gehringer_2

No - I agree with the way you put here - that is what I meant as well. Yes - they would have been dropping the ball, which is what argues that it is not the case.

IDK - I'd like to think there is a hitter in there still waiting to get out. He has a beautiful swing and such easy power. maybe that last NCAA season where pretty much everyone walked him all the time put him down the wrong path? Who knows? it's like he either can't see the need, or maybe doesn't have the confidence to believe he can go get pitches and do damage instead of over thinking what he wants to swing at. But as has been noted, if what Tork happens to need in his unique case is to learn to become more of a hacker, that might be a hard lesson to find help with in this org right now.

There isn't one. If something is going to change someone has to occupy Gaza who has the military where-with-all to keep squashing Hamas long enough for their light to finally flicker out, but even then, it still depends does depend on whether the locals are on board. Look at the US experiences in the ME- as bad it was and as inept as we were, in the end we sat on Iraq long enough to crush Al Qaeda but couldn't do the same in Afghanistan with the Taliban. Why? Because in the end most Iraqis were tired of war and crazies and were with us against Al Qaeda, but the same was never true in enough of Afghanistan. And to TBH, it didn't hurt that the US and Iran were basically on the same side against Al Qaeda in Iraq as opposed to the converse here.

For starters, I'm going to guess they need to get him with an instructor that connects with him.

I was actually surprised when I looked back at the numbers how poorly he had hit at Toledo. HRs yes, which I guess is what we were all looking at, but that was it.

It can't because they just kill their internal opposition. It's like expecting Xi or Putin to fall from the inside. It's not that hard to prevent if you kill enough people, and killing is something Hamas has as little compunction about as you will find anywhere.

Did you reverse what you meant to ask? I said I think the org thinks he can be better. Hinch has talked about Torkelson being a good hitter on numerous occasions. Certainly if they didn't think that I can't see what reason there was for them to give him so much rope this season.

I would say he had an idea that was reasonable from one aspect, but ended up being wrong in toto. I remember early on in the push to overload the receiver corp discussion about how if you could force a team into having to cover a #1 level receiver with a their #3 CB, you would dominate on the mismatch. Maybe true as far as it goes. The problem is that Millen missed the converse - which is that no football team is better than their weakest link position group, and overloading at one position leaves your weakest links weaker, and you end up more exploited than exploiter. The best football teams are the most balanced where you can't attack them anywhere easily from either side of the ball. So in the end I think Millen did not have a good concept once you zoomed out to consider the impact on the whole team. And the proof is in the contrast to how Holmes got the team to the Conference final by making it a priority to keep filling the weakest holes.....well except for kicker maybe.

The thing is, looking back at it, Torkelson was never a decent hitter in the minors before they called him up. He's been 'unfinished' from the get go. When he made the team in 2022, he had only ever hit 239 in Toledo the prior season, and then when they sent him back down in 2022 he still didn't get above 230 at AAA before they brought him back again. So he did hit a bunch of HR in 2023, he still never got his OPS to 800. So he has never shown sustainable skill as a hitter in the 1st place. All we can hope now is that it isn't too late at this point for him to learn to do what he should have learned to do 2/3 yrs ago, command more of the strike zone.

Can we arrange to have Javy only hit with the game on the line?

The beatings will continue until morale improves, right? 😉 Sure there is line somewhere between being George Steinbrenner and demanding no accountability at all, but if the org didn’t believe Tork was capable of a lot more, maybe they should have moved on- and done something to fill the hole. The tough calls are also of the job. The thing is I do believe they think he can be good hitter, so at some point there should be some level of accountability for not being able to help him more effectively.

This seems so obvious but I don't hear any of the people inside the system talking about it, which is depressing.

You pay MLB staff big bucks because just like the players, they are supposed to be the best in the world at what they do. It may be a hard task, but that's the portfolio. Pro sport is not an excuses business - figure it out or get people who can.

