Brad Hand has found new life in San Diego, with outstanding results, quality peripherals, and success against hitters on both sides of the plate among the desirable attributes. He’s also earning just $1.375MM this year with two more seasons of arbitration control remaining, making him a future piece as well as an impact late-season target. But we’ve also heard that the Padres are placing quite a lofty asking price on the southpaw.
Here’s the latest on Hand:
- San Diego will not deal away Hand barring a sudden change in the next few minutes, Joel Sherman of the New York Post tweets.
- There’s now some increased discussion brewing on Hand, per Heyman (via Twitter). In addition to the Nats, he tabs the Astros and Dodgers as possible suitors, along with the Yankees and Indians — though, to be clear, it’s not immediately apparent just which of these clubs are engaged with San Diego right now.
- As many as four teams are still looking into Hand at this point, according to MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell (via Twitter). It could come down to the wire as to whether Hand will be traded today, Cassavell adds.
- It’s not immediately clear just which organizations have ongoing interest at this stage, but one appears to be the Nationals, Jon Heyman of Fan Rag notes on Twitter.
AJ playing his HAND well. No reason to bend, let a desperate buyer pay the worthy price or hold on to the asset who will still have 2 controllable years.
He’s going to find teams wanting to give him the same returns at the Winter Meetings too. Not like someone’s gonna jump to trade the top 10 MLB prospect plus for Hand. He’s good, but not that good.
Yeah, he won’t find teams offering the same returns because during the off season they can trade their 2017 drafted players and include them in deals. In the current deals there are exceptions for many teams because those players can’t be included in deals yet even though they may be ranked highly in the organization.
A team like Texas could easily include their 2017 1st round pick Chris Seise- their #7 prospect according to mlb.com- or Hans Clouse their #6 who arent going to be ready until 2021 ish, but they can’t currently include them in deals.
They can trade them now as well as PTBNL
Fellow Pads fan, but prefer that AJ just takes highest bidder (assuming it’s a solid prospect- doesn’t have to be top tier). Risk of injury (see Tyson Ross) or performance decline (Hand’s track record is short) makes me nervous to hold on to him.
he’s never been injured other than an ankle and seems to have a rubber arm. I agree I’d rather part ways now, but it won’t be terrible if we keep him.
Tyson Ross has garbage mechanics he couldn’t repeat and a long history of injuries. Hand has about a low effort delivery as they come and has no notable injuries to speak of. Comparing the to, or even having one influence the other, is dumb. A decline in performance is more of a concern, because Hand has always been effectively wild with his sweeping slider. But based on the rumored returns, teams are already pricing him like he’s regressed, so i’d imagine that the deals on the table now will more or less be available at the winter meetings. However, with him closing now, there’s a chance he racks up 20 or 30 saves (he’s already at 6 or 7), which will definitely move the needle
They said Mark Prior, Mark Mulder had great mechanics too. To me, the risk of holding Hand outweighs the potential reward of a slightly higher offseason haul.
Mark Prior’s mechanics were always terrible; for some reason when he came up this odd myth came up about his “perfect” mechanics when scouts at the time were expressing real concern.
I think it also depends on the team they end up trading with. They would be better off getting something back from a team like the Dodgers or Astros since they have deeper farms. But there’s only a few hours left, so we’ll see.
Either trade him during the offseason or approach him with an extension to buy out his 2 arb years and 2 free agent years.
Andrew Miller got what 4 years 36 mill from the Yankees? Accounting for prices going up for players I do think a 4 year 44 mill contract that is either front loaded or back loaded for Hand makes sense for long term security for him and gives him the ability to seek another contract in his early 30s and gives the padres more control over him.
That’s so unnecessary. I’d guess even with a raise in arbitration he’s not going to make more than like $4M next year… no need to pay him 11M and then have your highest paid player be a reliever.
He’s been great but a rebuilding team shouldn’t really be extending relievers when they have so many other holes.
It has an AAV of 11 mill, but my thinking is like 2 year 16-18 mill for arb which is 8-9 each in order to buy out 2 free agent years at like 26-28 mill or 13-14 mill. Which, by the time 2019 comes around, 13-14 mill which is about what a closer is worth now. But the 4 year 44 mill is a max offer for Hand. Ideally it’d be somewhere between 30 and 40 mill total, but it can be tricky to buy out arb years and 2 free agent years. But a 4 year deal extends their control till end of 2021.
