Olerud363

Wonderful. This makes it even worse. Let's say Tanaka is really awesome for 6 years. He guarantees the option. Suffers an injury near end of year 6. But the option is allready guarenteed. EXCEPT "must not finish the final year on the disable list". Fine. His agent gets him back for the last 2 weeks of the last year. I remember when Frank Thomas lost just a little playing time in May of 2008 that his agent went banana's (because there was an option that year). Your scenario ends in a clusterf*** if Tanaka is great for 5 or 6 years, injured, then wants to come back late in the season of the last year.

Exactly. Imagine if Pedro Martinez, or Johan Santana, or Roy Halladay had such an option. Or what about Brandon Webb. Imagine they locked up his abitration years and then added a 5 year option based on performance in his 20s. Not only would the option be disastrous but you could easily end up with the ridiculous scenario of a pitcher coming back for a last ditch useless comeback attempt also needing only a handful of innings to get 100+ million bucks.

I thought about that possibility, but 2013 numbers against lefties are pitiful... Probably any number of right handed minor league vets or someone like Jeff Baker (suggested by Spanky) could do better.

I enjoyed watching Delgado 2003. Would of loved to see him win an MVP. A-ROD had 8.5 WAR or so, Delgado 6. Delgado a bit better on offense... just a bit. A-rod gold glove short stop, Delgado tin glove 1b. Jays won 86. In Contention until late June. Then crashed to about 15 out by early August. Hovered there the rest of the season. Not really in it the second half. Delgado actually slumped a bit from after the all star break until the last weekend of the season. On the last Thursday he had the 4 homer game, then a grand slam the last day. Not really MVP worthy until last 4 games. Numbers were .295 37 137 after game 158. Awesome last 4 days. Kind of wonder when most guys fill out the ballot. Opposite happened to George Bell. Looked good around day 156. No question. Until Jays got their butt kicked in Detroit. Trammell still lost, Bell won.

Well as others have mentioned there's still time for him to work with Lawrie. If he could "Alex Gordon" Lawrie it would be great. Half that battle will be keeping him heathy. Lawrie isn't that far from Gordon hitting wise. Just a little more consistency and a lot more health and he is there.

pre 94 Delgado was Baseball America 5, Gonzales was 4, Green was 28. pre 95 Delgado lost elligibility (but would of been top 5), Gonzales and Green were 5 and 6. I remember they got off to a good start in 94. Gonzales and Delgado made the team. It all fell apart May or so of 94. Gonzales and Delgado slumped and the team sent them down. I'm not sure the younger generation can even understand how good it looked even goint into 95. They acquired the Cy Young award winner (David Cone) and STILL had 3 big time prospects. The farm was unbelievable and they were coming off of 2 World Series. How it got from that to 20 years in the wilderness is an unexplainable mystery.

Full Count by Jeff Blair goes over this. Delgado wouldn't waive his no-trade clause because he was comfortable in Toronto, and because he was struggling with injuries. I guess didn't want to go to a new team and struggle. He said if he was healthy he would of accepted a trade. Ricciardi claims he likes Delgado but they did not have permission from upper-management to fit him in the payroll for 2005. Ironically permission (in terms of a higher payroll) came later in that offseason, but it was to late. Ricciardi says if they got permission earlier they would of explored resigning Delgado.

Thanks. I actually didn't know this.

As a concept yes. What the formula is?? No. I'm not aware of the technical details of how they do it.

Would be interesting to hear from someone with a good understanding of how the WAR system(s) rate 1b defense. The guys who have won gold gloves and are "thought of" as good defenders (Bagwell, Olerud, Pujols) are not (or barely) even cracking zero on bbref (Olerud -2, Bagwell -7, Pujols 2). The bad guys (or DHs) are closing in on -20 (Delgado, Ortiz). So I am guessing that it is calibrated somehow so that it is difficult to "contribute" defensively as a 1b, but it is easy to do damage. If you are a bad defender (or left handed infielder) you go to 1b and if you are passable you atleast don't damage the team, if you are bad you can cause some damage. If you are right handed and a good infield defender they put you somewhere else. Also interesting that Ortiz is so low. How can you cause defensive damage as a dh?? System must punish those who can't take the field.

According to BBREF WAR he's at about 45. Thomas is at 73, Bagwell 79. John Olerud 58, Mcgriff 53, Pujols 93. It is basically era and defense that is killing him. He ends up behind many other first basemen, even ones like Olerud and Mcgriff who are not considered hall worthy.

I thought it was pretty funny. Those who built the site and/or put time into adminning it should get to decide what is thread-worthy and serves their vision of the site. The rest of us can only holler back if we like it, ignore it if we don't.

I don't like calling people insane... I think this board is extremely overreactive. But occassionally the scorn is deserved. The J.P. Arencibia for DH thread was the last thing this stupid. Although this seems more like the guy hasn't thought through the consequences. He pitches 200+ innnings a year for 5 years finishing 5-10th in Cy Young. 100 innings in the sixth year but he is awful and then blows out his shoulder, major reconstruction needed, the bad kind of reconstruction where it doesn't quite ever get reconstructed, the kind that Duane Ward had, the kind that Halladay kindof just had. Misses 14 months But he is able to drag himself out to the mound throwing 78 mph in September of the last year... 20 innings away from getting the option... 130 million on the line

Some good points. From what I have heard he has a great splitter and great control. The wild card is how the control and command will play. He projects as a number 2. But in terms of upside I think people see a little more... if the command plays you a have guy going deep into games, walking 30 per 200 innings, keeping the ball in the park if he hits his spots. So I think that's what people are seeing as the upside, better then Jiminez and Santana because he is walking half as many. Hisashi Iwakuma and Korado have played very well. This guy is 25 and apparently a bit better. So take a look at those 2, make them 7 or 8 years younger and make them a bit better. That's the upside people are seeing.

