RedRamage

So far this year the Tigers have never lost a game when Javy got a walk. Last year the Tigers were 13 and 9 in games with a Javy walk... which doesn't seem all that special except that a 0.590 winning percentage vs. the Tigers over all 2023 winning percentage of 0.481. Clearly the Tigers fate is heavy dependent on Baez's ability to draw walks... which is a bad thing.

Thanks for all this! This is great stuff. Which of course means you now need to do that at the end of each month of the season so we can track this as the summer progresses.

This is kinda what I'm feeling. I'm not expecting HOF caliber hitting just because a coach alters a guys hand position or anything... but it feels like even our guys who were highly touted are hitting, often, well below league average. I'm sure I'm not looking at this 100% objectively, and again I'm certainly not trying to blame ONLY coaches. I know it more complex than that. But I'll just quote kdog again: "Why are Tork, Meadows, and Keith this bad?"

First, let's get the disclaimers out of the way: I know it's early. I know that the Tigers generally start slow. I know the Tigers have a winning record right now, and yes I'm happy about that. I know that hitting is complex and the right answer is going to be multiple people, not just one instance. Okay, all that said: Why so the Tigers suck so bad at hitting? 27th place in OPS, 28th in SLG, 26th in OBP. 9th highest strike out total while tied for 20th in walks drawn. And least you think I'm being too biased on recent play, the Tigers were 28th in OPS last year and 29th in OPS in 2022. I guess I should be happy we're moving up a slot each year?? So where do we start assigning blame? The front office's stance is that we want to control the strike zone. But clearly weren't not. Bottom third of the league in strike outs and just outside bottom third of the league in walks. To be fair the front office is likely hindered by semi-tight purse strings and a bad team, making free agents less thrilled with coming here, so it's hard to get too upset... but it still feels like we have a lot of "meh" players and all we added in the off season was a couple more "meh" players. The coaching staff seems to be onboard with the front office's desire to control the strike zone, but if they're preaching it to players, the players don't seem to be getting the message. I fully understand that these are professional ball players who earn massive amounts of money and should be motivated and working to improve. Sure, fine... but we have coaches for a reason, right? If the coaches can't identify the issues and help the players correct the flaws... or they can and the players are just ignoring them... why do we keep them around? Which of course brings us to the players. Ultimately they're the ones who need to perform at the plate and they aren't. Is it because they don't have the talent? Is it because they're getting bad advice/coaching? Are they forgetting everything they're being directed on before the game and just flailing at the plate? As I mentioned at the beginning I know this is a complex answer that can't be a simple: It's "X's" fault. That said, I feel there is something missing in the coaching staff area. As great as our pitching coaches has done elevating and improving out pitchers, I feel like our hitting coaches bring nothing to the table. If it was one or two or even 5 hitters not getting the job done, I'd look more a the players, but right now we have all of 4 players with an OBP over 800 (and one of those, Perez, has only played in 4 games). We only have one player with double digit talks (Greene) but he's also tied with the most strike outs, beating out even Baez on the team. Everyone has a part of the blame in our woes at the plate, but I can't help feeling like out coaching staff is doing nothing to improve our guys. I'm putting the more blame there than the other two spots.

Wasn't able to pay too much attention to the game this week, but here's my summary from what I did see and looking at stats after the game: Offensively the Panthers finally figured out that you're allowed to score in the first quarter... granted they only got 3 points, but still that's 3 points more than they got in the first quarter in their previous two games. Slow starts for the offense have be a problem with the Panthers, so it's nice to see any points at the start of a game. The 3 point of course came off Jake Bates foot, but it was a paltry 46 yard FG, so nothing special at all. The Panthers got a TD later in the 2nd qtr and finished the half with a 55 yard Bates FG. In the 3rd qtr the Panthers exploded, scoring their 1st of 3 TDs this quarter in the first 23 seconds of the second half. They didn't do much in the 4th qtr but entering that spot they were leading 34 to 14, so it's pretty clear they were trying to milk the clock more than trying to score. Defensively after a lackluster game last week, they pick thing up quite a bit this week. They did another very good job of stopping the run, allowing just 63 yards on the ground. Only 2 sacks, but 7 tackles for a loss, so that was nice to see. Just like the offense the Panthers were hot in the 3rd qtr defensively. (Maybe Campbell should check in with them... maybe get some tips on 3rd qtr play?) After the Roughnecks got into the RedZone on a great return by the Roughnecks, the defense held them to a FG. On the next drive the defense forced a 3 and out. The Roughnecks are now 0-3, so the Panther should have beat them, so maybe it shouldn't be considered any great accomplishment. But they handled the opposition well and had a nice solid win. This was a good bounce back game after the shellacking they took last week against the Stallions (3-0). Next week is the first road game of the season for the Panthers. It will still be indoors but we'll see if Bates can keep his kicking game strong when on the road. It's a Saturday Game at 7pm. The following week with be Bates first time kicking outdoors in Memphis.

Just a 55 yarder so far for Bates... meh.

I'm not saying that someone for sure messed up on the dimensions of this desk... but I'm certainly say it's possible they did.

