Mephistopheles

where am i saying anything positive about hendry? im not. im just saying there's little reason to believe that Ryan is one of the top three GMs like most people believe. Hendry has nothing to do with it. Don't bring him up. He is irrelevant.

what a worthless point. It's a limited sample for all the pitchers and holds absolutely ZERO predicative power. anyways trachsel sucks and will continue to suck as the cubs lose 10-4.

If you include Liriano, you have to include Nathan and Bonser. and garza among others Their success started long before Mauer made an impact. Not sure how Santana fell into his lap, they traded for him when he was young and far from a proven commodity. they got lucky....very very lucky. ryan has even been quoted as saying he got lucky on Santana. And before these guys fell into his lap he was finishing last or second to last for half a decade with a top five pick every season so I would like to think he could build a good system if hes getting top five picks year in and year out. He also plays in a division where there werent many good teams and there werent any big spenders until the last couple of seasons with the exception of the mid 90s tribe and the twins sucked then. he only had success when things fell into his lap and everyone else in the division sucked. Lets not forget that two of the rocks his entire tenure there, Hunter and Radke weren't acquired when he was GM. Lets not forget before Mauer none of his first round picks during the suck years even amounted to much. Mark Redman and Michael Cuddyer are average players at best.

Ive always believed that he got lucky with Liriano, Mauer and Santana. They all fell into his lap and a lot of the success he had as GM was because of them.

How many FAs at any position are worth half of what they end up getting? FA is a bad investment. Thats why it is pivotal to develop players within your system. The last step of development is the majors. Players need to play to get better in the majors. This is why Pie should be playing. this is completely untrue. In most cases Free Agents are signed at the end or past prime. They will in most cases get paid more than they were getting paid for declining production. Young players coming up get paid less while there production is improving. I know there is individual cases where players are still improving after free agency, but there are cases where it was better to not where a seat belt in a car accident. I would contend that the percentages tend to show free agency as a bad tool to build a winning ballclub(unless you are willing to spend like the Yankees). As for the part of young players need time to develop in the Majors, I dont know what to tell you. For every Pujols and Braun there are 20 DLees and ARams. Most players dont have ROY numbers right off the bat. They need to play to get better. once again, this isn't true

i dont want ryan

i should rephrase myself, those are all the guys who were decent or better. so i wasnt saying anderson was average. there wasnt anyone better than them only guys worse.

How many FAs at any position are worth half of what they end up getting? FA is a bad investment. Thats why it is pivotal to develop players within your system. The last step of development is the majors. Players need to play to get better in the majors. This is why Pie should be playing. this is completely untrue.

Cameron would WARP somewhere between 6-8. Murton-Jones would do about the same in RF. They would really be a good platoon if we used them correctly, but we won't. So we're looking at a 12-16 WARP from CF and RF. If we put Pie in CF we're looking at a WARP from 4-6 so we'd have to get a WARP of like 8-10 in RF to make the difference. WARP isnt great but it shows you the difference. Adam Dunn wont give you a WARP of 8-10 in RF. Cameron is the forgotten OF FA out there this year. With Hunter and Jones heading the list, he's going to be relatively cheap for value. Hes getting old so we wont sign him to anything longer than 3 years and really thats fine.

this is statistically meaningless. thanks for the effort though

feller also played in an era where the HR wasnt as big of an offensive weapon. the notion he needs to get his BB/IP just down to .5 and hell be fine is stupid and downright wrong. terrible assumption.

milwaukee is rolling over and playing dead. unfortunately so are we. and so are the cardinals. its like no one wants to win.

i have my doubts about this source.

You have to be careful with your choice of wording. It does not mean that player A is slightly below average. It means when he's playing in that park he's slightly below average. For all we know he could hit 420 ft flyouts to CF routinely but plays in Enron so theyre outs. Everywhere else he'd be a masher. But yes, in that park he creates runs at a slightly lower rate than the average player. So his value/production is slightly below average for that team. Again it's paramount to realize it does not mean he's a below average player. I could make a thread. Sometime after next week when I have time.

i never do that kind of stuff. why do people think im hitler.

No. EqA isn't adjusted for position. It's only adjusted for park (read my thread to find about that) and league/time ---- even league and time is misleading. VORP is position adjusted, but it's EqA rate counterpart, MLVr is not.

even if it is it's at worst average and hes a decent hitter. hes a .280 EqA CF with above average defense who doesnt murder your OBP.

Mike Cameron's going to be a great pick up for someone this off season. Andruw Jones will be, Kenny Lofton always appears to be worth getting. Aaron Rowand meh. Torii Hunter meh. Corey Patterson interests me... i dont believe any of those guys have signed extensions. if they have beat me i dont care.

JETER!

this hasn't come up here as recently as much as it has in the past but its still something people aren't getting. if you get it, good for you and welcome to the club. park adjustments when a statistic is park adjusted it does NOT mean what the player would do in an average park. For instance if players X's ERA in a park is 4.50 and his ERA for that park adjusted is 4.80, it does NOT mean he's a 4.80 pitcher in a neutral field. really we dont want to scale for this. Same goes for hitters. If he created 50 runs in park x, and the park adjusted total is 45, that doesnt mean hed create 45 runs in a neutral park. many people who arent familiar with advanced stats and most weak stat-heads dont quite grasp this idea. They think a park adjusted stat means what theyd do in an average park. its not. in fact it's good that it isnt. When you park adjust things you can do it with two different goals. The future, or value-production. If you're doing the former you should adjust it into an average park, but EqA, VORP and the such are NOT those kinds of statistics. They're the ones with the value-production intent in mind. So when they adjust for something they compare the players production to what an average player would do in that park. For instance, if a player creates 100 runs in his park. and an average player creates 100 runs overall, one would assume that means hes an average player. Say then that the park's run factor is +5%, then that means an average player in that park would create 105 runs. Thats how you do the scaling. Its important to do it this way because some players' skill sets are better suited for certain parks. So the value they create depends on this. A great example of this is Biggio in the Astrodome. He was a guy whose game was NOT impacted by the Domes high HR factor. He was great because of his OBP skills at 2B. Im sure some of you knew all of this, but I know a lot you did not. And I am making this thread a nice meph thread. That means I am not going to be mean to anyone in this thread nor arrogant. So if you have any questions about baseball, baseball statistics, the minors, the draft or the such, might as well ask them in here -- or if you want to just discuss anything. My knowledge is your knowledge in this thread. I wont bite* *if you snap on me, you suck

i can type all of these up and explain them well. i know them in and out and all their faults. but i dont think you guys want me to.

no even i underestimate myself. im too modest.

I wouldn't consider Hill a late pick or luck at the stage of the 4th rd. That's where you select a avg. major league player, for a starter that a #4 spot. He's likely exceeded that but not to the point where it's luck moreso than a player slightly doing better, especially with the flaws he had at Michigan. teams may be looking for a guy who can be an average ML player or a #4, but in reality the odds of them getting that guy in the fourth round are roughly 1 in 20. Looking from 1990-96 drafts in the fourth round here are guys that I included to be average ML guys. 1996 0 30 1995 2 30 Russ Ortiz, Adam Everett* 1994 1 27 Danny Graves 1993 1 28 Billy Koch* 1992 1 28 Joey Hamilton 1991 3 28 Terry Adams, Brian Boehringer, Paul Byrd 1990 3 26 James Baldwin, Garrett Anderson, Mike Meyers 11 197 Koch and Everett didn't sign so they may have been tough sign guys who slipped. There are a couple solid players there, but I am including LOOGYs....as average ML players and success picks. They may be looking for a guy who can be an average player with the fourth pick. They won't get it very often. So in effect, they only get it if they're lucky or rich.

im pretty sure the rockies have had at least two rockies in their pen for 14 years.

sometimes i just dont realize how damn good i am.