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Red Sox Sign Hunter Renfroe
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Post by incandenza on Dec 16, 2020 16:19:30 GMT -5
Is this a question of the playeer's value, or of your emotional experience? Because the streakiness is already factored into the WAR calculations, etc. Unless there's an argument for why streakiness causes a team to lose more games than otherwise (and maybe there is!) then you're just saying it's not as satisfying to watch a player like that.
And as far as that goes, I happen to think JBJ provides a high entertainment/WAR return. For one, he makes exciting defensive plays all the time, and those are the funnest plays in baseball (which, by the way, mitigates his streakiness as a hitter, since he's contributing to the team even when he's cold at the plate; compare that to when JDM is cold at the plate, for instance). For another - and maybe this is just me - I kind of enjoy the streakiness. It's so awesome when he's hot, and then when he's cold it's frustrating, but I find myself really rooting for him to get hot again. As a result I've probably paid more attention to his at bats than any other player on the team in recent years.
I don't see how it wouldn't with the extreme nature Bradley does it. You get around four months of really negative hitting and two months of all-star hitting. His hot streaks cover fewer games. Maybe it's just me, yet the best lineups are the ones with few holes for long periods. I feel Bradley makes things really hard on a manager. But did you understand what I meant when I said this was already factored into WAR? If JBJ gives you 2 WAR in May and 2 WAR in August, and -0.5 in each of the other 4 months of the season, that's 2 WAR total. Why would that be worse than if he put up 0.3 WAR in each month? |
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 16, 2020 21:10:09 GMT -5
When he says he has the potential to *more* than a platoon player, the implication is he *is* a platoon player, ergo, he signed under a mutual understanding heâd be platooning. That suggests they expect him to be paired with someone who is also a platoon type. Which is not thrilling. Iâm not p**sing on it, but it may simply be standing still. I do not expect JBJ back. The end of the year seemed like a real goodbye lap for both parties. Iâd love to have him back. But then Iâd see Beni-JBJ-Verdugo as an everyday outfield, with Renfroe as a guy who spells them periodically. Acceptable, but, again, a small move. I get, too, the math... he came cheap!... but after a year of dumping salary and taking a beating, I hope the payoff is more than discount outfielders and.... shudder... aged former Cleveland aces. Last thing, at risk of contradicting my last point â if this is a move to be more competitive this year but also keep the powder dry because the FO knows it is another building year, then I say great! But it is the path to an 85 win season, which, again, I say great! If it means blowing it out next year. Agree on the first sentence. Disagree on the second. There's more than one way to use a "platoon player." "Platoon player" to me means a player who's going to play when the matchups are right. In other words, the role they acquired Pillar to fill last year. It doesn't necessarily mean they acquired him with the intent that they will acquire a LHH complement to form a true platoon at one position. There are a lot of questions in the OF right now. They literally don't have a center fielder. Who knows what they're going to get out of Benintendi. If they re-sign Bradley, we know how streaky he is. Signing a guy like Renfroe for that spot makes sense - he can spell whichever OF it makes sense to spell when the matchup is good. They almost certainly have a batter / pitcher matchup predictor that makes the one I used for them from 2005 to mid-2008 look like a cave painting. [1]
You have a lineup with, we hope, 4 LHB in Verdugo, Benintendi, Devers, and JBJ. Every game against a LHP you sit the guy who projects to really struggle, or the manager chooses from among a more-or-less equal group of candidates.
If they sign Kiké Hernandez as a CF, that gives them even more flexibility, since you can sit two guys if that makes sense, and also match the defense to needs.
