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MLB 2014-2015 Offseason |OT| Playoff Dreaming

BFIB

BFIB

Member
chicagocubsfan said:
Maybe a Rasmus reunion?
Click to expand...

ewww-eccbc87e4b5ce2fe28308fd9f2a7baf3-574.gif
 
BFIB

BFIB

Member
Aldrete is leaving as the Cardinals bench coach and heading to Oakland. Perfect time for a former manager to come in to help guide Matheny in the late game situations.
 
T

tiggerkiddo

Member
Soka said:
It's just insanely awful luck to lose three players in ~13 years. Has something like that ever happened to any major sports team, excluding major one-time accidents (such as a plane crash)? I can't think of any example. Throw on-top of that career-ending freak injuries like a foul ball to the eye (Juan Encarnaciòn) or a kick to the head causing a severe concussion (Jason LaRue) and it has been a really rough last 13 years.

It's maybe too early to talk about how the Cardinals will find someone to fill in for Taveras, but I am genuinely curious how they'll proceed.
Click to expand...

Different league but Denver Broncos had a stretch where a few players died in a short period of time, starting with the shooting death of Darrent Williams.
 
L

Little Green Yoda

Member
Carpe Libertatem said:
All I can say is that despite all the crap I give Matheny, I am really glad he's the manager for 2015. I don't think there's a person on Earth more qualified than Matheny in this situation.
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Agreed. His greatest strength is rallying the guys together and the Cards will be needing a lot of that in the near future to overcome this tragedy. The ingame stuff doesn't even seem important right now.
 
A

aFIGurANT

Member
I can't believe that this kind of shit happens in real life. If players in the NFL get arrested then it seems like MLB has to have super depressing crashes and heart attacks as par for the course.

Am I misremembering that someone else related to baseball died in a car crash in the DR too? I'm maybe getting the Segura incident twisted but I wanted to say someone had to leave his team to be with family back home to be with family after an accident like this. I'm not googling because I sure as fuck don't want to see the Taveras pictures from last night as my top search.
 
X

XiaNaphryz

LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
FanGraphs Gold Glove award winners "strictly by the numbers":

I think the eye test has its merits, but since this is FanGraphs, let’s imagine a world where the Gold Glove Awards are decided strictly by the numbers. I did a similar post last year when I was still a wee Community Blog writer, and I’m going to use a similar method this year.

First, our player pool. For catchers and infielders, I’m simply going with qualified batters. This is pretty standard. For outfielders, I’ve lowered the innings threshold to 600 innings, because outfielders move around more than infielders, and I don’t think an everyday outfielder should be discounted because he had to split his time between left field and center field.

Now, for the numbers. We’ve got Defensive Runs Saved and we’ve got Ultimate Zone Rating. Neither are perfect, and sometimes they disagree with each other, but when put together, I think we can all agree they do a pretty good job. I’ve prorated each to 1,000 innings and simply used a 50/50 split to determine each player’s total defensive value, per 1000 innings (tDEF/1000). In the tables, I’ve also decided to include each player’s Revised Zone Rating and Fielding Percentage, just because.

Catchers, as we know, are a whole other beast. We’ve got three main components of catcher defense that we can measure: controlling the running game, blocking pitches and receiving pitches. Only two of them are included in the advanced defensive metrics we use, and the one we’re leaving out (receiving) appears to be the most important skill. To make up for that, I simply added up the run values of each of these three components, using StatCorner’s catcher framing report for my framing numbers. Some people don’t agree with how much weight is given to catchers in framing data, and I kind of agree with that, but as the National League results will show, my top spot doesn’t simply go to the best framer.
Click to expand...

NL

Catcher – Jonathan Lucroy
2nd place: Russell Martin
3rd place: Buster Posey
Biggest offenders: Jarrod Saltalamacchia (-29.9), Welington Castillo (-18.4), Devin Mesoraco (-9.3).

First Base – Adrian Gonzalez
2nd place: Justin Morneau
3rd place: Anthony Rizzo
Biggest offenders: Ryan Howard (-5.3), Garrett Jones (-3.5), Adam LaRoche (-2.1).

Second Base – DJ LeMahieu
2nd place: Brandon Phillips
3rd place: Chase Utley
Biggest offenders: Aaron Hill (-7.1), Daniel Murphy (-6.8), Jedd Gyorko (-5.7).

Third Base – Chase Headley
2nd place: Nolan Arenado
3rd place: Anthony Rendon
Worst offenders: Luis Valbuena (-7.1), Chris Johnson (-6.3), Cody Asche (-5.1).

