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2015 Non-Sox thread
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Post by heisenberg on Dec 11, 2015 17:24:05 GMT -5
I feel like major praise for a guy taking $184 over 8 years vs. $200 over 8 years is a little stupid. I get that players rarely don't go to the highest bidder, which is why it's even being talked about. But idk if it needs to be anything more than a cliff note. I'll give the guy props for not taking the biggest pile of cash - Since there are factors to consider in life other than money. While it may or may not have factored into Heyward's decision, Missouri has become a hotbed of racial tension. Heyward doesn't need that buloney. www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-cardinals-player-punched-at-st-louis-county-gas-station/article_7b39822e-14da-56c5-b52c-4921ab5eda85.html"Former Cardinals outfielder Curt Ford said Thursday he may move away from the St. Louis area in disgust after being punched in an allegedly unprovoked, race-related attack at a gas station."
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 11, 2015 17:27:22 GMT -5
I'm guessing the opt-out is what made him pick the Cubs. So he probably does wind up with the biggest pile of cash in the end.
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Post by mredsox89 on Dec 11, 2015 17:48:56 GMT -5
Yea, I have no qualms with a note of praise, I just think it ends there.
Also, given that the contract includes two opt-outs, he'll almost certainly take one of them and end up signing for the most $ anyways
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Post by jmei on Dec 11, 2015 17:54:29 GMT -5
I'm curious to see if this will be the start of a trend. Teams seem fairly willing to include opt-outs, and it seems like star players should be able to ask for and receive multiple opt-outs in a competitive bidding environment. A player with two or three or four opt-outs in their contract gives themselves plenty of protection against injury/under-performance while also providing financial upside and the ability to control their own fate.
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Post by heisenberg on Dec 11, 2015 17:58:44 GMT -5
Yea, I have no qualms with a note of praise, I just think it ends there. Also, given that the contract includes two opt-outs, he'll almost certainly take one of them and end up signing for the most $ anyways So now Heyward could hit the market in the same year as Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen, Josh Donaldson, Manny Machado and A.J. Pollock among position players and Clayton Kershaw, David Price, Dallas Keuchel and Jose Fernandez among pitchers.
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Post by mgoetze on Dec 11, 2015 18:12:17 GMT -5
~60 RBI (!) over the past two years – I know Keith Law says RBIs don’t matter. (I don’t know; I’d rather have somebody who regularly puts up 130 RBIs vs. one who averages 60, but maybe I’m missing something) And Keith Law is the only person who's ever said that, you think? Take the exact same player and put them 3rd in a lineup behind (a) Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia or (b) Rusney Castillo and Josh Rutledge. Do you think this player is going to produce the same number of RBIs in situation (a) and (b)? If not, then what does the number of RBIs tell us about the player they're being attributed to? Welcome to the 21st century.
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Post by xanderdu on Dec 11, 2015 18:29:10 GMT -5
Every MLB marketer is praying Theo pulls it off, or at least gets to the WS. And if the Sox are good ... just imagining the hype of a Sox/Cubs WS makes me a little weary. Fenway-Wrigley! Curses! Theo! Gorilla suits! No kidding, the storyline writes itself. There's also Theo to Hall of Fame for ending both franchise championship droughts as an added talking point.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2015 18:42:14 GMT -5
I can't help but think the Sox and Cubs match up well for a deal built around Schwarber and JBJ. For as gifted a hitter as Schwarber is, the man has no defensive position. Which is why the Sox should deal their best outfielder and acquire Schwarber?? I'm not quite following this one.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2015 19:02:51 GMT -5
...I’d rather have somebody who regularly puts up 130 RBIs vs. one who averages 60, but maybe I’m missing something... I think you are. The batting average on balls put into play, along with home runs, is a random variable centered around the true talent level of the player: up some years, down others. If you're a good player then you have more of those hits falling in or going over the fence over time, but it's still a statistical process. For runs batted in, that random element only comes into play if and when their are others on base. Two different players can have identical batting averages for those balls put into play, they can have the same number of home runs, and the same isolated power. They can also have wildly different RBI totals because it isn't about the batter, it's about the baserunners. On a lousy team with guys who can't get on base in front of you, you can get extra base hits all day and have little to show for it in your RBI total. That happens all the time. In other words, it's a function of the team you're on and also where you are in the batting order (if you bat leadoff you automatically get empty bases at least once a game). It really is that simple.
