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Netzer

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If only statcast had the technology to measure the launch angle and exit velocity of yankee balls that have been hit off of your chin.

Goo Punch
Goo Punch
Hank Chinaski
Hank Chinaski

Good fucking riddance. 

Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

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Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, spystud13 said:

God. Damn. 

 

 

Rolling my eyes at Kapler. I would expect Willson Contreras to make that play, and I would expect Pudge to do it with his eyes closed. It’s a really good play, but as I was recently explaining to a friend of mine who is just getting into baseball, infield players in particular are expected to make a bunch of really tough plays look routine.

Edited by Goo Punch
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Pig Bellmont

Pig Bellmont 8717

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9 hours ago, Guadaloopy said:

Who out there thought that we would be watching the Braves and Phillies engaged in a battle for the division lead and the best record in the NL almost two months into the season?

It’s still early in the season and the Nats have a billion injuries. As they get their starters back, the team will get tougher. In the meantime they’re finding ways to win with the likes of Mark Reynolds and a teenager. I’m not convinced the Braves or Phillies will sustain this long term 

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Goo Punch

Goo Punch 4275

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Can someone who is better at internetting than I am do me a favor? I’m trying find Jose Ramirez’s slash line since his season-opening slump ended. He was batting like .150 for 3-4 weeks and since then he’s been automatic. He’s my favorite hitter in the game today, and his hands are so fast. I don’t know if there’s a stat for how long a guy waits to swing, but Jose Ramirez hits more HR on late swings than anybody else who I’ve been watching the last couple of years. His hands go from A to B in no time.

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spystud13

spystud13 2371

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Lenny Dykstra was arrested last night for threatening an Uber driver, per reports out of New Jersey. Dykstra, a long-term former major league outfielder with a, shall we say, colorful resume of post-playing-career activities, was arrested after allegedly threatening to kill the Uber driver after the driver wouldn’t agree to change the destination for the ride Dykstra had ordered. The story indicates that Dykstra was charged with “third-degree making terroristic threats and various drug offenses,” the latter charges arising from Dykstra being found with MDMA, marijuana and cocaine on him.

Dykstra, you may recall, gained fame when his playing career was over for supposedly being a financial genius who was touted by Jim Cramer and sold an investing newsletter before it was revealed that his “system” for investing in options was simply a variation on the Martingale betting system. He got involved in real estate investments, including buying Wayne Gretzky’s house, started a luxury magazine for athletes called “The Player’s Club,” and indulged in chartering private jets before it came out that he was essentially running a shell game and ended up filing for bankruptcy.

Before this, Dykstra has been arrested for, among other things, sexual harassment, indecent exposure, bankruptcy fraud, grand theft auto, and drug possession, and was accused by an escort of writing her a bad check for $1000 for her services. He served six months in the federal pen in early 2013 for the grand theft auto and identity theft charges.

Before becoming known for his off-the-field shenanigans, Dykstra was a really good center fielder for the Mets and Phillies, accumulating a career bWAR of 42.5, finishing second in the MVP balloting in 1993, and winning a ring with the Mets in 1986.

 

Oops. 

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54221

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This is great:

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Rosenthal: How Fortnite and a farting dog named Domino gave Jeremy Jeffress — and the Brewers — a boost

GettyImages-960624590-1024x682.jpg
By Ken Rosenthal 6h ago comment-icon@2x.png 10 save-icon@2x.png

A dog? A video game? These are the additions to Jeremy Jeffress’ life that are helping him stay out of trouble off the field?

Well, yes, according to the Milwaukee Brewers’ right-hander, who just happens to be one of the best relievers in baseball this season.

“After the game, I have to come home and see my little pup, let him out of the cage, take him out a little bit,” Jeffress said. “And then I go straight to Fortnite.”

Jeffress’ history of substance abuse includes 50- and 100-game suspensions for marijuana use while in the minors during the late 2000s and an arrest for DWI on Aug. 26, 2016. A diagnosis of juvenile epilepsy in 2013 helped explain the high anxiety and seizures he has experienced as an adult, as well as his tendency to self-medicate.

Fortnite, the wildly popular video game recently suspected of causing David Price’s carpal tunnel syndrome (it did not), is actually something of a godsend for Jeffress, who began playing in spring training with former Brewers reliever Will Smith and later was joined by two other members of the team’s bullpen, Josh Hader and Corey Knebel.

“We play online. We have headsets. We talk to each other,” Jeffress said. “It’s a team thing.”

Jeffress’ agent, Joshua Kusnick, said the game not only is contributing to his client’s success, but also the success of the Milwaukee bullpen, which ranks first in the majors in ERA for a Brewers team that is 31-19, the best record in the National League,

Of Jeffress, Kusnick said, “He doesn’t go out anymore. He’s obsessed with Fortnite to the point where there are no more distractions. He goes home after he’s done with work. He’ll do his video (study). He’ll do his research.

“Then as soon as all of his work is done, instead of doing what he used to do when he would go out and party with whomever, he plays Fortnite with all of his teammates. I’ve never seen a major-league bullpen where no one is going out. They’re doing the right things off the field, and it seemingly is having a positive impact on the field.”

