Whale

Brandon Maurer for Seth Smith

.

Discussion thread :- )

Taro has been arguing for Seth Smith since before Dr. D was arguing for Felix Hernandez. G-Money wasn't far behind, as we recall.

........

Ron Shandler sez -- Baseball Forecaster for sale here; you can download the .pdf right away --

Mildly surprising: he hit in SD. Reversed skills decline, was able to hold down a defensive position.
Not surprising: New manager kept him away from LHP, in line with most of his career.
Even though 2H seemed rough, plate skills remained, and HctX and PX call for continued pop in 2015.

For those who just joined us, "Hard contact expectancy" is a super-refined metric that tells us how often he's able to hit the ball hard. "Power Index" is a metric that tells us how hard he's able to hit the ball often. :- )

Image:

Blue Whale Bar

Need the perfect soundtrack for 2015? Celebrate with your date at Blue Whale Bar. It's in Little Tokyo and surrounded by amazing Japanese restaurants.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Image:

Humpback Whales Invade New York!

If you’re a fan of whale watching, there’s a new place in the States that’s becoming famous for it - New York City. Some of the largest numbers of humpback whales ever recorded have been hanging out in the Atlantic, just off the Rockaway peninsula. In fact, they’re coming in so close that you can see them from the tops of the city’s towering buildings.

Image:

Winning in 2015

.

There is a lot of alarm in Seattle over Miller-for-Ian Desmond. Um, remember, kiddies, those talks "haven't gained traction." Zduriencik came out with a public statement a day or two ago. Yes, people are very interested in our SS's. However, we are also very interested in our SS's. Cut the guy a break.

There's a good reason the other org's are grabby after Taijuan and the Logo, you realize. The Russian and Chinese space programs know at least as much about UFO's as we normal citizens do. Take the Craze over Crazy Legs as a confirmation that Miller is the natural choice over Chris Taylor.

....

One year of Jeff Zimmerman for Taijuan? That is about the going rate, we're sorry to say. Don't shoot the messenger.

Scars, Stubs, and the Melk-Man

.

Stubs

stub, n.: the truncated remnant of a Pencil, cigarette, or similarly-shaped object. The predictable sort of mid-cost Civic. Mike Hargrove wore through his entire pencil writing Jose Vidro's name onto his lineup card. Finally his pencil, and his sanity, wore out and he went home.

.......

Stars & Scrubs isn't an absolute. Every team has a few mid-cost Civics carrying the org spears. But Melky Cabrera in right field for 5 years at $16-18M? You've got DH ossified, for 4 years, and the clock hasn't started on those 4 years yet. You've got 3B ossified for 7 years. Now you're going to ossify RF for 5 years.

Mainframe Crunch on the Flight of the Condor

.

Q. Does the Mainframe crunch with a particular munch on this topic?

A. Read it and weep. Dr. D's Oct. 9th "Food Fight" article featured the eerie prescience of The Wreck of the Titan.

Everybody disagreed strongly, but he persisted. When you've got Biff's future almanac, that's your attitude.

... Well, technically, somebody disagreed, but as you know, Dr. D resents this as much as if everybody did. And technically, Grizzly was the one who first said "I'll bet Saunders is gone in the offseason," and we put the Uma Thurman 5-finger discount onto his idea. But we're hoping you won't read the link.

At any rate, Dr. D will thank you not to question his wisdom, ever again. Especially regarding Michael Saunders.

.

Q. We do presume that SSI agrees, at minimum, that this trade is feebleminded?

So Elite Japanese Pitchers Age Really Well

.

Dr. D gently, politely, and demurely suggested that we might be forced into considering, in some variations, the possibility in some universes, whether it may or may not be open to deliberation that we trade Dr. D's favorite player.

Whereupon Taro and Mojician harshly, rudely, and aggressively each filled a sock with quarters and beat him about the head and shoulders. Sometimes I can't believe this barrio.

........

Taro, for those who joined recently, is an uber-analyst from Japan. He shout-boxes,

First $100M Wins, brother

.

Here's the sound bite from the 1970's :- )

.

The SSI Diamond Club had this figured out in its head, before the rays of light from inside their eyes had even reached out and grabbed the headlines, to reel them back in. (If you think it's easy to prove the current theory of vision, you think wrong). But those of us in the bleachers need to see it laid out on a napkin:

.

Season	HARDBALL GRRRR	Warm, fuzzy hometown deal	Value/Remark
2015 Arb 1	$5m	$5m	Seager '14 = $30.4m
Arb 2	$9m	$9m
Arb 3	$14m	$14m
2018 FA1	$25m	$18m
FA2	$30m	$18m
FA3	$35m	$18m
FA4	$40m	$18m
FA5	$50m	$20m
FA6	Disney CruiseLiner	--
FA7	40% of ballclub
FA8	RE coop with Stanton
FA9	Things would start to get silly

.

One thing that fans are NOT good at, is allowing for increase in the yearly escalation of contracts given to truly desirable players, healthy ones, ones who play well at a glove spot, all that Chico Escuela stuff. Suffice it to say that if Kyle Seager had hit the free agent market in 2018, you weren't getting him for no 5/$110M Hanley Ramirez money.

The Value of a Prospect

.

Chris Taylor is more like $10-20M in NET value than $50M GROSS value on paper

A commenter within a thread, at a great blog, argued that you could reasonably trade Chris Taylor for Matt Kemp, with the Dodgers paying all or nearly all of his salary. If the M's could do that, or anything like that, it would be in the past tense now.

Take the idea that Chris Taylor $50M of pre-FA value. On paper that's true. On Fangraphs it shows up that way. But!, Only if you compare Taylor --- > rightward to FA's instead of comparing him

You would value Chris Taylor at $50M iff ---- > he were the last prospect on earth. Like the okra crop in Interstellar. The only kid left, then his worth would be right at $50M.

Hanley Ramirez, "SS"

.

Find the aim and achieve it. To sail to and fro, this will expose you to a strategic disgrace. - GM Aron Nimzovich

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only thing more important than knowing the rules, is knowing their exceptions. - jemanji

To get squares, you gotta give squares. - Bobby Fischer

Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend. - Bruce Lee

".268/.330/.464 in Safeco, second half" - Brad Miller's bat

...

Jack Zduriencik reminds me of Whitey Herzog, give or take the belly laugh and the rings. (Whitey Herzog minus those two things is still a whale of a baseball man. A great Bill James line about Herzog -- who ran James' beloved 1970's Royals -- "If Whitey hadn't been an MLB manager, he'd have been the county sheriff.")

The passage I remember best from his book The White Rat: "If it's drizzling, Templeton doesn't wanna play. If it's Thursday, he doesn't wanna play. If his wife yelled at him, he doesn't wanna play. I gotta have a starting shortstop I can count on." Or somesuch.

Whereupon Whitey "templeton'ed" his starting shortstop to San Diego, taking back a slick-fielding kid who could flip sky-high handsprings on his way out to his position. Or, occasionally, while turning a double play. Whitey got a shortstop who loved to play the game, and the St. Louis Cardinals of the 1980's became the Kansas City Royals of the 1970's. St. Louis' quasi-dynasty hasn't let up much since.

Pages