Vanilla Ice

dew, has Larry Fedora's name come up?

Potential to play above average CF + thinking Almora's plate discipline was an aberration this year = Almora over Soler for me.

This exchange was in the comments - and I was very surprised at the assessment of Maples' ceiling ..Marc Hulet says: Maples has the highest ceiling of any pitcher in the league and people I spoke to felt he would be ready to go for spring training 2013 so I’m excited to see what he can do. His ranking is based on pure potential and upside. I've heard that too, that his his breaking ball is exceptional and he's really fast. I agree with Hulet that he's easily got the highest ceiling of any of the pitchers, Paniagua included. But as Hulet said, it's just pure potential at present. As analogy, the Cubs paid Paniagua a serious bonus based on scouting and scouting alone. Other than struggling in a bad of Panamanian league last winter, Paniagua hadn't pitched in games in years, and he wasn't any good when he did. But his scouting stuff was plenty good. And now, 3.2 minor league innings, I personally think it's entirely appropriate to include him in a top-10 list. (6th on mine). Neither the bonus nor that valuation is based on his 3.2 innings; it's based on scouting and the 3.2 innings and whatever instrux stuff. I think it's entirely fair to rank a guy based on scouting and potential. While Hulett didn't rank Paniagua as high as I will, I think it's entirely legit for him to rank Maples very high, based on pure scouting and potential. Talent-wise, Maples's stuff is better than anybody we've had in the system since Archer, and his talent relative to his position is much more special than Vitters or Szczur or Villanueva or Hernandez. That he hasn't pitched much, does not change the scouting look of his stuff. I think guys like Hulett don't want to miss on prospects who might become special. I've got Maples 8th, because I'm a believer in control and the early results aren't favorable. I like his pure stuff better than for Paniagua, Johnson, or Underwood, but I've got him behind all three because he seems least likely to gain control. Still, if he's healthy and gets some coaching, pitchers can sometimes make adjustments. More common for a high-walk pitcher to drastically lower his walk-rate than for a hitter to drastically reduce his K-rate, even if still pretty improbable. I do agree with the argument about inconsistency on Hulett's part: if Maples is in based on scouting/potential, and Underwood, then Paniagua should make it too. All three are in my top 8. So if I am reading this right, you have Johnson, Paniagua, and Underwood all in your top 7? Interesting. Why them over Vogelbach or BJax? Do you think the pitchers upsides are that much greater than Vogelbach and BJax? Or Candelario? (I'm assuming you have the same top 4 as what seems to be the consensus)

The ACC has created one hell of a basketball conference now, though. Adding Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Louisville, while only losing Maryland (arguably the worst basketball program of the bunch). Duke, UNC, NC State, UVA, FSU + the new members will make for a great conference. I suppose it does screw over schools like Georgetown and Marquette, though.

Id worry more about UVA than Duke and/or Miami.

big 10 people... which schools do you think are most likely to take you to 16 teams? which schools would you ideally want to take you to 16 teams?

Stuy would know better, but I've heard that UF and USC would try to block FSU or Clemson being added to the SEC.

You will find no stats head who claims that PER is the pinnacle of advanced stats. All of them acknowledge that no one stat is coming close to measuring a players true value.

