Hairyducked Idiot

Fangraphs has him 104th out of 139 pitchers who fit that standard. Meanwhile, xFIP robs him of his HR-controlling ability, which he displayed in the minors as well. It's too early to say for sure, but I'm betting on him outperforming his xFIP pretty consistently for his career. Using straight FIP instead of xFIP puts him at 84th out of 139. Even if he is a "solid No. 4" starter and no more, he's still going to outperform his arbitration values by a rather large amount. Unless he gets hurt or seriously underperforms, he's not in any danger of being non-tendered.

Yeah, sorry, the stats were for Pie. Just got the wrong year.

2000 AA MLE: 217/270/385 2001 AAA MLE: 207/252/354 2001 actual MLB performance: 221/266/366 2002 actual MLB performance: 253/284/392

Yeah, okay, I was trying to play along with this like without treating you like you're dumb, but you are making that more and more difficult with each post. A player's minor-league performance, especially high-minors, can be reliably translated into a Major League Equivalent. That MLE is just as predictive of that player's future stats as a major league performance would be. A .260/320/400 MLE is predictively equivalent to a 260/320/400 MLB stat line. Where most prospects flame out is that their MLEs are close, but not quite, up to par. The teams hope they will continue to improve and they don't. Take Felix Pie. At age 21 in 2001, he put up a .283/.341/.451 line at Iowa. Plugging that into the handy online MLE calculator, that is the equivalent of a 230/274/352 line in the majors. Despite that, the Cubs called him up in 2002, hoping he'd continue to improve because of his age. He didn't, posting a 215/271/333 line, eerily similar to his MLE the year before. He improved a small amount but mostly stagnated and became a .249/.298/.374 career hitter. Again: It's a long-proven sabermetric tenant that properly-adjusted MiLB stats are just as predictive as MLB stats. The problem is that most people overestimate how predictive MLB stats are (even established players are pretty volatile) and they underestimate how harsh MLE adjustments can be. The idea that we have to just throw up our hands and pretend like we have no idea what to expect from these guys is lazy and wrong.

You are just wrong about this. Bill James proved pretty conclusively in the 1980s that properly adjusted minor league statistics are just as predictive as major-league statistics. Yes, sometimes prospects flame out. Most of the time, this isn't because their MiLB statistics weren't predictive enough, it's because their MiLB statistics were projecting them to be not good enough but the team was counting on them to improve with age.

It's stupid and contradictory, but I never had a problem downloading and streaming to my heart's content, but adblocking felt like stealing.

Every player has significant error bars on their projection. The difference is that when a Pujols underperforms by a few WAR, he's still a great player. When most players underperform by a few WAR, they fall into the mass of replacement-level fungibility.

Every single player on every major league roster is a "question mark." What does that even mean? Are you saying Felix, Sabathia, Castro, Cabrera, Pujols, etc. are all question marks? To answer your question, a "question mark" is a player that doesn't have a track record to predict whether he will be productive. Every player on a major-league roster has a significant track record from which we can make reasonable projections about their productivity. Every player on a major-league roster has a non-zero chance of performing significantly differently than what we expect, including the so-called "sure thing" stars.

I'd take Pineda for Garza straight up and not really think twice about it. If it takes Pineda plus a prospect to get Montero, then the bar for a Garza trade is a lot lower than we hoped. Obviously it only takes one sucker, as in the Marshall trade, but at this point I'd rather just keep Garza.

Every single player on every major league roster is a "question mark." What does that even mean?

I don't think that's certain at all. That's right about where I have them.

How generous of him to "lower" his price to that.

If one of my friends had said that in front of me, he would have been slapped at a minimum. And my normal junk is about average. NSBB = the Lake Woebegon of junk, both e- and normal.

A rough rule of thumb is that a contact out averages .05 runs more than a strikeout. You gain some extra bases advanced and you also add some double plays, and it almost balances out. So if he strikes out 50 times a year, that's maybe worth two runs more than a similar player who strikes out 90 times a year.

Worked out for the teams that signed Chapman, Contreras, Kendrys Morales and Alexi Ramirez. Edit: I'll readily admit I don't know enough about the Cuban league to have a long intellectual discussion about the quality of the league. I just remember several players coming from there to the bigs and having success their first year. Most of them, especially Alexi, I heard tons of discussion about how bad the quality of the Cuban league was and the doubts that he would adjust quickly at all. I remember people being shocked that Alexi was going to start the season in the bigs. Stupid good points ruining my Cespedes dislike.

When I'm looking for big-league solutions, the first place I go is A-ball, aka the Cuban league. Pass.

Depends on what you mean by "mediocre," "slightly," "better" and "worse."

No.

Castro will be good. Rizzo will be good. Jackson might be good. In the meantime, we need people to fill in the other spots.

he only managed a .270/.325/.385 MLE in AAA, and even giving him +7 between defense & baserunning keeps him at "substandard" in a full season of PA MLB LFer hit .255/320/408 last year, so that wouldn't exactly leave him wildly trailing offensively. Going with 270/325/385, the closest comp I can find last season would have been Juan Rivera: 258/319/382 in 132 games. Take out Rivera's baserunning and defense and plugging in a +7 for Sappelt and prorate it out to 150 games, and you get 1.7 fWAR. That would have placed him 10th among qualified LFers last year. I know it's semantics because even at 10th among qualified LFers, nobody's getting geeked about a 1.7 fWAR. But given that Soriano is deep into his decline phase and gave us 1.3 fWAR last season, and that Sappelt has some upside given his age, I see no reason not to give him the LF job and be comfortable with it for 2012.

I started to blame the media for feeding into the fantasy that some team is going to severely overpay for our assets. Then I remembered the Marshall trade and that there are some really dumb GMs out there. Could we get the Reds interested in Garza? I know their rotation is full, but is it Dustyproof?

I'm pretty sure it's Mark Felt.

Obviously it depends on where offense goes, but right now an .830 OPS from 1b is above-average. Throw in plus defense and you've definitely got a long-term solution. Best comps I could find in 2011: Mark Teixeira hit .248/341/494 with good defense and was worth 4.2 fWAR in 4.2 fWAR Carlos Santana hit .239/351/457 with negative defense and was worth 3.8 fWAR in 155 games. Michael Cuddyer hit 284/356/459 with slightly negative defense and baserunning for 3.1 fWAR in 139 games.

I don't completely blame them if that's true. But of course, if that's how teams feel, we can just keep Garza.

Wood and Volstad get the spots. Wells as a No. 6 I can live with. Why should Volstad get a spot over Wells? Because he's better, more good, and less awful.