So who plays RF?

BremanFan88 said:
Well I know that there's some who believe that offense is the only thing that happens throughout a baseball game but defense and baserunning are important to some. I know, I know, defense and baserunning aren't important. Alex Rios adds nothing to anyone's team. Take the money element out and BJ still has value as a defender and baserunner despite not being able to hit a lick. Rios has declined in power and his K's are going up. Not to mention he has never been good at getting on base to begin with. It's not hard to understand when you get past "Beej sucks, lulz." and use a little logic.
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You have already taken this more seriously than you should have. Pretty tongue in cheek.

The bottom line is that when your average fan sees a stat that places Beej above anyone its worth raising an eyebrow.

is there anyone in baseball that wouldn't swap those players in this situation?
 
Tapate50 said:
You have already taken this more seriously than you should have. Pretty tongue in cheek.

The bottom line is that when your average fan sees a stat that places Beej above anyone its worth raising an eyebrow.

is there anyone in baseball that wouldn't swap those players in this situation?
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Only reason to swap is because of how much money is tied up into BJ. They are literally the same exact player. Identical career numbers in OBP, wRC+, ISO. They both were given huge contracts that backfired big time. But money being equal BJ still has better value to a team IMO. He's younger and he can play any OF position. Rios is 34. Why even mess around with someone that could potentially be worse. Stop gap with Terdo and save the money. You'll probably get similar production anyway.

The whole premise wasn't even about swapping them though. It was about giving Rios 8 million dollars on top of already dealing with BJ Upton. If BJ's contract was up would anyone bring him back for 8 million? Because that is essentially what you're doing with Rios.
 
Would probably agree with Breman.

BJ is an ok defender, and good base runner.

If we're in fire-sale mode, might as well keep him and see if he can do something with less pressure on him.
 
BremanFan88 said:
Only reason to swap is because of how much money is tied up into BJ. They are literally the same exact player. Identical career numbers in OBP, wRC+, ISO. They both were given huge contracts that backfired big time. But money being equal BJ still has better value to a team IMO. He's younger and he can play any OF position. Rios is 34. Why even mess around with someone that could potentially be worse. Stop gap with Terdo and save the money. You'll probably get similar production anyway.

The whole premise wasn't even about swapping them though. It was about giving Rios 8 million dollars on top of already dealing with BJ Upton. If BJ's contract was up would anyone bring him back for 8 million? Because that is essentially what you're doing with Rios.
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Fwiw, I am not advocating any of this Mularkey
 
blueagleace1 said:
You're obviously right. You should apply for a job in our front office.
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Is there a worse thing to say on a sports forum? Because I don't share you're opinion I somehow think I'm smarter than those in the front office. That's a pretty amateur reply but you're new so I'll just tip my hat to you sir.
 
BremanFan88 said:
Is there a worse thing to say on a sports forum? Because I don't share you're opinion I somehow think I'm smarter than those in the front office. That's a pretty amateur reply but you're new so I'll just tip my hat to you sir.
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You can't carry on a "conversation" because you can't see past your on opinion. My initial post about Rios was just to give another option to Aoki, and that was all.
 
blueagleace1 said:
You can't carry on a "conversation" because you can't see past your on opinion. My initial post about Rios was just to give another option to Aoki, and that was all.
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And I debated why I think that would be a bad idea using more accurate stats than batting average and RBI's.
 
BremanFan88 said:
And I debated why I think that would be a bad idea using more accurate stats than batting average and RBI's.
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You used the most debatable stat in all of baseball... WAR. I am not saying we need to sign Rios to a longterm deal but if Justin is traded for pitching prospects or position prospects who aren't big-league ready then someone is going to have to play RF and our internal options are slim to none. Therefore we can throw big money towards the bigger FA OF'ers such as: $70+ million for Nelson Cruz -who is a DH-, $60+ million for Melky Cabrera, or the possible $100+ million for Yasmany Tomas... all of which is a waste of valuable $$$. Or we can sign guys such as Rios, Aoki, or Torii Hunter to a 1-2 year deal until we have Uggla's contract off the books and go after a bigger name next year or the following year.

As for your "you're new'' comment... please remember that you were "new" to this forum at one time.
 
BremanFan88 said:
Well I know that there's some who believe that offense is the only thing that happens throughout a baseball game but defense and baserunning are important to some. I know, I know, defense and baserunning aren't important. Alex Rios adds nothing to anyone's team. Take the money element out and BJ still has value as a defender and baserunner despite not being able to hit a lick. Rios has declined in power and his K's are going up. Not to mention he has never been good at getting on base to begin with. It's not hard to understand when you get past "Beej sucks, lulz." and use a little logic.
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Nobody is stating those aspects are important. The argument is how the stat captures that value. As Bill James said the current systems and assumptions that are made are not impressive.
 
thethe said:
Its just scary how such a large percentage of the baseball world now takes WAR as the gospel.
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Couldn't agree more.

I'd rather go with oWAR and then add WAR according to the position they play and how much that impacts the game. For instance, Heyward was a 2.8 offensively. Add a WAR for being the best defensive RF, you're at 3.8. At $5m per WAR, that's $19m, so that's about right. Unless you pay for potential. SS maybe worth some variant on 2 or 3 WAR for Simmons.

But this silliness where Gerardo Parra is worth 8 WAR...and then nsacpi, who should know better, does all his comparisons using it. At least he self-discounted Heyward on a recent post. Not enough, but it's a start.

Someone's got to discount the defensive component correctly soon. Isn't there an algorithm that can be created to properly discount RF vs SS vs 3B and cut these wild aberrations down to size?
 
