Dominikk85

I like it as a low risk signing with upside but I would still prefer to get another good pen arm. Cishek could be good but last year he was quite lucky (2.95 era, 4.5 fip) and the arrows seem to be pointin down a bit. Steamer projects him for a 4.7 era and 0 war, I think he will be better than that but still he is more likely a high 3s era guy. That still helps the pen but I would like to get another back end arm, sign or trade.

I think they are in a good position to draft a HS pitcher but I would only take a hs pitcher at a discount due to the risk. If the hs pitcher is the 10th best talent I don't take him but if he is considered like the 4th best talent but fell due to risk management of other teams they could take him there.

The 2020s definitely should be better, I hope for at least 5-6 times in the playoffs and a WS win.

Driveline has ranked the sox player development dead last in mlb 2012-2019 https://www.drivelinebaseball.com/2019/04/finding-star-nothing-luck-quantifying-effectiveness-mlb-player-development/

At this time Cameron's skills weren't as valued as today. He hit for decent power but his strengths were defense and ability to take a walk, not things many cared about at this time. If he had played 10 years later people would have appreciated him more.

Btw a lot of the war is sale but that is pretty normal. I heard in a podcast that trout produced more war in the decade than like half of the farm systems.

That is somewhat true but still almost all full time mlb players are between 260 and 340. Within that range skill is involved but if it is like 220 or 380 it is mostly likely going to regress into that 260 to 340 range.

This stat exists already and is called BA on contact. Babip is not supposed to measure batter quality but the effect of fielding skill and luck thus homers are excluded. Of course with some homers luck and fielding skill plays a role, but babip just assumes this is not true to make it easier

.338 is actually a really high babip. Only 21 out of 127 players with at least 2000 career PAs have a higher career babip and only one is above 350 (yelich). Things that help babip are generally low pop ups, high EV, low pull rate and low launch angle and moncada checks some of those marks but still above 350 is extremely hard to maintain. I could see him being a consistent 340 guy though. The question is if he wants that though because those babip indicators also supress power some. If moncada wants to tap into more power he might want to increase his launch angle and pull rate some which helps power but hurts babip. So moncada can basically decide if he wants to be a high 20s homer guy with a .345 babip or a 40 hr guy with a .310 babip. Both plays, 285 with 28 homers is nice but so is .260 with 40 homers.

Burger was considered one of the best hitters of the draft, he hit .328/.443/ 648 with 22 homers his last year. The injuries were totally not foreseeable, and he was expected to be a quick moving high floor guy. The knock against him was that many didn't see him staying at third long with his body type. Regarding lux he wouldn't be what he is with the sox. The dodgers have a top player development and totally revamped his swing to improve his power. Not saying the sox would have ruined him but he probably would be more a decent hitter with like 10 HR power than a guy who projects for 20+ bombs.

I think the twins have less talent, especially in the rotation. They have a really good player development though, they get their players to maximize their talent by optimizing launch angle and stuff like that and thus hit tons of homers. They definitely need another starter though, if not two.

I think the twins will seriously regress. White sox are probably a mid to high 80s win team but the twins and indians might not be much better. The AL central is probably the easiest to win division in baseball next year and white sox have a shot at doing this. I think all 3 teams have a similar shot of winning it unless cleveland dismantles the team more. So sox have about a 1 in 3 shot of winning the division. They need to do that though because I'm sure the wildcard will come from another division again, most likely the al east. There is a realistic chance the sox win the division, depending on run differential luck and development of young players anything between 80 and 95 wins could happen with about 87 or so being most likely.

Well it costs nothing to keep him in the minors (except a few thousand bucks per year) so I doubt they just release him. But if he doesn't get healthy at all this year his career might be over.

I would like a top reliever. The pen isn't terrible (last year they were 8th in pen WAR in the AL, so about average) but adding another 1.5-2 war too this pen would turn an average AL pen into a top5 pen. Question is how you do it. Maybe a trade? Or sign two 1 war guys?

I think they should start him at AAA and if there is a good trade you do it but no need to give him away, a cheap hitter in the system never hurts. If you could get a good reliever with 3 years of control for example I would do it. Or a good (50fv) lower level middle infield prospect. But no need to trade him for a lottery ticket type of young prospect or a crap major leaguer.

That is nice. If you add 2 war for the bench that is almost 25 WAR which would have ranked them 6th in the AL. There is also upside for more as only abreu and EE are older guys.

They definitely have been trying to do that and bringing more modern guys but they haven't been as effective in implementing it and sometimes old school coaches would not listen to the modern guys and instead just continue to do like they always did.

Because eventually mlb might remove the home plate ump completely, which means lost jobs for the umpire union.

Update with projections: Giolito 3.2 Keuchel 2.7 Cease 2.2 Kopech 1.4 Gio 1.3 This also means you probably get positive war from your 6th and 7th starter plus you have some upside if rodon comes back but you don't really need him. Basically rodon and reylo are just wild cards at this point, but of course an injury can always happen and you can put some guys in the pen.

This will happen eventually but not that quickly. Many players in the independent atlantic league which tested the system for mlb didn't like the system and thought it was erratic. I think it will take 2-3 more years before all kinks are ironed out and probably till the next cba until it gets established. Until then grandals contract is probably over.

As a 5 starter he is ok (projected for 1.5 war).

I think keuchel or ryu would be the best choice

The while pitching analytics industry needs to find answers for health. After adding velo and pitch design this will be the next big break through. The team who significantly improves pitcher health and reduces attrition rate of pitching prosects will have a huge advantage especially now that developing hitters has become better due to all the data and launch angle stuff and thus many teams develope hitters and buy pitchers like Epstein started in Boston and Chicago.

Driveline definitely has success adding velo to pitchers. Only negative thing you could say that except for bauer there hasn't really been a durable starter who regularly goes 180+ip, most of the guys there have been more reliever types. This doesn't have to be a knock against driveline, there could be a negative selection in that top tier starters don't need to take an extra risk and do that stuff because they are already good and high paid while for some lesser pitchers driveline is the last straw to stay or become relevant. For hitters it is the same. The top hitters usually don't do swing changes, the guys who do swing changes at 23+ years of age are guys who are on the way out like JDM or donaldson back then, while a 21 yo top prospect who rakes usually wouldn't change his swing. This makes sense, if you are a hitting coach and you change vlad jr and he becomes worse you get fired so you leave him alone and let him hit. Sometimes thus also the best hitters and pitchers aren't great pitching or hitting coaches because it came naturally to them without them fully understanding it.

He is pretty boring. He does have a tendency to outperform his fip so some of his contact management skill is probably real but still he is walking a fine line. As a 5 starter he is pretty solid but I would definitely prefer one of ryu or keuchel.