moonslav59

White Sox deal Kimbrel to LAD for AJ Pollock. Reports say the Red Sox were also inquiring about the RH'd Pollock, Makes me wonder, if Bloom is working on a deal, as teams look to trim their rosters.

Like we can't replace Ralphie, if Shaw sputters?

I'm optimistic on Hill. My only worry is his about his health.

Again, I was all for signing Suzuki at more than what he got. I like the Story signing but would have preferred Baez by a hair. I hope we keep Bogey, but when someone offers him an obscene amount of money, I would not top it.

He made some good points, and poof- my hopes were dashed.

I see Houck and Whitlock getting more innings. I had originally thought Seabold was ready for the bigs, but MVP talked me out of that hope. Maybe Crawford or Winckowski. Bello might impress enough to come up later in the season. I see Groome as a dark horse. Soxprospects has DHern, Brian Keller, Thomas Pannone and Kyle Hart as other AAA syarters and Belloe and Groome starting in AA.

It looks like we may need to pick 1-2 players not currently on the 40. I think the league should have increased to 40 to 42, when they went from 26 to 28.

I could see him at .220 18 58 .295 OBP .400 SLG .695 OPS

I like Hill more than I liked Richards or Perez, at this time, last year. I like Wacha about the same as Richards and more than Perez. Neither is by a lot. Having Houck for a full season will help, and maybe more innings from Whitlock can make up the difference. As of now, I'm expecting more innings fro Sale, but maybe Eovaldi gives us less. I think our starters look about the same as they did, last March. (Remember, ERod was a huge question mark.)

Maybe the A's see something hardly anyone else sees, but I can't help but think we could have bettered that offer and hardly noticed our farm weakening.

How about Danish for a cup of coffee?

We could have given them 3 guys worth what the guys they got are worth. Even 4 or 5

lmao

So, you quit bashing Pivetta, for now. Good to see.

Incurable.

BTV has these values: 14.1 Manaea 0.2 A Holiday for 2.4 E Angeles 0.5 A Martinez Did the A's get cash, too? It looks like they got hosed. BTV equivalence Sox players: 2.6 Bonaci 2.6 Arroyo 2.5 R Hernandez 2.2 Murphy and 1.6 Cannon, Chacon, Wong 1.5 Liu 1.4 Lira, Lopez

And to think subjectivity does not play a role and that BA and other traditional stats are solid, concrete facts, and then accuse others of using WAR in the same way, which nobody does, is baffling, to me.

fangraphs is better for time periods (to the day, if you wish, which B-R can do under only the game log's page) and advanced individual team stats.

Like Old Red never goes "overboard" when defending his positions- many as warped as warped can be, I might add. It's only when he disagrees with an opinion that he: 1) assumes you are stating your opinion as fact (wrong) 2) going "overboard" defending it by actually using facts, data, and worst of all sabermetrics (wrong) 3) then, when you get him corners, he says something like "that's when I change the question" or some absurd catch phrase he likes.

One more thing about BA, and you've brought this up about fielding percentage, too. Who calls an error an error? A subjective person, so if one player gets a hit on a certain play, but another gets an error on the exact same play, their BAs would be skewed. Now, it all is supposed to work out over a long period of time, but errors are judged by the home team's scorer, not some unbiased person, so some players might be helped or hurt over the long run. Of course, one could and should argue the observers used in UZR/150 are subjective and biased, too, and they'd be right, but at least they are trained and calibrated and rotated.

I think it comes down to FIP, something I think has value but can skew some good pitchers numbers, if they have low K rates but consistently get weak hit outs.

Nobody "accepts" fWAR or bWAR as true value, and I can understand that seeing some wide differences in a few selective players can make one feel like these guys are just stabbing at it in the dark, but they are actually using some pretty sophisticated and scientific methods based on what value certain acts done in baseball lead to runs or allowed runs. To me, I'm thinking they do a better job at determining the whole value player A vs player B than I can do in my head, based on just my own limited observation and a few crude stats that often miss the mark, too. I remember when RF/9 first came into popularity. It was certainly eye-opening to see one SS could make 100-150 more plays than another in the same amount of innings, but then people started saying, but player B plays on a team with a lot of strike out or fly out pitchers, so it's skewed. (They were right to a certain degree.) Now, fielders are observed by trained and calibrated professionals. Does that make it perfect or fool-proofed? Hell, no, but at least someone is watching every play of every games- something I don't even reach 1/29th of over a season. They measure how many playable balls are hit to a player and how many times an out is recorded. They measure difficulty factors and error rates. It has to be better than what I or any one person can do in their head by just watching 162-maybe 300 games a year. It's far from perfect but, to me, it beats the hell out of my own observations. I try to watch every single play of every single Sox game, every season. I rarely watch any other games, so I just see the opposing players vs our own players. One observation I have made is about fielding- something I loved and was good at when I played the game for a couple decades. I notice when the opponents make spectacular play after spectacular play at SS mush more than ours does. I'm thinking, to myself, man-o-man, I wish we had a SS who could have the range and athletic ability these other teams have. Then, I look at UZR/150 and DRS, and my observations are confirmed. It doesn't mean I think my opinion is 100% fact, but I do convince myself that I was right all along. I try hard to not sound like I am stating something that is not up for debate, but that does not mean I don't hold some opinions I think can not be changed. I assume everyone feels the same way about some of their beliefs, and some of those beliefs might be polar opposites to mine, I'm fine with that and actually welcome that. I love a healthy debate based on logic, reason and evidence. I have changed my opinion on a few things. At first, I thought Ellsbury and Nomar were obvious plus defenders, but over time and deeper observations, I came to realize they were not. Actually, Nomar was okay early in his career and Ellsbury turned into a plus defenders after a few years, but I do realize I can and have been wrong many times over and will be again.

That's one reason I have both on ignore.

WAR was never meant to end all debates.

This is the crux of the whole thing, to me. People had no beef with people who claimed so-and-so was better because he hit more HRs or had a higher BA, because the guy was just stating some facts that supported his opinion, but when people use WAR, somehow people think they are saying "s0-and-so is better because he has a better WAR- END OF DEBATE." Not a single poster has ever said WAR is the be-all-end-all numbers that ends debate. In a way it is a fact, but in no way different than the amount of HRs a player hit is fact. It's just a fact used to support opinions- something baseball fans have been doing for decades and decades.