The AAV vs. backloading the deal doesn’t really matter to my point that the main issue would be that they’re a rebuilding team who would have one of the ten highest paid relievers in baseball. That’s a waste of resources especially when they consistently show the ability to cultivate bullpen talent.
Hand is really really good, but Jose Torres and Phil Maton are also pretty good and will only make 500K next year. Is Hand so necessary to a non-contending Padres in 2018 that he needs to make 20x what they do?
Is Hand necessary? No. But is it necessary to keep him and not lose him for essentially nothing? Yes, it is. If teams aren’t meeting the price why let his team control diminish? The obvious choice is trade him, but in the event a deal worth trading him doesn’t materialize you need to consider extending him. If no deal comes during the offseason then Padres need to consider a long term deal with Hand, but top priority is trading him.
Also, What Hand makes between 2018- 2021 doesnt really matter because majority of their talent wont be arb eligible or will be hitting arb until then anyways and money is coming off the books end of 2019-2020.
Here’s a look at their arb eligibility for long term assets.
Hedges- 2020-2022
Renfoe 2020-2022
Margot 2020-2022
Torres 2020-2022
Since Maton and Asuaje came up mid season they could be arb eligible 2021-2023. Not 100% sure on them.
Everybody else coming up in 2018, 2019, 202 is going to be between 2021-2023, 2022-2024, etc. In no way does a long term deal for Hand till 2021 prevent the Padres from extending these players or paying players who are coming up in 2018, 2019, 2020 etc or signing free agents to fill positions of need.
Hand making that much has 0 impact on the Padres 2018, 2019, 2020 seasons because theyre going to have cheap options available to them
But if you front load his 4 year deal for 2018 and 2019 then it becomes even less of a factor in 2020 and 2021 because he will be making less in those years leaving more room for spending.
I’m not advocating trading him for nothing, they can certainly keep him and market him this offseason or next year at the deadline if the price isn’t met. My position is that offering him an extension is a mistake.
The Padres can’t afford to allocate that significant percentage of their payroll to a bullpen piece through a rebuild. I get what you’re saying about most of the team being Pre-Arb, but in 2019 shouldn’t they be focusing on buying out Margot + Hedges arb years and a couple FA years rather than paying Hand like 15% of your payroll? Or they could spend the 10-15M you’re suggesting they spend to extend hand on a LF, 3B, SS or SP, all significant areas of need for the team that are more important than RP.
Margot and Hedges have 3 years of arb come 2020, 2021, 2022. The Padres can wait to extend them after 2021, which is when Hands deal would expire or their replacements would be ready. Who knows what the future holds. A Hand deal doesn’t prevent them from buying out Margot and Hedges arb years and FA years. Paying Hand 13 or 14 mill a season plus whatever myers is owed plus arb for margot hedges dickerson (if hes the LF) isnt going to put the Padres anywhere close to their “cap” limit.
As far as LF, SP, 3B and SS goes. The padres have enough time to see what they have in Lauer, Quantril, Gore, Lucchessi, Nix, Allen, Baez, Morejon etc. before deciding they need to go out and spend on a SP. With Tatis Jr, Urias, Potts etc and Villanueva padres have 3B options working through the minors who also won’t be arb eligible till 2021 at the earliest. LF you have Ona, House, Cordero, in the minors plus Pirela, Dickerson, Jankowski as options at the ML level. The only real need you listed where they dont have options is SS. Other than SS Padres do have options and plenty of them.
Miller has such better numbers than Hand, and it’s not even close. It’s actually laughable how much they’re compared, because while Hand has been good-to-great, Miller has been straight up unworldly. It’s like comparing (prime) Heath Bell to Mariano Rivera
When Miller was 27, he was having a 3.35 ERA, 3.27 FIP season with the Red Sox, with a 0.8 WAR.
By comparison, Hand is 2.00 ERA, 2.52 FIP at age 27, 2.1 WAR (so far).