Rios isn't a good player. But he can fit as a year fill in. Our lack of long term OF prospects is why us trading Justin is stupid.

If I had to take a stab guess at our current OF it would be something like

LF - Gattis
CF - Bossman
RF - Justin

If wer can move BJ I think Cunningham slots in there. If we move Bossman and Justin we need someone to play RF.

Potential FA candidates for any of the OF

Aoki - CF only, he's good, nothing special, would be better if we were contenders
Melkman - Don't see it happening but he would be a great candidate as a rebound candidate.
Gutierrez - Been hurt a lot, but could be a good gamble
Reed Johnson - Could be a solid bat to play any OF spot needed. Could pair with Cunningham.
Morse - Would be a better fit if we weren't in rebuilding
Rasmus - Can't see him coming here. Will sign with someone else
Rios - OK player, dont' see him as a fix, but a plug until we hopefully have a MLB ready player.
Sizemore - been pretty crappy lately.
Willingham - eh.

Potential trade candidates

Swisher - Bossman and cash for Swisher? Swisher was miserable last year. basically gambling on him bouncing back.
Ethier or Crawford - Again a bossman swap.

Internal options

Terds - Can he play RF? Obviously a LF candidate if we trade Gattis or come to our senses and put him behind the plate.
Constanza - good 4th OF that's it
Cunningham - Don't think he's good enough to start, he'd be my choice as 4th OF.

So nothing really looks good.

Likely scenarios I see. If we trade Justin, might as well trade Gattis, stick to sucking.

If we go total nuclear. My OF would be

LF - Swisher
CF - Cunningham
RF - Tomas

Have Reed Johnson back them up.

Tomas would be the splurge of our savings. Terds plays if Swisher still sucks. If anyone of our trades nets us a MLB OF put them there. But right now if we trade Justin, go nuclear, get rid of them all.

2015 Nuclear Braves

C - Bethancourt
1B - Freeman
2B - Peraza
3B - Via Gattis/Justin trade
SS - Simmons
LF - Swisher
CF - Cunningham
RF - Tomas

Bench
Backup C - Somone who can teach Bethancourt more
Terds (behind Swisher if he sucks)
Reed J
Pastor
Gosselin

Rotation
Julio
Wood
Miller
Minor
Prospect from trade

Minor I'd probably trade except his value is low. Deadline option.

BP - Who cares, we wont' win ****. Just maintain their arms with appropriate rest. Have a few mules who just log heavy innings.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Any link to that Bill James article/essay?
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The below excerpt is from the story within the following linK:

Bill James article:

Here is Bill James on Wins Above Replacement, perhaps the hottest advanced statistic in the game right now:

“Well, my math skills are limited and my data-processing skills are essentially nonexistent. The younger guys are way, way beyond me in those areas. I’m fine with that, and I don’t struggle against it, and I hope that I don’t deny them credit for what they can do that I can’t.

“But because that is true, I ASSUMED that these were complex, nuanced, sophisticated systems. I never really looked; I just assumed that the details were out of my depth. But sometime in the last year I was doing some research that relied on these WAR systems, so I took a look at them, and … they’re not very impressive. They’re not well thought through; they haven’t made a convincing effort to address many of the inherent difficulties that the undertaking presents. They tend to get so far into the data, throw up their arms and make a wild guess. I don’t know if I’m going to get the time to do better of it, or if it will be left to others, but … we’re not at anything like an end point here. I assumed that these systems were a lot better than they actually are.”
 
If after reading that you can take WAR as the gospel then God bless you.

Bill James is the father of this whole movement and probably one of the most respected individuals in all of sports. If its not good enough for him, its not good enough for me.
 
thethe said:
If after reading that you can take WAR as the gospel then God bless you.

Bill James is the father of this whole movement and probably one of the most respected individuals in all of sports. If its not good enough for him, its not good enough for me.
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Bill James may be the father of the movement but he's hardly the current standard bearer. Nor has he been for quite some time. It's like saying "If it's not good enough for Baseball Prospectus it's not good enough for me" stats and the statisticians evolve. Sure there are flaws to WAR, but throwing them out because there are flaws means that you trust no baseball stat because every baseball stat has a flaw of some sort built into it.
 
zitothebrave said:
Bill James may be the father of the movement but he's hardly the current standard bearer. Nor has he been for quite some time. It's like saying "If it's not good enough for Baseball Prospectus it's not good enough for me" stats and the statisticians evolve. Sure there are flaws to WAR, but throwing them out because there are flaws means that you trust no baseball stat because every baseball stat has a flaw of some sort built into it.
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Again, nobody is saying WAR doesn't have value but just like anything its just an ingrediant. To say player X is better than player Y beacuse player X's WAR is greater than player Y's WAR is where I draw the line and that is what is done at this point in time with WAR.
 
zitothebrave said:
Bill James may be the father of the movement but he's hardly the current standard bearer. Nor has he been for quite some time. It's like saying "If it's not good enough for Baseball Prospectus it's not good enough for me" stats and the statisticians evolve. Sure there are flaws to WAR, but throwing them out because there are flaws means that you trust no baseball stat because every baseball stat has a flaw of some sort built into it.
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NO IT DOESNT, ZITO. I JUST DONT BUY WAR AT ITS FACE VALUE. THE DEFENSIVE SIDE IN PARTICULAR IS SO FLAWED AS TO RENDER THE STAT UNUSEABLE IN ITS CURRENT FORM.

Fix the defensive component, even if it's still not perfect, and I'm right there with you. Not now.
 
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