Deadweight Position Players

[Stradling]

Just now, Kevinb said:

What is the length of the leash though. Do u agree the Angels can’t go the whole season him hitting this way. Do u wait till the all star break? After that? Full season? 

My preference would be acquire someone actually better around the break.   Someone like Jon Jay who could be a 4th outfielder if Calhoun finds his stroke.  

[kevinb]

6 minutes ago, SuperTroopers said:

My preference would be acquire someone actually better around the break.   Someone like Jon Jay who could be a 4th outfielder if Calhoun finds his stroke.  

And then just be done with Calhoun at the end of the year? 

[Stradling]

Just now, Kevinb said:

And then just be done with Calhoun at the end of the year? 

Have Eppler convince him to go get straightened out in the minors.  If he refuses an assignment trade him in the off-season and eat what you have to in the contract.  

[floplag]

1 hour ago, SuperTroopers said:

He’s not this bad.   

Regarding Kole, i have never seen a player go from a 2 WAR to a negative 2 in one year, that was healthy.  Or any player drop 4 WAR that fast that didnt stop juicing. 
It just doesnt make sense. 
Im stumped, its just not something i can quantify logically.

[Warfarin]

41 minutes ago, Pablo said:

Catcher defense is so hard to quantify. Fangraphs podcast "Effectively Wild" recently studied the affect of effective pitch-framing on staff ERA, particularly (in this case) as it pertained to the Cubs with a 'location dependent' pitching staff and a sub-par framing catcher (Wilson Contreras). They were hoping to bring a correlation to why the Cubs staff has been struggling. Their research, however, showed the pitch-framing/pitching success link was (surprisingly) non-existent. So how do you quantify catcher defense?

I have heard some rail on Maldonado's failure to 'call good pitches" this year, but after watching Scioscia micro-manage his catchers for nearly 20 years, I gotta say that's a bunch'o'crap. IF Maldonado were calling the pitches, and IF he were doing a poor job, he would not be catching for a Mike Scioscia managed team. 

Blocking the plate used to be a good metric, until it was no longer allowed. So for me, the casual fan who has watched Angel catchers throw out 10% of opposing runners for 15 years, I am so over-the-top excited that we FINALLY have someone who can actually gun down a would-be base stealer, that this whole "Maldy is a bad defensive catcher" nonsense is just noise.

I agree that catcher defense is hard to quantify for sure.  There are so many aspects to it - framing, pitch calling, pitch sequencing, throwing out base runners, etc.  There's no metric that can truly qualify it currently - all we have are various pieces of information that can help us try to cobble together an overall picture.

I do not think you'll find anyone who thinks "Maldy is a bad defensive catcher."  I have not seen anyone say that.  What I have seen is some suggestion that perhaps his defense has regressed to some degree, based on various statistics that they have seen.  It is possible this is true, but still too early to tell.  

[Troll Daddy]

8 hours ago, Angel Oracle said:

I am hoping that if this continues the whole year for Pujols, that he will hang them up after 2019 and that Scioscia will STOP batting him cleanup by a month from now.   

You said the same thing last season  

[Pablo]

1 hour ago, SuperTroopers said:

Pablo if those are bad pitches being called then it’s on Maldonado, the catchers call the pitches.   I’ve noticed more times than not it isn’t a bad pitch call it’s missed location.  I remember guys on here railing on Maldonado for calling a fastball, but they ignore the fact that he’s set up outside and the pitch ends up on the inner part of the plate only to see the balldriven hard by the batter.   Who knows if it was a bad pitch selection but it absolutely wasn’t pitched where he called for the pitch to be located.  

Oh, I agree, I think pitcher execution has far more to do with it. For clarification, though, I'm not saying Maldonado doesn't call the pitches; my point is that if he CHRONICALLY calls bad pitches, Scioscia would not keep him employed on his team.  That leads me to look elsewhere for the cause, and I think you put your finger on it.