[1] It nailed Alex Cora and Doug Mirabelli, but I can't claim it made a difference other than at SS and C. Against the starters I picked out for Cora, he was the 3rd best hitter on the team after Manny and Papi, and the sample size was large enough that everyone else lined up as expected. It took me years to realize that both guys were likely students of batter / pitcher matchups themselves, and in fact they liked the same sort of pitcher: flyball guys who gave up substantially more HR than expected given the rest of their stats.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 16, 2020 21:46:17 GMT -5
I don't see how it wouldn't with the extreme nature Bradley does it. You get around four months of really negative hitting and two months of all-star hitting. His hot streaks cover fewer games. Maybe it's just me, yet the best lineups are the ones with few holes for long periods. I feel Bradley makes things really hard on a manager. But did you understand what I meant when I said this was already factored into WAR? If JBJ gives you 2 WAR in May and 2 WAR in August, and -0.5 in each of the other 4 months of the season, that's 2 WAR total. Why would that be worse than if he put up 0.3 WAR in each month? Streaky players are better to have than non-streaky. You obviously wouldn't want a whole team of them, or you'd lose your mind. But a team without them is not a good idea.
It's a very commonplace observation that you usually don't make the playoffs because you built a team that was obviously of playoff caliber. No, the usual way of making the post-season is to build a team that has a shot at it, and then a bunch of guys have unexpectedly good seasons and only a couple of guys are disappointments.
Those guys who surprised you with their seasons and got you into the playoffs are often streaky players.
Streaky players have wider year-to-year variation, because the length of their hot and cold steaks are variable. As in wRC+ of 118, 88, 120, 119, 66 = 102 career. Call that the Travis Shaw effect (I combined 2019 and 2020 there).
Imagine that you have a lineup with 9 guys who each project to have 102 wRC+, like Shaw over his career. And imagine that you need to get 106 from the lineup to make the playoffs.
Imagine that every one of these guys is an even-keeled, predictable as sunrise and sunset guy, bank on the 102! Umassgrad sleeps well at night knowing that. But you can never make the playoffs with that team.
Now imagine that four of those guys are Shaw-types instead, who instead of a reliable 102, give you either a 120 or 84 at the toss of a coin. If three of them have a 120, you make the playoffs. That has a 1 in 4 chance.
Teams look for upside. A high percentage of the jobs on a ball club consist of either identifying upside or trying to extract it. And upside and streakiness are strongly correlated. A guy who gets locked in for two months where his swing or pitching mechanics are perfect can in theory do that again.
Re JBJ's actual value, see my post in the FA thread.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 16, 2020 22:10:27 GMT -5
I don't see how it wouldn't with the extreme nature Bradley does it. You get around four months of really negative hitting and two months of all-star hitting. His hot streaks cover fewer games. Maybe it's just me, yet the best lineups are the ones with few holes for long periods. I feel Bradley makes things really hard on a manager. But did you understand what I meant when I said this was already factored into WAR? If JBJ gives you 2 WAR in May and 2 WAR in August, and -0.5 in each of the other 4 months of the season, that's 2 WAR total. Why would that be worse than if he put up 0.3 WAR in each month? I knew exactly what you were saying. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. To make the playoffs you have to be good for 6 months. Bradley only helps for two months, hurts for four on his recent path. If the choice is as you said, I'll take the . 3 per month guy and it's not even close. That is a guy helping you for six straight months. Helps you avoid long down turns. |
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Post by LeeTinsley on Dec 16, 2020 22:20:49 GMT -5
They almost certainly have a batter / pitcher matchup predictor that makes the one I used for them from 2005 to mid-2008 look like a cave painting. [1]
You have a lineup with, we hope, 4 LHB in Verdugo, Benintendi, Devers, and JBJ. Every game against a LHP you sit the guy who projects to really struggle, or the manager chooses from among a more-or-less equal group of candidates.
If they sign Kiké Hernandez as a CF, that gives them even more flexibility, since you can sit two guys if that makes sense, and also match the defense to needs.
