jerichoholicninja

Because baseball is weird, I would put money on one of those teams not making the playoffs. Every year there is a team that totally collapses in the second half. Since the original post was made the Mariners are in free fall and only 1.5 games ahead of Oakland. Mariners are now 2.5 games behind Oakland.

Pretty sure they can only negotiate with 1 team.

Lyles OPS allowed: Home: .632 Away: .866

Take away April and May and batters are OPS'ing almost .800 against Ross. I'm fine with not getting him. Still confused about Lyles though.

Maybe but he's been a very below average pitcher his whole career. I would think Woodruff or Wilkerson would be "better" options.

Ok. To do what? Not sure he's an upgrade in the rotation or bullpen. Can he be sent down or does he have to go on the 25 man roster?

There's no Perez, Sogard, Orf, or Miller so it's not a "Sunday" lineup.

Even without the rule, a pitcher needs a target to throw at. Trying to pitch to a spot without any visual cue is very difficult.

You could ask the same thing of 95% of hitters.

Santana is actually hitting pretty well in AAA right now though, whatever that is worth. It's worth nothing. Perhaps less than nothing.

There's never anyone on no matter where he hits so does it really matter?

Just score some freaking runs and your SP can give up 3 runs in 6 innings and it not put the game away.

Red Sox/Yankees tonight, Rick Porcello hits the leadoff batter of the game on an 0-2 count. Luis Severino throws his first pitch to a Red Sox batter at his head. Benches are warned. Alex Cora gets thrown out after putting up one heck of a fit. If MLB really wants to get rid of beanball wars, here is where they screw up all the time. There is about .1% chance that Porcello was throwing at the first batter of the game with an 0-2 count. Severino clearly was throwing with purpose. Toss him. A warning means nothing. If you want to stop it, stop it before it gets anywhere. There was clear intent in the pitch and the guy needs to be tossed, not warned.

What a crazy idea? Just put the fielders where the ball is most likely to be hit instead of equally spacing them apart on the field. The article wasn't about the use of the shift per se, but about what players, with what skill sets are in the shifted positions. The basic alignment was not anything required by rules, it was done to have the best chance of infielders getting to balls. It wasn't always that way, in the beginning first baseman played very close to the bag, then one team figured you could get more balls by moving him over and having the pitcher cover first on balls hit to the right side. The thing about the standard layout is that it requires players with certain preferred skills 2b and SS are fast / rangy with SS having a strong arm. First and 3rd need quick reactions, but need not necessarily be fast and cover ground. The new paradigm the Brewers are using is saying you not only don't have to put players in the traditional place, you don't have to have the traditional skill sets if your spray charts are good enough. Will it work? Will the defense still be saving a lot of runs? We have two months to get an idea. I get that and I think it's amazingly progressive thinking. If you're putting fielders where the ball is most likely to be hit the only real skill that a fielder needs is fielding the ball and making an accurate throw. Basically the bare minimum of skills. In theory, shifting makes range irrelevant, especially with a lefty shift. The player nearest the traditional short stop position is the only one who should be making a play to his right and most likely it's going to be a hit anyway.

I'm probably the biggest BA hater here but this is getting a little ridiculous. He's basically a half-time announcer for the Brewers now. Good for him that he's able to get all these gigs and the Brewers let him do it but maybe it's time to move on and give some new guy a chance who will be committed at least 90% of the season.

What a crazy idea? Just put the fielders where the ball is most likely to be hit instead of equally spacing them apart on the field. I am "self-taught" at baseball. My mom showed me how to throw a ball and swing a bat but I didn't really learn how the game is played (or is "supposed to be played") from my parents, coaches, etc, because I really didn't play much of it until high school. I haven't been drilled by "tradition" or the "that's just the way we've always done it" mentality so I always find it hard to understand when people have data in front of them that doesn't require any interpretation (like hitting spray charts) and they scoff at the thought of doing something different than what has always been done. There's so much of the Jim Thome attitude below: Umm, Jim. You just said that shifting hurt you as a hitter and then you questioned if it works. Of course it works and of course it's helping teams win.

Back to back 4 game series against two non-divisional opponents is weird. The Brewers should have had an off day yesterday or last Thursday. Not sure who green lit that scheduling quirk.

Schoop was acquired for next year as much as this year. We have a year and a half to hate on him. Don't waste it all after two games.

Taking the family to Iowa when the Sky Sox are there later this month. I've been looking on the Iowa Cubs website for information but it's not really helpful. It looks like even small children need a ticket, but they do have kids prices. Also, don't see any sort of play area. Which seems really odd for a minor league park. Anyone with any info on the stadium?

I was hoping getting Schoop would mean Perez never started a game again. If you're choice is between Perez and Arcia at SS I don't know how you chose Perez.

Most of it is that Trout has decided he doesn't want the notoriety. Rob Manfred basically called him out on it during the All Star game and Trout told him to mind his own business.

I’m pretty sure you are referring to ‘Story Lords.’ I remember, even at my young age, thinking this is beyond weird while watching that show. What's bugging me right now is the MLBTradeRumors comment section. It's the internet, so 99% of comments are troll posts anywhere anyway, but it used to be really good. I'd used to go there to read what fans of other teams thought of their players I didn't know anything about. Now for some reason the comments on every article degrade into Cubs fans trolling the Brewers. Like, sure, Cubs fans trolling the Cardinals or White Sox, but the Brewers?

Once the calendar hits August the Wisconsin sports fan tunes out the Brewers for Packers and Badgers football. The Brewers could be given Mike Tout for free and I doubt the average fan would even notice right now.

My take from watching Reyes pitch, I understand he's not a pitcher so I won't fault him for walking guys and giving up hits and homeruns. But what I don't understand is how a guy who's played as long as he has doesn't know to go out of the stretch with runners on. The Nationals never stole but he went out of the windup the whole time he pitched.

Nothing. The prospects lost would not be worth the upgrade. Trading for Trout would pretty much kill this franchise for the next 10 years.