Jake

I wish Omar could hit when Kevan Smith isn't on the roster. Kind of diminishes his value that he can't.

The best evidence that advanced fielding metrics are not useless is the fact that by and large they identify as great fielders the same people who close observers of the game do.

I could hear it on the Reds broadcast. Riggleman says he wants to put him on base, the umpire says Riggleman needs to give the hand signal, not just a verbal request. This is repeated by both parties one time. Riggleman says "do your job!" and then umpire says "you do your job!" and then I lose the audio and Riggleman is running out there.

In a different situation that play by the RF would be really impressive.

Yoan always looks half-surprised when he smashes one to the right field corner. I don't know if it's something about his balance as he finishes his swing but his reaction is weird.

I do remember some discussion about his spin rate at the time, I'm just not convinced the Nats were thinking about it. FWIW, low spin rate is associated with more movement and higher ground ball rates. What we used to call guys with a "heavy" ball turn out to have lower spin rates. A common thought from the get-go was that the worst thing would be to have typical spin rate because that's what hitters' eyes are most attuned to.

I would wager that it was much more about a mixture of on-field results in MLB, velocity drop, and Giolito's mental state that made Washington unsure about him. I suspect MLB teams have much more uncertainty over the practical meaning of spin rate than what is being expressed here.

Also, on the Cincinnati broadcast they showed a brief interview with Don Cooper pregame. Coop said that Giolito has been "mentally tied up in knots" since they acquired him and it's something they're still working through. Also said they've been trying to ramp up his velocity lately.

At least now he's getting pounded while throwing with velocity. As for whether he's tipping his pitches, he definitely tips the curveball because the release point is in a different spot. It's pretty clear from Statcast that it's 4-8" higher at release than the rest of his pitches.

The fact that the bulk of the missed time is due to a thumb injury makes me less worried than I'd otherwise be. I had what I believe to be the same thing happen to my thumb when I was playing ball and it took a long time to start feeling normal even after the pain had subsided. I always felt like if I wasn't careful the ligament felt like it could easily get re-aggravated. At any rate, I'm not worried about a prospect who has weak hand ligaments. If he was constantly getting serious hamstring or knee injuries or something like that, I'd be more concerned.

I do think this can help Cousins go to other teams next year in FA and say "I know you might have thought a team can't win with a player like me on it, but that's what happened in GS."

I don't know the schedule but have noticed the updates seem to come in batches. Can't find any documentation about it, though.

I would say that the main difference between Yoan and pre- and post-injury is between his ears. That's not inconsistent with some of the other explanations given here (e.g., a bad approach can make a player pull off the ball). Yoan is dealing with failure right now and probably has some maturing to do. I suspect he's not reacting well to the missed ball/strike calls in particular.

per https://www.milb.com/milb/news/winston-salem-dash-place-luis-robert-on-seven-day-disabled-list/c-283818818?tcid=tw_article_283818818 Haven't seen any discussion of this elsewhere on Soxtalk for whatever reason. Any other details known?

If anyone was reacting like that, they were a small minority. Some may have been hoping for a swap of Benintendi for Moncada or Devers for Kopech in that deal, but the reception to the deal was extremely positive around here.

The truth is that Fulmer should be in AA, the last place he had any consistent success (and that was after a nasty run to start his AA tenure). Instead we brought him to the majors, where he wasn't ready, then sent him down to AAA, where he never thrived, then brought him back to MLB 2x and are still surprised that he's not doing great in AAA when he never really pitched himself out of AA.

I'm not as sour on the Butler deal as a lot of folks around here, but the fact we didn't keep our own pick was really bad IMO. Hard for me to believe the Wolves would have walked away had we insisted on keeping our 1st rounder out of the deal, but it seems we blinked first.

I see what people are saying with the "robotic" comments. I've always thought to myself that he seems stiff when he swings, like there's no way he could change how much bend he has at the waist. Of course, some players get themselves in trouble because they can't keep their posture so steady. But there are some guys who can reach out and get a pitch that's either out of the zone or they were initially fooled on because they can maneuver their bodies without losing their ability to make contact. You can see below where (as a LHH) he makes contact along what roughly corresponds to the angle of his bat through the zone and drops of precipitously outside that area. It's a little different as a RHH — he covers the top of the zone better — but it's a similar pattern.

It's not always best to take everything a team says at face value because they have reasons for not fully disclosing risks, outlooks, etc.

Well, it could be just as much about recognizing fastball vs. offspeed, etc. He's swung and missed enough times to get in his own head, that's for sure.

Yeah that comparison is a good one because he was a premium athlete. Of course one thing that hit home as I was thinking about comps is that you just aren't going to find many good SS that strike out 25% of the time. That said, it can be hard to compare even to 10-15 years ago when the league-wide strikeout rate has gone up so much.

I'm not sure what Anderson will be. I see some Didi Gregorius and Jean Segura in him — guys who never had enough bat to that they could afford to have a down year without really being a drag. But Anderson, like them, has some real pop in his bat but is rough around the edges and doesn't draw many walks. He does hit for more power than either them of did at the same age and also strikes out more. Anderson has shown a lot of power without getting beefy like Segura. Brandon Crawford is another SS with pop, some strikeout tendency, and took a while to develop patience and put balls into play; he's a steadier hand on defense though. Anderson is a superior athlete to all these guys though. What I'm not sure about with Tim is how much better he can get. I think there's potential there for fewer strikeouts and an attendant increase in batting average, but that probably means he's never really an All-Star caliber player. I'm not sure what the best version of him looks like in part because it's hard for me to envision him maintaining a decent average, high walk rate, and power all at the same time...he's basically never done those things as a pro. Tim's defense is inconsistent and error-prone but improving — and the errors are atoned for in part by his very good range and throwing arm. Nonetheless, I think he should represent a feather in the cap of the Sox player development people. He was taken as a really raw player who had premium athleticism but a questionable hit tool, game power, and defense that few thought would fly at SS in MLB. He's really found that game power, his hit tool is still a weakness but not enough from keeping him from being a .700 OPS guy, and his defense is basically fine. The Sox got him to the majors and made him a MLB regular at a premium position, which is something we have really struggled to do even with relatively low risk players. Add Yolmer Sanchez as another player that came up through our system to become a good all-around player. Combined they pretty definitively break the streak of the Sox failing to develop solid position players through the draft/international amateurs after ~Crede.

Sounds like what they were focusing on a problem that is has often looked like he's had: He's not fully committed to his swing, like he's second guessing himself on his pitch recognition in the process of swinging.

They probably should, although only where he realistically can. The spot in the first inning he can hit, but he struggles to make contact with strikes in places like high and outside corner so in those cases there's no use sealing your fate by whiffing on it.

Another Moncada K on a pitch outside the strike zone. He might benefit more than anyone from robo-umps.