Arbitrary Thoughts: LHP Genesis Cabrera

[ziggy]

28 base runners in a hair over 14 innings.

The opposing batters sure like him.

Maybe they can sign and trade him and Micky Gasper for Jovani Moran.

[Bodie]

9 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Do you? It means "a guy can be signed off the street and provide as good results". That sounds like Cabrera, who is an easy non-tender.

Good effort to meet the goal of trying to make a case for why the Twins might tender him. But as noted by Seth in the article...he's an easy non-tender.

No, it doesn't. 

And no, he wasn't even close.

[S Bart]

5 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

They used 37 pitchers, including Ober, Paddack, Matthews, Lopez and Bradley, who only started; SWR, Ryan and Festa, who each appeared once as a reliever; and Fitzgerald, Clemens, Bride and Castro, who each relieved as position players. So overall, 25 "traditional" relief pitchers.

They used 38 pitchers in 2022, but I didn't look to see which ones only started and how many position players were used. 

  

Wow...thanks....doubt it would have been close to that number if not for the July trades

[jmlease1]

13 hours ago, Bodie said:

No, it doesn't. 

And no, he wasn't even close.

"replacement level player" is a specific term of art. and no one is saying it means they were good. If you have negative WAR, you're considered "replacement" level and the team should be able to replace your production with a random free agent.

This absolutely sounds like Genesis Cabrera, who sucked and was available as a free agent twice last season. Offering him arbitration is a fireable offense IMHO. But the point to the article was to try and find a reason why someone might do it, so Seth got creative and really reached and found a scenario. It's crazy, but it was a theory.

[Original_JB]

On 10/8/2025 at 6:18 AM, Richie the Rally Goat said:

I think we need Levi (ticus) to run it by the Numbers but i can’t think of a bad pun for Deuteronomy

edit: i was turtled, can’t even call it Ninja’d cuz I was that slow

[IndianaTwin]

20 hours ago, S Bart said:

Wow...thanks....doubt it would have been close to that number if not for the July trades

I didn't go to the work of checking this, but it would be interesting to see how many debuts happened after July 31 compared to previous years. Like you, I'd assume there were significantly more. Comparatively speaking the bullpen makeup seemed relatively stable in the first two-thirds of the year. 

[USAFChief]

6 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

"replacement level player" is a specific term of art. and no one is saying it means they were good. If you have negative WAR, you're considered "replacement" level and the team should be able to replace your production.

Minor point, but the idea of "replacement level" is zero WAR, not negative WAR.

0 WAR is represents a theoretically freely available player who would "replace" your regular players and provide no value in terms of wins. Zero "Wins Above Replacement.

Your other players are measured against this zero WAR standard. A 4 WAR player is theoretically 4 wins better than a replacement player. Four "Wins Above Replacement."

There can also be negative WAR players who theoretically cost you more wins than the zero WAR replacement player.

Not that I believe WAR is very accurate or useful. But that's the theory.

[jmlease1]

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Minor point, but the idea of "replacement level" is zero WAR, not negative WAR.

0 WAR is represents a theoretically freely available player who would "replace" your regular players and provide no value in terms of wins. Zero "Wins Above Replacement.

Your other players are measured against this zero WAR standard. A 4 WAR player is theoretically 4 wins better than a replacement player. Four "Wins Above Replacement."

There can also be negative WAR players who theoretically cost you more wins than the zero WAR replacement player.

Not that I believe WAR is very accurate or useful. But that's the theory.

The scale they show at Baseball Reference for WAR lists 8+ as MVP quality, 5+ as all-star, 2+ as starter, 0-2 as Reserve, and less than 0 as replacement level.

But the difference with any bRef overlap is irrelevant. Regardless, if you're not able to generate positive WAR, you would be considered replacement level, which includes players who produce negative WAR. They don't have an extra category for "so awful you shouldn't be allowed in MLB any longer" or anything to separate out the just 0 to -1.0 from the -1.0 to -2.5. They're all just considered "replacement level". Which describes Genesis Cabrera very very well.

[RaoulDuke]

On 10/7/2025 at 2:53 PM, Nshore said:

He's left handed so has more lives than a cat.  He reminds me of a left handed version of Alcala - throws hard but always just one tweak away from success - and it never comes.

Exactly how I think of him, lefty Alcala.

Sexy in potential, there is a reason he has been on so many teams.