[1] It nailed Alex Cora and Doug Mirabelli, but I can't claim it made a difference other than at SS and C. Against the starters I picked out for Cora, he was the 3rd best hitter on the team after Manny and Papi, and the sample size was large enough that everyone else lined up as expected. It took me years to realize that both guys were likely students of batter / pitcher matchups themselves, and in fact they liked the same sort of pitcher: flyball guys who gave up substantially more HR than expected given the rest of their stats.
Was this the project that was talked about by Theo Epstein in the Francona book? |
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 17, 2020 2:32:08 GMT -5
But did you understand what I meant when I said this was already factored into WAR? If JBJ gives you 2 WAR in May and 2 WAR in August, and -0.5 in each of the other 4 months of the season, that's 2 WAR total. Why would that be worse than if he put up 0.3 WAR in each month? I knew exactly what you were saying. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. To make the playoffs you have to be good for 6 months. Bradley only helps for two months, hurts for four on his recent path. If the choice is as you said, I'll take the . 3 per month guy and it's not even close. That is a guy helping you for six straight months. Helps you avoid long down turns. If you have a team that bats .500 2 games a week and bats .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats .300. You also likely have a team that has a .333 winning percentage. |
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Post by johnsilver52 on Dec 17, 2020 3:49:35 GMT -5
I well remember streaky boston teams and players. Late 1970's, seemed like the entire boston team would tear the cover from the ball, win 5-8 games in a row, then nobody would hit for 4-5 games and they would lose every single game. This went on from 1976-1979.. Every single season with outstanding players like Rice, Yaz, Lynn, Burleson. Throw a good Boomer season in, plus a good Hobson 1. Fisk.. I'll never, ever want a guy who is super hot, then ice cold habitually again after watching/listening to those teams again and probably very few others who were heartbroken every year by those teams would either.
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Post by unitspin on Dec 17, 2020 6:25:11 GMT -5
Any outcome where jbj doesn't suit up for the red sox next year is a win. He is painful to watch at the plate, hope he turns it around else where but I've seen enough. As well he is looking for a multi year deal, money can be spent better in other spots.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Dec 17, 2020 11:54:52 GMT -5
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 17, 2020 12:38:15 GMT -5
That's cool. I'm not sure how many folks had him tagged as a savior. Myself, I thought he might be a useful right-handed bat to provide some platoon depth as a fourth outfielder. As for how he'll perform versus the left-field wall, that's a function of the angle and distance he gets on fly balls in that direction. That's largely an unknown at this point. All we have is his performance last year and that's a tiny sample. And while I understand Fangraph's need to get on with the program of reviewing team zips projections, it is way too early given the drastic change in the timing for the free agent market. I'll wager the team will look a bit different than the one they're projecting. The pitching will change, the relief corps will be different than what's listed, and, as an exclamation point to the position depth, Casas will not be playing first base anytime soon. I could suggest a lot more ifs, but we all get the picture I think. I do like the projection for the catching which looks very solid. |
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Post by incandenza on Dec 17, 2020 13:21:54 GMT -5
But did you understand what I meant when I said this was already factored into WAR? If JBJ gives you 2 WAR in May and 2 WAR in August, and -0.5 in each of the other 4 months of the season, that's 2 WAR total. Why would that be worse than if he put up 0.3 WAR in each month? I knew exactly what you were saying. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. To make the playoffs you have to be good for 6 months. Bradley only helps for two months, hurts for four on his recent path. If the choice is as you said, I'll take the . 3 per month guy and it's not even close. That is a guy helping you for six straight months. Helps you avoid long down turns. It seems like the logic could just as well work the other way: baseball is a marathon, not a sprint - therefore you can tolerate a streaky hitter, knowing that he'll probably have enough hot streaks to reach his projections in the end. Also this again ignores the point that his defense is not streaky so he does bring value to the team even when he's cold at the plate, which cannot be said for a bat-only guy. I knew exactly what you were saying. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. To make the playoffs you have to be good for 6 months. Bradley only helps for two months, hurts for four on his recent path. If the choice is as you said, I'll take the . 3 per month guy and it's not even close. That is a guy helping you for six straight months. Helps you avoid long down turns. If you have a team that bats .500 2 games a week and bats .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats .300. You also likely have a team that has a .333 winning percentage. But JBJ is not a team, he's a player. If you had a lineup of 9 guys who batted .500 2 games a week and .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats around .300 in every game.
