Brownie19

Man - Lindor is back with vengeance this year, but Cleveland must be f***ing ecstatic with how good Andrés Giménez and Amed Roserio have been.

Shockingly - it doesn't appear to matter who's the manager of this team. I'm so surprised.

It's not hard to see which posters on this board used to call into and listen to Mike Wilner post game.

We stopped in Milwaukee on our way to Green Bay for a Packers game. I was pleasantly surprised myself (not that we stayed there too long). I'd love to go back to watch the Brewers. I've also really enjoyed Chicago the couple of times we've gone there. Prefer Boston over NYC (by a long shot).

Looks like Semien cooled off. 99 wRC+ in the 1st half, 92 wRC+ in the 2nd half so far...YIKES.

How about Big Albert with at 120 wRC+ and his first positive WAR season since 2016. It really is nice to see that he's a legit player and not just a sideshow in his final season. I'll be rooting for the Cards to win some playoff games and for Pujols to play a role in a late game comeback or something special. One last time.

Ever stop to consider that those who don't complain non-stop that this team and FO is s*** may not be homers, but instead may just actually understand baseball and probabilities well? I'm not saying everyone is, or that there aren't some homers on here, but some of you act like everyone who isn't ripping this FO constantly is a moron. Remember it's very easy to come on here and say "Kikuchi is s*** - everyone knew that - this FO is garbage" after the fact and pound your chest about how smart you are. These are the people that Mike Wilner had to deal with almost exclusively in the post game show when it was very obvious that the combined IQ of his callers (and the audience who listened to him and then complained about how awful he was), was 37.

As of May 10th, he has a 116 wRC+ and a .305/.329/.445 slash line. His defensive metrics are awful, but they are playing him out of position when he plays CF and defensive metrics are always a bit fickle...but he's earned playing time with his bat after a horrible start to the year.

FFS, the critics on here spent the last 2 weeks complaining that this FO doesn't know how to build a bullpen and how all the best teams in baseball, like the Yanks have lockdown bullpens and know what they are doing. That was right about the time I pointed out that Holmes' underlying stats actually weren't that good.

I'm a few days behind on messages, so my apologies if this was already posted, but I thought it was funny.

I don't think $12M for a back end starting pitcher is really considered a 'big contract'. It was clearly a high risk / high reward contract. So far, it looks like we're on the risk side of things.

That's fair.

Isn't this considered a 'good' outcome when you're talking about $150M+ contracts? I can't imagine there are many contracts like that which provide ample surplus value. I'd render a guess that 70% don't even break even in terms of value.

What a debut for Vaughn Grissom. Pretty incredible rise for a 2019 11th round pick. I see he only received a $350,000 signing bonus - so I assume he wasn't a huge prospect leading into the draft?

I definitely lean towards it being Vlad having a down year. I expected Chapman to inch closer to 2018/2019 as he gets further away from the hip injury. He's a beast.

Exactly. If you just re-write the rule and remove the ability for a defender to block any base or plate, then he can stand the way he is as along as he doesn't drop to his knees. Merrifield can slide between his legs.

Says the guy who claims that Berrios has been awful in August (after making just 1 start).

I mean the reality is that once you have the ball, you don't have to provide a lane. The guy with the armor one can literally block the entire plate (which reminds of the minor league video that was circulating a month ago where the runner overran home and the catcher sat on home plate). But since we (correctly) eliminated the runners option runner over the catcher with all his might to try and get to home plate (while simultaneously trying to kill and injure him), the catcher has all the advantage now. The runner either needs to create enough momentum to slam his leg through the catcher or to slide around him. It's really dumb IMO. I'm still not 100% sure the ump got this call right (see Jomboy breakdown). The only argument I see is that Sanchez started to drop his knee before catching the ball and thus that's illegal? This all seems stupid and unnecessary to me.

I already posted stats suggesting this isn't true. You choose to ignore them to suit your salty, negative view of this team. Does it make you feel better to tell random strangers just how s***** you think the Jays are? I hope it does. I'm not angry at all - I'm just pointing out how stupid your comment is on his performance in August.

I think you mean almost exclusively.

Honestly - the team just needs Pearson to come back and become Jorge Lopez (which is obviously has the talent and ability to do) and this conversation is OVER. Pearson, Romano, Garcia, Bass, Mayza, Pop, Cimber and hopefully Merryweather would be a lock down pen with depth that could win a World Series.

You mean in the 1 f***ing start he's made in August Jonn? You're so salty lately. Rule #6 – Do not sit in the corner and sulk. It draws attention in a negative way.

Since May 18th he's had an xFIP of 3.58 a K/9 of 9.23 and a BB/9 of 1.87. That's all significantly better than his career numbers and in line with his 2021 performance. Suggesting you have no idea what he's going to give you in any given start or that he could be dead weight next year is silly. Then again - after a couple of loses, this board is littered with this s***.

That's because the cost for pitchers like this is sky high. The Mets had to give up Kelenic, Dunn and take on a 36 year old Cano with 5 years left on his contract to get Edwin Diaz. Cleveland had to give up Kluber (a 6 WAR/season pitcher over the previous 5 years - albeit coming off an injury) to get Chase. Most top relivers who make it to free agency get a boat load of money despite a high % of them turning into pumpkins. It didn't make much sense to even consider paying the cost for these types of guys until last year IMO. Ideally guys like Pearson and Merryweather would both be relatively healthy and both currently be flame throwing in the pen and nobody would even be talking about this. Unfortunately injuries happen and you can bitch all you want that they are both made of glass, but there's certainly a large element of luck involved with that. I would like to see them developing relivers with more velocity at a higher rate. They successfully converted Romano to a hard throwing reliver and hopefully they can take Pop's golden arm and develop him into a lockdown guy too. Hopefully the new 'lab' gives them the resources they need to help our own internal options improve and become the bullpen arms we need. History has proven that trying to fill your bullpen with FA's is a difficult way to succeed.

2021: 132 wRC+, .227 ISO, 4.2 WAR in 143 games 2022: 128 wRC+, .221 ISO, 2.2 WAR in 86 games I'm not sure it's fair to say he's having a poor year.