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Post by imisspedey on Oct 6, 2023 18:24:00 GMT -5
1) Yamamoto (8 x $25) 2) Nola (5 x $24) 3) Bello 4) Sale 5) Pivetta 6) Crawford Nice opening salvo, @misspedey.
I would sign onto that in a heartbeat.
Much appreciated! Long time follower who decided to finally start contributing.
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Post by Canseco on Oct 6, 2023 18:28:15 GMT -5
Nice opening salvo, @misspedey.
I would sign onto that in a heartbeat.
Much appreciated! Long time follower who decided to finally start contributing. I miss Pedey, too.
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TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,840
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Post by TearsIn04 on Oct 6, 2023 21:16:22 GMT -5
Nice opening salvo, @misspedey.
I would sign onto that in a heartbeat.
Much appreciated! Long time follower who decided to finally start contributing. I would too, though I sense the bidding for Yama will take his AAV higher than that. I'll never say pay whatever it takes. That's what gets teams in trouble. But I'd be real aggressive in trying to bring him to Boston.
As a second acquisition to Yama: I was only lukewarm on Aaron Nola but I just looked him up and he's had a better career than I realized. His numbers did show material decline this year. His B-Ref WAR (the only WAR measure that's valid IMO) dropped considerably, from 5.9 to 2.1.
But his four-seamer and breaking balls have held their velocity nicely since he first began pitching a significant number of innings in 2016. It looks like he didn't start throwing a cutter until 2021.
Given that Nola is only 30, I can see some team going to seven years on him. Count me out at seven years, but I'd be all over him at 5 years/$120M.
Sonny Gray also intrigues me. Of all the FA P's, he seems like he might represent the sweet spot of quality and a reasonable contract due to the fact that he's 34. He's been good, and in some years spectacular, every year but 2016 and 2018, which was his MFY year. At, let's say, 3 years/$66M, I'd love to grab him.
I'd also be Ok with an E-Rod reunion.
Snell will get too many years and dollars for my taste.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Oct 6, 2023 21:18:00 GMT -5
I'll pass on Gray. He seemed to not handle the media spotlight very well in his only stint in a big market. I get it, a lot of writers think it's their job to be jerks. I bet I'd hate it too.
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TearsIn04
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Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,840
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Post by TearsIn04 on Oct 6, 2023 21:24:55 GMT -5
I'll pass on Gray. He seemed to not handle the media spotlight very well in his only stint in a big market. I get it, a lot of writers think it's their job to be jerks. I bet I'd hate it too. I hear you on that, but he's been a darn good P, albeit only in small markets. He's got a career ERA-plus of 121 and a FIP to match. This year, he put up a 156, again with a FIP nearly identical to his ERA, and threw 184 innings. His MFY year will have been six years ago when 2024 comes and I have to think he's matured since then and that he learned something from his experience playing in that market.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 20:52:00 GMT -5
Tanner Houck will be in the rotation. Therefore, what you need in the way of pitching is one ace starter and one top reliever, the latter to take the now unreliable Schreiber spot in the 7th.
Yes, I stated that as a fact. I'm not going to repeat my prior arguments; you can look them up. It does kinda start with Alex Cora saying as much.
I will say this: in terms of defensibility, saying "Houck's problem is times around the order, not stamina" is midway between "Alex Verdugo is laid-back and level-headed" and "the word is not so much flat as Pringle-shaped."
Here, however, are some new numbers that are relevant, breaking down Houck’s performance before his injury, versus his last four stars (after four getting the rust off–we also saw that with Sale twice, five starts, then four. No one was getting sufficient rehab because pitching was so thin.)
4 in 17: starts going 6 innings, pre 2 in 4, post
.372 xwOBA (rank 113 out of 136) in innings 4 – 6, pre .256 xwOBA (rank 31 of 138), post.
