Wiretowire
Pretty much a regular
Let me start off by saying these are my impressions of the coming season. If you have a favorite team, then I must say two things. 1) Don't ever bet on or against your team. You are biased. You may think you are not but trust me you are. 2) Because you are a fan of a certain team, I will probably piss you off with my following analysis of all the teams. The reason I will piss you off? You are biased. Now that is not to say you shouldn't voice your opinion in this thread of how clueless or full of shit I am about MLB. That's the beauty of baseball. You sit around drinking and arguing. That is what this sport is all about.
In the ancient days, baseball was about one thing. Pitching. Period. Drysdale or Koufax would go up against Gibson and the books would set the line as -120 for whoever was home and the total at 4 or 4 1/2 and every over bettor would lose their shirt. They would pitch 9 to 12 innings each, every game, and the final score would be like 1-0. Today all that is changed. These pitchers are all held to just 6 innings in the minors. It's not their fault. 95% of today's starters won't go past the 6th and maybe 80% never even see the 6th. If, as a manager, you walked out back then to take a pitcher out because of pitch count he would literally stare at you and tell you to get the fuck off his mound. Today the starters don't last long and they even have something called a "starter" who is actually a reliever making a start of just two innings. Unreal.
Why am I saying all this? Simple. The game is different and we as bettors have to cap it differently. Yes, you should still look at the starters stats as that will tell you who should be leading pitching wise to the 5th inning. In other words, some starters will keep you in the game longer than others. But what about after the 5th? You could try to cap bullpens but good luck with that as some of those guys pitch every day or at least 2 on and 1 off. No one can cap relievers effectiveness with that kind of demand on them. And don't forget they grew up on pitch counts in the minors just like the starters. Not to mention their wife is pissed at them some days for not being home to help with the kids or they might, like every other human being, just have a bad or off day sometimes.
But there is one constant you can use to cap and that's offense. And I'm not talking about how many homers your team can hit. Texas and the Yankees a few years back are perfect examples of how that doesn't work. Besides, think about a guy hitting 50 homers. Great right? That would be incredible in today's game. The most they hit last year was 48. But the guy is at the plate over 500 times each year and hits 1 home run for every 10 plate appearances. I know because of the so called experts bullshit you have been indoctrinated to think that's good but with a HR swing what can you be hitting the other 90% of the time? Maybe .230? Not very good when you look at it that way. And how many guys will even hit over 40 HR's in today's game? Maybe 6 or 7 out of 780 or so total players in the league. Not too good.
No, what I am talking about isn't the rare HR boys or the guessers, I am talking about the pure hitters that will come through game after game. Look at all the teams for just those guys and good pitching, both starters and relievers, becomes a bonus. So that's what the following team evaluation is about. Solid offense. I know that the "experts" have looked at starting pitching or pen relief as they have for 50 years but I contend that doesn't tell the proper story today. And keep in mind if you have a limited number of quality hitters on your team the pitchers know it too and don't give them good pitches to hit. In essence they pitch around those hitters to face others less dangerous. If you have a lot of good hitters you have to pitch to someone sometime and there is no avoiding them as a group.
One thing worth mentioning is that even though pitchers don't intend to give a hitter anything to hit they do make mistakes. If you can hit you make them pay. If you are guessing, as the minor league hitting coaches try to make you it doesn't matter whether the pitcher makes a mistake or not. I never understood that guessing shit. We played see the ball hit the ball. Look fast ball and take off speed the other way. But almost all of todays hitters guess (except those really good ones) and when they are looking off speed they look really stupid just standing there as a fastball sails down the middle of the plate. Or if guessing fastball they swing out of their shoes as a curve floats 6 feet outside the strike zone.
And don't bring up all that OBS shit or whatever. The hitting has been so bad in the majors for the last 5 years they had to come up with stats that looked impressive because they got tired of saying every one had a batting average of .200 or less. And no those stats don't tell you any new information on how a guy hits despite all the talking heads. You tell me what the guys batting average is and I can tell you what kind of hitter he really is. "But we have to count bases because if he gets a double that's more than a single!" Save me from these knuckleheads.
Here are my offensive evaluations. They are broken into categories based on how many really good hitters are in the lineup today. And yes, it can change because of trades but it can also change for the worse because of injuries. Yes too, this is my opinion on who is a good hitter. It will be interesting to see how well this ages as far as how well the teams (I think are) without hitters do with their record. Think how much fun you will have saying I told you so when I'm wrong.....
Loaded (4 or more hitters)
Mets
St Louis
NYY
Boston
Phil
LA
Toronto
Good (3 hitters)
MLW
Hou
SD
Det
SF
Just OK (2 hitters)
Atlanta
Anaheim
Cinn
Wash
Colo
TB
Minn
Texas
White Sox - I know my old team is picked by many "experts" to be there in the end but I seriously can't see a lot of solid bats in the lineup. Truth be told, because they are my old team is the only reason I gave them the benefit of the doubt and put them in the OK category. They should actually be in the has nothing category.
