So a local blog ranked catchers by their defensive performance in the first half.
- Carlos Ruiz
- Miguel Montero
- Ryan Hanigan
- Yadier Molina
- Kurt Suzuki.
~
11. Nick Hundley
16. Buster Posey
- Jeff Mathis
~
- JP Arencibia
Read about their methodology here:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
So a local blog ranked catchers by their defensive performance in the first half.
- Carlos Ruiz
- Miguel Montero
- Ryan Hanigan
- Yadier Molina
- Kurt Suzuki.
~
11. Nick Hundley
16. Buster Posey
- Jeff Mathis
~
- JP Arencibia
Read about their methodology here:
http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2012/07/12/fogging-the-measure-catcher-defense-ratings-july-2012-edition/#more-47980[/quote]
Too bad Nick Hundley ain’t even in the majors anymore.
Did anybody catch how the Padres beat the Dodgers with a stolen base at home. Pretty damn funny.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23042581&c_id=sd&partnerId=aw-6624578516158927428-1042
[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:
Did anybody catch how the Padres beat the Dodgers with a stolen base at home. Pretty damn funny.
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23042581&c_id=sd&partnerId=aw-6624578516158927428-1042[/quote]
That pissed me off more than anything when the umpire called him out initially. Brutal.
Ballsy play though.
Bucs are 1-3 since the break, with McCutchen still playing out of his fucking mind. Dude is batting .480 in his last 100 at-bats. That is unreal.
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
Bucs are 1-3 since the break, with McCutchen still playing out of his fucking mind. Dude is batting .480 in his last 100 at-bats. That is unreal.[/quote]
Yeah, he’s the Real Deal. I thought it was a good sign that he was willing to stay in Pittsburgh for less money, too. It’s a sign that he isn’t all about the cash and that he also sees something in what they’re doing there that he wants to be a part of.
I really feel that baseball needs a salary cap of some sort for this reason. I don’t think the arbitration process does enough to allow teams to keep their young talent around long enough. Basically, it just gives lower-revenue teams another year or two to delay the inevitable loss of their best young talent via either free agency or through trades. I hate how some teams are continually forced to get rid of good young players through trades, where they pick up more talent that will also be traded away in a few years.
As good as the Rays have done recently, I don’t think their model is sustainable within the current system. They basically rely on their players being at a more advanced stage in their development at an earlier age or experience level than most. Take Matt Moore for instance. He would have benefited from starting the year in Triple A but the Rays knew that IF he could be real good in the majors they would have a much better chance of winning the East. But if he isn’t that good, which is what has happened so far, it hurts them. Basically, the Rays have been winning a lot of the coin flips with their young talent, but all it takes for them to regress big-time is a couple of wrong guesses.
I also like the idea of changing the draft so it’s just like football, in that picks can be traded for other picks or for players. As of now, picks can’t be traded at all. It further hampers the lower-revenue teams because once they get into position to win NOW, like the Bucs are in, that’s the one time they would be willing to trade on the future for current success. They could package also use picks to sweeten a deal for a proven midseason acquisition, rather than trade away talent they’ve already invested in and developed.
By the way, what do you think of the Bucs’ inability to sign Appel? Personally, I think it may be a small blessing in disguise. Granted, the Bucs are now without a legitimate first round talent to develop, but I don’t think Appel will be the pitcher a lot of scouts think he will be, and certainly not worth the money he was looking for. I saw him pitch in person down at Stanford this year and I saw him on TV a couple times in the Regionals and the Super Regionals. He looks like his windup needs some straightening out and his fastball looked a lot less than has been advertised. Topped out at 95 when I saw him in person, with average command, and topped out at 94 in the postseason, again with average command. I don’t see him increasing velocity AND command all that much. He has the frame and the pedigree, but I think scouts may be projecting a little liberally in their assessments of him.
I also think that now is the perfect time to implement some changes in this respect. With a lot of young talent on the rise, it will benefit the popularity level of MLB if all this young talent stays with the teams whose fans have been excitedly following the progress of their prospects.
How much higher would the excitement level be in places like Oakland or KC or Tampa or D.C. if their fans had that much more assurance that guys like Jarrod Parker or Mike Moustakas or Moore or Harper would be around for the long haul?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
By the way, what do you think of the Bucs’ inability to sign Appel? Personally, I think it may be a small blessing in disguise. Granted, the Bucs are now without a legitimate first round talent to develop, but I don’t think Appel will be the pitcher a lot of scouts think he will be, and certainly not worth the money he was looking for. I saw him pitch in person down at Stanford this year and I saw him on TV a couple times in the Regionals and the Super Regionals. He looks like his windup needs some straightening out and his fastball looked a lot less than has been advertised. Topped out at 95 when I saw him in person, with average command, and topped out at 94 in the postseason, again with average command. I don’t see him increasing velocity AND command all that much. He has the frame and the pedigree, but I think scouts may be projecting a little liberally in their assessments of him.[/quote]
I don’t look at it so much as their inability to sign him, more as his unwillingness to sign the max deal they could reasonably give him.
