gehringer_2

still not sure why he isn't at least at Toledo. Is the org saying they don't have an IF coach at Toledo they trust to work with him?

Works for me.

Aug 1.

Numerically? No.A few yr ago I ran a data set of the simple 1st order unweighted batting measures against team scoring: BB, K, Avg, Slug/ISO, OBP, OPS etc. But TBH it has been a few years now. If I could find the my old run I should run it again against more recent data just for grins to see if there are any shifts the relative correlations. OPS was clearly the best correlate but I don't remember the order after that Is there any disagreement today that OPS is the most predictive 'simple' stat for hitters? The more sophisticated linearly weighted measures may be even better, but the average fan usually doesn't have the data to generate those, not to mention it being difficult to understand the moving parts as easily as with OPS.

the Cabrera extension didn't bother me that much because I figured for Cabrera, the skill level was so high he probably would still have a chance to be decent hitter to his late 30s. Many of the HOF level hitters retained their hitting skill to near 40. But the injury risk is always there for all players and it ravaged Cabrera. And yet still - you look at the last few weeks, when he feels good, the swing and eye actually are still not bad even at 40. There is still a hitter trapped in that beat up body.

Sadly, Cisnero's FB has never come all the way back since the DL trip in the fist half last year. Maybe the injury, maybe just would have lost it at 34 anyway, but 4 BB/9 is more interesting with a 98-99 mph heater than with 96.

Someone put up the clip of Skubal's first inning yesterday - Sands behind the plate. Don't know if I've seen a guy any sloppier throwing the ball back to pitcher in one inning. Skubal was having to bounce up, down, in, out just getting the ball back. Hope that was just a SSS aberration, otherwise that would have to get irritating.

agree - though not as bad as the couple of previous years. But I saw it a little differently - to me the deficit was as much in the forward's lack of size, strength, tenacity in their own zone. I though blue line upgrades have been real and last year's D men played better down near the net and red line when the play was down there than previous versions, but they usually got less than zero usefull support from their fowards out near the blue line. You can put Lidstom and Konstantinov on D together and if you have 3 useless forwards out there with them your team still can't play much D 5 on 2.

Stability is another buzzword I suppose? But for sure he's also there to burn as many innings as they can squeeze out of him.

True - at least we hope! And that's why I qualified it with 'discernable'. The team philosophy, which is different from past regimes, has been to keep guys on long term IL like Turnbull, Mize, Skubal with the team. So with that as the model, it would have seemed logical for Austin to do likewise rather than be singled out. But the guys on physical rehab have a work plan for each day that all the other players see and maybe even partcipate in with them, and milestones that are getting checked off. Both for confidentiality reasons and logistical reasons that model may not apply so well long term for Austin and I would not be surprised if his docs decided that whatever initial advantage there might have been in him being with the team had run their course.

There is no free lunch though. You don't fully get back the lost year just by holding guys back because the ones that are starting to get older are going to be losing the ability to change and adapt they need to make the transition.

after Ras I think they are still about of 5 players short, at least 1 D and 3 or 4 forwards. If Edvinsson is the D guy, and Solderblom is one of the forwards, they still need to come up with 3 more at least average NHL forwards either by promotion or purchase.

I would have to think that even if it was only at home, showing up on game day, working out with the team, then not playing with no discernable plan or timetable would eventually become a source of increased stress even if it seemed like a nice idea for a while at first.

I'd like to see Lipcius get a shot in a couple of weeks if he keeps up his hitting at Toledo. He's 25 - even if he ends up sent down again I think it would good just to see how he handles himself. I'd rather see Parker M get his K rate down a little more before throwing him against ML pitching. Other than that and Riley and Baddoo returning I don't see much else that we will see different on the position side the rest of the way.

Not to mention Riley Greene still leads the team in hits after more than 2 weeks on the DL.

I question that there is much to gain by trying to insure athletic salaries. Every single team experiences significant injury loss costs every single year. Thus there isn't much benefit available from risk pooling. Your premiums are not going to be much less than your loss rates without insurance.

To much time on the FanDuel app?

To continue the thought - I think in this polarized environment, it might be more important to advertise to your own side to vote. If the last cycles were any indication, there are more votes at play by driving your own turnout than there are available by moving people from one side to the other. GOP 'fear' ads work mostly to this end. Not sure what a corresponding approach for the less fear oriented Dem voter is though....

yeah - the world isn't what it once was advetising wise, but I think advertising can still be helpful, but the trick with ads is that while the side that makes them may see their logic as devastating, that may only be true because of what they already believe is true. That ad may run like water off a duck's back for the people whose minds it's aimed at changing. I think a lot of the Lincoln project ads from the last cycle were in that catagory.

agreed.

right - and on an overall basis, if you just run linear regression on BA, OBP and OPS vs Runs scored across a team, OPS is the best correlate, which proves that OPS must contribute more to RBI in total when considering all batting situations.

Not having much of a fast ball to fall back on, Matt gets in trouble in a hurry when his finesse falters or a couple guys guess right sitting on the slow curve. 'Instant Runs' as Ernie would say.

just for comparison, IIRC when Cabrera was good, his RBI % was in the low 20's. Logically, RBI% is mostly a corelate of batting average - all things being equal, if you have a high batting average you're going to have a high RBI%, but you still get some variation in RBI% between guys with similar BAs. And that makes some sense because it's clear watching play that some hitters good enough to have some control over their ABs, like Cabrera was, may be altering their approach with a man on 2nd. OTOH it's also logical to assume that some guys must do worse with the added pressure. It alwasys seemed pretty clear Miguel altered his approach to put the ball up the midde with RSIP, and that probably drove some marginal increase in his RBI% compared to a guy who didn't. I remember once attempting to normalize Prince Fielder vs Cabrera's RBI% vs their BA's and at least between those two there was a pretty good residual signal that Miguel's reliability with RISP was better than Prince's. Also re BA. We know OPS is the much better measure of total batting value than BA - that's not an argument. But the case where you might care about BA vs OBP as the contribution to OPS is with that man on 2nd. A walk in that situation contributes as much to your OPS as single, but the single probably gets the guy home.

It was civilian neo-con intellectuals, as opposed to military leadership, that lead the charge into places like Iraq. It's been civilian leadership (if you can call it that) that is driving Russia's militarism. It is interesting how military vs civilian political leadersip dynamics vary across national 'cultures'. The histories of some parts of world have been quite different from other parts in that regard - say Egypt, SE Asia and S and C Americas (lots of direct military rule) on one hand vs W. Europe, N. America, South Africa, China on the other.

Apparently Austin Meadows, who had been staying with the team, has left the team and gone back home to Fla.