In fact, this is just what a typical .300 hitter does: hits .500 in two games and .200 in four games a week. What difference does it make if you change games/week to months/season?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 17, 2020 13:41:51 GMT -5
They almost certainly have a batter / pitcher matchup predictor that makes the one I used for them from 2005 to mid-2008 look like a cave painting. [1]
You have a lineup with, we hope, 4 LHB in Verdugo, Benintendi, Devers, and JBJ. Every game against a LHP you sit the guy who projects to really struggle, or the manager chooses from among a more-or-less equal group of candidates.
If they sign Kiké Hernandez as a CF, that gives them even more flexibility, since you can sit two guys if that makes sense, and also match the defense to needs.
[1] It nailed Alex Cora and Doug Mirabelli, but I can't claim it made a difference other than at SS and C. Against the starters I picked out for Cora, he was the 3rd best hitter on the team after Manny and Papi, and the sample size was large enough that everyone else lined up as expected. It took me years to realize that both guys were likely students of batter / pitcher matchups themselves, and in fact they liked the same sort of pitcher: flyball guys who gave up substantially more HR than expected given the rest of their stats.
Was this the project that was talked about by Theo Epstein in the Francona book? Yeah, but there's much that isn't right there. I suspect there was some pressure to finish the book, so Shaughnessy never asked me for my version of events. The irony is that we have a very friendly e-mail relationship now, as he's actually shown a real willingness to be open-minded about things.
Some of the errors were corrected in the ESPN Mag story about me, but if folks want the whole rundown I can put it in the off-topic thread at some point.
The biggest thing, though (and not mentioned by ESPN) was that the whole bit about Tito rejecting the advice he was getting about lineups is off by a year. That's an easy mistake to make, since I was just off by half a year! It wasn't August 18, 2006 that he rebelled against advice to sit Lowell against Chien-Ming Wang (or mid-2008, as I just put it), it must have been September 15th, 2007, since I have matchup advice for that whole season that ends after the next series against the Jays, and I do recall Zack Scott telling me Tito had had enough over the phone. That was after almost three full years of taking the advice.
And I didn't recommend sitting Lowell for either of those games. I was aware that guys would not want to sit against the Yankees, and after talking about C and SS for the Yankees series in '06, I ended the e-mail with "I don't think anyone else is going to want to sit." In '07, a Friday through Sunday series with Wang in the middle, I had all the regulars playing, with an optoin, against Wang, of Hinske for Drew and and Mirabelli for Varitek, day game after night (Tito did neither).
They did have another guy who did swing path analysis. And it's true that Lowell never hit Wang! Since Tito took another series to decide he'd had enough, I didn't learn what pissed him off until the book came out. But it was Zack Scott who was passing on the data to Tito, and I was already aware that in his first two years of being speaker-to-Tito, he wasn't doing as good a job as Jed Hoyer had done in '05.
The funniest thing in those two pages is "Tom Tippett and Zack Scott were nothing like Van and [Voros] McCracken," as a followup to Theo saying "those guys were literally in the basement." Voros, I think, fits the geek stereotype, but I'm fairly certain that both Tom and Zack fit it much better than I do. I don't think either one has ever hung out backstage with U2, for instance.
