chpettit19

The statement from the Rays seemed to suggest that they were showing that they were a welcoming place for all. The statement from Adam sounded awfully contradictory to me as well. It's why I think the Rays screwed this all up. Shouldn't have been in a position for this to become a story at all. Yeah, I got ya. But many people cared over the last couple years when members of MLB teams protested during the anthem for other reasons. They felt the league should've made people stand, etc. I have no idea if the people who said that then are now saying these players should be allowed to refuse the patch or what. But previous protests have been met with great anger. And I agree, they shouldn't have let them play and MLB needs to do something now. The Rays forced the league into a corner and they need to make a stand on the jersey rules now. Again, just a silly situation for them to put themselves in, in my opinion. Things have become so confusing because freedom of religion, speech, whatever has been wielded as a weapon when it fits people's agendas, and been shot down when it doesn't. I'm not making any sort of statement on the player's stances, but I agree with the idea that the Rays screwed this up mightily. This shouldn't be a story. And freedom of religion and speech shouldn't be so complicated, but both sides of our almighty political aisle have bent and broke it to fit their agendas and now here we are.

Correct. Which was a mistake in my opinion, and why I'm arguing that this is a slippery slope.

You can't make that guarantee in any way, shape, or form. Unless you personally know those players, and even then you can just be pretty sure about the people they are. You can argue that their stance doesn't equal hate, but you don't know if they hate anyone or not.

(a) All players on a team shall wear uniforms identical in color, trim and style, and all players’ uniforms shall include minimal six-inch numbers on their backs. (c) No player whose uniform does not conform to that of his teammates shall be permitted to participate in a game. Those are the 2 relevant parts of the MLB uniform rule. The players can absolutely refuse to wear those patches, but they were breaking MLB rules the second they stepped foot on that field.

And every company you've ever worked for could refuse to allow you to work if you weren't willing to follow company guidelines. If your religion stops you from doing certain things that are necessary for a job then you'd be relieved of duty for that time. They can't fire someone for being Christian, Muslim, etc., but if you're unwilling or unable to perform your job duties, or follow company guidelines they're not forced to keep paying you just because you're Christian, Muslim, etc. You can/could have been fired. The players can/could have been stopped from taking the field.

So the question with all this is what the patch stands for. In his statement Adam said he, and his fellow Christian teammates, wanted members of the LGBTQ community to feel safe and welcomed at The Trop, but they didn't feel homosexuality was ok. So does the patch stand for homosexuality being ok or for the Rays organization, and Tropicana Field, being welcoming to members of the LGBTQ community? I assume you're referring to Kapler, who didn't refuse to wear something so I'm not sure of the connection there. Players protested during the anthem a few times, but that's also not the same as not wearing a uniform. To my knowledge there's no set MLB rule on national anthem actions required by players or coaches. Maybe I'm wrong about, though. But there are MLB uniform rules. "All players on a team shall wear uniforms identical in color, trim and style, and all player's uniforms shall include minimal six-inch numbers on their back." Paragraph 3 in rule 3.03 states "No player whose uniform does not conform to that of his teammates shall be permitted to participate in a game." Why were these players allowed to play? Awfully slippery slope I'd say. Freedom of religion means the team, or league, can't force you to do something against your religion, but that doesn't mean they have to let you play. The league has rules and the Rays players broke them. Don't confuse freedom of religion, or speech for that matter, to mean you can do whatever you want without consequences from individuals or companies. You can refuse to wear a work uniform for religious reasons, but you're not legally entitled to still be able to work that job.

This feels like a slippery slope for teams to let their players decide which patches/hats/whatever they want to wear and which ones they don't. What if next year one of them doesn't want to wear 42 for Jackie Robinson day? What if one of them doesn't want to wear the ALS patch for Lou Gehrig's day? As someone mentioned above, what if someone doesn't want to wear the camo hat/jersey for military day? Also mentioned above, what if one of them doesn't want to wear the patch of a team sponsor when those start happening? Where is the line drawn? Which patches/jerseys/whatever are a player's choice to wear and which aren't? To me that's the question. Are the league and teams prepared to give players the option to wear patches or not?

