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2021 Non-Red Sox Thread
manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 10:28:46 GMT -5
Wow, look at all these just misses from Story already. 2nd in MLB in expected home runs, zero actual home runs. Dead ball falling at the warning track repeatedly, matches what I've seen from many of our own games so far. If the pattern is that they keep falling short, then maybe the “expected” in “expected home runs” is like the “inconceivable” in the Princess Bride? I mean, at what point do we call flyouts flyouts and not multiverse home runs ?
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Post by threeifbaerga on Apr 11, 2021 10:52:58 GMT -5
Wow, look at all these just misses from Story already. 2nd in MLB in expected home runs, zero actual home runs. Dead ball falling at the warning track repeatedly, matches what I've seen from many of our own games so far.
Man I had to read that tweet a dozen times and I'm still not sure what he's saying there.
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Post by fenwaydouble on Apr 11, 2021 10:55:23 GMT -5
Wow, look at all these just misses from Story already. 2nd in MLB in expected home runs, zero actual home runs. Dead ball falling at the warning track repeatedly, matches what I've seen from many of our own games so far. If the pattern is that they keep falling short, then maybe the “expected” in “expected home runs” is like the “inconceivable” in the Princess Bride? I mean, at what point do we call flyouts flyouts and not multiverse home runs ? I was wondering the same thing. Do the x-stats updated on the fly? Or will they be off all season (assuming the ball continues to be de-juiced)?
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 11, 2021 11:37:51 GMT -5
Wow, look at all these just misses from Story already. 2nd in MLB in expected home runs, zero actual home runs. Dead ball falling at the warning track repeatedly, matches what I've seen from many of our own games so far. One of the things that's been crazy the last two or three years has been the amount of opposite field homers. Those balls are carrying much more like I'd expect them to. That last one is out of most parks though, that was a rocket. Totally unrelated note: Nice to see Honeywell getting his shot after years of setbacks. Consensus top 20 prospect three years ago, he hasn't thrown a pitch since that incredible 2017 breakout season: www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=honeyw002bre
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Post by foreverred9 on Apr 11, 2021 12:00:39 GMT -5
I was wondering the same thing. Do the x-stats updated on the fly? Or will they be off all season (assuming the ball continues to be de-juiced)? I'm sure the analytic teams are already doing the analysis, both internally at MLBAM and externally across the internet. I'd be very curious to see the results. If the pattern is that they keep falling short, then maybe the “expected” in “expected home runs” is like the “inconceivable” in the Princess Bride? I mean, at what point do we call flyouts flyouts and not multiverse home runs ? The point with the expectation metrics is that if you're consistently hitting it to the warning track, you're a lot closer to hitting home runs than someone hitting ground balls to short. Story's likely needing only one or two more exit velocity points or launch angle points from home runs with those shots. Take one of those flyouts in right center, those could have been a home run in other ballparks so from an evaluation perspective Story should be getting some "credit" for those.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 12:13:29 GMT -5
I was wondering the same thing. Do the x-stats updated on the fly? Or will they be off all season (assuming the ball continues to be de-juiced)? I'm sure the analytic teams are already doing the analysis, both internally at MLBAM and externally across the internet. I'd be very curious to see the results. If the pattern is that they keep falling short, then maybe the “expected” in “expected home runs” is like the “inconceivable” in the Princess Bride? I mean, at what point do we call flyouts flyouts and not multiverse home runs ? The point with the expectation metrics is that if you're consistently hitting it to the warning track, you're a lot closer to hitting home runs than someone hitting ground balls to short. Story's likely needing only one or two more exit velocity points or launch angle points from home runs with those shots. Take one of those flyouts in right center, those could have been a home run in other ballparks so from an evaluation perspective Story should be getting some "credit" for those. I mean, I get that... but it is, on another level, meaningless. IF he hit the exact ball in another stadium/under different weather conditions/with a different ball/slightly harder, he’d hit a home run. Since that defies all known laws of space and time, it is a flyout. If what this means is that Story is a good bet to hit a homerun in the future... it doesn’t tell us much more than the back of his baseball card. So many of these alt-universe readings seem like they are used to confirm the likely and the obvious. Here is a counter-proposal: what if that was the hardest he can hit a ball? (I doubt it is, but that is as supportable a conclusion from one or two flyouts as anything else). Given that what happened happened, and given that there is no causal relationship between one flyout and the next fly ball, it seems certain to indicate that he flew out. Other stuff is interpretive. What do you call 27 of those flyouts? A perfect game.
