Marlins Trade Heaney, Hernandez, Barnes, Hatcher to Dodgers for Gordon, Haren, Rojas

[HUGG]

$$$

Plus Kendrick only having one year left on his deal. Which of course doesn't matter nearly as much to a team like the Dodgers as it does to us.

[kusch]

This man Andrew Friedman is having fun going from TB to LAD, I feel like he's a teenager playing Franchise Mode in The Show

[Bobbob1313]

I'm mostly just working on the assumption that Koehler isn't going to get so lucky with his home run rate again.

We should also work under the assumption that Haren will continue to decline, even if he does choose to pitch, and will likely just be worse than Koehler anyways. Especially since his velocity dropped 1.2 MPH last season, and he hasn't had a league-average HR/FB since 2011.

Best-case scenario, he's better than the Marlins' No. 5 starter.

[Erick]

2013 Koehler 4.28xFIP vs. Haren 3.67 xFIP
2014 Koehler 4.15xFIP vs. Haren 3.70 xFIP

Haren is better than Koehler

xFIP probably doesn't tell the whole story here.
Haren's lost a good 3 mph from his fastball since the days he was good.

While xFIP supports him, his terrible LOB%'s are becoming a trend, and his HR rates are terrible despite pitching in pitchers ballparks.

xFIP likes him because he's able to maintain a very good K/BB rate, but his mistakes are extremely hittable.

Koehler has better stuff, is younger, and appears to be improving. He had a 3.55 ERA/3.87 xFIP in the 2nd half last year.

Koehler has mostly shown an ability to pitch better than his peripherals indicate dating back to his minor league career.

[dim]

To be fair, kendrick only has one year left on his contract.

But yeah, hahahaha

And the Dodgers can re-sign him for a lot of money. 5.2 WAR last year. I'd like to have that guy in Miami. If only we had an Andrew Heaney to trade for a player like Kendrick *and money to re-sign Kendrick with*

[HUGG]

Back to Gordon, isn't a .345 BABIP possibly somewhat sustainable for a player of his speed?

I mean Kendrick is only so cool cause he has a career .341babip.

[nny]

And the Dodgers can re-sign him for a lot of money. 5.2 WAR last year. I'd like to have that guy in Miami. If only we had an Andrew Heaney to trade for a player like Kendrick *and money to re-sign Kendrick with*

"Andrew Heaney has no value"

Gets 5th best 2B in baseball since 2011.


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Back to Gordon, isn't a .345 BABIP possibly somewhat sustainable for a player of his speed?

I mean Kendrick is only so cool cause he has a career .341babip.

IIRC, speed doesn't have as much of an impact on BABIP as you would expect. Power is actually a better indicator (powerful balls to the gaps).

Though then you have Kendrick, who doesn't have power or speed, he just hits the ball solidly a lot.

But I haven't read anything about that in a long time. And he does have a career .326 BABIP. Which is probably what to expect. But still, that's a ~.040 point drop in OPS, putting him in the mid 600's last year.

[Erick]

Back to Gordon, isn't a .345 BABIP possibly somewhat sustainable for a player of his speed?

I mean Kendrick is only so cool cause he has a career .341babip.

A .345 .BABIP should be sustainable for him especially with a 60% GB rate on batted balls, imo.

It's not something I like to rely on in a player, but I do think that Dee can repeat what he did last year.

He's also in his mid-20's so I'd like to think that he can still improve certain aspects of his game.

[HUGG]

IIRC, speed doesn't have as much of an impact on BABIP as you would expect. Power is actually a better indicator (powerful balls to the gaps).

Though then you have Kendrick, who doesn't have power or speed, he just hits the ball solidly a lot.

But I haven't read anything about that in a long time. And he does have a career .326 BABIP. Which is probably what to expect. But still, that's a ~.040 point drop in OPS, putting him in the mid 600's last year.

