JoeC

This is the kind of thing that would NOT have happened under Ricky. Say what you will about Renteria's tactical decisions, but the one thing he did do (seemingly) is to get the guys to show up and actually play baseball to the best of their abilities. These types of lazy plays would not have happened with him at the helm.

How is anyone on this team supposed to know that there's an injury risk associated with running the bases?

If you’re so beyond hope to make the throw, why even go after that ball when it’s hit? Just walk toward the dugout as soon as it’s apparent that you wouldn’t be able to keep the run from scoring. </sarc>

I can hear the silence from Hawk.

Was it the dive, or did he injure it fighting off the shade David Wells threw at him for not playing through pain?

I thought it was a tricep

Regardless of context, it's sad that I know exactly what was being said without any audio.

Good luck with enough at-bats to qualify for the records. (I should have put that qualifier in there)

A negative OPS+ is hard to achieve

FYI, the baseball cube has college stats as well: https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/player/146981/ No advanced stats to speak of, but at least it has SOME purpose.

How's TA's game-calling ability behind the plate? Asking for a friend.

Who is June Vaughn, and can she teach Andrew how to hit?

I for one will gladly eat crow...chet.

Yep. Gotta have the right players at the right time, and the right contingency plan. It's easy for people like me to b**** about it, but the fact of the matter is that it's f'ing hard to get it all right. You have to have so many different roles and so many components of your organization and operation working well, or at least all getting lucky at the right time.

I'll add onto that... we tried adding players using our limited prospect capital basically until 2016. When Hahn determined that the cupboards were bare, he got approval to tear it down. He did a great job of stocking the high end of the system, but the org did a horrible job at developing that high-end talent (the bats, especially, just performed to their floor). At the risk of triggering another WestEddy-ss0k5 war of words, we also did a s%*# job at developing ANY talent, especially on offense, so the bottom completely fell out when we suffered any sort of injury or loss at the big league level.

When we develop enough players through a quality minor league system to be able to confidently transition to winning. Basically where the org thought we were in 2020 ~ 2021.

Sure, but 3 chickens at the expense of 15 eggs? it is far cheaper to properly develop 15 eggs into reasonably prices chickens than to pay for 3 chickens.

Either way, it makes no sense to bring in a star player from the outside when the rest of the team is crap.

It was worth signing someone like him because the rest of the team was, you know, good. You need to have a good core. Not just 2 or 3 good players.

Found the article I was thinking of: https://sports.yahoo.com/news/royals-bannister-unafraid-math-194800629--mlb.html

One thing I remember about Bannister from his playing career is that he embraced analytics wholeheartedly. This is the kind of stuff he (I would think) would be looking at very closely.

Can someone just whip up an AI bot that deletes Schriffen’s voice to make the broadcast slightly less intolerable?

No. the “we ain’t taking that!!” was the most embarrassing.

Overall a positive piece IMO. If there IS an actual development plan in place between Chicago and Charlotte like Cannon suggests, that is what I’ve been hoping for for years.

Agreed. Honestly the closest comparison to baseball players is golfers IMO.