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Other Sports: Philadelphia Phillies: The Road To .500 (2023 Edition)

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FLYguy3911 said:
Because baseball actually hires front office people who are qualified to make high level decisions and not former ex-players who overvalue intangibles.
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Chili's? Ersatz Mexican food?
Just find yourself a real Mexican hole in the wall.
Unfortunately, I'm on the wrong side of Philly.
 
Fujinami 1 yr $3.35MM with $850K incentive.

How can Stupid Money be scared of contracts like this? It's a low risk no brainer on a fireballer with insane breaking stuff. Those are the types of signings that win championships. Meanwhile, there have been no additions to the bullpen other than Ken f***ing Allard. What are we DOING
 
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Off the top of my head, there are at least two former players who are a few steps from the top executive positions in their organizations: Sam Fuld and Gabe Kapler. Not sure if those guys are trending toward becoming a team's first choice as president of baseball operations, but there could be a chance that they land the position on an interim basis at some point.
 
so 3 keepers in fantasy baseball..i mean i have to keep Carroll Ohtani and Harper right? only other choice is Gunnar
 
Hollywood Cannon said:
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I still think these types of contracts for young players in baseball are wild. I get it from a perspective of potentially keeping things cost effective for the time immediately following his arbitration eligibility and such, but man if there is any sport where signing an unproven player long term is risky, baseball is it. Witt isn't a bad player by any means, but he's got two seasons under his belt and one was ok and the other was a little bit better. Seems like the safer bet would be to let him play out all his rookie deals and service time deals or whatever they are called in baseball until he truly is a free agent and then sign a big deal rather than pay a ton upfront for someone who very well may never improve more than he is now.

Maybe I'm just gunshy because of Sotty Jetpax but baseball just seems so difficult to get to that elite level and actually stay there.
 
DrinkFightFlyers said:
I still think these types of contracts for young players in baseball are wild. I get it from a perspective of potentially keeping things cost effective for the time immediately following his arbitration eligibility and such, but man if there is any sport where signing an unproven player long term is risky, baseball is it. Witt isn't a bad player by any means, but he's got two seasons under his belt and one was ok and the other was a little bit better. Seems like the safer bet would be to let him play out all his rookie deals and service time deals or whatever they are called in baseball until he truly is a free agent and then sign a big deal rather than pay a ton upfront for someone who very well may never improve more than he is now.

Maybe I'm just gunshy because of Sotty Jetpax but baseball just seems so difficult to get to that elite level and actually stay there.
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Take whatever chances you want, like whoever you want to like, and all of that. And yes, there is risk.

But the disconnect here is that you’re wildly underrating Witt’s 2023. It was fantastic by every reasonable definition. He was a Gold Glove quality SS and a well above average ML hitter. There wasn’t even an unexplainable BABIP spike. He succeeded in exactly the ways it was projected that he eventually could. It’s as clean of a forecast as you’ll get.
 
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JojoTheWhale said:
Take whatever chances you want, like whoever you want to like, and all of that. And yes, there is risk.

But the disconnect here is that you’re wildly underrating Witt’s 2023. It was fantastic by every reasonable definition. He was a Gold Glove quality SS and a well above average ML hitter. There wasn’t even an unexplainable BABIP spike. He succeeded in exactly the ways it was projected that he eventually could. It’s as clean of a forecast as you’ll get.
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The point wasn't to say Witt isn't good or anything like that, it was just signing young baseball players to these kinds of deal is risky, especially compared to other sports.

But by what metric was it fantastic? Unless there are some new advanced stats of which I am not aware, he doesn't appear to have fantastic stats. Even just comparing him to Bryson Stott their stats are similar or Stott beats him except in the HR and triples department for the most part, and that includes advanced stats (the almighty WAR has Stott with an edge last season). Not trying to argue Stott is better, but I would not want the Phillies to sign Stott to this kind of deal and if I was a Royals fan I wouldn't be thrilled other than to say that the Royals are keeping their homegrown talent rather than trading them away like other smaller market/budget teams. Seems much more likely that these guys (or any guys) are more likely to plateau or regress than improve.
 
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Kingery got signed before ever playing in a big league game and only had a few AAA games to his name.

It’s usually the Latin players who accept these deals though since it is literally life changing money for them and their families (aka every Atlanta Brave). Not Americans with big league fathers.

