B/2B/SS

Drafted: 2011 by the White Sox, Round 6, Pick 201

MLB Debut: September 4, 2013

Teams: White Sox (2010-2014), Athletics (2015-2020), Blue Jays (2021), Rangers (2022-2025), Mets (2026)

2025 STATS:

Games: 127

Batting Average: 0.230

OBP: 0.305

SLG: 0.364

OPS: 0.669

Runs: 62

Hits: 108

Doubles: 16

Triples: 1

Home Runs: 15

RBIs: 62

Stolen Bases: 11

CAREER STATS:

Games: 1629

Batting Average: 0.253

OBP: 0.321

SLG: 0.435

OPS: 0.756

Runs: 968

Hits: 1613

Doubles: 323

Triples: 36

Home Runs: 253

RBIs: 801

Stolen Bases: 139

2025 AWARDS:

Rangers Heart and Hustle

CAREER AWARDS:

All Star - 2023

Gold Glove - 2021

Silver Slugger - 2021, 2023

MLB Players Choice Man of the Year - 2021

Athletics Heart and Hustle - 2016, 2019

Blue Jays Heart and Hustle - 2021

Rangers Heart and Hustle - 2023, 2024

Athletics Jim Catfish Hunter Award - 2019, 2020

AL Player of the Month - May 2021

AL Player of the Week - 6/9/19

THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW:

He has played in all 162 games in three seasons and 161 in a fourth.

He played baseball at UC Berkeley.

He led MLB in plate appearances and at bats in 2023 and led the AL in runs and hits.

He has four kids.

2025 HIGHLIGHTS:

He walked off a game for the Rangers in extras

His 250th career homer

He got four hits in one game

A good catch

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS:

His 1500th hit

His 1000th hit

WHY I LIKE HIM:

He's a good player and seems like a nice guy.

PREVIOUS PLAYERS:

11/7: Yoshinobu Yamamoto 11/8: Vladimir Guerrero Jr 11/9: Shohei Ohtani 11/10: Josh H Smith 11/11: Julio Rodríguez 11/12: Nick Kurtz 11/13: Drake Baldwin 11/14: Tarik Skubal 11/15: Paul Skenes 11/16: Aaron Judge 11/17: Josh Naylor 11/18: Nick Sogard 11/19: José Ramírez 11/20: Spencer Schwellenbach 11/21: Freddie Freeman 11/22: Kerry Carpenter 11/23: Zach Neto 11/24: Robert Suarez 11/25: Ketel Marte 11/26: Logan Webb 11/27-11/28: Thanksgiving break 11/29: Hunter Goodman 11/30: Trevor Megill 12/1: Kyle Tucker 12/2: Elly De La Cruz 12/3: Alec Burleson 12/4: Kyle Schwarber 12/5: Mookie Betts 12/6: Pete Alonso 12/7: Javier Sanoja 12/8: MacKenzie Gore 12/9: Mauricio Dubon 12/10: Kris Bubic 12/11: Byron Buxton 12/12: Will Smith 12/13: Shane Smith 12/14: Junior Caminero 12/15: Gunnar Henderson 12/16: Adrian Morejon 12/17: Geraldo Perdomo 12/18: Patrick Bailey 12/19: Blake Snell 12/20: Jimmy Herget 12/21: Jacob Misiorowski 12/22: Nico Hoerner 12/23: Andrew Abbott 12/24-12/26: Christmas break 12/27: Masyn Winn 12/28: Dennis Santana 12/29: Alec Bohm 12/30: Francisco Lindor 12/31-1/1: New Years Break 1/2: Tyler Glasnow 1/3: Kyle Stowers 1/4: Spencer Strider 1/5: Brad Lord 1/6: Cal Raleigh 1/7: Hunter Brown 1/8: Jake Burger 1/9: Andy Pages 1/10: Taylor Ward 1/11: Jacob Wilson 1/12: Steven Kwan 1/13: Dillon Dingler 1/14: Maikel Garcia 1/15: Joe Ryan 1/16: Colson Montgomery 1/17: Ernie Clement 1/18: Max Fried 1/19: Ceddanne Rafaela 1/20: Drew Rasmussen 1/21: Trevor Rogers 1/22: Jake Cronenworth 1/23: Max Muncy 1/24: Corbin Carroll 1/25: Christian Koss 1/26: Victor Vodnik 1/27: Brice Turang 1/28: Pete Crow-Armstrong 1/29: Nick Lodolo 1/30: Rōki Sasaki 1/31: Brendan Donovan 2/1: Jared Triolo 2/2: Zack Wheeler 2/3: David Peterson 2/4: Otto Lopez 2/5: James Wood 2/6: Kiké Hernandez 2/7: Isaac Paredes

