|
Post by bookiemetts on Jan 30, 2015 0:15:28 GMT -5
Ogando just started following the Red Sox on Twitter, so it looks like it's happening. Has major shoulder injury concerns, but the money will be all incentive laden. Purly a lottery ticket for the pen. Yeah I think this is a good move. We can just throw him into some blowouts at the beginning of the year and see how he does, not much to lose by signing him.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Jan 30, 2015 0:11:17 GMT -5
So I remember seeing a tweet a while ago telling us to look forward to the video for this year. I would be quite sad if we didn't These are gold.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Dec 16, 2014 20:50:50 GMT -5
Ken Rosenthal @ken_Rosenthal · 3h 3 hours ago Sources: #Padres, #Rays discussing significant trade. Talks involve a number of players. Wil Myers would be main piece going to SD.
If the Rays are trading Myers they must be getting a pretty significant return from the Padres here. It's quite a curious move, as they would likely be "selling low" on Myers relatively speaking after last year and they're giving up many cheap years of a potential impact power hitter.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Dec 13, 2014 2:47:58 GMT -5
So I was looking at Miley's stats a little bit closer, and I'm not really sure what to make of them (from Fangraphs). He is generating more swings and misses both inside the strike zone and outside of it and is striking out more people as a result. His BABIP against really increased last season, even though he gave up less line drives than previous seasons. The really huge differences are really the increased walk rate and HR% on fly balls. At first I thought the increased HR% may be due to the field in Arizona, but man if you look here: hittrackeronline.com/detail.php?id=2014_3471&type=pitcherand select the Fenway Park overlay, that looks a little bit concerning. Now this doesn't give the height of the homeruns and thus isn't perfect, but pitching at Fenway might not have helped him much last season. The only good thing about pitching at Fenway is that he won't have to face Scott van Slyke much next year. That guy was absolute death to Miley. He might have some issues with power hitting right handed hitters with big splits (ie. Donaldson, Adam Jones etc.). Overall the thing is if he can keep increasing his GB% and K-rate he should improve on his previous seasons. But if he can't fix the HR problems or walks that may be difficult.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Dec 11, 2014 15:26:18 GMT -5
At first I was a little bit skeptical about this trade, with Rubby being the part I didn't like giving up. I don't think Webster will be anything more than a bullpen guy really. But I'm coming around on the deal and this piece on fangraphs is pretty interesting: www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wade-miley-who-is-better-than-you-think/If it's been posted here before, that's my bad lol. There is a table which compares Miley to Homer Bailey and Jeff Samardzija over the past 3 years, and you really can't tell the difference. Plus, Miley was pitching in Arizona which has got some short fences, and he still didn't give up that many homers.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Dec 10, 2014 14:59:11 GMT -5
Phillies fans posting all over MLBTR like its a disease. They're Like "call us with Betts and Swihart and maybe we'll talk" Like pound sand. Yeah really look at this one lol "What alternate universe are the Red Sox living in? Wade MIley over Cole Hamels is ludicrous! The Red Sox will have to give up one of Mookie Betts or Xavier Boegarts to get Hamels if you do not want to win 11-10 games all the time and blow your bullpen out by July." The thing is, I think RAJ will gladly sit around and do nothing, and in his mind, there's no real reason to trade Hamels. It's true that Hamels is a great pitcher, an ace, a legitimate number 1. But do you really need a pitcher like him to win a WS? Let's take a look at the Royals of last year... They made the playoffs with Shields and a bunch of number 2 and 3 starters. With a pretty good offense that we expect them to have next year with a decent pen, something like Shields, Cueto, Buchholz, Kelly, Rubby would probably be enough to get to the playoffs at least. Mainly I'll just be sad if they trade Mookie
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Dec 3, 2014 21:14:43 GMT -5
Did the Mariners trade Saunders today? If they did, rhey could have opening in the outfield now. Yes they traded him to Toronto for JA Happ, who won't even be a top 5 starter in the M's current rotation. Now the Mariners have a hole in right field and an extra viable starter, so they may intend to trade one of them for an outfield bat.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Dec 3, 2014 20:33:37 GMT -5
Haha I can only imagine how angry people would get if Lester goes to the Cards and we find out that Lackey was the guy who convinced him to join him. People's complaints about the Lackey trade would be 10x worse. Man the Cardinal rotation would be stacked with Wainwright, Lester, Lackey, Lynn and Wacha.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 28, 2014 21:49:18 GMT -5
Ken Rosenthal @ken_Rosenthal · 2m 2 minutes ago Sources: Donaldson going to #BlueJays. Lawrie, RHP Kendall Graveman among those going to #Athletics.
