biggentleben

I asked Kiley in his chat yesterday at FanGraphs how long he saw the robot umps being implemented in minor league ball before making their MLB debut, and his response was a few years.

Josh Norris is very anti-automated zone. My co-worker who was with him down in Arizona said it got to be almost comical to listen to Norris rant on the zone during automated games. I'd trust that article about as far as I can throw it. Not saying all conclusions are biased, but from neutral co-workers that were at the AFL, that's not the overall consensus among players, umpires, and coaches.

I had good friends who were part of the Gopher basketball program during the Clem fallout...and he was still getting paid. I saw coaches that worked hard on my behalf lose their jobs with Mason, and he still got paid. These things happen at a big-time school. Nothing wrong with having an idea of reality while also celebrating possibility.

Sadly, this only means that an NFL team or Florida State/Ohio State/Notre Dame level school will have to make an even bigger offer to lure him away, not that he's locked in. It also means that if things go bad, the Gophers have now locked themselves into 6 years of paying for a coach that could be coaching elsewhere.

I'm still a fan of two responses to Penn State fans (and if JoePa had called me earlier in my senior year, I very well would have been at Penn State, so it comes from a place of pseudo-love): We are... Dan Nystrom The second one would require moderation on this board, and it's been shown to be something that happens in the Gophers athletics department as well (not coaches with boys, but inappropriate and/or undesired sexual contact all the same), so that one I've let fall by the wayside. A true Nittany Lion fan that has been a fan for a while when hearing the name Dan Nystrom will often curl into a ball, chanting odd phrases like "jump higher Arringon! Jump higher!" I was able to be on the field for that game and the Ohio State upset the next season. While being in a player/family section when the axe was won for the first time in a while was probably #2, the Penn State victory was by far my favorite Gopher football game I've attended.

I had the chance to cover Wisler with the Braves. First, he's a very self-aware guy and willing to be open about issues he's having on the mound and will take coaching. Bad part was the young pitcher wrecking ball was employed in Atlanta at the time in Roger McDowell. Plenty of promising young arms came and went during his tenure. When you can nearly ruin Julio Teheran as a top-5 overall prospect, you've got issues. The sinker, when he's behind it, gets great late action. His issue has always been that he gets too much ahead of his arm in all of his deliveries. He's worked on it, but never been able to get it completely to stick. Perhaps Wes can have more success with him as he's a legit arm that I had a retired scout tell me he graded as essentially the second coming of Brandon Webb when he was in AA with the Padres. He sold me pretty well that Wisler was going to floor at Derek Lowe bullpen and peak at Brandon Webb starter with Derek Lowe late-career starter being his middle outcome. Needless to say, that was before McDowell got hold of Wisler.

Whenever they say "we are", you can always respond with "Ny-strom". Twenty years ago this year, and it's as big a game against Penn State as the U has ever won.

Teams construct their roster based upon how the ball played in the regular season. A team that couldn't buy a hit in the regular season (Cardinals) got numerous hits on sub-70 MPH exit velocity balls that had very odd hops down the line. Teams whose offense focused around the lively ball suddenly had balls dying that scored runs a week prior. It essentially negates all the regular season was as far as team-building. I've been able to secure two pitchers who said the ball moved significantly different for them on the mound in the playoffs versus regular season. Neither is ready to go on record yet about it, but in the 2017 postseason, the same ball that would suddenly start flying out of stadiums in mid-2018 caused Verlander to gripe publicly and Darvish to go from the Dodgers' savior for the final two months of the year to completely useless in the World Series as his slider wouldn't break due to what he and Verlander both reported were lower seams. Changing the ball that significantly for the postseason is akin to telling teams that their work in team construction is all useless.

Those who faced Ruth and players of color in the era stated that while Ruth was among the best in the game at the time, there were multiple hitters whose skin never allowed them to play in the major leagues that were superior hitters, especially when reviewing Ruth's performance against similar Negro Leagues pitchers.

Committee? No. Behind the scenes stuff that never sees the light of public? Absolutely. Gabe Kapler should be sitting in prison right now and should never work again in baseball, but things told to the commish's office were never moved beyond there and nothing was ever pressed legally, so here we sit. Executives still are intentionally excluding applicants due to race/gender/other social groupings. The game knows it, but until someone goes to a private lawyer and the civil courts on the issue, nothing will happen as complaints to the league office tend to end with hush money or a position with another team that's more welcoming. This stuff happens in the game constantly and doesn't get out simply because there's not enough there to really do a full expose style story on it. One thing I have had confirmed from other viewers of the same program is that MLB Network's morning show leaked that the ball would be different in the playoffs in a discussion about what ball would be used in the Arizona Fall League. While the majority of the show repeats in the second hour, that particular segment oddly did not, and it was cut off in a weird way as it happened as well. I've searched and searched for any clip of that segment to no avail, but two fellow watchers of the same program confirmed seeing the same segment, so it's not just my conspiracy brain at work. I do struggle with even using that word, though. When the commish has made enemies of the owners and the players because of unilateral moves to the game emanating from his office, is changing the ball without notice really a conspiracy or simply the next unilateral move?

They did a ball change before the 2017 offseason as well. The more lively ball that was seen that offseason showed up roughly midseason in 2018. Ridiculous how bad the MLB explanation sounds. Manfred has irked both sides of the negotiating table. We'll be dealing with a major mess in the CBA soon as the owners are growingly unhappy with him and the players definitely don't like him.