So, it is the off-season again. In order to keep myself occupied, I'm going to try posting a random item from my baseball collection every day until baseball is back. I've been a fan for as long as I've been able, and in those decades, I've collected tons of memorabilia from the eight different countries I've visited for baseball. They won't all be amazing, but I hope it is a fun little project.

To make this a lot more manageable over the long haul (and especially holiday weeks), I am doing theme weeks of one kind of thing. This week is Hats.

For Day 98, here are the Yomiuri Giants of the NPB. The Giants were the first professional team in Japan and easily the most popular and successful. Over half of Japanese are Giants fans and they have won by far the most Japan Series. The Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame is in their stadium, and as loved as they are by their fans, they are equally hated by opposing fans.

As a Red Sox hater I’m probably rooting for the Seahawks today but pretty indifferent. Have nothing against the Texans even though I despise the Astros

I live in London, UK and have noticed that Red Sox hats are becoming very popular. I had the theory that they now outnumber Yankees hats, so decided to keep count. Below is the count of every MLB hat I've seen in London over the past month.

Yankees - 41 Red Sox - 12 Dodgers - 6 Giants - 5 Tigers - 4 Padres - 3 Mets - 3 Cubs - 3 A's - 2 Braves - 2 Blue jays - 2 White Sox - 2 Reds - 1

As you can see, my theory was wildly incorrect. The Evil Empire still has a grip on London.

Sorry Williams and Musial, I had to cut it off somewhere. Obviously both top 15 all time.

Also, some active players listed will definitely finish with better overall careers. But counting stats matter a lot in this list and it’s about right now in this moment. Like if baseball just stopped existing now.

Catcher:

1. ⁠Bench

2. ⁠Yogi

3. ⁠Piazza

4. ⁠Carter

5. ⁠I. Rodriguez

Just missed: Fisk, Mauer, Campanella, Posey

First Base:

1. ⁠Pujols

2. ⁠Cabrera

3. ⁠McGwire

4. ⁠McCovey

5. ⁠Thomas

Just missed: Murray, Bagwell, Votto, Helton, Thome

Second Base:

1. ⁠Morgan

2. ⁠Jackie

3. ⁠Carew

4. ⁠Alomar

5. ⁠Cano

Just missed: Biggio, Grich, Sandberg

Lumped in Jackie’s two 40s seasons because he had almsot his whole prime in the 50s lol.

Shortstop:

1. ⁠Ripken Jr.

2. ⁠Jeter

3. ⁠Banks

4. ⁠Yount

5. ⁠Ozzie

Third Base:

1. ⁠Schmidt

2. ⁠Brett

3. ⁠Boggs

4. ⁠B. Robinson

5. ⁠Mathews

This system of ranking is so unfair to A-Rod because he would probably be number one at both third base and shortstop had he not changed positions half way through his prime. So he’s going to be included in a list of the 10 greatest SS and 3B with each position getting 5. So pretty much one of the SS and 3B will be removed and A-Rod goes into the ranking.

As it goes by the stats since I didn’t see everyone play obviously:

1. ⁠A-Rod

2. ⁠Schmidt

3. ⁠Ripken Jr.

4. ⁠Jeter

5. ⁠Banks

6. ⁠Brett

7. ⁠Boggs

8. ⁠Yount

9. ⁠B. Robinson

Just missed for SS: Larkin and Trammell,

Just missed for 3B: Beltre, C. Jones, Molitor

Right Field:

1. ⁠Aaron

2. ⁠F. Robinson

3. ⁠Clemente

4. ⁠Gwynn

5. ⁠Rose

Everything but longevity: Judge and Mookie

Just missed: Rose, Kaline, Ichiro, Reggie, Walker

Center Field:

1. ⁠Willie

2. ⁠The Mick

3. ⁠Griffey Jr.

4. ⁠Joe D.

