Look at Ray Ray Run

Theo - great rebuilder, not great at sustaining further. Hes so bad in free agency dating back to his Boston days. This happened in Boston too. Good run and then a complete collapse led by horrible free agent signings.

I know this has been said ad nauseam but Trout had a 672 ops his first year in like 170 ABs

It could be worse boys!

Gotcha. My bad. Figured I just misunderstood.

Why would his swing look slow because he drives the ball the other way? He starts his swing later but his swing certainly doesnt look slow. He has elite level bat speed. His swing never looks slow. Maybe I'm just reading what you're saying incorrectly too. He's in between right now. It's a timing issue right now, not a swing velocity issue.

Hmm who knew he brought him in for a ground ball. Bad managers dont have valid reasons for decisions. Bringing covey in to get a ground ball was not a bad reason. *this does not mean Rick is a good manager but questioning this decision is just blah.

If the bad guys are so bad, he'll be pitching in after they blow the 4 run lead. Guys, coaches don't win and lose the vast majority of baseball games. Hitting coaches... jeeze dont even get me started. Next to impactless. If a hitting coach can turn around 1 hitter in a few year period he's worth it. The insistence on blaming coaches on this website is just maddening. Covey was clearly brought in to get a ground ball. It's not as if Rick just spun a wheel. It's not as if he had covey starting the inning..he brought him in for a specific reasons and his plus defensive 2nd baseman dropped an easy line drive. The Sox lost because the bullpen has been terrible. Not because of Rick renteria.

Eloy Jimenez does not lack bat speed.

Its April on a team trying to evaluate players. Your insistence on only pitching 2 relievers - the veterans - because winning is all that matters to you is short sighted and not how a rebuilding team should handle business. They are evaluating guys. Covey sucks, sure but he's on the team transitioning to reliever. He's a GROUND BALL pitcher with a heavy sinker and they neeDed a ground ball. It makes sense. Fact is he pitched the young guys that inning and they sucked. Getting mad at the manager for pitching guys available to him when his two best arms pitched 2 days in a row is crazy imo.

Lol frare threw 97 balls in a row and was lucky they swung.

Really? So you only pitch those guys when leading by a few late? Wont be pitching much I guess if you bring in your shit guys everytime you're down 1 or 2.

And every other reliever was awful also.

Why are people blaming renteria for using the arms in the bullpen lol? Who was he supposed to bring in. I would have probably stuck with fry but every pitcher sucking, once again, isnt the managers fault.

Yolmer is playing the worst baseball of his life. Amazing how bad that was.

Yoan with 2 strike hits left and rivht.

Nova is a quality major league pitcher.

Lol I blame Tim for caring about his kid there. Eloy gonna have to learn to truck through there. He covered the ground.

Worst. Player. In. Baseball.

Yeah, hitter profile definitely matters. Like Josh Donaldson saw more off speed pitches than the three hitters when they were batting him second. Just because you hit second doesn't mean you're guaranteed it, but because of the stolen base threat, the typical profile of a 2 hitter, and the threat of the hitter behind him they tend to see more. I find it interesting that Dave asked back then why more teams don't put a better hitter In the two hole and since then we have seen a mini evolution of this which has led the data to normalize a bit but in the case of someone like Palka (who's bad) hitting behind moncada (who is a SB threat) and in front of Abreu (who's good) I imagine he would see more fastballs despite his power but I dont think it really matters for him because he's bad.

Nah the article stated Latin manager who spoke Spanish. I was wrong and he was right. Won't be the last time I'm wrong or misinformed that's for sure.

I dont think I can post my entire database here, but the theory is as this. #2 hitters see more fastballs for a multitude of reasons. 1 being, the lead off spot has the most stolen base attempts than any other line up spot by nearly 100%. The threat of the stolen base leads to more fastballs seen for the #2 hitter. Two, people don't like walking a guy in front of a power hitter and two hitters tend to possess less power than others - in the past couple years though, this is changing as guys begin to put power hitters in that slot. Guys will less power see more fastballs - in general - than guys with less power. I tried searching out a publically accessible report on this but all I could find is a Cameron article in which he references my points above. Cameron discusses why hitting in front of a power hitter leads to more fastballs in this series if you read the other ones and the one I am linking https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2-hitters/

Well color me impressed and misinformed. Learn something knew everyday.

He's a special assistant to Friedman - he does not run the Dodgers farm system.

When he was hired, this was a fact. Since then, as has been pointed out - Davie was hired, as was Cora and this year Montoyo but at the time he was the only latin manager in baseball and that was just in 2017.

I understand your point completely, but command of off-speed stuff is frequently lesser than command of fastballs - there are obviously exceptions. And Palka isn't dangerous enough to avoid throwing him any pitch, so rather than walk a bad baseball player you may go with the pitch you have the most command with. Guys in front of good hitters factually see more fastballs. My issue with batting Palka second is he blows, and you're giving the second most at bats in the game to a guy who sucks.