Sessh

Wojo is another one that doesn't look great. Elbow above shoulder, arm not up, ball facing second base. What's amazing to me is how analytics don't even touch this stuff. At least, it doesn't seem to. Pitchers still come up with the same mechanical flaws and eventually get the same injuries. I'm not sure why this is still a mystery at all. Improve this stuff and I think pitcher injuries will decline. Shorter innings won't help these guys. It will just prolong whatever they have coming to them.

Mariano Rivera, Zach Britton, Josh Hader etc... most pitchers begin as starters. Converting them to relievers is pretty common based on either injury, ineffectiveness or need, I would say. That arm action is why his arm fell apart and was also responsible for his velocity. Elbow way above shoulder level and arm is upside down instead of upright, ball facing second base or first base. His arm is all twisted up. Just horrible. Harvey doesn't get his arm not up at footstrike and ball facing second base which indicates premature pronation of the arm and limits external rotation of the arm IIRC. I think I've heard it referred to before somewhere as the Tommy John twist as it puts unnecessary stress on the elbow and the shoulder. Not nearly as bad as Zumaya, but not good either and not hard to see where his injuries came from. I would also point out that this sort of thing was something pitchers used to be taught to do.. on purpose. I'm sure it still is in some circles because again, doing this stuff increases velocity while simultaneously increasing the chances of overloading and injuring the elbow and shoulder. It's basically a deal with the devil and this, IMO, is the problem with pitching today and why we see so many injuries to pitchers. It's amazing he hasn't lost any velocity and I hope I'm wrong, but I think this might be one of those bright flames that burn hot for a short time. I'm happy he's here and will enjoy every second he's here. That's what you want to see.

Dick Lovelady in the game now. Sounds like a pornstar name.

Bubba Starling said the same thing unfortunately. Robbed Santander of a 2B or 3B. Almost rolled his wrist to catch it, but fortunately all is well.

Fair enough, thanks. That's one area where I'm not all that well versed in the details.

Can't really argue with that. I'm not sure it will be easy for the game to let go of the home run obsession, though. It's hard to imagine a near future where another strike doesn't happen. Certainly, position players would reject any change that would lessen home runs. You mentioned Nick Castellanos of the Tigers complaining about the deep outfield at Comerica for starters. I don't think it's something that will be changed without a lot of kicking and screaming and that's just one thing, but how long will it take for the realization to set in is the question. Very rough waters ahead for baseball indeed. At some point, someone has to have the courage to just do what's best for the game as opposed to making wild changes that won't ruffle too many feathers. Feathers are going to have to be ruffled to fix what's wrong with this game.

I think it's an attempt to recapture the 90's which, let's face it, was a pretty damn exciting time in baseball. I think a lot of all this stuff has to do with baseball being unable to reinvent itself after removing PEDs which had been used pretty much throughout the entire history of the game, but became more pronounced when guys started hitting the weight room in the 80's and 90's. Baseball is still hung up on home runs, but the home run obsession is hopelessly tethered to PED usage. So, you want to move on from one, but keep the other. What do you do? Improve the aerodynamics of the baseball to compensate. I just wish MLB would figure out what they want and stick with it. Changing the ball every season isn't good for the game, either. Baseball may even be afraid to let go of the home run. I admit to having a degree of indecisiveness on the issue myself, but I generally think that too much has been lost from the sport to make room for more home runs and the increase in strikeouts that come with it. I think increased velocity has ultimately had a negative impact on the game as well especially without PED usage being what it was through the 50's-00's. Hitters don't react as fast and won't have the same bat speed while pitchers tear their arms and shoulders apart throwing mid-upper 90s with questionable secondary stuff and many of those guys using bad mechanics to achieve their velocity goals. It's also possible that PED's were helping players to stay healthy to some degree especially pitchers. It's certainly a messy issue almost certain to be made worse by Manfred.

That's called competition between two athletes trying to beat each other which is what sports are all about. You suggest rigging everything in the pitcher's favor. Also, you're making some wild assumptions here such as implying that most foul balls are the result of guys intentionally fouling pitches off. I don't buy that at all and I don't know why you think that would be the case or what you're even basing that on. You're calling for the removal, to some degree, of competition in a sport because you want the game to be over faster. When games were faster, there were AB's like this in every game where guys would foul off several pitches. You're barking up the wrong tree with this as it has nothing to do with any of the issues plaguing the sport right now. If a pitcher can't put a hitter away, he gets rewarded for it? Strikeouts being called for three foul balls is cheap. I can't go along with any changes that aim to remove competition or strategy to compensate for problems that no one in baseball wants to address let alone try to fix. I'm not saying they are easy problems, but the risk of creating new ones on top of the existing ones seems quite high and Manfred seems determined to manifest this reality ASAP.

