gehringer_2

it not yet established Hill can hit enough to stay on an MLB roster - or even ever stay healthy long enough hold his spot. I could see Greene being held back long enough for them to decide which of Reyes and Hill gets the 4th OF spot - or just carrying 5 OF early in the season when they might not need the extra pitcher. And of course also will no doubt depend some on what the three of them do in ST.

Greene and Torkelson still finishing well. 2/4 for Greene tonight, 1/3 2B for Tork. OPS 904 and 877 respectively.

Michigan cases still trending upward - slowly - but clearly still upward to 3384/day. Vaccinations have picking up some, over 170K last week.

I really hope Baddoo's terrible arm is still residual from this TJ surgery. If he can't improve his throwing it's going to be dent on his potential value.

Jimenez keeps getting rope because he has great stuff - but he is 26 and his command just keeps getting worse. I think he has an option left - I'd put him in AAA in 22 to work on it but they may be short enough of BP arms next season to give him a roster spot out of ST

We can hope.

he's hit for high average before - I wouldn't argue that the bat to ball skill is real, but he's not going to walk and he's probably not going to hit for much power so yes - even the optimistic reading is 4th OF. But that's fine, we need a decent 4th OF.

and he wasn't even the key to the trade - that was Austin Jackson, who was considered can't miss - Max was still a crapshoot. And AJ did start out like he was going to have an awesome career. Austin put up 19 WAR in his 1st 4 seasons. Then he just got done in by a bunch of nagging injuries starting with the hamstring issues. Maybe because he was following Curtis but I feel like few people realize what an impact player Jackson started out to be.

My guess is they stand pat on pitching all the way around, meaning that they accept arbitration or sign Boyd, make Peralta a reasonable offer (though in his case it takes two to tango - he could make other plans), and pencil Alexander in as the last starter. And try to sign at least one more 'disposable' guy. The other possibility is moving Fulmer back into the rotation, but I don't see the potential BP depth that might make that likely. That's the kind of thing that they could consider if they get lucky and say Wentz and Faedo are both ready for BP roles.

There is nothing wrong with a single GFCI protecting more than one outlet if the pass through wiring is done right. The guy was just hassling you or more likely didn't know his own ****. Some of the stuff in the codes is beyond silly anymore though - the system has become largely one big employment program for contractors.

Valenti banged on Tua's drum for months leading to that draft. But IIFC, he didn't have much to say about Herbert.....

Lynn is not only crazy but he is wrong. If Tork and Greene hit at all as they project in the majors then add Candy, Schoop, Baddoo and Grossman plus Haase's HR pop and the bat that comes with your SS upgrade and you have plenty of offense for today's MLB. Certainly enough to where the marginal value of another good arm is far greater than the marginal value of another bat. But Avila knows that even if Lynn doesn't. The problem with the Tiger offense right now is too much Niko and Willi, and I predict the odds of either of them getting much playing time next season is close to zero.

If you did a movie with sharks today, they'd have to be the good guys.

Alexander is rounding into a back of the rotation guy that can keep you in a ballgame. That's nothing to sneeze at for a team that is down to only 2 starters who are a lock for next season. Nice to see Paredes hitting the ball to both sides. I know there are all kinds of knocks on his game but I still think he's going to have an MLB career somewhere.

Cabrera now with 26 hits in 21 games in Sept, good for a 347 BA. He got to this form just a couple of weeks too late to get to 3000 this season.

con't: net result being more HRs, more Ks, lower BAs

OK - that helps explain things a bit. So Niko apparently did bitch at Abreu. I couldn't really tell from the video what he had done that set Jose off. Visually it just looked like Niko was backing away and it wasn't clear he had said anything. In fact at first I thought Abreu might have been mad because Niko groined him with the tag, but on replay that didn't appear to be the case either.

Unfortunately the SO just made plans for us to watch this game with friends, so I'm not going to be able to escape watching what I fear is going to be depressing....🙈🙉🙊

I'm not sure what authority a state could claim to bar someone from running for re-election to Congress based on a term limit. Article II is pretty clear: "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members". I think federal Congressional term limits would have to come from the Federal gov - probably by constitutional amendment.

The only flaw I see here is that since questec and then the on-screen strike boxes, pressure began in earnest on the umps to call more, not less high strikes. Umps do call to the top of the video box we see today, and I'd stand hard on my contention that before the video tracking they never did - at least not since the 60's. I agree that launch angle does make it harder for hitters to cover the top of zone, but my take would be that hitters went to launch angle *in spite* of a strike zone that was moving upward instead of because of it - and that was driven by the rabbit ball increasing the value of the HR to where all other effects - including the upward creep of the top of zone, were relegated to secondary status.

smaller K zone would not make the hardest hit balls go further though it might make the HR/FB ratio go up. But on the other side, a smaller K zone would definitely NOT make Ks go up, which is the stronger proof that it is really is larger - particularly at the top.

this is almost funny, because the truth is that despite this chart showing the top of the zone getting lower, what the umps call has been getting higher over the same period. In the 80-90s a pitcher could hardly get anything above the waist called a strike. Some of what is going on in this chart is not a change in the real zone, but a move to get the zone closer to what the umps actually call. This began to matter with Questec technology starting showing what the umps really were calling. For decades between the 60s and the current game, the high fastball was useless as a strike out pitch because it was not going to be called a strike and hitters could just take it. The willingness of umps in this era to call higher strikes is what has brought back the power fastball strike out despite the official zone definition getting lower.

I don't think this is as big a deal as you posit. The zone goes from below the waist to above the waist. If a guy has long legs he has more zone below his waist, less above, and vice versa. Even for people with different inseams if you are approximately the same height your knees to shoulder distance varies less than the difference in the height of your waist, so a lot of it comes out in the wash in terms of a strike zone.

they could start with a hybrid system. The laser calls the plate by beeping in the ump's ear, he decides on the up-down and then makes the final call. Probably 80% of the worst bad calls are on width rather than height so you'd be rid of all those. Or just do it by %of height. Bottom of zone is x% of the batters standing height, top is y% of his height - whether he wants to crouch or not will not affect what he has to cover. That would be as fair to as many players as whatever the Umps are doing now.

I don't think they are supposed to be. Way back in the day, the National league moved away from the outside chest protector and the AL did not, and that did lead to a difference for a number of years because AL umps were looking from above and NL umps from the side. That meant the AL zone was more accurate left right but the low strike was approximate while in the NL up-down was more accurate but the outside was more approximate. The leagues eventually all got on the same page with inside padding and positioning. The definition of the zone was always the same, but the batters still got a different effect.