Better-than-Usual Hot Stove Shtick
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1) This is a Seattle Times article on Shohei Ohtani which is (a) perhaps less versed in the subject than you are, but (b) has several vivid quips and quotes, including the image of Jerry Dipoto grimacing as his Cy Young starter tries to go 1B-to-3B on a single. :- )
The remark is made that the under-25 Nippon star's negotiating position is 'just like a 16-year-old Venezuelan,' which is true but not accurate. Leverage, bro. If ML teams think a teenager from Venezuela is too big for his britches, they laugh and walk away. The teens don't get arb years waived.
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2) Scott Boras stares at you steely-eyed and informs you that you'd be crazy not to pay $30M x 7 years for J.D. Martinez' age 30+ seasons. Besides the amusement factor, the MLBTR.com article does contain two takeaways: (1) Martinez is a better hitter than we thought, with a ridiculous hard-hit ball %, and (2) Not the M's right fielder next year.
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3) Jon Heyman has 7 Burning Questions for this winter, the most interesting of which concern Giancarlo Stanton (who has a full no-trade and who apparently wants out of Miami) and, if you're interested, Heyman waves the Yankee pom-poms ("supreme favorites") for Ohtani. Like, even for Heyman it's pretty over-the-top, so it's fun to read.
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4) Fangraphs has an estimate of every team's offseason FA money to spend. It's got the M's at $20M. Like we sez, teams can spend what they want; at least 20-25 teams could increase their payrolls by $50M tomorrow. But you gotta start somewhere.
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5) If you want a final celebration of Eric Filia's .408 batting average in the AFL, here y'go amig-O. Not so many #24 org prospects win the AFL batting title.
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6) Jake Mailhot, who is a fine analyst, breaks down the swings of Healy and Haniger. His view of Healy is that he will wear you out on fastballs, but struggles badly against other pitch types. This is slightly-to-moderately consistent with Healy's pitch type values, which show him at +0.6 on heaters, +0.9 on changes, +1.0 on cutters and splits, -0.4 on sliders and -1.2 on curves (which MLB pitchers threw him only 13% of the time, so it ain't like he's that Caribbean guy from Major League). All of this is, I would guess, about typical for young hitters of Healy's type and quality.
Mailhot sees Haniger as not prone to this (argued) pitch recognition problem and so in better position going forward. Lots and lots of stats in the article; nicely done, Mr. Mailhot.
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7) Here is this week's Best of Fangraphs. It references a Cameron list of free agents that puts Yu Darvish at a top with a guesstimated 6 x $28M deal, while the crowdsource is 5 x $24. Dr. D is gingerly willing to guess that Cameron's figures will be closer to reality.
Interestingly, Cameron has Lorenzo Cain way up there at #6, costing 4 x $17M and being worth $70-80M; Cain has been connected to the M's. Personally would fret about a Chone Figgins scenario. Cameron's favorite SP bet, past Darvish and Arrieta, is Alex Cobb who may be the guy Dipoto settles for.
This week's Best of SSI is on a convenient carousel at the top of the landing page. :: innocent smile ::
BABVA,
Dr D