Eminor3rd

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 03:23 PM) Why wouldn't that mean the quality of hitter is better? 7000 more whiffs in 2014 than 2005. That is 35 2014 Chris Sales. The quality of hitter IS better. There's no reason to believe that both hitters and pitchers would improve in a linear fashion at the same pace, though, and it's not surprising that it looks like we're approaching the point of velocity where humans just can't really manage it well. There are other factors, too. Pitch FX shows that there's a much wider strikezone than there was 15 years ago, for example, and it's certainly possible that part of the talent imbalance is simply coincidental and temporary. But there's no question that today's athletes, on the average, are better than they used to be.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 02:17 AM) Why are we to believe that pitchers have significantly improved and are actually better in this generation? They haven't. They aren't. It's simply perception. Back in the 90's, the hitters seemed better because of their glaring statistical numbers. Now that has shifted to the favor of the pitchers, but it will swing back again. It always does. Whether it's changes to the baseball, the calling of the strike zone, steroids, Tommy John recoveries...all these things will return to mean, just as the National League was the dominant style from the late 50's to the 70's and then shifted back to the American League (along with the DH change) until returning to balance again in the last 5-10 years. Are we to believe that parents all across America are suddenly training their children to be left-handed pitchers instead of catchers or 3B? It's simple -- there are more players playing baseball across the world than ever before. The fields of training and medicine are more advanced than ever before. The game has evolved in a such a way that specialization in pitching is encouraged, thus increasing the pool of players that can be useful even further.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 12:12 AM) um... yes? emphatically yes? Lol pretty much.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 8, 2015 -> 12:05 AM) How many pitchers from this current generation are going to make the Hall of Fame or even make it to 200 wins? There might be more focus on pitching than ever before...but it's obviously going to shift back to hitters at some point, because casual fans clearly prefer offense to defense. If that wasn't the case. soccer/football would be much more popular in the US than it is. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/226964-...-the-90s/page/8 Take the "Top 30 pitchers from the 90's" and adjust their statistics to the new norm of the last few seasons for offense. Yet another factor is the fascination with radar gun readings, many of which have been cranked up 2-3 MPH higher than reality in order to get fans more excited about numbers in the 100's. Are we to believe pitchers magically are throwing much harder in the last five years than at any time in history, after basically having the notion that guys in the 50's and 60's like Sudden Sam McDowell, Ryne Duren or Nolan Ryan threw that much harder than anyone in modern baseball? This is one of the strangest posts I've ever read.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 7, 2015 -> 11:12 AM) DP arguments about strikeouts are beyond lame. If you hit the ball there are no strike em out, throw em outs either. Strikeouts are fine if you are Mike Trout. They are not fine when you fan 140 times and have an OPS under .700, which there were several in 2014, including Flowers. I think there were 36 players that fanned over 100 times and had an OPS under .700. If you cannot hit, at least move runners around some other way. No one freaks out at run producers fanning. Its the ither guys. 100 strikeouts in a season used to be embarrassing, now 4 guys a team on average reach that level and far beyond. Strikeouts are way up, runs are down. Hit the ball.Some of those will become hits. Some will become errors. Some will be iuts that don't make a difference. Some will become walks as you foul off a tough pitch or 2. Some will be double plays but not nearly enough to offset the good that can happen if you just hit the ball. You're once again missing the forest for the trees because you're focusing on one tangential point from my post. No matter what you want to think, you cannot tell me if a guy is good or not based on how many times he strikes out. Those strikeouts are a factor, but you can be a good player despite them. That's the whole point I'm making.

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 11:03 PM) Using Mike Trout as the baseline for any argument is silly. He's the exception, not the rule. How many guys can strike out near his rate while still hitting near or over .300 with an OBP of around .400? I'm not going to spend time looking it up but my guess is you'd be hard pressed to find many. In defense of the previous poster, I DO believe the high strikeout rates of a few of the Cubs' prospects is a real concern. I think far too many posters on this forum too quickly discount this issue. Baez is going to have an awfully hard time being a productive offensive player if he's striking out 35%+ of the time even if he cranks out 30 HR. Same goes for Bryant. The question is if Bryant strikes out at an incredibly high rate is he more likely to put up numbers closer to Mike Trout or White Sox Adam Dunn? My guess is he would end up closer to the latter which would obviously be a huge disappointment for those expecting all star worthy numbers from him over the next few years. You're talking about something completely different with your example. Mike Trout is irrelevant. I'll try to boil it down further: 1. Strikeouts do contribute to bad offense. 2. Bad offense is bad offense regardless of strikeouts. Good offense is good offense, regardless of strikeouts. 3. You can say "Kris Bryant won't be good because he'll strikeout too much." You cannot say "Kris Bryant cannot be good if strikes out a bunch."

