It’s the first Wednesday of the 2024 regular season, and here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around baseball today:
1. Jason Heyward to the injured list?
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic) that outfielder Jason Heyward’s recent scans came back negative, but the team has not yet decided if he’ll require a stint on the injured list. That decision will come at some point today, presumably ahead of this evening’s series finale with the Giants. Heyward has been dealing with back stiffness and has not played since Saturday.
The Dodgers re-signed Heyward on a one-year, $9MM deal this winter following his bounce-back season in 2023. It was his first healthy campaign since 2020. While Heyward and the Dodgers are surely hoping he can skip the IL, his quick return could be bad news for Taylor Trammell, whom the Dodgers claimed off of waivers from the Mariners on Monday. Ardaya notes that Trammell was acquired specifically as a backup option in case Heyward misses time.
2. Tigers, Pirates, and Brewers looking to maintain perfect records
With nearly a week of regular-season play in the books, three clubs have yet to lose a game: the Tigers (4-0), Pirates (5-0), and Brewers (4-0). After sweeping the White Sox in their opening series, the Tigers took game one against the Mets on Monday night before rain canceled their matchup on Tuesday. Casey Mize will take the hill for Detroit this evening, looking to keep the win streak alive. Meanwhile, the Pirates and Brewers sit atop the NL Central. Pittsburgh will send its ace, Mitch Keller, to the mound tonight in Washington to take on Trevor Williams of the Nationals. Milwaukee will start Joe Ross against Chris Paddack of the Twins in what will be Ross’ first MLB appearance since August 2021. The Brewers are hoping to sweep their second consecutive series.
3. Mets, Marlins still seeking first wins
While things are rolling for the Tigers, Pirates, and Brewers, the same cannot be said of the Mets (0-4) and Marlins (0-6), both of whom are still seeking their first wins of the season. New York is hoping to rain on Detroit’s parade tonight, sending Adrian Houser to face off against Mize in his Mets debut. The actual rain, however, might have other ideas; the Mets and Tigers are at risk of getting rained out for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, in Miami, A.J. Puk will hope his second career MLB start goes better than his first as the Marlins try to avoid getting swept for the second series in a row.
So much for the Yankees perfect season. LOL.
I do think the clock has struck midnight for Cortez though. He definitely ain’t the pitcher he was in ’21 & ’22. The Yankees are going to need to make a trade by the deadline for a good starter.
Why don’t you try and not buy a title
It’s borderline amazing how teams spend upwards of $200M and wind up relying on other teams’ sloppy seconds for 1/3 of their rosters.
wind up relying on other teams’ sloppy seconds for 1/3 of their rosters.
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There are no 100% complete teams.
In fact, it would probably be counter-productive. The last guy on the bench and the last two guys in the BP are usually cannon fodder.
All teams buy wins, Steve.
With the NIL even the NCAA buys wins.
The NIL is a disgrace. No issues paying athletes but if they are, call them professionals as they really are. So unfair to the true amateur athlete.
It absolutely is a disgrace anyone who thinks otherwise needs a reality check.
Are there any true amateur sports, or only sports that no one cares enough to pay for?
True “amateur” athletes also care about their education and receive theirs at the schools they’d still be at, anyway. NIL or no NIL…if you’re a D2 player…you’re a D2. There’s good baseball all over now.
So… Nestor festered?
That about sums it up Gwynning. It’s not just a bad result with him. His pitches have nothing on them. At least last year before he went down, gis first two times through the order was very good. It was the third time through when things got ugly. This year it’s all bad.
Indeed he did
Nestor seemed to settle in after a rough first inning in both of his starts but he definitely doesn’t look like a SP anymore. He’s going to the bullpen once Cole is healthy
Give everyone an opportunity. Two starts? Suppose they were both perfect games, would you be carving his bust for Cooperstown? Perhaps his shirt or cap but certainly not a bust.
dewey notice I said it’s not about a bad result. It’s about how his pitches look. They don’t look like they did in the past. I don’t know enough to know why but I know enough to see what they look like.
With the games he plays during his windup I wonder if the pitch clock affects him more than others
Shane Bieber is back before Texas Football. How about that.
lol at caring about teenagers playing football.
This is the best we’ve seen from Bieber in years. If CLE plays their cards right (no guarantees there), and Bieber maintains this otherworldly level of performance, they should be able to turn him into a righty power hitter by July. Knowing the FO they’ll probably turn him into yet another green as grass middle infield prospect who has tools, and that’s about it.
Tigers early surprises is how well Kelly and Canha are playing they really have surprised me. The pitching has been outstanding with maybe Maeda and lange a little shaky. The whole team has contributed so it’s been a fun ride so far. A good start is a good thing.
MPrck: It didn’t hurt the Tigers that they opened the season against the White Sox. It’s like getting a nice push down the hill to get off to a nice start. Maeda got roughed up for 2 Luis Robert HR, but they still won the game.
Pretty much any team playing WSox/Oak/Col should load up on cheap wins and misleading stat boosters in ’24.
Better to assess teams and individual player performance during the season against clubs that are somewhat designed to compete.
