makoman

Mauer was an MVP and was worth 5 WAR 5 times. He was in the minors less than 3 seasons. Posey was an MVP and was worth 5 WAR 4 times. He was in the minors 1 year. I can't believe you even mention developing when you are talking about wanting a HS kid instead...

BA/OBP/SLG

So that's what happened...we had the #1 prospect in baseball but we called up the wrong guy who happened to have a similar name. Sounds like a Syd Thrift move...

This got me curious, especially since others seemed to think it was crazy. Last year in MLB there were 799 pitchers total that threw 43,493.2 innings (this and all #s in this post include position players who pitched). 500 of those, or 62.5%, had 0.0 rWAR or better, and they threw about 79% of innings. 339 pitchers, or 42.4%, had 0.3 WAR or better, and they threw about 69.5% of innings. So, 37.5% of pitchers last year had negative WAR. 30% of innings were thrown by pitchers having 0.2 WAR or less, and 21% of innings were thrown by pitchers having negative WAR. This isn't a perfect exercise, but Drungo's numbers don't sound crazy to me. There are a lot of bad pitchers, and a lot of innings thrown by bad pitchers who are basically replacement level, i.e. close enough to being indistinguishable from top AAA pitchers. (For the 2018 Orioles: 16 of 30 pitchers had 0.0 WAR or more, throwing 78.6% of innings. 8 of 30 had 0.3 WAR or better, throwing 52.8% of innings)

Interesting. For Albies: 0.080 ISO at age 17 (RK ball). 0.094 at age 18 (A). 0.128 at age 19 (AA-AAA). 0.155 at age 20 (AAA). Then from ages 20-22 managed 0.183 in MLB. That's a nice progression. Hall had a 0.080 at 19 in low A and 0.064 in this young season at age 20 in A ball (well he'll be 20 in a month). Obviously a couple years behind Albies, but not everyone makes the majors at 20. Albies had the benefit of getting professional coaching at an earlier age (and sure I'll say it, in a better developmental org) and people grow at different rates...we can still have hope that Hall could develop similarly, and as you say we can still be happy even if he doesn't become top-10ish prospect good.

Ozzie Albers is the kind of name you get when your video game dynasty mode needs to generate new players.

That’s why you have a bunch of gold buried on your property. Duh. Everyone will trade things for gold when the apocalypse is coming.

I can't say this about a guy who lost part of his rib to pitching. Maybe for once a forearm strain is just a forearm strain.

It's happened before, to a far lesser extent, so it must be allowed. https://www.mlb.com/news/michael-cuddyer-mets-reach-buyout-agreement/c-165936318 The union would probably have a fit, but Davis may feel no particular allegiance there if he's retiring. If your options are collect $75M and go home and do what you want, or collect $92M and be forced to travel and embarrass yourself every day, I can see someone preferring the former, even with a much smaller first number.

Markakis must be the closest. After his 3rd year.

Villar could easily play around 100 games, getting around 371 plate appearances, then get traded. Haven't checked this year, last year we played our 107th game on July 31st.

I agree that in general it won't really be worth the trouble. My thought is maybe you work this system all year, then by time the playoffs roll around you have 3 or 5 "two-way" players on the staff. Now your year 2023 10 man limited staff can be a 13 man staff for the playoffs and you can bring in shut down relievers in the 6th like it's 2017. What's a -30 LF mean when it's only 20 or 40 innings anyway? This is all off the cuff and I have no clue if it's worth it, but I never expected openers to become a thing either. And even fractions of a win in a playoff series are something.

I wonder how much an extra pitcher is worth? Do you have your starters shagging fly balls every day from A ball on up so that they can start and play a passable top of the first inning in left or right field on some days? Of course when one gets hurt or makes an error you'll be vilified, so you have to make sure it's worth it. (Assuming there will be an actual playing requirement, not just "starting" Dylan Bundy in CF for away games and pinch hitting with Mullins in the top of the first.)

Wow. Today I learned that Steve Carlton won 27 games in a year his team only won 59. Good for 12.1 bWAR. Their whole pitching staff was worth 12.4 WAR. That’s just remarkable. Gotta be one of the best performances on a terrible team.

