2024 Guardians Regular Season Thread

[BimboColesHair]

Well, as a Guardian fan I hope that JRod's lower strikeout rate and "contact rates up all across the board" eventually translate to an OPS that's as high as last year when those contact rates were lower. Hey, you don't suppose he's cut down his swing to make more contact, do you? That would explain the higher contact rates and lower OPS.

No. He didn’t.

His BABIP is down .037 from last years brief run in AAA. There is your difference in OPS. Then again. A .388 BABIP is not sustainable for anyone, so it’s ridiculous to be up in arms over a slight dip in production.

This is a weird thing to be up in arms about. Positive trend lines from a well above average producing minor league bat should be viewed differently than under performing MLB bats.

You’re trying to prove a point about cherry picking across 2 different levels judged on 2 different planes. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish.

 

[southernflyer]

I figured it out... Kyle Manzardo is actually Wayne Le Fessier from Saving Silverman.

View attachment 20060View attachment 20061

The blue and red neon in the background match the retro 80's G's hat stripes.

 

[Gson]

No. He didn’t.

His BABIP is down .037 from last years brief run in AAA. There is your difference in OPS. Then again. A .388 BABIP is not sustainable for anyone, so it’s ridiculous to be up in arms over a slight dip in production.

This is a weird thing to be up in arms about. Positive trend lines from a well above average producing minor league bat should be viewed differently than under performing MLB bats.

You’re trying to prove a point about cherry picking across 2 different levels judged on 2 different planes. Not sure what you’re trying to accomplish.

Just attempting to make sense of what a guy is doing now that can be used as a partial entre into what he will do.. no more.. no less..

or just create confusion.. both are possible...

 

[Otsego Mar]

I feel like I'm being gaslit reading Wham and Bimbo's conversation.

 

[LL3]

I've seen enough....why are the Guardians rushing unproven prospects like Manzardo and his terrible 'stach to Majors when we are trying to compete for a division crown?!? Sure, I guess it is a small sample size, but did you see those AB's?

 

[CDAV45]

Whoa, it's getting very confusing in here.

In the Rocchio discussion I pointed out that he has made a ton of progress since last year based on:

Walk% up from 4.7% last year to 11.4% this year
Strikeout percentage declined from 31.4% to 18.1%
Out-of-zone swing percentage down from 44% last year to 31%
Expected slugging percentage up from .237 to .327.
xBA from .184 to .233.
Hard hit percentage from 16.4% to 26.0%.
Launch angle has improved from 1.5 to 4.9 degrees
Ground ball percentage down from 60% to 48%
Line drive percentage jumped from 18% to 24%.
wRC+ up from 65 to 89

I referred to all this as "steady improvements across the board". The response I got was:

Your “steady improvements across the board” aren’t that, not right now….His OPS has gone from .600 to .628. That is an incremental improvement we are globbing a lot of hope onto.

And improved K and BB percentages and contact rates are great, but contact rates and K and BB rates don’t dictate success in the MLB.

OK, I got it, don't worry about more contact, harder contact, more line drives, fewer ground balls, less chasing of bad pitches, all that stuff. OPS is where it's at and if the improvement there is "incremental", then no reason to get excited, especially about better K rates and BB rates, which don't dictate success.

But when the discussion turns to Rodriguez and I pointed out that his all-important OPS is actually down from last year playing at the same level, now OPS isn't important; it's all about higher contact rates.

....a 7% drop in his K rate and a 7% drop in his swinging strike rate with contact rates up all across the board, I would say that is progress.

Wait, what? This is sounding like a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. What happened to the almighty OPS that tells us Rocchio still sucks despite ten other metrics improving? At least Rocchio's OPS is going up (while the league average is lower). JRod's is going down but we're supposed to be encouraged about an "incremental" 7% drop in swinging strike rate? By the way, Rocchio's swinging strike rate dropped from 16.9% to 10.4% since last year, a 6.5% drop.

I'm not arguing that either of these guys will turn out to be every day players. I doubt either will. But how about some consistency here? Sure seems like cherry picking to me.

Uhhhh there's a huge difference in their OPS. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a player to carry a .1000+ OPS and not see a bit of a decline. Meanwhile Rocchio has nowhere to go but up with and OPS below .600. Big difference Wham.

Contact, K and BB rates don't determine much if you don't hit the ball hard. It's not cherry picking, it's understanding what these changes mean to each type of hitter.

 

[CDAV45]

I've seen enough....why are the Guardians rushing unproven prospects like Manzardo and his terrible 'stach to Majors when we are trying to compete for a division crown?!? Sure, I guess it is a small sample size, but did you see those AB's?