I have no idea what to think because I don’t follow NCAA or developmental leagues. I guess it sucks.
DB would you hand out a huge deal to Melky Cabrera assuming his numbers continue until the rest of the season?
I’m talking 5 year 65-75M
Bruce Bochy Lineup card:
Hector Sanchez C
Posey 1B
Brandon Belt - Bench
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hopefully Belt falls out of favour in SF and gets moved to the Toronto Blue Jays island of misfits. Current misfits: Escobar, Lawrie, Rasmus, Encarnacion, Bautista. Belt would fit in great, we need a good everyday LFer.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
DB would you hand out a huge deal to Melky Cabrera assuming his numbers continue until the rest of the season?
I’m talking 5 year 65-75M[/quote]
I’m not the GM of the Giants and I don’t control their purse strings. I haven’t devoted a single moment’s worth of time to thinking about Cabrera’s worth in dollar value. I also have no clue what other outfielders are free agents at year’s end and I don’t really know what the going rate for a top-notch outfielder is these days. I do know that it’s more than $13-15 million a year, so I wouldn’t even consider the parameters you laid out to be a huge deal.
I also suspect that this question is with disingenuous motivation. If I say yes, you lambast me but if I say no, you harangue me for hypocrisy since I’ve made clear my feelings about how good Cabrera is.
I’ll bite though. If I were the Giants I would try to sign him for four years with an option for a fifth. If he finishes the year strong I’d have no reason not to think he won’t be the same type of player the next year as well. In that case, a player of his caliber is deserving of around $14 million a year or so. So that comes out to a four year, $56 million contract, maybe more. I guess the 5 year/$75 million scenario you presented isn’t that far off from those numbers.
I think something in the neighborhood of $14-16 million a year for four years is reasonable for a player on his way to back-to-back 200 hit campaigns. He was expected to regress a little this year, but he’s been even better in a pitcher’s park. He also plays excellent defense, has one of the best arms in the game, has speed, and he plays. Every. Fucking. Day. That can’t be overstated. There’s real value in a guy who can play at a high level everyday, not 130-140 games a year, but 155-162 games a year. I don’t think he’ll regress a whole lot, either.
What I cannot stand about sabermetrics is the assumption that players will eventually revert to the mean, whether it’s their own career mean or the league’s mean. There’s a lot of players who are simply much better than average players, and I don’t expect them to revert very far when they have a great year, no matter how much of a statistical anomaly it may be. Will Melky Cabrera hit .350+ for the rest of his career, or even the next four years? Probably not. But will he hit .283, his career average? No. He’s not a .283 hitter anymore.
Whatever he did between 2010 and 2011 fucking worked. He’s a .300+ hitter, plain and simple. I expect him to be a close approximation of what he’s been the last two years for the next four to five years. If the Giants can lock up a player like him for $15 million over 4, hell, even 5 or 6 years, I think that’s a really good deal.
The fact is that he isn’t one of the top 4 or 5 outfielders in the game, but at $15 million a year he won’t be getting paid like one either. What does Braun make? Something like $20 million a year? How much will Hamilton make? At least that much. What does Kemp make? I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s more than $15 million. If Mike Trout were a free agent this year, he’d get at LEAST $20 million a year, probably closer to $30 million.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
DB would you hand out a huge deal to Melky Cabrera assuming his numbers continue until the rest of the season?
I’m talking 5 year 65-75M[/quote]
By the way, did you get my PM the other day?
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Bruce Bochy Lineup card:
Hector Sanchez C
Posey 1B
Brandon Belt - Bench
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Hopefully Belt falls out of favour in SF and gets moved to the Toronto Blue Jays island of misfits. Current misfits: Escobar, Lawrie, Rasmus, Encarnacion, Bautista. Belt would fit in great, we need a good everyday LFer.
