My wife and I will be in Baltimore Feb 16-19 and I was just wondering if anyone in the awesome Camden Chat community may have suggestions for me. We will be staying at the Hilton Baltimore which, according to their website, over-looks Camden Yards. People occasionally do this on Bucs Dugout so I assume it's cool, but if not please feel free to delete it. Thank you in advance for any suggestions and good luck in 2012 Orioles fans.

-gorillakilla34

Cutch has basically had a bad month and is off to an extremely disappointing start to the season. Do I expect this to continue? Of course not, everyone goes through slumps and sometimes they can last a month or more. It could just be bad luck since Andrew's BABIP is at .242 this April compared with .313 last year and .327 in 09 but I think it may be other things on top of his bad luck or maybe that the low BABIP may be a little less luck driven thus far.

First of all, just based on watching McCutchen's at bats thus far, something just seems off to me. Not so much his swing mechanics but with his approach at the plate. He seems to be taking a more passive approach this season so far. I've noticed Andrew taking a lot more called strikes, or at least it seems that way to me, which gets him in an early hole and leads to Andrew sometimes chasing bad pitches or not getting to swing at his pitch.

Like I said, Andrew's BABIP thus far sits at .242 which is well below his career average. But there are some things other than just dumb luck that may be influencing this. First Andrew's walk rate is up to 14% so far this year from 10.7% last year. His strike out rate is also up this year to 23.5% from 15.6%. Obviously more walks are good and mre strikeouts are bad but the increased rate in both are resulting in less balls in play.

Taking a closer look there are other things trending differently thus far. Andrew's LD% is down slightly to 16.9% from 18.8%. His groundball percent is down almost 10 points: 33.8% this year from 43.4% last year which isn't helping him use his speed as an asset and ground balls are what affects BABIP the most. The biggest thing though is McCutchen's fly balls percentages is up to 49.2% from 37.8% and his infield fly rate to 18.8% from 10.4% last year again not allowing Andrew use his speed as an asset.

I don't know if McCutchen has changed his approach this year (whether it's his doing or a new team philosophy because it seems like Tabata is also being very passive) or is just scuffling right now but this at least explains some of his struggles thus far and puts into context that it may not be all BABIP bad luck. Thoughts?

*All these stats were based on information before today's game was played

I was just kind of thinking about this last night at work so I decided to make a post of it. Disclaimer: I am by no accounts an expert but just kind of wanted to put this up just for something for us to do in the boring off season. So...

Continue reading this post »

The Brewers have acquired Zack Greinke from the Royals. The Brewers give up outfielder Lorenzo Cain, shortstop Alcides Escobar, and prospects Jake Odorizzi and Jeremy Jeffress. The Brewers are also rumored to be getting another player from Kansas City's major league roster, possibly Yuniesky Betancourt. After this trade and the Marcum addition earlier this offseason, the Brewers look set up pretty well for a World Series run but in the process.

Update: Via MLBTR: Peter Gammons tweets that a PTBNL is going to KC instead of Jeffress. Milwaukee also gets $2 million in addition to Greinke and Betancourt.

UPDATE by Charlie: I love this from the Brewers' perspective. They give up some good young players, but no top prospects, in order to get a potentially Cy Young-caliber pitcher. I had been confused about what direction they would take this year, but I think really going for it like this is a reasonable - and highly entertaining - solution. (And by "top prospects," I meant really strong, A-grade prospects - I wasn't commenting on these guys' standing within the Brewers organization. Odorizzi could become a grade-A guy, but he's too young and too far away to be one yet.)

Top of the sixth inning. The score is 4-4. Charlie Morton and Dan Haren both exit early. Continue talking here. I think Greg Brown could possibly be insane. Hopefully Karstens has another great outing in Arizona and the Bucs can pull this one out.

[Thanks for keeping this going, everyone--I'm at the airport, on my way to New York for the weekend. I should have internet access, but the next 24 hours may be dicey. The game thread tomorrow will go up as scheduled. Thanks for your patience-- Charlie]

The first day of the MLB draft has come to a close. Many good players were taken but I don't know if any of them went to the Pirates. I'm not any kind of authority on the subject of prospects or anything but nothing really excited me. Then when I looked at the reactions of the more knowledgeable poster/commenters on BD and saw most were angry it just disappointed me even more. What are your thoughts and/or feelings about the first day? My first reaction is that of disappointment.