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The Padres are so bad right now there’s no way they finish above .500
2023 MLB Thread; Say Hey, everybody: Rest In Power, Willie
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by CP1708,
- Start date
DeadsetAce
Supporter
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This AL wildcard fight is nuts rn
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The Padres are a perfect example of why you don’t prematurely crown a team that’s the new flavor of the month in the offseason. I’ll be fair, they’ve got hit with injuries this year. But so have a bunch of other teams so that’s not exclusive to them.
They have the pieces and talent in place to where they should rebound next season. But this was a wake up call for them.
On the other hand, as much as you hate to acknowledge it. This Giants team has been something else all season long. Aside from that stretch a few weeks back where they lost 5 of 7 to Milwaukee and Atlanta. I really can’t think of any prolonged dry spell they’ve had this season. It went from they’re overachieving and appear to be ahead of schedule but they’ll likely come down to earth in July or August, to they look like the real deal.
They have the pieces and talent in place to where they should rebound next season. But this was a wake up call for them.
On the other hand, as much as you hate to acknowledge it. This Giants team has been something else all season long. Aside from that stretch a few weeks back where they lost 5 of 7 to Milwaukee and Atlanta. I really can’t think of any prolonged dry spell they’ve had this season. It went from they’re overachieving and appear to be ahead of schedule but they’ll likely come down to earth in July or August, to they look like the real deal.
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Last edited:
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recognize the man today #21 forever
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Here for more bad baseball at Citi lol
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I haven’t had much time to watch baseball besides the Yankees, how the hell did the Padres fall off a cliff? That’s crazy.
Cedric robbing Gary’s HR was amazing, I wasn’t even mad it cost us two runs.
Cedric robbing Gary’s HR was amazing, I wasn’t even mad it cost us two runs.
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Padres we’re always overrated
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Giants lost lol. Hope they take the series tomorrow afternoon.
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This dude Baez really been playing like Barry Bonds ever since he started giving New York the thumbs down
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Balco is back!
This dude Baez really been playing like Barry Bonds ever since he started giving New York the thumbs down
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Salvy on the juice or what? Dude about to hit 50 homeruns as a catcher
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Really doesn't make any sense
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Salvy on the juice or what? Dude about to hit 50 homeruns as a catcher
He has just tied with Johnny Bench for most homers by a catcher in a single season
He changed his batting stance after his Tommy John surgery
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He’s been a 30ish HR pace guy the last couple years so it’s not wild out of the blue, but he’s definitely taken another step this year.
Inside Royals catcher Salvador Perez’s evolution into an elite power hitter
https://theathletic.com/2802035/202...lite-power-hitter/?source=user_shared_article
Inside Royals catcher Salvador Perez’s evolution into an elite power hitter
https://theathletic.com/2802035/202...lite-power-hitter/?source=user_shared_article
On Sunday night, Salvador Perez sat in a makeshift room in the bowels of T-Mobile Park in Seattle and said the obvious given he had just hit his fifth homer in five games: “Honest to you guys, this year is one of my best years — hitting.”
No kidding. The fifth of those homers Sunday matched a mark Mike Sweeney set in 2002. His 190th career homer Sunday tied Alex Gordon for fourth in Royals history. His 38 home runs this season rank second in club history behind Jorge Soler’s 48 in 2019. The list of superlatives goes on to a point that Royals manager Mike Matheny said he is open to superlative suggestions.
Asked how he’s put together this hitting spectacle, Perez has consistently credited the work: minutes spent before games in the clubhouse studying pitchers’ tendencies, months spent in the offseasons in batting cages in Miami, more than 10 years now in the batter’s box at the big-league level.
“I’ve just tried to put everything together,” Perez said this past weekend. “And learn.”
So many coaches have played a role in this, and Perez credits them during seemingly every news conference. There is Pedro Grifol, whom Perez has said he considers almost like a father figure, and there is Mike Tosar, with whom Perez has worked during the past couple of offseasons. There’s also a man who has watched Perez climb to the power-hitting mountaintop from its possible lowest point: Royals hitting coach Terry Bradshaw.
