I know, it's mind boggling isn't it. And it's not like you want to keep Kirk in the lineup just incase you go to extra innings, as he has 2 RBI's in his last 50 at bats.
Jays 2023
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Big moves by the LA Angels. Could this affect the playoff run for teams that pick up some of these guys that the Angels released?
https://www.tsn.ca/mlb/los-angeles-...-including-lucas-giolito-on-waivers-1.2001417
https://www.tsn.ca/mlb/los-angeles-...-including-lucas-giolito-on-waivers-1.2001417
It's pretty obvious that this information is being tracked, pitch by pitch.
If you look at a live 'Gameday' on mlb(dot)com, they show the type of pitch, the velocity, and the location for each pitch. It's really simple for a computer to quantify that information, and spew out tendency statistics in real time.
Back in the day, this kind of information was gathered manually by guys who never get laid, listening to their home team on the radio.
These charts:
show that opposing teams pitch low and away to Bo Bichette a lot more than to any other location. That's also the area where he's least likely to hit the ball hard. He'd have a higher batting average and more walks if he took pitches in that zone all the time. His hardest hit balls are from high/ outside strikes, but off the plate in that area is his lowest exit velocity. High and inside appears to be a weak spot for him which isn't being exploited regularly.
We're going to see more of this in the future, where teams who have conceded that they won't make the post season dump salary at the end of August. This will involve pending free agents almost all of the time, or players who are not worth the cost of their remaining guaranteed contract years. Exceptions would be a player like Joey Votto; if the Reds had no chance of making the post season, they might hang on to a guy like Votto only because he has spent his entire career with the team.
The reasoning is sound, from an accounting perspective: those guys aren't likely to result in many additional ticket sales for September home games. The players cannot be traded. Any team claiming one of these guys has to pay the balance of the contract. By waiving a player instead of designating him for assignment, the waiver period is one day, instead of seven. The timing is such that players claimed on waivers will be eligible for the post season.
For players with fat contracts who would provide minimal help in September, the savvy move is to try to acquire the guy after the waiver period expires, so his salary hit is only the pro-rated percentage of the Major League minimum, but a contender might grab him sooner, to prevent a rival team lower in the standings from doing the same thing.
Acquiring a player at the end of August also means he has to be added to the 40 man roster, so the Angels might be trying to add some prospects by opening 40 man roster spots, and filling them through waiver claims on the guys who are cut loose by teams who pick up the Angels' waived players.
This is not all that different from in the NHL, where the trade deadline is only a few weeks before the end of the season, and star players who aren't in the middle of multiyear contracts see playoff action with some team almost every year.
If the Jays had kept Paul DeJong, they would have been on the hook for, at minimum, $3 Million in buyout money for his 2024 and 2025 team options. That amount is more, if a team is over the luxury tax threshold.
I think we made the wrong move keeping Kirk instead of Moreno.
I understand that they do it pitch by pitch.
But how does that equate to a batting average? An at bat can be 1 or 4 or 8 pitches. How do they know how many pitches will be thrown in a particular at bat? How do they know how many will be sacrifices? How do they know how many outs are made by great defensive plays?
There are sooo many variables, what is the formula for the calculations?
If a player has a .250 average against curve balls, it means that one time in four, the pitch which resulted in a hit or an out was a curve ball. Other pitches in that count are not relevant.
A hit is a hit, and an out is an out. Great, routine or poor fielding is a statistical factor for a fielder, not a batter. You can objectively determine a hit ball's exit velocity and launch angle, and use that to determine the probability of a hit ball being a base hit or an out.
What constitutes a great defensive play is a subjective judgement. Some defenders have a large range factor, meaning that they can make outs from balls hit within a larger than average radius of where they are positioned. Other fielders, (and the best example I can recall is Cal Ripken Jr), make/ made a lot of outs because they positioned themself where the batter was most likely to hit the ball, based on personal knowledge of both the pitcher and the hitter.
That method is used extensively in Cricket, where often two fielders will be responsible for hits to 40% of the grounds, and several fielders will be close together, in the area where one of them is most likely to catch a ball in the air.
Ok. So it's not really at all like an at bat or a batting average. Thanks.
Blair and Barker just commented on their show that there are at least 2 GM's who are thanking their lucky stars they didn't trade for Kirk. Blair 2 and Barker 1, or vice versa (I don't remember). As far as I know the 1 overlaps with the 2. But as you said a wrong decision was made with Moreno.
Earlier in the call they avoided a call-in question on the Kirk weight question by saying he's a really good defender...
The gross number and percentages of pitches which are four seam fastballs, curve balls, sliders, etc. is tabulated for pitchers, (and probably for batters, too), but the significance for batters is less. 'Aroldis Chapman throws a fastball 91% of the time with two strikes, two outs, and runners in scoring position' is fabricated, but would have statistical significance. 'Mookie Betts sees curve balls 2.37% more often than Freddie Freeman', would be useless information, if this includes all the pitches he didn't put in play, or ones which resulted in a strikeout or walk.
When stats are kept about every pitch thrown, any kind of average can easily be computed, but only some of those numbers have any practical application.
Most def, on keeping Jansen.
Schneider (or was it Atkins? Does it really matter...) also commented the catcher position has delivered 20HR and 85 RBI (actuallly it's slightly more) without actually saying that 16 of the HR's and 51 of the RBI's are Jansen's. That being said Kirk had a good day today. But still, unless he goes on an Allstar tear for the next 4+ weeks (6 weeks if they make the playoffs), it's all moot.
And no matter what, they should pinch run for him when he's on 3rd in the 8th when down by two with one out. Because, we all know he's the slowest base runner in the Rogers Centre. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but I'd bet there's 10,000 on any given night who could outrun him over 90'
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What the Angels did is so infinetely interesting to every club in the majors. Clearly they've given up on the season, and rightly so. Therefore they are trying to reduce their payroll to gain a draft advantage when Shoheil signs with another club (i.e. The Dodgers?).
Anyways...
If more than one team claims a player off waivers the team with the worst record gets the player, but has to add them to their team. So they can't DFA them. Meaning, if you claim them and get them, you've got make room for them. It goes to reason only teams in a playoff hunt would pick up a player for a playoff run. But, since all are free agents at the end of the season, a team out of the playoffs could pick up a player to try to woo them into being interested in signing a deal for the future.
So, an out of contention team could take a flyer on a player like Giolito, who's only 29, with the thought he can turn around a bad last half of this seaon and all things being equal (i.e. money) sign him as a free agent next year with the advantage they were the team that picked him up after being waivered. And that they woo'd him for the month of September with promises for a better 2024.
If I was an out of contention GM, I'd take the flyer on Giolito (because my starting rotation is likely weak) and see if I couldn't make him a solid part of my starting rotation for the next 3+ years after a cheap pick up for September 2023.
Let's see who claims him off waivers and who actually gets him...
I don't know how often Major League Baseball players receive a paycheck, but it's probably only once or twice per month, and likely on the last day of the month, and possibly also on or about the 15th. It's quite possible that a team acquiring a player on waivers today might be on the hook to pay half or all of the player's August salary. That's just ripe for an ethnic joke, but I won't go there...
Sadly I don't see that happening. We may squeak in as the 2nd wild card but I put a 50% shot at best to that.
