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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2022 19:41:13 GMT -5
@mrp I get what you're saying, and it would be interesting if they could come up with a way to quantify each player's value in each game he played, but that would mean that the award would be a fait accompli by the time the season ended, as no voting would be necessary. I agree that this is why MLB needs to better define the MVP and add the other awards we're talking about. Not sure they could ever come up with an algorithm that could do that. Just tonight Alex Speier was explaining how a guy like Bogaerts is done dirty by the "Expected BA" stat, as it is based partly on "exit velo" (may I never have to type that again). Thus, when Xander or heady players like him see a hole on the right side and simply dunk a quail or shoot a slow grounder into right when the pitcher throws a low outside slider instead of trying to "launch angle" a ball two inches off the ground and strike out, he is actually penalized. That's illogical, IYAM, and yet this is the kind of stat studied in isolation as a means of judging a player's worth sans truly watching him and seeing how vast a set of talents he has. And to be honest, in this day and age, even fossils like me who haunt baseball reference for the fun of it can also figure out how many of for example, a player's HRs, hits and RBIs, were just padding a lead or otherwise inconsequential. How hard would that be? Teams distribute far more ridiculous stats. The trick would be defining inconsequential-is it when the team leads by 5 or more? 8 or more? Trails by 5 or more? 10 or more? Yes we can parse the stats if we want, but what's the rubric used? Without that standard, the parsing is subjective and statistically irrelevant. And getting the people who vote to agree on any kind of standard would be the equivalent of herding cats. They can't even agree if a steroid user should gets HoF votes or not. -M
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 21, 2022 19:42:55 GMT -5
PS: @mrp, if I don't answer, I'm not ducking you, just have to power down as we seem to be getting a thunderstorm (Finally!) and I have to be out early tomorrow AM.
Love this back and forth; you are so knowledgeable and I always learn so much from your posts. Thanks!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2022 19:58:05 GMT -5
Oh and Prince Hal I don't see having the MVP be a fait accompli based on actual statistical evidence and taking votes away from subjective sports writers who can't agree on a standard or not to vote for players they like personally versus players they don't as a bad thing. -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 21, 2022 21:35:25 GMT -5
pitchers have been MVPs before..in fact, I think Verlander WAS MVP one year. I don't think any pitcher can be MVP now though, not when you only play in 30 games out of 162. I feel like you really have to be totally above and beyond to win MVP on a bad team... there isn't really a way to be above and beyond Judge this year.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2022 23:23:37 GMT -5
pitchers have been MVPs before..in fact, I think Verlander WAS MVP one year. I don't think any pitcher can be MVP now though, not when you only play in 30 games out of 162. I feel like you really have to be totally above and beyond to win MVP on a bad team... there isn't really a way to be above and beyond Judge this year. What's above and beyond matching what someone else did before and possibly exceeding it by a small margin and getting your name added to a short list of greats? Doing something that has never been done before in the history of MLB and starting a list that may never be added to because it may never be matched again. Judge's record is incredible, but it will be broken. We may never have another ML player who hits 30+ HR and strikes out 200 batters in a season again. Again fine with either getting the MVP, but I think people are discounting how rare and how difficult it is to accomplish what Ohtani has. What Judge is doing has been done before. What Ohtani is doing hasn't. -M and as a PS and yes I will go there, this is the first time Judge has managed to stay healthy all season since his rookie year and he has performed even above even his career norms as great as they are. The last time we saw that it was the last time someone chased Maris, and later revelations tainted all of that. I really hope nothing taints this chase down the line...
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 22, 2022 6:14:35 GMT -5
I hear you...I've been thinking that, too, and that's why I don't really want Boston to be the team to pay him. Not because I'm suspicious, but because he is injury prone.
