ST: Blue Jays @ Yankees | Aug 15-17

[Geddy]

As much as we dislike people like Tabler, Barry Davis or even Buck the older folks in the audience are probably big fans of them, especially Buck and Tabler.

Also I remember Barry Davis working the Raptors broadcasts and him having awkward moments with players almost on a nightly basis.

[vaff87]

As much as we dislike people like Tabler, Barry Davis or even Buck the older folks in the audience are probably big fans of them, especially Buck and Tabler.

Also I remember Barry Davis working the Raptors broadcasts and him having awkward moments with players almost on a nightly basis.

I like them, but I find them annoying quite a lot. Probably like your lame uncle or something.

[Santoki]

I don't know why they don't go with Hazel Mae. She asks better questions and doesn't come across all awkward and dorky. She also seems to have a better rapport with the players.

Tabby and Barry are both terrible choices by Rogers. Not a single person would be upset if they moved away from them for better talent.

It takes forever for networks to get rid or replace talent. I've never understood how these guys basically get jobs for life as long as they don't make a racist or sexist comment. There have to be better talents out there and better fits for the broadcast. This isn't even mentioning the nepotism that somehow put Kevin Barker on the air. He makes me long for that first week Duane Ward was on the radio.

I work in television within a technical capacity. I have seen many sacked in technical roles just because they're disliked internally. However, a douchebag/self-entitled on air personality has so much sway even if hated within an organization.

Hazel Mae and Kevin Barker are married, I assume this is why Kevin Barker has a job.

Yes, that's the nepotism Im referring to. The guy is absolutely awful. At least Duane improved. Barker almost feels like he's getting worse as his rising confidence makes him ramble even more pointlessly. i could at least handle his drawl if he wasn't stumbling over every other word.

[Raps_Swingman]

It takes forever for networks to get rid or replace talent. I've never understood how these guys basically get jobs for life as long as they don't make a racist or sexist comment. There have to be better talents out there and better fits for the broadcast. This isn't even mentioning the nepotism that somehow put Kevin Barker on the air. He makes me long for that first week Duane Ward was on the radio.

I work in television within a technical capacity. I have seen many sacked in technical roles just because they're disliked internally. However, a douchebag/self-entitled on air personality has so much sway even if hated within an organization.

Hazel Mae and Kevin Barker are married, I assume this is why Kevin Barker has a job.

Yes, that's the nepotism Im referring to. The guy is absolutely awful. At least Duane improved. Barker almost feels like he's getting worse as his rising confidence makes him ramble even more pointlessly. i could at least handle his drawl if he wasn't stumbling over every other word.

Barker is better served on the radio with Blair, in my opinion. They have decent chemistry and Blair can lob him the technical questions. Although hiring him was probably a bit of a Hazel Mae thing, they brought her back along with him, he was a former Jay and MLBer so I can see why it happened.

TV/Radio is no different then anything else, nepotism exists.

Getting Shulman back shows that they actually have some sort of lens into what a good broadcaster is, but Sportsnet has always struggled in that aspect, they're worse on the hockey side. TSN handling baseball would be good for everyone, because then some competition would exist.

[The Duke]

The ability to put the ball in play in a given at ball is what the Jays need.
Contact, Contact, Contact.

Our HRs per bat will likely drop in half in the playoffs, so we need an approx. equal increase adjustment in contact base hits, to advance

[The_Hater]

Now that Zeke is back, I think we need to start benching Saunders a bit until he gets his legs beneath him. He's totally cratered since the All-Star break.

I think Melvin's defense so far has been a huge help to the outfield, would like to see Smoak gone and Melvin splitting time in LF and RF with Joey and Saunders alternating as DH.

Benching Saunders isn't going to help him get out of his funk though You need to keep your best hitters in the lineup. Making massive adjustments based on small samples is a losing game.

[The_Hater]

The ability to put the ball in play in a given at ball is what the Jays need.
Contact, Contact, Contact.

Our HRs per bat will likely drop in half in the playoffs, so we need an approx. equal increase adjustment in contact base hits, to advance

There's no evidence that HR's drop in half for teams come playoffs.

Despite the way it's looked lately the Jays are not a high strikeout team. Middle of the pack to is season and last which is really good for a power hitting club. And the contact problems are just from specific players like Smoak and Upton, neither of whom will start consistantly when the Jays get healthy.