While Hader has emerged as the biggest star in the Brewers’ bullpen, all but one of Jeffress’ 25 outings have been scoreless, including his last 21. His opponents are batting .120. His ERA over 25 2/3 innings is 0.35. Some regression is likely, but the average exit velocity against Jeffress is 85.4 mph, the 17th lowest in the majors for a minimum of 50 batted balls, according to StatCast.

Jeffress acknowledged his enthusiasm for Fortnite — and the hours he devotes to the video game — make it easier for him to avoid the temptation of nightlife.

“For sure,” he said. “Temptation is everywhere, man. You see temptation in every part of life — TV, the streets, the world, everywhere. Even in a restaurant, you can be tempted by anything. Taking those temptations away, or limiting them, is the best thing for you.”

Fortnite, though, is not the only difference in Jeffress’ post-game routine. He also credits his newfound domesticity to his black-and-white pocket bully, Domino, a dog he picked up last November while home in Virginia.

“He’s a fat little boy,” Jeffress said. “He takes up a lot of my time as well.”

IMG-9478-840x1120.jpg
 
(Photo: courtsey of Jeffress)

Jeffress brought Domino to Arizona for spring training and mentioned him to Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who quickly sensed how important the dog was to the reliever. Counsell, his wife Michelle, and their four children, ages 8 to 15, keep dogs at home in Milwaukee. When the Brewers broke camp, the Counsells — minus Craig, who was with the club — took Domino with them on the drive from Phoenix to San Diego.

“It was my wife, our four kids, her mom and dog and a farting dog,” Counsell said.

Counsell was joking, but he and the rest of the Brewers’ organization consider Jeffress’ well-being a serious matter, and Domino figured into that equation. The mother of Jeffress’ child and their daughter, Jurnee, 4, live in Phoenix. Domino keeps Jeffress company when they are not in Milwaukee.

“I definitely wanted him to bring the dog to Milwaukee,” Counsell said. “Look, we’re all looking for comfort and peace and happiness and companionship, all that stuff. A (dog), that’s a great way to do it. As glamorous as this life is, sometimes it’s a little lonely, too.

“Everybody has their own way to cope with everything. Really, this is about J.J. maturing and understanding what works for him. We’re trying to help him with that. He’s got a pretty good support system that helps him through it.”

Jeffress is grateful for the Brewers’ support — he agreed to a team-friendly, one-year, $1.7 million contract with two club options last Dec. 1 in large part because of his comfort with the organization.

His history with the Brewers began when they selected him 16th overall in the 2006 draft. The team sent him to the Kansas City Royals as part of a package for right-hander Zack Greinke in Dec. 2010, re-acquired him as a free agent in April 2014, traded him with catcher Jonathan Lucroy to the Texas Rangers for prospects on Aug. 1, 2016, then re-acquired him for a minor-league pitcher at last year’s non-waiver deadline.

“I know everybody from top to bottom,” Jeffress said. “There is no greater feeling knowing that, knowing you have people who know you inside and out, and that you can just be yourself around them.”

These days, nothing seems to faze Jeffress, who has escaped a number of hair-raising jams in the season’s first two months, helping the Brewers win games that, in Counsell’s estimation, were “kind of hopeless.” Jeffress talks about becoming a difference-maker off the field as well as on. He will host the Brewers’ Bowl-A-Thon on Aug. 5, supporting children and families living with epilepsy.

Does a dog deserve the credit? Does a video game? Perhaps the credit simply belongs to a pitcher who is trying to do the right things, on and off the field.

“It hasn’t been an easy road. It’s definitely been a learning experience,” Jeffress said. “But I’m glad I’ve been through it. I can look forward to the positive things and try not to make the same mistakes twice.”

 

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dbecks

dbecks 442

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Rays’ manager Kevin Cash allegedly plans on starting Sergio Romo again... three days in a row — versus the Orioles. 

If it happens, it would be the first time in MLB history a pitcher starts three consecutive games in a row.

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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19190

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7 minutes ago, dbecks said:

If it happens, it would be the first time in MLB history a pitcher starts three consecutive games in a row.

I’m pretty sure Kevin Brown started all four games against the Astros in the 1998 NLDS and probably got in at least eight innings of shutout ball on the off day.  At least it felt that way.

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WBT

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Romo became the first pitcher to start back-to-back games since Zack Greinke started three straight in 2012. (Greinke was ejected in the first inning of his start on July 7, 2012, then started the next game. The All-Star break followed, and he started the opening second-half game for the Brewers.)

 

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54221

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Intredasting...

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It wasn’t a juiced ball. It was a drag show.

A group of scientists tasked with finding the reason home runs flew at a record rate in Major League Baseball last season believe the ball’s aerodynamic properties – and particularly the drag on its surface – are the culprit and not changes to the core that would cause extra bounciness, according to a report the league released Thursday.

In the midst of a season in which players hit a record 6,105 home runs and emboldened juiced-ball theorists, MLB commissioned 10 scientists to study the source of the spike. Using a combination of Statcast data and laboratory testing, the group found that balls in 2016 and 2017 had lower drag coefficients than their predecessors.

