Olerud363

Let's say the Happ trade isn't made either. Everything shakes out a bit differently obviously. I personally think they would of pushed Syndegard and given Stroman more of a chance to win a job. Alvarez Hutchison Syndergard Morrow Stroman You have something like that and the entire Buffalo and new Hampshire with young interesting guys. D'Arnaud and Escobar instead of Navarro and Reyes. It is younger, it is cheaper, it is better. Use the money for useful things and it would of been interesting.

Who will play short stop then if not Kawasaki?? 1. Reyes hamstring tightness. 2. Reyes MRI. 3. Reyes dl for opening day (just precationary). 4. AA "it's not healing as fast as we thought it would and we'd like it to. But it's not a big deal. he will be back soon and Kawasaki did a great job last year filling in."

Dear lord yes. There will be at least 100 games to cover in the infield because of injury. Plus need some Ryan Goins insurance.

It's one of those things that is hard to wrap your mind around. I was stewing about this. If Reyes is out for a while.. OK. Well the trade bombed but so did Hech. NO. Yunel Escobar was tossed in for political reasons. I mean I literally forget sometimes that Yunel Escobar was tossed in. You mentally do these calculations... and your like "this sucks" but oh well, Hech wouldn't of worked out. NO!. If the trade hadn't of been made the Toronto Blue Jays would have Yunel Escobar, a cheaper and better option according to WAR.

The differences between their k percentages is very large. I assume the projection systems pick up on that. I can't think of any other reason that a player with a career 83 wOBA is projected for 100. I guess that and the most recent season is weighted more. My intuition is that I can glance at their career stats and use that as 2014 projection and that will be fine. Most recent season and career strikeout rate could change the projection a bit. In most cases not enough to bother looking to deeply. In this case "most recent season" and "strikeout rate" are extremely different. So the 20% projection makes sense.

40%?? Based on what? Arencibia's career OPS is .666. Navaro's .683. wOBA+ Arencibia is 76%, Navarro is 83. Last year Navaro destroyed Arencibia. But Navaro's worst wOBA (2009) was worse then Arencibia 2013. Navrro 2013 WAY better then Arencibia 2013,. Navarro career offense a bit better but not that different then Arencibia career offense. Chances Navarro lays an Arencibia like egg? Greater then people assume. He has allready done it on multiple occasions. What part of that is so objectional??

The difference between Arencibia and Navarro offensively is not that much. Arencibia has more power. Navarro strikes out less. Both have shown quite capable of putting up sub mendoza lines in 400 plate appearances. Both have career OPS in the .670 range. I agree with the Navarro move because it is one of those small moves that pushes the team on base percentage in the right direction. Sometimes when players are bad the difference between historically bad, and just bad gets lost, but can be dramatic. So I think Navarro/Thole/Kratz spotted right could push the catcher obp up by 70 points. Which would make me happy. But a) don't discount the possibility Navarro lays an absolute egg on an Arencibia level. He's done it before. don't discount the possibility that the Jays don't adjust to Navarro's poor play (by giving Kratz/Thole more time) and let him rack up 400+ horrid plate appearances. c) don't discount the possibility that Arencibia spotted 300 plate appearnaces in the right situation in a good organization puts up a .250 .300 .450 line.

Of course it applies to everyone. Take the average games played over their career, that is the number of games they are likely to play next year. For one guy it doesn't work out exactly. Reyes might play 50 games this year 150 the next. For multiple players it is a good indicator. Between Lawrie, Reyes, Bautista, Colby, there will be games to fill. What pisses me off is AA gives some retarded insight about Reyes and Lawrie "that (the exact type of ankle spain) isn't likely to happen again", no s*** but something will, if not to Reyes to Lawrie. And we have Ryan Goins. Which in itself many argue as being a problem.. and I am actually a bit more positive on Goins then most. But as others have pointed out, the problem here is that once the injuries hit it won't be Ryan Goins filling in, but a guy who is thought to be worse then Ryan Goins, now playing with Ryan Goins. Son-of-a-bitch "Reyes Hamstring tightness" and so it starts.

Everybody is kindof average, almost mediocre but there are zero injuries to speak of and no one lays a bomb. Jays score 690 runs, give up 671 but out perform pythag to grab the division in a dog fight with 91 wins, lucky as s***. Boston and TB are actually way better but tie with 90 and have to play in for a wild card. They luck through the playoffs and win the world series. There is nothing different from other years other than luck, no one will know this ofcourse, except maybe some people on this board.

