Mancini Trade Package

[interloper]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I don't know if it's a product of the juiced ball, but there are players who disproportionately benefit (or are hurt) by changes to the playing conditions.  It might be a coincidence.  Sometimes people have career years that happen to fall in favorable conditions.  

Larry Sheets had by far his best year in the juiced ball year, but I doubt the ball was the entire difference between his .921 OPS in '87 and his .645 the next year.  It was probably a combination of a career year, the ball, health, and who knows what.

But I don't think it's hurting Mancini that he's hitting a super bounce ball this year.

Lol.

Why does this board just want to discredit Mancini as much as possible? First of all, everyone is benefiting from the ball this year. And guys who should be murdering it, like Machado, kind of aren't. So that argument seems pretty weak to me.

Secondly, this throws out all of the research folks have done regarding Mancini's legitimate and real changes to his approach/swing. I mean he worked on the flaws and he beat them. That's what we're seeing this year. 

[DrungoHazewood]

6 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

How about Harold Baines?

I guess he's in the same extended family, although he had gotten MVP votes in four seasons and been in a couple AS games by Mancini's age.  Baines didn't have a bad year (i.e. sub-100 OPS+) from age 22 to 40.  And he never played an inning at first in his career.

[interloper]

27 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

When you ignore Drungo's post in it's entirety it shows me you are not interested in honest debate.

Again, instead of communicating, you take this weird side angle and deflect it by relating it to Drungo's post. 

I had nothing against that post, in which he acknowledged there were some bad comps. I picked on the Scott/Trumbo comps because they're Orioles and they come up a lot. Frobby had some fair points about Scott's OBP. That's an example of how to have a conversation about something instead of side-swiping me constantly with some flippant quip or deflecting or answering a question with a question. 

[DrungoHazewood]

2 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

I’ve always thought Jeff Conine was a good comp for Mancini. 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/coninje01.shtml

That's not bad, except Mancini hits about 50% more homers per PA.

[DrungoHazewood]

9 minutes ago, interloper said:

Lol.

Why does this board just want to discredit Mancini as much as possible? First of all, everyone is benefiting from the ball this year. And guys who should be murdering it, like Machado, kind of aren't. So that argument seems pretty weak to me.

Secondly, this throws out all of the research folks have done regarding Mancini's legitimate and real changes to his approach/swing. I mean he worked on the flaws and he beat them. That's what we're seeing this year. 

I'm not sure why you've taken a throwaway post (which really I hoped people would focus on who the heck George Puccinelli and Butch Schmidt were) and turned it into a quest to redeem Trey Mancini's good name.  I was not making any kind of negative value judgment about Mancini - all the guys on that list, at least the major leaguers, had solid, productive MLB careers.  

I actually thought I'd get much more flack for comparing Trey to Don Baylor and Bobby Bonilla than Trumbo and Scott.  I assumed Trumbo and Scott were pretty non-controversial.  I almost didn't even include Trumbo because you could argue the Trey Mancini of the 2010s is Trey Mancini.

[Frobby]

12 minutes ago, interloper said:

Lol.

Why does this board just want to discredit Mancini as much as possible? First of all, everyone is benefiting from the ball this year. And guys who should be murdering it, like Machado, kind of aren't. So that argument seems pretty weak to me.

Secondly, this throws out all of the research folks have done regarding Mancini's legitimate and real changes to his approach/swing. I mean he worked on the flaws and he beat them. That's what we're seeing this year. 

I just want to see more of it.   Mancini carried a .900+ OPS through July 8 in 2017, then he fell off pretty significantly in the second half.   So, for me his strong first half this year doesn’t prove that he’s going to be able to sustain it this time.   I hear you about swing changes, etc., but I still want to see him actually sustain his success.   

[interloper]

9 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm not sure why you've taken a throwaway post (which really I hoped people would focus on who the heck George Puccinelli and Butch Schmidt were) and turned it into a quest to redeem Trey Mancini's good name.  I was not making any kind of negative value judgment about Mancini - all the guys on that list, at least the major leaguers, had solid, productive MLB careers.  

I actually thought I'd get much more flack for comparing Trey to Don Baylor and Bobby Bonilla than Trumbo and Scott.  I assumed Trumbo and Scott were pretty non-controversial.  I almost didn't even include Trumbo because you could argue the Trey Mancini of the 2010s is Trey Mancini.

Mark Trumbo has never had an OBP above .317 in any season of his career. He has never hit above .268 in a season. Mancini has already eclipsed both of those marks in 2 of his 3 years in the big leagues. He should reach 2+ WAR this year and has already matched Trumbo's second-best WAR total in a season of 2.3. 

