<font color=goldenrod>Looks like Shohei Otani is gonna be the next majorly hyped Japanese pitcher. 20 years old, throws 100 MPH, said to already be better than Darvish and Tanaka were in their time in the Japanese leagues.

Stats on the year so far: 5-0, 0.80 ERA, 33.2 IP, 17 h, 9 BB, 38 K

Oh...and he's also a pretty good hitter and plays the outfield twice a week.</font>

Can't wait to see who overpays him

<font color=goldenrod>-Yankees
-Red Sox
-Dodgers
-Giants
-Mariners
-Rangers
-Cubs

Feel like those are the only teams that really ever seem to go in on the big-time Japanese players.</font>

They're the only ones that are willing to take the financial risk on signing them, despite none of them truly working out since Ichiro.....

Matsui was another who ended up being good in MLB.

Pitchers have it tougher mostly because of how differnt the systems are here compared to Japan.

A bit different now since the max bid that goes to the Japanese team is 20 mil. Not like you have to pay 150 just to talk to them anymore.

Still not sure why the Japanese teams agreed to that. Teams like Orix have used their huge windfalls on large projects like to renovate stadiums and such.

Tanaka's team was fighting it. They wanted those "millions of dollars" bad. But, MLB and Nippon agreed, and that's how it is.

Old system still applies in South Korea. Which is cool.

<font color=goldenrod>Cardinals are 20-6 and have an 8 game lead in the NL Central. It's almost unfair how consistently good they are year in year out.

I've never seen another team that actually plays significantly better any time one of their star players gets injured.</font>

I know. Their top prospect fn died for crying out loud. Death itself can't even stop them.

Cardinals are gay

love baseball tho

Red Sox fired their pitching coach today. Nobody stood up for him in a recent meeting management had which made it a lot easier to scapegoat him for all the problems with pitching this season.

<font color=goldenrod>lol what an unfortunate firing

"You couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken shit? YOU'RE FIRED!!!</font>

Totally read this in Vince McMahon's voice.

Hey whatever I love Ricky "Porkchop" Porcello don't be hatin'

I knew I was forgetting someone when I wrote that, but I couldn't figure out who it was....

White Sox are so bad I am already over this season :(.

One thing that hurts the MLB is that a lot of people only care about 1 or 2 teams. There are not many superstars that people crave to watch or teams. Yankees use to be that way but that has passed. I don't think the MLB ratings suck because its not as popular but that people only care about their team and stop watching when they are eliminated/out of contention.

Eh White Sox... almost gave my Tigers their first sweep (losing end) of the season :fu:

re: 2nd paragraph

Yes fully... I love watching Tigers but could give two fucks less about the Cubs/Cardinals/Red Sox/FOTM team... baseball is very boring with no emotional/financial investment in a game tbh

I'm watching more than I did last year thanks to MLB.TV.

I can get pumped about some teams other than PHI/BOS, but it usually becomes more about certain players and wanting them to do well.

<font color=goldenrod>and ESPN Sunday Night Baseball does little to change that. Every Sunday Night game so far this year has featured either the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cardinals. The Dodgers I believe have a few scheduled games as well. Gets so damn repetitive.

At least Royals/Tigers is this week to get some different teams in the spotlight. Then again the ESPN announcers are woefully bad.</font>

Add Alex Cobb and Adam Ottavino to the Tommy John surgery list.

Count for 2015: 16

Business is about to pick up in Queens. Mets calling up Noah Syndergaard.

Fan bases probably play a huge role since those three plus the Dodgers and Cubs have around the highest in the entire league. Know the Yanks always get a ton of ESPN Sunday Night games every year but the Red Sox have had a year or two in recent times of barely getting any.

Another reason I don't miss having ESPN. Who does the TV games now? Orel Herschiser and Dan Schulmann did radio games for a while. Love them.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Carl Willis tells reporters in Columbus that he's new Red Sox pitching coach</p>&mdash; Gordon Edes (@GordonEdes) <a href="https://twitter.com/GordonEdes/status/596898150272630784">May 9, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Was the pitching coach for the Indians minor league club in Columbus. Could have arrived for yesterday's game but won't till Sunday or Monday because of a condition in his deal. He wanted to wait until the Indians flew someone over to replace his spot in the minors before leaving.

I miss Justin Upton in a Dbacks uniform. :-\

http://www.milb.com/multimedia/vpp.j...t_id=107767183

<font color=goldenrod>Is it bad that the horribly worded caption made me laugh? :(

Poor Parker though. Fractured bone in his elbow and on his way for a third major elbow surgery. Only 26 but seems like his career could very well be over.</font>

That guy had all the talent in the world. Wish him the best and hope he recovers.

Micheal Pineda set down 16 batters in 7 innings.

Sorry, Droford.

People always get three parts wrong in "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Random cancer survivor ladies singing the stretch at Wrigley are the first in a looooong time to get it right. Everyone gets it wrong. Feel like a curse has been lifted and I can finally go to heaven.

1) It's not "take me out TO the crowd" it's "take me out WITH the crowd"
2) Its Cracker Jack (singular) not Cracker Jacks.
3) It's "I dont care if I NEVER get back" not "EVER"

hate Wrigley and how it makes ppl at other ballparks do the stupid "throw it back!" when catching an opposing player's home run

if I catch a home run ball from an opposing player I'm keeping that fucker get off me

Ya I'm with you 100p. So dumb.

Ball girl will just give it to another fan anyway.

Might toss back a Yankees home run ball depending on the situation but everything else I'd keep the ball or give it as a gift to whoever brought me to the game.

If it's a HEATED RIVAL, sure I could see... I wouldn't throw out an ARod home run ball though, even though he's a huge dickhole

<font color=goldenrod>Take away the 11 game win streak and the Mets are a sub-.500 team. Nats have fully come alive and are just 2.5 games back. Sure does seem like they're going to take the division lead within a week and never look back.</font>

<font color=goldenrod>Stoked for Syndergaard tonight, though.</font>

I would prob give the ball to a kid tbh

The hilarious thing is how people get so mad if they don't throw it back. If you were to ask the mob why you should throw it back they'd say "ITS TRADITION!!"......because keeping tradition has brought so much luck to this franchise, right??

I would give a foul ball to a kid, but I'm keeping the HR ball. I don't care if it was hit by Pablo Ozuna, it's a fn home run ball.

Mad respect for the once in a blue moon guy who has a random ball (be it from home or batting practice) and does the flawless transfer to please the crowd and keep the ball.