Here are three things to keep an eye on around baseball today:
1. Braves to reinstate Michael Harris II:
Braves manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including Mark Bowman of MLB.com) that Michael Harris II will be activated from the 60-day injured list today. He will join the Braves in San Francisco as they attempt to secure a series victory over the Giants. The center fielder has been out since mid-June with a hamstring strain.
Harris tore things up at Triple-A over six rehab games, batting .435 with a 1.065 OPS. The Braves will hope he stays hot in the majors; before his injury, he was hitting just .250 with a disappointing .653 OPS in 67 games. Atlanta will need to make an additional transaction or two to clear space for Harris on the 26 and 40-man rosters. Bowman implies the Braves could DFA Adam Duvall as a corresponding move. Duvall is in the midst of a dreadful season (.178/.240/.315, -1.1 FanGraphs WAR), and as Bowman points out, the righty-batting Duvall did not get the start last night even with a left-handed pitcher on the mound.
2. Aaron Judge going for home run No. 300:
Yankees outfielder and AL MVP frontrunner Aaron Judge has been sitting on 299 career home runs since Sunday, when he took Rangers southpaw Andrew Chafin deep for his MLB-leading 42nd homer of the season. With his next long ball, Judge will become the 162nd player in MLB history to join the 300-homer club. He will also, almost surely, become the fastest player to hit 300 home runs. That honor currently belongs to Ralph Kiner, who hit his 300th home run in his 1,087th career game. Judge has played just 954 games since his debut in 2016. In other words, Judge will become the fastest player to reach the 300-homer mark whether he hits his next bomb today, next week, or next month. However, he’ll have a pretty good shot tonight, as the Yankees play their final game of the season against the hapless White Sox. White Sox pitchers have given up the third-most home runs in MLB this season (157).
3. Little League World Series starts today:
The Little League World Series kicks off this afternoon in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Ten teams from around the United States and another ten from around the world will compete to be crowned LLWS champions. The tournament, which airs on ESPN, runs through August 25. Meanwhile, the Yankees and Tigers will take the field in Williamsport for the Little League Classic on August 18.
Ralph Kiner was vastly superior to Error in Judgement. But wow, 300. Stop the presses. Hold my calls. I can’t miss THAT. Yawn.
No he wasn’t, Judge’s peak is better by wOBA and wRC+
Ralph served in World War 2 before he played in the Major Leagues. That is vastly superior.
What was his wRC+ during WWII?
Sorry to drag you back down to earth, whyhayzee. but in baseball perspectives, Judge’s peak is no doubt superior.
And the baseballs are the same? Not even close. They may have slowed down the player’s being juiced, but they just swapped in juiced balls. Apples and oranges. Sorry, but you can’t really compare stats. Seven straight years leading the league in home runs. Won’t happen again. Now random players can hit 50 in a year. It used to be special. Not any more.
Roger Maris was a random player hitting 50 (61 actually) homers.
In 1961, the average AL team hit 153 home runs. In 1949, when Ralph hit 54 home runs, the average NL team hit 117 home runs. In 2022, the average AL team hit 170 home runs.
It’s common sense to think that the true home run hitters will hit more home runs when the whole league hits more home runs. It can be attributed to various factors.
The other advantage in today’s game is the flood of mediocre pitchers due to the presence of 30 teams who now carry dozens of pitchers throughout the season.
In Ralph’s day there were 7 other teams, almost all better than his team, with a limited number of pitchers on their roster, Yes, there were some stinkers, but a higher percentage of innings were thrown by pitchers who actually belonged in the majors.
There were 15 other teams, not seven, when Kiner played. No need to overstate the difference.
The pool of pitchers these days is much larger than when he played. Instead of just drawing from players in the United States, players from all over the world pitch in the majors nowadays.
With the increased emphasis on velocity and spin, pictures overall are significantly better than they were when he played. Another key factor is that players are swinging for the fences much more today than they were back when Kiner played, and nearly everyone can hit one out of the park at any time.
I certainly am not trying to diminish his accomplishments, because Kiner was an all-time great. The game simply is different now in numerous ways.
No, there were 7. He played in the National League. The other 8 were in a different league.
If that’s the standard, then there currently are 15 teams in the National League. The other 15 teams are in a different league.
A fun way-too-early forecast would be if anyone has even the slightest chance of breaking Judge’s record after he hits his 300th. Is Gunnar Henderson and/or Jackson Holliday capable of going deep every 3 and a half games? Anyone else I didn’t think of off of the top of my head? Jhonkensy Noel?
Royce Lewis has played 111 games and hit 32 HRs
Yeah. He should get to 900 games in about 2045.
Little League World Series. Baseball in its pure, fun form.
Ah yes. Where the perfectionist dad lives his dreams through his son. And where we get to see the youth imitate all those great qualities so prevalent in their favorite player (A Soto shuffle perhaps?). I’m joking mainly. With all due respect to the LLWS I wouldn’t write about it on an MLB site. You lost me at ESPN too.
Rishi- I hear you with ESPN. I can’t and haven’t been able to watch it for a couple years now. Over the last few year’s it has gone so far down hill and WAY to the left. It’s unwatchable. Not to mention how bad their Sunday Night Baseball crew is, really miss the days of Miller and Morgan together in the booth for ESPN SNB. Thank God for MLB and NFL Network.
I love how anything that’s not full on Trumpism is just WAY to the left these days.
More like ‘baseball in the most cucked form imaginable’ since it’s crammed with delusional parents trying to live out their sports dreams through their sons, the large majority of whom will never even be good enough to be good (not great) college players, let alone make it to the MLB for even just a cup of coffee.
