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Yeah he's had a lot of nice at bats since returning. Too many strikeouts early on but that should settle over time.

Espinal's 2021 success looked to be an unrepeatable mirage but his early season 2022 succes was well earned as his batted ball metric backed up his results. He's slumping a bit at the moment so hopefully he can turn things around.

Marsh has made a lot of nice plays this series.

Are you always such a miserable grouchy prick? Just asking.

Meatball central in that at bat with two hanging curveballs in a row.

I haven't completely given up on Borucki if he can ever sort out his command issues. Much like Merryweather it appears as though he was a sticky stuff user in early 2021 as his spin rates have dropped off dramatically after June of last season so he'll need to prove he can be effective without the extra spin.

It's nice that the offence seems to be hitting it's stride lately and the starters continue to be very good, but goddamn this team needs some bullpen help. I can't for the life of me understand why Merryweather was brought in to face Ohtani and Trout. I can only guess that Charlie was hoping to save Cimber for a potential 9th inning save situation. It's crazy that the bullpen's long man of all people had to lock the save down. This deadened ball can f*** right off. Chapman and especially Jansen were robbed of home runs last night as balls that looked to be leaving the yard died on the warning track. I think Chapman is poised to go on a heater at the plate given the quality of contact he's been regularly producing.

I really don't think this is worth getting so worked up about. Springer hasn't exactly been a picture of health through his career. He has a stated goal of appearing in 150 games this season, and up to this point is on track to appear in 155 games. It appears as though the careful load management has been effective in keeping him healthy and on the field. If he continues his current pace he'll be worth 5 FWAR over the course of the season.

These projections do not have the ability to take into account the greatly increased level of drag on the 2022 baseball. The early season baseball looks to have a greatly increased drag coefficient leading to results more closely resembling those of 2016. On top of that the incorporation of humidors in all MLB environments during the early colder months has likely led to a decrease in COR (co-efficient of restitution) which has a direct effect in lowering exit velocity off of the bat when weather is cold and dry as the baseball is heavier after spending time in the humidor. As temperature and humidity increases later in the season the humidors may actually increase the COR. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/drag-dashboard

I'm a Flames fan and I can't say I liked this call in the slightest, but I would definitely want the same call to be made if the Oilers would have scored a goal in this fashion.

Get with the times man, the ignore function exists for a reason

I'm sure you can recognize that one extremely bad start is having an outsized effect on his overall season numbers right now. His overall numbers as a Blue Jay are right at his career averages, and aside from one putrid start (I'm giving him a mulligan on that one due to several circumstances including the super long pregame ceremony which may have affected his warmup routine) his ERA and FIP are once again right at his career averages. In this rotation he looks to be the number 3 starter given the strong starts of Manoah and Gausman. If he continues to produce at his career rate the contract will be perfectly fine, but he has displayed potential for better than that at times so there may eventually be surplus value to be had.

Pitching like a back end starting pitcher? Fake news bro. Berrios has a career 4.07 ERA/3.98 FIP. The guy had a rough start to the season and seemed to have been greatly affected by the shortened spring. If you ignore the opening day meltdown Berrios has pitched to a 4.02 ERA/4.05 FIP, both ERA and FIP are within percentage points of his career numbers and he's obviously been trending upwards as the season progresses.

Tapia wouldn't be nearly as big of an issue if he were only starting a few times a week instead of basically being a full time regular.

Had to do the stealth delete on the steamroll prediction after the way the last few games went.

Sounds like this is going to be a tough debut to follow.

I see no reason to rush this decision at all. I believe all three of Jansen, Kirk and Moreno have potential to be legitimate all star quality catchers overall, the club may as well wait a bit to see who really ends up distinguishing themselves before making the decision to move one of them.

OMG women playing sports! Who do they think they are right?

The pen was very solid early on and was a huge part of why the club was able to win so many one run games. Lately the pen has unfortunately joined the offence in being a huge tire fire. I keep telling myself the club will start hitting on all cylinders at some point but they are going to run out of time eventually.

I think it's just a matter of time before we see the front office give him a shot against MLB hitters. Who are other relievers who have below average velocity and utilize primarily changeups. Trevor Richards is one example that comes to mind, but he's largely getting torched this season so hopefully that's not a sign of things to come for Hernandez.

Very interesting suggestion, I think that makes a lot more sense than blowing up the entire farm system. The Nats still get a cornerstone player back in return as well as a few very good prospects as well.

My point still stands that I don't think this type of trade actually makes the overall team better given how much value will need to be moved out and salary requirements necessary to keep this guy long term. Soto already turned down a $350 million contract, how do you expect to be able to sign both him and Vlad long term given how each player very well may require $400+ million deals? The team president is on record stating that the club will not be venturing into luxury tax territory for payroll so tying up $70 million annually on two players would greatly affect the ability to build a complete roster to surround these two players with. Shapiro has stated all along that one overall theme for the organization is sustainable winning. Blowing up the farm system and concentrating so many assets into one player would be completely against this philosophy. I would hate to see a stars and scrubs approach to filling out the roster becoming a necessity. Let's hypothetically say Espinal is a 4 win player moving forward (this might actually be underselling his true potential), Moreno is a 3-4 win player as soon as next year, and Martinez is also a 3-4 win player as well. This would give you above average regulars at 3 positions on the diamond, and they would all likely be cheap as hell to boot. Perhaps there will be other prospects in the system who emerge as potential impact regulars but these are the two prospects who give you a shot for inexpensive star potential in the not too distant future.

Soto is amazing no doubt but I wouldn't consider moving this level of major league and prospect capital out for one player. Does this actually make the team better beyond this season? Espinal has been playing at nearly a 5 win pace going back to last season and has nearly 5 years of remaining control, and Moreno looks to be on track to debut in MLB this season. Vlad and Bo are going to need long term deals sooner or later, and the available payroll as is may already have difficulty in supporting two long term mega deals, especially if low cost high impact options such as Moreno and Martinez are moved out. Soto would be another guy you would want to keep long term, especially if this is the type of return the Nationals would require.

I don't think his stuff is much different from previous seasons, velocity is very close to previous years and vertical/horizontal movement looks to be pretty much the same as previous seasons as well. To me his issues look to be stemming from poor command within the strike zone.

Berrios was quite good. As you mentioned he didn't strike out many batters but he was able to limit the hard contact for most of the start. It was certainly a step in the right direction but Seattle didn't exactly have a murderers row lineup last night.