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Demeritte K's a lot but has a good walk rate. I think the bigger question will be his "off the field" issues, and that's a thing where I'm working at such an info disadvantage it's hard to care about in speculation.

Phew, now they have insurance for when Albies is shipped out. edit: this is green

I was going to make a case for Aaron Judge by looking up Dunn but then I looked up Adam Dunn's minor league stats and he was hitting 1000+ OPS consistently.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 11:48 AM) Grady Sizemore was a hell of a player on steroids. Too bad injuriesstopping steroids really did him in. Updated for accuracy.

I feel like Catcher war is often lower due to games played, is that an accurate statement?

I think underrated part of the "wait until deadline" crowd is these are the exact teams you'd want in on Q with the exception of the Dodgers and Rockies. Three of Pirates/Yankees/Astros/Braves all "in" on Q is about as good as it gets.

Starting to like Travis Demeritte as a piece in a Braves proposal. Long swing but legit power and good walk rate. Bad k rate. Decent reports on him as a fielder. Seems every bit the prospect as Andujar though obviously Andujar made it to AA. I

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 09:26 AM) They can take it all away and use technology to call balls and strikes. MLBN had a thing where Eric Byrnes called a game, I think it was an independent league, behind the plate. They set it up and had someone watch the box on a monitor and told him in an earpiece if the pitch was a ball or a strike. Not one complaint for batter or pitcher or catcher. Seems pretty simple. I'm totally fine with robot umpires but did want to note some recent pieces showing that the distance between bad and good pitch framers is tightening so the good news is so long as we don't sign Dioner Navarro, soon teams will adjust so even if you have a bad pitch framer it will be no where near as bad as having the worst pitch framer 4-5 years ago.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jan 13, 2017 -> 08:43 AM) I think framing is a legit skill, but I'm not sure that the stat is that accurate. I suspect that there are a lot of other variables that haven't been isolated from framing. SABRE Defensive stats have been around a lot longer and they are still lacking,imo. It may take a while. I don't know, read how BP calculates it. For one, the main reason this became a thing was a technology update (pitch F/X) but then they've even been able to make interesting retro models for it. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article....articleid=25514

I'm unsure why this is so controversial. Conservatives too look at other countries like Chile's private pension fund as a better system. Chile is also smaller and more homogenous than the US. Scandinavian countries run a lot of experiments on cash transfers and get a lot of bang for their buck. French government builds infrastructure at a fraction of our costs. Makes sense to look at how we can improve by looking at other countries and seeing what is applicable.

QUOTE (Saufley @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 02:24 PM) Correct me if I am wrong but I thought I just recently read about a mini camp we held in Arizona? If so, was Moncada there and was he playing a specific position? http://m.mlb.com/news/article/213231944/yo...ls-at-minicamp/ Here is Merkin on the mini camp. Most of Merk's reporting was on hitting done, but I saw one video of I think Davidson taking grounders at 3rd. Didn't see anything referencing position.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 02:09 PM) I am not really sure how that proves your point. Was Jeremy Bonderman the best pitcher on a Tigers' team that was averaging 95 losses a year? Yes. Was he in ace? No. He also won 14 games in back to back years which was very relevant to a discussion on aces in 2004. Quintana is a career .500 pitcher who before this year never won double digit amount of games. end derail/ Ah, I get what you are saying. I could see Quintana's win total sinking him and you are right I have not seen that mentioned once in evaluating Quintana this year. Bonderman was just to show how much more "ace" was thrown around for #1 team pitcher then compared to now. It's amusing to see it used in reference to a pitcher with a near 5 era that year.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 01:38 PM) 10 years ago the idea of calling Quintana an ace would bring you ridicule. Is that so? I feel like ERA dominated even more, as well as the term ace being thrown around for any #1. To prove my point, I googled "detroit ace jeremy bonderman" and sure enough a cbssports writeup wrote this: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/gametracker/r...0050514_ANA@DET "he Los Angeles Angels were trying to figure out how to beat Detroit Tigers ace Jeremy Bonderman." I feel like analytics have further refined ace discussion, though I acknowledge mbinaa was a 10 year old topic.

