I have a little sympathy for the ump there, the catcher is basically standing(which moves the ump out of normal position and hurts his ability to see the bottom of the zone) and stabs at it dramatically. Gotta get it right, but much harder call than looking at the K-zone after the fact would imply.
I will say that Girardi has grown on me a bit this year, for as much as I prefer the Boog & JD booth I think the 3 man booth has made him a little sharper and less likely to spout nonsense. He's closer to the Brenly tier than the Sutcliffe tier at this point, which if we can't have JD 160 games a year is probably better than most. Still would rather just have as many Boog & JD games as possible though.
This is maybe oversimplified, but this is how I see it. Smyly does not look *incapable* of still getting out major league hitters, he hasn't lost a fistful of velocity or gotten rocked all year, so his individual performance comes down to him dialing in command and otherwise having his mechanics ironed out. I'm not overly optimistic about him going lights out for 6 weeks, but I'm not treating his current state as static. Wicks is a good prospect, but he's also one who does not have overwhelming velocity, and his AAA performance doesn't illustrate a mastery of that level to give me confidence he's a day 1 MLB success. Even his recent form which some have trumpeted is showing middling swing and miss and a lack of elite control to pair with that average K rate. If the question was 'are these 2 similar enough options that it's worth bedding in Wicks so he can play a more meaningful 2024 role', then I get that argument and would probably lean towards it. But to answer the question 'we need the best possible option to win this game or the next couple games' I can't possibly see it as black and white that the changeup artist with the 4.23 FIP in AAA is unquestionably a better bet than Smyly figuring his struggles out out like he has a number of times at the MLB level.
All things equal I think it's a matchup dependent thing. Today I think it's more clearly Merryweather, who hasn't pitched since Tuesday, while Fulmer(and Cuas) pitched Wednesday and Friday.
This is why punishing them in the 4th is so important. One more hit and it's 8-2, Merryweather is not in the game and you aren't getting Leiter/Fulmer hot too
I'll maintain that Barnhart was and is fine as a backup catcher. The line for an "average" offensive output for a backup catcher this year is about a 64 wRC+, which is a threshold that Barnhart is like 2-3 hits on his season line from reaching(and what his line has been since May). I also think that while you don't want to fritter away money on marginal players, you can't necessarily pool all that money towards a different upgrade. Yes, they'd be better off today if they had Senga instead of Mancini/Smyly, but that's also a 5 year commitment that signed much earlier in the offseason, and we have reason to think that Mancini/Barnhart in particular was a Plan B reaction to not getting their primary target(probably Vazquez). In the case of SP depth they also had Wesneski looking like a mid-rotation stalwart post-trade as insurance.
My criticism of how that roster developed is two-fold. You can't have 3 catchers on a modern roster if you aren't using them, and we've spent months in a weird liminal space where Amaya increasingly gains trust as a catcher but doesn't get much opportunity as a PH/DH/1B despite yawning chasms in those spots. And for as much as I can understand how they got to the 1B triad of Mancini/Hosmer/Mervis, you can't go 0 for 3 in getting even MLB average production. Morel saved them a bit because that would be pretty dark otherwise.
I'm not itching to keep Wisdom around, but in this specific 26 man roster he can serve a narrow purpose of platoon/PH RH power. Other options are mostly left handed hitters, unless you want to add Bote or Perlaza to the 40 man, but I personally don't think much of their short term value in that narrow role compared to Wisdom.
It's basically the exact opposite of reality. This year Happ's OPS in Low/Med/High leverage situations is .712/.812/.869, and for his career it's .811/.770/.801
No strong convictions, but I'd guess they're just continuing to cycle through arms they have some reason to think could come good with some change(health, pitch mix, opportunity). Doesn't really cost anything given the open 40 man spots and even in the best case scenario they're not locked on to stay on the 40 man through the winter, so might as well not let that in-season 40 man spot go to waste.
Box score says it's last year's 18th rounder Garrett Brown, which is probably for the best because whoever it was went: pop up, BB, 1B, pickoff throwing error, ROE, 1B, WP, SF, WP, BB, WP, BB
This doesn't make any sense man. Swanson got the least of the FA SS because he got promoted super fast and had more non-elite seasons to criticize? Swanson wasn't younger in his debut compared to the other SS(the opposite, mostly) and definitionally they have roundly the same amount of service time.
Strop as a Cub: 2.90 ERA, 3.28 FIP
Fulmer as a reliever when he signed with the Cubs: 2.98 ERA, 3.43 FIP
Also Fulmer was used to late innings, having 17 saves of his own.
Given the infield adventures the Royals have had I don't hate the aggressiveness of forcing the issue, I just have to think his brain flipped into less than 2 out mode once Morel was caught because I can't think of why he'd think going to 3rd was a good idea.