What they didn’t find was why.

“It was something of an unsatisfying result,” said Dr. Alan Nathan, a physicist who has studied the game for decades and chaired the group that wrote the 84-page research paper. “We had a set of baseballs that had a much higher than average drag. We had a set of baseballs that had a much lower average drag. We asked ourselves: ‘What’s the difference between these baseballs?’ ”

Nathan’s conclusion: “We cannot find a single property that we can actually measure other than the drag itself that would account for it. … We do admit that we do not understand this.”

Unsatisfying though the result may have been, the report spells out in clear detail the rigor with which the scientists approached the testing. Considering everything from the pill at the heart of the ball to the surfeit of players seeking to hit the ball at a higher launch angle, they combed troves of data to eliminate certain possibilities while still considering others.

The specific aerodynamic culprit remains elusive – and, the study showed, it behooved everyone from power hitters to not-so-powerful hitters. Generally speaking, as a ball travels through the air, it is slowed by air molecules bouncing off it. Without drag, Nathan said, a 400-foot home run might travel 700 feet. As the group tested batches of balls from four time periods – pre-All-Star Game 2015, post-All-Star Game 2015, 2016 and 2017 – “what we saw was a progressive decrease in the drag properties,” Nathan said.

The Sports Science Laboratory at Washington State, where the studies were conducted, will continue to research the cause of the drag loss. Additionally, the group recommended MLB standardize storage conditions for game balls in all 30 stadiums, meaning the humidors used in Colorado and Arizona could be replicated elsewhere. The other definitive takeaway: Tighten the specs on the coefficient of resistance, or the bounciness of the ball, which, Nathan said, “is so large it’s a meaningless statement.”

The variability of the COR still was not evidence enough to blame the core. Three members of the group went to the Costa Rican factory where Rawlings produces major league balls to vet the manufacturing process. While a number of pieces along the supply chain have changed in recent years, none, the group determined, explained the spike in home runs. Neither did the height of the seams, which could have had an effect on drag but in lab tests didn’t.

It found the clearest evidence in Statcast data. There is a sweet spot where a player can hit a ball with a certain exit velocity and launch angle that makes a home run far likelier: between 90 and 115 mph at a 15- to 45-degree angle. Using a data set of 337,881 batted balls from 2015-17, the group noticed a significant change in the results of balls hit near those parameters year over year. Particularly from 95 to 105 mph and 20 to 40 degrees, the data set showed an increase in 403 home runs from 2016-17.

The takeaway was clear: The balls were flying differently.

Was it the weather? Well, the group looked at data from Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay, a domed stadium with consistent conditions, and it verified not just what the larger set said but what lab testing showed, too. Maybe the rubbing mud used to take the sheen off brand-new balls? It’s probably not the determining factor, but it could be enough of one that the scientists suggested the league ensure the balls are rubbed more uniformly.

Perhaps the most intriguing theory – and one the group hopes to test further – involved the pill, or core, of the ball. The idea was that the more centered the pill is, the more aerodynamically sound the ball would be. If it’s even a centimeter off-centered, the ball could wobble – imperceptibly to the eye but enough to add to the drag coefficient.

 

This theory is particularly rich because of its implications: That the workers who make the balls by hand in Costa Rica – who wind the pill, who cut and stitch the leather, who take pride in their craftsmanship – have gotten so good at making perfect baseballs with pills in the exact center of the ball that it’s going farther accordingly.

It may be a stretch. Nathan doesn’t know. None of the scientists do.

“Absolutely I’m disappointed,” Nathan said. “Do I like having to tell you guys we don’t understand that? I don’t like having to tell you that. However, as a scientist, the data are what the data are, and we have no control over it. We certainly aren’t going to BS our way through it and pretend we know what we don’t know. And we don’t know. From my point of view, it’s dissatisfying, but it’s not entirely unexpected.”

Without an answer, the testing will continue, and perhaps it can resolve the newest question: Why, after a nearly 50 percent jump in home runs from 2014 to 2017, are homers are down 10 percent this year?

 

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txhorns

txhorns 2409

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6 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Hanley Ramirez DFA’d.  Wow.  

Not that shocking.  There was a logjam at first base/DH.  Moreland is playing great while Hanley has struggled.  Hanley is in the last year of a big contract.  If someone picks him up off waivers it clears up room for Boston to add some salary at the deadline.

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TheFlagship

TheFlagship 432

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19 minutes ago, txhorns said:

Not that shocking.  There was a logjam at first base/DH.  Moreland is playing great while Hanley has struggled.  Hanley is in the last year of a big contract.  If someone picks him up off waivers it clears up room for Boston to add some salary at the deadline.

Nobody is picking up Hanley with that contract. He’ll get waived and someone can pick him up on the minimum with the Sox eating the deal.

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txhorns

txhorns 2409

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16 minutes ago, TheFlagship said:

Nobody is picking up Hanley with that contract. He’ll get waived and someone can pick him up on the minimum with the Sox eating the deal.

Oh I agree but it doesn't hurt for them to try.  He's done anyway.  Another reason for the move as that the team needed room for Dustin Pedroia.

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