TheHurl

My much more likely dream is Pillar being a platoon guy with another team, so I can say "told you so". I'll wait 2 years for that post, cause there is no way the Jays are doing the right thing and moving Rasmus.

here's the crazy thing about projections though...they are projected for the whole season. I'm pretty sure that Soriano will improve, Miller if given the chance will improve. You can't expect projections to be exact...and some won't be close in some cases. I mean there isn't a true breakout or bust season that is full predicted. Projection systems do help seeing that a breakout or bust is more likely. Essentially if you take projections as the law you are in for disappointment...but don't dismiss them fully either.

Who's he platooning with? With that said Gose should be up for the rest of the season. Maybe we can stop going with a dozen catchers and keep both. Rasmus, Lind, Francisco and Gose are all virtually unplayable against LHP. So trade Rasmus right? I really wish the perception on that move wasn't so bad (and I still have no clue what Rasmus' value is)

I've always been hard on Gose, but still advocated a Gose/Pillar platoon in centre all off-season and get value out of Rasmus. This is still a guy that's a .232/.316/.300 slash line against lefties while playing in 2 hitters parks in the minors (with a 30.1 K-Rate). We can't expect that to improve long term in majors (might add that his current good numbers are being carried by a 4 for 10 against LHP). The defense is real and if Pillar isn't their guy...than get someone else to fill that role. CF's that hit LHP are often available cheap (I mentioned Craig Gentry in the off-season, who is a career 110 wRC against lefties). Rasmus was very replaceable by a good platoon.

Gomes is already 1/5th of his way to Young's career WAR. Really could end up being mentioned if Gomes has 5 seasons like he's been going.

not any more http://www.mlive.com/tigers/index.ssf/2014/05/danny_worth_showcases_knuckleb.html

Has pretty good numbers on the road too though

Exactly...just like the Expos did with Johnson. . You know I'm still a big Trevor Bauer fan...I hate to trade pitchers at their minor league stats level. There won't be a bunch of GM's running out for Sanchez straight up for a major league pitcher right now. Jays will end up throwing in more and more as teams negotiate based on the same stats and red flags all of us are seeing.

Kevin Pillar being put into situations where he can succeed. I can't wait for him to continue to hit as he faces the two lefties in the A's series....then we give him a bunch of starts against righties (gotta see what you got...I know what you have cause I watch games in the minors, do they?). True platoon and Pillar will contribute. I should be running this team.

Jimmy Key in the majors 3.51 ERA, 8.7 hits/9, 5.3 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 2.30 K/BB in the minors 3.04 ERA, 8.2 hits/9, 6.7 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 2.35 K/BB Pretty much outside of a small decrease in walks the numbers are in line with what you'd expect for a transition from the minors to the majors. Solid effort though. At least look for good examples, like Randy Johnson (1.46 K/BB ratio in the minors...including walking 128 in 140 innings in AA as a 23 year old), or Jon Lester who walked 3.8/9 and had a 2.20 K/BB. There are loads of cases of guys that walked too many in the minors and lowered that in the majors. But most of those guys got better as their years in the minors progressed. There are many reasons to be concerned for Sanchez right now though

I've remained a pretty big believer in Bauer to be a big inning, workhorse type. Masterson will level out, Kluber probably isn't this for real...but he's for real. McAlister and Tomlin aren't good enough. I'm looking at them to be buyers...and then Salazar to contribute.

There were some discussions about the cost in the previous thread. Here is an excerpt from an article For now, the plan is for the cameras to be in three ballparks this year—Miller Park in Milwaukee, Target Field in Minnesota, and a second season at Citi Field—and every park in the league by 2015. Like PITCHf/x, it will be made available in near-realtime for broadcast and highlights. The obvious question is how public the data will be, and MLBAM doesn't have definitive answers just yet. That can be read as the cookie jar slamming shut on this fantastic data, due to teams hoarding it so they can run proprietary evaluations for themselves. In actuality, it's more like the league not wanting to get ahead of itself. It will likely take a similar rollout to PITCHf/x, which made its way into the public domain back in 2006. Among concerns about how to make this stuff public, the issue of the sheer scale of the data has already cropped up. This will likely be a massive amount of data and take a massive amount of computational power to sort through—the SportVU data, for example, is incredibly heavy—so just the delivery mechanism could be a bottleneck, like you see with 4k TV content.

