Around Baseball 2018

[G-Snarls]

I have to think the Yanks are prepared to open the season with Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres at 3rd and 2nd. I suspect they would have been open to a short term filler like Todd Frasier, but I can't imagine they'd ever sign Moose to a multi year deal.

 

True. As short term deal for a filler would make more sense for the Yankees.

 

Then again, if they're going to spend any real money right now it should probably be on SP

[BTS]

Oh to the Rangers. Would have liked to see him here.

[Brownie19]

Oh to the Rangers. Would have liked to see him here.

 

Same. Shatkins - it's time to fill up our pen with low cost, low commitment veteran options...

[AledmysDiaz]

Frazier at a pretty good price. I wonder if the rest of the free agents see the ones signings as scabs.

[Terminator]

That's a great deal for Frazier. He's had 6 good to really good seasons in a row.

[AledmysDiaz]

Harsh words between MLB and MLBPA

 

This is boiling hot now

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/tony-clark-accuses-mlb-teams-of-race-to-the-bottom.html

[Ray]

Yankees. Though they might be holding out for Machado/Donaldson next year

 

Yankees are definitely gonna make a play for Machado. Doubt they go for a multi year commitment for Moustakas.

 

Also I would think getting another starter is higher up in their priority list than a 3B. They could roll with Gleybar and Andujar and Torres between 2B and 3B for a year based on the strength of that lineup. Or sign Nunez for a year.

[Dr. Dinger]

I don't believe for one second that the Yankees are considering starting the season with either of Torres or Andujar in a starting role. They are going to suppress service time on both players, without a doubt. Any talk of them winning a starting job out of ST is lip service.

[Abomination]

I don't believe for one second that the Yankees are considering starting the season with either of Torres or Andujar in a starting role. They are going to suppress service time on both players, without a doubt. Any talk of them winning a starting job out of ST is lip service.

 

I think Torres will be in the starting lineup, but not Andujar.

[G-Snarls]

Harsh words between MLB and MLBPA

 

This is boiling hot now

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/tony-clark-accuses-mlb-teams-of-race-to-the-bottom.html

 

[G-Snarls]

MLBPA blaming the owners

 

MLB blaming the agents

[Brownie19]

A more appropriate response would have been:

 

Dear Tony,

 

Tell Boras to go f*** himself.

 

Yours truly,

MLB

[Terminator]

FO's are finally wising up that FA is a terrible place to build a team. The main reason is you end up overpaying old players. Next round of negotiations MLBPA needs to find a way to get their players to FA sooner. The majority of FAs are on the wrong side of 30. They need to make it so the majority are on the right side of 30.

[TheHurl]

Giants finally retiring number 25. If WestJet flies to San Fran I might know where to use my Airline credit.

[Spanky__99]

Giants finally retiring number 25. If WestJet flies to San Fran I might know where to use my Airline credit.

 

For some reason I thought this was already done, took them long enough?

[Bobthe4th]

For some reason I thought this was already done, took them long enough?

 

They were waiting for some of the controversy to die down. With Bonds getting 5% more HoF votes this year, his potential election gets ever closer (which is a good thing IMO). 4 more years of eligibility left!

[Spanky__99]

They were waiting for some of the controversy to die down. With Bonds getting 5% more HoF votes this year, his potential election gets ever closer (which is a good thing IMO). 4 more years of eligibility left!

 

I understand that now after I read the Giants only to do t for HOF's, but realistically speaking, it should've been done a long time ago.

[Bobthe4th]

I understand that now after I read the Giants only to do t for HOF's, but realistically speaking, it should've been done a long time ago.

 

Yeah definitely. I don't think anyone has worn his number in San Francisco since he retired either.

[BTS]

This FG commenter is absolutely savage:

 

-----

 

 

Jeff, the Travis/Craig/Nathaniel series is just awful, a really bad turn for fangraphs.

 

It is so repetitive and anti-factual. Nearly every fangraphs reader, of course, supports the players & staff over ownership. Nearly every reader supports reduced cost control, minimum wage for minor leaguers, limits on ownership take, higher major league minimum, and just about every other truly progressive change to MLB CBA.

 

What I’m sick of is these disingenuous articles that peddle Boras/CAA talking points and a refusal to have a serious discussion.

 

The data that Nathaniel cited for his “38% player revenue share” figure comes from a defunct website Bizofbaseball. That’s just lazy and poor writing- to continue to spread this figure as fact is far short of fangraphs’ typical quality.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-mlbpa-has-a-problem/

 

Travis’ article ‘JD Martinez is Worth the price’ is some of the worst sports empiricism I’ve ever seen. He ignored both defense and baserunning, set arbitrary filters to find a handful of similar batters, excluded catchers from the sample so that the average hitting statistics would improve (even though the catchers otherwise qualified), and then projected a “WAR” based only on a 10-person sample size which was carried by two caught PED users (Giambi and Ortiz). This convoluted method projected Martinez 1.0 WAR higher than Steamer or Depth Charts. It’s fine to have varying projections, but it’s just poor writing to bend over backwards with needlessly poor empiricism to give a bias projection to suit a boring agenda. There is 0% chance that Travis is going to use such shoddy methodology to give a Boras client a worse projection than Steamer- as that would undermine Travis’ nonstop headline, ‘Boras/CAA client ______ is worth it, teams should spend big in FA, it’s the new market inefficiency.”

