Jim French Stepstool
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Everything posted by Jim French Stepstool
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The 5x claim is impossible to substantiate w/o knowing what the original # is. So like you said, who knows? I think the 3x over the previous year is.........let me say feasible. But whatever they can do that they think will encourage contributions, that's how they'll cook it. It's an arms race w/no rules.
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Because at many places the structure to pay players is in place & has been for a long time. Makes sense they'd be better at it. Compared to most D-1 schools out there they're nowhere near poor. And I've never heard anyone in the administration claiming it. I'm bitter about the changes re NIL & the portal, period. Their NIL funds HAVE grown handsomely (I don't know if they've tripled. If that's what they claim, so be it). Pretty sure they never said it's tripled 'year over year'. If it has it would probably be 8 digits by now. If Hepburn deemed it a waste of time that's his business. He previously agreed to an increase in his pay for 24-25 after the season ended, so it's a bad look IMO. But, no rules. If his thinking was that they aren't going to match 800 grand anyway, he's right. Disappointing but not totally surprising they've struck out so far. The people they've targeted are pretty heavily sought after by people with money. And their philosophy is they aren't putting an inordinate amount into one guy. That became pretty evident when Angel spurned Duke, then all of a sudden Oregon appeared.
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It was huge leading off the inning when he got Joe Dimag.......I mean Connor Joe.........on one pitch.
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The chances of Reynolds making a subpar throw are low, but IMO higher than getting a successful AB w/2 outs. I got no problem wid it.
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There's an old internet fan board adage-----or at least there should be----that would go something like this: When you read complaints about this & that player, take it with a grain of salt because NOBODY can be THAT bad. It applied today. Sanchez, obviously. And Bauers not only helped produce a couple runs today, but saved a big one in the 8th on a real tricky hop. Nice to come back & win on a day that Peralta was, frankly, really poor. Would like an explanation as to why Koenig didn't stay in for Cruz leading off the 8th. But the pen AGAIN, my goodness. Well done.
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Great point. And you add a nice length option to the BP if Wilson eventually can return there. There's actually rotation depth, you just need to keep from having 4 or 5 of those options all down at the same time. Although to be honest, I'm not thinking about being able to use "Ashby" and "effective" in the same sentence until '25. Hope I'm wrong.
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Constantly getting 3.2, 4, 4.2 from the starters isn't good. But it seems to me like the innings load re the late guys has mostly been OK for now. And the AAA shuttle where a BP effectively has 10 or 11 guys makes it a little more manageable. But for sure, we need to get more length from the starters.
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Sophia: "Murph, how awesome would it have been if the double steal worked?"
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So, welcome to PNC, where bats turn to jelly, timely hits (mostly) disappear, gloves turn into trashcan lids & brain matter seemingly pours out of a hole in the back of our heads. Still, a win. Great pen work again. I'm assuming MLB is now under the rules of NIL & unlimited transfers, and Turang & Frelick really like double steals so we let them try it so they don't get mad & go to some other team. Other than that I see no reason on Earth why you would try that with Contreras at the plate. It looks like a Hiura-type dialogue may develop re Bauers & Tyler Black. And I get it. But Bauers has shown on a regular basis why he's here, whether people agree with it or not. Me, I can see both sides & I know Black has to get a whole lot better with the glove before something happens (barring injury).
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Hard to say re the pen. It can be a funny thing when the turnaround is only 16-18 hours. But the late guys may all be available.
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Like TURBO said, Black is really heating up in Nashville. But they aren't getting rid of Bauers just yet, and you can't have a 13-man position group with 3 being 1B. Even if they did jettison Bauers Hoskins is going to do some DHing & they aren't going to play the game where Black has to do "X" with the bat to make up for the defensive deficiencies. Nor should they.
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Wilson has been OK, so how we matchup with whoever follows Fleming could be key. Quick turnaround tomorrow too, & our pen is maybe a little more rested than theirs. So an opportunity.
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The way I understand it, if you do this properly you present a recruit with financial opportunities that can be set up for you, and what they would pay. If the info I've heard is correct, during the actual season this might amount to a time commitment more-or-less what you or I might put towards one full week of work (if you ask me that's where the whole thing already goes off the rails. I'd rather the schools not even be involved with it. Simply let student-athletes explore their own opportunities & hire a representative if they'd like). Anyway, what's apparently happening is guys are visiting a school, sometimes (usually?) with a dollar amount in mind & expecting to have a check cut for them if they sign. And many are getting just that. Knowing Storr, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a deal with Illinois in February. The reason I'm not surprised is he didn't go there. That would be in keeping with a guy who hasn't been with the same team in successive years since Jr high. It's a field day for the schools that have cheated for years, because they're good at it & can go into hyperdrive because they know the NCAA is in no mood to try to penalize anyone after all the court battles they've lost.
