Orgfiller

Why did you change your pic you bastard, now I can't tell if it's you or SpeedyGose posting.

Uh, okay. Well, the following relievers had a higher WPA than Kenley Jansen, in that order: -Zach Britton -Andrew Miller -Sam Dyson -Mark Melancon -Jeremy Jeffress -Roberto Osuna -Aroldis Chapman -Will Harris -Seung Hwan Oh -AJ Ramos -Dan Otero -Cody Allen -Mychal Givens -Christopher Devenski -Tyler Thornburg -Mauricio Cabrera -Nate Jones -Joe Blanton -Jeurys Familia -Robbie Ross Jr. -Addison Reed Notice also the lack of Dellin Betances and Edwin Diaz in that list. I think that should speak a bit about the reliability of WPA as a better tool of measuring reliever success during a season.

The problem is the argument of how valuable context can be. WAR is great in that it eliminates context from the equation, just tells you how valuable the pitcher was, whether it was pitching 5-8 innings at a time, mopping up the mess from other starters or closing out critical games/pitching in almost exclusively high leverage. WPA and other similar context-based stats will tell you how much value the pitcher contributed when put into different indexes of leverage. This is where closers and similarly elite relievers will get a huge boost, because they usually pitch in the more valuable, game-changing high leverage situations. Now, I don't know if any one of them is better than the other, a combination of both will probably be the optimal use here. However, something to consider is that a top tier reliever's WPA will basically be artificially boosted because they are generally inserted into the most important situations in a game. They got through that inning or that batter, which is great, but who's to say that a Joe Biagini couldn't have done that job more times than not rather than pitching the lower leverage mop up/trying to keep the lead/deficit to a max/min? This is how a guy like Zach Britton can have a higher WPA than every single American League pitcher, and every Nationa League pitcher, including Clayton Kershaw and other elite starters. Shouldn't that point to a flaw in context based stats? I think that's where we have to consider how much to take from each.

Uh, he's probably not even bottom 5 on the team, let alone in franchise f***ing history.

Throwing a max of 60 pitches or around 3 innings spread out over three days (and mind you most relievers don't pitch 3 in a row) versus doing it all at once, adding anywhere from 20-40 more pitches in a single start. Seems pretty self-explanatory.

How exactly does one utilize Matt Holliday improperly? He has near identical splits against both LHP and RHP. Just don't ever let him play the outfield and limit his time on the field altogether and he can be a great piece as long as he remains relatively healthy, which has been a problem for him for a couple of years now.

That sound is so perfect, I feel all warm and happy inside when I play the video. Opposite field too, good stuff.

Cecil at ~6.67 MM per season is a good deal IMO. 3 years to a reliever is scary but it's not exactly crippling with the direction reliever contracts are heading.

Again, I disagree. It's subjective to compare what would constitute a record deal versus what he actually gets, but he just had another elite season by every measure. His walks were a career low, he was still striking out hitters at an absurd rate with just as impressive swinging strikes, and his average fastball velocity was also the highest it's ever been, how ever ridiculous that may sound. It's also not like he's been bad in the postseason. He's still Aroldis Chapman, but with a BABIP at .375 he might not seem like he's still Aroldis Chapman. Teams will absolutely be paying through the roof to acquire his services, especially with bullpens being more and more heavily relied upon in the playoffs.

I strongly believe the opposite. Chapman will get paid handsomely.

His range seemed a lot better to me this season than in previous years. I don't think he's some huge liability at first like it may have seemed once upon a time. He was quite athletic and mobile at the bag this year, definitely wouldn't mind him starting over half the games at the position if not full time.

Nice spelling of Joaquin Benoit you got going there.

He had that one game where he hit the game-tying homer in the ninth and then hit the walk off homer a few innings later, seconds separating his shot and Kyle Lowry's insane halfcourt buzzer beater to force the Raptors game into overtime. One of the craziest sequences that I've experienced in two sports simultaneously.

Of all the mods to get mad about "flexing their muscles", it's really rich for you to attack KingKat of all people.

I was there! Fantastic game that was.

All the times he got mad at the Orioles and then proceeded to hit homers were brilliant. Nearly no one got to O'Day but when Bautista got mad, no one was stoping him.

I mean, you never want your team to get eliminated. That's where the sad part comes. But in the rest, I agree with you. They were the better team this series, and the better team during the regular season. I'm happy for them, I was f***ing fuming last year against KC and their s***** ass bloops and BABIP luck. Like I said, big props to them, no credit taken away whatsoever from their win, even more amplified in that they were without three of their top players.

Obviously, we're all heartbroken that our Blue Jays couldn't make it through to the WS, struggling mightily in the hitting department. But, no real fan of this sport can come away from this without giving an immense amount of credit to the opposing team. The Indians' pitching was absurd, their defense rock solid, their hitting timely and powerful when it was most necessary. Huge credit to the studs that are Francisco Lindor, Jason Kipnis, Carlos Santana, Corey Kluber, Cody Allen, and of course no one can forget about Andrew f***ing Miller. What a series this last guy had, as dominant of a performance as any of us have ever witnessed in one postseason series. Of course these guys were just the headliners, but they got key contributions from the entire team, from Perez's fantastic game calling and framing, to the pitching staff who executed almost every pitch to perfection, completely baffling Blue Jays hitters. This team hasn't hoisted the big trophy since 1948, here's to them having a fantastic WS clash against any of the two NL teams remaining. The team is simply full of likeable players, not excluding Terry Francona. Congrats and good luck in the next round. Good season boys.

Nope. Pillar has very little trade value (at least not as much as we think he should) because teams just haven't shown to pay market value for defense, maybe the Jason Heyward contract being a very single exception.

Lmao, we're going to need some quotes here.

Everyone knows that Drake is a bandwagon groupie. Nothing to see here.

I still think it can get much, much worse than Gibby. Someone like Francona would be amazing though.

KingKat can we get a 12 hour ban for jaysfan2014? I usually just completely ignore his posts as they're generally just harmless homerism, but it's getting way too far tonight.

This will just make the 4 consecutive win comeback that much sweeter.

Lol nope