lol denver fans are yelling please sign lowell hahahaha too funny.
Serious cop-out there 
lol damn right.
crappy world series. congrats to the red sox for buying a championship.
Yar, I live and die with the home teams. Sox blow it the first 18 years of my life? Too bad! Bruins terrible-ness never ceases? Suck it up! Patriots have Drew Bledsoe? Deal with it!
The name of the game, son. Deal with it
But if it was that easy, then the Yanks wouldn’t have crapped out as soon as they got A-Rod, right?
DONT JUDGE ME!
FLYING V BITCHES!!
…YES!
Dammit, guys, the Sox won the World Series!
::still pumped::
Now, we start betting on which players on the Sox (and the league as a whole) are juicing.
For the 2 of us that care Renteria was traded to the Tigers for prospects. This really is a big deal, Renteria is a damn good SS and if he can stay healthy that is a definite upgrade.
beckett wasn’t domnant when the trade was made? quit making stuff up. did you watch the world series? the ONLY issue with him was health.
hanley ramirez is the best shortstop in baseball. period. it’s not close. unless a-rod goes back.
a-rod wants more money. and? hif he’s gonna take shit over his contract anyway, why not get more money? i know i would.
renteria was a good pickup if the tigers didn’t overpay. shame they had to move guillen to first, though. he loes a lot of value there.
He was a solid pitcher who had some serious post-season games, which is why we went after him. Fact is, though, that last season, Beckett led the league in home runs agains, and had a 5.01 ERA. But still, he had his best year as a starter this year, far and away.
To simplify…Beckett was considered a good, maybe great pitcher before this season. This season, he was elite.
Renteria is a good pickup by anybody except the Red Sox. Definitely a boost to the Tigers.
Beckett was already a World Series MVP and clearly a solid #1 pitcher before the Sox traded for him - he had a ERA+ of 138 in 2003, which actually was pretty close to this year’s ERA+ of 145. The difference was of course he pitched in 60 more innings this year and went 20-7 instead of 9-8. But his problem has always just been staying healthy - he’s always, always, always been projected as a #1 type pitcher with the stuff, the arm, and the mentality to do it.
It was a great trade for Boston at the time, and even now. Especially now. And if Lowell ends up leaving, then if nothing else, they even get two first rounders as he’s most probably a Type A free agent as well. Generally speaking trades for prospects work out a lot more in baseball than other sports, which is why this is a good move by the Tigers to get Edgar as well.
Jair Jurrjens projects to be a solid pitcher, and Gorkys Hernandez is apparently a star and going to play center for them for the next two decades…but he’s still far away from the majors and the Tigers are looking good now and this gives them an even better chance.
Though it’s insane to say something like that two days after the World Series is over and no other team has made a move yet.
For the record, I would pick him as my first shortstop (outside of a converted A-Rod) to build a team around, but Hanley Ramirez is only the best OFFENSIVE shortstop in baseball.
Hanley Ramirez - 29 HR, 81 RBI, 51 SB, .332/.353/.480
Jimmy Rollins - 30 HR, 94 RBI, 41 SB, .296/.344/.531
And even then, it’s pretty close. Ramirez has like a 30 point edge in batting average over Rollins, but since the OBP’s are almost equal and the slugging percentage swings the other way, I wouldn’t put too much into the empty batting average advantage.
So honestly, Hanley Ramirez maybe - if at all - creates a couple of more runs than Jimmy Rollins with his bat.
But when you consider that Hanley Ramirez is hands down the absolute worst DEFENSIVE shortstop in baseball…then you have to factor in how many opposition runs he allows with his glove. Jimmy Rollins is not a gold glove shortstop, but he’s good, and well above average defensively…and I’m willing to bet a significant amount of money that he saves a lot more runs with his glove over Hanley than Hanley creates with his bat over Jimmy.
