Guess what a guy who used to play for the Cubs did this time...

[cl smooth]

last night's home run derby horsefeathering ruled, y'all are crazy.

 

Julio's runs were very fun, and the final was pretty good, but the format is incentivizing stuff that make it hard to follow and appreciate. The split screen plus rapid fire pitches because of the timed rounds meant that you barely could follow the flight of half the home runs. Unless it was said on the broadcast(which I muted after BCS came on) I have no idea what home runs were the furthest or who had the best average distance. Some of my best HRD memories are of guys hitting the ball impossible distances, and that's been replaced by a made for TV format that pays lip service to majestic bombs and instead makes it an impressive test of endurance through speed swinging. That's not objectively bad, but I think it's fair for some to prefer more emphasis on the extremes of how far a ball can be hit instead of a speedrun. Especially with the camera work/tracking that objectively is difficult to follow at times.

 

i'll take a speed run over the old 10 outs home run derby format any day of the week.

 

if anything, my biggest gripe is finding a way to watch the horsefeathering thing. i have mlb.tv, which wasn't airing it. signed up for espn+ and then found out it was on regular espn and not espn+. signed up for a 7-day trial of youtube tv in order to log into espn to watch the derby. mlb needs to get their horsefeathers together.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

MLB: we need to make games quicker

Also MLB: Have too many people swing a bat 800 times

[squally1313]

Just put like a 9 second timer on there and let them throw 20 pitches over 3 minutes for each round. Or give them 4 minutes if you want to bake in bad pitches. Agree that it's impossible to actually appreciate anything besides someone hitting four or five in a row, and even then you're just seeing the swing and not really tracking where it ends up.

[PackLandVA]

Former Cub and Rookie of the Year runner-up Dwight Smith passed away at age 58. Haven’t heard the cause of death yet.

[Guancous]

(Duplicate post deleted) Edited July 23, 2022 by Guancous

[Guancous]

Showed up to appreciate how Sergio Alcantara is still getting MLB at bats.

 

This feels more appropriate: [bbvideo=560,315]

[/bbvideo]

[Bertz]

[UK]

 

 

I'd still trade Heyward straight up right now.

[17 Seconds]

 

 

I'd still trade Heyward straight up right now.

 

[Pushfrog98]

 

 

I'd still trade Heyward straight up right now.

I’d even throw in some onion gravy.

[CubinNY]

I still love him but Javy is having an awful season.

[Irrelevant Dude]

I still love him but Javy is having an awful season.

I'm all for bringing him back once the Tigers are ready to eat a good portion of his remaining salary.

[Clem Fandango]

I mean, of course it was the money, but I can't for the life of me understand why Javy would agree to play in Comerica. That park kills all of the upside he provides with the bat.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I will still take him back.

 

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[Tryptamine]

LMAO. Yea it was the Cubs. You piece of horsefeathers, horsefeathers baseball player. Definitely seems like they forced you to go work with guys outside the org to fix your piece of horsefeathers game.

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/albert-almora-jr-working-with-new-swing

 

"I made adjustments," Almora said. "I made adjustments that you guys will see in the game. It's visibly different."… For his swing, Almora was not sure at first what he needed to change, but he knew he had to change something. He considered flying to California to consult with one hitting guru, but then found another -- Ricardo Sosa of Team Sosa -- suggested by his father near home in the Miami area. Sosa has worked with J.D. Martinez and a growing list of other big leaguers.

 

Almora also sought the advice of his friend Danny Santiesteban, who is a hitting coach in the Braves' Minor League system. Santiesteban had visited with Almora in June of last year, when the Cubs were in L.A. to play the Dodgers. They talked hitting into the early morning hours and discussed some of the changes Almora is now employing.…"It was too hard to change something during the season," Almora said. "During the year, you have a mindset, and it's tough. But in the offseason, I was trying to slow everything down and I bought into what both of those guys were saying."…Both Sosa and Santiesteban were in agreement that Almora should work on simplifying some of the elements in his swing. The purpose behind the adjustments was to strip Almora of the constant feeling that he had to have so many moving parts in perfect sync in order to be in a position to hit. If one thing was off, or the pitch thrown was not the one Almora expected, he felt like his swing would fall apart.

