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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 21:52:45 GMT -5
They have a good shot of winning comfortably in regulation but for the three bad Tatum turnovers.
Horford is still arguably their best two-way big man. His floor stretching, passing and switchability on defense are so important.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 21:44:40 GMT -5
Tatum looks exhausted. Just too many minutes for a random January game.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 20:43:04 GMT -5
White Mamba had a sweet outside stroke, Kornet develops that and the Knicks might max him out. Funnily enough, Kornet came into the league primarily as a stretch five. In 2018-19, he shot 193 three-pointers (4.2 a game; 68% of his shot attempts) at a 36.3% clip. The team he played for? The New York Knicks.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 20:39:16 GMT -5
Down only one point despite 4 for 17 (23.5%) three point shooting isn't awful. Some bad turnovers sprinkled in, though, and Brown looks rusty out there.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 15:31:28 GMT -5
As a side note, feels like there's almost a reflexive criticism of signings like this one by folks who dislike the front office (and are particularly upset because the front office has not acquired enough star-level players). I think it's totally fair to dislike this move because you'd rather give the playing time to Duran/Refsnyder or because you think Duvall is toast or because you think they should spend the money on a bullpen arm instead. I also totally understand being upset at the front office for, say, not re-signing Bogaerts. But criticizing this move because Duvall's not a star feels like misplaced anger. Don't take that out on poor Adam Duvall.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 15:28:25 GMT -5
Because the game's nature lends itself to underperformance, particularly with guys who aren't at the top and and / or guys who are fringy, like a lot of what this roster appears to be. that is why it is good to have some 6-8 WAR guys (or so) to help mitigate that variable. Eh, feels like we need to calibrate expectations somewhat. There were four hitters in all of baseball who averaged 6+ fWAR across 2021-2022 (Aaron Judge, Trea Turner, Jose Ramirez, Paul Goldschmidt). There's also been quite a bit of research about whether a stars and scrubs roster or a depth-based roster is a better team-building approach. Here is one representative analysis ( link): I should note that other research has come to the conclusion that either approach works: fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-the-best-way-to-build-a-major-league-baseball-team/
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 13:34:53 GMT -5
I moved the more recent Kiké discussion to a new thread so that we don't keep bumping this one (which risks having folks think we extended him again).
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 10:32:26 GMT -5
[N.B. I want Hernandez to stay in CF because according to FG, Duvall has been a good defensive OF for three of his seven seasons -- the other four not. I'm not going to assume he'll be a good CF at 34-yo coming off a serious wrist injury; in fact, I'm going to assume that he won't be.]
This is bad analysis. Two of those negative years are in tiny sample sizes (his rookie season with 28 games played and 2019 in 41 games played) and he's been very good defensively in his other seasons. Over his career, Duvall is an overall +5.0 UZR/150 and +6.2 OAA/150, including +4.7 UZR/150 and +2.0 OAA in center field. Age is a definite concern but not sure why a left wrist injury is going to meaningfully and negatively affect his defense. I think it's fair to say that he's probably an averagish defensive CF at best, but that still makes him their second best CF option.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 10:17:03 GMT -5
I moved some Tapia discussion to the minor league free agents thread.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 10:16:11 GMT -5
I moved the Tapia discussion to the minor league free agents thread to consolidate that discussion.
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Post by jmei on Jan 19, 2023 10:13:10 GMT -5
Since you're not getting any meaningful cap relief by cutting him (a post-June 1 cut really just spreads the pain over multiple years), the only question is whether Jonnu Smith is better an a minimum salary type. Hard to argue that he's that bad even with his struggles to date.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 19:22:42 GMT -5
This roster did not have a legitimate backup center fielder before they signed Duvall. (Duran is not reliable enough either offensively or defensively, Verdugo and Refsnyder are both strictly corner outfielders and Greg Allen is the definition of a replacement-level player.) Duvall fills that need admirably. Having good backup fourth and fifth outfielders is quite important, especially on a roster with two LHHs starting at LF and RF and a starting CF who will also get reps at SS/2B. $7M is the going rate for bench players who will get a good amount of playing time (see, e.g., Brandon Drury ($8.5M), Adam Frazier ($8M), Trey Mancini ($7M), Tommy Pham ($6M), etc.). Nonetheless, if they signed him as 4/5 OF bench option, then I think it is a little strange — I am not sure what this leaves them to spend, but it likely cuts Andrus close. So if you are getting a bench OF and saying “we’ll fill MI after,” I think it is a curious allocation of funds. This leaves them with something like $11M to $14M (depending on whose numbers you trust) to acquire a SS/2B, which feels like enough for someone like Andrus (who had a Fangraphs median crowdsource prediction of 2/$20M) and is more than enough room for someone like Iglesias or a trade acquisition. They can always subtract salary if needed (e.g., Paxton's $4M, Brasier's $2M, Rodriguez's $1.5M) if they need a little more room. Per just about all of the depth charts out there (including the SoxProspects.com one), they had two needs left (a SS/2B and an OF) and they filled one with this move. I'm not sure what about this is so hard to understand.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 19:11:16 GMT -5
Disagree, the ’group’ is not overly optimistic. You are overly pessimistic. Didn’t you say you blocked me a while back? I wish you would stick to that. Cut out the bickering.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 19:07:23 GMT -5
Zach Kelly is a guy who doesn't get brought up often enough in these conversations. He's right up there with Ort for me.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 19:05:09 GMT -5
Parlor game: which one of these players (other than Bello, who would otherwise be a lock) will get the most plate appearances (for hitters) or batters faced (for pitchers) in 2023? My guess would be Valdez. One of the pitchers might edge him out but I've got no line of sight on which one it might be so I'm going with the backup 2B who is already on the 40-man.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 18:59:23 GMT -5
I've always had a soft spot for the good defensive OF/lots of power/bad plate discipline combo. Think Alfonso Soriano, B.J. Upton, Mike Cameron (who I thought was a great signing in 2009-2010--shows you what I know).
