Ben Nicholson-Smith

But then you get to the top of the order again.

He walks Taylor Ward.

He walks Gunnar Henderson.

That's 100% on Jeff Hoffman.

And that is not...

acceptable performance for a high leverage reliever.

So doesn't mean that he's, you know, DFA'd again, but it does mean there's something wrong.

And it does mean he's not performing to the level that you need him to.

So the hit by pitch, the two walks, those to me are indications that the baseball savant page, the advanced numbers, they're not capturing everything here.

Because in the biggest moment of his season with the chance to go above 500 for the first time in nearly two months,

He walks two dudes and it just is not what they needed.

No, totally.

Like there are aspects of this where it's like, I don't know.

I thought I would do better and I did it.

Like it's entirely possible.

Like he doesn't have an explanation for it and that would be okay.

And some things in baseball are just unexplainable.

This isn't even like a borderline call.

Like, you know, we're talking about Valenzuela and Heinemann, like, oh, you could argue this nuance or this nuance.

Like, that's kind of a borderline call.