gehringer_2

Looking at the pitches in his gameday plots, he seems to be swinging at a lot of pitches he would normally take. One hopes that's a deliberate experiment to stretch out his plate coverage and not that he's completely befuddled. But only he and his coaches would know for sure.....

LOL. I'd let'em go. In 30 yrs FLA and NOLA will be under water and in half of Tx it will be fatal to be outside in the noonday sun. They'll all be liabilities. No one would notice missing NH, and CA may be on their list but is not going anywhere anyway.

has he re-surfaced anywhere? Very odd for a person in any kind of journalism to just give it up completely.

this also probably explains why they tend to move enmasse. There is cover in numbers. The team would find it al lot harder to cut off everyone at once.

have seen the Mudhens play under challenge but not full ABS. Seemed to work well. I didn't even notice the 1st one - thought they had just made a mistake on the scoreboard, then you start watching for the signal.

I can see some reasons, some better some worse. First - the ump is fast for most calls, second - a good umpire is mildly entertaining to watch, third - the guy still has things to do behind the plate so human factors engineering says keep him engaged, forth - you have tradition, fifth - you have the need to keep umpires training to do balls and strikes because there is still going to be baseball played in a lot of places where ABS won't be available, 6th - the ump is a good fallback when the SW inevitably crashes.

Maybe - or it's just the writers chasing audience because a higher level of 'burn it down' critique is what appeals to the audience about now. I wouldn't take too much out what the local writers say one way or the other. I might put some stock into any subtle attitude shifts in the TV booth because I think those are the guys that probably spend the most time with Hinch - but that's just a spitball as well.

Funny thing is that I thing defense is where a lot of people have to have a little more patience. Keith hasn't even played half a season at 2b. I player with some base skills probably has a decent chance at making himself into better a fielder with technique improvements. We gave up on Willi Castro's and Paredes' serviceability with the glove a bit too soon for example.

Desperation often produces questionable responses.

I will not like any challenge system where challenges don't renew if they are upheld but I can see that a fixed number of total challenges was probably a bone thrown to the umpires union.

Yup. In 1967 White Flight was just getting into high gear in Detroit. Plus that little altercation in July.

i guess LaLonde has to decide whether he wants Edvinsson to have the benefit of a 'matched' pairing. If the answer is yes you put him with Seider, not Holl or Petry. One reason not to is that I think Edvinsson will end up on the 2nd PP unit, so that pairing would break down on the PP. if you are going to play two Left shots together, it's either Simon plus Walman or Chiarot. I think I go with Chiarot as Walman's speed would be needed less with Simon's ability to command space, plus the two big guys would be a load to play against, and Walman and Seider were a good 1st pair together. Or it could always be someone they haven't acquired yet. And this ignores that once they get to camp there might be a pairing that just ends up with good chemistry, which probably trump most other considerations.

well, the question is do you want someone out there to mentor Edvinsson, or someone who can play well enough opposite him for them to both succeed? I may be on an island on this one but I thought Petry was really bad last year and would really rather not see him back at all. But YMMV.

Unless SY pulls a rabbit out of his hat a L-L pairing seems inevitable. Better to make the best of it than play a terrible player just because of his handedness.

There is something completely wrong with corporate governance systems and law in the US when the executives of a failed company can manage to leverage themselves into control of a functioning company that buys them out.

I thought the gulf between Moritz and the next Dman was a lot bigger than between the whole remaining crew. They'd clearly lost confidence in Holl. Among those who played regularly I though Petry was the biggest liability. I guess it depends on how you look at it. Petry didn't make as many mistakes as the others, but to my eye he didn't make many positive plays either. Coaches tend to focus on mistakes, which is understandable, so Petry was easy to 'trust', but they need more plus play to get out of their own end. Hopefully adding Edvinsson and Johansson should given them a little more match up flexibility so maybe all the non-Seider Dmen get exposed a little less. And in any case, as has been beaten to death, a lot the Wings defensive problem is also useless forwards.

and don't underestimate owners in the equation. I think we assume CI in general takes an overall long view just because he is young enough to and has been around at the ownership level long enough to know the level of uncertainty that is native to the game. But all that said, I would think steady forward progress is still his bottom line with Harris, and probably more often than not, GM/POBO types with long range plans have their perspectives yanked back into shorter focus by an owner who decides to demand a better narrative NOW.

Cited just to illustrate a point. You have a dozen guys on the roster that all strike out less then Riley (and one who Ks a lot more), and none of them are half the hitter that Riley is. Should tell you that K rate in a vacuum maybe doesn't tell you that much about a hitter's productivity. Certainly at high enough K rates, a hitter can't maintain enough BaBIP to be effective, but across a band spanning at least 20-30%, I don't think you need to worry that much about hitters' K rates.

That's why the Dems want the debate. For good or ill they think Trump works better as an idea than a reality so they want to help get the reality out there.

This is true, but the Wings are also slow, and Chiarot isn't likely to be any faster next season so I'm not that wedded to his size if SY replaces it with more closing speed and at least reasonable strength. It's a trade-off - you have to be able to stand your ground but OTOH, it doesn't matter if you can win an engagement if you can't get to it.

"The Bank of Palestine has tried to convince Israel to help it transport money out of its vaults in Gaza earlier on in the war." LOL - Money is thicker than blood or politics. I guess they know who to turn to when it matters.

Among players on the Tigers with more than 150PA, Riley Greene has the higest K rate, and twice the o_WAR of the next best hitter.

Malloy is the example for why every stat has value when applied correctly. BA is practically an orphan today, but it was his lack of BA in AAA that was a signal that despite a good OPS, Malloy might struggle in the majors. Obviously I hope he can find a way to make the jump, but he's showing he's not the sure thing some thought he could be.

Trading present tense productive players for even top prospects is usually a loser, especially the way teams are valuing them now. IIRC Verdugo was a top prospect in baseball. Red Sox gave up Betts for him, Betts is still an all-star, Verdugo is a journeyman and not even with the BoSox. White Sox tried the same and got nowhere. When it comes to all-star baseball players there is no replacement for the bird in hand. At the time we thought we got a decent return for Verlander, in the end not so much. If you had given up an all start in trade to TB for the consensus best prospect in a generation in Wander Franco, it still would have blown up in your face. Until a guy proves he can play and stay in the majors, he remains a crapshoot.

If they are sellers at the deadline I wouldn't bet against it.