GD

my joke

Or, you know, active moderation and mod approval for signups

"It's hard to imagine (Sean Nolin and Kendall Graveman) not being a similar duo (to Sonny Gray and Scott Kazmir) as the A's near contention)" A kid wrote this lol. Not that that's any excuse

Even then, during levels of high trolling potential they just don't allow any new accounts lol it's hilarious. PROMOTING SITE GROWTH 101

Yes, this is what happens I believe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_from_Taiwan

lol rip in pieces

stream/channel?

nice

Sorry Chris Cotillo

IBB are good though

+infinity

Thanks for the update, tips

hahahaha shot for every time Hulet brings up batting average in that article

Tango touches on the MVP wording http://tangotiger.com/index.php/site/comments/valuable-v-outstanding

Jays should trade for Matt Shoemaker. Good depth

ok.

and two homers, lol

If we get Shapiro, I have enough faith in whatever happens after that.

oh s***

Threw this into the OP. Very important. So unless it's drastically different between hitter/pitcher, we can't just look at Hard%/BABIP and determine Hutch's BABIP has been higher because he has previously given up harder contact. http://www.hardballtimes.com/offensive-batted-ball-statistics-and-their-optimal-uses/ So how can we use the BIS contact data? Not for BABIP. This is seriously the wrong data to use if so-and-so has a low BABIP. Don’t say, “But he’s making hard contact (Hard%).” These stats do so very little to predict BABIP—in part because “hard contact” can be deep fly balls, and fly balls have the worst BABIP of all non-infield-pop-ups. And typically, weak or medium contact results in ground balls, and those have a higher BABIP. But ground balls can be hit hard too. Just stay away from BABIP with these stats. For ISO and SLG variations. Is your team’s prized slugger no longer lashing doubles and homers? Check the BIS data. Major fluctuations there might indicate he’s declining. Otherwise, give it some time. And to a degree, wRC+ variations. But a lot goes into a total-offense metric like wRC+. I’d be more inclined to look at a contact rate than a contact strength measurement. Contact is a clearly delineated event. Contact strength has a lot of noise. But in bigger samples, it can be useful. For instance: Nobody has even hit below 100 wRC+ when his Hard% is 35.5 percent or higher. In fact, very few hitters over 33 percent have been bad hitters—as a group, they average a 121 wRC+. Look at this: [TABLE=width: 100%] [TR] [TH=bgcolor: #8E001C, colspan: 2, align: center]WRC+ BY HARD-HIT RATE QUARTILE[/TH] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE=class: sortable, width: 100%] [TR] [TD=bgcolor: #D4D4D4, align: center]Quartile[/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #D4D4D4, align: center]wRC+[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #ffffff] [TD=align: center]Max (43.2%)[/TD] [TD=align: center]118[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #ffffff] [TD=align: center]Q3 (31.4%)[/TD] [TD=align: center]102[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #ffffff] [TD=align: center]Q2 (27.8%)[/TD] [TD=align: center]94[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #ffffff] [TD=align: center]Q1 (24%)[/TD] [TD=align: center]82[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So fellas hitting under 24 percent Hard-rate are probably not doing well. But remember: there’s a lot of volatility here. The standard deviation in that bottom quartile is 13.6—meaning about 68 percent of the data lies between 68 wRC+ and 96 wRC+. It’s a wide swath. What it tells us: Taken together, these stats can give us a good feel for a hitter’s style—especially when it comes to groundball or flyball tendencies. Andrew Koo found a few years ago that the Oakland Athletics were leaning heavily on flyball hitters—and doing so to great effect at the time. A hitter’s GB/FB ratio might very well inform us how a hitter will perform in given stadiums or against given pitchers. The problem with these data, though, is that we are far to quick to look at line drive percentage and make bigger conclusions. We can’t use LD% to rationalize a BABIP. You know, good for Dee Gordon that he is setting a career high in LD% during the 2015 season. That’s no reason to think he can keep his BABIP above .400 or above his career norms. Change “Dee Gordon” to “Starlin Castro” and “2015” to “2014” and we will see why LD% is a fickle master. We can’t use LD% to rationalize a wRC+. Yes DJ LeMahieu has an enormous LD%, but he had an even higher rate in 2013—back when he also had a 68 wRC+.

The key difference between those two is that before Lester's awesome contract year, he was more of a 90ish xFIP- guy. His previous 3 years before the signing of his contract are 82, 98, 92. Very good, but Greinke's are 82, 74, 91. Lester posted SIERA's of 3.09, 3.90, and 4.01, whereas Greinke has posted 3.18, 2.87, and 3.60. They both had sick contract years, but Greinke was a much better pitcher than Lester was in the previous two years beforehand (3 years total being the useful, predictive years, hence the focus on 3 years). 1.5 years probably doesn't make a difference at this point. I think 170/6 is a good in between here, that'd be a contract to think on. I wonder how the bigger pool of FA targets is going to work. Maybe we'll see some slight compression due to lack of bidding wars. If a team doesn't like a $$$ figure on a guy, there are probably like 4 other guys similar to him to go bid on instead.

could you imagine this board's meltdown, lol

Some men just want to watch the world burn

Have fun with that