microline133

That was the old Twins approach too and they ultimately walked away from it. When Rick Knapp came over to the Tigers from the Twins he was giddy at the idea of working with so many high powered arms and trying to coax more out of them... He could do things with those arms he could never do with the arms in the Twins organization. You can rationalize either approach, but one clearly had the potential to yield more impact arms.

It's purely that people have figured out how to quantify concepts that have been around forever. Scouts aren't dumb, the good ones just have the ability to see shit that most can't.... It's human nature when you can't see it yourself, you don't believe it and ultimately criticize it. Scouts have been the victim of that for years.

I'm not so sure teams have really moved past spin rate as much as they are now evaluating it in conjunction with other things....pitch tunnelling, an interesting (and quiet) slight shift back to physical characteristics, etc. They won't let "just" spin rate drive decisins, but instead look for these other things along with that. Many are still using it as an entry into the discussion and then considering other data.

And that draft netted Avila and Dirks. By most measures it was a successful draft just by virtue of those two players, even with Dirks' career ending quickly, add without considering the Tigers got 100+ appearances of effective relief work from Perry in 2009-2010. It just illustrates the point that it only takes 1-2 solid players to make a draft successful, the rest is noise.

It's org hype....

Org player.

Thinking about flying in with a friend from out here for the opening week game against the Eagles (he's a huge Eagles fan). May be looking for recommendations on lodging and what to fit into a quick weekend centered around the game. I haven't been back to Detroit in at least 7-8 years.

And that stretch at West Michigan includes a promotion to High-A.

The Bunek's that I knew in that area always had a little tendency to be out there. All the kids attended the Catholic school in Leelanau County, very vocal about their beliefs, , occasionally confrontational on the matter, etc. On another note, I'm amused by the statement later in the article discussing the millage for Leland PS. It references school buildings, plural. That's a very loose interpretation of the plurality unless something has changed since I went there.....one building, K through 12. I believe they added some temporary classrooms on the noth end of the building shortly after I left, which could result in the plural, but interesting nonetheless.

Well, it took 2+ years, but it finally got me. I was required to travel for work this week, started feeling ill and excused myself from my meetings. Stopped on the way back to the hotel for an at-home test....now I'm stuck in my hotel room in Alabama at least until Monday. Pretty classic symptoms....headache, fever, chills, general soreness, cough, stuffed up....certainly don't feel great.

Wasn't that Grinnell College, or something like that?

I think I made similar remarks about Green (and Billy Nowlin back in the day), though I tended toward the idea that they could hurt themselves with their glove, hence the reason they should only DH.

Any honest post-draft assessment of both players would have yielded, at best, a bench bat or fringe regular projection. The gap between that outcome and let's say, Dean Green, isn't very large, so even the slightest bit of skill degradation against more advanced pro arms and you're looking squarely a two org players that can hit a bit on occasion, or someone not unlike Dean Green.

Interesting look at the evolution of safety value. Pretty relevant if rumors of the Lions interest in Hamilton are to be believed. https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/3/28/22996666/kyle-hamilton-nfl-draft-top-pick-safety-value

https://youtu.be/fPcoFK8jem8 I wish there was a video of my friends faces as I walked out of dinner that night. I was a nervous wreck, stood up from dinner, left, walked to a random NYC bar, ordered a drink, saw the Maggs homer, chugged my drink, and went back to dinner without saying a word.

Some friends came by tonight and their middle school aged son was talking about his new adventure into sports cards. After a while I ventured upstairs and grabbed my last remaining box of cards (I purged and sold most of my collection about ten years ago). I started showing him what I kept....my expansive Lou Whitaker collection (literally every card ever produced, including those that I know of with only overseas distribution), the Jordan rookie, multiple Griffey '89 UD, Kaline rookie, Gretsky rookie, Shaq rookies, Jeter, Bonds, all the autographs, the jersey/bat cards, etc. Then, toward the end, I find this. I honestly completely forgot I pulled this in a random pack a few years ago, particularly since I've generally stopped collecting the last ten years. Turns out it's actually selling for some decent coin...