The story Bradshaw loves to tell was one of the late Bill Fischer’s favorites. It occurs in Springdale, Ark., where from 2009 to 2012 Bradshaw was a hitting coach.
The 2011 Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals team had a Venezuelan catcher. Bradshaw had heard the rave reviews about Salvador Perez’s defense, and about Perez’s will to work both offensively and defensively. Bradshaw saw firsthand early each afternoon at the beginning of the season.
“He was always there early to hit,” Bradshaw said. “Like, every day. It was like clockwork. Every single day.”
Bradshaw was impressed with the youngster’s energy. How Perez was able to swing aggressively in the cages and break a sweat, then lay down his bat and lug his catcher’s equipment out to the bullpen. The season started in April of that year, and Perez stumbled out of the gate. He went 0-for-2 his first night and 0-for-4 the second.
By May, his average sat at .241. His OPS was well below .700.
“He’d go out and hit balls hard right at guys,” Bradshaw said.
Perez hoped to be a big leaguer that season, so the struggles affected him. Each day, though, he had continued to show up early, motivated to turn the tide. Until one particular road trip. One night, Perez went 0-for-4 at the plate. The next day, Bradshaw turned a corner in the clubhouse toward the cages.
Perez wasn’t there.
“I’m like, ‘Where’s Salvador?’” Bradshaw said.
He arrived later in the day for the bullpens. Bradshaw observed the work. Afterward, he beelined toward Perez and said, “Hey, what happened?”
“I’m not doing it anymore,” Perez said. “I’m done. I’m done. I go out there and work every day, and it’s the same stuff. Out. Out. Out.”
Bradshaw was shocked. Here was a top prospect, saying he wasn’t going to do the extra anymore. Bradshaw could have remained silent. He could have propped his desire to maintain a relationship above all. More important to him was seeing Perez become the most dangerous hitting catcher in Major League Baseball. So Bradshaw cut him off.
“Whoa,” he said. “Man, that’s not the way to approach this. I need you back out there tomorrow. You’ve got to stick with your routine, whether you go 4-for-4 or 0-for-4. You’ve got to keep your routine. Let’s keep going.”
Perez nodded, but Bradshaw didn’t know whether that meant Perez would be there the next day. All these years later, he knows it shouldn’t have been a question. Of course, Perez was there, the intensity evident in his eyes as he strapped on his batting gloves and ducked under the netting and into the cages.
That day, Perez didn’t go 4-for-4, Bradshaw said. But Perez would get there. He proceeded to light up Double A, earning a nod to Triple-A Omaha after 79 games and debuting later that season. Bradshaw enjoyed the moment from afar. He relished seeing Perez perform on baseball’s biggest stages in 2014 and ’15.
He believed, even as Perez’s OPS crept up to a career-high .792 in 2017, that the ceiling was higher. He still thought it possible after Perez underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019. Because he knew Perez had been around players who put in the time as Alex Gordon did, which Perez recently referenced in a news conference.
Because Bradshaw knew if a ceiling, in fact, existed, Perez was to do everything in his power to reach it.
The obvious question is this: What changed mechanically that allowed Perez to do what he did in 2020 and is doing this season?
Some might say the answer lies in cages at Florida International University. That’s where, during the 2019 offseason, Perez hit with Tosar, whom the Royals hired that offseason as a special-assignment hitting coach. They would meet nearly five days a week. The focus for Tosar, above all, was helping Perez feel what the right hitting positions were for him.
“Staying behind the baseball was really, really key for him,” Tosar said last year. “He does occasionally get out on that front side. Some of the drills that we do make him get behind the ball and tightened up the swing a little bit. Arms closer to the body. Not letting the arms get away from the body too early.”
Their work continued throughout the time between spring training’s shutdown in 2020 to when the season started back up. One constant struck Tosar throughout their sessions.