Rosario is gone thankfully. But Duvall next please! He looks like he is swinging a telephone pole. He popped up a foul ball the other day and I found myself legit surprised he touched the ball with bat. That’s a bad sign. Good guy. Wish him the best. But it’s overdue by a month.
Judge looks to be primed to be the next Triple Crown player
Except there’s this Bobby Witt Jr. fellow who’s on an absolute tear for the BA lead.
He does. Also Ohtani and Ozuna are lesser possibilities in NL. With deeper interleague play maybe it should just be whoever is best in MLB? But that’s no fun. It happens rarely enough as is.
Would be great to see it but Wiit, Jr. will need to stop walking altogether for his batting avg to dip.
I still think Judge wins MVP up to this point. In recent memory only Barry Bonds has had an OPS+ higher than Aaron Judge in a single season. The last time any player had an OPS+ higher than 220 in a year? It was Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle in 1957. As great as Witt has been what Judge is doing is historic.
The award is MVP. Error in Judgement has a $300 million dollar multinational conglomerate team of overpaid “superstars” while Witt is carrying the Royals, a mom and pop five and dime. Thankfully postseason doesn’t count or Error would never win a darn thing. Because what he does there is hysterical not historic.
By your logic Mike Trout shouldn’t have won his MVP awards then? That’s basically where you’re going with this. But honestly it sounds like you just hate the Yankees judging by some of your responses here. Let that negativity go and just appreciate that you get to see a player like Judge put up numbers not seen since juiced-up Bonds.
Also no hate on my end I generally enjoy your replies. I like conversing with you unlike that Blue Baron dude 🙂
He’s the biggest, closeted Yankees fan. Don’t let his vitriol fool you.
The other candidate is also on the Yankees in Juan Soto who will get a triple crown in his career at least once
Soto has essentially no chance this year. Unless he gets supremely hot.
I wasn’t mentioning this year….Witt Jr will win the batting title….Judge will win the HR and RBI race….I was thinking more 3 or 4 years down the line when Soto would be in his prime…He’s disciplined at the plate and has monster power…Judge is 32, he might have 5 years left at an all-star level. I think this season might be his ultimate peak. Witt won’t have the power to contend with Soto and Soto already his a batting title hitting .353
I have seen (I think) that players who get to the majors very young and are near immediate superstars tend to peak early and fall off earlier too. He may be at his peak already. True, lots of guys peak in their late 20s. But many peak around 23-25.
Has Albies timeline for return changed any? I haven’t seen an update since he went on IL and Bowman not Tuscano will answer on Twitter errr X
Snitker had an interview Friday (I think) on Braves broadcast and said Albies was recovering quicker than expected. Idk timeline.
If they’d have just amputated he’d already be back.
The Snitker interview was during the Smoltz/Glavine/C.Jones broadcast. It’s probably online. I think he said what the expectations were I just forget. Oh, and Jeff Francoeur…
The Smoltz monologue broadcast moderated by Jeff Francoeur with some insights from Chipper here and there(phone a friend option/part of the game) and an occasional syllable or two from Glavine who we forgot was in the booth. Im joking it’s actually fairly well done.
Aaron has a good but not guaranteed chance at breaking the all time HR record and it’s barely even talked about.
Idk he’s already 32 and it took him almost nine seasons to get this far.
Since the start of 2017, Judge averages about 49 home runs per 155 games. If he keeps that average up, he’ll need to play about 9.45 more seasons to tie the record. But that will take him into his age 42 season. It’s not impossible given that he’s hit 50-60 homers now during the season on multiple occasions, but by the time Barry Bonds was 32, he had 75 more homers, and both Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth had over 400 homers at the same age as Judge.
Judge isn’t reaching Bonds, Aaron, or Ruth. But all the HR’s are fun.
Judge might not even reach Mays number
660 is a pretty high benchmark to begin with. At his current rate, I think he ends up somewhere between about 550-600.
He started too old….They guy with probably the best shot is the 25 year old sitting at 200 homers in Juan Soto…Definitely no guarantee there but he has 100 less homers but 7 years younger than Judge
Given that Ruth played in far fewer games than many of the other so-called kings, I think he’s still the true HR king.
Also played in a more challenging era and without the benefits of modern training and still ran around a 4.5 40 despite being overweight and a power hitter.
It was all because of the hot dogs and beer in his diet!
And 4.5 is a conservative estimate. Could have been more like 4.4 or 4.3. Definitely not any slower than a 4.5
LLWS…..GO HINSDALE!!!!!
Can we get some advanced data and metrics on the LLWS?
EXIT VELO
From Danny Almonte to Jackie Robinson West, the LLWS is filled with cheating, adult corruption and future degenerates. Muting anyone who watches
I made a donation to the Little League World Series when my sister in law’s cousin passed away at the age of 16 from heart failure. He asked if I would take him to a Mets game and we had a great time. He knew he was on borrowed time with a heart defect but he was a determined kid. So I smile a little every year in memory of Greg. But I agree with the sentiment about obnoxious parents and entitled kids.
Karma for the braves
Sorry, but at my age, it’s difficult for me to refer to a home run as a ‘bomb’, same as I refuse to call the pitcher’s mound “the bump”.
Let em know King
No need to have commas in this sentence at all: “He will also, almost surely, become the fastest player to hit 300 home runs.“
Correct, just Awful grammar, Almost Surely is horrible, very poor.
Par for the course with many of these writers, and articles.
Very easily should have been –
“Most assuredly, Judge will also become the fastest player to hit 300 home runs.”
Yours is far, far better. Sometimes I think these guys are paid by the commas.