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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    Forgotten what a 2-game winning streak feels like? Good, isn't it? I keed, I keed...
  2. ashbury
    Probably we are not far from an extended WPA which does. We now have percentages reflecting the chance of any given fly ball being caught. Take the WPA that would have been added, if that fly ball had been a leadoff homer, apply the percentage chance as a multiplier (subtracted from 100%), and that's the defensive WPA for that play. We Can Rebuild It. We Have The Technology.
  3. ashbury
    I don't feel like Molitor is a bad manager, but I do agree that he seems to be single-minded about making lineup decisions as though it's September in a pennant chase, even when it's April and May, and even when the course of the season by June or July tells us that post-season contention is not possible. Starting Bobby Wilson is evidence of that - even if you disagree with him as to whether Wilson gives the team a better chance to win this particular day's game than Garver or Astudillo, his choice gives a view of Molitor's relative weighting of today versus tomorrow and beyond. With his multi-year contract, you would think he wouldn't need assurance that the W-L record going forward from here won't be held against him as evidence he didn't try. But I think his boss, Levine, needs to tell him in clear terms how he'll be judged for the rest of the season, namely for teaching and for player evaluation, and let Molitor then manage accordingly. I wouldn't have thought this would even need to be debated, but apparently it is. I think I've seen it said that one of Molitor's positive attributes is that he's humble, but maybe the flip side of that is a little bit of insecurity. Odd, if so, for a Hall of Famer, but people are who they are. It's conceivable that a "never good enough" attitude drove him to his success, yet may hold him back here.
  4. ashbury
    I always look skeptically at PCL numbers. OPS in the .800 range two out of three years there, and another above .900, doesn't inspire me too much. Fresno's not at high altitude, but his road numbers the past two seasons look inflated. He won't get the same helium in major league parks. But, perhaps, we have found our next Robbie Grossman anyway. A Houston farmhand who walks a fair bit and plays only corner outfield. I can't wait. Don't mistake these views for outrage. Teams sign minor leaguers all the time. It's no biggie.
  5. ashbury
    I was young once, too.
  6. ashbury
    Oh, sure, he had that gaudy .143 batting average with the Cubs. But, with the Twins luck, he'd probably go into a slump as soon as they acquired him.
  7. ashbury
    Kubel's knee was all too human. That's why it blew out.
  8. ashbury
    Based on glowing reports from his previous manager, attitude would be about the last thing I'd worry about with Fernando Rodney. He's a team player. And I don't see how someone accustomed to the pressures of being a long-time closer would have trouble with the pressures of switching roles, unless he was being asked to pinch hit or something.
  9. ashbury
    Constructing a competent starting rotation is hard. A good one can turn into a bad one in a matter of a few weeks. I'm reluctant to part with a good starter. And I say this as someone who was slow to come to the belief that Gibson finally is one; I don't overstate his value, but trading him would open up a hole that would be filled by question marks rather than sure things.
  10. ashbury
    A lengthy and thought-filled response at your link. There's an old saying, "all politics is local," which surely has an analogy for baseball marketing: the city-by-city approach to looking at the question probably has to be done, to make sense of the situation. It's not for the Saints to solve the other cities' problems, but it seems that you do recognize that success can't be in a vacuum.
  11. ashbury
    Is attendance at other parks in the league a concern for the Saints? Is there something the Saints can do to help the weaker franchises, if the health of the league as a whole becomes at risk?
  12. ashbury
    You might enjoy Deadpool 2.
  13. ashbury
    During these last four games the log shows 61% GB. That is up from earlier in the season, when it had been 56%. Not sure the difference is significant. Last year at Chattanooga it was about 47% grounders. Game logs for 2018 are here for anyone to peruse.
  14. ashbury
    Looks like a nice 4-game stretch, but I was concerned when the WHIP number was posted; the fancy ERA under 2 seems aided by timely outs (or untimely hitting by opponents). But I checked, and BA on balls in play during these 4 games is high, almost .400. These two aspects of "luck" may have cancelled each other out. Encouragingly, two of those games were against opponents who had cuffed him around in the two bad starts preceding these. I'm back to, "nice 4-game stretch."
  15. ashbury
    Well that was, um, different. Thanks, I guess. Also; Your find >>> my find (Also, much more NSFW - fair warning to those about to look there)
  16. ashbury
    tl;dnr
  17. ashbury
    Just about the only possible reaction. At least, it wasn't a rickroll.
  18. ashbury
    Looking to kill a few minutes? Have a look at this peculiar project a ten-year old some knucklehead enterprising person took the time to construct via a series of posts in 2011-12. http://burncardburn.com Follow it through to the end, and in total there's about five pages of images and videos of captioned baseball cards, defaced baseball cards, intentionally damaged baseball cards, burnt baseball cards, and, ..., well, more captioned and defaced and damaged and burnt baseball cards. PS: hope you like mustaches. Contact the owner of that site, not me, if you want your ten minutes back. Personally, it spoke to my inner ten-year old youthful knucklehead soul. http://burncardburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/87-topps-jay-howell.jpg
  19. ashbury
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V_hCqO6UQs "Sorry."
  20. ashbury
    I love Ben like I love my own sons. In fact, as I may have mentioned, I adopted him. Still, I believe he is far from ready yet, and 2020 is a very optimistic ETA for him, despite our crying need at catcher. Also, while his high-A stats are good, I'm going to be predictable and mention a .393 BABIP - if that's not everyone's cup of tea, so be it, but it's a reason I temper my enthusiasm for the moment at least. (If you want a little validation, I also didn't panic last year while his stats looked bad but were built on a BABIP ludicrously below .200.)
  21. ashbury
    I want this headline: "LaMarre-Out, Cave-In".
  22. ashbury
    See. I told you it would happen.
  23. ashbury
    My point was more about the human side of the game. That's why I like to go to the SABR conference. Nice to be forced to get away from the non-stop analytic mindset that I usually gravitate toward on the internet.
  24. ashbury
    Attending a nice panel discussion at SABR this morning, including 1979 Pirates champions John Candelaria and Grant Jackson. They reminded the audience that the team started out 12-18, and were in fourth place at the all star break. Their recollection was that there was still a long way to go, and they just continued to play the games one at a time. While the odds are against our 2018 Twins, it wouldn't be unprecedented to go all the way. The panel reminds me that the players have to just shut out all the noise that we fans listen to.
  25. ashbury
    Not much, apparently.
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