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Post by Icctrombone on Mar 3, 2019 10:33:26 GMT -5
Yeah, I've been out of the loop as far as judging stats in the last 10 years. That's why I was shocked when Degrom won a Cy Young with 10 wins. As far as walks, It's better than making an out but IMO, if you're a middle of the lineup guy, you're looked upon to drive in men on base , not Get a walk. I consider Mike Schmidt to be the best all around third basement I ever saw but I thought he took too many walks. It seemed like he was looking for a walk when he went up to the plate.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 3, 2019 13:09:02 GMT -5
Benintendi is safe for 2019, which is pretty great but it's looking less and less likely that Kimbral will be back. He choked majorly in the post season but I think we'll miss him if he doesn't drop his asking price and reconcile with the top brass.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 13:31:49 GMT -5
Yeah, I've been out of the loop as far as judging stats in the last 10 years. That's why I was shocked when Degrom won a Cy Young with 10 wins. As far as walks, It's better than making an out but IMO, if you're a middle of the lineup guy, you're looked upon to drive in men on base , not Get a walk. I consider Mike Schmidt to be the best all around third basement I ever saw but I thought he took too many walks. It seemed like he was looking for a walk when he went up to the plate. Taking a walk means you are avoiding pitcher's pitches. Pitcher's pitches lead to outs, not hits. Putting a pitcher's pitch in play usually results in an out that doesn't score runs, doesn't advance runners, leads to double plays and shortens innings. The goal of hitters is always to keep the inning going, advance runners, and get on base, and all of that is accomplished by avoiding outs. Batting average does not encompass and reflect all of that. OBP reflects more of it, but not all. The most encompassing reflection that though is OPS-on base percentage plus slugging. Bryce Harper was a top 20 player in OPS last year despite hitting only .249. An OPS of 1.0 or higher is the creme de la creme-only 4 players achieved that last year-Trout, Betts, JD Martinez and Christian Yelich. Trout and Betts haven't hit free agency yet (but Betts just got $20 million as his annual salary in arbitration) and both will likely get contracts bigger than Harper. JD Martinez's contract last year was not as big as Harper's, but he was several years older than Harper, and that affects value in MLB. I am not familiar with Yelich's contract situation, so cannot comment there. Those with an OPS of .800 or better are your star players. Harper has had only one season below .800 (2014 an injury shortened season where his OPS was .767). He is also only 26-and the base line assumption based on Bill James crunching of numbers of just about every major leaguer who ever played-is that players do not reach their full potential until their year 26 season, at which point they plateau for several seasons before they slowly begin to decline. Most players do not reach free agency before their age 28 season because most don't make a major league roster before age 22. Harper is one of the few who made the majors at a very young age (and it is happening more often recently so doesn't seem quite as rare now, but Harper was the first of this current trend to make a huge impact at a very young age and the first to hit free agency during his age 26 season-which is why the contract is so much and so long. The contract should cover all of his peak and the annual salary lessens at the end of the contract when he will be in his decline years. The problem with Harper is that he is not a very good defender, and that will detract from his value over time. When measuring the other darling stat of the new generation WaR (Wins Above Replacement), his offensive WaR totals are among the elite, but his defensive WaR is a net loss, so lowers his total WaR. Players like Trout and Betts, who are much more complete players than Harper because they are also elite defenders will have much higher WaR values. Harper's best value to the Phillies will be if the DH is extended to the NL during the life of his contract, something that is a very real possibility during the next round of CBA negotiations that will be occurring in the next few years. The other factor with Harper is fan recognition. The Phillies sold over 100K tickets in the first 3 days after he signed. Harper Phillies jerseys will sell like gangbusters and generate a lot of additional revenue for the Phillies. More ticket sales means more fans in the park,more merchandise sales and more concession sales. More demand overall for Phillies baseball, and if combined with a window of contention because of additions like Harper, Realmuto, and McCutchen, the result will be the Phillies can demand more money when their local TV contract is up for renewal in a few years, which means they will rake in even more money (and playoff appearances are additional revenue as well), so the investment in Harper's contract, while pricey, will bring back more in revenue increases than they will pay out for it. The business of baseball and the thinking behind decisions is not always just about the stat sheet or the on the field impact. -M
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 13:37:50 GMT -5