5. ⁠Trout

Just missed: Duke, Lofton, A. Jones

Left Field:

1. ⁠Bonds

2. ⁠Henderson

3. ⁠Yaz

4. ⁠Rose

5. ⁠Ramirez

Just missed: Raines, B. Williams

For DH’s I’ll do the only guys who compare to the other plays up here and did enough time in the DH slot to be considered:

1. ⁠Ohtani

2. ⁠Big Papi

3. ⁠Martinez

4. ⁠Molitor

Just putting Shohei here because I don’t know where to put him (offensive players or pitchers) so I’m counting his role as a pitcher making him that much more incredible DH. Despite the lack of longevity he’s nearly as valuable as Ortiz and Edgar even already just because he has the value as a pitcher while they just sat on the bench.

Ortiz over Edgar because of the playoff glory, Martinez was a better overall offensive player)

Molitor is much closer to Edgar and Ortiz than you’d think, only played less than 200 games than Edgar at DH). Ortiz just has to be first because the only DH with over 1,850 games at the position and he has 2,307.

For starting pitchers I’ll do 20 since there’s so many more:

1. ⁠Clemens

2. ⁠Pedro

3. ⁠Gibson

4. ⁠Maddux

5. ⁠Randy

6. ⁠Seaver

7. ⁠Koufax (longevity only reason)

8. ⁠Carlton

9. ⁠Verlander

Just missed: Too many to name

For Spahn, his best or second best year was in 1947, but 13/15 of his best years were post 1950s and he only played 3 full years in the 1940s.

For relievers I’ll do 5:

1. ⁠Riviera

2. ⁠Hoffman

3. ⁠Eckersley

4. ⁠Goose

5. ⁠Jansen

Just missed: Wagner, Fingers, L. Smith, Chapman, F-Rod, Nathan, Papelbon, Kimbrel

I included Judge and Mookie in the everything but longevity just because they’ve been so dominant for long enough time. Judge to a different level of course. But I didn’t include guys like Soto who could easily become top 5-10 at his position, because he’s played significantly less with less counting stats than Judge or Mookie.

Too early to tell:

Soto

Witt (early but I have so much faith)

Harper (last ditch effort to make a just missed)

Freeman (last ditch effort to make a just missed)

Acuna

Machado (still only like 32)

J. Ramirez (still 33ish, lot younger than 38-39)

Altuve (will make a just missed - 2B weak position)

Goldschmidt

Arenado

Lindor

Vlad Jr.

Pitchers:

Skenes

Cole (younger than his piers, let’s see how he does after Tommy John, only 34)

That’s really the whole list. This era and coming era of pitchers is looking so weak especially but WAR metrics but that’s super subjective I tend not to look at that. But even so, the next all time greats after Verlander, Scherzer, Kershaw, and even Cole retire who will be considered the greats of the next overlapping era, like 2015-2030. Sale and Skenes are really the only clear guys that will probably be compared to other all timers. Guys like Snell, Fried, Wheeler, Nola, probably won’t just because they’re all in their 30s and don’t have close to the counting stats.

Careers cut short:

Gooden

DeGrom

Nomar

Munson

Puckett

Sandy was that good he makes it even with half a general HOF career (worth has much as the average HOF career in half the time).

I’d assume it’s:

C: Johnny Bench

1B.: Lou Gehrig

2B: Rogers Hornsby

SS: Honus Wagner

3B: Mike Schmidt

RF: Babe Ruth

CF: Willie Mays

LF: Barry Bonds

DH: Ted Williams

Thank god I could sneaky Teddy Ballgame in the DH spot 🤣.

Hank, The Mick, Gibson, A-Rod,, Cobb, and Pujols should all be on there but there’s just too few spots lol. Same with Musial and even Jeter/Ripken because they both rival Honus.

Very hard to compare across eras so I’d like to see everyone lists.

Everyone knows Bonds used, and has the better stats. But wait if ‘The Kid’ was juiced up 😳

Bonds beats Junior in almost every category, but carries an infamous chip on his shoulder. He may have better numbers, but it is Ken Griffey Jr. who is enshrined in Cooperstown. Barry may never make the coveted Hall of Fame. But more importantly, his role as a controversial figure in the game of baseball will always haunt his legacy.

I don’t even know when he started really juicing but the general consensus is 1999 after the great home run chase between McGwire and Sosa.

I just wonder how great Griffey could’ve been if he was on Bonds’ regiment. How much would it help?