DrungoHazewood

I don't know, it's not something I've really paid attention to. My casual observance of football is that they have 46 coaches for each team. Inside linebackers coach. Kick returner coach. Offensive line coach, defensive line coach, nickel back coach. Kicking coach. Punting coach. The guy who used to hold the wires for the headphones so they wouldn't get tangled up before they went wireless but now stares off into space thinking of Gal Gadot.

I'm confused. Why is this "the type of stuff fans get frustrated about"? Who's frustrated by this? If you asked everyone in the Stadium the name of the home team's hitting coach, what percentage would get it right? 15%?

Why does the league care if you have zero, one, two, or 11 hitting coaches? Is that the number allowed on the bench? Could you have more coaches but they can't be on the field during the game? Maybe an optimal situation would be for each player on the roster to have their own personal performance coach. Or we could just go back to the way it was done in 19-and-aught three and there were no coaches (or GMs for that matter), just your manager who sometimes was also a player.

We're probably going pretty far afield here, but this is kind of my thing so I'll ramble for a minute... I don't think there's any value in starting to count from zero instead of replacement level (or .300 winning percentage). And there are some disadvantages, mainly that you can't really set a zero level, there is no zero level, there's always someone worse. Win shares picks a level it calls zero (in reality more like a .100 winning percentage), and then rounds off everyone under that to zero. So it's not even doing what it says it does. If you want to account for all team wins in your value system just add something like 0.0075 wins per plate appearance (or IP equivalent) to everyone on the team, in addition to their WAR. That will evenly distribute the 48ish wins that get you to replacement level. But there's no value to a MLB team in those 48 wins, because even the teams that aren't really trying like the 2019 Orioles or the 1915 A's win about that many games. Setting a replacement level and measuring value from that is much more meaningful, to me, than dividing up 48 wins and handing them out to everyone equally. What Win Shares ends up doing is saying that a part time player who was awesome is no more valuable than a poor regular who's getting his chunk of the 48 wins everyone has no matter what. Also, many times Bill James has said that Win Shares doesn't really work without Loss Shares so you can define the space a player is responsible for. Who is more valuable, a 13-2 player or a 13-22 player? Today with WS and (WAR, for that matter) it's just an integer and you need to add in the playing time context in your head. But Bill hasn't updated WS in 20 years, and seems to have lost interest in publishing comprehensive Loss Shares and how to calculate them. Hell, it's a huge challenge to even find an online source for Win Shares. Bill's own site lists them, but only by looking up individual players one at a time.

I was going to respond, but before I did I thought maybe you wrote this post just to irk me. So, ha, I'm not writing anything.

Shouldn't you get paid for the wins you deliver for your team, no matter how many games or innings you play? If a closer gave up no runs and only pitched in very high leverage situations why shouldn't he get paid for that?

Except that Win Shares are broken in about five different fundamental ways. Modern pitchers get far too few Win Shares, Cy Young winners today get 18, 20, 25 win shares compared to 35+ for MVPs. Max Scherzer had 16 win shares in '21. So did Mike Yastrzemski, who hit .225 with a .768 OPS. David Fletcher, .262/.297/.324, had 17 WS. Anthony Rizzo, .248 with so-so fielding at first, 15 WS. DJ Le Mahieu had a OPS just over .700, 20 WS. The fielding is similarly compressed, with about a win a year separating Ozzie's glove from Jeter's. Since it's a quasi-zero based system (instead of replacement level) every regular gets 6 or 8 WS per full season just for having their name written in the lineup. And it hasn't been updated in 20 years, so it incorporates none of the advances of the last two decades. Top closers get about as many WS as top starters, at least in today's game. The end result is big, slugging 1B/DH types who play 160 games are overvalued, while defense-first players and pitchers (especially starters) undervalued. Poor basis for a player/salary rating system.

Harvey has pitched 286 innings as a professional in nine years. 32 innings a season. The simplest explanation for why he was let go is that the Orioles don't believe he'll ever stay healthy long enough to be counted on to have an impact.

There were 13 2021 rookie position players who had 2+ rWAR. That's tied for the 5th-highest of all time, noting that for much of history there were fewer teams than there are today. Mountcastle was 30th in rookie position player value across all of MLB. 2021 rookie pitchers were tied for 45th-place, with eight over 2 rWAR.

Everyone needs to remember what Marcel is: the simplest possible system. It takes the last 3-4 years, weights them in order of newest to oldest, might throw in a pinch of aging, and that's pretty much it. Tango designed it to be as simple as possible, so that if you design a more complicated system and the average error is worse than Marcel your system ain't too swift. Marcel most certainly does not take into account that Mullins stopped switch hitting or anything else like that.

