ashbury

Wait, the batter is permitted to run to first base immediately on a pop-up? This changes everything!

Is that what happened? I don't think I'd second guess a coach reading the riot act to a player who engaged in even minor insubordination, either. Anyway, "never" is a strong word. Maybe I didn't add my usual volume of qualifiers in what I wrote there.

Well done!

The minor leagues are for learning what little gaps to exploit. Those gaps become fewer in number as they rise to the majors, but I want my players looking for them nonetheless. If you force it and the other guys don't make the play, that's something to remember. Later, as you move up, you force it and the other guys do make the play; you remember that too. Then, at the majors, you hopefully have learned what works and what doesn't. But, never losing that aggressive instinct is a good thing. I'm not going to second guess a play that worked, when it's in single-A.

Taking nothing away from the Kernels' pluck in winning the game, but that was a highlight reel of atrocious fielding by the Quad Cities guys. Bobbled pickups, bounced throws... I guess learning is what single-A is for.

Guess what trait those other top-ten catchers almost* all seem to share? I know, shocking, right? * Besides Pudge

When he passed Hall of Famer Bill Dickey last year, Joe reached #10 all-time in Hits, among players who caught in at least 50% of their games. Playing catcher is hard! Except for Jason Kendall and A.J. Pierzynski, who were themselves very good in their own ways, everyone else in the top 10 is a no-doubter of a Hall of Famer. Getting base hits is the fundamental skill in baseball. Let's appreciate 2000 for what it is.

There have been many great-hitting catchers with long careers. No one who played more than 50% of their games at catcher, not even whoever you may think was greatest, has ever gotten 3000 hits. It's a superhuman feat to be assuming of anyone, even without the concussions.

Had to have been some prior buildup. Rendon was called out on strikes in the first inning, too; I didn't find video of that. The bat toss by itself is borderline, but no ump likes to be shown up. OTOH that strike-three pitch when the ejection occurred looked pretty low. If the umpire is calling it that way to punish the batter for griping in the first inning, in effect daring him to say a word, well, I don't support that kind of umpiring.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Kav8e-CDtIU/Sx576ByGwaI/AAAAAAAAAgY/ItYTlenzyxA/s400/sad+monkey.jpg

If I'm a manager, I'm not too proud to use a little serendipity to send a message through a move I was going to consider making anyway. It allowed Molitor to do it without completely throwing the player under the bus. I don't remember Rosario sitting routinely against lefties, but I'd have to check the record and I'm not gonna. / edit - it seems like I am thread-jacking, but in my defense it's a Twins-oriented digression.

Enjoy this warm weather while we can. Winter will be back soon.

Molitor wasn't as quick to forgive. He gave Rosario's job to the immortal Ryan LaMarre. That lasted for only half a game, and could be covered by the fig leaf of "a lefty starting pitcher", but I'm pretty sure a message was transmitted, and furthermore was received loud and clear. I also doubt that race (much less racism) had anything to do with Molitor's lineup decision, just to circle back to the thread topic.

OP apparently has inside information on this season's scripted outcome.

b-r.com has the data on career earnings: https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/leaders_salaries.shtml $100M at the moment corresponds to approximately #100 of all time, or just past. (The site's salary numbers aren't as well-vetted as their batting/pitching numbers, but I don't know of a better source.) Whether 100 is "few" or not probably depends on perspective.

Magic Number is only 147, per RIOT. That's because divisional rivals play each other 19 times, so that many wins would mean at least 10 came at the expense of any given Central team. Woo hoo for Math!

A very nice first-game result. I can't imagine anything but a pre-defined pitch count that ended his work this game.

I'm sorry to press on this, but I just don't see 'privilege' as a useful term in this area. The first online dictionary I tried uses this definition: a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people. Most people have two eyes. The few who are blind in both eyes have a definite detriment, but that doesn't make all the fully-sighted operating under a privilege. Nearly by definition, in most scenarios a majority group in a population can't have a privilege. Why does that matter? Talking about privilege changes the course of the conversation. There is an undercurrent that a job applicant walks in, the boss says "hey, I notice you're white, how about a well-paying job?", and the deal is done. It's one thing to acknowledge the obstacles far too many face; it's another, to use language that suggests things are made artificially easy for the larger group. If we're looking for solutions that matter, rooting out privilege when it's defined so loosely leads down blind alleys. I want to root out obstacles: people who would burn churches, police who react out of fear instead of bravery, bosses who say "hey, I notice you're black, get outta here" (never so explicitly anymore, of course). I've had an easy obstacle-free life; I want that for as many others as we can possibly manage, because more gets accomplished that way. Point out ways to do that, and I'll help. Focus instead on white privilege, and my head swivels around looking in vain for what possibly should be done to make lives worse for some people. I hope you see that I am no-way no-how defending what is called white privilege, or asking to keep the status quo. I just think that words matter. I'm going to go out on a limb, and opine that making people feel guilty for just going about their lives is a good deal of the reason we have an ex-reality show star as president.

How about exit-velocity?

Ben is day-to-day with a swollen knuckle after getting hit by a foul tip in the ninth inning of the season-opener versus Quad Cities. He went 0-4 at bat. TD's Tom Froemming watched the game on the tube and remarked on several nicely handled pitches with runners on third.

Let me take another swing at this. 3 thoughts: the bad BABIP luck was countered by pretty good pitching out of trouble luck after the first inning, plus relief help. the problem wasn't BABIP, but BIP. He struck out only 3 of 23 batters and walked 1. when I was paying attention, he wasn't getting beat on good pitches. The eye test confirmed the line score, for me.

Mistakes were made. Such as a changeup over the middle of the plate.

I warned you long ago that amputations take time to heal. Look for Ervin "Four-Finger" Santana to make his 2018 debut in September.

I watched on teevee, and he had his usual command, which is to say nil.

"Biased" views are welcome in Adopt-A-Prospect. And you provided us some real flesh-and-blood behind the scouting reports. Welcome!