nrockway

I don't see how this affects Albert Pujols.

He did most of his work in the MLB age 30+, including winning an MVP. He fell off a cliff at age 36. I sort of agree with the sentiment (don't sign a free agent 1B this offseason!), at the same time 1B/DH is exactly where you stick aging guys because they can't play the field anymore. It's probably just as fair to say that 30+-year-old athletes don't age well.

That was hilarious (and the edit makes it that much better) but he was genuinely a better outfielder than I was expecting. Personally I prefer a player who dives for no reason than one who refuses to dive for a ball he can actually catch. Heart, hustle and muscle or something.

DeLoach down, Oscar stays. Interesting.

anyone else just picturing Kopech scrawling the word "interest" in, like, comic sans font? or maybe a diagram of how much interest his bank account has accrued. I can't believe anyone is interested in him as a baseball player though.

I saw the news and my first instinct was "smelly old socks" but of course this is notable enough for its own thread.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/06/astros-release-jose-abreu.html

Does Banks have a foreign substance in his hat? What was that all about. it wouldn't surprise me, occasionally he looks like a good pitcher.

See I was wondering if Robert had been intentionally walked more times than he's actually walked. It's 2 to 4, pretty close.

fifth time's the charm

lol

The Nicky Lopez ball is at $60 (1 bid), Brebbia at $60 (0 bids) The Korey Lee ball at $100 (4 bids), Soroka $60 (0), Montgomery $90 (3), Flexen $60 (0), Jordan Leasure 60 (0), Bryan Ramos 80 (2) and last but not least.....TIM HILL BALL, I might buy this one. $750 to meet John Schriffen. Zero bids. You'd have to pay me $750 to waste my time meeting and greeting those guys. John is gonna feel like I did when I was auctioned off for charity and nobody bid on me. It wasn't for a particularly good cause and I didn't want to follow through with the duties I volunteered to do, but it still hurt.

The payroll is a function of bad decisions made years ago though. Moncada, Eloy, Benintendi aren't all of a sudden making giant contracts. It's a reasonable point that it's wasted money, but it's barely any money in the grand scheme of things and relievers are pretty much a crapshoot anyway. you rather they waste money on relievers making no money than, I don't know, sign Giolito to the contract that the Red Sox did. Or pay Lance Lynn 11 million dollars like the Cardinals did. Or pay Sean Manaea twice as much as Fedde etc. The reality is, this front office hasn't given out any contracts actually worth complaining about yet. Like, Maldonado is probably the worst one and he's only here for a year. There simply hasn't been an opportunity to yet. Will Getz give a Benintendi-esque contract to some bum this free agency? I guess we'll have to wait and see, but add up all the guys who have come and gone since last season and how does the dollar amount compare to Benintendi and his negative WAR? We could see a dumb contract given to Pete Alonso or Cody Bellinger or some overpaid second tier free agent, I wouldn't rule that out.

Thorpe was good but he threw a lot of 91 mph fastballs right down the middle that didn't really get punished. I get that his changeup is very good and his fastball plays off it, it just feels like he's tempting fate every time he throws it in the zone (two were hit for doubles). Still, he made a lot of good hitters look silly.

I think when it comes to the Sox, he just says whatever the organization wants him to say. I don't think he's reporting a secret, I think he's just a mouthpiece and the Sox probably don't want the world to think he's about to be fired.

steal home. wait, I meant strike out on a pitch a foot outside.

The Mariners can walk this off without swinging the bat.

Kopech is a fucking idiot

hitting homers AND taking walks. 21st century baseball at last.

there's actually some power in the lineup now. it's a gamechanger if Julks can keep it up.

More Vaughn Propaganda (MVP)

I think in all of the anti-Getz fervor, people forgot how incompetent the new Astros front office is.

I’m glad he gets to be paid handsomely to be with his family and not block Korey Lee’s development. Don’t have any thoughts about this, I thought ATL retained his salary or sent cash. Seemed like a “no risk, low reward” move from the start. The issue is and always was Maldonado, any one of Chuckie, Perez, Hackenberg is probably better than him right now whereas healthy Stassi is likely better than all of the above.

Is Diekman the perfect example? He's an aged middle reliever who was terrible over the course of 30 innings with the Sox, true, and good with TB over 45 (so good they didn't want to pay him $4mil). I would probably not consider that to be a useful sample size or Diekman a particularly good candidate to critique; he's a pretty marginal player in the grand scheme of things who also wasn't here for very long to make such a determination. Relief pitchers have year-to-year ERAs that are all over the place, how much of that is the Sox fault? Remember the Dodgers thought they could teach Lynn a new pitch and it worked for like one outing before he was back to giving up 5 homers per 9. I guess 'the margins add up' is the counterargument, but there are very few players I can think of that I'm upset about the Sox not keeping (besides the aforementioned Tatis and Semien who were traded before getting the chance to play better). Specifically, I'm thinking about pitchers who are "better" now than they used to be. southsider compiled the list, thanks, but does anyone look at that list and think to themselves "wow we really squandered Aaron Bummer's potential as a pitcher"? One could argue that developing pitchers is about the only thing this organization has a recent track record of doing effectively. I think more star pitchers have been produced by this team in the last decade or so than it's produced pitching busts, from Rodon and Sale to Crochet and Schultz and a couple in between. I think Reynaldo Lopez is the best example, not Diekman, because he's been incredible this year as a starter. I also sorta think it's not sustainable, we watched him pitch long enough, but maybe Atlanta really did open something up for him. We also got good trade value for Lopez who, in retrospect, may have been the more valuable piece than Giolito.

I thought the quote about it being useful for development but not for in-game adjustments was interesting. I wonder how "analytics" influences that beyond shifts, platoons, pitch selection, things like that. which pretty much just seems like common sense and not advanced math, like, do coaches need some advanced motion-capturing system to know "hey this guy can't hit a curveball, you might want to throw him curveballs".