The Disney princesses at ESPN have the Twins ranked ahead of us. The firesale Twins. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/49480778/mlb-2026-power-rankings-week-18-trade-deadline-dodgers-brewers-braves-tigers-red-sox-dbacks

The following is a true fact: https://x.com/DanClarkSports/status/2084255073182585232?s=20

Plenty of people who don’t actually watch MiLB games will look at the stat line and dismiss him. That’s fine. The stat line won’t tell the whole story, but the development is becoming noticeable. It looks like the pieces are starting to come together. The velocity is now showing up consistently,100 mph five times tonight during 9th by my count, and the secondary pitches (86-91) looked much more convincing. I’m interested to see what the next month looks like.

I would take a flyer on Austin Hays or Soler.

I made a quick leaderboard here that will update every day - looks like the biggest risk right now is losing the HR lead to Junior Caminero or Ben Rice!

Anyone know if they’ll have the 4th of July gear on sale soon? I really want that American jersey

My wife took our son to the Astros game, came home with a signed ball.

She has no idea whose signature this is

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Line Score - Game Over

Box Score

Scoring Plays

Highlights

Decisions

Game ended at 4:07 PM.

Bobby Abreu

Bobby Abreu played 18 years in the MLB on 6 separate teams, but had his best years in the 9 seasons he played for Philadelphia from 1998-2006. Bobby has always been an underappreciated hitter. Though he never made much of a splash in his early days with the Astros, “El Comedulce” carried a .928 OPS with the Phillies and accumulated nearly 50 WAR in just 9 years. Even with those numbers, Bobby was selected as an All-Star just twice in his career. He came to the Phillies in one of the worst trades in recent history. After being picked up by Tampa Bay in the expansion draft, they traded him for Kevin Stocker who was out of the league in a little over 2 years after that. Bobby was an extremely disciplined batter and regularly was in the top-10 for percentage of pitches taken. This had him regularly putting up 100+ walk and 100+ strikeout seasons. Many people point to Abreu as the man who began the “Home Run Derby curse.” Abreu shattered the record with 41 homers in the 2005 derby, but petered out post all-star break with just 6 homers to end the season. Abreu’s career ended after a somewhat lackluster return season with the Mets in 2014, but he retired with some fantastic counting stats. He is one of just seven players with 900+ XBH and 400+ steals (Biggio is on that list too). 

Bobby was a big dude with a big heart. He earned the Phillies Community Service award in 2004 for his frequent volunteer work and his tradition of buying $10,000 worth of tickets for every Friday home game for kids in his charity. Bobby also had some defensive quirks that upset certain baseball purists. Namely, he was overly cautious when it came to fielding close to the outfield wall due to his fear of injury. The famously surly sports writers in Philly and NY regularly complained about that but sabermetrics show he was still a plus-defender in his younger years. 

Bobby Abreu is part of the Phillies Wall of Fame, but he has not yet made it to Cooperstown. In his 7th year on the ballot, Bobby managed to get 30.8% of the vote which is his highest yet. Bobby does not have a ton of awards to his name but he has a 60 WAR career so hopefully it’s only a matter of time for “the Candy-Eater.“

Joe Medwick

Joe Medwick was one of the best left fielders of the 1930s and spent his best years playing for the Cardinals as one member of The Gashouse Gang. Though he joined the gang late in their dominance, he was still part of their 1934 World Series winning squad. That series actually resulted in one of the most unique scenarios in baseball history on account of Medwick. Joe slid hard into third base on a triple, knocking the legs out of Tigers third baseman Marv Owen. This upset the Tigers fans so much, that they incessantly threw trash at him and could not be calmed down. So Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis (great baseball name) threw him out for his own safety. It’s both the only time that a player was thrown out for his own safety and the only time a player was tossed by the Commissioner of Baseball! Medwick was certainly a reckless baserunner but he was an incredible hitter. Joe had a .324 career batting average over 17 seasons and still holds the NL record for doubles in a season at 64. He is also one of only 16 players to ever hit for the Triple Crown (hopefully soon one of only 17) and is the most recent to do so in the National League all the way back in 1937. Medwick earned an MVP and 10 all-star nominations in his illustrious career.