You’re right, it is kind of comparing Rivera to Heath Bell.
In all seriousness, if Hand can keep up his current level of production, I see no reason why he can’t be compared to Miller, he just doesn’t have the “track record”.
There’s also the fact that Miller both strikes out significantly more batters (14 k/9 vs, 11.4) while walking a lot fewer (since 2014, Miller is at 2.1 bb/9 vs 3.1 for Hand. His SO/W is 6.72, Hand’s is 3.62) . And that he’s done it in both high leverage late game situations, and in the playoffs. Brad Hand wasn’t even the setup man until pretty recently, he was a swing man middle reliever.
Miller also didn’t sign the contract as a 27 year old, which is when he was in his first season of relief. He signed that deal as a 30 year old, on the tail of a 3 year run posting a 2.57 ERA with a 1.050 WHIP and 13.6 k/9.
So in 3 years, if Hand not only maintains, but also improves his performance, you can start comparing him accurately to Miller. But right now, Hand is not even close to the equivalent of Andrew Miller, and pricing him, either a contract or in trade returns, as such is silly
Cmon stop it when people start comparing Hand to Miller it just makes you look stupid.
That’s not a knock on Hand he is very good and should demand a quality return however Miller is arguably the very best reliever in the game so stop using that as a comparable.
ugh, don’t bother using logic and “facts” with some of these pads fans…i was told that because high leverage situations and playoff experience wasn’t in the war stat for pitchers that it was “laughable” to use it as a variable when weighing Hand’s current value. I love how a couple kids learn some basic sabermetrics and they think they should be advising gms. war is a great way to quantify player performance but to treat it as the only analytical tool in your toolbox is shortsighted. sorry, I digressed…I just wanted to warn you that some of these cats have blinders on.
How about a little less cherry picking and you pick seasons when Hand was actually relevant?
Let’s compare the first 2 seasons of exclusive relief of Miller vs Hand, and tell me how pretty that looks.
Miller (2012 – 2013) 71 IP, 3.05 ERA, 3.12 FIP, 1.268 WHIP, 2.68 SO/W
Hand (2016 – 2017) 143.1 IP, 2.57 ERA, 2.86 FIP, 1.052 WHIP, 3.62 SO/W
Also keep in mind that 2017 is not even done and Hand has more than twice as many innings as Miller had during that 2 year span. For the sake of “current value”, let’s compare Hand’s 2017 vs Miller’s NYY 2016:
Hand (2017) 54 IP, 2.00 ERA, 2.52 FIP, 5.0 SO/W, 0.963 WHIP
Miller (2016) 45.1 IP, 1.39 ERA, 1.78 FIP, 11 SO/W, 0.772 WHIP
Clearly Miller was better, but Hand is also cheaper and younger, which is definitively an edge. While he may not hold out the same value, saying Hand is not comparable to Miller is just being ignorant.
I’m not talking about there first two years as a reliever I’m taking about now Miller is in my opinion the best most versatile reliever in the league. Hand is a poor mans version of that it’s not even arguable period. That is not a knock on Hand because I think Miller is the best at this moment. Hand is clearly a class below Miller at this point. You Pads fans that want to compare him to Miller right now crack me up. You have a valuable asset in Hand and you should request and get a quality return for him let’s leave it that and leave the comparison to Miller out of it because there isn’t one.
While Hand has not been as good as Miller, he is no poor man’s version of anyone. If Miller was traded for a package featuring Justus and Frazier, I don’t see a reason why Hand can’t feature a package of 2 top 100 prospects, or 1 top 50 prospect. I’m not a GM, and I won’t decide if he gets traded or not, but Hand’s value should be “just a bit” lower than that of Miller from last year, IMO.
I’m still waiting for you to define high leverage situations……
Cause in 2017
Mean on base- Hand has a 2.51 FIP and 2.60 xfip
Mean on base in scoring position he has 2.19 FIP and 2.16 xfip
According to fangraphs who LITERALLY have a high leverage, low leverage, medium leverage stat hand has posted:
Low- 3.65 FIP 3.47 xfip
Medium- 1.79 FIP 2.35 xfip
High- 2.37 FIP 2.55 xfip
fangraphs.com/statsplits.aspx?playerid=9111&p…
Course your only argument is “high leverage” isnt the same for losing teams. But hey, keep posting your ignorance man. It gives us all a good laugh when people like Ungerdog post comments with 0 factual detail other than their uneducated opinion.
