ericchri

Yeah, I always assume they mean somebody who grew up in an environment to learn what it means to be a professional ballplayer, has a sounding board when things aren't working, etc... Not that they literally have genes that make them more suited to playing baseball.

A question that's been bouncing around in my head. Assume for a minute that Buxton, Rosario, Kepler, and Walker all start matching their theoretical potential (no I'm not predicting that, just musing). Rosario and Buxton are definitely filling two of the OF spots, but which of Kepler or Walker (college 1B, no?) gets the last OF, and which mans 1B?

Yep, and yet he still gets to play OF in the major leagues. That's kinda the point. I'm not exactly in favor of Sano playing OF. I do think it might end up being the least bad of the bad choices, though. For this year. I'm doubtful it's the most helpful for Sano, depending on how much time difference in his getting to the majors it makes. If he's up this week but has to play a little outfield versus not up til September but only playing 3B? I can't definitively say what I think is the right thing to do. There's so many variables that go into this with all the other players as well, but if my options are Plouffe at 3B and Sano in RF versus Sano at 3B and Plouffe in RF, I'm betting on Plouffe at 3B and Sano in right slightly edging out the alternative in terms of overall defense, with theoretically the same hitting. It might not be pretty for Sano though. That ignores Vargas, Mauer, Hunter, and Rosario as well. I can see how people think one way or the other. I can't understand how confident people are that they're right.

I think most people can look at the situation and say, "yeah, if somebody can play 3B, they can play outfield." And I would agree. I don't think it would be disastrous necessarily for him to play some outfield at the same time as learning to hit in the majors. The following is all completely hypothetical: I do think he'd probably be a little more likely to hit better sooner, though, if left to just play 3B for now. Make a fielding mistake in a game at 3B, "Crap, I've done that before, need to remember to shift my weight when..." Then go to the plate with a relatively clear head. Make a mistake in the outfield, "Crap, what the heck just happened? Was I supposed to.., or maybe was I supposed to... Ummm, coach?" Then go to the plate thinking about how to do what the coach just told you about fielding because you haven't worked on it before. I'm exaggerating, of course. Can he play RF in the majors right away? Probably, though if he looked worse than Arcia out there I wouldn't be even remotely surprised. Is it the best way to get him in the lineup? Probably. Is it the fastest way for him to reach his potential as a hitter? Probably not. This is not an easy decision to make. Should have left him at SS...

Hmmm. That's a lot of cash... http://mashable.com/2015/06/17/jurassic-world-cost/

Even though the thought is actually revolting to me, I kind of want a Hillary Clinton vs. Jeb Bush campaign to see if there's enough other people revolted at the idea to get a 3rd party a decent vote total. Probably not, though, so instead I'd just end up being revolted for no actual gain.

Right now ABW looks like he might be the next Mark Reynolds (except playing LF instead of 3B). I think I'd be OK with that. There's a glimmer of a chance he figures out enough to top that, but that's what he seems like to me right now. He's been pretty consistent as he's moved up, huge K%, huge power. I'd agree, seeing him at AAA might be interesting this year to see if his numbers crater or he keeps on doing the same he's done all along.

I look forward to when he has the first week or so of games out of the way, when everyone is done sticking microphones in his face non-stop, and he can concentrate on playing baseball. I don't really expect him to put up great numbers this year (I'm hopeful, though), but yesterday had to be one of the most glass half-full, half-empty days someone like him could have. 1st big league game, now come talk to the press for hours...

Lincoln Chafee just skyrocketed in my estimation, and I know diddly-squat about him, except that he's in favor of the metric system (we should have made that switch 30-40 years ago). I might not actually like him as a candidate for all I know, but at least he brought one logical idea to his campaign kickoff. Of course that idea will be ridiculed as being "too expensive due to having to change all the signs and un-American."

If the Reds would take Arcia and Meyer for Chapman, I'd make that trade. I assume they might ask for more, being in the NL reduces Arcia's value. I love the potential of Arcia and Meyer but I'm starting to think they'd be better off with another organization at this point. The competition for their spots is getting pretty intense now, we can afford to move them along if we get a top-quality player in return.

Memo to Bert: Buildings exploding in slow motion - Cool Mike Pelfrey "exploding" to home plate in slow motion - Not so cool

Great story. Nice to see they had plenty of volunteers to help make the kids' day. This line cracked me up, though: Granted you can have a ball hit over your head pretty much anywhere on the field and it wasn't necessarily a drill centered on doing so from CF, but the notion of an infielder and pitcher working on that in CF just made me chuckle. Being from the Twins organization and all...

"Miss, we have a Mr. Baxendale on line 1. He sounds angry..."

I've been thinking similar thoughts to this for Hamels, but I'd probably make it something like Pelfrey, Gordon, Stewart/Meyer/Berrios, and I might try and slip in a Kanzler or the like instead of Harrison, but could live with it either way. If I add a starting pitcher, I need to clean out one of the ones we have, since we already don't have enough room for all of them. I'd think Pelfrey would be pretty attractive to them, as it helps keep the semblance of a major league pitching staff this year, but isn't terribly expensive and is off the books after the season.

