jimmer

But no one can actually come up with a legitimate alternative to judge a player's overall performance, mostly because no one person can possibly watch enough of every player play their respective positions to get a big enough sample size to gauge where his talent fits in amongst others at same position. And even if they could, there would be bias. And I imagine Abreu and LaRoche will split 1B/DH.

so you're saying he's a good player and I'm saying he's between between a role player and a solid starter. How much different do you find these terms? If teams though he was as good as you seem to be thinking he is, he gets a longer and better contract. The White Sox stretched to get a guy to fill a role, like we did with Hunter, though not as bad as what we did.

I've already explained why I think that he is what he is. And I think it's bizarre people point to RBI as a stat to judge a player by. I don't look at RBI as a stat for judging a player's abilities. And if a guy is performing the way you said and all he's doing is DHing or playing a very poor 1B, it's not that overwhelming coming from those positions. If he was doing that as a shortstop or a CF, or a 2B, it'd be different, but for a 1B/DH? And if he was as good as you're making him out to be, he would have gotten a much better contract than he did this offseason instead of all those numbers you threw out only being worth a 2 year contract (on an AL team). He's only been worth more than 2.1 WAR ONCE in his whole 11 year career. He only has a hair over 12 combined WAR for his WHOLE career.

better than any alternative to measuring it, and while it's not perfect, it shouldn't be tossed away as worthless because it makes a player we think is better than he is look not as good as we think he does. I've watched him a lot and I don't see anything at all special over the last two, three years when comparing him to other 1Bs. So I absolutely buy the fact that he's just not that good. WAR says he's a role player/low end baromter of a solid starter. That's about right.

yeah, I wouldn't. Because defense needs to be considered when looking at the overall value of the player. Too many people don't value it. On top of that, there's more to the game then HR and RBI when talking value.

The only thing is, his BABIP last year was nearly identical to his career average (very good) which basically means his hits are falling in line with his career norms. Pitchers really have no reason to pitch him middle in, or in at all, so like you said he hits the pitches where he's pitched, low and away pitches go opposite field. It does seem like he has been trying to pull more though and when he does this on outside pitches, those are becoming outs.

Wainwright did have TJ surgery which sometimes means another is likely gonna happen about X amount of innings, or so I've heard. So there might be some concern there.

I meant 2005. I'm guessing everyone knew that, though

LaRoche had a combined WAR of 2.1 over the last two seasons and over the last three he's averaged 1.8 WAR a season.

problem is, Amaro wants a bunch of prospects AND doesn't want to eat any of Hamel's salary.

which affected his preparation for the season, like Morneau and his laundry list of ailments he had during the offseason prior to 2015 that didn't allow him to prepare properly.

If Mauer does what he did in 2012 and 2013, I'll take that every single season and feel more than happy with it. I don't think that says I am limiting expectations, not do I want to say, 'since he's a borderline HOFer, lets push expectations for him to be a player he isn't because what I have some idea in my mind of what an HOFer should do'. In 2012 and 2013, he had a wRC+ over 135. That's extremely good. Take it every year, and hopefully healthy while doing so.

'He also shouldn't bat 1-4 in this team's lineup.' Who had the best OBP on this team last year and who normally will? It's Mauer. So he should absolutely be in the top four of the lineup. You want the guys who get on base the most at the plate as much as possible. I don't think one off year (in which he STILL lead in OBP) changes that. The guy is normally around wRC+ 130 (143 in 2013, 138 in 2012), that kind of run creator should absolutely be high up in the lineup.

Well, first, it's not that easy to just stop striking out. A lot more to it than just figuring that if I stop striking out so much, my BA would be better. On top of that, those non-Ks could still end up being outs and they'd still have his BA lower. For example: Cuddyer won the batting title the year before, playing half his games in the same ballpark as Morneau did last year (the best hitter's park in the game) with a BA that was 12 points higher than Morneau's was last year and yet he struck out 40 more times than Morneau did last year. Not sure about the direct correlation.

