BJOL and Toronto UP-DOWN Cycles
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James has done his evaluation of the Toronto Blue Jays' UP and DOWN cycles:
DOWN 1977-1981 The Fledglings. They lost a ton. In fact 1981 was a split season and they finished last twice that year :- )
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Arizona bound
Eight of the best Mariner farmhands have reported to Peoria and "Played Ball!" yesterday and will again today, in the Arizona Fall League. Who are they and what do they have? Read on, read on.
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BJOL Org's and Eras Project - Astros vs M's
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Whoever heard of lining up teams by their mascot names alphabetically ... grumble, grumble. And could swear this is the first time I ever saw James do that. The one time I cared. mumble, crumble. But here's to Diderot!
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Rotation Problems
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GRATUITOUS NFL REPORTING
I thought yesterday's game was one of the most exciting I've seen. The Rams looked Super Bowl-worthy, got the 'Hawks way back onto their heels. But the Seahawks pulled 10 different highlight film plays, fought with the hearts of champions, and perhaps fired up a rivalry to replace the 49'ers. I saw the game as a spirited battle of titans.
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GRATUITOUS M'S SHTICK
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BJOL Org's and Eras Project - the Astros
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Whoever heard of lining up teams by their mascot names alphabetically ... grumble, grumble. And could swear this is the first time I ever saw James do that. The one time I cared. mumble, crumble.
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BJOL 'Organizations and Eras Project'
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James is going to spend the winter publishing 30 articles about each franchise, its history, and its turning points. He states his intent as follows:
The general purpose of this study is to represent the history of each organization in such a manner that we can see clearly the turning points, the moments at which an organization began to decline or began to get better. I would take it to be obvious why we should do this. "Why do organizations get better?" and "Why do organizations decline?" are fundamental questions of baseball research. Do organizations get better because they hire the right manager? Do they get better because they hire the right General Manager? Do they get better because they come up with a star player? Does moving into a new park tend to help an organization get stronger? These are basic, fundamental questions, of immense significance to baseball research.
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Echo Chamber on Bach
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SABRMatt sez,
Remember when Doc complained about Mike Hargrove's player template...said slappy singles hitters who draw walks but can't run the bases have very little actual value?
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Well, sure. If Vogelbach is going to max out at 9 homers a year, then you can safely write him off, unworried even about any freakish OBP outcomes.
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Diderot sez,
If Vogs loses 30 pounds, I still don't think he can play first. It's an athletic thing to me, not a weight thing. So i agree with Matt.
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A Little Parable About Fighting Spirit
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On March 8, 2016 in Israel, Yontan Azarihab was wandering out of a shop when --- > a card-carrying member of The Religion of Peace jumped onto his back, starfished him tightly all four appendages, and invited him to chicken-fight the passersby in the street. Possibly to indicate his insistence on the matter, the stranger began plunging a blade into the side of Azarihab's NECK. Satisfied with his progress, the stranger ran into the store and left Azarihab to stumble out onto the sidewalk and collapse.
Whereupon Azarihab focused his vision enough to realize that his piggyback friend had left the knife in Azarihab's neck and his attention away, onto the shopkeeper. Azarihab got back on his feet, Soldier, and pulled the knife out of his own neck. He calmly walked back into the store and did unto his neighbor as had been done unto him. The details become hazy to Dr. D after this point, other than that (1) the terrorist was shot dead by police later that day and (2) this little police blotter does not exactly describe the Spirit of '17, Seattle Mariners version.
You start looking through the stats and you realize that all sorts of things did good. Hey, their ad hoc Internal Affairs bimbo rotation had a great result in September, did you know? In Sept. the staff had a SLG allowed of merely .406 -- compared to .469 the month before and about .425 the rest of the season. Its K:BB in Sept was 3.20, as opposed to 2.37 the month bfore, 2.29 in June, 1.96 in May ... you get the idea. Despite Marco Gonzales, or rather because of Marco Gonzales, the M's 4-IP starters led them to some of the best saber pitching of the year.
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Does Vogelbach's Weight Bother You AT ALL?
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I got to chipping out a little response to the Dan Vogelbach shtick and realized I had no bearings on the idea of fat players in baseball in 2017-18. Is there ANYbody on SSI that cares about a ballplayer's weight -- beyond what is measured as bad defense and bases lost on the basepaths? Would be eager to hear if, and why.
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OK, We Got Younger and More Athletic. That Was Nice.
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If you are blowing off your +15 runs CF, that being Jarrod Dyson, to put -5 defense Mitch Haniger into CF so you can pursue J.D. Martinez ... ? And simultaneously pursuing a -7 defense Big Bat at first? That young, athletic thingy was a nice trip to the Bahamas, right?
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Greg Johns flatly states that Heredia and Haniger will handle CF. That would be so that the M's can pursue a bat in the corner, and there are a lot on the FA market: J.D. Martinez, Justin Upton, Jose Bautista, Andrew McCutchen. Or, both Boomstick and Ohtani get into the same lineup in a Haniger scenario.
(TELL me it's not FUN to talk about Shohei Ohtani as our lefty #7 hitter! Right before he goes out and throws 100 MPH in the 1st inning the next day)
Zoom slid his prediction for Dyson to $8.5 - $9.0 MM after the late season problems. Personally I love Jarrod Dyson and I love having a glove specialist in the middle of the diamond, going back all the way to Little O being the glue for the Thome-Belle Indians. Dr. D is a UZR skeptic, but he is all-in on truly magical glove specialists who play the middle.
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