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Spaceman_Spiff

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Posts posted by Spaceman_Spiff

  1. Unrelated, but man losing Carlson for the season sucks. Big difference having him in the lineup, he was a key driver of turning outs into walks or hits. Get Daly sucks, but Flores and Belyeu is a rough back of the lineup

  2. Took some time to process the loss this weekend. Painful as it was, I think we can recover and the core of our pitching staff is still good.

    The last two weekends are a wicked combination of bad luck, mediocre and untimely hitting, questionable usage, and the final straw on a few members of the pitching staff.

    Here’s how I’d manage the staff going forward.
    Friday: Gordon, under appreciated for a great if not totally dominant year.
    Saturday: LBJ, has the stuff and has shown the glimpses to get it done.
    Sunday: Hurley, Baylor was a dumpster fire but there just isn’t a third starter to keep him sidelined or out of the pen.

    Tuesday: Sthele, just not good enough. Tracking at less than 5IP and 3+ ER per game. Maybe you hope he can give you 3-4 good innings Sunday and then go to Hurley for 3. But he has a pretty consistent body of work that seems to confirm he’s a 5+ ERA guy on weekends.

    Morehouse probably needs the Kubicheck treatment. Potentially sit him. Maybe work in low leverage weekday innings or big lead middle inning stuff. But barring something dramatic, I don’t see how you justify another shot with any sort of stakes.

    The pen actually has several solid arms. Shaw, Tole, Burke can cover quality leverage innings. Lummus, Minchey, and even AD can eat low leverage innings and even stretch when needed. Witt could be a real X-factor.

    The cracks are definitely showing and we just got punched in the mouth. But Im not ready to write off this team. If they can regroup and if the coaches use the hitters and pitchers we have well to put them in a place to succeed, I still think we can be dangerous.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  3. I like the 2018 comparison. Deeper top of the lineup, but a much weaker 6-9 that balances to about even right now. If we could get Carlson in there or lift Thomas and O’Dowd a bit it’d be very exciting.

    Better starters, and deeper pen overall, but missing that shutdown reliever duo we had in McGuire and PJR (man, who saw that coming). Witt and/or better play from 1 or 2 guys on the staff would really elevate this team to a potential contender.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  4. Some data tidbits from looking at the team stats.
    -On a productivity basis we look like our 2021 team with worse pitching
    -The separation on our hitters is crazy. 1-5 have wOBAs in the 400s then O’Dowd, Daly, and Thomas are probably putting up bottom 10 worst hitting seasons under Pierce.
    -Daly’s stats continue to look worse, even than last year. Weirdly he has a very similar statline the last two years to EK in 2021
    -Galvan has 9 hits and 4 are HRs. He basically lives TTO
    -Were giving up half the HR rate we did last year, which is basically all our improvement in pitching (a lot). Not sure if luck or what. Last year’s rate was a very weird outlier
    -A lot more free passes this year. Sthele the only one keeping the walks under control. Hasn’t 100% played out, but Sthele looks a lot better stat wise than LBJ. Maybe narrows in later innings

    • Hook 'Em 3
  5. I’d probably put in Carlson, and replace Thomas (Powell to 1B) before anything else. Daly is who he is, but the defensive dropoff with another SS is too big to risk. And we’re struggling already defensively. Its not like Daly is the one weak link in our lineup.

  6. I’m cautiously optimistic. I get something like a 2017 vibe, with better top-end hitting and more balanced (though maybe not front-line dominant) pitching. Powell unlocks a lot higher ceiling for this squad. This was a very easy stretch, so I don’t think we should be resetting expectations yet. But I think we’re solidly in-play for
    top half of the Big 12, and if we pick up a 2/3 seed somewhere then Pierce teams are very dangerous in playoff play.

    Lets let it ride.


  7. O’Dowd had 46 plate appearances versus 26. That’s a pretty significant difference.

    Powell that dude must like being at Texas and being a Longhorn. It ain’t all about the baseball for him or he would have left. Just think about if Flores and Thomas are hitting a lick, he doesn’t get the opportunities this year either. Maybe he grabs the DH role at some point.

    As best I can tell, he pinch hits the first 4 games then sits game 5. Just reading the box scores, it looks like a lefty-righty DH thing may have been happening. He was not a full fledged starter to start.

    Yeah, your point is where I was thinking. Lots of ways it could have gone down that shift our view, and we’ll never know. Very easily could be attitude, but its not like Pierce hasn’t shown himself to be pretty dogmatic about how he approaches lineup/pitching selection - one way or the other.

    End of the day, it would make a big difference with him on the team. But we’ve got talent and more on the way. We’ll be fine
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