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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    In the short run, it could either go lower or else bounce back up. Over the long haul, the reverse is true.
  2. ashbury
    I am struggling to find the "fun" in that note about Braxton Davidson's foot. Maybe I am Braxton and don't know it.
  3. ashbury
    Is that what wins ballgames, though? When you see it on the field, you know it played a role - but what you don't see is that if instead we had a big bopper who plays sloppy, lackadaisical baseball, you might have 3 more runs from his homer that would have made the run saved by a fundamentally sound play irrelevant. I just don't know.
  4. ashbury
    These certainly haven't been "safe" picks, and could be career killers for the higher-ups if they collectively work out badly - whereas you can kind of survive more traditional picks who don't work out, for a few cycles. So give them credit for courage.
  5. ashbury
    A debate on metrics, which this invites, belongs in a new thread rather than in this one about player acquisition possibilities.
  6. ashbury
    I'm unable to decide between the fold-lock top, or ziploc, option.
  7. ashbury
    I hope your fingers weren't hurt when the cat knocked that dictionary onto your keyboard while you were typing.
  8. ashbury
    That's a good question. Players living in countries that have winter ball aren't eligible - hence Luis Arraez isn't an option.
  9. ashbury
    Hope that book contains a chapter on when to send the runner, and another chapter on when not.
  10. ashbury
    I don't have two X chromosomes but I didn't let that didn't stop me from failing. One of these days, someone will come along. It will take more persistence, to start with, but that's a trait in common with most major leaguers anyway. Mo'ne Davis appears to have chosen basketball over baseball. That may be more of an obstacle to seeing someone soon in "our" sport. Let's put that to a vote.
  11. ashbury
    With Wes Johnson reportedly getting more than typical money for a newbie pitching coach, I imagine it was not simply the manager's decision in that particular case.
  12. ashbury
    Both Suarez and De Los Santos appeared with the Phillies this season, which means they were added to the 40-man. Unless either team wants to expose such player to a waiver claim by all other teams, on the 40-man he'll need to stay, even after a trade.
  13. ashbury
    So did L Ron Hubbard, more recently. I'm pretty far on the analytics spectrum by nature, but I don't discount "tradition, gut-instincts and conventional wisdom". If my "math" goes contrary to these, my first reaction should be to wonder, "what have I overlooked?" If I can't find anything, that may only mean that it will be discovered after I have put my math into action. Analysis should be followed by synthesis. The pieces have to fit together. And I don't believe that any of these new hires fall into that trap, particularly. Wes Johnson wasn't constructing theories in some darkened research lab, he was out there running pitching staffs in college. Some of his early ideas have already been weeded out, presumably. I've stated some qualms, but I'm also intrigued.
  14. ashbury
    Hey Tommy! I'm the guy you said hi to. You know, in Surprise AZ? The guy in the Saints t-shirt? Yeah, me. Bet you thought I'd moved on and forgot all about you. I'm not like that. Congrats on your promotion!
  15. ashbury
    This is a time when ranked-choice voting would be interesting. It could be that Austin wouldn't be the leader after the multiple rounds of re-allocating votes.
  16. ashbury
    Moderator's note: Look, this is a thread about bargain signings available in the 2018-19 off-season. It is not about the Pohlads. It is not about past off-seasons. Start a different thread if you want to discuss those things. Please don't use a side comment by the OP about the lack of thread-jacking, to justify thread-jacking. Also don't thread-jack baseball topics to discuss moderation policy. That sort of thing is always fair game in the Questions About MinnCentric forum area.
  17. ashbury
    You are surprised that 68% want someone other than Tyler Austin?
  18. ashbury
    You know how I can tell Wes Johnson's into analytics? http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Wes-Johnson-for-bio.jpg He has a USB port into his brain. Or maybe that's just a pencil in his hat. OK, snark aside. I have concerns. I see no evidence he ever pitched in the pros. A hiring as a "roving instructor" for the minors would have seemed more prudent, to let him get his feet wet. But apparently it took big money (in coaching terms) to lure him from Arkansas, and maybe it wasn't practical to get the hiring past the bean-counters unless it was for the major league job straightaway. Nothing but glowing reports on him, but if the major league pitchers come to the conclusion he doesn't know what they are going through in the pro game, they'll tune him out. "Pitching is pitching" goes only so far. The workload is very different. His first couple of suggestions to each of them have to pay off immediately. I don't know what his personal style is, but coming from the college ranks suggests a couple of pitfalls: too rah-rah, or too gruff. Baxendale's quote about high-energy suggests the former. Johnson also may not have much experience with players from outside the USA. I hope he's astute enough to adapt, but some guys take the attitude "I didn't get where I am by changing all the time." Dealing with guys in their mid-20s is different than teens. Despite my joking bases-loaded scenario above, I am not concerned too much that he will rub the pitchers the wrong way with an overly-analytic approach. These guys seem results-oriented, and are open to tinkering, and if he's got something to offer they will be receptive. High risk, high reward. If it works, it could be transformative. I don't think I would have taken this risk though.
