Spy Fox

People in general, but I'm comfortable applying the idea to baseball players and other professional athletes. Yes, to be an MLB player you have to be mentally strong and you have to overcome adversity. But I don't think it's as black and white as, you're mentally strong as a person or you're not. Your mental strength can be different at different points in time just like your other skills are. Mental strength might be one of the skills that is still developing in some players, and it might develop in different ways depending on what environment they're in, including what happens to them on the field.

I wouldn't really call those specific players rushed. I just disagree with you that it's something that never happens or basically can't happen. I also disagree that if someone struggles mentally with something, and that changes their trajectory a bit, it means they were always destined to struggle with that thing because of lower mental toughness. I don't think that's very realistic to how people work and how careers evolve.

Personally I take rushed to mean something a bit milder. I think you're using the word more absolutely than many do, and that's the disagreement. I would call a player rushed if they were brought up before they were ready to perform, and it damaged or delayed their development. Particularly if there was reason to doubt their readiness before the callup. But it doesn't have to be something that ruins them or that they never recover from for me to be willing to call it rushing. Now I'm not sure they rushed Holliday under either definition, since there was tons of evidence supporting the idea of bringing him up.

I agree that I'd like to see more. I think a trade for a relief piece will happen before the deadline. When, and how big an addition it is, depends on the ripple effects of how well the Means, Bradish, and Wells recoveries go.

Well, virtually nothing other than devoting the largest free agent spend of his GM tenure to the closer role.

Suarez has been legitimately impressive. Lots of whiffs. In both games he looked tired late in the outing but then helped save himself with impressive defensive plays.

I know you're joking, but Jim Hunter wouldn't be.

Did most people miss the words elite and controlled in the title? Surprised at how easily so many people said no, when I thought the bullpen was a consensus weakness of this team. I like Kjerstad too and you don't trade him for just anyone. But if you can get a difference making 8th/9th inning guy, who isn't a rental, that seems worth considering.

And it wasn't about Coby Mayo.

Sorry, I deleted the Grayson question because I saw it was being discussed in the Extension Priority thread and SG had mentioned he wasn't talking about pre-arb players here. But I wasn't fast enough for you guys.

But what if he did that after ~3 years of being a productive big leaguer?

Do we know what his velocity was today? I know he doesn't light up the gun but was he at his normal?

This is why I actually am a bit concerned, not for career prognosis but for his performance this year and a potential need to send him back down at some point. Not all slumps are created equal and the plate skills have been really bad so far.

The managerial move that most surprised me today was Baldelli pulling Lopez, their team ace who was carving the O's up, after 87 pitches instead of sending him out for the 7th. Okert promptly let the O's back in the game with the Santander HR.

Also on the power prowess front, the O's have six players with 4+ HRs. The only other teams with more than two are the Dodgers with four (Betts, Teoscar, Muncy, Ohtani) and Astros with three (Altuve, Tucker, Alvarez).