DrungoHazewood

Also, when doing these comparisons you need to pay attention to parks and run context. Last season the Japanese Central League had a .678 OPS, the Pacific League a .668. Together they averaged just over 3.5 runs/game. That's 20% fewer runs than in MLB. It's not unreasonable to think that the scarcity of runs is enough to overcome the difference in quality of play. And that's before park effects. The Seibu Lions scored/allowed about 3.15 runs/game. The 1968 AL scored more than that.

Renato Nunez hit .217/.269/.392 in Japan this past season after hitting .253/.319/.464 with the Orioles. Dayan Vicideo has played almost 500 MLB games averaging .254/.298/.424 with 22 homers per 600 PAs. In Japan he's hit .293/.358./475 with 22 homers per 600 PAs. Domingo Santana hit 30 homers for the Brewers in 2017 and has 34 homers in 176 games for the Yakult Swallows. Gregory Polanco's MLB high in homers is 23, his NBP high is 24. Could Stowers hit 35 homers in Japan? Sure, it's possible. But he could hit 35 homers in the majors, too.

Back in '14 when the O's were in the playoffs it was like having jet lag for two weeks straight, since many of the games started around 8pm and was lucky to end by midnight. There's a 0% chance I'm doing that for two teams I'm at best a neutral towards. I might watch a few of the middle innings, but no reason to get invested in a game that I'll never stay up to see the end of.

My guess is that an average game is extended by about one minute from throws to first, while taking an extra 10, 20, 30 seconds between pitches adds roughly an hour.

Then just pitch. The drama in 45 seconds between pitches is exactly the drama you get when there are 14 time outs in the last three minutes of a basketball game. It basically ruins the whole thing.

It's not going to be hard. In the minors it appears that everyone loves it. Sure, there will be a brief period where some pitchers are mad that they can't take two minutes between pitches and automatic balls are called. But that will pass and then it will just be baseball.

He's not going to walk 80 times and strike out 40 in the majors. But he might be close to even? Like 60/60 in a full season? This guy's NPB line is exactly what I want to see out of at least some stars in the majors. .330 with 30 doubles, 20 homers, 70 walks, 35 strikeouts. That's basically peak George Brett, and that guy has been extinct for many years. Jose Altuve is probably closest today and he's more like .310 with 20 homers, 50 walks, 85 strikeouts. Yoshida isn't going to do that, but maybe .290, 15 homers, 60 walks, 60 Ks? Is that too much to ask?

Very, very interesting player. Depending on price I might make him a priority. A few things: High average, .320+ multiple years, as high as .351 The last few years has walked about twice as often as he struck out Mid-range power, 20-30 homers, 20-30 doubles a year Missed 20-25 games a year the last few years Only played 39 games in the field last year, so assuming he DH'd a lot The NPB has been a very pitcher-centric league lately. OPSes in the .650 range, 7.5 K/9, less than a homer/team/game.

Yes, but with each passing year he's more likely to decline to the point where he's no longer an effective major league hitter. Look at his top comps on bb-ref through age 30 (age of last effective full season in parentheses): Jay Gibbons (29) Kevin Young (30) Ben Oglive (36) - last year with 15+ homers at 33 Rico Brogna (29, I guess) Greg Walker (27) Jim Northrup (33) Nick Esasky (29) Cody Ross (31) Jorge Soler (still active, not good in '22 at 30) Jason Kubel (30) Even Mancini's '22 Orioles number (113 OPS+ from a DH/1B) is not a resume indicative of another 4-5 years as a solid MLB regular.

Especially when you know it's really a 1/45 deal. Well, unless he throws like 25 innings in year one...

Overall he was a first baseman/DH with a 101 OPS+, worth 1.3 rWAR in 143 games at the age of 30. He'll probably sign somewhere on a short, relatively inexpensive deal to try to build value for next year. I don't know what Houston's plans are, but I don't see a good fit for the Orioles. He's Ryan Mountcastle, but five years older and much more expensive. And people are wondering if the O's keep Mountcastle.

I've thought about this a little, not with regards to the Orioles but maybe a minor league team or a lower-division soccer team. The problem is not only that you're not going to get anything like $1.9B even if you're the only winner of the Powerball, but that the costs of running the team aren't just the purchase price. You have to be able to come up with cash all the time to cover random things, either by financing, or out of your own assets. Or perhaps by subtly blackmailing local politicians with threats of moving to Nashville... I'm not going to pretend to know all the ends and outs, but it's just not smart (and MLB almost certainly wouldn't allow) someone with a net worth of $1B to be the primary owner of a $1.3B team. You could get into a situation like Connie Mack used to, where almost his entire net worth was the Philadelphia A's so anytime there was a down period, or competition or a recession he'd have to sell off his players because he had no other resources to fall back on. No, it's not 1930 anymore, but there are probably parallels. Watch Welcome to Wrexham. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy this 5th Division Welsh soccer team for like £2 million. But almost immediately they need to come up with $100k to re-sod the field, then they need cash to sign two new players, then they need money to refurbish part of the stadium, and on and on. Yes, you could probably be a minority investor and get other people to provide a lot of those resources. And hire people to find financing. But then you're not in charge, and you're still going to be someone who's tied up almost your entire net worth in a baseball team, in a world where your peers are mostly multi-billionaires, many of them running teams as a kind of vanity side project. The Orioles' fanbase may not be dreaming of a situation where one of their main owners has essentially no ability to put additional cash into the team.