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Plus they're starting a LHP (although no one knows how long he'll be out there). I'd prefer starting him & maybe sit him tomorrow if today is another clunker. Chourio has looked to go the other way pretty much all season & it seems so ingrained that he's lunging at everything out over the plate---or a foot wide of the plate. He was talking about adjustments the other day, both pitchers amending what they're doing & him 'adjusting to the adjustment'. Unless he's Albert Pujols coming straight from the Midwest League to the majors the struggles were inevitable.
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No must wins this early, but yeah, it would be nice to snap out of this incredible cold streak. Seems like we're back to deciding to play poorly in Pitt. Aside from the offense, one could make the case we gave them half their runs this series, which has been uncharacteristic. Silver lining is we we've had two decent to good starts, which bodes well for what most think is the Achilles heel of this team.
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One the one hand it's annoying to see schools sign this guy & that guy while UW is, so far, fruitless. But the portal had something like 1500-1600 players entered like 3-4 days ago. It's now around 2000. Right now I don't know who they're focusing on (Along with Fidler, Angel & Hunter are going elsewhere & Trimble has decided to stay at UNC) but they're active AFA making calls & setting up visits.
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As was the case with Meeker & Biloxi, a couple clicks old for his level. I wonder if Grand Chute is in Hunts' immediate future?
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I noticed black has only 4 steal attempts for the year. This is a guy that swiped 55 last season & obviously still has his legs as he's racked up a few triples. Could it be a case of the hierarchy shutting him down on the bases as we seem to be an injury magnet this year?
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Who knows, but stuff like that always seems to happen to "your" team more than others. I know they've done a pretty good job of extracting walks compared to some past years, and when you do that sometimes you get punched out looking. To me, taking a called 3rd bothers me, but not nearly as much as a swinging 3rd strike way off the plate. Adames has gotten much better at this. But his last AB tonite was painfully reminiscent of '22-'23 for him.
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I'm a big-picture kinda guy so I can't get too worked up over yet another lackluster performance offensively. This staff is far from full strength & they're keeping them in games (I can almost hear the "for now". Well, same with the offense, then. They aren't hitting "for now"). Can't help but feel good about what Myers did. You can see how he is able to be effective w/the high heat, and I thought Sanchez did a nice job of making sure he was mixing. Felt bad for Koenig. The sixth reminded me we were in PNC. Three grounders. First one just past Hoskins. Then a DP grounder, except it wasn't hit at an INF, so base hit. Then ANOTHER DP grounder, that had 2nd-hop topspin & exploded past Ortiz (admittedly you gotta at least get a glove on it though). Since there were runners on & it was Connor Joe hitting, I shouldn't be surprised. Bottom line, IMO this is a better offense than last year in many ways. They're going through something that most teams go through only like, I dunno, every year. Chourio hitting a rookie-year rough patch at the same time Yelich is out certainly doesn't help.
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This seems to be etched in stone: Yelich feels something 'grab'. Sits for 3-4 days. No better. IL. IL stint ends; absolutely no word on his coming back being imminent.
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Lots of starters ahead of him in the organizational pecking order, I think. Since the surgery he hasn't looked even reasonably close to being able to help.
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Very nice!! Thanks. It seemed in those days like they were constantly after Rudy May. Finally had to settle for prying Clyde Wright loose from the Angels.
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He did get a pretty good pitch, but I virtually never like it in that situation when you're down 2 or more. Not on 3-1. Throw in that Bednar hasn't had great command in the early going.
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Jones was very impressive. He could be even better moving forward if/when he mixes the curve in more in the early innings. I had two issues tonight. I don't know if you pull Ross when they did. You could make a strong case for Ross v Tellez being preferable to what we should've assumed was the alternative---Milner vs Connor Joe, who I don't think I've ever seen play against the Brewers & not have everything go his way (at least it seems that way). Maybe wait until the Sowinski AB to pull him. And a lousy decision by Turang swinging 3-1 leading off the 9th. As for PHing for Frelick, I wouldn't have done it but I kinda sorta get it. It's a move you could justify if you have a RH bat sitting on the bench. The bigger issue is that Wiemer is that RH bat. He should still be in Nashville, not here.
