ChosenOne21

I seem to remember someone in the minors telling him he should walk more and he said something like, "If I had just hit a double we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Driving in runners has not been shown to be a repeatable skill other than that people who generally hit the ball well tend to be good at it

They've gotta be assuming a hot streak is right around the corner with the batted ball data. I'm not sure what else it could be at this point

For chrissake people it was his lat. Not his shoulder, not his elbow, his lat. If that's really the cause, this has to be the first time in baseball history a pitcher was never the same because of a lat injury. Sure, he looked rusty end of last year because he hadn't pitched in months, but he had the same spring training as everyone else this year and the results aren't there. I don't claim to know exactly what it is, but it's time to put the lat injury to bed. That was almost a year ago

My guess is, absent a roster move, that's Urias

I know he's doing great in the minors, but I don't get the Vespi love. Long-term he's probably a last-or-second-last out of the pen guy on a good team. Unless something has changed since last year...

There were shades of Jack Cust in that Beavers home run

I'm pretty sure Pinto has to be on the 40 man next offseason. We really need to see what he looks like at AA so we can make an informed decision

Dang, I didn't realize Bieber had fallen that far. No way I'm trading Grayson in that package. I might do the deal if Grayson is replaced with D.L. Hall or Cade Povich. But this isn't the deal I would go for. Ramirez is fantastic, but infield is an area of strength for this system/team

If you're saying the sample sizes get too small to draw meaningful conclusions when you add in every specific piece of information relative to the situation, I can see where you're coming from. But if any exact situation has happened so few times in baseball history that we don't have enough data to make a useful model, how many times do you think any given manager has been in that situation? Why would their decision based on their limited exposure to the situation be better than a model that looks at every time that exact situation has occurred? I think you have the wrong idea about how organizations use data to make in-game calls. I doubt any organization is having a computer make 100% of in game managerial decisions. I'm sure they give the manager some model outputs and depending on the person/organization that could have a lot or a little impact on the in-game decisions. If your point is that computer models don't know that the statistical best reliever to use in any situation didn't sleep well the night before and had a crappy bullpen earlier, well, that's why there isn't a literal computer sitting in the dugout. This doesn't mean models are useless though.

Data-driven decisions can absolutely not work out in any given situation. What's better?

Lincecum was 5'11" 170 when he came up and threw 98. The dude really was "The Freak" Of all the times the Orioles drafted someone other than who I wanted, Lincecum was the one I wanted most at the time and the one that hurt the most when we missed on him. But hey, Billy Rowell hit the ball 500 ft once!

Yeah, but if he had hit a double we wouldn't be having this conversation

I thought Ryan McKenna was our whipping boy. He'll be at Fanfest in 20 years and someone will mention the fact he dropped a fly ball once

Dammit, Mateo stung that one

Povich is like the Star Trek movies. Even numbered ones are good

Yeah. McCann as the backup catcher is great. McCann as a DH is a head scratcher.

Jeez, Felix, way to give us a heart attack

I've always been skeptical of Westburg's left-side defense, but it's looking more and more like he has the bat for 1B if need be

Little League coach told me one hand gripping the bat, half fist with the other behind the bat to guide it

Why the heck was Hays bunting? Dude's one of the best hitters on the team at the moment

Fabian can definitely play defense there, but the hit tool is a question. I'm not sure Haskin is going to be all that impressive on either side of the ball. Cowser would probably be stretched there, but could maybe do it for a few years. IIRC, Beavers has a chance to stick in CF, so maybe him?

Reynolds has a much better track record than Mullins and his value isn't as dependent on speed. We have Mullins for 3 more years after this one, at which point he'll be 31. I don't think I'd want to try to extend him more than a year or two after that. Seems unlikely he'd be worth the money it would take

Is there anyone in baseball with as many line drive outs as Mountcastle?

Yeah, because he missed Jud Fabian by a single pick