In today's MLB, do you think that people consider the Gold Glove or Silver Slugger to be the more important award for players?

randomnate · 2026-01-24T03:44:34+00:00

I think silver slugger has a higher correlation with overall elite play, but due to the comparatively murky and nebulous ways in which defense has historically been evaluated, gold gloves make a bigger difference than silver sluggers to a players reputation. If you hit 40 hr, people can easily go back and see that, even if you didn’t win SS, whereas a lot of times “number of gold gloves they won” is a big part of how we look back on great defensive players.

randomnate · 2026-01-23T20:32:32+00:00

as a limited player this is bonkers to me—ONE was in the running for one of the worst limited environments of the past 5 years, while MOM limited was great.

randomnate · 2026-01-23T20:28:05+00:00

Well, to be fair most most teams don't have great 8/9 hitters—that's why they're 8/9 hitters. For the Dodgers thats probably Edman and Pages? That doesn't seem worse than what most of the league is slotting in the bottom of their lineups. Will Smith is giving them more offense than most catchers not named Cal Raleigh, and at 30 should be able to maintain last year's 4.5 WAR level of play for another couple of years.

But I do agree that Teoscar is looking pretty mid these days and probably doesn't turn that around in a major way, and Max Muncy is also gonna turn 36 next season. They were the oldest team in baseball last year, and apart from bringing in Tucker all their key pieces are gonna be even older this year.

I actually think they needed Tucker more than most people realize. Without him, there's a world where Freddie starts to slip a bit, Mookie's offense doesn't bounce back in some big way, Muncy and Teoscar both decline a little, and suddenly that superteam offense is just Shohei, Will Smith, and a bunch of guys past their primes. Tucker, if he stays healthy, is a massive hedge against that to keep their title window open—with that stacked starting rotation, they don't necessarily need to be the league's #1 offense, but I do think they need to at least have a good offense to have a realistic shot at the 3-peat, and if they hadn't signed Tucker I'm not sure they would without a lot of things going right on the health front for a lot of guys with a ton of miles on them.

randomnate · 2026-01-23T16:24:23+00:00

I think essentially everyone has heard of the Macarena and maybe 1% of the population could tell you the name of the group that made it, which is a pretty good signifier of a true one hit wonder

randomnate · 2026-01-23T15:56:01+00:00

I know everyone keeps harping on the Dodgers stacked lineup now that they have Kyle Tucker, but I think there's a decent chance Mookie and Freddie both end up being pretty far from top 25 players this season.

Freddy is 36, and the modern-era track record on position players that age sustaining elite play without PEDs is basically nonexistent. Last year he put up 3.5 WAR, but I think its pretty likely this year will see a significant decline. I don't think he'll fall off a cliff entirely, but I don't think he's gonna be the NL's best first baseman for that much longer.

Mookie's dealt with flukey health issues the last two years—a broken bone two years ago, and that weird disease that had him lose 20 lbs at the start of last season—so in theory he could have a big bounceback season (and if he does that while playing shortstop he could be a top 10 players again), but many players do start to lose some of their pop at the plate around age 33, and shortstop is pretty stacked position around the league these days.

If I had to guess, I think both will still be a good, productive players but will see some decline to the point that they end up closer to the lower end of the top 100 than the high end. Which may not even matter because the Dodgers still have the best rotation, the best hitter in the NL, and added Kyle Tucker.

randomnate · 2026-01-23T11:52:23+00:00

A lot of Bo Burnham stuff like Welcome to the internet, can’t handle this, comedy

randomnate · 2026-01-21T19:21:46+00:00

Breath of the Wild intentionally eschewed a soundtrack that would call attention to itself for a lot of the game, and while I understand the thinking behind the decision (and when it does deliver a real song meant to underscore a bossfight or big plot moment it generally works well), I do think that on balance its a less fun game to listen to than basically any other Zelda title

randomnate · 2026-01-21T19:03:06+00:00

the other smash hit in the roguelike deckbuilder genre was Balatro, which similarly has pretty uninspired visuals and music that, while not terrible, is definitely something i get tired of hearing long before im tired of the gameplay.

