Malike

Are you saying expected stats are a good predictor of future success? It's a simple yes or no question.

I love statcast, it has a bunch of great information but it's easily misleading. Expected stats are not predictive at all but people cite them as if they are. I can't name a single time that Expected stats won a baseball game, but that's just me.

I wish you could sort by date range, that would be great.

Bad luck, it's about to turn around.

Yeah, but that statcast is red!

I'd trade Basallo before Mayo and I wouldn't trade Holliday.

I like him fine if they use him properly. You see red on statcast and turn into a robot and say that's all that matters. Results matter.

Yeah, the red is nice, but that doesn't win games and xstats are not predictive, they are descriptive so that means nothing going forward.

The problem is his numbers keep going down. He's going to be below 2 fWAR soon, his wRC+ has plummeted and it's actually lower than Hays'. If you bring him in as a defensive replacement in a close game, expect nothing from him with the bat. His OPS+ late and close is 24, his OPS+ in high leverage, which is about a fifth of all of his PA's is 3, yes, 3. There is not a single player on the team I wouldn't bat instead of Cowser if we needed to push a run across the plate. He's the worst player in all of MLB in clutch situations and bottom 4 in WPA.

I did. The Os can outbid any team for whoever they want if the player is available and they choose to.

The Os can get any player they want that is available.

Totally agree with this. I'd give Kjerstad some of Cowsers time. The defensive drop-off is real but Cowser is hitting himself to less play time.

Cowser worries me late in games. He's got the absolute worst clutch stats in MLB and he's one of the absolute worst players in WPA. He's the last guy I want at the plate if we need something to happen in a big spot.

Who?

He has the 2nd fastest bat on the team. He slumps and then he doesn't. We have seen this movie before.

His fastball is way down, his strikeouts are awful. He's had 2 IL stints for his elbow and back. He's probably the riskiest proposition to even finish the season healthy let alone be effective.

He's obviously having a great season but his numbers would be nutty if he hit more fly balls. As hard as he hammers the ball it's rarely a fly ball.

Too many injury concerns and the rate and quality that he's pitched this year the team should look to do better.

Runs in the playoffs are generally at a premium, you want your best defenders in the game so you don't give away free runs. Mountcastle will be starting in the playoffs.

If you are looking at just OPS, probably. There are obviously other things to consider.

I think most people are interested in Crochet, the risk is he won't help this year and most people here think we can get him for scraps when it's going to cost guys that most people here wouldn't trade.

You could argue that Mullins should have been a platoon player with a low .600's OPS against LHP in his career, but he doesn't strike out more than a third of the time against them and they let him play every day on terrible teams. Santander only got a few ABs in 2017 and 2018, in 2019, his first season of getting over 400 PAs he OPS'd .753 and .810 against RHP/LHP. He's always had about equal splits over the course of his career. Hays didn't get near a full season of ABs until his age 24 season. He got 60 at age 21 in 2017 and 68 in 2019 as a 23 year old. Like Mullins, he got a lot of time on a terrible team in 2021 and OPS'd .683 and .897 vs RHP/LHP. Cowser at 24 is getting his first season where he's going to get 500 PAs currently at 278 he's OPS'ing .763 and .674 against RHP/LHP. The bigger problem is LHP is striking him out more than 30% of the time. He's a guy you pull for a RHB late in a game. Hopefully, that's not always the case but it's who he is right now. In 2022 in the MiL they gave him 158 PAs against LHP and he OPS'd .616, in 2023 they only gave him 99 PA's against LHP. I'm not saying that anything is written in stone, but he's certainly looked like he might be a platoon bat. Time will tell and hopefully, they give him a chance to prove it one way or the other.

I hope Cowser gets 500 ABs this year against both side pitching. He's starting to look like a platoon player and a near-full season of ABs would be helpful in the information gathering process on that.

I'd be willing to bet that nearly anyone they want is available. They just have to say the right names, and therein lies the problem, they aren't going to say those names.

The problem with pitching is the threat of injury for everyone is real. You just have to accept that fact and hope while they're here it doesn't happen. Of course, the more years you have a guy the better the chance you get a ROI on your prospect capital. If you get a guy for 5 years and he goes down for 18 months, you still have a shot at getting value from them.