KingKat

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/23/article-0-0A853D87000005DC-305_468x286.jpg

Still don't get it...

*Bruce

Would love to pry Bruce Maxwell from the A's. Lefty, elite framer and major offensive breakout after a change in approach.

Anyone remember when Curtis Granderson pushed Brett Gardner to LF?

ftfy

Ian Desmond went from full time SS to full time CF.

It took several scandals and a congressional hearing for MLB to give a s*** about PEDs so I don't think it's a stretch to think that it's less of a concern in the KBO (or any foreign league really). That being said, I'm not convinced that you really need to go to a foreign league to get away with PED use. Sometimes the testing catches up to the users briefly like we saw with dehydrochlormethyltestosterone.

Colabello is arb eligible. I figure he gets cut.

He already looked like a body builder when he was a s*** player in North America though. I'm not saying he's clean but the he got jacked and started killing the KBO narrative doesn't work. It's not only is it lazy but it doesn't even line up with what we know about the player.

It's not really fair to assume that anyone who is jacked is on steroids (nor for that matter is it fair to assume that anyone who isn't is clean).

Hurl summed up Greene nicely. That's really the best part of this thread.

Yeah I mean when he's 100% healthy (which is hardly ever these days), I think he can be serviceable but the problem is that you just can't bank on that and expect to be be an effective outfielder for anything more than short spurts.

I'm not comfortable assuming that Pompey projects better than an established major league outfielder and even if he does, you still need the depth.

Thanks for the excellent summary King. The only thing that I would add is that though Atkins said he was open to trading a starting pitcher for MLB ready talent and depth, he also said it was unlikely (and I think that's important).

Anyone read the article where Keith Law goes off on Tim Tebow?

It really doesn't make sense. Like I said before, I could only see it applying to very specific cases and even then I would be very skeptical that someone who can't recover quickly enough from a short outing to be a reliever wouldn't also have recovery issues as a starter with a greater workload.

Or you know... he's not King.

Yeah less stress on the arm just seems intuitively better but I could see that in some specific cases the layoff between outings is more beneficial than the reduction in total work load.

I've said it before but as near as I can tell Todd is just Todd.

He's been a negative fielder pretty much his whole career so I don't know about his solid defense (though it's probably a net positive when you factor framing). He'd be a backup anyways so there's only so much you can expect but I'd feel a lot better about him if you can pencil in the.300 or so wOBA he projects to have instead of the .250 he had last year. If he's going to be that bad than you might as well sign Jeff Mathis for cheaper. Mathis has zero offensive upside but he is a good fielder.

Conger is an interesting case. He's used to a part time role and so he's a realistic target and he's done well in that kind of role. His value really cratered in 2016 though. His bat just completely vanished but it was only a 49 game sample (137 PA). If that's just a blip and not related to a significant skill change, he makes a good bounce back candidate.

Yeah and more importantly, the value gain from taking that risk just isn't there. I used to be all over that. I thought the Reds were dumb for not starting Chapman. I thought the Jays were really dumb when they moved two of their top starting prospects to the MLB bullpen (Osuna and Castro). Even last off-season, I wanted Storen to take over the closer's job and Osuna to be stretched but I'm pretty much done with that line of thinking. It's all based on the premise that relievers have less value than starters and of course strictly speaking that's true by your standard value metrics but that might be a bit misleading. One of the fundamental characteristics of WAR is that it is context neutral and by being context neutral, it has revolutionized the way baseball players are considered. For ages, context dependent stats like runs, RBIs and pitcher wins were overvalued. WAR has brought balance by acknowledging that the opportunities to pad those context dependent stats are not evenly distributed. That's all fine and sensible but when it comes to relievers, there's an argument to be made that you SHOULDN'T look at context neutral stats because the context in which a reliever operates is deliberately manipulated. Top relievers may not throw as many innings as starters but their inning are distributed in a way that maximizes their impact because they nearly always pitch in high leverage situations. That's how Roberto Osuana had a higher wpa (win probability added) than every Toronto starting pitcher not named Sanchez. By that measure, Osuna is hardly being wasted in the bullpen. In fact, you could argue the opposite that he's having more impact than he would if he were say a number 3 starter or something like that. People might not agree on the degree of risk involved in turning Osuna into a starter. We'll never know for sure unless it's actually tried but I think nearly everyone would acknowledge that there's at least SOME risk to it if for no other reason than his injury history. By turning Osuna into a high leverage reliever, the Jays have insulated themselves from that risk without truly limiting his impact on the game. The more I think about it, the more I believe that the way the Jays are using him now is optimal.

You can't compare moving someone in the batting lineup to converting a reliever to starting pitcher. Trout is still Trout no matter where you hit him. Osuna doesn't pitch the same as a starter. He would also be exposed to a different injury risk.

Yeah even though Goins is out of options (I think), I would still resign Barney and only hold on to Goins until the end of spring training in case of injury. If there's no room for Ryan on the 25, flip him to whichever team DID have an injury. You could do worse in a pinch.