sabretooth

Harold has been dreadful since the ASB too. If they are counting on him for more than 200 PAs next year they are doomed.

If he can keep up a 120 OPS+ with a .420 BABIP, that would be amazing. He's had a 94 OPS+ since June 1 over 350 PA (after his VERY rough start) with a BABIP of .310 and an ISO of .150. That's not good but that's pretty similar to what he did earlier in his career in 2015 - 2016 (ages 23 - 24) before his peak years of 2017 - 2021. I think the deadened ball and ageing just a little bit past his athletic peak has probably knocked out his HR power and thus his performance down from his peak norm of 115 OPS+ to 90-100, probably in the middle, hopefully closer to 100.

Yeah, whatever we do, let's not move the fences in. That would be very bad. 🙄

me too 👍😎

Since we dont have a historic park to preserve, I just want CoPa to be a place where Mgt doesnt configure the roster to suit the park, and/or coaches and hitters arent altering hitting approaches to suit the park.

A better measure of the *direct* impact of the park configurations on HRs would be to compare visiting players HR/FB rate at CoPa vs elsewhere. The *indirect* "park effect" that I am talking about is: - the way they are building the roster - the way they are coaching players and - the way players are approaching hitting with the new deadened ball. Comparing Tiger HRs home/road only tells one part of the story.

Whoa what a catch by Greene, WOW

They have passed the eyeball test defensively. Neither has looked overmatched at all. Carpenter looks like the real deal, good power, good approach. Kriedler looks like he can hit, but he hasn't shown quite the pop that Kerry has so far. I don't know if they are going to be good major-leaguers, but this team needs at least one of them to become a good major leaguer, probably both, no later than 2024, if things are going to work well out for this team.

Second on the team with 86 IP. Never in my life did I think I would ever hear that on September 13th of a season. And yeah it's a miracle that they are kinda OK'ish rather than awful in R/9.

That's a good point.

There's some desirable talent but it hasn't manifested itself enough to make for strong trade bait. Bet you that DD could make a good trade or two out of it all, but he seems to be the only guy with the knack for turning our underpowered prospects into good on-field MLB production.

The one big difference in 2022 vs. even his bad 2018 is Schoops HR/FB %, which was 1/2 of his 2018/normal rate. If a slower bat and a deader ball caused that, it probably caused the softening of his other non-HR balls in play; if that is the case, then probably *none* of his hitting will come back, and he's toast. His entire second half has been worse than the first half, which was also horrible, and he's not showing any signs of life at this point, so perhaps it's safe to assume that he's just toast as a hitter. The more I mull it over the more I want Schoop to be gone. We all want them to get Correa, and that would solve Baez's SS issues, and have Schoop on the bench or just DFA him.

His peripherals are kinda similar to his 80 wRC+ year in 2018. That's still bad, but it's not career-ending bad if he continues to have plus defense, finishes his last year with us in 2023, and our other guys are doing well.

Schoop was at 110 wRC+ from May 10 to June 9. He was absolutely horrible otherwise, and its reasonable to assume hes toast, but he did have a good 30 day period.

They need to move the stupid fences in....with the deadened ball they are screwing themselves. I believe that part of what we have seen this year is that their coaching and hitting style have been influenced by the combination of the deadened ball and large dimensions, and probably the shift, and the results are horrible all around hitting. This could only have been avoided if they had guys in the lineup who were exceptional singles hitters and/or onbase guys, and/or guys with significantly more flyball distance to begin with. We have guys who do not get on base and whose power strokes were sufficient for the juiced ball, but not sufficient for the newly deadened ball. Schoop, Candy, and Baez are the likely key examples. They are simply very unlikely to acquire or develop a sufficient number of guys with the above positive hitting attributes in the foreseeable future, and unless we want to be doomed to another extended 5 year+ period of failure, they need to change the fence configuration now.

If they have the same horrible health situation in 2023 that they have had in 2022 and/or their young players fall apart, and/or veterans like erod, baez, schoop, and candy can't play at least decently, then I don't know what to project other than 100 losses again.

