Rockies’ closer Greg Holland turned down a $15M player option. Sounds like Colorado will push hard to resign him, though.
I’m conflicted about spending a ton of money on a closer. If you don’t have one, they’re pretty darn valuable. But it seems like almost any decent pitcher could do it. Especially given how many guys throw 97+ these days.
Free agency starts at 2pm PST. Let the fun begin.
In a move that shocked absolutely no one, the Giants exercised their option on Madison Bumgarner, and will pay him a paltry sum of $12 million for 2018. Hopefully he stays away from the dirtbikes next season.
Only slightly more surprising is the fact that they also picked up the option for Pablo Sandoval. He continues to be a fan favorite…and the Giants only have to pay him the league minimum, with the Red Sox picking up the rest of his salary. I don’t know that I’m sold on him as the starting third baseman, but as a bench bat, you can’t beat the price tag.
So the “finalists” were released for the MLB Awards today. Of course this is nonsense; they are not “finalists.” There isn’t a runoff vote. It’s just the top 3 finishers.
No major surprises.
Yes, he could establish an all-time hitless streak as a pinch hitter, to go along with his overall S.F. Giants hitless streak record.
The Giants would do better convincing Eddie Kranepool to come out of retirement.
The Hall of Fame Modern Era class looks pretty weak to me, did you see any you think are Hall of Famers?
**Jack Morris, Don Mattingly, Luis Tiant, Alan Trammell, Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, and Ted Simmons. Also former MLBPA head Marvin Miller
**
Decent review of the 10 candidates at CBS Sports.
I’m a fan of several of them but they all seem to belong to the Hall of the Very Good. Ted Simmons might be a Hall of Famer though. I need to do a little more reading. My gut feeling is he isn’t but as a catcher the grading is usually easier.
I do think Morris belongs, his ability to rise to the occasion in the Games That Matter being undervalued by the stats junkies. Miller had a profound impact on the game, more so than many of the nonplayers who are in already.
But as for the rest, yeah, if you really have to think about it, the answer is probably No. The hall has over 200 members already. That doesn’t seem overselective to me.
I suspect Miller will get in, boy did he change the game, but I myself would not give him a vote. But I don’t have one anyway, so who cares.
For Morris, he clearly doesn’t have the stats to be Hall of Famer but he had the fame and the heart. I still wouldn’t give him a vote but I wouldn’t think it was close to the worst choice in the hall.
I look at the ballot and wonder why Trammell and not Whitaker, why Tommy John and not Jim Kaat.
On the whole, not a bad ballot, I thought. Not great, but not bad.
I’d definitely vote for Miller. I’d also vote for Trammell and Simmons. As for the rest of them, I don’t think there are any terrible choices. Most if not all are better than some of the guys who are already there IMO. Wouldn’t bother me if any were to be elected. (Well, maybe Garvey, who always rubbed me the wrong way.) But I don’;t think I’d vote for any of the rest.
I’m rooting for Altuve, but i can never quite work out the reasons for the different WAR calculations at places like Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.
Baseball reference has the following WAR for 2017:
Altuve: 8.3
Judge: 8.1
FanGraphs has it as:
Judge: 8.2
Altuve: 7.5
I think that, to make the AL MVP competition fair, Mike Trout should get injured every few seasons. He missed almost 50 games this year—almost one-third of a season—and he was still in the top six players in WAR, with 6.7 (BR) or 6.9 (FanG). That’s insane.
Of course, these are guys who weren’t voted in by the writers, so it’s not surprising there aren’t any slam dunks. I would have said Morris would be the most likely from that list, but Tommy John actually had better numbers.
Loooo-eee!
Pitcher Roy Halladay died in a small plane crash off the coast of Florida today. The eight-time All-Star was 40 years old. Damn, great pitcher and from what I understand, a damn fine person too.
Damn, he was always a class act.
I don’t know either, but either way Judge’s figure is inflated.