Benintendi is safe for 2019, which is pretty great but it's looking less and less likely that Kimbral will be back. He choked majorly in the post season but I think we'll miss him if he doesn't drop his asking price and reconcile with the top brass. I think the desire to not be over the top threshold of the luxury tax and the need to extend/negotiate so many other young/key players are more of a factor in not resigning Kimbrel than his playoff performance. The Red Sox aren't cheap, and if it were just money I don;t think they would hesitate to resign him, but the loss of draft picks that comes with exceeding the luxury tax in multiple seasons is a huge factor, and since the Sox farm system was depleted building this contender, they need as much draft capital as they can get to replenish it and avoid an extended rebuild like some other franchises have done. They also need to have some financial flexibility to address whatever needs arise in the trade market come June, July and August if they are in a tight race. Yes, Kimbrel will be missed in that bullpen, but I don't think signing him would have ensured a good bullpen and the consequences of signing him to a big contract, even if it was a 1 year deal, outweigh the benefit he would bring to the pen. It was a tough decision, but objectively I think it was the right decision even if it gives the team a potential Achilles heel. -M
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Post by The Captain on Mar 3, 2019 14:08:44 GMT -5
Yeah, I've been out of the loop as far as judging stats in the last 10 years. That's why I was shocked when Degrom won a Cy Young with 10 wins. As far as walks, It's better than making an out but IMO, if you're a middle of the lineup guy, you're looked upon to drive in men on base , not Get a walk. I consider Mike Schmidt to be the best all around third basement I ever saw but I thought he took too many walks. It seemed like he was looking for a walk when he went up to the plate. Taking a walk means you are avoiding pitcher's pitches. Pitcher's pitches lead to outs, not hits. Putting a pitcher's pitch in play usually results in an out that doesn't score runs, doesn't advance runners, leads to double plays and shortens innings. The goal of hitters is always to keep the inning going, advance runners, and get on base, and all of that is accomplished by avoiding outs. Batting average does not encompass and reflect all of that. OBP reflects more of it, but not all. The most encompassing reflection that though is OPS-on base percentage plus slugging. Bryce Harper was a top 20 player in OPS last year despite hitting only .249. An OPS of 1.0 or higher is the creme de la creme-only 4 players achieved that last year-Trout, Betts, JD Martinez and Christian Yelich. Trout and Betts haven't hit free agency yet (but Betts just got $20 million as his annual salary in arbitration) and both will likely get contracts bigger than Harper. JD Martinez's contract last year was not as big as Harper's, but he was several years older than Harper, and that affects value in MLB. I am not familiar with Yelich's contract situation, so cannot comment there. Those with an OPS of .800 or better are your star players. Harper has had only one season below .800 (2014 an injury shortened season where his OPS was .767). He is also only 26-and the base line assumption based on Bill James crunching of numbers of just about every major leaguer who ever played-is that players do not reach their full potential until their year 26 season, at which point they plateau for several seasons before they slowly begin to decline. Most players do not reach free agency before their age 28 season because most don't make a major league roster before age 22. Harper is one of the few who made the majors at a very young age (and it is happening more often recently so doesn't seem quite as rare now, but Harper was the first of this current trend to make a huge impact at a very young age and the first to hit free agency during his age 26 season-which is why the contract is so much and so long. The contract should cover all of his peak and the annual salary lessens at the end of the contract when he will be in his decline years. The problem with Harper is that he is not a very good defender, and that will detract from his value over time. When measuring the other darling stat of the new generation WaR (Wins Above Replacement), his offensive WaR totals are among the elite, but his defensive WaR is a net loss, so lowers his total WaR. Players like Trout and Betts, who are much more complete players than Harper because they are also elite defenders will have much higher WaR values. Harper's best value to the Phillies will be if the DH is extended to the NL during the life of his contract, something that is a very real possibility during the next round of CBA negotiations that will be occurring in the next few years. The other factor with Harper is fan recognition. The Phillies sold over 100K tickets in the first 3 days after he signed. Harper Phillies jerseys will sell like gangbusters and generate a lot of additional revenue for the Phillies. More ticket sales means more fans in the park,more merchandise sales and more concession sales. More demand overall for Phillies baseball, and if combined with a window of contention because of additions like Harper, Realmuto, and McCutchen, the result will be the Phillies can demand more money when their local TV contract is up for renewal in a few years, which means they will rake in even more money (and playoff appearances are additional revenue as well), so the investment in Harper's contract, while pricey, will bring back more in revenue increases than they will pay out for it. The business of baseball