George Hayduke

http://friendlyconfinesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/tom-and-theo.jpg What on Earth is that? Does the front office have its own Wednesday night bowling team?

My only quibble is with the bold - unfortunately I don't think it's just writers. I know many a garden variety baseball fan who honestly thinks Bonds should not be in the HOF because "he's a dirty cheater." Mostly older fans though, I think.

Not to belabor the point....but sweet baby Jebus, TWO people voted for Aaron Boone to be a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Aaron Boone had a season of 3 fWAR exactly zero times in his career, and 2 fWAR only 3 times. There are literally thousands of players more deserving than him. Are the voters just trolling MLB?

I remember reading an article a year or two ago that basically said Piazza is in a weird middle ground where some voters seem to be holding the steroid thing against him and some aren't. Like, they think he likely used them but aren't really sure and aren't crucifying him over it the way they are Bonds, Mac, etc. The thinking is he'll have enough votes sooner or later, but the naysayers will keep him out for a few years of his eligibility.

You don't know that either of these are true. LaStella is here and it looks quite plausible that he could open the season as the starter. And while it's possible that the Drew rumors were fictions created by his agent, "highly likely" is an overreach, just like your last comment about a celebrity softball game. The point is, those things and Javy's winter league K pileup have happened since Theo first stated the plan for him to be the 2015 2B starter. Therefore it's not right to present that September quote as the current gospel truth. I'm not saying Javy is hopeless - just that it is now plausible that he opens the season in AAA. Javy will open the season in the majors. If that was the plan in early October, a month of winter league ball won't change that. Lester's acquisition and the acceleration of the rebuild may mean that Javy is on a shorter leash to start showing improvement in 2015, but for now they're planning on him being the 2B. Like TT said, we can't really read too much into his PR numbers, other than to say that whatever he needs to fix, it isn't fixed yet. That's not to say there aren't good reasons for it or that he won't eventually make the adjustments. That fact that it's not fixed yet doesn't really make me any more worried than I was at the end of the season...it just means I'm still very worried.

Some musings on 2015 Jason Hammel: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/back-in-chicago-jason-hammel-looks-for-a-return-to-form/

Javier not starting in tonight's game and not yet playing (it's in the 7th). Also, Theo talks Javy, says the Cubs are sticking with him. --> http://www.csnchicago.com/cubs/theo-epstein-cubs-wont-bail-javier-baez-2015

The Javy stats are sort of generally being posted in the Javy Sucks thread. I mean I guess we could post some Junior Lake stats or something, but that would only make the Javy stuff far more depressing. Edit: Latest recap on winter league. http://vineline.mlblogs.com/2014/12/29/cubs-winter-league-recap-122814/

43.8% right now. But his BB% is like 10.4 or something...so there's that.

43.8% right now.

Is it weird that for some reason this is the OMC my brain first thought you meant when I read that?

Yeah, I think 4 WAR is probably a bit optimistic.

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/lets-look-at-jake-arrieta-and-collin-mchugh-and-then-lets-look-at-their-elbows/

Not sure what David was looking at, but this article on the subject is looking at rWAR for players drafted 2005 - 2014. League average appears to be more like 65 vs the 100 that was mentioned...which seems more realistic to me. http://www.thegoodphight.com/2014/11/20/7240035/phillies-recent-draft-history-boom-and-bust

Sam Fuld, he's at 5 career WAR.

Something something robots can't dream something.

I know we're not, I just like to dream.

Scherzer / Lester / Arrieta / Hammel / Hendricks [expletive] yeah man!

And the bottle of Skol made me literally laugh out loud.

Outstanding. I, for one, welcome our new Pearl Jam loving overlord.

http://reactiongif.org/wp-content/uploads/GIF/2014/12/-Oh-My-God-Omg-GIF-2015.gif

Game on. http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/09/good-day.gif

Maybe Belk is more of a regional/southern department store than I thought, but I didn't think it was obscure at all.

Nor is quantifying runs as cut and dried defensively as it is offensively. I've wondered how much run saving defense is dependent on chances. Like, is the ball distributed enough across the diamond that each position is going to have roughly the same chances or can you randomly "save" a bunch more runs one year just because 40 more balls got hit your way than the previous year? Whereas with hitting you're guaranteed to get a chance 11% of the time. Basically can good defense be mitigated just because the ball is hit to you less based on randomness... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk This is definitely an effect. It's part of why you have some defensive valuations fluctuate wildly from year to year. It's the constant give/take of designing defensive stats. If you try to normalize for chances, then you aren't really measuring the impact in any given year. If you don't, then you aren't really predictively measuring ability. I would think over the course of an entire season, the number of chances by position would pretty well normalize. At the very least, it seems you could compare it to some kind of league average number of chances by position.

If you haven't read the article about him he literally did not get married and have kids so he could go to all the big sports games. It's annoying, but he's a nice guy. He gives random families really good seats to huge games. http://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article3227237.html