Gunnar Henderson 2024

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

56 minutes ago, Philip said:

I dislike long-term contracts because they usually don’t turn out. But if we gave that guy 10/300 would he take it? He could be Mike Trout.

Plus, we’re legitimate World Series contenders and the angels never were.

Gunnar is a once in a generation talent and if there was a player you would gamble on locking up to a 10 year contract it's him.

[accinfo]

51 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Gunnar is a once in a generation talent and if there was a player you would gamble on locking up to a 10 year contract it's him.

It is going to take much more than 30 million a year.  Right now it would be $40 million per or more.

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

Craziest stat for Gunnar might be he's on pace to score 144 runs this season.

[DrungoHazewood]

12 hours ago, OriolesUpAndDowns said:

This thread made me go look up ARod’s stats.  Wow 

 

Age 20: .358 BA, 1.045 OPS, 54 doubles and 36 HR’s.  
 

Somehow he finished 2nd to Juan Gonzalez in the MVP voting

 

12 hours ago, baltfan said:

It seems crazy but Gonzalez started the season off really hot and was on pace for much of the season to break the 190 RBI record. That was more of a thing back then. 

We've talked about this many times over the years, but I'll never quite get the kind of mass hysteria narratives that sometimes spread around MVP or other award voting. In 1996 ARod was obviously a better overall hitter than Gonzalez, definitely a better baserunner, and while Rodriguez was a good shortstop Gonzalez was a below-average corner outfielder. There was no WAR at the time, but retroactively this is reflected in ARod winning that metric about 9-3.

But as often happens someone runs with one crazy idea or the other and they give the award to the clearly worse player. Makes me think it's usually just a way to sell more newspapers with controversy.

[DrungoHazewood]

11 hours ago, Bemorewins said:

Different era. They were allowed to freely use PEDs then.

Just as importantly they used baseballs where they'd replaced the cushioned cork center with Flubber. There's almost no way that sometime in early 1993 the entire league suddenly decided to use industrial quantities of 'roids AND started to work out like madmen so they'd take effect. In 1992 the majors scored just over four runs a game, and by mid-1993 it was about five. Not to rehash that entire argument for the 10,000th time...

[Sports Guy]

11 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Just as importantly they used baseballs where they'd replaced the cushioned cork center with Flubber. There's almost no way that sometime in early 1993 the entire league suddenly decided to use industrial quantities of 'roids AND started to work out like madmen so they'd take effect. In 1992 the majors scored just over four runs a game, and by mid-1993 it was about five. Not to rehash that entire argument for the 10,000th time...

Yep.  All of it was part of MLB’s decision that scoring runs was more important and would bring more people, so they overlooked things and “helped the players cheat” in different ways and then they turn around and vilify the players because it tarnishes their precious records…records held by players who also took PEDs.

The whole thing is a joke.

[Moose Milligan]

13 hours ago, OriolesUpAndDowns said:

This thread made me go look up ARod’s stats.  Wow 

 

Age 20: .358 BA, 1.045 OPS, 54 doubles and 36 HR’s.  
 

Somehow he finished 2nd to Juan Gonzalez in the MVP voting

I remember seeing him in that age 20 season and thinking he was Christ in cleats. 

Wanted to really like that guy but he made it impossible. Hell of a player. I don’t care about the PEDs like I used to but he was amazing without the juice. 

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Yep.  All of it was part of MLB’s decision that scoring runs was more important and would bring more people, so they overlooked things and “helped the players cheat” in different ways and then they turn around and vilify the players because it tarnishes their precious records…records held by players who also took PEDs.

The whole thing is a joke.

Yep, we're mostly in agreement here. Bud Selig was (is?) a slimy guy. Made fistfuls of cash in the 1990s attendance boom, then was shocked, just **shocked**, that anything unusual was going on.

[DrungoHazewood]

22 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I remember seeing him in that age 20 season and thinking he was Christ in cleats. 

Wanted to really like that guy but he made it impossible. Hell of a player. I don’t care about the PEDs like I used to but he was amazing without the juice. 

I really didn't have anything against him as a Mariner or Ranger, just that I was a little disappointed that Cal's title of greatest AL shortstop of all time didn't last very long.

[Moose Milligan]

18 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Yep, we're mostly in agreement here. Bud Selig was (is?) a slimy guy. Made fistfuls of cash in the 1990s attendance boom, then was shocked, just **shocked**, that anything unusual was going on.

He had that folksy Wisconsin thing down pat though. Kinda hard to believe he was slimy, easier to believe he was a bit of a doofus and slightly incompetent. 
 

I don’t think there’s ever been a commissioner that has been liked. Maybe Giamatti cause he was tough on Rose and died shortly after he took the office, but to me that means he wasn’t around long enough for people to learn not to like. 
 

That said, give me Bud over Manfred. 

[Moose Milligan]

3 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I really didn't have anything against him as a Mariner or Ranger, just that I was a little disappointed that Cal's title of greatest AL shortstop of all time didn't last very long.

A-Rod was weird because he was liked early on and all he had to do was to just be Robin to Griffey’s Batman and stay in Seattle and win a ring there.

And then he spent the rest of his career being hated and wondering why everyone didn’t like him. 
 

I think Cal still holds that title only because A-Rod had to move to third for granite glove Jeter. 

[DrungoHazewood]

13 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

He had that folksy Wisconsin thing down pat though. Kinda hard to believe he was slimy, easier to believe he was a bit of a doofus and slightly incompetent. 
 

I don’t think there’s ever been a commissioner that has been liked. Maybe Giamatti cause he was tough on Rose and died shortly after he took the office, but to me that means he wasn’t around long enough for people to learn not to like. 
 

That said, give me Bud over Manfred. 

Except he made his money as a used car salesman. Or owner of a number of car lots. You almost have to be slimy to do that.

"Surrreee... that smell is normal, and the knocking is the sound of power. These engines are powerful. Just Detroit doesn't want you to know because of the government regulations and all. So if you can just sign right here, and then down there for the undercoating, because you don't want this thing rusting out in these Wisconsin winters, do you? That'll be $22,884.83 in 128 easy payments for your new-to-you 1983 Ford Festiva! Congrats!"

At least Manfred finally broke the stranglehold the boomer hidebound traditionalists had on the game, and isn't as big on selling clear problems as features. Not that he's anywhere near perfect...

Edited Friday at 12:20 by DrungoHazewood

[Big Mac]

8 hours ago, Cuellar35 said:

I find the 2019 draft fascinating now.  All the talk at 1 was between Adley and Witt Jr.  We basically got both.

I wonder what the most WAR a team's draft class has ever put up in a single season?  Going into last night, we already had 9.1 bWar between Gunnar, Adley and Stowers (contributing with a 0.1) plus a 2.2 from Joey Ortiz so far.  You also would need to subtract the -0.4 from Hernaiz, not a math guy but that comes out to 10.9 bWar for me halfway through the season.

That's a pretty impressive showing 5 years after the 2019 draft IMO. 

[DrungoHazewood]

11 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

A-Rod was weird because he was liked early on and all he had to do was to just be Robin to Griffey’s Batman and stay in Seattle and win a ring there.

And then he spent the rest of his career being hated and wondering why everyone didn’t like him. 
 

I think Cal still holds that title only because A-Rod had to move to third for granite glove Jeter. 

You can make a career argument for Cal, but peak is much harder. Cal's 1991 is better than any ARod season, but ARod had six 8-win seasons as a SS to Cal's three. Then there's things like ARod stole more bases in 1998 than Cal did in his career, and Cal grounded into 100 more DPs.

I'll stop now because it seems kind of dirty to even be having this discussion.

It is weird that he didn't expect that 80% of the population hates him after going to play for the Yankees as the highest-paid player in the game and then getting caught with PEDs.

[Bahama O's Fan]

The A-rod All star move to 3B for Cal was super classy. I so respect him for that.