Seems you cant even grasp basic sabermetrics when they’re literally called LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH LEVERAGE. What did you think they were referring to?
Its your “facts” that are laughable man. Truly laughable
Also, before you refuse to look at the link and continue on with your worthless dribble
2016- FIP, xfip
Low Leverage- 3.60, 3.64
Medium Leverage- 4.13, 3.83
High Leverage- 1.19, 2.39
Nobody on: .215/.283/.380
Men on base: .172/.270/.248
Men in scoring position: .165/.288/.238
2017-
Nobody on base- .220/.278/.340
Men on base- .170/.252/.250
Men in scoring position- .170/.254/.250
But you know, “high leverage situations” defined by you are worth more in trade discussions than defined by fangraphs. Keep up the good work there johnny superscout.
But please at least learn what low, medium, high leverage situations means and what the numbers mean
I am just posting a few stats, please go look at the others and educate yourself. 2016 and 2017 he spent about 1/4 of his innings in high leverage situations.
Well then we agree to disagree Miller is the single most valuable reliever in the game and all things being equal would demand much more in a trade then Hand.
you’re funny. take a deep breath – remember to breathe.
Why hasn’t Chacin been traded yet? There is no excuse for not trading him.
Couldn’t agree more. he’s dirt cheap and has been pitching quite well lately, makes no sense that he hasn’t been dealt. A team like the Nationals could use both Hand and Chacin.
I wouldn’t mind if SD keeps him around, as Clayton Richard has been garbage and we have no other options to ease the innings on the young pitchers.
Doesn’t matter. Any prospect is better than just letting Chacin walk for nothing and nothing says we can’t do what the Yankees did with Chapman and trade him then re-sign him.
What I mean is, SD has literally nobody to take his place in the rotation, even in AAA, They need to have someone out there, a warm body that can eat some innings, and that’s important because overtaxing the young arms can be a very bad thing to do. Protecting the staff is a good thing.
Maybe they could package him in a deal with Hand? I get that the Padres need a guy like him to eat innings, but I’m sure they could find some guy on waivers to take his place in the rotation. It’s not like they need someone good either. They’re tanking this year, and trading chacin before he walks while replacing him with some random veteran free agent might actually help them in terms of draft position.
Easy. Reinstate Jered Weaver from the fake DL.
The problem is Weaver can’t eat innings. Sure, he can give up 7 runs in a frame, which is good for tanking, but then you remove him and the bullpen gets taxed.
Oh well. We aren’t winning shxt this year anyway.
Right? What a complete waste of 3 million dollars. Weaver was absolutely atrocious before going on the fathom “DL”
*phantom
I’m sure he’ll be gone soon
There’s multiple good reasons to keep him – the dearth of SP depth to replace him; he’s a Spanish-speaking veteran SP on a team with multiple only-Spanish speaking rookie infielders, including a Rule 5 catcher; constantly being on the losing ends of blow outs is bad for player development.
They should trade him, but only if they get something that could at least plausibly useful in the future. Swapping him for a bag of baseballs, or some 26 year that couldn’t get out of double A, doesn’t serve any purpose. You’re better off keeping him as a tutor for Torrens and Lamet/Perdomo at that point.
Those aren’t reasons! Keeping Chacin for the rest of this season will not make the Padres win ONE extra game in 2018 and beyond. The 26 year old in AA might tho.
Yeah, and that guy in AA needs to keep developing instead of being rushed and destroyed in MLB. If you’re not getting something useful out of dealing Chacin, then just keep him, no point on dealing guys just for the sake of doing so. There are a lot of warm bodies in the MiLB as it is.
I never said rush that guy to MLB. Just bring up the best AAA starter. And of course there is a reason to trade Chacin for the sake of doing so NITWIT! That reason: if you don’t trade him you will get jack SQUAT for him!
The Padres have crappy AAAA pitchers in El Paso that they can bring up to eat his innings.
