Smalltalk

Clare is taking the week off to get ready, with the baby due in about five weeks. My daughter is attending to the second bedroom the way she did the batter’s box—everything has to be just right, only now dirt won’t be involved, or allowed. But she has time enough between arranging and stacking to call and talk baseball. Yesterday, we argued, sort of, over Andrew Vaughn. Here’s what Athlon said about him: “Vaughn impressed with his power and strike zone discipline at Sox summer camp” in 2020. Now, Lindy’s: “Vaughn makes hitting and power-hitting look easy. He has a short swing path, which allows him to get to the barrel, even late in a pitch progression. Vaughn shows power plus to all fields and gets to it easily with an uppercut swing trajectory. Some scouts project him as a .300 hitter with 35-home runs potential.” Emphasis on potential. So far, Vaughn is hitting .222 in 198 at-bats with six homers and 17 RBIs; he has 19 walks to go with 61 strikeouts, which means he’s struck out in nearly 31 percent of his at-bats (or 28 percent of his plate appearances, if you’re looking for a silver lining). He has himself a .299 OBP. Coach Clare says Vaughn needs to be more aggressive on the first pitch, rather than take it all the time. I agreed that there are plenty of hittable first-pitch strikes, but Clare went one better: “He can’t be afraid to hit pitches that are out of the zone.” On that, I disagreed, saying you don’t want to give the pitcher a strike right off the bat, if you will. I went so far as to say I’d pin a sign on his chest that says, “I won’t chase sliders down and away, out of the strike zone,” to which my daughter let out a barely detectable gasp; I think she could see herself wearing such a thing and wondered how she avoided that fate. It went on like this for a few more minutes, the former player defending the rookie, the grizzled critic showing his impatience. And in a few weeks, we’ll have a new prospect to argue over.