Laika

Not stolen - was discussed. Guy is probably worth a follow if he keeps the blog up to date. Not stupid.

This isn't about Goins anymore. It's about the message board clique. Douchecanoes like BTS, Hurl, Dinger, Nox, Boxy, KSaw, and NJH just think they're so f***ing cool....

He reminds be a bit of Drabek. And I mean the version of Drabek that we've seen in the majors, as in, the 17 year old Grant Holmes looks basically as polished and talented as the 22-25 year old former top prospect in Drabek. It's just that big running fastball and hammer breaking ball. Also the stature and mechanics.

No you don't. It's completely immaterial. Not even in the equation. Johnson would accept a QO before he could blink.

Could be so, but it would just be weird that he could still post K and BB rates like this if strike throwing was his main issue. I guess you could rationalize it somewhat like this: He has a lot of trouble throwing that slider for a strike. It's always finishing down and out of the zone. This is leading to a small spike in BB rate, but also an increase in the K rate since it's acting very much like an out pitch. However, for players that can recognize the breaking ball, they can essentially forget about it and sit fastball. This explains some of the "hittability" (BABIP and HR/FB), and by extension, some of the grossly high ERA. .... But then we're just constructing stories, probably. It's only 81 innings though, so I'm comfortable with just hanging the weird numbers on the small sample size hook and moving on. For me, JJ will go into 2014 not much worse than he came into 2013 - as a huge injury risk with some upside.

If we're talking about, like, 5M, then sure. But I don't see why JJ would do that. He'll go to the NL. Pittsburgh will get him for dirt cheap and he'll be 2014's Liriano. Something like that. I wouldn't give him 10+ mill. I don't like the gamble, and that's mostly considering his health concerns, not necessarily his ERA.

Some of it is just plain old bad luck. Say how much of it is bad luck is pretty hard to do though, since we have a league chance going on + a decline in skills.

This would definitely be the worst ROI rotation in baseball. Probably bottom 5 again in ERA.

There's a joke here about your fantasy baseball tendencies

Ok, Tom Robson is a f***ing freak. He's one of only 4 pitchers in all of pro baseball (majors and minors) with 50+ IP and a GB% of >66%, according to Minor League Central data. Robson: 66.2% in 58.1 IP (Rk / A-) Brad Zeigler: 69.2% in 60.2 IP (MLB) Ben Rowen: 68.7% in 62.2 IP (AAA/AA in Texas org. Also has good K/BB numbers. This looks like a legitimate under-the-radar Ace relief prospect, 24 years old) Dallas Beeler: 66.9% in 54.2 IP (AA, 24 years old, Cubs org) edit: Fangraphs GB% is a bit different and would add Seth Maness (50.2 IP, 70.2%). They don't have minor league GB% though. http://www.collegebaseballtoday.com/files/2010/04/VaTech-BenRowenUnderhand.jpg That's ^ Ben Rowen http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/Brad+Ziegler+Oakland+Athletics+v+Los+Angeles+fHemUlaLxKDl.jpg Brad Zeigler

He was at 58.8% according to this site: http://minorleaguecentral.com/team?aff=TOR&y=2013&type=pitcher

66.2% is pretty insane (and it's probably higher now). Best in the entire org.

Where did this guy come from? http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=rowley000chr Just never heard the name before.

I think it was 3 misplays in one game. I remember watching it. It's pretty easy for anecdotal stuff like that to sway our opinions about baseball.

If you watched a lot of Rays games you'd be whistling a different tune. Longo might not have the flash that Lawrie or Machado have, but he's so f***ing steady at the corner that it's practically emasculating. I won't crucify you if you want to put Lawrie on their level though. He's a defensive stud, no doubt.

Can't really ask for better results. Anyone have a good report on him?

Machado Longo Beltre Lawrie That's in order, with Beltre probably getting some legacy points to be ahead of Lawrie.

In the last few years, MLB left fielders have hit less productively than CF, RF, 1B, and DH. They've been slightly better than 3B. So of the 9 hitting positions, they've been better than four of them and worse than four of them (although they are closer to 1B than they are to SS/C, so they aren't equidistant from the extremes). CF and RF have more defensive responsibility than LF, so in a nutshell, we would expect LF to hit better. But they haven't been. It's true that LF is still a hitter's position, but honestly, teams don't tend to be hiding any defensive liabilities there anymore. Some still do (Willingham, Quentin, Holliday, etc), but others use LF to stash an extra CF capable player in the pursuit of a more injury robust roster (Brantley in CLE, Young Jr. in NYM, Marte in PIT, Eaton in ARI, Blanco in SF) or to break in young players of all OF molds (Yelich currently in LF, Des Jennings was last year, Trout gave way to Bourjos for a bit, Eaton currently playing LF in ARI). There's also an apparent unwillingness to spend on left fielders. You see lots of teams choose to platoon cheaper guys there these days (OAK, TB, BOS, etc). It's still a slugging position, sure, but to some teams it's not that simple anymore.

I'm not really sure what your point is. In recent years, guys like Gardner and Crawford have been known to save ~20 runs in LF. Alex Gordon I think was in the teens the last two years. There has definitely been a trend towards more defensively capable LFers in Major League Baseball. You can see this by simply looking at the league average offensive LF production, and how it has declined. (Year - BP TAV) 2013 - .265 2012 - .270 2011 - .263 2010 - .275 2009 - .271 2008 - .273 2007 - .273 2006 - .276 2005 - .273 2004 - .279 2003 - .281 2002 - .280 Comp that to RF, which hasn't moved much in a decade (probably down a bit though due to run environment going down post-roids): 2002 - .282 2003 - .280 ---- 2011 - .281 2012 - .273 2013 - .281 Increasingly, teams seem to be using LF to roster defensively capable players that can provide CF depth. Sometimes teams even bring up young CF and start them in LF (Desmond Jennings, Starling Marte, Brett Gardner).

Generally speaking though, the solution to a lack of pitching depth doesn't tend to be trading away your best pitcher. Generally speaking. Shields Duffy Paulino Guthrie Davis Ventura (AAA, killing the minors) Zimmer (AA, killing the minors) __________ Chen (FA) Hochevar Mendoza Will Smith They're clearing 13M when Santana walks. They'll probably just sign a decent SP or two.

This isn't really that true anymore though, as I just showed. There are only like, 7 or 8 clunker type LFers in the game right now, and 2 or 3 of those play DH/1B as frequently as they play the OF (Seth Smith, Chris Carter, maybe someone else). You can almost count the number of statuesque LFers dragging down the positional average catch rates on one hand. This isn't any (/much) different than other positions on the diamond. You can find a handful of starting butchers everywhere.

It moved

No, that wasn't my team. I took over booster's team for half a season and then quit when we started the DDL.

LF has actually become a very athletic position in the majors. Just look at the names from the qualified Fangraphs leaderboard for LF: Trout CarGo Marte Gordon Upton Denorfia Holliday McLouth Soriano De Aza Brown Blanco Cespedes Brantley Nava Ibanez Carter Murphy Young Jr. In bold are the only names that you would really consider all-bat types. Half of these guys are borderline CF, CF by trade, or athletic converts from the IF. Increasingly, teams like to give their LF gig to a guy who can go get the baseball and cover other positions on the diamond. Having a LF that can cover CF is a good step towards constructing a more robust major league roster (robust as in, resilient to unforeseen injuries or other setbacks).

Note that the trade deadline is on Sunday. If you are going away for the long weekend, you might want to make any final trade offers tonight/tomorrow.