MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:

Who has the worst season, by WAR, in the last 25 years. It's gotta be Adam Dunn 2011, right?

What would a -5 WAR season look like?

2011 Dunn was -2.9 bWAR. Jerry Royster managed to pull off a -4.0 in 1977 (.216 / .278 / .288 for an OPS+ of 46).

Timby fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 24, 2017

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 23:34

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:41

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:

Were the 116 win Mariners that good? Do their individual player evaluations bear that out?

Of guys to play at least 40 games, eight of them had an OPS+ of 109 or above, including 153 from Bret Boone out of nowhere.

They also had monster seasons from Freddy Garcia, Joel Pineiro, Arthur Rhodes and Kaz Sasaki.

Yeah, they were good.

Edit: That Tigers team went through 30 pitchers. Yeah, they sucked.

Timby fucked around with this message at 00:18 on May 30, 2017

# ¿ May 30, 2017 00:16

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Paul Zuvella posted:

Stats guys exist because you can use stats to have a good idea of how people may perform in the future.

No stat being predictive is true in the sense that you can in no way actually predict future performance with any certainty. Players may take huge steps forward or backward for seemingly no reason and there is no way to really do that. Stats guys can try to make some sense out of the huge amounts of noise that happen in baseball statistics and it is endlessly useful, if only to get a general idea of things.

Scouts exist because the actual mechanics of baseball (throwing a ball, swinging a bat, fielding) matter a whole lot and having people that can accurately see who does and does not have good mechanics is extremely important.

You can hit extremely well in high school if you are good at just putting the bat on the ball, but if there is a hitch in your swing you are going to be way, way way less likely to be able to catch up to the faster balls in the big leagues, for example.

PECOTA was actually remarkably predictive for a while there until Nate Silver left and Baseball Prospectus went to poo poo.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2017 21:10

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:

98-01 Pedro > Kershaw > other Pedro > all other pitchers

Every time I think of Pedro, I'm reminded of that godawful World Series Baseball game on the Dreamcast, the one that had automatic fielding.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 19:24

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

The shift absolutely destroys Schwarber and Rizzo gets into funks where he can't beat it at all.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2018 19:12

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:41

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Shiroc posted:

How many truly great DHs have there been? Offhand I can think of Frank Thomas, Ortiz and Edgar.

Harold Baines, and I guess there were a few years when Travis Hafner hit like a moon monster?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2018 03:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > MLB Newbie and Theory Thread: Rick and Tony take your calls