sneakypower

That is really what the Wings have become. The myth that they are a puck possession team has been over for several yrs. Truth be told the Wings made the playoffs because they sucked the least out of the contenders down the stretch. They didn't have some great stretch drive like last year. Probably would have been 11th or lower out West. Also, as for our great management team. The Wings have 20+ million invested in players that did not even play today, several of them healthy scratches, a couple of injured that were injury risks when signed and a few in AHL. The Wings could easily of had Zach Parise and Ryan Suter but Holland/Babcock were worried about depth. Depth is easy to obtain, heck they had plenty of depth in Grand Rapids. Really good player are worth the risk. As an example, look at the salary cap risk the Hawks took in getting Hossa. Did it cause them cap problems? yes. Did it also help the Hawks win two cups? Yes 2 DET goals were scored in the entire series NOT by Datsyuk/Zetterberg the depth is pretty pathetic, too

he was 19 [expletive] years old, Bryant is 22...those two are not remotely analogous situations

The problem is that even if almost all of them succeed, you are still short a lot of pitching, which is why any injury to a pitching prospect would be especially upsetting. We have no margin for error there. thank god we don't draft pitchers but we won't suffer any injury heartbreak!

i looked at their depth chart and was unimpressed by their NT spot...let's go with Timmy Jernigan

amazingly, he failed to K BJ Upton in 4 tries

so does Justin Ruggiano http://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=oliver&team=17&players=

Wada?

everybody's mocking a CB for us, but we're not exactly hurting for young CBs- really just need to develop them some more...another playmaker on D would be welcome, though 1 Texans - Jadeveon Clowney, DE, South Carolina. 2 Rams (from WAS)- Jake Matthews, OT, Texas A&M 3 Jaguars - Sammy Watkins, WR, Clemson 4 Browns - Mike Evans, WR, Texas A&M 5 Raiders - Johnny Manziel, QB, Texas A&M 6 Falcons - Khalil Mack, OLB, Buffalo 7 Buccaneers - Teddy Bridgewater, QB, Louisville 8 Vikings - Blake Bortles, QB, UCF 9 Bills - Greg Robinson, OT, Auburn 10 Lions - Anthony Barr, UCLA

Olt's hitting .167/.231/.208 against pitchers not named Wandy Rodriguez

http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/visual/whatshot/Matt-Garza-Brewers-Cardinals-crazy-041414.gif

seemslegit.jpg

the first thing i do whenever i click those AZPhil recaps is go right for the attendance hey, double digits!

Is Matt LaPorta Quad-A? (from Feb '12)

i can do the hully gully, i can imitate Vin Scully!

looking at the Red Sox prospects list for a 5-year stretch (06-10) produces this list Jacoby Ellsbury CF Dustin Pedroia 2B Anthony Rizzo 1B Josh Reddick / Brandon Moss RF Jed Lowrie / Jose Iglesias SS Daniel Nava / Reymond Fuentes / Ryan Kalish LF Will Middlebrooks 3B Ryan Lavarnway / George Kottaras C Jon Lester Clay Buchholz Justin Masterson Felix Doubront Jonathan Papelbon Junichi Tazawa Stolmy Pimentel Manny Delcarmen most of the impact names there certainly panned out...player development is really about the one thing i'm still willing to give the FO the benefit of the doubt for

i think it's probably fair to say he's a legit #1

it's actually been the Cards so far (.600 OPS)...we've been about 100 points better than that

i'd be curious to find out why he has the worst UZR in baseball right now

this has not been a fun game to watch.

maybe they'll be able to win consecutive games now

well yeah, if he struggles the most by far with curveballs, Wainwright would certainly seem to be a nightmare matchup for him

i hope you're right

GRIII and Stauskas to declare unsurprising, but still http://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Bald-Zach-Galifianakis-Tries-Holding-In-His-Crying-In-Sad-Movie.gif

makes him susceptible to high K totals he swings at 35% of pitches out of the zone (average is about 30-31%), and swings at 71% of strikes (average is around 66%) so the bolded doesn't seem to be a major problem also, the one pitch he's proven himself to be totally helpless against is the curve...he has positive scores against FB, CH, SL, and seems to love to hit cutters

Lake is one of the worst hitters in the league for plate coverage; he makes contact with pitches out of the zone only about 1/2 of the time well, everyone knows this is all bad. what this post presupposes is...maybe it isn't intuitively, we understand hitters are going to put better contact on pitches in the zone, and the data bears this out: http://baseballanalysts.com/babip_xy.png it's worth considering that if Lake can't hit pitches out of the zone, he can't make feeble contact to waste an AB (despite his struggles on pitches outside of the zone, he's been perfectly acceptable with the rate he's made contact on pitches in the zone)...one has to wonder if he has the ideal skillset (hard contact in the zone, top-end speed, a relative fly-ball avoidance) to do a really good job of cheating BABIP's orthodoxy the downside here of all this is obvious, though: as pitchers start to give him fewer & fewer pitches in the zone to hit, he'll need to become more willing to take walks to combat that but it's also important to remember he'll provide enough value elsewhere (32.5 uzr/150, lol) and he'll carry an inflated ISO, so his performance in the batter's box needn't be better than "merely adequate" to really provide a lot of value to a team but while others seem to be sure they know exactly what he'll become, i honestly wouldn't be surprised at any future outcome for him falling in the range of Starling Marte, to present-day BJ Upton