Eminor3rd

I’ve been following this guy closely for a few years now. Even saw him play two games live when I was in Japan. Pros: - legitimately good plate discipline; can do damage on both fastballs and breaking balls - left handed, true power hitter - should come cheap because he really wants to play in mlb, And has a good relationship with his team. I’m guessing 3-4 years at $4-6mm - he has played well in WBC and other exhibition tourneys, suggesting he can handle MLB velo Cons: - he’s not a good defender. Not a Palka-like butcher, but it hurts to have mediocre defenders in both corners, and if Abreu is back, there’s no room at DH when Vaughn arrives. - he’s been good the past couple years, but he hasn’t been able to repeat his monster 2016-2017 years. Those years made it seem like he was a transcendent hitter, the last two haven’t quite been there. So it’s possible he is already in decline. Overall, he’ll be entering his age 28 season, and he looks like a tick worse than what Hideki Matsui was when he came over at age 29. My opinion is that the upside here isnt really all that tremendous because of the defensive profile, but the cost will be low enough and our need great enough for a short term offensive fix, that I’d like to see the White Sox pursue this. That said, Akiyama might be a better fit.

Akiyama will be a true free agent. If Seibu doesn’t extend him, he won’t require a posting fee.

Thanks. This is what I’ve been watching instead of White Sox games this year lol.

There are a couple big amateurs from Koshien this year that MLB is trying to poach. The most famous is Sasaki. Big tall kid with a big fastball. The best pitching prospect in NPB right now — IMO by far — is SoftBank Hawks ace Kodai Senga. Can sit 97-98 all game, touches 100, slider flashes double plus but is consistently average to plus, will steal a strike with a curveball, but his famous wipeout is his splitter, which plays way up because of his velo. Slider and fastball both show above average spin rates. His command has come and gone the past few seasons but it’s been there for long stretches this year, and he finally looks ready to go to me. Also he just threw a no hitter the other day. I think he’s 26. I like him a lot more as a prospect than most NPB started for a couple reasons: (1) he was actually not scouted as an amateur out of HS and came a little late to pro ball, and was used as a reliever at first, so he has WAY fewer miles on his arm than the typical Japanese starter, and (2) the stuff is so good that the downside is a high leverage reliever, and likely a very good one. The problem is that the Hawks almost literally never post their players, because they want to win. They’re one of the ten largest corporations in the world, so they don’t care about money. They want championships.

I’ve brought it up in other threads, I know, but it seems relevant here. A couple outside-the-box options could be available from NPB this offseason: Seibu Lions CF Shogo Akiyama (31) will be an unrestricted free agent. Left-handed, Five time golden Glover, current holder of the single season NPB hits record (broke Ichiro’s). A taller, leaner version of Nori Aoki with more power and better defensive instincts. Everyone agrees he’s lost a step from his prime, so he probably isn’t a plus in CF anymore, but would likely still be a plus in RF. I dont think he’ll cost much because if he can’t hit elite velocity, he’s a just fourth OF already in his 30s. But if he can, he’s a 2-3 win player on the cheap Yokohama BayStars LF Yoshitomo Tsutsugoh (28) is rumored to possibly be posted this year. Also left-handed, big time power with good plate discipline. Not a good defender because he’s slow, but has a pretty good arm. FWIW, he’s currently playing third base because Toshiro Miyazaki broke his hamate and is out for the year. I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I’ve heard, it isn’t particularly pretty but it’s passable enough to keep doing, which says something for his athleticism at least. But he’s a bat-first player for sure. He would, I think, cost more because it would be through the posting system, but probably still not a ton — certainly way less than someone like Castellanos. Much more of an MLB-style slugger than Akiyama, but again, you never know how these hitters translate until you see them turn around 98mph.

Nick Castellanos is a so-so DH. His reputation far exceeds his actual production.

This would certainly be on brand.

If he stays at short, maybe. If he hits like his career norm (even factoring down years) and is even a scratch defender at third, that's a 4-5 win season.

