Dominikk85

Vaughn has played 3 out of the last 4. Hopefully it stays that way, I think 3 out of 4 while shielding him from the toughest righties is pretty good use.

Hopefully the hand is OK

Bad news would be a tendon damage or big muscle tear which would mean season over. If it is "only" a few muscle fibres torn it might take only a couple weeks.

Gio really lucky he only gave up one, gets hit hard all the time. Not sure what's up with him.

But the first time wasn't with the sox, right?

I actually like how TLR communicated this so far by saying "I'm sure there is a reason" because it gives both a way out saving their face. Now yermin just needs to come up with a good excuse and anyone can move on. Just has to make sure it it doesn't repeat.

Why? Obviously any pitcher has a lot of bust potential and there is no completely safe pitching prospect but wouldn't leiter's decent command and deep arsenal create a relatively save floor?

Sox situation looking really good, after starting 6-8 (which interestingly still improved their playoff odds due to twins terrible start) they went 7-3 their last 10 and are now on pace for 93 wins (pre season projected for about 88 wins). Playoff odds are now up to 70% and 59% to win division. Surprising part was really the back of the rotation where there looked to be a big drop off after gio, Lynn and keuchel but despite gio and keuchel even being a bit weaker than expected rodon and cease stepped up and kopech is looking really good too.

I think he hit one 95 in the second or so

No but players are Machos, they don't want to look soft. It can be bad for the team but you want pitchers with a give me the ball and let me throw all the time mentality and it is on the manager and pitching coach to protect him.

Yes. Also looking at Eloy he also was 9 out of 10 on 1 and 2 star plays (missed one 2 star) last year, his stats were bad due to his 3 to 5 star plays (0% made on 3 and 4 star and 12.5 on 5 star). Vaughn simply didn't have those plays yet so we can't really say if he does better.

The roster is just not very balanced. This team basically has 4 first basemen/DHs in Vaughn, Abreu, yermin, lamb and eventually I think two of them have to go (lamb of course but also one of the other 3). I mean yes, you can always make room for a good hitter but you can also trade a hitter for a guy who can actually play that position. I think the best thing is to build up yermin's value so that you get something substantial for him. Long term playing several guys out of position is, not going to go well (and that includes Vaughn, I don't care how well he did, a 26 ft/s sprint speed does not play long term in left field)

What did Katz say?

It is not just the stats. I do coach hitters myself and Vaughn is pulling off the outside pitches and whiffing at a very high rate on them. I Already said it halfway through spring training before even seeing the stats that vaughn has a big hole in his swing on the outer part of the plate. That doesn't mean it can't be fixed but right now it is a clear weakness in his profile that righties with good command can abuse and if he gets consistent playing time against righties he will either adjust to it or get exposed.

If Katz said nothing he is to blame but we don't know if he didn't say anything. Maybe he said something and was shot down by tlr

Vaughn has done most of his damage against LHP though, his line against RHP so far is 229/308/286, 75 ops+ and that is not a coincidence or small sample either as Vaughn has really gotten all his hits on the inner half of the plate, against righties who can locate a slider in the outer third of the zone he basically is an automatic out currently. https://www.fangraphs.com/players/andrew-vaughn/26197/heat-maps?position=OF&ss=&se=&hand=&count=&pitch=&season=&view=bat&data=&grid=&blur=&type=4 It is a good decision to not bat Vaughn against tough righties, the issue is that leury has been even worse. If you pinch hit for him it should be collins or even lamb against a tough righty and not leury.

I don't think it took a while to realize it, anyone knows that eating junk makes you fat just like anyone knows smoking is bad for you. He probably just didn't see the urgency until his body forced him to adjust as the weight was putting extra pressure on his legs.

I'm not sure really. He is looking quite good there and seems to have good instincts and doesn't make any mistakes there. On the other hand there isn't really a precedent for a guy with his sprint speed to be even acceptable in LF. I'm not sure what is going on here, does he have exceptional routes and instincts to compensate for his very slow speed or was he just getting Lucky that balls are hit right at him or way out of his range and not borderline ones? If you look at statcast it looks a bit like this, he is 100% on 1 and 2 star plays but didn't have any chances for 3, 4 and 5 star plays so far. I mean it is good that he doesn't make mistakes and doesn't drop routine fly balls but a couple 3 and 4 star play chances he doesn't make could make his defensive stats look ugly really fast.

The front office can't force him to eat healthy, burger is not an idiot and knows that eating burgers (no pun:)) is bad for him, it is about the discipline to not do it.

I don't like that Jose and yermin never get a full day off. Not saying they should sit a lot especially the way yermin has been hitting but if each of them sits 2 to 3 times a month that would open up some more playing time for Vaughn at first and DH. I really would like Vaughn to play at least 2 to 3 times a month at first as that is the position of his future. I also think he should play about 2 out of 3 games. It is ok to sit him against tough righties (like today against Bieber for example who has pinpoint command and can exploit Vaughns "hole" in the outer third of the zone) but he shouldn't sit twice in a row or go on off (would rather see on-on-off)

Miggy was great but playing 15 years mostly overweight does take a toll. Still a first ballot hall of famer of course.

Risky play by tim

Second well hit out for Tim today.

I'm Pretty sure leury will play in game 1 against the righty and Vaughn in game 2 against the lefty Boyd.

This is really strange. Katz must have said something, it is really his job to watch the pitchers and tell the manager a guy is gassed and should be taken out soon. Of course it could be that TLR Actively rejects Katz advice because Katz is young and has no pro ball experience. That would be really bad of course because you can't manage like this today. If it really was an "asleep at the wheel" situation then I would actually blame Katz for this more because as a young "data driven" coach he really has to keep a look at pitcher workloads and not rely on a 76 yo doing it. But if Katz did his due Diligence and was rebuffed by TLR it would be a really bad and toxic situation.