OmarComing25

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/potential...dseason-update/

I will never stop beating the "Paulo Orlando is actually not good" drum.

IMO "playoff contender" and "World Series contender" are redundant terms, they're one and the same in baseball. Just have to be good enough to get there.

I'm more concerned with the strikeouts than the walks. I'd be happy with a 3-4% walk rate if he can play good defense and hit for moderate power. He's a guy who can likely sustain a high BABIP (.340-.350 range), so if he can get his K-rate down near 20% then he could be great.

He's definitely exceeded expectations for me so far, but those plate discipline numbers are pretty scary. 32% strikeout rate and no walks? That 45% O-Swing percentage combined with just a 60% Z-Swing percentage looks pretty scary too. Still way early though, and I think he has what it takes to adjust. I don't mind the aggressive approach as long as he's swinging at strikes too, but he's been below-average in that. Hopefully that will come with time. Defense is the most important thing out of your SS though, so the fact that he's played well there is extremely encouraging. I say B+.

QUOTE (captain54 @ Jun 25, 2016 -> 01:02 AM) The whining about the miserable whiners is actually worse than the whining of the miserable whiners The ranks of the miserable whiners would thin, and the decibel level of the the whining would subside, if the organization could at least figure out how to put a team on the field that could play .500 I guess I'll never quite get the loyalty toward a brain trust who's expiration date has long since past What about the whining about the whining about the miserable whiners? That may be worst of all.

Robot umps please, I still find it ridiculous that a huge part of a catcher's value is his ability to fool the ump, that shouldn't be part of the sport. By far my least favorite part of baseball.

QUOTE (Condor13 @ Jun 23, 2016 -> 03:56 PM) We do it multiple times every day. I get once in a while like Boston, not not ever f***ING time Is there a way to actually look this up? Curious to see where we rank.

QUOTE (FT35 @ Jun 23, 2016 -> 02:57 PM) Also important to remember that Sale has this same offense to give him the same run support as Q and he's still 27 over. That's remarkable really. Just because they pitched for the same team doesn't mean they received the same run support. The offense is scoring almost 2 runs/game more for Sale than Quintana this year.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Jun 23, 2016 -> 02:25 PM) That pop up...lol. What happened?

Still time for Shields to give up lots of runs, but people didn't actually think he was going to keep giving up 6+ runs every start, did they?

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ Jun 23, 2016 -> 01:42 PM) I'd love to get a few more so we can drill Papi right in the ass If by a few more you mean 10 then sure.

Paulo Orlando isn't even any good, pretty much his entire batting line is being propped up by a ~.500 BABIP right now.

Latos was not a negative move. In a world where mediocre starters get 12-15 million a year, 3 million is nothing, his April alone made the move worth it. If Rollins played any major part in getting LaRoche to retire, and it sounds like he did, then he was actually one of Hahn's better moves regardless of what he did on the field, and that's not including anything he might have done for Anderson and Saladino as a veteran presence. Beckham for 2 million was also fine, he was worth 0.3 WAR as a bench player, he earned his small paycheck. I also think people way overrate how bad the Duke move was, and it's hilarious that Greensox is mad that the Sox traded over the hill veterans in Rios (no he didn't help win a title, he was one of their worst players), Thornton and De Aza, way to talk out of both sides of your mouth. That's not the only thing you're being inconsistent with either. You can't hate on the Freddy Garcia trade because "it looked bad on paper" at the time and ignore the end result, while doing the exact opposite with many of the moves listed here.

Can we petition the league office to only have non-ALC opponents the rest of the season?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 03:00 PM) If this is true, why just flat out ignore any information that can add to the discussion? Because I still can't think of an example where W-L record actually adds to the discussion. Looking at W-L record tells you nothing about how good a pitcher is. Yes, the good pitchers tend to have good records and the bad pitchers tend to have bad records, but there's way too many examples where it lies to be meaningful. Shelby Miller led the MLB in losses last year at 6-17 and yet was one of the best pitchers in baseball. Drew Hutchison had the 7th worst ERA last year among SP with at least 100 IP yet he had a 13-5 record. All the variables pointed out in this thread (how deep a pitcher goes into games, how he pitches in close games/high leverage situations, etc.) are important but can't be gleaned from a pitcher's W-L record (and for every example of a pitcher who didn't get wins because he didn't go deep enough into games or pitched poorly in close games, there's a counter-example of a pitcher who did the same but was bailed out by their offense). If a pitchers' W-L record tells me nothing about how well a pitcher pitched, then why bother with it? A pitcher can get spotted a 5-run lead, then immediately give up 6 runs the next inning, but then be bailed out by the offense and still get the win. On the other hand, a pitcher can throw a no-hitter and give up runs due to 2 errors by the defense and take a loss. It provides zero context. Give me a specific example where it provides meaningful discussion about a pitcher, because there haven't been any in this thread to this point.