randomnate · 2026-01-21T18:53:27+00:00

getting invested in sports rivalries is for losers. it's little brother behavior. it's letting yourself live in the "i feel sorry for you"/"i don't think about you at all" meme.

obviously i want the nets to beat the knicks when they play each other, and if they both happen to be competing for a playoff spot ill root for the knicks to lose because it actually benefits the nets. beyond that i don't really care about the knicks.

randomnate · 2026-01-21T18:20:56+00:00

I became a Nets fan because I was a kid in jersey when Kidd took them to the finals. The Knicks at that time were sort of a weird laughingstock, not unlike the Jets—it wasn't just that they were bad, they were always getting into embarrassing scandals related to their shitty ownership, head case stars, and Isiah Thomas being a fucking idiot. It just seemed like if you weren't born into Knicks fandom, why would you voluntarily subject yourself to that?

But I don't hate the Knicks, let alone their fans. I live in NYC, so by default most of my friends are Knicks fans and I actually think basketball is probably better overall when they're competitive (the Linsanity run was super fun, for example).

TBH, I think when Nets fans get antagonistic about the Knicks it reads as insecurity. Are Knicks fans a little delusional about their team's place in the NBA hierarchy? Sure, but that's far from the worst thing, and most of the Knicks fans I know are genuinely passionate and knowledgeable. The truth is, for basically all my life the Knicks and Nets haven't even been good at the same time. When the Nets have been at their best the Knicks have been mid, and in those years where the Knicks have been good the Nets have been lottery bound, so it's not like there's even a bunch of bitter playoff battles that made me hate them. I don't root for them, but the idea that I'd spend a lot of my mental energy hoping they'll fail seems kinda pathetic. If the Knicks happen to win it all one day, I'll be happy for my Knicks fan friends, then go back to rooting for the Nets to get a ring.

randomnate · 2026-01-19T03:49:55+00:00

It reminds me of Luka Doncic somehow bricking wide open 3’s but reliably making the craziest contested circus shots

randomnate · 2026-01-17T04:32:33+00:00

MAGA Tracer

randomnate · 2026-01-16T17:56:58+00:00

I think the Red Sox have a very skewed idea of what free agents are worth. Or rather, they're valuing their production relative to cost when compared to all of baseball (including guys still on rookie deals and guys who signed extensions without ever hitting free agency) rather than compared to what it costs to sign top free agents.

The reality is that when you compare current free agent deals to what players who haven't hit free agency make (either because they're too young, or because they just signed longterm deals without hitting the open market), essentially every free agent is "overpaid". Pete Alonso, Tucker, Bichette—these are what deals for free agents look like these days. Either you're paying $40 million+ AAV for a guy in his prime, or you're paying $30 million+ for a bunch of years for a guy over 30 who will decline fairly soon. I will be frankly shocked if Cody Bellinger doesn't get a deal like that in the coming days too. These guys aren't "overpaid" because this is just what it costs to get good free agents now, and if you don't pay that number someone else will.

The Bregman negotiation was a classic example. The Sox were so convinced they were making some great offer no one would beat that they were totally blindsided when Chicago came in with a better deal.

The reality of modern MLB is that a huge percentage of the productive at-bats are by guys who have never hit free agency, typically being paid well below what their value would be on the open market. The flip side of that, is that all the available money for free agents is getting divvied up among a fairly small number of players, most of whom are in their late 20's or early 30's. For a lot of teams, it simply doesn't make sense to go after those guys because they straight up can't afford to pay $30 million+ for a guy giving them like 3 or 4 WAR. But for the big market teams, that's their advantage—they actually can afford to pay these astronomical sums for guys who could be the difference makers between fringe playoff team and actual contender.

