jimmer

He used to be a Mariners blogger. He has long since moved on and has a bunch of experience covering all teams.

yeah, but that happens in quick chats. I imagine that's why a followup was asked by the poster. and he's not a Mariners blogger :-)

Probably why he said Vogelsong turns 40 in July as opposed to saying he is 40 :-)

Maybe his real name is Dave, not David. :-) I knew a guy whose parents actually named him Ricky (as if they never realized he'd grow up)

It's a hole, the city itself is mostly nasty too (or was when I used to go there, who knows now), and when I used to go to the park, the BART system was the only safe option to get there. My Dad refused to drive to the park.

I'm right there with you on both of your statements (though I have consistently said, from the very beginning, that Dozier isn't worth De Leon and Alvarez/Bellinger either).

ThePuck: For clarification, do you believe De Leon, by himself, is a reasonable return for two years of Dozier at his price? Dave Cameron: Yes. Dave Cameron: Think of it this way; if you were the Twins, and you already had De Leon, would you swap him for Dozier? Dave Cameron: I think the answer is pretty clearly no. ThePuck: I don’t think it’s that simple.The Twins and the Dodgers are in much different places and in much different financial categories. The Twins are in rebuild mode, with a horrible roation so De Leon is more valuable to them than Dozier for two years. The Dodgers are in win now mode trying to get better than the Cubs and Nats. Dodgers already have with a strong rotation but a weak 2B option when trying to compete with Cubs. Dozier holds more value right now, for the Dodgers, than De Leon does for them. Dave Cameron: Agreed, which is why the Dodgers should make that trade. Dave Cameron: But I think the Twins are making a mistake holding Dozier for some mythical better offer, and I don’t think they’ll get more for him than De Leon at the deadline or next winter.

Oakland, easily. I've watched a ton of games sitting in each stadium (I've PLAYED on the Oakland field a few times) and Oakland was always the worst experience.

I think I kind of addressed this quibble later in the post when I wrote, 'Pitcher against batter, batter against pitcher, fielder on his own fielding a ball, etc.' But I think the one on one battle of pitcher throwing the ball trying to get the batter out is very much a huge battle (which of course, the defense is involved in once the ball is put in play (or IF the ball is put in play).

I'd hope most people would have realized all this without Neal letting us know :-)

Per Fangraphs WAR Jack Morris had 7 seasons with 4 or more WAR, Raines only had 6. Jack Morris had one season with a WAR above 5.0, Raines had 6. Jack Morris had one season with a WAR above 6, Raines had 5. . Jack Morris peak WAR was 6.2, topped by Raines 3 times. Jack Morris had zero sseasons with 7 or more WAR, Raines had 1. Dawson accumulated 7 less WAR than Raines even though he had more plate appearances than Raines (almost a seasons worth more PAs). Raines' peak was longer and better. McGriff and Raines had the same amount of season with 4 or more (6), but McGriff only had 4 above 5 and two above 6. As stated above in the Morris compariaon, Raines bests that. Radke had less seasons than Raines with 4 or more WAR, not more than Raines had. And so on, and so forth. Still not sure he belongs in though. He's a tough call (with his strong OBP and speed while having less power than one wants from a corner OF). He is a stronger candidate than some already in (Rice, for eexample) and certainly stronger than some compare him to.

And he's not as good a defensive player as Plouffe became after learning his brand new position (that he should have been moved to way earlier).

Trying to wrap my head around the idea that a guy with 4 years service time is a veteran baseball player, myself :-) Dozier does fit under the role model category though. He's definitely a player others should look up to in regards to perseverance and professionalism, along with being an all around good guy and good with the media. He's the new Cuddyer.

As long as we remember the market value in baseball is set by the teams looking to buy, not the sellers (I mean, if a trade is to actually happen). Just like a player's value is based on what teams are willing to spend on a player's talent (and if too high, maybe that player doesn't get signed)..

And I never said it doesn't have an effect. Not once. Leadership counts. I grant that a quality veteran leader could make a difference of a couple games. At least, I hope that's the case. And by all accounts, Hunter was/is one of those guys. My issue is when one player is given credit for a 10-20 win swing by his mere presence (or lack of presence). And if teams believed in that kind of ability, he'd be playing this year after getting huge offers he couldn't refuse and/or he would have signed a multiple year contract worth big bucks in 2015 instead of a one year contract with us for 10M. His agent would be out saying things like, look, the Twins won 70 in 2014 and then Hunter joined and then won 83 and now they won 59. Look at all that value his presence on a team provides, this guy deserves TONS of money, even if his actual skills have greatly diminished being in his 40s now and all.

