sk7326
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Everything posted by sk7326
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Any list you can appear on with Clayton Kershaw you are doing something right. Doubront is on a great run, and even if this is a bit of a fluke - he has clearly improved and started to harness his real talent.
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Most of these long term deals are bad ideas - but to win a bidding war, a team might accept that years 5-7 are worth it for the years 1-4. For the Yankees, flags fly forever - their free agent binge got them a title, so it worked in that sense. What did not work was desperately thin starting pitching. Burnett had been his whole career essentially a rich man's Felix Doubront, but behind Sabbathia there was a lot of "hope". And now with Sabbathia getting older, it looks doubly bad. Being the Yankees you expect some sort of turnover - how I don't know.
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Payroll is ALWAYS flexible (the owners can whine all they want, but ballpark is a license to print money and the TV station, better it go into the ballclub) - but not sure the money is best spend on resigning a 30 year old CF with injury history. If they could get him for 3 years, that is one thing - 5 years is a lot tougher. The financial commitment - who cares, not my money. They will need bullpen arms next season - but they always do. But relievers are a dime a dozen, almost none of them are reliable year to year - so you are better off building a bullpen this way. If they wanted to put De La Rosa or Ranaudo in the bullpen, that would be great though low probability. (bullpen a good way to break in future starters) This is an area where Tampa has shown a lot of people - it's a lot more cost effective to sift through other team's garbage and random guys in the farm than expending any sort of long term effort on relievers.
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Well Nomar batted LEADOFF right away
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I think he's a September callup too ... he can be added to the playoff roster without worrying about the Aug 31 deadline so there is no rush. THAT SAID, if there is a surprise promotion - this road trip is a perfect opportunity. Away from the Fenway distractions, some low profile opponents (though KC is above average and Toronto is not awful). Can slot him in 8th or 9th and move him up as needed. That said, playing the players in the right spots has been a strength of Farrell's.
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I don't think we disagree - indeed last year in the AL was a slam dunk. NL there were 5 guys in the same WAR ballpark - can't get too fired up about tenth of a run differences. The year Pedroia won in the MVP in 2008, Grady Sizemore was a 1 win clear of the field basically. That's not a large enough margin to call it a sure thing. Pedroia was 2nd that year - and an entirely defensible choice. The funny thing is the voters who named him probably used the stupid reasons like scrappiness, clutchiness and "ways to resemble David Eckstein".
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Weird OFs can also have an impact - like Fenway's LF ... it is hard to really capture that effect well. C and 1B measures are tough absolutely. But that is where the components matter. WAR is a good do everything stat - but yeah it is not sufficient to just write down the WAR leaders and stop there when looking at "who is MVP" or whatever.
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I noted it is a good training wheels stat if you have been raised on saves, pitcher wins and RBIs your whole life. But it has enough flaws to go to another place to measure offensive ability. Heck, the OBP part of the equation in some ways is sufficient - it is the fundamental job of a hitter.
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WAR is probably the best - whichever publication's version you use. That said, definitely consult the components there too. If a guy's WAR is all on the defensive side - then his value has to be looked at skeptically. We know defensive measurement is light years better than it used to be - but it is still much flimsier than the offensive measurements. Of course when you are nearly twice as valuable as your peers like Mike Trout was last year, who cares.
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That's fine - wOBA works for me - and it does look like OBP statistically which makes things easier to explain. OPS is good for simplicity I suppose, but an .800 OPS guy who is not getting on 30% of the time. (Hello Pedro Alvarez) is creating a lot less punch than say Dustin Pedroia. Granted, Pedro Alvarez' hulk-smash factor with homeruns is fun to see.
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Position matters a lot - that is the entire foundation of VORP and fancier things. Even if you don't consider anything else - the number of CFs who could hit like Ellsbury did in 2010 vs the number of LFs is a huge difference, and that has to be considered. That is the biggest part of the Boegarts prospect story, isn't it? If he is a full time SS, he is slugging at a position where nobody is getting production, while the Sox could stock 3B with an average guy and together they'd put together much more punch than Boegarts and an average SS.
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OPS is a terrible stat - but good training wheels. .800 is probably a good OPS, but without the components there is no value. Reasons OPS is lousy, without getting into fancy reasons like park effects: 1. Different denominators: maximum OBP is 1, maximum SLG = 4 (hit a homerun every time up) 2. OBP is WAY more important than slugging - roughly 40% more by the regression standards. Theoretically this is clear too. A 1.000 SLG team could hit 1 homerun every inning. A 1.000 OBP team would never be retired. 3. SLG treats all bases equally - when that is not true when considering the impact on scoring a run.