But it's not in the best interest of the UFL to allow that. This isn't like the Major League/Minor League situation for a number of reasons: The minor leagues aren't relying solely on themselves to be profitable. They are subsidized by MLB to a large degree. They can lose star players without having to worry that the league could fold because not enough people are watching it. The UFL/NFL seasons don't line up. You can't have a player get his experience playing in the minor leagues and then call him up to the Majors if he's needed. Football is a much more violent sport and injuries are far more likely. An NFL team isn't going to want to "season" a player in the "minors" in football when there's a relatively high risk of that player's career ending on any given play. For these reasons the UFL doesn't want players getting poached mid-season and the NFL isn't going to want to sign a guy, but let him still playout the rest of the season in the UFL.

Just for the fun of it, I looked up his Draft analysis on NFL: How the heck is he the brother of Amon-Ra? Like competitiveness is the default setting for ARSB. On a purely side note... it's probably WAAAAAAYYYY too late to consider this, but I wonder if ESB might have made a good safety? It seems the biggest knocks on him (outside of the competitiveness) are directly related to receiver things: His routes aren't crisp and he doesn't have great ball catching skills. His strengths include: Early push into routes with quickness to decelerate and open and uncover on comebacks. Effortless glider. Much faster than he looks. Easy maneuvering around route traffic. Staccato footwork provides above average change of direction without slowing. Seems like things that would be good for a DB.

This makes sense from a UFL stand point. As I've said earlier, Bates is an unusual case because the risk of injury to a kicker isn't super duper high. Obviously it can happen, but it's less likely. However, a RB, for instance, is a different story. A RB had a few break-out games and an NFL team wants to give him a shot. They're gonna want him to quit the UFL right away, and the player will want that too. Both the NFL and the player would want to remove the chance of injury and a player will immediately jump for the league minimum NFL salary vs. UFL salary. So I'm sure this is a UFL contract thing that they put in to protect the league. They don't want to see their star players getting poached mid-season. Edit to add: I'm gonna guess the reason that NFL teams are allowed to talk to UFL teams is two fold: 1. It's a 'neutral' way for the NFL to get more info on a player without the NFL being able to influence the player directly. This helps the perception that the UFL is a way for players to showcase themselves for the NFL and makes players more willing to sign with the UFL. 2. It helps with the perception that the UFL is a minor league for the NFL... assuming they want that perception. If the Lions, for example, are in regular communication with the Panthers about various players they'll start to build a relationship.

Panthers looked really poor in yesterday's game. Kudos to the defense for not breaking... forcing 4 FGs when the Stallions were in or near the Red Zone. But the offense just couldn't get going at all. The OL was so bad that the a Sorsdal with a broken leg would have still been the best player on on that line. Passes were not crisp at all... mostly floater that had as much chance of ending up in the defense's hands as they did in the offense's. The offense has two key turn overs in the game too which killed momentum. Panthers have never had much of an OL. I strongly suspect that Holmes is casting some sort of Voodoo magic that is draining away OL talent from the locker room during the USFL/UFL seasons and then transferring it to OL players during the NFL season. The Panthers have never had a great QB either... but it's sorta hard to judge how much of that is the QBs and how much of that is the wet paper bags that they are using for OL players right now. I mean serious the Stallions had 7(!!) sacks in the game, and 8 tackles for a loss. The Panther's lost 91 yards via sack or TFL! The one really star for the Panthers though was of course Bates who had a 62 yard FG to end the first half that went through easily. Late in the 3rd Qtr he was called on again, but this from the chip-shot distance of only 52 yards... which he of course made as well. (Imagine kicking a 52 yard FG and it brings down the average yards per kick of your pro career.)

And Bates does it again! 62 yards.

Yeah but... 1. Jameson was caught gambling on non-NFL games. Two others who were cut were caught gambling on NFL games. The other person who was gambling on non-NFL games was Stanley Berryhill who was really a "fill up the roster depth for training camp" guy... he was on 3 different practice squads in '22, nowhere in '23, in the UFL and CFL in '24. His position on the roster was so tenuous that if he farted at the wrong time he might have been cut. 2. Gambling =/= domestic violence ... and no, I'm NOT saying you were saying they were the same. I'm quite sure you don't view them the same way. My point is only that we don't know for sure if the Lions would have kept Jamison if it was domestic violence/running from the police instead of merely gambling from the wrong place. Edit to add: Thinking about it some, I do think the Lions probably keep Jamison is he was betting on NFL games, so I do think they'll accept some level of "bad" if a player is talented enough. That's not surprising of course. The only question is how much "bad" will they tolerate?

100% this. I agree absolutely with this. The warrant alone isn't enough for me to say the guy's a bum. All the other stuff associated with it is what makes me think the guy's a bum.

Yes but it's still evidence presented without defense. Look, I'm not trying to argue that Sutton shouldn't've been arrested here. Nor am I arguing that arrest warrants should be argued and defended before they are issued. That's not the purpose of an arrest warrant. I'm just saying that it's entirely possible that the evidence looks worse than it really is or that the part of the evidence (ie statements made to police) could be false. That's why after the arrest the case goes through the court system.