caulfield12

Red Sox have had seven losses after leading after 7 and three more with leads after 8...speaking of missing an elite closer. All the more reason to not trade Colome unless we get a really useful player for a playoff run in 2021-2023. The obvious problem is that by that time his overall stuff will have deteriorated even further from throwing so many cutters.

He also sent his least favorite reporter a rat inside a box via the mail?

Now we can start yet another “trade Abreu at a higher value!” thread at least...

Winnin’ Ugly? Six blown saves for Barnes. Back to back games does him in. Now the big question is whether Colome can pull himself together mentally now that the heart of the lineup has already hit against him.

We’re at the point with Burdi and Hamilton that we might be better off holding onto him if they actually plan on being competitive next year. Who’s on the free agent market that would be more effective?

Garcia sometimes has the idea he’s Roberto Clemente out there and not Leury Garcia when he’s playing in the outfield...

So now Benetti, Stone and Our Chuck can trot out the “our boys didn’t quit in the 9th” bromide despite playing without Moncada and Anderson...

Because...of course. White Sox gonna White Sox. Why was Garcia looking back towards the plate when he was running? More poor fundamentals.

2005-2008 Ozzie, maybe you can extend it to 2010 but 2009 was awful.

5

The Red Sox announcers are still stupefied by the Rondon brain cramp. “Thank you, White Sox!” And speaking of ridiculous stats...Wright’s in line to get the win.

Renteria’s lucky Benintendi wasn’t healthy enough to go...because he could just have easily brought him into the game against a RHP. Holt was hitting on half a hamstring, ala Kirk Gibson.

Jackasses. Jay in RF. Rondon with one of the worst defensive plays of the year...trying to cut down Nunez when he wasn’t even the tie runner. Bogaerts was 8/17 against Colome coming into that at-bat...open base, still pitched to him anyway. Garcia got careless and almost messed up the flip to Yolmer.

Masahiro Tanaka was supposedly going to get at least $120-130 million from the Sox as a young/er pitcher with TOR upside. I guess with Cole, they will argue his velocity makes a long-term contract prohibitively dangerous after so much high leverage usage, then sign Wheeler for half that amount.

Collins...

Yeah, there’s no way that Herrera is better than Colome, that’s just nuts. Bummer currently is 0.6, for example (started his career at -0.5, then 0.8 last year.) Jace Fry has gone from 1.3 to 0.1, for a comp.

And yet I still drink 2-3 sodas per day after going through it twice...well, three times, but episodes #2/3 were micro stones and passed without surgery. The first time, in 2007 in my late 30’s, really thought I was dying, lol. It hurts so much your body forces you to throw up even if it’s only water in your system. The pain was so acute you couldn’t even sleep with any pressure on your back, curled up in a fetal position. I went through 2-3 ultrasounds here in China just to figure out what was wrong (not knowing the very first time was the scariest part)...they were the exact perfect size you couldn’t do anything about, not quite large enough for surgery or sound waves and not easy to pass through naturally. For six weeks, I drank bottle after bottle of water. Over the last 12 months, though, I largely managed to deal with it by taking pain medicine. Just the first 4-6 hours was hell, compared to feeling like you were about to die once a week but then suddenly the pain completely disappearing only to knock you off your feet a week later.

I’m not going to go through the entire season at baseball reference to compare attendance through X number of games...for the A’s and Padres...but knowing the White Sox, it only means there’s now even less incentive to make dramatic moves for Cole, Ozuna and Grandal or another starting pitcher/high leverage reliever this coming offseason. The sky hasn’t fallen, as predicted. After the botched Machado deal, some were speculating attendance would fall into the 1.35-1.4 million range, and that clearly hasn’t happened at all. Obviously, dramatically discounting ticket prices has helped...attending Cubs’ games these days will cost you a reverse mortgage.

McCann has been worth 2.0, so it’s not a big deal if we keep him long term and he’s a 2-3 fWAR contributor. Santana -0.4 Nova 0.4 Banuelos -0.5 Alonso -1.1 K.Herrera 0.3 Colome 0.2 Basically, all the money we spent and players we brought in have contributed about 1 fWAR if you include McCann...but then there’s the loss of Narvaez so the whole offseason basically cancels itself out, and wastes $30-35 million or whatever the total is.

This from a month ago... Nineteen of the 30 teams have seen their average fall from a similar point last year, with the largest drops in Toronto (6,963), San Francisco (6,463), Baltimore (3,839) and Detroit (3,686). Large rises have taken place for Philadelphia (10,383), Oakland (4,027), San Diego (3,465) and the Chicago White Sox (2,311). The Phillies signed Bryce Harper and the Padres added Manny Machado.

Plantar fasciitis is terrible too...one of the many injuries that derailed Carlos Quentin's care. That and oblique tears, they really suck because they are so easy to retweak. Or back problems...explaining them to someone who has never experienced back spasms or the kind of pain where you can’t sit for long in a chair or straighten yourself out again when trying to stand up. Literally would feel like almost dragging or willing your leg to move forward on it’s own...while pain is radiating down the nerves for 7-10 days. Or kidney stones, lol.

