kevin towers is the new diamondbacks gm

Joe Posnanski on Jim Thome

According to the date on the article this was written 5 days in the future, so get it while it's breaking causality.

WheelsFellOff wrote:Joe Posnanski on Jim Thome

According to the date on the article this was written 5 days in the future, so get it while it's breaking causality.

mozartpc27 wrote:

WheelsFellOff wrote:Joe Posnanski on Jim Thome

According to the date on the article this was written 5 days in the future, so get it while it's breaking causality.

Yeah reading it kinda feels like winning grandstand tickets for the Mike Sweeney Hug Parade. Posnanski is the tits.

djbigf wrote:nope. he said as much. it's why he was traded.

from today's DN:

Manuel said yesterday that Bell was assured by someone upon signing his 4-year deal that he would be the team's regular third baseman. The deal preceded Manuel's appointment by a couple seasons, and back then Manuel did not have the clout he has now. Chase Utley was the homegrown star in the making who had to play second. Much to the chagrin of fans at the time, Polanco could not replace Bell at third.

yeah, so, no.

The Dodgers (and Astros) were officially eliminated last night

1 wrote:

djbigf wrote:nope. he said as much. it's why he was traded.

from today's DN:

Manuel said yesterday that Bell was assured by someone upon signing his 4-year deal that he would be the team's regular third baseman. The deal preceded Manuel's appointment by a couple seasons, and back then Manuel did not have the clout he has now. Chase Utley was the homegrown star in the making who had to play second. Much to the chagrin of fans at the time, Polanco could not replace Bell at third.

yeah, so, no.

THEY SHOULD HAVE LEFT HIM DANGLING IN THAT $($%ING TREE

Jose Lopez is 4th among Mariners in BA.....with a .239 BA.

Jack Z is a genius... don't worry. This next two weeks is their time. I predict they pull it all together for the division crown.

1 wrote:

djbigf wrote:nope. he said as much. it's why he was traded.

from today's DN:

Manuel said yesterday that Bell was assured by someone upon signing his 4-year deal that he would be the team's regular third baseman. The deal preceded Manuel's appointment by a couple seasons, and back then Manuel did not have the clout he has now. Chase Utley was the homegrown star in the making who had to play second. Much to the chagrin of fans at the time, Polanco could not replace Bell at third.

yeah, so, no.

djbigf wrong about something? that's unpossible

Jose Bautista hit his 50th homer off Felix Hernandez in the first inning Thursday, and the Jays made it stand up, beating the Mariners 1-0.
Shawn Hill, Brad Mills, Jason Frasor, Scott Downs and Kevin Gregg combined to shut out the Mariners, as King Felix took yet another hard-luck loss. Bautista is the first player to reach 50 homers since Alex Rodriguez and Prince Fielder did so in 2007. He's hit 26 in 63 games since the All-Star break after coming up with what seemed to be an extraordinary total of 24 in 88 games during the first half.

he's never hit more than 16 homers in a season in 6 seasons before this one

BassGuiFloyd wrote:

Jose Bautista hit his 50th homer off Felix Hernandez in the first inning Thursday, and the Jays made it stand up, beating the Mariners 1-0.
Shawn Hill, Brad Mills, Jason Frasor, Scott Downs and Kevin Gregg combined to shut out the Mariners, as King Felix took yet another hard-luck loss. Bautista is the first player to reach 50 homers since Alex Rodriguez and Prince Fielder did so in 2007. He's hit 26 in 63 games since the All-Star break after coming up with what seemed to be an extraordinary total of 24 in 88 games during the first half.

he's never hit more than 16 homers in a season in 6 seasons before this one

I wrote this before in another thread:


Lots of guys like that in big league history. Some are just big swing guys who start connecting all of a sudden like -- others just have fluke seasons. Some only do it for one year and others have a nice little run for a while.

Hank Sauer hit 35 at the age of 31 after struggling for years.

Darrel Evans was a 15-20 HR hitter but he also hit 40 twice -- the second time at the age of 38.

Gorman Thomas kind of came out of nowhere to start pounding home runs after hitting below the Mendoza line for a few years and being sent to the minors.

Cecil Fielder struggled, went to Japan and came back and hit 51.

After being a 15-20 homer guy Kevin Mitchell hit 47 one year.

Dante Bichette was a 15-20 home run guy until age 30 when he clubbed 27; he hit 40 at age 31-- Coors Field helped him of course.

Davey Johnson hit 43 at the age of 30 -- he was never a big homer guy before or after.

