Click here to read the transcript of this morning’s baseball chat, moderated by MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk
Headlines
- Blue Jays, Red Sox To Meet With Juan Soto, Scott Boras
- Twins CEO Dave St. Peter Steps Down; Derek Falvey, Jeremy Zoll Promoted
- Enter The MLBTR Free Agent Prediction Contest
- Marlins Hire Clayton McCullough As Manager
- NPB’s Chiba Lotte Marines To Post Roki Sasaki For MLB Clubs
- Cardinals Expected To Gauge Trade Interest In Nolan Arenado
Navigation
MLBTR INFO
Connect
MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com
hide arrows
scroll to top
lol that’s a terrible trade. id take Fletcher over Ray even if they had the same number of control years.
okay wow no respect for him here i guess
You know lately I’ve been buying the generic brand of wax beans. I tear the label off. I can’t tell the difference.
Dynamite, there is seriously something wrong with you.
Thank you
Kobe Bryant is dead.
Not really sure why so many are down on Riley, though he had massive holes in his swing. Seitzer worked with Acuna, Albies, Swanson, who each had holes in their swings, to refine them after their call-ups, making significant changes. I would imagine Chipper will be focusing a lot on Riley in ST, if ATL thinks he could be manning his former position at the hot corner for awhile.
He’s not Penske material.
kinda disaapointed my Betts to TOR proposal wasnt answered. with TOR’s SP excess, lack of huge long-term contracts, and lame OF group, that could be a fit.
My JBJ trade idea was also not answered, did you notice how Mark stated In a reply he will not answer trade questions if he thinks they are not realistic
Change in policy I guess.
Before he would say
(fill in team name here)
says no…..
Yes let the Jays trade for Betts, give up prospects, win 85 games, miss the playoffs and lose Betts in free agency with less prospects in the bank.
That is why your Betts question wasn’t answered. He is not a fit in Toronto. Completely unrealistic.
But he could be a fit in 2021 when he is a free agent Toronto will easily have the cash and Mookie is a pal and admirer of Bo Bichette.
Agree. Jays should do a hard pass on Betts trade
They make up all the Q&A. It’s all scripted.
Wow, That’s an incredible coincidence then. I’ve submitted a handful of questions and they showed up in the scripted Q&A with answers. What are the odds?
Mine too. The coinky dinky grows
Yeah and they foolishly think Arenado for Andujar and Stanton is not a thing. Jeesh!
Larry Walker fanboy running this chat. A good player who should not be in the Hall. His OPS away from Coors was 200 points lower than in Denver. This is on the same level as Harold Baines, but it’s all politics nowadays.
Too bad for you as Larry Walker is in the HOF!!! What you think does not matter!!!
That shirt was worse than his election.
You couldn’t be more WRONG about Walker. The guy was elite. Elite defender. Elite hitter. Power. Speed. Arm. That adds up to 5 tool player. MVP. BAD, BAD Baines comp. Walker was an .865 OPS hitter away from COORS. Ask former players about Walker and a huge percentage of them would absolutely disagree with your assessment of Walker. Baines 39 WAR. Walker 72.
Baines getting in was a mistake. That does not mean Walker should automatically get in. Elite? No he wasn’t. He was very good.
Getting in for walking a lot, which is what he did, is not the barometer that should measure any player. His .278 average on the road is no elite. His 168 bombs in 1002 games and over 4000 plate appearances aren’t elite. His 80 tOPS+ isn’t that great. In his prime he made 1 postseason appearance. He was an average defender who won gold gloves thanks to his bat and arm.
Elite in Colorado. Very good elsewhere. Nothing elite about that.
He played in Toronto and was great with the Cards. I don’t know if he deserves Hof or not but for 8 years or so he was great. He wasn’t a burner but had good speed on the bases and in the field.
Baines got in because Reinsdork was crying for it. Just like he always cries for money from taxpayers from Illinois, Arizona and Florida. Pathetic.
I don’t understand why a DH gets penalized for not playing the field. He’s not on the field making errors!
Why the penalty? Makes no sense…..
Not making any plays either.
Surely, Jorge, you jest.
For even more comparison HOF Bruce Sutter had a career WAR of 24. Same as Lloyd waner
If you think Harold Baines and Larry Walker are on the same level I know 2 things about you.
