notin

Mainly because the actual topic was his mediocre defense. You were the one who hijacked it and took it in another direction…

Again, not how analytics work. Judging them on one play is like assessing a players batting average on one at bat. I take it once again you’re simply not sure what you’re talking about. I’ll wait for your standard giveaway “I’ve already explained it once” to confirm this…

So back to the bunt highlight - what did your eye test tell you?

I splint call it a mediocre fielding play, or even an easy play. But the point is you don’t wrap up one guy’s career worth of fielding by one play, regardless of the situation. A couple weeks ago I was watching a Cubs-Cardinals game. With 2 outs in the ninth and a runner on base, Alex Burleson launched one to straight away CF. Cubs CF Mike Tauchman ran back and timed his leap to pull it from back over the wall and preserve the win. Was it a great play? Absolutely. Does it make Tauchman, whom many of us are familiar with from his days as a Yankee, a great defensive center fielder? Absolutely not. He’s mediocre at best…

Again - not how analytics work. Also, not really how the eye test works. What did it tell you?

Oh goody! A quiz! 1. Last night was just more evidence about why the Sox need Chapman. 2. You do the precious Eye Test that “tells you everything you need to know” on highlights!?!? 3. Analytics are not applicable to a one game sample size. The same is actually also true for the Eye Test, but I see you haven’t worked up to applying it over a full game yet…

See this is the problem with Eye Test Advocates. They see one or two plays and draw deep conclusions from them…

Ummm … I think you made the opposite point…

One great play doesn’t make him a great defensive player…

I would wager Devers over Urias…

Yes, but Gallo is less likely than Mookie to hold out for $400mill…

Some of the A ball guys will move around eventually. But Matt Lugo has been playing 3b. I believe Cutter Coffey is as well…

Yes. He is a very talented defensive RF. Minnesota already had gifted defensive RF and CF types, so they played the second best defensive corner outfield in all of MLB at 1b and DH. Duvall is a good defender, but Gallo is just better out there. I see no problem with wanting OF defense…

But only on the pitchers whose careers weren’t over…

Juan Soto disagrees…

Baseball America had them at #5 recently. I posted that link earlier in his thread. Obviously BA and MLBPipeline have different criteria. If MLB Pipeline takes pitching into account instead of high volume of good prospects, I could see this. Particularly if they focus on MLB-ready or at least MLB-adjacent pitching…

He’s not much defensively, but he was absolutely the type of hitter the Sox needed. Before the off-season, I wanted the Sox to go after a high OBP count worker, specifically Brandon Nimmo. Of course, that was before Nimmo was offered Manny Ramirez money. Yoshida does have a similar offensive skill set. His glove, however, is far behind Nimmo’s…

If Nathan Eovaldi was born 30 years earlier, he never would have made MLB. Not because of the talent, but because he tore ligaments in his elbow in high school (and again in MLB)…

Why? On those throws, the guy throwing the ball wants the first baseman to catch it. He’s doing everything within his power to make catching his throw as easy as possible. Hitters are not so considerate with batted balls. In fact - complete opposite…

Twenty years ago, not many kids played travel ball. Back when it was reserved for elite players. But there are literally hundreds of teams and various levels now. It’s taken off a lot…

Actually in the negotiations the Sox initial offer was reportedly close to what the Braves offered Matt Olson because the Sox felt that was a good positional comparison. So I think they did spend that much money with the plan of eventually moving him off third. If you ask me (which no one does), the perfect time to move Devers is when there is a readily available defensive replacement handy. I won’t name any names. Let’s just call him Chatt Mapman…

But not for Boston

A lot of that is simply asset management. If you invest $250mill in a pitcher for 8 years, you don’t want him to blow out his arm and miss two or three of them through straight up overwork. (Think Price and Sale.) Also having 8 man bullpens makes this much easier nowadays…

One culprit is the growing proliferation of the slider and the damage it does to the elbow. Increased velocity is an issue as well, especially at an early age. Lucas Giolito, for example, was throwing 98-100mph in high school and had TJ before he graduated. But higher radar gun readings lead to scholarships and signing bonuses so pitchers try to max out early on. It’s not like Giolito (and many others) needed to throw 98mph to get high school hitters out…

Expansion certainly has diluted talent, but this had a bigger effect in the 1960s and 70s when the league went from 16 teams to 24 teams (50% more players!!). Nowadays this is offset and completely countered by the number of foreign-born players in the league, particularly the Asian talent pool which was non-existent back then. Latin American players were common in the 60s, but not like today. One factor is diluting the pool has been contract exclusivity that prevented athletes from playing other sports, even recreationally. 50-60 years ago, there were players whose off-season job was another sport. Now, we don’t see that at all. And since other sports often have a faster path to the top level, many athletes choose them over MLB. Former NFL quarterbacks Drew Henson, Chris Winke and Cody Brennan all toiled for a few years in the minors before retiring from baseball to focus on football. Former Blue Jay second baseman Danny Ainge made MLB at a young age, but struggled mightily and instead chose basketball. I think this is a big part of the reason African American athletes are so sparse at the MLB level - a lot of them found a faster path to the top levels in other sports and were talented enough to make it happen…