Kendrick Career
LD% 20.0 GB% 54.7 IFH% 6.2

Gordon Career
LD% 21.4 GB% 58.0 IFH% 11.4

I'm not arguing here or anything, I want you to talk more to me about this. What's a good indicator of what to look for here? Gordon's line drive rate is actually higher, but maybe that doesn't mean what I think it means. Is there an indicator of gap power that I'm missing?
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Although now that I re-read your post you don't say Kendrick has power, so this post is probably irrelevant.

[Bobbob1313]

Back to Gordon, isn't a .345 BABIP possibly somewhat sustainable for a player of his speed?

I mean Kendrick is only so cool cause he has a career .341babip.

Consistent + defense and a decade of showing he can sustain that babip with hard contact.

If Gordon can sustain a .340+ BABIP, that'd be great, though he'll still probably never be as good as Kendrick. Main question is whether his lower infield flyball rate is sustainable.

If he has a bad BABIP season, he's basically useless. He's Juan Pierre with way more strikeouts and way worse defense.

(He's Bonifacio)

[Erick]

Another thing to like about Gordon's year last year is that he didn't struggle against lefties. So, while unspectacular as a hitter, he's definitely someone who can play every day.

[nny]

Also, I don't really care about the players we gave up.

I don't think Barnes would have been close to his minor league numbers. He doesn't have much power, so his walk rates would have plummeted. There's nothing there that shows he could be more than an average offensive player, and will very likely be below average.

Hatcher is 30, has only 50 good IP to his name (we all know how volatile RP are).

Kike's highest probability is probably a good UTIL guy.

I just think it's dumb we traded for a guy who's highest probability is that of a good UTIL guy in Gordon. He really is just another Bonifacio. Bonifacio put up over a 100 OPS+ when he was 26, too. Guess what, he still sucked.

I don't care about what we gave up. Honestly, if we spend that money we got from LA and go with a 77m payroll instead of 65m, hey, fuck it, cool. Let's be good in 2015.

But 1) I don't think they do. And 2) I think we got bad players back who aren't going to help us in 2015 anyway.

[Bobbob1313]

Kendrick Career
LD% 20.0 GB% 54.7 IFH% 6.2

Gordon Career
LD% 21.4 GB% 58.0 IFH% 11.4

I'm not arguing here or anything, I want you to talk more to me about this. What's a good indicator of what to look for here? Gordon's line drive rate is actually higher, but maybe that doesn't mean what I think it means. Is there an indicator of gap power that I'm missing?
--------------------
Although now that I re-read your post you don't say Kendrick has power, so this post is probably irrelevant.

I guess I would say not all line drives are made equal. Some fall in front of outfielders 180 feet from the plate, some are hit at infielders 110 feet from the plate.

Gordon had the 11th shortest average flyball distance in the majors, among 298 players tracked. Kendrick's average flyball went 20 yards further.

That's not necessarily an indication of the line-drive batted ball speed, but it's the closest approximation I know of that's readily available. He just doesn't seem to hit the ball as hard as Kendrick does. Even if he beats out an extra 5-8 infield hits per year, Kendrick might be able to make up that gap on line shots to the outfield, which will also be more likely to turn into extra bases.

[HUGG]

See, average flyball distance is a thing I didn't know about. Where do you find that?

[Bobbob1313]

Honestly, if we spend that money we got from LA and go with a 77m payroll instead of 65m, hey, fuck it, cool. Let's be good in 2015.

Am I alone in thinking that it's troubling that they needed to sell potentially useful pieces in order to get money that will likely still make them the 28th or 29th ranked payroll?

Isn't that indicative of deeper issues with the organization? When I think about this, that is, ultimately, what I keep coming back to. What's the point of all of this, if they can't operate like a real major-league franchise?
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See, average flyball distance is a thing I didn't know about. Where do you find that?

BaseballHeatMaps.com

http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/grap...anceleader.php
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I know there's also stuff like hard-hit average, but I don't know of any sites that store that and have it available readily for public consumption. It seems to be an ESPN proprietary thing, and they only release that in house.