Dojji

I scrolled down to say exactly this, only to happily note that it was the first response. Good work MVP. I think that the difference is simply due to the improvement in pitching technique. I don't think we have more or fewer bandbox stadiums or caverns than we did in days gone by, I think the pitchers are ahead of the hitters at the moment and advances in hitting technique are eventually going to come along and catch them back up. Maybe at about the point when managers stop bunting in all but the most bunt-obvious situations.

hard to make that claim when this was a 21 year old pitcher who just hit a dinger. If your personality is in any way demonstrative, that will get a demonstration out of you. Call me crazy, but put me in that situation where I'd made a big play that NO ONE, including me, was expecting I'd be able to make, and pivotal to how the game turned out no less, you couldn't shut me up or keep me on the ground for the rest of the night.

Are those things sufficient upgrades to justify the expense of bringing them in over the decent, relatively inexpensive men we have at those positions now? And the problem with that is? It's a bad FO that only plans for the next 12 months after all.

Doubront improved his peripherals pretty much across the board this year. I imagine the team thinks there's further room for improvement, but it's hard to argue that he didn't successfully make progress. he does need to up his durability and get deeper into games, I'd say that's the last frontier for him right now.

I agree with this 100%. If you're getting the impression that I don't, then I'm not communicating my point very well. My point doesn't really have anything to do with Ye Olde Plate Discipline Debate. If he wants to strike out a ton and gets it done anyway, t hat's his lookout. But if he's going to strike out a lot, as in a high percentage of his PA's turn into strikeouts, that limits the number of remaining plate appearances that he has to get something useful done. The percentage of outs he makes that are strikeouts is irrelevant. The percentage of PLATE APPEARANCES in which he strikes out, impact how much his talent can come to the fore in the remaining plate appearances, in which he will make both non-outs, such as hits and walks, as well as other forms of out. So if you think of strikeouts as a bite taken wholesale out of a player's possible plate appearances, a percentage of at bats that were never going to be useful, the player has to find a way to work around that bite and get enough of his remaining PA's right, to be productive. The more a player strikes out, the harder a player has to work in the remaining PA's to get there from here. A player hampered in his consistency by excessive strikeouts, who doesn't have the huge long ball power of a guy like Reynolds or Dunn, can be really put behind the 8 ball in a hurry at the top levels of the game. What concerns me with Bradley is that that bite is proving to be pretty large throughout his minor league career -- not the biggest ever, but he's historically struck out about once in 5-6 at bats. Once in three plate appearances in his small sample size in the majors this year. It didn't slow him down much in the minors, but that was the minors. That's going to need to go down if he wants to stick at the game's highest possible level. Check out Lorenzo Cain for an example of a guy I actually find to be, not perfectly similar, but a half decent comp. The adjustment to the majors has taken awhile for Cain despite his stellar defensive skills and he went backward to an extent this year, and it's because he doesn't leave himself enough non-strikeout PA's to do anything useful with. if Bradley doesn't get that aspect of his game under control at least a little bit he's going to put up some years similar to Cain's before he figures it out. In some senses a lot of us might take that, especially given that Cain has been fantastic defensively, but lovers of offense may not see a ton of it from centerfield while this kid learns the game.

The problem is at what point is the value of the toolsy power completely undermined by the lack of discipline. Mike Moustakas is a pretty good current example of a player with the same kind of natural power tool, but is so far gone on the discipline side that he can't get anything useful from it. I could stand mark Reynolds. I could even stand Juan Uribe, another well-traveled example of the type that manages to stay in the big leagues due to the ability to defend well and occasionally run into one. But if all we get out of Middlebrooks is Mike Moustakas, I can't think of anyone on this forum who wouldn't have a problem with that.

Yeah, we'd all take those numbers 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. yes please. I just have my reservations about Bradley from the perspective of NEXT YEAR. I think that a player with merely OK contact ability is going to need time to adjust to big league pitching. Might he be able to do enough to provide decent value (~2 WAR) while he's learning on the job? Possibly. But I don't see a superstar level of performance in centerfield next year. I think we'll be doing aright to get the kind of year we got out of Coco his first 2 years here. I wouldn't call that chopped liver, but it's not Ken Griffey Sr. either. I'd be fine with that, if we weren't basically counting on him to do all that refining in one offseason and one Spring. I think if we expect Bradley to learn on the job, we'd better brace for some growing pains. That said with Victorino on the roster we have a decent ability to cover for Bradley if it becomes an issue, but people who are predicting great things from Bradley are confusing two issues -- Bradley should eventually be fanastic, but what's he gonna be in 2014? In 2015? You're putting a kid without a lot of experience in a pretty key position, even if he doesn't spit the bit, I would expect a learning curve and his numbers so far reflect that..

