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Post by wncbravesfan on Jun 1, 2023 21:10:32 GMT -5
Strider RHP 5 - 2|2.97 ERA
vs
Nelson, R RHP 2 - 2|5.37 ERA
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 8:46:08 GMT -5
Sam Hilliard.
On May 5th he was at 266/.329/.484/.813
He had just gone on a “bad” run, 7 for 35 with 17 strikeouts. And he was still at a very acceptable point offensively. Was a good defender and good base runner.
Since May 5th he has 5 ABs while Michael Harris has put up a .513 OPS.
I double dare somebody to say our managering guy isn’t a hard headed nitwit.
I have not begun to give up on Harris, but being this insistent on using a guy every single day, who is struggling this much, while you have someone on the bench who was helping the team, and letting that guy just sit and literally rot…..is just asinine.
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 8:56:38 GMT -5
Harris is doing something I’ve seen slumping hitters do for 55 years of being an ardent fan. I even saw God (Freddie Freeman) do if a couple of times. There’s a belief in baseball that you should become very aggressive at the plate to hit your way out of a slump. The problem with that is guys start swinging at everything. And pitchers and scouts are smart, they see that, and the more crap you swing at the more crap they’re going to throw you. It really handicaps a hitter to be swinging at so much garbage. It always amazes me big league coaches don’t nip it in the bud and find a way to stay selectively aggressive. If you don’t make big league pitchers throw you some hittable stuff they aren’t going to. Harris is going through entire ABs where he doesn’t get a pitch within 6 inches of the zone but strikes out or hits some weak ass Ender Inciarte nerf ball somewhere for an easy out. Derp.
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 9:02:05 GMT -5
Our entire team is loaded with guys who will chase. We are an excellent fastball hitting team in the zone, but terribly vulnerable to change ups. And breaking balls. The scouting report for us as an entire team is so simple. Show us fastballs but at the very top of the zone to six inches above the zone and shower us with change ups and breaking balls. Why anybody ever throws us a fastball in the zone is beyond me because they never have to. I think that’s why we struggle against lesser pitchers. Because you don’t have to have good stuff to beat us, just be halfway smart.
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 9:10:44 GMT -5
I didn’t like it when we made an obvious move to being a HR based team and away from small ball. We had a lot of speed and we could have had a nice combination of speed and power. Being a HR team won the World Series for us, because pretty much the whole team got hot at the right time and our pitching came through. But I don’t think it’s a long term winning philosophy. We could have had a 10 year dynasty, to me that’s in real jeopardy now because we’ve completely abandoned playing small ball and we’ve said screw fundamentals all together. If we don’t get good pitching and bash a bunch of HRs we don’t win.
With the shift outlawed, speed and base hits and good base running are going to be more important to consistently scoring runs and not having such ups and downs offensively.
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Post by keystone61 on Jun 3, 2023 9:17:22 GMT -5
We're missing Freeman and Dansby a helluva lot more than anyone wants to admit. I actually think we miss Dansby the most. He was frustrating, of course, but he was also a leader. Neither Olson nor Riley will step up and lead. I think Rosario would, but Sarge is constantly jerking him around, so I'm sure Eddie doesn't respect him much. I'd really like to see Snitker gone. Hell, he can't even make out a decent lineup most of the time. Olson in the 2 hole is pure insanity.
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 9:31:03 GMT -5
I think Riley will be a good leader, he actually does some good situational hitting at times. Rosario has proven he can be a really good piece and a clutch player, he had a 1.073 OPS in the playoffs the year we won it all, including a 1.272 against LHP in 20 ABs, but Sargent Numbnuts just doesn’t like something about him and it’s a weird hang up thinking he can’t hit LHP.
I think Acuna has to be the #1 leader and he is by example. I think Ozzie needs to be too, but he’s too often a clown show the way he swings at everything. Murphy needs to be a leader.
I think the bigger issue is the philosophy of scrapping the idea of playing the game the right way and everybody swinging for the fences on every pitch. It’s just not a way to win consistently, too many ups and downs.
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Post by keystone61 on Jun 3, 2023 9:37:29 GMT -5
All good points. Murphy may well be the guy. It can't be easy to come to a new team and step right into that role. What concerns me is how do you become a smarter, more fundamental team at this stage? I mean, this is the majors. Seems a bit late to address those things.
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joeyg39
Low A Farmhand
Go Phillies!
Posts: 963
Likes: 64
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Post by joeyg39 on Jun 3, 2023 9:38:17 GMT -5
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Post by keystone61 on Jun 3, 2023 9:48:46 GMT -5
It's always been his problem. He's the poster child for what uck is talking about. He swings at the first pitch constantly. Ronald is swinging at the first pitch too often, too. It's one of our big problems. It's hard to draw walks and get pitchers out of games that way, so if you're not bashing, you're in trouble. I get the aggressiveness, but you have to somehow pick your spots.
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Post by Hart's Middle Finger on Jun 3, 2023 11:40:27 GMT -5
The reasons anyone ever throws us fastballs in the zone:
They make a mistake with location.. it happens to even the best.
They get behind... which is really perplexing because it's not like we won't swing wildly at ball 4 which starts off 4 inches off the plate and ends up 18" wide.
I know we are a team of guys swinging at the fences, but this goes beyond just the players. A big part of it is a manager that manages the team that way. You can see it almost every game.. him managing station to station waiting for someone to finally club one. Outside of Acuña stealing some... there is nothing.. almost never any hit and run. Like maybe 3 times a season he will try it. Now before anyone says hit and run only works with contact batters.... I get that, but no one is ever really asked to just put the ball in play. They know how the manager is managing and what the expectations are. Why just try and make contact when you are obviously playing station to station? It's also pretty dang hard to utilize the speed at the top of the lineup with a slug speed guy in the two hole who seemingly whiffs about 38% of the time. It's also tough when you have all or nothing... mostly nothing, Ozuna in the lineup all the time.
