gehringer_2

Most hitters would kill to have a 30% LD rate. In 2013, considered by many to be Cabrera's best yr, and one of best in recent right hand hitting history, his LD/GB/FB was 26/40/29. The difference is that right now Tork is hitting his LD's harder than his FBs. That's is an almost microscopic level adjustment to make and yes, 675 AB is a little soon to give up on him making it. Also note that almost every '23 value is improved over '22. Thus the unbiased extrapolation forward is upward.

The players will start buying more training side tech from outside venders. The teams may end up liking that economy wise, but coaches aren't going to like losing management of their players. There is already more of that now than they like. That part would creates more gulf between have and have-not players also.

Other than last night, I don't think Torkelson has been a very aggressive hitter, and I think HR hitters tend to be aggresive. Hopefully it's just something he'll grow into with more experience. His selectivity early in the count can get him behind and then he may have to put a worse pitch in play than one he had taken hoping for something even better. But those 1-2, 2-2 pitches are going to have a lower probability of ending in the seats. So I think he has room to refine his balance there. Plus, it's already true that when he gets ahead his zone judgment is good enough and pitchers have already been reluctant to give in to him so instead of hitting when ahead in the count, he often walks. Walks are good, but they also cut down on chances to drive mistakes. I did like moving him up in the order for that reason.

Called.

Brieske rehab relief appearance at Toledo: 1 IP, 0H 1K 1BB. 14 pitches/8 strikes.

It just started raining again in A^2. Radar looks like the big part of the system is going to curl right back up from the South and move over DT again. Don't see where they still see a window unless the wind shifts soon.

Delay now over 2hrs and no call yet?

It's the hidden variable problem. If a system is complex, you don't really know for sure if there is a hidden variable you don't know about that causes the predictive value of two things that normally correlate to fail. The longer the correlation continues to fails, the more the probability that there is a hidden variable you don't know about rises.

Probably exactly what BaBIP is most useful for: When a player is on a streak, if his BaBIP diverges from his own career baseline as much or more, you probably want to take the results with a grain of salt.

The answer about how he felt about the places he had been in his career was elegant.

if he doesn't need to stretch out he might be back in by the end of the week? Faedo might be close as well as the fingernail fixed apparently worked well and he hasn't been out that long.

Perez back at 2B? Yips banished?

Today, Christie comes across as loyal to small d democracy, which is more than the rest them other than Hutchinson - or maybe Pence in his otherwise totally moronic way. But no matter what Christie looks like now, the fact that he *did* once go into the tank for Trump. and that he has also proven himself not to be above abuse of his office when he had power, argue that the level of his commitment to principle still has to be regarded as strongly suspect. In the end talk and posturing are cheap. If he wants to play the useful tool to take Trump down, I'd be glad to shake his hand for doing it, but I'm still not going to offer him my car keys.

To clarify, I'm not implying Short is actually going to 'hit' either, but I could be persuaded he might have a year or two at a level improved enough over what he's done in the past to be able to remain useful for the ML team. Or next week he'll crash and burn....🤷‍♂️ I do have to remind myself that maybe for most guys who don't make it, it's not that they never play at a high level, it's that they can't play at a high level consistently enough for that to be their normal.

Late blooming-short career arc guy? Rare, but we did have one once before in D. Kelly.

Koch pretty much sat out the last cycle, but if he actively spends the kind of money *againt* Trump he has spent in some past elections that's a big hit.

A couple of things yesterday. I posted in the game thread that twice he tried to ambush a Morton curve but popped it up. That's a good news/bad news kind of result. No - he didn't execute, but he did have the confidence to have a plan and he got the timing right, just not quite the swing path. The other is that he has hit a couple of hard shots down the RF line (one caught by the 1b of couse!) on outside breaking balls thrown by guys with 95+ fastballs. Not quite Cabrera style but maybe the same idea of going the other way with the breaking ball. If those were deliberate and not just luck and he is trying to learn to make that kind of adjustment that is a pretty high level batting skill.

you wouldn't think. But you can talk yourself into projecting almost anything you want on a 19 yr old. Sometimes you will be right.

the Times or the Athletic? At the time of the purchase Athletic was operating at a loss. and of course, there was this from the same article.

Torkelson was unusually aggressive in his last couple of AB. That seemed like a bit of shift for him. While I agree with Chasfh that in general there was too much pointless chatter from the three Amigos (Starburst anyone?) - there was one stretch when I think they had an interesting hitter/pitchers discussion. It started with Monroe saying he never cared much about the scouting report on a pitcher's tendencies because it didn't do him any good to know he threw pitch 'x', 'y' percent of the time, it's still no guarantee he'd get pitch 'x' if he looked for it on any particular pitch. That was fine, but it got better when Jones and Petry talked about how any good pitcher/catcher battery is changing their approach to each hitter based on what they are seeing from that hitter's swings in real time, Then even the further nuance that as a pitcher they knew that on occasion a top level hitter had 'set them up' by deliberatly telegraphing misdirection about his approach in an AB. The message I think being that in the flood of all the metrics we get (info from the past) don't forget to appreciate the games within the game going on present tense.

Miami was playing some out of this world on ball pressure D but no matter, Denver just kept beating them with their play off the ball and slowly adding to their lead.

Well, it's your choice to be here.....

I'll tell you the one part that did work for me. When Monroe is in the booth with Shep, most of the time he drops his voice register and does this sort of growling "I'm a dramatic voiced professional broadcaster" thing and it sounds ridiculous. Tonight sitting with Jones and Petry he spent most of his time just speaking like a normal human being and he was miles better.

third time he just decided to hit the damn FB. Good choice.

After they took it over, the NYT tried to get everyone to upgrade their subsription packages to include the Athletic, but IIRC it was a big $ bump and I mean honestly - is the NYT readership the prime demo for 'the Athletic'? So I assume that marketing effort has fallen short.