[/quote]
Belt is the epitome of a Four-A player. He can’t handle good fastballs with good location on the inner half at all and he’s also susceptible to good offspeed stuff down and away. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen him take a 94mph fastball right down the middle and foul it over the third-base dugout I’d be a billionaire. The guy fucking sucks. He’s been resistant toward changing his swing mechanics to compensate for his inability to handle the inner half. I hope all the Giants fans who kept bitching about his playing time finally realize that he just isn’t that good. The worst possible combination a hitter can have is to be susceptible to fastballs inside and breaking balls away. That’s pretty much how most pitchers are going to go after hitters anyways.
edit: I should mention that ALL hitters are susceptible to good fastballs in and good offspeed stuff away. But Belt is even more so.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I’m not the GM of the Giants and I don’t control their purse strings. I haven’t devoted a single moment’s worth of time to thinking about Cabrera’s worth in dollar value. I also have no clue what other outfielders are free agents at year’s end and I don’t really know what the going rate for a top-notch outfielder is these days. I do know that it’s more than $13-15 million a year, so I wouldn’t even consider the parameters you laid out to be a huge deal.[/quote]
What I’m getting is this deal is big enough to significantly effect the Giants future signings/payroll going forward. But no it’s not a huge deal compared to some of the contracts out there.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I also suspect that this question is with disingenuous motivation. If I say yes, you lambast me but if I say no, you harangue me for hypocrisy since I’ve made clear my feelings about how good Cabrera is.[/quote]
Can’t really analyze it until we’re at least a couple years into the deal. Heck, I thought the Royals got the better of the Melky/Sanchez and look what happened. Melky’s an allstar and Sanchez has been DFA’d.
I do however think Melky will not sustain his current performance. He probably has legitimately improved but to what extent I’m uncertain.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I’ll bite though. If I were the Giants I would try to sign him for four years with an option for a fifth. If he finishes the year strong I’d have no reason not to think he won’t be the same type of player the next year as well. In that case, a player of his caliber is deserving of around $14 million a year or so. So that comes out to a four year, $56 million contract, maybe more. I guess the 5 year/$75 million scenario you presented isn’t that far off from those numbers. [/quote]
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think something in the neighborhood of $14-16 million a year for four years is reasonable for a player on his way to back-to-back 200 hit campaigns. He was expected to regress a little this year, but he’s been even better in a pitcher’s park. He also plays excellent defense, has one of the best arms in the game, has speed, and he plays. Every. Fucking. Day. That can’t be overstated. There’s real value in a guy who can play at a high level everyday, not 130-140 games a year, but 155-162 games a year. I don’t think he’ll regress a whole lot, either.[/quote]
Two things:
-
Sabermetrics doesn’t speak very highly of his defense.
-
Outfield defense ages very poorly.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
What I cannot stand about sabermetrics is the assumption that players will eventually revert to the mean, whether it’s their own career mean or the league’s mean. There’s a lot of players who are simply much better than average players, and I don’t expect them to revert very far when they have a great year, no matter how much of a statistical anomaly it may be. Will Melky Cabrera hit .350+ for the rest of his career, or even the next four years? Probably not. But will he hit .283, his career average? No. He’s not a .283 hitter anymore. [/quote]
His BABIP would definitely worry me. I highly doubt he will ever top this seasons numbers. His BABIP graph:
If his plate discipline (BB%, K% ) improved I would be a lot more confident.
But who knows, the Bautista deal came after 1 amazing season + 1 month. Of course he naturally has a low BABIP as most of his value comes from Home runs and walks. The one year it did spike (2011), he had an MVP year.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Whatever he did between 2010 and 2011 fucking worked. He’s a .300+ hitter, plain and simple. I expect him to be a close approximation of what he’s been the last two years for the next four to five years. If the Giants can lock up a player like him for $15 million over 4, hell, even 5 or 6 years, I think that’s a really good deal. [/quote]
You could probably justify gambling on 4. 5-6 would be insane given his track record. Remember, Melky has had ONE amazing season.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The fact is that he isn’t one of the top 4 or 5 outfielders in the game, but at $15 million a year he won’t be getting paid like one either. What does Braun make? Something like $20 million a year? How much will Hamilton make? At least that much. What does Kemp make? I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s more than $15 million. If Mike Trout were a free agent this year, he’d get at LEAST $20 million a year, probably closer to $30 million.[/quote]
Is the difference in salary on par with the difference in performance?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
DB would you hand out a huge deal to Melky Cabrera assuming his numbers continue until the rest of the season?
I’m talking 5 year 65-75M[/quote]
By the way, did you get my PM the other day?[/quote]
No
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Belt is the epitome of a Four-A player. [/quote]
He hasn’t even had 500 PA!
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
He can’t handle good fastballs with good location on the inner half at all and he’s also susceptible to good offspeed stuff down and away. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen him take a 94mph fastball right down the middle and foul it over the third-base dugout I’d be a billionaire. The guy fucking sucks. He’s been resistant toward changing his swing mechanics to compensate for his inability to handle the inner half. I hope all the Giants fans who kept bitching about his playing time finally realize that he just isn’t that good. The worst possible combination a hitter can have is to be susceptible to fastballs inside and breaking balls away. That’s pretty much how most pitchers are going to go after hitters anyways. [/quote]
He’s 24. You really need to be patient with young hitters. They really need time to figure it out.
