rjortiz

Love that the Yankees won. BTW, this is Crespo. YOTN, sorry for what I did. I was a 20 year old dumb f*** at the time.

This isn't football. You don't draft for need.

Didn't you just do that?

Lackey and his agent should understand it too. They took a risk when they put that clause in the contract. It didn't work out. You still have to honor that contract. Felix Hernandez has it in his contract if he gets hurt, but there are already thousands of cases of MLB players playing on one year options at the minimum. How about Mike Trout? Mike Trout posted two consecutive 10 WAR seasons for $1 million. The Angels decided to be nice to him and gave a full $1 million for his likely 10 WAR 2014. Should he have "retired" and not have played for the $2 million he got for three years of Hall of Fame level production? He would have had a better case than Lackey. Koji Uehera would have had a case by this logic as well. The amount of the contract doesn't mean it stops being a binding document. Why didn't he, and why won't John Lackey retire? Their teams still own the rights to that contract. Lackey could retire until 2020 if he wanted to. He still will have to pitch for the Red Sox for $500,000. He couldn't even pitch for the Yomiuri Giants.

How many teams are in your league?

I love day baseball when you are too sick to leave the house.

What about Hernandez? Would you be able to guess that he would murder three people?

This guy is a monster.

Lackey could retire, but the Red Sox would still have his rights. He has no leverage.

Red Sox paid him $30.50 million when his elbow was causing him problems in 2011 and 2012. Pitching for the minimum in 2015 would still be a good deal for Lackey.

The two problems with OPS are that all events are not created equal, (OBP component) and OBP is much more valuable than SLG%. Despite that, it is better than every traditional statistic.

I agree with you. I just saw the post about a single scoring two runs, and the question about the difference in value of singles and walks. Batting average is a very bad statistic, and it only lives because "Old Baseball Men" are terrified of high school mathematics. I remember the outrage when ESPN started showing OBP with the other traditional statistics. I can't imagine what is going through Harold Reynolds head when he sees wOBA. wOBA is just a linear equation. It's not calculus. You don't even need to do the math if you know how to use Excel. I can't think of any other reason why baseball analysts, or personnel would be against how the statistic is calculated. No one would disagree that certain events in baseball will lead to more runs on average. Why not use the statistic that considers that?

They are making some attempts to engage fans through social media, and have produced some shows that have "hip" celebrities (does Fat Joe count?) saying YOLO and swag which somehow relates to baseball. The WBC, Japan, and Australia trips are clearly a secondary priority. FIFA shuts down domestic leagues to stage friendlies, qualifiers, and tournaments. MLB puts pitch limits on pitchers, and the best don't even play during the WBC. The Japan and Australia trips is just one series a year. MLB's biggest problem with young people is that most of them are priced out of stadium, and now they are starting to get priced out of watching on TV. MLB has to know this, and almost certainly could care less.

Not much of a predictive measure, and is subject to wild fluctuations due to sample size. Also, it is dependent on other batters getting to scoring position.

http://www.fangraphs.com/library/principles/linear-weights/ The scenario you presented happens enough to make a single more valuable than a walk on average.