He stopped juicing. One of the biggest roid cheaters in baseball which is why it was so hilarious and hypocritical when he talked trash about us. My frat brother's little brother played in the minors with him and told us all about him juicing up
Yep. Karma is a b****. I hate people like him. Apparently he was a complete ******* to everyone too. Never tipped the bat boys or club house attendants.
How Banning Infield Shifts Will Change MLB With that in mind, when I looked at the year-by-year use and effect of shifts I considered hard-hit balls (90 mph or more) to be most instructive. Over the past seven years, shifts more than tripled and they reduced batting average on hard-hit grounders by 80 points! From 2015 to ’22, the shift helped take 2,065 ground-ball hits out of the game. Put them back in, and the MLB batting average goes from .243 to .255. The Phillies and Astros used a shift 38% of the time, slightly above the MLB regular-season rate of 34%. Batters combined to hit 30 ground balls when facing a shift. I looked at each one of them. Only seven of them were likely hits without the shift—that’s a small sample that dovetails with the large sample rate of about one more ground-ball hit per game. https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/11/21/banning-infield-shifts-impact
Worst cheater in baseball history? (Blue Jays’) Alek Manoah: Gerrit Cole. He cheated. He used a lot of sticky stuff to make his pitches better.
My biggest concern is Framber Valdez. He will be affected the most because he's got the highest ground ball rate by far more than any other pitcher. I expect Framber to have trouble keeping his era under 3.00.
Framber and McCullers will be effected. But it is what it is. Pena is just that much more valuable Framber will still be a top 25 SP in the league, just not a top 10
I think people are going way overboard on how much this change will affect the game, personally. Teams will still be shifting within the confines of the rules, which means they will still overload the right side on lefty pull hitters, they just won't have the 2B on the outfield grass and the SS will be right at the 2B bag, or behind it. Framber's ERA may go back up a tad, but the guy still has swing and miss stuff and the Astros still have a good infield defense. I don't expect it to be above 3 unless there are some other extenuating circumstances (like injury issues).
I don't like messing with the rules just because some have figured out a way to play better within the rules. It's like saying I don't want to adjust so YOU are banned from the using the rules in place for the last 150 years. But hey, they didn't care about the fundamental concept that every player plays both ways, so it's a Brave New World. Juiced, not juiced. No gambling, every other add is about gambling. SHOW ME THE MONEY you greedy SOBs.
Ugh, Toronto sliding down my list of favorite teams after the Stros. Hope he gets sent down/DFA quickly.
Carlos Santana & Brandon Belt are intriguing cheap 1B candidates because of the shift ban. Also probably part of why the Brewers brought in Jon Singleton and why some teams might be intrigued by Dominic Smith.
@Nook what do you think FA spending will be like without an official GM in place? Does Crane go crazy or do we keep our conservative spending philosophy going?
Good trade for the Angels; their lineup now goes legit 7 deep when everybody is healthy. Sadly for them they are still a SS, a ToR SP, and half a bullpen away from being on Houston’s level. But if they address 2 of those 3 then they will be a real threat.
I would not say " on Houston's level" Starter for starter the Astros roster still outclasses them on most positions. I will acknowledge that they are improving though.