Rob

2016 Wow, even more awful. Honest question for everybody: Would you rather have the old CBA with a clause that everybody had to fondle a replica of Selig's crusty old balls upon entry at all MLB stadiums or this new CBA? this one Real men would tickle the balls.

2016 Wow, even more awful. Honest question for everybody: Would you rather have the old CBA with a clause that everybody had to fondle a replica of Selig's crusty old balls upon entry at all MLB stadiums or this new CBA?

When does this load of horseshit expire?

Never quite understood that one. So a guy that becomes chronically and/or seriously injured as he hits his mid/late 30s, you want the option to keep around longer? Wouldn't it make way more sense to start with a shorter deal, and add easily-obtainable vesting player options? Something like 4 years guaranteed, with a string of player options that trigger with, say, 150IP the previous season. If you can get them to agree to it, sure. They don't always sign for exactly what you want them to though. Short contract > Short contract with easily vesting player options > Longer contract with league minimum club option based on injuries > Long contract

I'd be willing to go 5 years if there was a Lackey-esque clause where spending x amount of time on the DL for certain injuries would give the team a league minimum option for an extra year.

Lou Gehrig decided to break his consecutive games streak because a teammate congratulated him for making a play at first base that Gehrig realized should have been very easy... and wasn't. Baseball is a long and grueling season. You cant physically go 100% at all times and not have your play suffer for it in the long run. It's just not possible. There is a certain amount of effort that each player can give that will allow them to maximize their value to the club. It's different for each player, especially when dealing with recurring injuries. Are there players playing below that certain amount of effort that might be able to produce more in a stricter clubhouse? Sure there are. Are there players who are already pushing themselves a bit too hard and might be able to produce more in a looser clubhouse? Absolutely. Anybody telling you type of clubhouse or another is inherently better is just wrong. It's all just a balancing act. Figure out what types of players you have and then hire an appropriate manager to tip the scales the way they need to go.

Hoyer and Epstein should be required to take separate planes.

If they want, can't they just add whoever they want, at least as many open spots as they have and remove anyone later on if they choose? Anyone you remove gets exposed to waivers. If you protected a guy because you thought a team was willing to pay $50,000 and stash the player on their major league bench all season it stands to reason that they'd claim him on waivers for nothing.

Or three guys who weren't Juan Pierre for Juan Pierre. the 749 guys in the major leagues who aren't juan pierre are all tied for my favorite player Aaron Miles will be happy to know he has a fan.

And I'll put the noose around OMC.

Obviously by giving them Matt Garza and/or Starlin Castro.

It's worth noting that a lot of new people are working in the Cubs front office and which reporter ends up with the best sources is going to take a while to figure out.

No wonder the Cubs didn't make Ryno the manager. He's obviously got too much experience.

This type of tampering gets Moore a lecture from Selig. At worst there's a small fine. No chance the Cubs benefit from it though.

Holy crap, his showcase video is the one of the strangest things I've ever seen. Kevin Goldstein walks you through it (Video at the bottom of the link). It occurs to me that the Cubs may have some interest here. He's not going to come cheaply, but he's got good power and is a good enough athlete you'd think he'd be at least a plus defender in an OF corner (if not CF). And based off his stats in Cuba, he looks to be at least somewhat patient.

Oh THAT'S it? The proclamations I make on how rebellious and edgy my posts are? Why didn't you say so my main man bro?!!??! Don't mind them. This is just some initial hazing. Keep up the awesome jokes and you'll be part of the crew in no time. GREAT CALL, SULLEY. I LOVE YOU PETER NINCOMPOOP. I MISS YOU... already.

I can't right at this moment but I have looked at it before and I can tell you with certainty that it's still horrific. His strikeout rate jumped up and his HR/FB took a dive. Those are much bigger problems than any BABIP stuff.

Another excellent point and something I considered after I went to bed last night. It's hard defending your writing after midnight.

I didn't design the xBABIP formula so I can't give you an exact answer as to how many season in 100 the line will be within 'x' (my contribution is mostly basic algebra ;)). But let me see if I can't help explain a bit better... The simple fact of the matter (and the point of the exercise, really) is that even given a full season of 650 plate appearances, BABIP does not stabilize sufficiently. You can look at the back of a baseball card for your favorite player and probably pick out 2-3 seasons where he performed way over or way under what he normally did in the rest of his career. The purpose of this exercise is mostly to smooth out those sorts of years from a players career. If you put a gun to my head and made me answer, I'd probably say not to read too much into anything within 10, maybe 15 points of batting average for most players.

Got a team or teams in mind? Pitchers suffering from bad "luck" may be the result of a slight systematic bias. The xBABIP formula is designed to project players with large amounts of plate appearances (you can observe actual lines approaching adjusted lines as plate appearances go up just by looking at the Cubs). Guys who hit as poorly as most pitchers do tend not to get many plate appearances, so they may not be adequately represented. Also worth noting, most pitchers are told not to try to beat out grounders. With this few plate appearances, beating out a couple could make a HUGE difference in an overall line. I suspect there is more to it than that. All batted balls of a certain type are not created equal, but the system will treat them all equally. Starlin Castro will hit ground balls harder, on average, than Ryan dempster, because Castro is good at making hard contact and dempster is not. So yes, castro's speed will help him get more hits, but he's also going to hit more ground balls that elude the fielders. I suspect that if you did this exercise on Rey Ordonez you'd conclude that he was "unlucky" throughout his career, because he only had a babip of .271 and kept the ball on the ground a lot. But in reality he was just a weakling who couldn't run fast and didn't hit the ball hard frequently enough. I think that Barney may be a similar type - a better player than Rnez, but weak and not fast, so possibly prone to regularly "underachieving" his expected line. As I talk about in the comments section, the formula I'm using for xBABIP does look at HR/FB% and IFH% and uses them to adjust for power and speed respectively. It's not perfect, but it does do a pretty good job of it (though it wouldn't shock me if it was not accurate enough for extreme cases, such as many pitchers).

I wouldn't read too much into it. Why postpone organizational meetings unless you're hurrying to get ready for your main moves this offseason?

Got a team or teams in mind? Pitchers suffering from bad "luck" may be the result of a slight systematic bias. The xBABIP formula is designed to project players with large amounts of plate appearances (you can observe actual lines approaching adjusted lines as plate appearances go up just by looking at the Cubs). Guys who hit as poorly as most pitchers do tend not to get many plate appearances, so they may not be adequately represented. Also worth noting, most pitchers are told not to try to beat out grounders. With this few plate appearances, beating out a couple could make a HUGE difference in an overall line.

What's manlier than sweaty men in rubber costumes wrestling through a scale model of downtown Tokyo?

It's RAAM. http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/raam.jpg

I remember one of the first times I did this sort of evaluation was back in 2008 when we picked up Jim Edmonds off the scrap heap and everybody thought he was finished. I used a pretty bastardized version of this process to show he wasn't done just yet. And then he took off the with the Cubs and I've loved this sort of evaluation ever since. Of course then I was doing all the calculations by hand with a methodology that was pretty sloppy. Now I have a better xFIP formula and a spreadsheet (thank god) that can do as many players as I want at once. So if anybody has any interest in seeing full team numbers from previous years or even other teams, just lemme know.