Originally Posted by BWillie:
Agreed. Baseball is dumb. Some guy dunks over you in the NBA, they flex in your face, talk shit. Then one play later you are both probably laughing. And that is waaay worse than flipping a god damn bat after a HR.
Celebrating as a pitcher or batter, should be expected and embraced. Taunting is different.
Guys do their dances and shit on base all the time..pitchers do a fiery fist pump after a big K, guys dog pile agter a big walk off. Baseball is filled with all kinds of emotional fun. Don't act like it's the fucking PGA. Take your "old white guy" hating shit to DC. [Reply]
Genuine change in approach or is he just seeing the ball well? His story's a pretty common one; one time solid prospect who never got much traction. We see these quite a bit and most of the time they vanish pretty quickly. The last time he did anything that would establish him as a legit ML possibility, let alone plus starter, was 2016. His recent history is pretty cruddy.
Do we have a swing change here? Sustainable change in strike zone discipline (uncommon as that may be for a someone with as much professional experience as he has).
Why should I believe he's legit? Or is it a case where Royals fans don't even think he's legit and expect him to crash to earth soon.
Personally I've gotta squint quite a bit and hope pretty hard to convince myself that this is a guy who will end the season with an OPS north of .800 or a K-BB rate that stays above average, but I'll listen to arguments to the contrary. [Reply]
Originally Posted by duncan_idaho:
I have no patience for Archer throwing at a guy for watching a home run or a bat flip. He does the equivalent stuff all the time.
Personally, I love the passion Archer plays with. He just can’t decide to drill people for displaying the same. It’s hypocritical.
Archer's a bitch and an overrated punk. If anyone deserves a Manny Machado 'bat thrown at him' incident, it's Archer. It's absolutely unbelievable to me that he'd have the stones to throw at someone after making a career of being a showboat on the mound.
Screw off, man. Live by the sword and you can die by it. If you're some stoic dude like DeGrom and you have someone pimping a homer on you...eh, okay - you're living by your own code and I can accept that. May not be how I'd do it, but I can accept it.
But if you're gonna be someone like Archer and dance after giving up 2 runs and striking someone out in the 3rd inning, then when somebody watches a ball they hit into the fucking river, you should probably just make a better pitch next time. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Hunter Dozier - what's under the hood here?
Genuine change in approach or is he just seeing the ball well? His story's a pretty common one; one time solid prospect who never got much traction. We see these quite a bit and most of the time they vanish pretty quickly. The last time he did anything that would establish him as a legit ML possibility, let alone plus starter, was 2016. His recent history is pretty cruddy.
Do we have a swing change here? Sustainable change in strike zone discipline (uncommon as that may be for a someone with as much professional experience as he has).
Why should I believe he's legit? Or is it a case where Royals fans don't even think he's legit and expect him to crash to earth soon.
Personally I've gotta squint quite a bit and hope pretty hard to convince myself that this is a guy who will end the season with an OPS north of .800 or a K-BB rate that stays above average, but I'll listen to arguments to the contrary.
Exit velocity
Off the charts right now
Keeps his K <150, he’s a 2-3 War guy. I didn’t think he could keep Ks low but we shall see.
Glove sucks tho. Throws well to 1b. Limited range.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Hunter Dozier - what's under the hood here?
Genuine change in approach or is he just seeing the ball well? His story's a pretty common one; one time solid prospect who never got much traction. We see these quite a bit and most of the time they vanish pretty quickly. The last time he did anything that would establish him as a legit ML possibility, let alone plus starter, was 2016. His recent history is pretty cruddy.
Do we have a swing change here? Sustainable change in strike zone discipline (uncommon as that may be for a someone with as much professional experience as he has).
Why should I believe he's legit? Or is it a case where Royals fans don't even think he's legit and expect him to crash to earth soon.
Personally I've gotta squint quite a bit and hope pretty hard to convince myself that this is a guy who will end the season with an OPS north of .800 or a K-BB rate that stays above average, but I'll listen to arguments to the contrary.