Dead money vs negative WAR plus a roster spot...the timeless question.

He's played 128 games at AA. That's more than enough, especially for someone you hope is an impact player and especially if you trust his time in Tulsa more than Bowie. The fact that he didn't do much at Bowie does give some pause, O's development problems or not, and I have no problem if the team would like him to go back and show some success there. I'm not qualified to say if he's ready or not, but I don't think it's a no brainer either way, even with a good spring.

I mean, his power started going away in 2010 (.139 ISO) and 2011 (.122 ISO) before the HBP. It was an odd progression after an MVP-caliber year (led the league in bWAR!) in 2008.

Adding to my last post... Markakis was BA's #21 prospect pre-2006 (when he made the team after a nice spring). At 21 in 2005 he spent 91 games in Frederick, with a nice 300/379/480, then spent 33 games in Bowie, killing the Eastern League for 339/420/573/992. Diaz is definitely a lot more like Markakis than Jones, but Nick was also better than Diaz at the same age, although it was only 33 games. I think we can all agree that Nick's power never quite blossomed as we all hoped it would, and I do think at 22 we can still hope for some more growth in that power potential for Diaz. I think Markakis with more power or Jones with more plate discipline but a bit less power would be excellent ceilings for Diaz. Sounds like a several time all star. Likelihood of reaching? Who knows

Diaz played all last year at age 21. His total at AA at age 21 was 285/392/449/841 OPS, if you want to be a homer and exclude Bowie cause he was changing his mechanics or it's tough to change orgs or whatever he was 314/428/477/905 at Tulsa. He's been anywhere from the 30s-70s in the top 100 prospects in baseball. His wRC+ was 152 for Tulsa and 106 for Bowie. In his age 21 season Adam Jones got to the majors for about 40 games (he also did at age 20 for a similar amount). His prospect rankings prior to that year seemed like 20s-40s. In AAA at age 20 his line was 287/345/484/829, and at age 21 it was 314/382/586/967. His wRC+ was 117 at age 20 in AAA, and 144 at 21 in AAA. Already you can see they were different kinds of players. A lot more walks for Diaz, more power for Jones. Jones was better at higher levels. Jones' stats are PCL, generally higher, but wRC+ should account for league averages and park and stuff he did fine at AAA age 21, while Diaz also did a bit better at AA Tulsa at age 21. What's all that mean? I have no idea. Jones was better at higher levels, but they were also different kinds of players. Two ifs: if Bowie was just an aberration and if Diaz develops power, that will be very nice. He has shown a good eye, so if he could approach Jones-like power that would be really exciting.

Isn't locking them up cheaper if you have more team control left? I.e. if your 5 year extension is only buying out 2 FA years instead of 3, because you sent them down for a few weeks at the start of their career?

You’re right and that’s what I meant. Doesn’t change it. They knew this was coming and should be prepared. There was never a question that the Nats would get many millions in rights fees. Also, this money isn’t just coming out of their pockets. The point, as I understand it, is that MASN has to pay the Nats rights fees based to some extent on what MASN is bringing in. Even though the programming sucks, they are bringing in a lot of money via the monthly fee that everyone in the area has to pay per month. I doubt MASN is broke. My point was just, this isn’t some surprise amount that is suddenly coming out of the Angelos bank account. This was an expected expense that should have been planned for and that had a revenue stream to pay for it.

I mean, they’ve known all along that they will owe the Nats some large amount of money. They’d be idiots to not have at least the minimal amount ready to go. If I have a $1000 bill coming I save for it; should be no different for MASN’s $150k-$300k bill (Also, someone said, maybe here or elsewhere, that they may have already paid some base amount and we’re just arguing over the excess, but I have no idea).

Sounds like "anyone who knows baseball" would pick, in this late inning situation, 2018 Chris Davis and his 168/243/296 but with 16 HR (1 every 32 plate appearances!) over 2004 Ichiro and his 372/414/445 but only 8 HR (1 every 95 plate appearances). It's all about who is more likely to tie with one swing of the bat and Davis is like 3 times as likely as Ichiro. Is that what you're saying?