My favorite remains his pre-injury performance in the first three innings: .245, raking 2 of 137. That's the quality of his stuff. The numbers above indicate that he worked on increasing his stamina during the season, and he has publicly committed to doing that to the max this winter. I'm a big fan of his makeup, based on an impressive "My Story" on NESN. I'll be thrilled if Braya Bello ends up as good as I think Houck can be.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 7, 2023 21:29:41 GMT -5
I'll pass on Gray. He seemed to not handle the media spotlight very well in his only stint in a big market. I get it, a lot of writers think it's their job to be jerks. I bet I'd hate it too. I hear you on that, but he's been a darn good P, albeit only in small markets. He's got a career ERA-plus of 121 and a FIP to match. This year, he put up a 156, again with a FIP nearly identical to his ERA, and threw 184 innings. His MFY year will have been six years ago when 2024 comes and I have to think he's matured since then and that he learned something from his experience playing in that market. I'll give you and others a tip: FIP is utter f****** garbage, literally less than worthless. Never, ever, ever use it. Use xwOBA which actually accomplishes what FIP claims to be doing.
There were 145 starters who gave up 200+ balls in play (I've removed actual homers here, something I forgot to do the first time I did this). Expected BABIP ranged from Max Scherzer's .265 to Jack Flaherty's .352 The standard deviation was .0185
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 8, 2023 12:32:19 GMT -5
Tanner Houck will be in the rotation. Therefore, what you need in the way of pitching is one ace starter and one top reliever, the latter to take the now unreliable Schreiber spot in the 7th.
Yes, I stated that as a fact. I'm not going to repeat my prior arguments; you can look them up. It does kinda start with Alex Cora saying as much.
I will say this: in terms of defensibility, saying "Houck's problem is times around the order, not stamina" is midway between "Alex Verdugo is laid-back and level-headed" and "the word is not so much flat as Pringle-shaped."
Here, however, are some new numbers that are relevant, breaking down Houck’s performance before his injury, versus his last four stars (after four getting the rust off–we also saw that with Sale twice, five starts, then four. No one was getting sufficient rehab because pitching was so thin.)
4 in 17: starts going 6 innings, pre 2 in 4, post
.372 xwOBA (rank 113 out of 136) in innings 4 – 6, pre .256 xwOBA (rank 31 of 138), post.
My favorite remains his pre-injury performance in the first three innings: .245, raking 2 of 137. That's the quality of his stuff. The numbers above indicate that he worked on increasing his stamina during the season, and he has publicly committed to doing that to the max this winter. I'm a big fan of his makeup, based on an impressive "My Story" on NESN. I'll be thrilled if Braya Bello ends up as good as I think Houck can be.
Apologies if I missed it, but existing possibilities for #5 starter seem to be one of Crawford, Houck, Pivetta, Whitlock; each of whom would contribute to a killer Pen. After Houck, how would you rank their suitability for the 2024 Rotation? Thx.
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Oct 8, 2023 17:18:19 GMT -5
I hear you on that, but he's been a darn good P, albeit only in small markets. He's got a career ERA-plus of 121 and a FIP to match. This year, he put up a 156, again with a FIP nearly identical to his ERA, and threw 184 innings. His MFY year will have been six years ago when 2024 comes and I have to think he's matured since then and that he learned something from his experience playing in that market. I'll give you and others a tip: FIP is utter f****** garbage, literally less than worthless. Never, ever, ever use it. Use xwOBA which actually accomplishes what FIP claims to be doing.
There were 145 starters who gave up 200+ balls in play (I've removed actual homers here, something I forgot to do the first time I did this). Expected BABIP ranged from Max Scherzer's .265 to Jack Flaherty's .352 The standard deviation was .0185
Thank you. IMO, the only thing worse than FIP is xFIP (a.k.a. expected garbage).
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Oct 8, 2023 17:42:52 GMT -5
Tanner Houck will be in the rotation. Therefore, what you need in the way of pitching is one ace starter and one top reliever, the latter to take the now unreliable Schreiber spot in the 7th.