QUOTE (shipps @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 03:27 PM) Is Arrieta finally coming down to earth? Cubs look like they will get swept by the Cards. 7-0 in the 6th. He gave up only 1 ER today.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 02:02 PM) Have you ever watched the show Cutthroat Kitchen? Where the contestants start out with an amount of money which they then use to bid for the opportunity to make their opponents deal with all sorts of disadvantages or handicaps? For example, you can make your opponent cook his meal over candlelight as opposed to the professional range that you are allowed to utilize. Or perhaps your opponent has to cook his meal while riding a tricycle while you are allowed to cook entirely unencumbered. At the end of the allotted cooking time, a judge comes in, and, completely unaware of what took place in regards to who bid what or who had to cook with what disadvantages, they simply judge the the final dishes, as if all things were completely equal. You are essentially playing the role of judge in this competition, and you're only viewing the final dishes. You aren't considering what went in to actually producing the outcomes you are evaluating. You're simply tasting the dish afterwards and saying, "Yes, it makes sense that he lost because this dish is pretty mediocre." What Tony is saying is that he actually watched Javy pitch. And in this analogy, Javy had all kinds of chances to cook without riding the f***ing tricycle and still managed to lose all the time. Aren't we all the judges in this competition? There's so much we don't know. We weren't in Javy's head, we have no idea what he went through on his path to the big leagues, what adversity he had to overcome, what days he had to pitch over discomfort or some kind of physical ailment or when he was feeling 100% healthy. I watched him pitch too, he was as frustrating as anyone, because it was clear he had a talented arm, but there are dozens of examples of pitchers nearly every year with talented arms who also never live up to their potentials. Since there's so much we don't know, we can only make judgments on the information we do know, like the judge had to.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 02:04 PM) Ok. Since I really hadn't looked at Strasburg and Quintana until you brought it up, I need to change my answer. the two are almost identical in all stats except for 3, wins, xFIP and the pitching stat i think is the most telling of performance SIERA. Strasburg has a big lead in all three of those. Giving Quintana credit for being in the AL, i need to go with Strasburg as having the better season. http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2016/5/11...n-fly-ball-rate Quintana has pretty much always been below average in HR/FB rate (8.1% for his career, just 6.5% over the last three seasons), especially in the last three years, which xFIP normalizes. Strasburg on the other hand has always been above the league average (11.6% for his career, 12.8% over the last three seasons), as he has been a below-average contact-manager in his career and given up a lot of loud contact. Using xFIP in this comparison isn't the best, as these guys are both examples of pitchers who are consistently above or below that normalized homerun rate. Strasburg's homerun rate is nearly double Quintana's over the last three seasons, so it's not really fair to normalize their rates.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 01:56 PM) Because this offense has shown it is more than capable of huge innings all of the time. When the bunts have been called from the bench, they have been called at times where scoring a run could win the game. The only questionable one was when Melky bunted in NY. But second and third one out scores 1 run more often than first and second and no out. It scores more than 1 slightly less. But 1 would have been big there. All Frazier had to do was put the ball in play and not pop it up. The others people complain about were hitters doing it on their own. Yes, but that assumes a successful bunt. Factor in the probability of the bunt failing to get down, and it's less, unless you have a hitter at the plate that can get the bunt down at a 90% success rate.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 01:34 PM) I don't believe you are looking at this correctly. I don't believe he is arguing that Javy's body of work is not representative of his actual win-loss record. What I believe is being argued is that Javy's statistical body of work and win-loss record is not representative of his actual pitching ability. I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. Is the argument that Vazquez didn't live up to his talent level? I think everyone would agree there, but that happens to most pitchers, so I'm not sure how looking at win-loss record is a good indicator of this.

QUOTE (Tony @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 11:58 AM) This is more a debate with people taking the extreme approach to everything. "I never look at wins, they are a meaningless stat, it's not important." Why do you have to take it that far? If I'm a talent evaluator and I'm looking at a pitcher, their amount of wins is not something I'm going to look at right off the bat. That's obvious. However, you'd be foolish not to at least use the stat for some sort of reference. The best example I can think of is Javy Vazquez. Without sounding too much like Hawk, that guy didn't know how to win a ballgame. Anyone that uses analytics will tell you that ONLY using analytics is a very bad idea, or only using some analytics. The more information, the better. It's to help guide you into making an accurate assessment of a player. Curiosity got the best of me so I looked it up. Vazquez had a career 105 ERA+, so he was 5% better than the average pitcher. Over his career, the average runs scored/game in the league he pitched in was 4.67 runs/game, while the average run support he received was 4.49 runs/game, or 4% less than the league average. He ended up 165-160, which is pretty much exactly what you would expect from those numbers. Yes it seems obvious and needless to point out, as it would be difficult for his W-L record to turn out a different way given those numbers, I'm just illustrating a point. There's nothing strange in Vazquez's W-L record, it's exactly what it should be.

QUOTE (Tony @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 12:06 PM) HOT TAKE ALERT. Jesus. Of course that's not the case. Nearly every analytic will show he is very strong starting pitcher that has been snake bit the last few years. And no where will see you see me arguing that wins are an important stat. But I'm also not going to totally throw the W statistic out the window just because some feel it's outdated. It has a use, and it's up to user reading the stats to decide what value he wants to put on that stat. That make sense, Skip? OK, and what value do they have to you? How is saying Vazquez "didn't know how to win" any less of a hot take?

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 12:04 PM) Could be. How many 2 out hits do pitchers give up and people think "he just can't get that last out" In all sports there is a mental aspect to finishing. Being highly involved in running there is a huge mental game in racing vs. running. He's actually pitched at his best in high leverage situations and with runners on base this year.

QUOTE (Tony @ Jun 22, 2016 -> 11:58 AM) This is more a debate with people taking the extreme approach to everything. "I never look at wins, they are a meaningless stat, it's not important." Why do you have to take it that far? If I'm a talent evaluator and I'm looking at a pitcher, their amount of wins is not something I'm going to look at right off the bat. That's obvious. However, you'd be foolish not to at least use the stat for some sort of reference. The best example I can think of is Javy Vazquez. Without sounding too much like Hawk, that guy didn't know how to win a ballgame. Anyone that uses analytics will tell you that ONLY using analytics is a very bad idea, or only using some analytics. The more information, the better. It's to help guide you into making an accurate assessment of a player. So Quintana just doesn't know how to win a ballgame?