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2021 Spring Training Thread

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After Daniel Johnson's ringing run-scoring double today, Tom Hamilton said, "No one's even thinking about this guy."

Yeah, right, Tom.
Who, where was DJ playing in the field?

Oh yeah, clearly Tom doesn't visit our family here at RCF. LOL!
 
Uh...I dont know what you are looking at, but according to fangraphs, his dWAR has been...

2.8
1.3
5.9
2.7
CATS, I saw those numbers under DEF column right next to the WAR column over at Fangraphs and they don't really make a lot of sense to me at all. The column header explanation doesn't help, nor does the glossary. If the values shown in the OFF and DEF categories were to be taken at face value, Amed Rosario is an all-field, no-hit guy and that's not credible.

Instead, I went to Fangraphs glossary to see what they lean on for defensive stats and this was what is contained there:

Recently, we’ve settled on defensive metrics measured in “runs saved.” The two most popular ones are Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), but there are other efforts to capture the same idea. How many runs does a player prevent while playing the field? That fundamental question sets up everything we’re doing with respect to defensive statistics. There may be other ways to measure skill, and skill certainly predicts the future better than past results, but if we want to measure how well we believe a player has performed, we want to measure the runs he has prevented.

From that perspective, this is how Amed Rosario has fared in the DRS (defensive runs saved) and UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating normalized over 150 games) categories during his time with the Mets:

{apology for the awkward graph; columns are impossible in this format}

2017 Innings @ SS 375 DRS -6 UZR/150 3.5
2018 Innings @ SS 1272 DRS -16 UZR/150 -5.6
2019 Innings @ SS 1337 DRS -10 UZR/150 -0.6
2020 Innings @ SS 322 DRS -3 UZR/150 3.5

What this indicates to me is that Amed Rosario is not the butcher at shortstop I was led to believe. His reputation as a poor defender is most likely entirely due to being thrown into the job full time in 2018 and scuffling at age 22 with high expectations. He has improved at the position since, to the point where he was likely a net neutral defender at short in 2020.

Now, let me say, I'd prefer an unambiguously positive defender at shortstop, which Rosario likely is not, and, to be honest, Andres Gimenez may be, but only due to reputation and reports (he played only 182 innings at SS for the Mets last year and his DRS and UZR/150 aren't much better than Rosario's).

So, looking at these numbers, I'm inclined to say that if the Tribe wants to go with Rosario at short to start the year and stash Gimenez at AAA, I'm OK with it. Given his extensive major league seasoning, an argument could be made that Amed might handle the expectations of a new season better than Andres would, making any defensive difference between them negligible. And not only would this allow the Tribe to realize an additional year of control over Gimenez, increasing his asset value, but if Amed Rosario proves a capable everyday shortstop and hits as well, wouldn't that restore his shine and increase his trade value dramatically?
 
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I little windy by the end of the game and 4 E's but still, the weather...
IMG_0893.jpg
What's up with that big yellow thing and what the hell is wrong with the sky? I've never seen a solid blue cloud before.
 
Who, where was DJ playing in the field?

Oh yeah, clearly Tom doesn't visit our family here at RCF. LOL!
Daniel Johnson in RF.. Zimmer in CF.. Eddie Rosario in LF..
 
Ya'all realize Amed Rosario has all of 175 AB's as a Major Leaguer and six errors in parts of six major league seasons?.. Perhaps the die isn't cast quite yet on what he is.. or what he isn't.. but if fangraphs says he has UZR and DRS value at all.. it's incomplete.. unrepresentative and, otherwise, horseshit as far as what this guy will be doing on the field or at bat..

...you guys/girls need a new topic...
 
Ya'all realize Amed Rosario has all of 175 AB's as a Major Leaguer and six errors in parts of six major league seasons?.. Perhaps the die isn't cast quite yet on what he is.. or what he isn't.. but if fangraphs says he has UZR and DRS value at all.. it's incomplete.. unrepresentative and, otherwise, horseshit as far as what this guy will be doing on the field or at bat..

...you guys/girls need a new topic...
That's got to be a different player?
 
Ya'all realize Amed Rosario has all of 175 AB's as a Major Leaguer and six errors in parts of six major league seasons?.. Perhaps the die isn't cast quite yet on what he is.. or what he isn't.. but if fangraphs says he has UZR and DRS value at all.. it's incomplete.. unrepresentative and, otherwise, horseshit as far as what this guy will be doing on the field or at bat..

...you guys/girls need a new topic...
The parts in bold are not true Gson.

Not sure where you saw that info to write your post but its way off.

Try 4 seasons... 403 gms 1478 AB... 3306 Innings at SS (1335 chances) and 41 errors..
 
We got to reign it in on stats here...we were doing so well too.

