Transmogrified Tiger

This might not be a popular take, but I'd like to trade him regardless. Happ having a career year with 1.5 years to free agency is never going to have more value, a LF only player without elite consistency isn't a guy who makes sense to give a long term deal for his 30s, and since he's now locked to LF he plays a position where it's both easy in the league-wide sense but also in the current org sense to replace(Ortega, Velazquez, Davis). If you can turn Happ into a useful part of the 2023 team then you can come out ahead as soon as next year.

What do we know about Slaughter as a defender? BBRef says he played 3B and 1B at LSU w/ an 80/20 split his last year after only playing 1B as a freshman, though weirdly our draft threads show places listing him as an SS. As a pro it almost seems like he's moved upwards on the spectrum. Pre-pandemic he had a 50/50 split between 3B and 1B, and post-pandemic he's started playing some 2B to the point where it's about 60/20/20 3B/1B/2B this year. He's been error prone as a 3B but not on the right side of the IF yet in more limited time. If he could be at least playable at 3B or 2B that would go a long way.

I'll be a bit of a wet blanket here and say I'm still not to Steele levels of optimism with Thompson yet. Even in his better run as a starter he's still getting tagged for XBH with high frequency(last 7 GS: 31 IP, 8 2B, 2 3B, 5 HR), and he weirdly hasn't been able to solve right handed hitters(.376 wOBA v. RHH during those 7 starts, .296 v. LHH). Maybe the slider he's starting to flash will help here, but I'd want to see him make progress there through the All-Star break/trade deadline before I start considering him more than a backup rotation option in my mind.

Bummer for Ethan, kinda assumed this was coming when he left a rehab outing with arm pain

how many groundballs with huge sunday hops can one man boot

Villar just hit a double down the line where he stared straight up off the bat like he popped it up Never seen that before, what a pioneer he is

5 teams left, 4 from the SEC and 1 future SEC team

and he was wearing reading glasses, to show that time had passed

It wasn't a first choice roster and barely meets your criteria, but they did get Bosnia in that December camp. Realistically, their only chance was in this upcoming window because they had qualifiers all spring and UEFA had 4 nations league fixtures in this past window.

It's a little more understandable when you see that even the good teams were never all that good at batting average in general: 2022 - 15th 2021 - 24th 2020 - 27th 2019 - 13th 2018 - 4th 2017 - 16th 2016 - 14th 2015 - 29th 2014 - 27th 2013 - 27th 2012 - 26th If you look at something more comprehensive than average, then you see more of an alignment with the overall quality of the offense. They were in the top half in RISP wOBA the same years they were in the top half of wOBA overall, with the one true outlier being 2018.

I'm an idiot. Do we think something nefarious could increase a player's barrel rate? It seems like that's cheat proof but we've learned pretty much nothing is Knowing what’s coming would increase your barrel rate. And no I’m not suggesting they’re cheating. I kinda am, they're almost halfway through their home schedule and they're playing at a 130 win pace at Yankee stadium, something is a bit too good to be true.

I don't know the answer to your question, but his command has not been up to his standard this year, even at Iowa.

its time for Morel to be a most-games starter at 2B

Things that make you go hmmm To put a finer point on it, 5 of the top 15 increases at his link are Yankees

If I learned anything watching the regionals, Oklahoma needs about 12 more runs for that lead to be truly safe.

oh look Clint Frazier needs his DFA decision today

I think it's a little bit like the opposite of Kilian's outing, the zone and weather are giving him a helping hand(as evidenced by Morton mowing down everyone too), but there's nothing cheap or unearned about the results so far.

Simmons' wRC+ is a positive number now, gotta stick with a guy this hot

For anyone looking for more draft content I highly recommend Hollinger's Top 75 prospect ranking: https://theathletic.com/3365655/2022/06/16/nba-draft-2022-top-75-prospects/?source=pulsenewsletter&campaign=4474669 It has a lot of contextual evaluation about how each player's game will translate, including defense which a lot of mock draft/player rankings pay lip service to. Also it's pretty opinionated without being hot takey, there's a few guys who are 20 spots higher or lower than the current mock consensus.

a truly terrible send given the circumstances, thankfully it worked out

His wRC+ has ballooned from -10 to -1

credit where it's due, that's a really good play by Villar

Morel looking at least capable of staying in the everyday lineup for a while is so nice not only because he's a young fun player and it was unexpected, but the positional flexibility makes the upgrade path easier. If it had been Madrigal that hit this well, the middle infield would be spoken for unless you wanted to experiment with Hoerner in CF(possible, but at least questionable as a Plan A). With Morel playing well you can upgrade at SS(Hoerner to 2B, Morel in CF), 2B(Morel in CF), or CF(Morel to 2B) depending on the target.

As with the season so far, it's gonna depend on the SP. Right now they're 18th in position player WAR, 19th in reliever WAR, and 28th in SP. If you had told any of us before the season that the Top 4 starters(Hendricks, Stroman, Miley, Smyly) will make 55% of the starts, and that Hendricks and Stroman combined for a 5+ ERA when they do start, we'd have said that team is not gonna win 75 games and might struggle to win 70. If you want the optimist's case, you don't have to squint very hard to see improvement from Hendricks/Stroman, and if Smyly and/or Miley aren't healthy soon they aren't gonna get dealt when they do get healthy, plus Kilian is likely to get his legs under him. Yes trading Contreras would suck but that's easier to weather over 2 months than half your rotation being hurt and the other half being bad(especially b/c of the downstream effects like pulling Thompson out of the pen). But none of that has to happen, any of the hurt pitchers could stay hurt or come back bad, Hendricks and Kilian might not find their command, Steele could run out of steam with a full season's workload. If things don't get better than they are now they're gonna be in the lottery. I don't think failing to win 60 games is particularly likely(they're still on pace for 61 after losing 9 straight), but that's not a terribly meaningful distinction. What matters more than winning 58 or 64 or 72 or 77 games is what pieces they comfortably have in place for next year.

Norris looks like a sad German clockmaker