biggentleben

Something funny to consider. The Braves reportedly came to the Twins with J.R. Graham for Denard Span. Terry Ryan countered with Julio Teheran for Denard Span. The Braves (depending on which account you believe) never returned another call from the Twins. The other version of the trade talk has the Braves countering with Teheran and a low level guy for both Span and Hicks, which the Twins walked away irritated from. Either way, the Twins could have Teheran right now and the Braves would not have signed Melvin Upton. Plus, the Twins ended up with Graham anyway, so you could say they got Graham and Meyer for Span rather than just one...

So then where does the fact that one out of the top ten list of the last 5 years had a walk rate above 11%, and only one in the group 20 years ago sported the same thing? Pitches per at bat are significantly down, strikeouts are up, while swinging strikes out of the zone were up in 2014 and 2013 after coming down briefly in 2012 on a league-wide basis. Players are sitting back for the best pitch of the at bat anymore instead of going after the first good pitch they see. That's not an incorrect approach at its base, but it does often lead to more strikeouts when a batter gets two strikes in on pitches that weren't right for him and all of the sudden needs to protect the zone rather than search for a good pitch.

It all depends on your perspective. Frank Thomas overheard that conversation with Smoltz and the other Braves starters, and when he sat down with Smoltz, he talked about how if the zone was taller while he played, his home run number would have had a 6 in front of it because he loved when a guy attempted to go up the ladder. He also talked about how Tony Gwynn would have been a multiple time .400 hitter with a more narrow zone and added high zone. I think one major issue that has been missed recently is how much the swing and miss hitter has really made pitchers better. Baseball's growing acceptance of the strikeout has certainly allowed for a lot more pitching success. Imagine the context - runner on second, bottom of the ninth, tie score. Dennis Eckersly facing one of the top ten hitters of the early- to mid-90s. Eck could reach back for everything he has, and he would have one hitter with a 15+% strikeout rate - Shane Mack, oddly enough, who is #10 in batting average from 1990-1994 among qualified hitters. One other hitter is above 13%, and four guys had higher walk rates than strikeout rates. Craig Kimbrell or Aroldis Chapman facing hitters 20 years later. One guy has over a 20% strikeout rate, 3 are over 15%, and 7 are above 13%. The only guy who walks more than he strikes out is Victor Martinez, and it's by 0.1%. I'd put the odds at at least twice as high that the pitcher would be able to strike out a top ten hitter in that situation currently as 20 years ago, and I think a big part of it has nothing to do with an expanded strike zone - it's hitters swinging and missing a LOT more.

Up and down, absolutely, but side to side, not so much. Now you can have one game anomalies, but the zone umpires are graded on when they're reviewed has gotten taller (by expanding up and down, not just one direction) and leaner in the last decade. Heck, Maddux and Glavine joked with Smoltz at their HOF induction about how with the current strike zone, he'd have been the much better pitcher because of his ability to pitch above the belt.

None of the above. I guess part of being a Braves fan in Twins country is that I didn't develop real baseball disdain, except for the Phillies, but they went and hired a guy from within to bring down their franchise, so it takes the fun away from cheering against them. For me it's always been the BADgers, even before I was a Gopher

I'm curious how Graham's velocity is "surprising". It's certainly not surprising the Twins or anyone who's ever scouted him. He's routinely hit triple digits on the radar gun when he cuts it loose and pitches in the high-90s even as a starter when healthy, but there's the rub - and why he was available in rule V - he is rarely healthy because he throws so hard every single pitch, which is why he hasn't had a full minor league season in his career.

No need to be facetious. It was a flippant comment, I hope, but way too many people actually believe that it is a positive that he's having a surgery now before the draft.

There have been good discussions on a few podcasts I listen to about Rodon possibly taking the old Baltimore Orioles route to the majors where they'd stick a "stud young arm" into the bullpen in a stretch role or in 5th starter role and let him take his lumps in the majors, a la Curt Schilling, Ben McDonald, Mike Mussina, Arthur Rhodes, Jose Mesa, and Armando Benitez (among many others). Sometimes that clarifies a role for a guy as well, like it did with Rhodes and Benitez.

Surgery is never, ever a positive. At all.

No, that's not what they ever said. They never said he needed surgery, just that his medicals showed an abnormally small UCL, which would make recovery from such a surgery much more difficult. They then offered him more than he'll get as the #6 draft pick in order to sign, not that the Twins should be that excited about picking him at #6.

No, I don't think so, but the real issue wasn't that he was doomed to Tommy John, it's that he had an abnormally small UCL, so recovery from Tommy John surgery could be much more difficult and risky. It's still a very risky proposition to take him early as the success rate on Tommy John is certainly nowhere near 100%.

The Braves would trade you Eric Young, Jr. to add in "The Worst" to that combination.

I will say as a guy with very large hands and short fingers, splitters were not hard on my hands nor my arm. A true split finger thrown by someone who has the hands for it is really just spread fingers on a fast ball, which gives it a different spin and final 10 feet of movement.

