Farmer1906 said:

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Would LOVE to play and beat the Dodgers again in the WS.

Great find.

Hope we see Brantley, Bregman, Chirinos and Kemp in the lineup tonight.

Thanks, he was flying.

The video of secretariat is hilarious and appropriate

Man Seattle is bad. They opened 13-2 with HR's like crazy and a +43 run diff. Then back in April, we came to their place, kicked the crap out of them the first time and them have been falling like a rock every since. They may legitimately be the worst team in the majors. Worse than Miami. Since that 13-2 open, they are 12-37 with a -121 run diff during that span. Thats a 0.245 win %. Woof.

Need to beat them every time we play them.

Astros going heavy pitchers today. All 3 picks so far have been pitchers

What was our record at this time for the 2017 and 2018 seasons?

Hulla Baller said:

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What was our record at this time for the 2017 and 2018 seasons?

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43-19 in 2017
37-25 in 2018

2017: 43 - 19 (12 games up on the Angels)
2018: 37 - 25 (2½ games behind Seattle)

So many star players out... it matters not... all the W's are belong to us!

MOCO9 said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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Would LOVE to play and beat the Dodgers again in the WS.

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Dodgers would help build a rivalry and give them a Buffalo Bills aspect to them, but i would mind someone else like the Cubs, Cards, or Braves.

I think one important thing to keep in mind with the AAA guys is that the balls are flying out of the ballparks this year. Even Jack Mayfield has 10 bombs for Round Rock.

While our guys are putting up very impressive numbers, it's not equivalent to years past, which means you'll likely see an even greater drop off in the big leagues. Look at the struggles of Vlad Jr early on. And he's still just batting .248.

When you bring a guy like Alvarez up, you want him to play and you want him stay. And you have to let him work through his struggles. The issue right now seems to be how to get him in the lineup given his defensive limitations so that he can get consistent at bats.

I love this team.

And the home run earlier in the game appeared to tip his glove.

Yeah, he was really close to catching that one. He's been lights out this year. What a great first half for him so far.

Outs Above Average
Marisnick - 6 (tied for 4th in baseball)
Springer - 2
Reddick - 0
Brantley - (-1)

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Outs Above Average (OAA) is the cumulative effect of all individual Catch Probability plays a fielder has been credited or debited with, making it a range-based metric of fielding skill that accounts for the number of plays made and the difficulty of them. For example, a fielder who catches a 25% Catch Probability play gets +.75; one who fails to make the play gets -.25

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redline248 said:

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Reddick sure seems like higher than 0, doesn't he?

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Yeah I thought that was odd...I guess he must have had some plays to cancel them out but I'm struggling trying to think of any.

CSWendt said:

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I still am not sold on the defensive metrics they have out there. Especially catch probabilities. They never seem to line up % with difficulty.

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I agree that defensive metrics are much less mature and robust than what we have for offense and pitching, but "never seeming to line up" is exactly why we need them. We are so bad at subjectively evaluating defensive value.

I wonder what Jake's total would be if he were an everyday player. He should rarely be losing points, so it's just accumulation with him.

DVC2010 said:

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CSWendt said:

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I still am not sold on the defensive metrics they have out there. Especially catch probabilities. They never seem to line up % with difficulty.

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I agree that defensive metrics are much less mature and robust than what we have for offense and pitching, but "never seeming to line up" is exactly why we need them. We are so bad at subjectively evaluating defensive value.

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No doubt. I remember, years ago, someone talking about Jeter or Nomar or someone like that and saying how fielding percentage doesn't tell the whole story. Guys like that have such a great range that they get to way more balls than the average guy. The average guy may have a better fielding percent, but he's also letting more balls go for hits b/c he lacks the range.

DVC2010 said:

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CSWendt said:

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I still am not sold on the defensive metrics they have out there. Especially catch probabilities. They never seem to line up % with difficulty.

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I agree that defensive metrics are much less mature and robust than what we have for offense and pitching, but "never seeming to line up" is exactly why we need them. We are so bad at subjectively evaluating defensive value.

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Yeah, and when they showed the "sacrifice fly" line when we were playing the RedSox, I thought to my self it was wayyy to far back. And then we ended up hitting it like 20-50ft short (couple of occasions) and still scored. I get we pushed it and got a little lucky, but still, that metric seemed way off.

DVC2010 said:

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CSWendt said:

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I still am not sold on the defensive metrics they have out there. Especially catch probabilities. They never seem to line up % with difficulty.

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I agree that defensive metrics are much less mature and robust than what we have for offense and pitching, but "never seeming to line up" is exactly why we need them. We are so bad at subjectively evaluating defensive value.

