Rob

Can't you just stay "MurtonFan" and start posting at Athletics Nation instead of here?

I think this post will be quoted numerous times through today's thread. Yup

It would appear that Ty Cobb has one of those girly, limp-wristed handshakes.

I don't think he ever tested positive, but there was something about him receiving HGH shipments IIRC.

I didn't like the pick at the time of the draft either... but I hadn't rushed to judge him on a small sample size after last season and the slow start to this season. (Hell, I still refuse to judge Colvin as a bust) Do I get a "told-you-so" for the patience? Or do I get to have others mock me for doubting the pick?

Playing for the Chiba Lotte Mariners. Anyway, you make it sound like a bad thing to have rooted for the guy. He's got a career OPS+ of 99... free talent that can hit at a league average clip is always a nice find. I don't think anybody is suggesting that we move Soriano to 2B to get Dubois' powerful bat in the lineup every day... but he would've gotten a very nice spot on an Earl Weaver bench... a guy who can paste pitchers without a great breaking pitch could definitely come in handy. He damn sure better get thrown on the 40 man as a Sept callup... and I wouldn't mind having him as the counterpart to Daryle Ward off the bench right now.

Time to promote the Creature. He's not even on the 40 man. How many does he have on the year now in his limited at-bats that he does have.. like 10? more? 16 in 110 AB for Iowa.

Holy crapcakes... Dubois hit his 3rd dinger of the game tonight in Iowa.

Samardzija gives up a single in the 5th, but then retires the next two batters with one of them grounding into a DP. 5 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 SO, GO-FO 7-2

I hadn't even noticed that... I just was checking gameday moments after Dubois hit the dingers... If Samardzija has figured something out, he could be scary good.

What's he at for the season? 13? 14? He might be worth a look as a righty power hitter off the bench if we can't trade for anyone. 15 now for Iowa, 19 total.

It's actually been so bad that I mute the game for the stretch... and usually the interview afterwards as well.

Dubois just hit his 2nd dinger of the night in Iowa.

Nice.

Jason Dubois just hit a dinger in Iowa. Pie was on first after a single. Bottom of the 1st, and they're already up 2-0.

I don't know... the strike zone is pretty large (at least the bottom portion of it) tonight.

Does Wuertz even have any options left?

They still have Mat Gamel, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress, Angel Salome, their huge haul from this years draft, and will be getting 4 top draft picks for Sheets and Sabathia after this season. And there's still talk that they might trade Fielder in the offseason for a huge haul... which they could do if they just wanted to move Gamel to first (a move he probably needs anyways). I don't think they have to worry too much about the farm running dry in the next few years.

I don't think it's necessary for us to make a move for another starting pitcher. Marshall is around as insurance in case of injury, and if Marquis just gets too bad to hold down a spot any longer, Veal and Hill are making some pretty drastic turnarounds right now... and there's always the possibility that Guzman comes back in late August. C, 1B, 3B, LF, and RF are all pretty well set. There's not likely to be any real upgrades available at SS. Any upgrade over DeRosa at 2B is likely to cost far more in talent than the difference in production would warrant. The Edmonds/Johnson platoon in CF seems to be working... The right side of our bullpen seems fine... Yeah... I guess all I'm really looking for is a lefty out of the pen and maybe a few better bench options.

There are some fun reactions on the message boards out there... I've been reading Athletics Nation, Brewerfan, WSI, Gateway Redbirds, and a touch of Orioles Hangout (just because all they ever did this winter was talk about how crappy the Cubs minor leaguers are)

Like it or not, his batting average is going to have an effect on his production... and in the context of this season, his bad luck on balls in play is resulting in his OPS being about 70 points lower than you'd expect. (30 points of missing batting average in this case translates to about 30 points of missing OBP and 40 points of SLG). And considering that about 32% of his professional PA have come this season, the missing 70 points has a pretty huge effect on his career OPS too. My little back of the napkin calculation would have his career OPS at .788 instead of .765 if he hadn't been so unlucky this season. Would you respond differently if told we have a 22 year old CF having a bit of a down year in AA but with a career OPS near .800, making significant strides on his only real problem and a lot of untapped potential? I'm not trying to say that Colvin is a knockout prospect here. He isn't. But passing him off as a bust who has never hit is downright irresponsible. He's still worth keeping an eye on in our system, if for no other reason than the fact that he is making progress in the one area of his game that was truly lacking before this season. Simply rediscovering his stroke from last season would make him a pretty nice prospect in a system without much in the way of positional talent. And we've all seen hard hit liners that stay up just long enough and somebody calls it a fly ball. Or a liner that lands two feet in front of the SS playing all the way back in the grass, who nabs it on the short hop and all of a sudden it's called a ground ball. All in all, you're probably gonna break pretty close to even on that account over the course of the season. I can't speak exactly as to where minorleaguesplits.com obtains their data, but I know a multitude of places (professional operations like STATS Inc and BIS) make their own calls on it... and they all tend to have fairly similar data, last I remember hearing.

For what it's worth, Colvin's BA is certainly lower than it should be right now, given how many line drives he's hit. At minimum, it's about 20 points low. If the "unknown" batted ball types were liners (and they probably were), it's closer to 30 points low. Just for the sake of argument, his best-case adjusted line is around .270/.335/.415. Is that line particularly good? No. But it gels much more closely with what most expectations were from him... and he'd still have some projection left to work with. He'd have some slight value in a trade as a 3rd or 4th piece. Wait, why would they probably be liners? And who determines what a liner is anyway? Colvin has been consistently poor at hitting baseballs as a professional. I have a hard time believing it's about bad luck. Taken from the glossary of the fine folk over at minorleaguesplits.com/ And he's right, it's just 10 points of BA (6 unknown batted ball types all season for him so far). That's why I didn't feel terrible about calling them liners when giving off what I admitted was a best-case adjustment. And I'm not entirely sure why you think he's been "consistently poor at hitting baseballs", he put up BA's of .291 and .306 in Tennessee and Daytona last year and has had solid IsoPs. Before this season, the complaint was never about his bat, it was about his patience (and possibly his defense)... a problem he seems to be making significant strides with. He just appears to need a good consolidation season.

For what it's worth, Colvin's BA is certainly lower than it should be right now, given how many line drives he's hit. At minimum, it's about 20 points low. If the "unknown" batted ball types were liners (and they probably were), it's closer to 30 points low. Just for the sake of argument, his best-case adjusted line is around .270/.335/.415. Is that line particularly good? No. But it gels much more closely with what most expectations were from him... and he'd still have some projection left to work with. He'd have some slight value in a trade as a 3rd or 4th piece.

3 more strikeouts for Veal, while giving up a double. Line is at 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 SO, 1 HR.

10 straight batters (4 Mudcats and 6 Smokies) have struck out.