Look at Ray Ray Run

Yup, it's incredible he found work.

6.25 FIP for fedde now lol. Worst pitcher in baseball.

The benefit of having positional flexibility from a catcher is that catcher is really hard, and also very hard to project from amateur baseball to pro-baseball. Pitcher handling is an art, not a science. Knowing that he still has a strong defensive ceiling to fall back on at another premium position helps limit the risk.

I think roch has better in game power today, for what it's worth, but lackey has been a xbh machine.

On my tablet so I'm going to steal someone else's work and link it from rpubs. https://api.rpubs.com/Carter42903/1356814 His results are actually slightly higher than mine at .21, but I don't restrict plate appearances to > 400. He's also using draft eligible season and I'm using a composite weighting the final year more than the prior and so on.

Lackey has a higher ISO (369 vs 348) so it's not his average. 39 xbh vs 31.

Pal, where are you getting .5? It's like .2 at the most depending on what period youre looking at.... which has very little predictive value. College K-rate on the other hand is between .51 and .59 over the last 25 years (using career rates vs avg college rates), so it's much more correlated than walk rate. I'd recheck your numbers as youre missing something somewhere.

That was easy. Giants are a train wreck. Nice win, earlier night than expected!

Sorry to hear about your guy losing his balls.

I guess since he's called Chairman of the Board, the big three sit below him... because Antonacci has a chance of leading this team in xwOBA very shortly (currently 397 and Vargas 398!)

As the drafting team, years past 6 really don't matter. I'd draft the position that best maximizes the players controlled-year value. For me, that's catcher.

I think it's closer to 7 for a great catcher and 10 for an outfielder. Catcher gets 5 times the defensive value boost than CF, but that sounds bigger than it is because it's relative to the other positions and a great defensive CF'er would typically provide more defensive value than a average defensive catcher, but all things equal the catcher would be saving 10 additional runs versus the center fielder in a year.

Some of us been on Lackey since March. I think it's an interesting situation. Catching depletes athleticism because of it's physicality and can limit games. If you could be a ++ Base runner and defensive CF'er, for example, while getting your bat in the lineup and elongating your athletic window it wouldn't be the craziest thing ever but I agree, given his defensive ceiling behind the plate it would be pretty out there to move him.

I get the thought here, but it's just bad for bad. Although maybe Castillo could be a decent bullpen arm, but his stuff has regressed so much over the past few years that I could see him falling off as a starter from here forward.

Some more really good Miguel Vargas data (8th best hitter in baseball against top stuff): Best hitters against top stuff this year S+ L+ P+ wOBA Iván Herrera 130 82 90 0.391 Yordan Alvarez 134 107 120 0.361 Shea Langeliers 131 131 144 0.353 Ben Rice 137 126 143 0.347 TJ Rumfield 130 127 134 0.346 Ozzie Albies 123 87 92 0.345 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 128 123 139 0.340 Miguel Vargas 129 112 124 0.338

Buster has 57 (counting framing) career WAR and Mauer 55.5. If the Sox got anywhere near that from this pick they would be ecstatic. Honestly, Lackey reminds me so much of Buster but he's got a better arm and he's a little better of an athlete but Buster had been better longer. Buster was a great athlete (he was a shortstop prospect who played short before moving to catcher and he was the closer at FSU) but lost a lot of it after the injury. Edit: I thought buster was easily the best player in his class, and it was also my class so followed all those guys.

I think he could play 5 big league positions ++. I think he'd be an elite right fielder with his arm. He's also a great defensive catcher which is hard to move someone off of.

The true #1 prospect.

Walk rate in college has basically no correlation to plate discipline and walk rate at the MLB level.

Harrison the type of arm the Sox should be looking to acquire. Obviously can't get him now, but what a start. 5-1 with a 1.77 ERA, 59ks in 45 innings. Dominated the Cubs yesterday which is always great to see.

How many years will it take Caufield to accept his L on Antonacci. His hatred fuels my fanhood more.

Ill take that bet. Something dumb like an avatar bet! I can't get enough of this guy proving me wrong!

I'm so confused by your posts. I thought I missed something and the Sox won the series... but triple checked and I'm not crazy.

People seem to get the math with batting order but not defensive value. It's odd. If you have a elite leadoff hitter, but your utility guy has better numbers or is "better" leading off than he is elsewhere, you wouldnt argue to bat your typical leadoff hitter 9th or, more appropriate for 3rd vs SS, 6th because everyone gets that it equals fewer at bats for a great player so you wouldnt do that. 3rd and SS are the same thing. SS gets more chances and has many more chances to positivity impact the game defensively than 3rd base. By placing the superior defender at 3rd, you limit his chances so that you can get an inferior player more chances. It's complete nonsense. It's even dumber than the Grant Taylor opener thing, which thankfully they came to understand. Hopefully they figure this defensive one out. Radio made it sound like Acuna caused the stolen base which led to a run. This doesn't even account for the fact that this is still a game played by people and players earn roles through play.

Ive exhausted this bit and argument so wont keep it going too much, but you wont find another elite (top 3) defensive shortstop in the past 50 years who jumped around positions.