QUOTE (Douglas Rome @ Feb 7, 2015 -> 10:38 AM) baseball has been very very good to Diane V. how much has he made in the last 4 or 5 years? More than enough to go back to Havana and sit on his front porch and eat tacos and get big and fat and live like a king. thanks, douglas I don't think that's how defection works...

QUOTE (JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 09:51 PM) I don't think it is as simple as less strikeouts equals more double plays. Or vice versa, that more strikeouts means less double plays. It depends on the type of contact, runner distribution, etc. Guys like Matt Kemp and Ian Desmond struck out a lot last year but were also near the top in GIDP. On top of that I would bet that on average the guys that make consistent contact that are near the leaders in GIDP are also reaching base on error more than the big power guys that strike out a lot. How does that factor into advanced metrics? ROE is counted as an out towards BA, OBP, OPS, etc. I know the hardcore sabermetricians don't want to hear this but common sense tells you that if all else is fairly equal the guy that puts the play more often than the other guy will be more valuable to an offense. I don't think any compilation of advanced statistics can argue this point because there are too many variables to precisely quantify it. At that point when the stats cannot tell the whole story, it doesn't hurt to use a little common sense IMO. All of that is factored into linear weights averages. All of the things you mentioned are salient points, but they can all also be counted and their impacts averaged. Further, they've run year-to-year correlations to find out which factors are consistent and which act as randomness, allowing them to assign credit to players with repeatable skills and treat players who have exhibited non-repeatable "skills" as regression candidates, both positive and negative. Anyone who doesn't understand how linear weights work in baseball statistics should refer to Tom Tango's research from the early part of the 21st century -- it forms the foundation for how sabermetrics treats offense (at the plate, not the basepaths), and I've never seen even the most ardent traditionalists even try to put together a coherent argument against it. There's a ton of stuff in sabermetrics that is shaky, but this is not one of those things. And I think if you look into it, you'll agree. It makes a ton of sense. Regarding the bolded: You're right, but no one is arguing otherwise. The whole point though is that all else ISN'T equal in the cases we're referring to. As wite and I both said: there's no doubt that strikeouts contribute negatively toward offensive output (although it's less negatively than common sense suggests because of double plays), but strikeouts are only a component of offensive output, and we can just look at offensive output as a whole. People get too caught up in one component of hitting at a time as if we can't just look at how many runs a guy produces. And you can do that with both traditional and advanced stats. I hate the RBI stat, but even if you love it, you can look at RBI and see that Mike Trout drives in a whole bunch of runs DESPITE the fact that he strikes out. The strikeouts affect that number, but why wouldn't you just judge him based on the runs he produces? The K's are baked in there. If a guy is 20% above average at the plate but strikes out a bunch, he;s still 20% above average at the plate.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 05:51 PM) Eminor3 was talking about on field antics in comparison to Sale, or at least I thought, and Balta switched over to media relations. Regardless, I don't think him playing with fire was a detriment. Maybe Peavy showed up one of his defenders a few different times but it's not that big of an expense considering the energy he brought on a regular basis. In the media, Sale and Peavy are entirely different. Based on what we've seen so far, Sale shows great composure with the media. When I said "like Balta said," I was referring to just the phrase where he said that it was all fine when he was pitching well, not the rest of his post. Sorry for being confusing. Also, I didn't mind Peavy's intensity much at all when he was here, but I think it's gotten more out of control in the starts I've watched form him the past two years with BOS and SFG.

