Max Scherzer with the dreaded forearm tightness........Kolten Wong pinch hits for MVP candidate Freeman and hits 3 run HR.....Bohm makes the error of the year. Another interesting night

From Morosi: The @baseballhall Historical Overview Committee will meet soon to assemble the December ballot for non-players of the contemporary baseball era. Potential candidates include Jim Leyland, Lou Piniella, Davey Johnson, Charlie Manuel, Joe West and George Steinbrenner.

If this is the list, I'll pass. Steinbrenner maybe

Feels like a reasonable argument can be made for Davey. Good results everywhere he managed

Astros claim Sousa off waivers and Houston goes rolling along !!!

I see that we have an Omnichatter and an OMNICHATTER for September

Cards got stuffed with the "crew chief" chlallenge which looks a lot like a free challenge to me. What a stupid rule - that should only exist for HR/foul ball subset of challenges, if at all

Another glorious Cub victory on our quest for the 2nd WC spot. Cubs are up to 3rd in NL in R/G which is kinda weird but no complaints.

Weird factoid from today's game: the Giants haven't had a 30-HR hitter since Bonds in 2004. They said every other team had at least 4. Heck, the 2023 Braves have 4 (and Albies at 28).

It came up in a discussion of how the Giants' strategy has long been to have a flexible roster of solid players platooning around. So maybe it's just that the Giants have so few guys in the last nearly 20 years who have had enough PAs in a season to hit 30. It would be interesting to see how the Giants compare in terms of (a) # qualified hitters; (b) # hitters with 600+ PA; (c) K and walk rates; (d) some measure of lineup stability. (Nobody has a truly stable lineup but maybe even something simple like the Giants have had the fewerst guys with more than 120 starts but the most guys with 40+. Or did the memo they got only mention two true outcomes?

And it's been a long haul but I see that coming into today, the A's are a half-game up on the Royals. (The Royals have already won today as I type and the A's are losing so ...) After their horrendous 12-46 start, the A's have played a perfectly un-respectable 30-49. The Royals have been consistently terrible, their best month is a 370 WP (10-17).

Someone pointed out the Braves having a starting lineup where every position's OPS+ is over 100. The rangers are very close with three guys hovering at 95+. The cardinals are very close with two guys hovering at 97/98. Seattle is close as well. With Seattle and stl you have to throw out a couple guys who left mid season and go with their replacements

Atlanta's worst hitter has an OPS+ of 106. In addition all these guys play every day and absorb the lions share of at bats.

The Cubs come close. Gomes/Amaya are at 94/95; Hoerner is at 95; Swanson at 99 (down a good bit lately). Then it depends on who's playing that day but Happ 113, Suzuki 111, Tuachman 101, Bellinger 141 and Candelario 114 (or 124 on the year) are common. But then it's a pick of offense with Morel 110 or Wisdom 107 or defense with Madrigal 85.

That said, some significant bumps. Morel has been atrocious for the last month (127/215/239) and Wisdom barely plays anymore (25 PAs in the last month plus). Wisdom's a limited player but I don't understand the near complete benching, at least not while Morel is lost. Still compared with having Hosmer, Mancini and Barnhart getting regular playing time, this is a godsend.

Does it seem odd that so many teams would feature this type of up and down the lineup offensive production? All this rounds to 0 right? So is it more of a function of the bad teams driving up the performance of the good teams ? But, on the other hand, we've always had bad teams. KC doesn't look that bad. Oakland is pretty bad.

I was looking at FG leaderboards and the number of position players with negative WAR total 200. Those with more than 50 at bats number 140, which is something like 4-5 per team.

Does it make sense that a replacement player is 0 but there are so many people playing a significant amount of time with negative WAR? Shouldn't a team be able to staff up with better talent ?

More action in the Omnichatter than the OMNICHATTER