Oz27

Yeah, I'm sure they'd all lined up to get kicked in the nuts by Chuck Norris if it meant getting to the big leagues. But that would be stupid and we would never implement that. Just because people are willing to do something stupid that they wouldn't normally do to reach their goal, does it mean we should make them? Of course not. Outrage over this is absurd.

Oh come on, it's not like creating a rule preventing "hazing" is taking away time and effort from other issues.
Some legal/PR guy probably brought it up as a concern, which is understandable in today's climate, and it was a common sense decision. 

So, having Escboar's .355 obp at the top of the order was certainly helpful to the offense and while his .304 avg is 'sexy', his other deficiencies are certainly noticeable and even potentially outweigh the positives.  While there is an argument that he's worth more that his statistical value would suggest, even with that, Marte's value and potential are enough to consider making the change. 
Aside from the obvious issues with Escobar's defense (-11 DRS is 7th worst in baseball), he's also a terrible base runner (8th worst in baseball among qualified), has essentially zero power (3rd worst ISO in baseball), and he grounds into a ton of double plays (21 - 8th most).  He's truly about as one dimensional as they come and at age 34, that batting average isn't going to last forever.  
Marte on the other hand is entering his age 26yo season even though he'll be 25 through june 21st.  In limited sample at 3b (160 innings), he was average defensively.  He accumulated 1.5 WAR in 284 pa to Escobars 1.6 WAR in 567 pa and that's with his negative defensive value playing out of position in LF more than he played 3b.  
While the batting average and obp (.252/.310) weren't exactly something to write home about, it was his first real experience in the major after getting less than 100 ab with detroit in 2015.  His obp in the upper minors was .345 at AAA with a 9% walk rate at both AA and AAA.  His base is also suspect, but he's got excellent power and he really excelled in the 2nd half of last year with a slash of .275/.335/.536/.871 in 158 pa.  His bb/k rate was 7.1%/18.2% after the break.  He also hit righties and lefties equally as well.  
We are talking about a guy that could have an .800 ops and play average defense at 3b.  Putting him in the range of being a 3 WAR player.  
I know it is unlikely that he's handed the everyday job, but I think he could easily reproduce the 1.5 WAR Escboar is likely to put up.  You could trade Escobar for an up and coming relief prospect and sign Felz giving you two additional pen options for 2017 and beyond while being payroll neutral and in my opinion, you'd get better production from 3b.  

"Political correctness gone mad or something"
Just kidding. One of the stupidest parts of our sport is gone. That is good.

"Political correctness gone mad or something"
Just kidding. One of the stupidest parts of our sport is gone. That is good.

"Political correctness gone mad or something"
Just kidding. One of the stupidest parts of our sport is gone. That is good.

For those who don't get it, Carson Cistulli's long-running Sherman Johnson love is kind of a long-running joke at this point. But I get it, too. The dude gets on base a lot. I hope he is given a chance in spring training.

It's not a difficult stretch to understand part of his point, but his point overall is a difficult stretch. Firstly, Bedrosian's dominance last year blows away anything Jepsen or Morin ever did. They're not even in the same ballpark. Bedrosian did it at 24, a natural breakout year, and his previous struggles came at an age when most of his peers are still in the minors. It's extremely unlikely that success was a flash in the pan. Maybe he will regress, but not by enough to not be our best reliever. That is because he can regress a really really long way and still be our best reliever, as he was the best by a freaking mile last year and the next best (probably Guerra and Ramirez) raise pretty serious sustainability questions due to the fact they never strike anyone out.
As for Street, his walks and strikeouts have been trending in the wrong direction for awhile. It's not like his collapse came out of nowhere either, he wasn't that good in 2015 and his second half of that season was really bad. His soft contact rate has been going down at a pretty rapid rate for years. He has been consistently losing fastball velocity for years and is now down to 88. He doesn't draw swinging strikes much at all anymore either. Last year wasn't an anomaly, it was the continuation of a trend and it's going to take something pretty out there - like him suddenly regaining velocity at 34 - to reverse it. Realistically, it would be very surprising for him to turn it around in a significant way.

