NorthOf49

Exactly... Ang's initial post had $4.5MM. There is no evidence of such a conspiracy taking place. The Blue Jays and Dodgers have differing financial realities and both got what they needed out of this.

Looks like the Jays made a trade to get more cap space! Details not yet known.

Is Nox's Ottoneu league "The League" or are you guys talking about something else?

Some holds guys don't take up relief spots though. There are no SP-eligible closers right now.

It's not official though, that's what we've been talking about lol

Yes, this was big news yesterday. Kiley and Jesse Sanchez both updated their stuff to reflect the Giants as the new suitor.

People just don't realize that there are different definitions of 'sign' and 'official.' He has agreed to terms (although we knew that months ago). Soon, the paperwork will be completed.

His agent/trainer is his uncle, Wilton Guerrero. I'm sure the negotiations with the Guerreros was among the least sleazy of this international signing period. Nobody's trying to rip the kid off.

The caps just end up funneling more money into MLB free agency since that's the only uncapped system left. The owners don't save money, the prospects get cheated out of what they're worth, veteran Major Leaguers who hardly need more cash get paid more than they would in an open system, really sketchy stuff ends up happening in the Dominican, everything is too convoluted for fans to follow, etc. Teams are going to spend a set amount on players no matter what. Just open it up and let everyone make what their talents are worth.

Wow GD knows a lot about basketball. I'm impressed. I know a lot of people who are hardcore Raptors fans and their analysis doesn't usually run this deep.

30 swinging strikes.

:p

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What is Gose's attitude and what are you basing your opinion of Pompey's on?

I really like the deal for NJH. Carlos Santana's skills are so stable and he has catcher eligibility this season. He'll still be a good asset at first too imo and I'm a Glasnow believer.

I assume the case Cameron is referring to is an RA9 based one. Keuchel is leading AL in RA9-WAR with a figure higher than that of any batter. He's pitched a ton of innings without giving up many runs. Does that value belong to him? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on your definition.

It's all a matter of what question you're trying to answer. WAR represents the sum of the average value of the events a player has generated. For example, a home run is worth ~1.7 runs on average and that's the value that gets worked into WAR. WPA represents the changes to game-state that occur when the player is standing on the mound/in the batter's box. Like WAR, but with more context and no defensive value. If you compared the two, you would get the game-contextual value added by the player, not including defense. Perhaps interesting but not meaningfully valuable. I generally see value in stats like WAR; they serve their purpose well and can be used in hypothetical scenarios and summary scenarios (Player A is an X WAR player, Player B has compile Y wins in his career, etc.). WAR doesn't tell us what a player's true-talent is, although it is much closer to illustrating past true talent than other, less comprehensive stats. You can use projections to be informed of how good a player like is, free of bias. A good projection system weighs the available public information properly to come up with how the player is likely to perform going forward. It will strip out the noise associated with defensive numbers and fluky peripherals.

Mitch Moreland.

Pitchers that are prone to walks would perform comparatively worse when spotted a 1-0 count and comparatively better with a 0-1 count, sure. At 1-0, you're basically saying "how would making walks take place at three balls instead of four affect the pitcher?" Pitchers who are already slanted to throwing balls would perform worse in such a situation than pitchers slanted to throw strikes. The opposite would hold for 0-1 counts.

WAR doesn't adjust for existing team composition, which is what KevinGregg is asking. Certain player types are more valuable to certain teams but WAR only considers production in a vacuum.

"Expected to be discussed?" This isn't news, it's just filler from Bowden. I would love Samardzija though.

I believe it's been proven to be a myth. That kind of research can be done using the timestamps that exist in Pitchf/x plays. Edit: here's a good article on it by Mike Fast: http://www.hardballtimes.com/short-work/

GD, xFIP is particularly more useful than FIP when it comes to small samples. Over many seasons, a pitcher's FIP becomes more relevant than his xFIP. I like to think of both of them as real performance instead of as prediction tools. A pitcher should strive in every start to strike batters out, not walk anyone and get ground balls. First pitch strikes are very important and I'd like to do a deep dive at some point to uncover evidence that speaks to their usefulness above other strike-throwing indicators (like basic walk rate).

First, fWAR actually uses FIP as its value ratio rather than xFIP. Home runs must be assigned to somebody on the defensive team and the pitcher is a natural choice since none of the position players are involved in home run plays. So even though xFIP is more 'accurate' than FIP since pitchers tend to not control HR/FB to a meaningful degree, home runs allowed are part of value and used in fWAR. The reason Buehrle can be productive by WAR while he is technically below-average on a per-inning basis for a pitcher is that WAR measures value above replacement, which is different from below-average. A league-average player generally produces around 2.5 wins over a full season. Buehrle's ability to rack up useful (if slightly below-average) innings has taken his value into the 2-3 range in recent years. I'll also add that starting pitchers are held to a different standard than relief pitchers. The average ERA for starting pitchers this season is 4.04. For relievers, 3.48. Buehrle's numbers look better when you compare them to the average starter.