kalinecountry said:

Listen, you were asked and then told to tread more carefully.
So after the two of them get into a back and forth, you come on and call him Rebbiv an asshole.
More gasoline on a fire is not needed.

We don't need this, we don't want it, if you continue force the mods here into a corner you won't like it. out of my hands.

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Sorry , but i call em like i see em . And im not gonna change my ways just because certain people here cant handle being called out for being morons . I do find comfort in reading other posters feeling the same way , in that its certain posters way or the highway . THATS why this board is losing posters , people are tired of the same idiots

If thats what you guys are going for , so be it . But i will continue to post my way and my version , if thats not welcome then what can i do ? This is a message board , not a nazi camp where we must blindly follow the "leaders" .

Too much drama.
No need for this sort of bull shit.

As for where I post form, I spend time in East Lansing on my mobile and Utica from home.

EDIT: So effectively what is going on here is that I would be being turned off participation in this board for fear of having to deal with Rebbiv who has essentially tried to shout me down, trying to roll me and couldn't do it because I was willing to throw pages at him, he couldn't "beat" down my point, so he insulted me and threw some bs accusation.

Whatever, this is all really silly and unnecessary.

nsonnett14 said:

Sorry , but i call em like i see em . And im not gonna change my ways just because certain people here cant handle being called out for being morons . I do find comfort in reading other posters feeling the same way , in that its certain posters way or the highway . THATS why this board is losing posters , people are tired of the same idiots

If thats what you guys are going for , so be it . But i will continue to post my way and my version , if thats not welcome then what can i do ? This is a message board , not a nazi camp where we must blindly follow the "leaders" .

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Wrong, posters don't post as much because of off topic, same ole same ole arguments. And adding flame to already pit fight.

And I dare you to go anywhere else and see if the same rules apply or not. You'd be on the perma ban list multiple times anywhere else.

This is getting out of hand. How many times does this need to happen before a change of direction happens? We've lost so many long time posters that used to post daily because of the senseless hijacks of threads because some can't handle a different opinion.

I think Avila should spend more time and effort on improving the minor league system.

gotime909 said:

This is getting out of hand. How many times does this need to happen before a change of direction happens? We've lost so many long time posters that used to post daily because of the senseless hijacks of threads because some can't handle a different opinion.

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That's what I was getting at in another thread. I have never been much of a regular outside a couple seasons but its an observation I've had over the last 2 years. Pretty much since the Fister trade.

People want to be optimistic by nature as fans...most I should say. So you come to a forum to discuss and often "get excited for your team" (specifically preseason). I actually was inspired to pop on here by the Upton signing only to see the usual "why this is a bad idea" posts and not much else.

What that tells me is the optimistic types have been driven off the board by a non stop onslaught of a negative posting.

We are all entitled to our opinion but we should be allowed to have our own slant without being told why our ABC reasons are stupid and reasons xyz are why. It literally never fails.

All that said the mods on here are solid

jimmygank said:

That's what I was getting at in another thread. I have never been much of a regular outside a couple seasons but its an observation I've had over the last 2 years. Pretty much since the Fister trade.

People want to be optimistic by nature as fans...most I should say. So you come to a forum to discuss and often "get excited for your team" (specifically preseason). I actually was inspired to pop on here by the Upton signing only to see the usual "why this is a bad idea" posts and not much else.

What that tells me is the optimistic types have been driven off the board by a non stop onslaught of a negative posting.

We are all entitled to our opinion but we should be allowed to have our own slant without being told why our ABC reasons are stupid and reasons xyz are why. It literally never fails.

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Yeah, no one posting on here is going to be even close to 100% right on purpose. If anyone was that good they'd be working in baseball.

The tendency to dismiss differing opinions or try to "crush" them while refusing to agree to disagree and insisting on endlessly "debate" instead is, I think, not a symptom of this board but our idiocracy.

I mean I look at our political class, or talking heads, my relatives, my co-workers, and I see this idiotic refusal to be wrong, which is fubar because being wrong is the best way to learn things (unless you're wrong about something like keeping Tigers for pets).

JackCade said:

Yeah, no one posting on here is going to be even close to 100% right on purpose. If anyone was that good they'd be working in baseball.

The tendency to dismiss differing opinions or try to "crush" them while refusing to agree to disagree and insisting on endlessly "debate" instead is, I think, not a symptom of this board but our idiocracy.

