Dominikk85

Reds have hired boddy. Kyle tweeted he remains the boss of driveline but probably leaves most of the work to his employees. Driveline can continue to work for other orgs but he personally has an exclusive contract and can't work with other orgs. The cubs apparently made an offer too but lost. I wonder if theo didn't want to make all those concessions to kyle because usually if you work for mlb orgs it means 100% exclusive and confidential and with this setup internal info might flow over driveline into other orgs. But then again what can people steal from cubs pitching development:)? Definitely a blow for the Cubs who rank dead last in the majors in homegrown pitching war the last 3-4 years and desperately need to develope some pitchers.

But why didn't he come back this year? Prognosis was he comes back this summer. If he didn't heal in several months what do we expect to happen over the winter? He basically had rest for over a year now so is another 6 months changing everything?

Well the only guys in that offense from the 2019 mlb team that matter are anderson, moncada, eloy, hopefully collins and depending on whether they bring him back abreu. Still anderson, eloy and to some extend abreu are bad plate discipline guys with bad k to bb rates. Collins and moncada also whiff but also have a good eye. Madrigal should help some while robert also is a bad plate discipline guy. However while I prefer guys with low K-BB numbers it is the overall production that counts. High walk and low K rate helps but the only thing that matters is your wRC+ and not how you do it. I mean the angels had the best plate discipline in baseball this year (lowest o swing, 3rd highest contact) but it got them nowhere but the twins had bad plate discipline (19th contact , 20th chase) and they rake. Don't get me wrong, better plate discipline is better but it is the overall output that counts. It doesn't matter if you have high on base table setters and power guys to drive them in like 10 years ago, it is basically just team with the highest average wRC+ wins. Still player dev should of course work on plate discipline as a better K-BB rate helps but there isn't just one way to success.

Would like it. His act wears off after some time but he can definitely motivate players. He does make some managing mistakes but overall it isn't that bad. He has a quite proven record and averaged like 95 wins with the cubs. This year it was pretty bad but it was also not his fault rizzo, baez and kimbrel all got injured at the same time and most free agents theo signed the last years sucked. I think the Cubs are also right to move on from him though, his extreme positivity and motivational act might have worn off and the cubs now might need now less of a players manager like maddon but more of a discipline guy.

Sure he is terrible this year with a 5 Era and tons of bombs but he did actually improve both his K and his BB rate compared to last year and while his K rate still isn't great he has some games that suggest more upside. Of course he also has those terrible 4 walk, 3 bomb for 7 runs games but giolito was literally the worst pitcher last year. Of course this is highly unlikely and most 5 era pitchers stay bad but could you see him improving big time and especially control his bb and HRs?

Baseball doesn't need it badly but I would like robo ump if it is good. Interestingly fangraphs interviewed a catcher and a pitcher in a pod and they didn't like it much and said it would not only call strange strikes but also be inconsistent which is exactly what it should avoid. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1433-a-pitcher-and-catcher-report/ Maybe it was selective perception by the guys but maybe the system needs still some improvement. Stats however didn't change much with Robo ump, Ks and runs the same and walks only slightly down with robo ump compared to real ump in the first half. That would mean impact isn't that big

I think they will start him at high A and then promote him quickly after like 20 games or so if he demolishes that level.

Fangraphs article on him. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/eloy-jimenez-wraps-up-year-one/ His plate discipline wasn't great with 26/6 k/bb% but as I wrote in comments I think he can improve to about 20/8 which also would be in line with his milb numbers and make him really dangerous.

Especially since they are not playing for anything. Maybe in a pennant race he would have come back for a start but no reason now. If anything lose a few more games so you get that 6 or 7 pick. Not saying they should intentionally lose, you just not risk a worse injury to a core player just to win 2 more games.

Rutschman's first season wasn't that impressive. He had a good k/bb rate like vaughn but only 3 HR and a 770 ops. I wonder if that is related to his illness costing him power.

To be fair the red sox only did trade for 19-19, the extension came after that and has to be viewed seperately. 17-19 sale produced 17 war so it already paid off. Still by total war the sox could win the trade easily but of course concentrated war also means something. If moncada and kopech become stars I think it is a win win for both because the red sox couldn't wait for moncada and kopech to get good. For the sox that move was correct too of course even though they would have liked moncada to be immediate impact like acuna or alvarez but if he's good now that's fine too.

He also built a pretty impressive home grown Core with bryant, schwarber, baez, contreras and Russell. First FA signings also weren't bad with zobrist, lester and lackey but then it went downhill after 2017. Still a good team but in 2016 writers were talking about a "best of all time " kind of dynasty but this didn't really happen as some signings flopped and of course they were unable to develope any pitchers so they needed to trade their farm every season. They are still good but Dodgers clearly overtook them as the best nl team so not the anticipated dynasty

Does anyone else epstein did a terrible job the last 3 years? He did a great job building that core and even a few good signings but the last years were pretty bad. -he flopped about 250+m in free agent signings: heyward, darvish, chatwood, morrow, davis - he gutted the farm: no gm traded away more talent. You could argue the Chapman deal worked as he won a ws but the quintana trade didn't work all that well. Sure he brought a historical ws to chicago but what was so different from dombrowski who also won a WS and gutted the farm?

Hahn did bring analytics people. The question is who has the final decision. It seems like with the sox using those analytics informations is a bit optional. You are provided with them and you are free to use them but if you prefer gut feel in a decision that is fine too. Especially on field coaching (hitting coaches...) it is often still a bit more old school. The difference with the astros is they enforce using the analytics and luhnow is willing to clean out an entire department if they resist.

