Laika

Someone just said it on Twitter - Giavotella wouldn't be an entirely terrible 2B option.

That's a few too many games

Lol, thanks. I meant the sabermetrics of posting though. Did not mean that I'm the best sabermetrics wielding poster. The nuances of language...

The impact of knowledge. From the beginning until 2005, most teams and players in most years didn't really know what made a good hitter. Sure, they thought they knew, but in reality they were more in a fog than they realized. Players were thrown into the big leagues and natural selection took its course. Those that happened to develop the traits of a better hitter at the big league level survived, and the sample in general showed improvement based on natural learning until the late 20's (age). 2006 to the present, modern knowledge of developmental factors and hitting skill factors have wiped out this big league natural selection process. Most teams pretty much know what makes a good hitter. Young player development is streamlined and the natural selection process has shifted more to the minor leagues. Players now reach the big leagues as finished products, in general. We don't see nearly as many players throughout their 20's "learning" how to be better hitters. There's nothing for them to figure out on the field. Lots of players still do, of course, but the sample in general shows no improvement from learning. The physical peak of natural athleticism has and always will be something around 20 years old. This should be obvious. Increased knowledge has removed the foggy learning period. Modern baseball now explicitly knows from the get-go what old school baseball used to inexplicitly figure out via a slower, natural process. (this very probably is not true)

So I guess this this means that, sabermetrically speaking, I'm the best poster?

I'm not sure that you're really grasping the method used by the author. It's not just wOBA of all 21 year olds compared to wOBA of all 22 year olds, etc. etc. It's the delta between specific player's seasons at certain ages, weighted by plate appearance. So a guy like Stanton, his wOBA actually did improve from age 20 to 21, and then again from 21 to 22, so the data from Stanton individually would influence an improvement curve along that age period on the curve.

Hmm. I dunno. If you cut baseball into a bunch of 8 year bins and then make aging curves for all of them, there's probably a chance that a couple of them will look different. So I wouldn't really be inclined to buy the notion that offensive players all of sudden aren't peaking anymore and they're just declining from year 1. Also, if you include defense and playing time, a WAR curve might still have a productive peak. Maybe things like wRC+ and wOBA are appearing to start high and only decline because young players breaking in these days are more likely to be platooned or receive guarded playing time? Maybe young players in general are kept in the minor leagues for longer, so their less productive periods of skill improvement aren't showing up in a big league sample? It's interesting.

Weird.

True or false: The Leafs should not have fired Burke. ?

Best poster - KingKat Funniest poster - therealmin/boxy Best troll - TheBluJay (sp?) Best thread - Around Baseball Best new poster - I don't think I read enough of the forum to even know. Comeback poster of year - I dunno... ECJF? Jaysblue? Best infrequent poster - therealmin * Most underrated poster - ace3113 * Best statistical numbersy poster - nox Worst troll - MohYou Most annoying/ stupid poster - MohYou Biggest disappointment - therealmin * Pet peeve poster - olerud / o2cui2i

Farting and swearing?

Unregressed

There are probably many more efficient ways to get a mediocre, plodding, platoon DH.

Why the hell would you want Montero?

Hey guys, I have NHL.com firewalled at home for no specifically real reason. Can somebody please check how many points and games played David Clarkson has? Also, what's his contract again? Thanks!

I love this. I remember calling for it immediately after the Posey injury.

yessssssssssssssss Amaro. I love that you exist.

Yeah but I think I traded him and Pat Corbin and Anthony Cingrani for Alex Gordon. So I smarted my way out of that mess.

Talk about throwing s*** at the wall. Hart is probably the only one who would project for anything close to league average production, and he's coming off major surgery. LoMo I like a little bit and I'd take him over Smoak, but they both probably play at replacement level. Montero might as well retire.

So three of my bats just became Mariners within a week. Cool. Renaming my team to Handsome Jack Z's Butt Stallions

Ce n'est pas une limite

One one hand, these specific quips might have merit. On the other hand, the number machine is far better at interpreting most of the relevant numbers than any of us.

Wow, what is Steamer thinking in regards to Gardner's D? His UZR/150 career in the OF is +23. Is that a f***ing glitch? lol

Yes. Probably a lot more. Hard to quantify specifically but it could be worth mentioning. Then again, you'd have to mention it every time you talked about the Jays hypothetically adding any wins, which might become monotonous.

First that, then I'll move to Japan for some reason.