max silver

Kirk swings a much faster bat on average and at maximum than Bateman so they aren't a great comparison. I examined Gimenez's swing speed plot and it appears as though he's capable of producing the occasional 80+ MPH swing when he lets it rip vs Bateman who appears to max out at closer to 78 MPH so that likely explains the difference in top end exit velocities. Popkins and the Blue Jays offensive coaching group have been pretty effective at unleashing higher top end swing speeds in their hitters so fingers crossed they can do something similar with Bateman. Bateman does appear to be a high end athlete in every aspect aside from raw swing speed (sprint speed/outfield burst/hit tool/throwing arm) but I think this is teachable to a degree through maximized biomechanical efficiency, and I and others have stated that Bateman is a prime candidate to spend an offseason working out in the PDC weight room to improve his raw strength. It sucks that there is an impending lockout as this will lead to the Blue Jays losing the massive advantage that the best in MLB PDC offers to their players.

Yeah these are fair enough points. Bateman only managed about 73 MPH swing speed on today's home run, but that's plenty if you manage to find the barrel with an optimized swing path. I could see him hitting 10 home runs in a good year, but for Bateman I expect more of his power production would come in the form of a few extra doubles and triples over time vs launching balls over the fence. I think he possesses similar physical tools to Andres Gimenez as they are within a few ticks of each other in terms of average swing speed, and with Gimenez he did manage to smack 15 and 17 home runs at points of his career so it is possible to produce solid power output with lesser swing speed if you can unload on the baseball with your best swing and sufficiently find the barrel. In the early going Bateman has been showcasing an excellent hit tool which should allow for a high floor given his speed. I don't know if he necessarily "needs" to add a ton of swing speed to his game as he's been producing a ton offensive impact with the toolset he currently possesses, albeit with regression sure to come at some point.

I think with Bateman there might be a bit more juice in the bat than we were initially led to believe. He's not an exit velocity monster by any means but he's been squaring up a ton of pitches in the majors and his primary issue regarding power output was the ground ball heavy profile. He produced decent enough average exit velocities in the minors and he's shown that he can launch the ball with authority in recent games with the appropriate swing path. I'm encouraged that he's cleaned up the plate discipline in recent weeks as his chase rate has improved to very close to the 20% rate he was producing in AAA, and the quality of contact has been improving as a direct result.

He's certainly no Schwarber but he hit each of these homes 403 feet which isn't something I'd characterize as a wall scraper.

I don't think the Guardians would have enjoyed a chance to sign Ramirez long term had he not been willing to accept a well below market value extension contract. Contrast that with Vlad who essentially held the organization hostage through bad faith "negotiating" through the media, set a ridiculous contract demand value and refused to budge an inch before Edward Rogers blinked.

That's tough since there is a bullpen game tomorrow and the team needs their few rotation arms to soak up some innings.

I like the stuff that Arrighetti features but he's just too prone to falling behind and then making mistakes with his fastballs in hitter counts.

There was a recent Sportsnet piece that outlined how Lorenzen and the club had optimized his mechanics and unearthed an improvement of his stuff. His most recent outing saw him average nearly 96 MPH on the 4 seamer which is up a few ticks based on his season average so there might be enough in the tank to provide the club some solid bulk innings.

If the decisions worked out why would you characterize them as being "dumb"?

Yeah I think as long as the team continues winning series they'll put themselves in a good spot.

While I can give Sanchez a tiny bit of leeway for not being fully familiar with left field he was also one of MLB's worst right field defenders this season as well so he's awful in both corners. He's up near the top of the "leaderboard" in negative run value by Statcast in right field despite playing a fraction of the innings of most of the players at the top, and he's been so bad his -9% success rate added in right field is right in line with Kyle Schwarber's -8% success rate added in left field in 2023. You can sort the Statcast metrics over time now but unfortunately it hasn't been added to Fangraphs yet. Sanchez has been very poor in the field for the entire season well before the ankle injury took place. Sanchez Defensive Futility Month to Month Mar/Apr 0 FRV RF/-1 FRV LF May -4 FRV RF/0 FRV LF June -1 FRV RF/0 FRV LF July 0 FRV LF only (only 7 innings) Aug-today -2 FRV LF (only 92 innings)

Yeah it's definitely a combination of lowered athleticism plus confidence/judgement at this point. The jumps are down significantly with slower reaction and a lesser burst and his foot speed is down this season as well.

Sanchez also appears as though he's scared of the ball this season. I'm reminded of Derek Fisher who completely lost his confidence and started to shy away from fly balls after taking a ball to the face and wonder if Sanchez had some sort of incidence that shattered his confidence in the outfield. It's wild that he managed to produce above average metrics in both corners as recently as last season as he resembles a guy that just started converting to the outfield this year.

Keeping the ball in the park would be a good start. I like the stuff he's been featuring as there are whiffs for days but he needs to avoid the steady stream of meatballs he's been serving up.

Max owes Vlad a booklet of Swiss Chalet coupons after that play.