Laika

No. The time to "put up or shut up" would have been before McCann/Ruiz, Kazmir/Johnson, Ellis, etc. all signed. Clearly the Blue Jays chose to shut up.

The Vargas contract is actually pretty team friendly, despite the term. He could earn the entire thing before 2016 if he avoids injury.

He's got 26000 followers!.... too bad most of them probably DGAF about baseball.

Ohhh, true. Aaron Sachez for Timmy seems like a trade that probably won't work out for either party.

Me too, hit me up! We've never made a trade in any league! #breaktheice #HashtagsNotOnTwitter

As for team Canada, this would be mine: Tavares/Crosby/Stamkos Couture/Toews/Giroux Duchene/Getzlaf/Perry Lucic/Bergeron/Benn Extras: I think you can make almost equal cases for Seguin, Sharp, Hall, Staal, Nash, and St. Louis. I like them in the order I listed, but they are all justifiable. Expectation: No Lucic, Nash and Staal both get named, and one of Benn or Duchene go into the tournament as a nominal "extra forward". I could also see them naming Carter or St. Louis and leaving Benn or Duchene at home (which would be super dumb IMO). Kunitz getting named would be even more dumb than that. Doughty/Subban Keith/Seabrook Pietrangelo/Weber Extras: Boyle and Bouwmeester I don't like Letang, and it's not like the team would need a 1-way PP specialist anyway. I don't like Bouwmeester very much either but the handedness thing might matter. I don't know a lot about Vlasic - hockey stat heads, is he roster worthy here? Price Luongo Smith In that order. PK1 is Bergeron/Toews and whatever D. PP1 is line 1 and Keith/Subban. PP2 is Doughty/Boyle and line 2 or 3, maybe consider putting Lucic at LW and in front of the net on PP2. I'd be super interested in what Frag or some other Corsi nerd thinks is the statistically ideal team Canada.

John Stilson and Daniel Norris both have like, a less than 3-5% chance of ever being fantasy relevant. Punt 'em!

In other words, Eric Fehr and Grabo were just promoted to the first line...

I don't even think that their top 2 D, Shattenkirk or Suter, are necessarily better than Yandle.

Paul Stastny? Is USA thin at C or something? All Canada seems to even have is centres.

"I think he'll be what Justin Morneau could have been." Morneau from 23-29: 10.1 BB%/14.7 K%/.228 ISO .287/.360/.515 .369 wOBA/126 wRC+/.296 BABIP Freeman age 24 ZiPS projection: 10.4 BB%/20.9 K%/.192 ISO .286/ .365/ .477 .361 wOBA/~130 wRC+/.333 BABIP I think he'll just be Justin Morneau - a great dynasty 1B and perennial top 10 at the position, but I don't think he'll be much more than that. Specifically, I don't foresee any type of consistent ~.400 OBP or 30+ HR production that would push him into the top 1B tier with guys like Votto, Fielder, Miggy, Goldschmidt, Pujols (past), AGon (past?), Edwin? etc.

need moar trades!

"These cuff links are crafted from an MLB Authenticated game used Blue Jays baseball"

"Best sliders" seems a bit dubious, depending on how you're calculating that. Eveland doesn't even a positive PitchFX pitch value on his slider, career.

Interesting. Answer plz

I don't think movement variance within the 2-seamer bin would have any more effect than movement within the 4-seamer bin. If movement from a 2-seamer has an impact on pitch value, then, generally speaking, it probably matters when looking at that movement relative to 4 seam movement. Just like a changeup plays off a fastball, a 2seamer plays off of a hitter expecting a 4seamer. So I guess it would depend on how you did the analysis here?

Ok, that makes sense to me now. I'll let myself be anchored by your example and say something very velo heavy. 90/10 would be my guess, but I'm thinking even that might place too much significance on movement.

I'm confused by where the percentages would even be coming from. Are they just arbitrary percentages that represent importance? Or is it, X% of run prevention can be explained by velocity, in general, and only X% can be explained by movement. But if that's the case, why are they summing to 100% - where is control? I'm pretty sure I've read that the order of importance in terms of effectiveness is: Velocity >>> Control >>> Movement But, the specific importance ratio is probably different for every pitcher. For Mark Buehrle, fastball control is a f***ton more important than it is for Aroldis Chapman.

As opposed to a smart moron, of course, which would also make him an oxymoron.

Maybe AA is waiting in the weeds for Garza, ready to pounce like a ninja during the post-Tanaka fallout!!! /s

It would certainly be nice to get a cool $300 so soon after Christmas. Eddie Lack FTW? Josh Harding can have an MS flare-up and I'd be OK with it.

It's definitely far too long, but there was just so much to say...

Who feels like reading 5500 words about another team? http://www.breakingblue.ca/2013/12/29/a-premortem-for-kevin-towers/

Probably DDT impregnated anti-Chagas blankies.

Morel is one of those players that just look like they're using a fungo bat in the big leagues. Not happening.