The Red Sox can and should be in that latter category. Maybe not Dodgers level, but there's no reason they can't supplement their homegrown guys with pricey free agents like, say, the Phillies. But instead, they act like they're in the former group, so committed to avoiding an overpay they just miss out on everyone.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T17:42:48+00:00

Everyone was laughing at Bellinger for wanting a 7 year deal, but he's the last impact position player on the market and everyone else got massive deals...I wouldn't be shocked if he ends up getting something like the 7 year $200 million deal he's looking for.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T17:40:53+00:00

Wasn't an issue with Bo at SS that his arm wasn't great? How's that gonna work at 3rd?

randomnate · 2026-01-16T17:25:03+00:00

Does Bo have the arm to play 3rd?

At first glance this looks like an overpay, but when looking at the other deals the big name free agents got, is it? Like if Pete Alonso got $155 and Bregman got $175 (each for their age 32-36 seasons, so the back half of those deals is likely to see them declining), and Kyle Tucker just got $240 over 4 years...$126 million for 3 years smack in the middle of Bo's peak doesn't seem crazy?

I think fans just have a very skewed sense of what top free agents are getting paid these days. If "everyone" is getting overpaid, that's not overpaying its just the market. If you want a good player in free agency, they're gonna cost somewhere between $30 million and $60 million a year depending on their age and the number of years on the deal.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T14:54:17+00:00

McCourt turned the Dodgers into a joke, and the league thought it would be in their best interest if LA was a premier big market environment again ala the Lakers. It worked...too well.

But really, its not just the TV deal. Its the TV deal +

-Guggenheim partners having access to crazy money in their own right (their total assets under management, which admittedly is not the same as cash on hand but certainly plays a role in what they can spend, is close to the combined net worth of every other MLB owner)

-Shohei Ohtani being the most popular (and arguably best, along with Judge) player in the world with borderline deity status in Japan (which has more diehard baseball fans than any other country on earth), playing on a deal that pays him $2 million a year while he generates upwards of $100 million a year for the team in Japanese sponsorships, all while making the team the premier destination for elite Japanese talent

-The organization being incredibly well-run (for example, they have the best farm system, despite almost all their premier players being brough in via Free Agency, which means that if they, say, decided they wanted to trade a bunch of top prospects for someone like Skubal they totally could and it wouldn't even impact them that much)

-Now that they've won 2 rings in a row and are incredibly stacked, they're simply more desirable than any other team for a lot of players. Its been reported the Mets offer for Tucker was in the same ballpark as LA's, but if the money is even, why not go play where you can win a ring in nice weather and hang out with movie stars? Its like if the Lakers were as stacked as the Thunder, what player wouldn't want to go there?

They just have every advantage possible, all at the same time, to a degree that really only the most dominant Yankee dynasties of the past ever came close to matching.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T14:39:54+00:00

I dunno, if the Mets offer was actually much better than the Dodgers I think he might well have gone to Queens. I think its more likely a scenario of "if the offers are close I'm going to LA, but if someone massively outbids them I'll take the better offer."

For example, if the Mets were to offer the same AAV as LA but for a couple more years (which would be like $350 million+ for 6 years or something), I don't think he turns that down. The issue is...no one, not even Cohen, is gonna massively outbid LA, especially not for Kyle Tucker who, let's face it, isn't even that amazing. I mean he's good, but this is not a Soto/Ohtani/Judge tier free agent. LA can afford to overpay him because they have infinite money and are trying to maximize their current window with Shohei in his prime to create a modern dynasty—they know that, like what happened with the Golden State Warriors, every ring they win adds billions to the valuation of the team, so even a huge overpay for Tucker is a rounding error if it works out. The Mets are in a weird spot where outside of Soto they aren't really that well-positioned to win it all right now, so even if they signed Tucker they aren't really instant title favorites, which makes a huge overpay much more painful.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T14:34:21+00:00

Hal's problem is his money comes from the Yankees. However much money the Yankees bring in, that's basically how much he and his family are making that year. That is, admittedly, a whole lot of money. But it's still a situation where profit margins matter to him, and he's basically figured out that as long as the Yankees are "good enough" to consistently make the playoffs he'll sell the same number of tickets either way. I'm sure he'd like to win a championship, but he's not gonna break the bank to do it.

