MLB Fantasy Discussion aka "Votto is the Only Red Worth Taking"

[Penthesilea]

Not sure what you're trying to show with that graph. Development time? You do realize that Utley was behind Polanco and they weren't going to bring him up. Their third year in the league, Utley was slightly better in cumulative (why use this?) WAR, 4th year he was significantly better than Cano, and there's not much looking back at that point.

[Stiker]

So uh...Michael Young seems to be a bit pissed now, scorching the earth and saying the Rangers have mislead him and backed him into a corner one too many times. I feel like it's 2009 again!

[Bregor]

Not sure what you're trying to show with that graph. Development time? You do realize that Utley was behind Polanco and they weren't going to bring him up. Their third year in the league, Utley was slightly better in cumulative (why use this?) WAR, 4th year he was significantly better than Cano, and there's not much looking back at that point.

Being blocked by Placido Polanco is nothing I would want to admit. And using cumulative WAR makes sense when talking career path.

Still, Utley's been good for between 5.5 to 8 wins for six straight years, which isn't exactly easy to do. Cano has only done it three of the last four. He does have youth on his side, and I would bet he keeps it up (especially as his walk rate improves) but it's not a given.

[Penthesilea]

Well it was more so David Bell blocking Polanco from moving to third to allow Utley over.

[Bregor]

That's even worse.

[Penthesilea]

You're telling me.

anyways, just found this article, kinda neat

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...rticleid=12877

On his day off, Ferris Bueller had quite the adventure. From "borrowing" the 1961 Ferrari 250GT of his best friend's unforgiving father to visiting both the Sears Tower and the Art Institute and finally to singing "Danke Schön" and "Twist and Shout" in front of thousands of Chicagoans, it's fair to say that no one ever had a day off quite like it.

On Ferris's agenda that afternoon was, naturally, a trip to Wrigley Field....

they go on to figure out what game the movie was filmed during.

[Weeks]

Please use UZR to show me that Derek Jeter is a great defensive shortstop.

[Valisk]

So uh...Michael Young seems to be a bit pissed now, scorching the earth and saying the Rangers have mislead him and backed him into a corner one too many times. I feel like it's 2009 again!

Feb. 14th is the Hamilton salary arbitration too. Rangers are fuckin up.

[Cephius]

Not sure what you're trying to show with that graph. Development time? You do realize that Utley was behind Polanco and they weren't going to bring him up. Their third year in the league, Utley was slightly better in cumulative (why use this?) WAR, 4th year he was significantly better than Cano, and there's not much looking back at that point.

Because it shows career trends relative to age, obviously. The author threw out the tidbit about Cano's highest fWAR was only good for Utley's 6th best season without providing context. They're similar players and Cano is entering his prime years so his cumulative WAR should keep trending upwards while Utley will start bottoming out. It just shows that Cano will likely be the more valuable player over the course of his career. You can draw your own conclusions on if that actually happens or not, or even what it means.

Please use UZR to show me that Derek Jeter is a great defensive shortstop.

In 2009 at age 35 Jeter's UZR/150 was 8.0, good for 6th in the MLB. He was nowhere near that good unless you really believe his desire to win and calm eyes accounted for the 8 run difference between 08 and 09. Defensive statisitics are unreliable, water is wet, news at 11.

[Bingbong]

Please use UZR to show me that Derek Jeter is a great defensive shortstop.

You can't, he was 7th best among SS in the AL last year.
Also, they weren't using UZR in the late 90's, so it's all speculative.

UZR is one of those numbers that sort of defines what anybody who played the game already knows. Particularly the RngR part of the stat. Does he get to more balls than most? Anybody who watches baseball, knows that yeah Jeter makes every play he gets to, but there are handful of SS that make those plays, and get to more balls - making them overall better defensive SS.

You want to applaud Jeter because of his leadership, or clutch batting, fine... I get that, but don't hand him the gold glove every year because of that, it makes the award fraudulent.

[Stiker]

Feb. 14th is the Hamilton salary arbitration too. Rangers are fuckin up.

I hardly think Young bitching and a major contract negotiation defines a Rangers fuck up.

[Viq]

but don't hand him the gold glove every year because of that, it makes the award fraudulent

Inb4 Palmeiro

[Valisk]

I hardly think Young bitching and a major contract negotiation defines a Rangers fuck up.

I don't see Cliff Lee on the roster either.

[Stiker]

I don't see Cliff Lee on the roster either.

You must be trolling.

If you want to see postseason fail, take a look at the Angels.

[Penthesilea]

Because it shows career trends relative to age, obviously. The author threw out the tidbit about Cano's highest fWAR was only good for Utley's 6th best season without providing context. They're similar players and Cano is entering his prime years so his cumulative WAR should keep trending upwards while Utley will start bottoming out. It just shows that Cano will likely be the more valuable player over the course of his career. You can draw your own conclusions on if that actually happens or not, or even what it means.

And that is why I pointed out that their careers started at different ages. If you start 3 years before someone else of course over your career, outside of career ending injuries, your cumulative WAR will be greater.

math and stats isn't my strong suit but whatever. I just don't see how you can still say Cano is better using WAR (a silly stat IMO) by age rather than experience/what he's given to the team. Regardless of your age, right now if you're performing better it doesn't matter what age you happen to be at that time.