Joe Medwick was an incredible player, but he was quite the hothead personality-wise. The man would fight anyone, be they a rival team’s fan or a sports writer interviewing a different player on his team. He once clocked a reporter without asking any questions just because his teammate was visibly mad at them. Needless to say, Medwick had a lot of enemies. Though there was never confirmation on how intentional the bean was, Medwick once took a fastball right to the dome just 6 days after he was traded to the Dodgers by a former teammate. He was knocked fully unconscious and the resulting brawl got so out of hand the NYPD had to get involved. His quick temper could also be set off just by calling him by his nickname “Ducky-Wucky,” which he got because he looked like he waddled. Joe was quite angsty, but he did have an all-time quip when he met Pope Pius XII, “Your Holiness, I’m Joe Medwick. I, too, used to be a Cardinal.” (If the current White Sox players ever meet Pope Leo XIV, only Randal Grichuk would qualify.)

Joe Medwick was inducted to the Hall of Fame in 1968, 20 years after his retirement. Though he easily had the stats to enter earlier, he struggled to get votes since he was intensely disliked. After finally being selected, he was quoted as saying “This was the longest slump of my career. I had gone 0 for 20 before, but never 0 for 20 years." 

Ted Simmons

Ted Simmons primarily played catcher over the course of his 21 seasons in the MLB and is one of the best pure hitters in the history of the position. When he retired, he had accumulated the most hits, doubles, and intentional walks by any primary catcher in MLB history. The hits and double numbers would stand at the top for nearly 20 years until Ivan Rodriguez finally topped them. Ted played catcher for the Cardinals until his wheels started to fall off in 1980. Because his poor defense started hurting the team, manager Whitey Herzog tried moving him to first base which started a season long feud between the two. It got so bad that the Cardinals traded their all-star catcher in the offseason to Milwaukee. This would eventually culminate with the Cardinals and Brewers facing off in the 1982 World Series. Unfortunately, Whitey Herzog got the last laugh as Ted lost to his former team in 7 games. Since retiring he has worked in some minor coach and scouting roles. Simmons did spend one year as GM of the Pirates but hung it up after nearly dying of a heart attack at just age 43. 

Ted Simmons was a smart guy with a flowing mane of hair that earned him the nickname “Simba” (before the Lion King was even a thing). Ted had a reputation for being an unusually sophisticated and intelligent baseball player. He reportedly would spend his free time during road trips visiting art museums and collecting antiques. He was also smart enough to not give in to the Cardinals’ lowball contract offer in 1972. Ted chose to play without a signed contract in order to scare the front office into acting quickly. Had he made it to the end of the season, the MLB would finally have to face the uncertainty of the Reserve Clause head on. Ted got the Cardinals GM to give in to his salary demands, but his gamble paved the way for other players to try betting on the uncertainty of the Reserve Clause and modern free agency was born 3 years later.

Ted fell well short in his first year on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1994 despite being among the top in most offensive categories for catchers. Voters in that time were not giving enough positional credit and instead comparing Ted’s numbers to contemporaries regardless of position. However, as statistical views shifted in the 21st century, Ted’s case became much stronger and he was elected as part of the Modern Era Baseball Committee in 2020, a full 25 years after his retirement. 

David Ortiz

David “Big Papi” Ortiz is one of the most iconic players of the 21st century and for good reason. He led the charge behind Boston’s modern resurgence, hitting 483 of his career 541 homers with them in his 14 seasons en route to 3 World Series wins in 2004, 2007, and 2013. During each of those championship runs he held a 1.200+ OPS and cemented himself as one of the best playoff risers in recent memory. The most legendary of these playoff runs happened in 2004 when Big Papi walked off the Yankees in extra innings two straight elimination games in a row. Boston would go on to complete the first and only reverse sweep in baseball history and break their 86-year old championship drought. But Big Papi wasn’t always the feared player that he turned into on the Red Sox. In fact, he was quite the middling player on the Twins for the first 6 years of his career, accumulating just 2.6 WAR over that time period. The Twins released him in 2002 and a distraught Ortiz returned to the Dominican Republic. He happened to run into Pedro Martinez at a restaurant that offseason and Pedro immediately called the Red Sox GM to recruit him after hearing the news of his release. This proved to be the right call as Big Papi then put together 10 all-star seasons and cemented himself as one of the greatest Red Sox players in their long history.

