Laika

It's time for one of the "good" reporters to do some kind of expose on what Vlad does and how the team handles him. Risk some social capital to explore the biggest ongoing issue with the team. It feels like they just let him do whatever he wants and trust that his natural feel for the game and hitting will work out in the end. And it feels like so much potential production is being left on the table because of that. Like, a few weeks ago when asked about his struggled Vlad did not point to anything mechanical or mention any kinds of work or drills he is doing, he just said something like "I just need to hit one ball hard."

Vlad is putting together his saddest season ever. Sigh.

Ball don't lie

Nah it was a terrible day

Vlad

Horrendous game Geoff Hoffman has ninth inning PTSD and is also the world greatest ever meatball artist Win today and at least we can be happy with 3/4 against the turd birds

Hoffman and Yariel Rodriguez are the same dude and should be equal on the depth chart

Sanchez

As good as we could have hoped for

Well. There's a chance!

Voth's pitching line is extremely funny

Got lucky

The Jays have a CATASTROPHIC game plan against Rogers They are mailing this game in and just want to go to bed

Voth is revolting

Fangraphs probable pitchers says Macko is opening for Voth But there was the weird Chad Dallas nameplate thing yesterday There is also Seabold in the pen now, and I guess Yariel could throw two innings and may need to even if the score is close (gross). Will be a tough one to win. Hoffman will be a no-go, Varland should be a no-go, Rogers should be a no-go. Miles can't be used. So it's not even a normal bullpen game. It's a bullpen game, constituted almost entirely of AAA fringe MLB guys, and the backend of the pen is almost entirely unavailable.

What else can be said about Corbin? A gift from God.

Can't wait to see what Orioles Hangout says about that one

Brandon Valenzuela you beautiful beautiful man 💕 ❤️

Ernie should have gone to second

These are godawful plate appearances All season long it has been like this Fire shopkins

HIS NAME IS PATRICK CORBIN!!!

He's not wrong, he's PEDANTIC and actually thinking in the RIGHT WAY Probabilistic thinking is what you need to do, and Olerud is great at it The problem is that there are things about Arjun Nimmala, physically and contextually which reasonably separate him from 99% of the players who hit .230 in two straight low minors seasons Anecdotes of players hitting .230 in A and then turning into good MLB players are not that helpful because the opposite anecdote is way easier to find. Olerud is simply correct that players who have some pedigree and then fail to hit in the low minors for a year or two almost all fail. But you don't need to go far to find out why Nimmala hitting .232 in 2024 is not a huge issue BECAUSE HE HAD A .250 ISO THAT YEAR AND A 125 wRC+ C'MON MAN!!!!!!!!! Most of these .230 hitting A ball first round busts in history were also slugging .300 and bouncing every throw to first base. Teenage Nimmala was out there like a gazelle on defense, taking his walks and hitting bombs, he just had a s***** batted ball profile. There is some signal in that but it's not worth being alarmist over. It does make you think he's probably not going to be a .260 MLB hitter. Probably more of a low AVG homers and walks guy, if he makes it.

Varsho is having an interesting year... Highest contact% of his career Lowest K% of his career Second highest swing rate of his career Highest O-Swing% of his career Second highest Z-Swing% of his career Lowest zone% against of his career His AVG and xAVG are both career high marks He is swinging a lot, making unprecedented contact, but not necessarily making great swing decisions. Teams are throwing him more balls than ever. It seems somewhat promising. Makes me wonder if he is one little iota of timing away from starting to hammer more pitches? Or when he simply gets more meatballs and pitches in the zone we might see them flying out.

Tommy Pham hit .232 or worse at every level between rookie ball and A+ for his first FOUR minor league seasons, then finally figured something out at the upper levels. Was he a star? No. But he has a 111 career wRC+ and got MVP votes once. If you hit like that as a good shortstop, you are Willy Adames. Miguel Tejada. Jeremy Pena. Something in that bucket.

Not as satisfying. Sosa is just being ILd.