[The Duke]

The ability to put the ball in play in a given at ball is what the Jays need.
Contact, Contact, Contact.

Our HRs per bat will likely drop in half in the playoffs, so we need an approx. equal increase adjustment in contact base hits, to advance

There's no evidence that HR's drop in half for teams come playoffs.

Despite the way it's looked lately the Jays are not a high strikeout team. Middle of the pack to is season and last which is really good for a power hitting club. And the contact problems are just from specific players like Smoak and Upton, neither of whom will start consistantly when the Jays get healthy.

I didn't say "team HRs" ... I said "our HRs".

Edit: Found some numbers

2016 = 174/4126 = 4.21 %
2015 = 232/5509 = 4.21 %

2015 Playoffs = 14/381 = 3.67%
2015 LCS = 6/197 = 3.04%

I lost the site page I was using, but was going to analysis it, omitting the players (AB) that didn't hit greater then 15 HRs for the year, so get a sense of how the typical HR hitings during the season, perform in the playoffs.

[The Duke]

Donaldson/EE/Jose/Tulo/Saunders (used +15HRs as cut off)
2016 - 118/1933 = 6.10%

Colabello/Donaldson/EE/Jose/Martin/Smoak
2015 Regular - 176/2761 = 6.37%
2015 Playoffs - 10/195 = 5.13%
2015 LCS - 4/100 = 4%

HR rates dropped by 37% from 2015 regular season to 2015 LCS (for our top hitters)
[hope I calculated that correctly]

[Skin Blues]

HR rates dropped by 37% from 2015 regular season to 2015 LCS (for our top hitters)

This is probably the most egregious use of small sample size data used to try to prove a point that I've ever seen. Not only is it focusing on our grand total of 11 playoff games, but on a subset of those 11 games, which is ridiculous enough on it's own. But it's also excluding 50% of the lineup! Does anybody really think this is a reflection of our actual ability to hit HRs in the playoffs? I swear, people go insane the moment we have one off-day. Too much free time for people to think this crap up!!

[The Duke]

HR rates dropped by 37% from 2015 regular season to 2015 LCS (for our top hitters)

This is probably the most egregious use of small sample size data used to try to prove a point that I've ever seen. Not only is it focusing on our grand total of 11 playoff games, but on a subset of those 11 games, which is ridiculous enough on it's own. But it's also excluding 50% of the lineup! Does anybody really think this is a reflection of our actual ability to hit HRs in the playoffs? I swear, people go insane the moment we have one off-day. Too much free time for people to think this crap up!!

Obviously I know its a small sample size.
And not including non HR hitters in an analysis of HRs by our top HR hitters, has some merit (not their craft), but yes further reduces the sample.
But guess what, the small sample size of those players, will be the same players taking AB in the playoffs this year.
SP/Pen may be different, but the batters will for the most part be unchanged.
Sure not as predictive, but still something that could be a concern.

[Fairview4Life]

Egregious use time!

Looking at just the Rangers and Royals:

Regular Season vs. Texas - 4.89% of plate appearances ended in a homerun.
Playoffs vs. Texas - 3.94% of plate appearances ended in a homerun.
A 19% reduction! Or......1.92 homeruns over the 5 games/203 plate appearances.

Regular Season vs. Kansas City - 3.22% of plate appearances ended in a homerun.
Playoffs vs. Kansas City - 2.68% of plate appearances ended in a homerun.
A 17% reduction! Or......1.23 homeruns over the 6 games/224 plate appearances.

Combined:
Regular Season vs. both opponents - 3.97% of plate appearances ended in a homerun.
Playoffs vs. both opponents - 3.28% of plate appearances ended in a homerun.
A 17% reduction! Or......2.94 homeruns over the 11 games/427 plate appearances.

So we "should have" hit ~3 more homeruns in the playoffs, not accounting for weather or ptichers or D, or pressure and everything else that might depress home runs.

[Skin Blues]

But guess what, the small sample size of those players, will be the same players taking AB in the playoffs this year.

The problem with the sample size isn't that the players change. It's that it has zero predictive value.

Anyway... can't wait for the Indians series to get underway so we can just focus on watching some good baseball. And we can get a good look at the players/coaches/management that we'll no doubt be picking up in the offseason to replace the guys who leave.

[Sifu]

Doesn't a drop in home runs in playoffs make sense? You're facing supposedly better pitching, so it would make sense for not only HRs to decrease but all scoring in general