Neither source fixes WAR to a team’s actual wins; they fix it purely to statistics. Without getting into really fine details, because the Yankees scored and allowed runs at a rate that would suggest a 101-61 team, their players are assigned WAR consistent with a 100-win team - even though they only won 91 games. Conversely, Houston, who scored and allowed runs consistent with a 99-win team, are assigned WAR consistent with 99 wins, even though they won 101 games.
All New York players have 53.2 combined WAR, and all Houston players have… 53.2 WAR. (Strength of schedule is what closes the 1-game gap.) If you think I’m cherry picking, look it up; all teams that are around their Pythagorean projection will have War consistent with “replacement level” being about 47-48 wins, but New York’s replacement level is 38 wins. This simply doesn’t make sense. It is nonsense to say that a team that won 91 games had the same total value as a team in the same league that won 101 games. Houston was objectively, beyond any doubt or question, 10 games better. Any method that says otherwise is flawed.
Now, you can say all you want New York was unlucky to win 91 games and not 100, but the results are what they are. The total value of their contributions CANNOT be a 100-62 contribution. They did not win 100 games, they won 91; that iis actually how valuable the sum total of all New York Yankees was. So the team’s total WAR is exaggerated by a really huge percentage; it’s 53.2, when it should be more like 43 or 44. It’s at least twenty percent higher than it should be – and so, absent a convincing argument to the contrary, I would assume every Yankee’s WAR is 20 percent better than it really should be.
That’s a simplistic look at it because I am not personally convinced the 20 percent penalty should be equally assigned to all Yankees, but you have to consider that Judge’s WAR is part of a team total that is unquestionably way, way too high.
Why on earth though is war the stat to decide MVP? This stat that is still be refined, is very inconsistant in many ways. It is not and should not be the end all stat.
I know Altuve is going to win but overall Judges numbers are actually better and the Yankees won when Judge was hitting and slumped when he slumped.
Judge as Runs, RBIs, OBA, SLG, OPS, OPS+, BB and of course Ks. The GDP is actually 15 for Judge & 19 for Altuve.
Some people are suggesting that the Cubs may trade Jason Heyward to San Francisco in exchange for Jeff Samardzija and Mark Melancon.
Leaving aside the various no-trade clauses in all three contracts, I can’t see Chicago trying to re-acquire Shark. Especially not by paying the majority of the end of Heyward’s contract.
You say Judge’s “numbers are better” but you just pick some stats where Judge leads. There are plenty of categories where Altuve leads too, and not by small margins. WAR is a way to try to determine the cumulative value of a player, rather than how good he is a specific thing. It puts numbers in context, for example, all else equal, a 2nd baseman is going to be more valuable than an of with similar numbers.
WAR isn’t perfect and can vary based on the assumptions you make such as what defensive stats to use and what should be replacement level, but it makes a good starting point. 8.3 vs 8.1 is basically a rounding error, so you look at other things. While I don’t think it is especially predicative of the future, I would look at how clutch each player was, and Judge was remarkably unclutch.
I also don’t understand how the Yankees being terrible when Judge was terrible is a point in his favor. I would rather the player who didn’t drag his team down with terrible play over long stretches.
I actually find the NL MVP more interesting, where there are 5 people within .4 WAR and others with legitimate cases. I’d probably go Votto, his ability to get on base remains amazing, but you could go any number of ways.
I’m kind of at a loss of what the Mets should do this offseason. They mainly just need to stay healthy, but that isn’t going to really going to change depending on what they do. I’m inclined to mostly roll the dice with the current pitching, maybe supplementing a veteran inning eater like Sabathia. I’d go after Cain as the big free agent get and then try to get some veteran infielders for depth.
For AL MVP I think when you use the feature on Baseball Reference to compare 2 players it shows up better.
I’m glad to hear though that clutch is a thing again. 10 years ago the SABERmetrics people were arguing there was no such thing as clutch. You argument about Judge not being clutch is pretty compelling. Something I missed.