General Baseball Chit-Chat Thread

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

Nightengale having a great night on Twitter. Apparently JD Martinez is an mvp finalist but Trout isn’t.

i think i'm totally on board with this, and i might go a step further to make it really scorching and say he might not be top-5 for me at the moment

did you know: Trout has worst clutch score in baseball right now

imb · August 13, 2018

Nightengale having a great night on Twitter. Apparently JD Martinez is an mvp finalist but Trout isn’t.
i think i'm totally on board with this, and i might go a step further to make it really scorching and say he might not be top-5 for me at the moment

did you know: Trout has worst clutch score in baseball right now

no horsefeathering way is martinez and mvp over trout, even though holy horsefeathers martinez is horsefeathering good.

but im down with betts or ramirez.

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

no horsefeathering way is martinez and mvp over trout, even though holy horsefeathers martinez is horsefeathering good.

it mostly boils down to whether you'd rather see a walk or an extra base hit with runners on base

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

Red Sox have 3 players who've been given 400 PA and have produced negative offensive value; almost 4 more (195 for Hanley) have been given 200 PA

Boston as an offensive behemoth is largely JD & Mookie going completely ape horsefeathers, with added, far less significant contributions from Benintendi & Bogaerts and that's it

Cubswin11 · August 13, 2018

Nightengale having a great night on Twitter. Apparently JD Martinez is an mvp finalist but Trout isn’t.
i think i'm totally on board with this, and i might go a step further to make it really scorching and say he might not be top-5 for me at the moment

did you know: Trout has worst clutch score in baseball right now

no horsefeathering way is martinez and mvp over trout, even though holy horsefeathers martinez is horsefeathering good.

but im down with betts or ramirez.

Yeah no way would I vote for JD, even though he's having a great offensive year, but I could get behind Betts or Ramirez. Especially if this Trout injury keeps him out or makes him bad the rest of the year. I just can't see giving the MVP to a DH only when there's plenty of good other candidates having great offensive years that also play defense (at good levels) unless that DH isn't on pace to set or get close to HR, BA, etc records.

minnesotacubsfan · August 13, 2018

JD Martinez over Trout this year all day long. Betts over Trout as well.

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

i think i'm totally on board with this, and i might go a step further to make it really scorching and say he might not be top-5 for me at the moment

did you know: Trout has worst clutch score in baseball right now

no horsefeathering way is martinez and mvp over trout, even though holy horsefeathers martinez is horsefeathering good.

but im down with betts or ramirez.
Yeah no way would I vote for JD, even though he's having a great offensive year, but I could get behind Betts or Ramirez. Especially if this Trout injury keeps him out or makes him bad the rest of the year. I just can't see giving the MVP to a DH only when there's plenty of good other candidates and that DH isn't on pace to set or get close to HR, BA, etc records.

he's on pace for 150 RBI

low leverage: 150 wRC+

medium leverage: 208 wRC+

high leverage: 272 wRC+ (.483/.590/.862)

with men on base, he's hitting .347/.427/.698

nobody seems to understand how Boston's 50(!) games over, but i have a couple ideas

Cubswin11 · August 13, 2018

no horsefeathering way is martinez and mvp over trout, even though holy horsefeathers martinez is horsefeathering good.

but im down with betts or ramirez.
Yeah no way would I vote for JD, even though he's having a great offensive year, but I could get behind Betts or Ramirez. Especially if this Trout injury keeps him out or makes him bad the rest of the year. I just can't see giving the MVP to a DH only when there's plenty of good other candidates and that DH isn't on pace to set or get close to HR, BA, etc records.
he's on pace for 150 RBI

low leverage: 150 wRC+
medium leverage: 208 wRC+
high leverage: 272 wRC+ (.483/.590/.862)

with men on base, he's hitting .347/.427/.698

nobody seems to understand how Boston's 50(!) games over, but i have a couple ideas

Yeah I don't really care about any of that as a main reason to vote for a guy. As a tie breaker, sure. But there's 3 better candidates, IMO.

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

Yeah I don't really care about any of that as a main reason to vote for a guy. As a tie breaker, sure. But there's 3 better candidates, IMO.

it is the tiebreaker, and a huge one; the main candidates all have monster stats but Trout gets substantially worse the higher the leverage situation and Martinez the reverse

fWAR doesn't incorporate that at all and misses a huge part of the equation...walks are cool, certainly, but there's a valid reason teams just freely give them to you sometimes

imb · August 13, 2018

no horsefeathering way is martinez and mvp over trout, even though holy horsefeathers martinez is horsefeathering good.

but im down with betts or ramirez.
Yeah no way would I vote for JD, even though he's having a great offensive year, but I could get behind Betts or Ramirez. Especially if this Trout injury keeps him out or makes him bad the rest of the year. I just can't see giving the MVP to a DH only when there's plenty of good other candidates and that DH isn't on pace to set or get close to HR, BA, etc records.
he's on pace for 150 RBI

low leverage: 150 wRC+
medium leverage: 208 wRC+
high leverage: 272 wRC+ (.483/.590/.862)

with men on base, he's hitting .347/.427/.698

nobody seems to understand how Boston's 50(!) games over, but i have a couple ideas

I hate treating awards like you just look at WAR and go "well there you go" so I'm with you there.

But Martinez has spent all year with Mookie (.438 OBP and more importantly 39 doubles or triples mostly out of leadoff) and Benentendi (.383 OBP) right in front of him.

