gehringer_2

the thing about spin rates is it depends on the pitch. Great spin rate on your FB and you are Justin Verlander. Great spin rate on your slider at 18 and you're probably on the surgical table by 21. 😱🤔

Interesting interview - doesn't seem to be paywalled https://wartranslated.com/forbes-ua-interview-gurs-chief-kyrylo-budanov-interview/

I think LBJ also consciously cultivated an 'old guy' look. If you got him out of those glasses he doesn't actually look too bad there for a guy from a sunny climate. The other thing is the big ears. Ears grow throughout your life so if you are born with large ones to begin with, you automatically look older than average.

There is probably something to be said for stockpiling high upside HS'ers - That's where a lot of the star players should emerge because a good professional minor league experience should drive their development further, faster than college ball. The emphasis there on the word *should*. The thing is, when you're as far behind as the Tigers are, doing that is a luxury compared to picking somewhat more predictable college players with higher proven floors.

I have to guess the assumption neither could stay at short is what led Al to look elsewhere, but that still doesn't explain how you get to a HS pitcher from there.

Power starting to go out in SE Ann Arbor. Oddly here on the north side of town not much ice......yet.

I guess Lalonde wasn't here when they traded for Vrana so maybe it figures, but his comments on Vrana have been pretty cold. His comment to the effect that Vrana 'has always had trouble playing in a system' seemed like kind of a gratuitous dig at what a guy did before either you or he was with your current team. It may be true but its not the kind of place coaches usually go tallking about players.... Maybe he just likes Zadina and is a bit put out at being told to play a player he's not sold on?

Caps with too many good chances in the 2nd half of the game. Husso huge again.

A hockey stick is completely wasted in Veleno's hands......

Seider with another erasure of a Cap.

The right knee is the primary issue - it's probably why he can't do aerobic work either other than maybe swimming. One the rare occasions last season when he could drive off it, he could still hit some. The rest of the time he's hitting purely from the waist up.

Of course if a guy is not a great blocker, he has less credibility to burn to start out as a blocker and then slip into a pattern uncovered.

LOL - actually LG, you are completely right, I meant to quote RedR's post there and accidentally got yours instead. It was his speculation that maybe the other guys looked better because they weren't being paid attention to, which conversely means that if true teams were 'paying attention to' i.e. doing some kind of scheming for Hock

IDK, Zadina and Veleno both appear to be pretty much lost causes. Zadina seems a little more of a presence on the ice, but he is an even worse finisher than Veleno, if that's even possible.

you are assuming Hock was good enough that other teams schemed against him. I could be persuaded of that but I would want to see some evidence.

It depends on how the team does - I see 3 outcomes: If some of these lottery tickets hit and they are competitive, and he ends up at 500 OPS again, he's going to need to take a 60day DL and give the team a chance to do something. If, as is more likely, the team is non-competitive, then if he gets 250-300 poor AB it won't be the end of the world. And of course even more remotely possible than the 1st outcome is that he stays healthy, in which case he could possibly be productive playing around half-time.

yeah. A cabinet maker today would kill to have access to all the mahogany burl that went into 40's and 50' console radios and televisions.

The discussion about TEs is running a lot like the discussion of QBs. Yes, there are TE's out there that are the kinds of difference makers that justify a high pick, but they are rare and it's almost unknowable if a guy in the draft will be one of them. Hockensen had about as much buzz as any TE coming out and he has still ended far short of being a Winslow or Kelce. And sure, at some point another QB is going to come out who is as good a pro as Mahomes, but this year it's a pure crapshoot that Young or Stroud is that guy, just by the numbers neither likely is.

LOL - agreed. And I don't think Hockenson turned out be anything special either.

Bill Russell for 3

This. I know they still get away selling obstructed view seats at Fenway, but at this point that is a weird exception to a general rule that people are not going to pay good money to still behind poles and close to half the seats at TS were behind the poles. The good seats at TS were the best anywhere, but there weren't enough of them.

you can hear the ball off his bat has a different sound. .... well, sorta muzak'ish actually...

What's this 20 50 and 62 stuff? Young whippershnappers! I have to laugh also - because my dad, who was a big electronic gadget guy, was still too cheap to ever spend much on a television, so my formative memories are 2,4,7,9 on an already ancient B&W RCA with a turner whose knob you had to jiggle all the time to hold a signal, and 56 at school - where we had some rooms wired to a central UHF antenna/RFamp system. Of course since you can find anything on the net - this would be about the exact model!

👍

You can already see the difference in how this year's light, trimmer Schoop goes to his right!