It is somewhat annoying that there are not many stupid organizations left in Baseball. 10 years ago some team like the brewers would be inexplicably involved because "you need an ace"

My point is Albies is awesome and we really need to stop worrying about "Where do they play" when we are talkign about super athletic middle infielders with good bats, if we had acquired 4 corner outfielders with a projection of 1b, then I'd be a bit more worried, but even then not that worried.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 11:24 AM) But a third of the posts are people talking about how many posts are in the thread and wanting it to pass the Cespedes thread. Correct.

Albies has a 60 arm, is there any reason to believe he couldn't play 3rd? CF? Having too many super athletic infielders that can hit seems like a real problem. But also, we can't get any DH/1b types for pitchers of Quintanas worth. Oh, but if we get an outfielder they must already have developed power and be patient hitters, and plus fielders. And no pitchers, we have too many. But we all agree that defensive catchers with no hit tools MUST be included. Seems like we should find a trade that satisfies all any minute now.

No.

QUOTE (2005thxfrthmmrs @ Jan 12, 2017 -> 10:26 AM) Good to see teams coming back in. So.. is Arizona looking to get another starter? We have a pretty good one to trade and I know they have the balls. Arizona has a bottom 4 system.

Acuna is a lot of projection but quick bat and strong hands is intriguing. If we get Albies/Acuna then I would lean braves unless Pirates truly bring in Meadows or New York comes in with Torres.

QUOTE (Y2JImmy0 @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 10:12 PM) First of all, I don't have "sources" and have never claimed to. I have a buddy that lives in Atlanta with some contacts, agents and otherwise. He told me today that the teams have definitely been talking. He mentioned Albies and Newcomb specifically. Said Braves reluctant to part with Maitan. Also mentioned that he was told that trading Mallex Smith was "needed". Whether that means the Sox want Gohara, I have no idea. That's all I got. I was really confused by the way you started off, then I realized that you were the person soxpride was referring to as having talked to. Well anyway, thanks for sharing. Always fun to hear this stuff.

QUOTE (Elgin Slim @ Jan 11, 2017 -> 09:06 PM) I'm sorry, I'm not interested in Albies, especially as a headliner. IMO there is no deal to be made with the Braves, because Swanson is obviously off limits and they don't have a headlining position player other than him. If a hitter is rated as having a 20 power tool, then they better have a 75-80 hit tool otherwise, IMO, they are a non-prospect. Albies has a 60 hit tool so I don't care that he's rated highly, I don't trust him. Just by reading his scouting report, his ceiling IMO is a utility infielder. Are you going to trade Q for that??? Swanson or no dice Atlanta. I hope Hahn thinks the same. This is crazy. One - that 20 has not been updated, they re-did team rankings but have not finished their player evaluations on mlb pipeline, you will se regrading. And what happened last year? Well as a 19 year old in AA he continued to rake and had a .145 iso. That isn't barry bonds, but it's an improvement over the 1 home run he hit over two years prior, and closer to a 35/40. It's also better than top prospects Nick Gordon and JP Crawford posted. Add to that he has a 70 speed tool that turns singles into double snad doubles into triples. He has a great 15% strikeout rate (as one of the youngest players in every league), he has a good walkout rate (again, as youngest player) and most of all has the scouting reports you love to see. High baseball IQ. Intense gamer. Does whatever team needs to win.

I feel pretty good about all of the trades mentioned. Honestly perspective wise, we have been looking at the top prospects in the game for like 6 months now, to the point that any top 200 prospect looks like garbage. But then you think about how much you like players like Jordan Stephens or Alex Call, and those are "just guys" to us on other teams. But we are talking about likely 11 top 30 team prospects to our team for 3 guys, drafts, and fincancial flexibility. I'm pretty confident we're gonna end up well unless Quintana gets injured before we trade him.

Anyone listen to the Garfein/Coop interview?

I just can't get over the Senator Cotton story that he purposely held back an Obama nomination who had been consistently blocked nad then was dying of leukemia and he still blocked her just because "he knew it would cause Obama pain"