eaterfan

I think that actually happens more than you think. The Fangraphs prospect guys have said in their chats that front office guys will try to build up the hype on their guys and create more value for them. It's also a lot easier to sell a fanbase on trading your pitcher for a top 50 prospect than an unranked prospect since fans don't see the team's prospect value list. So they don't really have much to go by besides the various fan services. Is that the best way to run a club? No. But these GMs do want to be able to hang onto their jobs.

Do you not remember the PED scandal at all?

$1 billion was bet on baseball last year. You don't think the public has interest in ensuring the outcomes are fair? You think that MLB is motivated to do a fair and thorough investigation? You think Manfred can hand out punishments to his bosses if the results of the investigation merits it?

Yes, private enterprise (MLB) has clearly shown it's totally capable of investigating its own malfeasance in this instance. Everyone seems very confident in the completeness and thoroughness of this investigation and their faith in the fairness of baseball is totally restored. This is just like when MLB totally cleaned up P.E.D.s without any government intervention.

Your argument is that communicating with teammates non-verbally is cheating?

I think there is a huge difference. This is like the difference between looking at your neighbor's paper compared to hacking into the school's computer to get the test in advance. The amount of sophistication and effort is much higher for the second one. It's much harder to detect the second one, too.

I'm just bummed that the "On a scale of 1-10" thread has been rendered moot in less than a day.

Stealing signs doesn't mean you win a WS. Yeah, every team would trade the punishment for winning one, but only one team can win any year. Maybe it increases the odds by 3% or 5% (I think that's a pretty significant number). Would you trade the Angels next two first and second rounders for a 5% increase in their WS odds? And for the record, I do think the punishment was a bit too light, but let's be real about what the benefit was.

How is it worse than what Rose did? You know MLB thinks Rose bet on the Reds to lose, right? Oh, you believe Rose only bet on the Reds to win because that's what he claims? For 30 years he claims he never bet on baseball. For 10 years after that he claimed he never bet on the Reds. Now he claims he only bet on them to win. I still think betting on them alone is worse but based on what baseball thinks he did you want to argue it's worse? You think illegally trying to win is worse than illegally trying to lose?

You really can't see the difference?

Honestly, this seems light to me. I though MLB was going to really go after the Astros. To me this is far worse than what the Braves were doing. It's certainly more than a slap on the wrist, but I thought it would be a little harsher.

This is just flat out false. The Mariners led the division through mid August and were coming off a 116 win season. On August 15th the Mariner's had a 1.5 game lead on the Angels and the A's were in third place. On August 20th there was a 3 way tie at the top. Seattle ended up finishing 3rd, 6 games back of the Halos with 93 wins. If they had a 2nd wildcard they would have tied for that spot with the Red Sox who got to clean up against the Devil Rays, Orioles, and Blue Jays.

I really wish they had a poll of execs asking who the second most underrated prospect is instead of him just finishing second in the most underrated poll.

So you're saying that we weren't the first people to come up with actually looking back at how accurate the projection systems are? I AM ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED. Who would have thought that in a multi-billion dollar industry that people are reviewing that sort of thing? You're telling me that instead of saying don't put stock in projections I could have easily googled how precise or not precise these projection systems are and what these projections actually mean?

Hmmm. That would be interesting. I'm sure no one has actually checked on the accuracy of the projections systems before to see how they do. You would think that the people who run them would measure them to try to refine the accuracy over the years. Perhaps people in front offices would check the similar ones they have developed. But I'm sure these projections are no more accurate than us yahoos on the message board guessing what will happen. Maybe they're no better than a shot in the dark.

In before someone makes a tdawg joke.

I'd bet all 30 teams are cheating. It's just going to be a matter of degrees and how far MLB actually cares to look into this. Actually, I think every owners dream scenario is that every team loses their first round draft pick and international slot money. Save a ton on the first round player pool money by just starting in round two.

They might. Am I wrong or weren't the Red Sox already in trouble for sign stealing before? Wasn't that part of the reason people think the Astros punishment will be so harsh? The league had made it clear with Boston that this kind of thing wasn't okay. If I'm right, I don't think the Sox get off easily. The same team getting in trouble for the same thing sounds like it's Hammer Time! Adding in they brought in Cora from Houston probably hurts, too. I think Cora is done.

Why this obsession with pitching? Can our pitching improve? Yes. But trading offense to do it probably doesn't help. You don't get any more wins for winning a game 4-3 than you do 6-5. Assuming it's a fair trade, you expect to lose as much offensive production as what you gain in pitching. Not only does that seem to be break even, it probably hurts the team. Offense builds on itself. For example about every 10 runs created is a win. If the league average has a .300 OBP then a HR is worth about 1.3 runs because a runner will be on base about 30% of the time. The same HR for a team with an OBP of .400 would create about 1.4 runs. In addition, the higher the OBP of the team the more PAs they get. Fangraphs did an article on putting Mike Trout in different lineups. In Houston's he would be projected for about 800 PAs over a full season. That's about 150 more than an Angels season. Pitching doesn't work quite the same way. You get diminishing returns once you reach a certain number of innings that starters pitch.

The Dodgers' TV contract has an AAV of over $332 million. Their opening day payroll last year was $206 million. This is before they sell a single ticket. The Angels' TV Contract has an AAV of $150 million. They are smart. They are great at player development. Having a budget so high that it's not really ever going to come into play is also tremendously helpful.

I think that would be cracking down pretty hard. People freaked out about the Angels trading a mid-first round #1 pick for $13 million dollars. Losing international signing money and maybe half a dozen draft picks would be the equivalent of a very very substantial fine ($20-$50 million depending on the number of picks and the amount of slot money lost). This in addition to the suspensions or bans of those in the front office would be dropping the hammer IMO.

I think this may be the plan. Even after the off-season there may be better opportunities. It's a little different because there is a salary cap in the NBA, but assume there is a relatively firm internal cap for the Angels payroll. Every year there is a team that steals someone during the season because they had the cap space to take on some salary. The Angels may be able to do that if they maintain flexibility through a month or two instead of forcing a trade before opening day.

That's not really a fair comparison. We're talking about health here. DK missed time last year because of a contract, not health. I don't think he's likely to miss time due to contract in the future. If you take a look at his last 3 seasons without the contract time he averages 173 IP per season. That's significantly more. The last 4 without the contract time and that number is 188.

I also question the higher upside claim. His ERA+ in Boston has been 118 (over 4 seasons) with a high of 135. Keuchel has an ERA+ of 121 over the last 3 years with a high of 141. I used 4 years for Price because it's his entire stay in Boston but I prefer 3 year samples. That pushes the ERA+ to 122 for Price. Nearly the same, but still a lower peak in that time. But if you want to look at trends then Price certainly has more downside risk.

Agree. I think if the Chargers are going to keep Rivers they can't waste a first round pick on someone who won't contribute. I'd rather see them get Rosen for a 5th or 6th round pick if they can.