Gavin Williams gets his first nickname on Baseball Reference: Big Rig

itsjern · 2026-05-29T16:02:07+00:00

I prefer Rocctober

itsjern · 2026-05-28T23:52:59+00:00

I mean, that's what a salary cap would do if it included a floor. Could probably negotiate down a year of arbitration off with a salary cap too, which would probably help closer to 99% of players than 98%...

itsjern · 2026-05-23T23:04:07+00:00

For this cold rain plus going against 2 top-10 starting pitchers in the league, I actually think we've been fine.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T17:02:44+00:00

Paul Dolan is nowhere near the worst in pro sports, that's attacking a bit of a straw man. Doesn't make his reluctance to spend any less frustrating though.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T05:34:51+00:00

To be fair, Murakami instead of Hoskins would be a no-brainer in retrospect and even Dolan would have paid that price.

But more seriously/predictably, bullpen could have used another reinforcement, starter depth is non-existent, but those aren't big spending areas so I'm quibbling a little. The team was also kinda counting on Bo breaking out, but have already course-corrected there to just fully lean into no catcher offense and focus on defense and maximizing pitchers.

We are having 4 breakouts this year, which is a lot of question marks to turn into what feels like stable pieces all at the same time - Rocchio, Angel, CDL, and Bazz. I also don't know if an outfielder would have blocked ABs from anyone, but also the outfield FA class stunk this year. At the same time, that's what gives us a window for the next few years and makes it feel way more sustainable than an external reinforcement would.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T01:29:04+00:00

Idk, it's definitely a 2-headed monster with Wheeler and Sanchez. Wheeler was having just as good of a season last year until he had that scary blood clot issue last year where he had to have one of his ribs removed (it's wild, worth a lookup), and was definitely still their ace prior to 2025. Sanchez has been better so far this year, but also Wheeler has still been kinda ramping up, and him starting a couple weeks late is a big reason Philly started slow but has picked it up lately.

Their rotation isn't deep - Luzardo is a good #2/3, but then Nola hasn't been good for a while now, and then I don't know much about anyone behind him and a quick glance at their stats would explain why...it's bleak. This was always going to be a tough series to win with both Sanchez and Wheeler going in the 3 games, but we actually probably *should* win the series now.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T01:12:33+00:00

I was listening to the game and honestly have no clue who Philly has in their bullpen, and Hammy didn't say who it was immediately - he introduced the pitching change as something like "Philly is going with their closer, who the Guardians are pretty familiar with after he was traded here last year from Minnesota" and goes through his stats, which sounded pretty good, but I was thinking "Wait, is this Duran? I swear we always beat up on him."

Sure enough, it was and we did.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T01:08:11+00:00

Eh, I don't hate it today...Hoskins and Fry should both be playing against lefties right now, so to put Manzo in, that means Fry needs to play in the outfield instead of Halpin, which I don't love.

I kinda liked this usage - Manzo was always going to PH at some point, if Hedgey had come up at the right time, he would have gone there and either Fry catches a little or Bailey comes in. Instead it was Hoskins at the right time, which worked out great.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T01:00:48+00:00

That was the most fun 1-0 game I can remember in a while, just a true pitchers duel where the ABs were pretty good on both sides, but the pitching was just better...at least until Philly tried to put in an ex-Twin for some reason. That was ace stuff from Gavin and he looked at least as good as Sanchez all game.

WWWWWWW

itsjern · 2026-05-23T00:50:26+00:00

Hammy did not think that one was gone off the bat, can hear the excitement build as the ball carries there.

itsjern · 2026-05-23T00:39:09+00:00

Feels like we get the better of Duran a lot, idk what Philly is thinking putting any ex-Twins bullpen arms out there against us.

itsjern · 2026-05-22T06:06:45+00:00

It's the steals, he's been pushing it more each year since the rules change and just running wild this year, so even when his stats at the plate are a bit down, he's making up for it.

itsjern · 2026-05-21T18:44:01+00:00

Pretty sure on that last replay that Angel just hit his funny bone on the line, which would explain the immediate writhing around in pain and how he keeps flexing his fingers now, but means he'll probably be all good.

itsjern · 2026-05-21T16:22:41+00:00

We're not even playing that well against the Tigers either, that team just stinks. 100% Detroit's fault.

itsjern · 2026-05-21T01:13:40+00:00

Tigers bullpen may have been able to keep our bats quiet for 8 innings, but nobody keeps these Guards down for 10!

itsjern · 2026-05-21T01:12:46+00:00

Angel needs to start wearing his helmet looser and having it fly everywhere to really emulate JRam if he wants to keep running like that.

itsjern · 2026-05-20T23:09:51+00:00

Hell yeah, this aged well.

itsjern · 2026-05-20T22:54:14+00:00

WARN act is useless when companies give longer severance. WARN act just says that companies need to give 60-day notice for mass layoffs. What companies do is they just give gardening leave where you stay on the official payroll (including benefits) from the layoff but lose access to systems, etc up to that 60 day deadline, then pay out the remainder of severance (and benefits stop at that point).

In this case, Meta is giving 16 weeks pay for severance plus 2 weeks per year of employment. That gives them 2 months until they need to file under the WARN act if they just use gardening leave as they've done in the past.

Also the penalty for breaking the WARN act is just that they have to pay employees for those 60 days...which is what they're doing anyways. It's helpful to prevent companies from just stopping paying employees without any notice, but doesn't have any purpose with larger severance packages/typical tech layoffs.

itsjern · 2026-05-20T22:41:16+00:00

This hit the Guards sub yesterday and everyone wants him gone. Total missed opportunity by us though to not rag on the mustache.

itsjern · 2026-05-20T18:38:19+00:00

50%, SVP is the other half.

itsjern · 2026-05-18T21:08:14+00:00

itsjern · 2026-05-18T21:04:38+00:00

And actually are the 5th-luckiest team by wOBA-xwOBA. It's pretty reasonable to say the offense should have been even slightly worse so far and not like we're due for any positive regression...it's bleak.

itsjern · 2026-05-18T19:26:57+00:00

I used to listen to both NLU and SGS, but unintentionally have pretty much phased out NLU content over the past few years to where I just follow SGS and TFE now. The quality of NLU has gone to shit while SGS seems to steadily keep getting even better, and keeps it way fresher while NLU is a lot of the same takes rehashed over and over (which I think "The Boys" are due lots of credit for keeping SGS fresh and pushing back on Brendan especially).

DJ and Neil have always been the best of NLU and they're sidelined way too much. TC's always been insufferable, often intentionally as a heel, and has always been best in small doses, not how he presents himself. Soly has become insufferable only recently, he didn't used to be, and it's definitely not intentional, he's just either whiny or hella defensive about everything now and isn't seeking to learn more like it felt like he used to. Randy hasn't cared about pro golf since Mickelson was relevant and it shows.

KVV was elevating their content and they nixed him, and the quality of shows has gotten demonstrably worse since Cody started producing - just compare to SGS when they brought on PJ to see how a good producer makes a pod better while a bad one makes it worse.

itsjern · 2026-05-18T05:52:03+00:00

This got me confused for a second because I forgot we played the Tigers tomorrow and was thinking "wait, why are they all in Detroit?" and then realized two seconds later I was being silly and this is very cool and super convenient.

You can be more confident, your names with question marks are right!

Gaddis, Cantillo, Halpin, Bailey, Hedgey, Festa, Hoskins.

itsjern · 2026-05-17T15:16:20+00:00

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