Frobby

My view is, the game needs more offense, and if it can be generated by enforcing a true strike zone, I'm for it. I think major league pitchers will adjust and the increase in walks will be significant but not as big as would occur if they just ocntinued throwing balls in the same spots where they were previously getting incorrect calls.

Well, you learn by testing the limits. I’m fine with him doing that at this level.

Maybe, but Delmarva’s defense is second worst in the Carolina League and way below league average.

Keep in mind that the International League uses robo-umps. Major league umps call 12% of true balls as strikes, but only 3% of true strikes as balls (per Ump Scorecard). So, IL pitchers are probably getting a much stingier strike zone than they see anywhere else.

Curious, how many times has he been thrown out on the bases? He’s 12/13 in stolen bases so far, a very good percentage. I know he got thrown out last night trying to stretch a double into a triple. Have there been other instances? He’s scored 15 times in 17 games despite a so-so .338 OBP, so I’d say his baserunning has been an ssset.

My impression is that the O’s really push their players to be aggressive at the lower levels. It’s like, test your limits and you can always back off later. Anyway, I’m pleased that Bradfield is showing a bit of doubles/triples power in the early going.

That’s a ton. An average major leaguer throws 63.9% strikes and 27.8% of those are fouled off. So maybe 18% of pitches are fouled off. McDermott probably had 8-9 more foul balls than you’d normally expect.

Seems like a lot of posters think Hays is done as a productive MLB player, so I’m asking posters to go on record with how he’ll do for the rest of 2024. For purposes of my question, performance year to date won’t be included. For convenience, here are Hays’ pages from BB-Ref and Baseball Savant. He’s 28 years old, and has a career OPS of .740 (.769, .719 and .769 in 2021-23). Last year, he slumped in the second half, posting a .667 OPS after the all star break. This year, he had a .539 OPS in 35 PA in spring training and then a .311 OPS in 50 PA prior to going on the IL. His batted ball data has been awful. So what do you say? Washed up? Small sample size fluke? Illness? What will Hays do when he returns?

I’d like to see Miller pitch a full season before declaring him the best closer in baseball. I get the “right now” part, but performance can vary a lot once arms aren’t so fresh. So, we’ll see.

This is getting pretty far off topic. I’ll just say that every city is different and experiences differ even within a city depending on where you live and work.

I would have preferred it. My wife is immunocompromised and reluctant to take public transportation for that reason.

Funny, I recently saw a show at Ford’s Theater and it was on the eve of the anniversary of when Lincoln was shot. It’s a pretty small theater and you can easily picture someone leaping from the balcony onto the stage as John Wilkes Booth did after shooting Lincoln.

I do have one cool way of hearing my dad’s voice. He argued a case in the Supreme Court in 1988 or 1989, and as I found out while preparing his eulogy, the Court’s website has archived very high quality audio recordings of every argument from the last 40 years or so. When I found out, I went and listened to my dad’s argument. He was 60 or 61 at the time, a little younger than I am now. It was very neat to be able to remember what he sounded like at the peak of his career. I’d rather have a recording of my 93-year old dad just calling to say hi in the weeks before he died, but at least this is one recording I can’t lose.

To be clear, he sucked for three weeks. It was hard to watch, but some people have just way overreacted. He’ll be fine.

As usual, I’m not worried about our competitors at this stage of the season. Just win a lot of games and put yourself in a good position, and then see where things stand as the trade deadline approaches. The Yankees will have their ups and downs, and so will we. In my mind, the first goal is to get to 18 games over .500. That puts a team in position to win 90 games just by playing .500 ball the rest of the season, and 90 wins is a virtual lock to make the playoffs. Then get greedy from there.