Hallas

He broke UZR because of his shifting. IIRC they ended up taking out plays that are fielded more than a certain distance away from the usual starting position for a given fielder so Zobrist and a few others wouldn’t get OOZ credit for balls hit in the RF gap as a 3B.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/anthony-rendon-agrees-to-sevenyear-245-million-deal-with-angels-034047632.html This is a nuts offseason isn't it. My analysis: I'm going to start with his Steamer 2020 predictions, which are 5.5 WAR. I figure he's good for: 2020: 5.5 2021: 5.5 2022: 5 2023: 4.5 2024: 4 2025: 3.5 2026: 2.5 That's an estimated 30.5 WAR. Assuming FA rates are at around 8mm/WAR, that's an expected return of about 244m. Not too bad. cost per WAR has stayed stagnant/regressed slightly in the past couple years, so there's no guarantee that the future will see more expensive prices. This seems like fair market value for a good player that's been moderately durable for his career. Hopefully he doesn't fall off a cliff like Pujols did.

An average-hitting, average-fielding middle infielder is still above average all other things considered. That's worth more than 10 million, so the tepid response to his availability os a bit puzzling. His running is usually a positive, even if he runs himself into outs sometimes. His stolen-base ability outweighs that by a lot.

You think Ellsbury is milking his injury to stay off the field? I find that rather implausible but I don’t know the details of the situation. Regardless I would hate to see a situation like the NFL where players are effectively year to year. The system is designed to be tilted toward paying players because the system is so tilted against paying players early in their careers.

For what it’s worth, Kelechi Osemele is probably a better example. Team wanted him to take more steroid injections to help reduce pain and get him on the field, he wanted to get his shoulder fixed.

Why? I hope Ellsbury gets paid.

For what it's worth, I gave it a good laugh.

I hope you keep this around. If you need any technical assistance to work toward reducing costs, feel free to DM me.

I thought that LOOGYs were the cause of world war and famine too, tbh.

Drop 20 seconds off the between-innings break and you knock off another 6 minutes.

Assuming the 3 batters were all called out.

Trying something to resolve the issue of game length certainly has inherent value. You miss all the shots you don’t take. But the elephant in the room is ad time between innings. Cut ad time by another 20 seconds per half inning. That’s 6 minutes right there.

I like that baseball is trying something here - though I think I would let managers sort out who they bring up, but limit the number of pitchers allowed on the roster.

3 batters hitting home runs takes up way less time than bringing in 3 pitchers to face 3 batters.

Is it only 2 minutes? If you're reducing the average number of mid-inning pitching changes per game by 3, that will shave around 10-12 minutes from the game. (assuming 3-4 minutes in between changes) That's about 1/3 of difference in average game time from the good ol' days to now. You could save a few more minutes by reducing the commercial breaks to 1:45 instead of 2:05. That would save another 5-6 minutes. On the topic of 8pm game starts. the NFL has no problem starting games at 8 or 8:30, for games that regularly take 3 and a half hours.

3 pitching changes take about 9 minutes. back-to-back-to-back home runs take about 4.

We've had a few players in the past few years that walked a fair amount. Nick walked 99 times in 2004. Brian Roberts and Chris Davis both had multiple seasons with more than 80 walks. I believe that being a good hitter and having having at minimum, gap doubles power, is a prerequisite for walking a lot, and we haven't had a lot of good hitters.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=wieter001mat 82 walks in 2008.

4 positions is half the fielding positions, so I can see where he's coming from. CF: 2018 -5.1 UZR. Hays played at a +9.9 UZR/150, but over a small sample, so lets split the difference and call him a +5 player. That's about 10 runs. 2B: 2018 -1.7 UZR. Alberto played at a +14.5 UZR/150, but we'll split the difference again and call him a +7 player. That's about 9 runs. RF: 2018 -10.5 UZR. Santander was at +0.9 UZR/150, but his UZR in right field was actually negative, which confuses me. I'm going to just . call him average. Thats 10.5 runs. 1B: 2018 +1.7 UZR. Mancini was at +6.5, so splitting the difference we'll project him at +3.2. Only 1.5 runs. So just from marginal upgrades from these 4 positions we've gained 32 runs by UZR, which actually gets us above average assuming no regession anywhere else. Now, whether you buy UZR's ratings, or whether you buy these defensive projections is a whole different story. There's also the question of whether these players will hit enough to be able to play defense. Not really a guarantee for any of these players except for Mancini. Also, minor point, but we weren't the worst defensive team by either Total Zone (we're actually above average in this one, which probably means we should discard that one immediately given that it horribly fails the eye test) BIS DRS, or UZR. Other than TZ, they all have us in the bottom 5, but not the worst.

These two positions aren't really mutually exclusive, and likely there's a bit of both going around.

https://www.mlb.com/news/two-way-player-rule-explanation Summary: Pitchers are designated before the season starts. You can become a two-way player if you pitch in at least 20 innings AND start at least 20 games on the field or as DH, while accruing at least 3 PA per game. This designation carries over into the next season. (Ohtani actually isn't qualified because he didn't pitch while rehabbing his arm, so he technically has to requalify. But he'll requalify in a month or so, so it's not a huge deal.) Non-pitchers can't pitch unless you're up/down by 6+, the game's in extras, or the player is a two-way player. It doesn't sound like they've made an official decision on the number of pitchers allowed. From what I gathered, 13 was proposed by MLB, they're waiting for feedback from the players association before officially implementing it

My bad. I'm sure you have a collection of craft beer growlers for game day.

This isn't really a hill to die on, dude. Frobby likes what he likes. He's free to watch the games in the comfort of his own home, sipping on a glass of his favorite wine that he poured for himself. You're free to go to tailgates with paint on your face and barbeque yourself Michelin-Star worthy ribs while downing 6 beers.

A bit of a tangent, but I get the sense that GMs are over-prioritizing youth to the extent that some 28-30 year olds with some quality mileage left can be had for a bit of a bargain, especially in the trade market.

Sure, but do we blame Thrift for Brea in particular?