Hahn probably does believe in analytics but most coaches in the industry are still old school and they don't like taking orders, especially from nerds who didnt play pro ball. When you tell them to change they will tell you they played peo ball and always did it like that. If you have a large group of "we did like we always did" people and they are standing together this is hard to overcome in a company even for a ceo. If it is one or two you fire him but if it is the whole org that is like a living organism. You can still change that but that requires cleaning the entire house and that is painful and makes you hated. Hahn probably wants change but he doesn't want the big conflict, he wants to fire a few, hire a few new ones who are more progressive and hopes to create that change silently over a longer period but this doesn't really work. Sox generally seem to be a tenure org which means if you have a certain tenure and you prove to be reasonably competent you will get promoted. Also some guys probably have a direct thread to jerry and this hahn doesn't dare to touch them.

Vaughn has a quite high pull rate though which helps power but supresses BABIP. Abreu is more of an all fields hitter (39% pull) which means higher babips. I don't say vaughn will always be a 280 guy but if he stays at 45% pull his babip won't be that high. Konerko also was a flyball and pull hitter who tended to have babips in the 280s but still was a great player due to good walk rates, solid K rate and power. Will be interesting to see how vaughn develops. Will he become a konerko type hitter to maximize his power or more an all fields hitter with pop like abreu.

He has been quite solid so far. Just 15% Ks vs a healthy 12% walks hitting .278/.384/.449. The power hasn't been amazing with 6 homers (about 18 HR pace) but it was his first season and he probably was tired from a long college season. How do you like his first season? I think it was pretty solid. He didn't set the world on fire right away but really had no weakness in his profile, at least at those low levels which didn't challenge him. Regarding the power longenhagen did say that he doesn't have huge raw pop like a Pete Alonso or yordan Alvarez but easily enough to hit 30 bombs. I think there is a pretty good chance that he becomes a 280/360/500 hitter with 30-35 bombs which would be very good, essentially the same as abreu but with a little less average but more walks.

A HR is a HR but when projecting a player for a new contract or trade you might want to know how sustainable that is. Sure it is valuable to know a player hit 26 homers but if 12 of them barely cleared the wall and it was mostly to a short porch that doesn't exist in your stadium some regression might be coming and it is good to know that and don't pay that player as a 26 HR guy when he might be only an 18 hr guy in your park.

In the early days of sabermetrics teams did collect their own stats. They had guys charting pitches and batted ball locations. Now that is mostly automatized though.

They get most mlb data from mlb or stat orgs working for mlb (pitch fx, statcast, stat inc). Minor league parks probably have their own trackman systems. They are analysing those data o course using their own databases by they don't collect the raw data themselves anymore.

I actually do agree work ethic is somewhat of a trait that you are born with. Sure you can kick yourself in the butt to be a bit less lazy but there are just people who are super driven to improve and willing to sacrifice everything for this. In sports that applies too, we hear "he is so talented if he would only work harder" but this insane work ethic is actually part of that. Btw those insanely motivated people aren't always the most mentally healthy. Guys like michael Jordan or jimmy Connors were quite insane in what they did for winning from neglecting their families to doing questionable stuff on court but they did what it took. The more healthy approach is more balanced where you work somewhat hard (being lazy isnt good either) but also leave enough time otherwise but those people do not get to the very top, they just have a solid job like being a teacher and have a balance between job and everything else, which has a good floor but also a limited ceiling. Btw to bring that back to lisle I read that lisle put everything into his coaching career and that he even was like homeless for some time because he took unpaid or mini paid jobs to get into the business. Maybe that is why he self promotes a lot and has a quite big ego which helped him being good at his job but also rubs people the wrong way. Btw I do think something must have happened, if it was just performance related or just didn't work well for both parties he likely would have been let go in October like most coaches.

Btw won't capitalism die once all jobs are automated or outsourced? It is a great idea for like a phone company to build phones 100% automatically but who is going to buy the phones if 90% of the people have no job and income to consume?

Higher Minimum wages dont really cost jobs. That theory has existed a long time but in no country the installation of minimum wages increased unemployment. That is because companies who can rationalize away a 15 dollar job would do the same with a 7 dollar job if they could because why don't save 7 dollars? What does happen is that burger prizes go up if you raise salary. The only question is then if the people will still buy the more expensive burgers, if they don't that might lead to less jobs. Higher salaries don't lower margins but they might lower revenue if the higher prices make the market shrink.

I agree with that somewhat. Imo it is a bad development that simple clerks who make less than 50k per year are asked to do unpaid overtime because the company says the monthly salary covers that, imo that is exploitation. However leading executives who make more than 100k have chosen that path for themselves. They could have stayed at a lower position but they chose they wanted this. Those type of employees are no longer paid for doing 40 hours of good work, they are paid for results whatever that takes. So yes, I am against lower salary clerks having to do uncompensated overtime hours for more than a few weeks because the company is too greedy to hire extra guys to master the workload (unless it is an exceptional situation that is limited in time) but you can't expect to drop the pen at 5 every day if you are an executive. An executive must deliver results, nobody cares how hard or long he works.

I don't quite agree. Your job is to help your company with your work. Quality of work obviously is most important for this but public relations are increasingly important and you can hurt companies with public statements even if you do it as a private person. this especially applies if you are a high level employee, with a low level guy nobody cares but if a higher level manager says something it will fall back on the company. Just an example: just imagine a high level Nike manager says work is too expensive thus I would like slavery back. Now you could say this is his personal opinion but the public will read that is "Nike supports slavery" if Nike doesn't act against that and condemns his statement. Once you reach a certain level in a company hierarchy you stop being a private person when it's home time, you are basically asked to represent the company 24/7. If you are just a clerk this might be not so strict (but even then it could be if you do something terrible) but the higher you climb the more you are under the microscope. High level personnel is asked to at least not harm or maybe even positively represent the company in their free time and not just do a good job between 9 and 5.