Yes, when they became free agents they found themselves outcasts and had to settle on playing for the Orioles.

Constant pitching changes might contribute five or 10 minutes to an average game. Maybe 15 at the outside. But when this year's Series sees two nine-inning games come in at over 4:00 that's not the driver. The driver is pacing and probably commercials. The longest game in the 1970 Series was 2:35. This year in Game 1 2:35 probably happened in the 4th inning. I actually watched some of the Series this year, but I never made it to the 7th. No way I'm staying up to midnight for two teams I really couldn't care less about.

Pitching changes contribute to the length of games somewhat. But it's pacing more than anything else. Nobody enforces pitch clocks or the existing rules on how often a pitch has to be thrown. There are vastly more exceptions than enforcements. Watch a game from the 1970s on YouTube. Almost nobody steps out, the pitcher just gets ready to pitch and goes. I watched an Orioles World Series game from I think 1970 where Brooks stayed in the batter's box with his cleats in the same holes for an entire mound visit. Today he'd go next door to Arby's and get a sandwich. Commercials also contribute. As do more pitches, there are something like 10% more pitches today than 20 or 25 years ago. So it's not just one thing, but pacing by pitchers and batters and umps is the primary thing, and also the thing that is seemingly impossible to fix. Teams used to play getaway day games in just over an hour or so when they needed to catch a train. Now the players don't seem to care at all, it's just the fans that go to bed in the 4th inning.

They'll be coming to the majors soon. And the vast majority thinks that's going to be them, so if they cross the picket lines they'll be pariahs when they make it.

He could be like Mark Quinn, who became a coach and made some statements about using his career as a cautionary tale more than an example.

I'd really like to hear the opinions of fans from 100 or 75 or even 50 years ago about the gnat-sized attention span of modern fans, and today's 3+ hour regular season and often four hour postseason games. In 1920 an average game was about two hours, in 1950 about 2:20 and when I was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s just over 2:30. In the Orioles' dynasty years they'd often play doubleheaders in 4-5 hours, In June of this year they had a nine-inning game against Houston that went 4:19. I don't know about you, but when I have to get up to work at 5:45 I'm just not staying up until midnight to watch a baseball game. And kids today, the next generation of fans... what responsible parent is going to let them watch past the 3rd or 4th inning of most of these World Series games? My kid catches the bus at 6:45am. Small market teams can compete if a lot of things go their way and they're really, really efficient. The Yanks or Dodgers can have an off year and win 88 or 92 games.

Nice statement regarding Mancini, not sure how that has anything whatsoever to do with his ability or desire to be a hitting coach.

All the minor league players are soon-to-be union members, almost all believing that they will shortly be benefiting from the MLBPA. The experience of 1994-95 was that very, very few of them would cross the picket lines. The strikebreakers from that era were indy leaguers and nondrafted players. Way, way, way down in the player pool. That's the main reason they never went ahead with regular season replacement player games, it was basically rookie league ball masquerading as the Majors. This isn't the NFL, where players 90% as good as the regulars get released at the end of training camp and are free to be strike breakers. I guess it would be cool if the "Orioles" won the World Series with a team 75% as good as the York Revolution.

Positive trend: He's working out and getting stronger and building endurance. Negative trends: He's getting older and the time remaining on his team control is growing shorter by the day. I think the best case scenario is that he has a .900 OPS in early 2022 and they flip him for a decent prospect in June or July. But more likely he has an .800ish OPS, on a 1.5-2 WAR pace and returns some org's #7 or #10 prospect.

I like Urias, I like taking a chance on a guy who's been playing in Mexico for a while and has interesting if also inflated numbers from the Mexican League. But... he's 27. He probably was playing over his head, or at least near his ceiling. His career US minor league OPS is .775. His 2.0 WAR includes a few runs of positive defensive value that's not reflected in the Statcast data. He hit .279 in the majors, while his AAA batting average overall is .261. Any time a player who was projected for minimal value was on pace for a 4+ WAR season you have to be a little skeptical of his ability to carry that forward, especially when he's at what's typically peak age. Overall, he's a nice find. Hopefully a decent role player for a while, or a starter if you otherwise have a hole. But I think there's little chance he's going to be more than an average MLB player going forward. The Orioles have a large number of upgrades to make and holes to fill before they're a respectable team, but having Urias puts second base pretty far down the priority list.

