2023 Game Thread

[fish16]

We signed Archie Bradley to a minor league deal. Id bet we see him fairly soon

[Namaste]

A hit doesn’t change that. They still desperately need to acquire an impact bat at the corner outfield spot. De la Cruz was a -.2 war coming into the game, grading bad offensively and defensively. He is a 4th outfielder on a good team

What about 3 hits today (including the game winner) and advanced stats that say he’s a Top 5 hitting breakout candidate?

[fish16]

What about 3 hits today (including the game winner) and advanced stats that say he’s a Top 5 hitting breakout candidate?

3 singles doesn’t change the fact that he’s just not an above average player. Advanced stats don’t change the fact that he doesn’t produce much on the actual field. He was terrible all year last year outside of 2 weeks, and has been a negative war this year. He has terrible plate discipline. He doesn’t walk and he strikes out a ton. Hitting the ball is great, when you actually make contact. In close to 600 plate appearances since he got here, he has a war of 1.5

[fish16]

Peyton burdick just hit his 6th homer in 10 games, this one with an exit velocity of 116, harder than any ball any marlin has hit this year. Maybe get him up here instead of hampson or put Garcia on the il

[Namaste]

A hit doesn’t change that. They still desperately need to acquire an impact bat at the corner outfield spot. De la Cruz was a -.2 war coming into the game, grading bad offensively and defensively. He is a 4th outfielder on a good team

oh we’re citing WAR (and your favorite, defensive WAR) 13 games into the season? That’s cute.

[lou]

3 singles doesn’t change the fact that he’s just not an above average player. Advanced stats don’t change the fact that he doesn’t produce much on the actual field. He was terrible all year last year outside of 2 weeks, and has been a negative war this year. He has terrible plate discipline. He doesn’t walk and he strikes out a ton. Hitting the ball is great, when you actually make contact. In close to 600 plate appearances since he got here, he has a war of 1.5

Which is........ good.

It's not a world beater but that's a solid 3rd OF for most clubs and an incredible 4th OF. So you know, a 1.5 WAR for a starting OF is a top 50-70 OF in baseball overall. And remember, that's likely the floor because he has been negatively impacted by his CF defense so even if the bat takes a step back, his defense will improve in a corner. His benders ended up normalizing his BABIP so that one is tough to argue. Then as Namaste mentioned, there is hit profile upside here. And yes, he did change his swing and that often leads to immediate and fast changes. Maybe check out Kelenic right now and how he hit a ball as far as Reggie Abercrombie did that one time. Please, stop Lee'ing us with he's been terrible this year in a 2 week sample size. He's been fine. Can we wait till mid-May minimum and June even better. DLC is not a problem.

[fish16]

Which is........ good.

It's not a world beater but that's a solid 3rd OF for most clubs and an incredible 4th OF. So you know, a 1.5 WAR for a starting OF is a top 50-70 OF in baseball overall. And remember, that's likely the floor because he has been negatively impacted by his CF defense so even if the bat takes a step back, his defense will improve in a corner. His benders ended up normalizing his BABIP so that one is tough to argue. Then as Namaste mentioned, there is hit profile upside here. And yes, he did change his swing and that often leads to immediate and fast changes. Maybe check out Kelenic right now and how he hit a ball as far as Reggie Abercrombie did that one time. Please, stop Lee'ing us with he's been terrible this year in a 2 week sample size. He's been fine. Can we wait till mid-May minimum and June even better. DLC is not a problem.

It’s below average. A league average war for a starter is 2+ war over a full season according to fangraphs. He’s at 75% of that. And again, all of his production last year came from a 2 week period. He was a terrible player for all but 2 meaningless weeks last year. His ops on September 12th after a full year was .596. You keep waiting for his breakout, you will be waiting a while

1.5 war is top 70 last year yes. That’s because guys got injured. For instance, that’s above Stanton because Stanton played 110 games last year. If you prorate every of’s stars over the same number of at bats, it’s not a starting caliber of war production. He put up 1.5 WAR over a full seasons worth of at bats. It’s not impressive production. Argue all you want about this theoretical breakout where a career long mediocre hitter will become above average because he changed his swing, but nothing he has actually produced indicate a big breakout is coming

[fish16]

oh we’re citing WAR (and your favorite, defensive WAR) 13 games into the season? That’s cute.

His career war is 1.5 over 600 at bats. It’s bench level 4th of production. Yes he hits the ball hard. He has terrible
plate discipline that limits any ceiling the advanced metrics say he has. You’ll realize it soon enough. He’s a good 4th of. They desperately need an impact corner of bat to improve on Garcia and him and Sanchez

[Namaste]

It’s below average. A league average war for a starter is 2+ war over a full season according to fangraphs. He’s at 75% of that. And again, all of his production last year came from a 2 week period. He was a terrible player for all but 2 meaningless weeks last year. His ops on September 12th after a full year was .596. You keep waiting for his breakout, you will be waiting a while

1.5 war is top 70 last year yes. That’s because guys got injured. For instance, that’s above Stanton because Stanton played 110 games last year. If you prorate every of’s stars over the same number of at bats, it’s not a starting caliber of war production. He put up 1.5 WAR over a full seasons worth of at bats. It’s not impressive production. Argue all you want about this theoretical breakout where a career long mediocre hitter will become above average because he changed his swing, but nothing he has actually produced indicate a big breakout is coming

Please stop with the 2 week period thing. Production is production. It doesn’t mean less because he got blue flame hot for 2 weeks.

[fish16]

Please stop with the 2 week period thing. Production is production. It doesn’t mean less because he got blue flame hot for 2 weeks.