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from what I have read on this thread...you are as guilty as the next guy.

tomdalton22 said:

from what I have read on this thread...you are as guilty as the next guy.

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Then you didn't read what I wrote very carefully Tom: On multiple occasions I've pointed out where I might be wrong or where what I said was limited and not 100%.

I mean, I am right, like irrefutably, sun-is-going-to-appear-to-rise-in-the-east right that the Phillies and the Tigers financial situations while comparable are not the same. Close? maybe, maybe not.

But most of the what I said, at one point or another, I've said something about the possibility that I'm wrong.

Proof:
"At the end of the day unless we sit down and talk to Mike Ilitch not you nor I know."

"We'll see what this year brings. If this year is a bad year, you can crow about being right having seen the signs of decline, and how the Phillies represent an immutable law of baseball and physics."

For more, look at posts #31 and #33 on this thread, now I'm bias, but they seem like moderate posts admitting my fallibility.

Even after he insulted me in post #40 my response in #41 while a bit aggressive still noted the limitations of my argument.

Finally, post #72 sure seemed fairly self-effacing. I called myself and asshole and a monster and mocked myself with .gifs.

So yeah, take that dog and go hunt somewhere else.

Yes, I hold my position when I think that I'm right, yes I argued for it aggressively. But, could I be wrong? Of course. If you convince me that I'm wrong, I change my position because I'm not a stubborn moron.

We should all want to be proven wrong, not like all the time, but from time to time. Being wrong, and realizing it is called learning. Learning, aka getting smarter, is good. People who are never wrong are never learning and are not getting smarter.

So, yeah.
One who is never wrong is never learning, and one who is never learning is a zombie.

The smartest human beings on the planet are wrong all the time about things they know more about that anyone else, thus we all can be wrong.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28478

Tigers’ catcher (-1.8 WARP): The combination of starters and backups in Detroit doesn’t just make it the worst projected position in the American League; James McCann and crew are projected as the worst position in baseball. McCann’s offense last year was okay; good but not great if we’re feeling charitable. But his defense, particularly his framing, was poor. By our framing metrics, he cost the Tigers 16.6 runs in 2015. His projected -1.4 WARP is actually an improvement on his -1.7 WARP 2015 campaign. Not exactly inspiring stuff.


Possible solutions: Youth getting better. The good news for Tigers fans is that the front office clearly recognized a potential problem at the position coming into 2016. The bad news is that after letting Alex Avila move over a state to the White Sox, the veteran backstop that Al Avila brought in as an insurance policy on another poor year from McCann was Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Saltalamacchia is projected to combine a weak offensive performance with especially poor defense. PECOTA doesn’t take his sparkling personality into account (no doubt a relief to the Tigers front office) but still sees him as -0.3-win player. The worse news? Help is not to be found readily on the farm, and the free agent market going into the season has been picked clean. They’ll have to hope that McCann shows himself worthy of a million bad “Yes he McCann puns,” picks up some framing techniques from Brad Ausmus, and hits more like he did in Toledo than he has in Comerica. The Tigers might look to make a trade later in the year if they’re contending, but they’ll likely have competition for scant catcher resources. More on that in a minute.

Rebbiv said:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=28478

Tigers’ catcher (-1.8 WARP): The combination of starters and backups in Detroit doesn’t just make it the worst projected position in the American League; James McCann and crew are projected as the worst position in baseball. McCann’s offense last year was okay; good but not great if we’re feeling charitable. But his defense, particularly his framing, was poor. By our framing metrics, he cost the Tigers 16.6 runs in 2015. His projected -1.4 WARP is actually an improvement on his -1.7 WARP 2015 campaign. Not exactly inspiring stuff.


Possible solutions: Youth getting better. The good news for Tigers fans is that the front office clearly recognized a potential problem at the position coming into 2016. The bad news is that after letting Alex Avila move over a state to the White Sox, the veteran backstop that Al Avila brought in as an insurance policy on another poor year from McCann was Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Saltalamacchia is projected to combine a weak offensive performance with especially poor defense. PECOTA doesn’t take his sparkling personality into account (no doubt a relief to the Tigers front office) but still sees him as -0.3-win player. The worse news? Help is not to be found readily on the farm, and the free agent market going into the season has been picked clean. They’ll have to hope that McCann shows himself worthy of a million bad “Yes he McCann puns,” picks up some framing techniques from Brad Ausmus, and hits more like he did in Toledo than he has in Comerica. The Tigers might look to make a trade later in the year if they’re contending, but they’ll likely have competition for scant catcher resources. More on that in a minute.