  19. ashbury
    Bases loaded, nobody out. Johnson comes out to the mound for a visit. "Whew, you should have seen the TrackMan numbers on that last rocket to left, LOL. OK, here's what the computer printout says for this next guy: throw strikes, but don't give him anything to hit. While you're at it, lower your spin tilt and increase your hand access. Well, good luck, we're all counting on you."
  20. ashbury
    There's a phrase for this. "Replacement Level." A full team of these will have a few hits, many misses, and lead you to about 40-50 wins. You have to be an awfully astute GM to pick out only the hits.
  21. ashbury
    I don't have much disagreement with your points, since they seem in response to something I wasn't trying to say. Both you and Brian seem to have inferred that I require being the best team in the playoffs before I get interested. Maybe that means I worded it vaguely. All I was arguing against was the notion that being worse ("any team") than the worst team in the playoffs gives you even a puncher's chance at a WS ring.
  22. ashbury
    Good choice of meme, it pretty much sums up my position. I could have gone on to say that the Royals' 13-6 run this year included a sequence involving 4 losses in 5 games in early September that could have put the kibosh on a deep playoff run. I mean 12-8 is just an amusing lowest bar to have to attain; most teams that win it all run up a much better playoff record than this minimum. I really have no quarrel with your plan to acquire talent this off-season. Hoping for the exact 12-8 combination just isn't my rationale for it, is all. A team whose main hope is to thread that particular needle isn't going to win many hearts, most years. And making such an observation is a far cry from me expecting a team that "guarantees" walks in the park or any such thing come playoff time.
  23. ashbury
    One thing I like about Galvis over these other two is that he's been able to be an ironman in the lineup for several seasons now. That can take a toll on the bat, so it's possible that if you gave him a slightly lower workload his bat would pick up - or, that ironman aspect is valuable in itself and maybe you roll with it. Galvis's numbers were depressed by Petco in 2018 and his road numbers were a little more tolerable. And to repeat myself, his glove is enough better IMO that he gives you more flexibility as your roster evolves. LeMahieu in particular will have to play at 2B or else nowhere. Galvis is kind of "a better Ehire". Whether that floats your boat as an acquisition target...
  24. ashbury
    I agree with so much of what you're saying, so pardon me for harping on a couple of things where I think you have it wrong. "Can do it" may be literally true, but it's not how to approach the post-season. The pathetic 2018 Orioles never accomplished this feat, of going 12-8 for any stretch. But yeah, most other teams probably did. I just checked, and the lowly Royals did it, exceeded it even, going 13-6 from August 24 to Sept 15. (Pick a day either side of that where they lost, to get to 20 games. Pick two days, to get back to 12-8. ) But, you realize, in a 162-game season, they had 142 starting points from which to try to achieve this goal. They achieved it four times because of that one stretch, if I'm counting right. 4-in-142 isn't very good odds. That's for a bad team. But locate the 12-8 sequences for some .500 teams, and I think you'd find that the odds are distressingly below 25% for them too. And that's in the regular season. They are facing all kinds of teams, not just the elite. The task is easier. And even when they face the elite, those teams aren't trying to win every game. If their starting pitcher has nothing in the first inning, they may let him give up 3 runs in the hopes he finds his stuff. The post-season is different. Just watch how the Red Sox operated in that last game. When they had the chance to close out the series, they didn't dilly-dally - Chris Sale pitched the ninth inning. Chris Sale. They don't let you have chances if they can help it. They do their best to leave nothing to chance. Now, upsets happen in the post-season a lot. It's never cut and dried. What a boring sport it would be if that were the case. But for any given team, the chair-and-a-chip belief is overly optimistic. One-and-done is the likelier outcome when the strategy is to just be good enough to squeak into the post-season, and an extended lucky streak to win it all is even more of a longshot.
  25. ashbury
    FAs are valued about right. Some of them used to be over-valued. I'm sure that GMs always understood there was somewhat of a hockey-stick curve relating salary to performance; a 4-WAR* guy is worth more than the combined salary of two 2-WAR guys. But modern analytics has clarified the point, and demonstrated that the curve is even sharper than previously thought. The 8-WAR cornerstone guys are going to get paid, when available. The 4-WAR studs will too, just based on scarcity. But guys who profile as average, 2-WAR, have seen the bottom drop out of their market. Unless your aim is a .500 record, I'm not overly keen on loading up on those "bargains". All that said, we have money, and it should be spent. Free agents don't give you 40-man depth, in the sense that they rarely come with minor league options or the ability to use them (major league service time gives them rights). But in the right combination they will help with our problems. I'm just in the "fewer, but better" camp, and if the occasional Taylor Motter pollutes our 40-man simply for the practical matter that he can be stashed at Rochester and others can't, so be it. Having both Motter and Petit is a pretty bad indicator, I'll agree. * As usual, I'm using "WAR" here as a high-level term to denote that wins come from somewhere and certain players contribute more than others, and not some particular formulation. Each team has their own ideas.
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