Orgfiller

Our xBA was .473 this game, which is higher than last night's game. Just hitting rockets all over the place, honestly the 11 runs undersells how on fire the offense was tonight. Denzel Clarke probably single handedly kept us from scoring 15+ runs.

Fun fact: for as nutty as Aaron Judge has been, the already nutty Ohtani actually has a higher xwOBA, mostly on the basis of Judge having an absurd .464 BABIP. Juan Soto is 5th in baseball in xwOBA but only has a 113 wRC+, he's having an extremely frustrating amount of batted ball luck, depending on if you care about Juan Soto performing well.

SSS alert re: defense, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt and feel free to respond with the very valid "this is all just noise" comment, but Vlad thus far is not grading out as one of the worst defenders in the league. Potential wishful thinking explanation: could playing alongside elite 2B defenders like Gimenez and now Ernie for the season be masking his poor range? He was playing with some absolute butchers last season in the likes of Spencer Hortwitz, Davis Schneider, etc. meaning guys with already limited range who could barely play a position. So now that Gimenez and Ernie are covering for his poor range attempts to his right, he can cheat to getting balls near the 1B bag instead. Did Ross Atkins cook with the Gimenez acquisition by indirectly adding 0.5 wins to Vlad's season over season WAR? Many people are asking this question.

Definitely fair, although one could say that since framing is at least most recently a sought after skill which most of the league now actively works on, it's probably still a fair comparison. Like in a league where framing is a core component that teams look for, Cal Raleigh still grades out highly among his peers, and WAR reflects that since the base level replacement level catcher may have improved.

Getting non zero assets like Pinango and Fisher for guys like Pearson and Biggio have been lowkey massive wins for the FO. Fisher already projects better than Pearson, and the Pitching+ models are big fans. Pinango has been crushing AA at 23 with good power and K/BB numbers.

Gimenez bumps Stefanic out though. We need the Santander spot to not be a total black hole, and if he's playing injured that's certainly adding to the problem.

Minor nitpick, Gimenez has actually already started getting into rehab games. He started a game in Dunedin last night.

Top 30 such seasons: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&month=0&ind=1&startdate=&enddate=&season1=1871&season=2025&pos=c # Season Name Team G PA HR R RBI SB BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ BsR Off Def WAR 1 2012 Buster Posey SFG 148 610 24 78 103 1 11.3% 15.7% .213 .368 .336 .408 .549 .406 164 -4.6 41.8 32.8 9.8 2 1972 Johnny Bench CIN 147 652 40 87 125 6 15.3% 12.9% .271 .246 .270 .379 .541 .402 156 -0.8 39.4 20.0 9.2 3 1997 Mike Piazza LAD 152 633 40 104 124 5 10.9% 12.2% .277 .363 .362 .431 .638 .452 183 0.6 66.9 5.5 9.1 4 1982 Gary Carter MON 154 653 29 91 97 2 11.9% 9.8% .217 .284 .293 .381 .510 .388 150 -1.6 34.9 23.3 8.4 5 2009 Joe Mauer MIN 138 606 28 94 96 4 12.5% 10.4% .222 .373 .365 .444 .587 .438 170 -2.1 50.8 11.3 8.3 6 2008 Brian McCann ATL 145 573 23 68 87 5 9.9% 11.2% .222 .306 .301 .373 .523 .386 135 -4.8 20.5 44.3 8.3 7 1943 Josh Gibson HG 69 302 20 93 109 4 17.2% .402 .466 .560 .867 .639 251 0.4 60.8 3.4 8.1 8 1974 Johnny Bench CIN 160 708 33 108 129 5 11.3% 12.7% .227 .281 .280 .363 .507 .387 142 -0.4 33.7 18.4 8.0 9 1970 Johnny Bench CIN 158 671 45 97 148 5 8.0% 15.2% .294 .281 .293 .345 .587 .399 144 0.4 37.3 15.8 7.9 10 1953 Roy Campanella BRO 144 590 41 103 142 4 11.4% 9.8% .299 .288 .312 .395 .611 .441 154 0.5 42.4 15.6 7.7 11 1886 King Kelly CHI 118 534 4 155 79 53 15.5% 6.2% .146 .413 .388 .483 .534 .475 177 3.6 66.3 -1.0 7.6 12 1977 Carlton Fisk BOS 152 632 26 106 102 7 11.9% 13.4% .205 .329 .315 .402 .521 .403 143 -0.5 31.9 21.0 7.6 13 1979 Darrell Porter KCR 157 679 20 101 112 3 17.8% 9.6% .193 .293 .291 .421 .484 .399 144 -0.7 35.5 15.8 7.5 14 2014 Buster Posey SFG 147 605 22 72 89 0 7.8% 11.4% .179 .319 .311 .364 .490 .371 142 -3.5 25.4 24.9 7.5 15 2012 Yadier Molina STL 138 563 22 65 76 12 8.0% 9.8% .186 .316 .315 .373 .501 .375 138 -4.8 20.9 33.5 7.5 16 2014 Jonathan Lucroy MIL 153 655 13 73 69 4 10.1% 10.8% .164 .324 .301 .373 .465 .368 133 -1.9 22.3 25.7 7.4 17 1993 Mike Piazza LAD 149 602 35 81 112 3 7.6% 14.3% .243 .322 .318 .370 .561 .401 150 -0.9 36.3 16.5 7.4 18 2008 Russell Martin LAD 155 650 13 87 69 18 13.8% 12.8% .116 .309 .280 .385 .396 .350 112 1.4 11.2 41.1 7.3 19 1992 Darren Daulton PHI 145 585 27 80 109 11 15.0% 17.6% .254 .288 .270 .385 .524 .399 156 1.3 37.1 11.2 7.2 20 2013 Yadier Molina STL 136 541 12 68 80 3 5.5% 10.2% .158 .338 .319 .359 .477 .362 133 -2.5 17.5 32.5 7.2 21 1984 Gary Carter MON 159 669 27 75 106 2 9.6% 8.5% .193 .287 .294 .366 .487 .377 142 -0.4 31.0 14.9 7.1 22 1951 Roy Campanella BRO 143 562 33 90 108 1 9.4% 9.1% .265 .311 .325 .393 .590 .440 158 -0.2 40.5 10.6 7.1 23 1968 Bill Freehan DET 155 635 25 73 84 0 10.2% 10.1% .191 .258 .263 .366 .454 .375 149 -0.3 30.4 11.9 7.0 24 1993 Chris Hoiles BAL 126 503 29 80 82 1 13.7% 18.7% .274 .338 .310 .416 .585 .433 166 -0.1 41.0 12.9 7.0 25 1966 Joe Torre ATL 148 614 36 83 101 0 9.8% 9.9% .245 .300 .315 .382 .560 .408 157 -1.2 39.9 1.3 6.9 26 1983 Gary Carter MON 145 609 17 63 79 1 8.4% 9.4% .174 .272 .270 .336 .444 .343 117 -0.3 11.3 35.6 6.8 27 1999 Ivan Rodriguez TEX 144 630 35 116 113 25 3.8% 10.2% .227 .324 .332 .356 .558 .388 125 -0.4 20.9 28.2 6.8 28 1975 Johnny Bench CIN 142 606 28 83 110 11 10.7% 17.8% .236 .303 .283 .359 .519 .387 140 2.3 29.9 14.8 6.8 29 2015 Buster Posey SFG 150 623 19 74 95 2 9.0% 8.3% .153 .320 .318 .379 .470 .363 135 -1.7 23.8 20.8 6.8 30 1937 Bill Dickey NYY 140 608 29 87 133 3 12.0% 3.6% .238 .307 .332 .417 .570 .442 146 -1.0 40.7 7.2 6.7

