Frayed Knot

RK and I used to talk cycling together. He was often an angry dude, though.

And now they've DFA'd him.

Right now I think teams are going to watch and see how he rebounds from his UCL surgery. He didn't have a great season (by his standards) in 2023 [113 ERA+ following seasons of 152, 132, 180/CY] and then missed all of 2024 Nothing dominant from his first two starts this year and his velocity is down a few clicks ... but it's early and that's a very SSS Miami, of course, will want to see how he rebounds too since anything resembling a return to form ups the value of the return haul. With two seasons on his deal after this one there's no rush on either side to do something this early. But, yeah, this will be a BIG topic come deadline time and possibly sooner.

Right, because hitting the ball on the traditional sweet spot -- what modern lingo likes to call "barreling it up" -- is hard. Great when it happens, but not easy to do often. So if/when a hitter finds out that, despite wanting to make contract THERE, where he actually makes contact most often is HERE, then you re-shape the bat so as to shift more wood towards that spot. Again, not a bigger sweet spot but a readjusted one that the hitter will hopefully find more often. Will there be more HRs as a result? Maybe, although I suspect the Yanqui numbers from this weekend are more incidental than cause & effect. If things work as designed a hitter gets more balls on the 'barrel' but also a slower barrel. Also those balls contacting towards the end at what used to be the barrel will have the opposite case of more bat speed but less weight behind them. Theoretically there will be fewer since the heftiest part of the bat is now closer to the handle and therefore closer to the point of contact on a 'jam job'. otoh, a pitch that is truly in "on his thumbs", as announcers like to say, is still hitting the thinnest part of the stick and will likely produce the same results and same amount of kindling. btw, I think this topic could use some splitting off

It's more like the weight/sweet spot has been shifted. The fattest part of these new bats is now slightly closer to handle causing the previously fattest part to start to taper a bit towards the very end. You can always make a bigger sweet spot merely by adding more wood. But of course more wood means more weight which is not what most hitters want, plus there are upper limits on both weight and length. This bat simply takes some of the heft from the end and shifts it inward while keeping the weight more or less the same although a 'torpedo' bat may feel lighter than a same weight traditional one because the weightier portion is now closer to the hands. A ball now hit off the 'new' sweet spot isn't going to have anymore juice behind it than one previously hit off the traditional sweet spot since it's not a bigger barrel, it's just a slightly relocated barrel. In fact it might even have somewhat less oomph since the center of the bat is traveling more slowly than the end no matter how fat or thin it is. But for those players who feel that that they make contact towards the middle of the bat more often than they do off the traditional barrel (and in this age of hard throwers that's not hard to fathom) then maybe the new design could help them make more solid contact more often, or even just stay alive in an AB more often.

Obviously too small a sample to draw any conclusions yet. Yanx hit 15 HRs in their first three games but, AFAIK, only Jazz Chisholm, (3) Anthony Volpe (2) and Clay Bellinger (1) are using the 'Torpedo' bat. Judge (5) says he has no interest in changing anything ... and why would he! The theory behind this is to get a better result when getting jammed by a pitch. But you wouldn't think those would turn into HRs. Bloops over the IF, maybe, instead of wood-shattering dribblers.

The bats in question simply have the 'barrel' (the fattest part) closer to the center of the bat while the end starts to taper. They're perfectly legal as they don't exceed length or weight limits, the weight is merely redistributed. Volpe and Chisholm are using them so far.

Would like to see him hook on somewhere, but the idea that Dom has much of a career left is quickly fading from view. So back to the Yanx for a sec: their first three opponents this year, and four of their first five, are NL clubs. Host the Brews for three games, then the same for the DBacks. After that they hit the road for the Pirate's home opening series followed, finally, by a series in Detroit, after which they return home to for three games vs the Giants.

New year means new thread IMO 1,255 -- Hayden Senger

It's the execution AND the lack of originality of the idea for me. Oooh, let's do a variation of something that half the teams in the league beat us to years ago. And then there's the lack of overall theme and the cheap "Let's Make A Deal" looking costumes.

I was just about to remark how much better it is this afternoon ... and then it balked and delayed at allowing my last post to go through.

