Transmogrified Tiger

Interesting that Dansby comes back to hitting 8th, probably not overly meaningful and more of the unintended consequence of Tauchman leading off and balancing L/R and contact throughout.

Don't think so, if you were going to add Joey Wendle(owner of a 47 wRC+ in 355 PA since the start of last year) or some other external option but needed a stop gap for a day or so while the details were worked out, you would just...not demote Mastrobuoni.

I think that's just the regressed nature of projections, his Zips RoS is 6th in the NL in fWAR: https://www.fangraphs.com/projections?pos=&stats=pit&type=rzips&team=&lg=nl

In a 4 man bench where one of the 4 is a catcher with a 32 wRC+, I find it hard to believe the best option is having both Vazquez and Madrigal on the same roster. Avoiding a late inning K isn't such an important role that it's worth the duplication of other skill sets, and Madrigal is so out of whack offensively that he gives away a chunk of that with ineffective contact anyway.

Exactly, I suspect it's about 80/20 Mastro goes down in that comparison. But depending on how you weight a couple factors where there isn't a black and white decision, it could make sense to give PCA some more regular at bats while Mastro can be a PR and you have all 4 OF healthy and not needing shielded from the lineup.

In a world where two people are going down because Dansby is back, Nico isn't getting IL'd, and Vazquez is coming up, I assume that Madrigal is the lock to go down. He's in terrible form, he's duplicative with existing options, and the role he could potentially fill is so narrow that you send him to Iowa to try to get his swing back so you could potentially count on him with something more expansive later. The second spot is Mastrobuoni v. PCA. That boils down to a bunch of factors like your expectation for both of their upcoming production along with Tauchman/Wisdom, your faith in Morel's defense or desire to give him a break against certain pitchers, etc. And of course, the wild card is there is another IL stint that we don't know about, though given Vazquez is the call up I'm not sure who it would be if it's not one of the players being discussed for a demotion already. I guess Morel is the one that would fit best, and he's certainly had enough nagging problems that I wouldn't be shocked if something got worse

and some indirect internal confirmation from a scout No word on who is getting IL'd or sent down to make room.

Agreed. We do split things like this off when we notice them, but Sunday evening after a game isn't peak noticing hours.

Happ - No concern, he has been good for too long, and is showing signs that a heater is around the corner Mastrobuoni - Little concern, he's a bench player and I'd expect him to be stronger with the bat going forward, but ultimately he's probably not among the best 26 on the roster so I'm not going to hand-wring his minutiae. This series was bad but far from what I'd expect as a norm. Madrigal - Mild concern, similar to Mastrobuoni he's not of incredible importance, but continuing to not square the ball even with regular playing time makes him a rough profile. I've long stuck up for Madrigal because people exaggerate his shortcomings since no one apparently can accept bench-level production on the bench, but he and Mastrobuoni on the same roster isn't a long term solution. Busch - Little concern, you have to give him the runway to keep making adjustments, and even when he's struggling he's working counts and making some contributions. Anecdotally I haven't seen any defensive misplays in a spell too. Hendricks - High concern, he can't keep rotating between decent start, unlucky disaster start, and deserved disaster start. Part of me hopes that if his next start or 2 doesn't go well, that he truly gets rocked, because I think he can probably right the ship to some degree, and if he admits that he's not playable right now I think he could be agreeable to working things out in Iowa. Morel - Little concern, taking great at bats, tragically unlucky batted ball luck(.376 xwOBA). The defense is what it is, it's not good and not going to really get much better, that's okay given the at bats he's taking now Amaya - Medium concern, there's no real smoking gun that I can see but the unplayable offense stretches how much you can give him runway to succeed, especially since his MLB/high minors track record is not long. Gomes - High concern, I think I was early on the possibility that his bat is cooked, I don't need him to be last year offensively but if he's gonna be a slider speed bat he needs to punish those, because a 32 wRC+ stretches how much you can value defense from the position, doubly so with Amaya in a deep funk

Zac Leigh popped up in the Iowa boxscore as well.

Taylor said earlier in the game the expectation is both will be in the lineup after the off day, yeah.

I'm sorry Oneil Cruz is named after Paul O'Neill? That is insane

The catching situation is starting to get a bit dire. Entering today, they had a 23 wRC+ over the last 30 days, .149/.204/.223

that's quite enough of Triolo

Mitch Keller is a very good starter.

You could tell that throw was going anywhere by that wide left plant foot

They scored 3+ in three straight and 6 of 8 before yesterday.

Guessing Mowins has ESPN obligations that supersede, she does softball and that NCAA tourney started this weekend.

It's happening

People aren't machines, the idea that they're grossly misunderstanding the magnitude of injuries in ways they could've prevented is silly. You can see this reflected in the fact that this complaint echoes across fans of many teams and many sports year after year.

Mervis 2022, this was at AAA but he had a not dissimilar one at AA before his promotion too:

Hey, Palencia is healthy enough to pitch for Iowa as a rehab assignment. Don't ask how he did

I don't know what the rulebook says, but I'm not sure there's really a transfer either. He reaches for Bellinger with ball in hand, and there's never a point where his right hand isn't the one controlling the ball compared to the glove.

safe even without the drop imo