Ceetar

DWH: Defense While Hitting. The overall rating of the opponents defense while a player is hitting, as compared to the team's defense against everyone else. Used to measure things like if fast runners force fielders to rush into more mistakes than their more lumbering counterparts.

Edgy MD wrote: FIP is more meaningful because of where it leads than what is. You accurately portray its flaws, but for over a century we've accepted ERA as the definitive measure of overall effectiveness by pitchers, despite its obvious flaws --- pretending all parks are equal, pretending all fielding is equal, pretending all runs belong to the pitcher who first allowed the runner on base, etc. We can and must do better, and FIP can help take us there. Indeed. I saw a better FIP recently (Beyond the boxscore? not sure where..) that took into account, or more accurately, took out of account, the balls in play bit. FIP despite saying it's fielding independent, awards points for put outs. the new formula went by PA instead of IP. Seemed to work better. I tried some similar calculations in the past but these people put in way more time than me. Niese is one of those under perform FIP guys usually. Last year was better though, so it's interesting.

RZL:Runs in zone, lefties. The runs scored on balls hit to a fielder's zone by lefty batters. reduced to a +/- where zero is league average for that position.

I want to see Skyfall but somehow I keep..not seeing it. I haven't really sat down and watched one of the pre-Brosnan films more than just the occasion couple of minutes here and there in flipping though. I've always enjoyed the flashy over the top explosions and chases and gadgets, but I guess that won't quite translate across decades. I have been listening to some of the audiobooks of the original books. Those are still fairly interesting, although I found Moonraker to be a little slow to build to anything interesting.

MFS62 wrote: Thole has logged 424 of RA's best career innings catching the knuckler... Maybe they looked at all the innings Thole caught Dickey and said "He must be a very good defensive catcher" and threw him some extra WAR points. And maybe not. Later there's a good chance it's the opposite.

Chad Ochoseis wrote: I'm not a fan of using WAR as a metric, but what surprised me about BBRef is that it gave Thole a 1.1 defensive WAR for last season. Joe Mauer hasn't ever had a defensive WAR greater than 1 in a season. Buster Posey hasn't done it yet, either. Yadier Molina gets high scores, but the other Molina brothers have only had three dWAR > 1 seasons between them. If Nickeas really is worse than replacement level, there should be a free agent that we can sign for the major league minimum who would be an improvement. So, sure, no reason not to do that. But I wouldn't want to give up a player of potential value for any of the available catchers we've been discussing in this thread. It's far from perfect, but..well, nothing is. being skeptical of defensive metrics as it is i do find it hard to gauge a catcher using it though. Arguably it's grading all catchers by that same flawed formula ,but.. I dunno. I did think Thole was a better defensive catcher than Shoppach though. Nickeas had a couple of blips, but all in all I'm not sure you do much better than him in a backup role, strictly defensively. So really..right-handed, better than Shoppach defensively, better than Nickeas offensively. That's all I'm really asking for Thole's backup/platoon/partner. And I don't think we need to give up something to get that. I suspect, in fact, that we already grabbed a good candidate. Now, if a decent catcher is tossed into a bigger deal, that's a different story.

fangraphs has Thole at +.01, and rates him much better in 2011 and 2010 as well. .9 and 1.6. not a 'full' season, over 120-130 say he's probably approaching 2 if 2012 was the fluke which would put him as a borderline starter, though hardly a problem. B-R only has him around half a WAR, but still positive for those years. Barring a catcher falling into the Mets lap, Thole still seems like the best gamble.

I'm just hoping Thole's OBP reverts and continue hoping for a legitimately very good outfielder to be the big upgrade to the offense.

metsmarathon wrote: unless it's a birthday hat. then rock on. particularly in your birthday suit.

metsmarathon wrote: getting worked up over valdespin wearing a marlins hat as a fashion accessory. i mean, he looks like a fool in the photo - has he not even been paying attention this offseason? - but really, he can wear whatever he damned well pleases. but not indoors. never ever wear a hat indoors.

SteveJRogers wrote: Ceetar wrote: wearing other teams hats as fashion is 'in vogue' with the youngerish crowd. My brother does the same thing. Really started as gang wear. I mean before this year did you think people wearing Pirates gear outside of the Pittsburgh area were anything but possibly members of a gang that wears yellow and black? My brother's been doing this for years. He owns like 8 different team hats.

wearing other teams hats as fashion is 'in vogue' with the youngerish crowd. My brother does the same thing.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I'll take Granderson for Lutz AND Satin. For that, sure, but I'd just as soon trade for Corey Hart.