So while we are a team full of HR hitters... we are managed in a way that accentuates our weaknesses and makes it easy for the opposition to take advantage of them.
Then on top of that.... we have the whole thing about playing a guy batting .160 every single game.
Finally let's not forget how bad we are on the basepaths. We are on a trajectory to run ourselves right out of about 20 games with our ineptitude. We've had about 7 instances so far in only 1/3rd of a season: Stuff you should see maybe 3-4 times an entire year.
Yet..... and yet.. here we sit still in 1st with a history of putting it all together in the 2nd half of seasons.. We are very lucky to have so much talent that we do usually overcome the problems in the long haul.... but lordy can you imagine it if we would do something like put a #2 batter in the #2 spot... run the bases semi-competently... sit the guy hitting .160.. etc?
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joeyg39
Low A Farmhand
Go Phillies!
Posts: 963
Likes: 64
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Post by joeyg39 on Jun 3, 2023 12:25:04 GMT -5
Players today are completely clueless in terms of fundamentals. Runner on 2nd w/no outs, and it's not even a thought of hitting the ball to the right side to move the runner to 3rd. Ozzie still below the bat knob with 2 strikes...totally unconcerned with putting the ball in play. Pitchers are throwing rather than pitching. Everything now is exit velo...launch angle...how many ft/sec a runner covers. It basically has become less of a strategic thinking man's game and more digititized...
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 12:56:07 GMT -5
The reasons anyone ever throws us fastballs in the zone: They make a mistake with location.. it happens to even the best. They get behind... which is really perplexing because it's not like we won't swing wildly at ball 4 which starts off 4 inches off the plate and ends up 18" wide. I know we are a team of guys swinging at the fences, but this goes beyond just the players. A big part of it is a manager that manages the team that way. You can see it almost every game.. him managing station to station waiting for someone to finally club one. Outside of Acuña stealing some... there is nothing.. almost never any hit and run. Like maybe 3 times a season he will try it. Now before anyone says hit and run only works with contact batters.... I get that, but no one is ever really asked to just put the ball in play. They know how the manager is managing and what the expectations are. Why just try and make contact when you are obviously playing station to station? It's also pretty dang hard to utilize the speed at the top of the lineup with a slug speed guy in the two hole who seemingly whiffs about 38% of the time. It's also tough when you have all or nothing... mostly nothing, Ozuna in the lineup all the time. So while we are a team full of HR hitters... we are managed in a way that accentuates our weaknesses and makes it easy for the opposition to take advantage of them. Then on top of that.... we have the whole thing about playing a guy batting .160 every single game. Finally let's not forget how bad we are on the basepaths. We are on a trajectory to run ourselves right out of about 20 games with our ineptitude. We've had about 7 instances so far in only 1/3rd of a season: Stuff you should see maybe 3-4 times an entire year. Yet..... and yet.. here we sit still in 1st with a history of putting it all together in the 2nd half of seasons.. We are very lucky to have so much talent that we do usually overcome the problems in the long haul.... but lordy can you imagine it if we would do something like put a #2 batter in the #2 spot... run the bases semi-competently... sit the guy hitting .160.. etc? I didn’t bother to go into that, but I feel like it’s mostly or possibly all due to pressure from the manager or from the organization. There was a movement all over baseball for players to focus on improving their launch angle to hit the ball over the shift. And for more power. We just took it to an extreme because we have an entire team of guys doing it. And we built the whole team that way on purpose. You’re right that we have enough talent to overcome and still win our division. My concern is we will only win in the playoffs if our HR bashes are hitting. We could just as easily hit a lull like we are in now and we’ll be toast. We lost last year largely because Fried and Strider had their issues, but we also did not hammer HRs like we have to. We’ll be vulnerable to that every year. Having a mixture of power and guys who can hit line drives, have some speed and know how to run the bases leaves you less vulnerable to a slump during the playoffs. My course of action would be to start preaching fundamentals again just like the players are six years old again. Really at this point we have the entire whole of MLB players who never learned them. They’re never too old to learn. And now with the shift gone playing the game right is going to become a good way to win again. Our issue is I don’t think our manager knows much. If he had the skills to do anything other than cheerlead it wouldn’t have taken him 150 years to get to the big leagues. He was just kept in the system so long because he was good at relating to players and patting them on the back and being a positive mental influence for their growth.
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 13:06:12 GMT -5
One fundamental that needs to be focused on is to get our entire lineup to stop swinging at high fastballs out of the zone. I get those pitches look really sweet, but when your bat is nowhere near a level plane it’s physically impossible to hit that pitch at 93 mph or faster. If you’re uppercutting there’s such a millisecond of time where the ball and bat can meet it’s ridiculous. But at the 93+ speed your hands can’t catch up to it period. But every single guy on our team is vulnerable and a sucker for it.
I realize these criticisms are true all over baseball, concerning how to get our guys out, it’s just that we take it to an extreme because every one of guys has the same patterns. Chase everything, not recognize change ups or breaking balls, swing at unhittable high fastballs and swing for the fences.
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Post by Fumbduckery on Jun 3, 2023 13:13:19 GMT -5
With the shift gone start teaching these guys to abandon launch angle and get their bats back on level plane. Ground balls are ok again, a lot more are hits now. Improve contact rates, raise OBP and lower strikeouts. It’s not rocket science!
The old “keep the line moving” concept instead of just hoping you can club 5 HRs every night.
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