Balta1701

Phooey

Since a 7 game hit streak in the first half of May, Leury is 9/54. His slash line starting May 15 is .167/.164/.185/.349. His OBP is lower than his batting average over that time. He last took a walk on April 21.

We're literally painting arcs in grass now? Ugh.

At what point exactly can they start moving? Because if you have a bunch of 2b and SS running around behind the batter to move as the ball is being struck, you have an excellent distraction for the batter.

But it's totally, completely, and utterly unfair and misleading to say "hmm offense has gone down, let's ban shifts to help offense" when strikeout rates have done that.

What is the average fastball velocity in those 2 years, and what is the percentage of offspeed pitches thrown in those two years? What are the strikeout rates? There's a reason why runs are down and it's not just the shifts. It's that the pitching is vastly tougher and the hitters physically cannot respond. The ones who used to be slap hittters who strike out 3% of the time now strike out 15% of the time - and those guys are now barely big leaguers compared to guys with moderate powr. Edit: Oh, and 2000 also had one other fairly significant factor affecting offense that I forgot. It often involved needles.

I have no problem with "3 outfielders and 4 infielders should exist on every play". The idea of "drawing an invisible line at 2b and saying a defender can't cross it until a pitch is thrown so that the SS is always starting off moving to his left and the 2b is shifting as well" seems like it's going to just make things extra annoying to me and is more of a complication than I want to deal with. Plus, as noted above, I think in the long term it actually slows the game down more and increases the "3 true outcome" hitter abundance at the expense of more balanced guys.

The Red Sox also allowed Sale to push harder than the White Sox did. When he pitched against the White Sox in either ‘17 or ‘18 (I don’t remember which game it was) he actually threw his hardest recorded big league pitch since 2011 when he was being used as a reliever. He was also throwing his slider about twice as often in Boston as in Chicago.

Getting rid of the shift will, IMO, perversely encourage strikeouts and slow down the game further. The shift creates a penalty for guys who swing for the fences every at bat because those guys specifically are likely to ground into the shift if they don't hit the ball on the barrel. The guys you can't hurt easily with the shift have an advantage now. If you remove that penalty, you will encourage more guys to try to swing for the fences on every pitch, and over time you will also see more of those guys reaching the big leagues. A guy can survive in the big leagues hitting 20 home runs and batting .225, they can't survive in the big leagues hitting 20 home runs and .175. So, over time, you will see more guys in the big leagues who overswing, and cut down on the guys who spray the ball to all fields. Furthermore, you'll encourage the "overswing" approach at the plate by everyone.

I will admit if I were Roberts I like Bickford against Sheets and keeping the weaker defender in there much better than Pollock against Price. I like this move for the white Sox

6 IP, one hit against the highest scoring team in baseball? Fair enough.

Yes I have. How much use are his at bats today to the 2021 White Sox? His rookie season after the jump in levels he struggled much of the year, had injuries, and wore down at the end. For Sosa and Sanchez, them being called up and struggling as rookies on a team that needs to make up ground isn’t ok, even if they contribute next year.

This is also about the time of year where they start saying how happy they are with their current options in public as a weak smokescreen for what they’re doing in private.

Neither one of those are promising examples? Vaughn wasn’t helpful as a rookie making a big jump and is struggling defensively this year, Crochet pulled off 2 elbow injuries in just over a season.

You don't want to play a team that just changed its manager.

He had a 14/47 stretch in mid-May but he's followed that up by being 4 for his last 31.

You're missing one lefty. Plus I believe he's been Kopech's preferred catcher this season. Garcia/Vaughn/Moncada/Abreu/Robert/Grandal (DH)/Sheets/Mendick/Reese.

As long as they are confident they can beat up on the AL Central, this matters.

Well that was positive

Hendriks throwing

“All right, they have a 6 run lead, I can actually go finish my shopping with a low pressure game!” “F***!”

I did not catch the sarcasm, apologies. Unfortunately the 190,000 children abducted from invaded areas is neither sarcasm nor hyperbole.

Would you like to see the Russian Government admit that they kidnapped 190,000 Ukrainian Children from territories they occupied on their official twitter account?

While the lineup stank, the use of pinch hitter in the 8th inning (Finally) was magnifique.

Thanks Jake.