All of the Padres legit pitching prospects are in AA and below. There’s no danger of stunting their development. Kyle Lloyd, Dillon Overton, Zach Lee are all in AAA and they aren’t prospects so there is no issue if they come up and soak up some innings.
Yes, all three of those pitchers are bad, but who cares if they lose? They’re not going to the playoffs either way.
No idea why Chacin is still a Padre right now. Stammen as well, he has pitched to well to not get something back in return. Richard is the only one I understand probably isn’t garnering any interest because he has just been mediocre lately.
C’mon AJ get rid of all the rentals.
Personally, I’d be 100% fine with signing Chacin to another 1yr deal with an option next year. The guys been solid, is a good clubhouse guy, has pitched pretty well, and we’re still a year away from the kids coming up. He may need 1 more solid year to up his value too.
Trading Chacin wouldn’t have barred us from doing that dummy
Yeah we could have traded him and got value back and then re-signed him again in the offseason. The Yankees demonstrated that perfectly last year/this offseason with Chapman.
Not trading Chacin is arrogant by Preller. It seems like if he isn’t going to get extreme talent in return then he doesn’t make a deal and that is with any player.. You got to get what you can for guys that are going to be free in 3 months, makes no sense not too.
“I know it’s easy for somebody to say, ‘Well, he’s a free agent at the end of the year, just take anything.’ We’re not looking at it that way. We’ve built our system up to the point where just to take a non-prospect for the purpose of making a trade, we weren’t interested in doing that.” AJ Preller on the topic, and I couldn’t agree more. Just let him pitch here if you can’t get anything of value.
Comparing Chacin to Chapman is just silly.
Personally I wouldn’t mind if AJ keeps Hand around. If the offers aren’t good enough, no rush to deal him just for the sake of doing so. While I agree his value might never be higher, it’s pointless if you’re not getting his value in offers. Keep him around and deal him in the off season, at the next deadline, or play him out a bit more, I wouldn’t mind any of those outcomes. I would mind if we deal him for less than what’s he’s worth.
So, a Hand in the pen, is worth undisclosed prospects in a bush?
Nats have enough lefties. Need to make a play on Osuna.
In a sign of team unity… they are holding their hand.
I hate teams that do this! They say they are going to trade a player and then next thing you know they say we aren’t going to trade him! First Verlander and now Hand! Get it together teams! If your planing on trading someone then trade him and get someone for him!
You’d be a great businessman..
Preller is left with his d!@& in his hand.
Got lost on your way to the Penthouse forums?
You might say San Diego overplayed their Hand.
Not saying this will happen, but what happens if Hand finishes the season poorly? How much does it hurt their return? Surely his value goes down just on losing these last couple months of the season when a contender really could’ve used him. I just don’t see the logic in holding on to Hand. I don’t see his value going any higher.
If his value “might not be higher” but you get offered a bag of peanuts and a dozen baseballs, do you make that deal? I for once I’m glad AJ didn’t make a deal just for the sake of doing so.
If somebody offered me a bag peanuts and a dozen balls for my $10 bill yeah I would do that. Maybe SD was getting low balled or maybe not but lets not act like Hand is the golden ticket to October. Obviously we don’t know what exactly was offered, but I think holding on to Hand is way too risky when you’re clearly not gonna win soon and his value cannot be any higher.
So Preller is going to be roasted over the coals for not trading Hand, which could be understandable if he was turnig down great offers. From eveyrthing I’ve heard/read, he was being offered teams 15-20 rated prospects, which with the Padres system being so deep, would have probably fallen outside of their top 30. Now if he had made a deal for such “low level prospects” he would have been trashed on this site as well. He was in a no win situation when it comes to regular people like us who offer their opinions on these sites. If he had taken a low ball offer, it would have set him up for never being offered top talent in any deal going forward. Although I would have liked a trade of Hand to help further the rebuild and strenghen the farm system, waiting and dealing him over the winter or at next years deadline will have to do. It will be very interesting to see how the teams bullpens who were connected to Hand preform for the rest of the year.
Some Padre fans may compare Hand to Miller, which is pushing it, but the Astros thinking they are going to get comparable pitching from Liriano as opposed to Hand is ludacris.
