Olerud363.354

If you put in Keys instead of Smith that would be watchable. give a 2% chance of hope for the future, instead of 1 out a billion

Just checked out his stats. Awful. Only 33. If people aren't into Boston admiration (those of us who wish for better days, know you must admire those better, before you yourself will take the step, thus the true fans, admire Boston, because we know it is the only out of this). But I digresss.... if you want another topic of conversation. What the hell is going on with Vlad, Betts, Raleigh and a few others? Like how are these people so bad? Is it some data voodoo. The AI crunched and crunched and crunched and found pitches these guys can't hit ? Maybe this has always happened, the unexplainable collapse in what should be prime. I don't know. It just seems weird.

Favourites now in a lot of peoples minds for their 5th World Series title of the century. Obviously top 3 franchise with LA, and NY. Ranking now is LA, Boston, NY in my mind. People on the board won't admit it, but they know it deep down. Wonder how Grant is doing? Boston is just a different place. Superior to all of us. Home of MIT, Havard, best marathon in the world, best sport teams in the World, liberal progressive city if you are into that scene. Kindest people I've ever met.

You basically had Bichette/Chapman, Bichette/IKF, then Bichette/Clement Would the team have been better if you switched them in any case? Would the team have been better if you put Bichette at third and a defensive whiz (something like this years Andres Giminez) at short? In the Bichette/Chapman case they were like 7 WAR, and you probably reduce that a WAR or two by replacing Chapman with 2026 Giminez. The point I'm getting at is that there are some cases where Bichette as a 4 WAR offensive short stop is better then Giminez as a 2.5 WAR defensive whiz in terms of team WAR (it depends on the options for third). So is Parker at Bichette level? Whether he plays short depends on the talents on the team at the time. Or is he at Pinango level, where it's just not an option because he'd throw balls into the stands, let routine grounders go into left field and piss the pitching staff and everyone else off.

Don't forget Giminez. He is also way below his career averages. I think the bad hitters sometimes get a pass for being extra bad. Giminez has a career .310 on base, and is .280 or so this year. Vlad, Kirk, Barger, Giminez, Varsho are a 26-29 years old and collectively 27. They should be in their absolute prime as players and instead they are basically replacement collectively.

No. We are picking 7th and that gets dropped to 17th. Mark my words. Batement Sucks Spaghetti injured Yesivage Injured Varland done (blew last 2 games to end our season) Vlad career over and owed 500 million. Nothing good will happen for a generation. Oct 30th 2025 to February 18th 2054. Hope will come back maybe if the world doesn't end on that day 28 and some years from now. But many of us will be gone. Some still here I hope to enjoy 2054.

The criticism I had with your analysis started because it didn't match my intuition. Didn't see Batemen as a starter but it felt like there should be a few Nathan Lukes type players that would be comparable to him. This team is on pace to score 625 runs or something. There are very few bright spots right now at all. If it was up to me I'd put you and Laika in the front office right away and have you guys monitor who-ever they have doing this crap right now for a while. Then give us all a report as to whether this year is just the worst luck ever, or if there is some real issues with the Blue Jays high (a.k.a. low) performance analysists.

The run differential last year was about the same as 2022 and 2023. There have been many years where offense and pitching were both above average. This year on pace to score the fewest runs outside of the first four years. 1977 to 1980. That was before my time. Almost none of us have experienced an offense like this. I haven't. I don't know what this is.

How did we get here? This is insane and this isn't 2024. 2024 was a league average offense. I think... I mean maybe I am going crazy but OPS+ was 98. OPS was exactly at league average. This year it is 85. Last in everything. This offense is just dangerous to the bullpen. The good relievers over-worked because every game is close, no blow-outs. Worst I've ever seen perhaps tied with 97. How is this season even possible? Like just getting kicked in the nuts again and again.

Ernie Clement too. I think at 24 it would have been hard to put either in a group of 'guys who hit .230 with 1 homer but will improve'. I think at 27 when they started hitting like .350 in Buffalo, you could group them using pulled fly balls and stuff, but you could also group them using the .350 in Buffalo. Batemen kind of has the .350 in Buffalo already (well maybe .320 or whatever), and if you squint the batted ball data is trending right.. maybe? Or maybe he sucks. No idea.