And I wouldn’t doubt it if Jose Reyes or Troy Tulowitzki were worth more runs than him if you factored in defense. Though probably not Jeter, who’s the second worst defensive shortstop in baseball.
Yes, he’s got salary and age and health over Jimmy Rollins (which is why I would pick Hanley as my non-A-Rod shortstop for the future)…but Jimmy Rollins is still the best shortstop in baseball.
So this was just a really long winded way of saying that Hanley Ramirez is arguably only maybe #2.
man, lint. when it comes to being wrong, you don’t bullshit around. this has got to be the worst disagreement with me ever.
uzr ranks ramirez at the bottom in defense at ss, i’ll grant you that. but he’s dead average by most other metrics, and the difference between him and the next several shortstops doesn’t match the difference between him and the rest of the class offensively.
speaking of which, it’s amusing that you concede ramirez as being the better offensive player when you cheated him 115 ops points. ramirez didn’t hit .332/.353/.480. he hit .332/.386/.562. that’s a whopping 42 point advantage over rollins. and the power doesn’t lean tha other way when you have the right numbers in, either, because that’s 40 more points to ramirez’s advantage.
by the way, you do know that rollins had a career high ops+ of 102 before this year, right? that’s your best shortstop in baseball? i mean,he’s good, but come on. career high obp: .348. i’m just saying.
Barry Bonds and Torii Hunter have filed for free agency.
Place your bets on where they’ll end up.
Torii Hunter will end in in NY or the Angels.
And this is why you’re my favourite person to talk baseball with on this board. Let’s get to the fun stuff first.
LOL, good God…I completely fucked up. I copied his OBP and SLG from 2006 instead and cheated him of some considerable numbers.
Okay yeah, .332/.386/.562 is better than 296/.344/.531. Yes, I am fucking retarded, I’ll give you that - and this whole thing has been compounded by the fact that I actually had Hanley Ramirez on my fantasy team this past season, so I don’t even have an excuse for mixing the numbers up. Just total and utter douchebaggery on all levels from me here, I apologize.
However. At the end of the day, how much is all that OPS worth…?
http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/index.php?view=batting&linesToDisplay=50&orderBy=rc&direction=DESC&qual_filter=1&season_filter[]=2007&pos_filter[]=6&Submit=Submit
Runs Created
Hanley Ramirez: 127
Jimmy Rollins: 122
So Hanley is worth about one or two more wins than Jimmy Rollins with the bat, and clearly heads and shoulders above the rest…offensively.
Which other metrics?
Hanley was 2nd in errors, 2nd last in zone rating, 5th last in fielding percentage, and 6th last in range factor. I can’t find a defensive metric that places him out of the bottom five in shortstops aside from range factor, which I think is a crappy stat in the first place, since put-outs and assists are also more like quantitative measure of opportunity like RBI’s.
Still, Hanley and Jeter were the only two guys that placed in the bottom 6 in every single one of those categories and UZR - no matter how you slice it, he’s absolutely terrible.
This is where I disagree.
I think Jimmy Rollins saves more runs with his glove over Hanley than Hanley creates over Rollins with his bat.
Here is the UZR data from 2003-2006, and about 40 games into 2007 (I don’t know why it hasn’t been updated.)
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/article/uzr_2007_complete_list/
2007 data for this isn’t fully available, so hopefully 2006 will be okay - Hanley hasn’t really taken a significant step forward defensively at all, and his 2007 and 2006 fielding stats are almost identical. If anything, he was better defensively last season - his 2006 range factor was actually in the top half of shortstops…which in this case actually tells more about the stat than the player, I think.
And even just 40 games into 2007, the data looks about right…Adam Everett is on top, and Jose Reyes, Troy Tulowitzki, Omar Vizquel, and Juan Uribe (all guys that are known to be very good defensive shortstops) are all near the top…Jimmy Rollins right about average, in the middle with 0 runs…and Hanley already dead last with -9 only 38 games in. (And I don’t think he got any better as the year went on.)
