Frayed Knot

Maybe if Thor shows some sort of return to form while with the ChiSox it'll lead to an opportunity with a major league club. couldn't resist

Hmmmm. One day after his loooonnnggg HR last night. But, as I posted in Saturday's IGT, not only does he just have 29 hits this year (.236 BA) but 23 of those hits are singles (3 2Bs, 3 HRs). So even though his current BA is right in line with his career norms, the isolated Power (Slg Avg - BA) is WAY down. For '23 & '24 combined his IsoP was right at 200 where this season it's exactly 100 even with last night's HR factored in. With MLB average typically around 150 (currently 153) that's a big fall. Put another way: 100 puts you slightly below where Torrens is this season. 200 puts you up there with Nimmo and Lindor who have 58 XBHs between them (29 each).

Justin falls between Wayne Garrett and Rod Gaspar alphabetically. Those names have been side by side since 1969. Brilliant!!

btw, I love that this thread is now 2-1/2 years old and still going strong.

Boras will certainly point to Judge and Freeman for ammo. Not that Pete is as good as either of them but that, at age 35, Freddie currently sports his highest BA and his 2nd best OPS of his career. And Judge, in the midst of his age 33 season, has his highest BA, OBA, SLG, OPS, OPS+ of his career by A Lot! 'So you see, Steve and David, Boras is bound to say, you've got nothing to worry about when it comes to signing mid-30s sluggers. Particularly when the guy we're talking just had (assuming current pace) 'HIS best season ever for BA, OBA, SLG, OPS and he's three and five years younger than those guys. And if you don't think so I've got 47 other teams waiting to talk to me and surely some of them will see it that way.'

In your previous post I meant to add the caveat that the above projection dates were based on Pete not hitting any more HRs today. So ignore everything I wrote above ... y'know, like most of you usually do.

And now he's no HRs away from tying Wright. With Pete's HR pace picking up lately, the timing for the tie-Straw and break-Straw now projects to occur in late July. It was mid-August last time I checked. At his current HR pace for the year, #252 is slated for game #105 on 7/28, right in the middle of the remaining west coast swing to SF & SD, with #253 slated for four to five days later when the club is back home.

He doesn't appear to be pitching that badly [3.43 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 10 G/8 Starts] but Taijuan Walker is being moved to the Philly pen - even though it was former Marlin Jesus Lazardo who gave up 12 ER on 12 Hits/3 BB in 3-1/3 IP on Saturday to the Brewers.

There's an ad on the CitiField outfield wall for Milagro Tequila

Cool. If you want some exercise walk some of the hills in Pittsburgh. Their steepness is legendary.

Saw it like a million years ago (maybe not that many, probably more like 37) but don't remember anything at this point.

Jonah Tong had a perfect game going for 6-2/3 in a DH which, in the minors, is designated as a 7 inning game, and ... he was pulled from the game. Reliever TJ Shook K'd his lone batter to complete the combined Perfecto for Binghamton.

Definitely been better the last day or two ... and especially so today.

That's not at all surprising. Guys don't normally stay down like that after fouling a ball off their legs. Who was that (from the Angels? the A's?) who broke his leg after fouling a ball during a playoff series w/the Yanx about 20-some years ago?

As just posted in the TWiB notes thread: Cubs ace, Justin Steele, out for the season with some kind of elbow surgery to follow. That kind of puts the baby bears at the front of the line in the Sandy Alcantara sweepstakes as the Cubs system is said to be "loaded" (Buster Olney). The NL Central certainly seems to be there for the taking so the Cubs would seem to be a good bet to be aggressive in getting what they need either at or even before the trading deadline.

Done! [FIMG=300]https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0274/9854/5226/files/ram-paul-mccartney_1024x1024.jpg?v=1723553181[/FIMG] Hey, this McCartney guy is pretty good. Is there anything else of note he did?

Yeah, MLB.TV is really for fans of out of town teams such as NYM fans who aren't in SNY territory. For a non-NY'er who can't get SNY, you can order MLB.tv and either pay for Met games only or for all games. Not sure there'd be an advantage of getting it through Peacock, or some other streaming service you already have, unless there was some sort of price break since MLB.TV is a stand-alone offering that doesn't need another service.

'Extra Innings' is a set of channels carried by (some) cable providers which feeds you the game just like any other channel option. MLB.TV is strictly a streaming service that you buy through MLB.com. You can buy a season full of just one team or all games (blackout restrictions apply) and it works on TVs, lap-tops, phones, etc. It's not really clear to me how this licensing thing is different. Subscribe to NetFlix [or insert other here] and get MLB.TV at a reduced cost, maybe? You certainly don't need anything other than an internet connection to make MLB.TV work so the only benefit I can see would be packaged pricing.

Nope. Slower tonight than it was this afternoon and than it's been in a while (for me anyway).

Yeah, usually. Although I think he stormed out of here angry too. Don't remember the details.

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.