 

 

I just thought I'd revisit this treasure. He's putting up a .237/.274/.374 line good for a 72 wRC+ on the season and a 39 wRC+ since this tweet on June 29th . Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the Cubs and you just aren't very good.

[champaignchris]

I just thought I'd revisit this treasure. He's putting up a .237/.274/.374 line good for a 72 wRC+ on the season and a 39 wRC+ since this tweet on June 29th . Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't the Cubs and you just aren't very good.

 

.707 OPS with the Cubs

.578 OPS with the Mets and Reds.

 

It was clearly the Cubs’ fault.

[UMFan83]

I will still take him back.

 

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

Definitely. How much fun would a team with Javy, Contreras and Morel be? They'd almost certainly still suck and Javy would be terrible for most of the contract, but we'd have a lot of fun being bad.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[UMFan83]

 

Holy crap, I assumed he was out of baseball by this point. Last pitched in the majors in 2018, pitched 1 inning for the Mets and gave up a run before being sent back down.

[CubinNY]

Joe Madden going off on the nerds and geeks giving him advice.

[cl smooth]

Joe Madden going off on the nerds and geeks giving him advice.

 

 

for context.

[CubinNY]

Joe Madden going off on the nerds and geeks giving him advice.

 

Many apologies in advance, slow and wet day:

 

Tbf not only was he once considered a nerd and geek of this sport but that crowd sucks. If you found out the majority (interacting with Maddon) were inherited wealth from the Ivys who never struggled like we might imagine (being loooowly nerds and geeks and all) plus don’t care about baseball or winning so much? That their favorite aspect of working in the sport is all the biological, social, and financial data on all these different demographics or something similarly weird intended to gain leverage/control? Who really even besides their bosses has benefitted from this silent shift to where even the Maddons and Epsteins in baseball aren’t nerd enough for FOs? Like those guys *love* winning baseball games, understand the Value of data, so what’s the real agenda pushing them out?

 

These nerds and geeks are just people/employees, very fallible

 

Edit: Oh yay a fresh page

I never understand what your point is, so I don't know if I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you. My opinion is that the entire focus should be on winning baseball games. I think there is something to be said about that in relation to maximizing roster efficiency (i.e., cost), versus finding the right combination of guys to win the most games. I'm not sold on the cost/benefit stuff, like translating WAR into hypothetical dollars, and maybe not even on the concept of WAR in general in the sense that a hypothetical SS is inherently more valuable than a hypothetical LF, for example. Although a hypothetical LF is less scarce than a hypothetical SS. However, the use of data is fundamental to winning baseball games. It's been done since forever. The data is just different now. I get what Madden is saying, he comes off as sour grapy though. I don't know that I would not like it if I was given a job and then not allowed to do it as I saw fit by my bosses.

[mul21]

I mean, there's not. Most managers aren't going to have enough time and brainpower to process everything they're being given and will have to have some things spelled out for them. Who to start against what pitchers, what guys make sense to PH for in what situations, etc. I think the game has clearly passed him by and he needs to go be a broadcaster or coach in the minors where that stuff isn't as important.

[Bertz]

Joe Maddon has for a long time had a deep deep insecurity around admitting fault or error, and IMO this is all born out of him not being able to deal with the increasing levels of scrutiny he's encountering. It has nothing to do with data or numbers or paralysis by analysis or anything else. Instead it has everything to do with people increasingly pushing back and asking "wait why would we do that?" rather than just trusting his authority and laughing at his weird metaphors.

[UMFan83]

I didn't have too much of an issue with the comments. It sounds like he understands the importance of analytics and data, he just doesn't want people in the dugout dispensing that advice as he'd prefer that he and his coaching staff discern the info and distribute it. BUT while I understand it, I don't agree with his take on it. As mul21 said, there's just no way that a manager or their coaching staff can absorb all that information and make sure it gets to the players. Easy to be lost in translation or forgotten altogether. But this doesn't necessarily seem like an attack on analytics, just about the role of the manager in today's game. It's not an insane opinion, it just seems to go against the direction baseball is headed.

 

You had a very solid career Joe, but it sounds like your managerial days are over.