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2023 Guardians Spring Training Thread

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I'd take Berto back as a backup in a NY minute, if the FO still feels he has defensive chops that haven't regressed too much.

I wouldn't expect anything from his bat and I wouldn't expect him to be able to carry much of a work load, but he already knows the rotation, and he would be yet another coach on the field. Nobody is a better handler of pitchers.
 
BimboColesHair said:
No one is talking about all of your opinions.

We're talking about your opinion that Amed is a plus SS defensively, a top 10 defensive shortstop because flawed stats say he is and you basing your argument around those flawed stats.

I can promise you, no one is baseball views Amed as a plus SS defensively, a top 10 defensive shortstop. Including the decision makers putting him in the lineup every day.
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Question is how many view Arias / Rocchio as "plus" defensively. I'm guessing there's a lot of doubt there as well. Gimenez on the other hand, there should be no doubt.
 
CATS44 said:
Well, lets see....

My early opinions were correct on 'power' and 'tools' prospects, like Zimmer, Bradley, Chang, Johnson, Jones, and Benson. My early opinions were correct on Gimenez and on Josh Naylor.

Generally, my opinions on 'contact', 'hit tools', and 'skills' prospects...going back nearly a decade...were correct, beginning with a young, unknown kid in the Southern League by the name of Brantley.

Almost all..if not all...were minority opinions.

And, beginning in about 2016, this org made major changes in its talent acquisition parameters that mostly agreed with me. Now, what do we have? A n active roster, consisting of nearly nothing, but high contact batters with bat to ball skills.

And so far the decision makers have put Amed and Straw in the starting lineups and Plesac in the rotation.

More than anybody else on this forum, I pay attention to health histories. Two most recent examples in this org are Espino and Morris. When Espino didn't come back by June last year, we were assured that there was nothing wrong and that it was merely a matter of being overly cautious...which was total BS. Many on this forum were sure that Morris was gonna begin the season in the rotation, in spite of the fact that he has never thrown even 100 innings in a season.

Many point to the key players on the Twins and White Sox as better than ours, while consistently ignoring the major fact that they can't stay healthy.

More than most on here, I am particularly cynical about prospects and their likelihood of being major, consistent upgrades the moment they get to Cleveland. It seldom works that way.

More than many on here, I value defense very highly. I ignore position 'profiles'. I dont care where offense comes from, and what position it comes from, but I do care about defense. Give me Kwan as a corner bat over Eloy Jimenez every day of the week.

I have been VERY wrong about two Cleveland players over the last decade.

Franmil is still a total mystery to me.

And I still am mystified that over several years McAllister was never able to master a third pitch.

The only problem I have with this org...and I have been vocal about it...is its refusal to trade prospects until they lose all their value. We've watched that happen multiple times. This, in spite of the fact that when it has made such trades, they've hit home runs.

So, go ahead, keep telling me I'm wrong.

A prophet is without honor in his own land.
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Someone tells you "Hey, you're objectively misinterpreting what these statistics say."

Is your response seriously "Look at all these predictions I was right on!"?

That's like my toddler telling me "Daddy, I pooped" and me responding "I got near perfect test scores on my SATs and ACTs!" It's a non sequitur.

Any chance you can try to be more open to conversation in the future? Maybe at least be able to follow a linear conversation instead of going off on a page worth of things that are completely unrelated to the topic of discussion?


(Also, really? A persecution complex? Give me a break)
 
33Y0 said:
"But... but CBS says Amed is a Top 100 player!!" When the hell was the last time anyone gave a crap about what CBS says? When was the last time you even heard anything worth a crap from CBS?

I just posted ESPN's Top 100 and *spoiler* Amed didn't make it. No one here is saying he's a BAD player, but let's cut the crap thinking he's one of our three best players. That's hilariously foolish.
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The same list ranked Jose as the number 13 player in baseball which is ludicrous. I can argue he’s top 5. It’s a shit list.
 
CATS44 said:
Well, lets see....

My early opinions were correct on 'power' and 'tools' prospects, like Zimmer, Bradley, Chang, Johnson, Jones, and Benson. My early opinions were correct on Gimenez and on Josh Naylor.

