max silver

Are you this dumb on purpose?

I recall the Rogers Center takes an extra hit in the early going with the roof closed. The lower humidity levels combined with the humidor create conditions where the baseball doesn't fly very well.

Yeah that's pretty awful. He didn't throw it much as his sinker was the primary pitch at 55% usage, with the 4 seamer only used 14% of the time.

The stuff+ numbers have been posted to Fangraphs. C Stf+ FS Stf+ SL Stf+ CU Stf+ CH Stf+ KC Stf+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ Total - - - - - - 0 85 96 89 90 91 102 99 Date Team Opp GS Stf+ FA Stf+ SI Stf+ FC Stf+ FS Stf+ SL Stf+ CU Stf+ CH Stf+ KC Stf+ FO Stuff+ Location+ Pitching+ 2025-07-07 TOR @CHW 0 77 95 90 102 92 101 98 2025-06-20 MIA ATL 0 94 110 87 82 90 105 101

I don't think it's fair to characterize Vlad's defensive play at first base as being poor this season as he's improved tremendously to the point where he's even by OAA and +6 by DRS. I still hold out hope that he fixes his timing at the plate to the point where a hot streak is possible but he's still been a valuable contributor offensively this season even in a somewhat mediocre offensive season by his standards. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the baseball is partially to blame for Vlad's suppressed results as compared to the expected statistics. This year's baseball is the deadest baseball MLB has produced since they started tracking the coefficient of drag. I believe MLB needs to automate the construction of the baseball so that they can finally start producing a more consistent product year in and year out.

I don't have a good feel for the stuff as of yet but the command was legitimately awful for his Blue Jays debut.

I fully agree that the team needs another leverage arm asap. Schneider was forced to use Green in leverage situations due to the pen largely being on fumes and each game having important relievers unavailable, but thank goodness Green managed to largely smoke and mirrors his way into some effective outings.

So the guy who spent the entirety of the off-season boldly proclaiming how the team should be blown up is accusing another board member of making himself look stupid.

If the team wasn't willing to use Pina in an 8-1 game against the White Sox then he shouldn't be on the roster to start with. This was the perfect game to give him a chance to show what he could do without torching the team's chances of winning. On top of that we saw a recent Berrios start where he was similarly in cruise control and from out of nowhere gave up a huge inning to the Yankees to allow them back into the game. I maintain it's always far better to pull a starter a tad too early then leaving him in too long.

I believe a big part of why Kirk didn't catch more was due to the team employing two starter quality catching options on the roster. Kirk and Jansen made for a fantastic 1/2 punch for the team as they largely enjoyed MLB's most productive catching tandem with the two of them on the roster. Thank goodness the team appears to have chosen the right catcher to keep as Jansen has largely lost his ability to hit and has become a pretty lousy defender as well whereas Moreno hasn't developed offensively much beyond a league average bat.

Atkins has directly stated that he has the ability to flex financial muscles at the trade deadline, so hopefully this can be utilized a bit to keep the prospect capital down a tad. I'm much happier with the state of the minor league system compared to pre-deadline a year ago, but at the same time I'm also a bit of a prospect hugger so bringing in any kind of impact is likely to be very painful.

DeGrom is technically an older starter but the stuff is still top notch. It's crazy that he appears to have dialed back the intensity a bit and is still averaging 97 MPH on the heater at age 37. He's managed to finally stay healthy as he's pitched nearly as many innings this season as the previous 3 years combined. The team has shown they are willing to roll the dice with older injury prone starters with the signing of Scherzer, so if DeGrom is made available I fully expect them to enter the sweepstakes. I'd hope that this incredibly spotty injury history would serve to lower the asking price a bit but aces are in short supply and this is especially true at the deadline.