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Dec 17, 2020 15:36:43 GMT -5
The guy has hit 26-26-33 home runs with a home park less suited to him. I doubt he'll hit 45 now, but he'll probably hit 25-30 and maybe that much with less playing time. And Szymborski's ZIPS projects he'll hit 26 HR in 465 PAs sooooooooooo... what is he arguing? I guess against a strawman that Renfroe will now be Adam Dunn with a gun in right, which I never saw argued. |
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Post by electricityverdugo99 on Dec 17, 2020 15:52:09 GMT -5
Dustin Pedrioa and Xander Bogaerts OPS is higher by 100 points in their entire careers in Fenway. Not to mention guys like Youkilis, Lowell, Millar, Cody Ross, Johnny Gomes, Jason Bay all thrived in Fewnay and went on to do basically nothing (Lowell was done, but Fenway revived his career at the end) after they left Fenway. I don't know what this dude at Fangraphs is talking about. All it's done the past 35 years is bring RHB OPS up significantly for forever. |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 17, 2020 17:08:48 GMT -5
I knew exactly what you were saying. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. To make the playoffs you have to be good for 6 months. Bradley only helps for two months, hurts for four on his recent path. If the choice is as you said, I'll take the . 3 per month guy and it's not even close. That is a guy helping you for six straight months. Helps you avoid long down turns. It seems like the logic could just as well work the other way: baseball is a marathon, not a sprint - therefore you can tolerate a streaky hitter, knowing that he'll probably have enough hot streaks to reach his projections in the end. Also this again ignores the point that his defense is not streaky so he does bring value to the team even when he's cold at the plate, which cannot be said for a bat-only guy. If you have a team that bats .500 2 games a week and bats .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats .300. You also likely have a team that has a .333 winning percentage. But JBJ is not a team, he's a player. If you had a lineup of 9 guys who batted .500 2 games a week and .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats around .300 in every game.
In fact, this is just what a typical .300 hitter does: hits .500 in two games and .200 in four games a week. What difference does it make if you change games/week to months/season?
You can easily find very good defenders that hit like crap. Can this lineup tolerate Bradley's extreme streakiness? This isn't the 2018 team. Nevermind even using Tolerate to describe Bradley basically proves my point. You want to give a 3 year 30 plus million contract to a guy who's horrible for 2/3 of the season because he's good 1/3 of the time. The easiest way to build teams is with consistent players and Bradley isn't the streaky type of player like Eric talks about since teams starting killing him with the shift. Guys like Porcello are streaky, yet they do it year to year. Buy low on those guys and it can make for a great year. A year ago reports say no one wanted Bradley at $11 million, now we're talking about that over three years. Hard pass. The more streaky your players are the wider the range in outcomes. There's a reason that the games most consistent players are the highest paid players. So I don't see an argument that being crazy extreme streaky can ever be a good thing. I'd rather a player that is more consistent, even if on paper he might not look as good. I'd add that a big part of this, is that in this Market $10-11 million is going to get you a ton if you wait. This isn't a normal year and it's not like this team is one player away. Resigning Bradley feels like a DD move, I thought we brought in Bloom to get creative. |
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Post by ematz1423 on Dec 17, 2020 17:44:10 GMT -5
It seems like the logic could just as well work the other way: baseball is a marathon, not a sprint - therefore you can tolerate a streaky hitter, knowing that he'll probably have enough hot streaks to reach his projections in the end. Also this again ignores the point that his defense is not streaky so he does bring value to the team even when he's cold at the plate, which cannot be said for a bat-only guy. But JBJ is not a team, he's a player. If you had a lineup of 9 guys who batted .500 2 games a week and .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats around .300 in every game.
In fact, this is just what a typical .300 hitter does: hits .500 in two games and .200 in four games a week. What difference does it make if you change games/week to months/season?