As outs, strikeouts aren't that significant. They're just an out. As indicators of player skill, they mean that the player didn't make proper contact with the baseball in that at bat. If they happen consistently at a high enough rate, the player has a problem making contact. Pretending that said player does not have problems making contact simply to sustain the narrive that we'll be fine without Ellsbury is an exercise in living in a dream world.

Navarro still has a shot. He's got some versatility and he's shown a bit of stick in the minors. If he can get a bigger sample size in the majors I'd expect him to be able to crack a roster as a half decent utility man. It may not happen. In fact it's fair to see the odds are against him. but it's not entirely off the table yet. There's no point in trying to defend myself though. I've seen this enough times to know that nothing I say is even going to register. you guys have always make up your minds and that's it, let no fact, opinion, or punch in the face convince you otherwise. People think I go into forums to troll them. The fact is that I put forward ideas with enough energy, and care little enough for the disagreements of influential forumites, that eventually the lion's share of the population turn out to troll me. And to keep the peace, the admins ban me, over and over again. That's just the way it happens. I put forward my ideas, go off the reservation, some influential veteran decides to put me in my place, I refuse to be put, the anthill is kicked over, chaos ensues, and the upstart is banned for daring to cross the groupthink line. It gets tiresome, but what can I do? I am what I am and they are what they are. I refuse to let that narrative play out here, so feel free to have your fun guys. Knock yourselves out -- literally. I'll be here putting my ideas out until Yeszir decides otherwise, and if you don't agree with my ideas, then disagree -- civilly. This gangbang thing is a waste of my time and a violation of forum rules, and I'm not going to rise to it anymore.

Nava, Kyle Snyder, and George Kottaras, and I'm claiming a win with Gabbard as well since he was a big help in 2007 when he came up and was very effective as a replacement for Schilling's rotation spot. They traded him at the right time, sure, but he came up big for the team at exactly the right time first. How many of these guys do you think I've really gone all that bonzo for? It's not as many as you seem to believe.

Comes down to batting average. I'm just not convinced Bradley's going to reach the level of contact skill people are projecting for him. His contact rates in the minors are not absurdly high. Sure he's young, but he's hit in the .270's range in the minors in both AA and AAA, and he's struck out quite a bit for a kid with only average to somewhat above average power. Throughout his run in the minors Bradley has struck out quite a bit for the type of hitter he is. Despite his good plate approach his strikeout to walk ratio is nearly 1:2. Not bad, but not exactly overwhelmingly good either. When you're a speed guy, making contact is the most important thing you can do to improve your ability to be useful. Bradley's contact tool is not advanced compared to some of his other skills, and that;s not a good area to be trailing in. Again, I'm not saying Bradley's going to suck. If I had to put money down on him, I'd say put him in the Coco Crisp 06-07 level of offensive performance, but without quite Coco's range on the defensive end. Expecting much more from him than that is ambitious, especially in his first 3-4 years in the major leagues.

Well he's a little farther right than even most of the GOP, call him a radical right winger most conservatives (like myself) will agree, but my position on that whole debate all along has been, as long as Thomas doesn't advocate sedition or violence against the government, why in the everloving hell is it any of our business? All this because the man didn't want to be used in a photo op by a President he dislikes. That should be his right as a free citizen, unless specific contract requirements state otherwise, and it was made clear at the time that they didn't. If this team could get along with "Jurassic Carl" Everett, I don't see why "Tea Party Tim" Thomas should have been singled out the way he was. His political outlook as such should have been used as fodder for jokes by the talk show crowd, and the occasional "humorous" one liner by Jack Edwards (if we'd beat the Caps that one series, I can just imagine the full Jack monologue that would have ensued). that should have been the end of it, and it's embarrassing to this region that it wasn't.

