moonslav59

This seems to happen more often than we think, and to all of us. Sometimes patience is rewarded: sometimes it is not. Maybe Story slumps, again, and you could end up being proven right. His defense has improved, greatly too.

They aren't supplements. They are based on the diet- all of it- not just the meat or potatoes. They include the whole diet- not just one part or trying to look at several parts all at once on our own: they are not supplements to it.

To me, defense by a catcher far outweighs what they can do on offense. I've always been one to believe a catcher's defense goes far beyond just catching the ball, throwing out base runners, blocking bad pitches and framing balls into strike calls. How they handle the pitching staff is underrated, IMO. Whether it's building a comfort zone, providing a steady target to throw to or calling the right pitch, at the right time (although some teams call almost all pitches from the bench, these days) or settling down a shaken pitcher, a catcher's job extends beyond data and stats, more than any other position. It's not something you can easily prove, but ask almost every MLB pitcher who ever existed, if the catcher makes a significant difference, and I'll bet over 90 to 95% say yes. That has to count for something. The CERA stat has been misunderstood and misused for years, as is OPS Against by catcher. It's a highly limited stat that only has use when comparing catchers catching the same pitchers over the same season, and even then, it's not perfect and often involves unbalanced sample sizes and small to tiny sample sizes. It's more about the theory that some catchers get more out of the same pitchers than others do or would be expected to do, had they been that team's catcher, instead. I'll go to my grave thinking some catchers make a huge difference beyond blocking, framing and CS rates.

We've all tried to figure out how valuable defense, baserunning, getting on base and power are when determining who are the best or better players. We all have or biases and favorite players and stats or areas of skill. It's been a years long endeavor and debate. WAR tries to quantify this endeavor by placing value on these aspects of the game. It uses historical data to determine how much a hit, homer, double, SB, error or great play leads to a run, run saved, and ultimately a team win or loss. It's far from perfect, but so are our debates and personal opinions on who is better: the .310 batter who plays GG defense at SS or the .275 batter who smacks 50 Hrs, has a higher OBP than the SS, but is just a so-so defender in LF. I think I'd trust a system based on data and historical values that determine their formula, than any one person's opinion, including my own. If you choose to ignore WAR and metrics, that's fine with me, but IMO, nobody can prove a claim that their non data based methodology is a better one. Take any top 10 list of players by WAR and compare to any other top 10 list by any stat, even OPS or wRC+ and tell me that single stat does a better ranking than WAR.

This guy is amazing. He's done this for over 3 seasons, now. He's for real! 1.005 in '22 (.792 v R) .828 in '23 (.466 v R) .941 in '24 (.733 v R) 1.010 in '25 (.804 v R) He has only been bad vs RHPs once in over 3 years. He'd probably play FT somewhere else. He's a top 10 batter vs LHPs since 2022 (.924 places him 10th among all batters with 400+ PAs.) Since 2022, he's hit .689 vs RHPs. That's not good, but these days, that's not far from being okay. .689 places 273rd out of 444 batters w 350+ PAs vs RHPs, which is near the 60th percentile. That's not horrible.

ERA over last 9 games (listed by most IP) 3.77 Crochet 2.45 Dobbins 8.00 Buehler 8.22 Giolito 4.26 Bello 1.80 Wilson 5.40 Guerrero 3.86 Weissert 1.93 Criswell 0.00 Whitlock & CHapman 2.70 Kelly 18.00 Bernardino 0.2 IP has Stock at 27.00

We've won 6 of the last 7 and 7 of 9. Over the last 9 games... Whodathunk these names? 1.167 Mayer 1.072 Toro 1.043 Romy .977 Narvaez .935 Story .873 Refsnyder .836 Campbell .744 Duran .731 Devers .688 Rafaela 18 PAs Anthony at .292, 9 PAs DHam at .556 & Abreu at .508

No Anthony or Mayer vs yet another lefty. 1. R Refsnyder RF 2. L Devers DH 3. R Romy 1B 4. R Story SS 5. S Toro 3B 6. L Duran LF 7. R Rafaela CF 8. R Wong C 9. R Campbell 2B

It's not a guess. When we used to stand around the watercooler trying to debate over who is a better players based on stats, defense and our bias, that was "real scientific," wasn't it?

You said, "so often, he wastes him for one batter." and said "finally" like he is just starting to use him for more than 1 batter. That has happened 2 times in the last 16 games. 3-6 batters in 14 of the last 16 games.