Hutch 16-10 3.50 Dickey 11-10 4.24 Reyes 52 games played Melky .275 90 games played Lawrie .244 7 39 88 games played Bautista .250 22 65 109 games played. Buerhle 9-14 5.04 etc., etc., etc., etc. Lots of ways for AA to get fired even if Hutch is good.

What is over under on the date where this becomes impossible?? I'm guessing the Reyes hamstring lingers and this is impossible by the 13th game of the season. I am also guessing one of the other 3 is just going on the DL as Reyes comes back.

Insanity. If one has a history of injuries they will get more injuries. AA and Beeston are just so annoying, they think they are smart because they can predict that Reye's WON'T slide into second weird and rip off his ankle on April 9th again. Well yes dumb ass I agree it won't happen exactly like that, but something else will happen. They don't understand math, logic, history, or reason. They don't understand the limits of human prediction. We cannot make exact predictions but can analyze trends. We cannot predict exactly how something will happen or when, but we can predict the Trend. We can predict Reyes will be injured in some unknown fashion and unknown date. But the suits only understand haircuts and handshakes. If you cannot tell them the exact date Reyes will be injured and how they don't believe you. The suits don't understand inexact prediction. Beeston and AA are criminals. Humanity should be glad they are in baseball as they would be causing much more damage in other fields.

I am with you on this one. I glance through the thread titles to see what is going on, and if something interesting is happening then check out that thread. It is annoying to have to check every thread to see if anything news worthy has happened. Around Baseball, 25 man roster, a couple of others. Anyway it is what it is, if we don't like it we can go somewhere else. Ryan Goins has his own huge thread.. So add your two cents on that since he is one of the only ones with a unique thread.

And another point. Remember the story about Ricciardi's Dad finding Tim Collins at an American Legion game?? That is just on the border. Cool story so things like this happen once and a while. Change Ricciardi's Dad to Riccardi's daughter... no biggy, I am sure women are fine at scouting if they got into it. Change "American Legion Game" to "catch in my backyard". That is a biggy. I mean literally they find this guy in the backyard having apparently never played a game of baseball at any level. And then in the end they bring him for a try out. He strikes out the first overall pick in a simulated at bat, revealing his weaknesses to the front office and making the saber guys look like fools. Apparently this guy, kind-of looks like Travis Snider, got taken 3rd overall or something, and nobody ever saw a weakness. Nobody ever did "see" a weakness, but the old drunk blind scout heard the weakness, and then his daughter found the next Verlander in somebody's backyard and they all made the math guys look like idiots. I bet Beeston loves the movie. I know I'm going on and on about it.

I think because the people who made the movie obviously have a warm spot for old drunk scouts. Who ever made this movie has similiar thought patterns to Paul Beeston. I think Beeston just wants to prove to everybody that good old Cito, and the old scouts were right about everything after all. The crazy on base percentage loving saber idiots can go F themselves. Anyway the movie is hilarious because it goes to such lengths to show the point it actually falls into riculousness and really proves the other point. I guess it is a movie for casuals. I have a hard enough time believing the super-scouts who claim this guy, or that guy has "a hole in his swing" thus despite minor league success he will never amount to anything. But I am willing to listen to these people and take note of what they are saying. I draw the line if they tell me they are blind and listened to audio tapes of the guys swing.

Spolier Alert The old scout goes blind and then does his scouting by sound. He identifies "holes in the swing" of the top high school hitting prospect in baseball by sound only. Then his daughter finds then next Justin Verlander. She scouts him in a serendipidous bullpen session in his front yard as he's playing catch with his little brother. This kid does not play organized baseball, just catch with his 10 year old brother. Again Kid who does not play baseball just catch with his 10 year old brother - Next Jusin Verlander. Identified by old drunk scout's daughter. Top highschool hitting prospect - Bust. Identified by sound waves.

One would hope that he would get some alternative views. Not even joking though. The entire fate of the franchise is in the hands of an unknown intern. You are a high powered suit who knows nothing about baseball. You get a lower suit to get you a list of names of baseball experts to double check Beeston. The other suit has his intern get a list of baseball experts. The next 10 years are in that interns hands. The intern puts Pat Tabler, and Buck Martinez on that list, then the fate of the franchise is different then if he/she puts some sabermetric guys on the list. Guy's secretary: Mr. Tabler here to see you sir. Guy: Tabler?? Now who is that exactly? Guy's secretary: A baseball expert sir. Guy: Excellent. No stone left unturned.