Agree. I don't like the idea of penalizing players for staying alive with foul balls at all nor do I really see the point. It will also cause strikeouts to skyrocket even further which also makes it a bit of a myopic view IMO. Also agree about the shift. Maybe we could have a new award at season's end for most opposite field hits or something. It's just another lost art that has been sacrificed for home runs and strikeouts. However, I still think there's some risk in attempting to "de-juice" both the players and the ball because the game has literally never been that way.. ever. The dead-ball era was probably close. Also, starting pitchers need to go deeper into games again. The quicker you get into the bullpen, the more time wasted making pitching changes. it takes at least five minutes to make one pitching change mid-inning which accumulates quickly. Five pitching changes per team and it's 50 minutes unless some of them are between innings. Really, this means getting to the root of the epidemic of pitching injuries (bad mechanics), abandoning the velocity obsession and getting back to looking for guys that can actually pitch. In more cases than not, velocity seems to serve as compensation for a pitcher's lack of ability in other areas such as command and the quality of secondary pitches. I think it's very important to figure out what's causing this and fix it so we can get back to starters going seven innings instead of 4-5 innings. It's not pitch count since guys routinely threw metric tons of innings and pitches and there was never an epidemic of arm injuries that we have now, so it's obviously something we're doing wrong now that we weren't doing as wrong decades ago. In this sense, I think the velocity obsession has indirectly led to a significant increase in game time because of all the injuries caused in it's wake, the decreasing reliance on starters to go 6-7 innings and increased reliance on bullpen usage which means more pitching changes (5 minutes each unless between innings) and therefore longer game times. I think it would also be a good idea to make at least one bullpen pitching mound the same as the one on the field. The idea is maybe the reliever won't need as much time to warm up on the "new" mound when he comes in.

I think it should also be pointed out that Villar seems to have cleaned up his game with regard to making mistakes on the bases. Maybe I missed some bad plays, but it's been awhile since he's made big mistakes on the bases. His throwing accuracy may be his worst area defensively, but he's certainly athletic enough.

...for the price Elias was asking for. Besides, your comment is completely untrue as the Cubs showed interest and discussed such a trade with us. The demand for middle infielders was completely outstripped by the demand for pitching on top of that and teams only have so many resources available to trade. I don't get why you have such a passionate axe to grind against Villar, but it's not a great look or a reasonable one.

Eh, he was indecisive about diving, so he just kind of tripped forward. Ball hit the ground, bounced up and hit his chest while falling forward and bounced towards left field. His dive would have been perfect if there was a slip 'n' slide there, though.

Speaking of Wilkerson, a little comedy out in CF there.

Beats me. Probably just trying to milk everything they can out of players before moving on to others. This is likely going to be a long, long process, so I expect a lot of milking especially with the "depth" that we have to work with.

I would guess that Jace pushed for a chance in the majors before signing another minor league deal with us after opting out of the previous one. Maybe even conditional upon it. Just speculation, of course. The timing seems to fit.

Sorry, Friday. Seve played yesterday.

Palmer and Thorne commented on that yesterday about how Sisco doesn't give the pitcher a target with the glove. He only puts the glove up to catch the ball. I think it's another valid criticism.

All I can think of when I see stuff like this is won't it be great when it's Rutschman? That'll be fun. Been watching, but multitasking. At least we will (presumably) gain ground on the first place Tigers.

I think he said at 19, age.

Eshelman for Harvey, huh? Didn't see that coming, but I guess I can understand why it's Harvey all things considered. Should be interesting.

Well, at least our pitchers seem to be trying to pitch inside more though don't seem too comfortable with the idea. Still, a plus.

At least he didn't try to catch the ball in his teeth again. Seriously, a major league outfielder has to make that play. He had to run a long way to get there, but he DID get there and his glove was there.

How the hell did Stewart miss that? He got there, his glove was there and fanned on it. Ruiz missed the ball hit to third. Bad defense this inning.

Seems Brooks is making an effort to pitch inside as well.

Brooks not bad so far. Didn't completely lose it in the first like he's done in the past.