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70charger

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Everything posted by 70charger

  1. The disappointment I think stems from his (seemingly) limited upside compared to others available. Obviously - all things equal - you want to pick the guy with #1 upside over #2 upside, and I think that many posters here see other candidates as having that #1 upside that Nola lacks. I look at it as a "well, if you're all out of lobster, I guess I'll have the filet" situation. Nobody is disappointed that we're not drafting Aiken because we all know that we won't get him. I guess what it comes down to is that "disappointment" is relative. I'd put Nola in my minor league system in a heartbeat. I just wouldn't do it if it meant I couldn't have my top choice.
  2. Naturally, my tickets are for Thursday.
  3. You make a good statistical point, but although I'm sure that almost all minor league pitchers are experimenting to a certain extent, I think very few of them are positioned well enough to hold back a pitch almost completely. How many minor league pitchers have a slider (or any pitch) so well-developed it simply isn't needed while the pitcher can work on other things? I'm guessing there are about as few pitchers are in this situation as there are pitchers with Stewart's potential and pedigree.
  4. This is exactly what I'd do. Where's the downside. Plus, if you can trade Correia at the deadline, you'll be able to slide Deduno back into the rotation, or better still, you could bring up another guy tearing up AAA.
  5. I can't clarify, but I can add a little context. First, we don't see what Hicks is like in the clubhouse, so I find it somewhat plausible that there's something going on that makes the difference more reasonable than it seems prima facie. Second, in the game on Friday, Bremer said that the back issues were due to swinging only right, and he explicitly said that it was not, in fact, due to the home run robbing catch. I think the difference between the two situations is clear. To clarify my own position, I don't want Hicks treated any differently than Mauer, for example. It's not fair to him, and it's not fair to the team. But from where I'm sitting, I simply can't prove that he is being treated differently. I accept that there are severe limitations on what I know. All I can do is hope that there isn't a disparity, and further hope for swift correction if a disparity ever develops (proven).
  6. As the owner of all-star tickets, albeit less expensive ones, I'm looking at your dollar figures and questioning whether I really need to go to the game too....
  7. It's an interesting point you bring up, and I do admit to mostly assuming that age matters. It's a simplistic explanation, and one that may not fit every player the same way. However, simplistic explanations should only be avoided when they are so simple as to be misleading. I admit to not having hard data to back this up, but I would challenge anyone to look at a list of top performers and find more of them who were "late bloomers" than were consistently young for their level of professional ball. (Without cherry-picking!) Take the average age of a rookie ballplayer, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts there are vastly more top performers who debuted before that average age than on or after. I would bet that this would hold even if you limited the sample to ballplayers with, say, at least a five year career, to knock out the 28 year old rookies who are just injury fill-ins. And I think common sense (not to say your skepticism isn't sensible) backs this up. If a high school senior gets a perfect SAT score, that's impressive. If a 13 year old does the same, isn't that more impressive? And wouldn't you expect more out of that 13 year old, and sooner? I could analogize to many other walks of life, but wouldn't the same apply to baseball?
  8. As I recall, he spent very little time in AA, with just half a season last year after raking at his previous stops. And isn't AA supposed to be the hardest jump to make in the minors? And he came right in, 3 years younger than the average AA player, and put up above average numbers? Yeah, I think you're underselling him.
  9. I take your point, but who the heck do you put at shortstop? No defense may make up for 200 point edge in career OPS, but I'd argue that Pedro Florimon "makes up for" that difference. Just not in the way you'd like.
  10. I'm actually pretty excited about adding a shortstop with the potential of Gordon, and I'm behind that pick for sure. Also, I find the concerns over the bat overblown. Look at the MLB board in the quoted post. His hit tool grades out at 55, and Alex Jackson (the best bat in the draft?) just absolutely blows Gordon away with a ...60. He may not be the once in a generation type that we'd hope for, but only the shortsighted care only about the bat without regard to the position. David Ortiz has a better bat than Tulowitzki, but who would you really rather have on your team? And WAR bears this out too, I think.
  11. I've been to something like 6 games this year so far, and I've yet to see a win in person. I'm going to the game today. Sorry, guys.
  12. Doesn't seem like anyone's mentioned it in the face of the Dozier underrating, but what would Casey Fien have to do to get an A? Aside from Perkins, there's no one I'd rather have out there in tight situations.
  13. There's probably a whole other thread to be had on this topic, but I'm thinking more and more that Joe Mauer is still affected by his concussion. Take Justin Morneau for an easy comparison. He had a terrible concussion that kept him out for months, just like Mauer did last summer. He came back the next couple of years and OPS'ed around .750 or so. It went on for long enough for all of us to assume that his goose was basically cooked. Now? Oh, just OPS'ing about .920. I'm completely open to other theories about Mauer's (hopefully quite temporary) decline. Is his back an issue? Was it the long layoff and prolonged rust? Is it bad luck? Is it competent defensive shifting? Most likely it's a combination of all of these things, but if I had to pick what I think is the weightiest cause, I'd probably say it's that damn concussion.
  14. News to me too. But apparently, yes. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24572913/aaron-hicks-will-stop-switch-hitting-due-to-lack-of-confidence-from-left-side
  15. This brings up the question of when people will realize that begging the question does not mean bringing up the question.
  16. You may have found my weakness.
  17. Coming from a professed non-expert, I have heard that the Pacific Coast League in AAA is a hitters' league, and that you have to look at hitters' stats with a big grain of salt. Is there anything similar going on with the Southern League? Are there any advantages in being affiliated with a particular league in AA aside from getting used to the weather?
  18. I'm gonna have to go with Ben Zobrist. If Zobrist is the Cadillac, Bonifacio is the '98 Honda Civic. Sure it'll get you to point B, but you're not doing smoky burnouts for your friends to watch. I was against the Bonifacio idea, as you may remember, and despite his hot start, I'm still not sure that a front office that doesn't make out of this world decisions about Jason Bartlett would be making a good decision in hiring him. I'd have run with Mastroianni and Hicks. Besides, I'd still rather see what we have in Hicks.
  19. I think pulling him against the Yankees would be the worst thing you can do to him. He's pitching well now, so why assume he'll pitch that much worse (park factors excepted) against the Yankees? Besides, if he has a bad game or a few players take him deep, the Yankees fans can go home thinking that they were right all along. Which is exactly what they were going to be thinking anyway being Yankees fans, so no harm no foul.
  20. Actually, yes I am. I've been meaning to learn R for quite some time, and I had signed up for a stats course of Coursera. Turns out I got really busy and didn't follow through, but I think that having a course specifically designed around SABR will keep my attention.
  21. Read what you quoted. He never said we should aim for "just fine" pitchers or a "just fine" rotation. He said that when Radke was asked to pitch in the playoffs he did just fine, and remember that any pitcher no matter how incredible can lose any single game. As a pitcher he was way, way better than just fine. A staff of five Radkes would be way, way better than just fine.
  22. I looked at career ERA+, probably a better stat. Radke leads, 113 to 111. And yes, Beckett has had some time looking like ace, but Radke never looked like Kevin Correia. Beckett has had years like that. He's had multiple years where he's actually been a detriment to his team, and I don't think you'll find that in Radke's record. Maybe I'm biased, but I think Radke was criminally underrated.
  23. I think both of you have some good points, but this stuck out to me as well. Aside from Beckett's having pitched two more years, Brad Radke was clearly the better pitcher, with the better results, and with startling consistency. He was well above average year in and year out, whereas Beckett seems to take some years off of the whole being a good pitcher thing.
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