John Boehner said exactly this years ago. Once these were eliminated, he lost negotiating leverage with his members. It was one of the reasons he had such difficulty controlling the rise and disruption of the Tea Party....he couldn't offer earmarks that could entice them to come around on bigger issues of the day. With the introduction of "Community Project Funding", which is essentially a new name for earmarks, I'll be curious to see if we can get some momentum back in that regard.

We can debate how Baez stacks up to other shortstops in this free agent class, but to say he's limited on tools is pretty incorrect. Even with a step back defensively this year, he's still an average or better glove that I think bounces back to plus. He has easy plus power, plus speed, and an easy plus arm, all with tremendous game instincts. The hit tool can be an issue at times but he likely hits enough for the next 4-5 years for his speed and power to still be a factor. He may be a step down from Correa/Seager, but let's not pretend he's not an impact player.

I've done that once....a minor league player (may or may not have been a service academy graduate) laid some shit bare when it came to treatment of soldiers in Iraq and the leadership they were receiving. It was all part of a discussion about why he left baseball to deploy to Iraq....I was factual, quoted him honestly, but also knew he had the potential to get in a bunch of trouble from the article. I asked him to review the article and give me his blessing because it was his ass on the line. He made one minor tweak to the article, actually making a two sentence sequence more critical of the situation and was adamant I publish the piece immediately.

Any dozen things can happen there....he can lose feel for it, they can tweak an arm angle or body position in the delivery that inadvertently has a negative effect on that pitch, or even they could ask him to shelve it because of perceived negative health impacts....depending on org philosophy, they could simply push him in another direction.

It's largely a function of low level guys can't hit even below average breaking balls.

Right. I want to circle back to this because I think this is a great example of how scouts project a player and often times fans don't necessarily understand why they're quick to tag a guy in a certain role or limit their potential in a write-up, instead of just assuming growth where they need it. With a guy like Flores, I'm not going to project the CV to develop much because I don't have any evidence in the current profile of him being able to manipulate the ball in the way he needs to in order for the CV to step forward. Right now the arsenal has a fastball and cutter, which let's be honest is just a variation on the fastball with grip or finger pressure changes. The CV currently doesn't have the type of spin rate to suggest he's got "it" to snap it off down the line. If, let's say, he threw a competent slider or even a changeup (though this would be a tougher leap), then I have evidence that he can spin or manipulate SOMETHING. In that case, I'm going to at least consider projecting advancement of the CV, maybe not much but some. Instead, I'm left with a fastball pitcher that doesn't yet generate the spin necessary for success with the CV. On top of that, even if he shifts to a slider and somehow finds success, he still doesn't have anything with a significant vertical component. Without that, he's generally working in at best just the vicinity of one plane, maybe actually in just one plane, so he has to demonstrate ability to change planes with location consistently. All that combined, a fastball/cutter arm that needs to elevate to change sight lines instead of utilizing pitch movement, and not seeing any substantial ability to spin the ball, leaves him with a relief profile (for me, anyway). If he breaks the expected path he's on and suddenly finds more spin as he develops, then that's a substantial profile change that necessitates revisiting the overall projection. I'd adjust that projection if that happens, but as it stands now it wouldn't be prudent to project anything more than relief in his future.

Sure, anything can be taught, at least in theory. If I'm projecting Flores, I don't see the ability to snap the curveball and generate the spin necessary for a high quality pitch. That's a harder thing to teach....not everyone can do it. Truly, to avoid the reliever tag for me, he'd need to show some evidence of something softer in his arsenal. Until that happens, it's a power reliever profile.

Flores is a reliever... Doesn't spin the CB well enough to hang as a starter.

Now that Notre Dame lost, you might be right.