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I still don’t know why you’re so caught up on single stats like OBP. What happened to you saying OPS was the best metric? Iirc you took that stance last time we visited markakis.
Nick was awesome first half last year, and not good second half. Frankly he hasn’t put up 2 WAR in 3/5 of his last seasons and hasn’t put up over 3 WAR since like 2016. I think I buy him as being something like 1-2 if he is healthy all year, but that’s still not great. This is probably something @Bankwalker would agree with from what I read. I buy into him being closer to 2nd half nick than 1st half nick this year.
The 6M to me is cheap enough to where it isn’t a bad deal financially. But the opportunity cost of potentially giving 130 starts to a below average player is huge. Like 2-3 wins huge. COF and catcher were the only two realistic spots we could upgrade our offense, and we got 2 old guys who are below average players in McCann and nick.
As I said earlier, love the Donaldson move. It probably didn’t improve us a ton because we had camargo, but good teams need good depth and camargo has always seemed like a candidate to be a utility infielder and Donaldson is a good candidate to be a stud. But that move doesn’t make any sense to me in the context that we regress at catcher and COF, and don’t add any front line starters.
I’m really really hoping we aren’t done yet this off season, our window is now and if you don’t supplant your core with above average players you potentially never win anything significant.
OPS is the best measure of key positions in the line up, and it's the best measure of your best hitters.
OBP is a great measure of whether a player meets a necessity though. You need people on base up and down the lineup. Otherwise there are too many outs and too few base runners. It's the lone absolute essential.
Well I disagree that OBP is an absolute essential. I do agree it is really important, but you can 100% have a below average OBP and be an above average hitter. For instance Joey gallo had a .312 OBP last year and produced about the same amount of runs as Markakis (nicks 114 WRC+ to gallos 110 wrc+). The difference is gallo hit 40 homers.
I get that you’re partial to OBP and I think I am as well. Baseball is more fun to watch with a high OBP lineup. But when you use OBP you ignore power numbers, defense, positional value (ss hitting is valued higher than COF hitting for example), and base running. It’s just not a complete measure of a player.
You can have a #4 hitter with excellent power who has a fairly low OBP with good OBP hitters in front of him, though it wouldn't be ideal. You can't have a lineup with a lot of low OBP hitters and have a good offense though. You can have a team loaded with high OBP hitters with no bashers like The 90s Yankees had and have a great offense though.
Markakis isn't a weak link though so I'm not upset about that one. Starting pitching has been our Achilles heel
I would say more specifically top of the rotation starting pitching. They had depth last season, finishing top 10 in MLB in staff ERA. That speaks to depth. That goes out the window in the playoffs, though. You need 2-3 elite guys for a short series rotation. It doesn't matter how good your 4th/5th starters are then because they become middle relief, mostly. Arizona largely rode the Schilling/Big Unit combo to a title just to pick one example, beating the Jeter-led Yankees in their prime.
No doubt that is true.
Just 2 elite starters and ok pitchers 3 thru 5 have won titles.
Because we signed Nick, who didn't we sign or who is sitting behind him that would be an upgrade? If there is a better option I expect them to start, but Nick is holding anyone back that is an upgrade, not at the price we just paid.
Durability is nice, but I think every player needs rest. I don't think playing 162 games is the best approach. I hope Snit rests some of those guys (Freeman, Nick) this year.
We need a good utility outfielder to emerge in camp.
Pollack, Brantley, mccutchen, Hanniger and gallo are available in trades. All projected to be better this year. You could throw Harper in there too even if we never were a threat to sign him.
Maybe we couldn’t or didn’t want to match the free agent offers of those guys, but the good thing about prospects is they’re trade capital. We were led to believe this was going to be the year we go for it, we had plenty of money to spend, and we haven’t done so.
This is the time where you trade for a realmuto, a hanniger, a Kluber. Supplant the young core and try to win now
It is your belief that we aren't getting any of those players because of this deal? This is in reference to the opportunity cost statement. Yes we can trade prospects, but that deal needs to be a reasonable deal.
With the way the market has been this year, there is definitely a paradigm shift. People aren't throwing money out like they used to.
Oh I see, that’s a good question. I would have thought they signed him to be a 4th OF. That would make sense and I wouldn’t hate it. But then I read this and saw AA’s statements. It looks like they intend on at least initially having nick in a starting role.
https://www.talkingchop.com/2019/1/22/18193462/alex-anthopoulos-comments-on-nick-markakis-atlanta-braves
I suppose we still could upgrade the spot, those trades are still available. I’m hoping the quotes in the article are just lip service. But I also recognize this isn’t MLB the show and you can’t force a team to trade someone.
Bottom line. Absolute best case scenario, nick has a year similar to last and we essentially treaded water this off season. Worst case scenario is nick turns into who he was in 2016 and 2017 and we get worse.
Just saw an interesting read on projecting nick. @WCDawg if you want to get a look into my reasoning, this article does a much better job explaining than I ever would.
https://www.talkingchop.com/2019/1/23/18194127/projecting-2019-nick-markakis-atlanta-braves-steamer-iwag-projections
I don't disagree, I just feel the risk isn't bad here and reasonable to hope that he will at least be solid, especially if he ends up in a platoon situation.
It seems very convoluted to me.
Pollock hasn't had a good season in awhile.
McCutchen would project slightly better, though he's not the player he once was.
Haniger has 1 good year, he might repeat, but it's a thin resume.
Gallo is the ultimate hit or miss guy, it's hr or bust, no thanks.
I'd like to have Brantley but so would a lot of teams.
Thanks for reading. Yeah sometimes when you get into a fairly deep statistical analysis it gets pretty convoluted. But again that’s a good representation of my opinions.
Pollack - I don’t really want him as we would lose our second round pick this year and again, he is injury prone. But he is pretty good when healthy and has played a good amount for 2 years now.
Mccutchen - big fan of his, wish we got him in hindsight. Could have given us a leadoff option. Signed for a fairly reasonable deal and can still play a corner decently and hits well.
Haniger- true there is some risk in his profile due to smaller sample size. But he does have a little over 1.5 seasons worth of being very good. Would cost a lot but now is the time to make a deal like this.
Brantley - wouldn’t really have wanted him either. Think we would have lost our pick to sign him too, and he is another injury prone guy. Big 2018 season though.
Gallo - believe it or not he is a good defender somehow, and the power profile coupled with a high walk rate makes him a good overall player. Also gives us some positional versatility with being able to play first.
Markakis's 4 years with Atlanta have been better than his last 4 years with Baltimore.
His 4 year BA in Atlanta his .284, his career average is .288. His OBP average over 4 years is the second best 4 year period of his career. He's averaging 39.5 doubles and 172 hits for us. The only area he's down is HRs, and they never were a big part of his game anyway. I agree with advanced stats when they make sense to me, in this case, I don't see it.