“This guy is a workhorse,” he said. “I’m talking work-horse. … This guy is so intense. You could see it in his eyes. You can see the intensity in his eyes.”
Bradshaw, who became the Royals’ big-league hitting coach before the 2018 season, provided insights from afar. Recently, he summed up Perez’s mechanical adjustments like this: “He just solidifies the basic fundamentals of controlling your backside. Understanding how to deliver the barrel to the ball on certain locations of pitches. Those are kind of the basics of it all. And he does a really good job of it.”
The statistics show it. Perez’s barrel percentage of 15.7 in 2021 is the highest of his career and ranks in the 92nd percentile. His 55.1 percent hard-hit rate is the highest of his career and ranks in the 98th percentile. Though Perez has hit a number of pitches outside the strike zone for home runs, his contact on chases is actually the lowest of his career. Most illuminating in terms of what he is doing is the damage on pitches within the “heart” zone.
Only eight players in MLB have created more run value on pitches in the heart zone than Perez. The point: When the pitch is anywhere to the middle of the plate, he’s smoking the ball, and those around the game have noticed.
This past weekend, after Perez hit his fourth homer in four consecutive games against Seattle, Mariners manager Scott Servais said: “If you really leave anything in the strike zone — as hot as he’s going right now — he gets a good swing on it. He’s got big power. He’s having a great year.”
Another crucial element, Bradshaw knows, is Perez’s experience.
“When you face a pitcher several times, they have tendencies,” Bradshaw said. “If you’re paying attention, and when you watch, sometimes you’ve got to go with the tendencies. Sometimes you may win. Other times he may get you.”
Perez has been winning a lot against pitchers, including a moment Saturday in Seattle that Bradshaw will always cherish.
Knowing the Mariners’ starter was crafty lefty Tyler Anderson, Perez and Bradshaw flipped through numbers before the game, and the truth was this: Early in the count, Anderson liked to throw lots of changeups. So that’s what Perez stepped into the box looking for in the first inning.
Perez got one in his first at-bat and fouled it off. In his second at-bat against Anderson, Perez whiffed at a changeup outside the strike zone, then, still looking for a changeup, popped up on this fastball.
Afterward, as is usually the case, Perez returned to the dugout, and Bradshaw watched him put on his catcher’s equipment while saying: “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to get him next time. I’m going to get him next time.”
Anderson was still on the mound when Perez stepped back into the batter’s box in the fifth inning. He finessed a changeup at Perez on the first pitch. Perez did this:
When Perez returned to the dugout, he bear-hugged Bradshaw for seemingly 10 seconds.
Afterward, Perez explained why: “He’s one of the best, man. He cares. When people care about you, you try to do the best for them. And he cares about everybody. He’s super smart. When he tells me a pitcher is going to start with a slider, 100 percent I’m seeing a slider. He gives the best information we can have. I love Terry. I’ve known him for a long time. He was my coach at Double A. We’ve got a lot of history together.”
On Tuesday afternoon, recalling the bear hug, Bradshaw couldn’t help but drift back to those days in Springdale. To the cages where Perez showed up for early work all but one day. To how far Perez — who still references the day Bradshaw beelined toward him and stressed routine — has come.
“I’m just proud of him,” Bradshaw said. “Of how he has dedicated himself to come in here and to be the best Salvador Perez he can be.”
No kidding. The fifth of those homers Sunday matched a mark Mike Sweeney set in 2002. His 190th career homer Sunday tied Alex Gordon for fourth in Royals history. His 38 home runs this season rank second in club history behind Jorge Soler’s 48 in 2019. The list of superlatives goes on to a point that Royals manager Mike Matheny said he is open to superlative suggestions.
Asked how he’s put together this hitting spectacle, Perez has consistently credited the work: minutes spent before games in the clubhouse studying pitchers’ tendencies, months spent in the offseasons in batting cages in Miami, more than 10 years now in the batter’s box at the big-league level.