Essentially I'm saying they are a 70+ win team as currently constituted, if they are reasonably healthy with normal/expected luck. Add 3 good players and they could easily be within a game or three of 500. Add only one or two good players and they will probably be in the 75 win range.

It's different for each player, though I'm looking at career norms, 2nd half/1st half, peripherals, and projection systems as a guide. I would love to see a change/improvement in coaching but I'm not counting on it. I would love to see good luck but my approach basically is to try and eliminate luck factors one way or another. The changes and causes are detailed below: C - Haase (same guy, hopefully same results); Rogers ("new" guy v. 2022 anyway, hopefully way better than Barnhart), and hopefully some Dingler is also better than Barnhart in the 2nd half of 2023. 1B - Tork (same guy, hopefully much much much better results) - nobody in their right mind would suggest not giving Tork a shot at playing 1B full-time in 2023. He has to be the solution there, there is no other option in the system. The projection is based on what he is/was already projected to do this year. 2B - Schoop (same guy, hopefully not as terrible results at the plate, and plus defense) - Schoop is under contract, he's going to get a shot, unless they get Correa at SS and shift Baez to 2B, which I would hope for -- however, if they don't chase/catch Correa, given the huge number of holes on the team, I would hope that they get a FA who has the best bat, and other than Correa, that's not in the middle infield. All the projection systems have Schoop over 90 wRC+ for the balance of the season. His peripherals are similar to 2018 where he had an 80 wRC+. I think an 80 wRC+/OPS+ is a reasonable expectation for 2023. I frankly wouldn't project anybody to repeat what he has done this year (53 wRC+), because I can't imagine him or anybody remaining in the starting lineup for more than the first few weeks of 2023 if he keeps doing that. I don't honestly know if his 53 wRC+ this year (vs say, 80 or 90) was the result of him permanently "losing it" or temporarily "losing it" or some bad luck or bad coaching or some combination. I think we will know whether he can continue as a ML player by the middle of April 2023. SS - Baez (same player, I'm expecting him to look more like the second half of 2022 (95) vs. the first half of 2022 (75)). Isolating a player's second half, especially when it's close to his career average (101), and assuming that he'll hit 100 is a pretty middle-of-the-road projection. He might fall back to what he was doing in the 1st half of 2022 vs. the previous 7 years of his career, but I think it's reasonable to assume he'll be closer to his career norms. He might fade to something closer to 90, but I don't think he will be lower than 90. Again, my hope is that he will be replaced at SS by Correa and play 2B instead of Schoop, but I'm not counting on it or anything specific at this point. 3B - Kriedler (new player, projecting below-average (80-90) + Candy (same player, projecting better than 77 (90-100) which is actually a little low when you compare to career norms (100), projection systems (100), 2nd half (100) and peripherals, which all point to closer to 100. He had one bad season before (2019, 73), but otherwise has been at 93 and 120 for his other two full seasons (2018 and 2021), and he's not yet 30, so it's reasonable to project that he will have the skill set to be OK'ish playing a part/semi-regular role in 2023. LF - Carpenter (basically a new player, the projection systems have him between 95 - 115, 105 splits the difference). CF - Greene (kind of a new player, the projection systems have him at 97 - 120, 105 seems reasonable, hard to say with a guy at only 22 years of age). RF - Meadows (basically a new player, no idea if he will even be healthy, but he's easily capable of 105 if he is healthy, or even 120, which is his career norm....if anything, 105 is conservative if he's healthy). Not sure what you are seeing from me on the pitching side that seems hopeful. The only unrealistic thing I'm showing is two good FA SPs, which I know damn well they won't do, BUT they SHOULD. In terms of SP who are returning, I'm hoping that Manning and ERod complete 25-30 reasonably decent to good starts next year each. That would be kinda new guys doing better because ERod is already a good pitcher who missed a huge chunk of 2022 for well-known reasons, and doesn't need better coaching or kharma on the field, and Manning is improving already and is better than his pre-2022 6 ERA would indicate, and hopefully he's healthy enough to complete 25+ starts. That's perfectly reasonable given that Manning has had an ERA of 4.01 in the second half and solid peripherals, and ERod has certainly demonstrated himself throughout his career of putting up a decent 25-30 starts. If these two guys can't do at least that, then none of this matters. Also I'm hoping the bullpen can repeat what it has done this year, which was accomplished without any stars, but rather with the typical poor-man's bullpen of talented guys with control problems and reclaimation projects. Again, if the bullpen doesn't succeed like that again, any discussion about .500 or better would be pointless. More to your point, it would involve some or most of the same players and the same coaching and hopefully the same results. At the end of the day I'm saying that they have enough talent on this team already where if they add 3 good players they can be a 500 team without much stretch at all. For the record, I would not be surprised to see Schoop and Candy out of baseball by the ASB in 2023, but I would not be surprised to see them do exactly what I have indicated above either, and I don't think either is particularly hopeful at all given the data/projection systems.

