Jim French Stepstool

Donovan Davis of Freedom HS announced for Iowa State today, which isn't a surprise. Not hearing much lately about some of the other HS targets. The funny one to me is Jalen Brown of Tosa West. All along he sounded like a fairly heavy UW lean, but no smoke signals or speculation for a long time. I'm beginning to wonder if the current landscape of college hoops is causing Greg Gard to really scale back on the HS kids & focus more on the portal adds & looking overseas. Perhaps the recruiting $$$ is therefore being focused elsewhere, leaving Brown in the lurch. Or a refocusing on veteran players has allowed someone else to step up with a better offer for Brown (he does have several schools interested). Jack Koenen of Slinger & Baboucarr Ann (Maple Grove, MN) still reportedly have UW on their list of 3 or 4 finalists. And I get the feeling that Deuce McDuffie of Nicolet is in the category a lot of kids seem to be falling into------no schollie for you now, go to a mid-major & prove yourself, go portalling, and maybe we'll be interested down the road. Just another aspect of the new, foul-smelling world of college hoops.

Mark Manfredi at Biloxi is someone I hoped would finally start throwing strikes, but after a somewhat promising start to his season it still seems to be an issue. He's now 26. I'm kinda to the point where if a spot opens up in AAA, advance him & see if a promotion kickstarts something.

It might be time to do away with the 'starter has to go 5 innings' thing to get credit for a win. If he goes less, leaves with a lead that's never relinquished & the BP load is diced up among 3-4 pitchers then leave it up to the official scorer. I get the strategy today---off day yesterday, off day tomorrow, guys in the pen who haven't thrown a lot, and Sproat seems to hit a wall around 65-75---but I thought this was a good day to try to get him through five since we had a cushion. Iffy first two innings, then a great one, then another iffy one.........I'd have given him a batter or two into the 5th to try to 'build' a little more. Hamiltons' ability to get the ball down & get to full speed immediately---I don't know if I've seen anything like it. Ortiz being behind him dampens it somewhat, but not enough to take it away from him. I'd actually love for him to be hitting 9th but when he & Ortiz are playing together you just can't. Hitless today but Tyler Black put up a terrific AB in the opening inning. Really seems to be seeing the ball. D L Hall is becoming quite unsung, in a very good way.

In Sunday's scenario, the 2-strike bunt attempt came in a scoreless game. Like I said above, I wouldn't have ordered it; it's something you pretty much need to see available & do on your own. But I've never subscribed to a theory that if it's 0-0 you need to score all runners to make it a successful AB. But down by 2 or 3 runs, I agree. MAYBE if you feel you can beat it out & there's no outs it might depend on who's waiting next. But last night there was one down & next was Mitchell, who isn't a safe bet to touch the ball. Like discussed above, his next-to-last AB would've been a good time to use Black. One more thing to keep in mind re Hamilton---I'm sure not ALL of his square-arounds are intended to be bunt attempts, but are trying to pull in the corners.

The bunt attempt Sunday w/2 strikes was 'unconventional' to say the least. I would think that he was hedging his bet due to facing a LHP, where only 15% of his career ABs have come against. He may have thought the risk was worth the reward, pulling out his particular talent. And in that situation it was a 0-0 game. If he gets it down it's a run if the bunt is anything north of terrible. I'd have been happy with a run there, at that spot in the order. So everything considered I understand his mindset. Would I have ordered it? No. Yeah, Black PHing for Hamilton last night would've been a good move. Until the order came around again there was nowhere else to use him.

My thinking is that Black & Yelich are redundant due to both primarily being locked into DH role. Bauers & Black also have redundancy, but as you said Black comes out 2nd there too, due to the glove being factored in.

I wouldn't say I hated it, but I don't blame anyone for feeling that way. Certainly risky. I felt slightly better about that matchup than Wetherholt, but like you said when you factor in Patrick constantly falling behind............ Chad was poor today.

I'll be looking forward to the day, if/when it comes, when Patrick moves back into the relief role he filled effectively late last season. Go 2.1 innings, throw 96-97 with the secondary stuff he has & he can be strong. I get that he's been needed as a starter, but in that role he's a lot more ordinary, and is a decent bet to not even get you through five. Recovered somewhat tonite from some very subpar ABs early on. But Contreras couldn't find a glove for a couple days, and today it was the opposite. Hamilton doesn't bunt because he 'can't hit'. He bunts because it's a weapon he possesses. He's pretty good at it, and he's had a handful this year where he didn't put it in a great spot, and/or the defense was semi-looking for it, and still beat it out. Among the 3 left-side-of-the-infield guys on the roster I'd say he's been the most effective up to this point offensively (yes, low bar). One can argue he looks to it too often. But I think most of the criticism is in hindsight after it doesn't work. Chourios' success was obvious today. But I also thought Vaughn looked OK at the plate for his first time back.

I wasn't thrilled about the trade at the time, either. Priester made me feel just a smidge better about it last summer, though😁. Laras' early season, the move of Adamczewski to LF & the re-emergence of Braylon Payne has lessened the sting of losing Yoph. But I still like him.

Good to see Black was retained although not a surprise. The interesting scenario is when Yelich is ready to return if all is well health-wise. Yelich & Black are pretty redundant on this roster----I'm sure they aren't thrilled about Yelich playing in the OF.

Yes. Chourios' BA is officially ------.

I've read the back and forth. C'mon. No one is saying anything resembling that.

Reportedly Turang was sick.

A poor AB. And afterwards, we seemed to change the philosophy after the Nats went to the pen. An awful lot of quick outs vs some mediocre stuff. Almost as if the baseball gods were doling out payback for some really good ABs vs Soroka---who is having a very solid year---during the last homestand.

Absolutely.