Sanchez has not been as good as Belt this year. You can’t even make the case Sanchez would lead to more wins today.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]therajraj wrote:
DB would you hand out a huge deal to Melky Cabrera assuming his numbers continue until the rest of the season?
I’m talking 5 year 65-75M[/quote]
By the way, did you get my PM the other day?[/quote]
No[/quote]
Hmmmm. I seem to be having some sort of problem with that. I don’t think the last few that I’ve sent out haven’t reached their destination. Perhaps the mods could look into this…
Regarding Melky’s defensive rating, I think part of the poor numbers there are the fact that he’s accumulated those statistics at all three OF positions. It’s harder to play all three effectively. I would surmise that his performance has been above average while playing left field for the Giants this year. He certainly has looked above average. Plus, his arm makes up for a whole lot. It’s strong and it’s very accurate.
I would guess he already has half a dozen assists this year. I don’t think he’s an above average CFer, but he’s very good in left and right, although his performance in left at home is better than it is in right while at home since AT&T’s right field is the hardest one to play in the majors.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Belt is the epitome of a Four-A player. [/quote]
He hasn’t even had 500 PA!
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
He can’t handle good fastballs with good location on the inner half at all and he’s also susceptible to good offspeed stuff down and away. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen him take a 94mph fastball right down the middle and foul it over the third-base dugout I’d be a billionaire. The guy fucking sucks. He’s been resistant toward changing his swing mechanics to compensate for his inability to handle the inner half. I hope all the Giants fans who kept bitching about his playing time finally realize that he just isn’t that good. The worst possible combination a hitter can have is to be susceptible to fastballs inside and breaking balls away. That’s pretty much how most pitchers are going to go after hitters anyways. [/quote]
He’s 24. You really need to be patient with young hitters. They really need time to figure it out.
Sanchez has not been as good as Belt this year. You can’t even make the case Sanchez would lead to more wins today.
[/quote]
Sanchez plays a more valuable position than Belt does. He’s also handled Zito extremely well considering Zito is having the first non-disastrous year of his Giants career and Sanchez has caught all of his starts. He’s also caught Lincecum’s last three good starts, whereas Posey has caught his poor outings. It may be mere coincidence, but I think it shows that he’s good at handling pitchers for such a young catcher.
And since I’ve seen most of both of their at-bats this year I’m qualified to say that Sanchez is a better hitter than Belt is this year. Belt shows better patience by a long shot, but Sanchez has shown the ability to drive the ball, something Belt has barely done at all this year. He’s hitting .281 in more sporadic playing time than Belt. Belt is only hitting about .250 and has been below that most of the year.
Yes, patience is required with young hitters. But I think less patience is required when the team is a former Series Champion, in first place but showing signs of weakness at times, and they are looking for production now as opposed to down the road. This is the major leagues, Raj. It’s put up or shut up. The bottom line is that when all is said and done, regardless of how he’s been handled, Belt simply has not produced when given the chance.
He’s been given a shot several times and he’s always responded by hitting about .210 with no power. Truth be told, his current numbers are actually a little inflated from a hot streak he went on for about two weeks before going right back to the same old .230 bullshit.
Hey Raj, I’m thinking about taking a flier on Carlos Villanueva for my fantasy team. My pitching has been struggling all year since I ended up drafting Tim Lincecum, Matt Latos, Mariano Rivera, Matt Moore and Roy Halladay, amongst others. What do you think of this guy? I haven’t seen him pitch before. Does he have a pitcher’s build? Good mechanics? His numbers indicate that he has good stuff and above average command, yet he doesn’t allow a lot of hits. I’ve always loved pitchers who have displayed an ability to come right after hitters and still maintain a high strikeout rate with a low batting avg against. It shows that the pitcher doesn’t have to nibble to succeed and can get by on pure stuff when forced to challenge a hitter in the fat part of the strike zone.
My league has a big roster with twelve teams, so the pitching staffs can run pretty deep. Right now, my staff consists of Halladay, Moore, Cain, AJ Burnett, Kenley Jansen, Chapman, Vinnie Pestano (holds count for the same amount of points as saves in our league), Justin Masterson, Jarrod Parker, Jonathan Niese and Madison Bumgarner. I would probably drop Niese or Masterson, or I have the option of trading Matt Moore for hitting since I know at least one other guy will give me something legit for him. What’s your opinion on this Villanueva guy?