Fair enough point. He was somehow saving 30 games a year, and actually 43 in 1993, despite the walks. Was decent in the nlcs and saved game 2. Looking back it's obvious. But watching the game it wasn't until Henderson walked that we felt comfortable. But wow. Yes. Holy Crap. His statistics are bizzarre. Baseball's first 40-40 reliever, 40 saves, 40 walks. And 40 walks was a good year for him.

I will disagree on this. Ricky Henderson is everything good about baseball. I don't know about the man, but walks, power, great baserunning. I will say this Ricky walked leading off the 9th in game 6. That was the game right there. I've argued with Spanky about the Carter homerun... and I probably didn't explain myself that well. The homerun was thrilling. I agree. But the moment of victory was the Henderson walk. I was watching that night with my knuckle head hockey goon friends who don't know diddly about sabremetrics. As Henderson walked they appreciated his at bat, and proclaimed the game over.

As a side note there are a lot of similarities between 1997 and 2013. Carlos Garcia .220 .253 .309, Emilio Bonifacio .218 .258 .321. Orlando Merced, Melky Cabrerra. Juan Guzman, Josh Johnson. Some differences. Clemens delivered, Dickey didn't. But very similiar show. And why wouldn't it be it was brought to you by the same executive producer, Mr. Paul Beeston. Joe Carter. I hate that guy more than anything ever except for Beeston.

Is this an injury?? What the hell. I've always been a believer that he could come back. A pitcher is just a very complicated machine. If the body breaks it may not be fixable but you can at least identify what happened. If the computer breaks (the mind) again may not be fixable but atleast you should be able to identify what happened. Did I miss something?? What the hell happened?? Did something physical just go?? If it's mental are they atleast epxerimenting with every psycho somatic drug known to man. I get that "Steve Blass Disease" is a thing, kind of. But you think it would better defined by now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Blass#Steve_Blass_Disease

?? Gruber is not anti-mainstream. Gruber is mainstream. He is anti the "mainststeam" for this board. But the board in general is anti-mainstream. Mainstream is still that joe scout can anounce how wonderful Goins' D is, and how his swing is actually good, and john hitting coach can tweak it a bit, and Goins is all of a sudden a scrappy wonderful defensive whiz who does the little things at the plate... or something like that. At first I supported Gruber. Mainly because there is a grain of truth to the view that Goins could be a good player. His defense could hold up and he could hit a bit better then we think. But that is only a possibilty, not a probability. I figured Gruber was looking at some of the defensive stats and looking at more complex projection data like the 75th percentile projections, and things like that. But after reading his posts it seems he gets his info from Howarth and Buck Martinez.

Bar none the most aggravating poster on this board. He is so damn polite and cheery you're not expecting anything. Then he hammers you with his scouting reports and love of Cito Gaston. Grant loves a) his own scouting reports, Cito and Murph and Beeston. Grant hates, logic, thinking, math and science (like a lot science hating people he claims he is an esteemed scientist). Must be tough for him around here lately... His original theory was that Cito and Murph were going to teach everybody to hit and be great and start a cycle like 92 and 93.

AA (despairing the next agent) - the last f***in guy who I negotiated with, f***in fired. Santana f***in fired him. Take this deal, 2-15, take it f***in right now. Unless you want to get your sorry ass fired.

?? I'm not sure how to take this. I was merely commenting on the 5 year projections. Not sure what the "good lord" is for. As you perhaps know (or perhaps not) these type of projections are based on the accumalitve history of major league baseball and some math. They reflect how the average player will age. They aren't that good for one player. However over groups of players they are pretty useful. Each system has their own biases. This system shows an extreme crash of the Toronto Blue Jays. Which is not a huge secret. Most posters have been extremely worried about the future of the franchise. Building around 30 somethings is not that smart. Anyway these systems are useful tools to get an idea of what the future holds. Like anything they each have their biases so taking a look at multiple systems is useful,. If you are against this you are against math, history, and logic. Which is fine. A lot of people are against these things. The interesting thing is for the purposes of this discussion is that if you squint the data actually gives a glimmer of hope for Ryan Goins near term. Goins is a fringy player. But will be at his peak the next 2 years.