Ruzious

18 year old Josue Cruz seems to be pulling away as the power bat for the DSL1 team - with 3 homers, 2 doulbes, and a triple in the first 4 August games, but his strikeout rate for the season is... morbidly obese with 74 in 180 at bats. He does walk a lot though - with 34 on the season.

Again, Stauffer's been essenttially the same - except his innings haven't been nearly as consistent. They seem to think Rodriquez can handle more innings than Stauffer.

LeoRod's been absurdly consistent in his 9 stats this season - pitching 5 or 6 innings every time, never giving up more than 2 runs, a high of 3 walks - in his first game, a 0.78 WHIP in 49 innings, 59 SO's.

My memory was off. For some reason, I thought Coggins tailed off badly after a really good start, but he was very good the whole season. Wow, he's 68 years old now - hard to believe it was that long ago. Yeah, 1973 was a fun team - with Bumbry and Coggins running around, and Grich and Baylor and the old guys slowing down but still getting it done.. Tommy Davis was the DH.. Even Earl Williams at catcher - not much of a catcher, but he hit ok that year., while Davey Johnson somehow hit 43 homers for Atlanta. Davey probably figured out that launch angle stuff before it was ever a thing.

Coggins and Bumbry came up together and started the season somewhat similarly. But if my memory is right, it didn't take long to see the Bee was the far better player.

What would make it complete is if Lenn Sakata comes out of retirement to catch for him, and then Wilkerson picks off 3 runners at 1st. Too much to ask? Ok, we'll get Tippy Martinez to catch.

He and Adam Stauffer (20 at Delmarva) are both 6'7 big young pitchers putting up real good SO and WHIP numbers.

And the game before, he was 1 for 2 with 2 walks. I just hope he wears an O's cap to the HOF induction.

I would have to see players being promoted more and then continue to perform well to say that.

Exactly - all the way around. To me, there's a lot of Jonathan Schoop in his toolbox.

So you suggest he just use big black and white letters? We'll agree to disagree.

He's got a 119 OPS+ for the season. By definition, that's above average. 164 plate appearances. He may slide back, but it's a decent sample size and gives us some legitimate hope.

19 hits in his last 9 games. After a bad June, he's had an excellent July and boosted his OPS up to .790.

A great example.

OPSing 1.068 this month and is 7 of 7 on steals. Granted it's only 12 games. Someone must have decided they want him to steal more bases. Of course, when you get on base more, there are more opportunities to steal. Seems like he's finally getting the hang of AA.

That's 6 out of 9 plus a walk for Bellony in the last 2 games - including 2 homers and a double. Good to see from the 17 year old.

Could be. "They" do say the grass is always grenier on... no, I won't go there.

Draft Gunnar Henderson! Oh, we already did that? Well um, Bring up Gunnar Henderson! Quick, before he outgrows shortstop! Oh, it would be nice if they sign him first - minors detail.

Like what I just said?

Notice the defensive baseball IQ of the team seems much worse with Martin off the field. Villar is much better at 2B than SS, and Alberto is problematic at 2B. Not saying Martin is special in any way, but when he's not playing, we have a disasterous infied defense.

Not sure I like the manager and the catcher throwing others under the bus, but if that's what happened, it's good to know. Still, it was Sisco that got thrown out. Gotta wonder what Mancini was thinking, because they'd gain practically nothing with a runner stealing 3rd with 2 outs. It really only made sense if was as part of a double steal, and it didn't make sense because neither of those guys can run. So fine, there was a brain-dead play. I can live with that. But then Sisco throws the ball past first base letting in a run and then misses a very easy tag - giving up another run. And we lose 3-2. That's really bad. But hey, it's a 162 game season. We can still win 100... er 50.

I'd call them low baseball IQ type errors. Hopefully, he learns from them - I certainly haven't given up on him.

All valid comments that I don't have good answers to. I was a bit shocked that Hyde admitted they did the double-steal without him or any other coach calling for it - don't know if that's a case of the inmates taking over the asylum.