Salt River defeated Peoria 4-2 yesterday. The Rafters are 13-9, in first place, and lead Scottsdale by two games.
Royce Lewis was 2-for-4 with a double. He is batting .379/.432/.636 in 66 at-bats.
Luke Raley was 1-for-4 with a double and a run. He is batting .180/.246/.279 in 61 at-bats.
Moises Gomez pitched a perfect inning and struck out one. His ERA is 5.40 with 14 strikeouts and 5 walks in 10 innings.
Zach Neff struck out three in two shutout innings, giving up only a walk. His ERA is 1.69 with 12 strikeouts and 1 walk in 10.2 innings.
I know its just the AFL, but these updates of Lewis's slash line always makes me happy.
I'd like a higher OBP but otherwise good with it.
Raley, on the other hand...
I am assuming in relationship to his high batting average?
It is a bit alarming that his strikeout rate in the minors keeps going up and his walk rate is going the other direction.
Correct. He has six walks in 61 PAs (9.8%) versus 14 strikeouts (23%). The walk rate is a slight improvement over his AA numbers while strikeouts are the same. He had 11 walks in 148 PAs (7.4%) and 33 strikeouts (22%). The OBP and AVG were closer earlier in the month, but it's also really small sample size.
The fact that he's improved his walk rate and maintained his K rate while playing against the best prospects in the AFL is a good sign. I would think when a guy is as hot as he is, his walk rate might go down somewhat just because he isn't fouling off pitches to hit, especially when ahead in the count, and he's putting them in play hard somewhere.
His overall performance in the fall league is encouraging, but it is a small sample size as Sean says. It does make me feel a little better after his meh summer. This next year will be HUGE for him. If both he and Kirolloff have big seasons next year it gives us sooooo many options in the years going forward. If they flat line, it will make it much harder on the front office. Same with Graterol and Balazovic on the pitching side of things.
Our new (kind of weird) HR representative told me her stepkids moved in more permanently with their mother so she was getting rid of some of their extra stuff. She said they had this weird little VR thing they didn't use and would I want it for my kid, so I said sure, why not? She just dropped off an Oculus Rift at my desk...
better ask if there are any other weird little things they want to get rid of!
Cool -- not a bad summary of the hobby. Kinda surprised he didn't use the common term for the 80s-90's bubble (the "Junk Wax" Era) , and no mention of Topps selling digital cards (which I still don't understand, or care about). Also no mention of retail vs. hobby, or the move of card shops to online sales.
I don't know if I ever told this story on this site, but when my family got ready to move to Florida (from MN) in 1981, we had a yard sale. Me and my 4 brothers went to the ball park to play all day (summer) and when we got back all of our baseball and football cards were gone. Included were several Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew, etc. Basically a lot of pretty complete sets from the late 60's to 1980. My parents sold them at the sale for something like twenty bucks. My brother did the math around 1990 and figured they would have been worth in the $10,000 area at that time. He continued to collect and eventually built up a walk-in closet sized collection, but I never bought another pack of cards again. I was so devastated. My favorite card (which had little monetary value) was Miguel Dilone 1980. He hit .341 that season. Never did much before, or after, but for some reason he was always included in my baseball card all star team. (I always overvalued AVG).
Part of the reason those cards are worth so much is that everybody's parents got rid of their cards. My uncle had a Mantle and Aaron rookie that got throw in the trash when he joined the Navy
The card shop owner here thinks the Vietnam War was the catalyst - guys either went to war, to college, or to Canada, and their parents cleaned house.
We luckily made it to adulthood with our cards intact. I do not mourn the cards that had writing on them, ended up creased, or had poor edges due to rubber bands; we had fun with them. I pay no attention to the value of my collection, it's all in the fun of the hunt. I get more of a thrill finding a cheap common card from 30 years ago that has been avoiding me than I do getting a valuable card on the cheap. Plus, I've got a goodly network of collectors that I enjoy swapping cards with.
Did anybody else store their baseball cards in Velveeta boxes?
oh, those would work just like a "vault" box -- cool. I know I used cigar boxes at times
Who needs boxes when a bunch of rubber bands work just fine?
*nails on a chalkboard*
To be fair.... I was young and dumb.
oh, if you read above you'll see I did the same thing
Getting old. I did read your comment but missed the rubber band part.
Salt River defeated Peoria 4-2 yesterday. The Rafters are 13-9, in first place, and lead Scottsdale by two games.