Fangraphs defensive rating isn't dWAR and it heavily skews towards important defensive positions, regardless of actual performance. Eric Hosmer won a Gold Glove with a -12.8 mark in 2017, because he plays 1B and 1B isn't as important of a position defensively as SS. That stat is good for ordering players who play the same position, but it isn't a tell all.

Kudos to the poster who in turn responded with UZR, DRS, RngR, etc; all of which Rosario touts career negative marks.

Rosario is arguably the worst defensive SS in camp right now.
 
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We got to reign it in on stats here...we were doing so well too.

Fangraphs defensive rating isn't dWAR and it heavily skews towards important defensive positions, regardless of actual performance. Eric Hosmer won a Gold Glove with a -12.8 mark in 2017, because he plays 1B and 1B isn't as important of a position defensively as SS. That stat is good for ordering players who play the same position, but it isn't a tell all.

Kudos to the poster who in turn responded with UZR, DRS, RngR, etc; all of which Rosario touts career negative marks.

Rosario is arguably the worst defensive SS in camp right now.
To add, in 2019 (went back to there because it was an actual full season) Rosario ranked 13th of 25 qualified SS in their defensive value metric.

I don't think he's horrible, but between that and his dWAR, along with the eye test, he appears to be average or probably slightly below average at SS.
 
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To add, in 2019 (went back to there because it was an actual full season) Rosario ranked 13th of 25 qualified SS in their defensive value metric.

I don't think he's horrible, but between that and his dWAR, along with the eye test, he appears to be average or probably slightly below average at SS.

Yeah, there is a difference between a bad fielding guy and the worst guy compared to his teammates. Rosario is serviceable at SS, but in comparison to other options on the team, he isn't good.

He just has to share the position with Gimenez and Arias in camp and both make him and Freeman look like HS players at SS.
 
Yeah, there is a difference between a bad fielding guy and the worst guy compared to his teammates. Rosario is serviceable at SS, but in comparison to other options on the team, he isn't good.

He just has to share the position with Gimenez and Arias in camp and both make him and Freeman look like HS players at SS.
Any sightings of Brayan Rocchio? How has he looked??
 
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Any sightings of Brayan Rocchio? How has he looked??

He isn't getting much time on the main field, he's been predominantly on the back fields.

But he looks good. Added a good bit of weight, cleaned his swing up a bit, and still real smooth at SS. I mentioned it elsewhere, but Gimenez, Arias, and him are the only long term SS in camp this year, IMO.

Back fields this year have been a lot of fun with him, Valera, Palacios, Fermin, Benson, Lavastida, and Yanier Diaz all back there.

They love, love, love Lavastida and Diaz. Both of those guys can really hit as Cs. Lavastida is very fundamentally sound at C, Diaz is more rough around the edges but has an absolute cannon. They're both getting the Sandy treatment early on too, which will only help them.
 
Is there anywhere to listen to ST games on the internet?
 
I dont care much about defensive metrics, because they just don't agree. In fact, they often aren't even close. I'd much rather see with my own eyes. Since I've never seen ARosa, they are all I can go on.

I do know this. He was totally mishandled in NY, and things snowballed from there. Off the top of my head, the only player I've seen that was handled worse was Casey Blake, who should have been in MLB three years earlier. It is unfathomable that three orgs let him slip away for nothing.

I know this, too. As a prospect, he is the highest rated position prospect weve had since probably Sandy Alomar. Had he not been called up at least a year too soon, and we had traded for him two years ago, the same folks that dismiss him now would have been drooling.

He was the ultimate buy low candidate, and if the general concensus is true, we got him as a throw in. (I have my doubts)
And the FO thinks enough of him that he isn't in Cincinnati's lineup right now.

My hope is that he becomes our new Casey Blake, playing full time at whatever position of need we have at the moment...which right now is shortstop. It could be 2B next year....or an outfield spot. Or, he could build up value as a regular this year for a trade after the season.

Since nobody on here has spent much, if any, time watching him play, the only things we can go on are stats, scouting reports, and narrative. The narrative out of NY is totally negative, just like it was on Peralta here and on Blake in Minnesota....and in the latter two cases, the narrative was completely false.

IMO the prospects can wait. Lets put Rosario at short and see what happens, because he was a far better prospect...far better...than anybody we have today.

In fact, the FO and Tito could show him some real love and tell him he's gonna be an everyday player. If you look at his statcast numbers, you see a clear progression across the board...AEV trending up, the same with launch angle and hard hit rate. Then, everything fell off a cliff last year as the Gimenez hype increased.

Think JRam when he was our starting SS and kept hearing about Lindor. Jose really struggled in that situation, but took off as soon as that pressure was gone.

We are all hoping that somebody on this roster blows up into a suddenly productive player this season. The most likely is Amed Rosario.
 

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