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The Official 2015 MLB Season Thread - Congrats, Royals

TexasDeac10 said:
Good lord, Nats.

Here's a potentially piping hot take: MLB is the league in which owners have the most influence over the success of their teams. I'm not even talking about pure payroll here. There's just so much variance among organizations in how the front offices are run. A good or bad owner can make or break your franchise, and it sucks as a fan.
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Speaking for Mets fans everywhere, Jeff Wilpon says hello. A lot of truth to this.
 
OMG :heart:

Wasn't the rumor that the Nats didn't go after Mattingly because they didn't want to pay him? So they are cheap when it comes to managers but will pay Scherzer $105 million after he is done pitching for them?
 
Isn't Rizzo only under contract through 2016? Can't imagine he'd want to stick around with this kind of BS from ownership.
 
CantStandYa said:
Isn't Rizzo only under contract through 2016? Can't imagine he'd want to stick around with this kind of BS from ownership.
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I can't either. If the rumors about Lerner torpedoing the Black deal are true, I don't know why he would want to stick around in a place where the ownership is actively subverting moves he is trying to make as GM.
 
Also, it's scary to consider that the Nats' future rotation will be based around Strasburg, Lucas Giolito, and Erick Fedde, who have all had Tommy John surgery. Let's hope, for their collective sake, that Dusty Baker has improved at managing his pitchers.
 
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While there was early word that some in the organization favored Baker and things appeared to be heading his way, according to Nats-connected sources the initial salary discussions with Baker began with an immense gap, thus bringing Black back into the picture. It isn't known whether they made Baker the first official offer, but word is those early financial discussions with Baker at least opened the door for Black.

Then last Wednesday, the Nats told Black they would be making him an offer to become the team's manager, and soon after several media entities reported the job was going to be Black's. However, Black on Thursday was given a one-year offer, a term so short to be practically unprecedented. That offer was reported by USA Today to have been for $1.6 million.

Black still wanted the job, but by early Friday, when the sides were still apart, he called to tell them he was bowing out. However, that wasn't nearly the end of it. Later Friday, according to sources, Nationals GM Mike Rizzo called Black to try to work things out, and the sides re-started talks.

Black and the Nats talked over the next couple days, with proposals and counterproposals exchanged. However, after Black, who had originally sought a three-year deal, didn't quickly accept their next offer and instead apparently countered it -- it is believed the Nats came off the straight one-year offer, and talked about offers with options and buyouts, and may have gotten up to two guaranteed years at some point -- the Nats then turned back to Baker.

Black was said to be awaiting a possible call from the team Monday to see where things stood. But he didn't hear from the team until around 9 p.m. his time (he lives in San Diego), when Rizzo is said to have called to tell him they were going in another direction, and to apologize for all the twists and turns.

Neither Black, Baker or Rizzo returned messages. CBS Sports reported late Monday that the Nats were on the verge of hiring Baker, and the team announced the surprise hiring at 8 a.m. eastern time Tuesday.
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Link

Sounds like they wanted Baker, turned to Black when Baker was too costly, then turned back to Baker when their asking prices were similar. Who knows.
 
Is the big issue with Baker his inability to manage pitchers? I have to say based on a cursory look I prefer Baker to Black but I admit I may have no idea what I'm talking about.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
Is the big issue with Baker his inability to manage pitchers? I have to say based on a cursory look I prefer Baker to Black but I admit I may have no idea what I'm talking about.
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A lot of people blame Baker, at least partially, for the demise of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. I think the bigger knock on him is reluctance to use advanced statistics. We're talking about a guy who has gone on the record saying he doesn't like players with high OBPs because they clog up the bases. This team has a lot of talent, so I don't think the wheels are going to fall completely off the bus and players seem to like playing for him, but it looks like the Nats getting Dusty is akin to them hiring Matt Williams 2.0 + experience - players choking each other in the dugout.

Also, he values experience way more than potential and projected statistics, so this results in him playing a lot of olds because of their experience. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but some fans of Dusty-led teams have complained that this has resulted in him wasting talent in the farm system and on the bench. This sets you up for more "because he's our closer" moments, which is something that has bothered Nats fans especially with the way Williams managed the team.

On the other hand, he did smoke a joint with Jimi Hendrix, so he's got that going for him.
 
avalon said:
OMG :heart:

Wasn't the rumor that the Nats didn't go after Mattingly because they didn't want to pay him? So they are cheap when it comes to managers but will pay Scherzer $105 million after he is done pitching for them?
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well there are studies that show the differences between the best manager in the MLB and the worst works out to about 3 games over a 162 game season, so I think people are smart to not pay managers.
 
Frosty said:
A lot of people blame Baker, at least partially, for the demise of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. I think the bigger knock on him is reluctance to use advanced statistics. We're talking about a guy who has gone on the record saying he doesn't like players with high OBPs because they clog up the bases. .
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Amaaaaazing. I would love to read that quote.
 
TownieDeac said:
Amaaaaazing. I would love to read that quote.
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From Not your your garden-variety manager

Baker once famously observed that "on-base percentage is great if you can score runs and do something with that on-base percentage. On-base percentage just to clog up the bases isn't that great to me." Regardless of the message Baker meant to convey, the comment is sure to stick to him for the rest of his baseball life.
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So um - the entire city of Kansas City might be outside today. Holy shit. This is just the end of the parade. All KCMO schools were cancelled today, most of the major firms closed offices or are just essential staff, etc.

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Parade was awesome. Son freaked out seeing Slugger while sitting on my shoulders. Took pics of all the players driving through.

Duffy and Hochevar were out of their trucks high fiving fans.

I don't really expect to get home until 8-9 pm.
 
Shorty said:
Which seems strange on the surface since sabermetrics were invented by Bret Saberhagen when he pitched for the Royals in the '80s.
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I also don't think that's true - the Royals have a great analytics department, headed by a former Baseball Prospectus guy and with several high powered number crunchers. It's just what they've identified they want differs slightly from many other established models ... and it seems they might have hit on some very undervalued skills (especially outfield defense combined with fly ball pitchers as a way to get cheap, effective starting pitching in their big park and then use that money on other areas).
 
vadimivich said:
I also don't think that's true - the Royals have a great analytics department, headed by a former Baseball Prospectus guy and with several high powered number crunchers. It's just what they've identified they want differs slightly from many other established models ... and it seems they might have hit on some very undervalued skills (especially outfield defense combined with fly ball pitchers as a way to get cheap, effective starting pitching in their big park and then use that money on other areas).
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Um, you'd be right.
 
At this point, front offices with maybe a handful of exceptions are so universally sabermetrically-inclined that it's kinda pointless to try and figure out who is more analytical than the others. It's pretty ironic* that one of the most subjective things in baseball is figuring out who is doing their analytics best.

*pretty sure this is actual irony
 
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