Brownie19

Hard to argue this. I have to think we should have started Zimmer in CF yesterday with Springer at DH and Collins behind the dish. Then you could have put Springer back in CF today and DH'd Collins. Just that alone would have lengthened the lineup a lot more today with Collins hitting 4th and Tapia down at the bottom where he belongs.

If Kirk is unavailable - then the options were Heineman or Zimmer right? If Zimmer starts, then you can give Gurriel's hammy another day at DH or give Springer's legs a rest. I think I prefer that over this lineup....but again, we don't have most of the information they do.

Good to see Gurriel back in LF. Bad to see Kirk taking another night off?

Yeah I was going to comment on him too, but got distracted by Casey Lawrence. Looks like he is cooked?

Casey Lawrence still out there grinding, chasing the dream at age 34. Unbelievable.

I think Mikolas is just calling a spade a spade - regardless of teams/rivalries, etc. I obviously have no evidence, but I tend to believe Mikolas is more correct. Curious to see what others around the league say and if there's any investigation or proof provided.

Holy f***. Nope.

I'm certainly no expert on the techniques of a catcher, but even Collins hasn't looked as bad as he was advertised. Am I wrong (I could be wrong)?

Just checking out Kirk's baseballsavant page. Elite BB%, K%, Whiff% - but he isn't barreling balls up or hitting them hard (yet). Another thing of interest is they have his framing at the 92nd percentile (it was the 31st percentile last year). That's good, but I have no idea what sample size we need for that to stabilize.

I don't understand this. I expected him to say that they are slick or the seams are too high or too low or something that he didn't like. But to say the balls are all inconsistent is really weird. And to say that they are different from inning to inning? WTF? Is it like the batch of balls used for an inning are consistent, but the groupings of balls in the humidor are different? Not sure how many balls are used per inning, but like these 50 were all made by Bill and the next 50 were all made by Jim and the next 50 were made by Steve and they all make them a little bit differently? Rawlings have been making balls for like a billion years. Seems very odd that they would have quality control issues. Is he suggesting MLB wants to have different balls used at different times of the game? That seems like a stretch to me. I can see them f***ing with how much juice the balls have, but not this. I also feel like we should be seeing pitching ask for new balls all the time and throwing ones that are s***** out? I haven't seen that at all so far. In fact, I think you see that a lot less now than we did 10-15 years ago. This fascinates me.

I mean Romano, Garcia, Mayza, Merryweather, Richards and Phelps (as a reliver) all have career K/9 over 9. Cimber is the (weak) contact guy. Garcia hasn't exactly shown it yet this year (velo is down a bit from last year so far). We may not have the swing and miss you see in the Yankees pen, but there is a lot of swing and miss in the pen IMO. That all said - I don't think Garcia is a top notch lockdown guy. I think he's our 3rd or 4th best pen arm (with Cimber) and the gap between him and Phelps/Richards isn't too big.

That play at the plate with Bo was a lot closer than I ever expected it to be. Was Bo extra cautious not to leave early or something?

That Trout video is fake (as noted), but I did see an old video a few days ago of Gary Sanchez hitting a check swing HR to right field at Yankee Stadium a few years back (juiced ball) - and it was real

wait - so you're saying those who choose to rip Charlie for being stupid above didn't have enough information to accurately form an opinion? Shocking. And yes I think Charlie is a puppet. Charlie gets info from the analytics team, the performance team, the trainers, his assistant coaches and you damn well know he's been told to run the team a certain way by Shatkins. This isn't 2003 Art Howe going rogue for f*** sakes.

I don't think it's fair to put that all on Charlie. It's certainly not like he sits down by himself and decides what the lineup will be each day...

They showed the humidor in Sunday Night Baseball I think...every stadium has one now.

Gurriel DH'd yesterday too right? Seems odd - maybe an underlying injury?

Rockies fans must be laughing at this trade so far. Grichuk is on one of his famous heaters. If this were in Toronto the broadcasters would be raving how about he changed his approach this offseason and is more patient and not trying to do too much and making more contact. It will be interesting to see when the cold streak starts and how long it lasts...but enjoy it while you can Colorado!

I think they are gaining time with the electronic signs. The pitcher is often getting the sign before he even steps on the rubber. That seems to be keeping the batters in the box more and reducing how often that "time" is called. Somebody must be keeping stats on the time between pitches. I'd be curious to see if it's dropped a lot this year.

Might this lead to a change in approach? More contact, more balls in play, more small ball, more action on the field? Couple that with restrictions on shifting and the changes to increase the pace of play (pitch clocks, electronic signs) and we might see some tangible changes to the game environment. This is my own perception, but I do think teams are starting to value players who make more contact... (although restrictions to shifting may lead to more batters sacrifice contact for power again...)

Sal Perez has less than 16 career WAR and is in his age 32 season. Sal Perez making the HOF would make everyone forget about the Harold Baines induction. In fact - may be it was Harold Baines telling you Sal should be in the HOF?

Bo's only at 28% K - which isn't awful. I think they like him in the #2 spot so teams attack him (as they don't want to face Vlad). I suspect they think this helps mitigate the reality that Bo has downright awful plate discipline.

Odd that Zimmer is in RF and Springer in CF.

Thanks! I mean apparently he wasn't as bad as the eye may have suggested. It would be interesting if they just tracked the calls on the 'edges' (while establishing what they consider the edge). If pitchers are rutting balls all day, then obviously their accuracy will improve. It's the edge calls that make or break the game.

Yeah I've noticed this too - tons of f***ing pop ups. And I agree with Laika that he hasn't passed the eye test for me at the plate....but - the results haven't been horrible yet, so that's positive. He's been putting the ball in play a lot more lately after all the K's to start the year - which is good. But lots of those are infield pops - which is bad.