ANYWAY…
Based on UZR, in 2006 Jimmy Rollins was worth 3 runs with his glove…which is actually right near the middle, 15th out of 37 among all guys that had at least 50 games at shortstop. (Adam Everett lead with a ridiculous 48 runs saved, and Craig Counsell was a distant second with 19).
On the absolute bottom of the list is Hanley Ramirez with -19…so he actually allowed 19 opposition runs more than average to score because of his terrible defense.
So approximately 130 runs created added to approximately -19 runs saved…actually balances out to like 110ish runs total.
Additionally (using 2006 runs created data to keep consistent since I don’t have 2007 UZR ratings)…
Jose Reyes: 125 runs created + 10 runs saved = 135 runs
Derek Jeter: 138 runs created + -15 runs saved = 123 runs
Jimmy Rollins: 114 runs created + 3 runs saved = 117 runs
So you can see how defense settles into it - how good defense adds to Reyes’ total, and how Jeter’s terrible (yet Gold Glove winning) defense hurts his bottom line contribution.
(Hanley had the 6th most runs created for a shortstop in 2006…but you factor in the runs saved by defense and his -19 total, and guys like Guillen, Tejada, Renteria, Bill Hall, and Omar Vizquel contributed more runs overall - in 2006, Hanley was only like the 12th best shortstop in the game.)
Thus assuming for the sake of argument that Jimmy Rollins’ glove was worth 0 runs this year (even though he saved 3 runs in 2006 and all his conventional fielding metrics are better 2007 than in 2006)…that still means he was about a 120-125 run shortstop in 2007, which is actually worth about 4 wins more than Hanley’s 110ish run total, factoring the defense in. Meaning his defense is so bad that once you factor it in, the 1-2 win advantage over Rollins with the bat turns into a 3-4 win disadvantage overall.
AND…
…that’s all assuming that 1 run saved is equal to 1 run scored, and there’s a whole school of thought that values a run saved more than a run scored, since you’re likier to win any given game if your team allows one less run rather than scoring one more run. For example, history (like actual statistics, not logical projections of data) shows that a team that averages 4 runs allowed and 5 runs scored is a lot likelier to win in comparison to a team that averages 5 runs allowed and 6 runs scored. Check out the thinking behind the stat Pitching Runs Created - I think that’s where I saw the idea presented initially. So this would penalize guys like Hanley and Jeter even more, and reward guys like Reyes or Troy for their defense.
Jimmy Rollins was overall, the best shortstop in baseball this year. You’re right, you’d have to be a Philly fanboy to choose him over Hanley, but I never argued that. And it turns out that Jose Reyes was actually the best overall shortstop in 2006 - I don’t remember him mashing it that much. But moving forward, Hanley’s obviously the first shortstop you’d pick - you assume that defense is easier to learn than offense, and hope he does. The only other guy with the youth and the potential to potentially challenge him for top spot is Reyes, but I think 2006 was a bit of a fluke for him offensively and so he’s still only #2.
Hanley’s my #1 pick moving forward, I said just as much, and I’ve never argued this with you. My entire point here is just that for shortstop, defense is a big part of their game, and Hanley’s defense is just so absolutely terrible that it doesn’t make him as clear cut #1 as it looks.
Thing with shortstop is that you have to factor in defense moreso than for any other position (except for catcher maybe) since it’s just such an important defensive position. And good defense from a shortstop is a very valuable thing to have, and on the flip side…a big weakness that’s magnified and exposed when you don’t have it.
