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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 14, 2024 11:28:18 GMT -5
MLB carried a short piece on Casas' HR against Rodon today, encouraged by the fact that it was against a lefthander given that he'd hit "just .215/.361/.456" against them in 2023. Forget about the fact that the OBP was just about on par with what he did against righthanders. I did a simple calculation. What if he'd had 3 more singles fall in somewhere in those 97 PAs? The batting line would have been .253/.392/.494 so that's all it would have taken to get him out of "just" territory. In other words in such a small sample it's not much more than noise. MLB might be wise to leave the jargon behind and talk statistical sense to people. If they want knowledgeable fans they could help the process along instead of keeping them in the dark with the old talk. Isn’t a small sample because he was being protected a bit? That would suggest the lefties he faced tended not to be elite lefties. I say this only to suggest you could as easily ask what happens if you add 3 or more ABs against top lefties… as opposed to the 3 dink singles. You're making my argument for me. If adding or subtracting just a few results significantly changes the line either way that's a measure of how meaningful - or not - the sample is. What I'm more interested in is a realistic assessment of what that sample-size means in those narratives. Why not educate readers? As for whether he was protected, how do we know what he would have done "un-protected". That's the same sort of conundrum.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 14, 2024 1:25:01 GMT -5
MLB carried a short piece on Casas' HR against Rodon today, encouraged by the fact that it was against a lefthander given that he'd hit "just .215/.361/.456" against them in 2023. Forget about the fact that the OBP was just about on par with what he did against righthanders.
I did a simple calculation. What if he'd had 3 more singles fall in somewhere in those 97 PAs? The batting line would have been .253/.392/.494 so that's all it would have taken to get him out of "just" territory. In other words in such a small sample it's not much more than noise.
MLB might be wise to leave the jargon behind and talk statistical sense to people. If they want knowledgeable fans they could help the process along instead of keeping them in the dark with the old talk.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 23:56:18 GMT -5
As Yuchang points out, they've got a few horses they paid lot of money for. Before time runs out he's taking one more shot trying to conjure up wins to get to the playoffs. And pitching was a big need. There are a few others for sure.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 22:30:57 GMT -5
One more roll of the dice.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 20:43:34 GMT -5
Here you go. Now this has the FanGraphs logo prominently displayed, and you've embedded the link so I hope this passes muster on giving credit:
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 14:38:39 GMT -5
It's spring training. People were writing the same thing about Dalbec. He's got one of the better lines now. We all need to climb down off the small sample hobby horse. This stuff is not completely meaningless but it can change in a flash and it hardly reflects the regular season.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 12:54:54 GMT -5
Pivetta has found his groove.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 12:24:16 GMT -5
Great throw by Abreu. He had the runner if the ball hadn't been dropped by McGuire.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 10:34:44 GMT -5
For all the talk about Abreu's platoon splits (in all of 10 MLB PAs) here's Verdugo's line against lefthanders last year: .220/.311/.298!
When the Sox traded for him he had very good platoon numbers. That really changed in his years with the team. It won't take much for Abreu to prove at least as valuable, and he has a better arm, a cannon for those throws from deep in the rightfield corner.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 9:56:52 GMT -5
Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal - in no specific order - are some of the best and best run cities in North America. Not a lot of work for a ball player in Vancouver, though. ...or Montreal
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 12, 2024 16:38:12 GMT -5
Many people would. Even some ballplayers.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 12, 2024 15:44:01 GMT -5
Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal - in no specific order - are some of the best and best run cities in North America.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 12, 2024 13:54:50 GMT -5
Every time a ball squeaks by a diving Enmanuel Valdez, I wonder why the "logjam" of outfielders can't partially be alleviated by just playing Rafaela there once or twice a week. They already know Rafaela has the chops to play there. They're trying to figure out if Valdez does.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 11, 2024 19:34:04 GMT -5
He's got a very different swing and more patience & power than Verdugo (though he's not fielding or hitting in the rightfield playpen at Yankee Stadium).