One of OKC's major issues against that the Heat (and the Mavs in the previous years) is that they only really had three scoring threats. Miami could always hide a couple weak defensive players against Sefolosha/Perkins/Collison/Fisher. Their floor spacing was pretty bad and ball movement below average. They succeeded based on the incredible individual talents of Westbrook, Durant, and Harden. If they could field an entire lineup of offensive threats, they would be terrifying. So while yes, a dollar for a hundred pennies is not a good idea, I'm not sure it is that bad in this case. OKC's big challenge from last year to this year is to find three players that are are skilled offensively. One of those spots was always going to be either Ibaka or Harden. I'd rather build a team around Harden, but a lot of his skill set was redundant in OKC. With a little more development in his footwork, Ibaka can become the ideal small-ball center. He is athletic enough to run the floor, obviously is a great shot-blocker, and a good rebounder. His jump shot seems to have taken a large step forward (yeah yeah its the preseason). Unlike Harden, none of Ibaka's skills were going to be replaced by somebody else. So now, their biggest challenge is to find two more wings to complete a lineup. IMO, these two can come from any of the group of Jeremy Lamb, Kevin Martin, Eric Maynor, Perry Jones, Reggie Jackson, and the Toronto pick. Eric Maynor was not going to fit under the luxury tax, if they had kept Harden. Jones and Jackson are the only two that are not a result of this trade. OKC has a three man core and a ton of interchangeable parts with long-term potential to plug in depending on the matchups. San Antonio has had a ton of success with this formula. I think OKC's core is better than SAS's ever was. I also think that OKC's secondary pieces have more potential than San Antonio's complementary players. I think that this trade signals a change from succeeding based on incredible individual talent despite its complementary pieces to putting that talent in a system that allows them to benefit from better spacing and movement. The retooled OKC will have more depth, more long-term potential, and a better opportunity to build cohesive lineups. tl;dr I like the trade.

this should have been a poll

Unless they like Hinshaw. I am starting to think that they have a pretty good idea that Camp and/or Corpas will be gone by months end, at which time they can flood the big league club wits as many of Iowa's spare parts as they like. We won't get anything of any value, but they're really of no use to us going forward, especially when they can just keep cycling through Alex Hinshaws and such. And of course there's Marmol. We could get something decent if we pick up most or all of his 2013 salary. By decent, I mean just that. Depending on the system, anywhere between someone's top 10-25 as well as a sweetener. This is such a classic WSR post.

Which is why I said earlier that the really it's more about the intention to trade Soriano and Garza. If/when those two are traded, I think that'll signal the end of 2013's hope. Wait, I thought Dave Sappelt could replace Soriano's production.

Awesome

Anytime Theo and Aramis Fan agree on something, I think we should just do the opposite.

hahaha

what is going on

Tigers Giants Dodgers Indians

Welp, Soto was the last active Cub that I had a jersey shirt for. I really thought he was going to be here for a lot longer a few years ago.

Here's a fun exercise. Let's say both Dempster and Garza come back next year, and start forecasting WAR: Soto/Castillo/Clevenger - 2 Rizzo - 5 Barney - 2.5 Castro - 4 3B - 2 Soriano - 3 CF/RF - 2 DeJesus - 1.5 Dempster - 3 Garza - 3 Shark - 3 Wood - 2 Maholm - 2 I think that everyone would agree that with the exception of Rizzo(who is currently playing at a 6 win pace), those are pretty conservative estimates. Filling holes with league average performance, forecasting slight regression from many guys, etc. The thing is, with an average bench/bullpen, that team is in the hunt for a wild card berth. Are they going to win 95 games and enslave the National League? No. Are they talented enough to be in contention and ride unexpected performance or a better than forecasted acquisition to the playoffs? Without a doubt. Now to be clear, that should not be the goal, the idea is to make lasting upgrades and build that 95 win team. But the point is that this is not a hopeless team that gets no benefit from anyone playing 2013 as their last year under contract. Why would you project next years lineup without including one of our two all-stars?

go cubs

go cubs

go cubs

This inspired me to look up sneakypower's post from last year in which in he wondered whether the new market inefficiency was in finding "former top prospects whose teams have lost patience". I thought it would be interesting to look back at the players that made him wonder roughly a year later and see how much of their success held up. 2012 C Saltamalacchia 1.5 fWAR 1B Kotchman -0.6 fWAR 2B Sizemore 0.0 fWAR (out for the season) 3B Hardy 0.7 fWAR SS Wood 0.0 fWAR (OPSing .723 in AAA) LF Cabrera 4.1 fWAR CF Maybin 0.8 fWAR RF Francoeur -1.1 fWAR Total 5.4fWAR He also included a list of 12 other players at the end of his post that would fit this mold. Of these 12, only 2 (Dexter Fowler and Colby Rasmus) have had much success this year. Here is the link if anybody is curious. http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=59650& I was pretty surprised at how few of these players have actually success, so I think I might be agreeing with you here.

Yes

Did not realize Henry Blanco was still in the majors