We’re nitpicking at this point, about BY HOW MUCH Hanley Ramirez is #1…but honestly, I’m just desperate for any baseball talk that doesn’t involve Joe Torre (Dodgers!?!) or the fucking Sox winning the championship again.
i was looking at 06 and 07 when rating him average. he was worse this year than last year. probably doesn’t help him playing next to cabrera, either. can you believe how fat and lazy he’s gotten the last ew years? till mashes, but it’s incredible how he went from a kid who could play anywhere above average to “eh, fuck it. when do i bat?”
i was actually shocked to see jose reyes fall back so much this season.
most smart people know jeter’s defense is a joke. of course, this is baeball, so there aren’t many smart people. do you read fjm, by any chance?
with regard to rollins, i wonder how much of this season he can sustain a career sub-100 ops+ guy doesn’t usualy explode like that, though he is still within the most likely age range.
a-rod for cub shortstop! hell, somebody with a bt at short so they can improve the offense without enching pie and/or murton.
The funniest thing about FJM is how accurate and legitimate the ridicule is sometimes - like Joe Morgan is literally insane. They don’t even need to make material up - they just post what he says, cut it up into readable chunks, and then just post like “WTF!?!” at regular intervals…and it’s gold.
I wonder how a guy like Rollins can jump out like that as well, especially in the supposedly post-steroids era…but there’s always stuff like that in baseball. Remember that in 2004, he jumped like a 100 points in OPS and become that 100 OPS+ guy in the first place, and now he’s apparently done it again maybe.
But he’s only 28 - I wouldn’t completely doubt it if he jumped again. And always remember that there’s a chance (although I think he’s the real thing) that Hanley Ramirez could always fall off as well.
I don’t remember if he was quite as hyped as Hanley and it’s not an exact parallel, but remember that Jhonny Peralta came into the league and just absolutely beasted his first full year - like a 137 OPS+ at age 23. Yes, Hanley’s had more consistent success, and you could probably just chalk up Peralta’s initial success to the fact that he just tried to mash everything (hasn’t come close to his .520 SLG in 2005) and pitchers now know not to serve him fastballs…so it’s not that close of a comparison, but point is, you never really know with young guys on bad teams.
Speaking to your point though…for baseball in particular, I’m always surprised at how guys can keep beasting when they do whenever they’re on like terrible teams. Like how could you look around and see that you’re playing on like the Royals or the Marlins or the Devil Rays…how could you still grind it out and keep going like that?
Okay, basketball…sometimes you can just take over a game and win it yourself. Baseball…for one, you generally can’t just coast on physical talent - hitting a round baseball well with a round bat is like the most difficult thing to do in sports. And you have a line-up of nine guys, and you need other guys to get hits to bring you in, and you need your pitching to hold up to win a game…how can you still care everyday?
Yes, they get paid millions to play a game, and you can play for yourself and get a contract to get out of there…maybe my standards for professional athletes has just been lowered so much. But I always think about a guy like Carl Crawford or something…and it’s like…how the hell do you even get up in the morning? I guess you just pray to sign with the Yankees in three years and hope for that.
rays would still be a good team if they could put somw pitchers on the field that are not scott kasmir. how they have managed to find exactly one pitcher in the entirety of their existence. that’s just amazing.
i’ve been meaning to bring “fuck the heck!?” over from fjm for a while.
and, yeah, who knows what’s up with peralta. i thought locking him up for five years was a great move. now…well, he’s still cheap, but not near as good. haven’t seen a middle infieldser from cleveland fall off so fast since carlos baerga.
BUMP.
Wow what a sick deal between Florida and Detroit. Cabrera/Willis for Maybin/Andrew Miller and other prospects.
Carpet Lint; lets pray together we can land Burnett/Bedard and Rios/Lincecum
I was just skimming over CL’s and Warps discussion about J-Roll and would like to add this…
We ( the fightin’s ) have the best second basemen, the debatable best shortstop, and one of the best first basemen, and still no wins in the playoffs since forever.
I can’t wait till next year when they go .500 again and Utley wins the MVP. That would be way more depressing then being a constant loser like usual. To have the “most valuable” player 3 years straight and not win a playoff game, good gravy…
There is always next year, but the expectations will be the highest they’ve ever been come spring.