Wow. I wonder who else is in the deal.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 28, 2014 21:25:26 GMT -5
Gray is one of the few I would actually trade Betts for. But Beane can't be crazy enough to trade him can he? I don't know he just traded Addison Russell for 1.5 years of the Shark, the dude's got balls. Ken Rosenthal @ken_Rosenthal · 10m 10 minutes ago One source says #Athletics working on multiple trades. All teams are for most part, but source says, “This is Billy re-working the club.” Wonder what that really means.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 25, 2014 18:13:17 GMT -5
Why are we hearing so much about Hamels? Are people forgetting ruben amaro junior is their GM? Wouldn't other targets make more sense? Haha yeah really. Let's say Ben takes an errant Sandoval backswing to the head and actually offers Bogaerts for Hamels. Ruben would then counter with Bogaerts, Betts and Swihart while we all buy front row tickets to watch him ride that franchise into the ground. The thing is who are the other realistic targets? Is Iwakuma really possible? Are any of those Padres pitchers up for grabs? (of course there are the home/away splits to consider) Who else?
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 24, 2014 0:00:11 GMT -5
If that's really the deal, wow it's fantastic.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 21, 2014 13:58:43 GMT -5
I think as long as Mookie has a place in the field and lineup, he should be hitting leadoff. If he's going to hit 291/368/444 with a lot of steals why would you put him anywhere else? His skill-set screams leadoff hitter, but the question is whether Farrell agrees. Farrell certainly agreed in September as Mookie was leading off by then and doing a fine job of it. Well I mean look at who was in the regular lineup at that time. There weren't many other options. Pedey was hurt, Castillo was playing for the first time in a year, Cespedes doesn't get on base and a crippled Allen Craig was getting at bats in the cleanup spot. How do we know Farrell won't play Vic there instead? But I will say that probably the leadoff spot really doesn't mean much and they shouldn't construct a team looking for one. They just need to play good players.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 21, 2014 0:20:43 GMT -5
I think as long as Mookie has a place in the field and lineup, he should be hitting leadoff. If he's going to hit 291/368/444 with a lot of steals why would you put him anywhere else? His skill-set screams leadoff hitter, but the question is whether Farrell agrees.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 20, 2014 13:52:19 GMT -5
Brian MacPherson @brianmacp Red Sox int'l scouting director Eddie Romero has seen Yoan Moncada, declined to say much other than that team can be "aggressive" with $. Sounds like the Red Sox will be in and in heavy. Love to hear it. I really like the sound of that. I'd like to think that currently having prominent Cuban players on the major league team gives us a slight advantage over say the Yanks, even though Moncada would likely never play with Cespedes. That is probably just wishful thinking though hah.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 13, 2014 21:21:59 GMT -5
It's only 7 games in, but it's never too early to micro analyze things. Early returns on the Avery Bradley extension? Basically, by most advanced measures, he's been a below average player both offensively and defensively. His mid range game has been good, unfortunately, that's the least valuable shot in basketball according to some. He's scoring a bit, but is mostly an empty box score with seemingly over-rated defense, probably due to size and strength limitations. It's only 7 games, but some of the numbers are eerily similar to last years numbers. Something to watch going forward as it was a somewhat controversial extension in that some people thought it was a clear overpay and some thought it was right on or even a little cheaper than he should have gotten. Yeah Avery really seems to get caught on screens pretty badly. He's a defensive monster from the inbound pass up the court until he gets screened and it's downhill from there. Marcus Smart is much better at getting around or just going through screens cause of his size and strength. With the increased salary cap coming due to the new TV deal the salaries of average players is only going to go up. It's even happening now. Look at Alec Burks' extension with the Jazz. Avery is arguably better than him in almost every way, except maybe passing, but Burks got a 4 year, 42M extension a few weeks ago, and they are pretty much the same age. So overall I don't think it's a bad deal.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 10, 2014 20:27:14 GMT -5
"% off peak" still needs a variable to be defined of what is being measured. Peak WAR? Peak RBIs? "Below is a graph that shows the aging curve of the heavy players we identified, and the curve for average sized players. Across the x-axis is age, and the y-axis runs (batting, positional, UZR), with 0 being the peak year. The y-axis shows how many runs below the peak year they are at a given age." This is helpful. Does "runs (batting, positional, UZR)" mean they summed runs and UZR and then threw in some more runs for a position adjustment? That would make sense as an overall measure of a ballplayer but not 100% clear from the article. Its seems they just added up runs in both groups at different years then subtracted the peak year for the fat guys. In that case we're not actually looking at a percentage at all. Great exercise in the value of labeling axes! Yes if you go here for example: www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=4613&position=1B#valueFor each year they added the "Batting", "Positional" and UZR numbers, then subtracted the max. Then I guess they averaged the results over all the fat and normal sized people they identified and plotted them. I guess to keep the discussion about 3B, if they could get Headley for 1 year 10M I think they should definitely do that. I'd be much more comfortable with him there compared to WMB or Cecchini at the beginning of the year at the very least. Are there any other players they could reasonably get on a 1 year deal?