This is why owners approved Fisher’s request to move the A’s in 2028. They knew OAK would be super easy pickens for their teams for at least 3 more years AFTER this one.
They approved the deal to Vegas over receiving a MASSIVE expansion fee. Only MLB owners are that dumb. Standing offer for the team from the GS Warriors owner. MLB should have forced a sale. But when has MLB done much right. They’d have to apologize for the GOOD publicity.
Individual owners aren’t going to be forced to sell for being frugal and/or unlikeable. He is just the extreme low end vs Mets newish owner having spent on extreme high end for payroll.
They wont now. But there HAVE been forced sales.
Based on the Pythagorean Winning Percentage, this is what some of the records of teams should be, based on them either over or under performing their actual record.
Overperforming:
Pittsburgh Pirates: 4 – 1
Detroit Tigers: 3 – 1
Milwaukee Brewers: 3 – 1
New York Yankees: 4 – 2
Los Angeles Dodgers: 5 – 3
Los Angeles Angels: 2 – 3
Tampa Bay Rays: 2 – 4
Toronto Blue Jays: 2 – 4
Seattle Mariners: 2 – 4
Minnesota Twins: 1 – 3
Underperforming:
Cleveland Guardians: 5 – 1
Boston Red Sox: 5 – 1
Arizona Diamondbacks: 5 – 1
Atlanta Braves: 4 – 1
Baltimore Orioles: 4 – 1
Kansas City Royals: 3 – 2
San Diego Padres: 4 – 4
Houston Astros: 3 – 3
New York Mets: 1 – 3
Miami Marlins: 1 – 5
Based on fWAR:
Overperforming:
LAD: 5 – 3
CLE: 3 – 3
PIT: 3 – 2
MIL: 2 – 2
NYY: 3 – 3
BAL: 2 – 3
CIN: 2 – 3
BOS: 2 – 4
DET: 2 – 2
TOR: 2 – 4
LAA: 2 – 3
MIN: 1 – 3
PHI: 1 – 4
SEA: 2 – 4
STL: 1 – 5
Underperforming:
SDP: 4 – 4
HOU: 3 – 3
SFG: 3 – 3
WSN: 2 – 2
MIA: 1 – 5
So, yes, we’ll probably see the Tigers, Pirates, and Brewers come back down to reality and Miami is pretty much where they should be. Probably should have had 1 win by now, though.
Old – I get that you enjoy this sort of thing, but every year the Pythag is grossly wrong so it’s difficult for normal people like me to pay attention to it.
I mean seriously, they expected the Red Sox to win 3 of 4 in Seattle against that great Mariners starting rotation? The Sox needed extra innings to beat Oakland, what does that tell you?
@Fever Pitch Guy
I don’t really understand why you’re upset. I like tracking this stuff, even if it’s completely wrong but what I also did was provide you with the fWAR of what the records should be and there are some that seem to match up pretty well on both sides. Seattle & Toronto seem to be way overperforming based on both PT & fWAR and the Padres seem to be underperforming and should be better.
Regardless, I’m just posting some fun data. If it’s not interesting to you, I don’t see why you would reply. But, based on fWAR, Boston should be 2-4 right now, not 4-2. Boston did win 2 against the M’s out of that 4-game series so they must have done something right.
Old – Where do you get the impression I’m upset? I said I get that you enjoy it, I’m happy you do. I just don’t understand how year after year something can be so wrong, but yet people still treat it like it’s predictive in any way. I mean it was way, way wrong the past several years. Not even close. Seems like a total waste of time.
But again, if you enjoy it I’m glad. I didn’t realize you knew it’s always completely wrong, sorry. Now I know. :O)
@Fever Pitch Guy
Okay, but I wasn’t using it to suggest it’s the tell all of truth for standings. I even gave you the fWAR standings for over-under performers. However, the point of my post was to point out that even though the article says these teams are undefeated, the reality is, based on the data, they really shouldn’t be undefeated. Obviously, they are and that’s fine. I was just playing with the data and presenting my argument.
I don’t see how it’s wrong when looking at small samples, plus, it’s just looking at RS and RA, which is pretty simplistic as well. I’m not concerned about the big picture of it being wrong or right. I’m looking at the current season and presenting to you information based on both PT and fWAR to argue that some teams are getting lucky.
Fever.just be happy the sox are playing very well out west and winning..hell if they come home 500 after a 10 game west coast trip history will tell you to take it smile and dont think twice..
Pool – I agree, I have to lower my expectations. The Angels and A’s are two of the worst teams in baseball, so I expected 5-1 against them. I’ll settle for 3-3 like you said.
Lots of good signs so far though, especially Rafaela and Duran. I really want Duran to be the ML SB Champion.
Pythag has no meaning in SSS.
@LordD99
What is SSS?
Small Sample Sizes.
WAR needs a lot more data to be meaningful also. D metrics in a few games are meaningless.
Cool little piece nonetheless. No hate from me!
@BrianStrowman9
The team war can be calculated on short and long-term.
If the team has played 6 games, take that and multiply it by 0.294 and add that to the team WAR to give you the expected team wins. That’s all I did with the fWAR projections.