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 11, 2024 12:04:07 GMT -5
This is why I’m ringing the bells for draft pitchers use FA for position players The opportunity cost is just way way worse when a FA signed SP is lost for a season and it’s seems like it’s been at more likely that a pitcher is missing a whole season then a position player There's opportunity cost and injury risk to drafting pitchers too. For this to be a good heuristic, you'd have to prove that it's sufficiently more efficient to buy position player WAR than pitching WAR to cover the possible inefficiency of drafting pitchers over position players. Even then, the free agent pool, the draft pool, and your position in the draft can change so much that a simple heuristic isn't useful. We've certainly seen the changes in the pool of free agent pitching talent. That calculation would be constantly changing.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 11, 2024 0:33:37 GMT -5
That "kid" talks like a professional, someone with a clear understanding of where he is and where he wants to be. I believe he'll get there. The team should put together an investment fund to tap for the payout when he gets to that level.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 10, 2024 1:32:03 GMT -5
Good to remember that it's bettors who set the odds for all those "oddsmakers". They just position themselves in the middle of the stream of bets.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 9, 2024 22:27:38 GMT -5
Here in Oregon, Fubo carries ROOT, the RSN with the Mariners' broadcasts. If you have the same situation back there, you can get it on NESN your local RSN, or fed through Fubo. Both are true.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 9, 2024 18:19:28 GMT -5
Starting to feel like it’d be very hard to justify leaving Rafaela off the opening day roster They have three outfielders aside from Rafaela who can play center, and of those two can cover right more than passably. They have left field covered also from any number of combinations. That leaves him available to spell three of the infield positions. If he develops plate discipline to go with the obvious hitting skills, he's really, really valuable because of that flexibility and how good he is defensively.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 9, 2024 0:23:00 GMT -5
They don't have to look very far either, a little more than a hundred miles, for a "super-team" that dug themselves a hole and jumped in. I do see Arizona and SF laying in the weeds for them, and defense matters. But they have so much offensive fire power they'll probably power through the NL West.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 8, 2024 23:20:25 GMT -5
Starts with the NY Post as the source, and goes downhill from there! No surprise. After four titles in twenty years the knives are out. Heyman's is, naturally, pretty dull.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 8, 2024 21:24:45 GMT -5
The bar is set way too low. Here's a list of the pitchers with a bWAR of at least 2 over five years (minus 2020): Year | Pitcher | bWAR | 2023 | Chris Martin | 3.2 | 2023 | Brayan Bello | 3.1 | 2023 | Kutter Crawford | 2.5 | 2023 | Nick Pivetta | 2.4 | 2022 | Michael Wacha | 3.3 | 2022 | John Schreiber | 2.7 | 2022 | Nick Pivetta | 2.6 | 2021 | Nate Eovaldi | 4.3 | 2021 | Garrett Whitlock | 2.9 | 2021 | Nick Pivetta | 2.5 | 2019 | Eduardo Rodriguez | 5.5 | 2019 | Brandon Workman | 3.1 | 2019 | Chris Sale | 2.1 | 2018 | Chris Sale | 6.4 | 2018 | David Price | 3.7 | 2018 | Rick Porcello | 2.6 | 2018 | Eduardo Rodriguez | 2.5 | 2018 | Craig Kimbrel | 2.1 |
Bello already exceeded 2 WAR at 2324. The arrow is pointing up and given good health I believe he can easily be worth a minimum of 3.5 for the majority of the contract years.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 7, 2024 23:18:28 GMT -5
Or on the flipside since Twitterverse is a cesspool they'll undoubtedly be people who complain the Sox didn't pay him enough and blame the org somehow. WEEI was already saying Bello is pissed and they low-balled him. Maybe it's time to revisit some of this, to determine what the goal was here. I'm trying to figure out if the comment lacked a clear understanding of how negotiations proceed or if that was irrelevant. Is it like this all the time on the broadcasts? I'll admit I don't listen to WEEI out here in the West.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 7, 2024 20:44:49 GMT -5
Good analysis for those who've forgotten or didn't know it. Once he got his sea legs he was outstanding into August. Gassed for the last part of it, he faded and so did his numbers. There's a reason to believe that he can get and stay stronger and have that success carry through the season.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 7, 2024 15:37:41 GMT -5
Good to see the optimism. And the spelling malaprop is great: sprint training indeed.
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