I'm not discounting that Otani is amazing, he's just not the most valuable... the Angels continue to prod along in obscurity.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2022 9:07:08 GMT -5
I hear you...I've been thinking that, too, and that's why I don't really want Boston to be the team to pay him. Not because I'm suspicious, but because he is injury prone. I'm not discounting that Otani is amazing, he's just not the most valuable... the Angels continue to prod along in obscurity. Angels in obscurity didn't stop Trout from winning 3 MVPS (only 1 of which did the Angels have a record above .500 for. If Trout could win on those Angels teams, saying Ohtani shouldn't because the Angels are bad this year is a bit hypocritical in my view. Tout may have been the best player of his generation and he couldn't move the needle on the Angels success, but yet somehow he's a 3 time MVP? Right there is all the proof you need that the MVP has nothing to do with how well the team the player is on does. Not to mention Ohtani won last season on a trash Angels team and this season's accomplishment are more impressive than last years. -M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 22, 2022 9:29:31 GMT -5
I'm not a Trout fan either... I definitely wouldn't have voted for him. Collecting stats on a bad team out of the spot light doesn't impress me. The WAR crowd loves him, I get it, but meh. He would have been 3rd or 4th for me in 2019 (Bregman #1, Bogaerts #2 for sure) 2016 I remember being sad Betts didn't win it, but if I was not being a homer I think I'd give it to Zack Britton. 2014 he can have, the Angels were actually good that year I don't begrudge Otani one for his general amazingness, but he doesn't need to win it every year for the rest of his career, that'd be silly
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2022 9:48:33 GMT -5
I'm not a Trout fan either... I definitely wouldn't have voted for him. Collecting stats on a bad team out of the spot light doesn't impress me. The WAR crowd loves him, I get it, but meh. He would have been 3rd or 4th for me in 2019 (Bregman #1, Bogaerts #2 for sure) 2016 I remember being sad Betts didn't win it, but if I was not being a homer I think I'd give it to Zack Britton. 2014 he can have, the Angels were actually good that year I don't begrudge Otani one for his general amazingness, but he doesn't need to win it every year for the rest of his career, that'd be silly Why would it be silly? If he's doing things no other player can do and putting up amazing seasons why shouldn't he win every year? If you have to spread the award around to others to give them a chance to win, it's even less about who is most valuable. This is why I would love for it to have voting taken out of it if they can come up with a statistical formula to parse actual value to a team. Voters bring their bias and baggage to it and cloud the issue even more. It's not a team award (player is in the name of it as well as valuable so team shouldn't be a consideration), it's not a popularity contest, it's not a let's reward someone who hasn't been recognized yet award, it's not a vote for the guys on the team I cover thing. But all those seem to factor into who gets the MVP. And if it's going to be a voted award, let's take it out of the hand of the baseball writers. If we have to vote, there should be 60 votes-2 per team, 1 by the manager of each team and one by the GM of each team and not by a group of folks who who can't seem to figure out the basics most days. -M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2022 15:34:47 GMT -5
Bobby D back in Boston. Trevor Story was not recovering from a heel injury as expected, so was placed on the 10 day IL and Dalbec was recalled to take his spot on the roster.
Meanwhile, checking in on the Tristan Casas experiment-
Casas is now hitless in his last 16 at-bats and 1 of his last 26.
He has struck out 9 times and walked 6 times in that stretch.
And already fickle Sox fans are turning on him, calling him a failure, calling for Bloom to trade him before he loses all value and lumping him with Dalbec and Duran as prospect busts. These, the same fans who were whining all year for the Sox to call him up to save the team.
