DrungoHazewood

You seem to be suggesting that one of the team's biggest problems is that they don't really care. They show up, they goof around a while, then they go home. Can't say I agree with that entire concept. I think they lose more than they win because they're not quite as talented as the other teams.

There's also a decided lack of punishment for tomfoolery, buffoonery, or skylarking. Sack him forthwith!

Sharpen the pitchforks for Rutschman's inevitable 2-for-8 with 3 Ks start that is a harbinger of doom.

Then you better be good at rounding up others to toil in said sugar caves, or your odds aren't looking great.

How are you at toiling in underground sugar caves?

Right now I'm coming up with some semi-plausible post-apocalyptic scenarios where that's exactly what happens. So you might want to at least sketch some tentative plans out.

Until baseball wises up and deadens the ball and makes it illegal to have a fence less than 375' from the plate.

Is there such a thing as a team in 2021 that emphasizes OBP over power? I guess a team like the '20 Nats, they only averaged a bit over one homer/game with a reasonably good OBP. But their OBP was heavily influenced by Soto and Turner, who also were 1st and 2nd on the team in homers and SLG. Players we used to identify as leadoff hitters, .350-.400 OBPs with little power, are nearly extinct.

I would like to see a team official try to explain the scientific rationale behind this policy. I'm open to maybe missing something, but I can't think of a logical reason why this would help things.

Eventually all of the lost players would have hit free agency so you'd have to decide if the value beyond that should be captured in an analysis here. But you could imagine the mid-90s Orioles with all that talent and all the OPACY money and think of something dynastic.

A fifty point bump seems like a lot, but I'd guess that they're now using batted ball data that has much quicker, smaller stabilization samples?

Mercedes' Fangraphs projections have him hitting about .260/.320/.440, OPS of about .760. So far he's been exclusively a DH. Not sure anyone thinks he's a MLB catcher at all. His passed ball rate is almost three times that of Pedro Severino, who's had the most PB is the majors since the start of 2020. Good for him that he's taking advantage of an opportunity. But he's not much of an asset as a .760-OPSing DH. And the Orioles have a long list of possible DHs.

On your first point... we just don't know. Could be that he alternated hitting .320 and .250 because he changed his stances every 20 minutes on the advice of Cal Sr. Second point, yes, his defensive value helped smooth out the curve.

Unfortunately Joe Altobelli just passed, I was looking forward to the O's bringing him back to put them over the top. Altobelli was another one of those guys who 40 years ago I thought was pushing 70.

How many times did Cal follow up a 11-WAR season and an MVP with hitting .251 with 14 homers? Streak was cool and all, but man did Cal have some wild swings in performance.