77-1 to win the world series 38-1 to win the AL 12-1 to win the Central Just one of those small bet wagers that could be fun and realistic. I might add that the game is tied now and Scherzer fought through it.

Indians are the most disappointing team to me. This is the start of their run to the AL Central title. Bauer up, Salazar will find himself in the minors and contribute. I can't believe that Santana will be bad much longer. Masterson has pitched much better than the numbers, Kluber is star in the making. Kipnis back this week...Indians at 77-1 is a great World Series bet right now.

Make this affordable to the fan dammit! Despite it not being affordable to the fan...how many will blow their life savings on it?

Scherzer getting rocked

My money is on him being on some Country Husbands show within two years. Kind of like a Real housewives but with with pick up trucks.

Walk up sales still only really happen on weekends. They proved one thing last off-season...hype in the off-season does way more for ticket sales than winning. It's an interesting formula that as a fan I hate but still interesting. If they can get some June hype (a big winning streak) then maybe September sales will increase with anticipation (mostly by scalpers of course). I still don't trust this team to win consistently...but I don't think anyone in the division does.

Sternberg sets the budget and tells the front office to just do their thing putting the team together based on their valuations. I know this for a fact. He raised the payroll in 2011 and profits shrunk...it doesn't seem to matter what is done in Tampa the profits will remain the minimum. No one is sure if he's just trying to maximize sale value or is he trying to force the city to build him a new stadium. One thing for sure is that he's not your typical owner and the team will move eventually. Again not sure why anyone points that out to a Rays fan like myself...I am a fan of this front office. If Friedman and Erlichman leave I'm probably going to become a fan of that team.

in some ways I hope you are correct. I'd love to see Friedman get the chance to tear it down and rebuild, it would be so fun to watch him work. However, it's not easy to move assets that half the league don't view as high as you view them. But I don't think that will happen. He'll continue to recycle rather than start over and he'll likely do it right. Do I think the Rays will win the division this year...nope I don't. Would I rather have their team than the Jays...absolutely. P.S. saying the Rays have no fans and a bad stadium is hardly an insult. They have built the past 6 years in spite of that fact.

Read every top 15 prospect list he's been on (Miami, Houston and the Dodgers) and you'll see the same thing. Competitive spirit, great make-up guy...Jays eat that s*** up. Seriously though he's a short lefty who's been had much better K/BB numbers against lefties and is here for probably 1 outing. Not sure what's a bigger pet peeve of mine...keeping non prospect relievers, or this insistence that we have 3 lefties in the pen at all times (and Happ not being one of them)

It's this year or next anyway. He can't be sent down next season. I still think the same thing about Gose that I always have...he has to BABIP his way to any hitting success (flat batting it would help but doubtful with Gibby managing and Gose's ego). He has great CF range...but he's still going to have mental errors and when he does that will slow the crazy defensive metrics.

Personally I believe that pitchers are fragile creatures no matter what and you should get everything out of them while you can...but I'd be a very unpopular guy with the fans, agents and pitchers (after they end up injured and everyone blames the number of innings). Do I think this F.O. puts limits on Hutch if they are close? Probably yes and for sure if they fall behind.

well likely July with the new CBA but it's still about service time so him being sent back down stops that clock in the same way. The top 22% of players that have accrued 2 years of service but not yet 3 years are awarded arbitration (so there is no exact set date it's always just an estimate). This isn't about Super two in my mind, as this team isn't looking towards the future at this point they are going for it (as they should be in a way). But they are way too stubborn with Happ IMO (and many fans opinions). So much of what they plan on for Stroman depends on whether they have limits on him. If they want him to help as a starter later in the year...his innings will need to be controlled or he'll have to pitch out of the pen again in September. Nothing has changed really but it just seems like they tried to bring him up for the wrong reasons (which was to build hype around him IMO).

I don't think we'll see him again until September.