Pat Ellington Jr.

Doing research is so fun

Profiles in courage

ICYMI, my latest is available

ICYMI, my latest is available

The Show Notes #28: Is Black Baseball Culture Losing The Plot? Active Black MiLB and MLB players need to decide if they are going to fully commit to following the tradition of collective uplift or if they’re going to abandon it.

open.substack.com/pub/tangible...

The Show Notes #28: Is Black Baseball Culture Losing The Plot? Active Black MiLB and MLB players need to decide if they are going to fully commit to following the tradition of collective uplift or if they’re going to abandon it.

open.substack.com/pub/tangible...

Look it's expensive and his elevated ERAs will certainly raise an eyebrow. But Cease is about as durable as any pitcher in baseball, has a ceiling nearly as high as any pitcher in baseball, and is only 30. The sticker shock of a $200 million contract is real, but it's also totally fair.

why did they let silkk the shocker rap

ICYMI

ICYMI

Top 125 Black MiLB Prospects 2025 - Tier One Many of the players in the first tier of this list are going to make a notable impact during the late 2020s and early 2030s that is going to take a lot of people by surprise

Top 125 Black MiLB Prospects 2025 - Tier One

open.substack.com/pub/tangible...

Top 125 Black MiLB Prospects 2025 - Tier One Many of the players in the first tier of this list are going to make a notable impact during the late 2020s and early 2030s that is going to take a lot of people by surprise

Top 125 Black MiLB Prospects 2025 - Tier One

open.substack.com/pub/tangible...

Really good stuff here. I'll say that Bo has a pretty solid track record of struggling upon reaching a new level, only for his feel and athleticism to eventually win out.

He also has my father's approval. (He doesn't watch baseball at all, but seemed to like his swing when I had a game on lol.)

ICYMI

Giancarlo looked like a shell of his former self at 32 and completely cooked at 33... and he's now slugging nearly .600 at 35. Amazing. 500 homers is still within reach.

Another common sight in this Rockies season was the sheer number of times they got, to put it delicately, blown the fuck out of the ballpark.

They got outscored by 8+ runs in 14 of their 162 games this year. I don't even want to count the number of times they lost by 5+ runs; I'd be here all night.

Of course, they also averaged 2.8 runs per game on the road. Not even the depths of the deadball era in the early 1900s sniffed anything under 3.3 runs per game.

(I also believe that more than 30 pitchers set career-highs in strikeouts this season when facing the Rockies. Not joking.)

Here's something crazy: the Rockies averaged 4.5 runs per game *at Coors Field*. MLB teams *as a whole* averaged 4.45 runs per game.

The Rockies, playing half of their games in the most hitter-friendly park in modern history, barely scratched the *average* run scoring in a pitcher-dominated year.

The Show Notes #27: Will Jordan Lawlar Find An Opportunity With Arizona? Jordan Lawlar is one of the most talented shortstops to come out of Texas during the 21st century and he is running out of breathing room on Arizona's 25-man roster.

The Show Notes #27: Will Jordan Lawlar Find An Opportunity With Arizona?

tangibleuno.substack.com/p/the-show-n...

The Show Notes #27: Will Jordan Lawlar Find An Opportunity With Arizona? Jordan Lawlar is one of the most talented shortstops to come out of Texas during the 21st century and he is running out of breathing room on Arizona's 25-man roster.

The Show Notes #27: Will Jordan Lawlar Find An Opportunity With Arizona?

tangibleuno.substack.com/p/the-show-n...

I fear that people have unrealistic expectations for Ethan Holliday because of his last name tbh. Imo he's one of the biggest boom or bust high profile draftees I've seen in a while. Nothing about his profile is a certainty.

Bo Naylor in September: .326/.367/.630 (175 wRC+)

Of course. You do important work and I always learn a lot from reading your stuff—and not always what I expected to learn!

Bo Naylor in September: .326/.367/.630 (175 wRC+)

As we see more and more what people are actually getting fired for saying, it's harder and harder for me not to have utter contempt for anyone who said people shouldn't say mean things about a loser like charlie kirk when it's clearly they just hate being criticized

No, but he is not immune from implementing policies that are at least mildly in that direction. He is not immune from white supremacist talking points and ideas. Many democrats and normal people unknowingly are. That’s the entire issue at hand here

Amid a physically and mentally trying season — one that included losing 20+ pounds due to illness, and, in his own words, “spiraling” when he was slumping — Mookie Betts appears to have finally turned the corner.

Jonah Tong is talented as hell but he is still a puppy

YouTube video by Locked On Guardians HEARTBREAK: Cleveland Guardians Mistakes BACKFIRE in Loss to Kansas City Royals | Espino Comeback?

On today's Locked On #Guardians

⚾️How much will the mistakes that led to the loss to the Royals sting?
⚾️The cost of chasing the final Wild Card Spot and playing for draft positioning
⚾️Is Daniel Espino ready for a MAJOR comeback?

link.chtbl.com/LOGuardians?...
youtu.be/88Gt4xUaTIc

And that kind of thinking can make a certain kind of sense. The league has devalued winning the division, especially if you’re not a top-two seed. The Dodgers likely look at the benefits of being the third-seed division winner compared to the fourth-seed top Wild Card and…shrug. It’s home-field advantage in the Wild Card round either way, so why press things? And that’s precisely the issue. Incentives, famously, are not mandates, so this doesn’t fall solely at the feet of the league. Roberts and the Dodgers own a piece of this too. Their insistence on some sort of extreme utilitarian long view when it comes to chasing a championship has become a detriment to the on-field product, and perhaps crucially, the on-field results. The product can suffer when the results are there (see: Kimbrel, Craig), but when both are diluted it becomes a bigger problem. The club is at least as much of a symptom as a cause, though. If teams show minimal interest in the regular season and its related stakes, it threatens the entire project.