The MLB/Baseball topic

[Big Boss Man]

Big Sexy pitched a 7 innings no hitter against the Astros

[Bandit]

He defies all logic we know about health needed to be a premiere athlete.

[Big Boss Man]

Yep, he's 44 and definitely not in the best of shape. But he was switching up his pitches and getting strike outs. At one point he sprinted like a greyhound to pick up the ball to throw for an out at 1st base. I was like Wouldn't be surprised if he plays a couple more seasons too.

[Big Boss Man]

The Indians & Twins are still playing now 16 innings thought the game would never end!

[Big Boss Man]

Interesting article about the Os possible trades
https://thebaltimorewire.com/2018/05/31 ... -deadline/

Surely they keep Manny unless they get some top players back for him. Also the White Sox fielding on Memorial Day...they were leading but threw the game away because of dropping balls and missing easy catches.

[Bandit]

I heard the Yankees are a little colder on him now than they were so the Phillies may be the team who'd do the most to get him.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea Phillies are interested
http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2018 ... es_to.html

[Big Boss Man]

Interesting interview with Boog here
http://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/aa-qa-jo ... start.html

Real cool he does the ALS charity. Also him, Rick Sutcliffe and David Ross are a great announce team. I like Tim Kurkjian too. Fun stat about Tim here

On every day of the Major League Baseball season, from 1990 until 2009, Kurkjian cut every MLB box score out of a newspaper and taped them into a spiral notebook. Kurkjian estimates that this daily task, at 15 minutes per day over 20 seasons, consumed 40 days of his life.

[Big Boss Man]

[Big Boss Man]

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2378 ... career-end

Wants to make a comeback in the majors

[Bandit]

I really doubt if he's drug free he'd be able to play anywhere near a top level at 53. Nolan Ryan was 46 and still throwing 100 mph fastballs but he's one of a kind. In his late 60s he could still pitch.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea that's true. You can only play at the top level for so long. Here we had Stanley Matthews play soccer in his 50s but he took real good care of himself health wise and it wasn't in the modern day where unless they are a goalkeeper the average for an elite level player is early 30s or 35-36 at best. Plus they usually drop down divisions or play overseas. As for baseball, surely pitching takes a huge toll on the arm, elbow, shoulder and back since your using all those and your core muscles to throw pitches at high speed. I didn't really follow the Steroid era baseball, I think Ken Burns covered it in his updated Baseball doc
I've heard of Sosa, Bonds etc though.

[Big Boss Man]

[Big Boss Man]

So thoughts on Mike Trout?. Some MLB games here got pushed around in the schedule cause of the College World Series so stuff like PTI, Intentional Talk and Around the Horn got recorded instead. Anyway those shows all talked about Mike and hyped him up as a potential great. We ocassionally get Angels games but the spotlight is usually on Ohtani. They made a good point that he needs to be on a team that makes the World Series (& win it of course) to really be in the discussion. So really he needs to move to the Yankees, Astros, Red Sox etc to get the spotlight shined on him and perform there. Is Mike Trout on course to be an all time great or have the media got carried away with their praise & expecting too much?

[Bandit]

He's up there with Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Manny Machado as the best millennials generation in baseball.

Although think about this: the Yankees gave up their pick of him in a trade to sign Mark Teixeira. And he's great, but right now they could have Judge, Stanton and Trout in their line up. Nobody could beat that team. If they put them 1-2-3 every pitcher in baseball would be having a nervous breakdown.

[Big Boss Man]

Yea that would be unbeatable, for sure. There's
talk about a proposed move for Mike Trout to the NYY where (in this scenario) they don't have to give up their best players
https://www.nj.com/yankees/index.ssf/20 ... t_tha.html

But no way should the Angels trade Trout without getting a huge deal in return. I do think unless they try and get better as a team (in fairness they added Ohtani who's been a revelation) but he needs to get to the World Series to be really renowned as a great. Otherwise he could be the answer to a trivia question "who's the best player to never make it to the World Series"

Another name to mention about future greats is Mookie Betts. Having a great season for the Red Sox. Manny will be a free agent at the end of the season, interesting article up here
https://www.mlb.com/news/manny-machado- ... -282241726

[Big Boss Man]

There's talk of an alleged federal investigation into former Red Sox Hanley Ramirez, but he's denying knowledge of it. A TL:DR version of the story

- Guy stopped by police transporting a considerable amount of cocaine and fentanyl

- Facetimed Hanley in front of the cops

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/06/ ... ation.html

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/06/23/h ... -cora/amp/

[Bandit]

He wouldn't be the first baseball player turned drug trafficker. Esteban Loaiza who pitched for the White Sox was busted this winter. And the most famous case Willie Aikens, who started off a great player for the Royals in the 80s, got addicted to crack and then lost his career so became a cocaine distributor to fund his crack habit since he spent all of his money on drugs. He did 20 years in jail but cleaned his life up and is now a talent scout for the Royals.

[Big Boss Man]

No federal investigation into Hanley
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/ ... K/amp.html

Seemed the crime reporter got her wires crossed and inadvertently & unfairly implicated Ramirez.

[Big Boss Man]

Rumours are saying Manny to the Dodgers is a possibility
https://www.truebluela.com/2018/6/29/17 ... y-need-him

The Phillies and Diamondbacks are also interested. They were saying on Intentional Talk that Baltimore should have made the trade earlier to get better prospects back. Story is they are scouting what LA have in their developmental system. Losing Manny will be a big knock to the O's but they need to go into rebuild mode sooner or later. They should see what's on offer as there might be a diamond or two in the rough they can find to turn their fortunes around.