You can easily find very good defenders that hit like crap. Can this lineup tolerate Bradley's extreme streakiness? This isn't the 2018 team. Nevermind even using Tolerate to describe Bradley basically proves my point. You want to give a 3 year 30 plus million contract to a guy who's horrible for 2/3 of the season because he's good 1/3 of the time. The easiest way to build teams is with consistent players and Bradley isn't the streaky type of player like Eric talks about since teams starting killing him with the shift. Guys like Porcello are streaky, yet they do it year to year. Buy low on those guys and it can make for a great year. A year ago reports say no one wanted Bradley at $11 million, now we're talking about that over three years. Hard pass. The more streaky your players are the wider the range in outcomes. There's a reason that the games most consistent players are the highest paid players. So I don't see an argument that being crazy extreme streaky can ever be a good thing. I'd rather a player that is more consistent, even if on paper he might not look as good. I'd add that a big part of this, is that in this Market $10-11 million is going to get you a ton if you wait. This isn't a normal year and it's not like this team is one player away. Resigning Bradley feels like a DD move, I thought we brought in Bloom to get creative. I'm not saying I necessarily want JBJ back but to say he's horrible 2/3 of the time would be completely throwing out his very good defensive ability which has immense value at a defensive position such as CF. Maybe I'm nitpicking but you should at least say his offense is horrible 2/3 of the time because its just not true to call him horrible 2/3 of the year. It's not like he's a DH. |
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Post by incandenza on Dec 17, 2020 19:53:59 GMT -5
It seems like the logic could just as well work the other way: baseball is a marathon, not a sprint - therefore you can tolerate a streaky hitter, knowing that he'll probably have enough hot streaks to reach his projections in the end. Also this again ignores the point that his defense is not streaky so he does bring value to the team even when he's cold at the plate, which cannot be said for a bat-only guy. But JBJ is not a team, he's a player. If you had a lineup of 9 guys who batted .500 2 games a week and .200 4 games a week, you have a team that bats around .300 in every game.
In fact, this is just what a typical .300 hitter does: hits .500 in two games and .200 in four games a week. What difference does it make if you change games/week to months/season?
You can easily find very good defenders that hit like crap. Can this lineup tolerate Bradley's extreme streakiness? This isn't the 2018 team. Nevermind even using Tolerate to describe Bradley basically proves my point. You want to give a 3 year 30 plus million contract to a guy who's horrible for 2/3 of the season because he's good 1/3 of the time. The easiest way to build teams is with consistent players and Bradley isn't the streaky type of player like Eric talks about since teams starting killing him with the shift. Guys like Porcello are streaky, yet they do it year to year. Buy low on those guys and it can make for a great year. A year ago reports say no one wanted Bradley at $11 million, now we're talking about that over three years. Hard pass. The more streaky your players are the wider the range in outcomes. There's a reason that the games most consistent players are the highest paid players. So I don't see an argument that being crazy extreme streaky can ever be a good thing. I'd rather a player that is more consistent, even if on paper he might not look as good. I'd add that a big part of this, is that in this Market $10-11 million is going to get you a ton if you wait. This isn't a normal year and it's not like this team is one player away. Resigning Bradley feels like a DD move, I thought we brought in Bloom to get creative. Out of all these words, the closest thing to an argument for why a streaky player is worse than a consistent player of equal WAR value is the bolded line. But here are JBJ's wRC+'s for the last few seasons:
2017: 89 2018: 90 2019: 90 2020: 119
I'm sure no one expects him to be at 119 again; the assumption would be that you get the guy who, at the level of whole season, was uncannily consistent for the previous three years. (The 119 in 2020 at least suggests he's not on a downhill trajectory.)
And the reason that the game's highest paid players are consistent is... that they're the game's best players. Of course they're consistently good. But no one wants to pay JBJ like he's one of the game's best players, obviously.
Now your last line about the opportunity cost of not waiting is a reasonable enough point. If you can get better value for whatever JBJ would cost, then sure, do that. But what, specifically do you have in mind? What's the better value to be had by waiting, particular to fill the outfielder spot on the roster?
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Post by soxfaninnj on Dec 17, 2020 20:27:04 GMT -5
In honor of the Red Sox signing hunter renfroe, I picked up and started hunter renfrow in my fantasy football playoffs. Prob gonna come back to burn me.