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 18:54:50 GMT -5
If he doesn’t start, well, then he has not really solved any problems. I don’t see how a team that already has Refsnyder on the bench spends $7 mill on a guy they don’t intend to start. This roster did not have a legitimate backup center fielder before they signed Duvall. (Duran is not reliable enough either offensively or defensively, Verdugo and Refsnyder are both strictly corner outfielders and Greg Allen is the definition of a replacement-level player.) Duvall fills that need admirably. Having good backup fourth and fifth outfielders is quite important, especially on a roster with two LHHs starting at LF and RF and a starting CF who will also get reps at SS/2B. $7M is the going rate for bench players who will get a good amount of playing time (see, e.g., Brandon Drury ($8.5M), Adam Frazier ($8M), Trey Mancini ($7M), Tommy Pham ($6M), etc.).
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 9:15:19 GMT -5
Honest question: if you're going to rank Yoshida, how does he not rank higher? Are there really 86 prospects who are more valuable than him? If you were to ask me who I'd rather keep in the organization, Rafaela or Yoshida, it's Yoshida all the way (even with the uncertainties around transition from NPB to MLB, his age, etc.). My other rule of thumb is, if all these guys were made free agents, who would get the larger contract, and I find it hard to believe that there are 86 prospects who'd get more than 5/$90M (even ignoring the posting fee for these purposes). Maybe they're taking his contract into account, but this is a prospect ranking list, not a trade value list, and I believe they once ranked Daisuke as the #1 prospect in baseball, so wouldn't have expected that to be the case.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 9:06:52 GMT -5
About the right deal for a ~1 WAR guy. He’s been a 2.4 WAR/150 guy overall since 2019. Last year he was 0.9 in half a season, with his offensive numbers way down after a slow start to the year which he seemed to be recovering from. Totally possible he’s aging and declines a lot or he gets injured again, but 1.0 is a pessimistic projection for a healthy Duvall. He's 34 years old, coming off a mediocre season and is a part-time player at this point in his career (due to middling performance and injuries). If anything, I'm being a little optimistic. Steamer projects him to be 0.3 WAR in 325 PAs and Derek Carty's THE BAT X projects him to be 0.6 WAR in 343 PAs.
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Post by jmei on Jan 18, 2023 7:51:38 GMT -5
About the right deal for a ~1 WAR guy.
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Post by jmei on Jan 17, 2023 13:37:03 GMT -5
I think of this more as an optionality-focused move than one that guarantees that Kiké will move to the infield. They needed a backup CF/RF anyways and Duvall isn't quite good enough at this point in his career where you want to pencil him into a starting spot.
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Post by jmei on Jan 17, 2023 13:29:05 GMT -5
Agreed, I think Kornet is a legitimate NBA player (unlike, say, Tacko Fall or Scalabrine towards the end of his career). He's versatile offensively (decent lob catcher, sets good screens, can (theoretically) stretch the floor) and is good enough defensively to survive against second units (his size/length and the Kornet Kontest help offset his lack of foot speed). I think he's honestly better than Griffin at this point. You can't really do much better than that for your minimum salaried third-string center.
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Post by jmei on Jan 17, 2023 11:18:12 GMT -5
Alfaro is a big upgrade over Wong. Let's call it what it is. Yeah, his plate discipline is slightly better than Randall Simon, but he's great defensively and has some pop. If he doesn't take a walk and still hits 240 with pop and plays good defense I can live with it. Eh, there's more to catcher defense than just arm. Alfaro has a cannon arm but has received below-average marks in catcher framing and blocking pitches, and I'd give the Wong the advantage on those fronts. Pitch calling is another area where Wong has generally gotten positive marks while Alfaro is an unknown.
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Post by jmei on Jan 17, 2023 10:17:27 GMT -5
A lot of deals like the one that Alfaro signed have an opt-out at the end of spring training, but the fact that Alfaro doesn't have an opt-out until June 1 means that the Red Sox can make it a genuine competition rather than just promoting the guy with an early opt-out to maximize depth. In other words, I don't know that they've made a decision yet on who the backup catcher is coming out of spring training and I think it will be a genuine competition between Wong and Alfaro.
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Post by jmei on Jan 15, 2023 14:03:40 GMT -5
They have definitely had some bad drafts lately, but, over a larger sample size, the idea that Belichick is terrible at the draft is laughable and frankly credibility destroying. Nobody said that. In fact, if you're referring to me, I said overall they've been great and referred to Belichick as "prophetic". That said, the data you provided does tell a tale of two halves. 2012-2016 was amazing, especially considering that they managed to be one of the best teams at drafting while consistently having one of the last picks in each round. 2017-2021 paints a completely different picture where they were one of the worst teams at drafting according to this CAVOE metric. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that they were still picking toward the very last pick in each round (with the exception of 2021) but I doubt that's the full story. 2019 was particularly terrible not only because they drafted N'Keal Harry but because they chose not to draft Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown, Mercole Hardman, DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson, Terry McLaurin, or even Hunter Renfroe. The data you provided quantifies most people's disappointment, by their measure it was the second worst draft of any team in 2019. It would be interesting to discuss what happened that may have caused the change in the two halves, I would assume that there were possibly some front office or coaching changes that may have cause the shift but it could be something else too. It would be significantly less interesting to read another sh*tpost about credibility. I have other thoughts about their drafting, mostly positive, but the context of the statements were the data you provided and it says what it says. Uh, guidas said a page back that Belichick’s draft record is so bad over the last 15 years that he should have that responsibility taken away from him. That’s what I’m replying to.
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