gehringer_2

Fun fantasy: after having their numbers decimated in the fall election, the GOP Congressional lame ducks cooperate to impeach and convict Trump.

Tork did swing at the best pitch of that AB but was under it too much.

Baseball makes no sense - Herring throws4 ball and one strike that could've have been challenged to Dingler and he homers. Riley Ks on an unchallenged ball one.

DINGLER - hope lives.

Guardian add a laughably unnecessary insurance run.

the Tiger debate is becoming like the Candelario debate. Are they a bad team that had a good stretch, or a good team that's having a bad stretch? Despite the pitching injuries they've had, the staff is managing to throw winnable games. I just don't have much confidence that adding one solid but not spectacular bat in Torres and one mediocre at best bat in Baez is any kind of slam dunk remedy for this offense.

The US AI industry is racing to build a StutzBearcat, the Chinese are trying to build a Model T. Which do you think will still be standing when the market shakes out.

well, if you want a better return you can always make those deals now...... <g,d&r>

dems acting like they want to win. who knew?

i don’t notice it so much as a team, mostly my observation of Torkelson. you watch his ABs particularly on game day where the pitch history for the AB stays visible, and you are struck by how often he ends up having to swing at a pitcher’s pitch at two strikes after having taken a much better strike to hit. Even allowing for the fact that if a guy lands a good breaking on the 1st pitch most hitters will take the chance it’s not going to land- so there will be times you end taking middle-middle, but when Tork struggles, he seems to stand out for ultimately swinging at worse strikes than he takes early.

But if you can't tell the difference at all, it really makes no difference whether you swing or not does it? If all you can do is guess, then you have a finite chance of running into it, as compared to the chance the pitcher is going to miss. So sure, it comes down to understanding who the pitcher is and what his command is like and seeing whether he is stuggling to throw strikes or so sharp he is just toying with hitters. But the trend of some things is still knowable. If a batter is constantly down in the count without having swung the bat over hundreds of AB, he is giving himself no chance.

well, the dumb part about the War Powers act is that the President can veto the resolution, which then means it you need an override super majority - which ain't gonna happen anyway. We used to think that having a Constitution instead of just a precedent guided Parliament like Britain was an advantage. I just don't think it's true anymore. The US Constitution and its recent SCOTUS interpretations are hindering US democracy far more than they are helping to achieve it.

absolutely. But guys develop tendencies and if you are going to be a good hitter you have be aware yourself and fight falling into habits where the problem is your brain as much as your ability to hit the ball. It's probably a good question whether when hitters cycle in and out of performance level how much is luck, how much is mental, how much is physical. With batted ball metrics we can sort of figure out the luck part now, the split between physical fatigue plus sub clinical injury vs just losing your mental edge is probably unknowable.

C.a.v.e.a.t E.m.p.t.o.r

They say average hitters aren't good enough to get much advice from great hitters, but FWIW, Cabrera also swung at a lot of 1st pitches.

exactly. Search for the perfect being the enemy of the good etc? I think taking too many strikes early has been Tork's weakness ever since he got the the majors. It can lead to walks, but the walks aren't worth the cost to the rest of his production. I've always thought that in general you want to be aggressive early in the count because that is when pitchers are most motivated to throw strikes to get ahead. Maybe it's because there is still an offensive push to try to drive pitch counts. Maybe that was a good idea once, but the way pitching has changed in recent years, there are too many teams with bullpens so good it doesn't help you enough to chase a starter early any more.Not to mention that getting on base and running more batters to the plate is also a nice way to drive a pitch count!

Also not a good sign that Vest's FB was down 2mph or a bit more from yesterday. Vest is not the guy we need him to be if he isn't dialing up 98mph consistently.

but that's why baseball is so screwed up. The Dodgers or Mets don't care if they spend the money - it's not stupid for them, they can make it back, but Pittsburgh has to try to play on the same playing field. Is there any other sport with that kind of imbalance in the options available between the franchises?

no doubt the injuries are the over all killer for total wins and losses, but recently there have been issues of basic execution by Riley, Tork, McK, Perez and on the pitching side Valdez and Flaherty. Those are your regulars - or close to regulars in Perez' case. It's like a contagion.

I think the narrative is that there is at least a subset of owners who are demanding cost control. Think of all those teams that had Fox/Bally/FanDuel collapse out from under them, do you believe they were able to shift over MLB production without taking a cut in revenue? Or a least a cut from what they could previously project future revenue to be? That has probably never happened before. I tend to think this round is about issues between/among the owners. The question being how the dynamic plays out between small market, middle market and the rich clubs. I'm sure the clubs with big money aren't looking for a stoppage, and if they hold sway there won't be. They have the option of agreeing to more revenue sharing which would probably satisfy the rest of the clubs. But if not, and a big enough subset of small and middle market teams stand their ground together, it's a different calculus. The union won't give anything back so I see it as coming down to how much more the teams with money agree to share.

I guess I would qualify what I mean, there are bad teams that just don't have talent and there have been worse teams in the league than this one (at least we hope that will be proven true by the end of the season) but there are teams that have enough talent to do better that can't get out of their own way. When I say this team is inept, the latter is what I mean - can't execute.

also true. The running game all around has turned to dross. This season so far we are losing too much on the bases.

that's all fair.

That's is certainly something that has always been arguable with Hinch - he does not seem to believe in short term trends at all. He's a long 'track record' guy all the way. I don't know if there is a mathematical right or wrong on the issue because different players have different kinds of performance/consistency arcs.

you could, and the BP has certainly been less than stellar overall, but OTOH, on more general principle I'm not going to knock a pitching staff that give up one run to Cleveland in 9 innings.