MLB 2018 regular season thread

This. 100 percent.

 

Bryce Harper, Hall of Overrated?
7 years career average 280/386/515
But in his 7 years he’s only hit his career average twice. Exceeding his BA by 50 points and 39 points,otherwise he’s about a .268 hitter by average. Likewise his average OBP average has been exceeded twice in 7 years and his slugging 3 times in7 years. He’s more likely to hit .270 than .300
By contrast in his 7 years, Mike Trout has exceed his career BA 5 times. .Harper’s MVP season is better than any single season Trout has had in BA/OBP/SLG but Trout consistently outperforms Harper.

It’s not fair to take away Harper’s MVP season from his career. But it’s looking more as if it was an aberration than just an exemplary season among many.

I put little stock in WAR, beacuase I don’t understand the formula and I have no idea who the replacement player is or what a full season of a replacement would be. I’d rather like Harper to be compared to similar players. Either what is the team average for a right fielder. Or what is the average #3 hitter in a lineup.
But based on WAR for position players, Harper is 10th among active players with 8 years or less, he has 7. But players like Trout are considered in their 8th year even though his 1st year was just 135 plate appearances.

 

Do you think it is an actual player?

 

I would take Harper on my favorite team in a heartbeat. He's 25. I'd take my chances that he'll get better as he ages toward his 30-year-old season.

The only player I'd break the bank for is Trout. Unless he drives off a cliff, he'll be as automatic to Cooperstown as Pujols was at a similar age. Like Pujols, a generational talent.

 

No. But it also seems to be an unrealistic baseline because aquiring that baseline player is unreachable. The Orioles and Royals would love to be a replacement level team

 

The Angels broke the bank for Pujols

 

They do.

 

Foolishly.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Trout will age better than Pujols, because Trout is a fucking freak of nature.

 

I don't go out on limbs about baseball players' futures after Grady Sizemore. Guys can be 162-a-year players and then just break in half out of nowhere.

 

Catcher

 

Not MLB, but MLB-related: The Pawtucket Red Sox will move to Worcester, Mass., for the 2021 season. A lame-duck franchise should draw really well the next two years.

The PawSox have been an International League fixture for years and years. It's been a pretty stable league since Buffalo rejoined, except for the Richmond-to Gwinnett move. I do wish they'd go back to three AAA leagues, though, and reform the old American Association, if they could get the name back.

Have read they will try to get a Class A team to replace them. Have to be short-season; no long-season Class A leagues in the region. Possibly a landing place for Batavia, when the NY-P League inevitably sheds another underperforming upstate NY/WNY franchise (Jamestown, Utica, Watertown, Geneva, Niagara Falls, etc.).