I mean they’ll PAD it. It looks fine - lots of OFs have cuts like that.

Man, that is going to massacre right handed power. Avoid Ryan Mountcastle in your fantasy drafts gents. Probably won’t help Hays and will cost Mullins some oppo power as well.

So they announced Hicks as the 5th starter today. Wasn't really expecting that so soon but ok.

I'm strangely okay with this.

Hicks just didn't have the breaking stuff to finish batters off. And frankly, at 103 mph, they couldn't put the damn ball in play either. So guys just shortened their swing and fought pitches off until he spun them a cement mixer or walked them. He really was in a rough spot in relief.

So he needed to make his breaker MORE nasty or his fastball LESS nasty so they can at least put the ball in play and let the defense get outs.

So make him a starter and have him throwing 97-98 with the same spin rates. He'll still have that nasty downward sink and plenty of armside run. Maybe it will put a little more depth on his breaking pitches and perhaps he can develop a better true off-speed pitch like a changeup or curveball (both of which require much more feel than a grip and rip slider).

I do have some concern over his height. Shorter pitchers that come from 3/4 w/ a short-arm delivery have trouble driving a ball down in the strike zone. To get the ball there, the pitch has to come out of their hand low and stay low. Whereas a tall pitcher with an overhand delivery can have it start high and dive through the zone.

So the consequence of being a shorter pitcher that works down in the zone is going to be that hitters are going to take pitches that you and I look at and ask "how the hell did they lay off of that?" Because in order to get it there, it started low and they knew to spit on it as soon as it left his hand.

Lord, give that kid a curveball and he'd be unhittable though. Then he'd be able to work UP as well because they'd have to respect the possibility that it's a curve and can dive. You give him fastball/curve at 97 with that kind of run - he'd be a shutout waiting to happen every start. He could challenge every quadrant of the zone that way.

As it stands, I think if I'm a hitter I treat him like a knuckle baller. "If it's low, let it go - if it's high, let it fly" and after awhile he'll have to abandon the top of the zone to become something of a supercharged Jason Marquis.

Or maybe just a rich man's Dakota Hudson at that point.

In either event, it's a worthwhile experiment. It's either him or that Bond Villain they signed out of Japan, VerHagen.

Interesting stuff, thanks for the info.

The way this team goes Flaherty could be out until the All Star break.

So is it closer by committee?

Nah - it'll be Gallegos.

Oh sure, Marmol may make some noise about BPBC by the moment he puts his dick on the table and it gets sliced off when Genesis Cabrera walks 2 guys and Aaron Brooks gives up a bomb in the 9th, he'll be done with that.

New managers will lose the clubhouse in a hurry if they keep giving up games in the 9th. Tell the players "well it was that or lose it in the 7th" all you want - they don't buy it, they don't care.

Afterall, these guys are all type A personalities. You tell them 'well we'd have just given up those 3 in the 7th' and they'll internally think "sure, and then we'd have scored 2 in the 8th...dick"

Marmol isn't going to run a closer committee. He'll settle on Gallegos unless Gallegos spits the bit. And if he does, all bets are off.

I know Pujols and Molina have said this is their final year. Has Waino said anything like that?

Man, Keith Law is down on the Cardinals. 3rd place with a losing record. 80-82.

I might be too pessimistic on the Cardinals, but right now this team doesn’t look that healthy, and I worry they’re going to futz around too long with the nostalgia show of Albert Pujols, who hasn’t been worth 0.5 WAR in any season since 2016. They’re not going to get much production at all from the middle infield, their best starter is injured, and their best hitter from last year, Tyler O’Neill, is highly likely to regress for multiple reasons, not the least is his extreme willingness to chase out of the zone.

That very well could happen but I am still optimistic they’ll be between 85-90 wins.

Two innings in and the season is already over for my Pirates.

Ass whooping at Busch

Yikes, You signed that guy to an 8 year extension and he goes out injured in the first game?:eek:

My sports fandom is suffering.

Suffering builds character.

So I am a bleeping saint.

Yadi looking every bit of 40 today. This is gonna be a bittersweet year.

Looks like he and Albert went 0-9 with nine stranded runners. Ugh.

Yadi was shot last year - giving him a raise was just completely insane. He's the worst everyday starter by a fair amount. He's a $10 million replacement level player at this point.

Pujols got an inside fastball at 94 mph and couldn't even drive it to the warning track. Previous Pujols gets his hands inside that and puts that into Big Mac land. Current Pujols whacks it off the trademark for an easy fly out.

You're gonna see that all season from RH pitching. They're just going to go away for show and then come inside to get him out. Rinse, repeat. You can't send that guy out there against RH starters. He's a .600 OPS waiting to happen.

Still irritates me that we're going to stunt Yepez's development so we can roll this dude out there to tip his cap and sell tickets. Just a pure turnstile analysis there.