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Sorry but grain of salt taken.

First, there is zero chance that McCann actually cost nearly 17 runs due to poor pitch framing (a thing that might not even actually exist),
Brad Ausmus was a kind of good catcher, I'm going to go ahead and trust that if he had a player playing the position he played for 18 years who was that bad that his keen mind trained at Dartmouth would've noticed it.

16.6 runs, :bs:
That is ridiculous.

Second, what about his McCannon?

JackCade said:

due to poor pitch framing (a thing that might not even actually exist)

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I don't want to sound like a snob but if you think pitch framing doesn't exist...I'm at a loss of words.

JackCade said:

Second, what about his McCannon?

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Whether people agree that he has a cannon or not, I would totally buy my son a t-shirt with that on it.

Jack cade why or how can you not think there is such a thing as pitch framing?

You watch enough games almost every catcher is pulling leaning or turning his catchers glove into the strike zone to get the ump to call a strike.

I would agree he has a strong arm, but throwing out runners is predicated on pitchers holding the runners close to the bag, type of pitch FB or offspeed velocity, and the catchers time in split seconds of catch and throw to the base.

I agree McCann has a great arm, but in terms of things I want a catcher to be good at, throwing out the occasional base-stealer is just not a high priority.

Call the right piches in the right situation
Set up your target as late as possible as to not tip off the hitter (Avila was the master of this)
Frame pitches well
Get on base (hits or walks or HBP I don't care)
play solid defense
throw out runners stealing second, throw behind runner at first

That's how I would personally rank it

JackCade said:

Sorry but grain of salt taken.

First, there is zero chance that McCann actually cost nearly 17 runs due to poor pitch framing (a thing that might not even actually exist),
Brad Ausmus was a kind of good catcher, I'm going to go ahead and trust that if he had a player playing the position he played for 18 years who was that bad that his keen mind trained at Dartmouth would've noticed it.

16.6 runs, :bs:
That is ridiculous.

Second, what about his McCannon?

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Pitch framing is a concept I've been familiar with since Gus Triandos was the Tigers' catcher.

kalinecountry said:

Jack cade why or how can you not think there is such a thing as pitch framing?

You watch enough games almost every catcher is pulling leaning or turning his catchers glove into the strike zone to get the ump to call a strike.

I would agree he has a strong arm, but throwing out runners is predicated on pitchers holding the runners close to the bag, type of pitch FB or offspeed velocity, and the catchers time in split seconds of catch and throw to the base.

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www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-beginning-of-the-end-for-pitch-framing/
http://www.thinkbluela.com/index.php/2016/01/29/pitch-framing-myth-or-passing-fad/

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/20...catcher-framing-umpire-data-molina-is-awesome

It is funny, in 2014 there was some talk of Avila tipping pitches...

McCann is a good catcher, his rookie campaign was strong. His pitch calling is not going to be top shelf on year one, but it got better as the season went on and he learned more.

As for framing, I'm sorry, I watch catchers try to frame watch Umps ignore them all the time.

Just because we think something exists, doesn't mean that it does, or is as important as we think it was.

2015 McCann

69 Baser-unners attempted to steal

28 were thrown out.

League Average would be 22 thrown out

6 CS is hardly 6 runs saved for the year. Using Run Expectancy, it is probably only about 2 runs, 3 runs tops.


Brandon Inge started out his first year throwing out 45% of the runners (36% for his career). He did not stay long as a MLB catcher because despite his athleticism, he was bad at pitch framing and calling a game.

Mike Piazza wasn't great at throwing out runners. He called an OK game and he framed pitches well.

Sorry man, I don't buy it.

A catcher's game calling is important, his handling of the staff, the perception that he can "frame" but how much that impacts the ump is up for debate (as in literally by experts right now).

Throwing out base-stealers isn't just important for those caught but for those who don't try because they know that the catcher has a cannon for an arm. Hard to measure that number.

Then there is the passed ball and other defensive plays.

So, yeah, B.P.'s emphasis on framing at a time when folks are interrogating the metrics isn't particularly compelling for me.