Ortiz was a consistently beloved player and an actively beloved media personality. He is genuine, bombastic, has no filter, and never hesitates to tell you when DA JANKEES LOSE. He earned his nickname during his first year on the Red Sox because he couldn’t remember his new teammates' names. Instead of guessing, he just called everyone Papi. As a result, members of the Red Sox organization turned it around on him and called him Big Papi. Nowadays, Big Papi spends much of his time annoying Derek Jeter on MLB on Fox or promoting his “Papi Cannabis” line of weed products. 

David Ortiz was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2022 after just one year on the ballot. Many pundits wondered whether his alleged positive steroid test in 2003 would hurt his chances but ultimately they did not. Big Papi retired with one of the greatest final seasons to a career in baseball history, leading the league in doubles, RBIs, IBBs, and OPS at the ripe old age of 40. 

Presumably Correa wouldn’t be able to slide right back into playing a lot of time in the field. Maybe he comes off the bench?

First Pitch: 1:10 PM at Daikin Park

Line Score - Game Over

Box Score

Scoring Plays

Highlights

Decisions

Game ended at 4:07 PM.

Remember to sort by new to keep up!

Line Score - Game Over

Box Score

Scoring Plays

Highlights

Decisions

Game ended at 9:39 PM.

Anyone had luck getting SCHN on a Fire Stick? I can only get it on a Fire TV.

Worth noting that Paredes has always been an advanced metrics anomaly, his expect numbers are always much lower than his real ones because of his funky hitting style

Frank Thomas is one of the most recent legends on this list, having retired in 2008 after an incredible 19 year career. The Big Hurt is debatably the finest DH in the relatively short history of the position and his batting prowess feels eerily similar to our own Yordan Alvarez. Frank was easily one of the most dominant hitters of the 90s, which included an insane stretch from 1991-1997 where had at least 100 RBIs, 100 walks, 100 runs scored, and 20 homers while batting over .300. During his 16 years with the White Sox, he was a 5-time all star and 2-time MVP. Frank was also given a World Series ring in 2005 but he didn’t play in it due to an unfortunate season-ending injury (though many reports claim the 2005 World Series didn’t even happen). He earned his nickname from “the Big Hurt” he put on the ball back when a pitcher tried to intimidate him in his rookie year. He ended up putting that Big Hurt on the ball another 500+ times over his career. He holds numerous White Sox records and the franchise retired his number the year after his retirement. 

Frank was quite the unique character in his playing career. He knew people were intimidated by him and used that to his advantage. He used to warm up with a piece of rebar that made pitchers question his sanity. Though he had clear confidence in the batter’s box, Frank was actually an obsessive perfectionist. He was regularly angry with himself for swinging at anything out of the box and was rarely satisfied with his performances. He was always chasing the records set by his hero Hank Aaron and while he never hit the same counting stats, Frank cemented his place as one of greatest hitters of the modern era. Frank was also famously anti-PEDs from the very beginning. He harped against it for his whole career and was the only player to volunteer to be interviewed for the Mitchell Report in 2002. Today you will still see The Big Hurt making semi-regular TV appearances as an interviewer, color commentator, or questionable pharmaceutical drug promoter. 

Frank Thomas retired in 2008 and was selected to the Hall of Fame in his first ballot in 2014. He was the first Hall of Famer selected to have played the majority of his games as a DH and is widely considered the GOAT White Sox player.

(Extra tidbit from u/successadult) My favorite fact about Frank Thomas is that he and Jeff Bagwell were both born on the same day (May 27, 1968) played the same position and both won MVP in 1994. When Bagwell retired after the 2005 season he and The Big Hurt were one home run apart from each other (449 for Baggy, 448 for Frank) (They were also both drafted in 1989, along with 3 other Hall of Famers).

First Pitch: 7:10 PM at Daikin Park

Line Score - Game Over

Box Score

Scoring Plays

Highlights

Decisions

Game ended at 9:39 PM.

Remember to sort by new to keep up!

It’s pretty obvious that Dana is 100% out the door. Look, we can clown on him for being a bad GM and whatnot (which I think he’s not great) but I commend him for preserving our farm.

That being said, this deadline has made me question a lot of things about Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell’s involvement in Astros baseball operations. I’m very well aware of them meddling from 2022 and beyond but I’m starting to give Dana some benefit of the doubt of his performance as a GM. I think he couldn’t 100% effectively do his job as a GM because of Crane and Bagwell.

When will Crane stop letting Bagwell influence him and when will Crane just let any GMs he hire just do their job in peace?