Meanwhile Trout bats behind Kole Calhoun, who was hitting under .200 as recently as late July, and Ian Kinsler (.308 OBP, got shipped off ironically to boston at the deadline.)

It's no secret why trout gets "walks instead of XBH."

But anyway i hope people do keep voting against him so he'll pull a bonds and roid up and really break horsefeathers for a decade.

Cubswin11 · August 13, 2018

Yeah I don't really care about any of that as a main reason to vote for a guy. As a tie breaker, sure. But there's 3 better candidates, IMO.
it is the tiebreaker, and a huge one; the main candidates all have monster stats but Trout gets substantially worse the higher the leverage situation and Martinez the reverse

fWAR doesn't incorporate that at all and misses a huge part of the equation...walks are cool, certainly, but there's a valid reason teams just freely give them to you sometimes

The fact the other guys play defense at good to great levels is the tie breaker for me

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

his .350 AVG / .700 SLG with runners on is cheapened because...there are always runners on? doesn't that sorta bolster my point

imb · August 13, 2018

his .350 AVG / .700 SLG with runners on is cheapened because...there are always runners on? doesn't that sorta bolster my point

i dont think anything martinez does as a hitter is cheap, i just think if you hypothetically put trout in a situation where he was a table clearer for a team that always had guys on, rather than a table-setter with a couple broke dicks batting in front of him, that he'd be better.

Cubswin11 · August 13, 2018

Yeah no way would I vote for JD, even though he's having a great offensive year, but I could get behind Betts or Ramirez. Especially if this Trout injury keeps him out or makes him bad the rest of the year. I just can't see giving the MVP to a DH only when there's plenty of good other candidates and that DH isn't on pace to set or get close to HR, BA, etc records.
he's on pace for 150 RBI

low leverage: 150 wRC+
medium leverage: 208 wRC+
high leverage: 272 wRC+ (.483/.590/.862)

with men on base, he's hitting .347/.427/.698

nobody seems to understand how Boston's 50(!) games over, but i have a couple ideas

I hate treating awards like you just look at WAR and go "well there you go" so I'm with you there.

But Martinez has spent all year with Mookie (.438 OBP and more importantly 39 doubles or triples mostly out of leadoff) and Benentendi (.383 OBP) right in front of him.

Meanwhile Trout bats behind Kole Calhoun, who was hitting under .200 as recently as late July, and Ian Kinsler (.308 OBP, got shipped off ironically to boston at the deadline.)

It's no secret why trout gets "walks instead of XBH."

But anyway i hope people do keep voting against him so he'll pull a bonds and roid up and really break horsefeathers for a decade.

I abeee with the premise of don’t just look at WAR. But these other 3 guys are blowing him out of the water in WAR, the RISP/RBIs don’t make up for that, for me. On top of Martinez not playing defense other than ~40 games (which when he does is bad). Also, fwiw Benintendi is closer to Martinez in fWAR than Martinez is to these other 3 and Xander is closer to him than JD is 2 of the other 3.

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

I abeee with the premise of don’t just look at WAR. But these other 3 guys are blowing him out of the water in WAR, the RISP/RBIs don’t make up for that, for me. On top of Martinez not playing defense other than ~40 games (which when he does is bad). Also, fwiw Benintendi is closer to Martinez in fWAR than Martinez is to these other 3 and Xander is closer to him than JD is 2 of the other 3.

this is admittedly veering off-topic, but fWAR doesn't seem to have reasonable calibration for DH or CF at all; replacement-value CF hardly exists because of the innate bias for guys who provide value with their legs and 5 WAR is like the absolute hard cap for DH

i mean i get the mechanics of it somewhat, but it doesn't seem practical; failing to go 1st to 3rd on occasion doesn't sensibly close the gap on clearing the bases with regularity in terms of contributing to your team winning games

sneakypower · August 13, 2018

his .350 AVG / .700 SLG with runners on is cheapened because...there are always runners on? doesn't that sorta bolster my point

i dont think anything martinez does as a hitter is cheap, i just think if you hypothetically put trout in a situation where he was a table clearer for a team that always had guys on, rather than a table-setter with a couple broke dicks batting in front of him, that he'd be better.

yeah i don't disagree, but MVP isn't supposed to be a theoretical though

with the opportunities he's been given he's fallen far short of what Martinez has done with his opportunities; that's mostly true of every other hitter really

maybe this is where i also point out JD's been ~2 full wins better than Trout in WPA

imb · August 13, 2018

his .350 AVG / .700 SLG with runners on is cheapened because...there are always runners on? doesn't that sorta bolster my point

i dont think anything martinez does as a hitter is cheap, i just think if you hypothetically put trout in a situation where he was a table clearer for a team that always had guys on, rather than a table-setter with a couple broke dicks batting in front of him, that he'd be better.
yeah i don't disagree, but MVP isn't supposed to be a theoretical though

with the opportunities he's been given he's fallen far short of what Martinez has done with his opportunities; that's mostly true of every other hitter really

maybe this is where i also point out JD's been ~2 full wins better than Trout in WPA

I can totally go with that - i've always hated the idea that because we've decided that RBIs aren't predictive that they aren't "valuable." Like maybe some dude goes buck wild and has a .450 BABIP all year, we can't vote for him because he was luckier than someone else?

but anyway if not trout i'd still give it to ramirez or betts, or even lindor.