2018 MLB Thread

[The Buscher]

Curtis Granderson to the Blue Jays.  1 year, $5 million.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Eh, I mean it's one year and it's only $5M but it's not exactly the Cain/Yelich type rumours we had been hearing. Maybe they figure they have plenty of outfield prospect depth. 

Grandy at least seems like a fantastic dude so there's that. 

[Meacon Keaton]

Josh Harrison has apparently requested to be traded since the Pirates seem to be in rebuild mode. Maybe we can swindle the Bucs for him, though with three years of team control left, it’ll likely have to be for more than Cash is willing to give up.

[The Buscher]

On 1/16/2018 at 19:22, Meacon said:

Josh Harrison has apparently requested to be traded since the Pirates seem to be in rebuild mode. Maybe we can swindle the Bucs for him, though with three years of team control left, it’ll likely have to be for more than Cash is willing to give up.

Apparently the Pirates are incredibly high on Clint Frazier and they valued him ahead of everyone they got from the Astros for Cole.  It really wouldn't surprise me if the Yankees could get Harrison for Frazier straight up or maybe Frazier and a low-level prospect.

Pirates are definitely looking for outfielders in any event as they're said to be seeking Brandon Nimmo from the Mets in a potential Harrison deal.  I like Nimmo enough, and I can understand why a good amount of Met fans are leery about moving him.  He's shown he can get on base consistently at the big league level, he's probably going to platoon in CF with Lagares while Conforto is out the first month of the season, and with Ces always being an injury concern Nimmo is a nice depth guy to have.

But in an ideal world, Nimmo won't have a starting spot available to him with Ces, Conforto, and Bruce all signed for the next three seasons.  So that's why I'm not understanding why you wouldn't trade him for a guy who will be an everyday player for you for that same span of time.  I think nearly all fans overrate their own prospects and young players, but with Met fans it feels like they're convinced every guy they trade away is going to turn into a star.  And there's just not the evidence to support it.

[Meacon Keaton]

I really like Clint Frazier, but there's just no room for him any time soon. Even if we don't get Harper next year, and I'm starting to think we likely won't, there's still pretty much no place to play him. If we could do Frazier and a meh prospect for Harrison, I'd be ok with it, because then we can have Torreyes and Torres platoon at third, instead of having one at second and one at third. 

I'd rather us sign Todd Frazier or Mike Moustakas (gotta give up that first round pick though) for a year to play at third, though. Assuming we don't get Machado any time in the next couple months, that is.  

[The Buscher]

At the Jay Bruce press conference yesterday, Jeff Wilpon was there to take a photo op with Bruce and Sandy Alderson before sitting in the front row and effectively removing himself from the proceedings.  The only questions the Mets allowed to be asked during the presser were from SNY (a TV station they own), WOR (the radio home of the Mets), an MLB.com reporter, and a tiny Queens newspaper.  None of the big NY papers or media outlets were permitted to ask anything.

But then, perhaps most egregiously, once the presser ended and reporters were told to go the left so everyone could ask Sandy questions in an informal setting off-stage...



Jeff Wilpon immediately heads right and leaves the room, avoiding any chance of him having to answer any questions from reporters about the financial state of the team.

I hate these owners so much.  If they took a tenth of the effort they put into dodging the media and applied it towards building the team, they'd be perennial contenders.

[gunnar hendershow]

19 hours ago, Meacon said:

I really like Clint Frazier, but there's just no room for him any time soon. Even if we don't get Harper next year, and I'm starting to think we likely won't, there's still pretty much no place to play him. If we could do Frazier and a meh prospect for Harrison, I'd be ok with it, because then we can have Torreyes and Torres platoon at third, instead of having one at second and one at third. 

I'd rather us sign Todd Frazier or Mike Moustakas (gotta give up that first round pick though) for a year to play at third, though. Assuming we don't get Machado any time in the next couple months, that is.  

Haha, like Angelos would ever approve a likely great offer from the Yankees for a player who is going there for free next year anyway.

Every Yankee fan I know says the same thing, the Yanks will offer a ton for Machado because it's a trade in the division. They also have the perfect blend of top prospects for the Orioles to get. Top prospects that they increasingly are running out of space for at the big league level. This also gives the Yankees more leverage for signing him, the last thing you want is for him to get traded somewhere else and like it enough that he inks long-term with them.