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Post by notguilty on Dec 11, 2015 19:15:13 GMT -5
~60 RBI (!) over the past two years – I know Keith Law says RBIs don’t matter. (I don’t know; I’d rather have somebody who regularly puts up 130 RBIs vs. one who averages 60, but maybe I’m missing something) And Keith Law is the only person who's ever said that, you think? Take the exact same player and put them 3rd in a lineup behind (a) Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia or (b) Rusney Castillo and Josh Rutledge. Do you think this player is going to produce the same number of RBIs in situation (a) and (b)? If not, then what does the number of RBIs tell us about the player they're being attributed to? Welcome to the 21st century. Yes, I understand I'm guilty of what is now widely perceived as neanderthal thinking. Keith Law (whom I otherwise like) and many others have certainly made that clear enough, with the now expected sprinkle of scorn. I understand that somebody has to be on base for you to drive them in. But driving them in does have value, does it not? If anything, your post reinforces my befuddlement. What you're saying is that the offensive contribution of a player like Heyward is pretty much line-up dependent? His value/performance depends on the performance of others? Then what's the point of giving him all this money if you don't put a great line-up around him (this doesn't apply to the Cubs, I suppose, we'll have to see how many RBIs he gets). Anyway, Heyward slugs .349 and .283 with RISP/RISP with 2 outs. Pedroia, Betts, Bogaerts, for example, are all slugging more than that in those same situations. So no, for $184m, I'm not impressed - but his defense is good and I'm in the 18th century, so who knows.
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Post by mgoetze on Dec 11, 2015 19:25:04 GMT -5
If anything, your post reinforces my befuddlement. What you're saying is that the offensive contribution of a player like Heyward is pretty much line-up dependent? His value/performance depends on the performance of others? Then what's the point of giving him all this money if you don't put a great line-up around him (this doesn't apply to the Cubs, I suppose, we'll have to see how many RBIs he gets). I would recommend reading "The Book" by Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin, it's a great introduction to modern baseball analysis.
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Post by heisenberg on Dec 11, 2015 19:25:32 GMT -5
I can't help but think the Sox and Cubs match up well for a deal built around Schwarber and JBJ. For as gifted a hitter as Schwarber is, the man has no defensive position. Which is why the Sox should deal their best outfielder and acquire Schwarber?? I'm not quite following this one. It would be a move for the future. Schwarber could play 1B this season (presuming we can move Hanley) and then DH after Papi retires. It makes sense if you think JBJ's bat won't be quite as prodigious as it was during August. sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/9338/splits/
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Post by notguilty on Dec 11, 2015 19:27:20 GMT -5
...I’d rather have somebody who regularly puts up 130 RBIs vs. one who averages 60, but maybe I’m missing something... I think you are. The batting average on balls put into play, along with home runs, is a random variable centered around the true talent level of the player: up some years, down others. If you're a good player then you have more of those hits falling in or going over the fence over time, but it's still a statistical process. For runs batted in, that random element only comes into play if and when their are others on base. Two different players can have identical batting averages for those balls put into play, they can have the same number of home runs, and the same isolated power. They can also have wildly different RBI totals because it isn't about the batter, it's about the baserunners. On a lousy team with guys who can't get on base in front of you, you can get extra base hits all day and have little to show for it in your RBI total. That happens all the time. In other words, it's a function of the team you're on and also where you are in the batting order (if you bat leadoff you automatically get empty bases at least once a game). It really is that simple. Naah, that's fair, and I appreciate the explanation. I understand this has been the underpinning of the evaluation of offensive performance (in the 21 Century like mgoetze said above). Just pushing back a bit against that. I'm just saying that 1)it's too easy to say RBIs merely depend on baserunners when they're also impacted by the ability to actually move the baserunner along and 2)I wouldn't give $200m to a guy whose final numbers primarily, and presumably depend on what the rest of the line-up is doing. I'm not arguing he's not a good player, his OBP alone confirms that he is.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Dec 11, 2015 19:33:43 GMT -5
And Keith Law is the only person who's ever said that, you think? Take the exact same player and put them 3rd in a lineup behind (a) Mookie Betts and Dustin Pedroia or (b) Rusney Castillo and Josh Rutledge. Do you think this player is going to produce the same number of RBIs in situation (a) and (b)? If not, then what does the number of RBIs tell us about the player they're being attributed to? Welcome to the 21st century. Yes, I understand I'm guilty of what is now widely perceived as neanderthal thinking. Keith Law (whom I otherwise like) and many others have certainly made that clear enough, with the now expected sprinkle of scorn. I understand that somebody has to be on base for you to drive them in. But driving them in does have value, does it not? If anything, your post reinforces my befuddlement. What you're saying is that the offensive contribution of a player like Heyward is pretty much line-up dependent? His value/performance depends on the performance of others? Then what's the point of giving him all this money if you don't put a great line-up around him (this doesn't apply to the Cubs, I suppose, we'll have to see how many RBIs he gets). Anyway, Heyward slugs .349 and .283 with RISP/RISP with 2 outs. Pedroia, Betts, Bogaerts, for example, are all slugging more than that in those same situations. So no, for $184m, I'm not impressed - but his defense is good and I'm in the 18th century, so who knows. I think you make a strong point here, and the answer is 'yes'. The point is to score runs and if the players around Heyward were to always fail to get on base or drive him in, then he loses much of his current value. The big difference between the above, RBI, avg, etc and the newer statistics like BABIP, xFIP, etc, is that these newer statistics are working towards evaluating how a player will perform going forward rather than how they did perform in that past. But they lack 'context' which should later be applied, and I'm sure each team has a different way of figuring out how the player would improve 'their team'. You can argue that 'runs' even have different values for each team depending on the stadium, lineup, pitching staff, etc. So there's a lot that goes into these things that most of us (self included) didn't consider 20+ years ago.