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radiohix
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'At the end of the day, we bang. We bang. We're going to swing.' Alex Verdugo
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Post by radiohix on Apr 11, 2021 12:24:55 GMT -5
Lucas Giolito is a fan of BASEBALL BITS and that fact fills my heart with joy and makes him my favorite non-Red Sox pitcher.
Add: Those of you unfamiliar with this Youtube Channel, go watch it! It's awesome and he has 2 terrific videos for your Red Sox baseballing enjoyment: One about Pedro's (1999-2000) seasons and the other about Big Papi last season.
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Post by foreverred9 on Apr 11, 2021 15:52:14 GMT -5
I mean, I get that... but it is, on another level, meaningless. IF he hit the exact ball in another stadium/under different weather conditions/with a different ball/slightly harder, he’d hit a home run. Since that defies all known laws of space and time, it is a flyout. If what this means is that Story is a good bet to hit a homerun in the future... it doesn’t tell us much more than the back of his baseball card. So many of these alt-universe readings seem like they are used to confirm the likely and the obvious. Here is a counter-proposal: what if that was the hardest he can hit a ball? (I doubt it is, but that is as supportable a conclusion from one or two flyouts as anything else). Given that what happened happened, and given that there is no causal relationship between one flyout and the next fly ball, it seems certain to indicate that he flew out. Other stuff is interpretive. What do you call 27 of those flyouts? A perfect game. No disagreeing on this being the result, and I agree that only the results matter. But what we care about is predicting future performance. Who would you rather have on your team for the rest of the year? The person who hit 27 of those flyouts or the person who hit 3 a bit further over the fence and 24 weak contacts? The results would say to go with the person with 3 HRs over the person with no hits.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 15:58:20 GMT -5
I mean, I get that... but it is, on another level, meaningless. IF he hit the exact ball in another stadium/under different weather conditions/with a different ball/slightly harder, he’d hit a home run. Since that defies all known laws of space and time, it is a flyout. If what this means is that Story is a good bet to hit a homerun in the future... it doesn’t tell us much more than the back of his baseball card. So many of these alt-universe readings seem like they are used to confirm the likely and the obvious. Here is a counter-proposal: what if that was the hardest he can hit a ball? (I doubt it is, but that is as supportable a conclusion from one or two flyouts as anything else). Given that what happened happened, and given that there is no causal relationship between one flyout and the next fly ball, it seems certain to indicate that he flew out. Other stuff is interpretive. What do you call 27 of those flyouts? A perfect game. No disagreeing on this being the result, and I agree that only the results matter. But what we care about is predicting future performance. Who would you rather have on your team for the rest of the year? The person who hit 27 of those flyouts or the person who hit 3 a bit further over the fence and 24 weak contacts? The results would say to go with the person with 3 HRs over the person with no hits. But that is what I mean by the obvious: saying a fly to the warning track is *real * without any D&D dice roll would’ve/could’ve. I don’t need the eye wash stats to distinguish between a well hit out and a dribbler. The point was not well-hit/not-well hit. It was the percentagizing of alternate outcomes. Put differently: a well hit ball is not predictive.
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Post by foreverred9 on Apr 11, 2021 16:07:47 GMT -5
The obvious ones are obvious and we don't need these stats to validate Story is good, although admittedly these do a good job telling the highlight team where to focus. That was a great highlight reel to watch, and AI can essentially curate it for us going forward.
