For this: In an acknowledgement today that he "personally" felt the Astros had gone too analytics-heavy under James Click, Jeff Bagwell said "there are certain things that go on that the numbers can’t explain. This game is played by humans, man. It’s not played by computers."
So in your opinion he needs to "apologize" for this? Good grief!! It's something he believes and as Nook said Baggy doesn't have the power to change any of that. He shares his opinions and the ultimate decisions are made by Crane and now Brown.
I'm sure the sinker is helping him, but the picture is more complicated, imo. His 4S had a .302 xwOBA when he was getting crushed at the beginning of the season, which is pretty good for a 4S considering league average this year is ****ing .344 lol (people still need to reduce their usage of this pitch). IMO, if you look at performance gains in xwOBA over the season, it's his curveball that was initially broken (.488 xwOBA in April compared to .117 in June) rather than his fastballs.
Blame should be commensurate with responsibility which lies in the degree of authority someone has over a given decision. Bags is not the guy you want to listen to when making baseball ops decision and the far greatest sin committed in this entire tragedy was Crane making the choice (no one put a gun to his head on this) to listen to him.
I think "Bags on the rocks" is actually kind of funny to watch/listen to at times so long as the context of the game (i.e., we aren't losing) isn't grating. The pace of baseball allows for that kind of stuff without intruding all over the on field action, and is part of what makes the game unique, imo.
That's good to hear about Brown. Arrighetti seems like a very bright and very coachable kid. Doesn't have Brown's tools (few do) but he's a maximizer.
I have recanted from bad ideas before to people that are above me in the org chart even though they are the ones in charge. And folks at Union Station do say he does show up to work there nearly every day.
We only had 2 or 3 hits after the 5 run 1st inning last night. Hopefully we take advantage of this lousy Rockies pitcher today.
Our shocking turn of events could only be outdone now by a Nolan Ryan appearance on General Hospital as a Villian. I want it ABC. Make it happen.
Not to nitpick I thoroughly enjoyed the game. But I am concerned as well that we turned it off after that big first inning. Would have preferred that we poured it on and built a bigger lead and stomped out any hope on their part of a comeback. Thank God Pressly got that double play in the eighth. It was getting dicey and brought back flashbacks of a time earlier this year we all would like to forget.
Why would anyone apologize for a statement that is true? I don't recall the context of all of it, but the statement you quoted is as true as the sun is hot.
