drewski6

If KC is hitting .950 in AAA in July and all 4 outfielders are healthy, chances are youll see KC at 2b (or Cedanne)

But didnt you jsut say its his bat that will get him to the majors. If KC gets to the majors this year it will be because of two things, bat + opportunity. That opportunity might be in teh infield. He may be better overall second baseman than IKF and Romy but not as good an outfielder of the top 4 who may be healthy. Why not make the team better and have teh best available 2b play 2b? Could also move Cedanne to 2b if youd rather. But my point is simply that there is no reason to pigeon hole people and rule out potential defensive combinations on 3/4/26. We dont know the twists / turns of the season. I like being versatile and adaptable to whatever may be thrown at us. Especially with Breslow who I dont trust to make the move we need

My hunch is 40 years ago is enough time for it to change and then change back. But I dont fully disagree with some of these counter points. Especially not about prime Tony Gwynn. I say Roman is prime TG without the wheels and I do think Roman will have a .330 season (maybe not this year). Im not sure about Koufax, but I know that pitchers like DLowe never went upstairs. ANd that worked better than then I would expect it to work now. But that doesnt mean I dont think prime Dlowe in 2026 wouldnt have a spot in the middle of some MLB rotation. Maybe jsut more of a #3 than a #2. But keep in mid: the universe is shaped exactly like the earth, if you go straight long enough , you'll wind up where you were. Just becasue bell bottoms came back at some point doesnt mean they never left.

Because in a hitters era, both of those things are going to go up. Its a secondary correlation to having good hitters coming up behind you. You take more walks if your 3-4-5 are Ortiz, Manny, Lowell. Teams had monster lineups.

Because launch angles, and high fastballs and pull approaches and all that other stuff, but yeah. The game of baseball is nonstop adjustments and counters. E.g. back in the day, pitches never pitched upstairs, but launch angle science improved and teams started smashing low balls especially because they could look exlusively low. So pitchers started going upstairs to make a batter's eye cover more zone and also because the uppercut swing didnt work on high heat. Another change is the pitcher's are better now, so you can rely on the guy behind you less. So you want extra base hits because then you dont need 2 more hits (or a hr) to drive you in. You can score from second on any hit. So you want to capitalize on opportunities. So the difference in expected to score between a double and single increases. Its all downstream effects from the constant evolution of the game.

Agree. Its about buying time. There is no reason to trade Masa right now for 4m in salary relief. Lets first make sure we get everyone back healthy from WBC. Once the games start mattering, we can still survive some games with Masa as a non ideal bench player, again still buying more time (agreeing fully with you). As the season progresses, like for example jsut like you say happens, all outfielders are healthy, Casas is back or maybe someone else is forcing your hand. Maybe Eaton was up and Romy is coming back and Eaton you wanna keep over Masa and now Eaton needs to take Masas spot becuse he was before taking Romys spot but Romys healthy now....Or maybe its Ward or Monasterio.... But yeah, I agree, wait till someone forces you to move Masa out of their way. This is what Theo said to CLay B when I sent him down. Force my hand. Granted Clay had like a 1.6 ERA in AAA so it wasnt exactly fair or a great example...But with the suspects , I say "force us to clear you a path"

Most likely , he is a better OF than he is a 2b, but theres a chance Mayer flops, Durbin gets hurt and KC is called up as a second baseman because thats where the opportunity is, and makes the team better because of his defensive versatility.

Im less interested in singles and walks from players who dont steal than I use to be. Because the odds that you are going to get what you need to turn them into runs arent as high as they use to be. Im not anti walks from speedsters or from d first players trying to contribute anything they can on offense. Walks is inversely correlated to pull hitting, mr pull hitter. Because your swing decision, when pulling , has to be earlier. So you have to guess earlier and comit to what you see. Vs stay back hitters can wait , wait , wait and draw more walks. But they aint pulling or driving as much. Its hitter by hitter. BUt im not interested in staying back. Unless you got the wheels or arent a great hitter. If you want Casas to pull the ball, you want him to walk less. Ditto with KC.

