Laika

Look at this s*** take: Yes, the Lightning need cap space more than Nikita Kucherov. Holy smokes.

This is getting into tabloid territory, but Vlad really just seems like a fatty by nature. Even when he was young and more fit, he had a ton of weight on his body and a very wide frame (that's where the power comes from, right...) He gained such an alarming amount of weight in 2020... like, an amount of weight that a normal person could not gain without, say, trying to get as fat as possible for a movie role or something like that. I think that was a bit telling. You probably need a combination of large frame + fatness genes + bad habits to do that. Hopefully his commitment to fitness now is legitimate but I'd still put money on him getting fat again, or at least yo-yo-ing for most of his career.

Yeah the "defense" number in Fangraphs dashboard is defensive skill + positional adjustment. If you want to see those two figures separated, click on the Value tab and you can see Fielding + Positional as two columns. Example with John Olerud... he has +99 fielding runs in his career because he was an exceptional first basemen, but first basemen have the worst positional adjustment done to their value so in his career he suffered -144 runs from the positional adjustment. Hence his -45 number on the Fangraphs dashboard. It was only five years ago, or so, that Fangraphs changed their dashboard to show this adjusted "Defense" number instead of raw UZR. I remember hating it at the time because of this exact reason. What I want to see on the dashboard is how good the player was at their position. No reason they can't just show both on the dashboard (defense + positional adjustment). I said at the time that this would confuse lay-people and it clearly does. (Note that the defensive runs number on Fangraphs will be either UZR, or Total Zone 1, or Total Zone 2, or Total Zone 3, depending on the year. There are three different formulas for TZ based on how retrosheet boxscores changed over time).

All you can really do is look at Total Zone, which is TZ under standard fielding on Fangraphs or I think Rfield on BR. Self calculate their TZ per 150 games let's you compare it directly to UZR/150 of a modern player

Yeah, Olerud was +82 runs in his career by Total Zone and then +16.8 runs at the end of his career by UZR. That's +6.63 runs per 150 games in his career. For reference, Keith Hernandez and Daric Barton are like +9 runs per 150 games.

Where are the casual fans? You think we don't know how TZ is calculated?

If you don't think the way TotalZone is calculated (or maybe more correctly, not adjusted) for the 1991 to 1995 seasons unfairly maligns Alomar, consider the following: Ages 20-22 with SDP +13 TZ runs (total across all years) Ages 23-27 with TOR -26 TZ runs Ages 28-33 with BAL and CLE +13 TZ runs For his age 34 season we start getting UZR. His UZR/150 was -1.6 and -6.7 in his age 34 and 35 seasons. Age 36 was lower but that's a very small sample. It just does not pass the sniff test that he was as bad at 23-27 with Toronto as he was in his mid 30's when UZR kicks in. The fact that he was above average before and after Toronto makes me think something funny was going on with Toronto. Maybe it was the turf, and maybe it was positioning (which could have been his fault I guess, and then it would be fair to slap the negative runs on him). But even if you forgive some of the negative Toronto years and assume he was above average, you're only moving the needle by a few career WAR. If you take the -26 from Toronto and turn it into a +14, that's only four more career wins. "the stats are not correct" is not an argument that holds much water with me. These stats are more or less just looking at catch/out rates... certain years can be wonky but you can't hide being an elite defender for an entire career; if he was truly elite it would have shown up in the out rates. Elite defenders by definition get outs. It really looks like he was just a good defender. Org is hitting the nail on the head with the Hech analogy. It's possible to be an "elite" defender by tools/actions and not by results, for various reasons. It's kind of like having bat speed and power but a hole in your swing, or elite stuff on the mound but being one ingredient short of a good pitcher. If Alomar's career began in 2020 perhaps the +15.8 defensive runs on his Fangraphs dashboard would be more like +158 runs.

I too believe that this Kim CF talk is bonkers. Why would he sign here to play CF? By "across the diamond" the Jays mean 3b, ss, 2b. He might be able to handle CF but I think Toronto would send Biggio out there before Kim

Two literal clubhouse cancers.

Wacha's K/BB was great in 2020.

Biggio's top ZiPS comparison this year was actually Lou Whitaker, which is pretty cool. The K rate might not track but a lot of other things seem to.

^^ I guess the Sandlot plot is based on the Mazeroski ball?

If JTR is truly asking for $200m then his agent probably f***ed him out of like $30m+. How do they not read the market and just take the Mets best offer? Chance they got greedy, lost the Mets, and now will have to settle for like $90M from the Phillies or something.

I think Toronto has JO high enough on their preference list. They wanted him last year.

Odorizzi should be better than Walker. There are a number of buy-lows and old guys: Kluber, Quintana, Porcello, Archer, Richards, Happ, Shoemaker, Dick Mountain, etc. Whether any of them are preferable to Walker is hard to say. I am not a huge fan of Walker's indicators from 2020 but he is the youngest option (him, Rodon, and Aaron Sanchez are all 28).

Lots of *******s are in the Hall of Fame. I don't see why that is a good argument for letting in huge *******s going forward. Don't talk to me about "precedent" unless I am wearing my wig.

No but it seems like Toronto has loftier targets than Walker, and Walker might be looking for too much money. He might end up with Toronto if they both are super sad and take their 10th choice to 2021 prom.

I have always thought the Hall of Fame should be a historical place and it should have a separate wing for these delinquents. Elect them because they are great players and their stats warrant election, but do it under a separate ballot, don't give them a speech, and record the controversy on the same plaque as you record their accomplishments. Some of these guys legitimately don't "deserve" to be in the clean wing of the Hall. Schilling is not kept out because of his politics - he is kept out because he is objectively a nasty, intolerant loser. Mariano Rivera is one of the most conservative people imaginable but he's not a POS so he was a unanimous selection.

I also like Stripling but I'm not sure it's fair the say that he was a strong middle rotation starter for a contending team. There were parts of seasons where he looked like that, but he also pitched out of the pen a lot and in a lot of starts he was not asked to go deep. The way for the Blue Jays to optimize Stripling might be to use him in the exact same way.

When MikeM says "there are a lot more proven MLB arms out there" I don't think he realizes how quickly the SP list thins out. To me it's Bauer, big gap, Tanaka and the risky Paxton, big gap, and then a bunch of players who you can clearly prefer Sugano to consider cost.

Sugano and all the recent Japanese pitchers to come over. NPB stats. Is it possible he has the best command profile of any of them?

Yamaguchi was significantly worse in NPB than Sugano: (Sugano on the right) 3.75 vs 2.63 RA9 0.8 vs 0.6 HR/9 2.54 vs. 4.58 K/BB 1.24 vs. 1.03 WHIP Sugano has never had a BB/9 over 2.1. Gooch never had one below 2.7. Completely different pitcher archetypes. Sugano is a pure SP who can pitching and control the zone. Gooch wasn't even a starter his entire career in Japan; he is a pitcher with shotgun command but effective secondaries (at least they were in Japan). It's silly to try to project a player based on one comp anyway, but if you're going to you don't just comp two completely different types of pitchers. It's silly to look at positive comps too but at least Sugano's numbers are a lot closer to Maeda or Tanaka's in NPB. Note that even Kikuchi's career NPB stats are worse at a glance than Sugano's...

If Gausman is this good going forward he could be one of the best SP available at the deadline.

You need to stop listening to these radio stations, lmao.

Yeah but they still say heyyyy