Sydnor

He’ll blame Urias and talk about the leadership Cowser showed by accepting blame for a play that wasn’t his fault.

2014 for me.

Pure speculation, but it seems like Ramon might have tweaked something running out the ground ball to first. I agree with you. No way they make that substitution for defense.

Fastball is 94-95 in his second inning of work.

As I write this, he throws 2 tremendous changeups with fade. Changeup was about 85.

DL Hall is sitting 96-97 on the stadium gun. Just got a guy looking at 97 on the outside corner. Mostly changeup for the secondary. Maybe 1 curve so far. Not a lot of command of the changeup. The curve got hit hard, but Ortiz made a very nice play to his left.

In Norfolk. Kjerstad laced a line drive to right center for a triple. Joey followed up with a hard hit double to left. Almost had a HR earlier in the AB, but it hooked foul.

On an episode of his podcast earlier this year, he talked about how he had never met Elias and Sig until spring training this year. It didn’t seem like there was any bad blood there. He said they had good conversations. Also when he was down at spring training, he went out to dinner with John. He said it was productive and they hashed stuff out. I think he’ll be around in the future (when he’s not in Spain or traveling).

Agreed. I think he can field. I don’t think he’s ever going to be prime Alex Gordon, but he should be fine. However, you had posters that confidently said that he would be worth more fWAR or rWAR than Santander and/or Hays for the remainder of the season if the team would just call him up (I personally disagreed, didn’t really voice my opinion, but everyone is entitled to an opinion). People said he might not hit for as much power but the corner OF defense will be better. Unfortunately, it hasn’t yet (-2 DRS, 0 OAA in RF v. Santander 4 DRS, 0 OAA in RF). So there is a weight of expectations that he isn’t currently living up to. I think *hope* he will come around, and think it’s far too early to draw any conclusions, but it just isn’t there yet and because the team is fighting to win the East, you’re going to get overreactions.

There are 7.888 billion people in the world and he is one of 780 people that play in the bigs. Maybe you think there’s another 250 in the minors that are better than he is. The percent of people on his level is so low that I would have to throw an e-8 into it. Whatever you might think of whether he should be on this team, he is, in fact, good at baseball. I wish I could be as good at what I do as Jorge Mateo is at baseball.

Zach Showalter also in the deal.

I’m sure everyone will love this part of the trade.

I don’t know whether it is true intel, but JP has known Verlander for a long time, going back to his days as a writer for the Detroit Free Press in the mid-2000s. I tend to think JP wouldn’t bring it up unless he knows something. He’s also always struck me as less of a rumor monger than guys like Heyman, and he’s not always wrong like Nightengale.

I like Civale, but he gets injured a lot. I’m also not convinced that Cleveland will trade him because Allen, Bibee, and Williams are all on innings limits, Bieber is likely some for the year, and McKenzie might be done for the year. Despite the years of control, it would sort of feel Scott Feldman like to me. I hope we do better.

To your point, I’ve heard Adley call Stowers his best friend or “one of his best friends.” I don’t think he’s sulking because Kyle is in Norfolk.

I am so happy for Santander. The longest tenured Oriole. He deserves this.

I do know how to search Google! I cited the 4 most widely respected rankings because you made a statement that appeared to be false. You said plenty of others disagree. You resort to that condescending nonsense rather than supporting your statement. That’s fine. I won’t engage further.

Keith Law is The Athletic. MLB.com is Pipeline. If you have some to share, by all means, do so.

Latest rankings: Keith Law - Ortiz 36; Norby honorable mention Kiley McDaniel - Ortiz 71; Norby 92 (Westburg 66) Fangraphs - Ortiz 51 (50 FV); Norby unranked (45 FV) Pipeline - Ortiz 61; Norby 64 Pipeline is the only national ranking that rates Ortiz in a similar range to Norby.

I gave a deeper look at why I think it makes sense yesterday. Also, it’s 6 years of Cabrera.