With that said, teams are working in the margin now to find value, so these metrics play up much better when trying to rank which of the 1-2 WAR players deserves their focus.
ADD: No single hit ball is ever predictive, regardless if it's hit hard or not. Aggregating them up to thousands of plays however, is most certainly predictive.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 16:52:38 GMT -5
The obvious ones are obvious and we don't need these stats to validate Story is good, although admittedly these do a good job telling the highlight team where to focus. That was a great highlight reel to watch, and AI can essentially curate it for us going forward. With that said, teams are working in the margin now to find value, so these metrics play up much better when trying to rank which of the 1-2 WAR players deserves their focus. ADD: No single hit ball is ever predictive, regardless if it's hit hard or not. Aggregating them up to thousands of plays however, is most certainly predictive. Maybe. But a) that means having announcers tell us stuff like EV is extraneous... it is parading as meaningful; b) still needs some subjective interpretation. If a guy hits an unusual number of balls to the track, is he due or just due to hit the weight room? Is a slugger, or should he change approaches cause the power thing isn’t working? Add: anyway, stats about % of times that is a hit or homer is no more meaningful than saying how an at-bat would go if there was a different pitcher. When people say “woulda been out of Fenway” it might amuse, but beyond that you have to assume pitchers pitch the sane everywhere, mabagers manage the same etc.
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Post by foreverred9 on Apr 11, 2021 17:17:12 GMT -5
Admittedly I don't listen much to announcers anymore so forgive my ignorance, who's out there saying EV is extraneous?
It's still a subjective world, perhaps even more so because the margin between success and failure is so thin these days. Analytics doesn't replace the human, it just prioritizes where to spend your time. We still need to make decisions based on what we observe, and it's quite possible that when we look at things these warning track shots are correlated to something not in the model.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 17:59:47 GMT -5
Admittedly I don't listen much to announcers anymore so forgive my ignorance, who's out there saying EV is extraneous? It's still a subjective world, perhaps even more so because the margin between success and failure is so thin these days. Analytics doesn't replace the human, it just prioritizes where to spend your time. We still need to make decisions based on what we observe, and it's quite possible that when we look at things these warning track shots are correlated to something not in the model. No, I meant I view it as extraneous. So much of the new tech measures like EV, hit probability, etc. masquerade as meaningful information, when it is — at most — a matter of curiosity (the same might be said even for velocity readings on pitches, except that actually can be informative when it comes to something like a guy “having it” that day, getting tired, etc).
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Apr 11, 2021 18:29:40 GMT -5
Admittedly I don't listen much to announcers anymore so forgive my ignorance, who's out there saying EV is extraneous? It's still a subjective world, perhaps even more so because the margin between success and failure is so thin these days. Analytics doesn't replace the human, it just prioritizes where to spend your time. We still need to make decisions based on what we observe, and it's quite possible that when we look at things these warning track shots are correlated to something not in the model. No, I meant I view it as extraneous. So much of the new tech measures like EV, hit probability, etc. masquerade as meaningful information, when it is — at most — a matter of curiosity (the same might be said even for velocity readings on pitches, except that actually can be informative when it comes to something like a guy “having it” that day, getting tired, etc). I mean, the laws of probability shouldn't be ignored. If Alex Cora leaves a hitter in the game to face a right-handed pitcher and that batter is hitting .100 against right handers on the year instead of going to the bench to get a guy hitting .700 then when said .100 gets a hit, did Cora make the right call? At the moment, yes, but in the future he has roughly a 10% chance with the guy he rode with and a 70% chance with the other. There is correlation with EV and performance. What analytics can't tell us is if the .700 hitter has the runs that day, a barking knee, or how a particular player looks that day which is where the human element of managing comes in. I remember Farrell leaving in Johnny Gomes in a horrible match-up that ended in success when he should have went to Nava, but it paid off and Gomes got a big hit. Farrell looked brilliant when in reality he probably just got lucky. .1 is not 0% and .7 is not 100%. Sometimes the wrong choices pay off and the right ones fail.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 18:38:41 GMT -5
