Eminor3rd

One thing a Frank Thomas did NOT do is immediately out his teammates, which is what this would require. Look, I’d love to hear that one of the players stepped up and confronted the manager about this, and I’d call that player a hero. But I think that’s way easier said than done, and we have to keep in mind that many of the players, and probably especially the pitchers, knew less about what was happening than we all do now at the end of the investigation. So not only are you challenging your boss directly, but you’re probably doing it on a hunch. Trying to find an analog here: Assuming you aren’t in finance, if you found out that some people in your finance department at work were likely doing something to avoid paying corporate taxes, and you weren’t in any way responsible for that department, would you do anything about it? Maybe tell your boss? Would that change if you knew your boss was in on it? I mean there’s a huge range of things you could do, from quitting to telling the IRS. But they all involve you probably looking for a new job. And maybe you would do something like that, but it’s a lot to ask of someone who has a family and maybe doesn’t understand what’s going on completely. Im just saying that things were likely less black and white for the players on the periphery and we have to understand and acknowledge the costs of action if we are going to expect action to be taken.

What would you do if you were in that situation? If you’re Dallas Keuchel, a pitcher who does not directly participate in any way in the sign stealing but is aware that it happens, what would you do? Are you going to expose your entire team midseason? After the season? Get your co-workers in trouble, some of them fired, destroy your relationship with your employer? All for something that may or may not help, that you know some form of is going on other places too? At the very least you’re guaranteeing your days in Houston are over. Maybe that means a trade you can’t control. Maybe you make long term enemies in the game. Maybe you take your teammates down with you. Maybe you torpedo you’re chance to win . And if you are only aware of it peripherally, as I imagine the pitchers probably only were it may very well have seemed like more of a grey area than we now know that it was. Im not condoning what was done at all, but I absolutely believe that lots of players weren’t okay with it but didn’t feel comfortable with the consequences of blowing a whistle in a environment where they have to continue to work. When your bosses authorize something, there’s a real cost to opposing it. It’s not really fair to put that burden on the players, who often have families to think about. Unfortunately, that complications means that we can’t reliably identify and this cannot punish the players that were active participants.

Came to complain at the Base Wars snub. Then realized that’s Base Wars made the list. Bravo!

I mean you're right about not living up to the hype, and I understand some people don't love WAR, but it's literally 14.9 career fWAR (including a 4.3 fWAR season in 2011) for Maybin vs. -0.2 career fWAR (including an embarrassing failed attempt at Japan) for Milledge. I guess my point is that Maybin has had a useful MLB career as a 3rd/4th OF who could have been much more if he could be healthy, whereas Milledge was nothing but failures plus being a clubhouse cancer. I think Maybin has been underrated because his expectations were so high. He's a real decent player who would be really high floor if you could depend on him staying on the field.

Except he ended up with just an astronomically better career.

Twice? Maybe

Maybin may not be good platoon partner for Mazara, but he would be a direct full-time upgrade...

What part of this has anything to do with sabermetrics?

This

Statistically, the only difference between last year and a normal Kimbrel year was a comically high HR rate. Still striking a ton of dudes out, and his walk rate has been that high in years where he finished with ERAs in the 2's. Cubs might give him up to get out of his salary, but they aren't trading him for worse pitchers just as a change of scenery.

Just a heads up, this has been misreported. Those numbers are from the npb minor leagues. The guy got a cup of coffee at the top level.

I feel like “bold prediction” needs to be in the thread title.

His BABIP will go down, but as long as his hard hit rates remain elite and his speed doesn’t go away, he should still be able to maintain a BABIP significantly higher than normal. If he is hitting reasonably well, I don’t see any reason that .350 or so isn’t a reasonable expectation.

Puig is exactly the type of guy who fails hard in NPB (prima donna, no discipline, doesn't respect coaches) and is in exactly the type of situation which creates failures in NPB (I'm not getting what I think I'm worth so I'll go trash this weak league and show all of you -- I don't need to make any adjustments at all). Fifteen years ago, some team would make a huge mistake and pay him a bunch of money. Nowadays, teams scout as much for fit as they do for talent, and IMO I think they'll know to stay away at the type of price that would make him do it.

Sorry I missed. I would argue that looking at it flat IS the projected version. But I see now that other people have pulled up the projection tables.

Why would you use 2019 numbers instead of projections?

Charlotte.

I'm guessing whoever suggested it is thinking of him as a hard-platoon for Mazara.

Nothing else to buy though, man. Having missed on the big pitchers, it's good to keep something in the tank to augment over the next few seasons.

Agreed. Wheeler was the dude.

We've both been posting here for a long time -- do you really think I'm not putting in the time to try to understand the rationale of these moves?

ZING! Got me!

I'm referring to Keuchel, yes, and the potential of signing Castellanos as "back-against the wall, win now" moves, but not the others. I've said in previous threads that the Grandal signing is fine if "it doesn't stop them from spending on high-end pitching also" and I actually argued somewhere that Mazara was a "rebuilding move." I have been critical of most of the moves made this offseason in one way or another, so I can see why you would do it, but you're mis-attributing what I said to other subjects here.

I can't even remember what I was arguing, honestly. Seems like I was trying to say Zack Collins wasn't a bust yet.

https://tenor.com/view/astros-mchugh-wtf-gomez-houston-gif-5791200