I don't see them being much of a contender, not really. I'm liking the Indians more and more, a lot having to do with the rotation. Like Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs said yesterday in his chat when asked what AL team had the best rotation and he said the Indians. I agree with him.

I think all the people saying he needs to be a player he isn't has finally affected his approach. He's now trying to force the issue as far as run producing and pulling the ball. As our lineup got weaker in 2013 and then young kids joined in 2014, he probably felt more pressure. Probably didn't help the whole old school thinkers writing about how he needed to hit like a 1B (and a 23M man) as if one can just change because they change positions and get a new contract. Pitchers pitch him outside all the time. We saw a lot of him trying to pull outside pitches more than he tried to most of his career and that's where the Ks and the grounders to 2B comes from, IMO. As far as working behind the count and how he needs to swing more often at first pitch, he's done that most of his career and it didn't hurt him a bit. Not sure it all of a sudden is the issue.

I'd say the Indians have the deepest and most talented rotation. And they are young with room to improve.

yeah, I'd rather have a Joe Maddon type than an old school anything.

Two outlier seasons with a high WAR? A solid starter is 2-3 WAR 2009: 4.6 2010: 4.3 2011: 3.7 2012: 6.1 If anything, the last couple seasons, partly due to injury, are more outliers with what he's done since establishing himself.

I agree with the negative regression part on Kluber, but I think that's more than covered by the improvements gained by having full seasons of Carassco, Salazar, Bauer and House.

I see a few people seem to think Cleveland is in trouble. Some saying 4th or 5th. They made the playoffs in 2013, Went 85-77 last year. This offseason they added Moss in RF (big improvement), they replaced their shortstop last year (about an even tradeoff offensively but the replacement is much younger and MUCH better defensively) . That's pretty much it. No one really outperformed last year and Bourn and Kipnis underperformed big time. Should see a bounceback from them. The have the Cy Young winner. They'll have Carrasco in the rotation the whole year. Bauer has the talent to do even better (decent FIP), Salazar is K machine (very good FIP), and House (above average FIP) should be the 5th guy. They are all young with their best ahead of them yet have already done well. I know they got Floyd, but I can't imagine him staying long unless he's actually doing well. They have way too much quality depth in that rotation. And, again, they won 85 last year (even with the poor defense which should improve with a healthy Bourn and new shortstop) and made the playoffs the year before. I don't see where the dropoff is going to be.

Even moreso with 10 teams in the playoffs instead of the four there were in '87 and eight in '06. In '07 all you had to do was win one series before making it to the W Series. Way less of a crapshoot to make it to the W Series once you got to the playoffs at that point in MLB history.

A perfect example of how much of a crapshoot the playoffs are nowadays.

Since these international signings have been brought up, Here's a story that talks about international FA signings and what rewards the teams have had at the major league level. Not for the faint of heart. Guess which team has accumulated the least amount of b-WAR? They decided to use b-WAR, not sure why. Here's a disclaimer: 'This time I will only be tallying which team signed which player as an international free agents — I will not be tallying other MLB teams that each player eventually played for during their careers stateside. Players who were born in these countries but who were eventually drafted in the rookie draft are excluded from the count'. This is because this article is about international scouting. Another point, about the WAR tally in the article, 'The WAR tallies in the table below use Baseball Reference’s WAR and only include value that the player accumulated when with the team that originally signed him. (I.e., the Mariners do not reap the bounty of Choo’s production because they traded him just a few dozen games into his big league career.)' http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/which-mlb-teams-are-blazing-new-trails-in-scouting/

I think this prediction page needs to be saved somewhere so we can take a look at the end of the season. If my money was just my own, I'd bet a paycheck or two that the Indians don't finish last, though the wife may have something to say about that. I'm not even sure how one could come to that conclusion. Edit: I just checked Steamer's projections for 2015. They have the Indians in 2nd place in the ALC, a hair behind the Tigers.