Generally, my opinions on 'contact', 'hit tools', and 'skills' prospects...going back nearly a decade...were correct, beginning with a young, unknown kid in the Southern League by the name of Brantley.

Almost all..if not all...were minority opinions.

And, beginning in about 2016, this org made major changes in its talent acquisition parameters that mostly agreed with me. Now, what do we have? A n active roster, consisting of nearly nothing, but high contact batters with bat to ball skills.

And so far the decision makers have put Amed and Straw in the starting lineups and Plesac in the rotation.

More than anybody else on this forum, I pay attention to health histories. Two most recent examples in this org are Espino and Morris. When Espino didn't come back by June last year, we were assured that there was nothing wrong and that it was merely a matter of being overly cautious...which was total BS. Many on this forum were sure that Morris was gonna begin the season in the rotation, in spite of the fact that he has never thrown even 100 innings in a season.

Many point to the key players on the Twins and White Sox as better than ours, while consistently ignoring the major fact that they can't stay healthy.

More than most on here, I am particularly cynical about prospects and their likelihood of being major, consistent upgrades the moment they get to Cleveland. It seldom works that way.

More than many on here, I value defense very highly. I ignore position 'profiles'. I dont care where offense comes from, and what position it comes from, but I do care about defense. Give me Kwan as a corner bat over Eloy Jimenez every day of the week.

I have been VERY wrong about two Cleveland players over the last decade.

Franmil is still a total mystery to me.

And I still am mystified that over several years McAllister was never able to master a third pitch.

The only problem I have with this org...and I have been vocal about it...is its refusal to trade prospects until they lose all their value. We've watched that happen multiple times. This, in spite of the fact that when it has made such trades, they've hit home runs.

So, go ahead, keep telling me I'm wrong.

A prophet is without honor in his own land.
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Oh buddy…no…
 
BimboColesHair said:
No one is talking about all of your opinions.

We're talking about your opinion that Amed is a plus SS defensively, a top 10 defensive shortstop because flawed stats say he is and you basing your argument around those flawed stats.

I can promise you, no one is baseball views Amed as a plus SS defensively, a top 10 defensive shortstop. Including the decision makers putting him in the lineup every day.
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I've never said that Amed is a plus SS in the field.

I've merely listed stats that indicate that he is better than folks on here insist.

What I have said...often..is that overall he is average, and that average is a good thing. He is the bird in hand. He is very predictable. Everybody else...all those youngsters that haven't proven a damned thing...are huge question marks.

We are trying to win. Thats the whole point. Amed is a sure thing average player....with intangibles that can't be measured...so few believe in them. The likelihood that any of our kids could equal his overall value to this team this year is very low.

If the FO and Tito didn't believe that..if they truly thought that any of our kids would provide equal value...they wouldn't be paying Amed $7.8 mil. They could have simply non tendered him.

Over the past two seasons there have been 125 qualified position players. Amed, along with Happ, Nathan Lowe and Adam Frazier, ranks 67th in fWAR.

Thats the definition of average.
 
KluberSociety said:
Question is how many view Arias / Rocchio as "plus" defensively. I'm guessing there's a lot of doubt there as well. Gimenez on the other hand, there should be no doubt.
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I will leave with this before I get in trouble and pop out of here again.

Almost unanimously all. And there is not much doubt at all that both of those 2 can be plus defenders at the MLB level at SS. Their entire track record as professionals has been just that. Small sample sizes where guys are bouncing around from position to position in their first taste of MLB ball doesn't detract from that.

Listen to the manager talk about them defensively who has been in and around professional baseball for 40+ years and has seen elite level defenders at SS on his team.

The team is more than willing to sacrifice a few more errors in favor of someone who can get to ~30+ more groundballs a year. See Jeremy Pena, or Javy Baez, or Corey Seager. The amount of runs you save getting to ~30+ more ground balls is considerably more than the number of runs you give up committing 5 or 6 more errors.
 
