Rabs
Member
Well so much for him being our closer. Already given up two and still two on...
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Well so much for him being our closer. Already given up two and still two on...
Braves can not beat the worst team in baseball, and the Cubs can not beat the worst team in the National League. I feel your pain!
And this is why the Orioles are the worst team in baseball.
I stopped watching after we were down huge in the 9th. Woke up and saw we lost in 15 innings I was shocked. Then when I found out we should have won it in the 9th I was not surprised we could not get the winning run in. No reason Freeman should have been sent home with 0 outs. He would have still been on third.
On my latest episode of "Slob his Knob" I take a look at Freddie Freeman and his NL rank among every important traditional & sabermetric stat:
.344 avg - 1st
.435 OBP - 1st
.590 slg% - 1st
1.025 OPS - 1st
88 Hits - 1st
44 Runs - 6th
14 HR - 3rd
48 RBI - 3rd
6 SB - 19th
151 Total Bases - 1st
34 XBH - 2nd
41 Walks - 6th
3.6 rWAR - 1st
3.6 fWAR - 1st
181 OPS+ - 1st
175 wRC+ - 1st
.429 wOBA - 1st
.246 ISO - 6th
Which brings us to this question...
https://www.foxsports.com/watch/mlb-whiparound/video/1255438403676
Is Freeman the clear front runner for NL MVP? I'll give the same exact answer the guys in that video gave....yes, yes, yes. No other position player even comes close to stacking up against Freeman & at least for the moment, the Braves are contenders so we don't have to get into the debate of whether or not a player who's not on a contending team should get consideration & even if he weren't on a contending team, his stats are far better than any other NL position player that I think he'd still be the top candidate. The only other NL player who could give Freeman a run for his money at this point in the season is Max Scherzer. Now, I'm not a big fan of pitchers winning the MVP award unless their stats are drastically better than any position player candidate and while I do believe Scherzer has had an incredible season so far I'd say his stats are comparable, or at best, slightly better than Freeman's.
Throughout his career I'd say this season would be his best shot at winning the award, with the Braves in contention and Harper struggling. However, in order to win it he's going to have to avoid the DL this year. I don't believe serving the minimal time on a single 10-day DL stint will drastically hurt his chances but he has to avoid those major injuries that require significant recovery time.
And again, he could go in a major slump while Harper goes on the hottest streak of his career & the Braves fall out of contention...all things that hurt his chances...but I'm just talking about right now & right now he's the front runner.
And that includes our latest episode, as it only ends when "the player's Knob is full of my Slob". I'll catch you next time when a Braves player's Knob is in need of some Slob, so long folks!
Freeman is having a great year but he's actually third in the NL in fWAR. Scherzer has 4.2 and DeGrom has 3.8. If Scherzer keeps it up he'll win the Cy Young and the NL MVP this year.
I don't know about slightly better. Scherzer is on pace for 8+ fWAR, 22 wins, 300+ Ks, and his ERA is 2 with a FIP and xFIP that back it up. He's leading the NL in just about every pitching category imaginable other than ERA and DeGrom's will come up some so it wouldn't surprise me if Scherzer won the Pitching Triple Crown.