Palacios will go back to St Paul to make room for Correa. Contreras will go back to St Paul and then the question is if they go 14 man staff or 13. If it's 14 they will replace him with a pen arm. If it's 13 I'd think they'd replace him with Kirilloff. If it were me making the decisions I'd bring up Kirilloff for Garlick, Miranda, or Gordon. Probably Miranda so he can get everyday ABs in St Paul. He looks like he's figuring things out at the ML level, but he's still a part time player so I'd put him in St Paul to get everyday ABs. Wouldn't mind Garlick either, but he'd be my second choice. He's not part of the future so I'm not worried about him getting ABs to develop, and he can clearly hit lefties. Gordon has no options left so he'd be my last choice since he does provide flexibility and some speed which I think is helpful for this team. But if Kirilloff is back to being Kirilloff (and looks like he may be) I get him back in Minneapolis as I think he's one of the top 6 or so bats in the org. Moving Sanchez to a more typical starting C role instead of DHing so much would get Jeffers bat out of the lineup and Kirilloff's in. There's a lot of names on the roster who feel like they're really good, but the offense has been bad more than it's been good this year so I don't think it's hard to find ABs for Kirilloff if he's back to being himself.

It was a group of Christian players and Jason Adam gave a statement about their stance. Their stance was that they didn't want to "encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who's encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like He encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage. It's no different." That's the quote from Jason Adam, who I hope saved himself until his wedding night.

Yes, his bias is towards pulling pitchers before they see a good lineup a 3rd time through. That is the organizational philosophy and will not change with a new manager. 3rd time through the order is when the decisions start being made. It's not a set in stone, nobody ever sees a lineup 3 times situation. Each lineup is created different and each pitcher matches up differently against those lineups. The FO and manager gather data on the lineups and pitchers and come up with a general plan before the game starts. Then the manager decides exactly when to pull the plug in the game. There are 100% times when Rocco does something the FO would've done different, but overall they have a plan and Rocco follows it while deciding on precise moves in game based on the parameters set by the FO. There is nothing to debate here. If the FO didn't like how Rocco was doing things they'd fire him. Since they've done nothing but praise him for 3+ years and haven't fired him the only logical conclusion is that he manages the games the way the FO wants him to manage the games.

Exit velos given up by Smeltzer yesterday: 112.3 MPH (Springer HR), 100.4 Kirk GDP, 104.6 (Chapman groundout), 97 (Gurriel groundout), 106.1 (Bichette lineout), 100.4 (Vlad single), 108.9 (Kirk HR). He gave up an average exit velo of 93.3 yesterday in 4 innings. He faced 16 batters and gave up exit velos of 97 or higher to 7 of them. That's 44% of batters he'd faced that hit the ball incredibly hard. He also walked 2 guys. So 56% of guys he faced he walked or they tattooed the ball. I'd argue he wasn't "doing fine," and he was struggling, but getting lucky that they were hitting the ball at guys. Yes, they go into every game with a plan. Every team does. You guys seem to think they're just winging it and it's just up to Rocco and his "feel for the game" to make decisions. That's not accurate. Every major league organization has a plan going into every game and a big picture plan for managing their staff as a whole. Now there's some tweaks and differences in all of them, and they base them on different things, but they all have them. It's why many of us say managers aren't all that important in winning/losing games. A game here or there maybe, but nothing like some suggest. No FO is going to hire a manager who manages in a way they don't like or sees strategy drastically differently. So, again, firing Rocco wouldn't lead to drastically different pen management. At all.

They wouldn't hire a manager who didn't think this way is the right way to do things. This is the way the FO wants a staff run. It's weird that you point out that Rocco has let people go deeper yet your most often used complaint on these threads is that Rocco never lets starters go deeper. The FO and Rocco meet daily. Every single day they talk about the strategy for that day and the games coming up. Rocco is the extension of the FO in the dugout. They hired him because he has the same thoughts on baseball strategy as them. They wouldn't go out and hire someone who thinks things should be done differently. They have a general range that they start looking to take a starter out in. It's then up to Rocco to make a decision on the exact moment based on the criteria range they've developed as an organization. The criteria includes the data points I already presented, plus whether or not they have an off day coming up, how the pitcher has been performing against the guys coming up, their desire to start guys in clean innings as often as possible, bullpen usage on previous dates, AAA pitcher usage from previous days, previous performance of certain pitchers vs certain hitters, the available bench players for the other team, and more that you'd never even think of. These things are all used in big picture pregame discussions before the general outline is given to the starter and pen arms so everybody knows the plan for the day. The pen arms are given a range of hitters that they'll be targeted for use against. The starter is given a general idea of how long their leash is that day. Then it's on Rocco during the game to make decisions on exactly when those changes happen based on a crazy number of factors.

