Laika

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.

"Welcome to our newest member, beckettisdogg" That didn't take long

ban preemptive ban is objectively necessary mods, don't let this thing persist, grow, and multiply. I don't think it's human.

Not that I can really notice. Alford, Burns, Smith, Urena? Oh f***, Miguel Castro? Del Rosario? I dunno!

Seriously though, you guys just need to focus on keeping it fun to post. There are a hundred other places where we can talk about baseball with a straight face. If I wanted to do that, I could call my grandma (big Brett Lawrie fan). If I wanted to talk about the game deeply, there's The Book Blog and BP and Fangraphs and yada yada yada. People come here for lighthearted Blue Jays chatter, news, and the odd time, humour glazed analytical discussions. Let's also put this place in f***ing context. Of our ~600 members, 300 are probably bots. 200 probably barely ever check in. We aren't a massive, growing community. There are a relatively small number of people here who post often. Of f***ing course differential treatment is warranted. Use your tiny mod brains. KingKat said it much better, "Here's a question... Would it really be so bad if the mods played favorites with the ban hammer? If posters are attracting a lot of complaints shouldn't moderators be empowered to deal with the situation however they see fit rather than wait for an arbitrary line to be crossed? This isn't a court of law, no one is entitled to due process. I wouldn't have an issue with a board that bans people based on a subjective evaluation of the general value of their content rather then on isolated incidents. There's no reason to sacrifice the quality of the board for some platonic ideal of fairness. " Chappy got it today when he banned MohYou. If Gsnarls gives me a simple, 100 word (min.) public apology, then I will forgive the whole situation.