and the thinking behind decisions is not always just about the stat sheet or the on the field impact. -M Agree with this almost entirely except for one minor quibble, that being that the threshold for "star" players is higher than .800 OPS. On the Pirates last year, they had three players (Francisco Cervelli, Corey Dickerson, and Gregory Polanco) exceed that, while none of them would be considered "stars". You probably have to set the minimum at .850, and that is still going to allow some non-star players to slip onto the list (guys like Miguel Andujar or Nick Castellanos both got above that level, and neither of them is really a "star"), but it eliminates good but not great players like the three Pirates mentioned above. Beyond that, as a measurement tool, OPS is flawed because it places equal value on both On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage, which benefits big-power, low-hitting skill players more. For example, last year's Rangers had two players finish with an OPS of .810, but they came at it very different ways. Joey Gallo had an OBP/SLG split of .312/.498, buoyed by him hitting 40 homeruns, while Shin-Soo Choo had a split of .377/.433; Choo hit half as many homeruns (just 21), but got on-base (and thus, made fewer outs) 6.5% more of the time than Gallo. As such, from a oWAR perspective, Choo was worth 3.1 oWAR, while Gallo was only worth o1.7 WAR, simply because Gallo made far more outs and was a less-valuable hitter to the team overall, even with a pronounced advantage in HR.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 14:38:50 GMT -5
Taking a walk means you are avoiding pitcher's pitches. Pitcher's pitches lead to outs, not hits. Putting a pitcher's pitch in play usually results in an out that doesn't score runs, doesn't advance runners, leads to double plays and shortens innings. The goal of hitters is always to keep the inning going, advance runners, and get on base, and all of that is accomplished by avoiding outs. Batting average does not encompass and reflect all of that. OBP reflects more of it, but not all. The most encompassing reflection that though is OPS-on base percentage plus slugging. Bryce Harper was a top 20 player in OPS last year despite hitting only .249. An OPS of 1.0 or higher is the creme de la creme-only 4 players achieved that last year-Trout, Betts, JD Martinez and Christian Yelich. Trout and Betts haven't hit free agency yet (but Betts just got $20 million as his annual salary in arbitration) and both will likely get contracts bigger than Harper. JD Martinez's contract last year was not as big as Harper's, but he was several years older than Harper, and that affects value in MLB. I am not familiar with Yelich's contract situation, so cannot comment there. Those with an OPS of .800 or better are your star players. Harper has had only one season below .800 (2014 an injury shortened season where his OPS was .767). He is also only 26-and the base line assumption based on Bill James crunching of numbers of just about every major leaguer who ever played-is that players do not reach their full potential until their year 26 season, at which point they plateau for several seasons before they slowly begin to decline. Most players do not reach free agency before their age 28 season because most don't make a major league roster before age 22. Harper is one of the few who made the majors at a very young age (and it is happening more often recently so doesn't seem quite as rare now, but Harper was the first of this current trend to make a huge impact at a very young age and the first to hit free agency during his age 26 season-which is why the contract is so much and so long. The contract should cover all of his peak and the annual salary lessens at the end of the contract when he will be in his decline years. The problem with Harper is that he is not a very good defender, and that will detract from his value over time. When measuring the other darling stat of the new generation WaR (Wins Above Replacement), his offensive WaR totals are among the elite, but his defensive WaR is a net loss, so lowers his total WaR. Players like Trout and Betts, who are much more complete players than Harper because they are also elite defenders will have much higher WaR values. Harper's best value to the Phillies will be if the DH is extended to the NL during the life of his contract, something that is a very real possibility during the next round of CBA negotiations that will be occurring in the next few years. The other factor with Harper is fan recognition. The Phillies sold over 100K tickets in the first 3 days after he signed. Harper Phillies jerseys will sell like gangbusters and generate a lot of additional revenue for the Phillies. More ticket sales means more fans in the park,more merchandise sales and more concession sales. More demand overall for Phillies baseball, and if combined with a window of contention because of additions like Harper, Realmuto, and McCutchen, the result will be the Phillies can demand more money when their local TV contract is up for renewal in a few years, which means they will rake in even more money (and playoff appearances are additional revenue as well), so the investment in Harper's contract, while pricey, will bring back more in revenue increases than they will pay out for it. The business of baseball and the thinking behind decisions is not always just about the stat sheet or the on the field impact. -M Agree with this almost entirely except for one minor quibble, that being that the threshold for "star" players is