gehringer_2

Let's hope he was right that it was the most important call of his political career because it ends it. ETTD.

Miller blows again. Loses his first batter after 0-2, gets ambushed by the 2nd. Then give up a steal and a WP. Shelby is really hard to like.

so tonight he is 2/2 + a sac fly: singe and double. Pulled the double to left at 109 EV off a 94mph FB. Sac fly pulled to left at 99 EV against 95 mph FB. Single up the middle at 102 EV against a 92 mph FB. So it's not like the ability isn't there - it's a matter of developing consistency and keeping the aggressive approach where he's hunting FBs.

well, we'll see how they play. They tanked in '17 after the sell off. but I won't deny sometimes a team can go into "us against them mode." They're in a tailspin right now they need to get out of and Ragans isn't helping the cause.

Skubal not sharp. something about Dickerson which I find an irritating bit of homerism is how at times when a Tiger is not performing particularly up to expectation (like Skubal right now) he starts quoting all kind of stats about how good he has been, as though the fact that Skubal's low ERA coming into the game was magically going to take KC runs off the board. I don't know if he thinks that make the listener feel better about things or something - at any rate I don't get it, and to me it just accentuates that things aren't going well.

there is such a thing as throwing too many 1st pitch strikes.

JHM for 2.

2nd quarter GDP is already in at 2.8% so by the classic two down quarters paradigm you can't call a technical recession before the election, not that will stop the hollering if the 3rd quarter is down.

Serious burn there

Yeah - I liked Weber. I guess working till the day you drop dead isn't the worst thing if you like your work and can still do it.

It should have been yesterday - they are behind the curve, know it, and are aggressively proud of it.

Sad truth is that in today's American legal system, $259K is cheaper than trying to litigate your innocence so a settlement in that range doesn't tell you if the person was guilty or just practical.

Well posted. It just highlights the level of ignorance the cultural warriors start from.

In fact he was so close to the truth that he nailed the reason Arafat would never sign a deal - because Yassir knew the radicals would get him if he ever turned hard on them.

Awesome.

it was actually almost funny, the 1st week after he went down I don't think the Hens saw a single pitcher that threw more than 90, but that finally started to ever out. By my perusal of the gamedays, he has hit some velo. But my biggest complaint with Tork has been that I want to see him stop taking fastballs for called strikes - you can't hit 'em if you don't swing at 'em. Hard to tell without some stats collection whether he's being significantly more aggressive or not.

If you've played team sports you have to know what a downer it is to lose good players, it's bad enough when it's injury, worse when the team does it by choice. You don't think the guys on the field feel the difference bettween going out there behind Jack Flaherty and Beau Brieske? I'll take my turn to say 'C'mon' Hopefully there will be some lift when Tork, Green and Meadow come back - Tork for all his performance issues does seem to be at team leader along with Green.

Guys care about their careers, but that still has to fight uphill against team management creating/adding to a depressing situation to come to work in - it becomes a drag on everyone's mental state. You know the old line about the highest performing org are those where everyone is rowing in the same direction, etc. Players want to win, they don't care about team 5 yr plans. OTOH - it's probably great for getting performance from guys who can't play under pressure when/if they ever get to more competitive situations.....

Lat strain. They IL'd him on the 19th.

that's easy to say, but it's just human reality that a competitor with no reasonable chance to compete can't give you his best. It's the situation that drives those competitive hormone releases. There are individuals who probably aren't affected but when you take a whole team, some effect is inevitable. And some of it is more objectively real. When you can't pitch and are always behind, it snowballs - you take pressure off the other staff, give the opposing manager more options to use against you.

the street will love the cost cutting, but if their route back to relevance is investment to catch up to TMSC and they cut thier CapEx plans to chase quarterly valuation, they are punching their ticket to being IBM V2.0

IDK - for a while I was watching his AB's to see if he was being more aggressive on strikes early in the count and it was maybe some days yes, maybe some days not so much. The increase in his walk rate this month is striking though - could be he's done something to get quicker to the ball to give him more time on his pitch recognition but that's purely speculative. He had high walk rates in college and the minors but was never consistently above 10% in the majors. If he sustained a higher walk rate on his return that would be worth something.

Six times leading the league in OPS+ is going to get anyone a lot of votes, but they'll still be folks who think the counting stats are not enough (<2000 hits, <400 HR through the rabbit ball era) - but he's still got time to work on that if he can put together a couple more healthy years.

certainly. But if the walk rate against MLB pitching ends up 10% and he looses 20pt of the BA on the transition, he'd be close to where he was when they sent him down. I think I'd like to see another 50+ AB with the Hens, but my guess is that he's coming back up quite soon.

Ouch.