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But I also think there are some subtle flaws in some of the metric as well. For instance, I think there was a discussion on the hit probability metric last year on Tyler's walk-off homer against Oakland that was like a 1% hit probability.

If I remember correctly, the hit probability metric takes into account all balls hit at that exit velo, launch angle, etc across all parks. Certainly valuable, but it misleads viewers watching into thinking that's the hit percentage at the park they are watching. The hit percentage might actually be a lower at a specific park, which makes the defensive play more spectacular or the opposite if the hit percentage is higher at a specific park.

I'm not arguing with you. The metrics are very helpful because there is no way we can take into account the range of average players when judging defensive plays. We are getting way more value now than we ever have.

I think what would ultimately make more sense defensively is if we could get overlays of the league average of an average center fielder's range verses the specific player. In game, that would be super useful. I know this isn't a metric, I'm just thinking of the casual fan.

CSWendt said:

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I still am not sold on the defensive metrics they have out there. Especially catch probabilities. They never seem to line up % with difficulty.

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I agree that the catch probabilities are weird. We had this discussion last year...White hit a pop-up to the Crawford Boxes that had a catch probability of 99% even though it should have been 0%. IIRC the way they define the percentage is broad where you would think it was specific to that situation.

As far as overall metrics like dWar, they make range a heavy part of the equation. They are more likely to be accurate over the course of a season for a middle infielder, who gets a ton of chances than a corner OF.

It's a lot easier now later in his career as he is obviously being cautious and has slowed down a lot that Brantley is not a great outfielder. He has great hands and a great arm - he once went 200+ consecutive games without an error of any sort and used to be among the league leaders in OF assists...but even in 2014 as he was on the list for gold glove finalists, the metrics showed he was a below average OF because his range was poor...and now his range is extremely poor.

I have taken heat on here before for saying Reddick doesn't have great range, but it's just a fact. He's great in every other aspect of fielding and in aggregate stats like dWar he has been lower because he can't stay healthy, but now that even sprint speed is quantifiable, it's clear that like all ballplayers, he's not nearly as fast at age 32 as he was at his defensive peak in his mid-20s.

another thing to keep in mind...

Springer, Brantley, Reddick, Jake --- the entire outfield plus Yuli...are free agents after the 2020 season.

Luhnow may try to hang onto all the young OF's...Fisher, Straw, Tucker to take over in 2021.

but of course the young guys don't want to wait that long

As far as Reddick goes, I also think the game has shifted some as well which might be skewing his defensive rankings. Teams are not really looking for guys that can hit 30+ HR a year to play LF and RF. He was probably on the edge of that transition in his mid-20s and now teams are moving more toward the Buxton, Betts, Fisher, Straw, Marisnick times who can cover a lot of ground and have some pop. The game has changed a lot in 7 years.

Would be interesting to see if any of the above theory bears out.

iBrad said:

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I think one important thing to keep in mind with the AAA guys is that the balls are flying out of the ballparks this year. Even Jack Mayfield has 10 bombs for Round Rock.

While our guys are putting up very impressive numbers, it's not equivalent to years past, which means you'll likely see an even greater drop off in the big leagues. Look at the struggles of Vlad Jr early on. And he's still just batting .248.

When you bring a guy like Alvarez up, you want him to play and you want him stay. And you have to let him work through his struggles. The issue right now seems to be how to get him in the lineup given his defensive limitations so that he can get consistent at bats.

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This cannot be emphasized enough. Triple A went to MLB balls this year and homerun rates have significantly increased as compared to last year.

rosco511 said:

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iBrad said:

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I think one important thing to keep in mind with the AAA guys is that the balls are flying out of the ballparks this year. Even Jack Mayfield has 10 bombs for Round Rock.

While our guys are putting up very impressive numbers, it's not equivalent to years past, which means you'll likely see an even greater drop off in the big leagues. Look at the struggles of Vlad Jr early on. And he's still just batting .248.

When you bring a guy like Alvarez up, you want him to play and you want him stay. And you have to let him work through his struggles. The issue right now seems to be how to get him in the lineup given his defensive limitations so that he can get consistent at bats.

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This cannot be emphasized enough. Triple A went to MLB balls this year and homerun rates have significantly increased as compared to last year.

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I don't think any of us believe that Alvarez will come up and keep his same AAA batting stats in the bigs. But what else can he do in the minors? I don't think there's much more improvement possible for him against minor league pitching. He's either smoking the ball or getting intentionally walked.

Astros just drafted Peyton Plumlee out of Mississippi St: