sneakypower

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

Braves RP Luis Avilán gave up 5 runs in 1 IP tonight and earned the W

i'll give the Eagles a try if need be

or Doug Fister, but same difference

Jake Fischer @JakeLFischer Source: Michigan soph forward Glenn Robinson III has signed with an agent and will enter the NBA Draft. Press conference coming this week. 1:02 PM - 14 Apr 2014 this guy writes for the Boston Globe & SLAM, so it might be legit

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NG29z-xKojU/UsfjVRkZ9GI/AAAAAAAAPu4/2Hfj0wVzkrc/s1600/joe-biden.gif

lots of RHs in the lineup against a changeup specialist...the Joe Maddon special

they all actually have the same role "get batters out"

i considered that as a hit attempt, it's not really ever a sacrifice with a runner on the corners unless you're having an inept pitcher bunt there

i was just saying, it hasn't exactly hurt the team in the past to put him there (also, he's .350/.381/.538 career with bases empty, vs. .167/.248/.255 with men on...it may just be that when pitchers focus a more concerted effort on retiring him, they have had a relatively easy time with it) regardless, i feel like his offensive skillset is best suited to the top of the order, considering the lack of better options in this lineup

Lake has a career .405/.436/.649 line in the leadoff spot

sacrifice bunt attempts 3/31: Jeff Samardzija, 5th inning, runners on 1st & 2nd; -.142 WPA (unsuccessful) Junior Lake, 8th inning, runner on 2nd; 0.00 WPA Welington Castillo, 9th inning, runner on 1st; -.017 WPA 4/2: Edwin Jackson, 5th inning, runner on 1st (ROE); .056 WPA 4/3: no attempts 4/4: Travis Wood, 3rd inning, runner on 1st; -.014 WPA 4/5: no attempts 4/6: no attempts 4/7: Ryan Kalish, 7th inning, runner on 1st; -.034 WPA 4/9: Jason Hammel, 4th inning, runners on 1st & 2nd; -.025 WPA 4/10: no attempts 4/11: Bonifacio, 8th inning, -.022 WPA Schierholtz, 11th inning, runner on 2nd, .005 WPA ------ so, that's 4 position players (all successfully) attempting bunts who have totaled -0.068 WPA (or -0.017 per attempt) 3 pitchers (with 2 successfully) attempting bunts who have totaled -0.100 WPA (or -.033 per attempt) it's worth noting pitchers as a whole have averaged -0.019 WPA per PA, and the hitters who were asked to bunt are at -0.003 per PA on the season; basically, in the 9 times hitters have made sac bunt attempts, our chances of winning have dropped about 1.4%-1.5% on average, per try...that seems like kind of a miniscule blip and certainly unworthy of the exaggerated outrage it gets in game threads on here also, we admittedly haven't been particularly good at bunting for hits so far, but i don't know how you blame the manager for that; even so, Lake (53.8% career), Bonifacio (36.4%), Kalish (37.5%) have certainly shown enough ability in the past where it's not predictably hurting the team if they try a few