Balta1701

Grossman hasn't been in camp so I'd guess that at the very least he stays in extended ST and gives the kid a chance in the OF for a couple big league games until they actually consider whether he can take the 4th of job.

Not a great look? Violating state law, potentially violating some federal laws (wire fraud, we'll see about obstruction) are things you probably should care about since if Ohtani did anything crossing certain lines himself that could actually cost him part of his playing career while in prison. If he didn't do any of that, and its the silly sounding story that his interpreter presented, then fine, but I'm happy to let the good people at the IRS and the State of California do their work before I buy that.

Well this makes a fair amount more sense then.

I'm pretty sure that the fact the IRS is in on this already is both the reason why this won't fully go away any time soon and why some semblance of the truth is going to come out, because the government has lots of ways to work on this. Money transfers, failure to pay taxes on $4 millions of earnings would leave a long paper trail. https://abc7.com/irs-investigating-shohei-ohtanis-interpreter-ippei-mizuhara-and-alleged-bookmaker-heres-what-we-know/14556859/ Also worth noting - Sports Gambling is still illegal in California, so the Los Angeles player or interpreter doing this, whoever it was, was also violating state law. As Tex is in a state where Marijuana is currently illegal and other states have legalized it, I'd assume that situation is comparable.

Part of the problem with many of these guys is that if you don't call them up early in the year, they're likely to ask for and be granted their release. The White Sox are such a mess that right now Grossman has a decent shot at a starting OF spot, but you can't call up all of the guys they've signed, there's not enough space for them. Where are they actually playing these guys, how do you decide in the next 7 days if Robbie Grossman is ready to go?

I am starting to think someone needs to take Chris Getz aside and introduce him to the concept of counting to 40.

Mark Kotsay?

With him already throwing 4 innings today does anyone still want to say that they have confidence he will only be used as an opener?

He was excellent in a limited stint in 06, but when Robert is fully healthy Robert has a step or two on him. Robert has a "Spectacular play" level that Anderson did not have.

So I guess there's no obvious reason why Garret Crochet shouldn't get the extra day of rest given his long history as a reliable every time through the rotation starter and innings-eater.

4 innings for Crochet but I'm sure they'll hold him to a 3 inning limit on opening day.

Y'all just don't understand the greatness of Maldonado, Crochet wouldn't have had any success in the spring without him.

What are the odds that "a well paid interpreter who is not actually the player himself" (probably a salary in the 6 figures right?) is going to have a bookie willing to let them get on the hook for $4 million in losses?

Or is just says that elite stuff pitchers who are generally healthy with multiple years of control come available so rarely that there was only one possible one at the deadline last year, and he was in the middle of an underperforming season with a GM asking for the moon so he didn’t move.

All right help me out. Nick Nasty. Solid nickname or too dad joke?

How dare you doubt the skills of Martin Maldonado

Naw, I get not pulling him. That stuff happens, get him the no hitter. I don't get him throwing 110 pitches 6 days later. Walked 5 in 5 innings that day. That's pushing a guy too hard. I don't get him getting no extra time off in the first half. I don't get him throwing >90 pitches in every start on his list until the 2nd half, including his first start of the year.

Well hey this poster is insisting that Katz clearly will be a key guy in charge of handling Crochet now and so I shouldn't worry. Talk to him, he said earlier that the manager won't be in charge and here you say that the pitching coach clearly wouldn't get to overrule the manager.

Yes, absolutely weird how a guy who was injured might get exhausted after 120 innings one year and then be able to throw 178 innings the next year. No one could possibly have foreseen how that might work out. Why, you'd think that muscles get stronger when you use them, but everyone knows that isn't true, muscles get stronger when your elite pitching coach says they are strong.

They were both all pro players and you'd be happy with either of them?

I don't think it's as obvious that he was using in 2020, he may well not have been, there's a solid suggestion that he started using it in April of 2021 and then stopped on the day the ban began coming from his game by game spin rates. In 2020 he averaged 2516, in 2022 he averaged 2507, in May of 2021 his 4 seamer averaged 2647 rpm. No other month in his career comes close to May of 2021, it's like he was throwing a different pitch.

In his career, his 2 highest fastball spin rate months are April and May 2021. His 2nd lowest is July 2021. Super narrow range in 2022-2023 with the exception of a very low April of 2022. On his last start before the spin rate checks, his fastball spun at 2592 rpm. The next start it was at 2318. He clearly made some mechanical changes or other types of changes later in the year to account for this drop-off so we see his spin rate recover later in 2021 (just not to the same peak of April), but yes 100% Dylan Cease was using the sticky stuff in April and May of 2021 and he had a 270 RPM drop on the day they started the foreign substance checks.

Please go look what happened to the spin rates of Dylan Cease, Lucas Giolito, and Lance Lynn before and after June 15 of 2021. Each of them had a huge spin rate drop starting the exact week of the sticky stuff ban, not matched any other time in their career. Hell I have some of the images in my old attachments on here. Boy what a conspiracy theory that is to say that giant dropoff in his fastball spin rate that happened on the exact date the sticky stuff ban started was because of the sticky stuff ban. Rodon, Fwiw, was clean. Keuchel shows no big change in spin rate, but his career also fell apart basically after June of that year, so never was certain about him. The other guys were major sticky stuff users.

Sing it with me folks, “It’s not Ethan Katz’s fault that the pitching staff collapsed…”