I think that's part of it, that flyballs have ticked up a few percentages the last 3-4 years, while HR/FB have gone down each year since 2019. There might also be a component of more and more max-effort pitchers who are harder to hit. Top relievers have always had lower BABIPs than average. Today's starters may have more in common with 1970s relievers than the starters of 20, 30, 40+ years ago. And they're followed by 3-5 innings of max-effort, one-inning relievers.

In the minor leagues where they tried the shift ban the change in BABIP was too small to be detected. I think LHH will see their averages go up by a few points. They're not banning the shift altogether, they're limiting the infield shift. I fully expect some extreme outfield shifts against the most pull-heavy hitters. My guess is that Joey Gallos and the like will see their averages as a group go from .210 to .220 or .225. For everyone else it won't be noticeable. MLB batting average was .243 this year. Next year, absent any other changes, it'll be .246. But the little devil sitting on one of my shoulders is whispering something about juicing the ball a little to "prove" the shift ban helps offenses.

He's 24. That's not young. Most good players are in the majors by that age. Almost all HOF non-pitchers* were established as regulars in the MLBs by 25, most earlier. When Manny was 24 he had played 750 MLB games. * excepting special cases like segregation, war, MLB not existing yet, etc.

I would mostly dismiss the LHH HR numbers from 2022. The CR/RF dimensions didn't change at all, yet those numbers radically shifted from 2021 to 22. I'm going to assume the LH HR number is going to settle out at about 110, until/unless we get 3-4 years down the road and it's still very low. But, it's reasonable to think that the RH 1B/2B/3B numbers could end up higher than before, with more space for the LF/CFer to cover.

But how does it matter? I think that, generally, tailoring your hitters or your pitchers to your park is a whole lot of nothing. The Red Sox never win because they have a bunch of RH power hitters to take advantage of the Green Monster, they win because they have better players. Most of the Sox' best players in history haven't even been right-handed. The Yanks used to have a canyon out in LC/CF, but they won with fairly balanced lineups that included righties DiMaggio, Gordon, Bauer, Skowron, McDougald, Howard, Lazzeri, and Mantle was a switch hitter. Now, if they want to try to have essentially a 2nd CFer playing left to cover the extra ground out there, I think that's a workable strategy. But otherwise you just get the best players you can and play ball.

That's because there are twice as many RHP and LHP, so it's much harder to sit a RHH and there is less familiarity with LHP. If you can't hit lefties you're Joc Pederson and you still get 500 PAs. If you can't hit righties you're Delmon Young and if you're lucky you find a team that'll give such a limited player 200 PAs and he'll still face righties 75 times.

I think you're using one-year park factors here, which are very noisy. For example, yes, OPACY had a 77 factor for LH HR in 2022. But in 2021 it was 168, most friendly park for LH HR hitters in baseball. In 2020 it was 101, about average. In 2019, 110, 9th. In 2018 124, 4th. In 2017 116, 9th. The LF change would have some impact on LH hitters, but not a huge effect. I would assume that OPACY will continue to be largely the same park for lefties that it's been for years - a good to very good HR park, but also one where the small OF area in RF tends to depress singles, doubles, and triples. But in the end, I'd just find the best hitters I can and let the park do what it does. The other team has to play here, too, and they haven't constructed their team with any regards to OPACY.

And a difference between 1/5 and 4/80.

Hill played a thinly-disguised Paul DePodesta in Moneyball, and I guess he gained a lot of weight for the role? Because DePodesta is built like this picture, perhaps 6' and 170? Maybe Hill just used to be heavy and now isn't? Or they wanted to use a fat, unathletic guy to emphasize nerdy sterotypes. Yes, I'm going with that one.

The tracking systems don't, either. Statcast OAA over the four years of his career: -20, -2, -3, -4. Tied for 27th in the Majors in OAA at first. There's only a spread of maybe eight runs between best in the AL and Vlad, but still. The GG system largely ignores the state-of-the-art metrics.

You were at the 2012 "Don't Throw It Away, Don't Throw It At All" Hangout game, right? McLouth's double to win it, then being carried around the field by Davis?

Yes, in 1999. Under the old GG voting scheme of some random dude asking the coaches to throw out names of people they remember playing good defense that year. It's a miracle that Jimmy Carter or John Belushi didn't win one.

And Vlad is 260 pounds and a well below-average fielder, not Ozzie Guillen.