Yes, I stated that as a fact. I'm not going to repeat my prior arguments; you can look them up. It does kinda start with Alex Cora saying as much.
I will say this: in terms of defensibility, saying "Houck's problem is times around the order, not stamina" is midway between "Alex Verdugo is laid-back and level-headed" and "the word is not so much flat as Pringle-shaped."
Here, however, are some new numbers that are relevant, breaking down Houck’s performance before his injury, versus his last four stars (after four getting the rust off–we also saw that with Sale twice, five starts, then four. No one was getting sufficient rehab because pitching was so thin.)
4 in 17: starts going 6 innings, pre 2 in 4, post
.372 xwOBA (rank 113 out of 136) in innings 4 – 6, pre .256 xwOBA (rank 31 of 138), post.
My favorite remains his pre-injury performance in the first three innings: .245, raking 2 of 137. That's the quality of his stuff. The numbers above indicate that he worked on increasing his stamina during the season, and he has publicly committed to doing that to the max this winter. I'm a big fan of his makeup, based on an impressive "My Story" on NESN. I'll be thrilled if Braya Bello ends up as good as I think Houck can be.
Houck does indeed have incredible stuff but he still can't get lefties out or keep them in the yard. My greatest fear is they're going to trade him and (despite the tidy haul they get back) he's going to become a perennial CY candidate on his new team with a new pitching coach who shows him how to get lefties out.
I would love for the Sox to hire someone who can do just that (that has to be on their shopping list -- maybe he's already on their payroll and wears no. 45 when he takes the field as a roving ST instructor) and I also love his story but I'd rather have him figure out his lefty issue from the bullpen, preferably in a long role, than in the rotation.
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TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,840
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Post by TearsIn04 on Oct 9, 2023 15:18:57 GMT -5
I'll give you and others a tip: FIP is utter f****** garbage, literally less than worthless. Never, ever, ever use it. Use xwOBA which actually accomplishes what FIP claims to be doing.
There were 145 starters who gave up 200+ balls in play (I've removed actual homers here, something I forgot to do the first time I did this). Expected BABIP ranged from Max Scherzer's .265 to Jack Flaherty's .352 The standard deviation was .0185
Thank you. IMO, the only thing worse than FIP is xFIP (a.k.a. expected garbage). Point well taken. xwOBA is obviously more refined than FIP or xFIP. By that measure Gray has still had a nice career. I see him as an opportunity to add a second SP without locking into two long-term contracts.Yama (Plesae, God) and Montgomery will require significant years, which always presents the risk of expensive decline.
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Post by pappyman99 on Oct 9, 2023 17:35:58 GMT -5
I hear you on that, but he's been a darn good P, albeit only in small markets. He's got a career ERA-plus of 121 and a FIP to match. This year, he put up a 156, again with a FIP nearly identical to his ERA, and threw 184 innings. His MFY year will have been six years ago when 2024 comes and I have to think he's matured since then and that he learned something from his experience playing in that market. I'll give you and others a tip: FIP is utter f****** garbage, literally less than worthless. Never, ever, ever use it. Use xwOBA which actually accomplishes what FIP claims to be doing.
There were 145 starters who gave up 200+ balls in play (I've removed actual homers here, something I forgot to do the first time I did this). Expected BABIP ranged from Max Scherzer's .265 to Jack Flaherty's .352 The standard deviation was .0185
I highly disagree with this and it’s kind of a contradiction due to how correlated these statistics are
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Post by chaimtime on Oct 9, 2023 18:34:42 GMT -5
I'll give you and others a tip: FIP is utter f****** garbage, literally less than worthless. Never, ever, ever use it. Use xwOBA which actually accomplishes what FIP claims to be doing.
