Laika

Dunno if anyone has put that stat specifically on an aging curve but I would assume it gets better. BB% gets better with age, we know that... hard to trend up in walks without swinging less.

I redid it going back 5 years, and using all players with 1000+ PA across those 5 years. The effect seems a bit stronger even. And with Vlad of course we are more concerned with the OUTLIERS and that makes it even more obvious that swinging less is great. The truly elite hitters ALL swing seldom. There was only ONE qualified hitter with a wRC+ over 140 who swung 50% or more (Vlad is at like 49% this year and was 47% prior years). Bo Bichette with his 55% swing rate is kind of handicapped. He can be good but not elite.

Yeah Zimmer

It's a very loose fit though

Is the relationship extremely strong? No. It's baseball. There are different ways to be good. You can swing a lot and be very good. You can be passive and be below average at hitting. BUT it is clear that the uber-elite hitters swing less. And it is clear that if you swing a lot it's hard to be an uber-elite hitter. That's because swinging is bad. This is just qualified hitters in 2022 by the way. Feel free to expand the sample.

Light went off in my head last night while thinking of the simplest way to get Vlad to be elite again "swing less" that's all they need to say! simply put he is swinging too much If he swung less, a bunch of positive things would flow out it might not even be about pitch recognition or swing plane or any of that more specific stuff just swing less, bud watch Aaron Judge this year (42.6% swing rate) just never swing swinging is bad just stand there, most of the time

added too much mass lol

What is this for? It hits the fence then the warning track. Look at the video on mlb.com It's higher quality. You can slow down at the point of contact.

Player ; Sprint Speed Percentile ; BsR ; Conclusion Springer ; 75th ; +4.6 ; smart Chapman ; 78th ; +2.8 ; good Biggio ; 80th ; +2 ; good Jansen ; 53rd ; 0 ; as expected Tapia ; 72nd ; +1 ; could be better Bichette ; 52nd ; -1.4 ; could be better but he is slower this year! yikes Espinal ; 42nd ; -2 ; could be better but he is slower this year! yikes Hernandez ; 83rd ; -2.3 ; this is horrible and unforgiveable Gurriel ; 48th ; -4 ; he could be better Vlad ; 34th ; -4.6 ; as expected Kirk ; 3rd ; -7 ; as expected

Vlad + Gurriel + Kirk are like -15 combined, just the three of them. Yeah Vlad is a bonehead but for the most part these guys are just SLOW. They can't do much better at baserunning. The guys underperforming on BsR are Teoscar, Bo, Tapia, and Espinal. In my opinion. Teoscar, Bo, and Espinal are like -6 combined and there is no reason for them to not be at least neutral. And Tapia is only +1. He should be +3. Those four are the players who reasonable should all be doing better in the BsR category.

It hit the top of the fence. Like one foot from being gone.

When Teoscar hit that 465 foot bomb the other day he said that the other players like that thing he does where he stands on home plate after crushing a pitch. Players are motivated by the idea of being the focal point of an iconic moment or highlight. Bautista's batflip is a legendary poster. This is GOOD when it causes focus and production but it can also be BAD when it leads to poor decisions. We saw it lead to poor baserunning decisions in the last couple of days by both Vlad and Teoscar. I'm not sure how you "fix" this. Like I said, the celebratory culture is pretty motivating for players. I guess it's just something to handle on a player by player basis. Like on an individual level they all need to know better. It's okay to pimp homeruns *sometimes* but these guys are trying to style on balls with topspin down the line or balls that might be clearing the CF wall by a few feet. That's stupid. There are players on this team that hit lots of home runs and never take one for granted. George Springer is past first base when some of his balls leave the park even when he nukes them. Frankly, Teoscar is just a bit of an airhead and the team should let him walk when his control is over. He makes so many mistakes in the outfield, mental mistakes.

Bearish on organizations that literally make a weird ballpark to try to gimmick a competitive window.

Dahian Santos had 144 K's in 86 IP this year. lol.

You can definitely make a top 10 case for Barger. The undisputed #1 - Tiedemann Risk/reward incarnate at #2 - Orelvis The new bonus babies at #3 and #4 - Barriera and Toman The MLB ready fireballer #5 - Zulueta And then it opens up IMO. Kasevich and Doughty, people tend to overrate recent college picks so these guys are probably not in my top 10. Barger, Horwitz, and Juenger are all mature prospects who can help in 2023 but Barger has, by my reading, the highest floor AND the highest ceiling so he's a tier above the other two. Robberse is a tough rank... he's in the upper minors now but is still pitchability/projection to some degree. Gabriel Martinez seems like one of those good hitters, and "five tool players" where all the tools are 50s. A real Cleveland kind of prospect? Santos and Trent Palmer, the metrics on the breaking balls are apparently elite and they could be productive RPs if not more. For a project pitcher Irv Carter's lowish walk rate is kind of great... Everyone is sleeping on Manuel Beltre but he could still show a plus hit tool and rise quickly. I think I go 1. Tiedemann 2. Orelvis 3. Barriera 4. Toman 5. Zulueta 6. Gabby 7. Barger 8. Horwitz 9. Robberse 10. Santos 11. Palmer 12. Juenger 13. Carter 14. Kasevich 15. Doughty 16. Beltre 17. Jimenez 18. Lopez 19. Van Eyk 20. Pinto Something like that. I know I ignored several players who are probably top 10 prospects but was more concerned about doing a top 10 with some HMs.

John Schneider should be cracking skulls

These two are complete morons lmao

Berrios looks pretty good tonight no joke They aren’t crushing him. Some lucky hits. Yes he has gotten some calls and the command isn’t amazing.

I thought he was a basketball guy through and through?

Awesome. He had to same curiosity as me. Can't see his work of course, but I believe the results.

Let's not talk about vaccines and s*** okay? We were talking about attendance and Covid and now we are done.

Single wins it so all we care about is batting average Guerrero .276 Kirk .292 Projected Kirk: .274 to .282 Guerrero .287 to .293 I don't see much sense in walking Guerrero. Also, with a runner on third Kirk could win it on any type of hit. With a runner on second Guerrero does not win it with an infield hit and also maybe not with a screaming line drive right at an outfielder.

I thought they could have just done the old unintentional intentional walk thing with Judge. Throw him all sliders off the plate, see if he gets himself out. But then you risk hanging one. Mayza is nails against lefties though. The talent gap between Rizzo and Judge is massive. Mayza and Bass are about the same. So I think the move makes sense if the goal is to get out of the inning without giving up ANY runs. The interesting thing to me would be to math out the run expectancy though. Like there is a chance that they increased their odds of giving up NO RUNS while actually increasing their expected runs against, if that makes any sense.

No I don't follow anything, this is all anecdotal. But in the last couple of weeks I have had multiple clients cancel appointments because they have Covid. That was not happening all summer. And the lawfirm down the street has a 20 person outbreak, apparently. My grandma had covid this month! Maybe the younger crowd will still go to sporting events but the old f***ers will stay home. Baseball is a sport that skews old, for fans.