KluberSociety said:
I'm not as convinced on Arias's defense as you are and offensively I'd take Amed due to his ability to make more contact (and Amed actually hits the ball quite hard, he is over 70th percentile in max EV, but he also makes a lot of bad contact). There's a lot of "mays' though and replicating 3-ish WAR isn't an easy task. I like Arias in the utility role for now personally, as long as he keeps getting his reps and maybe he will show he's worth more than I think with the bat. But I think his bat is still perceived as risky with a pretty low floor so we run the risk of ending up with somewhat of an unnecessary hole in the lineup by swapping him in there.
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It's not just me KS, it's pretty much the entire MLB industry, but I respect your opinion even if I don't know how you are coming about it.

That "3ish WAR is all speed and baserunning" and I see that as very deceiving.

What is it in Arias' offensive game that gives you pause? It's certainly not age according to level. It's certainly not performance outside a broken hamate bone last season. I've posted Arias' numbers, age and level numerous times around here. I can't believe folks aren't excited about the possibilities and don't want a "meh" player like Amed who isn't going to be here past this season if that long out of the way.
 
CDAV45 said:
It's not just me KS, it's pretty much the entire MLB industry, but I respect your opinion even if I don't know how you are coming about it.

That "3ish WAR is all speed and baserunning" and I see that as very deceiving.

What is it in Arias' offensive game that gives you pause? It's certainly not age according to level. It's certainly not performance outside a broken hamate bone last season. I've posted Arias' numbers, age and level numerous times around here. I can't believe folks aren't excited about the possibilities and don't want a "meh" player like Amed who isn't going to be here past this season if that long out of the way.
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I like Arias a lot and I think he has real potential to be a good defensive shortstop, as well as a MIF bat with power. Those players are incredibly valuable.

I always think it's more likely that prospects fail than it is they succeed. So, if you make me bet one way or the other on Arias, I'm betting that he fails.

The main way I could see him failing is struggling with strikeouts at the major league level.

I could also see him just not getting a fair shot... if Amed holds down the spot this year and Rocchio passes Arias for next year, he might just draw the short straw.
 
BimboColesHair said:
Unless he starts striking out a bunch of hitters or cuts his HR allowed rate in half or turns into Maddux and never walks anyone, never.

Sabermetric stats are all about predictability, using a players previous track record to predict what their future track record may look like. The only thing that is predictable to a higher degree of accuracy about what a pitcher can do year in and year out is strikeout guys, walk guys, or give up home runs.

High contact rate pitchers who rely on generating weak contact, low BABIP numbers, and more grounders than fly balls and line drives are less predictable because you can't predict the results of every ball projected to be put into play against that pitcher. Baseball is too unpredictable when balls are put into play that stay in the stadium. So naturally, sabermetrics doesn't like those kinds of pitchers because they are hard to predict.

Why sabermetric based WAR models don't like Quantrill as much as his actual production over the last 2 seasons, like Fangraphs who use FIP as a determining factor for their WAR stat. Cal has been worth 4.2 fWAR over his last 336 IP of 3.16 ERA pitching. Which doesn't seem as bad as it sounds, but he is 65th amongst all pitchers in fWAR over the last 2 seasons while posting the 15th best ERA over that time frame.

On the other side, BRef uses the actual runs against production in a given season as a determining factor in their WAR stat, using ERA+ as opposed to FIP. So Cal has been worth 6 bWAR over his last 336 IP of 3.16 ERA pitching. They don't use a stat that is determining how predictably good or bad a pitcher has been pitching, they use one that shows how good or bad you are at allowing runs vs the league average for that given season.
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Thanks Bimbo and that's what I was kinda trying to get at. Clearly to this point the models based on predictability aren't going to like Cal, but his performance when weighed against others is pretty damn good. At some point his value should reflect his performance if it is sustained regardless of his unpredictability.
 
Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
Someone tells you "Hey, you're objectively misinterpreting what these statistics say."

Is your response seriously "Look at all these predictions I was right on!"?

That's like my toddler telling me "Daddy, I pooped" and me responding "I got near perfect test scores on my SATs and ACTs!" It's a non sequitur.

Any chance you can try to be more open to conversation in the future? Maybe at least be able to follow a linear conversation instead of going off on a page worth of things that are completely unrelated to the topic of discussion?


(Also, really? A persecution complex? Give me a break)
Click to expand...
Have you ever seen anyone so full of themselves?
 
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