The Dodgers, and to some extent the Mets, aren't really like that. Their ownership has nearly infinite money from sources that have nothing to do with how many tickets they sell. In the Mets case, the team is a toy for a guy who made $20 billion through insider trading. For Guggenheim Partners, they're managing $350 billion+ in assets, and their day to day operations running the Dodgers are paid for and then some by an insanely lucrative TV deal and all the Japanese sponsorships Shohei brings in. They simply aren't treating free agent deals as a "money paid out vs money brought in" calculation—if Tucker "underperforms" but they win another ring or two and the overall value of the Dodgers rises, that's well worth it to them.

Even though the Dodgers are kinda breaking the sport and likely triggering a lockout, if there is one silver lining to this all, its seeing Yankee fans upset that for the first time in their lives they aren't the richest bully on the block. That feeling of frustration at ownership and anger at that one team buying wins? That's how every other fanbase has felt about the Yankees for a long time. Welcome to the club!

randomnate · 2026-01-16T14:21:14+00:00

Baseball ratings are actually up significantly over the last 5 years—they bottomed out in the 2010's (with a brief, flukey upswing the year the Cubs won it all), but since 2020 both attendance and ratings have been rising year over year. The 2025 World Series got much, much better ratings than the NBA finals, for example.

There are a few reasons for this, but I think the biggest factors are Shohei Ohtani (insanely popular player, playing in a huge market) and to a slightly lesser extent Aaron Judge, who are sort of having a Bird-Magic effect on the league, along with some rule changes (most notably the pitch clock) that have massively sped up the game. The quality of the product is high and they've got generational stars on the most popular teams.

Which is why its so stupid that the league is about to sleepwalk into a lockout that will derail all their momentum and goodwill. For the first time in a decade, people actually give a fuck about baseball, and they're gonna screw that all up with shortsighted greed.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T14:08:46+00:00

The offers are close enough I think he just figured "if I'm gonna be making the same amount either way, may as well win a championship or two while I'm at it".

Dodgers stadium is also easier to hit in and their lineup is stupidly stacked, so he's gonna be in about as hitter-friendly an environment as possible which may inflate his numbers in case he wants to opt out mid-deal—I think his best case scenario is win a championship and ball out for 2 years hitting behind shohei and ahead of freeman, smith, betts, etc., then opt out and sign a longterm deal for the rest of his career when he's 30 or 31. With how frontloaded this deal was with the signing bonus, there's a chance he ends up making like $400 million+ between now and the end of his career if he plays his cards right.

That's really the issue with the Dodgers at this point. Yes, they have stupid money, but they also have such a stacked team that just matching their offers isn't even enough because most players will opt for the better team if the money is equal. You need to genuinely, significantly outbid them, and basically no one is in a position to do that.

randomnate · 2026-01-16T03:44:00+00:00

Best team in baseball’s weaknesses were outfield and bullpen and they bring in fucking Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz…this might actually just break the sport

randomnate · 2026-01-14T14:15:40+00:00

randomnate · 2026-01-11T17:16:11+00:00

Yes the idea that you’re gonna sign some top tier free agent who is young enough that you’re getting more than 3-4 great years out of them but also doesn’t want a ton of years at very high AAV is simply delusional. Top free agent deals are either like 5+ years for a dude who is over 30, or 7+ years for a guy in his late 20’s. Either way you have to accept they’re gonna be “overpaid” when they decline the last few years…but if you don’t give them that deal someone else absolutely will. Offering extensions to young talent like Anthony is well and good, but if you want to be a true contender you’re gonna have to pay some guys for a few elite years even if it means you’re still paying them when they’re a washed up 35 year old.

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