higher than .800 OPS. On the Pirates last year, they had three players (Francisco Cervelli, Corey Dickerson, and Gregory Polanco) exceed that, while none of them would be considered "stars". You probably have to set the minimum at .850, and that is still going to allow some non-star players to slip onto the list (guys like Miguel Andujar or Nick Castellanos both got above that level, and neither of them is really a "star"), but it eliminates good but not great players like the three Pirates mentioned above. Beyond that, as a measurement tool, OPS is flawed because it places equal value on both On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage, which benefits big-power, low-hitting skill players more. For example, last year's Rangers had two players finish with an OPS of .810, but they came at it very different ways. Joey Gallo had an OBP/SLG split of .312/.498, buoyed by him hitting 40 homeruns, while Shin-Soo Choo had a split of .377/.433; Choo hit half as many homeruns (just 21), but got on-base (and thus, made fewer outs) 6.5% more of the time than Gallo. As such, from a oWAR perspective, Choo was worth 3.1 oWAR, while Gallo was only worth o1.7 WAR, simply because Gallo made far more outs and was a less-valuable hitter to the team overall, even with a pronounced advantage in HR. No single stat is going to be perfect at encapsulating the entirety of what makes a good player. OPS does as well as it can because it encompasses a lot of different things. As for the .800 OPS mark-there were 63 players who achieved that and had enough plate appearances to qualify out of 130 some odd qualifiers-and with 30 teams having an average of 12-13 position players each it marks either the top half of eligible hitters or the top 20% of all hitters if you use it as a cut off. Even more, a .500 slugging and a .300 OBP as the standard cut off points for measuring quality, so combined that puts .800 as the cut off point. Star may have been the wrong word, I was trying to avoid elite, but let's say it's the measure of an effective contributor. WaR may be more comprehensive than OPS, but there are two different standards for measuring WaR and they sometimes provide vastly different scores for the same player. And home ballpark can wreak havoc with a lot of the defensive measures of WaR, which to me makes it a slightly less reliable stat because of the extreme variation in the splits of some players. And as far as favoring the power guys, well even in its heyday, MLB and its fans have always thought home runs were sexier than singles and getting on base. Tony Gwynn may have been one of the best all time OBP guys, but guys like Dave Kingman, who was essentially a low average high strike out home run and RBI guy got as much press as Gwynn at the times they careers intersected. Gwynn won the batting title in '84, hitting .351, while Kingman only hit .268 (which was 22 points higher than his career average, but he hit 35 home runs to Gwynn's 5 and had 118 RBIs to Gwynn's 71. Gwynn was the better player by OPS standards and was better by 4 games in WaR, but Kingman was the sexier player in fans eyes because of the homerun and was still getting good contracts even though he was at the tail end of his career because of it. Baseball will always value the home run disproportionately to all other stats. -M
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Post by Jesse on Mar 12, 2019 13:58:33 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2019 8:36:32 GMT -5
Happy Opening Day. The boys of summer are back. Let's get our baseball on!
-M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 28, 2019 21:23:53 GMT -5
Happy Opening Day. The boys of summer are back. Let's get our baseball on! -M I took the day off to say home and watch baseball all day. The Sox are failing pretty thoroughly, but the deGrom-Scherzer pitching duel was great, and thanks to the free MLB package, I got to see Harper and Machado's first ABs.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 29, 2019 12:58:50 GMT -5
Sox project to 0-162. Another lost season.
Mariners project to 162-0. World Series champs for 2019.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 14:50:41 GMT -5
Sox project to 0-162. Another lost season. Mariners project to 162-0. World Series champs for 2019. You've been listening to sports talk radio again haven't you? -M
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 29, 2019 14:52:20 GMT -5
Sox project to 0-162. Another lost season. Mariners project to 162-0. World Series champs for 2019. You've been listening to sports talk radio again haven't you? -M Just telling you what the stats guys are telling me.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2019 14:53:42 GMT -5
You've been listening to sports talk radio again haven't you? -M Just telling you what the stats guys are telling me. Well then on the upside, Jackie Bradley Jr and Edwin Nunez are on pace to each steal 162 bases.... -M
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 29, 2019 15:26:47 GMT -5
Just telling you what the stats guys are telling me. Well then on the upside, Jackie Bradley Jr and Edwin Nunez are on pace to each steal 162 bases.... -M Counting on that. Already traded for Nunez in my fantasy league. Gave up Trout (0 for 6 with 3 K's yesterday). Getting out while I can.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 29, 2019 15:33:42 GMT -5
Following opening day my fantasy baseball team is in first place. I proposed we just call the season good at this point.
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