I wasnt pretending anything I just didnt factor in every bench players WAR specifically, I netted them to zero to focus on the starters contributions, which are the primary concern. My anaylsis is based on what needs to be done to make this team respectable in 2023. If hes a starter then that means the new GM has left a huge gaping hole in the starting lineup and/or theres key injuries and/or breakdowns again....I surely hope thats not the case.

I think he will unfortunately be in the mix and paid every penny owed in 2023, but I dont think he will change my calculus above, since I am not crediting the bench for any net WAR. My guess is that Miggy will hang around, eat 250 PA, and likely produce a negative 0.5 - 1.0 WAR, which would cancel out any possible small net positives from Harold or Reyes.

the crowd was dominating today.

If guys on the bench are players like H and W Castro and V Reyes, and they play a total of 500-700 PAs (not as regular starters) they could add a couple of WAR.

The above WAR would add up to about 80+ wins or so depending on the bench (assuming close to zero WAR from the bench), bullpen (assuming 5 WAR), and the quality of the Free Agents (assuming that they get three guys, a position player who produces 3 WAR, and two SPs who produce 4 WAR between them).

Here's a sketch for what they could do in 2023 (OPS+, WAR) Catcher: Haase, Rogers (100, 3) 1B: Tork (110, 2) 2B: Schoop (80, 1) SS: Baez (100, 2) 3B: Kriedler/Candy (90, 1.5) g'bye Candy, hello Kriedler LF: Carpenter (105, 1.5) CF: Greene (105, 2) RF: Meadows (105, 1.5) - this is a 50/50 shot, depends on lots of unknowns DH: (could be an IF or OF): Free Agent (115, 3) - really need a good player who can play in the field....anywhere but 1B would work.....C, 2B, SS, 3B, OF Bench: - H. Castro, W. Castro, V. Reyes Coming up in late 2023/2024: - Dingler (C), Lipcius (3B), W. Perez (2B) SP: - E Rod (2 WAR) - Manning (1.5 WAR) - Free Agent (2 WAR) - Free Agent (2 WAR) The last SP spot would be the various dudes they have floating around (Hutch, Brieske, Faedo, Hill, Wentz, whoever....plus whatever healthy play they can get out of Skubal, Turnbull, Mize, etc. The bullpen would be whoever they can plug in from this year's team and the minors and cheap FAs to make it work. They must must must must get TWO **good** Starting Pitchers. No more Pinedas and other junk. These have to be guys who are healthy and can throw 30 starts and more than half of them are Quality Starts (6+ IP/3 Rs or less). They have to add at least one good bat, hopefully two. Tork, Greene, Carpenter, Kriedler -- at least three of these guys need to be a "hit" Manning needs to be a "hit".....they can't have ALL of their starting pitcher prospects from the last 7 years fail. Skubal needs to come back at some point and be decent or good again. They need a 50/50 hit ratio on Mize and Turnbull. When Miggy's contract is subtracted, they are more than $50M **under** the average team payroll. They need to spend ALL of that getting at least three good players. That can get them into the winning column in 2023 or at least 2024. It will require spending, player development, health, and luck. These are the usual ingredients for success.

Thanks