And one more thing, I have the impression that ten years ago every farm system also had one, two or three gunslinging young arms at the upper levels that had the potential to put it all together if they could just harness their mid 90s fastball and throw that breaking pitch for a strike.
The difference is, Pineda, Kimbrel at all are able to put it all together. Missing non-roid aided bats, perhaps.
Has the pitching talent level really changed? One thing I love about BP is that you guys tend to reflect backwards and use data to support claims and review prior predictions rather than blindly going forward with the same old flawed tools.
Can someone determine objectively whether the average farm system indeed did have fewer arms with a projected high ceiling ten years ago?
Here's a contrary theory on the rise of young pitching (that I'm not sure I believe, but I'm "throwing" out there): the pitchers aren't better, the hitters are worse due to the disappearance of steroid era inflation.
I always wondered by HGH and roids didn't benefit pitchers and hitters equally, but obviously the steriod era inflated home runs and run scoring.
Why the surge in YOUNG arms? GMs and managers trust the young guns more than the old guys because the older guys are carrying steroid era track records on their backs. But give Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon and Bruce Chen a chance and maybe they will match or outperform their mid-2000s selves.
Then you're back to the problem of having interleague play every day, which would take away the luster, intrigue and (the whole point) presumably ticket sales/TV ratings.
What problem is this new unalignment actually trying to solve? I'm not sure I understand.
To me the biggest issue is that the wild card doesn't have much of a penalty for not winning its division. Play the best team? They would have to anyway to get to the WS!
Keep the current setup, give the top ranked division winner a one-game head start on the division series against the wild card team, then you're talking reform. (A best of six game series, how's that for intrigue?)
What's the story with Anthony Slama? Live arm, desperation at Target Field. Why isn't he being given a shot to do more for this team?
Plus he's got a great name.
Oh, platelet rich plasma (second item Google returned).
Now isn't it illegal to inject yourself with your own blood in baseball? Or am I thinking of the Olympics?
Good interview!
She is kind to Sterling. On the air he's just not a good listener and sometimes is completely dismissive of her comments. But it seems like she has grown more comfortable in the relationship and taken more authority over the years.
To me the most important thing about Suzyn Waldman is how tough she is, but she never has to remind you of that fact. Here is a cancer survivor and the first voice heard on WFAN as a woman. I think she's an inspiration to us all.
I love the dreamy comment about Hamels. If there was any question about bias before...objectively speaking, we all know it's Curtis Granderson who's the most dreamy player in the league...
They probably shouldn't. I think the point is not that the state is terribly useful, but that it's not NOT useful.
I think I generally agree with the author, but it's quite a lot of effort to pick a bone with a fired writer. Schadenfreude, anyone?
Did I miss something or was there no mention of the value of getting out from under a burdensome contract? A team in contention might be willing to pay top dollar for a star player to go for it for two months, but that, let's say $5 million, will be much more useful to a team that's fallen out of it going into player development. Especially if the star is going to leave at the end of the season anyway. In that case, even getting Luis Polonia back is better than paying Rickey Henderson dollars when you're out of contention. (I know it wasn't $5mm back then)
I seem to remember a player being deadline-dealt in recent years and then signing back with his "selling" team the following offseason. Anyone remember that one?
So what does it say about the model if 10 teams have under-performed, 10 teams are doing what they were supposed to do, and 10 teams are over-reaching the projection?
I'm not trying to be Jose Contrerian, just making a neat (if not so satisfying) observation.
Bruce Chen is great! He had that jam season in 2000 and then a lot of great moments in (tabletop game PtP) my league for my New York Felines. I'm glad your season is going well this year - good luck Bruce!
I couldn't help it, I looked it up, here's Rondell White 1999-2002:
99 MON .312/.359/.505
00 MON/CHC .311/.374/.493
01 CHC .307/.371/.529
02 NYY .240/.288/.378
I guess my point is: Who's to say that Winn or, for that matter, Nick Johnson II, won't have this same Ed Whitson disease?
Making a bit too much of the Winn signing. He may be entering tailspin instead of tail end of his career and as suggested, he may not even be in pinstripes come September.
The profile you're looking for with lefty-pitching masher to man left field? Purported RBI machine Rondell White - remember how well that worked out? I think we'll know a lot more about where Randy Winn fits in on the field come March and April when we see him run around and hit 8th on occasion.
Re format: How about prominently including EqA in the rankings? I think it's safe to say we all want, at some point, "one number to rule them all" as a quick reference, and to help separate the rankings into tiers. Come to think of it, what about tiering the players? (You might already to that; I'm a relative newcomer) Top Shelf, Quality, Past Prime, Stay Away, etc.
Re the Orioles in this article: It's the implication of bad advice to swing outside the strike zone...combined with that special breed of defensiveness belonging to Baltimore.
OK, what's the knock on Jim Rice? I haven't seen the arguments.
I'm a Yankees fan, and I remember Rice as being downright feared in that Red Sox lineup.
Your work is a great resources for fans like me.
Question: Any thought to the changing nature of the vote dynamice over time? I would assume that there is a much larger pool of voters than even, say, 15 years ago, and we are talking about the media, which itself has evolved dramatically over time. Are there any reasons why, say, a 40% debut in the 1960 ballot is different than one in 2010?
Secondly, on McGwire, since at least some of the voter reticence is about his silence, there's a big possibility that that will change as he goes public in his new role. I imagine that he's forced himself back into the spotlight partly to pick up some more HoF votes. Is there ANYthing you can think of him saying at a climactic news conference that would appease the BBWAA voters? I'm not a supporter although I loved to watch him play pre-steroid-revelations, just wondering.
And while I'm on it, Bagwell seems like a no-brainer for steroid candidacy to me. I don't know the guy, but he had no power in the minors and it suddenly ballooned in his second or third year in the majors. Then inujuries cut his career short. The late Ken Caminiti didn't have his biggest steroid year until 1996, after he had left the Astros, but he was a team veteran by the time Bags arrived on the scene.
Your analysis leaves one question open that you could probably figure out how to answer with your data set: Does "winning" help teams retain the better young players (and thereby reap the rewards of their investment during peak production years)?
MIGHT the Orioles be making a legitimate bid to hold on to Wieters et alia circa 2012 by adding a few wins via Gonzalez?
Now that I read my comment, I see I'm asking about two different things (reliability of the metric and consistency of demonstrating the skill) that are probably pretty hard to tease out from each other. I echo the other replies, though, a very interesting analysis.
I'm interested in consistency in the managerial quality from year to year, that is, the metric's reliability over time for the same manager. I would think that this skill on the part of the manager is relatively stable, so you should see some managers rise to the top continually. How much of a spread is there from year to year for top and low performers, and how much movement is there in the rankings?
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