Old school stats are new school stats again, and former new school stats are old now. I wanna see R's and RBI's. OPS can be misleading if you are drawing walks and getting stranded on first base. Now if you are hitting gappers and runners are scoring from first, thats production. If you are hitting gappers and getting to 2nd and 3rd with less than 2 outs and getting home as a result , thats production. The OBP is king days are from teh days when you were almost always going to be knocked in because it was such a hitters era. Im less about "dont create an out" and IM more about "capitalize your opportunities" than I use to be because of changes in the game.

Most roster decisions are not made for a single reason. Theres usually a multiple of reasons/variables considered and who can be sent down does get taken into account.

Maybe for a little bit of time though. Anyone you can send down you can call back up. If you jettison Masa that cant be undone. EVery year guys get sent down because teams can send them down on every team. They had to change the rules and create prospect promotion incentives jsut becasue. Theres secondary reasons too....E.g. delaying KC service time counter to get his prime years cheap and not have to extend him for bigger money. This stuff plays in, but I agree its never the "only reason"

Well, looking at the bottom of the graphic, deathball can mean knuckle-curve or put-away pitch. If its the former, we do need a new name for the knuckle-curve, but deathball aint it. Or maybe we dont need to have all 15 curveball variations to have their own name. Maybe we just call a knuckle-curve a curveball. Maybe we can jsut call a slurve a curveball too.

I disagree with this. The more positions he can play, the more likely he is to find a spot on the team. I dont think they permanently ruined his ability to play 2b by playing him in the of 15 games or ruined his ability to play of by playing him at 2b 15 games. He'll find his level defensively.

I will accept this, I am satisfied with the help I received from you and moon on trying to figure it out.

I agree, but ty (sincerely) for the "more than anything else" - thats the level of nuance I appreciate. I can agree with this. But I would add that while I agree the 18m is the primary reason, a secondary reason that shouldnt be dismissed is that he cnat be sent down. A lot of times team send down the player who they can send down (i.e. has options remaining). Like if a prospect slightly outplayed a vet, but you cant send that vet down and you are not sure which one will be the guy come playoffs, you send down the kid to buy yourself time. Postpone decisions and hoard talent. Obviously, its case by case - so you dont always send down the player who you can, but you take into account who you can send down. If Anthony was out of options last year, he would have broke with the big club.

Well considering multiple people are telling me this, maybe he just had a couple good swings in the few games ive seen and its throwing off my opinion, which Im starting to thikn is probable and he hasnt been swinging it well this season, just maybe in like 3 of the 5 at-bats ive seen. Ive seen him get robbed of a base hit on 2 occasions this spring, and i may be putting too much into that.

Ive seen some good swings from him, and I dont like some of these obp and obp derivative stats.

But it may be for now

I wonder why it wasnt, and im glad you brought that up. Maybe hes honorable and was like listen guys, i havent lived up to my contract to date and im ashamed so the last thing im going to do is file a grievance against the team thats been overpaying me. But Im also not sure if its up to Yoshida or if grievances can be filed on his behalf. I wonder if the fact that hes minority made MLBPA slightly less likely to take his case. Hope not.

TY, this helps. Im not sure the bidding war would matter because of reasons I said. For exmpale, if a team offer him 8m and he accepts after released, I think that would save the red sox 8m but yoshida would still only get 18. Or im wrong, but you are correct that its not relevant. Because if a team is willing to pay him 8, it makes more sense to trade him. I went down the rabbit hole to try to gauge if we can park him in AAA which I would rather do than flip him at this point in time for 4m of salary relief. And Id rather keep him on the 26 at this point in time rather than flip him for salary relief. But if its entering May and we're healthy and mayer, Kc, eaton, Montaserio, ward are all proving to be better ballplayers, at that point in time, it may make sense to trade out masa to clear a spot on the 26. Regarding parking him in aaa at that point (may) if we can, sure. Put I feel like he put that clause in teh contract for a reason. And that reason was if this doesnt work out, i get to take my bag and go back to japan, so i think most likely if we wanted to kick him off 26 man roster in may, its either trade him or release him and in which case hes prob going back to japan (and still getting the 18m this year and next). I guess when I think about it, he put that in there for a reason (cant send me to AAA) and that reason is most likely because "Id rather be in japan than AAA"