Could Mancini simply turn into Trumbo one day? I guess that's possible, sure. But right now they don't seem like remotely the same type of player to me. They play the same positions, and they hit some dingers, but that's it! Mancini will almost certainly demolish Trumbo's career WAR numbers if he puts in full seasons at 1B and hits consistently with power to all fields. 

[interloper]

3 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I just want to see more of it.   Mancini carried a .900+ OPS through July 8 in 2017, then he fell off pretty significantly in the second half.   So, for me his strong first half this year doesn’t prove that he’s going to be able to sustain it this time.   I hear you about swing changes, etc., but I still want to see him actually sustain his success.   

Of course. Totally agree. It's early yet both this season and in his career. At the end of the day, though, it's pretty easy to look at the guy and say "yeah, that's definitely not Mark Trumbo". 

[Going Underground]

19 minutes ago, interloper said:

Lol.

Why does this board just want to discredit Mancini as much as possible? First of all, everyone is benefiting from the ball this year. And guys who should be murdering it, like Machado, kind of aren't. So that argument seems pretty weak to me.

Secondly, this throws out all of the research folks have done regarding Mancini's legitimate and real changes to his approach/swing. I mean he worked on the flaws and he beat them. That's what we're seeing this year. 

Machado is on a hot streak as he comes to town.Batting average over  400 last seven games. 6 homers  and 16 RBI'S in last 15 games and .OBP over .400.

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Going Underground said:

Machado is on a hot streak as he comes to town.Batting average over  400 last seven games. 6 homers  and 16 RBI'S in last 15 games and .OBP over .400.

I'm just sayin. "It's the ball!" is not (always) a great argument for explaining why a ML player is hitting well. 

[Going Underground]

Just now, interloper said:

I'm just sayin. "It's the ball!" is not (always) a great argument for explaining why a ML player is hitting well. 

I agree.Just look at the bottom of the Orioles order with Davis in it.Trey is hitting many more doubles then last year.

[wildcard]

1 minute ago, interloper said:

I'm just sayin. "It's the ball!" is not (always) a great argument for explaining why a ML player is hitting well. 

And the commissioner likes all of baseball to score a lot of runs.  So maybe, just maybe, there is no change to the ball in sight.

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

Mark Trumbo has never had an OBP above .317 in any season of his career. He has never hit above .268 in a season. Mancini has already eclipsed both of those marks in 2 of his 3 years in the big leagues. He should reach 2+ WAR this year and has already matched Trumbo's second-best WAR total in a season of 2.3. 

Could Mancini simply turn into Trumbo one day? I guess that's possible, sure. But right now they don't seem like remotely the same type of player to me. They play the same positions, and they hit some dingers, but that's it! Mancini will almost certainly demolish Trumbo's career WAR numbers if he puts in full seasons at 1B and hits consistently with power to all fields. 

I hope you are correct, I hope he has a 20+ win career.  

Sometimes it's more useful than confusing to look at comparable players.  I did a bb-ref query with the following qualifiers: through age 27, OPS+ between 117-127, less than 1700 PAs, played 1B, LF, RF, and/or DH, total fielding runs =< 0.

46 names popped up.  Josh Bell (the Pittsburgh one).  Mancini.  Corey Dickerson.  Khris Davis.  Yoenis Cespedes.  Josh Willingham.  Erubiel Durazo.  Bubba Trammell.  Brian Daubach.  Sam Horn.  Larry Sheets.  Al Bumbry (?!)  Leon Wagner.  Dick Stuart.  Bob Nieman.  Nick Etten.  Irish Meusel.  Those are the more recognizable names.  I think we and Mancini would be pretty happy with Josh Willingham's career. Or Cespedes'.  

[Frobby]

20 minutes ago, interloper said:

Of course. Totally agree. It's early yet both this season and in his career. At the end of the day, though, it's pretty easy to look at the guy and say "yeah, that's definitely not Mark Trumbo". 

I think you’re taking the term “comp” too literally.   They’re not the exact same player.   But at this point in his career, Trumbo had a 114 OPS+ and had been worth 7.2 rWAR through the end of his age 27 season.    That’s pretty similar even if Trumbo was always a lower OBP guy than Mancini.   And interestingly for purposes of this conversation, Trumbo was traded that offseason, with the Angels receiving Hector Santiago (a very solid starting pitcher) and Tyler Skaggs (who had been a highly regarded pitching prospect) in return.   The Angels also threw minor league pitcher AJ Scheugel into the trade. So, I’d say it’s pretty clear that Trumbo did have significant trade value when he was at the same stage of his career as Mancini.   

[Can_of_corn]

I don't like including Cespedes.  While he did debut at 26 he defected in 2011 and was playing MLB in April 2012.  I think it was more circumstance than ability that delayed his debut.