I saw the same set of quotes. I do largely agree that this is likely a case of where it's prudent to avoid trying to fix something that isn't broken. Kirk has been flat out mashing over the last 2+ months of the season with the present approach as evidenced by a 142 wRC+ over his last 222 PA. The results are lagging behind the expected statistics to a large degree to be certain, so perhaps over time Popkins and the rest of the hitting staff can make a few tweaks to unlock a tad more over the fence power in time. With his best in MLB defense behind the plate he's amassed a team best 2.8 FWAR over this span which is a remarkable outcome. I was always hopeful that he could rediscover the form at the plate that he displayed during the career best 2022 season and combined with the tremendous improvements behind the plate in recent seasons we are enjoying peak Kirk right now. Thank goodness the front office got the extension done in spring training as it would costed a lot more money to do this now given the offensive resurgence. Laureano is an interesting trade candidate, but surprisingly he's running a sizeable reverse platoon split this season as evidenced by only 94 wRC+ vs LHP and 163 wRC+ vs RHP. This is more of a small sample size anomaly compared to the rest of his career as evidenced by a career 120 wRC+/107 wRC+ LHP/RHP split. He certainly fits the bill as a right handed outfield bat for the club and is almost certainly an upgrade on Davis Schneider, so I'll place a tentative thumbs up towards acquiring him based on potential acquisition cost. I looked up his advanced defensive metrics and he doesn't appear to be a realistic option to spend any time in center field but is likely passable in the corners. I had a look at Reynold's and there are aspects of his game to like. He's swinging the bat from both sides of the plate with the highest average speeds and fast swing rates since Statcast started tracking bat swing speed. The quality of contact metrics are all at career best rates as well which is also very encouraging. It appears as though he's been remarkably unlucky with batted ball results as the .360 xwOBA is very solid, but the results are poor at .295 wOBA. Perhaps this is something that could even out over time. One concern I have is that he appears to have lost all of his defensive ability to the point where he's a massive liability in the field. With the team already employing below average defenders in Springer and Santander acquiring Reynolds would likely force two of these guys into the corners in most games and that would weakness the outfield defense tremendously.

The bullpen has been dynomite this series. Today was another impressive performance as Burr looked like he was right back to his bat missing ways from a season ago, the stud version of Little showed up today as the command was largely much better than recent outings and Hoffman shut the door in the 9th.

There was a wave that arrived in 2019 but then it largely slowed down to more of a trickle.

Loperfido has managed to produce a .351 wOBA vs LHP in AAA this season, albeit with a .264 xwOBA which doesn't suggest it's particularly sustainable.

It's not automatically a full day off, he'll almost certainly get into the game later on if the situation warrants it. Since Barger was called up he's appeared in 65 of the 72 games so he is largely playing every day. Barger has pronounced platoon splits this season as well, so it's not the end of the world if he sits for a few PA to start the game when a lefty is on the mound. He is sitting at 78 wRC+ vs LHP as opposed to 141 wRC+ vs RHP. A large part of the reason why the team has enjoyed so much sustained offensive success is due to effective platooning to maximize all of the parts of the roster.

The Braves are on a remarkable downturn over the last few years. The 2023 squad featured one of the best offenses in MLB history, the 2024 group experienced a massive offensive dropoff similar to the 2022/2023 Blue Jays, and now similar to last year's Blue Jays squad are suffering a terrible year with a lot of injury issues largely to blame. They still have a lot of very solid pieces but AA will have his work cut out for him to return the team to being more competitive.

The opposition hitters haven't been swinging as much because he's not making competitive pitches. If he gets back to placing his pitches closer to the strike zone he'll generate more swings.

Little was a stud until recent weeks when he was struggling to command his pitches.

My favorite wacky injury was when Daulton Pompey suffered from a concussion by having some bats fall on his head from the top of a locker.

Apparently it happened when he slipped getting into the hot/cold recovery tubs. That's just peak irony for a guy to injure himself when undergoing injury prevention/recovery maintenance.

We shall see if any top shelf rotation arms are even moved at the deadline. If the Angels fall out of the race I'd really like to see the team take a run at reacquiring Kikuchi. He's firmly not in the ace tier but I believe he would likely slot in as the team's number 1 starter.

The farm system is positively stacked with high potential arms right now so I think the front office has plenty of trade ammunition. If you don't think the team has many assets to trade then it stands to reason that they aren't going to be able to trade for an ace level pitcher.

I don't think the club necessarily needs to add any position players but they could really use another leverage arm at minimum. Rotation depth at least would be a massive plus with a starter being capable of starting a playoff game being a huge addition to the team's playoff potential.