LSshoe

Reports before the season started led me to believe he was best suited for the job and I have seen nothing thus far to counter that. I think defense would be more likely to be his downfall than his bat. I don't think he's been bad there but that would be my only potential concern with having him there full time. I think with more reps he can get more and more comfortable. Not sure who the best defensive option we'd have for 2b and how much of an upgrade that would be over Dardar so I suspect he'll stick there.

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For those that do participate in lent, I'm curious as to what you get out of it?

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I was raised catholic but am not much of a practitioner. I always partake in lent. Maybe not by the specific rules. I either give up a bad habit, a crutch, or something of the like or inversely I force myself to do something that I should but normally wouldn't. For me its about practicing self control which is a skill that comes easier to some than others but regardless must be honed like any other. Lent is the season I work on my self control.

Ha yeah not big green egg. Green pan. The ceramic one is fine. It's the waffle skillet things that are garbage. I just haven't gotten around to replace them since we use our cast iron primarily.

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We went through some pitching as well. I like 4 games in 4 days early on though. It’ll let you see where you are early on.

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We theoretically should have plenty pitching available unless a bunch of guys just really aren't on their game. Certainly I would expect that we at least have more in the tank than they do. In any case a relatively high scoring affair would not surprise me.

With the "way too early" tag, my thoughts:

Hitting is overall good, but their first couple guys in the first two games held us down pretty well. Could be early season sluggishness, could indicate that we're going to struggle at times.

Not enough data on any of the fielding really, even with the way too early tag. Very very few difficult opportunities. Most of their balls in play were ones that we had no chance to field or more or less routine. Milam had a pretty good play but we already know hes great there so it doesn't really reveal anything. Jake brown dropped a ball in the sun, which brings back some ptsd flashbacks, but I'm not going to roast him over it.

Pitching did struggle at times, and while they definitely consistently overpowered the batters, they also let up runs throughout, even guys who are expected (and needed) to be really really good. It does give some concern that they're going to struggle when the completion ramps up. I dont think we have a truly top end guy at this time, but I think if this staff is going to get us across the finishline its going to just be an arsenal of really good arms one after another.

In terms of other stuff, we didn't attempt many stolen bases which it seems every year we hear how we're going to steal more and havent. We didn't really bunt much and that seemed to be a trend early and often last year. Not sure what to take from that.

All in all I think next weekend will give us a lot better idea of who and where we are.

Eh I could see him getting the shores treatment. Getting almost forced into starts early on to get him reps so that he's in prime form later in the season. He needs reps. He needs to get his shite together for sure but he needs reps to make that happen.

We've been ok but haven't exactly looked dominant thus far. It's early for both teams but talent aside especially so for Milwaukee. You can't really judge a team this early as they haven't had enough looks for any kind of statistical trends to have developed. For instance I don't know if there's been a ball hit to the 3rd baseman yet. Nor do I think we've had to defend against a stolen base attempt. Edit: I do remember they had one successful streak attempt against us but it was overall handled well.

Struggling early in game is common when the opposition has likely their best pitchers on the mound but it's also Milwaukee. Likewise we haven't been absolutely dominant on the mound.

Now does any of this really mean anything in the long run? No not really. Team has a lot of newcomers and needs time to gel and to get back into their groove. I'm in no way freaking out but I'm certainly not seeing anything that definitively says this team is better than last years national championship winning team. There's plenty enough talent there. Outside of g1 and g2 starters. I don't think we have anyone on this roster who is going to surpass those two guys. Probably not even come close. But there's the (not yet realized) potential for the staff as a whole to be as good or better overall than last year. We shall see if it comes to pass. I think this team is going to be good though. We'll see if they can become great.

What did he do?

Two reasonably high def cameras at the top/edge of the roof fixed to point straight down each of the lines would seem to be a worthwhile investment. Wouldn't need to be manned. Just get them adjusted once and add them to the feed. Wouldn't get a lot of use but would be super valuable in those small handful of instances where a straight down the line shot is needed.

I use freshrss which is a self hosted web based front end. May not be for everyone but it works for me