Brownie19

It makes me sad to see Springer struggle so bad. He was such a great player in his prime - one of my very favourites. As we know, offense is down across baseball and I was having a look at the bottom of the leaderboard and there seem to be a lot of once great players who are struggling this year - like Springer. Vets that look cooked: - Saurez - Goldy - Rizzo - McNeil - Castellanos - Tellez - Renfroe - Michael A. Taylor - Josh Bell - Haniger - Benintendi - Baez - TA - Kike Hernandez Great players who seemingly fell off a cliff this year without any explanation: - Arozarena - Riley - Michael Harris - Adolis Garcia - Manny Machado? - Soler (obviously not as much success as the others) Younger players who've had success (or a pedigree) in the past, but have been useless this year: - Andrew Vaughan - Tork - Cedric Mullins - Jake Burger - Colt Keith (never had success) - Lux - Evan Carter / Wyatt Langford - Gelof All of these players have had 150+ PA's this year. Great organizations and s***** organizations are all generally giving these guys lots of PA's this year - much like the Jays continue to with Bo, Springer, Kirk, etc. And like the Jays, the justification varies based on a variety of reasons.

They called him up when he was f***ing RED HOT and he went like 0-17 (and yes he may have had other things on his mind).

I mean - he was a lefty power bench bat who's hit righties well throughout his career. $2M is peanuts.

Let's not make this a Braves v. Jays debate. The initial point was simply the Braves offense has gone from incredible (most runs scored in a full season since the 2007 Yankees) to below average over night. Even to a VERY GOOD organization with a very good GM and recent history of strong development. AA said himself on the FAN590 that if he could figure out why, he'd have fixed it already. It's an example of now random baseball can be and how sometimes, the people driving the ship have less control than we think. That's really it. Decisions to go with Arcia at SS, move out Contreras for Murphy, bring in Kelenic/Duval also illustrate how even very good GM's make moves that don't work out. The Braves are so good, they'll probably overcome most of this and will still make a run for the playoffs this year, but there are some bizarre similarities to the frustrating developments we've seen on the Jays over the past couple of years.

I think that's a fair assessment. We're seeing eye to eye a lot lately.

We hung out in the right field corner. There was all kinds of craft beers and then those standing areas. Atmosphere was super fun and laid back. A lot of the new reno's at the dome remind me of elements I saw at Progressive Field (and others I've visited lately).

Oh s*** - well said. POTY candidate.

Dude has always had that monster arm.

Imagine being the GM. He's just sitting there, mailing it in, collecting a paycheck. Tough life.

I was in Cleveland back in 2017 or 2018 and we enjoyed it. Ball park was a ton of fun and we ate on 4th Street East, which is a pedestrian only street with all kinds of great patios and night life.

All true. But, the Braves offense has gone from the best in baseball by a mile (41 runs more than #2 and a 125 wRC+ v. 118 for #2) to below average. Acuna wasn't anywhere near himself before the injury and most of their young core players are having horrendous years. Acuna alone doesn't move the needle this much.

It's wild to see. And yes, the sample size is a lot smaller than Toronto's, but, it might give a slight indication of how fickle things can be in baseball. I wonder if Braves fans are calling for their hitting coaches to be fired, suggesting they must have implemented a new philosophy across the organization that has ruined their offense, or questioning if there are issues with their player development. And then of course, there is a possibility that all these things are true (or that some of them are) and whether AA should be to blame for it.

19th in runs scored and 15th in wRC+ after being the best offense in baseball (by a mile) last year.

That's a pretty crazy stat. Man - baseball was so different with steroids. Then again, those f***ing steroid guys forced pitchers to start throwing harder because they couldn't get those f***ing guys out and that's created the game we have today, which isn't nearly as enjoyable as baseball was during the steroid era.

One thing I keep telling myself is that instructions need to be catered to the age group. Things like "squishing the bug" work just fine with 7 and 8 year olds, but you need more advanced movements as you get older. I've literally told kids before "remember what I told you last year? Forget it - you're now strong enough that I can teach you how to do this properly".

Obviously not enough. And yes, perhaps grow up was the wrong suggestion. How about "adapt"

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You actually see this quite a bit. It's called "feel v. real". There are videos of A-Rod doing the same thing. Here's a video of Matt Antonelli explaining it, using A-Rod's swing. I don't actually believe there's anything wrong with teaching "feel v. real" and in fact, I actually use this with some of the 8 year olds I coach. They naturally have large uppercut swings, which don't work well. So before every game, when we do side toss, I tell them to hit the ball off the base of the net and those kids will take some really awkward choppy swings to hit the base of the net. But - we go into game situations, that "feel" has really helped them level off their swings and both of them are performing much better since we made that change. An issue I see is that coaches/instructors should know "feel v. real" and they should know that when they are preaching that old school, hit down on the ball approach - that it's actually just a mentality or feel and that you'd actually never swing like that in a game. That should be explained to people. I'm not so sure A-Rod or Miggy (or Donnie Baseball???) know that.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/maybe-the-launch-angle-revolution-wasnt-really-about-launch-angle/ I found this article kind of interesting...

Who the f*** watches commercials on TV? Grow up and flip through Tik Tok or Instagram like the rest of us between innings.

I do wonder if Turner's track record with RISP was a factor. Let's be honest, there were a lot of DH types that didn't project well that were getting big $$$ Player | Projected WAR | AAV Teo 1.6 $23M Hoskins 1.9 $17M LGR 1.4 $14M Soler 1.8 $14M Turner 1.0 $13M Joc 1.1 $12.5M Garver 1.4 $12M JDM 0.4 $12M And Pham was only projected for 0.7 WAR FWIW. Most of these guys suck.

His Pull% has decreased every single year since his rookie season. There's really nothing to suggest sideburns is having any impact on Bo's approach. Bo seems like quite a study of the game. I think he's in control of his own approach and swing.

Is it really that hard to select another word man?

They don't have a lot of great prospects. Obviously the cost for Robert is going to be sky high and would cost them Painter. Aiden Miller, Mick Abel and Justin Crawford look interesting, although Philly probably views Abel as SPing depth and would want to keep him. Aiden Miller or Justin Crawford, plus a lotto ticket for Jansen and KK? This "soft compete" idea could be a thing. I personally think we're already done, but somehow the Jays are still giving the illusion they are in it. Phillies won't give up any real pieces from their MLB roster, but they may not need to. The Jays just need to fool people until September.

Pretty bleak - especially when you include our -37 run differential. I'm not sure adding a bat or 2 to spark the offense would be enough to true "fix" the team and make a run.