Plus, if you're going to have a race rip-off at least have a little more originality with the runners. Like maybe a Brooklyn Hipster racing against a Staten Island Mobster (and I mean real hipsters and mobsters, not just someone in costume) against a Bronx Rapper and an actual Drag Queen from Queens, maybe from that airport bar Big Al was at all those years ago. And for Manhattan you entice the subway pizza rat from several years back out of retirement. I mean, he'd never win (particularly while dragging that slice with him everywhere) but folks would root for him for sure. P.S. I hope they're not expecting G, K & R to enthusiastically support this.

"Season ticket base" could have several interpretations. Maybe more partial plans have been sold meaning that more names are now attached to season tickets without necessarily meaning more tickets sold.

Stearns is responsible for the on field product. I highly doubt this is his doing. Cast your gaze instead towards Uncle Steve and his smoke machine blowing/fireworks spewing/dugout roof dancing/retired number-of-the-month promotional crew.

You obviously meant for this to go into the 2025 passings thread, not 2024 The family vacation, where several fell ill, was in Costa Rica, although no further details have emerged.

When Cole came up lame in ST last season (and wound up missing most of the first half of the season) I opined that his loss might be bigger than any one player to his team. I based that on my assessment of the Yanx losing the reigning CY winner combined with their thin rotation behind him. Turned out they had the best staff in the majors while he was out thanks to some serious overachieving by others including the unforeseen (at least by me) emergence of the eventual RoY in Luis Gil. But in the second half the others started regressing to their means and the staff as a whole was actually worse with Cole in the rotation than it had been while he was out. But this time it's Cole for the entire season and Gil is already out for at least the first half. They added a bunch of offensive parts in an attempt to make up for the loss of Soto but really only Max Fried on the pitching side. And while he'll surely help, they're then dependent on a combo of Stroman, Clarke Schmidt, Carlos Rodon, and ... ? Rookie Will Warren? NRIs Carlos Carrasco and/or Alan Winans?? And then there's old favorite TBA.

I'm also dubious about Henry VIII writing GREENSLEEVES (for Anne Boleyn of course) but folks in power claiming publishing rights are nothing new.

'Lat Strains' for pitchers seems to be the chic injury to get this Spring. The Yanx' 2025 ROY starter Luis Gil has a "high grade" one and is looking at an ASB return at the earliest. I think it would have been better if he strained either his heel or one of his gills, but I guess ya can't have everything.

Didn't see them two either.

Never saw it. Don't remember even contemplating watching it.

Giancarlo Stanton will open the season on the IL. Elbow issues.

Sudden thought as we're on the eve of the Oscars here. There's a small part as a black bluesman named Brownie McGhee in COMPLETE UNKNOWN. He was the guy on the public TV piece with Pete Seeger and Dylan. There's nothing wrong with the part as I guess it's meant to show how 'folkie' Dylan had always had at least one foot in R&R/blues and would therefore never be as 'pure' as the folk crowd wanted. But the part seemed maybe a bit too big to me and not really necessary for the story. Other characters with larger connections to Bob in that era (Dave Van Ronk for instance) were on screen but with much smaller parts and not even identified by name. And it's not like the thought that Dylan was never the wholly committed Folkie some fans wanted him to be wasn't conveyed in numerous other ways in the flick. So while I'm going to assume that the Dylan/McGhee TV meeting actually took place, was there any other connection between the two that made his character relevant? And then it hit me. Did they write in this part because, without one, there would have been no significant speaking parts for black actors and therefore, by the rules Hollywood put in several years ago, no possibility of an Oscar nomination much less a potential win?

Nothing was said about their long-running 'no hair past the collar' rule, so I guess that one's still in place. The humorous part of MFY image keeping was when they had Jason Giambi (plus one of their pitchers though I forget now which) who always wore arm sleeves as if recovering from some injury. Except it was really so the team could pretend that they'd never have a Yanqui with tattoos. That unofficial policy lasted until they simultaneously signed AJ Burnett and CC Sabathia for their 2009 squad and those guys' arms were so tatted up that they would have to play in burqas in order to hide the evidence, so the gig was up.

More likely it was to try and create a trade market for him.

It all of course stemmed from when George first bought the team in the early '70s when it was assumed by George-like people that anyone with longer hair and beards was a hippie, fag, commie. One of his early memos became famous at the time. It was early enough to where he still didn't know many of the players' names but he wasn't going to let that stop him. So he left a note to one of his underlings to the effect that: 'numbers 15, 23, and 31 need haircuts!!!'