No, I meant I view it as extraneous. So much of the new tech measures like EV, hit probability, etc. masquerade as meaningful information, when it is — at most — a matter of curiosity (the same might be said even for velocity readings on pitches, except that actually can be informative when it comes to something like a guy “having it” that day, getting tired, etc). I mean, the laws of probability shouldn't be ignored. If Alex Cora leaves a hitter in the game to face a right-handed pitcher and that batter is hitting .100 against right handers on the year instead of going to the bench to get a guy hitting .700 then when said .100 gets a hit, did Cora make the right call? At the moment, yes, but in the future he has roughly a 10% chance with the guy he rode with and a 70% chance with the other. There is correlation with EV and performance. What analytics can't tell us is if the .700 hitter has the runs that day, a barking knee, or how a particular player looks that day which is where the human element of managing comes in. I remember Farrell leaving in Johnny Gomes in a horrible match-up that ended in success when he should have went to Nava, but it paid off and Gomes got a big hit. Farrell looked brilliant when in reality he probably just got lucky. .1 is not 0% and .7 is not 100%. Sometimes the wrong choices pay off and the right ones fail. Splits stats, provided they are over the course of a sufficient sample, are different. If you want to say, then, a guy has this average EV vs. lefties and this vs. righties, it might be informative. But this is circling further from my original point, which was far narrower: applying a number like hit probability to single at bats is not meaningful. So saying Kiké’s flyout to center had an x% chance of being a home run is a nonsense stat. It wasn’t. What would have made it one... moving in the wall? Having all the fans behind home blow at the same time? And it tells no one anything about the future. I mean, guys rope massive foul balls all the time — then whiff. You got ahold of one.
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Post by fenwaydouble on Apr 11, 2021 18:56:12 GMT -5
I mean, the laws of probability shouldn't be ignored. If Alex Cora leaves a hitter in the game to face a right-handed pitcher and that batter is hitting .100 against right handers on the year instead of going to the bench to get a guy hitting .700 then when said .100 gets a hit, did Cora make the right call? At the moment, yes, but in the future he has roughly a 10% chance with the guy he rode with and a 70% chance with the other. There is correlation with EV and performance. What analytics can't tell us is if the .700 hitter has the runs that day, a barking knee, or how a particular player looks that day which is where the human element of managing comes in. I remember Farrell leaving in Johnny Gomes in a horrible match-up that ended in success when he should have went to Nava, but it paid off and Gomes got a big hit. Farrell looked brilliant when in reality he probably just got lucky. .1 is not 0% and .7 is not 100%. Sometimes the wrong choices pay off and the right ones fail. Splits stats, provided they are over the course of a sufficient sample, are different. If you want to say, then, a guy has this average EV vs. lefties and this vs. righties, it might be informative. But this is circling further from my original point, which was far narrower: applying a number like hit probability to single at bats is not meaningful. So saying Kikéâs flyout to center had an x% chance of being a home run is a nonsense stat. It wasnât. What would have made it one... moving in the wall? Having all the fans behind home blow at the same time? And it tells no one anything about the future. I mean, guys rope massive foul balls all the time â then whiff. You got ahold of one. But if Kiké hit that fly ball tomorrow in Minnesota instead of yesterday in Baltimore, it would be a home run. Obviously, that doesn't help the Red Sox win any games. But at the end of the season when they're evaluating how good Hernandez played, it would be silly to treat him any worse because he hit that fly ball in Baltimore instead of Minnesota - that was just pure bad luck. What matters for predictive purposes is that he hit the ball 409 feet, which is almost always going to be extra bases.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 19:12:18 GMT -5
