Orgfiller

Good pitch and good framing but McKinney got the screw job there.

That was one of his softest hits this year.

That is a horrible play by Heredia, that's gotta be blocked.

That last pitch to Drury was filthy, he was working a hell of an AB prior to that.

Smoak playing the 4 outfield defense perfectly. This is why I don't understand why more hitters don't go against the shift. See how easy it is?

Who is this guy?

Aaron Sanchez just had more swinging strikes in that inning (6) than he's had in several of his starts this year.

His leg kick is wild. Great breaking ball there too.

If that's for Stroman, strong no.

Lol I was just about to say this. Tim McCarver makes Pat Tabler sound like an analytical mind.

Paul Goldschmidt has now homered in 6 straight games.

It's so hard to listen to this.

I was sure someone would. I acquired him from silvergun.

Can someone add Turnbull to my squad and drop Kendrick? The latter should also be added to BTS' team.

Yeah Teoscar!!!! What a game!

He has such easy power to the opposite field. If he could connect more often he could be so valuable.

Brandon Drury is an incredibly enticing player.

Dustin May exists.

Thanks for answering my question guys. Dominguez looks pretty intriguing, thanks for bringing my eye to him along with the other international guys that are starting to look good.

lol gruber

Diekman is one of the top strikeout pitchers in baseball, has an excellent FIP and xFIP suggesting his performance thus far has been much better than his ERA indicates, and projects to be very good. Daniel Hudson is pretty bad, he walks nearly as many as Diekman while striking out a third fewer batters, and as a result his projections are very much unfavourable. This is a steal for the A's even if they're only acquiring half a season of a good reliever.

To answer them in order: 1) It's certainly possible for guys to turn from a contact oriented approach to a strikeout/power oriented one, but the stuff has to be there, and the pitcher has to be willing to change his philosophy. It's pretty much all down to pitch usage: which pitches to use - generally fastball over sinker paired with a good breaking ball - and which locations to put them in - high/low for power pitchers; often bottom of the zone, side to side for contact ones. For examples of this just look at pretty much every pitcher on the Astros, with Gerritt Cole being the clearest example of a guy changing philosophies from how the Pirates approach pitching to how the Astros do. 2) Technically, becoming a strikeout pitcher doesn't necessarily mean you'll be less able to go deeper into games, I don't believe there's much of a correlation between strikeouts and pitches thrown in games - keep in mind contact oriented guys may allow more balls in play becoming hits, or many foul balls. Some of the top starters in the game - Scherzer, deGrom, Gerritt Cole, Verlander, Walker Buehler, prime Kershaw, Chris Sale - are all huge strikeout pitchers and routinely go deep into games. Guys like Stroman and Mike Soroka of the Braves are rare in being both top starters and guys that can go deeper into games, but that's because their stuff is also just that good. Until strikeouts for starters become a problem with regards to endurance, that's not going to be a problem that the MLB has. Their biggest problem is with the lack of balls in play due to elevated walk and strikeout rates. 3) While I can see bullpen games becoming far more prevalent in the future, it'll be a very long time before the traditional starter goes away. There's great value in having a good starter that goes 5-6 innings, and those guys are still being developed and coming up each year. An elite starter their third or fourth time through the order is still about as good as the reliever that would be replacing them, so you're getting more innings out of less roster spots. That's not gonna change unless injuries continue to zap us of promising arms and elite starters just simply don't exist anymore, and I just can't see that happening any time soon.

There you go Cavan! He's been in a bit of rusty so that's nice to see.

It's very fitting that Travis d'Arnaud would f*** us up and break out with the Rays.

Reese McGuire was called up, I imagine he'll get there at some point if he's not already in the clubhouse.