Orgfiller

I saw I think in fangraphs' comment section that Ohtani has the heaviest bat in the MLB, which kind of adds up as to why he's able to produce so much more power despite a lower avg swing speed and squared up% as Juan Soto who is in a league of his own in those two categories combined.

I can tell you for a fact that John Schneider did not use Garcia and Romano yesterday as a showcase. He used his top two arms in the highest leverage possible, end of story.

You summarized it a lot better than I did. But in all seriousness, I really do think it's all down to the personnel and/or the info being fed to them from the FO/coaching stuff. Cito aside, nobody was telling those studs on the 15 and 16 teams what to do, they just knew how to prepare and execute every night. And they did regrettably have a weakness against the Cleveland softballers in the playoffs, so it's not like they were prepared for everything. On these teams, if Vlad and Bo sucks there's nothing the rest of the team can do to make up for your middle of the order hitters not contributing. You can even get away with Kirk just being a defensive savant and Springer being average (not that he has been this season), but the bulk needs to come from somewhere.

I feel like this is a bit of backwards way of looking at things, IMO. It's not revisionist to say that the 2015 and 16 offenses were better than this group, but that's because they had three monsters in JD, Bautista and EE in the middle of the lineup. I think the fact they were all mostly - JD wasn't your typical pull guy - dead pull hitters is gonna skew those results to make it seem like the only way/most effective way to build an elite offense is by putting in a bunch of pull hitters in there. Of course there's something to be said to have a team identity and philosophy that's conducive to good hitting, but at the end of the day you gotta have elite talent carrying the production. If the lineup had an Acuna, Miguel Cabrera, Manny Ramirez, JD Martinez (the prime version), even a Kevin Youkilis, it wouldn't matter that those guys aren't pulling the ball all the time to get to their power because they're overall monsters. Just look at the Yankees with Soto and Judge as an example. Or the Dodgers monster combo of Betts-Ohtani-Freeman-Smith, neither of those guys are dead pull hitters. The Dodgers are 23rd in pull% lol, the Yankees 27th, one spot ahead of the Jays. Of course, it's a different story when you factor in hard hit %. Naturally, you want the guys like Varsho and Schneider pulling the ball since they don't have the bat control or physical tools to make strong contact the other way, and the best way to get to their power is selling out in front. Someone like Bo perhaps could try a bit harder to pull the ball, but it's not like his all-fields approach hasn't been effective throughout his career, this season notwithstanding. For Vlad it's the same issues he's had since he was a 20 year old, save for one miracle season in 2021: he just doesn't know how to lift the ball effectively despite having top of the charts power. It's a personnel issue more than a philosophy issue IMO. Maybe the FO and coaches aren't good enough at providing hitters with the best info to get the most out of them, or the players are too stupid or stubborn to adjust to what they're being fed. It's fine that Varsho, Schneider and Jansen have success in a different way than how Bo, Vlad and Kirk would. It's just that the latter three have cratered and are having none, which is killing the team.

One year of service time is deemed as 172 days, so 43 is a quarter of that.

It’s definitely easier said than done to just battle the two elite pitches that Romano throws. They look identical out of the hand with like a 10 mph difference, and he’s throwing them at 100% effort every time. Sometimes your best bet is just to sit on one and pray you guessed right, or get lucky that you’re sitting heater and he throws a cement mixer down the pipe. Hitting is really hard. 8/10 times if Romano throws a pitch that appears like it’s middle-middle out of the hand, it drops below the zone for a whiff.

Respecting the elite slider that Romano throws like 60% of the time.

Yimi Garcia is an animal.

Knowing Jansen he's probably nursing some undisclosed injury.

Don Mattingly played in an era where the average fastball was probably barely faster than the average breaking ball in 2024. That tells us a lot. Snide aside, not every prospect has to be a 65 FV. Nimmala is clearly very raw, if he gets the warts out I'll certainly take a 50 FV prospect, something like Paul DeJong in his good years.

Stuff+ be damned, Manoah actually got pretty decent results on his pitches, 15 whiffs overall on 78 pitches will certainly play. Importantly, every pitch of his got whiffs, fastball which he threw the most got 6 on 31 pitches/17 swings, changeup 4 out of 19 thrown/17 swung at, slider 3 out of 8/14, sinker 2 out of 7/14. Lefty heavy lineup so he relied on his change a lot more, and there was enough of a pitch mix to try out different "weapons" for different hitters. If we compare him to his counterpart Bailey Ober who on paper was more dominant (10 K), he had the same amount of whiffs in 26 more pitches.

107 mph for an 18 year old is extremely promising. That’s like 60 raw power at least if not more given the age.

The changeup against lefties could actually be a decent pitch if he has the feel to command it. Looks almost exactly like his sinker but 7 mph slower.

If you don't think there's a certain level of depression in the Rays' FO, that their 80 grade prospect who was on the verge of breaking out into a perennial 5+ WAR stud threw his whole career away, then I think you're giving them a lot more credit than they deserve, and that's saying a lot. Imagine having to replace a guy like that, one whom you've finally gotten signed for the foreseeable future, face of the franchise, with Jose f***ing Caballero. The Rays are in last place right now, they got zero value for the most valuable piece in franchise history (toe to toe with Evan Longoria). They're not gonna dwell on it forever, but they're in a significantly different spot than they were prior to the news breaking. Arozarena has sucked this year, Yandy Diaz has sucked, Jose Siri sucks, all of their pitchers are hurt.

But why? Teoscar has been worse than Davis Schneider and Varsho in LF, making 4x as much.

Generally speaking when a prospect is listed as a 1B/DH but they aren't an obese stiff they just have bricks for hands and have horrendous defensive instincts. Think Michael Busch, Addison Barger most recently, etc. Black "looks like an athlete" but likely looks lost out there at a position.

Jesus Christ they almost turned that. FFS Vogelbach

Barger's inexperience has also been evident at the plate. Pitchers are flipping the gameplan against him, lots of offspeed and breaking stuff early with the fastball to blow him away later, or start with one overpowering fastball and then freeze him with the secondaries. These things will mature with experience, they know he hits the ball hard so he's being game planned to keep him off-balance.

Some action for Barger, not saying much but he looked a bit more comfortable there. Still runs pretty stiff, you can tell he’s still learning the outfield. Not much fluidity out there.

Another excellent swing put on a ball by Schneider, 98.7 mph, 34 LA, just missed extra bases hitting it 362 feet.

Would’ve preferred he just toss it to Vlad over risking any shenanigans with the umpire’s discretion of the runner being in the baseline. Moot point, easy inning for him there.

Always funny seeing pitchers throw bullets to first base. Vladdy definitely felt that one.

And there it is, the Manoah arc is complete except without the dominant second year.

Feel like we're already pushing it with the defense as is to not have Turner's 39 year old ass letting balls go by him into the outfield. Jansen will come in to hit for Biggio, IKF or Ernie if the opportunity arises late in game.

Jesus Christ that outfield defense, we're back in 2022 lol. I'm sure they're just giving Varsho a breather, he's been putting in work in the outfield.