Has Nothing (Only 1 decent hitter)
Pitt
AZ
Cubs
Cle
KC
Oak
Balt
Sea
Miami
What the fuck were these front offices thinking when they traded away any hitters they had? GL
In the ancient days, baseball was about one thing. Pitching. Period. Drysdale or Koufax would go up against Gibson and the books would set the line as -120 for whoever was home and the total at 4 or 4 1/2 and every over bettor would lose their shirt. They would pitch 9 to 12 innings each, every game, and the final score would be like 1-0. Today all that is changed. These pitchers are all held to just 6 innings in the minors. It's not their fault. 95% of today's starters won't go past the 6th and maybe 80% never even see the 6th. If, as a manager, you walked out back then to take a pitcher out because of pitch count he would literally stare at you and tell you to get the fuck off his mound. Today the starters don't last long and they even have something called a "starter" who is actually a reliever making a start of just two innings. Unreal.
Why am I saying all this? Simple. The game is different and we as bettors have to cap it differently. Yes, you should still look at the starters stats as that will tell you who should be leading pitching wise to the 5th inning. In other words, some starters will keep you in the game longer than others. But what about after the 5th? You could try to cap bullpens but good luck with that as some of those guys pitch every day or at least 2 on and 1 off. No one can cap relievers effectiveness with that kind of demand on them. And don't forget they grew up on pitch counts in the minors just like the starters. Not to mention their wife is pissed at them some days for not being home to help with the kids or they might, like every other human being, just have a bad or off day sometimes.
But there is one constant you can use to cap and that's offense. And I'm not talking about how many homers your team can hit. Texas and the Yankees a few years back are perfect examples of how that doesn't work. Besides, think about a guy hitting 50 homers. Great right? That would be incredible in today's game. The most they hit last year was 48. But the guy is at the plate over 500 times each year and hits 1 home run for every 10 plate appearances. I know because of the so called experts bullshit you have been indoctrinated to think that's good but with a HR swing what can you be hitting the other 90% of the time? Maybe .230? Not very good when you look at it that way. And how many guys will even hit over 40 HR's in today's game? Maybe 6 or 7 out of 780 or so total players in the league. Not too good.
No, what I am talking about isn't the rare HR boys or the guessers, I am talking about the pure hitters that will come through game after game. Look at all the teams for just those guys and good pitching, both starters and relievers, becomes a bonus. So that's what the following team evaluation is about. Solid offense. I know that the "experts" have looked at starting pitching or pen relief as they have for 50 years but I contend that doesn't tell the proper story today. And keep in mind if you have a limited number of quality hitters on your team the pitchers know it too and don't give them good pitches to hit. In essence they pitch around those hitters to face others less dangerous. If you have a lot of good hitters you have to pitch to someone sometime and there is no avoiding them as a group.
One thing worth mentioning is that even though pitchers don't intend to give a hitter anything to hit they do make mistakes. If you can hit you make them pay. If you are guessing, as the minor league hitting coaches try to make you it doesn't matter whether the pitcher makes a mistake or not. I never understood that guessing shit. We played see the ball hit the ball. Look fast ball and take off speed the other way. But almost all of todays hitters guess (except those really good ones) and when they are looking off speed they look really stupid just standing there as a fastball sails down the middle of the plate. Or if guessing fastball they swing out of their shoes as a curve floats 6 feet outside the strike zone.
And don't bring up all that OBS shit or whatever. The hitting has been so bad in the majors for the last 5 years they had to come up with stats that looked impressive because they got tired of saying every one had a batting average of .200 or less. And no those stats don't tell you any new information on how a guy hits despite all the talking heads. You tell me what the guys batting average is and I can tell you what kind of hitter he really is. "But we have to count bases because if he gets a double that's more than a single!" Save me from these knuckleheads.
Here are my offensive evaluations. They are broken into categories based on how many really good hitters are in the lineup today. And yes, it can change because of trades but it can also change for the worse because of injuries. Yes too, this is my opinion on who is a good hitter. It will be interesting to see how well this ages as far as how well the teams (I think are) without hitters do with their record. Think how much fun you will have saying I told you so when I'm wrong.....
Loaded (4 or more hitters)
Mets
St Louis
NYY
Boston
Phil
LA
Toronto
Good (3 hitters)
MLW
Hou
SD
Det
SF
Just OK (2 hitters)
Atlanta
Anaheim
Cinn
Wash
Colo
TB
Minn
Texas
White Sox - I know my old team is picked by many "experts" to be there in the end but I seriously can't see a lot of solid bats in the lineup. Truth be told, because they are my old team is the only reason I gave them the benefit of the doubt and put them in the OK category. They should actually be in the has nothing category.
Has Nothing (Only 1 decent hitter)
Pitt
AZ
Cubs
Cle
KC
Oak
Balt
Sea
Miami
What the fuck were these front offices thinking when they traded away any hitters they had? GL