Instead, I think we, as fans, and we, as baseball (yes, we're not GMs or owners, but we pay their bills by buying tickets/concessions/licensed merchandise), need to re-evaluate what we've changed with our young people who are attempting to hurl a white spheroid at unheard of speeds with physics-defying movement. Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine always could throw 92-95. They simply didn't have to. They were absolute masters of location with multiple fastball grips and (at least in Maddux's case) multiple changeup grips. You put a ball in the spot where no hitter can get great bat on it within the strike zone, and you win every time as a pitcher. Instead of high-end velocity being rare and a finishing tool like a huge breaking curveball, those high-movement and high-velocity pitches are now required of any prospect deemed worthy of moving up a system. I was disgusted when I was asked to be the pitching coach of our local legion ball team two summers ago. In the first session with the pitchers, I worked with them on fastball grips and tons of location drills. After a full week, we'd spent all of about one hour even discussing breaking balls (out of 14-16 hours total time of work during the week), and I had two complaints - 1. How could I know how good a pitcher a kid was if I wasn't allowing them to throw full tilt, and 2. How could I know how good a pitcher is if I'd never seen any of them throw their breaking pitches? Yes, every single one of them at 14 years old was already not just throwing one breaking pitch, but multiple breaking pitches. The crazy part is, in comparison to someone living in Texas or California or Georgia, every one of these kids would be considered low-mileage as far as arm wear because they only pitched about 6 months of the year, not year-round like many young pitchers do starting around age 10. Fix what little league, legion, high school, and college coaches are doing to young pitchers' arms, and you'll fix the TJ issues. /soapbox

That's just silly. With 80% of pitchers (per Baseball Prospectus studies, among others) being able to return at all levels (regardless of performance level returning, which is a much lower percentage), I think even suggesting such things is like suggesting someone remove their testicles because down the road if they happen to get testicular cancer, they will have to lose them anyway. Strong example, I understand, but an apt one in this case. You would never, ever suggest a young person who is typically still not finished growing to have a pre-emptive surgery that is at the moment unneeded. I will allow you to donate to the legal funds for every doctor who would ever make such a suggestion as they will absolutely lose their license.

Minnesota Corn Growers are good folks. My dad was the president of South Dakota Corn Growers for many years, and he loved his Minnesota counterparts.

Reportedly, Liberty University made the Cruz announcement mandatory for students to attend. That school....

Even asking such a question at a press conference is a fine.

I will agree that the foyer and setup of the stadium was tremendous. I loved games there and I loved the way the stadium was set up. It was one of the better stadiums once you were in the grounds, but it was rated as one of the worst as far as safety once you left the park, really because it was tucked into the city - but not into a good area of it. The stadium funding, last I saw anyway, was a municipality-funded stadium and not a state-funded one. Like I said, Cobb County was planning a major overhaul of that area anyway that was going to cost taxpayers, and there will be more foot traffic to possibly make those extra taxes bring extra revenue in the area over parks and a community center being the primary focus of the area. They are already adding in a lot of Comcast advertising to the artist renderings, which tells me the funding expected from Comcast has already been finalized, which was still not 100% as of Thursday, but this link talks about the basics of the deal.

I just cannot agree with the traffic take, especially when you add in the surrounding areas around the stadium. Turner Field was also intended for baseball only at its conception, so I'm not sure what you're referring to. Old Fulton County Stadium, which shared a lot of the same space, was a multi-use facility, but the Olympics came in and solved basically all other facility needs in the Atlanta area, so by the time Turner Field was built, it was only built for baseball. The finances can be spun a few ways. The stadium funding news is very different with the news of the possible Comcast partnership with the new site, but the community was going to be rebuilding the land, so taxpayers were already going to be on the hook for redevelopment of the land.

Interestingly, it's becoming heavily influenced by the combination of a likely new TV deal the same season the stadium opens, led by an offer that likely wouldn't have been there in the previous location. Turner Field was in a terrible location. There is simply nothing around the stadium, and the area around the stadium is not only "boring", it's flat out dangerous late at night. There are numerous abandoned buildings and boarded-up buildings within two blocks of Turner Field. There is some comment that the new stadium is being built in its location to "white it up" as the Turner Field location was more inner city accessible, though it is a mess to get there off of major interstates. The new location in Cobb County will be accessible through multiple interstate exits, and the stadium is only part of a whole community revitalization plan that includes a community center, parks, a shopping center, and other building in the neighborhood. Many of the Braves' trades this offseason seemed to have an eye on 2017, which would be the first season in the new stadium. Now that a new TV contract partner may be willing to buy out the remaining TV contract to set up a deal with the Braves in that new stadium for naming rights and access into the other events that will be held in the stadium throughout the year (concerts, etc.), that 2017 goal looks not only like when the prospects will be ready, but also when the Braves may be able to plug some heavy finances into the team. Many believe the Braves will be major players in this year's offseason, offering players a low 2016 contract for a better overall contract than other teams can offer. With Heyward, Justin Upton, Alex Gordon possibly, and Denard Span free agents this offseason along with guys like Johnny Cueto, Doug Fister, David Price, Jeff Samardzija, and Jordan Zimmermann, the Braves could make a big splash, especially with classes getting weaker by the year in free agency and the reasonable strength of the 2016 group.

If only because of the Expos fiasco, he should never receive praise. Then you add in the deception he was able to pull off on the Miami taxpayer, and he belongs at the bottom of all sports owners, if not at the very bottom.

Loria deserves no praise. Ever. That said, it's nice to see the Marlins actually attempting to have a team for more than one season. As a fan of a team in the division, it's disheartening to talk with Marlins fans who constantly have their hearts torn out and really have no player they have felt comfortable cheering for. Now they have Yelich and Stanton for the next half-dozen years.

Never trust any team from Iowa....

And just like that, the #8 seed in the small class tourney (a team in my alma mater's conference) upsets the #1 seed. Could have conference foes facing off in the second round of the state tournament. Gotta love small school basketball!