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Beltre and Chavez played in a different era, looking at raw numbers do not do these players justice. Looking at these players through age 25: Beltre - 23.4 bWAR, 17.3 oWAR, 7.8 dWAR, 0 GG Chavez - 20.2 bWAR, 19.2 oWAR 2.5 dWAR, 3 GGs Machado - 33.8 bWAR, 25.8 oWAR, 11.3 dWAR, 2 GGs Like others have said, Beltre was incredibly consistent throughout his career and built one of the best resume for a 3B in the entire history of MLB. Chavez could have had some HOF considerations as well given the good start to his career, but injuries robbed him of his prime and his output quickly tailed off after age 27. Manny has had the best start to his career out of the three, and he's given no reason he's on the trajectory of Chavez. As of now, he is one of the greats of the present players and also one of the great 3Bs through age 25 in the history of the game.

You said Machado isn’t elite or even great, verbatim. By all measure Machado and Stanton are at least great players. Manny is on the border line of great and elite. This isn’t basketball where only 15-20 players are considered great and 3-4 are elite. If you just consider the top 5% of the active MLB roster as great players, that’s roughly 40 players, and 1% as elite, that’s roughly 8-10 players. I don’t think you could name 40 players better than Manny or Stanton. Manny is also a lot closer to the conversation of elite than the level below.

I think comprehension has failed you. You said Machado isn’t elite or even great and pointed out Stanton as an example of someone who isn’t even consider “great” who signed for $300M, to which I responded with good enough backing that Stanton is at least great, and Manny is even better. So your original statement is nonsense. Regardless, using whether a player was pursued by big market teams as a barometer for a player’s greatness is a narrow-minded and elitist argument. There are plenty of great ways to measure a player’s value, and what you said isn’t one of them.

Giancarlo is not elite but he's great if you take the subjectivity out of the equation. 40 WAR before age 29 season. 34.5 WAR during 7 year peak, and average 7 year peak for HOF'er at his position is 42.1 WAR. Manny got bigger AAV than Stanton, and is considered to be better subjectively and statistically.

Players who are not great nor elite do not sign for $300 millions.

Pretty sure if Harper had to do it again, He'd had taken that 10/$300M extension from Nationals too. Extension is the new way to go.

FIFY

Was hoping they roll the dice on Berry but HHCD will do. Can’t complain about the price at all. By my calculation they still have about $13.5M cap space (more if you count Top 51). I wonderful if Houston is next or they are looking to trade for a contract with a team trying to free up space.

I think the Larsen deal eats into the Top 51 salary by $1M, they currently still have about ~$18M functional cap to work with, and that factors in the cap hit for draft picks. That's a pretty solid number to work with. I think the Bears are waiting for prices to drop a bit before dipping into the pool to address the remaining needs,and see if the remaining guys are willing to take a pay cut as FA goes on. With cap we have remaining, I am hoping we could get Houston and Eric Berry for 2 year deals. I don't expect Berry to cost a lot at this point with his recent injury history. I would trade Howard for a 5th rounder and sign Ty Montgomery. Depending on how much discount Berry/Houston takes we should have enough to address the K / P situation. We could then plug in remaining holes with the picks we have and get depth pieces in OL, DL, SS to backup Berry, and a QB to succeed Daniels.

WOW would have loved Bell at that price and we could have fit him into our cap space. We better pull off an impact signing because I'd be upset we missed Bell for marginal players.

He will be paid earlier, in March actually. But you're right that the signing bonus could be spread over several years, increasing Mack's dead cap the next several years but creating cap space short term.

My last post on this topic, but it's becoming apparent you're missing the point and using your stats incorrectly. To summarize what you said: 1) High pitches are easier to elevate - true, but this means nothing in isolation, easier to elevate does not suggest better results 2) High fastballs are easier to square up - false Since you're a statistical person, I think you'd also see the fallacy of using the numbers you pointed to here: https://community.fangraphs.com/effect-of-pitch-selection-on-launch-angle-and-exit-velocity/ The up and in (good) pitches are one of the worst pitches for hitters to hit (as suggested by the EV you linked to). The up and away (mistake) pitches produced the best results (by measurement of EV and LA). But let's also consider that for those mistake pitches go a long way and has much higher exit velocity, henced average EV are skewed, but that doesn't mean they are happening more frequently (because the results are more favorable for the pitcher) compared to a low pitch. If you want to have a good leg to stand on, use batting average, wOBA, or xwOBA that weights each event the same. So to have a blanket statement that high fastballs are easier to hit (as Parkman and Dick Allen were debating you on had you read their posts carefully) or easier to square up, you're stats falls short of proving your point by a 90 degree launch angle.

Glad you asked, see one post above.

You're all over the place with your posts, and muddying the line between elevating a pitch (launch angle) vs. squaring up. They're not one of the same. I will also pretty you weren't talking about fastballs only in your posts.

What you're missing is what you said simply does not support your argument. You posted only average launch angle on pitches and their location, but what about their contact % on high vs. low fastballs? To say it's easier to "square up on a high fastballs", you must show batters today have better results hitting the high fastball vs low ones, which I have shown you the opposite is correct.

