Jake

With Eaton out, there is some chance you see him bat second now. Alexei leadoff, perhaps

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 01:47 PM) When I played CF in HS, we had a game where they had a snow fence as the wall. I was going back for a ball and didn't realize I was that close as there is no warning track, as I ran into the fence, I somehow hit the ball with my glove, which kept the ball in play, but I went flying over the fence. Our LF came running over to get the ball laughing his ass off. I think the batter wound up getting a homer anyway. Getting back over it was a problem. I think it was about 4 and a half feet high. I was so pissed I just stepped on it. I hit a home run in HS on a windy day - blowing out of course - so the ball kept drifting back and back and back...and the kid just ran right into the chainlink fence. He had to get a new nose after that play.

I've never seen a professional baseball player do that. It's largely his fault that he was unaware of the fence, but this isn't the same thing as diving into first or leaping into the wall. I don't think he was aware that he was risking injury at all. I just can't figure out why he was so off.

What a weird deal. He had NO clue he was that close to the fence. I know people are going to call him reckless, etc. but I don't think he had any idea he was going to hit the fence. You could see he had just then taken a step to start a jump right as he crashed into it. He had miscalculated the distance of the fence by at least 5-8 feet. I hope he's okay. I haven't seen a play like that, where the guy is unaware of the fence, since I was playing high school baseball

You are way, way, way too low on Marcus Semien.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 6, 2014 -> 09:38 AM) Moto 360 will have wireless charging and will last as long as 2.5 days. I just want to throw my money at it. TAKE MY MONEY!!! That thing is beautiful and watching the demos at I/O finally made me figure out how tremendously useful a smartwatch can be. This is the only one that looks good enough to wear IMO

If he commits an error, they'll have the entire Javier Baez experience

Lewis has pitched his ass off and gotten better as the game went along. We had a chance early, but he turned it on

As a pitcher, Dunn has vastly exceeded expectations as a hitter

Valentin is either a juicer or one of the biggest victims of the steroid era. He put up some numbers that nobody batted an eye that would make him one of, if not the best SS in the game today

Dunn should do a curtain call

Does wRC+ factor in the portion of your ABs that are against Adam Dunn?

Alexei f***ed him

Dunn!!!!!!!

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 5, 2014 -> 09:22 PM) Cooper should be on the hot seat, but more importantly, hopefully he gets his health under control Don't be ridiculous re: job security. I am legitimately worried about his health because he's never had the appearance of a healthy man and has had a few different health issues in the past

Rienzo has been bad this year but today is just awful luck. Two bloops, a bunch of ground balls, and a bad block. He's been throwing strikes and getting grounders

1.000 BABIP today for Andre

B-R's wonky WAR calculation has Eaton as ninth highest position player in MLB, with 4.0

I think the main question marks on the Bulls are things that, if answered, decide whether they're merely an ECF contender or Finals contender.

Rienzo getting a bit unlucky here. Balls finding holes. Arencibia didn't even know he hit his single

Adrian Gonzalez posted a .690 line across a couple of levels before getting things back together the next year. Brandon Phillips had a very bumpy ride over four seasons in AAA. The things I see looking through guys on the BA 100 for Davidson comps: -Not uncommon for guys to play really badly in the middle of their MiLB career -It is uncommon for a guy to have a year like Davidson did last year (decent success in AAA, decent cup of coffee in MLB) and not spend some or all of his next season in MLB. A lot of guys who go to MLB, struggle badly, then go back down to AAA and struggle badly before going back to MLB and killing it in the future -A lot of guys just flat out struggle badly in MLB for a few years. So the question with Davidson is whether it's meaningful that AAA is the level he's struggled at and whether it's meaningful that he is struggling as he repeats AAA. There aren't a ton of comps for his situation because, like I said, not that many guys go back to AAA. While lots of guys struggle, it's not always in AAA and it's not always when repeating a level. And when I say guys, I'm saying "guys who I know to have had good MLB careers"

Aaron Boone was a decent comp here, perhaps. .850 OPS, 22 HR in AAA, then gets a cup of tea in MLB. The next year he posts a .680 OPS in AAA

Alex Rios was a pretty bad MiLB player until the season before he got called up. Brian Dozier had a .620 OPS in AAA before coming to the big leagues. That's what I came up with via a few minutes of just looking at guys

Interesting to me that Davidson has walked 7 times in the past 6 games. It's not like he's done anything else well, but it seems less than coincidental that he'd have a collection of walks like that. He'd only had 6 walks in his past 20 games before that. I'm just looking for signs that he's working on something up there.

Who keeps track of that stuff? There's something weird going on with Davidson. Maybe whatever it is will never change and he won't hit well again. But there's no way you can say that a guy who did what he did last year and the years before that can be reasonably expected to hit like he has this year. Something has changed - physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, I don't know - but he hasn't been the guy we traded for.