CheezWizHed

So much variation in what could be this year. It wouldn't shock me to see the team be under .500 given the youth we are leaning on and developing. But they could also be on par with last year's team if that youth adapts well. Several starting pitchers are going to be inning limited and there isn't a strong depth at this point. I'll say 84-78

Not to mention Wiemer at AAA and Bauers is able to cover the corners in a pinch. OF is one place we really could cover injuries well.

I tend to prefer the "more bites of the apple" approach. I know nothing about Mitchell, but you really have to be confident to give up that many "bites" for him. CB is a need, but not that big of one, IMO. If you were going up there for an LT that might make me rethink it.

Playing with draft simulators makes me think of a few things: - There are a lot of decent safeties and RBs in rounds 2-4. Off ball LBs are a touch less, but still decent depth. - Not many OTs outside of the first round. - Guards seem sprinkled around, but not plentiful.

I didn't say they'd all succeed in the role... 😉 And for my "optimism", I'm assuming a down year... a perfect time to develop younger talent. So maybe more a lemonade from lemons approach. If I were truly optimistic, I'd be expecting a 27 K game from Hall-to-Megill-to-Uribe! 😂

WTMJ 620 doesn't have the Packers? (I've not lived in the area for 20 years, but if not I'm surprised)

Sort of true... but this season, why wouldn't you try out a few guys and see who handles it well? No one likes to see Williams hurt, but might as well make the most of a bad situation and develop a few guys in that role instead of piling it on one.

It would be nice to see it charted by month too. By memory, I remember yelling at the TV during kickoff FAR more frequently in September than in December. Initially, I think last year's accolades either made him press more or made him feel like he was invincible and it resulted in really stupid KR attempts. That got better as the year went on and he looked much better late - with bigger legit returns too.

Since agents have multiple clients, it is really hard to verify that they are talking about one player vs another. Someone would be stupid to text or email a question like that. But a "hey, I got a question" on the phone after talking about another player would be hard to verify. You are right about the ethics of "if you do it for me, you will do it against me"... but that used to happen regularly. I would be surprised if it never happens now.

By 2024 BDay buddy = Carlos Maurera... younger than 3 of my 6 kids.

Congratulations to the winners! I hereby resolve to be more salty in this coming year to ensure I can compete for next year's prize!!! 😅

Maybe I'm wrong, but the tampering rules prevent the two sides from talking. Sure, teams will have a game plan of who they will target, the budget for those FAs, and a contract proposal. But you can't negotiate, send proposals, feel out how much they want, etc... It seems like many of these contracts are signed so quickly that it infers there was previous discussion already happening to get the two sides to a mutual understanding. Maybe the Vikings reacted quickly by reaching out to Rosenhaus and he gave a demand. Or maybe Rosenhaus reached out earlier and asked a "what if" question to know what the Vikings would offer if Jones was cut. Frankly, I find it a little weird that Jones didn't try for two years instead - unless Rosenhaus already knew people wouldn't offer it. Either way, just saying it doesn't happen because it is "illegal" is a bit silly... Yeah, New England didn't spy on other team's signs either. 😅

A) Rosenhaus knew he was being asked to cut Jones' salary. 2) Rosenhaus doesn't need to use another offer to negotiate the pay cut with the Packers. Just to know if he wants to accept it a pay cut or not. D) They created a "legal tampering" period because of all the illegal tampering that occurred. Yet, every year people sign massive contracts on the first day of legal tampering... do you really think people aren't illegally tampering again?

Maybe Bradbury improved, but he was getting run over 2 years ago. Packers (i.e. Clark) continued to just crush him. And the OL overall didn't give anyone time last year. The main reason Josh Dobbs was so successful was that people had to respect his legs. The OL let people rush through like wet tissue paper last year. Josh made them pay for it. Then Defenses realized they didn't need to rush him, went to containment mode to eliminate rushing lanes, and Josh couldn't throw well enough to win. Maybe individuals are decent on the line, but the sum total of the product continues to be bad.