Ive seen KC take some impressive swings this spring. The last time Casas impressed me was years ago. Recency matters. Right now KC > Casas

What if Cedanne couldnt throw but was good enough to hit? I understand that Yoshida is a bat first and Cedanne is a glove first, but the DH spot wasnt open. What about a .680 catcher who is healthy enough to hit not catch? Putting Yoshida on the IL was a stretch, but only because we perceive him as a DH - and Im not sure that screams foul to me. I think the optics of putting him on the IL are worse than the actual act. He wasnt signed to DH and DH wasnt open. Im sure there were plenty of players throughout history that were on the IL despite being healthy enough to hit. Just because Yoshida is a bad defender, Im not sure that makes the IL placement so much worse. I do believe that if Devers was 100% healthy to start season, and if they went with him at 3b and Bregman at 2b and the dh spot was open (in like an alternative world) I do think that they would have probably had Masa start on the team as DH. But do to things that had nothing to do with Masa (Devers/Bregman/Casas thing), the DH spot wasnt open, so Masas inability to throw did matter to some extent. So I would call the IL of him a stretch buy maybe stop short of calling it phantom/BS. Masa shouldnt get extra protections because hes a bad defensive outfielder, imo. And it feels like part of the reason ppl think it was unfair to him to IL him was because he wasnt providing much glove value anyways but Im not sure I want to give Yoshida extra protections for that. For contrast, if Abreu couldnt throw but could DH nad he went on the IL, I dont think it would be viewed quite the same. ANd theres a reason for that. Becasue you are losing Abreu glove/defense value. But now we're providing more protections for Yoshida than Abreu becasuse with Abreu , the ability to play the field makes it a deeper loss, and that gives me pause

What is having 9 capable starting pitchers? Depth?

Garbage! Up and down! The only one I feel here is accurate is Abreu (if he plays against some lefties but not all) and Mayer (if he plays against some lefties but not all). I would think / hope both can do better if facing exclusively righties. Cedanne might be accurate, and if so, thats a must start player and Ive been too hard on him. I expected the offense to regress and Im starting to think now that hes over .700 which makes him unbenchable. So thats another one that could be right. Casas and Yoshida should have DNQ - as in most likely is the sample size will be small so it can be anywhere between .100 OPS and 1.100 OPS because small sample sizes fluctuate like that. But Anthony, Contreras, Duran, Romy (do they think hes going to play against righties?) are too low. And Story prob too. Regarding KC, its either going to be a DNQ (too small a sample size (does not qualify)) or higher, they arent going to give him 300 PA if his OPS is .715. Because .715 from a bat first player isnt forcing your way in. Also KC (and even IKF btw) have had some good at bats this spring that ive seen. I even think IKF is too low here.

TY this helps and I was stuck! I understand that waiver claims go by inverse order and never a bidding war, but if claimed that team would be on the hook for the whole contract (next year too) so I figure thats a long shot. More likely, hed pass through waviers at which point the red sox can try to get him to agree to take a minor league assignment vs free agency. I realize now that if he selects free agency, its not going to make what he makes. So what happens if he becomes a free agent and 2 teams want him and they both try to sign him. Well the money offered would only become relevant if it exceeds 18m which wont happen. So if hes a free agent and SD padres offer him 3m to Cincinat offering him 1.5. If he choses the padres offer, then I think the redsox would be on the hook for 15m and padres 3 vs reds offer with redsox on hook for 16.5 and reds for 1.5. So the money to him, doesnt change and hes not going to prioritize who willhelp the red sox the most (the team that just cut him). And thats why because the money is irrelevant whom he picks will probably most likely be based on location (west coast preferences), playing time, and maybe even going back to Japan. But hes making 18m so the money wont really matter, TY moon.