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Dec 17, 2020 20:50:35 GMT -5
In honor of the Red Sox signing hunter renfroe, I picked up and started hunter renfrow in my fantasy football playoffs. Prob gonna come back to burn me. He'll get you 25 to 30 HR tonight. |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 18, 2020 0:21:08 GMT -5
You can easily find very good defenders that hit like crap. Can this lineup tolerate Bradley's extreme streakiness? This isn't the 2018 team. Nevermind even using Tolerate to describe Bradley basically proves my point. You want to give a 3 year 30 plus million contract to a guy who's horrible for 2/3 of the season because he's good 1/3 of the time. The easiest way to build teams is with consistent players and Bradley isn't the streaky type of player like Eric talks about since teams starting killing him with the shift. Guys like Porcello are streaky, yet they do it year to year. Buy low on those guys and it can make for a great year. A year ago reports say no one wanted Bradley at $11 million, now we're talking about that over three years. Hard pass. The more streaky your players are the wider the range in outcomes. There's a reason that the games most consistent players are the highest paid players. So I don't see an argument that being crazy extreme streaky can ever be a good thing. I'd rather a player that is more consistent, even if on paper he might not look as good. I'd add that a big part of this, is that in this Market $10-11 million is going to get you a ton if you wait. This isn't a normal year and it's not like this team is one player away. Resigning Bradley feels like a DD move, I thought we brought in Bloom to get creative. Out of all these words, the closest thing to an argument for why a streaky player is worse than a consistent player of equal WAR value is the bolded line. But here are JBJ's wRC+'s for the last few seasons:
2017: 89 2018: 90 2019: 90 2020: 119
I'm sure no one expects him to be at 119 again; the assumption would be that you get the guy who, at the level of whole season, was uncannily consistent for the previous three years. (The 119 in 2020 at least suggests he's not on a downhill trajectory.)
And the reason that the game's highest paid players are consistent is... that they're the game's best players. Of course they're consistently good. But no one wants to pay JBJ like he's one of the game's best players, obviously.
Now your last line about the opportunity cost of not waiting is a reasonable enough point. If you can get better value for whatever JBJ would cost, then sure, do that. But what, specifically do you have in mind? What's the better value to be had by waiting, particular to fill the outfielder spot on the roster?
The biggest reason was in my last post, a more consistent player impacts more games. You want a starter who pitches ten great games and 20 really bad ones or a guy who gives you 20 quality starts? I can't even think of a pitcher that's like Bradley, not many players are that extreme in a given season over years. I don't know, waiting on value guys means seeing who's left. Yet we can use starters, relievers, a 1B and a 2B along with a guy in CF. So it's not like Bradley is the final piece. |
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Dec 18, 2020 11:29:46 GMT -5
I'm bullish on Renfroe. I picked him in a fantasy league a few years ago thinking he was going to be big power bat. So, I fully expect he figures out RHP and instantly becomes an MVP candidate.
But in all seriousness, I think he's a fine bat off the bench to face lefty pitchers. He shouldn't be used for any other reason unless there's an emergency need to start him. They need another OF or a super UTIL that can also play some infield and outfield.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 18, 2020 22:39:24 GMT -5
I'm bullish on Renfroe. I picked him in a fantasy league a few years ago thinking he was going to be big power bat. So, I fully expect he figures out RHP and instantly becomes an MVP candidate. But in all seriousness, I think he's a fine bat off the bench to face lefty pitchers. He shouldn't be used for any other reason unless there's an emergency need to start him. They need another OF or a super UTIL that can also play some infield and outfield. Whit Merrifield sounds perfect. |
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Post by johnsilver52 on Dec 18, 2020 23:09:36 GMT -5
Whit Merrifield sounds perfect. Agree on be nice the Sox had Merrifield, but KC not giving him away. One of the very best 2b in the game. Were he to play for Bos, NYY, LAD he'd be getting the media credit due already as to how good he really is. |
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