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Hairyducked Idiot

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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot

  1. Hairyducked Idiot
    Best Of All Time
  2. Hairyducked Idiot
    I’ll be in my bunk
  3. Hairyducked Idiot
  4. Hairyducked Idiot
    fake rally
  5. Hairyducked Idiot
    -28 run differential over last 25 games. Take a 95-win team and hurt two 5-win players and have a 3.5-win pitcher become suddenly useless, what’s left?
  6. Hairyducked Idiot
    On Sunday, August 13, 2006, the Red Sox were 20 games over .500 with a +65 run differential and the second-best offense in baseball. But the main point of comparison is that they had an expensive starting rotation that completely and en masse crapped the bed.
  7. Hairyducked Idiot
    We knew that this could happen, we were just in a little bit of euphoric denial. Pitchers are weird and Epstein especially does not really understand them, especially in comparison to the ridiculous track record this front office has in developing position players. It's just hard not to say "maybe this is the new normal" when you go through a boom economy, or the baseball equivalent where none of your pitchers gets a major arm injury three years running and some rando you scrape out of Baltimore becomes late-90s Pedro for two years. Right now, this is our version of the 2006 Red Sox, and we're still heavy favorites to win the division. If we can scrape through this without any harm done, that's an amazing testament to the foundation this team has. And just like not every year was going to be 2016, we'll probably have some good years coming up. Heck, as bad as they've been, they could flip a switch tomorrow or better yet in 7 weeks. Pitchers are weird cuts both ways.
  8. Hairyducked Idiot
    Cobs have a -25 run differential over their last 22 games. They are 11-11 in that stretch, but that's only because they've been propped up by good fortune in one-run games. They are 3-8 in games decided by 4+ runs in that stretch, versus 6-1 in games decided by 2 or fewer runs. They've had a *really* bad stretch being propped up by sequencing luck to make it look like they're treading water. Which doesn't mean they can't start a hot streak tomorrow or something.
  9. Hairyducked Idiot
    Matt Carpenter is having a more valuable season than Javier Baez, but that'd just make it even funnier to listen to the bitching if Baez wins MVP.
  10. Hairyducked Idiot
    That's kind of terrifying. I didn't realize it was bad enough to warrant all that. Because playing until you’re 40 is easy? I think its just the point where KB is starting to realize how physically demanding playing 162 pro ball is, and since he wants a long career is approaching life/routines as such. I don’t think its scary, but maybe prudent. Because our 26 year old superstar hitter has a mysterious shoulder problem that has gone from day-to-day to talking about in terms of missing the season or not, and how he has to change his routine because he's worried about his body breaking down. Those are the kinds of quotes you expect from a 34-year-old.
  11. Hairyducked Idiot
    The good news is that this is exactly what happened to Epstein in Boston and they still got another WS win.
  12. Hairyducked Idiot
    Imagine how bad this could have been if Lester didn’t have a proven track record
  13. Hairyducked Idiot
    Rizzo's TOOTBLAN mastery has always flown under the radar.
  14. Hairyducked Idiot
    That's kind of terrifying. I didn't realize it was bad enough to warrant all that.
  15. Hairyducked Idiot
    I'm really annoyed at Brewerfan.net for their "It's fun to be in the picture and we have a shot, but obviously the Cubs are the favorites to win the division, they're better on paper and ahead" attitude. Give me some misery porn, guys.
  16. Hairyducked Idiot
    It's so weird to me that nobody seems to keep AAA scouting reports, or maybe the quality of pitching is so different it doesn't matter. Because it seems like we constantly have guys who come up and mash a little because the league says "lol here's your fastballs" before adjusting to whatever they actually do.
  17. Hairyducked Idiot
    [tweet] [/tweet]
  18. Hairyducked Idiot
    Soria demonstrating the Platonic ideal of how to miss your spot on that grand slam
  19. Hairyducked Idiot
    That's a pretty textbook example of counting the same thing twice. Sure, there is obvious overlap, but they are also clearly two different things. Do you call people out who cite Baez's OPS and WAR numbers in the same breath? Can we all just agree that Bote is a really cool name? [bbvideo=560,315] [/bbvideo]
  20. Hairyducked Idiot
    From May 2016: He has not subsequently done a whole lot to warrant comparison to Rizzo or Harper. This kind of analysis is the modern version of "But he hits .312 in day games on Tuesdays." There are so many peripherals now that if you keep digging, you can find one that you like about the guy. Maybe it's exit velocity, maybe it's LD%, maybe he's due some BABIP luck, maybe you like the K/BB ratio, maybe he's got an above-average Z-swing% (RIP alcantara 2beautiful4thisworld), maybe his contact rate is too big leagues to ignore. There's always something. Maaaaybe David Bote is the next Ryan Theriot, and granted offensive output is so low these days that you basically just have to be not Rey Ordonez to be useful in the middle infield, but there was a time that stat-savvy fans knew what to make out of the guy with OK but not great numbers in AA and AAA who comes up and hits well for 82 plate appearances.
  21. Hairyducked Idiot
    That's a pretty textbook example of counting the same thing twice.
  22. Hairyducked Idiot
    Everyone is constantly making small swing change adjustments. That's part of being a professional hitter. And then when those swing change adjustments happen to coincide with a hot streak, we get articles about how it's Changed Everything for that hitter.
  23. Hairyducked Idiot
    Note to self: do an old board search for “Soler” and “exit velocity.”
  24. Hairyducked Idiot
    The fun thing is that if it was some other team, say the Dodgers or something, whose pitching staff was getting double Thanos'd in front of our eyes and their run differential was -300 for the second half, the "EVERYTHING IS FINE" group would be the first ones to jump all over how vulnerable they were.
  25. Hairyducked Idiot
    He's hitting the ball harder than anyone since he's been in MLB though and he's also been a exit velo/statcast dude in the minors. It's hard not to be at least something at the major league level with how hard he hits the ball, especially when you add in what appears to be above average defense at a few spots and competent BB/K approach at the plate. Yeah I'm pretty sure I've seen guys who put up .836 OPS in the PCL or .809 in AA turn into nothing. Maybe he's a guy, maybe not. But this belief that exit velocity counters the possibility of positive variance is weird. A big part of positive variance is that sometimes you run into a few extra balls and get a few extra line drives.
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