Obviously we don't know what goes on that we don't see. Hinch claims Torkelson is a tireless worker, which you can believe based on his improvements with the glove, but the question is *what* is he working on with the bat? It's very hard at this point to accept the premise that Tiger coaching is helping Torkelson and that leads to the conclusion that one of two things is true, either a) he is too stubborn to change a failing approach he is over committed too, or b)whatever it is the Tigers are advising him is just not the right answer for him. I suppose at this point whichever is true, maybe Toledo is in order because in case a) it should get his attention, or in case B, he'll get a different perspective from different coaches (hopefully). Even the guys in the booth are putting out there that Tork has to be more aggressive early in the count. Given the Tiger media ecosystem that tends to make me believe they are getting that direct from Hinch, but that is just a guess. But now it's looking like even more than than now - he has to improve his plate coverage as well, and maybe that is going to take some swing retooling - IDK.....He's a messed up puppy right now.

It’s the old axiom: When you know there’s a con, and you don’t see the mark, you are the mark.

the hate is manufactured to draw the peons into the movement.

And just to finish the thought, Hinch constantly talks about Torkelson swinging at better pitches, but to me that's exactly backward for Tork. He is already too selective. Tork has to stop looking for 'his pitch' and decide that more balls in the strike zone are going to be 'his pitch' and go get them. You can't give pitchers 70% of the zone and hit with any success in the majors.

No, that's just exactly it, they love nothing but themselves, their own wealth, their own prerogatives. They're people for whom enough is never enough, and whether the world burns bothers them not as long as it's burning somewhere they don't have a beach house. The parallels to the French Ancien Regime would be apt. And with any luck their fates will be similar, at least metaphorically if not physically.

Fouled off a middle-middle slider in that AB. From a mechanics standpoint, I would suggest he needs to become more comfortable hitting across more of the zone. If you look at Torkelson's heat map what jumps out is how small a zone he is doing damage in this season, even smaller than last season which was not large to begin with. By comparison his hot zone is about 1/2 the size of Carpenter's. So maybe it's chicken and egg, but he has to get more aggressive in more of the strike zone and he has to be able to hit strikes in more of the strike zone. He's not doing either.

Pretty good argument for why Hamas has to be completely defanged before anything positive can happen. The problem remains the insane level of tribalism inside Muslim/arab cultures. The public knows that Hamas is destroying theirs lives, but the public at large will still not sell out Hamas to Israel. Pretty much just like someUS Repubs.

I still don't get why people think fans of college football are going to stay interested when the players are all mercenaries with whatever little connection was still left to the University communities of their teams now completely severed. It's going to be minor league pro-football where the teams just happen to be named for US colleges. I suppose they'll find a way to make it fly but I sure don't have any interest left in it. Or lets put it this way - the base of support of college teams was once students and alums and the university community. If whatever it is you want to call what we have now thrives, it will be because it's embraced by the general (or possibly betting) public - I don't see school sponsored pro sport retaining all that much traction from inside the schools - at least most schools - that it grew up with.

Another bad day for Torkelson. Ahead 3-0 in that AB, took a pitch he should have swung at, got multiple additional fastballs reasonably center cut, couldn't barrel up any, then had to swing at a pitchers pitch low and it and made a weak out. In the 2nd AB he was immediately down 0-1 (at least it was on a good pitch) and was fooled on a low change up. In the 1st AB, he took the best pitch of the AB for a strike on the 1st pitch. Whatever process he is trusting, he needs to figure out that it is broken, quickly. His claims his matra is only swing at what you can drive, but he consistent takes better pitches than he swings at. It's his whole problem in a nutshell. Don't see how the brain trust can watch what he is doing right now and not see the issue, or more likely they do, how they are not fed up with him not responding to coaching enough to send him down.

Of all people, the other day Ted Cruz was talking about legislation to create new ground rules (apparently he played college ball?).

that should do it for this one. You shouldn't be out of a game at Fenway down 4, but this team is.

Love this. I'm sure a lot more people in MAGA land listen to CC than read the NYT.