[Valisk]

You must be trolling.

If you want to see postseason fail, take a look at the Angels.

I don't judge "fail" by comparing the worst in the league. It's comparative to what the organization has done. For example, I don't expect a team to go from last place to World Series winners. Start with a winning record work your way up to a division title, postseason series win, etc. By the Rangers getting all this bad PR and not securing top players after reaching the World Series last year, I consider "fucking up". At least from a spectator standpoint. I just don't want a bad rep that factors into players/free agents not wanting to play/sign for/with us because of how we handle things.

"Philly fans don't need a sign to tell them when to cheer."

[Bregor]

I don't see Cliff Lee on the roster either.

http://images.bluegartr.com/signatur...pic35373_5.gif

[Cephius]

And that is why I pointed out that their careers started at different ages. If you start 3 years before someone else of course over your career, outside of career ending injuries, your cumulative WAR will be greater.

You act like starting his career earlier should count against Cano, not Utley. Who's fault is it that, for whatever reason, the Phillies didn't call up Utley earlier? Should we hold it against King Felix that he put up a 3.8 fWAR in his age 20 season? If someone starts their career earlier and produces isn't that valuable? Like I said, who knows if Cano will continue trending like he is but he has a good chance to out-WAR Utley over his career. How much stock you put in that is up to you - again I was just responding to the way the author was attempting to use WAR.

math and stats isn't my strong suit but whatever. I just don't see how you can still say Cano is better using WAR (a silly stat IMO) by age rather than experience/what he's given to the team. Regardless of your age, right now if you're performing better it doesn't matter what age you happen to be at that time.

WAR is not a perfect stat, not by a long stretch, but it's still a pretty good representation of how much a player contributed to his team relative to a replacement-level player. If you want to put stock into experience and stuff that's up to you. And yeah, if you want to compare Utley and Cano straight up, Utley has been better. If you're talking about their career paths and who has the higher ceiling? I don't think it's quite as cut and dry.

[Stiker]

I don't judge "fail" by comparing the worst in the league. It's comparative to what the organization has done. For example, I don't expect a team to go from last place to World Series winners. Start with a winning record work your way up to a division title, postseason series win, etc. By the Rangers getting all this bad PR and not securing top players after reaching the World Series last year, I consider "fucking up". At least from a spectator standpoint. I just don't want a bad rep that factors into players/free agents not wanting to play/sign for/with us because of how we handle things.

"Philly fans don't need a sign to tell them when to cheer."

Bad PR? Who the fuck are you listening too?

Hamilton says contract talks are proceeding just fine: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02...ogressing.html

So your other examples are Lee and Young? Lee very much had the Rangers in consideration; however, he wanted to play for Philly, period. There's nothing wrong with that. There is no "fail" in not being able to land the biggest free agent fish. By that comparison, the Yankees have failed by not signing Lee as well, plus Pettite retired! OMG PR FAIL!

And Young? Were you paying attention to the Rangers in 2009? He did this exact same shit when JD wanted to bring Elvis up to SS. I'm serious, take a look at the quotes:

Jon Daniels on Young tonight:
“We’re not looking to trade him and have no plans to. We plan on him being a big part of our ballclub going forward.”
…
Young is upset that he wasn’t given a choice about the position switch, saying, “My hand’s been forced with this one.” He says he’s “adamant” about not playing third base.
…
According to Rosenthal, Young was “absolutely livid” that the Rangers would request such a move just months after he was awarded his first Gold Glove (the award was not supported by his advanced statistics). The team was hoping to clear a spot for top prospect Elvis Andrus, but now they’ve got a real problem on their hands.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/0...l-young-r.html

He's the second highest paid player on the team behind Beltre now so he is coming off as nothing more than an over-paid prima dona right now. I have a ton more I could speak on the Young BS, but I already did a 2k word post on it last night and I don't feel like tl;dr'ing it (if you want to though, here you go: http://www.ndtex.com/2011/02/michael-young-teammate/ -- inb4 lol personal blog link).

JD is handling things perfectly. He isn't letting emotions of long tenured veterans get in the way of improving the team. Beltre is a clear upgrade at 3B and Napoli is the much needed bat that we've needed to punish left handed pitching (and make no mistake, Napoli's role would not have been everyday DH and take ABs away from Young). He's also signed another catcher (huge weakness for us) on top of that.

Where exactly is he going wrong again?

[Cephius]

Young is paid way more than he's worth but I think people see that he:

1) Moved from Short to Second - because of A-rod

2) Moved from Second to Short - because of Soriano

3) Moved from Short to Third - because Andrus was handed the job out of ST

4) (hypothetically) Moved from 3B to DH - because of Beltre

5) Moved from DH to bench because of Napoli

And he never really complained until now so I think people put stock in that. On the other hand he's paid way too much money, is terrible defensively, and his projections for this year have him trending down, not up, from last year's numbers. I wish the Rangers luck moving him because I don't think any GM is going to take him off their hands without throwing in some younger, cheaper talent.