Kalapse

QUOTE (JoeCoolMan24 @ Dec 17, 2010 -> 07:12 PM) Actually he really wasn't. Lot of bad luck, and most of his damage came in low-mid leverage situations. He was pretty nails in the clutch. In what world is a .306/.364/.449/.813 opponent's line "nails"? On top of the blown saves and outing in Minnesota where he handed a blown save to Santos he also entered 5 tied games and allowed the go ahead run to score 3 times.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 09:51 PM) (he did do the towel drill too though) anyways, i dont like wood at the 2/12 that he wants, hes just now reliable at all. i realize u can say that about any reliever but i rather stay away, esp. since he doesnt want to be here. But if he does sign here then isn't that a moot point? He's not going to sign here if he doesn't want to play for the team, we're not the only organization interested in him.

If I had to guess I'd say it's something like $3.5M, $4.5M, $5M. Maybe 3-5-5. If it is $3.5M then we're at $108.05M for 2011 with 3 arb eligible players on top of that.

QUOTE (TomPickle @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 09:28 PM) Almost all relievers (non-closers anyway) are 1 inning set-up guys, what more do you want? And the relievers who consistently pitch multiple innings are typically pretty bad.

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 08:50 PM) I don't know. MLBTR is saying the offer is in addition to the Crain deal. I guess we'll have to wait and see. If it's in addition, a salary dump trade has to be coming soon. That's speculation on their part, all anyone has to go on is some tiny blurb from Dave Kaplan posted on the Trib website almost 2 hours ago.

QUOTE (Ranger @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 08:45 PM) You should be glad they're trying to address a need. You can't criticize a GM for doing everything they can to try and get some certainty (even if it fails). It may work, it may not, but effort is all you can ask for. Yeah, that's exactly what I said at the end. Good on Kenny for trying to improve the team, hopefully it works out. I'm just not going to get my hopes up since I know that these types of deals rarely work out, at least in recent years. You really don't know what you're going to get from a middle reliever from year to year, though it's definitely nice when they have good stuff like Crain.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Dec 15, 2010 -> 08:27 PM) Didn't see this anywhere else but apparently the Rays are close to signing Bobby Jenks. That makes sense. Anytime his name was floated on the trade market it was typically connected to the Rays.

Eh, it's really hard to get excited about the signing of a middle reliever especially when we gave him 3 years, these contracts have like a 90% failure rate. But hey, at least we're trying. Gotta love that.

QUOTE (Pale Sox @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 11:37 PM) ? What two trades? It was all one deal. Anyways, it's all semantics. It really is semantics. d'Arnaud, Drabek and Taylor for Halladay and Lee for Aumont, Ramirez and Gillies In reality they're 2 separate trades taking place at the same time, there's no crossover with the prospects, the Phillies traded their own prospects for Halladay and the Mariners traded their own prospects for Lee. Aside from finances the trading of Lee did not facilitate the trade for Halladay.

QUOTE (Pale Sox @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 11:31 PM) Yeah, I wasn't saying it was a loss. I was just saying they didn't really get 3 prospects in return in the big scheme of the trade. You have to look at those two trades as separate entities.

QUOTE (Pale Sox @ Dec 13, 2010 -> 11:13 PM) They got 3 prospects in return, but they also gave up prospects. D'Arnould, Taylor, and Kyle Drabek (who, when combined, are much better than what they received). And in return for those 3 got the 2010 Cy Young award winner who is under contract through 2013. Now they have both of those starting pitchers and 3 prospects to show for it.

The Phillies dumping Lee a year ago doesn't look too bad right now (regardless of what you think of the talent): lose Lee for a year and get three prospects in return.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Dec 12, 2010 -> 06:58 PM) I don't think the 2012 option was never a team option, it was a player option and it has passed. I do believe this to be the case.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 06:13 PM) Man, looking at that list is scary. I forgot about some of those. That Kobayashi deal was obscenely bad. You could actually go back quite a bit further also, when the Mets gave all that money to Schoenweis and Bradford and the O's gave out all that money to Jamie Walker the mediocre lefty specialist and whats-his-name, who pitched like a year in his whole contract, Baez. s***, just think about the best relievers we've had here in recent years. We've ended up hating just about all of them. Thornton is the one notable exception aside from guys on 1-year deals. Looking at the top non-closer relievers in baseball in terms of xFIP over the past 3 seasons, we're crazy lucky because Thornton is far and away the best, most consistent and durable: Thornton - 3 seasons with a sub 2.80 xFIP, at least 60 IP in each season, lowest xFIP of any reliever (including closers) since 2008 Kuo - 1 season under 3.00, only 30 IP in '09 due to injury Mike Adams - Padre (f***ing Padre relievers), 1 season with a sub 3.00 xFIP, 37 IP in '09 due to shoulder surgery Belisle - 1 season with a sub 3.00 xFIP, 2 seasons with a 4.00+ xFIP, only 60 total IP in '08/'09 Madson - 1 sub 3.00 xFIP season Carlos Villanueva - 2 sub 4.00 xFIP seasons, 3.39 low, 15 games started in '08/'09 Wuertz - 1 sub 3.00 xFIP seasons, 2 seasons at 4.00+, only 39.2 IP last season due to injury Bard - 2 sub 4.00 xFIP seasons, 3.25 low, didn't pitch in 2008 Downs - 3 sub 4.00 xFIP seasons, 3.18 low, spent time on the 15 day DL 3 times in the past 3 seasons League - 3 sub 4.00 xFIP seasons, 3.26 low, 3.95 high, spent half of 2008 season in the minors