There were 145 starters who gave up 200+ balls in play (I've removed actual homers here, something I forgot to do the first time I did this). Expected BABIP ranged from Max Scherzer's .265 to Jack Flaherty's .352 The standard deviation was .0185
I highly disagree with this and it’s kind of a contradiction due to how correlated these statistics are What exactly do you disagree with? They’re roughly equivalent as predictors, but that’s largely because strikeouts and walks have much less randomness—umpires being the main source—and K/BB rates are important components of both. But xERA is a much better measure of performance because it’s based around the contact actually given up, compared to FIP which tries to create a facsimile out of a number of box score stats. FIP also bakes in a lot of assumptions from the early analytics days that we now know are wrong, like the idea that all players’ BABIPs tend to .300. With the new HawkEye tech and the further refinement of xwOBA models, I expect xERA to take another step forward and differentiate itself as the best ERA replacement.
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 9, 2023 19:59:59 GMT -5
I feel like a luddite, but we'd strayed too far from caring about runs driven in, on both sides. I'd like to see a RBIAA metric, similar to OAA that shows whether certain people drive in runs or prevent runs at a meaningful clip different than average. Even if the data ends up confirming that it's not predictive, I still think we should be capturing it.
Essentially is it a skill to generate worse contact when the game matters? Or is it truly just volatility?
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Post by melvinhoggs on Oct 9, 2023 20:44:00 GMT -5
I feel like a luddite, but we'd strayed too far from caring about runs driven in, on both sides. I'd like to see a RBIAA metric, similar to OAA that shows whether certain people drive in runs or prevent runs at a meaningful clip different than average. Even if the data ends up confirming that it's not predictive, I still think we should be capturing it. Essentially is it a skill to generate worse contact when the game matters? Or is it truly just volatility? People do care about runs driven in, but there's been a lot of deep-dives into supposed clutch-ness and there just isn't much data to back up the idea that major league baseball players (who are already at the absolute peak of skill and drive to even get to that point) perform consistently better or worse in the most meaningful at-bats... unless you like to glom onto small sample sizes, which I know some do. The guys that consistently wilt under pressure are weeded out well before they reach the MLB. Also the metrics you're talking about pretty much already exist, they're just not tied specifically to RBIs. WPA, leverage indexes, Fangraphs' "Clutch"... these are all things that measure performance "when the game matters" and they have these for both pitchers as well as hitters. When you say "whether people prevent runs at a meaningful clip different than average," I think you're just describing something like ERA+, which is also already out there.
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Post by foreverred9 on Oct 9, 2023 20:58:56 GMT -5
I understand your point, but none of those metrics get at the true causal effect. WPA for example (which I like) gives more weight to the guy who hits a grand slam down 3 runs with two outs in the 9th than the guy who hits one down 1 run with 0 outs in the 9th. Both hits are equal in terms of delivering (i.e. what's controllable for the player), yet WPA will differentiate them.
My point is that we now have Statcast, batted ball data, adjusting for the defense, etc. I think they can get more targeted at testing for whether there is truly a causal effect. Much like the old assumption that BABIP didn't vary from one pitcher to the next, I want to question this other age old truth around clutchness. While studies are great, I'd rather they just add a variable to baseball savant that we can all track and come to our own conclusions.