But worry not, Orioles will do nothing and flip him for relative garbage to someone like the Cardinals at the trade deadline.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Blue Jays acquire Randall Grichuk for Connor Greene and Dominic Leone. 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/01/blue-jays-acquire-randal-grichuk.html

[The Buscher]

Oh look, another baseball writer who takes great offense at RBIs being deemed a useless stat by the sabermetric community.  He can't accept that the game is passing him by because he can't be bothered to learn that there are other stats that are far better metrics available for evaluating a player's individual performance as a hitter.

[Meacon Keaton]

I can't understand Twitter. It looks like Pedro is responding to the first twitt. What did Pedro Gomez say originally that caused him to be a lame ass who falls back on the 'momma's basement' joke?

[The Buscher]

That was earlier in the conversation.  Nobody's saying driving in runners isn't important.  It's the objective of the game.  The RBIs stat though doesn't actually tell you how good the hitter is at doing it, just that he's fortunate enough to have hitters in front of him that can get on base.

[Meacon Keaton]

Espn “analysts” are jokes. They're just talking heads with the same generic comments about everything. There's no real in-depth analysis done on there anymore.

[Your Mom]

I'm not going to pretend to understand all of the sabermetrics and all that but it's obvious that there is way more to a hitter than RBI 

[SeanDMan]

To be fair, rbi does have a place in analyzing players. Having an atbat with runners on is different than one with the bases empty; you will see different pitches and different alignments and you will need to adjust to that. Some people are really good at doing the same thing all the time, and some people have the skill to adapt to changing circumstances around them, not to mention the clutch ability to deal with the pressure of those situations in late innings or late in the season. Its an intangible, one that is easy to miss just doing statistical analysis.

RBI is a very shallow stat but it's not entirely worthless.

[Meacon Keaton]

Exactly. It has it's place, but it's when someone says, "So-and-so deserves $30 million a year because they've had three straight 110 RBI seasons!" is when I have an issue with it. 

[SeanDMan]

I feel like when you're talking about a hitter you should be talking avg, obp, and risp. Risp is a thing right?

[Meacon Keaton]

It is. It's a batter's average with runner's in scoring position.

I'm a big fan of the OPS. On-base plus slugging. It gives you a good idea of not only how often someone gets on base, but if it's just slapping singles or if they're a doubles-machine or a home run hitter. 

[SeanDMan]

I feel like baseball is missing a stat. A single is much more valuable for some guys than others. You should have a stat that combines on base percentage plus stealing percentage to determine how valuable you are at both getting on base and moving yourself into scoring position.

[Meacon Keaton]

It's just a separate stat. A stolen base stat.  

[gunnar hendershow]

Yeah there's a lot of uninformed people who just fall back on advanced stats only without really understanding the context of the stats. It's common in every sport.

But an RBI in baseball is definitely one of the weaker "major" stats. It can be misleading to fall back on because they're circumstantial. A hitter might have a 5-RBI game with 2 singles, that doesn't really reflect that they're a great hitter just that the defense couldn't put the shift on and he slapped a couple bloops into the OF with 2 or 3 men on. I agree a stat that includes SB as well bases advanced (basically if the runner stretches to 3rd on weak single, this is of greater value to the team than them just making it to 2nd) along with OBP and slugging shows the true strength of the player on offense. Another very important stat is AVG with and without the shift. Some sluggers really hit the ball to one spot on the field, but with runners on the defense can't exploit that as much without conceding stolen bases and runners tagging up. You ideally want your top RBI hitter to have pretty balanced stats regardless of the situation, so that they have the highest likelihood to get themselves on when nobody else is.

We've made a ton of progress on offensive stats in the last few decades but fans are still awful when it comes to defensive stats. A CF diving for a ball is as much a bad play as it as a good one most of the time. It means they got a late jump, were out of position, or even possibly misjudged it. But these are the highlight plays fans always cite. Obviously a guy making a leaping catch at the wall or chasing a ball into foul territory to make the catch are great defensive plays, but a lot of times when it's hit in the field of play (depending on stadium and the speed of the ball) the player should easily get under it 100% of the time.