Always A Commander Never A Captain

Different coverage responsibilities as an Edge who drops vs an off-ball LB that needs to be more aware of seams and crossers through their zone and then also be aware of the RB leaking out. He'll have less to worry about.

I like the idea of speed/agility threatening the Edge. It pressures that side of the OL to want to move more than normal. But it needs to be married with other pass rushers attacking gaps that should now be wider. So blitzes, stunts, etc forcing the Guard to cover more ground and stress what's likely worse interior agility. I think if done well great speed off one Edge can let us attack and exploit the Guard on that side. I feel like Dallas has done this well for years so I'm excited.

I don't think any of the QB's are super refined. They're all still mostly traits and upside right now.

I heard his bat speed was faster than usual too.

Morales has had a better May than Hassell. Lower strikeout percentage and higher OPS. Neither are lighting it on fire lately.

Hmm, shades of Bruce Irvin? I seriously doubt we run much actual 3-4. But I do wonder about a lineup featuring a DT (Newton) lined up as a DE with the undersized Jamin Davis on the other side just attacking whatever he can opposite.

You guys see the rumor about Corbin being moved to the bullpen when Gray comes back, does it actually have legs?

That's a fair question and now I realize I don't even know who would call the defensive plays.

At least Crews and House had a good Double A game.

We should be clear that those reports weren't speculative. They put a video game timeout and study clause into his contract.

I'll add that even though a lot of work has been done overhauling the roster...it sucked to begin with. Good chance Daniels has added pressure from trying to make up lost ground in the score column and that leads to mistakes. I like a lot of the changes on defense. But the coverage unit could still be ugly. Our pass rush is unbalanced with a fair chance of good against some teams but stalled out vs others with more IOL talent and a pass blocking RB. Dorance Armstrong seems best at cleaning up other people's pressures. Not actually causing the pressure himself. We have nobody on the Edge that will force the RB into thinking he also has to help out the OT at times. I'm excited for the season. But I'm expecting a lot of growing pains.

There's a lot to like about Luke. His late dominator score is odd as he changed positions from QB. But once he was a WR at Rice he immediately crossed the dominator threshold. I liked at the Senior Bowl 1on1's that he had some natural looking hand fighting for separation going on. Did not look awkward. I don't think he's as ready as Tank Dell was with having successful juke moves in his route breaks. But you can see enough to think he could develop it.

We're in the middle of tank time mode.

I feel like a lot of good TE's are either quirky characters or more straight laced do the job. It's an odd duck position. So Tony G was kind of both. But Gates (I think) and Witten were straight laced. Kelce, Kittle, and Gronk were a bit more odd ducks. Old school but Jeremy Shockey was an odd duck. At a certain point shifting from the hyper physical blocking in the mix to juking LB's and trying to out run safeties requires an unusual mindset.

Doctson vs Dotson. Both 1st rounders. One was a bust and out of the league, the other we hope is not.

He has a 1.000+ OPS, at this point we can't say he's being rushed. This isn't a Jackson Holliday thing where he gets moved up after his first 10 or so days of the season. Wood has played 38 games in AAA this season. As the last line of that blurb says, do we really expect to get any trade value from Gallo, Rosario, or Robles? They're all DFA candidates instead of trade bait.

He's certainly not RG3 trying to promote a (harmless) side hustle immediately of selling novelty socks.

I'll post the past 3 years where they think he had a large enough sample size: Uggghhh. At least today Riley Adams is catching (with Ruiz as DH)

I really hope Rizzo and Davey acknowledge the sunk cost and move on. In 2023, 96% of MLB catchers were faster in pop time than he was. That's awful, they made changes and... In 2024, now 99% of MLB catchers are faster in pop time. This is who he is. He's slow at everything he does. For reference, pop time is: "How quickly, in seconds, a catcher can get the ball out of his glove and to the base on a stolen base or pickoff attempt." He's not an MLB level athlete. 99% of hitters have a faster bat speed than him. If he was on the qualified hitter list, he'd have the 4th slowest bat speed in all of baseball. 99% of catchers have a faster pop time. 97% of baserunners have a faster sprint speed than him. Here's his 2024 statcast page. He swings so slowly that he's better at making contact with the ball. But that contact is terrible contact. So he doesn't strike out. Yay.

What makes you think ownership change would come with prying TV rights away from MASN? I would love to hear otherwise, but as far as I know MASN has full control.

MLB has new bat tracking data: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/bat-tracking?attackZone=&batSide=&contactType=&count=&dateStart=&dateEnd=&gameType=&groupBy=&isHardHit=&minSwings=100&minGroupSwings=1&pitchHand=&pitchType=&seasonStart=&seasonEnd=&team=120&type=batter Why am I not surprised that Ruiz has the lowest bat speed and Blast numbers? This really does make CJ Abrams look like an extension priority though.

For fielders, especially now that we're so aggressive on the basepaths, definitely excited. I'm hoping this shifts some of what we focus on scouting wise for the draft. I've said this before, but I think it'll be the new moneyball. For pitchers though? It's a bit more murky. We have a potential guy in A+, and a pair of intriguing 19 year olds that are about as raw as can be in A. What do we do with Trevor Williams? This seems like a classic Sell High moment in a month or two.

I saw that Hassell has been hot lately! As has House, but in a different way. House seems to be more consistently getting his raw power onto the ball. Is this just Hassell speculation, or are they actually talking about moving him up?

It didn't help that the beat writers gassed up Cole Turner too us too.