Tony-OH

Refresh my memory of all the brain trauma that has occurred from baseball players getting plunked? I must've missed this major concern.

Not sure if this was shared, but here are some videos of them cheating:

For me personally, I find the "wins" metric to be a flawwed. Even WAR doesn't really mean you will win "x" amount of games more or less. This is why defensive metrics have traditionally used runs saved, but I've never been convinced that it very accurately depicts actual runs saved. I believe OAA is just a way to see whether players are better or worse then average compared to their peers. I like the percentile metric to give you an idea where they stand against their peers, however it doesn't necessarily tell you how much a 9th percentile SS hurts you vs a 60th percentile SS. I also like using the success rate added to see the real impact. If they have a -5% success rate added, that means they would get 5% less outs than an average fielder at his position. Over 100 chances that's 5 outs.

I just don't think fielders take their time because they see the runner running at different speeds. I think fielders play each play as quickly as they can with some variances of knowing the average speed of the runner. In other words, fielders will rush a play when Hamilton is running compared to when Pujols is running.

But it doesn't matter. If a guy is dogging it down the line and the infielder sees it and tossed it over, they still get the out. The difficulty of the play would be measured by the average sprint speed because that is the actual difficulty. I would still argue a difficult play would not see a runner dog it down the line.

At the end of the day it's based off whether an out was recorded? Why would Hamiliton be dogging down the line on tough play? Not sure what your issue here is. It makes total sense to use the avg sprint speed because on the close plays, where it matters, there going to be very little "doggin it."

From what I can tell, it just means Villar was slightly better than Martin but both were among the worse at SS. If you read through how they come up with the numbers, each play gets a percentage up to 100. I also like looking at success rate added. In my mind, if you are -5% success added, that means you would get to 95 balls out of 100 that the average fielder at your position would convert to an out.

https://www.mlb.com/news/statcast-introduces-outs-above-average-for-infield-defense Here's the article that explain defensive OOA in case you missed it. Like I dis with the outfielders, in my mind this is the best system available to determine how good or bad an infielder is defensively.

Well I'm not going to lie, I just found that option myself!

I think anything you can do without technology is game. Saying that, if you get peeking into the catcher's sign when you are at bat you are getting drilled. that's how the game policies itself!

The Yankees sure hit us like they knew what was coming. That and our pitching sucked!

Well you can't have All-stars at every position and if Nunez can play 3B effectively enough not to kill the team, I think he could be a solid everyday player on a playoff caliber team. As a DH solely? That's when it becomes more questionable in my mind, but he had a league average xwOBA and there's nothing wrong with that considering the black hole we had at DH at times over the years.

As I'm sure you can tell, Baseballsavant.com is my favorite site and has given us so much more information that we used to have to do with our eyes. When and if this information becomes available for minor league players my life will become complete! :D

He's certainly the definition of a streaky player. He can be an absolute automatic out for significant periods while also being completely dialed in at times. If he could ever find a way to limit the droughts, he could really become a valuable offensive player.

Haha, gotta step up my game. Maybe this old guy still has some value around here!

Perhaps, but Nunez still intrigues me. While not a plate discipline guy, he has legitimate power and his xwOBA was right around league average (49th percentile). If he could bring any kind of defensive value he might have some value here at 3B. He was surprisingly awful at 1B last year but in his very limited opportunities he was ok in 3B after being below average in 2018. Since I think he has an upside where as Ruiz doesn't, I'd start 2020 spring training with Nunez penciled in as my 3B and let him prove to me he can't play there when healthy.

Rio Ruiz is what he is in my estimation. He's a below average hitter: 2019 statcast percentile across baseball: (The high the score the better, think 50 percentile as being league average, 0% being worse in the league) Exit Velocity: 30th Hard hit %: 37th Spring speed: 28th xwOBA (some believe this is most important): 12th zBA: 12th XSLG: 7th And he also graded out very poorly on defense which surprised me some as I thought he was an average defender. OOA: 6th (-6 OOA coming in on balls which was his main weakness) Success rate: -2% across all 3B If he had a little defensive versatility, I'd like him him in a utility role a little bit, but his slow foot speed really limits him to 3B or 1B. I don't think he brings enough bat for either spot long term.