This was a bit of an oversight on my part. When I compiled the leaderboards for this study, I split them up by filtering “American League” and “National League” in our leaderboards. Headley appeared in neither, because he played in both leagues this year. Maybe this should have gone in the AL, where he finished his season, but he also played more innings in the NL, therefore creating more defensive value in the NL, so I feel fine with either one.

Shortstop – Andrelton Simmons
2nd place: Zack Cozart
3rd place: Jhonny Peralta
Biggest offenders: Hanley Ramirez (-10.5), Adeiny Hechavarria (-4.6), Starlin Castro (-4.5).

Left Field – Christian Yelich
2nd place: Starling Marte
3rd place: Khris Davis
Biggest offenders: Chris Coghlan (-8.6), Domonic Brown (-8.4), Ryan Ludwick (-7.2).

Center Field – Juan Lagares
2nd place: Ender Inciarte
3rd place: Billy Hamilton
Biggest offenders: Ben Revere (-10.2), Andrew McCutchen (-8.5), Angel Pagan (-6.9).

Right Field – Jason Heyward
2nd place: Nate Schierholtz
3rd place: Marlon Byrd
Biggest offenders: Ryan Braun (-5.8), Jay Bruce (-5.8), Gregory Polanco (-5.0).

AL

Catcher – Mike Zunino
2nd place: Yan Gomes
3rd place: Jason Castro
Biggest offenders: Kurt Suzuki (-24.2), Dioner Navarro (-19.5), Tyler Flowers (-7.4).

First Base – Mike Napoli
2nd place: Albert Pujols
3rd place: Chris Davis
Biggest offenders: Jose Abreu (-7.0), James Loney (-0.9), Eric Hosmer (+1.2).

Second Base – Dustin Pedroia
2nd place: Ian Kinsler
3rd place: Jonathan Schoop
Biggest offenders: Jason Kipnis (-8.8), Rougned Odor (-8.7), Jose Altuve (-7.1).

Third Base – Josh Donaldson
2nd place: Kyle Seager
3rd place: Trevor Plouffe
Worst offenders: Nick Castellanos (-19.7), Lonnie Chisenhall (-11.0), Conor Gillaspie (-7.6).

On September 10, 2014, Harold Reynolds said the following: “I’m going to throw up if Josh Donaldson wins the Gold Glove.” Somebody get Harold a bucket. Over the last two seasons, Donaldson is third among all MLB third baseman in DRS and fourth in UZR. He has as much range at the hot corner of anyone not named Manny Machado, and you can see it on the play above. What Harold doesn’t like is the errors, and Donaldson led major league third baseman with 23 of them this year. Donaldson had more balls hit to him than any other third baseman, so that kind of makes sense. But at the same time, 17 of Donaldson’s errors were throwing errors. As somebody who has watched all the tape, most of them were pretty bad and throwing errors, to me, are more inexcusable than fielding errors. Donaldson is an interesting case. But with Adrian Beltre‘s aging and Evan Longoria‘s dreadful season in every way, nobody else in the AL really held a candle to Donaldons’s range, so he takes this one easily.

Shortstop – J.J. Hardy
2nd place: Erick Aybar
3rd place: Alcides Escobar
Biggest offenders: Yunel Escobar (-17.3), Jose Reyes (-9.0), Derek Jeter (-8.9).

Left Field – Alex Gordon
2nd place: Yoenis Cespedes
3rd place: Dustin Ackley
Biggest offenders: Rajai Davis (-11.7), J.D. Martinez (-3.4), Michael Brantley (-3.3).

Center Field – Jarrod Dyson
2nd place: Lorenzo Cain
3rd place: Jackie Bradley, Jr.
Biggest offenders: Dexter Fowler (-21.8), Coco Crisp (-17.1), James Jones (-14.7).

Right Field – Josh Reddick
2nd place: Kole Calhoun
3rd place: Nick Markakis
Biggest offenders: Torii Hunter (-16.3), David Murphy (-13.3), Dayan Viciedo (-12.3).
 
A

aFIGurANT

Member
Dominican Power said:
Baseball players are like a natural resource in DR. Goddamn it Oscar. : (
Click to expand...

Are there some infamously bad roads down there or what? I read that there had been heavy rain all day and that that could have been part of it but I wonder what the scene looked like in terms of geography and everything.
 
M

Malo

Banned
aFIGurANT said:
Are there some infamously bad roads down there or what? I read that there had been heavy rain all day and that that could have been part of it but I wonder what the scene looked like in terms of geography and everything.
Click to expand...
The roads there are pretty shitty with a bunch of holes and bumps. Also the drivers down there are fucking terrible especially the motococho drivers.
 
A

aFIGurANT

Member
SuperMalo said:
The roads there are pretty shitty with a bunch of holes and bumps. Also the drivers down there are fucking terrible especially the motococho drivers.
Click to expand...