Frayed Knot wrote: Starting in this June's draft there will be a handful of extra draft picks inserted somewhere into the process under the guise of "competitive balance picks" which, yes, can (and already have been) swapped although I've yet to figure out how and under what circumstances they're distributed. I read the bits on it in the CBA, but it didn't stick I guess. Has something to do with markets and income tiers and ..*snores*

Swan Swan H wrote: Kyle Lobstein ?@KyleLobstein Maybe @metsblog can do a retrospective on my career with the #Mets I'm roughly 95% this is a fake account.

oddly enough, what bill james projects is far from foolproof. I don't know if I make that deal, but I think the Mets, with a lot more data about Duda and knowledge about Duda as a player, a person, and all that, might think differently. They might not see that improvement coming from Duda, for whatever reason. Hart is a plus baserunner, if a poor defender even if he's better than Duda. Duda is minus, pretty badly, at both. I mean, Fangraphs has Duda at -1.1 WAR and Hart at 2.9. Hart's wRC+ was 125 to Duda's 101 last season, and that's part adjusted. gun to my head I probably don't make that deal, but there is merit to it.

Vic Sage wrote: How much more is Hart's .270/25hr/85rbi slash line worth than Duda's .255/20hr/75rbi full season average? It's worth more, certainly, but nearly $10m more? And as bad as Duda is in RF, Hart was moved to 1B last season. He's 31, and his speed has gone from 25 SBs a year, to 5-10 SBs. So again, he's better than Duda in RF also, even at this stage, but $10m better? I don't think so, on either count. So, if they're going to spend $10m more to upgrade RF (and i don't think they will), I'd hope they could do better than a slowing Cory Hart without having to trade assets, too. Probably. but Hart won't play a bad left field(is Duda's position now anyway) and is a pretty good player with some power. Is it strictly $10 mill better? well, no, but they could do much worse. Especially for a one year guy which leaves you the option of getting someone else next year that might be more of a long term plan, and if Hart has a really good year you'd probably get a pick for him too.

Frayed Knot wrote: I have no idea if it's kosher for a team to 'do a favor' like that and, in effect, rearrange the picking order in exchange for no money at all or if there's some kind of standard "finder's fee" for securing the player. I kind of picture the owners sitting around a big, smoke-filled room making up these sort of unwritten rules with their GMs sitting behind them making sure their drink glasses are filled, etc. "Don Wilpon must share those minor leaguers he controls in his pockets like so many nickels and dimes. Of course he has the right to charge a fee for such services. After all, we are not communists here" Nothing wrong with doing someone a favor, you never know when you're going to need one of your own. Of course, these favors sorta circumvent the "no trading picks" rules, and you'd think they'd eventually get to legitimately being able to trade them, and perhaps in the other 4 rule drafts. Although you CAN trade one of the supplemental picks you get from..somewhere. something to do with finances?

Ted Berg wrote: Mets with better OBPs than Miguel Olivo in 2012 include: Josh Thole, Kelly Shoppach, Mike Nickeas, Rob Johnson, Jon Niese, Chris Schwinden

more importantly, none of the Mets guys were poached.

MFS62 wrote: bmfc1 wrote: Memories of Kyle Lobstein thread? Adam Rubin ?@AdamRubinESPN Jon Mayo, my former editor in college, reports Mets took Kyle Lobstein for another team. Makes sense. Mets said they weren't picking. Not picking? If they deal Lobstein, they'll still have three roster spots open on the 40 man. Thought they's use at least one of them in the Rule V. Something has to be brewing. Later Those spots easily needed though, Outfielders, etc.

MFS62 wrote: Nahhh. A little club soda will take those stains right out. Anyhow, what time (Eastern) is the Rule V Draft today? Later draft's at 10. Was this an accident, or isn't one of the newer trends to trash the wedding dress and this was premeditated?

Frayed Knot wrote: (is anything a complete secret in winter meetings?) You can probably sneak some stuff through in all the noise. Like how the Mets are maybe rumored to be looking at an outfielder (well, duh) but you don't really get any names and anytime anyone asks Alderson talks about Hairston.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Andy Martino, in this morning's Daily News, says that the Mets are "sitting on at least one acceptable deal" for Dickey. No further details. continuing to over-analyze rumors, I'll guess 'acceptable' means they'd actually prefer keeping Dickey than trading him, are hoping to use the 'value' from the trade to adjust the extension offer Dickey accepts. Or just holding out for something better. Or have a trade/signing in the works that might negate the need for the Dickey trade. Or they're working on said trade to turn back to the Dickey traders to say "We're prepared to make this other deal. sweeten the pot."

SERIOUSLY, go watch Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction over the holidays. You'll thank me. I'll see this then, myself. downloading inglorious basterds right now. but yeah, I will. edit: I realize now that i downloaded basterds and pulp fiction in blu ray..and my stupid computer has ceased being visible to the Playstation to play them. grr. argh.