KevinGregg

I'm going with the astros

Im going braves again. Hope they don’t let me down again

Alford is out of options next year, so either he makes the team or we lose him to the Orioles or Marlins on waivers at the start of the year

Astros again for Day 5 assuming I make it through today

I am also going with Houston for tomorrow

Dodgers is the smart choice but I gotta cheer for my boy JD

Braves

nats and rays

Amazing how bad that lineup looks

His base running had damn well better improve even if his defense doesn't. That whale flop yesterday was disgusting

All because of his defense and baserunning which everyone knows is still developing. His bat is not even close to 2nd worst by a teenager and that's why he was called up - to learn to hit major league pitching. His poor defense and baserunning was going to be worked on the same way regardless of what level he was at. Hopefully next year he shows some improvement

The Jays have a different situation than most other teams though. We have a ton of cash. Way more than anyone else. Free agency is providing wins at all time high efficiency. Use the money to buy wins in free agency to move up the win curve. If injuries don't bite us in the ass, then you can see where you are at the deadline and add from there. You don't have to always be making Prospect for aging broken down veteran trades. Maybe we flip Groshans for a decent high level pitching prospect for example.

So the idea is to stick with the same team that lost 100 games. And likely lose 100 games again. All while sitting on the most payroll space in the league. Then do it all over again because we "just lost 100 games". And before you know it the core isnt cheap anymore. It's a self defeating idea. You cant just wait for the rookies to win 90 games on their own before spending money... that's how you end up with a one year window. We punted this year to get all the s*** contracts off the books and reset for next year and the future. Theres no reason to do that again next year. If we go into the year with a 50M dollar payroll then I will be beside myself with rage. And so should Rogers - what a total waste of 50 million dollars that would be

but why? just because you hate Atkins? What's a logical reason that the team would punt next year?

It wouldn't be a huge problem, they would still have his rights for next year. They'd just have to keep Elvis on the 25 man for one day at the start of next season then they could send him down like normal.

Definitely gonna add this one to the list as well

600 dollars after all the fees! But everything else on the trip is paid for by work so I guess that's how I can justify spending that much Awesome, will have to check it out, thanks for all the tips!

My work is sending me to Toronto during the week of the Raps home opener so I splurged and got a ticket (center court, row 2 of the upper level). This will be my first time in Toronto and my first Raptors game. Any advice on things to do before/after the game? Do players ever interact with fans at all? Are there better or worse places to buy food and merch in the arena? Any other advice?

don't all those dudes on the 40 man but not the 25 man roster make like 50,000 dollars rather than near major league minimum since they are not on major league deals? That knocks about 7.5M off of the projected payroll

Tyler Skaggs’ autopsy: Fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol led to death by choking on vomit https://www.latimes.com/sports/angels/story/2019-08-30/tyler-skaggs-autopsy-report-fentanyl-oxycodone-alcohol-angels-rusty-hardin?_amp=true yikes..

He has a 143 wrc+ over the last 3 weeks 176 over the last 2 weeks Exactly 100 over the last 6 weeks. I'm not worried