Yes it is how it works. Most guys have a line drive rate of about 20%. Random variation is explaining all of the differences between them because the mean is the same. Picking and choosing anecdotal players is exactly what you want to do and run statistical tests on them. Is Freddie Freeman's line drive rate really 26% ? Or is it just a cosmic run of luck and it's actually 20% like everyone else? It's a bit of a mess because it might be bimodel. Freeman, with Arraez, Howritz, Kwan and a few others (Jack Wilson?) is in the low bat speed group. So you might have this large group, following the high bat speed strategy, and their line drive rate is 20% and the variation random, then you have this smaller low bat speed, 25% line drive rate group. So line drive rate, is more predictable then we think but there is a bimodal distribution depending on bat-speed strategy they are using. OK. Getting obtuse again, but just saying if some complicated bimodal distribution this gets hard. And you have to start doing data exploration and picking and choosing, try to think through whether have 2 classes.

That could be random variation though. And actually his D per 162 was just as good in 2020 and 2024 as today. If a guy is a good defensive player they should score roughly the same at short or 3rd. Roughly. I think there are more hard plays at ss, so if you are a positive defender more opportunities to score points. If you are a negative defender more opportunities to screw up. But roughly the same. It's an old argument and the smart guys convinced me, so don't blame me, blame them. Maybe they changed their mind since 2014.

Like is Jo Jo ... 1. Not great defensively but could play short if needed (Bichette) 2. Arm sucks would have to play second. 3. Statue could only play third. 4. Arm sucks and statue future DH.

Always hate this vague stuff. Bo Bichette wasn't an elite defensive short stop but held his own, neutral on defense. He is at 3rd now but not a huge difference in bWAR defense. Maybe his best fWAR defense season, but just by a bit. Not really making a difference where he plays. Like does he have a problem like he can't make throws from short stop and would sale 30 balls a year in the stands? Or he is just not an elite defensive player along the lines of Bo Bichette? And you could put him at short on the right team, or 3rd, depending....

Chandler Simpson is 22% ld, 58% gb, 20% fb. .297 .330 .350 or so career hitter. Imagine a player that is 25%, 50%, 25%, not as fast but still fast. More patient. A bit more pop. Seems like it would work. Chandler is a unique sample size of one. Chandler exists so this other guy could exist. May not be the most sound logic.

Just from glancing at the data, I agree. So as far as I can see LD percentage is correlated year to year. Like Arraez is always near 25%. Also. Very small sample size (Arraez and Kwan) good line drive hitters seem to have even fly ball ground ball ratios. Like 37 ground ball, 26 line drive, 37 fly ball. The question is with regards to Batemen is a 50% ground ball, 25% line drive, 25% fly ball (and low popup rate in the fly ball) a thing? Not saying Batemen is that thing, just is it a thing? Like is there someone else that is that thing. Like Batemen maybe is just a random fluke, and will go to 55% gb 18% line drive long term. Just is 50% 25% 25% a profile some people have and what kind of numbers would that result in with speed and low k-rate?

Still haven't really gained anything on the second last in this race. Cleveland, Baltimore, Minnesota, Texas, Seattle, Detroit. So still 7th. We've got a dual mandate here of gaining games in this race, but also have to pass some teams. I mean, all these teams are like within 2 games of each other so they are going to start flipping like crazy I think. However at BJMB need to up the scoreboard watching a bit. I think we need a near term goal of moving from 7th in this crazy race to 6th while maintaining 3 or less games back overall. Could split the scoreboard watching? Some people keep an eye on Cleveland, Texas and Baltimore, the leaders in this crazy race, and others on Minnesota, Seattle and Detroit. Also may sound crazy but I think the Jays should have a big clubhouse champagne and Bud Light party when they pass Detroit of Seattle or who-ever it is, IF they are still within 3. Like when you clinch your wild card on Sept 20th they often do that knowing there are still potentially several parties ahead. So this should be the same. Have 3 or 4 big goals and each gets a party. So moving to 6th in the wild card race would have a celebration.

I went to Wrigley many years ago, and have gone to White Sox games too. Just glancing at attendance through the years, the Cubs have gotten close to 3 million through thick and thin, which wouldn't happen in Toronto. Like we go from 3 million instantly in winning cycles, then instantly back to 1.8 million in losing. But Wrigley is also more of a tourist destination too.

