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Was reading an article about Culberson, and knew he hadn't played much, but he's only had 12 at bats all season, and just 2 1/3 innings in the field. He's 5 for 12 with 2 doubles, 2 HRs, and 6 RBIs.
Might be time to let him play over Camargo (who's first off the bench now and first to get spot starts, but is batting .230), at least a start here and there for Culberson would be nice to see.
Donm. I get Lau's argument...sort of. If a switch hitter bats .350 against righties and .270 against lefties should he bat righty against lefties if he hits them at a .240 clip ? The other approach would be to sit a player when the team faces a right handed hitter if the player is weak against righties, but that would open up a whole set of issues with roster management.
It gets weird if you start to platoon guys when you don't necessarily need to. If a guy is good against righties but couldn't hit a LHP if he put the ball on a tee, then maybe you go there.
Not to open this can of worms again, but Dennis Lewallyn has really been the "guy" for the Braves really as the finishing school pitching coach if we're going to give credit to any pitching coach considering that not much time is spent in AAA by most big prospects. I don't remember full details because of how bad my memory is, but just as an example, Touki took off when he got paired with Lewallyn starting back in 2017 and as an even funnier example, although he's a meh guy if anything as a SP, Lucas Sims was bad in 2016 unless he was paired with that guy. There's good reason that he was one of the guys that they kept in the organization despite the mostly cleaned house on the pitching side. He's really good.
Bank. I strongly disagree. young pitchers in the grad school portion of their development like Soroka, Newcomb, Folty and others had Hernandez as their pitching coach for 2 years. There was both individual and team improvements year over year. Team wise the gains were enormous. It was silly at best to change pitching coaches for the supposed reasons GG mentioned. Just because there was a plan from 2017 to replace somebody doesn't mean it made sense in 2018/2019.
I need somewhere to be angry. With a guy on first with no outs and Matt Joyce batting, why the bleep wouldn’t you bunt? Joyce isn’t exactly a masher. Instead, he strikes out and Snit sends Culberson to get thrown out at second. Flowers strikes out, game over. It pissed me off last year too, but our aversion to bunting is abhorrent. I like Snit, but he can’t manage high leverage situations.
Except Joyce is a masher (I don't consider good average bats mashers here, I consider guys that can hit the HR at a good clip to be) and in today's game, nobody looks to bunt in that situation, with me even HEARING a national announcer saying that bunting, unless you're the pitcher with 1 man on is not improving your probability to score straight up. It's not just a Snitker thing, it's an every manager thing in MLB today. Every single one of them. Old school baseball is as good as dead and gone. If you want to see old school baseball, you'd have to watch Japan or college baseball.
Charlie went on his own there, to boot.
To boot, I think Snitker did look for the bunt a lot when he was first manager, but he was likely shown stats that show it doesn't actually help as much as the old school thought is, and now he doesn't bunt. Even in the case where it'd actually be a good choice (1st/2nd nobody out).
Is there an unwritten rule about bunting when the shift is in play? Don’t understand why guys don’t do it more often. A little off topic but it bugs the $ht out of me!
Teams would very happily take the power hitter taking the weak single instead of going for more.
i had a longer post but it's late and my tablet acting crazy deleted it.
The only reason statistics favor power over fundamentals now is because we're back to a wink and a nod ginned up power era. MLB decided HRs = patronage so they juiced the ball and softened their pursuit of drug free play. For a few years after the 90s and early 2000s PEDs fueled bashathon there was an attempt to clean up the game. Power numbers went down and fundamentals had a brief period where they were in favor.
It is what it is. If you love 10-8 scores and don't mind knowing there is cheating and old records that were achieved honestly mean nothing to you, congratulations.
You still manage to the game as it stands today. If a juiced ball means it is better to hit away than bunt runners over, then you hit away. That can’t always be the case. Surely Ender would be asked to bunt the runner over.
I am skeptical of the juiced ball theory Someone would talk There are owners who are traditionalists, plus not everyone in a hitter friendly park appears to be benefitting - see the orioles
Bank. The juiced ball has been confirmed.
The juiced ball is real but implying steroids are a big part of the game is unfounded @WCDawg.
And yeah bunting in that situation would have been really dumb. Stealing in that situation was probably kind of dumb too.
@GeorgiaGirl have you noticed Snit actually managing the bullpen differently/better lately? It’s like he doesn’t have a 7/8/9 inning guy, and is playing matchups and leverages. You’re right that the old game is dead if even a guy like Snit can learn. Glad AA finally got to him.
Another great start by Freid and some great bullpen work tonite.
I definitely think he got a little talking to about how to use the pen recently.
I do swear Snitker used to bunt more often with position players. Just like with what he was shown with the shifts when AA came in, he was likely made aware of the stats at some point about how the bunt decreases your probability at a big inning (although I want to say him decreasing the usage of the bunt came even before 2018).
I also think honestly that they changed the ball, then changed it again. Power was down some last year, but this year you have guys like La Stella with 7 HR in a month and you're pacing for the most HRs ever.
Kirbstoomper. PEDs are without a doubt in my mind prevalent in MLB today. Calling them ''steroids'' is probably inaccurate in many cases. PEDs is a broader term, many of the substances constantly being developed to get around rules and tests are precursors and other devices to stimulate the body to produce muscle mass, energy and stamina.
I don't think it's just PEDs/steroids....I'd include all the platelet therapy and that sort of stuff...obviously to recover from injury but I'm sure there's all sorts of uses. NBA players have been doing it for years like Kobe.
Something I learned about a while back I found really interesting. As much as steroids became synonymous with doping in baseball and connected to Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, etc. it was the elimination of amphetamines that slowed the game down so much. These guys have to play a marathon of a season, and amphetamines were to the players a couple decades ago what coffee is to you or I at our regular jobs. I think that has played just as big a role as much pitcher specialization and analytics to why position players have become disadvantaged.
Ok No...... they won’t.