sk7326
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Everything posted by sk7326
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Groundballs are fine - although they had a giant sucking sound at 3B last year. In particular, when you play half the games at Fenway, keeping balls out of play is a pretty good idea. Masterson always had a ghastly split against lefties - the Red Sox were hoping that perhaps since that is the cavernous part of Fenway that the stink could be limited - clearly that did not happen.
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Lot of strikeout pitichers on that ERA- scale. fWAR uses FIP not xFIP anyway - asserting normalizing homeruns to fly ball rate is a bridge too far. Trends don't negate evaluating each snowflake individually - but the pitchers I want, especially as the season gets late and the teams get good, are dudes who miss bats (while pitching to contact). They create lots of good outcomes.
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Exceptions do not negate trends at all ... and (for instance) Maddux' peak were plenty competitive with the strikeout thing. It is the best of the box score indicators.
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I would submit that the pitchers who consistently get batters out strike out a lot of them - the world of low strikeout, consistently effective is pretty small. strikeouts might be fascist, but they do a pretty good job at measuring a pitcher's effectiveness. (and obviously rate based)
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No - because the truth underpinning the differences is very squishy (which is why measuring it is so difficult). Do pitchers influence non-homerun outcomes? Fangraphs by using FIP says no. Baseball reference - by starting with runs allowed, puts more in the pitcher's court (it adjusts for team defense and stuff later). The answer - I think is "pitchers can". But it is not a lock - and not all pitchers with good results get consistently good batted ball results. But some do - and that has to be respected. It'd be nice if the stat offered a one-stop place to say "he's good" or whatever. But that there are a couple of flavors each with different key assumptions provides more information. Price has had a significant BABIP spike and homerun-FB spike, while the K-rate and walk rate have not really changed. For the most part "betting the fluke" is the percentage play. Doesn't make the game watching easier though.
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Well, FIP is a little simplistic since it implies zero control of non homerun batted balls - which is not always true, although it is a fair first approximation. ERA can be very team dependent (and indeed the definition of an earned run - is largely byzantine and kind of stupid)
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Clearly after the adjustment things have gone better for Benintendi. OPS is not amazing - but this being minor league baseball, that doesn't say a hell of a lot - aside from that at a young-ish age he is hanging at the big time prospect level. Whether he is ready for the show is about more sophisticated (and some less) than that.
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Compact swing - I don't think he is crazy undersized like Pedroia was (and Pedroia it was undersized with a swing that simply should not work) ... but just his background implies being a fast mover
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Before looking at sarcasm alert i had a reply here
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Moncada's potential with the bat is a lot higher. Now Swihart probably won't have to move positions - while he has not been a great catcher the actual evidence is fairly scant - but Moncada's bat projects anywhere. So even if (highly probable) he has to move to a corner (because 2B built like Dez Bryant are for the most part non-existent) he will profile as an all-around threat. He is the one truly untouchable bat.
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Maybe. Kopech is a little further along, but has a pretty rock solid knucklehead rap sheet. As if often the case - I don't argue the acquisition (you are making a leap of faith here, certainly his work with the cutter shows some reason to believe this is not a fluke - although currently his health is an outlier to the rest of his career) so much as the price. Flags fly forever and whatnot.
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That place is basically not at Low-A ... I am amazed sometimes that fans don't get this. Winning is a very tangential goal outside of the bigs. Whether a prospect has had a good season or not involves something a bit more intricate than simply getting outs. Scouting the stat line is exactly that ... using minor league numbers (where winning is not a primary goal) to divine characteristics about the player's future in the bigs. The biggest thing for an 18 year old in a full season league (this is true for Devers in Salem as a child for the level) is that they have not been overwhelmed.
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There is inherent risk in pitchers that young which makes dealing them easier than dealing young position prospects. At the same time - a pitcher striking out almost a batter an inning as the youngest player in all of Low A with 95-99 velocity is pretty darn interesting ... age and performance for level is always noteworthy ... when a team signs a guy for whom the industry brings up "young Pedro" without howls of derisive laughter, you have to pause. I will not many of the posters will snivel at some future point about the weakness of org pitching and where is the ceiling? I know where the ceiling went. I am a bit surprised at the Hulk Smash approach taken with a Top 20 prospect and how little track record it actually brought back. Nobody is untouchable, but a big market has the luxury to keep the high ceiling guys ... especially with a vibrant farm system. This deal makes sense for Boston on a basic level - at the same time, San Diego clearly had to be thinking "you're giving us what??!!!"
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Hooray for scouting the stat line!
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it's not his job to make the kiddos happy today - his job is to do best by the franchise. Now he might have done that - but nothing about Pomeranz says "give up one of the best pitching prospects in the minors". Now his improvement and durability might not be dumb luck - but the Red Sox paid a price as if it will stick, and that is a very aggressive assumption to say the least.
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I like the spirit without liking the target. This sort of price is one I would have preferred on a bigger fish - or a Verlander sneak attack as we had posited in the past.
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first season with 100 IP pitched. Last three seasons in pitcher wonderlands. Pomeranz improvement might be real - Sox paid a heavy price to find out. Hey, the Dodgers liked Delino DeShields too.
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the logic is fine - but the choice of pitcher is not really. A team with the big dollars the Sox has has a farm system to produce ceiling and then sell the other stuff. If you snivel about org lacking pitching star power - this is what happened.
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An All Star whose track record is exactly one half of a season. For all the sniveling about the Porcello trade - from a valuation perspective this is quite a bit sillier.
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It is hard to argue against the ruling - arbitration results have very very wide deference in these areas. That said - shame on the union for letting itself get screwed over constantly. I understand why - careers are short, and paychecks are paychecks. But then there shouldn't be any whining about how other sports get guaranteed deals - the reason they do is because the players ask for it. I remember a while back Howard Bryant had a fascinating tweetstorm about the 1987 strike - and how much it basically destroyed the union's ability to be any sort of useful counter to management. I was 9 back then and most focused on complaining about the players on the field ... but you see the sort of all star team of players there crossing the picket line ... Joe Montana, Mark Gastineau, Tony Dorsett ... how can a players association hold together with that sort of star power telling them to f off. (yes I know Doug Flutie is also in the collective)
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2016 MLB Draft Thread.
sk7326 replied to Hugh2's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
They almost always sign - especially with the current rules. If he doesn't sign - it's the Red Sox fault - his demands were no secret. He will get signed. -
Definitely true - although Kimbrel has also been micromanaged ... makes Ziegler even more useful to have.
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He came up as a SS - so almost certainly yes ... and from what i remember when he signed, the arm profiles for a corner OF spot if need be
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It is not dire - the question is if you think AA has the best left field option available, when do you do it. The interesting thing is whether Benintendi or Moncada would get the nod - you could argue for both ... the latter either going to LF straight or to 3B and move Shaw.
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only they know if he is ready - depends on the kid. But best player in best college baseball conference - him lighting up Single A was not a surprise. He has made the adjustment in Portland. Like Betts, he has conquered everything they've thrown at him. We'll see if he gets promoted to AAA - which is worth seeing an adjustment, although AAA is a taxi squad as much as anything. The precedent is there for high achieving college bats to move quickly.