I wonder, who is “they” in this sentence? The Pythagorean method is perfectly valid statistically. Like any other statistical model it isn’t designed to predict the only outcome, just the most statistically likely one, and it is more predictive with more data.
If you flip a coin five times and get heads all five, this doesn’t mean this was the statistically most likely outcome. It’s still going to happen only around 3% of the time. Repeat that coin flip experiment 100 times, and the most likely result is you get five heads in a row three times. It might be more or less but the more times you repeat it the more the results will be clustered around the mean, forming a normal distribution (AKA, a bell curve).
All this said, it’s early in the season to make much use of the Pythagorean method. Are some teams over or underperforming their ability to score and prevent runs? Sure, but like that coin flip, low probability events are still going to happen less often than high probability events, by definition. Ultimately a team’s W-L record is going to be closely correlated to their run scoring and prevention, and this is statistically provable. This is all the Pythagorean method is saying.
While this is a rather acute analysis, I think it’s obtuse to think that this is the only one that’s right. Whenever leading off, Pythagoras would likely hit a ball into the outfield gap, run past the first baseman, then past the second baseman, and finally he would slide into to the third baseman. Invariability, they would intentionally walk the next two guys leading to the possibility of a round the horn triple play, in order to undue his success.
@whyhayzee
Which is why I included fWAR in there too. Would you prefer I remove the PT and keep fWAR?
No, I would prefer to wait. If I sell you an auto insurance policy, I’m not going to celebrate if you haven’t had an accident in the first week. Sure, I’ll be happy about it, but we’ve got a long way to go. Stay safe out there.
Old, it’s the first week of a 6 month season. I think it’s safe to say you’re needlessly Overperforming in your Comments section analysis.
@nukeg
Okay. I was just replying to the subjects in the article saying that the Tigers, Brew-Crew and Pirates were undefeated. I was pointing out that based on two data sets, they really are overperforming and shouldn’t be undefeated at this point.
The article also says that the Marlins don’t have a win and in reality, they really should have at least 1 by now, based on the data.
This would be time consuming, but look at the strike zone calls by the home plate umpire. And not the aggregate, but situationally. There are instances like last night D-backs vs. Yankees game where the game ends on a horrible strike call in the Yankees favor. We will never know the proper ending because the dumpires slammed the door shut on the D-backs. Maybe it doesn’t matter but the strike zone has been pretty abysmal so far.
I prefer to look at the real standings….
@bluebludd
How are those real standings?
Real standings get a team into the playoffs. Fantasy standings are solace for the teams that are sitting at home in October….
@bluebludd
If you think the Pirates are a 5-0 team, look again!
You are what your record is. It’s early, bro. Still 157 left to play….
The facts say that the Pirates are a 5-0 team. Facts always outperform theories & projections
“expectations are premeditated resentments”
Thank you for your professional analysis Nostradamus
@TheMan 3
You’re welcome. Expect Pirates/Tigers World Series 2024.
This Brewers team is HEAVY on the intangibles. They might well outplay the Pythagoran. KC went to two World Series on back to back 81 or so win projections. I’d call this something like “growth potential”…”win potential”
Heyward got paid. Time to take a little injury break.
Billy eppler says Heyward is injured!
He called that in, btw, from a burner phone in an undisclosed location.
best of luck to Houser, and go brew crew!
Bucs and Tigers- Please go 162 & 0!
They’re going to play each other on the 28th & 29th of May so unless they decide to not play those games, someone is going to get an L.
You’ll have to forgive my ineptitude- I’ve only had one cup of coffee! This is bad news though; now I realize the Mets and Marlins won’t both go 0 & 162. Way to bring me down, Yorkie!
Ippei approved and wagered!
MLB looks forward to a PIT/DET World Series in which newly minted HOFer Jim Leyland will serve as master of ceremonies.
@solaris602
That would be a nice series. Got some bright stars on both sides.
I know this isn’t the right place for this but, what’s going on with Shohei Ohtani?
Is Shohei Ohtani to big to fail? Has the scandal been swept under the rug?
Seems like it has.
Pete Rose should be in the hall of fame. Stop letting nerds decide who goes in.
The only confirmation we have right now is the IRS is conducting an investigation. No parties should be commenting until they and any possible law enforcement agencies do their due diligence.
Rose should be out based on character.
Sleeping with underage girl , don’t get in , sorry not just the gambling
I look forward to the Brewers/Twins game tonight where everything will be on the line for those in both camps who, out of pure faith, claim confidently that Ross/Paddack can still bring it. Let the results speak for themselves.
Preseason prediction for muts was 70-92
I was way off
More like 55-107
What could have possessed stearns to hire mendoza? Not trade pete? Sign the worst garbage like wendle, bader, dj stewart, ji man choi? On what planet did cohen think they’d compete for. Playoffs??? Mauricio tore his acl. Senga went down with an injury before he threw a single pitch this yr. Ohtani rejected the mets . Yam rejected them. They are a disease that no one wants to go near
Probably closer to 12-150.
They could go 0-162 & still not get #1 pick lol
Bec of lottery & luxury tax penalty the most mets can hope for is a pick in the teens
Freak show