jimmer

They've expanded the called strike zone every year since 2010 (starting then) until this year where it was like 2014 (though still quite different than 2009 and before). IMO, patient batters with very keen eyes who were used to a certain strike zone for a long time, have a harder time adjusting. He should be adjusting of course, but for players who are more free swingers, the change in strike zone is less of an issue.

Vlad Guerrero (with his 54 fWAR and 59 bWAR in 9,000 PA) barely misses it in his 1st shot and likely makes it next year. EDMONDS (with his 65 fWAR and 60 bWAR in 8000 PA) is off the ballot in his 1st shot. 8 time gold glover and OPS over .900 (and he was primarily a CF). Larry Walker (with his 69 fWAR and bWAR of 73 in 8000 PA) isn't going to make it. This guy did it all (hit, very good runner, very good defender). He is 10th in WAR for RF and every single guy in the top 14 for RF, with the exception of Shoeless Joe who is banned, is in the HOF. Ichiro, who is 16th in WAR for RF, will make it too (likely 1st time). But, of course, WAR isn't the end all be all (for some, it means zero) When looking at positions, defense, wRC+ and OPS+ (which accounts for park and time frame) it's equally ridiculous to see Vlad so close on first time and neither of these guys having any kind of shot.

Still no Mussina, still no Schilling. In fact, Schilling actually DROPPED.

I have zero issue when players who aren't even close to being HOFers drop off 1st time. Posada is one of those guys. Jim Edmonds, who had a legitimate argument to actually make the HOF, was gone after one ballot.

It was a completely out of left field season and an unnecessary/early extension. It wasn't a good extension based on info available at the time. Hindsight (which, you know, wasn't hard to see coming) confirms it but wasn't necessary to see this was a bad decision. I don't care if a lot of people in here were on a high from his season and applauded the decision at the time because of that season, it was an obvious bad move (and using group think to say other-wise doesn't work either).

Congrats to Bagwell (can't even believe it took this long), IRod (only the 2nd catcher in history to get voted in on his first ballot) and Raines!!! And good job, HOF voters, for continuing to screw over Mussina and Schilling (among a few others).

FTFY

He has been a quality upper half of the rotation starter once.

Exactly this. Don't want to vote? Remove yourself completely from the process. Guys like this and Chass need to just stop. But people are talking about guys like this, which is what I believe they are really striving for.

You forget about the bold move of getting Castro :-)

We are also in this situation because of Ryan Hunter wasn't traded. Santana wasn't traded soon enough, Span was traded for the wrong player, Cuddyer was never traded, Willingham was never traded and so on. And Ryan handpicked Smith (who got a lot of the quality talent we are counting on now in the international marker, BTW) Holding onto quality players too long and getting no value in return is a good way for a mid-small market team to stay down.

53+ WAR according to Fangraphs :-)

How do you figure that?

Oh, I don't think WE forget how good Vazquez was, just SOME do :-) In 14 seasons he had: 200+ IP nine times 190+ IP eleven times Career 8 K/ 2.4BB Career FIP of 3.91 54 WAR He really only had two bad seasons. His 1st one and his 2nd to last one. Not a HOFer, but a VERY good pitcher for sure. If De Leon is THAT guy, YES please!

Well, perhaps top 30 is a bit of an undersell. Sickels, at end of season, had De Leon as the #5 prospect in baseball (which included pitchers and position players). He was actually ranked as the 3rd pitching prospect. Now, I'm not a big fan of Sickels but many are in here and many use him in counter arguments against other prospect listings like, say, Fangraphs. So, it's at least worth taking into account, especially for those who really value Sickels opinion.

Ryan Pressly had an ERA of 3.70 in 2016, the only year in the last 3 where he pitched more than 30 innings in the majors. He also allowed 41% of inherited runners to score.

this

while certainly not as bad as our record last year, we arent nearly as good as our record in 2015. This team is bad and will be bad.

Didnt the Cubs get out of the cellar in 2015, winning 97 games, when they had, according to Cots, a 120M opening day 25 man roster payroll (12M more than the Twins 2016 open day 25 man roster payroll)?

It excludes draftees? In Sickels Sept 24 article that had De Leon 5th, the #1 pick of the 2016 draft was ranked 48th and another draftee was ranked 47th. Kirloff was 84th. Quite a few 2016 draft picks on that top 100 list.

all of this, especially the third guy

Ken Griffey Jr is the only first overall draft pick ever elected to the HOF (so the highest pick ever). Ironically, Piazza, the guy Griffey went into the HOF with, is the only HOFer drafted in the last round of the MLB draft (ahead of only 5 players). So the 2016 election produced the highest-drafted and lowest-drafted Hall of Famer. Quality MLBers come in all rounds of the draft.

Lots of thoughts on the possibility on this thread http://twinsdaily.com/topic/24666-twins-interested-in-jose-bautista/

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.

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.