Kirk

[The Iceman]

Speaking of Vlad he does look like hes lot a ton of weight since the season started. I wonder with Tellez coming back hopefully in time for the playoffs, do you move Vlad back to third with Tellez at 1st and Kirk DH whenever he doesnt catch?

 

I don't mind the thought of having Vlad moving to third.

Then you can move Grishit down in the order......OH, you meant play 3rd base.

Well that might happen never and no, he doesn't look to me like he has lost weight.

Maybe you saw him standing beside Kirk??

[Krylian]

Speaking of Vlad he does look like hes lot a ton of weight since the season started. I wonder with Tellez coming back hopefully in time for the playoffs, do you move Vlad back to third with Tellez at 1st and Kirk DH whenever he doesnt catch?

 

Vlad has not lost a ton of weight. A few pounds? Ok. But let's not get carried away.

[RustyTrombone]

If you guys dont see a big difference between Vlads weight at the start of summer camp to now, then idk get your eyes checked or something. He looks to have lost a substantial portion of his gut.

 

 

Vlad on July 14

 

 

Vlad two nights ago.

 

Could just be the angles but looks to have lost quite a bit from his gut.

Edited September 23, 2020 by RustyTrombone

[wilko]

If you guys dont see a big difference between Vlads weight at the start of summer camp to now, then idk get your eyes checked or something. He looks to have lost a substantial portion of his gut.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2237[/ATTACH]

 

Vlad on July 14

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2238[/ATTACH]

 

Vlad two nights ago.

 

Could just be the angles but looks to have lost quite a bit from his gut.

 

Maybe 5-8 pounds.

[metafour]

I don't get it, does Vlad still suck because he's fat, or what's up? I'm kinda confused considering that this even fatter guy is now all of a sudden the talk of the town?

[RustyTrombone]

Maybe 5-8 pounds.

 

Is that not enough to try him back out at 3rd? Considering how s*** Shaw has been and trying to maximize the offense its worth a shot imo.

[Orgfiller]

Is that not enough to try him back out at 3rd? Considering how s*** Shaw has been and trying to maximize the offense its worth a shot imo.

 

Vlad and Shaw have the same WAR. Vlad last season was possibly the worst defensive 3B in the league, and we know he's not any more athletic this season. It would be a disaster having him making starts at third in the playoffs.

[wilko]

Is that not enough to try him back out at 3rd? Considering how s*** Shaw has been and trying to maximize the offense its worth a shot imo.

 

No. He can barely figure out playing 1B. I wouldn't shift him this late in the season.

[Boxcar]

I don't get it, does Vlad still suck because he's fat, or what's up? I'm kinda confused considering that this even fatter guy is now all of a sudden the talk of the town?

 

I guess it's a theory that can be conclusively debunked. Vlad just sucks because he makes dumb decisions all the time, both at the plate and in the field.

[Boxcar]

If you guys dont see a big difference between Vlads weight at the start of summer camp to now, then idk get your eyes checked or something. He looks to have lost a substantial portion of his gut.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2237[/ATTACH]

 

Vlad on July 14

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2238[/ATTACH]

 

Vlad two nights ago.

 

Could just be the angles but looks to have lost quite a bit from his gut.

 

Well, didn't address the problem of him being terrible, so I guess he can be fat again if he wants

[RustyTrombone]

I dunno, Id be willing to give him one more shot at 3rd if he can continue to lose weight and keep it off for good.

[wilko]

I dunno, Id be willing to give him one more shot at 3rd if he can continue to lose weight and keep it off for good.

 

Losing weight is just half of it. It seems like his baseball IQ just isn't there. I don't understand letting a fringe 3b struggle for a few years just to plant them at 1B anyway.

[Laika]

Vlad CLEARLY needs lots of work at 1B if he's even going to become a decent part time player there.

 

Moving him back to 3rd at this point would be senseless and destructive. An impossible task, designed to make him fail.

[TheDragon]

Losing weight is just half of it. It seems like his baseball IQ just isn't there. I don't understand letting a fringe 3b struggle for a few years just to plant them at 1B anyway.

 

Gotta be very careful when losing weight. If you do it too quickly and not in combination with weight/resistance training you'll lose too much muscle too.

[Brownie19]

I don't get it, does Vlad still suck because he's fat, or what's up? I'm kinda confused considering that this even fatter guy is now all of a sudden the talk of the town?

 

The difference is Kirk's always been super fat. He's accustomed to it.

 

Vlad was always large, but he's gone from large to obese (think HR in Montreal v. Vlad in July/August). His adapting to his body changing.

[Krylian]

The difference is Kirk's always been super fat. He's accustomed to it.

 

Vlad was always large, but he's gone from large to obese (think HR in Montreal v. Vlad in July/August). His adapting to his body changing.

 

But that picture of Kirk and Aaron Cibia makes Kirk look stalky...pudgy...but not morbidly obese like he is now. Kirk has undergone some major weight gain too. A lot of this has to be in Vladdy's head.

[Krylian]

I guess it's a theory that can be conclusively debunked. Vlad just sucks because he makes dumb decisions all the time, both at the plate and in the field.

 

That is something that I wasn't accounting for when we were all balls deep in the Vladdy gloryhole. His low IQ.

[Laika]

That is something that I wasn't accounting for when we were all balls deep in the Vladdy gloryhole. His low IQ.

 

Baseball IQ is not a common scouting report reference and from his K/BB rates and age vs. level it seemed reasonable that he was a baseball savant.

[King]

But that picture of Kirk and Aaron Cibia makes Kirk look stalky...pudgy...but not morbidly obese like he is now. Kirk has undergone some major weight gain too. A lot of this has to be in Vladdy's head.