Well if you want to do Hangout history with posters, we'd have to include @weams . He remember everyone! It's his gift! Yeah, our best Hangout night ever was the night we had you, Drungo, weams and many others there and we oranged out the section. the Orioles had a comeback win, we ended up on the jumbotron, everyone ha a blast. then, it kinda just dissolved, strangely enough, it did when the team got good.

I don't know 100%. I do know that social media has pulled some people away from the site as they prefer to have quick conversations and reactions rather than the more detailed knowledgeable conversations that occur on a message board. Some of is the fact that a some of our really active posters aren't really in the Baltimore area and those that are, don't seem to be the kind that like to come out from behind their keyboards for whatever reason. Honestly, @SteveA has been a most active person for showing up on Hangout nights and to events when we had them. Outside of that, we haven't even been able to get more than 2 or 3 members at best to a Hangout night when we worked to get absolutely great seats and over half off prices. We've had more luck getting people I know to come to the games and events than posters here. For whatever reason, the 100s of active posters on here just don't like to meet up in person. It's ashamed because it used to be a lot of fun to put faces to handles and have more of a personal experience. But alas, it is what it is at this point so I've stopped putting things together and not sure if we will continue Hangout nights next year.

Fans like yourself always are blaming the refs, or the weather, or the travel, the schedule, anything to not accept the facts that Turgeon-led teams lack success on the road and against highly ranked teams. It's ok though, I get it and don't look down upon fans like you all. Everyone is different. Some fans are just the kind that are ok with mediocrity or some just enjoy going to the games for the experience. All of that is just fine. some fans hate anything they feel is negative about their teams and take it personally, I don't. I've never really been that kind of fan, maybe to my own detriment I guess. I want my teams always building to get to the big prize and once it's clear the current path is not going to get there, I support change. I don't stop liking my teams, I juts realize that the current path will not lead to anything special, and once that happens, I stop "living and dying" with the games. Turgeon seems like a real good guy, but his teams always have the lack of court awareness and become undisciplined in key moments, which to me is a coaching/recruiting problem when it's consistent over multiple teams and players.

Didn't watch the game last night, came here to read the comments, saw what I usually saw. The same 'ol apologists making the same 'ol excuses for not getting it done. At least people are consistent. This is decently talented but shallow team that is poorly coached. They should make the tourney unless they implode, but will be lucky to win two games. They are who they are. I've accepted this will be a middling program as long as Turgeon is coach. I'll watch when I get a chance or have nothing better to do, but until I see change I see no reason to "live and die" by each game with this under performing squad.

I do think the talent is spreading out more across the NCAA has players want to play right away. I also agree with you that the Big-10 is a very talented conference overall and when you add in the travel, it's even tougher. Saying that, I just haven't seen any plus thing from Turgeon and don't think the team will ever by great with him as coach. I hope I'm wrong.

Good points and something that top young hitters must think about when they are drafted.

This is an honest question since you taking the stance of defending Turgeon here, did you ever think Gary Williams was getting out coached during a game? Did you ever feel like if the game was close that the Terps didn't have the advantage with Williams? Also, you and I both know they came in under different circumstances. Williams came in when the team was under sanctions and dead in the water and built it into a perennial top 25 team and a team that the power houses certainly didn't want to face due to the fact that Gary's squads were always good for an upset or two back when the ACC was the powerhouse basketball conference! Williams never wanted to play the game with the AAU coaches and system so he wasn't able to get a ton of highly ranked guys but the guys he did bring in had heart and most of them played above their ranked status. All I know, as it's been pointed out in this thread clearly, Turgeon has struggled to win against high level competition and has always padded his non conference schedule with patsies in order to have an artificial good record. I think Turgeon is a good man, but I don't think he's a very good motivator, he's not a good game planner, his offense is about as generic and vanilla as it gets, and he's definitely not a good in-game decision maker. I also think his recruiting is overrated as he's able to get talented but knucklehead guys that other top programs didn't want because of the intangibles.

Unfortunately, this has been a problem for years. This is why we bagged pregame get together before Hangout nights. This community is great online, but it's not much for the meet ups. I remember the days of getting 30-50 people to show up prior to a Hangout night. Good times.