BFirebird

Reminds me of Pedroia...but an even smaller guy. Which is hard to believe. I know what you mean but I would keep it until it becomes an issue that he can't stay on FB (which will probably happen). He will probably need to tweak it at some point.

The fact that Moncada and Anderson are leading the charge of this good play is very encouraging. Giolito has had 1.5 good starts out of 3. Lopez had a great start today and Rodon has been pretty good in all 3 of his. Eloy doesn't look overmatched in his first 3+ weeks. Also, the young guys seem to be having a lot of fun..Eloy fits in the clubhouse well. Positive vibes.

Honestly this is the only thing I really dislike with Renteria. I don't think he knows how to handle a starter or bullpen well. He puts pretty good lineups out there and doesn't do the Ozzie Sunday lineup garbage. He also seems to have a good rapport with the players.

Hmmm. Interesting. I was going to make the case that he is hitting more flyballs, but he actually hit LESS flyballs than in Miami. My guess is ballpark change and the juiced balls. But seriously, who hits 2% less flyballs and has a 28 home run increase? That almost seems impossible.

It is called Renteria bullpen management.

If Ricky hasn't learned when Giolito is done, what would make us have any confidence he could do it with Lopez.

Very studly

I know it is SSS, but for the pitchers that matter (Rodon, Lopez, & Giolito) don't they seem to have more K's and getting away from the Coop "pitch to contact"? I know Giolito haven't gotten the results yet, but I think that they have flashed more swing and miss than last year.

I would have taken either one. Harper wouldn't have come here, but yeah not going for that extra $50M could come back to really hurt.

This article is a great read and spot on with Yoan. Pitchers are going to certainly adjust and throw less pitches for strike one and hopefully Moncada keeps his great eye and lays off them. If he does and gets ahead more often than not, he could truly become an elite talent.

I figured Yoan would be in an article like this because of his changed approach and noticeable improvement, but not Rodon. I didn't realize Rodon's FIP was so low and K's were THAT high. Hopefully he can keep it up and one of (if not both) Giolito and Lopez can figure something out.

I think this is spot on. People get on teams for keeping guys down, but there is a method to it and this is exactly why. You need to learn how to fail and to adjust to how teams are pitching you. LouBob's hot streak is great, as well as Collins playing well, but lets see what happens when they struggle and how they adjust to teams pitching them differently. Once you learn how to adjust in the minors and turn things around when things are going bad, that is when i think you are ready to move up to MLB mentally. Obviously, Robert is behind Collins in development time, but both still have to learn to make those types of adjustments. Better to learn how to do that against MILB pitching than learning how to do that at MLB level. You will still need to adjust in MLB, but you have to know how to go about it. Collins struggling last year, going back to his old swing and performing well so far this year only will help him to succeed down the road.

No doubt. At some point he will hit a bad stretch where he goes 0-4 with 3/4 Ks for a few games and his K rate will go up, but if he can keep it to 28% like you said that would be a HUGE improvement. He should always have a high BABIP because of his speed and how hard he hits it so his stats for a small increase of balls in play will be noticeable.

I think this is the most encouraging part of the whole thing. He was doing the exact same thing in Spring Training, so the sample size of his approach is larger, but the regular season numbers will certainly normalize because of SSS.

I was there Greg. Check the date check in from my MLB Ballpark App. Then again I have been to every home opening day since 2004.

Renteria's bullpen choices always befuddle me. Why Herrera didn't come in yesterday in the 8th is beyond me.

Something was off. He couldn't find anything against lefties and righties he was slightly better but was leaving waaaay more over the plate than normal.

Abreu makes up for Leury's error.

I thought it was gone too.

Good thing he is at 70 pitches. I agree he has looked better last 5 outs.

He looks really confident. I hope he does because it would be great for our rebuild chances.

It was definitely routine.

If he got that thing airborne it would have left the building.

Definitely bad luck.

I am drinking the Kool-Aid, but only to about 75-80 wins. There are a few reasons. The offense will be better, bullpen will be better, rotation - meh about the same, but the division is waaaay worse. Cleveland took a step back but has most talent still, Minnesota did improve and could give Cleveland a run, but KC and Detroit are going to be worse than last year and they were bad last year.