It depends on whether or not you think he will bounce back.

Manny Machado is having a terribly disappointing season... ...and it’s still gonna be worth about 3 and a half wins. This is the “downside” of premium talent.

Greg are you actually arguing that we keep a mediocre player so that we don't end up with too many good players?

Anyone who even utters “you have to have a balance” is so far behind, it may not even be the same game anymore. Successful franchises like the Dodgers and Yankees got all of this out of their system ten years ago. There is no “old school vs. new school” debate inside baseball anymore. All reliable info is good info and it all has to be used to make good decisions, period. Well-run organizations don’t have time for this — they get everyone on the same page, and if you can’t hang, you gotta go. The Yankees and Astros are revolutionizing the relationship between talent acquisition and player development, identifying and targeting players they know they can improve, evaluating and using feedback in real-time to ensure consistent progress up the chain. They understand their own strengths so well, they are poaching other teams’ underperforming talents and fixing them in a matter of weeks. The White Sox are still trying to get their manager to figure out what order to put the players in.

There will be some guy as good as Ivan nova looking for a job in March.

The problem, of course, is every other stat that you didn’t mention.

Yankees, Braves, Indians, cardinals.

If you are seeking to guage a player's overall offensive performance, you are correct. This has been consensus for many years. Also, remember that wRC+ is just wOBA that is park-adjusted, league-adjusted, and indexed to 100 to make it easier to parse. So, unless you don't agree with park and league adjustments, wRC+ is just a better wOBA.

Lol. Whoosh

Thread Necromancy.

Please read what you typed. Do you think that the word "replacement" and "average" are the same thing? No one set the baseline for "average" at two. They did actual research and math, and it TURNED OUT that the average player was about two wins better than a replacement-level player. And in that critical distinction lies the primary difference between the nonsense that you are spewing and the current consensus thoughts on baseball analysis: The current standards for analyzing player performance are the results of years of research and objective scrutiny, the conclusions based on no one's opinion, but rather the things that could be repeatedly proven. Your opinions, however, are based on you already deciding on a stance and then desperately trying to find a way to align random pieces of information to support that stance. That those random pieces of information are embarrassingly unrelated doesn't appear to faze you. There is no logic to what you're saying at all, but you don't actually care. Someone could prove you wrong to your face, and you'd still hold the same opinion you started with. And if you don't see what's wrong with that, then lord have mercy on your soul.

A LOT of problems here, but for starters, replacement level does NOT equal average. It equals replacement level. The average MLB contributor is roughly two wins above replacement level. Secondly, WAR seeks to assign wins in a context-neutral setting. A save is about the most context-dependent statistic in existence, so it is completely unrelated. Thirdly, if you were going to try to make the argument that Alex Colome was worth six or seven wins because of his save totals, you’d have to first make the argument that a save itself is worth an entire win — which, if you think about it, makes no sense at all. How could playing in one half of one inning be equivalent to winning and entire game? I’m not trying to sound condescending here man, but what “research” did you do here? Nothing of what you said above has anything to do with WAR. If you really do want to understand WAR, I can point you to some resources.

Hot garbage. We'll get 1-3 post-prime Melky Cabreras like always.

No chance

But it’s more than 20% surplus value, because a guy like that simply isn’t available on a one-year deal of any kind. It’s not really about the annual salary at that point, it’s about still having him without committing a nine-figure long-term deal.

You don’t think adding a full season of control at 80% market value to a star entering free agency is valuable enough to spend two weeks without him in his rookie year?

Could not disagree more. He’s a DH with a 111 wRC+. He has managed 3 fWAR once, while putting up -20 runs in RF. This year he’s on pace for just under 2. He’s Billy Butler with a bit more pop and way less plate discipline. He can fake the outfield but he’s a butcher. And Boras is his agent, who has failed to sign a deal with the Tigers for several years despite the fact that the tigers have been motivated to lock him up as a PR move. The ask on his contract is going to be a joke. It’ll come down eventually, but why not just resign Abreu for even less?