QUOTE (Stev-o @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 04:45 PM) I'm not "big" on the new metrics, but, isn't there something about "productive" vs "non-productive" outs? Obviously, you're better off having a guy sacrifice himself to get a batter into scoring position than him striking out. IMO, all outs are not the same. Yes, but runner distribution isn't predictive. So basically you can look back at a season or game and find out which hits or outs were the "biggest" and most important, but if you're talking about building a roster for the coming season, there's no reliable way to ensure that contact will come at the right times, so you have to assume that it will be the average number of times, which is baked into the linear weights values for all of the events, which comes out in total production, which brings us back to square one. So if two guys are 100 wRC+ guys, but one strikes out more, they're still equally valuable. You can look at stats like WPA and Clutch score to see which guy had the bigger impact, but the difference between those leverage related value and the context-neutral linear weights stats does not carry over from year to year. Also, it's beside the point, but a lot of the extra benefit (on average) received from contact outs versus strikeouts is negated by double plays. So the difference ends up being smaller than it intuitively seems.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 02:25 PM) I don't know if that ever was a detriment to Peavy. Obviously Peavy was more expressive on a regular basis but I don't know how you'd be able to quantify any effect that had. Sale on the other hand had his moments where he'd blow up but they were just more memorable than Peavy's day-to-day antics. I remember Sale going ape on the water cooler against the Rangers in August 2013, I remember him freaking out in Detroit last year and then just throwing big fists pumps after big outs. Either way, I don't understand your parallel here or how Peavy's attitude became in issue. Seems like more a comparison of convenience than anything. I am biased because I played with a lot fire and like watching animated guys. Like Balta said, it was fine when he was good, but eventually, as he became more and more of a cartoon haracter, it started to make him pitch hurt leading to disastrous results and went so far as to even give up a huge pennant race homerun after telling the batter he was going to throw a fastball. If you watch him now, you can hear him screaming more clearly than ever, and then you look at his numbers and realize he's just declining more and more.

QUOTE (shipps @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 01:21 PM) I am curious to see if Rodon is a hardass like Sale. If he has the same type of edgy competitiveness to him that will be pretty awesome to see the two feed off of one another. QUOTE (raBBit @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 02:15 PM) I think he might be even more of a visual competitor than Sale. Where Sale gets pumped up and mad at himself for the most part, Rodon does that and has had incidents where he'd freak out if NC State's manager. Brett Austin has also told stories of Rodon growling on the mound. Sometimes I fear Sale will develop into Jake Peavy, to the point where his physical loss of control actually becomes a detriment.

Ronon!

I think he's gonna hit fewer homers. His sophomore campaign will be a challenge as pitcher's have a year of data on him, but I think he'll adjust and have a very good season. It just won't be quite as good as last year. I say 27 homers, 140 wRC+ or so if he stays healthy.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 11:20 AM) The 2015 Cubs are going to be an interesting case study regarding this because they are going to strike out a lot and I don't think there's any question of it. Ultimately though, strikeouts are only a portion of offensive output, and offensive output is only half of winning games. Logistically speaking, strikeouts will have an effect, but if the offense scores a lot of runs and the pitching staff limits opposing teams, strikeouts won't matter. This is the critical point. It's the exact same thing as the "Dayan Viciedo hits homers though" argument. No one is saying that strikeouts "don't matter," it's that they don't get scored in games. They are a significant factor in the effectiveness of someone's offense, but if a guy is effective offensively DESPITE strikeouts, then they don't mean squat to who wins the game. Just like Viciedo -- homers ARE important because they help make a guy a good offensive contributor, but if he isn't a good contributor DESPITE the homeruns, he's still a negative at the plate. So you don't say "team that strikeout don't win much," you say "teams with bad offenses don't win much," and possibly add that strikeouts could contribute to that bad offense. But you have to accept, also, that they may strikeout a ton but still have a good offense.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 11:19 AM) If he drops weight, improves his defense and offense, he'll find a job...

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 10:36 AM) He doesn't like to pitch when he isn't getting paid. Lol

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 6, 2015 -> 10:44 AM) I'll still gladly take Viciedo over Beckham to have more homers from 2015 until the end of their respective careers. Again, so what?

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 05:57 PM) I'm not sure, but I know that John MacDonald once got traded for himself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McDonald_%28infielder%29

QUOTE (asindc @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 09:42 PM) I laughed at the dandelion-steak analogy. It's on point. Welcome to the forum

It's important to note that the penalty money form this MUST be paid within 30 days. So the team that signs him is going to have to write a check for $30-40m within a MONTH. This takes more teams out of the running than would normally be down for $75-80m for a free agent or something that can be paid gradually over several years.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 04:23 PM) Just don't let the Rangers anywhere near a phone Haha seriously.

Contract is looking bad before it has even begun.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 12:03 PM) And how many homers did all of those names combine for in 2014? Dyson and Gore have almost no pop. Rios had 4 homers last season. This whole "but Viciedo has 20 homer power" thing is a quintessential example of how NOT to use statistics. He's a substantially below average hitter no matter how he arrives at his level of "productivity." Adding homers at the expense of overall production would be ludicrously stupid. It would be like eating dandelions instead of steak because the dandelions have more vitamin C.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Feb 5, 2015 -> 10:22 AM) Why would you trade great prospects when you can just sign him I think he's suggesting it wouldn't take "great" prospects. I imagine it would, though, as I think Washington values its depth and that if one WOULD come relatively cheap, someone would have already made it happen.