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Post by notguilty on Dec 11, 2015 19:34:31 GMT -5
I would recommend reading "The Book" by Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin, it's a great introduction to modern baseball analysis. Thanks for the recommendation, but..how do you know I haven't read it? I can read something, agree or disagree with it. It's not like we're talking about the Bible here. Or maybe we are.. Anyway, appreciate the thoughts. I always find it a bit fun to needle conventional wisdoms.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2015 19:39:00 GMT -5
Hmmm, BR shows him slugging .383 with runners in scoring position and 2 out over his career. Regardless, you're probably not going to like this either: That slugging number is over 290 at bats, not enough to decide anything about his true talent level. I'd also note that his on-base percentage over those at bats - a total of 360 plate appearances - was .401. From that someone might conjecture that pitchers simply stay away from him, but I'm not going to do that either. That's just not enough information. The money has been increasing because MLB has it to throw around. What I do think is that runs batted in should play little to no part in deciding whether to give it to a guy like Heyward. He's not a home run hitter, but in a park like Wrigley he might very well get to 60 extra base hits. That and the defense should more than pay for his salary.
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Post by mgoetze on Dec 11, 2015 20:08:54 GMT -5
I would recommend reading "The Book" by Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin, it's a great introduction to modern baseball analysis. Thanks for the recommendation, but..how do you know I haven't read it? I can read something, agree or disagree with it. It's not like we're talking about the Bible here. Or maybe we are.. Well you weren't disagreeing, you were expressing befuddlement.
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Post by notguilty on Dec 11, 2015 20:30:25 GMT -5
Thanks for the recommendation, but..how do you know I haven't read it? I can read something, agree or disagree with it. It's not like we're talking about the Bible here. Or maybe we are.. Well you weren't disagreeing, you were expressing befuddlement. Lol,true, true.
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Post by sammo420 on Dec 11, 2015 20:56:43 GMT -5
Every MLB marketer is praying Theo pulls it off, or at least gets to the WS. And if the Sox are good ... just imagining the hype of a Sox/Cubs WS makes me a little weary. Fenway-Wrigley! Curses! Theo! Gorilla suits! No kidding, the storyline writes itself. There's also Theo to Hall of Fame for ending both franchise championship droughts as an added talking point. I can understand looking at the teams he inherited when he took over, but trying to take into account all the crap that happened before he was even born?
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Post by ray88h66 on Dec 11, 2015 21:57:54 GMT -5
DD is doing great, so not a shot at him saying the Cubs GM is winning the off season so far.
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Post by ray88h66 on Dec 11, 2015 22:14:40 GMT -5
Wish more players would do this. Tough to leave money on the table but how much do you need?
Sorry, did the link wrong. M. Cuddyer is retiring, leaving 12 mil. on the table.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 11, 2015 23:03:14 GMT -5
It has to be especially tough in this situation, given that he came so close to getting a ring.
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Post by pokeyreesespieces on Dec 12, 2015 1:31:42 GMT -5
Didn't Mets give up a pick for him?
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Post by pedroelgrande on Dec 12, 2015 1:38:27 GMT -5
The 15th pick to be exact.
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Post by pokeyreesespieces on Dec 12, 2015 1:48:24 GMT -5
The 15th pick to be exact. Trent Clark. .309/.424 with a 44:39 k/bb ratio and 25 stolen bags his first season. Thanks Michael!
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