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On most high school teams, the shortstop is the only player worth drafting, assuming anyone is at all. If you went back and looked at the high school careers of a huge chunk of (right-handed) Major Leaguers, more of them than you realize played SS in high school. That includes some who played other positions in college. It’s just where the best player most often plays. Unless he throws left-handed…

Or… ya know … facing worse hitters. At some point that has to be a factor. If the “fan factor” is big part of the equation, do we need a closer for road games? Don’t home fans also cheer when an 8th inning rally is getting snuffed out?

I was saying that just the other day to Hanley Ramirez..

And gallons…

Which one has the larger impact on the Talkies? I assume we have an awards banquet…

It’s entirely possible (by which I mean extremely likely) that pitchers like Papelbon, Kimbrel and Hader do worse in the eighth innings than ninth is because each of them, as the best relievers on their team, are almost exclusively brought in early to face tougher hitters. I bet vintage Kimbrel never came in early to face the #8 hitter on the opposing team. Maybe to face the guy pinch hitting for the pitcher. But probably more often because someone batting 3-4-5 was due up. However, in the ninth innings, they face enough 7-8-9 hitters that the damage done by middle of the order bats gets absorbed into their stats with minimal impact. But with fewer 8th innings, the damage done by the more potent hitters becomes a larger part of the sample. Or you could simply believe that they are just magically better one inning later…

The whole save thing looked shoddy when Brasier was credited with a blown save in the fifth inning of a game last year. Do you know how hard it is to get a blown save in the FIFTH INNING? To start, you have to be the third pitcher in the game, which doesn’t happen often in games your team is leading. The opener strategy has really cheapened a lot of these stats. That’s not a criticism of using an opener; teams shouldn’t use their pitchers to accommodate statistics…

There’s no “u” in honor! Go back to Canada!

He’s a weak defensive SS. So he would play there and the Sox then trade Story to LAA for Trout. It all works out…

Much like their definition of a save (and more important, a blown save), which has gone thru multiple iterations…

Or Felix Hernandez winning the award with a record of 13-12 over David Price (19-6), CC Sabathia (21-7) and Jon Lester (19-9)…

Why not? In the last 4 seasons, Aaron Nola is 37-36. 32-31 in the last three. And 23-22 in the last two. That’s a four year stretch that strongly positions him as a .500 pitcher, and it’s not heavily influenced by one bad year. He just signed a 7 year $172mill contract. Do you think this W-L record hurt his negotiations, helped his negotiations, or had no impact?

A win is a team stat. Your pitcher doesn’t get one of his team didn’t give him any run support. The object of the game is to win. We all get that. But the object isn’t to get a win for the pitcher. W-L for pitchers records are meaningless…

If W-L record was a good way to evaluate a pitcher, Felix Hernandez (169-136) would be considered the equivalent of Kevin Appier (169-137) and Bob Forsch (168-136) and a lesser pitcher than Rick Sutcliffe (171-139). I don’t recall anyone ever referring to them as King Kevin or King Bob…

It’s not about ignoring wins as much as it is using them to evaluate a pitcher. This off-season the filling pitchers are available: Pitcher A (career record 90-71) Pitcher B (career record 90-73) These guys are obviously pretty equal, right? So does that mean that since Pitcher A (Aaron Nola) received a 7 year $172mill contract, Rich Hill can expect one as well?

Can we get Daniel Nava as a batting coach?

“Some dude”? That’s gotta be credible!!

That’s All Star Kevin Kiermeier to you, pal!!

Fair, although in don’t think this team is one Jordan Montgomery away from a title…

Yeah that’s the point. Montgomery is a good pitcher likely to be paid like a much better one due to his postseason performance. Just like Eovaldi after 2018. If the bidding goes beyond 5yr/$100mill, I hope the Sox pass. That’s the ceiling I think they should set, and I don’t think it will be enough. Despite it probably already being an overpay…

See? He does only live to dismiss the others. Lots of criticism, no content…

I like that view. Unfortunately it’s only used on 1% of pitches. The higher up angle from directly begmhind the mound is good, too, because it allows you to see the actual break on LHP. It also dispels the idiotic myths about them being biomechanical freaks. That’s what I meant when I said the Eye Test isn’t good for comparisons. It’s one thing to say “Player X is the best defender I have ever seen.” But to watch a player for 150 games vs watching no one else more than 6 times and say “Player X is the best defender in the league” is unsupported…

Anthony want part of the Bleacher Report proposal…

Actually the Eye Test is fine when done right. For instance, it’s worthless when only done on highlights. It’s very limited when watching televised games, and it’s not useful for comparisons between different teams. And too many seem to fall into the “I saw that guy make an error once” category. Also, fun fact. Eye Test is the choice of liars. It’s amazing how many people will say “I watch every game and he doesn’t get good jumps on flyballs.” Huh? What TV feed are you watching that shows the outfielders’ jumps? BTV on the other hand, is nice. Trade proposals have been around since 1870. BTV gives a good argument against all of the “let’s trade lots of garbage for an All Star” proposals that get dropped everywhere. Or even worse yet, the “let’s trade all our garbage plus one half-decent prospect for an All Star.” It gives trades that are actually fair. It can’t tell you both sides actually want to trade for those players. Just that the proposal is or isn’t stupid. Or do you miss the days of stupid trade proposals?? Is that it? For someone who offers no actual discussion content and lives solely to poopoo the ideas of others, you don’t like that a BTV has taken steps towards obsoleting you…

BTV, far from worthless, does accept the Red Sox trade. The Reds trade comes up far short, as anticipated. Again, most actual trades work on this model. That means it’s actually realistic. Whether or not the trades any random individual dreams up happen doesn’t change this. Neither did whether or not you like it or care about it…