Some people just seem to struggle with the concept that someone can be aggressive at the plate without swinging at everything. this usually seems to come up in situations where a player with all the tools in the world is struggling and the team is simultaneously going out of its way to encourage that player to develop some offensive discipline. The underlying cultural assumption that a more selective hitter isn't trying as hard to help his team win at the dish as a free-swinger doesn't help.

None of what you say here is wrong, but I'm a big believer in taking the good with the bad and the bad with the good. Daisuke did play a big role in making the playoffs, winning the division, and sweeping the Rockies in the World Series, before he collapsed in subsequent years.

It led to a World Series and a Cy Young candidacy before it went poorly, at least concede that much. Matsuzaka was not nearly as advertized, but he definitely came through for us a few times in the clutch before it fell completely apart.

Your attempt to troll is noted and dismissed. Moving on...

I'll cop to the label, if you'll admit that occasionally, very occasionally, the stone reaches the top of the hill.

They're scouting him because he's an option. that's what due dilligence means. you look at all your options, even the ones you aren't seriously considering, just in case there's a chance you overlooked something important.

It comes down to OBP, because OBP is a measure of consistency. There is no sliding scale between OBP and power. OBP is simply a measure of how many times per 1000 playe appearances that you do something useful. If you're not doing useful things with a high percentage of your PA's you're not making the most of your other offensive talents, like power or speed, either. It's why modern sabermetrics stresses OBP so much, because it underlies everything else Middlebrooks has a low consistency level because his offensive skills is not good. Forcing him to improve those skills at the cost of a few at bats early in his career is a short term loss long term gain move, you'll get a much better player out of him in the long run if he can improve his approach at the plate even a little bit.

Wow you surrrrre convinced me

Of course it doesn't mean they'll all expoode into a broken heap of flaming gibs, but in an ideal world you give yourself enough redundancy to weather the storm in case yours does. Having a sufficient backup plan for what happened to Middlebrooks would have made us a better team this year. We got really lucky with Iglesias, and we still felt the pain at times.

When I say beating, I mean beating. A manager is going to give every player on his roster time to play. If the rookie is showing he helps the team win more than the veteran, then the rookie will play. If the manager or GM is convinced that with proper time, the rookie will easily help the team win more than the veteran, the rookie will be worked in around the veteran and get chances to learn and improve until he proves he's ready to go. it's part of the organic learning and succession process that is a part of baseball for as long as there's been baseball. In no way should a rookie ever be simply handed playing time with no competition unless you're 200% sure he's ready to go right now. All of our best players have had to earn their time the hard way -- through competition against other decent players. We've always had the redundancy to do something in the event of a meltdown. No one is just handed a job here. Imagine if, back when we were still in love with Wily Mo Pena in the 06-07 offeseason, we'd just handed him right field and told him to go gettum. That would have exploded in our face rather spectacularly, would it not? This despite the fact that he'd been highly effective for us in 06, even filling in nicely starting regularly down the stretch as things fell apart and people got hurt. My point is the same as it ever is here: Whether you love a prospect or you hate them you always have to be openminded enough that you give them a chance to prove you wrong, and always have a plan in mind for what to do if they manage it.

It's the best way for a fan to operate. I expect the franchise to know when to push the gas pedal more than I do when it comes to prospects, but this franchise is going to stack depth around their prospects as they work them in, it's their standard MO even when it occasionally bites them a bit. The good prospects find a way to beat out their competition and the others don't matter.

Sure they would, they'd just have to make the most of the chances they got when they got them, rather than be handed everything on a silver platter like we're some kind of small market team. if these prospects are really as good as you want to say they are they will find a way to rise to the top against professional level competition.

Gabbard turned out nicely for us in the limited chances he got to really put himself on display in the majors. he definitely showed that he had the talent to be productive before the trade and the injury. After the injury his command was shot to hell, which is a real pity. He didn't go on to have an ace type career, but he came up to help us bigtime at a time which (due to Schill's injury and Lester's cancer rehab) we really needed him, so if you'll forgive me, or even if you won't, I'm going to call my pick of Gabbard a solid base hit. And mind, I only started pulling for Gabbard after his big league debut when I thought he showed some mental toughness and some good stuff with that changeup of his.