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Jerry Dipoto's latest fanciful trade moved Fangraphs to protest.  Well, at least one of their commenters protested ... that his fantasy LEAGUE had never totalled 43 (?) trades in any calendar year.  Fangraphs itself said,

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“We had a much more targeted list of players who we felt fit our needs,” explained Dipoto. “Last year, when I first got here, we didn’t want to start trading off, wholesale, players from the minor leagues who we didn’t know and hadn’t had a chance to evaluate. But we knew we had needs (and) we filled those needs with one-year players, like Adam Lind, Dae-Ho Lee, Nori Aoki, Chris Iannetta, Seth Smith on a one-plus-one.

“This year, we took that next step, trying to transition our roster into a more athletic defense-oriented group without giving up all of the offensive goodness. We’re not looking to go out in a fantasy baseball type way and improve a position because Player A is better than Player B, especially if the player we have its what we’re trying to do.”

Whether or not Dipoto is steering the Pequod remains to be seen.

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We'll remember again that James' fine study -- see the front page of Bill James Online for the article, which is probably behind the paywall -- has its limitations.  Every player is a +1 or a -1, regardless.  If James Paxton goes 25-3, 1.97 and Felix goes 15-10, 3.75, that's going to be plus one and minus one versus career norms.   Also, if Hisashi Iwakuma does a little skosh better in terms of K's, BB's, HR's, etc but only pitches 90 innings, that's a +1.

But still.  It means SOMETHING when you say "the Cubs last year were +17 -8.  The Indians last year were +13.  The Royals in 2015 were +15 -9.  The Giants in 2014 were +13 -9, but were only +6 -7 pitching."  By the time you add up a whole ROSTER of these seasons for a team, things start to even out.  Maybe 'Kuma will only throw 90 innings and have a slightly down year ... but maybe Max Povse will throw 85 good innings.

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THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY Dept.

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Objectively speaking, Chris Heston was 12-11, 3.95 in the National League two years ago.  Objectively speaking, on Friday he was throwing a remarkable swerveball -- 89 MPH but an armside runnnn as though he gouged a huge piece out of the ball on the 3B side and then threw it with perfect backspin.  Objectively speaking, Chris Heston has always had a very high groundball rate despite a lack of much downward movement on his pitches.

But what the Mainframe loved, loved, loved, was the "finish" on his pitches.  Heston is a Tim Hudson fanboy and he threw every pitch as if WILLING it to its correct location at the bottomside of the hitter's bat.  At times he fairly jumped up and down on the mound with the 'elan he was trying to get on his fingersnap.

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Jerry Dipoto talks about pitch tunnels.  You will love this Baseball Prospectus .gif.  LOVE it, or your money back.   ... I think that by "tunnels" Dipoto is more referring to the idea of throwing a fast pitch and a slow pitch down the same tunnel, as Mark Melancon preaches.  But still.

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