Laika

I set it to the last available date, Sept 1st. Keep in mind that between the draft and the end of the year, there will be no draft picks for anyone to trade.

Relax. We don't always have time to process s*** promptly.

Do you not realize how ironic this sounds? You're basically the only one acting like an expert.

Meanwhile, J P R N C B A hits clean up...

I kind of want two of those players, but I don't really have any room. Damn.

He's looked like a completely different player. He honestly looks like a Joey Votto (that can't hit lefties).

So says the common assumption. I'm not saying that it's old school ******** or anything, but the degree of significance that teams place on it could very well be disproportionate to the actual effect. And judging from that video, it's not exactly an "easy" 89-91 anyway. Looks like a high effort delivery. 6'6" is probably past the point of height being as asset too. Longer levers = more difficult to repeat mechanics and release point. I'll stand by what I said

I blame Travis Snider. Other people might have f***ed him up, sure, but even if that's true, he still let him. Accountability. The likeliest case is that he just didn't ever have the skill set to succeed, anyway.

Is Trey Ball even a consensus pitcher? I remember reading an (older) report that said he had more promise at the plate. Something like "5 tool potential OF with an easy stroke that should add power. Shawn Green look".

He just seems like such typical draft day fools gold to me. Who cares how tall he is? That's a vastly overrated prospect trait. Who cares if he's a two way player? You're only drafting him to do one thing. I also DGAF that he's left handed. A good looking prospect, no doubt, but it just seems like such an old school reach at #10. The usual caveat though - I know nothing.

He's 25 years old and a hair of talent / a league change away from being a lefty Yovani Gallardo. He had a better K rate, BB rate, and xFIP than Matt Moore last year. It's a Dynasty league. Solid SP6 (or whatever) and future play.

He also has a K/9 over 10 and a 3.31 FIP. All of this is meaningless though since it's a puny sample size, save for the context of him potentially losing his rotation spot, which I suppose is still possible but considering that he only allowed 1 run tonight and Allen Webster got shelled in his last spotty, I'm guessing that it won't be particularly imminent.

Right. All team names and owner names are listed on proboards, under "Rosters".

Maybe, if someone gets around to it.

I think this is it. It's lengthy, but it's a decent read. Not exactly elegant (FTMP just a bunch of correlations, regressions, Chi Squareds), but it is very thorough. http://sabr.org/research/does-pitcher-s-height-matter If anyone just wants the TL;DR conclusion version: "The data speak for themselves. Baseball organizations have been scouting, signing, and developing players based on a fallacious assumption. Shorter pitchers are just as effective and durable as taller pitchers. If a player has the ability to get drafted, then he should be drafted in the round that fits his talent. The opportunity for major-league clubs is currently at its greatest potential. Clubs that value short pitchers with talent have an opportunity similar to those of clubs that, a decade or more ago, valued on-base percentage at a time when many of their competitors did not." It's certainly a good omen for Marcus Stroman and his chances as a starter. Not that I think the Blue Jays were even aware that they were exploiting a potential inefficiency when drafting him or giving him a chance to start.

I don't really get it either. If Scherzer is such a good "get" than how come nobody else was buzzing on him? He racks up the K's, but he can also be a bit of a gas can from time to time, he's a volatile arm, and he looks like a guy who will always be a bit worse than his FIP. There are specific reasons than other people weren't jumping to buy him. Like I said, I had Ellsbury 43 spots higher on my preseason rankings.

Rigorous studies show that pitcher height does not have the significant effect on productiveness or injury proneness that the traditional baseball people seem to think it does. The most significant effect that pitcher height has is on opportunities given. Taller pitchers are drafted higher, and given more opportunities to fail. That's about it. Don't be mislead by anecdotes. I'm thinking of one big study in particular that I'll have to dig up later. Late for work.

Relievers will show lots of ERA variation because they only pitch 60, 70 innings in a full year. That's why they seem to rotate good and bad seasons at a higher rate than starting pitchers. It's just small sample size induced variation, not much more than that. (Injuries can also be a factor though since relievers can be max effort more often, which would obviously lead to more arm explosions). That scouting/coaching explanation is kind of hilarious. It's just an example of people not understanding the instability of the statistic that they're looking at, and flailing away trying to explain the instability with a largely nonsense piece of reasoning.

Uh, no. Age and park factors will affect DIPS. I'm not even 100% sure what you're trying to say with this and the Saberhagen thing. Not sure if you have a sound enough understanding of what DIPS even is.

No, that's not true at all. You actually have this kind of backwards. In a single season, ERA and WHIP will contain a lot of noise. Batted ball luck, HR rate luck, LOB% luck (for ERA). It's just a small sample size problem, basically. And as the sample size gets larger (I'm talking multiple connected seasons spanning thousands of innings), then ERA starts to capture subtle nuances that the blunt force of DIPS misses. Things like pitcher's defense, plus pick off moves, and mystical forces like "hittability". This is why Mark Buehrle's career ERA is more meaningful than his career FIP. Or why Joe Blanton's career ERA is more meaningful than his career FIP (in a different direction than Buehrle).

They are relatively bad stats, because much better approximations of true talent based past performance are readily available. If you just want to use ERA as a measurement of past earned runs given up, then it's a perfect stat. If you just want to use WHIP as a measurement of the past rate of given up Walks+Hits, then it's a perfect stat. It just depends on the context in which they are used. The problem is that people use past ERA and WHIP as a measurement of talent. They aren't very good at that, compared to other available metrics. DIPS are better at predicting future ERA than ERA itself. One of the major "flaws" in ERA is that it reflects batted ball luck. WHIP is subject to this same flaw. People try to use WHIP as some sort of talent indicator that is better than ERA... but it's only marginally better. It's rather dubious to use WHIP the way that some people do. It's not much better than simply looking at ERA - some people think it is though. It's not really a separate dip stick. It enters some of the same sludge as ERA.

WHIP is not a good stat. It's marginally better than ERA, and a dubious stat at best.

The most advanced stat that I've ever heard him quote is WHIP, lol.

Embed that s***! http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mo_broken_FGmark.gif

Yeah, that's right. He has Meadows - Frazier going 12-13