It does because his numbers are not indicative of what he actually was for almost the entire year. He was flat out terrible last year for all but 2 weeks of meaningless September baseball.

[lou]

It’s below average. A league average war for a starter is 2+ war over a full season according to fangraphs. He’s at 75% of that. And again, all of his production last year came from a 2 week period. He was a terrible player for all but 2 meaningless weeks last year. His ops on September 12th after a full year was .596. You keep waiting for his breakout, you will be waiting a while

1.5 war is top 70 last year yes. That’s because guys got injured. For instance, that’s above Stanton because Stanton played 110 games last year. If you prorate every of’s stars over the same number of at bats, it’s not a starting caliber of war production. He put up 1.5 WAR over a full seasons worth of at bats. It’s not impressive production. Argue all you want about this theoretical breakout where a career long mediocre hitter will become above average because he changed his swing, but nothing he has actually produced indicate a big breakout is coming

A 1.5 WAR player over 600 PA is not a below average player. It's about 60th percentile production for MLB among top 400 players (i.e. guys on clubs), so a shade over. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...ate=&page=4_50

This is a solid starter profile, and an amazing platoon player on a good team. What aren't you getting here? I wish we had half a dozen 1.5+ War guys on this team and I'll take that instantly for Fortes, Stallings, Cooper, Wendle, Berti, DLC, Sanchez, Garcia, AND Soler this year. You know how awesome that would be if THOSE guys dropped a 13.5 WAR between them? You can do the math if they pull another 7+ our of Arraez and Jazz.

You seem to be harping on how bad he was and then had a 2 week bender.

April-August 9, 2022 for DLC - .208/.253/.338 in 257 PA for a -.7 WAR. Horrible. Dreadful.

.258 BABIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Career .329 BABIP. A bloodbath of hard hit rates and he's fast, meaning it wasn't weak contact causing all of it. He was arguably more UNLUCKY prior to the bender than he was lucky during the bender. He has had wild streaks his career for sure. He has been supremely lucky, supremely unlucky, and supremely lucky again. And it's averaged into a very fair career slash/expectation.

There is usually always regression to the mean. He's done that and there is room to grow. He's not the problem. Give it a rest. He may not work out, but he is worth the time to figure out if they have something. He's a better bet than Yuli, Garcia, and Sanchez. Replacing two of them with a killer SS and OF (preferably CF) would be the obvious 2 moves for a non-Bruce owner.

[fish16]

A 1.5 WAR player over 600 PA is not a below average player. It's about 60th percentile production for MLB among top 400 players (i.e. guys on clubs), so a shade over. https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...ate=&page=4_50

This is a solid starter profile, and an amazing platoon player on a good team. What aren't you getting here? I wish we had half a dozen 1.5+ War guys on this team and I'll take that instantly for Fortes, Stallings, Cooper, Wendle, Berti, DLC, Sanchez, Garcia, AND Soler this year. You know how awesome that would be if THOSE guys dropped a 13.5 WAR between them? You can do the math if they pull another 7+ our of Arraez and Jazz.

You seem to be harping on how bad he was and then had a 2 week bender.

April-August 9, 2022 for DLC - .208/.253/.338 in 257 PA for a -.7 WAR. Horrible. Dreadful.

.258 BABIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Career .329 BABIP. A bloodbath of hard hit rates and he's fast, meaning it wasn't weak contact causing all of it. He was arguably more UNLUCKY prior to the bender than he was lucky during the bender. He has had wild streaks his career for sure. He has been supremely lucky, supremely unlucky, and supremely lucky again. And it's averaged into a very fair career slash/expectation.

There is usually always regression to the mean. He's done that and there is room to grow. He's not the problem. Give it a rest. He may not work out, but he is worth the time to figure out if they have something. He's a better bet than Yuli, Garcia, and Sanchez. Replacing two of them with a killer SS and OF (preferably CF) would be the obvious 2 moves for a non-Bruce owner.

It’s simply not. The war you keep linking to on fangraphs includes everyone and doesn’t scale for plate appearances. Out of guys with even 500 at bats last year (dlc has almost a full 100 more than that for his career war of 1.5), 1.5 war would be 101 out of 132. It’s not remotely an impressive number over that number of at bats. Again, by the own trusted tool of fangraphs, they consider a league average starter to put up 2+ war in a season. Anything less is considered a role player, which is what dlc is. He’s a 4th outfielder

[Todd]

I would add that in 2021, when de la Cruz accumulated 1.1 of his 1.5 career WAR, his BABIP was. 380

Last year it was .304 and he hit .252/.294/.432.

At the end of the day, de la Cruz is a poor hitter with some pop that doesnt draw BBs, K's a ton, but can play all 3 outfield positions without embarrassing himself and give you that random HR.

Basically the definition of a 4th outfielder and there is nothing wrong with that. Teams need those.

[fish16]

I would add that in 2021, when de la Cruz accumulated 1.1 of his 1.5 career WAR, his BABIP was. 380

Last year it was .304 and he hit .252/.294/.432.

At the end of the day, de la Cruz is a poor hitter with some pop that doesnt draw BBs, K's a ton, but can play all 3 outfield positions without embarrassing himself and give you that random HR.

Basically the definition of a 4th outfielder and there is nothing wrong with that. Teams need those.

This is pretty much all I’m saying. He’s obviously a major leaguer, he just shouldn’t be a full time starter on a good team

[fish16]

Okert had 2 stellar rehab appearances and will be back friday. I'd guess Smeltzer goes down, which then begs the question- why the hell did they guarantee him 1 million to bring him up instead of just bringing one of the relievers on the 40 man up for a few days?