Royce Lewis was 2-for-4 with a double. He is batting .379/.432/.636 in 66 at-bats.
Luke Raley was 1-for-4 with a double and a run. He is batting .180/.246/.279 in 61 at-bats.
Moises Gomez pitched a perfect inning and struck out one. His ERA is 5.40 with 14 strikeouts and 5 walks in 10 innings.
Zach Neff struck out three in two shutout innings, giving up only a walk. His ERA is 1.69 with 12 strikeouts and 1 walk in 10.2 innings.
I know its just the AFL, but these updates of Lewis's slash line always makes me happy.
I'd like a higher OBP but otherwise good with it.
Raley, on the other hand...
I am assuming in relationship to his high batting average?
It is a bit alarming that his strikeout rate in the minors keeps going up and his walk rate is going the other direction.
Correct. He has six walks in 61 PAs (9.8%) versus 14 strikeouts (23%). The walk rate is a slight improvement over his AA numbers while strikeouts are the same. He had 11 walks in 148 PAs (7.4%) and 33 strikeouts (22%). The OBP and AVG were closer earlier in the month, but it's also really small sample size.
The fact that he's improved his walk rate and maintained his K rate while playing against the best prospects in the AFL is a good sign. I would think when a guy is as hot as he is, his walk rate might go down somewhat just because he isn't fouling off pitches to hit, especially when ahead in the count, and he's putting them in play hard somewhere.
His overall performance in the fall league is encouraging, but it is a small sample size as Sean says. It does make me feel a little better after his meh summer. This next year will be HUGE for him. If both he and Kirolloff have big seasons next year it gives us sooooo many options in the years going forward. If they flat line, it will make it much harder on the front office. Same with Graterol and Balazovic on the pitching side of things.
Our new (kind of weird) HR representative told me her stepkids moved in more permanently with their mother so she was getting rid of some of their extra stuff. She said they had this weird little VR thing they didn't use and would I want it for my kid, so I said sure, why not? She just dropped off an Oculus Rift at my desk...
better ask if there are any other weird little things they want to get rid of!
she dropped off this too.
I guess it just was not bringing them joy.
The term is spark joy, sir. It was not sparking joy for them. 😉
I don't suppose they've got a PS4 they aren't using anymore, eh?
I got dibs on that.
Hey Runner, did you see this article? Thoughts?
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/how-baseball-cards-got-weird/598345/
Cool -- not a bad summary of the hobby. Kinda surprised he didn't use the common term for the 80s-90's bubble (the "Junk Wax" Era) , and no mention of Topps selling digital cards (which I still don't understand, or care about). Also no mention of retail vs. hobby, or the move of card shops to online sales.
I don't know if I ever told this story on this site, but when my family got ready to move to Florida (from MN) in 1981, we had a yard sale. Me and my 4 brothers went to the ball park to play all day (summer) and when we got back all of our baseball and football cards were gone. Included were several Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew, etc. Basically a lot of pretty complete sets from the late 60's to 1980. My parents sold them at the sale for something like twenty bucks. My brother did the math around 1990 and figured they would have been worth in the $10,000 area at that time. He continued to collect and eventually built up a walk-in closet sized collection, but I never bought another pack of cards again. I was so devastated. My favorite card (which had little monetary value) was Miguel Dilone 1980. He hit .341 that season. Never did much before, or after, but for some reason he was always included in my baseball card all star team. (I always overvalued AVG).
Part of the reason those cards are worth so much is that everybody's parents got rid of their cards. My uncle had a Mantle and Aaron rookie that got throw in the trash when he joined the Navy
The card shop owner here thinks the Vietnam War was the catalyst - guys either went to war, to college, or to Canada, and their parents cleaned house.
We luckily made it to adulthood with our cards intact. I do not mourn the cards that had writing on them, ended up creased, or had poor edges due to rubber bands; we had fun with them. I pay no attention to the value of my collection, it's all in the fun of the hunt. I get more of a thrill finding a cheap common card from 30 years ago that has been avoiding me than I do getting a valuable card on the cheap. Plus, I've got a goodly network of collectors that I enjoy swapping cards with.
Did anybody else store their baseball cards in Velveeta boxes?
oh, those would work just like a "vault" box -- cool. I know I used cigar boxes at times
Who needs boxes when a bunch of rubber bands work just fine?
*nails on a chalkboard*
To be fair.... I was young and dumb.
oh, if you read above you'll see I did the same thing
Getting old. I did read your comment but missed the rubber band part.