a700hitter

It is as good as any other guess... I guess.

This is one of those instances when the statheads go off the rails into fiction and fantasy. Just nonsense.

XB provides good offense for a SS, but I don't think he has the bat speed or a consistent plate approach for him to have a breakout season. The slider is his krypronite. He is helpless against it unless he goes into slap mode, in which case he has no power at all. In order to drive the ball, he has guess right on a fastball. I have never seen a player with such completely different swings.

Hopefully Nunez is fully healthy, because he was big over performer for us in 2017, and we will have a full year of Devers. Moreland's toe should be healed, but I don't expect to much upside from him as he outperformed his career norms in 2017. While I hope that Betts, Bradley, and Bogaerts have breakout comeback seasons, I am not expecting it, especially not from Bradley and Bogaerts. I just don't think that Bradley and Bogaerts are all that good. I am more hopeful that Benintendi will have a breakout season, because we still don't know what his ceiling is. Is it reasonable for us to expect HanRam to stay injury free and put up an .850 OPS at this stage of his career. I think that is unlikely. Our catchers are meh offensively. Without obtaining a big bat, I see this as the same type of offense as last year, and only big years from Benintendi and Devers can push it to the next level.

Unless someone wants to step up to run the TalkSox Fantasy League, I will do it again in 2018. My goal every year is to have the teams be run exclusively by TalkSox members. We have been falling short of that. Please express your interest if you want to play for bragging rights against fellow TalkSox members. It doesn't take much time outside of the couple of hours for the draft to participate in the league. You don't need to hire an actuary to be competitive. Lack of time is not a good excuse, especially if you have a few thousand posts on TalkSox. I keep trying to get some of the more vocal statheads in the league to show their stuff. Fantasy Baseball is all about the stats, so step up and show us what you got. Maybe some of you posters who think I am an arrogant prick on TalkSox will take the opportunity to kick my ass and rub my face in it. I doubt it -- bunch of blowhard cowards. LOL!! Please post on this thread if you will be coming back for another season or whether you want to be a new entry. Entry fee is $20.

Performances go up and down during a career --even during prime years. Look at a guy like Porcello. He is an extreme example, but many guys experience ups and downs especially early in their careers. I find it hard to wring my hands about a player under performing if he performs to his career norms. Of course you need enough data to establish a career norm. We don't have that on Benintendi yet. We really don't know what he will be yet. We have 2000 PAs on Bradley, and although he had a terrible start to his career, he might have a career season that evens that out. I can see that his career norm will probably increase for a few years and last year was an inexplicable off year for him. Betts also has over 200 PAs. His career norms may be skewed upward by his 2016 performance. It is possible that 2016 is his career year. If so, 2017 isn't that far off his career norm, but it is an under performing year due to injury. HanRam has had .700 OPS seasons in 6 of the last 9 seasons. That is starting to become his norm. At what point does a .750 OPS season no longer become under performance for him. I think 6 out of 9 times is enough. I can't see calling Leon's 2017 an underperformance. His 2016 performance will end up being far and a way his career season. 2017 will be much closer to his norm.

Wow, you went through the trouble of quoting me 4 times. Thank you.

You are very thin skinned. I said nothing condescending to you.

If we want to look for a reason besides injuries, the biggest one I can see is that a 38 HRs and 1.000 OPS was removed from the lineup. That had a cascading effect imo. Mitch Moreland was not going to fill that giant hole.

And we got some big over performance from Nunez and Devers was arguably better in his first partial season than was Benitendi in 2016.

But as much as I would like to, I can't tie any of it to Farrell.

It is possible. In light of also trading Odorizzi, they could be cleaning house and going down the austerity road. I don't know how much a career .829 OPS 28 year old guy is worth, but $5 million doesn't seem unreasonable.

I find very little of the down performances to be inexplicable, and as much as I would like to tie some of it to Farrell, I can't. Almost all of it was injury related-- Betts (hand), Bogaerts (wrist), Pedroia (knee), HanRam (Shoulder), Holt (Concussion), Leon ( a leg injury that he played through but had him hobbled).

Numbers crunch on the roster? IDK.

Is it possible that they have a deal in place for him that hasn't been finalized? It is very strange.

Superior intellect, and as Spud would say -- the bigger penis. LOL!!

Maybe he has a problem that is such that Tampa couldn't in good faith offer him to other teams. It is strange just to DFA a guy in his prime years with his kind of talent, so I am lost as to why Tampa is just cutting ties. I am not buying that he has no trade value. The Rays just traded for a guy (CJ Cron) who is not as good as Dickerson.

How is that? I projected nothing onto anyone. I disagreed with her clearly stated opinion. But I have learned to expect you to take every opportunity to be a condescending prick.

There could be something wrong with him.

See my annotations above in red. Under performance due to injury is not the kind of under performance that can be rectified by coaching as Kimmi was discussing. Almost all of the under performance that was not injury related was attributable to a regression to career norms. Very little of the under performance is not attributable to very good explanation.

I think you are being overly sensitive. I don't see the "widespread under performance". You see it. I assume that your ideas are formed in your brain/mind. LOL!!

And they just traded Jake Odorizzi.

They designated Corey Dickerson for assignment? is there something wrong with him? That is shocking.

Condescending.

I think he is projecting stupidity onto others.