Thaddeus Malice

Yeah that's basically dead on. Since the accuser has no interest in money that's the only choice.

He's also not grading out negatively on the basepaths this year, and has been solidly positive. Those improvements, becoming an average runner and a higher end defensive 1B, along with his hitting gives him a chance to be as valuable as Pujols (who was a good baserunner early in his career before they amputated his legs).

Both Biggio and Bichette are near the bottom of their positions defensively. It sucks that we're wedded to Bichette at SS for the moment, because moving him to 3B, moving Biggio back to second and moving Semien to SS is probably worth a decent amount of value at this point.

Just based on the eye test, Vlad looks pretty decent at 1B. And UZR seems to grade him as positive at 1B as well. If he hits and plays an above average first base? We can look forward to seasons where he's at peak 6-8 WAR instead of 4-5.

I'm sure this discussion is rightfully going to get culled, but that's not really accurate at this point. Relative to the world Canada has done fine vaccine wise. Their recent numbers have outperformed most of the world besides the US. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations They've outperformed basically the entire EU, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Greece. They've outperformed, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Relative to the comparables Canada has done just fine, especially with our Pfizer supply. Other countries were too reliant on a single kind of vaccine, and disruptions or issues with blood clots have slowed them down, but Canada hasn't had that issue as much with the relatively wide range of vaccine acquisitions. As well some of those countries listed ahead are using Sinovac which is significantly less effective than the rest. Maybe in January, there was disappointment with Canada's vaccine outlook, but that's in the past now. Canada's well ahead of most of the world including our comparable European countries in terms of getting the vaccines out and into peoples arms. We've also used a different method obviously in maximizing single doses for people, and I believe that the ongoing data has indicated a single dose of those vaccines is pretty effective.

I'm not sure that Semien really works at the top of the lineup. I know he's just placeholding till Springer is back, but he probably slots in 6-8.

My dad got it. 65 years old, but generally quite healthy. Got it really early last March and he nearly did die. He was in the hospital and was intubated, placed on the ventilator, and being perfectly honest we were preparing for him to pass, but he improved somehow and made it through. He gets tired more easily but on the whole in terms of long term impact he's been on the luckier end of things. One of the scariest periods of my life without a doubt. He was incoherent during the last call I had with him before intubation. I wasn't living with them, so I didn't get it, but my younger brother with asthma did, it wasn't great for him either. He's also had ongoing joint pain for months on end after that he never had before.

Matz definitely had an inning left in him.

Damn. Poor Jansen.

I know everyone has said it but Jansen looks gaunt.

That's right Davis. Help us get one more Vlad AB.

Damn it Gurriel.

Lame hit. Matz has been fantastic.

I mean they're all artificial constraints in a way. The creation of the DH, lowering the mound, pitch clocks. There's always modifications happening to sports because innovation maximizing results can be great, but sometimes the changes make for a worse game and rules need to be created to stem that tide. The NBA did away with hand checking to increase the flow of the game, the NHL made the single best rule change it ever could have by removing the red line.

It's actually amazing to see how much of a difference this has made. That's a great improvement in sprint speed. If he gets just a bit more into shape, we're not going to have any concerns about needing to make him into a DH and in an emergency can even pop him over to third.

Sigh. A month is not ideal with what we're throwing out there right now. Do any of Anibal Sanchez/Rick Porcello sound like options? I'm kind of surprised Porcello hasn't gotten a shot. He was better than his numbers last year.

100% agreed on this. That variety doesn't exist. It's not as amazing to watch a guy put up huge K numbers when everyone does it. And there was something impressive about guys like Beuhrle who could control a game without it. It was nice watching Estrada pull that off while he was good as well. I really do think the double hook idea is good because it reemphasizes pitchers going deep into games. Watching a matchup between Roy Halladay and Beuhrle was awesome back in the day. Roy raised his K/9 later in his career but for the most part he struck out between 5-7/9 and was dominant anyways. And no openers. Limits the specialization, and analytics focus a bit there. Pushing the mound back is a bit drastic, so that can be left for later if they really can't get a handle on things. I also wonder if pitchers have to go deeper into games, that means they don't go all out as much. Would having to go 6+ innings more consistently mean velocity dips slightly?

I mean I think it might have killed baseball if they didn't. The offense was horribly anemic right. I'm looking at this and wow, 10th place for OPS was .850. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/1968-batting-leaders.shtml Also damn you said leave it alone back then? 52 years ago. You've been around.

f***s sake.

How many guys can you hit before the ump decides to toss you cause you're a risk?

Vladdy genuinely sped around the bases there. Weight loss paying serious dividends.

Ok buddy. Time to leave the game.

Don't know how his hand is fine after that but I guess we'll see.

So Manoah literally cannot stop striking batters out.

I'm glad he looks good, but it's a little sad seeing Paxton throwing fire. Hopefully Matz and Ray keep up the good performances, but man it would be a lot more comfortable going into the season with Ryu/Ray/Paxton/Matz/Pearson.