What he's shown is superior pitch recognition (he takes a lot of pitches and has a very low chase rate), but his contact rate hasn't been good. Whether that is timing, nerves, not adjusting to major league pitching vs. AAA or what not. 30 or so at bats is not a large enough sample size to make any judgements, so I would keep playing him, but they may find some things he needs to work on, and I wouldn't be all that surprised if he starts next season back at AAA to work on those things for a bit while Hosmer holds down 1B for the Sox at the major league level. Hosmer is not a long term solution for the Sox, but he's a fine bridge. And he or Casas could take some of the DH ABs next year without JD in the picture. What is troubling though is the pattern of cant miss Sox prospects coming up and struggling to make consistent contact at the major league level. It's not just Cases, but it was Duran, and Dalbec, and Jeter Downs, and Michael Chavis before that and on and on for the past several seasons. Even Devers, as great as he is, has a lot of swing and miss and bad swings and trouble with contact consistently. It's not a player struggling to make an adjustment, it's a systemwide symptom of our prospects coming up and it is something the organization needs to look at, assess and address moving forward. Building up prospects is fine, but not if they can't make it at the ML level, and this seems to be a systemic weakness of all our top prospects.
-M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 23, 2022 6:53:28 GMT -5
That stuff I've heard haven't totally turned on him yet.. I hear alot of about his pitch recognition... but you can't deny that he's having a pretty horrendous start. I'm certainly still willing to have him start next year as the regular 1st baseman, but I'm also glad they have Hosmer cheap It's not like Moncada, who clearly had no idea what a curve ball was when he first came up, then couldn't even run the bases. (Though he turned out at least as an average player if they had more patience). I think Boston has had their fair share of good hitting propspects.. Bogaerts, Devers, Betts, Benintendi. Even Chavis isn't doing bad over in Pittsburgh.. better than the Dalbec/Cordero combo certainly. I do think the front office falls in love with guys too much.. how many years did they insist Blake Swihart was a superstar if only they could get him in the lineup. Seems like they've given up on Downs.. otherwise he'd be playing everyday at 2nd.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 23, 2022 7:04:39 GMT -5
I'm not a Trout fan either... I definitely wouldn't have voted for him. Collecting stats on a bad team out of the spot light doesn't impress me. The WAR crowd loves him, I get it, but meh. He would have been 3rd or 4th for me in 2019 (Bregman #1, Bogaerts #2 for sure) 2016 I remember being sad Betts didn't win it, but if I was not being a homer I think I'd give it to Zack Britton. 2014 he can have, the Angels were actually good that year I don't begrudge Otani one for his general amazingness, but he doesn't need to win it every year for the rest of his career, that'd be silly Why would it be silly? If he's doing things no other player can do and putting up amazing seasons why shouldn't he win every year? If you have to spread the award around to others to give them a chance to win, it's even less about who is most valuable. This is why I would love for it to have voting taken out of it if they can come up with a statistical formula to parse actual value to a team. Voters bring their bias and baggage to it and cloud the issue even more. It's not a team award (player is in the name of it as well as valuable so team shouldn't be a consideration), it's not a popularity contest, it's not a let's reward someone who hasn't been recognized yet award, it's not a vote for the guys on the team I cover thing. But all those seem to factor into who gets the MVP. And if it's going to be a voted award, let's take it out of the hand of the baseball writers. If we have to vote, there should be 60 votes-2 per team, 1 by the manager of each team and one by the GM of each team and not by a group of folks who who can't seem to figure out the basics most days. -M I think having players and managers vote makes it MORE a popularity contest, not less. that's how we have Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame. Its a fair point though... and these days, how do you qualify as a 'sports writer' , newspapers are barely a thing, and certainly not relevant.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2022 23:10:42 GMT -5
Congratulations to Albert Pujols, who hit two home runs tonight against the Dodgers (#699 and #700) to become only the 4th major leaguer to join the 700 HR club!
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2022 23:12:45 GMT -5
Red Sox officially eliminated from playoff contention today, confirming what we've already known since August. This team wasn't up to snuff.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2022 14:36:50 GMT -5
In discussing struggles of Sox prospects a few posts back we mentioned Michael Chavis, and someone commented he was doing better than some of the others mentioned. Well, he just got DFA'd by the lowly Pirates today whose roster is extremely thin. Hopefully he can catch on somewhere else in the offseason, but it will most likely have to be on a minor league deal.
-M
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