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Stop making sense

Can you imagine what The Nation or Mother Jones qualifies as?

Name recognition FTW

It wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it is impossible.

Is that the euphemism they’re using there’s days?

Yes it will, since he doesn’t know outfield defense from shinola.

So now I'm dishonest. Great. 😉 I don't blame Hinch for trying to work with the crap he's got.

I don't think Willi Castro should be our starting left fielder from now on. I'm just not blind with rage that Hinch put him out there, not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times. I understand that Hinch was trying to do his best to juggle the garbage lineup he has to work with. No one agrees with me. That's fine. I don't care. I'll think what I think, and you don't have to like it if you don't want. But hey, at least you guys got to score a lot of points off me. That was fun, right? 😅

Well, that's a bit of a stretch ... 😅

And I'm trying to explain that there aren't a lot of choices here, and the choices are terrible at this moment.

That's cool. As of today, that's Baddoo, Hill, Grossman, and literally nobody else. Get them out there all day, every day, no days off, play through your owies and your fatigue and your slumps. Fine by me. We're not winning either way, until the roster changes.

With a roster as poorly-constructed as this, on the kind of skid we've been on, I'm not blaming Hinch for trying something anything to get the team untracked.

I know, anecdotes. I get it. If you don't like Willi out there, then get Willi out of there. I don't care. Let's put Baddoo in left and Hill in center, and then we can blame Hinch for running terrible hitters out there every game. It's all in good fun. If people want to blame Hinch for driving this team into last place because he tried Willi in left for 33 innings, that's fine, go ahead. All I'm saying is, I don't agree that Hinch is the main reason we're 8-19. I think it's mainly the roster. If I stand alone on that opinion, that's fine, then I'll stand alone on it. I'm used to that. 😁

As long as we don't mind their meager bats in the lineup every day, then sure, that's fine. The roster is simply not good.

Playing Willi Castro in left field is how Hinch is losing us ballgames? I don't know ... Fangraphs has him at -0.1 defensive runs in 33 innings, while they have Grossman at -0.5 in 35 innings and Meadows at -1.1 in 113.1. I suppose Erik Haase is the best left fielder we have at +2.0 in 42 innings, but unless we run him and his 41 wRC+ out there nine innings a game every day, I'm not sure that Willi is the worst alternative. Statcast has all four left fielders right around the same, with zero OAA and similar success rates. So they look like a wash. Unless there's a specific Willi left field anecdote you're pointing to, which ... yeah, don't know what to say about that. Play a guy long enough someplace and he'll lose you a game with this anecdote and win you another game with that anecdote. So, dunno.

I guess I'm not clear on what Hinch is doing that's making them lose ballgames, whereas a neutral manager would not have lost them ballgames.

That's fine, you can conclude that Hinch is largely at fault. I disagree that he is largely at fault. We can leave it there. I'm not saying that Hinch is blameless, and I've begun to explain as much, but people want to believe that's what I'm saying regardless, so ... 🤷‍♂️

Hinch had nothing to do with any of the roster decisions prior to 2021, but the organization is overwhelmingly populated with players from before 2021.

Oh, I’m not saying Hinch hasn’t made any mistakes. I’m saying he’s not the main reason, or even a big reason, we’re going to be 8-19 tomorrow morning. That’s mostly roster-driven, with a dollop of Pythagorean bad luck added in. I’m not convinced things like batting TORK! too high or running Jimenez out there with slim leads is actually evidence of Hinch losing us ballgames. If there’s anything on the ground leading to poor performance, it’s probably coaching. I’m thinking specifically hitting coaching. And to the degree that Hinch is responsible for the hiring of Scott Coolbaugh, then yes, Hinch deserves the blame.

Avila gets much more of the blame than Hinch. Avila’s the guy who oversaw the roster construction in the years leading up to now. Hinch can only work with what’s been made available to him.

What are these numbers? There are four different possibilities.

Even Dan said just now on the radio that it felt like the Astros had the lead even when it was 0-0. When even the guy being paid to put a diplomatic spin on bad play says something like that, thats a real indication of how rotten things are under the hood.

Oh, look, were the worst team in the league again. How about that.

Control Trump? Maybe not the man himself, but they are certainly in control of the political fallout from his passing through the scene.