I'm going to get slammed on this but, while not exactly his fault, we were 0-4 in games he started in the ALCS and World Series. His 7th inning in game 2, or 3rd inning in game 7 is not quite the same as Hoffman's game 7, but still... he had every opportunity to do what Yakamoto did but he gave up big hits instead. People talk about 'you need an ace to win the series'. And to me, what that means, on the other side will be someone like Yakamoto, and you need someone to equal that. I know he is a top 25 pitcher. I think we had this discussion. But I think the 'need an ace to win the Series crowd' pictures what Randy Johnson, or Jack Morris, or Yakamoto did, and Gausman, given that opportunity twice went 7 innings 3 runs instead.

Just one guy, but it seems to be correlated for Luis Arraez. I checked a few other guys, Steven Kwan, Daulton Varsho, Jayson Heyward. A couple guys I expected to have high and low line drive rates, and it seems correlated for those guys. Like year to year they are pretty consistent. I mean it varies, but 2 years of Varsho's line drive rate would do an OK job at predicting year 3, same with Arraez. Now it could be true that it takes a while to stabilize so bounces around so half a season of 25% is meaningless. All I am saying is that if the 25% 50% 25% break down was repeatable it might work. You could argue that 25% 50% 25% doesn't happen, and it has to be more like 25% 40% 35% because line drive and fly ball rate are correlated.

This year I think he has a 52% ground ball rate, 26% line drive rate and 22 fly ball rate, with a 8% popup rate, which my understanding means 2% pop-ups per batted ball. Then he has a fairly low k rate and speed. I think all that partially explains the high batting average (and some luck). He also apparently had a hamate injury in 2025 which could explain the disgusting numbers that year. I don't really know if the 26% line drive rate is meaningful if he doesn't hit the ball super-hard, or is even sustainable. Like maybe major league outfields would just play way shallow in on him and catch his soft line drives.

The comparables thing with minor league players is really tough to do properly. And is one thing that should be questioned.

One reason Batemen is hitting for a high average this year is a 25% or so line drive rate, and < 10 % iff, on a 20% fb rate, so like a 2% iff off of all batted balls. The funny thing is if you try to make a group of 100 centering line drive rate with the other things, you can't because there is like only a 3 or 4 others, with similar walk rate and power with that high a line drive rate. His pop-up rate is also low, his k-rate fairly low, so all that low fly ball rate and iff on top of it, high line drive rate, explains the average this year (some luck too, but not all luck). Whether or not the LD rate is sustainable, probably not, I don't know. But back to Ernie Clement. Ernie sucked, Ernie had no power, Ernie I guess learned to pull fly balls. So Batemen sucked at 23. Kind of really similar to Ernie at 23 in double a. Batemen (low sample size) has changed the batted ball data a bit (high line drive rate) in a way if sustainable would work. So different story I guess but to me, the Ernie Clement comparison is fair, at least to the matter of guy who sucked, changed approach, got better. Not saying Batemen's LD rate is sustainable. I actually don't know. Just that the LD rate should be in there to when trying to figure all this out.

you ended up with a group that went from 50% to 67% ground ball rate. Why not 45% to 55% ? I would go for a group of 100 players, with Bateman being the center of every stat you think is important, and increase the range (in normalized standard deviations) until you get about 100. I do get the point about Clement, but his ground ball rate started high in the minors, and ended low. 1.7 his first year, to 0.59 when he was good in Buffalo. Not sure if his 2019 stats can be trusted. He went something like 1.3, 0.24, 1.0, and then 0.59 in terms of ground ball rate.

What you are saying makes no logical sense. So you are saying that a low walk rate in the upper minors would be better? The issue with these players isn't the walk rate, it's the lack of power. So what you are really interested in is how often these low power players make it. Include the guys with low walk rates too. If the higher walkrate is somehow bad (like low walk rate low power guys make it more often than high walk rate lower power guys) that would be fascinating and counter-intuitive. Now you've created a group of 9 seasons where Batemen's is clearly the best and you are being a jerk about it too. Previously you had 90 players of which Yandy Diaz was the best clearly, and Batemen was probably top 10. 9 is too small a sample size. 90 was a good number but the group should be more centered. It should include Batemen, 45 player better (of which Diaz should still be one), and 45 players worse.