Not all 0.1 IP and 0.2 IP are 1-2 batters. Wilson since May 7th 1 IP/ 5 batters 0.2/ 4 batters 1.0/ 4 batters (over 2 seperate innings) 0.1/ 1 batter (rescued Bello to end the 5th inning) 1.0/ 4 batters (the day after the 1 batter game above) 1.0/ 5 batters (over 2 seperate innings) 0.2/ 3 batters (taken out after a BB) 0.1/ 4 batters (allowed 2 singles and a BB before being removed) 1.0/ 4 batters 1.1/ 4 batters (2 batters in 2 seperate innings) 0.1/ 1 batter (finished the 5th for Gio.) 1.0/ 3 batters (1-2-3) 1.0/ 6 batters (rough game vs Yanks) 1.0/ 4 batters (vs Yanks, the next day) 0.1/ 3 batters (yanked after a 1B and HBP) 1.1/ 4 batters (actually for 5 outs as a runner was caught stealing) I'm not trying to nitpick you, but the word "finally more than 1-2 batters" is just not true. It's been over a month, and he's had 2 games of one batter and none with just 2. This is not some new strategy by Cora. He's been using our second best RP'er more and more and more than before.

No. Last 16 games: 1.1 or more 3 times 1.0 IP 7 times less than 1.0: just 6 times (less than 38%) Less than 1 IP in 2 of his last 8 games pitched (25%)

Yes, I noticed that a while ago. I was talking about how I felt before the season started. Goldschmidt at 1.6 is more than double where I thought he'd be. He was at 1.1 in 154 games in 2024. Austin Wells had a real good season in '24 (3.4,) so 1.7 should not be surprising, but I wasn't so sure he'd be on pace to improve on '24, as he is now. Grisham is on pace for over 3, and his career high was 2.5 back in '21. I'm not the only one surprised by his 1.4. (He was at 1.8 and 1.7 the last 2 seasons, so he's not blowing that away and already has more PAs than '24.) Chisholm and Bellinger were somewhat speculative, as was Volpe, but none are surprisingly higher than expectations. Judge is Judge plus. On the Sox vs expectations: Story: I may not have expected 1.2 or 1.3, but I would have expected more than 0.2, if I'd known he'd play 68 games and have 282 PAs in mid June. Wong: Regression was expected and Narvaez more than took up the slack as a much better than expected player. DHam: I did not expect him to repeat 1.7, but with more PAs, I thought 1.3 was in range, or that Campbell or Mayer could be at 1.3, if they played FT to mid June. Once again, 2B has been a mess. Ref is at just 0.8, because he doesn't play enough. That's not a cop-out. He's not a 3+ fWAR guy over a full season. Period. Toro+Romy are at 0.6 combined. They will not catch Goldy, but they are doing fine. I'm more surprised by Yankee pitching, especially in light of Deveon Williams sucking up the place.

Agreed, plus no warm up pitches to start the next inning.

How does demoting Campbell get Abreu into the lineup? What OF'er plays 2B? Rafaela? Our best defensive CF? We can try some shuffle- mix it up plan, maybe starting by platooning Duran, but there is not enough ABs for those who deserve them in the OF. To me, the untouchable is the Abreu-Ref platoon. Second is Duran vs RHPs. Next is Rafaela in CF and Anthony as close to FT as possible being tied. So, Duran in LF vs most R and CF vs some R. Rafaela in CF v L and most R. Anthony in LF v all L and some R. Is that enough? Do we play Rafaela or Duran even less, so Roman plays more? The Bregman return would put that spotlight on Campbell, not the Abreu return, IMO.

Good points. Flip them.

I'm fully prepared to admit I was wrong about the Yankees not being much better than the rest of the AL, but I agree. They look very unbalanced. Hell, they looked unbalanced, to me last year, even with Sosa. I felt losing Sosa and Cole would be too much to overcome. Let's see how the dog days of summer affects this Yankee team.

I'm done counting on returning pitchers from injury. If they do, so be it. We need to plan on zero IP from Houck, Crawford & Sandoval and go from there. I do expect Bregman back, but I'd add 2-4 weeks to whatever time table we have.

Maybe he felt he was pushing his luck. Wilson was very successful for 1 or 2 batters. BTW, Wilson has pitched 1 or more innings in 17 of 29 appearnces.and 5 of his last 7, so the "finally" word doesn't really fit. He's gone over 1 IP in 3 of his last 15 games.

It's nice to see us help DET pass NYY for the best AL record.

A longer struggle than I had in mind! LOL! Hey, we made it! We are down 1 in the WC race to two teams at 35-33 for that 6th slot. TOR & TBR are 3 up on us.

Not much to watch at Woo, these days, except Jh Garcia and some pitchers. Jordan went 2-4 w BB and JhG went 1-4 w BB. Uberstine pitched another good game (2.67 ERA.) Murphy got lit up, but Mata did okay in relief. Wehunt pitched a gem for POR: 7IP 4H, 1 ER 13K 1BB. Castro homered and is showing signs of life. Alcantara 3-4 w BB. GRE lost 1-0, as Ed Rivera pitched very well: 6.2 1H, 0ER 2BB & 7K. Jo Garcia went 2-4 as did Brannon. SAL lost 9-6. Our A-, FCL and DSL teams are not doing well.

That was a long struggle to get back to .500.

Yup: Dobbins Wilson Chapman Narvaez Toro-Romy

Wilson has sure proved me wrong. (Chapman, too.)