Major League Baseball Discussion: Offseason

[Imran Siddiqui]

There is always a time for leaders because when the **** hits the fan, if there is no one there to show the way, even a good team will go down the crapper. And during the season, there will always be those times when everything goes wrong, and for teams based on stats, this is where they fall apart.

Ya GOT leaders. You just bought one in Curt Schilling. Johnny Damon is also a leader-type guy, who leads more by example. Nomar wouldn't hurt the leadership of this team.

Which is why we should keep Manny and Nomar.

You misunderstand. Losing Manny would hurt the offense if you don't get someone who is equal to Manny in terms of offensive production. A-Rod is definetly an equal to Manny... I mean, anytime you have the ability to get the best player in the league (AL) for one player, you usually should jump on it.

And, whether you want to believe it or not, Ordonez is as good offensively as Nomar. Since the wrist injury, Nomar has been no where NEAR the almost .400 hitter he used to be (though he's still better than Jeter... Jeter sucks ).

That and you upgrade the defense. A-Rod is better defensively than Nomar, and Ordonez is BY FAR better defensively than Manny.

First of all everyone knows the braves suck. So do the giants, so thats not an option. He wants to win a ring. Which team has the most chance of winning one?

The Braves only won 101 games... they suck right?

And the Giants won the same. Anytime you win a 100 games, you automatically do not suck.

Sabean on the other hand has pretty much screwed the giants pitching for this year.

Well, he tried to make the run last year by trading prospects. Sometimes GMs do that and actually win out. Then again Ponson isn't that bad.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Hijacking this a bit. Feel free to ignore this.

Statistically, going by the unadjusted career batting stats, the ten most similar players to Nomar Garciaparra:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/g/garcino01.shtml

Miguel Tejada (824)
Derek Jeter (820)
Glenn Wright (819)
Magglio Ordonez (807)
Scott Rolen (801)
Vladimir Guerrero (800)
John Valentin (788)
Rich Aurilia (786)
Jose Valentin (780)
Brian Giles (777)

(Nomar doesn't show up on Magglio's list, what with Nomar being a power-hitting middle-infielder, which is historically rare, and Magglio being a power-hitting corner OF, which is historically more common. The similarity between the two scores at 807, which is close to not being meaningful.)

A-Rod's comp list:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/r/rodrial01.shtml

Mike Piazza (841)
Chipper Jones (811)
Manny Ramirez (793)
Jeff Kent (763)
Joe Gordon (758)
Jim Thome (756)
Derek Jeter (753)
Hack Wilson (752) *
Ralph Kiner (751) *
Vern Stephens (744)

(Again, A-Rod isn't anywhere near Manny's ten best comps, and this is close to not being meaningful.)

If you want something slightly more meaningful, the best comps for some players through that player's current age:

Nomar: Ernie Banks (863) (Makes some sense)
A-Rod: Junior Griffey (781) (ditto)
Jeter: Alan Trammell (905) (No, the Similarity Scores method only considers defensive position. It doesn't consider defensive quality. Joe Torre is third on the list, FWIW.)
Manny: Frank Thomas (898) (Albert Belle is second at 882, list also includes Ted Williams...)
Magglio: Wally Berger (958) (Makes some sense)
Vlad Guerrero: Willie Mays (929) ( )
Soriano: Joe Gordon (933) (see comments on Jeter and Trammell. Juan Samuel is fifth.)
Sheffield: Duke Snider (922) (Not promising, is it?)
Schilling: Bret Saberhagen (935) (Eep.)
Foulke: Mel Rojas (970) (interestingly, Byung-Hyun Kim is second on his career comp list...)

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah I see you've been having fun at baseballreference .

I love that site, don't you?

Another fun site:

http://www.baseballgraphs.com/winshares/

Name - Team - Position - Hitting Win Shares - Fielding WS - Pitching WS - Sum - Win Shares

M Ramirez - BOS - OF - 25.27 - 2.32 - 0.00 - 27.59 -28
N Garciaparra - BOS - SS - 19.22 - 5.98 - 0.00 - 25.19 -25


M Ordonez - CWS - OF - 19.63 - 3.18 - 0.00 - 22.80 - 23
A Rodriguez - TEX - SS - 26.08 - 6.43 - 0.00 - 32.51 - 32

Added together:

Manny + Nomar = 28+25= 53
Ordonez + A-Rod = 23+32= 55

Not a great difference, but you upgrade on defense in both positions. A-Rod is better batting and fielding than Nomar, and because he played on a worse team, his Win Shares mark is more impressive. Manny is better than Ordonez by 5 WS (all hitting), but he is also a clubhouse cancer.

[Brundlefly]

Well NL hitters get to spend some time with the Rocket this year. I guess Cubs will try twice as hard to sign Maddux now. I never thought I would sympathize with Yankee fans, but it kind of sucks when a guy says he is retiring and then snubs you to come back with a different team. But that is MLB 2004 for you. I'm glad that Vlad is out of NL now. He always crushed the Phils.

[OzzyKP]

I hear there is some affinity between Pudge and the Tigers.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Well NL hitters get to spend some time with the Rocket this year.

...and NL Pitchers get to spend some time Clemens.