I never noticed this before, but at least in neutral parks he was. I was looking up 30+ road homer seasons so this came up: Rk I Player Split Year G HR GS PA AB R H 2B 3B RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS TB 1 Barry Bonds Away 2001 78 36 75 354 252 68 81 13 2 66 7 2 97 47 .321 .514 .817 1.332 206 2 Babe Ruth Away 1927 78 32 78 374 287 76 98 19 4 95 3 2 76 48 .341 .479 .770 1.249 221 3 Mark McGwire Away 1998 74 32 73 317 246 58 69 11 0 67 1 0 68 72 .280 .438 .715 1.154 176 4 David Ortiz Away 2006 77 32 75 353 291 63 80 14 0 65 0 0 58 58 .275 .399 .653 1.052 190 5 Brady Anderson Away 1996 70 31 67 326 279 58 88 14 2 64 9 5 36 48 .315 .409 .713 1.122 199 6 Roger Maris Away 1961 82 31 82 373 310 73 79 10 4 68 0 0 55 36 .255 .373 .613 .986 190 7 Luis Gonzalez Away 2001 81 31 80 373 308 68 95 20 4 76 0 0 58 40 .308 .424 .701 1.125 216 8 George Foster Away 1977 78 31 78 343 319 63 109 17 1 78 4 2 19 54 .342 .376 .693 1.069 221 9 Sammy Sosa Away 1998 81 31 81 375 333 70 105 9 0 81 9 4 39 92 .315 .387 .622 1.008 207 10 Jim Gentile Away 1961 74 30 70 318 258 56 81 11 0 88 0 1 49 55 .314 .434 .705 1.139 182 11 Sammy Sosa Away 1999 81 30 81 357 317 52 80 9 1 70 4 4 34 95 .252 .328 .571 .899 181 12 Andruw Jones Away 2005 81 30 80 341 305 47 80 14 1 61 2 1 28 59 .262 .334 .610 .944 186 13 Jeff Bagwell Away 1999 80 30 79 373 285 79 96 16 0 79 18 8 77 57 .337 .477 .709 1.186 202 14 Sammy Sosa Away 2001 81 30 81 365 296 73 95 21 2 75 0 0 62 77 .321 .444 .709 1.153 210 15 Eddie Mathews Away 1953 78 30 78 348 300 59 103 15 5 82 0 2 46 42 .343 .434 .727 1.161 218 16 Mickey Mantle Away 1961 79 30 78 347 284 68 87 8 0 69 6 2 60 68 .306 .424 .651 1.075 185 17 Shawn Green Away 2001 81 30 81 361 320 73 93 15 1 74 10 1 33 54 .291 .360 .625 .985 200 Maris had one more homer on the road, but Gentile out-OPS'd Maris by over 150 points. Gentile's '61 season is one of the great forgotten seasons in baseball history. He drove in as many runs as Maris in nearly 100 fewer PAs, and hit one fewer road homer in 55 fewer PAs. Neither had much help from their teams. The Yanks led off Bobby Richardson and his .296 OBP more than anyone else, while the O's set the table with Brooks Robinson (?!?). Yep, Brooks had 442 PAs batting first in 1961, 465 out of the leadoff spot over his entire career.

That's how baseball works because pitching is more effective that way. I would like MLB to tell teams they can't do that, that by 2025 you can't have more than eight or nine pitchers, total. But they don't listen to me.

I have no problem giving a chance to Armstrong. To a large degree I don't care how old a pitcher is. Unlike non-pitchers they don't usually have a clean curve upward as they approach 27 and a nice, linear decline afterwards. It's more random. Also, I think most pitchers, especially relievers, give up a significant percentage of their runs in just a few outings. Randomly picking... 1979 Tippy Martinez. Allowed 16 runs in 8.2 innings in his worst five games. Outside of that his ERA was 1.17. Gregg Olson in 1990. His worst four games he allowed 12 runs in four innings. The rest of the year he had a 1.02 ERA. 2013 Darren O'Day, allowed six runs in 2.1 innings in his worst three games. Rest of the season he had a 1.37 ERA. Donnie Hart, 2017, worst four games he allowed nine earned in 3.1. Rest of the year he allowed nine runs in 40.1 and he had a 2.00. Literally those were the first four random names/years I picked out of a hat. I think Armstrong is completely typical in allowing most of his runs in a small fraction of his games.

Yes, if you would like to make up a narrative to fit your selected facts that's your prerogative. The reason Valaika didn't get more extended opportunities in 2017-18 is that he hit worse than Chris Davis while in Colorado. In '18 he started the year playing almost every game for the Rockies and went 5-for-52 in April. Never believe April, but realistically how long can you keep playing someone nearly every day who is hitting .100?

I didn't do anything like your digging, but my first thought was that the most likely time for him to face a lefty was when the game was 11-2 and nobody was really trying any more.

I bet the stitches from the C-section hadn't even healed yet.

I'm guessing that's some point after he's pitched three innings this year?

Random facts for your Monday: Armstrong is 30 and has a 4.40 ERA in the majors. He's pitched two innings this year. Jim Palmer once had a game in September of 1983 where he was knocked out in the second inning after allowing seven runs.

Rio Ruiz' career OPS+: 75 Pat Valaika's career OPS+: 71 Ruiz is 27, Valaika is 28. Ruiz, by bb-ref's numbers, is a +6 fielder. Valaika is a -6. You will probably point out Valaika's 114 OPS+ last year, but that was in just 150 PAs. The two years before in Colorado he he had a .504 OPS, which is also known as 89% of Chris Davis.

I think the most likely case is that he doesn't really have that split, almost no one has a persistent reverse platoon split. Ruiz' 2016-18 numbers in the minors look like completely normal platoon splits for a lefty. His 123 AB reverse splits are just SSS randomness.