Laika

This chart with the video links is great. Is it only available for OF at the moment? I tried to click through and find it for a couple of infielders but it looks like the same chart defaults to their batted balls, as opposed to fielded balls.

The real Tom Tango has come here and started a thread to answer questions about fielding runs / positional adjustments, and none of the people who are so adamant that the whole field is a scam have come forward to articulate their position. lol

There is a poll up about some roster or stat changes for 2024. Vote. It's just to feel out sentiment.

A double dick tuck!

Hi Tom Is there any merit to the idea that the assumptions in positional adjustments only apply to players who are bad/fringe at the position? I've read this as some sort of critique of positional adjustments. Something like "the sample is mostly based on players who are bad at a given position because the good ones don't get moved off the position". I can think of anecdotes of good defensive players who moved down the spectrum and did not see measured performance boosts. e.g. Marcus Semien was a consistent +5 SS before moving to 2B and he is a +4 or so 2B by UZR rather than the +10 you'd expect. Daulton Varsho is a +12 CF moved to LF and is a +10 instead of the expected +22 LF. Obviously these are just anecdotes and there could be particular explanations.

Ah, a dick tuck

Just put your best foot forward and see what happens It's the internet, nobody can hurt you If you're right then Tom Tango might thank you Let's see what you've got, brave and smart guy!

Positional Adjustment Truthers: please post your anti WAR arguments in the new thread, lol

Hmmm what about just expanding active P slots by two

Yes, they play defense at first base. It's the easiest position to play. That's why the fattest and slowest kids often go there when they can't catch.

It's okay to just admit that you don't understand how positional adjustments work.

nah this is going to fix his HR swing and he needs to do this more often

I dunno. I don't think there is a right answer. The old format where the hitters got 10 "outs" was fun sometimes, but really f***ing boring at other times. It was really fun when Josh Hamilton got hot and hit like 38 dingers but super boring when a good player just lost their swing for 30 seconds and was done. The new format is more exciting but harder to follow on TV. When they started the new format I think there was a rule that the next pitch could not be thrown until the ball landed, but that was kind of hard to enforce and nobody actually wants there to be an ump or official involved in these things... I feel like they could turn the current machine gun format into a better TV product with some more modern camera angles, and maybe golf style ball tracking. Like if you always had the front view and a rear view with ball flight tracking it might be fun. I am sure the current format is MUCH more exciting in person. I thought last night was good. It's interesting how much endurance matters, though. I guess endurance + raw power matter. Vlad was one of the only competitors who could hit homers with just his arms so despite having poor stamina he was able to win it. Most of the other guys need full swings with their lower half to clear the wall. Even guys like Robert and J Rod could not really poke balls over the wall once they were gassed. Arozarena was dialed in but needed swings that were 95% perfect to homer. Vlad was able to hit it like 80% correct and clear the wall. Julio Rodriguez' round 1 was the most impressive part of the night by far. That was like Vlad's 2019 moment. Vlad is the new Pete Alonso, basically.

But you'd still never ever ever care about DOUBLES. Teams would look at ISO for in game (results) and MaxEV for in game (raw power). MaxEV, barrel rate, averageEV, launch angle and batted ball stats... biomechanical indicators of power potential.... bat speed... If Roden actually has more power potential all it would take to read that would be one BP session where he is swinging hard, and some Max EV readings. I think the only point of looking at doubles is fringe scouting to try and figure out who might be able to get doubles WITHOUT having power. Speed and batted ball distribution guys. But the issue with that ^ at the minor league level is that very often is disappears in the majors. Those hustle minor league doubles are not MLB doubles. And if you can't hit the ball hard, you just won't succeed in the big leagues. Okay, but now that I say all this there is actually a player type that can have MLB success and it is what Olerud is getting it but they are so f***ing hard to project. These are the Whit Merrifield types. Second lowest MaxEV on the Blue Jays and lowest AverageEV, but he survived and hits a fair amount of doubles because of his LD rate. But that's not a power thing. It's mostly a batting average thing. LD rate is infamously hard to project year to year. One of the reasons Toronto acquired Whit, I think, is that they were not convinced he was cooked in 2022. He had 400 bad PA with KCR but his contact and power indicators were all the same. It was just hit LD% that was down. They kind of made a bet that it was a random downward fluctuation. And in 2023, that bet looks right.

I wonder if they will normalize his delivery to see if there is more velocity in there

Jauron Watts-Brown looks pretty sick wipeout offspeed pitch

who cares?

Use ISO instead Roden .140 ISO = average(ish)

bruh they have Kirk and Espinal. A pair of 5'5" waves.

I definitely don't think the Jays system has been producing well I just don't think it's worse than the JPR era Completely different approaches. College heavy drafting + holding everything vs. diverse prospect intake + lots of trading of prospects.

Okay so between just Bo, Manoah, and Biggio they're likely to match or eclipse Hill+Marcum (Bo), Romero (Manoah), and Thames (Biggio). They just need to find a single Lind in the Bush and we are laughing. That's if we ignore the drafted but traded MLB players like Noda and Winckowski.

Is that really an impressive list? Hill was a home run with a 20+ WAR career but Bichette might eclipse that before he turns 27. Other than Hill.... you've got a handful of players who had decent but fleeting careers, and then a bunch of busts or role players. Like, if you are going to go that deep on draft record you also have to give Shatkins credit for a bunch of other guys. Manoah and Biggio and Pearson are on the team now, then the AAA/AAAA guys at present who are roster options, then the prospects in AA or whatever who are likely to make it at some point, and then also all the good draft picks they ended up trading away or getting value for before they flopped. Noda, Winckowski, the higher profile trades.

I'm more concerned about the process than the results. He just looks kind of hopeless against a diversity of pitchers. High fastballs = kryptonite. He honestly just swings too much. You could probably make him a 100 wRC+ hitter by just toning down the Swing%.

yeah it's becoming an issue also doesn't help that Kirk sucks and the Biggio/Espinal timeshare has been horrible offensively I still wouldn't force the issue and change anything. Too desperate. Varsho simply needs to figure it out enough to hit to a 100 wRC+. The team needs Springer, Vlad, and Kirk to figure it out as well. But when you say it like this it does make you hopeful for positive regression. There aren't many players on the team you would expect to be much worse offensively, going forward... *I would support acquiring a RHB OF platoon guy. Then at least if it doesn't get better they can sit one of the lefty CF down ocassionally.

If they draft a college player who sticks in say 3 years... that just means his first few seasons will be wasted in the post Bo Bichette rebuild.