gehringer_2

It's another one of those things like not staying outside the line as you go to 1st, somewhere along the line you have to learn that you stay on outside of the 1st base line and turn toward the stands after you run through. Sure they could make it a judgment call for the ref and a play like this might go the other way, but why when all guys have to do is learn to do it right and eliminate the need for the Umpire to have guess about it? I don't have much sympathy for guys who can't learn simple easy rules and then bitch about it.

I remember that the conventional wisdom was that he was throwing an 'improved' slider in Houston. But the reality with JV has always been that how effective his breaking pitches are follows from how good his fastball is, and his fastball was steadily improving from a point somewhere around mid-summer when he made some delivery adjustments. I can't recapitulate it at this point but there was a clear change in his release point and from that point on the FB starting getting better and thus the breaking balls got harder to adjust to. As 84 notes, this indeed was all in process in the month before he was traded. I have no problem giving credit to the Houston staff for offering JV some new analysis, but I do question it actually made much difference in the trajectory of his improvement, which was already well set. The other point oft forgotten but not to be minimized when looking at JV's 2017 is that he moved from a terrible (-115 RDS) to a good (+21 RDS) defensive team as well - especially in the OF, where the fact that JV is a fly ball pitcher had been negatively impacted by the pretty terrible OF play of Martinez, Matook, etc,(and of course Nick's terrible 3b play). 136 runs is more than 3/4 of a run per game difference off a pitcher's ERA all by itself.

Easy 1st inning for Manning.

I took that as a pure "win now" play. I don't think Ray's talent has hard to see, but he needed more time to turn into the pitcher he would become than the Tigers were willing to give him.

exactly. Granted you might be predisposed to take what the player says with a grain of salt as the player who has been scuffling has an interest in projecting that there was a reason for his poor performance that has now been addressed so he can in turn project more success from himself going forward. In such case one expected counter from the Tiger org might have been, "Well we worked with Robbie on x/y/z but we are sorry we just didn't seem to find the key for him but we wish him well...." What as NOT expected was for the Tiger manager to say "Yeah, well, that *is* a problem." Sure we can spin that a Hinch just setting the bar at the "We can all always do better" level, but if so still not the most articulate way to do it.

LOL - Rangers have committed half a billion to their middle infield, and they can't turn easy double plays.

Arb salaries can drop by a max of 20%, don't know if it ever actually happens though. If team offered -20% and the player offered no change, I can't imagine any MLB arb not taking the player's NC number since no raise would already be considered a huge concession in the current system.

the problem comes when the cops join on their side and you have to call out the national guard......

Stolen from the comments section of a WaPo political column: "I will give Trump this: he supports one of the traditional Republican values -- small government. He wants the government to consist of himself, and himself alone."

MRI'd his calf.

From what we hear, they have exhausted all medical options on the knee. But then again, despite our assumption that players are always getting the best medical advice available, we know sometimes they are not (Magglio having been an example). Or there may be some 50/50 option Cabrera has refused that he might change his mind about that might work. Still I would judge the odds of any of that to be vanishingly low. He'll probably have to have it replaced before he reaches 50.

IDK if Harold thought it was going foul, it was a HR or it was going to be caught, but he didn't run out of the box like he thought it mattered.

Harold is the one that surprises me. I really thought playing more would end up with him being exposed by more pitchers, but he's raised his game.

LOL - Three Tiger base runners all on the 3rd baseline at the same time there.

Riley going to be sad to leave Texas.

I assume I can configure an audio compressor on the Mac I use for streaming but I haven't run it down yet as I had dropped back to the live broadcasts. That other thing with gameday that has reduced its appeal is that they are about 45 sec delayed this year. I suppose the delay may be my provider instead of gameday's fault, but that makes no difference in the end.

It took many years, but I believe the FCC finally forced radio stations to stop broadcasting commercials at higher audio levels than their regular programming - but now the practice has just moved to steaming services. The commercials in the Tiger game day stream are running at least 12db higher than Dan's mike in the booth, to the point where if I the cut the volume to 'bearable' for the spots, I literally can't hear Dan at all. The increasing severity of this practice has actually driven me back to listening on broadcast radio despite the greater convenience of using the stream. However today's game on AM an my house is out of range for 1270 AM. 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡

It's funny how Victor generates so much opinion. He's just your basic utility OF. Yes, he is a major leaguer, no he won't be a multiple WAR player. You'd think a guy that was neither a bum nor a star would be less controversial.

It's hard to see what the end game is. He is not accomplishing anything, nor is he helping his team, nor is he taking any final bows. That last one seems to make it plain he plans to come to ST next season - why not just call it a year and take the last month off and get an early start on whatever rehab might be possible?

You have no GM, so no-one is going to pull the trigger on that decision. Whatever your opinions on AJ Hinch for good or ill, he's a 'players coach' plus I think it's clear he is not the kind of guy who has a lot of strong opinions he will go to the wall for, or even rock the boat hard. So a decision like that seems unlikely to come from him either.

I tend to believe the RW heat is getting to Judge Cannon. There is really no earthly reason a 'special master' is needed this case. The specifics of the documents are not even the real issue. A special master is used when a case presents technical or scientific issues complex enough that the judge doesn't have the competence to understand and evaluate the relevance or truthfulness of the testimony she is hearing. That's nonsense in this case. Any well educated person can listen to people from the intelligence community tell you the significance of a document in an understandable way - this ain't quantum physics. She is just bailing out.

First time since mid July they have won 6 in a ten game stretch.

Verlander might be the last to get to 250, let alone 300.

IDK if it even matters if JJ has the higher ceiling. Cade is a pretty good game manager and in the NCAA as many game are won with steady competence and decision making as off the chart talent. It goes both ways, M is under no obligation to give JJ the chance to turn into the QB he could be but isn't yet if that isn't what gives them the best chance to win. The very fact that a kid can go somewhere else now reduces the obligation on BOTH sides.