(but alas, for good or ill, it remains stuck in spring training mode) Me: Tell me the history of the reign of King Felix ChatGPT: I’m sorry, but there have been several kings and rulers throughout history with the name Felix, and without more specific information, I cannot determine which one you are referring to. Can you please provide more details or context? Me: I only know of one King Felix. How many did you think there were? ChatGPT: I apologize for the confusion. As an AI language model, I cannot assume which King Felix you are referring to without more information. However, since you me ..read more

Baseball is generally regarded as slower to catch up with other sports in certain areas, but this season marks a particularly interesting phase-out before next year’s “new normal.” What I’m referring to here is that the 2019 draft, for which college players are now eligible for the Rule 5, was the last year of the draft going up to forty rounds. As we know, the pandemic limited the 2020 draft to five rounds, and thereafter, the new CBA has affirmed a twenty-round draft moving forward. The minor league contraction ensures that it will probably remain this. While I miss the all-day marathon draf ..read more

George Kirby vs. Lance McCullers, Jr., 1:07pm Playoff baseball in Seattle. It’s been a while. Given how the first two games have gone, there’s not a ton of optimism regarding the series, but the thrill of having a game like this at home will make this a party and give the M’s some much-needed home field advantage. So, before the first game, I went through some keys to the series. The first had to do with Yorda- okay, no. I don’t want to talk about that, and I think we’re all Yordaned out at the moment. I’d say put it to the side, but we all know it’s looming over everything. Damn it. Ok, the s ..read more

Logan Gilbert vs. Justin Verlander, 12:37pm The Astros are insanely good. This series is five games long at most. This isn’t the factor that most raises the M’s odds – that’s the addition of Luis Castillo – but it does help. There simply isn’t enough time for the Astros’ talent advantage to reliably show up. As we’ve just seen, the playoffs are like summer camp, affording players the opportunity to try on completely different personalities for a while. Cal Raleigh hit .211 in the regular season, then played like a combination of Edgar Martinez and Tony Gwynn in Toronto. Adam Frazier put up an ..read more

When the M’s eliminated the Jays, I quite literally didn’t know what to do. I ended up cleaning the kitchen, a task I generally loathe. The nature of the game was a part of that confusion – a warm, comfortable variant of confusion – but the biggest part of it was that I was not fully aware that baseball could produce feelings like this. 21 years of failure constrained my emotional response to critical games because it constrained my imagination. I was not prepared for a world in which the M’s could come back from 8-1 down in Toronto to win. And thus, my brain did not really process that fact ..read more

Robbie Ray vs. Kevin Gausman, 1:07pm Well, Game 1 could not have possibly gone any better. Luis Castillo has been good for the M’s since the trade, but the kind of performance he had yesterday is exactly why you trade so many prospects for him. In the playoffs, on the road, against one of the best line-ups in baseball, Castillo stole the show. He had everything working, and utterly destroyed the Jays spirit. I will remember the sinker running in that got Vlad Guerrero Jr. swinging *while also nearly hitting him in the gut* for the rest of my life. This is the kind of game that makes fans for g ..read more

Luis Castillo vs. Alek Manoah, 1:07pm After 21 years, the M’s are back in the playoffs, and unlike their first playoff game, they’ve had time to set up this mouth-watering pitching match-up; this isn’t a Chris Bosio/Bob Wolcott and hope kind of a situation. These are two aces facing off in a packed Rogers Centre. This is a great series for starting pitching, and your view of who the best of this rarified bunch is is going to depend on how you measure pitching. Alek Manoah is 3rd in baseball, 2nd in the AL, in RA9-based WAR, meaning just counting up the runs (ALL the runs, not just the earnies ..read more

I have been writing about this team for a long, long while – comments on early iterations of this site, Lookout Landing, and then joining to write above the comment box in 2009 or so. I…don’t quite know what to do now? The M’s are in a playoff series, albeit entirely on the road, and it’s a short little amuse bouche of a series. The Toronto Blue Jays are a formidable opponent, and will be more so in their home park. But while they have the talent edge at the plate, the M’s may have one in run prevention. A three-game set won’t allow a team with a clear talent edge to coast on that talent; ther ..read more

George Kirby vs. Martin Perez, 6:40pm After another listless loss, the M’s are…well, their star hasn’t dimmed too much given the O’s loss, but they really do look bad. If there’s a saving grace here, it’s that the M’s are probably better off in the WC 3 spot they increasingly look likely to wrap up. It was still remarkable that they were unable to do anything against Jesus Tinoco and Tyson Miller. They demolished bad sinker/slider guys like Adrian Martinez of Oakland, but haven’t fared that well against sinker/slider guys with half-way decent sinkers. Brady Singer looked great, but I’m still s ..read more

Robbie Ray vs. Tyson Miller and Jesus Tinoco, 6:40pm Ten games to go. The M’s playoff odds are 99.8%, even if it doesn’t feel quite that solid after as ugly a 3-7 stretch as you’ll see; it doesn’t feel like a lock after the M’s blew a 9 run lead to the *Royals* in their last game. The M’s win probability in that game hit 99.7%, and you know what? Let’s just move on. It’s fascinating to see what’s troubled the M’s has shifted. In Oakland, they couldn’t hit, and had the bad fortune to end up on the wrong side of some close games – the kind of games they’ve won so often in the past two seasons. I ..read more