One time someone had Roger Maris (and maybe Mantle?) take batting practice with a variety of weights of bat. There was very little difference in how far the balls were hit. It seems that the tradeoff between bat velocity/acceleration and bat mass just about evens out in the f=ma calculation.

Imagine he'd been an average first baseman the whole year. He had a 112 OPS+. The median OPS+ for players who played at least 81 games at 1B or DH was 128. He was a below-average hitting player for his position, and he spent half the year playing a poor LF. [code] Rk Player OPS+ Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos 1 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 169 2021 22 TOR AL 161 698 604 123 188 29 1 48 111 86 7 110 6 0 2 20 4 1 .311 .401 .601 1.002 *3D/5 2 Brandon Belt 160 2021 33 SFG NL 97 381 325 65 89 14 2 29 59 48 3 103 7 0 1 9 3 2 .274 .378 .597 .975 *3H 3 Shohei Ohtani 158 2021 26 LAA AL 155 639 537 103 138 26 8 46 100 96 20 189 4 0 2 7 26 10 .257 .373 .592 .965 *D1/H97 4 Matt Olson 153 2021 27 OAK AL 156 673 565 101 153 35 0 39 111 88 12 113 9 0 11 17 4 1 .271 .372 .540 .911 *3/D 5 Paul Goldschmidt 143 2021 33 STL NL 158 679 603 102 177 36 2 31 99 67 2 136 4 0 5 13 12 0 .294 .365 .514 .879 *3/DH 6 Max Muncy 138 2021 30 LAD NL 144 592 497 95 124 26 2 36 94 83 5 120 11 0 1 7 2 1 .250 .368 .527 .895 *34/5HD 7 Yordan Alvarez 136 2021 24 HOU AL 144 598 537 92 149 35 1 33 104 50 3 145 8 0 3 16 1 0 .278 .346 .531 .877 *D7/H 8 Joey Votto 136 2021 37 CIN NL 129 533 448 73 119 23 1 36 99 77 6 127 4 0 4 7 1 0 .266 .375 .563 .938 *3/HD 9 Giancarlo Stanton 136 2021 31 NYY AL 139 579 510 64 139 19 0 35 97 63 1 157 3 0 3 22 0 0 .273 .354 .516 .870 *D97/H 10 Pete Alonso 134 2021 26 NYM NL 152 637 561 81 147 27 3 37 94 60 6 127 12 0 4 20 3 0 .262 .344 .519 .863 *3/DH 11 Freddie Freeman 133 2021 31 ATL NL 159 695 600 120 180 25 2 31 83 85 15 107 8 0 2 11 8 3 .300 .393 .503 .896 *3 12 Yuli Gurriel 131 2021 37 HOU AL 143 605 530 83 169 31 0 15 81 59 2 68 4 0 12 16 1 1 .319 .384 .462 .846 *3/D5 13 Nelson Cruz 130 2021 40 TOT AL 140 584 513 79 136 21 1 32 86 51 10 126 7 0 9 14 3 0 .265 .335 .497 .832 *D/H3 14 C.J. Cron 130 2021 31 COL NL 142 547 470 70 132 31 1 28 92 60 3 117 13 0 4 11 1 0 .281 .375 .530 .905 *3H/D 15 Rhys Hoskins 129 2021 28 PHI NL 107 443 389 64 96 29 0 27 71 47 0 108 5 0 2 7 3 2 .247 .334 .530 .864 *3/HD 16 Ty France 128 2021 26 SEA AL 152 650 571 85 166 32 1 18 73 46 1 106 27 0 6 13 0 0 .291 .368 .445 .813 *3D4/5H 17 Jared Walsh 128 2021 27 LAA AL 144 585 530 70 147 34 1 29 98 48 6 152 4 0 3 7 2 1 .277 .340 .509 .850 *39/H 18 Franmil Reyes 127 2021 25 CLE AL 115 466 418 57 106 18 2 30 85 43 3 149 2 0 3 13 4 1 .254 .324 .522 .846 *D9/H 19 J.D. Martinez 126 2021 33 BOS AL 148 634 570 92 163 42 3 28 99 55 6 150 3 0 5 18 0 0 .286 .349 .518 .867 *D7/9 20 Jose Abreu 125 2021 34 CHW AL 152 659 566 86 148 30 2 30 117 61 3 143 22 0 10 28 1 0 .262 .351 .481 .831 *3D/5 21 Josh Bell 124 2021 28 WSN NL 144 568 498 75 130 24 1 27 88 65 2 101 2 0 3 22 0 0 .261 .347 .476 .823 *3H/7D9 22 Miguel Sano 113 2021 28 MIN AL 135 532 470 68 105 24 0 30 75 59 2 183 2 0 1 13 2 1 .223 .312 .466 .778 *3D/5H 23 Nathaniel Lowe 113 2021 25 TEX AL 157 642 557 75 147 24 3 18 72 80 2 162 2 0 3 13 8 0 .264 .357 .415 .771 *3/DH5 24 Jesus Aguilar 112 2021 31 MIA NL 131 510 449 49 117 23 0 22 93 46 4 93 3 0 7 11 0 0 .261 .329 .459 .788 *3H/D5 25 Ryan Mountcastle 112 2021 24 BAL AL 144 586 534 77 136 23 1 33 89 41 2 161 4 0 7 12 4 3 .255 .309 .487 .796 3D7/H 26 Yandy Diaz 112 2021 29 TBR AL 134 541 465 62 119 20 1 13 64 69 4 85 3 0 4 11 1 1 .256 .353 .387 .740 35/HD4 27 Anthony Rizzo 111 2021 31 TOT ML 141 576 496 73 123 23 3 22 61 52 2 87 23 0 5 15 6 2 .248 .344 .440 .783 *3/H41 28 Jonathan Schoop 110 2021 29 DET AL 156 674 623 85 173 30 1 22 84 37 0 133 6 0 8 15 2 0 .278 .321 .435 .756 *34D/5 29 Bobby Dalbec 105 2021 26 BOS AL 133 453 417 50 100 21 5 25 78 28 1 156 7 0 1 3 2 0 .240 .298 .494 .792 *35H/6D 30 Eric Hosmer 104 2021 31 SDP NL 151 565 509 53 137 28 0 12 65 48 2 99 5 1 2 13 5 4 .269 .337 .395 .732 *3H/D 31 Colin Moran 97 2021 28 PIT NL 99 359 318 29 82 12 0 10 50 36 0 87 2 0 3 6 1 0 .258 .334 .390 .724 *3H/D5 32 Miguel Cabrera 96 2021 38 DET AL 130 526 472 48 121 16 0 15 75 40 0 118 5 0 9 21 0 0 .256 .316 .386 .701 D3/H 33 Christian Walker 88 2021 30 ARI NL 115 445 401 55 98 23 1 10 46 38 1 106 4 0 2 8 0 0 .244 .315 .382 .696 *3H/D 34 Carlos Santana 79 2021 35 KCR AL 158 659 565 66 121 15 0 19 69 86 3 102 3 0 5 12 2 0 .214 .319 .342 .660 *3D/H [/code] If he'd played the whole year at 1B or DH it wouldn't have changed much.

