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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. Niko kind of made up for that errant throw an inning or so ago, eh?
  2. Twins and Tigers tied 1-1 in the all-important Bonehead Throws Costing Runs category.
  3. I'm surprised if you believe there is a market for him, making the clause moot.
  4. Nice to take advantage of the infield mistake - Goodrum working as an undercover agent for us? Too bad the good teams don't make so many of those for us.
  5. Polanco has contracted Eduardo Nunez Disease: his helmet can't keep up with him on the bases!
  6. "You can't hit what you can't see." - Walter Johnson
  7. I was responding to the notion that we'd have 5 more wins in the bag if not for Rodney. I'd rather have had a better closer too, but that overstates it.
  8. Why not? They budgeted for it. The remainder of the contract is down to, what, $8M and counting? By August 31, just $4M? If that was the difference in prying a better set of prospects in return, I'd do it. (Conversely, the other team would also likely view $4M as small change, unless as you say they are bumping up right at the tax threshold or something like that.)
  9. Plan was sound, sorta. Execution, more debatable. To me, the pivotal point is in evaluation and forecasting. I still don't believe our analytics group is a strength compared to other teams. Kyle Gibson makes some changes, good results happen, and they carry over to 2018. Logan Morrison makes some changes, good results happen, and apparently pitchers adjusted to his changes and 2018 was a disaster for him. Somehow, evaluators who can tease out the difference between a "career year" and "turning the corner" are still lacking.
  10. I won't bother to search for a link but my recollection is that the Twins have stated explicitly that this isn't how they budget.
  11. Moderator's note: If you want to go full-tilt for a referendum on the front office's competence, or a retrospective on the 2018 season, please start a new thread, and keep to the topic (broadly construed) of this particular trade here.
  12. Well, whether I guessed right or not, Aaron has indeed been shut down again, after an uncomfortable bullpen session a few days after his abbreviated start. https://www.mlb.com/news/aaron-slegers-pulled-off-his-rehab-assignment/c-289579486 Yeesh. Get well, Adopt-A-Son. / h/t to spycake
  13. Thanks. I had scanned pretty hard a day or two after his start, wanting it for my Adopt-A-Prospect page, but didn't repeat the effort today. Good find.
  14. Moderator's note: OK, I know no harm was intended, but let's go easy on making fun of Asian names please.
  15. OK, can you dig up any info on whether Aaron Slegers's shoulder discomfort flared up again, resulting in a short start the other day? He's listed as on a rehab assignment, so it might have been part of the plan, but he was taken out after a few batters reached base, and that seemed abrupt. (For all I know, he's scheduled to start tonight and I'll have my answer.)
  16. It could be a sign of having taken the first step toward respectability. If a batter's been getting himself out, the pitchers simply stop throwing strikes. So, eventually, you wise up and start taking the walks that are offered. Now, to find out if he can do anything, when the book on him gets re-rewitten a little bit again, and some strikes are offered to him.
  17. I see Stephen as a lock for a call-up by September 1 and am not going to sweat the details until then.
  18. A 3-for-4 night with 3 doubles, against the Lakeland Flying Tigers on August 8, raised Ben's high-A batting average to .250. Unfortunately no one was on base in front of him, and no one drove him in, so his line in the box score looks kind of funny. Still, it's not really his fault they lost 5-1. Pretty nice photo of him in the local fishwrap's writeup of the game:
  19. He'd better have a new-found ability to throw 3 out of every 6 curveballs for strikes, because otherwise the hitters are going to be sitting on his heater. I hope Wilson/Garver have the courage to simply keep putting two fingers down, except the occasional inside fastball, for as long as it takes. I don't think that will work either - I just don't happen to think anything can work.
  20. Do you consider Craig Kimbrel a reliable closer? He's blown 4 saves for the Red Sox this season, versus Rodney's 6. No pitcher is 100% perfect. The Fernando Rodney Experience was never primarily about the blown saves and walk-offs, anyway.
  21. Sure, sure, go ahead and step on a good joke.
  22. Only two, by my count. Opening Day stuck in our minds of course. It happened again in April against the Yankees. And then, amazingly (I would have bet the wrong way also), never again. For almost two months, May 2 through June 28, a stretch of 19 games, he was involved in only winning efforts. July, nearly so. August, nearly so. Yes, a closer's usage pattern has a lot to do with it. Yes, he blew saves, and we remember them painfully. But, it usually wasn't Rodney trudging off the field while the other team mobbed their guy at home plate. Incredibly.
  23. That means you hope the A's are leading in the bottom of the ninth when he comes in, you traitor.
  24. I have a modest proposal: all satirists should be fricasseed and fed to the wealthy.
  25. ashbury

    NERDS!

    These are all fair observations. But this is not the first time strategies have evolved. Note also that the 3-true outcomes are not a "new" game, those elements date back to just about the earliest incarnations of our game. What's new is that other elements have withered. As for evolution... way back when, infielders figured out that if you could intentionally drop a pop fly with men on base, you could score a cheap double play - voila, the Infield Fly Rule was invented to compensate, and it was so successful that few players can accurately state the rule anymore - infielders simply know not to bother with drop-the-ball shenanigans. Another example, at some point late in the 1890s, the running game was being stifled, and the balk rule was added to liven things up. One more: offenses went into the doldrums in the 1960s, and the pitching mound was lowered. We can modify rules, equipment, or ground rules, to take care of today's perceived ills too. Lowering the mound again (reducing strikeouts), deadening the ball 5% (reducing cheap HR), expanding the strike zone just a smidgen (reducing walks), together in careful combination or with additional ideas could reduce the dreaded Three True Outcomes and restore balance.
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