Blue Jays GDT: Next: @NYY | Fri, Apr 25 | 7:00pm ET/4:00pm PT | Berrios vs Carrasco

[canucksfan]

Will be interesting to see if the hitting numbers continue to decline in the coming years, will MLB make any changes to enhance the offense

 

[PanniniClaus]

Hunter Brown is just mowing us down.

 

[MK78]

The absolute abandonment of Kirk's contact skills needs to be studied. He went from being a strong bat-to-ball guy to abjectly terrible for no real reason (it's not "he's fat" becuase he was always fat.)

What's to study really.. The more he catches, the worse he hits...

 

[The Nemesis]

Will be interesting to see if the hitting numbers continue to decline in the coming years, will MLB make any changes to enhance the offense

Torpedo bats for everyone!

Or maybe bigger bats in general. When I was little I had a plastic bat and ball set where the bat was about as big around as a 2L pop bottle for most of its length. Give the hitters that.

 

[Nineteen67]

Astros jersey looks good.

 

[GoonieFace]

What's to study really.. The more he catches, the worse he hits...

That’s actually not true. The more he caught last season, the better he hit.

 

[MK78]

Well the pitching luck ran out.. Gausman gives up 4 runs so far in the 5th...

 

[LaP]

Astros jersey looks good.

Do you mean Stros jersey?

 

[The Nemesis]

Do you mean Stros jersey?

It'd go nice with that wonky hat design that was proposed for some teams this year where the Houston version read as "ashos"

 

[Blitzkrug]

It'd go nice with that wonky hat design that was proposed for some teams this year where the Houston version read as "ashos"

Dont forget this gem;

 

[The Nemesis]

Dont forget this gem;

Yeah. That'd go nicely with the Rangers version of the newer hats, which just skipped over any "if you squint" innuendo and outright spelled the Spanish equivalent of saying "tits" (Tetas).

 

[Blitzkrug]

Awful start to this series.

 

[Nineteen67]

Do you mean Stros jersey?

Yep, I thought it said Astros until I re-read it.

 

[Nineteen67]

Well the pitching luck ran out.. Gausman gives up 4 runs so far in the 5th...

You could feel it coming

 

[canucksfan]

Awful start to this series.

I get it's Brown, but the bats have been poor. Outside of Bo, Vlad, and Springer, everyone has been below average. Didn't count Straw or Heineman because they aren't regulars.

It's weird because everyone except Springer has a K rate of 25% or lower, and most are under 20%. They need to start sacrificing some contact for power.

 

[DFF]

No hitting and bad pitching

Long year

 

[habamillions]

Going to be a long year. Shitty hitting and the starters are old and wont be able to last long into games

 

[The Nemesis]

I get it's Brown, but the bats have been poor. Outside of Bo, Vlad, and Springer, everyone has been below average. Didn't count Straw or Heineman because they aren't regulars.

It's weird because everyone except Springer has a K rate of 25% or lower, and most are under 20%. They need to start sacrificing some contact for power.

Several of the guys who are really struggling are also getting babip'd. Santander, for instance, has a really weird profile because little about it makes any sense in terms of why he's not being at least kinda productive.

 

[MK78]

Well that was a whole lot of nothin'.... Laid a masive egg...

 

[mikeyz]

The absolute abandonment of Kirk's contact skills needs to be studied. He went from being a strong bat-to-ball guy to abjectly terrible for no real reason (it's not "he's fat" becuase he was always fat.)

Shatkins should be thanking their lucky stars that Moreno has done f*** all so far.

 

[Blitzkrug]

The absolute abandonment of Kirk's contact skills needs to be studied. He went from being a strong bat-to-ball guy to abjectly terrible for no real reason (it's not "he's fat" becuase he was always fat.)

I was actually thinking about this earlier last week watching him, but came to a different conclusion than you did. The bat to ball skills are still there given he's in the 89th percentile for squared up %. It's the fact he's f***ing hacking at anything and EVERYTHING

2022 Kirk essentially forced pitchers to come to him. While he obviously didn't hit for pop, his bat on ball skills were so good that would be enough to net him 10-15 home runs while being an absolute pain in the ass to get out between that and the elite walk rate.

(his 2022 savant page)

Fast forward to 2025 and the picture shows one glaring difference (well two, but one is easily explained by the other)

He went from 80th (2022), to 62nd (2023) to 50th (2024) to 22nd percentile currently. Some guys can hack and make something happen (Bo, for example) but Kirk absolutely does not have the power needed to have some of those balls drop into play. So many ABs this year where he just swings at the first thing he sees and it's almost always out of the zone because teams know what they need to do against him.


My question is the same though; Who or what broke him?

 

[The Nemesis]

I was actually thinking about this earlier last week watching him, but came to a different conclusion than you did. The bat to ball skills are still there given he's in the 89th percentile for squared up %. It's the fact he's f***ing hacking at anything and EVERYTHING

2022 Kirk essentially forced pitchers to come to him. While he obviously didn't hit for pop, his bat on ball skills were so good that would be enough to net him 10-15 home runs while being an absolute pain in the ass to get out between that and the elite walk rate.

View attachment 1019710
(his 2022 savant page)

Fast forward to 2025 and the picture shows one glaring difference (well two, but one is easily explained by the other)

View attachment 1019712


He went from 80th (2022), to 62nd (2023) to 50th (2024) to 22nd percentile currently. Some guys can hack and make something happen (Bo, for example) but Kirk absolutely does not have the power needed to have some of those balls drop into play. So many ABs this year where he just swings at the first thing he sees and it's almost always out of the zone because teams know what they need to do against him.


My question is the same though; Who or what broke him?

I blame JP Arencibia.

 

[Nineteen67]

The absolute abandonment of Kirk's contact skills needs to be studied. He went from being a strong bat-to-ball guy to abjectly terrible for no real reason (it's not "he's fat" becuase he was always fat.)

He was just fat, now he’s fat and rich.

 

[Nineteen67]

No hitting and bad pitching

Long year

I still think they’ll be a 500 team by the end of it.

 

[Suntouchable13]

100+ mil on Gimenez, Ross Atkins is terrible.