This is a good point. Nixon's overall coverage numbers weren't great, but he did have individual games where he looked very good...and others where he stunk. A better DC (with better plans and communication) might improve the back-end there.

Jones was signed one day (or less?) after he was released. Do you think the Vikings really waited until after Jones was released to make the deal? Or was some illegal tampering happening where Rosenhaus had an inkling of what Jones could get? I'd bet on the latter.

Nixon's signing (and amounts) surprises me like most (all?) here. Perhaps it is structured in a way that it is far less guaranteed so it will amount to a 1 or 2 year deal... But regardless he is on the team, so I'm wondering... do you think Nixon might play more of a safety role instead of nickel DB? Sounds like there is some overlap in those roles for Hafley's defense. Nixon did seem to be much better when playing zone and moving forward towards the LOS than he did in 1on1 situations and chasing WRs. He is 5'10" and 200 lbs, so maybe a touch short but not bad otherwise. If he does play more safety - or even start at safety... that might make more sense of the $$ investment here. Though some of the changes to the KO rules might also make him more impactful as a KR too.

I'm not convinced he will stay this year... There are already rumors vis-a-vie Rodgers/Adams. Think JJ wants to have Darnold throwing him the pigskin?

Of course, they don't have anyone to throw it to them nor does that person have the time to throw it more than short routes. 😅

Woof... that was a train wreck. Bennett didn't last the season with the Pack and only played a couple games with the Pats and that was his last season. Cook played 5 years post-Packers. Two of them where he made the Pro Bowl.

Yes, losing Adames in the clubhouse is going to be a big loss. He is simply a great guy that keeps the team positive. But he is going to leave next year at least. So we need to stop using the Hader tradeline snaffu as a reason not to trade people. It is baseball and trades are inevitable. Using Hader's trade as a reason for the second half downfall is pretty weak, IMO. The only constant is change. Better to drive the change than react to it.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping that might happen... the market isn't as lucrative as Jones hopes and he comes back. For the draft, I still think we see a Jones/Williams-like draft; two mid-round RBs picked up. Jacobs, Wilson, 2 draft picks, Taylor (still a solid ST/backup/floor player) and UDFAs... Not a terrible plan.

I was really hoping they would extend Jones - reduce this year and add another year... And now there is Viking rumors circulating. That would hurt.

Crud. You are correct. I calculated both the numbers between 1 std dev (3.34-5.35) and between 3.85-4.85. One Std Dev was 70%, 3.85-4.85 was 40%. Mathed correctly... interpreted wrongly. 😖 I didn't find an easy way to separate SP numbers from RP numbers... hence the first criteria to try to separate and get mostly SPs...

Out of curiosity, I ran my own numbers on this. First problem I found was how to pick your starting pitchers... There are hosts of pitchers used for a start or two. So I selected this criteria: Only pitchers with > 80 IP Avoiding people that started once or twice. Needed a decent sample size. Only pitchers with >5 starts There are some pitchers here that are still have more games as RP than SP, but I picked this to at least give a decent sample of starts in their numbers. NOTE: this was my own criteria. I did not look at Fangraphs (or even your post) while doing it. I just grabbed the raw 2023 data and filtered to try to get a decent sample without the noise of random starters. ( i.e. small samples suck). Of that sample size: Average ERA: 4.35 Standard deviation: 1.01 Ave ERA +/- one standard dev gives you 70% of the starting pitchers between 3.34 and 5.35 ERA. Before anyone complains about my 70% number not being 68% for a normalized distribution... this was the calculated number as the distribution is not a normal gaussian distribution. Close, but not quite. ERA between 3.85 and 4.85 was 40% of the pitchers In graph form it looks like this: NOTE: The bar above "2.5" is the number of pitchers that had an ERA between 2.0 and 2.5. 3.0 is between 2.5 and 3.0, etc... NOTE2: Total population of pitchers ended up being 159 which is 5.3 SPs per team.. EDITED - I used the wrong range for the percentage of players between 3.85 and 4.85 when looking at my spreadsheet. Had two numbers and transposed them. Post is corrected now.