jimmer

Well, we have the second or third worse defensive team in baseball and that was with Arcia not seeing too much time out there. Defense seems to be an afterthought when putting this team together.

well, that's nice that Molitor thought of it one batter too late.

Wait, I didn't see the game. We had MAUER on the bench and we didn't put him in the hit for Danny Santana when there was a guy on base and we were down by one? Man. Makes you wonder if Molitor is even paying attention or cares at all.

If not making the playoffs is a success, we've been very successful this decade. Wouldn't surprise me if we go the whole decade succeeding :-) In any event, 83-79 season, heck it was great success. They won about 10 more games than the talent on the team should have produced. And it's not like the stats didn't show this to be the case (and that this season kind of cements that), but success was had. Two games over .500 missing the second wild card by 3 games! :-)

I took into account that Cain was hurt but also that his wRC+ is under 100. I am a big fan of Cain though.

Yesterday I was having a discussion about the Rays rotation and someone decided to mention Nolasco for reasons passing understanding. For a moment, I thought maybe Nolasco had been traded to the Rays and that's why he was mentioned. I was pumped up! Alas, I tune in to last night's game and there he is, throwing BP to the White Sox. :-(

We've had 9 guys start at least one game for us this year. TWO of them sport an ERA under 5.00. NONE of them sport an ERA under 4.60. NONE of them have a FIP under 4.00. Remember all the quality depth of MLB quality starters we supposedly had to start the season? Yeah, about that: There should be a special place in hell reserved for this kind of rotation (the results/performances, not the pitchers themselves).

S: Perez 1B: Cabrera 2B: Altuve 3B: Donaldson SS: Lindor OF: Trout, Betts, Bradley Jr. DH: Ortiz

I completely tore my ACL in my knee this year. I opted for rehab and to build up my hammy and quad just to avoid having to have the surgery that comes with so much pain and such a long re-hab. So yeah, I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly.

That's hilarious!

Hughes old self wasn't 2014. It was an outlier. For Hughes, I hope the surgery goes well. I hope he's able to pitch again if that's what he wants to do.

Oh, it does. You're absolutely right.

ah, Nolasco...

He absolutely has a point.

Well, he's definitely still throwing the ball. Not sure it's pitching.

Well said. In that post, you picked ONE trade (The Revere/May trade) to show a premise that Ryan gets better than what he gives in trade. It's what you said. I brought up another trade (Span/Meyer trade) done in the same offseason and asked if you think that trade falls under your premise. Additionally, he's wasting May, so while May is certainly a better player than Revere, he has to actually be used correctly in order for that to, you know, come to fruition.

Looking at catchers with 170 or more PAs, 6th in WAR 5th in wRC+ He can't throw batters out, he can't frame pitches. Defense counts. But yeah, disagreeing is fine. Enjoyed the mini debate we had.

Seems like a decent price for a piece of garbage.

And as the Meyer trade showed?

Well, one play certainly proves your point. Then again, they don't actually need to keep him in the OF.

It's not hard to look at the stats and see that there are at least 5 catchers doing better than him in the AL. Of course, I have no idea what Yost thinks. Then again, none of us do, so I at least won't assume to know.

I didn't like it, and I said so. I had real issues with his inherited runs allowed to score stats (which I find important for a reliever).

Best FIP in the rotation when he was demoted, best K/9IP when demoted, 2nd best BB/9 when demoted, 2nd best xFIP when demoted. Most WAR when demoted. 3rd most WAR as a starter for the whole season even though he only started 15 games. All that while having a .344 BABIP against (.300 is average). Meaning that was due to regress (we all got a taste of regression with Santana) which helps the other numbers.

'WPA is tricky because there’s an innate desire to use it as a measure of “which player has delivered when it matters most!” In reality, it’s far more complicated than that because it’s an additive measure. To accrue big WPA totals, you need to be presented with many opportunities to come through with the game on the line. A player with a 5.0 WPA for the year hasn’t necessarily been more “clutch” than one with a 2.0 WPA, they may simply have had many chances with the bases loaded late in close games. WPA is not highly predictive. Generally, it is not used for player analysis and projecting the future ' Talk about a stat with limitations. And as far as LOB% goes, without looking at other stats (BABIP and HR/FB), doesn't give us much info (kind of like RBI). But even still, Rays are average in that department (and most pitchers are average in LOB%) with an average ERA. If they had a low ERA and a low LOB percentage, they might have an issue. Might expect that ERA to go up when the LOB% went back up. 'Most pitchers have LOB%s around league average (which is approximately 70-72%, depending upon the season), and pitchers that deviate from that average tend to see their numbers regress towards average in the future. In other words, if you see a pitcher with a 60 LOB%, they are letting lots of runners score so their ERA will be high, but the odds are that they will strand more runners in the future and lower their ERA. I don't really put too much into these particular stats for player analysis, mostly because the people who make it tell us not to when describing them.. Along with the rankings I gave earlier (K/9, FIP, ERA, WAR), their rotation has the 5th best BAA, 4th best OBP against, 4th best OPS against. Being top 5 in all those (along with K/9, and FIP) while being 6th in WAR and 7th in ERA, in a division that boasts the 1st, 2nd and 4th highest scoring teams in the AL, is in no way a disaster. By comparison, Twins are last in the AL in OPS against (23 point worse than the team that sits 14th), 14th in the AL in OBP against, last in the AL in BAA, last in ERA (by a lot), 11th in FIP, 14th in K/9, 12th in WAR. This in a division that boast no team in the top 5 in runs scored in the AL. That's a disaster.

They are first in Ks per 9 and 3rd in FIP. In no way does that come up as a disaster, unless disaster means something else. I don't know who thought they'd be top of the league but they shouldn't have thought that. That kind of prediction would be the disaster. Being not quite as good as you thought you'd be while still being pretty darn good isn't a disaster. And considering that Boston, Baltimore and Blue Jays rank 1st, 2nd and 4th in the AL in runs scored, they should be very happy with their rotation's performance so far.