Around Baseball 2024

[L54]

[Laika]

 

what the f***

 

he will NOT be a good starter

 

dude has minus minus command

[wilko]

 

Hicks starting? That's interesting... He must have been waiting on a deal with a team that would agree to that.

[The Cats Ass]

what the f***

 

he will NOT be a good starter

 

dude has minus minus command

 

Came up through the minors as a SP. Guess he wanted to switch back? Can’t see this working out though. Would they put him on an innings limit for the first year? Can his arm even hold up.

[Laika]

Came up through the minors as a SP. Guess he wanted to switch back? Can’t see this working out though. Would they put him on an innings limit for the first year? Can his arm even hold up.

 

He wants to be Seth Lugo I guess

 

But a four year deal? I guess if he does turn into a decent SP he would be a free agent at 32 so he could get a multi year FA contract at SP level money

 

But unless he changes major things he'll just be a 4.50 ERA starter who doesn't even give you innings because he walks so many batters

[The Cats Ass]

Well, if the Jays want to pour the cock to her they can pony up and add:

 

Bellinger 2.6 proj

Chappy 2.7 proj

Hader 1.7 proj

 

+7 proj WAR but it would cost them like what....$300-400 million or so combined? Plus a lot of pain a few years down the road probably.

 

It doesn’t work that way. It wouldn’t be +7 for the team. Other current players would lose their laying time which would decrease their projected WAR.

[The Cats Ass]

He wants to be Seth Lugo I guess

 

But a four year deal? I guess if he does turn into a decent SP he would be a free agent at 32 so he could get a multi year FA contract at SP level money

 

Looking for that larger deal next time around. SF seems to have good success with SPs so a good place to give it a go.

[wamco]

What is it that fangraphs sees in vlad after this past season to believe he is going to have a huge year at the plate. I’d love to be a believer.

[John_Havok]

what the f***

 

he will NOT be a good starter

 

dude has minus minus command

 

the Cardinals tried this with him already and failed in spectacular fashion. This seems like a weird thing to attempt again

 

I guess the money is good enough that if he fails immediately as a starter they still have a top shelf reliever for 11M per season, but why not just forget the experiment and go that way from the jump?

 

Seems like a plan that has far more downside than upside. I cant imagine he would even be able to hit 100 innings as a starter with his command.

[Frenchsoup]

Vlad could hit 35 bombs with a .270 avg good obp pretty safe 3/4 hitter

[Laika]

What is it that fangraphs sees in vlad after this past season to believe he is going to have a huge year at the plate. I’d love to be a believer.

 

he still looks good "under the hood"

 

95th percentile xwOBA in 2023

[John_Havok]

What is it that fangraphs sees in vlad after this past season to believe he is going to have a huge year at the plate. I’d love to be a believer.

 

Fangraphs doesn't suffer from recency bias and surface level assumptions the way fans do

[wamco]

They predicted 4.6 war last year and were off by 3.6.

 

Hey I hope/pray they are right but 1st half and 2nd half were nearly identical.

[Laika]

They predicted 4.6 war last year and were off by 3.6.

 

Hey I hope/pray they are right but 1st half and 2nd half were nearly identical.

 

it's not a PREDICTION it's a PROJECTION

 

they are still humans, and baseball has lots of variance

 

in Vlad's case, he is an idiot human who probably ignores advice and probably does not train properly

 

you can lower your personal PROJECTIONS for him accordingly. I don't think Steamer incorporates IQ.

 

tools-wise he is exactly the same guy he was when he hit 48 homers...

[Eat My Shatkins]

It doesn’t work that way. It wouldn’t be +7 for the team. Other current players would lose their laying time which would decrease their projected WAR.

 

I know that, that's why I added 7 WAR instead of just the 4 WAR Laika was talking about

[Frenchsoup]

Vlad the Impaler

[Frenchsoup]

Yeah Jordan Hicks has a really good agent Geeb.....why Farhan wasn't in on Immanaga we don't know Geeb......lollll

[Abomination]

He wants to be Seth Lugo I guess

 

But a four year deal? I guess if he does turn into a decent SP he would be a free agent at 32 so he could get a multi year FA contract at SP level money

 

But unless he changes major things he'll just be a 4.50 ERA starter who doesn't even give you innings because he walks so many batters

 

If more and more teams are moving away from traditional starting pitching anyway, it may make sense. They're probably not looking for him to go more than 4 or 5 innings or twice through the order.

[Eat My Shatkins]

I don't mind that deal for San Fran with Hicks

 

He's basically making Kikuchi money if he makes it as a starter, and if he doesn't then he's basically making Chad green money as a reliever.

 

I would have been happy with that deal if the Jays had given it to him.

 

At 27 four years isn't a big deal

[BTS]

Yeah Jordan Hicks has a really good agent Geeb.....why Farhan wasn't in on Immanaga we don't know Geeb......lollll

 

Who/what is Geeb?

