Dollarbill13

This post is just baffling. I'm just going to ignore it and hope it goes away.

I would almost rather it was JUST the HR, you can call that some bad luck or whatever, but above and beyond the 8 (?) HR in 3 games, the 40 hits is very, very troublesome. To me the hits are more luck than the HR. Hits are just sort of random noise most of the time, HR are usually poor pitches. Especially this series where the Rockies had 9 infield hits which is just insane for a 3 game series. You should expect 2 or 3 instead of 9. I was just going to post this. We should still have a pretty good team xFIP after this series

I'm cheering for a Segura injury so Khris Davis can get a shot at SS

Who is starting against us on opening day? Whoever it is, I bet Yuni is 3-5 against him, lifetime.

Is it too much to think that Doug may have signed him with the intent of potentially trading him at the deadline this year if we're out of it? I think the dollars are reasonable, the question is just whether the extra couple wins that he'd provide is worth to the Brewers. If he's pitching well and the Brewers aren't in the race, he'd have quite a bit of value over what his salary would suggest and could possibly fetch a good prospect package - probably more than the 17th pick in the draft is worth.

Back in against Mesa who is working from the wind-up. The 0-1 pitch... swings and there it is. A base hit into right center. He's done it... 3,000 for Robin

Estrada had a 3.64 ERA last year with a better FIP. I think that would qualify as a #2, no?

I'm not sure if I'm ready to give Schafer the job in CF, but I'd be hesitant to commit $48M to Carlos. Not that he wouldn't be worth it if he keeps up his production but he reminds me too much of Bill Hall with the bat. I'd love it if we could swoop in and pick up Brantley to fill the 4th OF role in 2013 and take over as the regular CF in '14

I don't think Bauer becomes more than a #5 starter so we probably see that deal a lot differently. Well if that's the case you're probably right, although they still only gave up one year of Choo. Aside from his 16 bad innings in the bigs, Bauer has put up very impressive numbers in the minors. It's hard for me to project him to be anything less than a middle of the rotation starter, at which point I think they win that trade...

Good signing for the Tribe. Bourn has been a 4+ WAR player in each of the last 4 years. Even though he'll likely regress at some point, the Indians can quite possibly get their money's worth in the first two years of this deal. Brantley is a nice player but Bourn should be a pretty significant upgrade in the near-term. That said, if I'm DM, I'm calling Cleveland immediately about Brantley. I'd bet Brantley ends up with Seattle, though. edit to correct spelling from Jason Bourne to Michael Bourn

Agreed. It'd be one thing if they were getting a superstar player but Lohse is likely to only add a win or two to the team. It would be nice if there were multiple levels of qualifying offers, such as: $10M = 3rd rounder $15M = 2nd rounder $20M = 1st rounder

TMI?

He did win the MVP just two seasons ago Ya, but he was only runner-up last year. And it's been a while since he won rookie of the year.

I voted for him. It's about time he gets some recognition for a change.

Hypothetically, would you have traded Gallardo for Myers? I know in the Trade Forum, the idea was getting slammed. Gallardo and Shields are pretty similar. Gallardo has an extra year on his deal while Shields has pitched more innings and has put up his numbers in the AL East.

I'm fine with anything that brings forth massive sanctions against both programs

I suppose it would help if I read the article

It's interesting that Texas would be looking to trade for a top SS prospect when they already have Andrus and Profar.

You can have someone play SS and have someone hit for them in the AL...

Reports of the deal are premature

He's not a bad reclamation project (xFIP was only 3.82 this year) but he's probably done being an ace unless he can regain some of the velocity that he's lost. I'd probably take him on a 1 year deal for half of that $22M but I wouldn't want to give up good prospects to get him, though.

TC07, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the Rays seemingly making such a strong effort to maximize platoon advantages with their relievers, since you say RH specialists aren't worth a roster space and you don't value LOOGYs either... http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/taking-the-platoon-advantage/ (Note most of the stats in the article relate to 2011 - I don't really know how to pull these numbers for 2012) Also, a quick note on the "random variance" comment... You are right that there is very little that is truly random in baseball, given that bat angles, ball speeds, etc. are simple physics. However, I think when folks use the term "random variance", it is more or less in terms of the large range of outcomes that are based on small differences in bat/ball contact location and also the imperfect communication between the human brain and muscles. If you ask Ryan Braun to hit a ball off a tee ten times and make initial contact with the exact same spot on the ball, I think it's pretty obvious that he wouldn't do it every single time. Likewise, if you take a home run and move the contact point of the bat a couple millimeters, the result could be completely different. Whether you consider that to be truly "random" or just "imperfection" is debatable, but what matters is that even the best athlete won't execute every action perfectly each time. Let's say Braun hits the ball perfectly 50% of the time on average. If you ask him to hit several balls in a row, there may be no rhyme or reason to the patterns. He might hit it perfectly a few times in a row, miss a few times in a row, or alternate back and forth. If you translate this to the field, and also factor in the wide degree of variety in situations, there's obviously a wide range of possibilities where the actual outcome will depend on the timing in which opportunities the player succeeds and in which they fail. If you are a super-neurologist, you might be able to trace the reason behind failure or success to the communication of neurons and receptors in the brain, but for all intents and purposes, it's random.

HiAndTight's point was that Perez is not even in the same league as Corey in terms of trade value. The "others" would have to be significantly more valuable than Perez. At $4.5M, you shouldn't really have to give up much of anything to get Perez as he's not coming at much of a discount to what he'd earn in free agency. If we are unable to get any decent relievers in free agency, you could just take a guy like Jimmy Nelson and have him pitch out of the pen for a while. It might not be ideal for his development, but a guy like Lance Lynn pitched out of the pen during the stretch run in '11 and then turned out a pretty good season as a starter this year.

This isn't the case. This article lays out how the revenue is split. A portion goes to the commissioners office, a portion goes to the players pool and the rest is divided equally between the series participants.

I think I disagree with your second point. The only times when it would come into play is if the infield is back and there is a hard hit ball directly at one of them or when the infield is in and the ball is fielded by an infielder but either slowly hit or not directly at them, where the contact play is the difference between scoring and not scoring. I think it's next to impossible to quantify either but that's my perception.