There are various books and other sources that seem fairly well documented showing ridiculously long home run distances from 75 or 100 years ago. Ruth supposedly hit any number of 500+ ft homers. Clearly if any of that is to be believed the balls (or some of them due to poor quality control) were far livelier than today. It's very clear that many of today's sluggers are every bit as strong and probably quite a bit stronger than the players of 50, 100+ years ago, with much better data on how to hit the ball a long way, off of pitchers mostly throwing much harder. And, yes, they often measured after the ball stopped rolling. Like Mantle's shot in DC.

If you play around with Alan Nathan's trajectory calculator (and can figure out how to do that intelligently) I think you'll see that to hit the warehouse you'd have to have an exit velocity of 125+ mph at 30 degrees launch angle with normalish atmospheric conditions (70 degrees, 50% humidity, no wind). Even if you make it hot and humid with a 15mph wind blowing out you'd still need a 120+ mph exit velocity. I think Giancarlo Stanton had one ball with a 120+ mph exit velocity this year. That was the only one in MLB. So, basically, you need ideal conditions and about as hard hit a ball as ever happens at just the right angle right down the RF line to hit the warehouse. Or the All Star Game super bounce balls.

Teams during the draft era that won less than 60 and didn't get the #1 pick: 1964 A's, 57 wins 1965 A's, 59 wins 1969 Expos, 52 wins 1972 Padres and Phils, 59 and 58 wins 1978 Blue Jays, 59 wins 1979 A's, 54 wins 1988 Braves, 54 wins 2002 Brewers/Tigers, 56 and 55 wins 2004 Royals, 58 wins 2019 Orioles, Marlins, Royals, 54, 57, 59 The 1939 Phillies went 45-106 and finished two games better than the Browns, obviously in the pre-draft era. The '32 White Sox were 49-102, but finished 7.5 games ahead of the Red Sox. The 1911 Browns were 45-107, but finished a half game ahead of the Boston Braves. Boston was 45-108 in '09, 2.5 games ahead of the Senators.