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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    This layman scout's eye says he lacks the extra gear you want in a center fielder, and you would be disappointed in the results. Watching him a couple of Fall League seasons ago, I felt surprised he didn't get to a foul fly while playing in RF - I was thinking of him as a CF candidate at that time, and decided at that moment he will be an asset on defense in a corner but not in the middle. Others' mileage may vary of course, and maybe something changed in two years, but usually speed is not a slow-developing tool.
  2. ashbury
    Whatever they do, The Bubblewrap Fiasco Of 2018 should not be repeated, ever. We know now that Buxton can't take a punch, so it would end up being counter-productive. Even though Eduardo Escobar is long gone, some new prankster would surely initiate the tiresome "Pop Buck" game and eventually cause another fistfight in the dugout.
  3. ashbury
    His trade value is probably up. Get some more pitching!
  4. ashbury
    Then how will he know to relax and hit?
  5. ashbury
    Interesting. During the first part of the unexpectedly good 2017 campaign, I had the distinct impression that Molly had a two-tiered approach. The starters in the "good" category (Ervin Santana for example) were followed by reliable relievers (notably Rogers, Pressly). "Bad" starters (Hector Santiago) seemed likelier to be followed by less-well regarded pitchers. It was just my impression, that his strategy was to win the winnable games, and take his chances with the remainder (you never know when the offense might bust out with a good game), and it worked out so well that they jumped off to a good start through May. I didn't do a systematic study, and perhaps I was imagining things. And even if true, I don't think it's sustainable to cherry-pick the games beforehand like that. But when you're trying to turn around a losing franchise, it's something to try, just to give a shot of confidence.
  6. ashbury
    From my extreme "armchair" perspective, it's not a good idea to be a one-dimensional hitter. Major league pitchers are just too good, when you present them that simple of problem to tackle. Having a Happy Zone is great, but you need a way to punish pitchers who stay away from it, by having a second or even third approach to low-outside pitches or whatever isn't "Happy". Brian Dozier was a good example, being someone who feasted on high-inside pitches, but occasionally would demonstrate a willingness to go the other way and make the pitcher pay with a higher on-base approach. I don't know if Garver is predictable to the same extent Dozier sometimes was, but if Garver is productive only in the Happy Zone then it's a problem.
  7. ashbury
    I think Rocco explained the strategy well. There's a lot of merit to it. My only quibble is if the offense gets back to being a "no deficit is insurmountable" one again - then it makes sense to bring in a good arm when only a couple of runs down, if the bullpen isn't verging on exhaustion. Last night's game was a hopeful sign in that regard, although once again all the scoring occurred early so there isn't evidence of being a late-innings juggernaut.
  8. ashbury
    Ditto. I watched him get lit up in Pawtucket. Couldn't locate the breaking pitch. Got tattooed when he came in with his heater. I was ready to move on. Wes Johnson, or whoever at AAA, found an answer. Just goes to show how close many pitchers are to making it, and why you see these thirty-something guys still giving it a go. Just one "aha" moment away...
  9. ashbury
    Wha-? Ever time I've ever flipped a coin two times, it either came up heads and then tails, or else the other way around. It's called 50-50, man. What planet to you even live on? My point, if I had one, was that sometimes the breaks even out over the course of a game, making post-game whining a bit one-sided. Seemed that it may not have worked out that way this time, and a close game was lost.
  10. ashbury
    You need to show the chart you tweeted of the pitches which were called balls, too. https://twitter.com/TFTwins/status/1293387809991143424/photo/1 It wasn't that he had an unusually wide strike zone. The close calls look random, except not that randomly distributed between the two teams.
  11. ashbury
    I'd be surprised if he was ready, based on his stats up through 2019, but I don't have any direct information to go on regarding his work this spring and summer.
