Jake

I'm with GS, even though it will ever so slightly reduce the Bulls' legacy. I find that whole squad in Cleveland to be unlikable and I won't cheer for them. Draymond Green wants me to not like GS, but I'm not there yet.

One thing I noticed–in your (excellent and useful) compare/contrast of last year's mechanics with this year's, I think you're wrong about his placement on the rubber. It's always hard to see from these angles, but in the 2015 video it looks to me like he's on the extreme 3rd base side of the rubber. I can't tell where he is in the 2016 video. I think he should be on the first base side of the rubber, especially if he wants to stride closed.

They absolutely don't need to care what the fans think about the management, because the fans will most definitely quit giving a s*** when you win. But you will have to win if you don't want the fans' feelings about the management to start hurting you.

Baffling that you can look at this and think the manager is the problem. s***'s going bad and it is a clearly a very multi-faceted problem

If you're focused on Robin, you're focusing too hard. Pulling Robo and then putting in Kahnle was *very* questionable, but when you're in the position to make those decisions you're beyond the point where managing is your main problem

We would definitely benefit from another starter and his contract dictates you'd have to give up very little talent. Note that it's a backloaded (sort of deal), so $10M last year and $21M each year until it ends. I'm not sure if Shields is the guy, but I would imagine as Hahn looks at deals he's checking out guys that are making a lot of money that he could basically in exchange for eating the contract

They definitely have to look into doing something with Fulmer, but it's not obvious to me whether demotion is the answer. For one, he seems to be getting worse, which would suggest it isn't just the competition. You also want to know that he's actually locating the pitches rather than taking advantage of worse competition. With that said, I'm a strong proponent of the idea that you can irrevocably harm a player by letting him play too badly for too long.

8 walks in May is very encouraging. He's going to always carry a decent batting average, but everything else is in the air. Will he strike out too much? Walk too little? Have enough pop? There are some good signs on all those fronts, but let's get him really dominating the level before calling him up. He's played what, 40 games in AAA? Let's take some time.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 21, 2016 -> 05:00 PM) So Soria this year is getting crushed by righties (.840 OPS compared to .560 by lefties). Jimmy Rollins has an OPS below .500 vs RHP this year, and Avi is at .753 vs RHP. Letting Rollins PH for Sands there is a decision that makes no sense on any level. Since I was feeling curious, I checked Rollins' career numbers against Soria. 1 for 1 with a 2B, probably not a major factor in the decision. Avi was 1 for 7 with a 2B and a K, again probably not something that stood out to the decisionmakers. With that said, Avi's numbers over the past week/2 weeks are not so good while Rollins's are...okay, a tick better than his season averages. With that said, Rollins's struggles against RHP vs LHP is not something that has been consistent over his career, so I'm not sure how much I would be thinking about it

He's getting very hard to watch. Slumping is one thing, even getting worse is one thing, but right now he has some elementary problems. It's not just that it feels like he's being pitched very consistently and predictably inside, the numbers bear it out as well. Nobody sees as many inside fastballs in the league as Jose. But he can't lay off of them and he can't hit them hard. I'd like to see him at least look like he has a different strategy. Go up there looking for inside heat and pound it...or, if he just can't do that, then try to go up there refusing to swing at anything that looks to him like it's on the inside third. Right now it looks like he's up there trying to be able to cover any kind of pitch, but he's only seeing one kind of pitch and he can't handle that one.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ May 14, 2016 -> 10:17 AM) So Lebron trying to start s*** with Warriors. I think Lebron is best when he keeps his trap shut. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/05/steph-curr...h-cavs-warriors I don't even understand his point. It sounds like he's saying that Steph was the best player but not the most valuable, when I think the opposite argument would be the most helpful to LeBron. A lot of people would still say that LeBron is the best player even if Steph appears more valuable right now. In any case, he makes it really unclear what it is that he's trying to say.