Splits stats, provided they are over the course of a sufficient sample, are different. If you want to say, then, a guy has this average EV vs. lefties and this vs. righties, it might be informative. But this is circling further from my original point, which was far narrower: applying a number like hit probability to single at bats is not meaningful. So saying Kikéâs flyout to center had an x% chance of being a home run is a nonsense stat. It wasnât. What would have made it one... moving in the wall? Having all the fans behind home blow at the same time? And it tells no one anything about the future. I mean, guys rope massive foul balls all the time â then whiff. You got ahold of one. But if Kiké hit that fly ball tomorrow in Minnesota instead of yesterday in Baltimore, it would be a home run. Obviously, that doesn't help the Red Sox win any games. But at the end of the season when they're evaluating how good Hernandez played, it would be silly to treat him any worse because he hit that fly ball in Baltimore instead of Minnesota - that was just pure bad luck. What matters for predictive purposes is that he hit the ball 409 feet, which is almost always going to be extra bases. But by that measure *everything* is luck. He hit that ball in Baltimore because he got that pitch, from that pitcher (an Oriole, not a Twin), called by that catcher, on that day. So saying he was unlucky not to hit that in Minnesota is about as meaningful as saying the Kiké is unlucky not to face a few little league pitchers once in a while. There is only one reality to play games in. And no one buys cards that have stats altered by all the ways outcomes could have been different on the back.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 19:13:50 GMT -5
But if Kiké hit that fly ball tomorrow in Minnesota instead of yesterday in Baltimore, it would be a home run. Obviously, that doesn't help the Red Sox win any games. But at the end of the season when they're evaluating how good Hernandez played, it would be silly to treat him any worse because he hit that fly ball in Baltimore instead of Minnesota - that was just pure bad luck. What matters for predictive purposes is that he hit the ball 409 feet, which is almost always going to be extra bases. But by that measure *everything* is luck. He hit that ball in Baltimore because he got that pitch, from that pitcher (an Oriole, not a Twin), called by that catcher, on that day. So saying he was unlucky not to hit that in Minnesota is about as meaningful as saying the Kiké is unlucky not to face a few little league pitchers once in a while. There is only one reality to play games in. And no one buys cards that have stats altered by all the ways outcomes could have been different on the back. And *is* 409 almost always an extra base hit? That is not even warning track in Fenway’s centerfield.
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Post by fenwaydouble on Apr 11, 2021 21:25:51 GMT -5
But if Kiké hit that fly ball tomorrow in Minnesota instead of yesterday in Baltimore, it would be a home run. Obviously, that doesn't help the Red Sox win any games. But at the end of the season when they're evaluating how good Hernandez played, it would be silly to treat him any worse because he hit that fly ball in Baltimore instead of Minnesota - that was just pure bad luck. What matters for predictive purposes is that he hit the ball 409 feet, which is almost always going to be extra bases. But by that measure *everything* is luck. He hit that ball in Baltimore because he got that pitch, from that pitcher (an Oriole, not a Twin), called by that catcher, on that day. So saying he was unlucky not to hit that in Minnesota is about as meaningful as saying the Kiké is unlucky not to face a few little league pitchers once in a while. There is only one reality to play games in. And no one buys cards that have stats altered by all the ways outcomes could have been different on the back. Well I wouldn't say that everything is luck, but I would say that luck is always tangled up with true performance, and it's impossible to fully separate them on any given play. The way to strip out as much noise as possible is to get as big a dataset as possible. If you're projecting Kiké going forward, you don't want to just throw out the data-point of him hitting a ball that could easily have been extra bases. Just like you don't want to give him full credit for hitting a dinky 305 foot home run right down the line - those things are a little fluky, and you're actively making your data worse by treating them as absolutely bad or absolutely good. The card question is irrelevant to me. Obviously no fan is going to celebrate the league leader in expected home runs if they didn't actually leave the park. But I certainly want my GM to go out and sign the leader in expected home runs, because there's a very good chance they'll go out next year. Also, 409 feet is definitely at least warning track distance, even in the deepest parts of Fenway.
