*** OFFICIAL *** MLB 2024 Thread

[Dan Druff]

Here are the futures totals.

Most years I don't bother with this shit, because I hate futures bets. Don't have the patience.

But this year I might fire some. Here are my recommendations:

Dodgers over 103.5 - They won 100 last year despite a starting pitching staff which was one of their worst in decades. Seriously, look it up. All they've done since then has been add Shoehei Ohtani, Yoshi Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Teoscar Hernandez. And all of last year's major contributors will be back, aside from Kershaw who will come in mid-year.

Atlanta over 101.5 - Another ploppy pick, but it's hard to see the Braves not beating this mark. The top 5 in their lineup are all in the top 22 ranked fantasy hitters in baseball, including #1 Acuna. Their #6 hitter is Michael Harris. Spencer Strider and Max Fried are back, and both healthy. They even picked up Chris Sale. Aside from the Dodgers, who in the NL is going to be a problem for them in the regular season? The only team in their division projected over .500 is the Phillies.

St. Louis under 85.5 - This is my favorite bet. How exactly have the 71-win Cardinals improved? By signing a gaggle of ancient starting pitchers? Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt are not the offensive forces they once were. They're starting the season without Lars Nootbaar and Tommy Edman. The bullpen isn't particularly good, and the team is expected to be slow on the basepaths in an era where SB are way up. This is not going to be a winning team.

Cubs over 83.5 - This is a team which was sometimes great and sometimes terrible last year. But I think they should do better than 83 wins. The lineup is fairly solid, and the starting pitching may be better than you think. Justin Steele looks great, Shota Imanaga will probably be solid, and you might get some surprising performances out of Jordan Wicks and Hayden Wesneski. It also helps that they're in a division without any dominant team, so they'll be playing fewer games against the Dodgers and Braves.

Reds over 82.5 - My second favorite bet. The Reds have a pretty exciting lineup of youngsters, between TJ Friedl, Elly De La Cruz, Matt McClain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and Spencer Steer. They can afford to wait out the suspension of Noelvi Marte. The starting pitching will hold them back, as only Hunter Greene really has a lot of talent, but their lineup should be good enough to compete for the division. I actually think they win the NL Central.

Diamondbacks over 83.5 - The lineup is decent, and the starting pitching featuring Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelley, Eduardo Rodriguez, and the possible breaking out Brandon Pfaadt should make them much better than a .500-ish club. They are riding the momentum from last year's exciting postseason. While they won't challenge the Dodgers for the NL West title, they should pull up into second, and probably finish in the high 80s.

Angels under 72.5 - So, aside from the oft-injured Trout, what's left? Anthony Rendon, who has admitted he's essentially given up? Taylor Ward? Brandon Drury? Only one member of the lineup is projected to steal more than 8 bases, nobody is projected to hit over .264, and nobody except Trout is projected to hit over 25 HR. But the real story is the starting pitching. I don't see Reid Detmers, Griffin Canning, Patrick Sandoval, Tyler Anderson, and Chase Silseth putting up big numbers. Plus they're in a division with the Astros, Rangers, and Mariners. I project something like 69 wins for this squad.

[Sanlmar]

Gavin Lux threw an egg at Dave Roberts at the Seoul airport. He missed.

[BCR]

Batter up!

We can pretend it was a perfect pitch.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/1769365159754301567

[Sanlmar]

Batter up!

We can pretend it was a perfect pitch.

Embedded Tweet

https://twitter.com/twt/status/1769365159754301567

MLB is like going to watch a symphony

KBL is like going to a rock concert

Japanese baseball cheerleaders are a whole social media fetish

[Sanlmar]

We doing a Seoul Series watch party Druff? Shall i call you or nudge you?

Game 2 lines are trickling out. I need F5 numbers. Could Yamamoto fill the emptiness Kershaw left in my black heart?

[NickyPipes]

What’s the deal? These are real regular season games tomorrow? In Korea? While everyone else is in spring training?

