a700hitter

Yes, Castillo is starting to play like the player that we hoped he would be. Hopefully, he will get even better. I have liked Shaw's live bat since Spring Training and was surprised that most people considered him a career AAA roster filler type. What do we do with Hanley? I am unconvinced that he will improve enough in LF to justify keeping his bat. I see 2 choices for him. Move him to first base before 2015 is concluded to see if he can handle it or trade him and eat a chunk of his contract. I am not in the camp thinking that he is our DH in waiting. Ortiz, our best hitter again in 2015, will be back at DH in 2016. Even if he slides next season, he is likely to get enough ABs to vest for another season. If he vests, I would think that it is more than a 50-50 chance that he returns in 2017. By 2018, Hanley will be in the last year of his contract with us. I don't see the upside of having him butcher 3 seasons in the OF to get one season of him at DH. Pack him up and ship him off. His bat isn't worth wrecking the defense and putting on his dog show act.

AAA trash

Shaw has decent power for AAA trash.

And the acid freak chimes in...

I am not defending iortiz. He can state his own case. I am making my own comment about U.N.

He can speak for himself on this.

He'll bet money on something that can't be established with certainty so he can claim victory regardless of the outcome and not pay. Betting money on what someone thinks ... ? Does Vegas have any betting lines on things like that? LOL!!

Unless they are rookies of the quality of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood it almost never works out.

He'll never bet you. No one should ever bet with you. You are too good at it! LOL!

We shall see.

It's not a solution if Ben still makes the calls.

Just an observation.

Basically, Bengie can't do his job and he needs help and mentoring.

Still a pencil necked geek.

Dipoto looks like a dweebie twit/. It's no wonder that he couldn't stand up to Scioscia. He should fit in perfectly in John Henry's world of pencil necked mealy mouthed geeks

and humans interpret stats with all the same human failings.

I don't think the problem is bias, but rather that it is hard to follow a large group of players close enough and often enough to generate reports that are completely reliable. The metrics help the scouts by either confirming or not their opinions. So, the stats are very very important to help them do their job. I really strongly believe that within your own organization, the scouting reports are more important because you see those guys every day. The coaches should know more about their own players than stats could tell them. As far as bias goes, that can enter into decisions whether done by scouting or metrics. The Red Sox believed that Hanley as a SS would be athletic enough to play the OF. That was a bias that proved to be incorrect. It really wouldn't have taken much scouting to see that he just doesn't have the instincts to be successful in the OF.

I don't agree with this. I think a trained scout can process information that cannot be conveyed through stats. The human mind is still the most advanced computer.

My niece was a Marlins season ticket holder for years. She was a season ticket holder in 2003 when they won. Her favorite player was Josh Beckett. He was supposedly pretty nice with the fans and I think he would hang out and drink at local places. She has been to one game at the new place. It's too far a drive for her and she told me that they put it in the worst place possible in that part of FLA. I am not familiar with the neighborhood. She told me that people wouldn't attend games there, and I put stock in her opinion as she has been living in that part of Florida for around 15 years. You are confirming what she has said, although she liked the stadium a bit more than you. That might be because she drank too much at that game. LOL!!

You really did a lot in a short time span. Astoria is a great value. It's minutes from Manhattan and much much cheaper. Lot's of good restaurants and bars far below Manhattan prices. It's a bustling area , but very much a residential neighborhood. LIC is still developing. When I worked there from 2020-2008 it was very industrial, but it has been transitioning to more of business office/residential area, but at night it is desolate. In Astoria, there is a lot of nightlife -- sports bars, restaurants etc and some people just out for a stroll. Brooklyn now has some of the most expensive real estate. I am sorry that my family moved. LOL!!

I don't know what they are doing, but the results are horrible. They are going to have to figure out what is wrong with their process. There is something fundamentally wrong if they are this consistently bad with one of the biggest payrolls.

Stats are needed because you can't get enough coverage with scouts and the consistency and quality of the scouts would vary too much. Ideally, you would clone your best scout about 50 times and send him to every major and minor league game and high school and college too. Lol. You might need to clone him 200 times. Lol! You can't clone your best scouts so you need the stats to target the efforts of your limited scouting resources. I don't think an organization needs to do a lot of advanced metrics on their own players. If they don't know more about their own players from watching them day in and day out than the stats could possibly tell them, there is something wrong with the organization. Stats are necessary part of the whole process, because there are hundreds of games going on at various levels-- college, minors, independent leagues and international.

How did you enjoy your time in the NY metropolitan area? BTW, going to see the Mets was a good move. Nice stadium and they have a truly special pitching staff. I was at the game last night and saw deGrom for the first time in person. I think he might be better than Harvey and Syndegard. They all sit at 95-98 and they all have excellent command of the Zone. I lwas in the upper deck last night behind home plate so I had a great vantage point for how he works the corners. This kid never throws anything over the middle of the plate. If he misses his location, he misses off the corner. Yet, he throws a very high percentage of strikes. I haven't seen Matz, but a few of my season ticket holding friends have told me that they think he may be the best of the bunch. That is hard for me to fathom after seeing the other three. After last night's game, CarGo said that deGrom has the best stuff of any pitcher that he has seen this season by far. He faced Harvey the night before, and he sees some pretty good pitchers in his division. Hitters say that he has a lot of movement. BTW CarGo is back to being the player he was before the injuries. On Monday night, I was at the game and he hit a line drive that I thought had a good chance to find the gap. It didn't have a lot of height so I was pegging it for landing a good 20-30 feet from the warning track, but then it looked like after burners kicked in and this ball was in the stands in a nanosecond. It generated a lot of buzz at the park. My son and I couldn't believe how fast it left the park and neither of us thought it was a home run off the bat. It was no cheapie. It went out to just the left of center field. I think it is about 370 at that point and his ball went over th original wall which is further back. It was one of the most impressive home runs that I have seen in a long time. Back to the Mets pitching. Niese is nothing to sneeze at either. He would be our number 1 and Dillon Gee who can't even make their staff compares very favorably with Porcello.

Each stat is an indicator and if a player performs consistently in each category, it is gives a reliable picture of the player. If performance among statistical categories is inconsistent it is more difficult to figure out what you have in a player. That is when scouting is really important. There is no single stat or even 2 stats are that are definitive. I am not a big believer in WAR. I don't think scouting is the best tool, but it is also the most labor intensive and expensive. Sabremetrics is in many ways a cost effective replacement, but an imperfect one.

This is why you can't have two rookies in the rotation next season. Kids hit bumps and can be very inconsistent even if they are very talented. The Yankees in 2009 decided to put Hughes and Kennedy in their rotation. Both were highly touted and talented. They are putting up decent careers. However, that first season was very bumpy and it ruined the Yankee's season.