moonslav59

It might be more. He might just take the option, and we might also sign him to an extension or redo his deal.

To me, OPS and OPS Against tell a big enough story, by themselves to determine if a player is doing well, average or badly. Sure, there are other factors, like defense, speed, timely hitting and intangibles not captured by these stats, but they both tell most of what I need to know. That being said, I'm not sure I'd agree Ottavino has been our 3rd best pitcher: OPS Against Leaders (150+ PAs against) .616 Whitlock .625 Barnes .642 Ottavino .673 Houck .679 Taylor .693 Eovaldi .697 DHern .709 Valdez .730 Pivetta .763 Sawamura'.770 ERod .847 Richards .848 Perez .942 Andriese Notables with under 150 PAs against .450 Bazardo (12) .615 Rios (98) .630 Davis (46) 1.013 Robles (54) Our Offense (150+ PAs) .897 Devers .881 Bogey .868 JD .817 Renfroe .813 Kike .791 Verdugo .787 Arroyo .712 Dalbec .650 Vaz .567 Marwin 80-149 PAs .728 Plawecki (134) .608 Duran (89) .554 Santana (113) .497 Cordero (136) Other notables under 80 1.242 T Shaw (12) 1.100 Schwarber (37) .930 MLB in 2021 (340 PAs) .896 Wong (14) .523 Arauz (32)

Agreeing with you, here, makes me think I have to reassess my whole thinking process. It would be nice to be able to make Seabold our 5th starter and use Houck as our new closer.

I didn't count 2020 for obvious reasons. Call it cherry-picking 2017-2019, but I also gave the numbers for 2015-2019. I', not locked into 3 categories. You can have 5 or 7. but either way, going by fWAR, Barnes will never fall into any average or below average category, if you make each category equal in numbers of pitchers, which is what comparing RP'ers is all about. I never argued he was anything better than a "role player." You tried to carry that over by assigning him the tag "average or below average" RP'er not player. I clearly explained what you were doing, but you kept claiming he was an average or lower RP'er. That is NOT what the charts show, but you'll never admit that. I'm not sure why you won't.

It's not a clear "safer choice." If he can get a 3-4 year deal this winter, that could be safer than not opting out and seeing himself get hurt or have a full season like 2020. Then, he may end up making less- overall. I don't think that is likely, but it is possible. One can view having a $60M/4 deal signed this winter is better than $19.4M/1. He may also get the Sox to restructure his deal, which would bring down his AVV. but he still ends up getting $60M/4 by the end of 4 years, with more front end loaded, which helps him, while the lower AVV helps us.

So, they should have an advanced high leverage stat?

No doubt. I could probably find someone else who got that and you'd think otherwise. At the time, I remember people thinking Kluber was the better guy at that price. Oooops!

Better than Robles, but I thought Taylor by default and the process of elimination method.

Beating up on bad teams doesn't always mean you sweep 'em all, but we better win, today!

And that's why that game hurt us more than we knew, at the time.

True, but they should look at what happened with the $10M deal (Richards) and the $6M deal (Perez), this year. That's what you get for the money on one year deals. Sure, you can get lucky, but it's not common.

That's how I think they'll view it, and depending on how he finishes the season, and with the thought that it's "only" a 1 year deal, I think they offer it. They may secretly wish he says no, because they'd rather have the sandwich pick, but they'd still rather have ERod for 1 year than not.

I agree, but some here thought he should have been our new closer before gametime.

I usually charge for lessons.

From 2017-2019, he's a role to solid player model on your fangraph chart, but all but 15 pitchers a year (48 in the last 3 years) had an fWAR of over 1.75. I am not denying what that chart says. Only 38 RP'ers a year are called "solid" or better by the chart out of over 200 with 30+ IP. "Solid is the middle designation of their 7 categories, so only15 are above average, only 23 are average and a whopping 200 plus are below average, if we go by your reasoning. My point is you are trying to say the chart says he is an average or below average RP'er. The chart does not show that or even imply that. If you issue is the English language and not understanding what the context surrounding the word average means, then I see how you got from point A to point B. In English, when you say someone one is average, it means when compared to others in the group you named. Had you named the group "all players," then a strong argument could be made that Barnes is below average in value. You named the group RP'ers, which means you were comparing Barnes to other RP'ers ONLY. So an average RP'er would not be the same as an average player in value. Here's how you chart breaks down by actual number of RP'ers in each group from 2017-2019 (divided each by 3 to get the average number of pitchers that fall into each category, each year): (2) 3.5 or higher WAR MVP (3) 3.5 to 3.3 WAR Super Stars (10) 3.3 to 2.3 WAR All Star (34) 2.3 to 1.75 WAR Good Player (70) 1.75 to 1.1 WAR Solid Player (180) 1.1 to 0.5 WAR Role Player (200+) 0.1 to 0.5 WAR Scrub (200)+ at 0 or below (30 IP+) Getting the average for each season from 2017-2019: 1 super star 3 all star (we know more than 4 RP'er made the all star games) 11 good 23 solid 60 role 70 scrub 70+ worse than scrub Barnes placed 21st in total fWAR in that time frame with a 3.5 fWAR. That comes to 1.17 per year or about a 1.2, but go ahead an take his career numbers up to 2021 but not including it, and call him a 3.6 over the 5 years for a 0.7 average year fWAR) making him a "role player" not a "solid player" had we used the 1.17 score. As a role RP'er he would have over 140 RP'ers worse than him and 38 better and about 59 the same. No way is that "average." As a solid RP'er, he'd have 15 better, 200+ worse and about 22 the same- way, way, way better than average. He's not an average RP'er. He's far from "below average" as you wanted to call him. You keep saying my method is flawed, but we are talking about AVERAGE RELIF PITCHERS, so we compare him to only RP'ers. That's how it works. I'm not cherry-picking stats. I'm using the data that compares RP'ers to each others using your preferred stat, fWAR (not mine).