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Post by pappyman99 on Oct 9, 2023 21:33:01 GMT -5
I highly disagree with this and it’s kind of a contradiction due to how correlated these statistics are What exactly do you disagree with? They’re roughly equivalent as predictors, but that’s largely because strikeouts and walks have much less randomness—umpires being the main source—and K/BB rates are important components of both. But xERA is a much better measure of performance because it’s based around the contact actually given up, compared to FIP which tries to create a facsimile out of a number of box score stats. FIP also bakes in a lot of assumptions from the early analytics days that we now know are wrong, like the idea that all players’ BABIPs tend to .300. With the new HawkEye tech and the further refinement of xwOBA models, I expect xERA to take another step forward and differentiate itself as the best ERA replacement. I disagree with the statement “FIP is completely useless” I’m not sure how one can say that when neither is differentiated at all really in terms of predictive correlation
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Post by chaimtime on Oct 9, 2023 22:47:53 GMT -5
What exactly do you disagree with? They’re roughly equivalent as predictors, but that’s largely because strikeouts and walks have much less randomness—umpires being the main source—and K/BB rates are important components of both. But xERA is a much better measure of performance because it’s based around the contact actually given up, compared to FIP which tries to create a facsimile out of a number of box score stats. FIP also bakes in a lot of assumptions from the early analytics days that we now know are wrong, like the idea that all players’ BABIPs tend to .300. With the new HawkEye tech and the further refinement of xwOBA models, I expect xERA to take another step forward and differentiate itself as the best ERA replacement. I disagree with the statement “FIP is completely useless” I’m not sure how one can say that when neither is differentiated at all really in terms of predictive correlation It’s useless because it’s no more predictive than xERA and it is significantly worse as a record of performance. Five years ago it definitely wasn’t useless, but in the modern context there’s no reason to pay it much attention. Neither is as predictive as K%-BB%, which is most predictive because there is minimal randomness involved in those two stats. FIP attempts to account for the randomness of batted balls in ways that were novel when Tango came up with it in the first place, but in the modern era really don’t pass muster. That’s why the same guy who invented FIP is now focusing his efforts on the xERA models, though. As those models get more and more data to train on, I’d be surprised if FIP didn’t go the way of SIERA.
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Post by rhswanzey on Oct 10, 2023 0:31:41 GMT -5
Alex Cora also said eight days ago that he didn’t believe changes to the coaching staff were necessary.
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jimoh
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Posts: 3,992
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Post by jimoh on Oct 10, 2023 6:45:04 GMT -5
Alex Cora also said eight days ago that he didn’t believe changes to the coaching staff were necessary. Yeah, anyone who claims that a manager's praise of a player can be used to establish a "fact" about who will be in the starting rotation six months from now is ignoring that part of a manager's job is to encourage his players, and 0% of his job is to provide "facts" about the future.
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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 Oct 10, 2023 14:30:01 GMT -5
Please Red Sox…
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 10, 2023 18:02:49 GMT -5
Radiohix. Capital Ditto x a billion
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Post by thelpc on Oct 10, 2023 20:29:46 GMT -5
1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto 2. Eduardo Rodriguez/Jordan Montgomery 3. Brayan Bello 4. Chris Sale 5. Nick Pivetta
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Post by Underwater Johnson on Oct 11, 2023 1:04:12 GMT -5
It's going to take an overpay but I am fine with that for the young fella.
Of course, the last several horsehide-focused immigrants from that archipelago have had specific ideas about which US cities they were willing to consider. Do we even know if YY has any set prejudices yet? The Sox didn't even make Ohtani's short list and that was after Eddie Romero thought they were top-2 for him when he graduated HS.
I want to see a full-court press. Masa was YY's teammate for their entire careers and even more of an immediate star, breaking in a year apart although Masa is 5 years older. Is there some big-brother, little-brother chemistry there? I wanna see Pedro and Sale swapping pitch grips with him. I wanna see Big Papi drench the kid with charisma. They need to take him to a lobster pound and just pound some big bugs and throw back some steamers. Was he a Dice-K fan as a kid? Hell, bring in Dice Clay if that seals the deal... HOOOOHHH!!!
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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 Oct 11, 2023 2:58:11 GMT -5
Another thing that is not talked about enough that makes Yamamoto so damn attractive: His workload.
Pitcher | Age | IP before coming to the MLB | Yamamoto | 25 | 960 | Darvish | 25 | 1268 | Tanaka | 25 | 1772 | Maeda | 28 | 1550 | Ryu | 26 | 1269 | Senga | 30 | 1340 | Ohtani | 23 | 565 |
Whatever it takes Red Sox, whatever it takes….
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