Bertz

I'm pretty here for this Willson Contreras as John Marston content

For those concerned about the rising strikeout rate, that's likely the best way to fix it. But in mid-season? It'll be an adjustment for batters too. Their timing will be off. They would never do that in real baseball obviously. I'd guess this is purely to improve the ability to make 1:1 comparisons with the collected data

All good, except do not change the distance from the rubber to the plate. For those concerned about the rising strikeout rate, that's likely the best way to fix it.

On the one hand it would be so very 2019 to feel relief having dodged a Kareem Hunt signing and then get blindsided by an AP one. On the other hand isn't the whole point of moving on from Howard to get someone more well rounded? Peterson's not really that guy.

I wonder what's realistic for him, a 4th rounder?

Yeah it's not accurate. I think when games are played in a park without pitch fx they have to rely on stringers, and when games are inconsequential enough the stringers don't even bother with pitch by pitch info. I believe if you Gameday minor league games at the really low levels it's the same (or at least was not too long ago). The Chatwood stuff is really encouraging. Spring stats are mostly meaningless, but there was a study a few years back that showed that K/BB numbers do actually mean a tiny bit. If back in November there was a ~30% chance of him being fixed for 2019, those odds might be more like 40 something now. He's still probably trash, but the needle has moved.

I would guess not actually. I think the Dodgers and Astros (and maybe Yankees?) are WAY ahead of the curve on this sort of stuff, and then we're probably in that second tier of smart teams. I mean in the article they mention that they've already got like 3-4 years of Kinatrax data, whereas Rapsodo and Edgertronic have only really blown up league wide over the last 18-24 months.

horsefeathers sounds like artillery fire

According to the Athletic, Contreras has changed some things mechanically to improve his pitch framing. And through half an inning with the probably the easiest to receive guy on the staff I think it looks good!

Broadly, there are five ways it can work out: 1. The player is awesome, opts out and leaves, and continues being awesome. The opt out was pretty bad. 2. The player is awesome, opts out and leaves, and then sucks. The opt out was really great here, but I think people vastly overrate the likelihood of this scenario. 3. The player is awesome, opts out and resigns, and continues being awesome. The opt out was modestly bad because you lost a little surplus value. 4. The player is awesome, opts out and resigns, and then sucks. The nightmare scenario. 5. The player is not good enough to opt out. The opt out was modestly good here, because it saved you a little cash. I think number five is by far the most likely, so I'm generally in favor of opt outs. That being said the downside risk is pretty substantial.

if this is worded too awkwardly, here's a gross oversimplification to make it clear what i mean if a player would rather sign a 6 year deal for $200M with an opt out after, say, year 3, than a 6 year deal for $300M with no opt out, then the opt out is good for the team. what that dollar valuation is, i have no horsefeathering idea, but it exists. I think the value is that if you're willing to give one the player will be more willing to sign with you. I don't think you're getting that much of a financial discount to include one. It sure didn't help bring down the Heyward price. It's hard to completely divorce the opt outs from just getting the hell out of St. Louis, but didn't we offer Heyward 15-20 million less than the Cards?

Yeah, I expect them to spend a good bit of money next year, but not on anything particularly fun. Hamels or Verlander to be Lackey 2.0, a couple setup guys, and a DH if that ends up being necessary.

Out of curiosity, are they accounting for potential inflation on the $/WAR calculation in any way? I know he does, but the methodology wasn't discussed. The long and short of it was "the computer spits out $289 for Bryce, but the Phillies are in that meaty part of the win curve where it's totally worth it."

Me too, especially as that will be post-strike and with a new CBA. But it's undeniably a gamble - both on his own performance in the interim and the players' resolve holding. Harper would have been a FA at 30 - seems very probable to me he'd be able to get at least a $150 million deal then, and for less than 9 years too. I'm sure he hated this whole disgusting free agency process, with the sham the owners have turned it into, and you can't knock a guy for taking 330 million dollars. But this ended up being a very team-friendly deal. This is the thing that people who are bitching about this deal don’t seem to understand. The total dollars is a big number no doubt, but the guy literally has to average 3.2 WAR over the life of the deal to make it worth it. I’m baffled by fans freaking out over it. ZiPS actually has the deal as an overpay by about $40m, and they had Machado's deal as dead even (worth $302 over 10 years IIRC). That being said, the death of baseball's middle class was supposed to be in service of getting these types of guys outrageous money. If Bryce and Manny had combined for $850m, then it'd be hard to get too worked up about like Brian Dozier having to settle for a one year deal. But if these guys are getting market rates, the middle class is getting squeezed, and kids have to settle for arb, we obviously have a problem.

25.4 per year...or put another way Brandon Kintzler plus Cole Hamels plus .4 million Horsefeathers Theo just as much as Tom

Coming into this winter I definitely thought the only way he wasn't signing with us was if his contract started with a 4. Oops.

The dream is dead

They knew before. Word of the budget crunch came out at basically the same time as the Hamels news. I think they spent the first few weeks of the offseason seeing what it would take to dump various salaries, didn't find the prices to their liking, and settled for this course of action.

Pretty player friendly contract IMO. Very refreshing to see given how the last 15 months have been.

Extremely encouraging velo numbers considering where we are on the calendar

They're saying he's fine and still on track to start opening day but everything coming out about Clayton Kershaw this past week has been pretty ominous.