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/j-d-martinez-is-worth-the-price/

 

Craig’s articles are similarly agenda driven. When he’s not regurgitating Travis and Nathaniel article-types, he’s using poor empiricism to push the same talking points. His recent ‘MLB Payroll Might Decline’ article is a good example. Serious empiricism would use a model to project the free agent signings and contract extentions that will be given out over the next few months, and then make a comparison between ‘expected 2018 opening day payroll’ and 2017 opening day payroll. But Craig doesn’t do that- infact, there is very little evidence of empirical competence from this new wave of fangraphs talking-points merchants. Absurdly, the data in his article compares ‘February 2nd 2018 spend data’ to 2017 opening day data. The article fails to estimate how much more money will be spent this offseason, so it fails to make a relevant comparison.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-payroll-might-decrease-for-first-time-in-long-time/

 

The uniformity of the bias, talking points, and shoddy methods in these articles reek of planning and coordination. It’s clear that the authors are invested in these talking points- Nathaniel probably professionally so. This isn’t objective sports journalism. These articles are no better than Buster Olney’s recent article bashing Tony Clark while taking CAA/Boras quotes at face value. This is not clever commentary or information-rich insight, it’s boring and poor quality, ESPN style agenda campaigning.

 

Further, the same material is just recycled and recycled. Nathaniel Grow’s last article on the Curt Flood Act is just his recycled Uni paper from a decade ago.

 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1373063

 

Recycled talking points passed off as articles are simply boring and poor quality. The self referential nature of the Craig/Travis/Nathaniel articles makes it worse- why don’t the authors be honest and cite the defunct ‘Bizofbaseball.com’ website when arguing that the players’ share has decreased, instead of misleading citations to Nathaniel’s article- as if Nathaniel’s article proved anything?

 

This style of referencing fangraphs articles that are poorly done creates a circular reference of nonsense- Sadtrombone and others have pointed out how work on the supposed ‘January discount’ is being misread by Travis. William has pointed out Nathaniel’s mistakes, I have pointed out Craig’s mistakes.

 

This article’s first line is the closet any author has gotten to engaging with the criticism. No one I’ve read is sick of the topic- but rather sick of the bias, sick of the lazy writing, sick of the anti-factual talking points, the bad/zero math, the tone deaf anti-progressive suggestions (fire Clark, increase FA spend, calling Boras FAs the ‘middle class,’ disband the union).

 

Surely fangraphs readers would give huge support to a slightly different agent- one that focuses on reducing cost control, increases the major league minimum, helps minor leaguers achieve fair work conditions, ends discrimination against foreigners, and otherwise promotes the interests of lower earners.

 

But that is not at all what we are getting- we are getting recycled ESPN style talking points.

 

Now compare these endless Travis/Craig/Nathaniel ‘spend FA money!!’ articles to your recent ‘Ripe to buy a prospect’ article- they are night and day. The T/C/N series is just Buster Olney fluff plus some laughably poor math and a refusal to seriously discuss the points- readers can get that anywhere. Your article- about a clever, modern NBA-style trade to get an under-the-radar possible-stud SP- had nothing in common with ESPN style hit pieces on Tony Clark. If we want to read cheerleading for every name FA, we have Jim Bowden.

 

I cannot wait for Travis, Craig and Nathaniel to start writing articles with serious empirical approaches that assess player performance in a manner that isn’t agenda driven- instead of ‘well, I made a sample of late starters who hit almost exact the same as JD Martinez, threw out the ones who aged the worst, and ignored defense and baserunning- to come up with a 10 man sample from the steroid era to project Martinez’s performance.’ That poor quality methodology is so stupid it insults the readers.

[Dr. Dinger]

^^^ applied for a FG writer job and didn't get it

[BTS]

^^^ applied for a FG writer job and didn't get it

 

Maybe, but I also think he's right

[G-Snarls]

Joe Giradi joining MLB Network as a studio analyst

[Deadpool]

Joe Giradi joining MLB Network as a studio analyst

 

[G-Snarls]

One year off

 

Nab an opening to manage a club next off season

 

Maybe one of the up and comers? Phillies, Twins, Braves, etc???

 

Or Miami...

Edited February 7, 2018 by G-Snarls

[jays4life19]

So Seattle QB Russell Wilson rights just traded to the Yankees.

 

Lol pretty random. They should have traded him to the Mets for Tim Tebow.

[G-Snarls]

The more I think about it, the more I can totally see the Marlins letting Mattingly flap in the wind all season, managing a last place team and firing him after the season just to be replaced with Girardi

[BTS]

Puig dropped by his agency for bad behaviour. Probably a story about to drop.

[Spanky__99]

Puig dropped by his agency for bad behaviour. Probably a story about to drop.

 

Interesting... he sure carries a lot of baggage.

[jays4life19]

Out of curiosity, why would an Agent care if his client was an A-hole?

[Spanky__99]

Out of curiosity, why would an Agent care if his client was an A-hole?

 

Right, it must be bad? Don't think I've ever heard of something like this.