wRC+ by year

89
96
90
121
88
89

fuck OBP, he doesn't do anything well except hitting an occasional homer against a lefty, which would be great if we had a DH spot

Barry Jive wrote:i wasn't even addressing that. the whole premise of that post is misguided. why is it taking me three posts to get this across

You got it across, we just disagree. OBP is down across the league, and as Shore demonstrated the other day, there are way fewer corner-OF (and DH) regulars than one might think. And I still haven't seen anyone say who we should have signed.

That's the context I was trying to bring in my reply to Monkeyboy and then Woody.

And I'm not gonna cede the last word here, godammit. But I do have a work meeting.

I would have signed one that isn't already 8 pounds over the weight he needs to be to max out his contract, or who isn't arguably the worst fielding "outfielder" in baseball, or who didn't also have a history of immature aggressive behavior toward umpires and Jews. I understand the deal from a baseball standpoint. I would probably be defending literally any other outfielder on the market here.

BJ doing a great job carrying the water here, so I don't feel the need to pile on re Delmon Young. He's a symptom, not the disease.

What really blows is that we're now forced to act like the Pirates to field an OF because we (1) don't have enough money to be reckless (i.e. Swisher, Hamilton) even though we have a budget that is commensurate with the luxury tax threshold and (2) don't have enough prospects to trade for real players (i.e. Upton) because our GM already traded those prospects.

I was willing to accept that the Nats are going to smoke our asses, but the Braves are going to get Justin Upton and field a lineup that is so much better than ours that it hurts. BJ, Prado, Hewyard, Justin, McCann, Freeman, Uggla, Simmons. And an insane bullpen.

Obviously anything can happen, but we're now a clear third place team on paper. That hurts and i need someone to blame.

Pretty excited to have to count on a crash-dieting player for strength, energy and run production. This will be great!

too bad they're stricter on greenies nowadays. pete rose could've learned him a thing or two about a thing or two

Grotewold wrote:And I still haven't seen anyone say who we should have signed.

We have a worse team with Delmon Young on the roster replacing any of our five existing OFs. Giving him guaranteed money is extremely questionable.

I like him more than Lyance

same. if he sucks they will cut him. but if he is the playoff version of himself pretty good value despite his undesirable defense.

if he has a career year at the plate he'll be worth about 2 wins

the braves getting uptown pretty much destroyed any support i had for the phillies signing young

good signing. you guys dont know what youre talking about.

Trent Steele wrote:
I was willing to accept that the Nats are going to smoke our asses, but the Braves are going to get Justin Upton and field a lineup that is so much better than ours that it hurts. BJ, Prado, Hewyard, Justin, McCann, Freeman, Uggla, Simmons. And an insane bullpen.

The Braves and Nationals both have superior offenses compared to the phillies and thats even with Howard and Utley at 100%. So you figure the only way the phillies can overtake either team is with their superior pitching.....which they don't really have anymore.

sure they do

Napalm wrote:good signing. you guys dont know what youre talking about.

start the JUAN part 2 thread

Warszawa wrote:

Trent Steele wrote:
I was willing to accept that the Nats are going to smoke our asses, but the Braves are going to get Justin Upton and field a lineup that is so much better than ours that it hurts. BJ, Prado, Hewyard, Justin, McCann, Freeman, Uggla, Simmons. And an insane bullpen.

The Braves and Nationals both have superior offenses compared to the phillies and thats even with Howard and Utley at 100%. So you figure the only way the phillies can overtake either team is with their superior pitching.....which they don't really have anymore.

Starting pitching is really important. I don't prefer the Braves' to ours. The Nationals', maybe, but they're no lock to reproduce what they did last year.

Werthless wrote:

Grotewold wrote:And I still haven't seen anyone say who we should have signed.

We have a worse team with Delmon Young on the roster replacing any of our five existing OFs. Giving him guaranteed money is extremely questionable.

I understand the second part. I was just addressing this "get the high-OBP guys instead" type argument. That market is bone dry

Grotewold wrote:

Werthless wrote:

Grotewold wrote:And I still haven't seen anyone say who we should have signed.

We have a worse team with Delmon Young on the roster replacing any of our five existing OFs. Giving him guaranteed money is extremely questionable.

I understand the second part. I was just addressing this "get the high-OBP guys instead" type argument. That market is bone dry

One always pays market value in the free agent market. You can't find cheap, high OBP guys on the free agent market unless you're looking at a guy who can only play 1B/DH (Jason Giambi and Jim Thome types). But this offseason, there have been a number of trades involving OFs. Span, Revere, Upton, Prado, Morse, Morales. Others are rumored to have been available at various times: Fowler, Kubel, Cuddyer, Trumbo, Ellsbury, etc. There is not a "bone dry" market for corner OFs who can get on base. I'm not suggesting that Amaro needs to build the team through trades, but that the market for guys who can get on base at an above-average clip has been quite good this offseason, and many players have been moved.

Delmon Young is awful, using any standard. I haz a sad.

I was talking about guys on the margins ($0.5-3M). But if you wanna talk trades or big signings...

Very difficult/costly to acquire, for various reasons, and their OBP:

BJ Upton (.298)
Justin Upton (.355)
Michael Morse (.321)
Martin Prado (.359)
Denard Span (.342)
Dexter Fowler (.389)
Jacoby Ellsbury (.313)
Mark Trumbo (.317)

Somewhat difficult/costly to acquire:

Jason Kubel (.327)
Michael Cuddyer (.317)

Fowler's the only realistic target who jumps out at me there. But the price on him is sky high, reportedly. Would you have done, like, Brown and Biddle and Joseph/Valle? (Assuming the Rockies even like Brown.)

Barry Jive wrote:if he has a career year at the plate he'll be worth about 2 wins

.298/.333 /.493 =.826 -- 124 OPS +. If he has a career year he will top that. I'll take it. But like I posted before, he has a one in 17 chance of doing that.

One thing I've read here is how important it is to "get into the other team's bullpen," That used to be a lot more important than it is today. Many (most?) teams' bullpens are better than their starting pitchers.

The weight clause thing is interesting. How much did Young weigh last year?

I think if the Phils signed Young to motivate Brown, Ruf and Mayberry and intend on cutting Young after Spring Training it would be way cool. Plus, Chuck makes an example of a bad apple. That would be brilliant. It ain't reality but it would be fun to go on a talk show and throw out this theory.