rawaction

Buttrey or Kelly would be nice picks today.

I got Baez over Almora. Baez looks to be a little bigger, a little stronger, looks to have the build to stay bigger and stronger than Almora to me, and has performed in full season ball.

Would really like to see that play at 2nd base. There's no way he was out.

Jackson walked again in the 6th, but was caught stealing 3rd on a strikeout/throw out with Rizzo coming to the plate.

Here are the top 10 in P/PA from last year and their minor and major league strikeout rate (I didn't include Fukudome since he doesn't have minor league statistics): Curtis Granderson- 18.9% minor league, 22.1% major league Jayson Werth- 20.1% minor league, 24.5% major league Bobby Abreu- 18.5% minor league, 18.3% major league Carlos Santana-14.8% minor league, 19.2% major league Jose Bautista-19.8% minor league, 19.4% major league Jamey Carroll-9.6% minor league, 13.7% major league Mark Reynolds-23.2% minor league, 33.1% major league Dustin Pedroia-8.6% minor league, 8.6% major league Brett Gardner-16.6% minor league, 16.8% major league Kevin Youkillis-18.4% minor league, 18.4% major league Brett Jackson has a career 24.8% minor league strikeout rate (close to 30% in AAA). Some of that is due to his patient approach, but it's unusual and not very encouraging for his rate to be so high, and to have such a spike against more advanced pitchers. where does adam dunn fall, though? but anyway, we'll make a bet. if jackson hasn't had a relatively productive major league career in 10 years, i owe you a coke. Yeah, I wonder how it looks if you take the guys with the highest K rate and see how the numbers look. Just doing quick math in my head, there are only a handful of players at or above 30% K-rate, none of them have a BA over .250. I guess the good news is if he can get that number around 26-27%, he could be a pretty productive player like Nelson Cruz or Curtis Granderson, though he doesn't have Granderson's power. Adam Dunn's numbers are just uncomparable to anyone's.

Guess I might be right about considering Andre Miller. It will of course all depend on how much of a pay cut he is willing to accept to play for a quasi-contender. As awesome as Steve Nash is, I'm not sure how he'd fit when Rose comes back. That backcourt would be a mess defensively, and I don't know if DRose is good enough of a shooter and may not be healthy enough to take the ball out of his hands (Nash clearly should have the ball in most circumstances) and come off screens. Andre Miller and Nick Young seem to be the best fits of those names. Though neither Miller nor Kidd shoot well enough to fit well with Rose on the court, who should handle the ball over those 2.

I know this doesn't mean anything and I don't have anything concrete to back this up, but it seems like during Brett's really bad streak, he had very few long ABs. The majority of his Ks were 4-5 pitch ABs. I made a point to check his pitch-by-pitch in the boxscores every day and that's what I noticed.

Jackson with a 2-out single in the 7th. 1-4, 2Ks (1 looking, 1 swinging)

6-pitch walk for Rizzo. Vitters GIDP

Raley struck out the side, but gave up 3 singles in between the 2 to leadoff the game and the 3rd out of the inning.

Brett Jackson leads off with a swinging K, missing 2 pitches on/away from the outside corner according to gamecast. Facing a lefty again.

Alfonzo Soriano's ass needs surgery.

Francescon was a beast in Peoria. I don't know much about him, but am I correct in that he isn't really anybody to keep an eye on? 23 year old in low/high A who's only 5'11"

How the eff is my roto team in 6th place with Votto and Konerko leading the way? Not like my team has a bunch of scrubs everywhere else either. Hanley, Longoria (though hurt), Dez Jennings (though hurt), Jeter, Posey, Ethier.

I think some of that is on the owner too. Some players just get injured routinely. If you stake your team's success to young fireballing starting pitchers, then you risk having too many guys on the DL at one time. I have Troy Tulowitzki, who's an amazing player, but he goes on the DL for at least 3 weeks every single year. If I'm going to have him on my roster, I should know not to also take injury risks in my lineup.

