Dominikk85

Btw you have to expect to make considerably less than in normal business if you do coding in baseball. Teams are abusing that many want to do it just to work in pro sports.

Maybe the I want to stay at short thing was to get a better contract. In the end his defense became a little better because the Dodgers positioned him better. Still this could of course be a red flag as the Dodgers great analytics crew might have hidden his lack of range a little. But I could see him being ok to stay at third once he has the big contract in his pocket. Could be wrong of course.

Btw I don't see a fit here. Sox are not a real contender unless something braves happens and several rookies have 3 plus war seasons and others overperform and at some point Cruz is going to decline. Cruz value is that he likely still mashes in 2019. Btw I don't think Cruz is wanting to do that either, this is likely his final two years of play and he wants to make money but also probably play some playoffs. He probably would much rather play for the Astros or so who are bad at 1b/DH and could need him.

The upside is he has a good April and May and then gets traded for a decent prospect. Apparently the Astros were offering a real prospect until they knew his physical condition. Yeah he costs 10m but it only is a year and even if the sox somehow manage to sign machado for 35m per year their 2019 payroll will be barely over 100m for 2019 so it is not they need financial flexibility for 2019. Play him 2019, hope he bounces back so you get a good 45 fv prospect for him and if not you can still release him in late may to make room for eloy when he comes up.

Also the union doesn't like players giving hometown discounts. The other players don't look favorably at you if you don't take the highest bid because you hurt the market (the same happens among owners, if an owner decided to pay minor leaguers better the other owners would hate him). Of course they don't burn you at stake but there is a pressure to take the highest you can get because the players already feel getting ripped off and nobody wants to give away even more ground to the owners for no reason. So if machado signed a 7 year, 200M deal because he likes the city instead if taking 10/350 with two opt outs the others will that see as the owners winning another fight.

The idea is nice but most of those people were probably privileged people who had their parents pay for college and of course they were very successful making 150+ k per year. For a normal person making 50-70 k a year, having student debt and having kids this will be almost impossible to do. This is really a thing for a very small, mostly white elite and not something the average person will do. Definitely interesting but more of a curiosity rather than a life model for the future. Also even for those elite guys it could crash if economy is cooling off.

Btw there actually is a trend towards working on lowering Ks now. The probably most cutting edge of the data driven hitting coaches has worked with the Astros on that and wants to do it now with the cards too https://theathletic.com/672009/2018/11/23/cardinals-aim-to-improve-contact-rate-in-2019-and-have-innovative-new-hitting-coach-to-lead-movement/ However it is not the old "just put it in play and hit a hard grounder the other way" but the goal is to elevate the ball and still improve contact. If you can improve contact without sacrificing power it is a big win. But you don't sacrifice power for more contact anymore.

Cable will die, the future is internet streaming like netflix. This will be a big challenge for the clubs because the streaming means more individual marketing as people want more tailored packages instead of subsiding shows they don't like. This could drive down the prices as you can't as easily justify high prices from the customer. Streaming revenue will grow but sustaining the cable prices won't be easy, netflix is way cheaper than most cable networks for example because competition in streaming is high.

This is true. Attendance is getting lower but TV deals more than offset that. With billion dollar tv deals they can afford 10k empty seats. And it is true that people don't act according to what could happen in the future, just see the real estate bubble or the stock market. Business people say make money now and deal with the loss/crisis when it happens especially because the very richest tend to get bailed out if something bad happens.

He was still rated the best prospect but he had that big struggle in his first call up and reportedly the sox wanted him and not benintendi to go. His stock was still very high and he was rated number 1 overall but it was not like with vlad jr right now were nobody doubts he will hit right away. Had moncada started in Boston like acuna did in Atlanta this year he might not have been available or at least not with a super good secondary piece like kopech.

For the same reasons teams manipulate service time and argue about every penny in arbitration. Neither teams nor players are loyal to each other, it is a business.

Hahn has done a lot of trades for high profile prospects who had some shine come off them. Giolito, moncada and Rutherford all struggled some and thus became available. That is a risk but also a chance to acquire high profile talent. Essentially he bought low. Had he opted for better performers in the trades the cailing of the players would have been lower. He balanced that somewhat with drafts of relatively polished but lower ceiling hitters which he might do again this year if he opts for Vaughn.

There is less than 10% of a chance they get one of them, 0.01% they get both:).

Why would they non tender Avi? Of course you keep him and hope he bounces back in health and production so you can flip him for something. The reasons to non tender him is either to make room or create financial flexibility, neither of which is a big concern next year as they neither compete nor have a big surplus of outfielders. I mean what is even the downside of starting him next year and see if he bounces back?

