Oz27

2016, definitely. As others have said, 2014 was pretty clearly Trout's worst full year. Trout hypotheticals are my favorite topic though. Two good ones I've heard recently - how many pounds could Trout gain while remaining an above replacement level player? It wouldn't surprise me if a 400 pound Trout still had a positive WAR. Also, if Trout decided to hit left handed now and stuck with it for the rest of his career, how good would he be?

Law always values ceiling more than floor, which is an approach I like. Because of that approach, I've been wondering if Jones makes his top 100. It would be hard to imagine us being 27th without having a single guy in his top 100 and I doubt Thaiss makes it for him.

"By and large, good plate discipline is something a hitter either has or he doesn’t; and while most — if not all — hitters constantly strive to take a more disciplined approach, only a select few are able to really move the needle." http://www.hardballtimes.com/improvements-in-plate-discipline-rare-but-effective/ " ...among above average regulars in the big leagues, less than 10% of them materially improved or regressed their plate discipline numbers once they got into pro ball and the more accurate number is probably around 5%." http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/scouting-the-hit-tool-pt-2/ In other words, Cron probably isn't going to make significant plate discipline improvements. Very few players do. His walk rate is very low and he swings at pitches outside the zone at an above average rate, so it's not like his plate discipline is good now. Maybe the home run power will come out a bit more, but expecting an MVP type breakout seems awfully optimistic. I'd actually see it on the opposite side to you and view this as a good time to trade him. He's coming off a good year and I'm not convinced he is a 115 wRC+ hitter going forward. There is merit in the idea of cashing in on him now.

Hard to judge this one until we see the terms. Valbuena is a pretty decent player but I could see a multi-year deal turning bad. There is obvious reason to be nervous about how a LHH with primarily pull power will fare at Angel Stadium too. But if this means less Escobar and it isn't too expensive, that is probably a good thing.

That's far from what I'm saying. My point is that Beltre's offensive numbers are very good, but when you add in his defensive value he is truly elite. I'm not sure how much voters factor that in for a guy like him. Many still seem to judge by hit totals and batting average.

Shit, those poor kids. That is beyond awful.

He should be, absolutely. I just don't have that much faith in the election process, especially with players who earn much of their value with the glove.

Yeah, definitely. While there have been 15 to 20 worthy players on the ballot each year, there are still people voting for only three or four players. That is putting the bar up way too high.

I don't agree with this at all. Vlad was a bit better at hitting than Raines (136 wRC+ to 125) but he wasn't better than him at anything else. Raines was worth 100 runs on the bases, Vlad was worth -50. Raines was a better fielder, although admittedly not by much. The average RF hall-of-famer was worth 73.2 wins and Vlad only got to 59.3. Using the JAWS metric, Vlad is below both the peak and the career marks required to make the HOF. Raines met all of his. Vlad fell off at a very early age and it really hurts his case. His peak was good, but it's questionable whether it was good enough to make up for the fact he didn't come close to compiling the career numbers normally needed. Raines, on the other hand, is a slam dunk hall-of-famer as far as I am concerned.

Tim Raines has a much stronger case. Seriously, it's not close.

The current voting pool has set absurd standards, even if you put aside the steroids guys. Truly amazing players like Mussina, Martinez and Walker are struggling to get in and that puts the bar far too high. If standards remain that high, there won't be many. Trout, Cabrera and Kershaw are almost certain, Pujols is certain, as is Ichiro, and guys like Bryant, Seager and Harper are on their way but it's too early to tell. Verlander has a pretty decent chance but Felix might fall short, I think. Cano and Bumgarner are probably on the bubble, with a few others. Beltre should really make it too but the voters haven't been kind to players who draw much of their value on defense. There aren't many besides that, which is silly.

If they go with Montreal, I'd be disappointed but I couldn't really argue with it. By bWAR, his three best seasons were in Montreal. 58 per cent of his career bWAR came from his time with the Expos. While his first two Anaheim years were outstanding and he won a few awards and made the playoffs four times with us, I can totally see why he and others would want him to go in as an Expo.

Calhoun was going to get about $6.9 million through arbitration this year, so as long as he wasn't bad enough to get non-tendered he was going to get at least $23 million through the arb process and, if his career didn't fall off a cliff, a lot more ($30 million+ I'd have thought). So he has probably cost himself money in both his arb years and when he hits free agency and potentially quite a lot of it. I could see this reducing his career earnings by $20 million to $30 million. It's his choice, obviously, but it feels like a minimal gain for the sacrifice given there wasn't huge uncertainty surrounding his short-term earnings. Whatever his reason, though, the team has done extremely well out of this.

I'm a big believer that these pre-FA extensions typically end up working out much better for the signing club than the player. Kole may have got marginally more from his arb years than he otherwise would have, but he now hits the market a year later. He won't be a free agent until he is 33 now and that is late to hit the market. I know it's only one year later than he was previously going to but convincing teams to pay him at 33 is probably going to be a lot harder than it would have been at 32. The Angels did very well out of this though. For minimal cost/risk, they acquired a cheap extra year of control for Calhoun. If we got to a point of wanting to trade him in the next few years, that has increased his value a lot. But if we are winning by then, we have an affordable player for another year who still should be above average at that point.

With about 55 per cent of votes made public as it stands, he is on 71.5 per cent of ballots. He probably falls short but makes it next year.

We could play five-on-four for a week and still not score. What the f**k is up with the power play? It has been awful.

Yeah, I could see us doing it. I think it's a bad idea but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we did it.

That's a big assumption and I don't really think history backs it up. It is possible he threw a showcase too early and that was the reason for the extremely underwhelming results. But dismissing the results out of hand and just stating that he'll regain his velocity seems misguided. Put it this way, if teams believed that were true I imagine he would have been snapped up long ago for much more money than he is going to get.

How many relievers have been effective after losing 6-8 MPH on their fastball?

The dude threw 88 MPH fastballs during his showcase in November, which is 8 MPH below his peak. I can't imagine he is spoiled for choice at the moment, nor can I imagine why we would be particularly interested if he can't throw hard anymore.

I was referring to the posts of others, genius. And yeah, there are people here who do use research and intelligent thought. You should try it out sometime. Or perhaps mindless trolling is more fun?

Anytime someone here comes up with something backed by research or intelligent thought, you can't belittle or diminish it quickly enough. But if someone questions one of your nonsensical cliches, produced with about as much thought as a monkey requires to fart, you spit the dummy. Cute.

Even if it only gets Trout an extra 15-20 PAs over the course of a season, the gap between Trout and anyone else on our team is huge. Him taking 15-20 PAs off anyone else is a noticeable boost. What the f**k does this even mean? It's roughly as insightful as your "coming to spring training ready to compete" gem from the other day.

For fucks sake. Getzlaf three-on-three is awful.

I'll be interested to see what PECOTA says but Fangraphs has them as pretty good. Fangraphs' projection for Felix (3.1 WAR) is way too optimistic. But their projections for many others seem quite pessimistic. Cano is coming off a 6 WAR year but is pegged for only 3.7 WAR. Segura's projection is 2.9 wins below his 2016 production, for Seager it is 1.5 WAR and for Cruz it is 1.9. They already project as the 10th best team, according to Fangraphs, and I think that is selling them short - even once you knock Felix down a bit.