I don't see a problem with a 3-man DL. Maybe increase it to 4, but that makes it more competitive. There's already 16 teams in this league. Letting teams hoard injured players as cheap keepers is not a good idea. Someone could have a killer team if they picked up and were able to hold onto Crawford, Howard, Brett Anderson, Chris Carpenter, VMart, etc. to go along with their points keepers. Like right now, Theocracy has 5 injured players. Sure that sucks a lot, but he's holding on to 2 players that are out til August. A short bench is a risk you should have to take if drafting someone who obviously isn't coming back anytime soon. Someone shouldn't get to take all the 60-day DL'ers and still have a full bench in a league this deep.

I read a comment on another site about McNutt's outing. Said the ump had tiny strike zone and both pitchers would have had more K's. The problem with that is that he doesn't have the numbers the last 2 years to suggest that that is true. He went from K'ing over 9 per 9 thru 2010, then the last 2 years he's barely getting 5 per 9.

Vitters ain't playing around.

i know a lot of people have been joining his bandwagon, but i have a hard time taking him seriously without some significant improvements in plate discipline. not to mention finding a home defensively. First 2 weeks of HIS season he was great. Last few....not so much. Overall, BB/K numbers look decent, but he's literally stopped taking walks since Mother's Day.

8-pitch AB though and 3-2 count. I'll take those over the 3-4 pitch Ks from a couple weeks ago.

Any chance they give up Nate Eovaldi or Allen Webster? Doubt they give up Zach Lee, but the first 2 are ML ready starters with some upside. Eovaldi may be in the majors already, IIRC. Other than that, I don't see the Dodgers having any arms in the system that are really all the superior to the Cubs guys that are back-end of the rotation starters or late relievers. They don't have much in the way of hitting prospects either. Webster has struggled in AA both half a season last year and also this year. Not sure how much I like him at this point. Personally, if I'm the Dodgers I'd rather MAKE someone give me a nice bat and overpay for it, than add a pitcher like Dempster. They have a very decent rotation 1-5 already, plus Eovaldi, who conceivably is already better than Harang right now. True on all points. Webster though has 4 pitches, including a really good sinking fastball. He's given up a lot of hits in AA, but his GB/FB rate has been over 2 since he moved up there. And it's typical for GB pitchers to give up a lot of hits. He still needs some refinement, but I'm intrigued by the 4-pitch mix, GB pitcher with over 8 K/9, and good enough control. Appears to have been unlucky with BABIP this year with a .306 BAA but almost a K per inning.

Any chance they give up Nate Eovaldi or Allen Webster? Doubt they give up Zach Lee, but the first 2 are ML ready starters with some upside. Eovaldi may be in the majors already, IIRC. Other than that, I don't see the Dodgers having any arms in the system that are really all the superior to the Cubs guys that are back-end of the rotation starters or late relievers. They don't have much in the way of hitting prospects either. Ethan Martin or Chris Reed? Forgot about Martin. Not sure what to make of Reed just yet. Love his arm, but I'm unsure if he'll end up back at the back end of the bullpen like he was at Stanford. Kind of reminds me of Rich Hill a little, but not nearly the control issues that Rich had early in his career. Not really sure what the Dodgers are doing with his innings right now either. Went 7 a couple times, last 2 starts only 3 innings. Ultimately, I guess a Rich Hill type with better control, would be pretty good return (as the top prospect in the deal) for 1/2 season of Dempster. I'm probably a little jaded by what Rich Hill became, but he was a pretty good prospect at one point.

It seems like there is a starting pitching glut on the market this year. Unless someone really just has to have Garza and won't settle for anyone else, it's hard to see the return being too crazy awesome. AL East teams seem to value pitchers that have pitched well in the AL East before. IMO, the Yankees, Sox and Jays will value that Garza has shown he can get out the Yankees, Sox, and Jays.

Then Rizzo gets promoted and it drops significantly. Eh. Soler, Jackson, Baez, Lake, a now hitting Vitters, 3 top 70 picks selected by guys that know how to draft is still a pretty strong system with high end talent.

The farm system could be drastically improved by the end of June. If the Cubs get Soler, draft as well as we all expect, and trade a couple guys.....they could have a top 10 farm system.