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Napoli has been okay, on pace for being a 3 win player, maybe a bit less. For 1/5 of Gonzalez' salary pretty good. Gonzalez was a case of the Red Sox (and frankly the industry) being fooled into thinking he was an amazing 1B when he is merely a good one. Most of the OBP was from being pitched around so much in San Diego - and his approach in 2012 was awful for so much of the season. He is a good 1B, but not Joey Votto or 2009 Albert Pujols, who he was being paid like. fWAR FWIW has Napoli at 2.2 and Gonzalez at 2.3. Really Gonzalez decline from his MVP-flavored San Diego/2011 Boston days has been sharp. His fielding and athleticism (by 1B standards) will ease the decline but his days as a true monster are probably done.
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man strikes out a ton - but he is also getting on at a solid clip. Not really a better option - and he has been solid. The strikeouts look bad but really don't matter.
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He is definitely the plan for Ellsbury's departure - I am expecting Ellsbury to be gone. Bradley to me has less ceiling, but chance for elite defense, already has an excellent batting eye (even with a .133 BA he was getting on base as much as WMB) and solid in the other areas. Yeah he is probably not a 50+ SB sort, but that matters way less than it seems. Also remember he had like 61 PA above single-A entering this season. The time to just get reps has helped.
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Not sure how much of an overpay it was ... it definitely was reflective of a sport that is starting to understand the value of defense and ballpark effects and not just batting average and RBIs. Elite defensive 3B whose bat more than justified it when you took out his horrid home park out of the equation. Red Sox paid him a little less, but I suspect it was quid pro quo. Red Sox did not want to tie up the position and Beltre needed a place where he could put up the counting stats for his reputation to be totally repaired.
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Beltre was a steal - helps to leave Safeco doesn't it. I get not signing him - though he is a HoF level 3B. Their plan made sense but when Youkilis' body broke down the 3B position became a hole. And when the injuries piled up in general, you get the "collapse" and then the 2012 disaster.
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Even then, when a dude can't play Center Field - it is hard to empty the farm anyway.
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Only one guy is paying attention to his career - so I don't blame him. But obviously the team can use him. I think the length was caused by the setback earlier. At least everybody is on the same page here now on his prognosis.
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Progress is not a straight line up. Even Mike Trout had a slow patch early in the year before getting back to his first year levels. Rizzo clearly has shown enough to commit good money to him. Middlebrooks is a little different in that a serious scouting problem that was a question even coming up the minors has bitten him - and usually "approach at the plate" is a skill that is very hard to teach. But yeah, he should be at least an average regular and he has not gotten there yet at all. Cespedes has had some shaky BABIP luck but yeah has struggled - but there are more tools than WMB. Machado has slowed a bit - but he's a definite future star sort.
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On Aug 31, everybody on the 25 man roster is eligible. Everybody on the disabled list is eligible. However, if anybody on the disabled list is STILL on the DL when the regular season ends - the team gets to replace that person with another player who was in the org as of August 31. So - considering Miller, Hanrahan and Bailey are all out for the season, that's 3 names right away. Kalish and Ross are also strong candidates to also still be on the DL by season's end. That's 2 more possible replacements. The Red Sox used this quirk in the rules in 2007 to get Ellsbury onto the playoff roster. And Aaron Sele's injury for Anaheim in 2002 allowed them to put K-Rod on in the same vein.
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Have hard time trading that much for any corner OF ... even with his age and homeruns.
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By my count, Sox will have probably 3-5 free playoff roster slots ... so Boegarts can be snuck onto the postseason roster without worrying about the August 31 date. That said, I think next week represents a really opportunistic time to add him to the club. Lesser opponents, quieter circumstances for a big debut.
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also - let's be honest ... no ML team really uses AAA as a prospect level anymore. It's a parking lot for guys the big league team need - so Workman heading back down really has no significance aside from just roster usage. At least he's getting paid still - this isn't the Patriots cutting Ross Ventrone every single week like they did in 2011.
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Obviously have no inside info here. HOWEVER - consider next week, 10 game road trip - three low profile-ish opponents (Houston, KC, Toronto). If Boegarts is coming - makes sense to bring him up next week and allow him to get his feet wet without the circus that would come with debuting at Fenway.