John_Havok

Yeah that’s part of the mystery, it could just mean they’re all getting “lucky” with the results all at the same time. Look at Diaz as an example comparing his current 2023 to 2022. Basically the same % of pitches in the heart, basically the same swing/take percentages, he’s just doing way more damage this season. But it does probably speak to the approach to hitting being preached in Tampa by Mottola…wait for the meatballs and let the bat fly. Keeping it simple. That’s not even to say that’s not what is being preached in Toronto either, but clearly not as many players are being successful at it.

GDT was pretty rough today, my ignore list is growing at an alarming rate.

Probably a bit of that yeah. They can keep shutting him down every few weeks if he's not making progress but, if they keep doing that they'll eventually get in trouble.

Okay, so recently in either this thread or another one, someone asked about how it is that Tampa has the most amazing offense in baseball, seemingly out of nowhere. here is your answer: ***disclaimer*** This is high level thing, there's a shitload of nuance to this **end disclaimer** https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/swing-take?year=2023&team=&group=Batter&type=All&sub_type=null&min=q&sort=9&sortDir=desc go there and sort the run values from highest to lowest on the far right, the ALL category. This is the cumulative run values that hitters accumulate in the results of their swing decisions in 4 zones - the Heart, Shadow, Chase and Waste zones. This is what the zones look like for reference along with a bunch of other awesome info for the current MLB leader - Yordan Alvarez: Now, scroll down that list sorted from best to worst and you'll find 10 Rays in the top 100 in all of baseball. That, in itself really isn't all that shocking given that their offense is clicking, a sorted list doesn't explain the "why" they are hitting so well. The "why" is answered by sorting the column for run values over the heart of the plate. Do that and you'll see 3 Rays in the top 7 in all of baseball, 6 in the top 20, 7 in the top 45 and in total all 10 are in the top 117 ***Disclaimer, this list sorts with every game so these rankings will change slightly from game to game, but overall they've remained pretty steady for the past few weeks*** Long story short, The Rays are murdering baseballs in the heart of the plate. They aren't swinging at borderline pitches, they wait for the cookies - and they do damage. ONe thing youll also notice though, is that up and down that list of Rays with all the sexy numbers in the Heart of the plate... their numbers in the Shadow zones are pretty rough with the exception of Arozarena. You'll also notice that Bo Bichette actually leads MLB in runs in the shadow zone - which is cool. Now, this is a leader board of results, not anything that's been normalized to league average or that kind of thing, simply whether the result of the pitch is a ball, strike, foul, HR etc, but when you click on each player, you can see the league average run values in each zone and how each players total runs are split between swinging runs, and runs from taking pitches. THis is pretty intuitive since taking a pitch right down the middle is obviously not a good thing to do, but taking pitches in the chase and waste zones would obviously be a good thing to do. Here's the highest rated Ray at the moment this is being posted... Yandy Diaz Murdering the heart of the plate. Not so good in the shadow zone, where he actually takes pitches at a higher rate than league average. Anyways, click on each one for the Rays and it tells a pretty compelling story. They aren't really seeing any more pitches in the heart of the zone than anyone else, but they do swing at the shadow zone generally less than league average. They simply waiting for a pitch over the heart, and doing damage when they get it. All of them. Now, this doesn't really show if this will continue as this isn't a predictive thing, this is all results. But, you can flip back and forth between each hitter's previous seasons to see if anything has actually changed in their swing/take rates in each zone and make some educated guesses on approach changes, or just better results. Then do the same for most Blue Jays and weep for everyone who isn't Bo or Vlad

I don’t think so, it’s just really weird to this many bench HR picks actually paying out. I think that’s 3 so far, 2 have been on Saturdays and 2 have been injury replacements rather than just a 1 off pinch hitter. Just weird coinincidences.

That’s how I got into the lead too. Double points Saturday bench pick, except it was Jansen that took it out

Again though, this loss isn’t on the offense…pitching gave up 9. Can’t do that

Star..yes. Superstar…nope.

Vlad is obviously not right mechanically. That swing looked like a rusty gate in the wind. No strength behind it at all. Just a long loopy mess.

Tying run at the plate…still in this

f***in Varsho, only hits HR in scrub time. Great rip though

Varsho with a Jack! Me +4

Let’s just assume that’s the case…knowing the Jays luck this season both would get hurt 2 weeks before the deadline.

There will be some moves probably but there’s now way this team is in any kind of fire sale.

See my previous post about that one. I would have been in favour of benching him aftervthat

Of course they do, and if anyone knew it, they would do it. But being perfectly honest, if they had money …they wouldn’t be running their payrolls that low either. Friedman ran that org that way because he had to, then he moved on to LA and now still has all the advantages Tampa has, along with all the advantages money has. It’s never as simple as “well they do it this way for less money so why can’t the Jays..” It’s like any other profession, some people are just better at it than others.

Yeah, it’s just that easy.

Looks like all the Jays have to do is cut the payroll by 70% and they should start winning I guess. It’s just that simple. By the way, what’s Oakland, Cinci, Miami, Colorado, and KC payroll?

Cimber hasn’t come close to 90 in years. Even 2021 he was only averaging 87

Willi f***ing Castro and his 35 power hit two HRs today.

But to be fair to all the “bench everyone anytime they make a mistake” crowd… even I would have benched Vlad yesterday in the first inning after his idiotic sequence of hitting and running stupidity. But with him it’s a chronic thing. Belt, Springer and KK don’t really have a history of this being a problem.

There is nothing any manager can do to make players play perfectly. Stuff like that is largely on the player himself. I doubt Belt has some huge history of this kind of problem. Vlad on the other hand…yeah. it’s like you guys think these players are out there thinking “well if I just don’t run this out and by not doing so hurt the team there won’t be any repercussions so why bother actually making the play…when it’s in my best interests to make the play and help the team…” These are split second reactions to plays. Yeah you drill, and drill and drill, and drill and try to make it as muscle memory habit forming as possible, but..nobody is perfect. Not even Kiermaier. Benching every player for every mistake works with 2 year olds, not adults.

I get the anger, but why do people think screaming at people and throwing s*** is some magic effective coaching technique? If anything it makes you look like a moron Just like when hitters throw tantrums after striking out and chuck helmets or destroy bullpen phones

Look at that respect for Varsho, putting in a reliever to face him lol

I mean, he was safe….not sure how that didn’t get overturned