Outside QB, this may be the most skill talent a Gopher team has had in at least a decade and potentially since Barber/Maroney/Tapeh/Ellerson/Uttecht/Spaeth in 2003. Three running backs who have 1,000+ yards career entering the season (2 that have posted 1,000+ yard seasons), two wide receivers with pro futures, and a tight end that is young with some definite upside. That's a very impressive stable. Now the defense just needs to do something/anything in order to potentially have an 8-9 win year.

The proposal, as I understood it, was not to reduce the overall roster, but to reduce the active roster per game. In other words, you could have all 40 players travel with the team, but you would need to declare 28 active players. Far too often in recent years, we've seen games that use over 25 players.

The interesting part, though, is that feature backs were very rare, even in an era with a lot more rushing. As far as total offense, here are the total yards per team at each point: 2018:5,635 total offense; 3,804 passing; 1,831 rushing 1998: 5,082 total offense; 3,279 passing; 1,803 rushing 1978: 4,810 total offense; 2,541 passing; 2,269 rushing Definitely an increase in offense, but I'd argue that could be as much to do with that added athleticism I mentioned before as the league rules.

While my favorite NL team would have an excellent setup for this rule presently when going to a DH park, many NL teams don't as they do build a roster intended to have multiple moves around rosters full of guys with defensive flexibility. The value of defensive flexibility in a league with a DH is drastically lower and requires much more offensive contribution. Alas, I do not believe the DH is an issue that either side will address in mid-term negotiations, so prepare to enjoy the different rules until at least 2022.

Sometimes perception messes with reality, though. In 2018, the average NFL team rushed for 1,818 yards. For players, 0 had over 1,500 yards, 9 had over 1,000 yards. In 1998, the average NFL team rushed for 1,803 yards. For players, 1 had over 2,000 yards, 3 had over 1,500 yards, and 20 had over 1,000 yards. In 1978, the average NFL team rushed for 2,269 yards. For players, 0 had over 1,500 yards. 11 had over 1,000. The running back situations now look like they did in the day of Csonka/Morris in Miami on offenses that have realized that using athleticism and speed is an easier win in the current era than over-massing up the middle, so that's where offenses are built, yet still a team needs quality backs to run up just as many yards as the peak of the single-back era in the late-90s.

Same. Not sure where they go from here, but very well orchestrated season.

Narrator: it does.

Julien is returning to Auburn officially, as of this morning.

Has anyone else watched the final season of Jessica Jones? I really enjoyed the season overall, perhaps one of the best done without a tremendous villain to base the story around in any of the Netflix Marvel series, IMO.

Smokeless tobacco TO THIS DAY has been laced with incredibly harmful chemicals and even poisons. While each state has their own laws for local brewers, the testing required to sell nationally, both initially and ongoing, with alcohol ensures you are getting a reputable product that is what the label says that it is. You are literally gambling with your life every time you put a single dip in, let alone make it a habit. To give an idea, I had a college friend who went to work with Pinkerton Tobacco Company (who make Red Man), and he left there to create his own supplement company. Most know how minimally-regulated the supplement industry is, but he's stated before that it'd be easier for him to get a new flavor of Red Man on the market than to put a new type of protein supplement on the market. The tobacco lobby put in some incredibly loose regulations on their products for years, and while the products may be finding fewer and fewer spots that they can be used publicly, the regulations on what those products can contain have never been approached in all of the movement to limit/ban tobacco products.

I personally believe the TOS stuff was similar to the prevalence of back injuries among NFL linemen as the 300-350 pound weight for an offensive lineman became a requirement upon league entry instead of something teams developed in house after drafting a guy. Guys just built up muscle without regard to how those muscles were useful in the game and also without regard to developing the muscles to support that additional weight. The push to have every arm throwing mid-90s or better has often been done without accompanying work at the high school (and lower) levels to strengthen core and upper legs. Ideally, velocity is generated through the turn at the peak of the delivery, generated through the hips, upper thighs, and lower back, using the arm as more of a slingshot rather than placing heavy stress on the chest, shoulder, and elbow. While there hasn't been an immediate change in how velocity is generated, the reports of TOS have gone down significantly as if there really has been a major change across amateur and pro ball. Ideal velocity generation is being taught more widely through places like Driveline, but certainly not enough that you should be hearing no reports of TOS.

One thing to note that did change in the most recent CBA (and was hidden in some language that was not uncovered until recently) - a compensation pick for not signing a previous year's pick used to require the team holding it to sign the player drafted in that slot the next year. That is no longer true. As long as that pick number still falls within the first three rounds, you can not sign a player the next year and get a compensatory pick again. That has strongly shifted the draft strategy in many front offices this year, when there are 3 first-round compensatory picks (Braves, Diamondbacks, and Dodgers) as well as another before the second round (Pirates in the competitive balance round A).

We discussed your time with Andrews after I put together a piece on Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, and it's great to have that level of insight in this discussion. I think it's interesting how TOS blew up and suddenly disappeared as a diagnosis that you'd see in pitchers while elbows and shoulders persist.

Tremendously well-done, well-researched, and well-written. Mike Soroka was originally diagnosed with an impingement last year when he was shut down for the Braves. The Braves have been very cautious with his arm since, and he's seeing tremendous success in the rehab that he did. What exactly he did would be something I could ask Mike, but he really didn't want to get into details until he was on the other side of things and knew that it had worked for fear that some kid somewhere might begin doing similar activities to "heal" his own arm without knowing whether it would be successful. I appreciated that stance by Mike at the time, and your piece makes it even more clear that even if Mike is 100% successful in his rehab on the shoulder and becomes the pitcher everyone dreamed he could be, his method of rehabbing his shoulder may not work for the next guy to come along with a similar diagnosis, or even with the same exact diagnosis. Once again, great stuff!