metafour

WTF happened to Price's breaking balls? Dude is straight fastball/cutter/changeup now. He struggles against LHB because he refuses to throw a breaking pitch. Should have thrown a slider to Odor.

Always cool seeing a solid writer get an opportunity like this. Sucks for the fans as McDaniel had become probably the top guy for info. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/instagraphs/saying-farewell/

He has?

I dont understand why infielders haven't started acting in correspondence. You think the base-runner wants to catch a flying knee to the dome? Forget trying to make the play, start sticking your knee/leg out and see how many guys want to break the play up then.

How is that "clear" at all? They also had confirmed serious discussions with Dombrowski who doesn't fit that "profile" at all. If the plan all along was to get some guy they know won't demand money, then why even waste time with Dombrowski? Kenny Williams is another guy they were after last season, and the White Sox have had among the highest year-to-year payrolls in baseball during the majority of his years there.

You're thinking of Pillar in June, but the two really aren't that comparable. None of Pillar's peripherals changed during that hot streak, in fact he actually posted his LOWEST walk-rate of the season during that month, and his third highest strikeout rate. The conclusion? He was doing the exact same thing he always does, which confirms that he was simply "hot" and/or benefiting from luck. This Goins thing is different because his BB% post All-Star break has been elite; going from 5.7% to 16.5%, which shows obvious improvement at the plate. What are the implications? The significantly higher walk rate means that he's seeing more pitches per at-bat (thus increasing the likelihood of seeing a hittable/poor pitch), and it also means that he's being more selective at the plate, which will naturally indicate that when he does swing, its at more hittable pitches because he's doing a better job dictating the course of the at-bat. All of these factors realistically contribute as a possible explanation for why he is hitting significantly better, apart from it simply being a fluke hot-streak. I'm not suggesting that this is something that will continue long-term, but plate discipline isn't exactly something that you can "luck". It also isn't a skill that is generally seen as teachable, which is why Goins is going to be a very interesting case to follow in the future. Mechanical changes to a swing can however "unlock" plate discipline. His 16.5% BB rate post All-Star break is 5th highest league wide, so he's not just been "good", he's been very good at drawing walks.

I know rite. He's even luckier this season in relief than he was last year! Wow! I wonder how he does it?

Hitters vs. Cecil: .224/.291/.365 -----> .284 wOBA Hitters vs. Sanchez: .117/.186/.164 --> .167 wOBA But I forgot, Sanchez just gets lucky with balls in play. Doh.

Cecil is better than Sanchez? Thats new to me.

http://media.giphy.com/media/wOXQvz3FwajVm/giphy.gif

Every team likes pitchers who can produce strikeouts. Shapiro traded Victor Martinez for a package that was built solely around Justin Masterson.

Cleveland Indians Payroll standing League-wide: 1998: 6th ($59,543,165) 1999: 4th ($73,278,458) 2000 : 8th ($75,880,871) **Larry Dolan/Paul Dolan purchase the team 2001: 5th ($91,974,979) **Shapiro hired as GM 2002: 9th ($78,909,448) 2003: 26th ($48,584,834) 2004: 27th ($34,569,300) 2005: 26th ($41,830,400) **Shapiro named Executive of the Year (90+ win season) 2006: 25th ($56,031,500) 2007: 23rd ($61,673,267) **Shapiro named Executive of the Year (90+ win season, AL Central Champs) 2008: 16th ($78,970,066) 2009: 15th ($81,625,567) 2010: 24th ($61,203,967) 2011: 26th ($49,188,867) **Shapiro promoted to Team President 2012: 21st ($78,430,300) 2013: 21st ($77,772,800) 2014: 26th ($82,534,800) 2015: 26th ($86,091,175)

Its just average fans reacting to a team that isn't winning. He didn't accomplish the feat of sustained winning with a bottom 5 payroll, so he's a failure and needs to be replaced. Fans like that don't realize that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, and that what they are expecting is an extremely tall feat. You saw the same s*** here when this team wasn't winning: "fire everybody", complete with a dead atmosphere of support. Then the tables turn and now the stadium is sold out every night with supposed die hard Blue Jays fans. What exactly do you expect from your average sports fan?

Cherington was essentially going to be demoted as Dombrowski was granted full control over baseball operations. I don't expect this situation to be similar because Shapiro doesn't appear to running into this thing with the expectation that he's both GM and President. By all accounts Antonetti ultimately had final say in day to day baseball operations in Cleveland, so I'd expect the Shapiro/Anthopolous relationship would be more in line with Anthopolous still holding "GM" power. There were reports that Rogers wasn't willing to cave and hand over full baseball control to Dombrowski whereas Boston bit the bullet and did exactly that.

"Shapiro, who served as GM, farm director and assistant farm director in Cleveland before becoming the team's president this decade, according to sources intends to keep Alex Anthopoulos as general manager"

Yeah, his credentials aren't huge, but to be fair the big-name media is basically hinting at the same thing, except they aren't fully committed in their reporting yet. This guy even went on to name who would be taking over the Presidential role for the Indians, so either he's going all-in with the ********/guesses, or he actually knows something.

This Cleveland guy (unknown reliability) says its a done deal:

Wow Detroit pitching coach so good. Boyd a stud. Such improvement.

Both of his secondary pitches are just floating down the middle of the plate the majority of the time. He's way too hittable. If a hitter ever guessed right on his curveball it would go a LONG way out; that thing is just spinning over the heart of the plate.

He's hanging those changeups way too high in the zone. Just asking to get ripped out of the park.

The decision was not AA's. Rogers invested a lot of money on Ricciardi's last ditch spending spree. When those moves flopped and the team failed, they fired Ricciardi and brought in a young upstart with zero GM experience. You think they hired him and told him "sure, keep piling salary onto this roster"? It was obvious that they wanted a rebuild, otherwise they would have hired a more established veteran GM if their plan was to keep progressing with what Ricciardi left. Beeston's 5-year FA stipulation assured that he couldn't go crazy in FA even if he wanted to add to an ageing Halladay, and Ricciardi left a s***-heap minor league system which meant that he couldn't trade for MLB help either.

Are you kidding me? How many of those 5 years were spent clearly re-tooling the minor league system which ultimately BUILT this currently dominant team? When he took over, his first orders of business were trading away the team's best player (Halladay) and dumping the crippling albatross salary of Wells, the team's ~2nd or ~3rd best player. Does that sound like a team "pushing for the playoffs"? Of course not; it was a re-tooling job. You can't use rebuilding years against him and argue that he didn't make the playoffs in those seasons, that is absurd. His playoff "window" was last season and this season. Last year the team flopped and he rightfully entered this season on the hot-seat. This season, the results speak for themselves. These last two years are what you judge his "playoff expectation" on, not the first few seasons when he was tasked with getting rid of the best players on the team.

Why? He's done all he can to build a roster that at this point is a shoe-in for the playoffs and a strong contender to compete for it all. If by some chance this team somehow completely falls apart and misses the playoffs, it will be for reasons that are out of the GM's control.

Sick bra, brah.