Balta1701

But the Astros also have made it clear they will decide what a player is worth to them based on their analytics and they will not go beyond that dollar amount/talent amount.

I wouldn't want to give that up for Gray.

There's always some terrible calls, but the terrible calls happen to everyone. No one has ever said that there was an unusual concentration of bad calls for Moncada. An average player strikes out 10 or 20 times a year on bad calls, but that doesn't push Moncada up to 50 of those. If you played out this season 100 times, Moncada would lead the league in that stat 100 times. It was not bad luck. Because pitchers knew Moncada wouldn't swing at anything near the corners, if they got ahead of him they worked the corners. If they had to waste 2 or 3 pitches to try to get a call, they could do that because they knew Moncada wasn't a threat. He wouldn't swing, he wouldn't defend himself, he had no ability to foul off or spoil a pitcher's pitch, and his approach pushed pitchers to try to ace him with pitches like that. A normal hitter will at least spoil some pitches with 2 strikes knowing that they can't just leave it up to the umpire when a pitch is close, but Moncada's approach left that as one of his main weaknesses. Unless we're switching to robot umpires at some point soon, Moncada is the one who will have to deal with that weakness. Complaining about the umps shows a lack of understanding of why it's his weakness.

If you're totally ok with leaving it up to the catcher's framing skills and the umpire's precise eye whether or not you strike out, you set the record for strikeouts in a season.

Let's see how it goes this year. He wasn't rushed like Fulmer or Rodon were, but he was still aggressively called up to the big leagues when he could have spent more time working on his approach and pitch recognition. He made statements saying that he knew what he needed to work on, and management gave a vote of confidence to the hitting coach by keeping him around. If we don't see improvement, probably specifically from Moncada, then the hitting coach and the people who kept him around should both go. At the very least, you'll get the hitting coach as a sacrificial lamb.

While that stat was accurate, it's also worth remembering that it was not just him being unlucky. He was setting up pitchers to strike him out looking like that with his poor approach at the plate.

Just so someone points this out, so far in this thread, Ervin Santana, Drew Hutchison, Shelby Miller have been mentioned, and Dylan Covey outperformed them last year.

Which numbers do we look at to translate the best from league to league? His K/9 and K/BB and Hits/9 ratios are at least comparable to Maeda, his numbers aren't as dominant as Tanaka but Tanaka's numbers in the US are always going to be affected by his elbow going out year 1, and I don't know if there's anything else behind it but Kikuchi's innings totals aren't nearly as ridiculous as Tanaka or Maeda. 186 innings as an 18 years old for Tanaka, 193 as a 21 year old for Maeda, 187 as a 26 year old for Kikuchi.

Just remember what part of the dance we're in. Right now there's no pressure for Harper to decide ASAP, teams have placed offers, and now we're in a staring contest. If a team loses their cool and blinks, they might just throw another $20 million onto their offer and do so without any guarantee that it will be enough to make Harper say "yes". Anything that can make a team worry or panic right now could add tens of millions to Harper's deal, and Harper's agent knows that. Harper's agent, one Scott Boras, also has a very solid knowledge of media and marketing dynamics and he's demonstrated in the past he will use that to benefit his client. Every single time that there's a rumor Harper might take less money or that he wants to play with a certain team, it raises the pressure on the teams that have strong offers in to boost their offer, even if it is a rumor of him taking less money - "He doesn't want to play for you so you better make it really worth it for him to come there". Every time there's a rumor out there it benefits Harper's agent and his side...and we're wondering where these leaks come from?

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/12/twins-sign-nelson-cruz.html

Are you up for a 5 year deal for Keuchel? Because aside from him, we'd have to go onto the trade market or hope that someone improves on their performance from last year.

He certainly could. There's also a decent chance that those numbers were chemically enhanced.

Who is left and what are you willing to pay for them? I'm ok with adding a guy like Pomeranz, but I'll bet there's a decent chance of Covey outpitching him. Gio could be reasonable but I'll still expect a multi year deal with him, which means he's not a bridge guy. Right now, James Shields looks to have been in the top 5 of starting pitchers remaining.

I continue to be surprised that the Dodgers aren't being more aggressive in filling their needs on the trade market. We'll see how it works.

That's not them being worth nothing, it's them being worth what they were last year. The Catcher's spot was worth 3.3 fWAR to the Sox last year, so that's Wellington Castillo having the best season of his career.

I'm still skeptical about what Kopech will be able to give us in 2020, because what we saw from him in both 2017 and 2018 was that he needed a full half season to find command of his stuff before he could begin dominating. 2020 though, that's the year where I can buy people talking about this team putting up wins in the 80s. Even without much from Kopech.

There's some things hidden in there worth noting - our catcher's spot was worth something like 3.3 fWAR last year between Smith, Narvaez, and Castillo. Yes you'll have Castillo there for a full year, but there's a good chance of a downgrade there. And then you've got the assumption of good health. And all that makes this a "maybe they have a shot at .500 team". I could buy that, but we should also understand that a .500 record is a wildly optimistic scenario where almost everything goes right.

If you're counting on a rookie midseason callup with an innings limit to be a big addition to your rotation, you're probably being too optimistic.

I do have to say that the Golden State Warriors make some sense here..

15 games would not be a stretch, but this team won 62 this year. A 15 win improvement leaves them 10 games below .500. I think that's fairly reasonable with machado added.

I think it's worth considering that all 3 of those guys could show real progress, this team could sign Machado, Eloy could come up and be one of the best 3 LFs in baseball next year, and that might darn well leave this team in the 70s for wins.

I'm just saying - if there was an extra $15 million in there, and their payroll was $199 million counting all the prorations and trades and everything else, then their number would have been way above the tax line. If the tax line counted an extra $15 million in pension and insurance costs and the Dodgers had a payroll of $199 million, they'd have been way over the tax line that was $200 million last year.

The dodgers came in just under the tax last year and their adjusted payroll was $199 million without counting benefits. Is that a new rule for this year?

Yeah, is that a line item that every team just has to account for under their luxury tax calculation number? It doesn't seem to show up in the total that the Red Sox had to pay for last year - their payroll was $230, their tax number came in at $237 because of a couple contracts that are back loaded?

They don't have many contracts that balloon other than Joe Kelly, their payroll before Homer Bailey comes in is at $158 million, add in a couple extra million for Kelly and Bailey's contract and I get into the mid $180s, but I don't know what the "Benefits" DA just referred to is?