harmony

To be fair, at the time of the November 2015 trade the Padres had 23-year-old catcher Austin Hedges, whom Baseball Prospectus and MLB Prospect Watch had ranked No. 23 and No. 51 among prospects entering the 2015 season. Baseball America had ranked Hedges No. 27 the previous year. The 2011 draft saw Hedges taken with the No. 82 pick and Swihart with the No. 26 pick. Hedges, who is four months younger than Swihart, has posted 0.4 bWAR and a negative 0.2 fWAR in 152 games since the Kimbrel trade while Swihart has posted 0.0 bWAR and a negative 0.2 fWAR in 37 games. Hedges entered this season with one year and 166 days of MLB service while Swihart had one year and 164 days of MLB service. Compare their minor league lines: AH 1621 PA, .270/.323/.433/.757 BS 1716 PA, .269/.328/.398/.727 Hedges has struggled with an OPS+ of 58 in 676 plate appearances at the MLB level while Swihart has posted an OPS+ of 86 in 411 plate appearances, including and OPS+ of 73 in 102 plate appearances since the start of the 2016 season. ZiPS, Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts project rest-of-season wRC+ of 72, 67 and 70 for Hedges and 60, 69 and 64 for Swihart. Hedges probably has a brighter future than Swihart because of his vastly superior defensive skills: https://www.fanragsports.com/padres/pleskoff-scouting-report-austin-hedges/

This Boston Globe piece from last June describes Rusney Castillo's unenviable situation after revisions to the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement: https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/06/22/rusney-castillo-reborn-but-also-stuck-pawtucket/WXXV4C6o8xF3h4zCC5q6KL/story.html

Hanley Ramirez has posted 0.6 fWAR in his 27 games this year. ZiPS, Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts project Ramirez with rest-of-season WAR of 0.9, 0.7 and 0.6 in 105, 73 and 66 games, respectively: https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=8001&position=SS

I found the early World Series odds interesting: https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

True. This is what Kevin Youkilis tweeted last month about the rules change: https://twitter.com/GreekGodOfHops/status/984267816424521728

Nearly three years ago ESPN columnist Tim Kurkjian wrote of "four examples that define a dirty slide": http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/13134635/what-exactly-dirty-slide The rules -- written and unwritten -- apparently have changed since I last played in the 1960s.

If Craig Kimbrel declines a qualifying offer, the Red Sox are not precluded from re-signing their ace closer to different terms.

The owners did not get rich by making illogical moves.

On the topic of bashing, check out the last three columns for first basemen Eric Hosmer and Hanley Ramirez: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2018&month=0&season1=2018&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

I believe mvp 78's reference was to 26-year-old Blake Swihart. Who has limited trade value.

On the topic of the 2010 Hot Stove, in a few hours I’m going to a Triple A game in Sacramento where the River Cats will send 28-year-old right-hander Casey Kelly to the mound.

Don’t feed the trolls.😊

I am bracing for Day 5 of an intensive week-long analytics training in a narrow subfield of my work. My profession is not the target audience but I suspect I was invited to address constitutional issues of data collection. I'm looking forward to getting away -- literally and figuratively -- for the weekend.

Back in the days of David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez, the Seattle Mariners would rank high on a ranking of all-former-players teams. Alas, today we're stuck with: C Chris Iannetta/Welington Castillo 1B Logan Morrison/Kendrys Morales 2B Asdrubal Cabrera/Luis Valbuena SS Ketel Marte/Brad Miller 3B Adrian Beltre/Danny Valencia OF Adam Jones/Eric Thames OF Chris Taylor/Austin Jackson OF Jarrod Dyson/Mark Trumbo DH Justin Smoak/Yonder Alonso SP Taijuan Walker SP J.A. Happ SP Doug Fister SP Chris Tillman SP Wade Miley SP R.A. Dickey/Jason Vargas/Nate Karns/Yovani Gallardo CL Brandon Morrow RP Fernando Rodney RP Steve Cishek RP Carson Smith RP Brandon Maurer RP Tyler Olson LR Mike Montgomery LR Ryan Yarbrough

The start of the Red Sox season reminds me a bit of the start of the 1984 Detroit Tigers, who went on to win the World Series: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/DET/1984-schedule-scores.shtml

The Seattle lineup should improve with the returns of Mike Zunino and Ben Gamel. The pitching is the big question.

The Astros can feast tonight on Seattle left-hander Ariel Miranda. Or not. Miranda, who led the Mariners in starts last season, has been called up to make his first MLB start of the year.

Students (and faculty members) knew that I maintained supplemental office hours at 11 pm nearly every night at the end of the bar, sipping my Strohs draft and smoking my Kent Golden Lights. My, how times have changed for this 62-year-old teetotaling, yoga-practicing former marathon runner.

The injury-plagued Seattle Mariners are 9-5, a half-game up on the Astros after beating the defending World Series champs on Monday.

I've never thrown a punch in a bar fight but I once got into a shoving match over a game of pool of all things. Around closing time in a bar when I was a professor 30+ years ago, a student sucker-punched me fairly hard in the stomach. I gave him a puzzled look, smiled and muttered: "Michael, I can't believe you did that." After I went home the student called around 3 am to apologize. The student called again around 10 am to apologize. When I told the student he had already called to 3 am to apologize he said he was too drunk to remember. Good times.

As CBS Sportsline baseball writer R.J. Anderson wrote: https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/kangaroo-court-in-the-case-of-the-yankees-red-sox-brawl-was-tyler-austins-slide-dirty-was-joe-kelly-right-to-retaliate/ I respect Brock Holt for not being whiny like many Red Sox fans and for issuing an apology for his limited role: https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2018/04/12/here-what-key-figures-red-sox-yankees-brawl-had-say/KajPcW2Q26k0E5iUoFG2pJ/story.html Tyler Austin did nothing to earn my respect. And neither did Joe Kelly. But I respect a divergence of opinions.

Deven Marrero suffered a tough break Saturday evening: https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/diamondbacks/2018/04/14/arizona-diamondbacks-deven-marrero-loses-home-run-after-passing-baserunner/518254002/

I have no doubt the slide was intentional ... Tyler Austin did not accidentally fall to his backside. Tyler Austin may have intentionally attempted to break up an anticipated double play attempt. Tyler Austin may have intentionally attempted to spike Brock Holt's leg. As I have written: "A hypothetical jury could determine that Tyler Austin and Joe Kelly acted with intent."

I get this even if I don't agree. I work with some people involved in gangs that have their own extrajudicial rules of conduct.

An as I have written: "A hypothetical jury could determine that Tyler Austin and Joe Kelly acted with intent." I'm not absolving Austin but I have provided videos that call into question factual allegations on this forum. Or not:o. The MLB front office (and many organizations) consider reported misconduct by comparing the conduct with past misconduct and how that conduct was handled. I found it interesting that the (presumably) Red Sox announcer proclaimed the Mookie Betts slide as "as good, clean, hard slide" even though on some levels it was more egregious than the Tyler Austin slide. I should know better than to cast a Red Sox icon in negative light.