I’ll just say this much, Greg, and then I’m done with Tatis commentary for the year. He’s a true SS even though he’s now 6’3” 1/2 and closing in on 6’4”. That’s why there are comparisons being made to Carlos Correa, A-Rod, Corey Seager and Cal Ripken, Jr. I think Javy Baez with a better, more instinctive feel for situational hitting is closer. Having watched quite a few Padres’ games this year...he’s already the one player that ignites the club in terms of enthusiasm and the sheer joy of playing the game. You could feel it when he was out for five weeks with the hamstring injury. He can be a showboat at times, but you love him if he’s your teammate and maybe despise him in other dugouts because of his age and how easily things seem to come to him. He’s striking out a lot, but around 30% isn’t bad at all for a 21 year old who is getting his opponent’s best stuff every at-bat. He has easy power to all fields...the ball jumps off his bat like Moncada, but he’s more fast twitchy in terms of his upper body not being so bulked up. In that sense, he’s a bigger and faster Alexei Ramirez. He gets so much leverage at that height when he can get his arms out and extended. Defensively, he has been timed this season at 94 mph throwing from SS...he whips the ball over to first so hard, the best comparison that immediately comes to mind is Shawon Dunston. For the amount of acrobatic, highlight reel plays he makes...his error total per game is pretty darned impressive for a rookie. Playing next to Machado and sharing the same agent and support system has really helped him to feel completely comfortable from Day 1 at the big league level. He’s got an unreal batting average with balls put in play because of his speed and exit velocity off the bat. That will normalize...he’s probably not a high 900’s ops guy, I would assume closer to 850-875 but he is getting a respectable number of walks and pitch arounds. He struck out the most on breaking pitches and high fastballs at max velocity up in the zone, but he’s actually gotten quite a few extra base hits on sliders...so it’s going to be a series of adjustments for him as the league tries to exploit his weaknesses. In the final summary, the main risk factor is injuries...the reckless abandon he displays on the basepaths and doing things that most other players wouldn’t even try (the full splits on an errant throw from the pitcher to second base)...he believes there’s nothing he can’t do, which could easily be his undoing if he doesn’t learn how to better protect himself.

https://theathletic.com/884960/2019/03/25/everybody-was-surprised-but-here-we-are-an-oral-history-of-how-the-padres-acquired-fernando-tatis-jr/?fbclid=IwAR06UYbnb7anXASq9MBN4-brCO1FYhOQKPPXYOshn4T7RgyXMB27NftqcbI Tatis Sr.: Marco Paddy, he was one of the best in the business, I believe. And the first time that he saw my son, he said, “He’s going to be a big-leaguer, there’s no doubt. And I’m going to sign him. Let everybody see him, but I’m going to be the one to sign him.” That’s what he told me: “No matter what he does, no matter what everybody does, what kind of offer they’ve got, I’m going to be the one to sign him, because this kid is going to be something special.” I told Marco, “Right now, he doesn’t look the same height as all these kids. They get to sign for a lot of money, because they’re tall, they’re big, they’re strong.” He was one of the skinny guys, and I’m talking about 40 kids, 40 kids who were doing tryouts for the DPL in that moment. He was one of the small ones, and I told Marco Paddy, “Look, our family, we have the potential to grow a little bit late. When we start turning around 17, 18, that’s when we start growing. Watch.” And Bebo, Junior, he started to grow one inch every year. ... Fernando Tatis, Sr.: I was shocked in that moment, because how in the world do you trade a kid without seeing him play one game? So, they didn’t even know how good he’s going to be or exactly what kind of player you have. You never expect that at that age. It’s something where you want to be with your team, you want to be with the team that you signed with. And when you get traded, it’s something where you feel weird and you think, “Now I’m going to miss all my friends. I’ve got to make a lot of friends on another team. I’m going to go to another team that I don’t know.” Tatis Jr.: I was thinking about (making it to) Chicago all the way around. It was the main goal, the main focus. It took a couple days. When I got (to the Padres’ complex in Arizona) and I started practicing with the boys, it was like, this is really happening. Tatis made his professional debut on June 22, 2016, and went 0 for 5 with two strikeouts for the Padres’ Arizona Rookie League club. Five days later, he went 3 for 4 and hit his first home run. The opposing team: the AZL White Sox. Tatis Sr.: It was very exciting at that moment to hit it. He called me right away. He was very happy. DeYoung: Any time you get traded, I’m sure there’s some motivation on the player’s part to go to a new place and show what you can do. Tatis Jr.: When you’re just underrated like that, you’ve just got to keep going, keep working hard, keep showing what you’ve got.

The problem with that is it will be even more of an “indentured servitude” issue for the NBA and NFL...look at all the stories over the last five years or so about the minimum wage or below salaries in the low minors and minuscule per diems that barely cover McDonalds. Of course, there’s also that anti-trust exemption to protect the owners, unique to the sport.

https://theathletic.com/1039856/2019/06/21/is-fernando-tatis-jr-already-the-most-impressive-athlete-in-padres-history/ Tatis is hitting .333/.392/.600, the team leader in both average and on-base percentage. Meanwhile, he has benefited from a .433 batting average on balls in play, second-highest among players with at least 150 plate appearances. Regression appears inevitable. Yet that number is elevated largely due to Tatis’ speed and awareness. Already this season he has logged a 4.15-second time to first base, exceptional for a right-handed batter. His average sprint speed, at 29.2 feet per second, places him on par with Mike Trout and Trevor Story, two of the sports’ most formidable athletes. At 20, Tatis also wields a critical separator. “You see guys with that speed, but you never really see guys with the speed and the instincts he has,” said Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer. ... Tatis has yet to encounter an extended slump, an unavoidable rite of major-league passage. When he does, his speed figures to serve him well. So does continued experience. In the meantime, his combination of tools and smarts already belongs among the elite. One veteran National League West scout, asked where Tatis’ athleticism ranks among Padres players he has seen, did not need even a handful of seconds to scan his memory. “Tops,” the scout texted in response. Tatis Sr., speaking earlier this season, predicted his son would grow at least another half-inch. Myers, the owner of one of two cycles in Padres history, believes Tatis Jr. could achieve the feat more than once. “Every time he comes to the ballpark, he does something that I haven’t seen before, does something that’s special, does something that only he can do,” Myers said. “I know Mike Trout’s the best player in baseball, but this guy right here can definitely rival him.”