As I said before. This is not true. Kirk has always been obese. It has been the knock on him since he was in Bluefield.

 

 

Look at him swing here at 1:24 and tell me he's not fat as f***.

[wilko]

As I said before. This is not true. Kirk has always been obese. It has been the knock on him since he was in Bluefield.

 

 

Look at him swing here at 1:24 and tell me he's not fat as f***.

 

100% a fatty. It looks like he should be playing beer league, but he has a very strange body type... His arms are very small and thick. When he's hunched down his strike zone is basically non existent.

[Spanky__99]

100% a fatty. It looks like he should be playing beer league, but he has a very strange body type... His arms are very small and thick. When he's hunched down his strike zone is basically non existent.

 

Mark DeRosa mentioned that about his short quick powerful arms, called him a T-Rex, lol.

[Boxcar]

That is something that I wasn't accounting for when we were all balls deep in the Vladdy gloryhole. His low IQ.

 

I don't get this analogy. Why would WE be balls deep in his glory hole? Wouldn't he be balls deep in our glory hole, where we are all taking turns sucking him off?

[Boxcar]

100% a fatty. It looks like he should be playing beer league, but he has a very strange body type... His arms are very small and thick. When he's hunched down his strike zone is basically non existent.

 

It's super weird that with his short arms that he's able to hit the ball so hard.

 

Thought: maybe Kirk HAS to be fat as it gives him more momentum through his rotation as he swings to speed up his bat. Hit beer belly is essentially like a counter weight or pendulum or something.

[Spanky__99]

You guys are gross, man.

[wilko]

It's super weird that with his short arms that he's able to hit the ball so hard.

 

Thought: maybe Kirk HAS to be fat as it gives him more momentum through his rotation as he swings to speed up his bat. Hit beer belly is essentially like a counter weight or pendulum or something.

 

I think you're onto something lol

[z3r0s]

Are you guys saying that fat is the new market efficiency?

[Laika]

It's super weird that with his short arms that he's able to hit the ball so hard.

 

Thought: maybe Kirk HAS to be fat as it gives him more momentum through his rotation as he swings to speed up his bat. Hit beer belly is essentially like a counter weight or pendulum or something.

 

Being fat can increase power IF the player can still rotate their body quickly.

 

For most fat players the added weight and size slows down their movement. For the rare fatty that stays quick in the body, the added weight helps! It's all physics.

 

The goal of hitters—from a physiological perspective—is to transfer as much of their own energy into the moving the ball forward through hitting it with the bat, explains Thomas Karakolis, a kinesiologist and author of the 2014 paper. It’s all about kinetic energy, the kind of energy used in motion. It’s described by the formula k = (1/2)mv2, where m is the mass of the system—here, the weight of the hitter and the bat—and v is the velocity, or speed, which here accounts for the movement of hitter and bat.

 

“In theory, if a bigger guy is just as fast or strong as another guy, he should be able to hit the ball further.”

To increase the kinetic energy transferred to the ball, you have to increase the mass and/or the velocity—without decreasing the other—and ensure no energy is lost when your bat makes contact with the ball. So, “in theory, if a bigger guy is just as fast or strong as another guy, he should be able to hit the ball further,” Karakolis says.

 

Larger muscles probably help. In 2009, Alan Nathan, a retired physicist formerly at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and long-time baseball enthusiast, authored a paper (pdf—and, notably, not published in a peer-reviewed journal) in which he calculated that if you assume a baseball player starts out with about 50% of their weight as muscle, every 10% of muscle mass he gains will translate into a roughly 3.6% to 3.9% increase in bat speed.

 

The trouble is, if a player gets bigger—even if he is also getting stronger—he might start to move his bat through the zone more slowly. This happens because of another aspect of physics: momentum.

 

Momentum is the tendency of things that are moving to keep moving. It’s calculated two ways: first, it’s the product of mass and velocity (p=mv). But “the flip side of momentum is that it’s also equal to force times time,” Das explains.

 

Hold onto your hats: Force equals mass multiplied by acceleration, or how quickly speed is increasing. Momentum, then, can be defined as: mass x acceleration x time—where in this case, “time” is the duration it takes to complete a swing of the bat.

 

It’s a lot easier to get something smaller moving than something bigger.

It’s a lot easier to get something smaller moving than something bigger. Larger players have more to move. They could, therefore, get less momentum because they’re getting less acceleration in the same amount of time—meaning they don’t reach as high a final speed that smaller players do if they’re expending the same amount of energy. “If you’re moving slower and the whole thing takes longer, then that can lower the force you’re applying,” Das says.

 

In other words, even if players increase their mass, they could be decreasing their speed. And because velocity is squared in the kinetic energy formula, it likely has a larger effect than mass.

 

This is why it’s critical for athletes to not only increase their strength, but also their power, which is a combination of force and speed, explains Karakolis.

 

It's not a given that we should want Kirk to lose a single f***ing pound.

[Brownie19]

Are you guys saying that fat is the new market efficiency?

 

Nah - Billy Beane tried that with Jeremy Brown man...didn't you watch Moneyball?

[Jimcanuck]

Are you guys saying that fat is the new market efficiency?

 

Short, heavy, and powerful might be. With hitters the focus has been on taller guys that project for immense power as they fill out when these guys have a high risk of swing and miss issues. Whereas short guys tend to have better strike zone and bat control. Combine short guys and power, profit.

[wilko]

Short, heavy, and powerful might be. With hitters the focus has been on taller guys that project for immense power as they fill out when these guys have a high risk of swing and miss issues. Whereas short guys tend to have better strike zone and bat control. Combine short guys and power, profit.