I think it's the opposite. But keep moving the goalpost to defend your point when you missed Parkman's original statement.

I find it comical you quote sources you do not read through and pretend that is supports your argument and claim to be correct. The article you posted factually does not prove your point that high fastball are easier to barrel up. "Of course that doesn’t mean higher pitches are better to swing at, high pitches are also known to induce more pop-ups and whiffs on certain types of fastballs (high spin) but for players who have trouble to elevate the ball it can make sense to swing a little less in the lower part of the zone. On the other hand a high whiff or popup rate type of player who has a good launch angle it might make sense to leave the high pitches alone." Focus on that part of the statement, the paradigm shift is hitters are learning to elevate the low fastballs so they do not have to hit the high fastball, which have known (and statistically proven) to lead to worse outcome.

If you take a second to read the articles I provided, it clearly tells you 1) the low fastball/sinker lead to the worst outcome for pitchers. 2) more pitchers are ditching the low fastball and throwing more high fastballs, which led to better results.

This is 2017 data but the 2 seamer/sinker has the highest xwOBA (worst outcome for pitchers) out of all pitches. I assume it was worse in 2018 with the number of hitters refining their swing plane. https://www.mlb.com/news/statcast-best-hitters-by-pitch-type-in-2017-c263978558

I think this was the case until hitters learned to adjust their swing plane to the pitch to get a better launch angle at certain pitches. The sinker is one that's getting hit the hardest during this launch angle revolution, and pitchers are cutting back on the usage and going for rising fastballs instead and combining it with more breaking ball usage.

Another good read here: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/39080/rubbing-mud-astroification-gerrit-cole/ TL;DR - High fastball and healthy dosage of curveball is Astro's bread and butter. It's no surprise a team like them, Indians, Cubs, Red Sox and Dodgers are at the forefront of this revolution It's also not surprising that Cole increased the spin rate of his fastball significantly (leading to rising action) and usage of his curveball when he got to the Astros and became one of the best pitchers in baseball.

What about batting average dude? Hitters have a hard time catching up to high fastball at premium velocity. Seriously, read this article. It debunks all the outdated philosophies you're throwing out here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/as-more-mlb-batters-become-launch-angle-disciples-pitchers-are-quietly-adapting/2018/03/27/ecace82c-2dda-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html?utm_term=.ae5e7f2a9f2e "That shift in pitching theory can be summed up like this: fewer sinkers, fewer low pitches, more breaking balls, more four-seam fastballs, more high pitches. The logic, while an oversimplification, goes like this: If hitters, with their uppercut swings, have figured out how to go down and scoop low fastballs — the pitcher’s bread and butter for generations — over the walls, they would have a much tougher time doing so with high fastballs and well-placed breaking balls." "You could watch the trend play out month-to-month in the data from 2017. Here are the percentage of overall pitches leaguewide that were sinkers, month by month, according to FanGraphs: April, 19.6 percent; May, 19.0; June, 19.2; July, 18.4; August, 18.4; September/October, 16.9. That comes out to a 16 percent decline across just one season, and it continued a four-year decline in the prevalence of sinkers, from 21.5 percent of all pitches in 2014, to 20.4 percent in 2015, to 18.7 in 2016 and down to 18.6 in 2017." "But it wasn’t only pitch selection that was changing, but also pitch placement. Here, using data from Statcast, are the month-to-month averages of pitches characterized as high in 2017: April, 27.1 percent; May, 28.8; June, 32.2; July, 33.1; August, 33.9; September/October, 33.0. (The major league leader, among pitchers who threw at least 300 pitches in 2017, was Nationals closer Sean Doolittle, with 60.8 percent of his pitches considered high.)" “As a kid, you’re taught, ‘Down in the zone, down in the zone,’ ” said San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey, who was also a star pitcher as an amateur. “And when I first got up [to the majors], you were still seeing tons of [sinkers] and hard sliders. But now, hitters are geared to handling hard velocity down in the zone and hard sliders, so what you’re seeing is elevated four-seamers and curveballs making more of a comeback. It’s definitely something we’ve talked about this spring.”

The key isn't to focus on win/loss record this season. It's the player development we need to focus on. The core is and will be Eloy/Moncada/Cease/Anderson/Kopech/Rodon/ and one of Lopez/Giolito. If those guys take the next step forward you are much closer in 2020 with addition of key FA pieces. If they do not take the next step (or god more forbids they regressed) in the case of Moncada, Gio/Lopez/Anderson, you may consider replacing them because they've had their opportunities. However, if the core shows promise this year and you do not add key FA pieces to contend and instead wait for Robert/Adolfo/Sheets, etc then you are wasting another year of the service time of the aforementioned player and your window becomes much smaller. Worst case if you signed FA an one of the prospect is pushing the door, you could always trade for help in area of need.

If Ingram is out short term, Cohen and whoever the 3rd stringer is can handle the RB duty in a pinch. If he's out long term, you bring in another FA. No need to spend additional resource on a backup RB if we sign Ingram.