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 05:49 PM) I agree with you. Downs is worth 5 mil for 2011. Whether he's worth 5 mil in 2012 and 2013 is the main problem with expensive relievers. You don't even know that; out of the 18 pitchers above only 4 of them were any damn good in the first year of their deal (Uehara, Affelfdt, Linebrink, Dotel).

QUOTE (knightni @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 05:27 PM) $5 mil isn't a lot for a quality reliever if he stays quality through the length of the deal. That's the main issue; reliever turnover due to regression. Your highest paid relievers from the '08/'09 offseason: Francisco Rodriguez 3/$37 Kerry Wood 2/$20.5 Brian Fuentes 2/$17.5 Damaso Marte 3/$12 Koji Uehara 2/$10 Kyle Farnsworth 2/$9.25 Jeremy Affeldt 2/$8 Juan Cruz 2/$6M Now how many of these guys have produced well enough over the past 2 seasons to justify the contract? Uehara? That's really all I got. How about the season before that? Francisco Cordero 4/$46 Scott Linebrink 4/$19 David Riske 3/$13 Octavio Dotel 2/$11 Eric Gagne 1/$10 Ron Mahay 2/$8 Troy Percival 2/$8 Luis Vizcaino 2/$7.5 Keith Foulke 1/$7 Masa Kobayashi 2/$6.5 Cordero? Maybe? Probably not. I'd say Dotel but others would probably disagree. That's the top 18 free agent relievers over 2 seasons and maybe 1-3 of them have panned out and that may be pushing it.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Dec 10, 2010 -> 05:21 PM) Tony Pena was a really good young reliever. He looked so nasty when the DBacks were in the playoffs, almost certainly the closer of that team for the next several years. Now he's our long man. Really good relievers aren't necessarily really good. I hop Kenny doesn't do that. That's my problem with something like this, I have a huge problem with trading good major league position players and starters or very good prospects for relief pitchers. I'm just not so sure there's more than a handful of relievers who are good from year to year and even they can fall off at any time. You could pick who you believe to be the 10 best middle relievers/setup men in the game and I'd be willing to bet that at least half of those guys will be ineffective in 2011.

Over 16,000 outfield innings for Andruw Jones, with much of them played while overweight. The guy's body is so banged up and rundown you absolutely can not count on him to give you anything close to a full season. There's just way too much wear on those tires.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 03:36 PM) Grinder Rules was fantastic. I'm surprised Boyer went with this, or at worst I'm surprised even in their haste he allowed something that could have been designed by someone with 1 class worth of Photoshop 101 to touch the sky as a billboard. Yeah, it's pretty brutal. Perhaps they're saving money to go towards payroll but hiring a child to do all signage work for them, not to mention a bizarre choice for the featured players. For anyone that can't see the link here's the billboard:

QUOTE (chw42 @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 02:47 PM) That's probably due to his bad 2010 season. Well, we did supposedly dangle him for Adrian Gonzalez.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 01:53 AM) You'll see me still b**** about Carlos Pena though. I can't appreciate the pure power if you don't hit at least a respectable average though, haha. I also think there is a place in the roster for these guys, however, if you had 9 players like Dunn/Reynolds/Pena (and I don't really want to put Dunn in that class cause offensively he's far more productive than the other two) that you'd have hard time winning despite the fact that your optimized lineups would churn out pretty ridiculous offensive runs per game numbers. I say that because I still see a lot of value in a hitters ability to hit against good pitchers and I think when you hit .200 you are more likely going to have a harder time getting a hit against an upper echelon pitcher or a good set-up guy/closer. And I think you are most likely to be in those sitautions in the post-season (when teams have 3 to 4 man rotations and in general the teams have far better pitchers) or in late/close game situations (when teams are using their premium relievers). But Dunn is definitely a great fit. I also have a hard time using some of the defensie metrics. I think they can provide decent value in large sample sizes and for certain positions but I still have issues with them and still have more trust in what a scout who covers a player or coach that watches a player every day thinks. I also feel that catchers are probably the hardest overall defensive position to judge. I say that because there are so many intangibles that go with calling a game and to me you can't just go by the pure differential in ERA between catcher A and B. Kalapse: I also completely agree with you on Paulie and I very much appreciate the little things he does (such as the throw to 2nd to turn the DP or just get the force out) and the marvelous job he does digging balls out. It's scary but I largely agree with you; just this past season I was preaching the value of the old standby: batting average. You have people who act as if it means nothing at all but at least in my opinion there's a tremendous amount of value in picking up a hit once every three and a third at bats.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 01:44 AM) It's funny that you're moving toward the advanced metrics after fighting them for so long while I find myself moving further away from them (at least for the defensive metrics) after lauding the damn things. It is nice to see you appreciating the awesomeness that is Adam Dunn, though. After you rebelling against the Thome/Dunn type players for so long. Just to elaborate on this a bit so no one gets the wrong idea; I still very much like the defensive metrics but I just see so many people using UZR for evil rather than good that it's really starting to upset me. For so long people like Dewan and Lichtman and others of this ilk have warned us that a single season's worth of data is not enough to form any solid conclusions, that we need a few season's worth of UZR to determine a player's ultimate worth yet I see people throwing around a single down or up season in the UZR column as definitive proof that a player is great/horrible defensively. There's such wild fluctuations in the data that a sane person can't possibly take a single season at face value and yet I'm seeing people 3 months into the season looking at this data and talking about how horribly a player has fallen off or picked up his game and this upsets me; it's starting to feel like split stats where someone looks at a player's numbers with RISP in 2010 and decides that he's either clutch or not clutch (god I hate that word). How does someone like Nick Markakis take such a precipitous drop from '08 to date? It makes no sense. These numbers are so damn valuable but at the same time so easy to exploit that it becomes horribly upsetting.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 01:46 AM) I really wish you and qwerty would stop hibernating for weeks at a time (months in qwerty's case). And my brother Ace hasn't been around as much either. I tend to take a nice long break from baseball once the season starts wrapping up, I find it cathartic and the withdraw gets me jonesing for a new baseball season.

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 01:39 AM) Everyone's starting to notice that I've began using some of these fancy stats. Well, as long as they back my own eye test (if I've watched a decent amount of a player or enough of a player to have an opinion). They are clearly valuable tools of information. In no way am I on the same level as you or qwerty when it comes to the whole barrage of things, but I am pretty comfortable with a few of these fancy stats, haha. It's funny that you're moving toward the advanced metrics after fighting them for so long while I find myself moving further away from them (at least for the defensive metrics) after lauding the damn things. It is nice to see you appreciating the awesomeness that is Adam Dunn, though. After you rebelling against the Thome/Dunn type players for so long.

QUOTE (3E8 @ Dec 9, 2010 -> 01:11 AM) You're not alone. The defensive WAR component does not include 1B picks. A guy like PK is closer to average 1B defensively overall because his terrific hands make up for his lack of range. So PK's WAR from defense isn't just. But we don't need a stat to confirm that Dunn is abominable in the outfield (where Ozzie said he will play) and near the bottom at 1B too. Not only his picks but his arm. Konerko is probably the best 1B I've ever seen at turning the 3-6-3/3-6-1 double play, it's incredible how many first basemen can't make the throw to second base but Konerko turns it flawlessly just about every time, it's the kind of thing you really tend to appreciate when you watch a lot of baseball. When looking at Konerko's UZR it just means so little to me, we all know he's not a very good athlete and is slow as s*** so he probably doesn't have great range but in the grand scheme of things there aren't a lot of balls hit into the first basemen's zone anyway, in a given year you can have 40% less balls hit to the 1B than the 3B based on the incredible difference in handedness of pitchers and hitters and then you have the added factor of a first basemen's placement (holding a runner on, playing back and such) it just means so very little. And even then; sure Konerko was around a -14 last year but for his career he's very rarely wondered too far from zero and we've always been warned against placing too much value in a single seasons' UZR, there's so much fluctuation in the numbers you need a few season's worth of data to draw any conclusions. Basically: I find it difficult to knock Konerko's defense when I'm so damn impressed watching him play the field compared to a lot of the 1B I see out there -- and I do watch a ton of baseball -- when one season's worth of a flawed metric is telling me he sucks.