We’re seeing a continued evolution of the player he was in August and September last year.
I’m not sure he’s a .900 OPS guy, but a solid starter? Yeah.
He has immense physical tools, just has taken forever to utilize them. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Great Expectations:
Didn’t he throw slow on purpose one year to prove a point that pitching was more about movement and location than velocity?
He through fastballs down the middle too see if the hitters are that good and he said he got rocked. My favorite grienke story is that Gordon struck out and grienke wabed him to the club house to look at the replay but instead of Gordon striking out it was a replay of a hoker grienke hit. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Great Expectations:
Didn’t he throw slow on purpose one year to prove a point that pitching was more about movement and location than velocity?
Ridiculously talented guys always have the best stories because they can just toy with people.
One of my favorites was one I heard about Matt Morris years ago. He was pitching in the Cape between his Soph/Junior years and some guy leaned out and smoked one up the box and pissed him right off.
He's in the middle of finishing up a complete game and sees that the guy isn't gonna bat unless he puts some runners on. So he walks a couple guys, strikes a couple guys out, drills this dude to load the bases and then strikes the last guy out to finish off the game.
Extremely athletic normal human beings are interesting enough creatures; we all know guys like that. Some dude that hasn't played golf in 10 years or hasn't held a bat since high school and he just drives one 300 yards dead down the fairway or steps in for a buddy with a sprained ankle and pops a 320 shot to center in a softball game. Those dudes are fun.
But 'make a living playing sports' athletic is just a breed apart. Those friggen guys just floor me. I've known a couple in passing in my life and they're just ...different.
Greinke was like that - just a naturally athletic guy. The kind of guy that gets called up to the majors and asks his coach if he can go down to A ball instead and learn to play shortstop (true story). Those guys just toy with people and there's simply not a story I could hear from folks like that that I wouldn't believe. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Great Expectations:
Didn’t he throw slow on purpose one year to prove a point that pitching was more about movement and location than velocity?
He still throws curveballs in the low 60s just to **** with guys. He's done that since his rookie year. [Reply]
And the manager you're facing is one of those 'opener' goofballs.
Assuming he can't change his 'opener' after seeing your starting lineup, isn't the optimal strategy to negate his perceived advantage burning a decent reliever as an 'opener' is that your first three hitters are on the card at the typical positions for your first inning guys but instead you use starting pitchers who aren't likely to appear in that particular game, then put your actual starters in on defense the next half inning? [Reply]
Alcides Escobar (Charlotte Knights AAA) .340 avg, 47 abs, 1 hr
Brandon Maurer (Pittsburgs AAA system) Still sucks, 5.08 ERA
Brian Goodwin (Anaheim) .340 avg, .923 ops
Mike Moustakas (Milwaukee) .231 avg, 6 hr, .911 ops
Ben Zobrist (Cubs) .271 avg, .650 ops
Kendrys Morales (Oakland) .200 avg, .569 ops
Lorenzo Cain (Milwaukee) .306, 2 hr, .836 ops (we should have fucking signed this guy)
Paulo Orlando (AAA Dodgers) .185 avg, .645 ops
Jarrod Dyson (Dbacks) .270 avg, 2 hr, .831 ops
Christian Colon (AAA Loiusville) .333 avg, .835 ops
Cheslor Cuthbert (AAA Omaha) He's sucking balls & about ready to get cut
Drew Butera (Colorado Rockies) 4 at bats & who cares
Edinson Volquez (Texas Rangers) 7 era, 2 starts
Johnny Cueto (Giants) 60 day DL
Kelvin Herrera (Sox) 9 ip, 1.0 era
Wade Davis (Rockies) 4 ip, 0.0 era
Greg Holland (Dbacks) 7 ip, 0.0 era
Jason Vargas (Mets) 7ip, 14.5 era [Reply]
