08/26/2022 8:05 EDT Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers

[gehringer_2]

Just now, Crazy Cat Gentleman said:

Tigers tease again. though with Báez up, I wasn't falling for it this time.

the poor AB by Baddoo looks  worse in retrospect.

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

the poor AB by Baddoo looks  worse in retrospect.

yeah, since it happened before the homer.

[Tiger337]

51 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Gentleman said:

I'm really getting to like his Francoeur-like arm in the OF.

Unfortunately, it goes well with his Francoeur-like bat.  

[sabretooth]

Francoeur was a strange bird, a guy who was below average in every skill set except the rocket arm, and yet he stuck around for a while and for 6 years racked up 650 PAs every season, and a ton of counting stats, as well as a couple of really good above-average years OPS+ wise.

He wasn't a "good" player, but anyone like Willi who is fighting for his life in the MLB would love to look back on such a career if he could manage it.

And sadly, he'd be one of our better players if he were here in his prime.

[Jim Cowan]

Greene doesn't have a good slash line but he supplies a lot of entertainment.

[sabretooth]

Man, Riley Greene is smoking right now.  

Strange fact: if you put his recent 10-20 uber-hot-streak together with the immediately preceding super-cold 4-39 stretch, you would get a slash of 237/274/406 over 62 PA (including 3 BB).....

.....which is similar to his season average to-date of 239/298/350, except he's had an extra HR recently to boost the SLG a bit.

His EV is strong (90), his Barrels are good (9%), his hard-hit pct is high (46.4 from statcast)....his LA is ridiculously low (2.9 degrees), which translates to over 50% GB and only 23% FB, with only a decent LD of 21% and a very low BA, which means that the low LA is not helping him overall.  My guess is that he's a guy who would benefit from a LA increase to something more normal, especially for a guy with his power, something like 12-15 degrees.  Not sure what the best way is for him to make this happen at his age, whether he should experiment with it all the time in game situations now or work on it during the off-season or what.

[Jim Cowan]

I just looked up Francouer again, what a mysterious career.  A corner outfielder who lasted for 12 years, with an OPS+ of over 100 only 5 times, and 91 for his career.

I think that he lasted so long because at a very young age, from 21 to 23, he put up some counting stats that included establishing himself as an "RBI man", 100 per year, and his first full season at age 22 he had 29 home runs and 103 RBI and people would have said wow, good looking kid, but then you look at his OPS+ and it is 87 for that year and you think "how is that even possible"?

Edited August 27, 2022 by Jim Cowan

[gehringer_2]

17 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

Greene doesn't have a good slash line but he supplies a lot of entertainment.

I think he may have a future in this game.

[gehringer_2]

19 minutes ago, sabretooth said:

Man, Riley Greene is smoking right now.  

Strange fact: if you put his recent 10-20 uber-hot-streak together with the immediately preceding super-cold 4-39 stretch, you would get a slash of 237/274/406 over 62 PA (including 3 BB).....

.....which is similar to his season average to-date of 239/298/350, except he's had an extra HR recently to boost the SLG a bit.

His EV is strong (90), his Barrels are good (9%), his hard-hit pct is high (46.4 from statcast)....his LA is ridiculously low (2.9 degrees), which translates to over 50% GB and only 23% FB, with only a decent LD of 21% and a very low BA, which means that the low LA is not helping him overall.  My guess is that he's a guy who would benefit from a LA increase to something more normal, especially for a guy with his power, something like 12-15 degrees.  Not sure what the best way is for him to make this happen at his age, whether he should experiment with it all the time in game situations now or work on it during the off-season or what.

He seem to have enough uppercut in his swing plane - at least tonight (!), maybe just has to find more of the bottom half of the ball -  i.e. figure out major league sinkers and sliders a little better.

Edited August 27, 2022 by gehringer_2

[sabretooth]

10 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

I just looked up Francouer again, what a mysterious career.  A corner outfielder who lasted for 12 years, with an OPS+ of over 100 only 5 times, and 91 for his career.

I think that he lasted so long because at a very young age, from 21 to 23, he put up some counting stats that included establishing himself as an "RBI man", 100 per year, and his first full season at age 22 he had 29 home runs and 103 RBI and people would have said wow, good looking kid, but then you look at his OPS+ and it is 87 for that year and you think "how is that even possible"?

Joe Carter (c 1990, 1996, and 1997) says "hi" 🙂 It's amazing the kind of counting stats you can accumulate if they just put you behind some awesome hitters for 157+ games. 

Francouer played on some pretty good teams for some pretty good Managers, too, and actually managed a 6.8 WAR over his career.  Not great, but better than a lot of guys.

It reminds me -- something about the 1996-97 Washington Bullets came across my feed yesterday and I looked them up.  They had Webber, Howard, Rod Strickland, Tracy Murray, G. Muresean, Harvey Grant, and even a young Ben Wallace, as well as Calbert Cheaney, who is still the all-time Big 10 scoring leader (!!) and a college legend.

Cheaney played a lot and amassed a lot of counting stats, but he was actually a bad NBA player, even when he was healthy and playing on pretty decent teams.  In 13 years he had only one season with a VORP over 0.1 (it was 0.6), and his career total VORP was -2.9.  Yet when healthy he played a lot of minutes, and on some pretty good teams too.

My guess is that these guys were "coaches" players and played because the fit the coaches' style/scheme/attitude, and the fact that they could put up some counting stats covered for how below average they really were.

[sabretooth]

10 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

He seem to have enough uppercut in his swing plane - at least tonight (!), maybe just has to find more of the bottom half of the ball -  i.e. figure out major league sinkers and sliders a little better.

I like the fact that he can "dial it up"....that seems reasonable that to elevate more consistently he needs to get underneath breaking pitches a little more reliably.

He certainly inspires confidence with his attitude, skill set, and resiliency.  We'll see how adaptable he is.

Tork, on the other hand, yikes, the way he's playing in Toledo right now....2022 cannot end fast enough for him.

[Dave Christian]

I see that Baez went 0-5 last night and is hitting a whopping .222🙄.

What a waste of good money!!