moonslav59

When you draft mostly batters, especially the higher draft picks, and sign mostly batters as IFAs, why do we then spend just nearly half of our money on pitching? Drafting and IFA have been near 75% batter. Free Agent signings & extensions should be near 75% pitching. (Or, trade batters for pitchers like we did in the olden times.)

LOL. A 6 PA sample size.

He spends more on his third highest bat contract than the 3 highest arm contracts combined. It's NOT about NOT spending, it's about not spending what he does spend on pitching. I'm not sure how many ways I can explain it. Here is a short version: He spends- just not on pitching.

More than the $313M/10 he gave Devers?

Those two have nothing to do with this being the best, second best or third best season by Devers.

I disagree on this, too. He was significantly better in 2019 and 2022. OAA +17 2019 -2 2022 -7 2024 (on pace for more) DRS -5 2019 (many more innings) -6 2022 -7 2024 He was significantly worse in 2017 & 2020. He's been all over the map both within almost every season and from season to season. He has done much better since the first 6-8 weeks, but the season has not been his best, IMO.

It's not just a better OPS. I guess we should blame him for blowing away his previous BB% rate. (11% in 2024 and 8% the rest of his career.) .296 BA is second highest ever (.311 in '19.) .371 OBP highest (.361 in '19) .578 SLG highest (.555 in '19) .284 ISO highest by a ton (.259 in '21) .393 wOBA highest by 20 points (.373 in '21 & '22) 152 wRC+ highest by 12 (140 in '21) (Even is 4.8 Spd number is second only to 4.9 in 2019) He has GIDP way less than the rest of his career. He's batting in runs at slightly better than his career rate, and that deserves criticism?

Yes, and being second to Duran in many stats is no slight, either. Duran might get some MVP votes, if the team makes it to the dance.

Okay, let's forget the fact that he has been walked more with RISP or on base and just look at RBIs per 650 PAs. After all, this season is not over. 77 RBIs in 497 PAs= 101 per 650. Career: 632 RBI in 4111 PAs= 99.9 RBI per 650. Take away 2024 from his career, and before 2024, he averaged 99.8 RBI/650 There is a reason why many view RBIs as a team-fueled stat, and not all the individual.

No, the numbers tell the truth: he is batting in RISP at exactly his career rate (15.4%) and just has less ABs than other years. The numbers show he has more RBIs with Men on base than his career norm: 17.7% compared to 17%. Blaming him for coming up to bat less often with men in RISP or on base, or walking more than usual seems harsh. Plus, he basically had a bad 5 weeks in these situations, to start the season, and has been back in form or better, ever since.

I'm not sure this is his best season, despite the OPS+ blowing all other away. Within the context of a down offensive season by the league, maybe it should be viewed as the best. As far as RISP and Men on Base, the sample sizes are rather small, but not insignificant. To cite the .236 BA w RISP without mentioning his .368 OBP hides all the BBs, he's taken. The decent .462 SLG gives him an .830 OPS. Once you take away the BBs and SFs, he's had just 106 ABs w RISP and has 45 RBIs. (Check out other years below my Men on Base point. He is hitting .296 w Men on Base, with a .382 OBP, .565 SLG and .947 OPS. 216 ABs and 61 RBIs. Many view 2019 as his best season, and he did do much better w RISP, but with a lot more ABs. His Men on Base numbers were mixed, but also more ABs: RISP (152 ABs) .336 BA, .387 OBP, .566 SLG and .953 OPS Men on Base (275 AB) .320, .368, .535, .902 and 93 RBI How about 2022, maybe his other top 3 season: RISP: 125 ABs/55 RBIs (.256 BA, .377 OBP, .496 SLG, .873 OPS) Men on Base: 235 AB/76 RBI (.298/.380/.557/.938) Your point is well taken, but with spread out sample sizes of 125-235 ABs, one would expect some differentials. I'm not sure we can read too much into them. Here is an interesting way to look at RBIs and Devers. Career: 632 RBIs in 4111 PAs and 3712 ABs That's an RBI in 15.4% of PAs and 17.0% of his ABs. 2024: 15.4% of his PAs and 17.7% of his ABs. Hmmmm....