“I’ve just tried to put everything together,” Perez said this past weekend. “And learn.”
So many coaches have played a role in this, and Perez credits them during seemingly every news conference. There is Pedro Grifol, whom Perez has said he considers almost like a father figure, and there is Mike Tosar, with whom Perez has worked during the past couple of offseasons. There’s also a man who has watched Perez climb to the power-hitting mountaintop from its possible lowest point: Royals hitting coach Terry Bradshaw.
The story Bradshaw loves to tell was one of the late Bill Fischer’s favorites. It occurs in Springdale, Ark., where from 2009 to 2012 Bradshaw was a hitting coach.
The 2011 Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals team had a Venezuelan catcher. Bradshaw had heard the rave reviews about Salvador Perez’s defense, and about Perez’s will to work both offensively and defensively. Bradshaw saw firsthand early each afternoon at the beginning of the season.
“He was always there early to hit,” Bradshaw said. “Like, every day. It was like clockwork. Every single day.”
Bradshaw was impressed with the youngster’s energy. How Perez was able to swing aggressively in the cages and break a sweat, then lay down his bat and lug his catcher’s equipment out to the bullpen. The season started in April of that year, and Perez stumbled out of the gate. He went 0-for-2 his first night and 0-for-4 the second.
By May, his average sat at .241. His OPS was well below .700.
“He’d go out and hit balls hard right at guys,” Bradshaw said.
Perez hoped to be a big leaguer that season, so the struggles affected him. Each day, though, he had continued to show up early, motivated to turn the tide. Until one particular road trip. One night, Perez went 0-for-4 at the plate. The next day, Bradshaw turned a corner in the clubhouse toward the cages.
Perez wasn’t there.
“I’m like, ‘Where’s Salvador?’” Bradshaw said.
He arrived later in the day for the bullpens. Bradshaw observed the work. Afterward, he beelined toward Perez and said, “Hey, what happened?”
“I’m not doing it anymore,” Perez said. “I’m done. I’m done. I go out there and work every day, and it’s the same stuff. Out. Out. Out.”
Bradshaw was shocked. Here was a top prospect, saying he wasn’t going to do the extra anymore. Bradshaw could have remained silent. He could have propped his desire to maintain a relationship above all. More important to him was seeing Perez become the most dangerous hitting catcher in Major League Baseball. So Bradshaw cut him off.
“Whoa,” he said. “Man, that’s not the way to approach this. I need you back out there tomorrow. You’ve got to stick with your routine, whether you go 4-for-4 or 0-for-4. You’ve got to keep your routine. Let’s keep going.”
Perez nodded, but Bradshaw didn’t know whether that meant Perez would be there the next day. All these years later, he knows it shouldn’t have been a question. Of course, Perez was there, the intensity evident in his eyes as he strapped on his batting gloves and ducked under the netting and into the cages.
That day, Perez didn’t go 4-for-4, Bradshaw said. But Perez would get there. He proceeded to light up Double A, earning a nod to Triple-A Omaha after 79 games and debuting later that season. Bradshaw enjoyed the moment from afar. He relished seeing Perez perform on baseball’s biggest stages in 2014 and ’15.
He believed, even as Perez’s OPS crept up to a career-high .792 in 2017, that the ceiling was higher. He still thought it possible after Perez underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019. Because he knew Perez had been around players who put in the time as Alex Gordon did, which Perez recently referenced in a news conference.
Because Bradshaw knew if a ceiling, in fact, existed, Perez was to do everything in his power to reach it.
The obvious question is this: What changed mechanically that allowed Perez to do what he did in 2020 and is doing this season?
Some might say the answer lies in cages at Florida International University. That’s where, during the 2019 offseason, Perez hit with Tosar, whom the Royals hired that offseason as a special-assignment hitting coach. They would meet nearly five days a week. The focus for Tosar, above all, was helping Perez feel what the right hitting positions were for him.