It's clear that the airport security measures are heavy-handed, inefficient, and if recent news stories are true, not even that good at what they are supposed to do. I think it is very clear marker of the way we have been willing to give up our freedoms in the name of a war on terror. Of course, this isn't a matter of no security vs. the status quo, it's a question of whether you should be lining up and taking your shoes off, being subjected to random strip searches and whatever profiling may go along with that, spending all the time it takes to go through these processes, etc.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 14, 2016 -> 03:37 PM) Don't think Eaton had a chance at that liner. It does concern me just how slow Abreu is on anything to his right though, which the next single was. His defense is bad (2nd worst defensive 1b in baseball) I thought the ball to center was played even worse.

QUOTE (BrianAnderson @ May 12, 2016 -> 12:57 PM) I'm not giving up on Sanchez in my mind. I'd rather see him in AAA though getting AB's. The guy is still young.. like 23 or 24. He does well at AAA everytime he's down there. In reality his ceiling might be a very good bench player. Top out at a Chris Getz career. 2-3 years starting, then backup for 2-3 more years. Shuck has been playing 1b in the minors I believe. By the time we play Houston at home next week I think he'll be up. You have to at least play him as often as Saladino has played if you're going to keep him up, that's for sure.

It's not clear to me to Saladino deserves PT over Sanchez. I can see reasons why (probably the better defensive SS), but I don't think it's clear cut that he would outhit Sanchez if both are given opportunity. In fact, I think there's a chance Sanchez would outhit Saladino by plenty to make up for whatever defensive differences there are. Saladino finally got a couple hits yesterday, so that helps his cause. Both players botched a must-have-contact situation in that game

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 11, 2016 -> 09:11 AM) I think it should be one of 2 things, either get technology to call balls and strikes or make the best balls and strikes umpires permanent home plate umpires. Let the Laz Diazes of the world work the bases. Now with replay, balls and strikes is the biggest umpire issue. Everything else can be reviewed. If they aren't going to do anything about it, they probably should ban pitch trax. All it does is makes the umpires look bad. And these are the best in the world. It shows just how tough of a job it is. QUOTE (Tex @ May 11, 2016 -> 09:25 AM) Great point. These are the best in the world. Again, does anyone have evidence how reliable and accurate pitch trax is? Pitch F/X is extremely accurate. With that said, I do not know what technology powers the graphics you see on the broadcasts. AFAIK, only MLB (and their Gameday app on the web and mobile) has real-time Pitch F/X data, I believe it is not available to others until the next day. I could be wrong about that, but I've never gotten an answer out of any TV station about the tech behind their pitch tracking graphics.

Weird game. Tough matchup tmrw, hope we can leave town on a high note. Just about every other 1 or 2 game bummer we've had has been followed up with a nice run.

A big encouraging factor to me is his plate discipline. Last year his o-swing%, which is the percentage of non-strikes that are swung at, was 45.2% which is astronomically high. His first year with us it was 41.1%, also very high. This year it is at 36.4%, which isn't exactly patient but way more conducive to be a non-horrible hitter.

The quality of his contact over the past 10 days or so is crazy

If Jackson had so little interest this offseason, I don't see any indications that he will do anything this year to make the interest much higher next offseason

I like Robin. I also think that continuity, both in the clubhouse and front office, is underrated.

I swear that every time I look at Robin since ST began, he's wearing a different set of glasses. I don't even remember him always having worn glasses? Gameday glasses in and of themselves may be new. I've seen: Transition lenses Thick rimmed glasses Sunglasses Thin metal rimmed glasses Oakleys with clear lenses Just going off the top of my head. What's the deal? We like you just the way you are Robin, you don't have to find the trendiest eyewear.

He was never going to be an absolute team-killer so long as he was in the DH spot. His floor as a hitter isn't unbelievably low and I think it was never optimistic to say he'd be within shouting distance of league average at the plate. That's a huge problem when you're the worst defender around, but you can be patient when he doesn't play defense. And when he hits a bit better than average, he's a useful DH rather than a still-not-good-enough RF again due to his poor defense.

He just didn't look remotely good enough, reminiscent of most of his other recent MLB appearances and spring training starts

QUOTE (hi8is @ May 1, 2016 -> 10:11 PM) Dude embodies who I would be if my career went to the MLB level. Every aspect of his character on the diamond is a carbon copy of the hi8is way. I haven't seen him take a single dump