A ridiculous comparison in general, but it's always easiest to pick the superstars as everybody remembers them, but I think there are flashes of being more Roy Halladay-ish in his pitching than a lot of the other recent top pitchers. He's not that good, obviously, but to me if he ever "puts it all together" or "finally gets it" or whatever you want to call it, that's what he would probably resemble. He's not a Roger Clemens or Felix Hernandez, a Verlander or Pedro, but if he's got his location right he's getting you to pound balls into the dirt and getting enough strikeouts to just dominate. He's not gonna get to that level, likely, but he's starting to show enough that he might be our next Brad Radke, not a superstar but a really good pitcher you can count on. If he finishes this season like he's been pitching recently, then next year is the year we watch to see if he's becoming an "Ace" but there's no way you say that about him this year.

I definitely agree with MWW on this one. At what point do you say "you know, we have tons of prospects who are just prospects, but that guy over there is a proven big-league all-star" and finally decide to add true, mostly-guaranteed, quality, big league talent, over taking flyers on fringy guys and hoping for prospects to work? We have enough prospects that I'm willing to lose a few for someone who is really good and proven at the major league level. I wouldn't be willing to put Buxton or Sano in that trade as I think those two have the potential to be special (only a handful of guys seem capable to be special versus just really good), but I'd be willing to talk about just about anyone else in our minors, even if means 2 or 3 of our next 10 after Buxton/Sano and a couple more as well. Is Lucroy the right guy to do that? I think I'd probably say yes.

He scored from 2nd on a groundout? Nice. Video please...

To be honest, I think I'd be pretty tempted to bring up Rosario, not because I think he's proved he's ready, but because it'll give him a taste of what the bigs are like before going back down in a month when Hicks should be ready. I'm in favor of Hicks really getting more time to figure out his lefty stroke in AAA. I would expect Rosario to really struggle and have to go down again fairly soon, but I think the experience would still be valuable. I haven't been watching, but I suspect Rosario can't be much worse than Schaefer and Robinson, and he'll get that first bit of experience he'll need. He's already been optioned for the year, so bring him up and let him sink or swim for a month. Worst case, you need to send him down for Hicks. Best case, he looks like he can stick. Additional positive, watching somebody who at least gives hope for the future.

Thanks to the workday afternoon games to start the season I didn't watch any of those games, and when I had a chance on the weekend, I didn't even care to try. I have yet to watch a single minute of them. I can honestly say that hasn't happened in I don't even know how long. Probably those mid-late 90's teams. There's a few players I want to hear good things about, but a large chunk of the team is completely uninteresting to me. I'll still follow the team by coming to this site every day and checking boxscores and the like, but I'm not sure if/when I'll bother to actually watch them this year. The only thing they can do to get me interested in this team is to gut all the no-upside veterans and get the kids up here. I'm probably not representative of most fans out there, necessarily, but I doubt I'm alone in this. I've generally been patient/accepting with the team management decisions the last few years, quite likely to a fault. I think under "normal circumstances" I would be inclined to say let it ride until early May. I'm not sure what has happened this year can be called normal circumstances, though. My guess is there's a pretty big backlash coming soon if they don't start making changes in another week or so. I've lost my patience, I just don't understand the rationale anymore in not letting the younger guys get a chance. There's just too many players who are on that line where they need to be trying their hand in the majors to see if they can cut it to waste all this time with veterans who aren't actually making us better. It just gets worse the longer we delay as we have oodles of potential big leaguers at every level of the organization with barely any room to move up.

Democrats are rooting for him to win the Republican primary.

Escobar's competence at multiple positions is working against him at this point, and that doesn't really seem fair. Baseball is always a numbers game, though, as you only get 25 roster spots and someone is going to suffer the consequences, right now it's Escobar. I wish I could see a good way to get him in the lineup 4-5 times a week that didn't mean sitting down one of Plouffe, Dozier, or Santana frequently since those guys all earned the playing time as well.

I've still got a shot at finishing last...

I don't want to go too crazy on this because I have no medical background at all, but I did want to make a comment on this. I've played lots of rec softball in my life, often at 3rd or SS, and the one thing that I always noted about hard throws across the diamond is that if I got all the way over the top of the throw it would light up my shoulder with pain (I assume I have some kind of injury in there but I'm too lazy to bother fixing it as it's not a problem except when throwing, and I've reached an age where my softball days are probably done), but if I can drop down to a 3/4 slot it doesn't do much to my shoulder at all. Parker's probably laughing at my ignorance at this point, but I'm not sure I understand why a 3/4 slot puts more strain on your arm as that's completely opposite to my experience with throwing. I've always assumed the 3/4 slot makes the "downward plane" and potential movement, and maybe control, on pitches more problematic, but I never thought it was more likely to cause injuries.

In. I barely even follow College BB anymore but I always fill one of these out. I refuse to pick a team like this year's Kentucky because I just can't stomach the thought of them winning and going undefeated. I'd like to threaten some of you with the possibility of now finishing fifth, but my track record the last few years says that's not likely.

Okay, who wrote out that lineup in the first post? That is some crazy good handwriting (I can't write on a whiteboard for you-know-what), especially with all those huge loops and stuff on some of the letters.