This is confirmation that we aren't spending big, right? At best we sign an Ivan Nova type but I'm thinking it's more likely we get a middle reliever and another fringe starter and call it a day. I'm expecting to head into the season as one of quite a few AL teams projected to win about 85 games. Sometimes teams at that level get a bit lucky, win way more games than their true talent and go on a playoff run. That level of talent isn't what we should aspire to (or what anyone should totally aspire to) but at least it gives us a chance, I guess. I see Houston as the best team in the division pretty comfortably, but we'll probably be somewhere in a wildcard battle with the likes of Seattle, Texas, Baltimore and New York (assuming Boston wins the east).

Wins are misleading to our needs?

FWIW...   Sullivan from FG tweeted this..
Jeff Sullivan ‏@based_ball  2h2 hours ago Danny Espinosa is a pretty decent baseball player and the Angels are a pretty decent baseball team
And this...
David Pearl ‏@dajpearl  49m49 minutes ago @based_ball anything to the 0.0 steamer projection?
1 reply0 retweets0 likes Reply   1   Retweet         Like       More   Jeff Sullivan ‏@based_ball  4m4 minutes ago @dajpearl ignore it, he's better
 
 

Hahahaha no. 

These projection systems always cop shit and you occasionally get obvious outliers. But trying to beat one of them is really hard because they are pretty accurate. If you took a random sample of PECOTA player projections and guessed whether each player would be better or worse than that projection, a coin flip would be right roughly as often as you would be. PECOTA will be out in a few weeks, I believe.

It's not a difficult stretch to understand part of his point, but his point overall is a difficult stretch. Firstly, Bedrosian's dominance last year blows away anything Jepsen or Morin ever did. They're not even in the same ballpark. Bedrosian did it at 24, a natural breakout year, and his previous struggles came at an age when most of his peers are still in the minors. It's extremely unlikely that success was a flash in the pan. Maybe he will regress, but not by enough to not be our best reliever. That is because he can regress a really really long way and still be our best reliever, as he was the best by a freaking mile last year and the next best (probably Guerra and Ramirez) raise pretty serious sustainability questions due to the fact they never strike anyone out.
As for Street, his walks and strikeouts have been trending in the wrong direction for awhile. It's not like his collapse came out of nowhere either, he wasn't that good in 2015 and his second half of that season was really bad. His soft contact rate has been going down at a pretty rapid rate for years. He has been consistently losing fastball velocity for years and is now down to 88. He doesn't draw swinging strikes much at all anymore either. Last year wasn't an anomaly, it was the continuation of a trend and it's going to take something pretty out there - like him suddenly regaining velocity at 34 - to reverse it. Realistically, it would be very surprising for him to turn it around in a significant way.

If only we had Jose Altuve instead of Mike Trout they would be higher, right?

I have to admit Claude.  That's probably the funniest thing I've seen you post.  I know it was probably inadvertent, but reading tdawgs quoted post and then your response made me lol.  

Claude please stop replying if you aren't even going to address the post you are replying to. We all know your narrative by now because you constantly shove it down our throats no matter the topic.
I'm not trying to be mean but damn man, it's tiring.

'moves that could lead to another'
like if I drink coffee, I have to take a crap?

You could make a good "Arte is cheap" argument, admittedly partially out of context, just by saying we've made two trades in five months in which one of the poorest teams - the Twins - has sent us cash.

Yeah, I really don't buy that theory. Pretty sure this was just about making a buck.

That's the type of player I had in mind. Although teams do seem to have a strange obsession with having veteran backup catchers, which is probably a factor too.

One bit that has been overlooked so far - the league clearly doesn't think too highly of Banuelos, since he went undrafted.

It's pretty unlikely it's for more than half a million I think - and it could be quite a bit less. I really don't know what that buys you, besides some yacht fuel *ducks*

One bit that has been overlooked so far - the league clearly doesn't think too highly of Banuelos, since he went undrafted.

I don't get how Skaggs' projection is that optimistic, both in terms of performance and durability.