He'll kick the Yanks again, after we beat their asses in the WC game. He'll call for Boone and Cashman's heads, again.

I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying baseball is not easy. It's not easy to hit a deep enough fly ball off any MLB pitcher at any given moment. He failed in his attempt. It doesn't necessarily mean he took the wrong attitude or approach. It could just mean, no matter how hard he tried to do what he needed to do, he just plain failed. Yes, the great hitters do a better job under that circumstance. Verdugo is not a great hitter, and he failed, last night.

The chart was not designed to show what RP'ers are average, above or below. You decided to try and do that- not them. The chart they created is labelling all players, and fangraphs takes a position that most RP'ers have a value of between a scrub and role player. Not just most, but practically all but about a dozen or two, each year. They would never call Barnes an average RP'er or below average RP'er as you said he was or tried to claim they were saying he was. You still don't get it. You say you know what "average" means, but you do not show you know it. If you want to say he's a below average player, that is a totally different thing, and that is what the fangraphs chart is showing. I have a 100 students. Most get between an 80 and a 90. They are average. If I compared them to college students, they'd be below average. Just use the term correctly, or admit you used it incorrectly. You can't and won't. You cling to the idea that Barnes was an average or below average RP'er, even though there are 2 worse for every 1 better. You want us to believe a RP'er in the top 33% or 50% is below average, because fangraphs calls him a scrub or role player. You are mixing up two clearly different forms of evaluation.

To his credit, he was really good at kicking his own team, when they were down, too.

LOL Schwarber lifted our morale, last night. It worked out very well.

I'm thinking, most of the times, the players turn themselves into that. The team is not encouraging them. Maybe their agent is.

Seems like we needed Scherzer, Rizzo, Schwarber and 3 RP'ers. Damn Bloom dropped the ball.

Verdugo needed a fly ball- not a weak pop-up. I don't have an issue with him swinging hard. It's not as easy as it might seem to just hit a deep fly ball.

Learn what the word average means. Why you keep sticking to that point is beyond me. No way has fangraphs ever said a 0.5 to 1.0 fWAR for a RP'er is below average, let alone 1.0+ like Barnes has been since 2017. Yes, I do have an issue with the terminology they choose to label RP'ers, but I am 100% certain they would never call Barnes average, let alone below average as you have tried to say they do by superimposing your term average over their charts that label players based on comps to everyday players and starters who play much more than RP'er. When you say average RP'er, you are comparing RP'ers to Rp'ers. How hard is it to just admit you used the wrong term? Barnes could certainly be called a below average players when compared to the other 26 players on a roster, but he is and has been way above the average RP'er in MLB, especially since 2017, which is the only Barnes I have been talking about.

That was an extra tough loss, last night. It's got my hopes wavering. It's never about one game, to me, but after this long stretch of coming up short and finding ways to lose, the game last night was a knife-twisting defeat. We've gone 20-25 in our last 45, and while that sample size is much smaller than the previous 83 game sample size, it's becoming harder and harder to think we can return to that early season form. You'd think adding Sale & Schwarber and more innings from Houck, the hopes for improvement would be getting stronger, but sadly, it has not, so far. I'm not giving up, by any means. We are still on the inside track of making the playoffs, while other teams are peaking in August. Much can change in 6 weeks and 34 games. We have to do much better vs weaker teams than we've shown, recently, as well as pull off some series wins vs the teams ahead of us to have any hope of passing someone. That hope may be fading fast, but making the playoffs would still be a a major accomplishment for this team after the expectations ost had, last spring, and especially after being swept by the O's in that opening series.