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 10, 2014 18:45:29 GMT -5
I really do like watching the Cs this year. The offense looks surprisingly good and both Sully and Kelly have been doing a great job on the offensive boards so far. They actually have the 3rd best offense in the league so far. However their defense is horrible which is somewhat surprising given how good Avery and Marcus are on the perimeter. I guess it really shows the value of a good rim protector. The Rondo-Bradley-Smart-Green-Olynyk lineup is really fun to watch though.
The Evan Turner thing is very frustrating. There was one game where he just looked awful and had 5 turnovers and 2 bad fouls in like 12 minutes. But then he goes out and plays really well against the Bulls. I don't know what to expect from him. Either way, Ainge really does have a lot of options with a lot of solid players who could contribute anywhere and lots of future assets from the Nets (lol).
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Nov 10, 2014 18:32:44 GMT -5
% off peak of what? Labeling axes is just good graph presentation, gangster % off their peak. To be fair jimed didn't make that figure. From the article: "Below is a graph that shows the aging curve of the heavy players we identified, and the curve for average sized players. Across the x-axis is age, and the y-axis runs (batting, positional, UZR), with 0 being the peak year. The y-axis shows how many runs below the peak year they are at a given age." So it actually shows the number of runs below the peak year the player is worth. So in the fangraphs value page I guess it's the sum of Batting Positional and UZR stats.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Oct 25, 2014 19:24:27 GMT -5
I like your plan. I want the Sox to obtain two top SP pitchers, by FA signing or trades. I also like Sandoval but I suspect he will become too expensive. Miller may also price himself out of reach, but there are lots of ways of getting decent RPs. I also like that plan. I did notice that Shane isn't seen on there anywhere, so if they can find a taker for him that clears up some cash to use on Miller or Sandoval, even if the have to eat some of the money. I just don't know how many games he will actually play, and even if he is healthy they might have better players (Mookie, Castillo, etc.)
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Oct 24, 2014 14:25:24 GMT -5
From Twitter: Jeff Wilpon tells @jonheymancbs #Mets are not changing managers. So there is that. #Cubs went from clear to runaway faves for Maddon
Looks like Theo might be picking him up. It's pretty amazing to think the Rays imploded so quickly. I guess it was bound to happen at some point.
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Oct 17, 2014 16:44:13 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Oct 3, 2014 10:33:19 GMT -5
It is entirely possible the Cespedes tries to use his power when the bases are clear or a man on first and changes his approach with a runner on 2nd or 3rd to focus more on contact. I can buy into that argument and potentially why his overall stats are lackluster, but still shows tremendous power and RBI numbers. Hmm I was curious and took a look at his splits for bases empty vs. Risp and it's pretty massive. This year in 203 pa his wRC+ was 140 with Risp compared to only 92 in 331 pa with the bases empty. This could be because he had a very low .257 babip with the bases empty whereas for his career his babip has been .297. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what is causing the split though. One interesting thing is that his k rate drops 6% w/risp maybe suggesting a change in approach like you suggested. Edit: of course I missed the much better analysis a few posts up lol
|
|
|
Post by bookiemetts on Sept 29, 2014 18:41:09 GMT -5
If you look closely at Xander's AB and Mookie's it appears to me that Mookie stands about an inch closer to the plate, just daring pitchers to throw inside on him so he can clear it out to LF. He has quicker hands and can hit that inside pitch better. And standing closer to the plate allows him to cover pitches on the outside corner better. That quick twitch bat is going to pay dividends for many years to come. I honestly think we have't seen the best of Betts yet. I think he is going to blow right past .300 and put up .380-400OBP years as well. He is going to get a lot of infield hits plus all the contact in general, a whole lot of which is solid. Long time reader, and just recently decided to signup and start posting. I think it's fitting that I say that Mookie is really good at baseball and I am very impressed with his bat speed. I also don't know why anyone would try to pitch him inside: www.fangraphs.com/zonegrid.aspx?playerid=13611&position=2B/OF&ss=2014&se=2014&type=5&hand=all&count=all&blur=1&grid=10&view=batI agree that when he gets the Xander treatment of sliders away he'll be able to cover the outside edge better.
|
|