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The Padres tradition IS ugly uniforms.

The velocity has not been the issue. The control has.

Or that Kimbrel has had only 6 clean innings since June 9, spanning 26 appearances and 27 IP?

He might not do it, but he did have the chance since we did play a huge bulk of the season with Vazquez, Leon and Swihart all on the roster...

I would agree having both Johnson and Velasquez in the rotation right now is not doing the bullpen any favors. In fact, they are making the bullpen work overtime and letting the bullpen take the blame for it, too...

Buttrey might have been included to free up one more space for a pending 40-man roster crunch in December. GMs do have to take this kind of thing into account, whether fans think it is a priority or not. Also it is possible Anaheim would not do the deal without Buttrey. They might be trying to build a winner while they still have Trout. At least they got something for Buttrey. Ben Taylor was DFA'd for no reason...

I still think it's a slump, albeit not a huge one. I've seen players get rested for stretches like that. Of course, this is a genrealization. If the player has some hard hit balls that just don't fall in, it's bad luck...

You murder one little person with some pollution and you're labeled for life. But thank you for the knighthood..

First this board trashes Chicago and then Volkswagen. I'm a Volkswagen owner living in Chicago here...

The inner harbor is somehow a great place and a colossal armpit all at once...

It's like Curt Schilling. I don't agree with anything he has to say politically, but I will absolutely defend his rights to have those views. I'm not even sure why this quote from Martinez is supposed to be offensive. Because he quoted Hitler? He didn't do it in a way that supported Hitler, but rather he posited Hitler as the opposing point of view (i.e. taking away guns.) Have we reached a point in our society that we can't even mention history's greatest villains as opposing viewpoints? Also, I would not like JD if he killed a700's dogs and cats, unless a700 himself was using JD to perform so in a medical capacity. No video required. And I also would not like JDM if he opted out in two years and signed with the Yankees. But that goes without saying. I wouldn't like Mother Theresa if she was wearing pinstripes...

When you go car shopping, do you demand to see the engineering degrees from everyone at the auto plant? Email someone at Fangraphs for some details, if you like. Even they know the system is not perfect and is in a constant state of improvement. Presumably adding StatCast data is one way they have bolstered their metrics, but there will be others. Again, this doesn't negate the whole system, and doesn't make it worse than casual fan observations from television...

I'm ok with calling 1 for 18 a slump...

Well, there isn't much else to do in St. Louis...

The one thing I don't care about is getting 117 wins. In fact, I don't want the Sox to set that record. As a sports fan, the biggest disappointment for me was watching the Patriots go 18-0 and then lose the Super Bowl. I also saw the Mariners win 116 and even make the World Series, and I absolutely do not want to see the Sox in the same situation...

From what I've seen, a lot of people also just give up at it's mention. There are plenty of counterarguments out there...

We all do that. But there is a big difference in saying "JBJ is the best defensive CF I've ever seen" and "JBJ is the best defensive CF in the game today."...

Actually, Chicago's gun culture is blown a little out of proportion. https://www.thetrace.org/2018/04/highest-murder-rates-us-cities-list/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/21/states-most-and-least-gun-violence-see-where-your-state-stacks-up/359395002/

I admit I don't grasp the calculations. I've see the formulae, but that doesn't mean I know why they count everything the way they do or arrive at baserunning and defensive components. But I think most people attribute some element of faith to those who put in a lot of work that their observations and calculations are better than most fans can arrive at. Even if you don't believe in the exact numbers, as skr points out, it can be more of a directional component than an exact value. Especially since it can never be truly verified as it is. We will never know if the Red Sox had 8 fewer wins this year if Betts was not playing and, say, Aneury Tavarez or Rusney Castillo was manning RF. And honestly, I think the single biggest advantage Fangraphs' WAR (fWAR) values has over any of the other encompassing stats is their accessibility. B-R.com doesn't have any functions on their website to sort by bWAR or compare bWAR over spans of years. This may seem like a trivial reason, but if you are one of those who think WAR is a good debate starter, this can be very important as opposed to doing all the tedious research and browsing needed on other sites...

And for the record, she was not shot by Dee's father, former Sox pitcher Tom Gordon...

And maybe I am behind in my knowledge of how this data is tracked and recorded. It did all start out the way I said, and maybe some agency someplace is still watching it manually. But the bottom line is, every play made by every player is taken into account somehow, which is something we as fans simply cannot do for the reasons that spurred your doubts in the first place, among other reasons. That in itself is an advantage. That doesn't mean we as fans don't know a good play or a great play when we see one. It just means we have no idea who else is also making that play...

Well, by "every play", I was referring to every batted ball in play. No need to watch all the called strikes and balls and certainly no need to count home runs. Now somehow pitch-framing data is also accumulated. I am not sure if that is simply done by a computer or done by an observer. But as robot ump technology exists, it can easily be used to measure OOZ strike calls from an individual catcher. And maybe they do use computer-aided technology to monitor defensive ratings now. If they don't, it certainly cannot be that far off...

It may also not be as complicated as you think. For example, unless they are monitoring catchers for pitch-framing, etc, how many plays does it really entail? There are maybe 50 batted balls in a single game on average, which is all they need to focus on. (This is a guess on my part, but with an average of 66 plate appearances per game, 9 strikeouts per game and an average, 6 walks per game on average, and maybe about 1-2 HR/game that they don't need to make a call on, it's probably close.) By watching a game that is already over and fast forwarding to the batted balls in play, it won't take a full 3 hours to watch a game. They also may have access to camera angles we don't have access to when we watch a televised game. No one has said the system is perfect. In fact, everyone admits it is not. But that doesn't mean it is useless, either. In fact, right now it is the best system in place and th incorporation of StatCast data for launch angles and exit velocity has probably enhanced it even more...

"They" implies multiple people. Presumably they have set of guildelines and/or standards to judge plays against. There will be differences in opinion and judgment on a lot of calls, but every play from every team is taken into account. I also would suspect a game is watched by multiple observers to reduce bias. And I would be shocked if a single observer was assigned to a single team for that exact same reason...

And those are two very different statements. And really, considering that baseball has been attracting more athletic players for the past 20 years or so, it's not surprising we are seeing better defensive center fielders and fewer Jon Kruk/Greg Luzinski/Pete Incavliglia type (although there are a few non-pitcher, non-catchers out here. Hello, Russell Martin, Matt Adams, and of course, Panda.)