“Staying behind the baseball was really, really key for him,” Tosar said last year. “He does occasionally get out on that front side. Some of the drills that we do make him get behind the ball and tightened up the swing a little bit. Arms closer to the body. Not letting the arms get away from the body too early.”
Their work continued throughout the time between spring training’s shutdown in 2020 to when the season started back up. One constant struck Tosar throughout their sessions.
“This guy is a workhorse,” he said. “I’m talking work-horse. … This guy is so intense. You could see it in his eyes. You can see the intensity in his eyes.”
Bradshaw, who became the Royals’ big-league hitting coach before the 2018 season, provided insights from afar. Recently, he summed up Perez’s mechanical adjustments like this: “He just solidifies the basic fundamentals of controlling your backside. Understanding how to deliver the barrel to the ball on certain locations of pitches. Those are kind of the basics of it all. And he does a really good job of it.”
The statistics show it. Perez’s barrel percentage of 15.7 in 2021 is the highest of his career and ranks in the 92nd percentile. His 55.1 percent hard-hit rate is the highest of his career and ranks in the 98th percentile. Though Perez has hit a number of pitches outside the strike zone for home runs, his contact on chases is actually the lowest of his career. Most illuminating in terms of what he is doing is the damage on pitches within the “heart” zone.
Only eight players in MLB have created more run value on pitches in the heart zone than Perez. The point: When the pitch is anywhere to the middle of the plate, he’s smoking the ball, and those around the game have noticed.
This past weekend, after Perez hit his fourth homer in four consecutive games against Seattle, Mariners manager Scott Servais said: “If you really leave anything in the strike zone — as hot as he’s going right now — he gets a good swing on it. He’s got big power. He’s having a great year.”
Another crucial element, Bradshaw knows, is Perez’s experience.
“When you face a pitcher several times, they have tendencies,” Bradshaw said. “If you’re paying attention, and when you watch, sometimes you’ve got to go with the tendencies. Sometimes you may win. Other times he may get you.”
Perez has been winning a lot against pitchers, including a moment Saturday in Seattle that Bradshaw will always cherish.
Knowing the Mariners’ starter was crafty lefty Tyler Anderson, Perez and Bradshaw flipped through numbers before the game, and the truth was this: Early in the count, Anderson liked to throw lots of changeups. So that’s what Perez stepped into the box looking for in the first inning.
Perez got one in his first at-bat and fouled it off. In his second at-bat against Anderson, Perez whiffed at a changeup outside the strike zone, then, still looking for a changeup, popped up on this fastball.
Afterward, as is usually the case, Perez returned to the dugout, and Bradshaw watched him put on his catcher’s equipment while saying: “Don’t worry about it. I’m going to get him next time. I’m going to get him next time.”
Anderson was still on the mound when Perez stepped back into the batter’s box in the fifth inning. He finessed a changeup at Perez on the first pitch. Perez did this:
When Perez returned to the dugout, he bear-hugged Bradshaw for seemingly 10 seconds.
Afterward, Perez explained why: “He’s one of the best, man. He cares. When people care about you, you try to do the best for them. And he cares about everybody. He’s super smart. When he tells me a pitcher is going to start with a slider, 100 percent I’m seeing a slider. He gives the best information we can have. I love Terry. I’ve known him for a long time. He was my coach at Double A. We’ve got a lot of history together.”
On Tuesday afternoon, recalling the bear hug, Bradshaw couldn’t help but drift back to those days in Springdale. To the cages where Perez showed up for early work all but one day. To how far Perez — who still references the day Bradshaw beelined toward him and stressed routine — has come.
“I’m just proud of him,” Bradshaw said. “Of how he has dedicated himself to come in here and to be the best Salvador Perez he can be.”
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Giants really split with the damn Padres 
Belt got Oracle’d out of home runs in back to back at bats![0]](/styles/default/xenforo/NTemojis/alien.gif "Alien 0]")
Belt got Oracle’d out of home runs in back to back at bats
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Giants really split with the damn Padres
Belt got Oracle’d out of home runs in back to back at bats
