Edgy MD

Yeah, I was surprised to see that he was able to salvage his 2015 season, as poorly as it started. I guess I should be encouraged by that now.

Zvon wrote: I think it's gonna be no night games the night before a day game. Or in CPF lingo, no gight names the night before a gay dame. This doesn't add up to me. I mean, if the challenge of playing is the two hours or so of stretching beforehand, wouldn't it make more sense to rest him during the actual day DGaaNGs, when there is less preparation time?

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I'm guessing that he's closer to the disabled list than first base. I wonder how many of his absences from the lineup have been precautionary and how many have been triggered by responding to his condition at the time. I'm guessing: We Have a Plan, and We're Being Precautionary50%We're Keeping an Eye on Him, and He's in No Shape to Play Tonight30%We're Trying to Win Here, and Healthy or Not, We Think We Just Like Our Chances Better with Flores/Campbell/Reynolds20%

Ceetar wrote: He's too good not to work through it, and I think ultimately he'll be better for it. It's pitching, and successful pitching is ephemeral. That list I occasionally refer to of starting pitcher rankings is filled with guys who were a revelation at one point. Now they're bouncing around the league trying to find out where it all went wrong, trying to get the pieces in place again. Dwight Gooden was the greatest pitcher anybody had ever seen for 2 1/2 years. For four years after that, he was just a good pitcher. For the rest of his career, he was just a pitcher. Tim Lincecum was a terror for a few years there. The last guy in the league you wanted to see. Now here he is at 31, so indifferently effective that he's just getting signed in late May. Hasn't even had arm surgery. Maybe he will work through it, but I don't think anybody is too good not to work through it. Sometimes, you never find it again. And that, in addition to injuries, is why long-term deals for pitchers are terrifying. And that's why you build as much redundancy into your staff as possible.

I'm in a funk, posting wise.

The echo chamber of self-selection has made us all into a crazed tribes of ignorami, lacking any capacity for intellectual empathy, but YAY! we killed that elitist priesthood of boring, thoughtful, hardworking journalists.

It's funny, because there were twin ideas years ago, firstly, that a successful starter who was scuffling could work his problems with a temporary trip to the bullpen, and secondly, that a successful reliever who was scuffling could work his problems by getting a start or two. They were somewhat contradictory, but given a lack of options, managers tried them both, often enough.

In the old days, he'd [list:4i2lem0j][*:4i2lem0j]miss two starts,[/*:m:4i2lem0j] [*:4i2lem0j]work out of the pen three times, [/*:m:4i2lem0j] [*:4i2lem0j]declare himself fixed, whether it was true or not,[/*:m:4i2lem0j] [*:4i2lem0j]return to the rotation, and[/*:m:4i2lem0j] [*:4i2lem0j]either succeed or fail.[/*:m:4i2lem0j][/list:u:4i2lem0j] Nowatimes, switching somebody from the pen to the rotation or the rotation to the pen is just too much drama, with hours of talk about the trauma of foreshortening his workdays and then stretching them again. But the bullpen is what is they should do.

Maybe he sees some time in the pen.

When will he retire as many as 19 batters in an evening?

I'm certain I write more thoughtfully than you suggest. And the "some people" act is unworthy of you. Please stop. I certainly think it's entirely possible that he may never be good again.

Wonder if somewhere, someone is writing on the internet right now that Bryce Harper is done. [youtube:179w6o5o]pWX5G8oTO08[/youtube:179w6o5o] Good Dickey Day footage in there.

At the risk of being unrelaxed, I think it's also a question of how much can be gleaned from a future that remains. I think too swift a jump is generally made among fandom from "in decline" to "done." As someone in decline myself, I think that's meaningful. For years, those on the presidential beat and the papal beat in newspapers were derided by their colleagues as having deathwatch beat. But operating them as deathwatches misses everything, letting dozens of big stories slip through your hands while always writing what you see the ultimate big story in your head.

Yeah. Agitation is bad.

Zvon wrote: d'Kong76 wrote: I think getting Harvey back would more suit our 2016 interests. Yea, this. Walkers gonna be fine. Well, I didn't say I want my Niese back. But Mr. .400 is putting on a hitting clinic.

Where they pitch Duda: From the catcher's POV, it says. So in short, this means, "Down and away," correct?

Except, every player ever has sucked at one point over 24 at-bats. Some have been done at that point, but most have not been. This is true of Wright any number of times. I loathe to draw broad conclusions every time. That's living at armageddon's edge.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: 98% of the sports-story quotes published are worthless anyway, like the Gomez one. I guess the question, then, is: Are they more valuable if left syntactically intact?

I want my Murphy back.

Plawecki, lead the counter-attack.

Sure but the Dudas and the Goldschmidts and the Kingmen of the world tend to reach out and pull the outside pitch too. Anything over the plate. Just... not so authoritatively as the inside stuff. Duda still gets pitched away to a large part, I think. The shift is about taking away the singles and doubles, but if you couple it with pitching him inside regularly, he's going to more than make up for that with KABOOM!KABOOM!KABOOM!

Sheesh, are we all so certain of a future of unending futility from this point forward?

That logic has merit, which is why I advocate like a nut for bunting against the shift. But extending the logic asks us to look at the reality that the shift is everywhere, and being used routinely throughout the league. Its effects are felt through the entire data set of league wide performance, so if his BABiP is lower than the mean, there's some reason to hope that should correct itself. Some. I still think they should come up with a strategy to counter the shift besides trying to hit through it (or over it). First among 15th in the league in home runs, but 12th in batting average are numbers that generally represents a good team. But it's hardly ideal. It's a problem that certainly goes beyond Granderson.

I don't think we should use "good year" and "outlier" interchangeably Or even a great year. An outlier is something else.