Thanks for pointing this out, I’ll be up for hours before this starts of course I now am going to watch and bet

[gut]

Team all shortstops vs team no shortstops

[Sanlmar]

Team all shortstops vs team no shortstops

We were mocking the Dodgers shortstop situation February 2023.

Allow me to provide a key to my old post. It was my contention that Lux would be the Dodgers Opening Day shortstop last year and Friedman would be stubborn about jamming someone organically unqualified into the third most important position on the field.

The Dodgers put Lux in the gym thinking this was the solution to his throwing woes. In turn, Lux posed semi nude on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This harkened back to the Dodgers ‘roided up Shortstop back in the day, Nomar Garciaparra, who posed similarly jacked on the SI cover.

I pointed out what was obvious to me - LUX NEVER LEARNED HOW TO THROW A BASEBALL.

Here the Dodgers are a year later and days away from Opening Day still in denial about Lux and his lack of talent.

Somehow this all got overlooked while mailing out checks?

Saw you lurking Druff.

If you want a fun bet on opening day Shortstop (you stubborn mule) let me know. It’s Lux. It was always Lux and no matter how bad he is he will be your guy til All Star break.

Dodgers don’t adjust. They are smarter than us.

Vargas, Lux, Muncy

Los Angeles has a huge tv market and they need to bring entertainment to the masses in this off year.

Remember Nomah? (Anthony Nomar Garciaparra) Your ‘roided shortstop in 2008’ish (I forget). Lux gave me flashbacks. His arm sucks cause he doesn’t know how to throw a baseball not because he was weak.

Lux shirtless on Sports Illustrated?

[Dan Druff]

Dodgers game 1 in the books... earlier than ever.

They played from 3-6am PT in Korea.

Glasnow pitched. Looked great in the first, but was a little wild after that, walking 4. He ended up escaping with 2 ER in 5 innings, despite allowing bases loaded and nobody out at one point.

Ball died in that stadium. Nobody hit a HR, or even came close, despite some hard hit balls which you'd think have otherwise gone out.

Shohei Ohtani went 2-for-5 and stole a base.

Dodgers were down 2-1 in the 8th. After tying it 2-2, they got a huge break. Gavin Lux hit into what should have been an inning ending DP, but the ball broke through the laces on Jake Cronenworth's glove, and literally went through it. Never seen a ball go THROUGH an MLB glove before. Bizarre. That scored a run, extended the inning, and the Dodgers ended up ahead 5-2, which turned out to be the final.

Props to Sanlmar for his u5.5 K bet on Glasnow. He struck out 4.

[Dan Druff]

I moved the Ohtani gambling story to its own thread: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...egal-bookmaker

[Sanlmar]

Druff forgot to mention Ohtani getting doubled off second to end the rally on late innings blunder. Hey, he’s got stuff on his mind

[simpdog]

Yoshinobu Yamamoto lasted just one inning in his Los Angeles Dodgers' debut after signing a record $325 million, 12-year contract

Gave up 5 runs and needed 43 pitches to get through the inning.

Was his translator betting too?

[Sanlmar]

Game 2 lines are trickling out. I need F5 numbers. Could Yamamoto fill the emptiness Kershaw left in my black heart?

You want to find our old Yamamoto posts Gut or you gonna make me do it?

[gut]

Game 2 lines are trickling out. I need F5 numbers. Could Yamamoto fill the emptiness Kershaw left in my black heart?

You want to find our old Yamamoto posts Gut or you gonna make me do it?

For Druffs sake, can pretty much only get better from a 45.00 ERA

[FRANKRIZZO]

Thanks for JD Martinez nice addition

[simpdog]

Thanks for JD Martinez nice addition

$4.5MM this year. $1.5MM a year deferred from 2034-38

side note: Bobby Bonilla is done getting his 1.2 million in 2035 lol.

[herbertstemple]

We were mocking the Dodgers shortstop situation February 2023.