These are hardly ever bad investments for the clubs.
 
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DrinkFightFlyers said:
The point wasn't to say Witt isn't good or anything like that, it was just signing young baseball players to these kinds of deal is risky, especially compared to other sports.

But by what metric was it fantastic? Unless there are some new advanced stats of which I am not aware, he doesn't appear to have fantastic stats. Even just comparing him to Bryson Stott their stats are similar or Stott beats him except in the HR and triples department for the most part, and that includes advanced stats (the almighty WAR has Stott with an edge last season). Not trying to argue Stott is better, but I would not want the Phillies to sign Stott to this kind of deal and if I was a Royals fan I wouldn't be thrilled other than to say that the Royals are keeping their homegrown talent rather than trading them away like other smaller market/budget teams. Seems much more likely that these guys (or any guys) are more likely to plateau or regress than improve.
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Witt Jr. is already a more complete hitter, comparable fielder, better base-runner and is 3 years younger. This isn't really an apples to apple comparison. At 23, he's on a trajectory to be one of the best players in Baseball when he turns Stotts current age.
 
DrinkFightFlyers said:
The point wasn't to say Witt isn't good or anything like that, it was just signing young baseball players to these kinds of deal is risky, especially compared to other sports.
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As always, please tell me if my assumptions are incorrect.

You seem to be taking this as a sign of front office approach. The NBA and the NHL both have maximum contract terms. They couldn't sign these kinds of deals today, but when it was allowed in the NHL, it is where contracts were going. And of course the NFL doesn't have guaranteed contracts, which means you're well into apples and oranges.

Not all that long ago, the Flyers signed Owen bleeping Tippett to 8 years. He's a fine player, but no one would call him one of the best players on the planet. (Ok, someone would. No one should.)

DrinkFightFlyers said:
But by what metric was it fantastic? Unless there are some new advanced stats of which I am not aware, he doesn't appear to have fantastic stats. Even just comparing him to Bryson Stott their stats are similar or Stott beats him except in the HR and triples department for the most part, and that includes advanced stats (the almighty WAR has Stott with an edge last season). Not trying to argue Stott is better, but I would not want the Phillies to sign Stott to this kind of deal and if I was a Royals fan I wouldn't be thrilled other than to say that the Royals are keeping their homegrown talent rather than trading them away like other smaller market/budget teams. Seems much more likely that these guys (or any guys) are more likely to plateau or regress than improve.
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I'm going to do my best to avoid what you would consider new advanced stats. WAR is also not the almighty, but we'll let that one go for now.

First, Stott is almost 3 years older. That's not a small deal. Without even getting into the quality of the defense he provides, Stott is a 2B and Witt plays the most valuable and expensive defensive position on the field. So we have best athletes in the sport generally funneled into Witt's position and him being a perfectly reasonable choice for the best defender among them. I don't want to disparage Stott because it's not a fair comparison to take a good defensive 2B and compare him to a top flight SS. You wouldn't compare Mickey Morandini and Jimmy Rollins as defenders, right? They exist on completely different planes.

Things I know you like to use like Batting Average and OBP are largely washes, but the difference in power is not small. Stott Slugged .419 to Witt's .495. That kind of difference in power is enough to take you from pretty much a league average hitter to well above it.

What I will use fWAR for is one stat I will steal from Michael Baumann to illustrate just how rare it is for a Shortstop to do what Witt did last year. You may or may not be familiar with wRC+, so the only thing you need to know is that 100 is league average and high is good.

Baumann said:
Since the start of the live ball era, there have only been 223 seasons in which an AL or NL shortstop, age 23 or younger, has even played enough to qualify for the batting title. Only 39 of those seasons involved the shortstop in question posting 4.5 WAR or more; only 42 times did the shortstop have a wRC+ of 115 or better. Witt and Henderson accounted for two of the 33 seasons in which the player did both.

Those 33 seasons belong to 25 individual players. (Sorting the leaderboard this way will return the names “Ripken” and “Rodriguez” a lot.) Here they are, with their standing in relation to the Hall of Fame. “HOVG” stands for “Hall of Very Good,” i.e. a player who’s in the 40 career WAR neighborhood, with multiple All-Star appearances or high MVP finishes, but who didn’t make the Hall of Fame. A-Rod got his own unique designation:

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Source: What Could Keep Gunnar Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr. From Making the Hall of Fame?
 
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