I appreciate your willingness to come in on a Saturday. Our usual meetings occur Friday in the early afternoon. For one, I did not expect that I might be writing another Yandy Watch this week. That is not to say that I have not kept the faith, but I am a realist, my friends.

I also recognize your restraint. You have not burst into newly-written psalms, recited the kiddush, or faced toward Progressive Field while praying.

Now, some of you may believe that there are those of us in the audience that did not witness the breakout performance Yandy. He may be to your left. She might be behind you. But we know that to not be true, for we are all devoted members of the Yandy watch.

Friends, as the leader of the Watch from the very beginning, I must be forthcoming with you — I missed Thursday night’s game.

(Chairs splinter as they connect in the air after being thrown by angry audience members. The beams of light streaming in through stained glass images of Kenny Lofton, Bob Feller, and others are obscured by a dark cloud. A young boy in the back row bursts into tears.)

Yes. I have a duty, my friends. I have a duty, and I failed you. I make no excuses.

Let us move on from matters of mortality and instead focus on the divine. I shall provide you exquisite imagery of Yandy's performance, but before we do so I would like to provide the numerical evidence. After all, Let's Go Tribe is bastion of wRC+, xFIP, and a dude even made up a pitching stat, too.

YANDY DIAZ, 8/24/2017:

4 AB 4 R 4 H 2 RBI 1 BB 0 SO 2 2B 1 3B.

So, so close to the cycle. Yandy destroyed Chris Sale, man-to-whom-people-have-already-given-the-AL-Cy-Young-Award.

I hear many of you chattering — I feel the excitement jolting through the room. Yes. That is the exact kind of breakout performance that we've been expecting.

I want to be clear, in the middle of this Yandy Watch, exactly how important Yandy Diaz might be: he can hit the ball as hard as Miguel Cabrera. We've read in the past that he has been told to sit on the ball and wait until it is deeper in the zone to swing to maximize contact. Eno Sarris posted a magnificent piece, a spectacular a piece — a "that's why he does this for a living and I don't" piece — on Fangraphs discussing the importance of meeting the the ball closer to the front of the plate, earlier in the swing, as that helps to generate lift, power, and therefore runs.

I do now to what extent the following men feel that they are part of the Movement, but I believe their observations speak toward what we've been talking about all along.

Fun fact: Only 2 players in Indians history have had a 4-hit, 4-run game with 2 doubles and a triple... Tris Speaker and Yandy Diaz.— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) August 25, 2017

Diaz, after hitting a ball in the air for the first time in his life, resulting in a two-run double. pic.twitter.com/tv0LFgcfGS — Kevin Dean (@kvnbsbl) August 25, 2017

And then Yandy, in his own words:



I am struggling to think of an analogy for Yandy Diaz in another context. If we try to place Yandy in various spots on the 80/20 scouting scale, I think we have a guy who is 75 eye, 70 contact, 125 power. Except for swing plane (which is now apparently on the scout scale); that's 25 with a potential of 55.

Yandy, please. Please. Be real.