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manfred
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 21:35:51 GMT -5
But by that measure *everything* is luck. He hit that ball in Baltimore because he got that pitch, from that pitcher (an Oriole, not a Twin), called by that catcher, on that day. So saying he was unlucky not to hit that in Minnesota is about as meaningful as saying the Kiké is unlucky not to face a few little league pitchers once in a while. There is only one reality to play games in. And no one buys cards that have stats altered by all the ways outcomes could have been different on the back. Well I wouldn't say that everything is luck, but I would say that luck is always tangled up with true performance, and it's impossible to fully separate them on any given play. The way to strip out as much noise as possible is to get as big a dataset as possible. If you're projecting Kiké going forward, you don't want to just throw out the data-point of him hitting a ball that could easily have been extra bases. Just like you don't want to give him full credit for hitting a dinky 305 foot home run right down the line - those things are a little fluky, and you're actively making your data worse by treating them as absolutely bad or absolutely good. The card question is irrelevant to me. Obviously no fan is going to celebrate the league leader in expected home runs if they didn't actually leave the park. But I certainly want my GM to go out and sign the leader in expected home runs, because there's a very good chance they'll go out next year. Also, 409 feet is definitely at least warning track distance, even in the deepest parts of Fenway. Fenway is 420 to center. I don’t, in fairness, know if they have an 11’ warning track. Look, this is all fair. But even when people say “his spray chart would be great in Fenway,” while it is likely a *decent* indicator, it does assume things simply transfer from one set of conditions ti the next. That is, take a guy in a regular ball park, who is being pitched *to that park* — he may have flyouts to left that make you think wall ball! But clearly no pitcher is going to have the sane plan in KC as he would in Fenway, for example.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Apr 12, 2021 14:36:12 GMT -5
Well I wouldn't say that everything is luck, but I would say that luck is always tangled up with true performance, and it's impossible to fully separate them on any given play. The way to strip out as much noise as possible is to get as big a dataset as possible. If you're projecting Kiké going forward, you don't want to just throw out the data-point of him hitting a ball that could easily have been extra bases. Just like you don't want to give him full credit for hitting a dinky 305 foot home run right down the line - those things are a little fluky, and you're actively making your data worse by treating them as absolutely bad or absolutely good. The card question is irrelevant to me. Obviously no fan is going to celebrate the league leader in expected home runs if they didn't actually leave the park. But I certainly want my GM to go out and sign the leader in expected home runs, because there's a very good chance they'll go out next year. Also, 409 feet is definitely at least warning track distance, even in the deepest parts of Fenway. Fenway is 420 to center. I don’t, in fairness, know if they have an 11’ warning track. Look, this is all fair. But even when people say “his spray chart would be great in Fenway,” while it is likely a *decent* indicator, it does assume things simply transfer from one set of conditions ti the next. That is, take a guy in a regular ball park, who is being pitched *to that park* — he may have flyouts to left that make you think wall ball! But clearly no pitcher is going to have the sane plan in KC as he would in Fenway, for example. I think the minimum warning track is 15'. Fenway is 420 to RCF, 389' 9" to CF.
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Post by ramireja on Apr 12, 2021 17:27:20 GMT -5
This play (from a day or two ago) deserves to be posted. Insane.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Apr 13, 2021 18:49:03 GMT -5
Jordan Bastian @mlbastian
From Cubs historian Ed Hartig:
The Cubs' 49 hits are the fewest hits by the team over 10 consecutive games in a season since at least 1901. That's *any* 10-game stretch -- not just the first 10 games of a season. The previous low was 51 hits from Sept. 17-29, 1968.
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Post by kevfc89 on Apr 13, 2021 19:46:06 GMT -5
The Yankees offense, bullpen, and the general mediocrity of the American League will probably carry them far enough, but Taillon just got shelled and you know things are a bit shaky when you're starting Rougned Odor at second base.
Gerritt Cole is great, but last I checked he can't pitch every day in place of the dreadful rest of them.
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 14, 2021 22:06:53 GMT -5
Always was impressed with Rodon's stuff going back to college. In the pros he seemed to get hurt every time he looked like he might be putting it together. Still crazy to me that the White Sox nontendered him and got away with it.
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