  12. ashbury
    Seems to be more of a middle infield type, with bat to match - potential for good BA but not much pop. He can fill a Donaldson role defensively, but nowhere close on offense. I mean, he's a backup, so he's not going to replace Donaldson (or any starter). But his profile is not "poor man's Josh Donaldson." A poor man's Jose Iglesias, instead? Except for the switch hitting part, which makes it harder to suggest comps - a REALLY-poor man's Francisco Lindor.
  13. ashbury
    You summed up my reason for not posting sooner in this thread.
  14. ashbury
    The rule is also very explicit that falling down is not a saving factor, but on the contrary is a reason to question the catch if it pops out: It is not a catch, however, if simultaneously or immediately following his contact with the ball, he collides with a player, or with a wall, or if he falls down, and as a result of such collision or falling, drops the ball. Said another way, he needed to make that slide in order to catch the ball. You'd better hang onto the ball all the way - you can't blame the controlled fall that caused you to be able to reach the ball safely in the first place. It's a really well thought-out rule. Brewer fans may naturally feel they got robbed, but they didn't.
  15. ashbury
    You're not imagining things. It's still Small Sample Size territory, but they score at about half the rate in innings 5-8 than they do in 1-4. Most seasons, inning 1 is tops (the manager gets to choose his batting order, after all) and inning 2 is lowest (same reasoning) but after that they're all within about 10%, until the 9th (which often isn't a complete inning). League-wide, 2020 is shaping up a little weird in that respect, as innings 1-2 are more than a little low. But again, it's early. Thank you baseball-reference.com!
  16. ashbury
    Our posts arrived at about the same time, and we are saying something similar. I would caution, though, that focus on velocity may be only because it's one of the things that writers can express most easily about analytics to a general audience. I take for granted that Wes Johnson balances any number of considerations, among which is tweaking an extra MPH or two on the fastball. I very much doubt anyone in the analytics team has boiled pitching success down to Moar Velo!!!1!
  17. ashbury
    The previous game, Jose's stuff seemed to be electric but he couldn't locate it. In today's game, location was consistent, but without movement those fastball strikes looked like meatballs from here (and apparently from the batters' perspectives too). So what I would be trying to figure out is how to find the happy medium. Enough movement on his fastball, with sufficient control over the breaking stuff, even if that meant not optimizing velocity and break. I'm not sure that fits in with your framework, though.
  18. ashbury
    It was a mistake to go overboard on the praise when everything was going well, so it's probably wrong to overdo the worry now. But man, it sure looks like the four losses weren't just a matter of timely hits and lucky at'em balls for the opponents, but some real weaknesses that other teams will be able to exploit.
  19. ashbury
    No offense, but... we have no offense. Statistically, most home runs are solo shots, league-wide in any season. Right now, though, the Twins' ratio is more than 2:1. Maybe it's just small sample, or maybe the other teams are pitching smart to a team built around homers.
  20. ashbury
    It turns out that Devin P. Smeltzer's middle name is not Paul, but Psyllium. / you probably have to be old to even know why I think this is a joke.
  21. ashbury
    After only 27 PA his BABIP is .182. Nothing to see here. Give a major league hitter some more time, to let things normalize a bit. He didn't forget how to hit. (While I'm at it, Nelson Cruz's BABIP is .500 at the moment. He might "cool off" a bit, without anything really changing.)
  22. ashbury
    That comes out to a tasty 1.000 OPS. Tasty for batters, that is. OTOH, the batting average against him on balls in play, typically around .300 for a full season, is .556 at this point. It's only small sample size, of course, which is my point. Maybe a little more normal "luck" with the at-em balls will reveal him to be a useful contributor still.
  23. ashbury
    That does change the conversation about him, if he's out from Atlanta. Still, I think he would be kicking himself for the bad game that apparently was his one-strike-and-you're-out, not the decision to move on from a deep team that wasn't showing signs of breaking camp with him.
  24. ashbury
    He's on a first place team. And one of his two performances with his team was pretty bad, which would have been no more welcome in Minnesota. So I think he landed on his feet and has more to worry about than what-ifs.
  25. ashbury
    I was an extreme skeptic and am happy to be proven wrong.
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