No, I said you wouldn't be happy with the next manager either because this is the way the FO wants things run. And then I explained that there's a whole bunch of stats and data that are used in game to make decisions based on a set of parameters that the FO has put in place.

So your belief is that the FO doesn't believe in pulling starters as quickly as Rocco does (you're on these threads after almost every game complaining about this, so don't try to sell this as a 1 off thing), but they've let him do it for 3+ years? That's the stance you want to take, but you're concerned about my sourcing? At any job you've ever had were you allowed to go for 3+ years doing things in a way that your bosses disliked and they didn't fire you or make you change? Seriously, it's time to step back and take a look at the claim you're making. Yes, he's gone deeper when he was on, so has Ryan, it's almost like they change based on game situations and a whole bunch of factors you don't even know about to make different decisions based on certain overarching principles that are set by the FO as organizational norms. Did you know they measure their pitcher's release point on every pitch they throw in real time? Along with spin rate, velo, spin axis, and extension. Amongst other proprietary blends of stats along those lines that you'll literally never know about.

The front office is Rocco's boss and he's been running things this way for 3 years and they haven't fired him or forced him to change. That's a pretty good place to start.

You wouldn't be impressed with a new manager's usage of pitchers either. This is the organization's strategy, not just Rocco's. If they fire Rocco they'd bring in another guy who also won't let his starters go through the lineup a 3rd time. It's not Rocco's plans, it's the FO. At least complain about the right stuff.

I think Sanchez's pimp job made Gordon think it was at least off the wall if not gone. Sanchez looked like he thought he got it. Still unacceptable on Gordon's part. Shoot, you have a chance to score from 2 on a tag with Springer hitting the wall and not having the best arm in the world.

There's definitely a Jeffrey Dahmer joke in here somewhere...

Agreed. Even if it's just a 3 game stint to test out where he's at against major league pitching. Felt like a perfect opportunity to get him a little run if they could so I hope it's just that he wasn't a possibility.

Found it to be very interesting that he wasn't given a 3 game test run. Question is whether is a vaccination status thing or if they're not trusting him yet.

You'd think Sam would've pushed Dombrowski for some more players with defensive capabilities. Worst part for Philly fans is that Dombrowski isn't exactly known for building great farm systems. He's a spend, spend, spend guy to build major league rosters. So if the major league roster fails (as it looks like it is) he's also likely to leave them with very little on the farm to fix things quickly. Those fans may be in for a long road ahead. And they've already been bad for a decade. But I'm sure Philly fans will handle things with calm and class...

If Kirilloff hits his peak he pushes Arraez, Miranda, Gordon, and Celestino all off their spots (other than Celestino and Gordon playing CF). The real question is if his body will ever allow him to hit that peak. Lewis, Larnach, and Kirilloff all hitting their peaks would make for one heck of a fun team to watch for the next 6 years. Buxton locked up already, and Arraez and Polanco in for many of those years as well. That could be a real fun top 6 with Kepler around for a couple more years as well, so fun top 7. Larnach looks so much more comfortable at the plate now. If he can continue to establish himself as an everyday bat that can play a solid corner outfield it gives the Twins some nice flexibility over the next couple months to try to make some moves to improve other parts of the roster. LF was the biggest ? in my mind (for positions players, obviously pitching was #1 overall) coming into the season and if he can establish himself as the everyday guy that'd be huge. A top 4 of Larnach-Buxton-Kepler with Celestino as the 4th would be huge. Hoping to see Larnach and Celestino continue to establish themselves as solid, or better, major league players.

The Philllies are a fun experiment in what a team with no defense, but some big name bats, can do. So far it's played out like most analytics people were predicting. Real hard to win with a brutally bad defense and not great pitching.

Now you're playing semantics and making the argument that the Twins, and many other major league teams, "lack common sense and an understanding of the realities of baseball" and you lose all credibility. You think the FO hates Rocco using Rogers years previous and now Duran in these kinds of situations and just doesn't stop him? Or do they agree with it and have more data than you can imagine and an entire front office filled with people duing tons of research that suggest you're wrong?

The argument has never been Duran being better or worse than Pagan. Duran is better than Pagan, but that doesn't mean you can never use Pagan. But I'm off to dinner and the theater so I must bid you farewell. Thanks for the debate. Was enjoyable. Have a wonderful night.