Narrator: it didn't

https://theathletic.com/1157052/2019/08/23/his-swing-change-failed-now-blue-jays-prospect-kevin-smith-bids-to-get-rid-of-the-old-feels-and-get-the-new-ones-in/ Kevin Smith enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2018. His batting average and on-base percentage soared. He hit 25 home runs. He vaulted to No. 7 on the Blue Jays’ top-prospects list. So naturally, he entered the offseason determined to change his swing. He thought it made sense at the time. The Blue Jays’ shortstop prospect is a keen student of the game. He spends myriad hours watching video, dissecting his own game and that of big-league stars, looking for new keys to unlock his potential. “Smitty is one of our most baseball-savvy and intelligent players,” said Gil Kim, the Blue Jays’ director of player development. “He’s probably one of our most analytical players, too.” Therefore, even though Smith had posted a hitting line of .302/.358/.528 at two A-ball levels in 2018, he saw flaws. He delved into his hitting data and huddled with coaches. Their collective conclusions: He needed to keep his bat in the hitting zone longer. And he was vulnerable to the high fastball. “I was aiming to have a better contact rate,” he said. “When I hit it last year, I hit it hard. I had a great year, but we figured that if I could make my path a little flatter through the zone, I’d be able to hit the (high) pitch better. Last year I kind of struggled with that. “So in the offseason, I really worked on it and liked where I was. But you really don’t know whether it’s going to work or not until you start facing live pitching.” It didn’t work. The degree to which it didn’t work was spectacular. By the end of June, in his first season at Double-A New Hampshire, Smith’s line was .183/.244/.346. His strikeout rate was 32 percent. His line-drive rate was way down, his fly-ball rate way up. And fewer of those balls in the air were leaving the park. Many weren’t even leaving the infield. Before the season started, he thought his offseason labours had programmed the new swing into his subconscious mind. But gradually he began to realize that his subconscious mind was confused. The old and new swings were pulling in different directions. “My muscle memory was doing two different things,” he said. “It didn’t understand what was happening. I thought I was doing one thing, but in the box, I was doing something else. That’s why I watch a lot of video, so I can see what I’m doing versus what I’m feeling.” Video and feelings told him he should try to put the toothpaste back in the tube. That’s hard to do at the best of times and virtually impossible for a player competing in a game-pressure atmosphere every night. At the All-Star break, Smith went home to suburban Albany, N.Y., and tried to revive his old swing. For two days, he spent long hours in a batting cage with his dad. They also studied video of himself and others, mainly Ronald Acuña Jr., the Braves’ slugging, spray-hitting young star. Rousing results came almost immediately. In July, he batted .333/.370/.708. He hit eight home runs, matching his total for the previous three months. Then, his muddled muscle memory interrupted his reverie. His August line stood at .161/.224/.258 with one homer entering Thursday’s action. This is going to be a process. “Looking at yourself, it’s easy to see what’s happening, but you can’t just go in the box and take something you’ve been doing your whole life and change it,” he said. “That’s why it took me so long this offseason to put in the changes that I wanted to make. It takes just as long to take them out again.” With 11 games left in New Hampshire’s season, he is hitting .213 with a .691 OPS — albeit with 19 homers. Two of them came Thursday night. The second hit the top of the batter’s eye at Northeast Delta Dental Stadium in New Hampshire. Smith’s 19 homers left him two shy of the league lead. So what sort of player will Kevin Smith eventually become? On their surface, his two full pro seasons seem the product of different players. At Lansing and Dunedin last year, he looked like a prospect on the fast track. At New Hampshire this year, he has been slogging through swampland, save for that surge in July. His 2018 numbers were gaudy, but there were warning signs, too. He played 47 of his first 64 games at Low-A Lansing, the rest at High-A Dunedin in a pitching-rich league. His BABIP — batting average on balls in play — was ridiculously high in the first half, suggesting good luck complemented the good things he was doing at the plate. In the second half, his BABIP sat firmly in the average range, suggesting luck did not play a part. This year his BABIP is .267, indicating that a degree of bad luck is aggravating his struggles. No doubt Smith’s analytical bent told him his second-half performance last year, while certainly not cause for panic, called for some adjustments. Thus, his vow to improve his swing over the winter. Always his own chief critic, he relishes analyzing his work. “I think I’m a great self-evaluator,” he said. “I kind of do it too much at times, like in this offseason.” His penchant for self-diagnosis clearly has the approval of his handlers. “Kevin is constantly thinking about how to make himself better, constantly thinking about his hitting and his swing, and constantly working at it,” Kim said. “We appreciate how much he cares and how much he burns to get better.” For Smith, consuming a steady diet of video is one key to getting better. Growing up, as he aspired to shortstop stardom, he analyzed Derek Jeter’s swing and defensive moves, and even the way the Yankees captain handled media interviews. Lately, Acuña, a kid, and Edgar Martinez, a newly minted Hall of Famer, have absorbed his attention. “I’ve been watching video of Acuña and trying to mimic his swing, seeing what he was doing versus what I was doing, why he and Edgar Martinez and Mookie (Betts) and all those guys do what they do, looking at what my body was doing compared to what they were doing,” Smith said, his passion evident in his tone. “I do that with everyone. I look at Francisco Lindor at shortstop and Carlos Correa and their pre-step and how they turn double plays and stuff like that. I’m always studying and trying to get better. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but at least I’m not staying the same.” Entering Thursday night’s game in New Hampshire, Smith was mired in a 6-for-45 slump. Then he went out and had a 3-for-4 night with a double and two home runs. The second one traveled an estimated 425 feet. Through his batting woes, he remains a solid defender at shortstop, and occasionally at second and third. And despite those woes, he has no regrets about trying to change his swing last winter. “I’m happy now that I tried it because if I went a few more years and then tried it, it would’ve been a way worse situation,” he said. Kim concurs. “Players at this high of a level who have such high standards, they always expect to succeed and they always expect to perform,” he said. “But it’s almost more encouraging in the developmental process to have them tested like this because it’s bound to happen at some point. We would hate to see that happen for the first time in the big leagues, where there are so many other pressures and things going on.” Smith’s Double-A season ends on Labor Day. His numbers — except for the homers — will pale alongside his 2018 totals. Kim is unworried. He says Smith’s struggles will benefit him in the long term. And Smith also sees the season as a glass half full. “I’m still trying to get rid of the old feels and get the new ones in,” he said. “But it’s fun to go out here every night and face great pitchers — the best pitching I’ve ever seen in my life so far. To be able to make changes and to have sparks here and there where I feel comfortable with my swing, that’s success to me, especially with how the first half went.” The sparks he ignited Thursday night served as a reminder of the player Smith has been, and what he might be yet again. Maybe those first-half feels are finally gone.

Just be happy pearson didnt give up any home runs with the juiced ball

I imagine they will both get some love if they keep doing well when they get called up to full season ball