I agree. For sustained success without an occasional 3-4 losing seasons to reset you need insane money like the Yankees and even they had to do that little mini rebuild were they traded Miller, Chapman and some others to reload the farm. The sox had been a mid 70s win team for several years and would have needed to add at least 15 WAR to compete with the 16-18 Indians. 15 war in 2016 cost about 120 millions. The 2016 payroll was 98M, so competing with the Indians in 2016 would have costed about 220M . Just adding a few pieces to that core wouldn't have been enough. Sure their top 4 players (Eaton, abreu, sale, Quintana) were championship caliber but depth is important. There really was no alternative to a rebuild unless they could have gone way over the luxury tax. It was never just about just adding 30-40M of payroll to fill a few holes. A rebuild is no guarantee for success either but in the sox 2016 situation with the lack of depth and a super team in Cleveland emerging in the 16-18 timeframe a rebuild was the best option even if it hurt.

I'm not sure but I assume he will be more for minor league development. If course you can't change hitters profiles over night

Problem with clarkin is the mediocre stuff. He doesn't have that bullpen fallback option because he doesn't have that great pitch or velo, so it is essentially 5th starter or bust with him. He might have a lower "can't start" risk then some others but if it is not good enough to start it is nothing while others with better stuff can be bullpenned. Probably a quad A arm who can occasionally make a spot start if someone gets hurt.

Site is blocked in europe for some reason. Any way to listen to it without visiting the chicagonow site?

If you want to work there do some stuff to demonstrate your work. It is not exactly about which language you use (although sometimes it is important to use the teams preferred language) but how you can apply that. Put out some analysis out there fo example at the fangraphs community section. Maybe even code a prototype database. Or do other stuff that shows your technical skill in a baseball background. Also it dpends what you want. Do you want to do the technical stuff? Or more interpreting the data? I for example know some sql but I'm not good enough to create a database. But I would like to work in a couple years in player development as one of those data driven coaches. To reach that goal I'm doing some analysis, work with kids and now have also started to work with a couple kids online. Not sure if I ever reach that goal but it is something I care a lot for. You have to enjoy doing that stuff and not just wanting to work in baseball.

Btw I think moncada should focus on getting to more power. People say he should lower Ks and maybe he can lower them another 3-4 percent which would be nice but the real issue is his power. His walk rates are decent and his power isn't bad but it is basically average power the last 2 years (170 ISO which was above average 5 years ago but not anymore after the home run explosion). His raw power ratings suggest there is more, he just needs to get to it. Imo the ideal moncada would be like peak Adam Dunn (I know sox fans don't like to hear the name but you only got the shell of him...). Peak Dunn was basically 28-30% Ks 15+ walks and a 260-300 ISO. With that he regularly produced 900 OPS seasons which would make moncada a 6 war player or so. Moncada doesn't have quite the batting eye and power of Dunn but with the proper development I could see 30%/12%/250 ISO in his peak.

Unless it is 30+ percent Ks they need to be seen in relation to power. 200 Ks with 15 homers is bad of course but I rather have a guy who strikes out 22% and hits 35 over a guy striking out 15% hitting 5 homers. I actually developed a formula to quantify this:) https://www.fangraphs.com/community/introducing-k-bb-iso/ (Btw this was when I started to do analysis, the format is pretty ugly due to the negative values, more elegant is to use K-ISO+BB so the good hitters have positive values) If you have a low to medium (say 10-18%) K hitter with power you almost always have an elite hitter.

I wonder if the new Astros front office the orioles got changes their plan in the draft. Just announced they got sig mejdal on top of elias and apparently sig was one of their main draft guys.

Thome is great but his swing views are very old school, in the mlb shows the did swing analysis he demonstrated stuff he totally not did when he played. That is quite common with star players, they often have a different feel than what they actually did. Everyone interpretates cues differently and many greats developed a great swing with the old school cues but many lesser talents take the cues literally and fail big time. Old school coaching was throwing the same cues at every player and hoping a small percentage becomes really good with the others you just blame the players that they were " not coachable". Now in good modern training you teach it more literally and try to adapt to the different learning channels (visual, kinesthetic, audio...) to reach more athletes instead of just relying on natural talent. I love thome but I don't think he has the desire to learn all the technology and biomechanical stuff because what he learned as a kid in the 80s made him a 600 hr guy, he can't really relate to the struggles of lesser talents. If you take a former player, take a guy like Donaldson or Turner who learned it late in the analytical way but those guys are currently still playing because that analytical modern stuff only became really big the last 5-7 years.

College and private hitting instructor I think. Don't think he ever played pro ball. I think initially he copied stuff from other "internet guru's" but he also studied a lot and is into the modern analytical stuff. Does private lessons and also has internet content you have to pay for.

Yes he specifically mentioned that they expect him to do a similar thing for the jays.