Since 93 there seems to be an almost supernatural pattern of no hope. The better the team looks the quicker they get out of it. The teams in 97 (Clemens year) and 2013 looked pretty good preseason... and were crushed regular season.

It's like AA addresses the individual components but does not quite see the entire picture. On base percentage?? If you asked AA he'd say something like "... of course I value on base percentage... We've got Bautista, EE, Reyes, last year we got Lind to turn it around. We value on base percentage. But we like to be well rounded. We'll a take player with speed or with power or with defense even if the on base percentage is below average." Which is reasonable. If they look at the equation right. If below average isn't too far below. But they get these guys like Bonifaccio, Arencibia who are so bad they significantly effect the offense... they take forever to address it.

I guess there is a generation gap. Many of the posters here never saw Alomar play for the Blue Jays, or were too young to remember it. Also the way it ended, Gillick defecting ("retiring and quickly unretiring") and basically taking Alomar with him, Alomar sitting out the day after the 95 trading deadline because he was to depressed, Alomar coming back as an Oriole and spitting on the ump in 96... for the fans who were following in 95/96 there was a "you are dead to me" vibe.

To close to call in my humble opinion. Career stats and best 5 seasons are very close. Biggio's quest for 3000 hits bumped his counting stats up a bit and bumped his rate stats down a bit. At the time they were playing both were in the discussion as best player in baseball. (Bonds was the best player of the 90s, but occassionally the "sportswriters" types would say "I'll take the middle infielder over the leftfielder". It just blows my mind that Biggio isn't an instant easy call. 3000 hits and did the little things that the sportswriters and announcers go on about. Grounded into 0 double plays in a 700 plate appearance season, played some catcher, Led the league in steals. Hustle. Grit. On base a lot. 4 gold gloves at second and 400 games at catcher. Isn't this the kind of stuff Buck Martinez would go on and on about??

In 84 Mullinicks had 8 bats agains lefties. Jays used 13 pitchers. Not 13 pitchers on the roster at once like they do now... 13 pitchers the entire year. In 13 Lind had 100 useless at bats against lefties (was awesome against righties) and the Jays used 31 pitchers.

Even if you just let the guys go 90 innings instead of 65 it would make a difference. Let the top relievers go 90... have a young starter mop everything up (let him go 150). 5 or 6 man bullpen, and you have room for a deeper bench and platooning. 30 years ago Eichorn pitched 160 innings and I believe Rance Mullinicks had a season where he had like 10 at bats of less against lefties.

I was trying to go a while without mentioning that two bit sleazy accountant who lucked out in the 80s by sneaking between Gillick and Peter Hardy on the org chart.

Biggio not hallworthy because he only got 200 hits once!!!! Biggio was top ten in times on base 9 times, top three 5 times. In 1997 he had "only" 191 hits. But 84 walks, 34 hit by pitch, and was on base over 300 times leading the league in that. In 1997 he grounded into 0 double plays. So that is actually 15 or 20 extra times on base combared to the average player (over 700 plate appearances) who wouldn't of beat out the double plays. His career WAR is very similiar to Alomar's. His peak is arguably better (~10 WAR in 97, average of 6 or 7 from 95-99).

But they prefer to use the roster spot on an 8th reliever. Never seem to have interest in a Johny Gomes, or giving Mauro Gomez or someone a shot at that. Out of the box idea... They should get another full time outfielder and start the season platoon Melky and Lind. Melky probably gets 500 at bats anyway. If Bautista/Rasmus/EE/Melky are all healthy such that playing time for Melky is a problem, then things are going good anyway. Otherwise Melky gets playing time anyway (or is injured anyway).

I'm a canadian living in the states. Over the years I've had dual savings in American and Canadian funds. I had "expert" advice on when to time transfers. It ended up costing me untold amounts of money. The people that gave me this advice continuee to give people "advice" and make tonnes off fees. This experience (in part) has led to a lot of my thoughts on suits, experts and other trouble makers. IE Beeston and that type. To me Gibbons, and AA are working class... guys that get way more grief then they deserve. But apparently this view is strange. Not that I totally hate financial advisors. The good guys admit they can't predict s***, ask about your risk assessment and set you up from there. Basically combine index funds and lottery tickets according to your risk level... no predictions.

I made a real enemy with this argument.... but "experts" can't exactly predict this stuff. Why would anybody by dollars at 94 cents if it is guarenteed to go down to 90?? That's a simplistic argument which would lead to a book (and has led to many) as you go through all the counter arguments. At the end of the day any prediction effects the system itself in unpredictable ways. They can be self-fulfilling or self-limiting. If they know something the big boys ussually keep it quiet, so anything you and me hear isn't from the big boys, but more from glorified errand boys/talking heads. A lot of the "expert predictions" are made by people with a vested interest to effect the system (Rogers stock will double by the end of the year, buy Rogers stock). That being said I am sure knuckleheads at Rogers think they can predict the dollar, and if some idiot has told some Rogers suits that the dollar is headed for 90 (and it very well might be there are only 2 directions it can head) then I am sure Rogers is putting that into their assumptions. So your point is valid.