Allow me to provide a key to my old post. It was my contention that Lux would be the Dodgers Opening Day shortstop last year and Friedman would be stubborn about jamming someone organically unqualified into the third most important position on the field.

The Dodgers put Lux in the gym thinking this was the solution to his throwing woes. In turn, Lux posed semi nude on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This harkened back to the Dodgers ‘roided up Shortstop back in the day, Nomar Garciaparra, who posed similarly jacked on the SI cover.

I pointed out what was obvious to me - LUX NEVER LEARNED HOW TO THROW A BASEBALL.

Here the Dodgers are a year later and days away from Opening Day still in denial about Lux and his lack of talent.

Somehow this all got overlooked while mailing out checks?

Saw you lurking Druff.

If you want a fun bet on opening day Shortstop (you stubborn mule) let me know. It’s Lux. It was always Lux and no matter how bad he is he will be your guy til All Star break.

Dodgers don’t adjust. They are smarter than us.

Vargas, Lux, Muncy

Los Angeles has a huge tv market and they need to bring entertainment to the masses in this off year.

Remember Nomah? (Anthony Nomar Garciaparra) Your ‘roided shortstop in 2008’ish (I forget). Lux gave me flashbacks. His arm sucks cause he doesn’t know how to throw a baseball not because he was weak.

Lux shirtless on Sports Illustrated?

LOL.

When Steve Sax was a Dodger he had trouble getting the ball to 1st. He was a 2nd baseman that sometimes couldn't make the short throw to first.

[gut]

For further proof of the Red Sox pitching woes, Chase Anderson, who hasn't had an ERA under 5 since 2019, was in camp with the Pirates (THE PIRATES) on a minor league deal and didn't make the team and was released.

Red Sox immediately signed him to major league deal.

[Dan Druff]

For further proof of the Red Sox pitching woes, Chase Anderson, who hasn't had an ERA under 5 since 2019, was in camp with the Pirates (THE PIRATES) on a minor league deal and didn't make the team and was released.

Red Sox immediately signed him to major league deal.

This wouldn't be a bad team if they could get their pitching in order. But yeah, it's pretty damn bad.

Reminds me somewhat of the Angels, who wasted all those Trout/Ohtani years largely because their pitching was shit.

[Dan Druff]

Here is a tip regarding the MLB.TV and the MLB app.

The regular MLB app costs $150/year, but they black out games in your local market.

Because MLB took over broadcasting in certain areas, such as Arizona, they area also selling a $200/year package where there are no blackouts. However, this doesn't apply to clubs where they don't own the broadcasting rights, don't buy this package unless you are sure MLB has local rights: https://www.mlb.com/live-stream-game...cribe/dbacks/1


However, there is a FREE or cheap way to get the "out of market" MLB.tv/app streamed games, and it involves T-Mobile.

T-Mobile customers are eligible to get a FREE $150/year "out of market" MLB package, starting on 3/26, and lasting for like a week or two after that. If you miss that window, you can't get it anymore, so don't forget.

Here's the details: https://www.t-mobile.com/benefits/mlb

If you have T-Mobile, it's a no-brainer.

But what if you don't? Well, you can have a friend sign up for you. Just register a free MLB.TV account, then have them link their T-Mobile benefit to it. If the friend is not a baseball fan, that's especially good, as they would otherwise be wasting it. If they are, you can still do it, as MLB doesn't care much about multi-accounting -- at least not yet.

And what if you don't have a T-Mobile friend, or the ones you have won't share it with you?

Well, then you can just go on eBay or Reddit and buy it from people selling their T-Mobile pass, which is a thing. Some sell it for as little as $5. Be aware that these people might be selling it multiple times, so it can possibly die on you if they go too crazy with it. MLB may not tolerate 100 people using it at once, for example.

Anyway, I have a friend with T-Mobile who doesn't watch baseball, so I will be using his. None of this is illegal. At worst, MLB will kill the account, which is no skin off your ass. T-Mobile will not care, as they simply provide the benefit, but don't give a shit how it's used.