Man when you said he's showing signs of life I really wasn't hoping to read "he's raised the OPS up to .497". Talk about a vibe killer. This might your worst use of SSS yet, 5 games in the complex league for a guy with a sub 50 wRC+ on the season.

They realized they were blocking Hayden Birdsong for no reason and he looks like a good young arm.

Yeah of course, I will say I was being somewhat pedantic since he mentioned he whiffed on all the MLB transactions from this offseason. Santander and Scherzer have been clear big negatives, no question about it. Scherzer in particular does seem like he totally scammed us. Gimenez I'm still willing to give a pass on, because he's some batted ball luck correction away from being a very positive contributor on the team. The defense and baserunning has been as advertised, and if his actual wOBA matched his .320 xwOBA figure he would be looking like a core piece.

We calling Yimi and Hoffman dud signings now? Hoffman has elite peripherals across the board, he's just been unlucky with HR/FB luck. Even with his s***** splitter his xERA and xFIP are both extremely good, the K/BB is excellent. Yimi's shoulder could certainly be a concern although at least he had no blowups before he got injured.

Kirk was so locked in he still made the throw despite the K.

Honestly, the fact that it was Kirk running was a positive there. Any runner that isn't in the 90th percentile sprint speed is hosed there, that was an absolute laser to home and right on the money. I think a lot of guys struggle to score on that throw.

Maybe more impressive than the luck going our way for once is Kirk making it to third on that play.

Santander should have walked.

Love that 3-0 swing from Kirk, looking to do damage and while it's not a hit, it's a loud out and gets us a run.

Gausman is going right at them, 23 pitches through 3 IP wow.

Bo's been getting terribly unlucky lately. Two batted balls above 103 mph already and both for outs. xwOBA coming into this game 50 points higher than his actual, he's particularly underperforming his xSLG by almost 100 points.

My prediction/hope that RJ Schreck puts himself onto the radar ala Alan Roden seems to be looking like a reality more and more with each passing game. He's been hitting consistently now since last season, and getting to his power more often. Not playing CF quite as much anymore, but hopefully the defense in the corners is decent.

I didn't realize he was starting games for them (lol) and was confused on if you had typo'd that 41 IP number. This is already the most innings he's pitched at the MLB level in a season since 2019.

Pitching staff all around gave us a chance. Would be nice for the bats to reward that in their last opportunity.

This ump is giving us every chance possible to get back into the game.

Ernie is an absolutely magical defender. Insane hands.

In terms of guys who you can throw out there to die and easily DFA the next day, probably not.