The Phils had two catchers -- Stan Lopata and Benito Santiago -- who both hit 30 home runs after they turned 30 and had never come close to that previously (or afterwords either).

Brady Anderson very famously hit 50 at the age of 32 -- never was close to that before or after.

Two young guys -- Willie Montanez and Adrian Beltre -- had lone big HR seasons. Montanez hit 30 as a 23 year old rookie and never came close to that again. Beltre, of course hit 48 that one year,

stan kasten is stepping down at the end of the year.

I think the craziest stat I heard about Bautista is that he's never hit an opposite field HR in his entire career

joe table wrote:I think the craziest stat I heard about Bautista is that he's never hit an opposite field HR in his entire career

holy fucking donkey dick

75 HRs to LF, 33 CF. None what so fucking ever to RF. NONE. Career .581 OPS the other way.

Soren wrote:

joe table wrote:I think the craziest stat I heard about Bautista is that he's never hit an opposite field HR in his entire career

holy $#@! donkey dick

75 HRs to LF, 33 CF. None what so $#@! ever to RF. NONE. Career .581 OPS the other way.

That is pretty damn impressive. None. Wow. Do they shift him?

A lot of power hitters pull almost all of their homers, though. Burrell has 251 and only hit 10 to RF and 7 to right center. Of Utley's 176 HRs, he has hit just 6 each to left and left center

Matt S (I think) once wrote an article abut how unusual Howard is because he hits so many Oppos. It would be cool to check out a bunch of power guys and see how many Oppos they've hit.

smitty wrote:

Soren wrote:

joe table wrote:I think the craziest stat I heard about Bautista is that he's never hit an opposite field HR in his entire career

holy $#@! donkey dick

75 HRs to LF, 33 CF. None what so $#@! ever to RF. NONE. Career .581 OPS the other way.

That is pretty damn impressive. None. Wow. Do they shift him?

A lot of power hitters pull almost all of their homers, though. Burrell has 251 and only hit 10 to RF and 7 to right center. Of Utley's 176 HRs, he has hit just 6 each to left and left center

Matt S (I think) once wrote an article abut how unusual Howard is because he hits so many Oppos. It would be cool to check out a bunch of power guys and see how many Oppos they've hit.

Burrell is understandable because with his long arms he always got away with bad habits of trying to hook outside pitches, esp breaking balls. He was strong enough to completely lose his front side/bend his left knee and still pull an outside pitch for a HR using basically all-arms. But he was also capable of taking truly horrible swings when he got too far out of whack

Utley, I mean he stands on the plate and still is short enough to the ball to keep balls fair that are on the inside black. He doesn't quite have the power to get fooled and pull balls out (he rarely gets off balance anyway) but he pulls HRs on balls that are on the outer third of the plate, given where he stands they aren't as outside as they'd be on most.

Bautista is not a very tall/long armed guy who can do the Burrell or Vlad lunge pull HR. I haven't noticed if he crowds the plate and gets the Utley effect.

He definitely swings very very very hard, so I don't see why he couldn't have oppo power in theory

I haven't looked up but Uggla seems like a guy who may be similar. Shorter/short arms guy who is not on top of the plate, but still is pretty much a dead-pull power hitter

The article I read on Bautista earlier claimed when he came to the Jays that the hitting coach got him to stop trying to hit to all fields, any kind of hits not just HR, because it was making him late on everything. So, maybe they knew from seeing video of him or just seeing him swing in person that all his power is in pulling the ball cause that's what they got him to do this year.

I also thought it was kinda weird that 43 of his 50 HR this year are against righthanders. It seems Toronto's park is a lot more hitter and HR friendly this year which certainly explains his home/road splits

H .296 .420 .754
R .238 .348 .503

1 wrote:

djbigf wrote:nope. he said as much. it's why he was traded.

from today's DN:

Manuel said yesterday that Bell was assured by someone upon signing his 4-year deal that he would be the team's regular third baseman. The deal preceded Manuel's appointment by a couple seasons, and back then Manuel did not have the clout he has now. Chase Utley was the homegrown star in the making who had to play second. Much to the chagrin of fans at the time, Polanco could not replace Bell at third.

yeah, so, no.

that's a ridonkulous story. fuqua was buddies with david's dad buddy and he managed bell in the minors. he'd be the last person in the organization who'd've thought to bench him.

djbigf wrote:that's a ridonkulous story. fuqua was buddies with david's dad buddy and he managed bell in the minors. he'd be the last person in the organization who'd've thought to bench him.

so, let me get this straight. you're right, and any evidence that contradicts you is ridiculous. you must have been the star of your high school debate club.