gehringer_2

Raskin is a gem. I hope his health holds and he's around for many years.

I've had a suspicion for a long time that there is something wrong with the way the Tigers/Hinch manage and prep hitters, but the one thing I've almost never found my self wondering about with Hinch is his pitcher management. He is really damn good at it and if the Tigers have any chance at all that will be one of the reasons why.

Right now there is almost nothing to pick between Foley, Lange, Chafin and even Vest. Hinch has his match-up tables that's pretty much as complicated as it gets. Foley had a nice stretch early when he was lights out but in general he does gives up contact. He wanted LHP to close against a heavy LH team and the RH hitter in the mix got him. You can't use pitchers for one hitter anymore - that's life. There was nothing wrong with Hinch's decision matrix (haha - listen to me defend Hinch). He put them in a position to execute and they didn't. They gave up 2 errors and had 7 hits and no walks in 10 innings. You won't win many on the road against a 600 team with that output esp without the long ball.

Every run counts the same. Without looking it up , I'll guess no pitcher in MLB history has thrown for full season with a zero ERA. You can hope for shutouts from starters and and perfect innings from relievers but if you count on them you're gonna be in hurt. When you go 6 innings at a time without scoring a run you're going to lose a lot of games.

and Jake threw the ball into CF after Wentz stupidly threw over there a 2nd time. That run was just as costly as the HR into a short corner with the wind blowing out.

Tiger righthand power hitter won't go to right, makes an out. Cleveland hitter goes with the pitch and ties the game. Tigers lose the mental competition.

you could have bet the farm that the 3-1 pitch to Torkelson was going to be exactly what it was - outside fastball. But would Tork think the game and sit outside? Of course not - he gotta get something to pull. So instead he's forced to swing at 3-2 out of the zone that he can't get too. Baseball players have to be the dumbest athletes.

they keep hoping that with distance from the injury that they are going to start seeing Kelly circa 2019, but it doesn't seem to be happening. If they accept that it won't, Rogers' PT should go to more like 2/3. Or else Hinch will just be stubborn.

or maybe it was this guy -

all those years with Leyland, Ausmus and Gardenhire, the sky had to falling to see both catchers in the game. Hinch says - hold my beer, dummies. I remember Ausmus especially always drove me crazy - putting his team at a disadvantage to cover some incredibly small probability situation - apparently just to be able to prove he was smart enough to game out some scenario that was never going to happen anyway.

hard to figure whether it's worse if it's true or false....

Because he's given you 8 bases in the last 3 games. No-one in the system other than Riley can do what Torkelson can do at any time the switch flips for him, so you give him more rope than anyone else in the system short of Riley. Even with his head screwed on wrong right he is still hitting doubles. In Keith's case, his AB are pretty good, he's having absolutely terrible BaBIP luck. His expected BA is 240, which ain't great but passable for a 2B you need to let develop. Meadows needs mechanical work on his swing, he was swinging under everything. That's a good task to do in the minors, plus Perez is playing well so far.

On base twice was nice but to me it was still depressing to see Tork still so totally committed to pulling the ball so excessively. In fact, he is catching it so far in front it's going to be hard to ever get it in the air enough to get it out of the ball park - assuming that is what is trying in the worst way to do. For tomorrow, BP look OK. Holton is spent, Faedo: probably don't want to use but could (17P; 2-U&D); Lange maybe (20P), Chafin (11P and the rest are good to go.

Cle had 8 LH hitters in the line-up. If there was ever a night when an Opener would have been in order. Give Holton the 1st pass through the line-up - or the 1st two innings - whichever comes 1st, then go to Kenta. Might have been a different outcome for Maeda....or not. 🤷‍♂️

not losing ground feels like win.

Chafin, Foley and Miller have all had their issues recently, so Lange doesn't feel any worse. The 3 batter rule is the hard part for a guy prone to wildness - you can't yank him after the 1st walk and he's shown you he's clearly gonna be wild.

Well, I wanted to give you an opportunity for a plug...... Actually, you can get to his transaction page and so far it they haven't updated it, but I get the impression that is not unusual....

LOL - Can't check roster status for the Hens - the 'Roster Link' on their website has been broken for at least a few days.

I suppose the judge would be within his rights to convene the court and send Marshalls out to bring him in.

another point about Parker's swing vs his K's. He is so under the ball right now that if can make the adjustment to get closer to center, he is also going to end up cutting down on his absolute swing and miss, so while I wouldn't say I'm optimistic he eventually comes back as a MLB hitter, I can at least see a path for him to make the changes to get there.

exactly - it really doesn't matter if Daniels what says today is objectively true, all that matters to the case is whether she is accurately depicting what she would have said in 2016. As a practical matter any witness lying doesn't help the case of the side that presents them, but here the prosecution can still get a net positive spin if they can make the arg as given above work.

You are right - Parker is above average walk rate for the TIgers (they were 8.3% as a team last season) - he's keep around 12% even so far this season - but it is his BaBIP that's killing him - 132 for the season so far! Last season his FB rate was 42%, it's a whopping 75% so far this year and it's coming at the expense of his LD%, which is terrible (2.5%). To me this is exactly the kind of situation where you hope a guy can step back and reconstruct himself a little at AAA, whereas in contrast I think Tork's problems are all between his ears. Maybe facing easier pitchers would help him, but I don't think it improves the odds of him straightening out the way it could with Parker who may need more room to fail with a swing adjustment.

10 walks is optimistic for a guy with a 40% k rate, but sure, it just about doable, but sadly Parker’s other problem is a very high pop-up rate, which depresses his BaBIP! I’d picked Parker as the most likely demotion just because he needs a mechanical adjustment to get the ball down and that’s a good MiLB project.

It's a three step tie in. A is the need to show that what Daniel's says damages Trump as a candidate, B) establishing A provides the motivation that the payoff is a campaign necessity. C) In denying the payoff was a campaign expense in legally required financial disclosures a felony was committed. A->B->C = felony. Judge has to let prosecution follow A at least up to where the point Is made.

I think too many baseball observers, and maybe even people on the inside who should know better, can get hung up on individual pitch type outcomes. The outcome is always the result of the sum of everything the batter sees. There is a always a limit to how much you can isolate the value of the properties of any given pitch from its fit in the the pitcher's repertoire and sequencing. Change-ups are maybe the most obvious case. If any pitcher just stood on the mound and threw his change 100% of the time his OPS against would soon be about 1200. All changeups are easy to hit pitches if taken in isolation. But depending on how it plays against the spreed and break of the fastball or breaking balls before it, the exact same pitch can become unhittable (e.g. Skubal). The pitch didn't change, only the context.