Do you have sources for this “only 15-20 range prospect” return? Justin Wilson went for more than that, so I find that claim to be terribly hard to believe.
It was this website. Yesterday I believe.
I see a single one that says Crasnick has heard that most of the offers are that. That doesn’t sound very reliable to me with what we have seen other people go for. Justin Wilson, for example.
Justin Wilson was traded with Alex Avila to get the return the Tigers got from the Cubs, so comparing that deal with a deal for Hand alone is not accurate. And the “15-20 prospect” range was on MLBTR yesterday.
Justin Wilson also had less years of control and the market for avila wasn’t huge. Offensive players just weren’t going for much at this deadline. I just find it hard to believe that, especially since there is only a single source of that info.
AJ Ramos went for 2 players in the backend of the mets top 20, as another example. This is probably a case of where only the crazy outliers are reported (goldschmidt for kimbrel) because the market simply doesn’t show that they would have only received that type of offer for Hand.
Preller won’t be roasted for Hand but will fit giving Myers 83 mil for his pathetic play
Can wait for the team bullpens connected to Hand get lit up in the playoffs just for not wanting to pay the price. Last years playoffs were dominated by Miller and Chapman if a team is gonna make it far in the playoffs it’s gonna need to have shutdown relievers
I would hardly say that chapman dominated the post season. 3.45/2.64 era fip up from 1.55/1.42 regular season
CLE and CHC got to the WS because they got Miller and Chapman. CLE lost the WS because they oversued Miller, and CHI nearly lost game 7 for overusing Chapman. Moral of the story is, you can never have enough elite relief pitchers on the post season, and yet nobody was willing to meet the price for Hand. Oh the irony.
They did not get to the world series because of chapman, but ok.
If the point of acquiring an elite reliever is because you can use them more in the post season due to days off, doesn’t it defeat the purpose of that if we see both teams that paid for that being hurt by those players not actually being able to provide production in the manner the teams expected they were getting?
They got there because they upgraded their teams with them.
“If the point of acquiring an elite reliever is because you can use them more in the post season due to days off, doesn’t it defeat the purpose of that if we see both teams that paid for that being hurt by those players not actually being able to provide production in the manner the teams expected they were getting?”
YES. And that happens when you don’t have more options available. For example if the Dodgers had Jensen AND Hand, they sure would be a lot less pressed to use Jensen before the 9th inning, thus easing the workload for him and the bullpen in general.
” . . . if a team is gonna make it far in the playoffs it’s gonna need to have shutdown relievers.”
Nonsense. There is more than one way to win a title. Battering your opponent offensively makes “shutdown” relievers moot. If you want to make your point here, a comparison/analysis of how championship teams have done over time both with and without said stud relievers would be useful. Whereas your naked, unsourced assertion isn’t.
If teams decided that Hand wasn’t worth to them what SD was asking it was right and appropriate to pass.
Good pitching beats good hitting, there won’t be much “battering” in the postseason if you carry 3 strong starters and a strong bullpen. Good hitting gives you a fighting chance against it, but you won’t make it far into October without a strong trio and a strong bullpen,
Look at the 2016 Blue Jays, the offense was downright scary, and it went down 4-1.
“but you won’t make it far into October without a strong trio and a strong bullpen” Yeah, that 2015 royals starting trio was NASTY…
There is no single, surefire way to win a wold series. Which we have seen time and time again.
Baseball is a game with a huge amount of variance in small sample performances and when the playoffs boil down to a collection of small sample series, we’ve seen plenty of times, that the best team does not always leave as the winner.
Your comment is comprised of one unsourced, evidence-free, assertion after another. Just as an example:
“Good pitching beats good hitting.”
Of course it does. Shutting down good hitting is the very definition of good pitching. It is a tautological, hence meaningless, statement. Any pitching which does not shut down the opposition will not be considered good and any pitching which does shutdown the opposition will be considered good.
I realize you will hear truisms like that from most radio talk shows, uninformed broadcasters and casual fans but those are a poor substitute for actual, you know, proof.
“Look at the 2016 Blue Jays . . .”
