BTS

Is Stroman improving? He's traded some fastballs for sliders and some groundballs for strikeouts and walks, but the current version hasn't actually been better than the comfortably above-average Stroman we've seen since 2014. He's good now. He's always been good.

Last time he was pulled he spent the rest of the game eating candy on the bench, so if it's a maintenance thing they're probably better off leaving him in the game. More time not eating sugar.

Lourdes Gurriel is slashing 366/409/707 in AAA.

Boxy, this one is for you.

I was looking forward to a fresh week without that ******* and Godley tanking my ratios. Then Tanner Roark promptly took a s*** all over them. So I rage dropped him, and then Mike Leake too for also being a soft-tossing shitballer. I am mad on the internet.

suxxxxx

I need starting pitching and have a pretty good farm to dangle, as well as Eddie Rosario, Steven Piscotty, and Willians Astudillo. Could acquire multiple arms, ranging from ace to SP4/5.

It's ballsy as f*** because if she were actually a good laywer, she'd a) not be working as a full-time writer at fangraphs, and would not get regularly dragged at said site for her questionable legal takes.

I think this is an interesting topic. We know for a fact that this is the case if you're tied in the bottom of the 9th. It's also probably true tied bottom 8. I wonder what other situations would dictate that you're better off increasing odds of scoring 1 run at the expense of overall run expectancy. Probably more than we all think? Some of these bunts are still a tough sell for me though, especially early in a tie game.

Honestly, it should be Waguespack. Richard won't be ready. SRF and Paulino have been bad in AAA. Murphy is still in AA. Gaviglio is legit mowing people down in the pen and we should proabbly see how long that can last. Only other option is Pannone.

Surprisingly, it was more of the same story. Of 629 qualified pitchers: - 85th-highst average EV - 114th-highest % of batted balls hit 95+ - 317th-highest barrels/batted ball event So lots of loud contact, but GB tendencies result in an average-ish number of barrels. 2019 - 223rd out of 261 in xwOBA (0.375) 2016 - 286th out of 587 in xwOBA (0.319) I think the difference in xwOBA between the two years is mostly driven by his much better walk and ground ball rates in 2016. The contact quality is pretty similar. Maybe we've been too quick to call contact-management one of his skills? It is, after all, only ~500 innings of ERA lower than the estimators. If he's managing contact better than most pitchers, I have no idea where that's coming through in the data. I'm very surprised by the 2016 data especially.

We both seemed to push all the wrong buttons. You lost a category with streams, and I lost a category by deciding to sit Matt Harvey yesterday.

I took a look at Aaron Sanchez's batted ball stats this morning expecting to see a bunch of soft contact that would help explain the big difference between his ERA and xFIP. Most of it is luck, because nobody is going to make a 5.15 xFIP work, but I expected a lot of soft contact that would explain the difference at least in part. Among 334 qualified pitchers (25+ batted ball events), he: - has the 79th-highest average exit velocity (90.2) - he's 118th highest in exit velocity on FB/LD (93.9) and 89th highest on ground balls (87.3) - he has the 67th-highest percentage of batted balls being hit at 95+ (43.2%) - he's 201st-highest in barrels/batted ball event (this isn't bad) Posting because I was legit surprised at how mediocre the contact profile is given the difference between his ERA and xFIP. People are hitting the ball harder off him than they do against most of the league. He's not really doing anything that you'd like to see a starting pitcher do right now, aside from an above-average GB rate (which does limit the barrels against to a slightly better than average rate): - his K-rate is below average - he has the second-highest walk rate in the league among qualified starters - when hitters make contact, they hit the ball harder than they do against most pitchers I wonder how he'd do in a role where's only asked to go a max of 3-4 innings. I have no idea if this is true or not, but he seems to fare quite well early in starts and then fall apart by inning 5 or 6.

That was a nerve-wracking SNB. I'll happily take my tie and be done with the Slayers for the season.

Still doesn't have a job, which is pretty inexcusable. He'd be a great addition.

April 28th and the team is 14-14 with a +11 run differential. Things are looking up.

Holy f*** Drury is on a heater

He still has two option years left, but I get the sentiment. He's a bad corner OF and below-average baserunner, so he'll have to hit very well to stick. He's basically Hernandez with less sexy tools and fewer idiotic plays.

Eric Sogard is absurd

Pannone becoming good has been a very welcome development.

Someone take that candy from Vlad.

Freddy Galvis has this

It's so good to have Tepera back. Just need David Phelps now.

Good lord McKinney

Bunting a runner from 2nd to 3rd with none out increases the probability of scoring at least 1 run while decreasing overall run expectancy. So it's a viable strategy if you're tied in the bottom of the 9th.