Because this is a developmental year and myself and few others have been trying to tell you this for about 6-8 months. That doesn't mean they can't win either, but they need to sort through some guys in the process. Winning a division crown is found money.

 

[LL3]

Because this is a developmental year and myself and few others have been trying to tell you this for about 6-8 months. That doesn't mean they can't win either, but they need to sort through some guys in the process. Winning a division crown is found money.

I jest, of course. I don't think you have been telling me much in this regard, as I have no issue with him being up here (OK maybe his Stash), but I don't really expect him to a big producer at the outset. Like a number of our young guys, we need to show some patience and give them some room to run....err, hit.

I still think we win this division even while letting some of these guys develop. Still going to come down to the arms...

 

[bushwick_bill]

 

[MirORich]

I've seen enough....why are the Guardians rushing unproven prospects like Manzardo and his terrible 'stach to Majors when we are trying to compete for a division crown?!? Sure, I guess it is a small sample size, but did you see those AB's?

Thankfully we have the number one pick in the draft to g we his replacement with since he showed tonight that he will never be a major league hitter
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[Wham with the Right Hand]

Just attempting to make sense of what a guy is doing now that can be used as a partial entre into what he will do.. no more.. no less..

or just create confusion.. both are possible...

No, not possible. I'm not trying to create confusion, it's the exact opposite. By now I thought it's understand that I don't troll and I don't fuck with people.

One player showed showed significant improvements in all his hitting metrics at the major league level. But those improvements resulted in only a small increase in OPS, so let's not be fooled. I was told higher contact rates and walk percentages don't result in success. OPS tells the story.

Another guy's OPS is down at the AAA level but in this case I was told he has made encouraging improvement because his swing-and-miss declined by 7%. With this guy we should do the opposite and ignore the lower OPS (by 72 points) and be encouraged by the higher contact rate. No word on whether the 7% of pitches he missed last year are foul balls now. His strikeout percentage has improved.

I'm not the one creating confusion here. As far as the minor versus major league issue, that has nothing to do with it. It's about improvement at whatever level you're at.

Anyway, I think they are both fine AAA players and I think that's the career they will have. Hope I'm wrong on both of them.

 

[BimboColesHair]

Wham.

This is just a continuation of the conversation we had 3 and a half weeks ago. You talked about “Rocchio’s improvements”, I told you they aren’t much of an improvement and don’t signal much more is coming yet, and here we are nearly 75 PAs later and still nothing has come and the production still isn’t there. In fact it’s gotten worse.

It won’t be there with the “improvements” you are trying to get excited about, which I can appreciate you doing as this is the team you root for and a player on that team.

That’s the point of this.

Minor improvements to still well below league average figures at the MLB level when you are an unproductive player is not the same as a still developing players slash line dipping slightly in the minor leagues.

This isn’t some got ya moment here. 1 guy is being judged on production. The other is being judged on development. It’s 2 different things.

 

[KluberSociety]

198 PA for Rocchio so far... will be interesting to see how he fares post-200.

IMO he's trending into being an Amed-ish SS in not much time. The Amed that was a little below league average at defense but with a contact bat. Amed was stronger, Rocchio has a better approach.

The question is, would we be happy with the 95 wRC+, or would we demand more of him.

Arias - a little more glove, a little less bat probably.

Either way, don't see a hell of a lot of difference between them... Do you take your 1.5 WAR and call it a day or do you say that's not enough?

 

[CalBuckeyeRob]

198 PA for Rocchio so far... will be interesting to see how he fares post-200.

IMO he's trending into being an Amed-ish SS in not much time. The Amed that was a little below league average at defense but with a contact bat. Amed was stronger, Rocchio has a better approach.

The question is, would we be happy with the 95 wRC+, or would we demand more of him.

Arias - a little more glove, a little less bat probably.

Either way, don't see a hell of a lot of difference between them... Do you take your 1.5 WAR and call it a day or do you say that's not enough?

They have so many MIFs in the system that I expect they will give next in line like Brito or Martinez a chance before they would settle for a mediocre bat.

 

[sportscoach]

They have so many MIFs in the system that I expect they will give next in line like Brito or Martinez a chance before they would settle for a mediocre bat.

Martinez is essentially out this season for the bigs more than likely...

Brito hasn't hit at AAA... Tena hasn't been great either...

It's between Arias and Rocchio likely all season at this point... Schneeman can play SS but he's not better at SS...