I heard about the real sketchy driving situation a bit today. Apparently things in the cities are like Vietnam levels of crazy from the little I've been able to gather without venturing into accident-photo-land. Hopefully people get the message to try to be safer on the roads after this regardless of whether it was a DD thing or not.
 
M

matthewwhatever

Member
chicagocubsfan said:
Maybe a Rasmus reunion?
Click to expand...

I have no idea what Rasmus is going to do this offseason, but there's no way he's going back to St. Louis. I'd say he'd be better off going somewhere with zero pressure and no attention, but I can't think of anywhere lower stakes than Toronto, and even being there did a number on his head. Maybe he'll end up in a Japanese league?

rando14 said:
iXvXmtg0QvPCK.gif


ITS OVER, ITS FINALLY OVER
Click to expand...

Why do I have a horrible feeling this ends with Adam Lind being traded somewhere?
 
C

chicagocubsfan

Member
matthewwhatever said:
I have no idea what Rasmus is going to do this offseason, but there's no way he's going back to St. Louis. I'd say he'd be better off going somewhere with zero pressure and no attention, but I can't think of anywhere lower stakes than Toronto, and even being there did a number on his head. Maybe he'll end up in a Japanese league?



Why do I have a horrible feeling this ends with Adam Lind being traded somewhere?
Click to expand...
Nah I doubt Rasmus signs overseas. He can easily get a one year contract worth about 8mil or higher.
 
C

chicagocubsfan

Member
eznark said:
I'd be pretty shocked if he ends up with a raise in 2015 after the 2014 campaign.
Click to expand...
MLBTR is more high on him then me. They think he will either get a 3 year 30 million contract or a one year 12 million to rebuild his value. You have to take into consideration how shitty the OF market is.
 
BFIB

BFIB

Member
I figured the Cards would put Bourjos on the market, which would likely merit a decent return since the OF market is pretty thin.

But w/ Taveras' death, thats going to change the outlook. Now the Cards are likely to be shopping for a veteran OF to gap for Grichuk/Piscotty/Pham.

One year deal on Torii?
 
A

aFIGurANT

Member
nemss said:
I figured the Cards would put Bourjos on the market, which would likely merit a decent return since the OF market is pretty thin.

But w/ Taveras' death, thats going to change the outlook. Now the Cards are likely to be shopping for a veteran OF to gap for Grichuk/Piscotty/Pham.

One year deal on Torii?
Click to expand...

Torii sounds about right but with Holliday and Jay I think you can afford to leave some slack there. I wouldn't be surprised to see Hunter lead us deep like Beltran did but eventually we're going to get hit by the age regression curve with one of these vets. Wigginton says hello, although he was never on Hunter's level to begin with.
 
J

jbug617

Banned
Cubs are set to have a big offseason. They got money to spend, have young offensive talent and Maddon is an attractive manager to play for.
 
BFIB

BFIB

Member
Damn. I'm not sure if I'm ready to live a world where the Cubs are good.

But they are going to be dangerous. Maddon is a huge get.
 
Z

zroid

Banned
well at least he's out of the AL East (and the AL in general)

looking forward to Tampa hopefully not being a thorn in our side next year
 
M

Mr. Enigma

Member
Reds news:

They have exercised Johnny Cueto's $10 million 2015 option.

They have declined options for Jack Hannahan ($4 million) and Ryan Ludwick ($9 million), making both free agents. Hannahan gets a $2 million buyout. Ludwick gets a $4.5 million buyout.
 
R

Rafa=FedKilla

Banned
Word going around the Fall Ball JuCo circuit is that Brady Aiken has had a dramatic drop in velocity.




KENTA Maeda will not be posted. Non negotiable.
 
J

jbug617

Banned
Rafa=FedKilla said:
KENTA Maeda will not be posted. Non negotiable.
Click to expand...

I heard he had a bad year this year. I also read that Chihiro Kaneko (he won the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young)might want to be posted. He said he wants to wait to till after the All star series is over to decide.
 
T

thefro

Member
SuperMalo said:
He's going to get paid to sit on his ass in his house. He'll be alright.
Click to expand...

If he wants to be a major league manager again, he'd probably be better off doing something in the Cubs organization next year as opposed to sitting at home.

He's going to be 53 in December.
 
E

eznark

Banned
Is this where everyone pretends managers are super important because MLB desperately wants Chicago to be relevant?
 
C

chicagocubsfan

Member
jbug617 said:
I heard he had a bad year this year. I also read that Chihiro Kaneko (he won the Japanese equivalent of the Cy Young)might want to be posted. He said he wants to wait to till after the All star series is over to decide.
Click to expand...
I'm waiting for Ohtani and Fujinami tbh. The bidding will be crazy.
 
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