[Frenchsoup]

Geeb it's Queen Bee, he liked Russell Martin a lot....respect Geeb...

[John_Havok]

If more and more teams are moving away from traditional starting pitching anyway, it may make sense. They're probably not looking for him to go more than 4 or 5 innings or twice through the order.

 

How would he even make it twice through the order? He's never pitched more than 105 innings combined when he was a starter in the minors and first brought up to the majors so thats an average of 3.1 innings. no way he can go 4-5 IP per start right now unless they skip him a ton and are only shooting for 20-22 or 23 starts

[BatFlip]

I don't mind that deal for San Fran with Hicks

 

He's basically making Kikuchi money if he makes it as a starter, and if he doesn't then he's basically making Chad green money as a reliever.

 

I would have been happy with that deal if the Jays had given it to him.

 

At 27 four years isn't a big deal

 

Well, Chad Green isn't on a four year guaranteed deal, but you're right that the +stuff relievers are getting some pretty big deals. I just see this as too much money given his track record and comparing him to Kikuchi maybe wouldn't be that far off if Jordan Hicks had more than 8 starts ... in his entire major league career.

 

I think it's a real long shot for him to even be a serviceable starter.

[G-Snarls]

Braves are extending AA through 2031

[Spanky__99]

 

Wow.

[Dick_Pole]

Can't wait to bet against the Yankees this year. With how everyone is on their knob with their patchwork offseason moves, I should get some great odds betting them to miss the playoffs again. The team is old, injury-prone, one-dimensional and poorly run. I expect at least one of Judge or Cole to materially decline. I can understand people being on their knobs about their offense. They'll mash a ton of homers and be mediocre everywhere else but that's still considered to be a good offense.

 

But that rotation? Cortes is basically one half-step above Gustavo Chacin. Rodon is done but they'll haul his ass out there every 5 days because sunk cost until he hits the DL. Clarke Schmidt is Clarke Schmidt. Stroman will probably be personally responsible for half of Guerrero's GIDP this year but other than that I don't see how any of his numbers over the past two years with the Cubs - quantity or quality - is going to translate that well to the AL East. The contract was a very fair one. A couple million dollars less than Bassitt. People complained about that Bassitt contract last year but I'm taking Bassitt over Stroman easy. So Cole has to carry the rotation like he usually does just for it to be okay-ish.

 

The Yankees are not a 95 win team. They might be an 85 win team and fringe playoff contender. But most likely they are an under .500 team.

[Terminator]

 

Bizarre move but I almost like it from the team's side more than the players.

 

The Giants have a good track record in squeezing extra juice out of mediocre vets. And he's really young for a FA so they get him from his age 27-30 seasons.

 

From his perspective he's got a great home ballpark. But elite relievers get paid about as well as backend starting pitchers. So he really needs to become a mid rotation starter in order to hit a big payday that he wouldn't have gotten as an elite reliever. And now his injury risk is higher.

[wamco]

MLB trade rumors estimated 4/40 so this shouldn’t be shocking. I was all for that for the jays (as a reliever) Giants will let him try and fail as a sp and then put him back in the pen.

[wamco]

it's not a PREDICTION it's a PROJECTION

 

sure - but for this conversation, you know what I meant .

 

I don’t think any of us watched last season and said , man if vlad could have 700 more ab,

He’s about to go nuts!!

[BatFlip]

Can't wait to bet against the Yankees this year. With how everyone is on their knob with their patchwork offseason moves, I should get some great odds betting them to miss the playoffs again. The team is old, injury-prone, one-dimensional and poorly run. I expect at least one of Judge or Cole to materially decline. I can understand people being on their knobs about their offense. They'll mash a ton of homers and be mediocre everywhere else but that's still considered to be a good offense.

 

But that rotation? Cortes is basically one half-step above Gustavo Chacin. Rodon is done but they'll haul his ass out there every 5 days because sunk cost until he hits the DL. Clarke Schmidt is Clarke Schmidt. Stroman will probably be personally responsible for half of Guerrero's GIDP this year but other than that I don't see how any of his numbers over the past two years with the Cubs - quantity or quality - is going to translate that well to the AL East. The contract was a very fair one. A couple million dollars less than Bassitt. People complained about that Bassitt contract last year but I'm taking Bassitt over Stroman easy. So Cole has to carry the rotation like he usually does just for it to be okay-ish.

 

The Yankees are not a 95 win team. They might be an 85 win team and fringe playoff contender. But most likely they are an under .500 team.

 

 

100%. I said this last year when everyone I was chatting with during the pre-season was terrified of this geriatric team.

 

Their team continues to age and every star is not just injury prone but made of glass. I think 90 wins would be a huge success for these guys, and the future is not bright with these massive alabatross contracts and a bottom 10 farm system. Regardless of how much they have to spend, I think they would have been way better off trying to pivot and take a year or two to rebuild. Anyways, all good on our end if they continue to 'go for it', I'm more worried about the Rays and Orioles.