No, look at every year since the current divisional alignment was put in place. Or since the last expansion team was added. Pointing to one team’s fate in one year’s playoffs is the definition of small sample size. If you want to make an overall point about the role of good pitching vs. good hitting in the playoffs, much more analysis is needed.
If you cherry pick, you will always find teams that go against these general rules.
“No, look at every year since the current divisional alignment was put in place. Or since the last expansion team was added. Pointing to one team’s fate in one year’s playoffs is the definition of small sample size. If you want to make an overall point about the role of good pitching vs. good hitting in the playoffs, much more analysis is needed.”
You beat me there, you are absolutely correct. But I still firmly believe that my point stands, even if I’m not nerdy enough to search more arguments.
“I still firmly believe that my point stands, even if I’m not nerdy enough to search more arguments.”
Fair enough. You certainly have the right attitude. But finding the answers to these questions is easier than you may think. Others have already done much of the work. Tango, Lichtman and Dolphin’s “The Book”, “The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract” and Keith Law’s new “Smart Baseball” are fine places to start.
To conclude, I’ll just share a few words from the guru himself, Bill James:
“The foundation rock of what I do is that I am NOT an expert–or actually, that I do not rely on my credentials. An expert takes the position that you should accept what I say because I know more about this than you do. When I began writing about baseball in 1975 I was very aware that I was not an expert, that there was no reason that anyone should believe what I say merely because I say it. Everything has to meet the standard of proof. I have to find ways or invent ways to say things that others do not know, but which anyone who wants to take the time and make the effort to do so can confirm to be accurate.
It is this realization that separates sabermetrics from sportswriting. Sportswriting tolerates BS, on the theory that experts know things that don’t need to be proven. Sabermetrics–like any other field of knowledge–expects you to provide evidence, expects you to back off in the face of better evidence, and anticipates and welcomes the development of more evidence, even when that additional evidence forces us to admit that what we said before was not correct.”
“It is this realization that separates sabermetrics from sportswriting. Sportswriting tolerates BS, on the theory that experts know things that don’t need to be proven. Sabermetrics–like any other field of knowledge–expects you to provide evidence, expects you to back off in the face of better evidence, and anticipates and welcomes the development of more evidence, even when that additional evidence forces us to admit that what we said before was not correct.”
No evidence was presented to me that states that I am incorrect. It’s just that I’m not in the mood to search for the evidence to back up my beliefs. If you can present me with clear unbiased evidence that having a strong pitching staff is not key to going deep into October (and not just random cases that managed to do so without them), I guess I shall admit that what I said before was not correct.
“No evidence was presented to me that states that I am incorrect.”
You presented no evidence that you were correct, you merely stated an opinion–which combined with two and a half bucks will buy you a ride on the subway.
The assertion, “Good pitching beats good hitting”‘ for example, was made by you, hence the burden is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it. Once you have gone forward and presented an actual argument supported by evidence the burden then shifts to me to refute it if I can. The only refutation an opinion requires is a contrary opinion. I choose not to get involved in an exchange of opinions as the exercise serves no useful purpose.
Adopting the approach you are suggesting, shifting the burden of proof to the person who questions a statement of alleged fact rather than the person who uttered that statement is dysfunctional. I could take the time to disprove much of what you have stated in this subthread–but it would take some time. And why should I invest my time when you chose not to invest more than a quick, unsourced opinion.
I’m trying to say this in as inoffensive a manner as possible but…. Merely stating an opinion does not entitle you to a substantive response. You know what’s really a matter of opinion? Ice cream. What’s your favorite flavor. Or pizza, what do you like on yours. Doesn’t matter what you choose, it’s guaranteed to be the correct answer.
But whether pitching or offense is more critical to a team’s postseason success is a matter of fact not opinion. We may not have the tools to answer some questions yet but that doesn’t mean that the answers aren’t out there waiting to be found. Opinions are like um, noses. Everybody has one and quite a few of them smell. Cheers.
yeah, w/e.
The Padres are risking injury and performance decline by holding onto Hand, but this really seemed to be a strong buyers market and they wanted way too much for him.
Trade Hand with Myers contract included and get what u can
Hipster trying to be hip