All stats, even traditional ones (even offensive ones, even pitching ones), needs about three years of data to tell us what the players true talent level is. To create a good 'mean'. Doesn't mean we toss out a players performance for one year and say it didn't happen, just means that the way he performed that one year, either offensively, defensively or hurling the ball, may not be what his true talent is. One year defensive metrics can be used to gauge how a player did that year and defensive performance, just like offense and pitching, can fluctuate. The worst thing Fangraphs did when explaining defensive metrics was explain the obvious (that obvious thing being that more data gives us a player's true talent level). They should have just reminded people that it's the same situation with all stats, not just defensive metrics. They do say one years worth of defensive data can tell us what the player did that year (particularly DRS, which is why I prefer to use that). They talk about 1 year and 3 year samples as being stable, meaning one year to tell us what the player did for that year (yearly performance) and 3 years to get a mean (measure true talent level). 'The other thing to remember is that DRS isn’t going to work well in small sample sizes, especially a couple of months or less. Once you get to one and three-year samples, it’s a relatively solid metric but defensive itself is quite variable so you need a good amount of data for the metrics to become particularly useful.' Right there it says one year. Having said all that, defensive metrics will get better (but still better than eye test or errors/fielding %), just like better offensive metrics have been created (like wRC+) that are better than what we used to have.

no worries, he can catch pop ups :-)

Some people believe in the whole certain veterans make teams play much better thing. It's a great baseball story. It's what's been taught from generation to generation and is usually reserved for players loved by fans who aren't actually doing much on the field any more (comparative to others at their positions). It's poetic really. It's one of the many passed down beliefs that make people love the game. However, baseball is, most of the time, a game of individual battles Pitcher against batter, batter against pitcher, fielder on his own fielding a ball, etc. I see zero reason to believe a veteran outfielder would make pitchers pitch better, infielders field better etc. We had great sequencing on offense in 2015, that helped us win games by us scoring more runs than the rest of our offensive numbers suggested we should have. In other words, runs scored made our offense look better than it actually was. Timing/sequencing was key, but did a veteran's presence cause that? Our pitching also, was better. But can we really lay that at the hands of one veteran osition player and say he is why all that happened? Did Hunter's influence help the team overall? Probably. But we had one great month, we didn't consistently play good ball so if that influence was so strong that it made the team much better, why wouldn't we just have played better the whole season (and I don't mean play as well as we did in May). This year I doubt we went from 83 wins to 59 due to losing Hunter just like I doubt we got 13 wins better just by adding the beloved veteran. What, did the players somehow forget everything Hunter showed them that made them win in 2015? The examples you gave are examples of the logical fallacy Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. In this case, it's easier to believe because of how we were taught the game and it gets carried on by retired players talking sports on air.

'LOS ANGELES -- The Brian Dozier auction should come to a close this week, according to a baseball source, although even those involved aren't sure if the Minnesota Twins will actually trade the slugging second baseman. New Twins management has shopped the 29-year-old for two months. The Dodgers believe they have presented the best offer, with pitching prospect Jose De Leon reportedly the centerpiece, but there are indications the Braves and Giants are also in pursuit of Dozier, who slugged 42 homers with 99 RBIs in 2016. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/213242678/dodgers-wait-for-twins-brian-dozier-decision/

Per Rosenthal So good luck to you, Plouffe! Hope you have a great comeback season!

traditional old school thinking.

Yes, and we won 83 games in 2015 because of Hunter. I keep forgetting that.

Because of his weak arm?

Hunter had -8 DRS and gave us a whopping 0.4 WAR (poor offense and defense) in his last year in the majors. Bumbling plays, horrible range, and so on. A wonderful 10M signing by Ryan, yes.

I think if we look at wRC+ and OPS plus, he took a sharp decline last year (26 points in wRC+, 28 in OPS+) and of course defensively he's horrible (hence the 1.4 WAR last year), which isn't likely to improve. We could throw him at DH though, I suppose, andhope he rebounds while we lose our 2nd round pick that may help our future.