Rich Hill started, tonight: 2IP, 0H, 0ER, 1BB, 2K Big night for the top 3 batters: 4-5 Meidroth w HR & 3B (NO BBs!) .866, now. 3-5 Campbell w 2 HRs! 1.433 in AAA (tiny sample) 2-5 Anthony w HR .961 in AAA (small sample) (Teel went 0-5 and has a .265 AAA OPS) Woo won. Wikelman came to pitch, tonight: 5IP, 0H, 3BB, 6K Slaten, not so good, 0.1, 1, 1, 1, 1 POR won 2-1. Castro 2-4 w HR. GRE won 2-0 w Mullins going 5 in relief (1H, 0BB, 6K) SAL in a tight one in the 9th. Yuten 3-5

The CB Tax line has been... $185 '20 (adjusted) $208 '21 $236 '22 $225 '23 ~$224 '24 It might not be as hard to predict as I and others have been indicating. Next year's tax line is $241M, so my guess is the 2025 CB line might be between $210 and $240, but more likely between $220-230M. Let's say it's $225M. After paying relatively low arb costs, due to all being year one, to Duran, Houck and Crawford, I have us at about $145M. That could mean we have a winter AAV budget of about $80. That seems like a lot, but we will need a big chunk of that to just stay even with the Jansen, Martin, Pivetta and O'Neill replacements. Still, we should be able to fill 4-6 slots with some top quality players at $80M. It could be... 4 x $20M/yr 5 x $16.5M/yr 6 x $13.5M/yr A better way might be: $28M SP1 $18M SP3 $12M Closer $10M SP5 $7M RP $5M RP Somehow, this just doesn't seem like what JH will approve, so forget everything I just said.

The guy who had an 8.00 ERA at ND? I'm not sure an early call up was what messed him up.

He doubled his OPS and is up to .443, now.

The thing with rafaela at SS is that it goes beyond too many errors. He has also failed to turn several double plays that do not get counted as errors. His range at SS makes up for a lot of the mistakes, but I do not see it as making up for all of them. The numbers support my observations: +2.5 Range Factor in UZR/150 (career) -9 Outs Above Average (career) -6 Defensive Runs saved Now, this might still be better than some other SSs we have seen, recently, and his .700+ OPS has been better or way better than several other SSs, even Story. The guy is a great CF'er. We need to set up the 2025 roster to make sure that happens 98% or more of the time. (I'd prefer 100%, but mid game moves or 2-3 injuries at the same time, could create a situation where it's the better idea- like it happened, this year. Rafaela in CF improves two "up-the-middle" positions with one slot change. I really like this core of defenders: SS: Story or Mayer 2B: Story or Mayer (DHam is not bad) LF: Duran/Refsnyder/Abreu CF: Rafaela/Duran/Anthony RF: Abreu/Refsnyder/Anthony We might only be weak at: C: Wong & ____ (Teel?) 1B: Casas 3B: Devers If we traded Casas or Yoshida, we could improve our D and O (depending on who we get to play 3B) by moving Devers to 1B and Casas to DH or another team. We can improve our D without making the team any worse on O.

Except, the excrement is not what was intended to not come out.

I think I read that Cora is planning on playing him.

Yes, which he might or might not have allowed to score, himself. I do think leaving with bases loaded and no outs is much different than the same with 2 outs. ERA also does not factor in non error mistakes made by the D, mistakes made by the scorekeeper, park factors and strength of opponents. It's not a bad stat, but many are better.

Good one.

If you have to choose between being grammatically correct or blocking your colon, the choice is a no brainer.

Danny Jansen will become the first player in the history of MLB to play for two teams in the same game, when we make up the suspended game vs TOR.

Post of the Month

JH spent $100M on Yoshida. The highest paid pitcher before $38.5/3 for Gio as for a closer, Jansen at $36M/2. Both combined plus Martin's $17.5M/2 comes close to Yoshi. 3 top pitching signings = Yoshida.

He often does not replace the big contracts we lose, so spending big might actually still be cutting from the previous year's payroll, but when you look at just the payroll with no context, there has not been a steady decline in spending. We saw a massive peak in spending in 2018 and 2019, and many ups and downs before and after. We are looking at just 2 straight years of decline after a pretty big jump up in 2022, so I'm not seeing this idea that JH RED= $5M+ drop BLUE= $5M+ gain Opening Day 26 Man Payroll 99.9 '03 127 '04 124 '05 120 '06 (down $7M over 2 seasons) 143 '07 133 '08 122 '09 (down $21M over 2 seasons 168 '10 163 '11 175 '12 155 '13 156 '14 (down $19M in 2 seasons) 184 '15 197 '16 234 '17 The unprecedented 3 straight years of big jumps 234 '18 236 '19 2020 180 '21 The unprecedented drop of $56M in 2 seasons 206 '22 181 '23 171 '24 Another major drop. $35M in 2 seasons being so close to the $56M drop from 2019 to 2021 certainly shows a break from the earlier pattern. However, there was a season of a jump in spending, not too long ago. End of year 40 man 105 '03 130 117 137 155 147 '08 140 171 174 169 176 '13 168 186 201 189 231 '18 228 2020 187 217 203 Again, the gain years are by much more than the drop years, and the bigger drop years are recently, but 2022 was a decent gain year. One can see it as barely getting back near where were were after the big drops in 20202 and 2021. I get it.