You’re an idiot.
And you don’t believe defense is a thing.
Pow! Hector you sure set him straight
What’s it like being so dim
Baines….is in…the HOF….
Larry Walkers away OPS is better than Ken Griffey Jrs, so should he be out of the Hall too? Baines career OPS is 45 points lower than Walkers away OPS, it’s not comparable.
Walker’s road OPS was 35 points higher than Jeter’s home OPS. He was a plus defender. 5 tool star. Jeter was the worst defender in history in terms of defensive runs lost.
Larry Walker’s away OPS was better than Jeter’s home OPS
Awful take
So his road OPS was lower. I see you made no comment that his road OPS was bad
What a silly comment.
Stats that remove park factors have been easily obtainable for nearly 2 decades. Maybe you should pay a little more attention to the world around you?
Definitely Walker should be in the Hall. So should Helton. Dodger fan here and not a Rockies fanboy. Players still have to hit the ball and catch the ball and Walker did that as well as almost anybody.
Whatever gets you through the night. It’s a popularity contest between really good players. Ozzie Smith gets in on defense, but not Andruw Jones? Walker’s .865 road OPS is right there with all-time greats like Danny Tartabull, Norm Cash, and John Olerud.
**Larry Walker, Colorado Rockies, 2020 inductee
**played half his games on a high school field
Walker played %30 of his career games at Coors yet haters like you can only use this as ammo over as to why he shouldn’t be enshrined.
Fred McGriff – better OPS on the road. An .886 OPS. Not in the Hall of Fame. More dangerous than Walker.
It’s ridiculous McGriff isn’t in the HOF. I can only hope he gets in by the veterans committee someday. Hopefully in his lifetime!
Cherry-picking OPS on the road is not that convincing an argument. McGriff playing 10 years in the AL East with it’s hitter-friendly parks has an affect on that road OPS. After Coors, Walker played most of his games in Montreal, StL, SD, LA, NYM, and CHC, in that order. Wrigley being the only somewhat hitter-friendly park after Coors. The park-adjusted OPS+ for their careers, a much more illuminating stat, is Walker 141, and McGriff 134.
The fact that Walker is in and McGriff is not, is more about the disservice to McGriff, than it is an undeserved election of Walker.
Great post. It’s too bad that people get brainwashed by the media and can’t think for themselves, or for that matter, Walker clearly passed the eye test on the field.
Isn’t that why they have OPS+? Too judge the relative weights?
jorge78:
Exactly. OPS+ is park-adjusted, thus removing the aspect of playing in hitter’s or pitcher’s parks. Walker had an OPS+ of 141, the same as Chipper Jones, and 1 better than Vlad Guerrero, and ARod. 2 better than Reggie Jackson. Also better than numerous guys in the HoF, like George Brett, ken Griffey and Roberto Clemente.
Jeter should have been a unanimous Hall of Fame member? Then I guess Harold Baines should have been too. Should Cobb and Ruth and a hand full of others been unanimous? Yes! Jeter was a great shortstop on some great teams. He wasn’t the best shortstop ever or probably during his time. Trout is the only current player that might deserve it… but he needs to keep on producing for many more years.
The fact that a reliever is the only player to be unanimous means that the whole percentage thing is pointless.
^Exactly. Its good Mo was the first unanimous selection. It prices it doesn’t mean anything because no one with eyes with ever say that Mo is better or more valuable than Maddux, Griffey, Chipper, Vlad, Pedro, the Babe, the Big Hurt. Ted Williams, and so on.
Um, the Yankees won a ton because they had the ninth inning locked down. Locked. Down. Mo was the best reliever of all time. Bar none. No argument against. That deserves unanimous election to the hall.
Well, that was certainly one of the reasons. I’d argue the players that appeared in more than 70 or so innings a year contributed more tho.
Give me a pitcher with lots of wins and few losses that has terrible WAR over a pitcher with an excellent WAR and a losing record any day. Wins matter.
lol what
Wins matter a lot to a team. Wins mean virtually nothing when evaluating how good or mediocre a pitcher is.
you’re wrong. Good to elite pitchers are asked to go an extra inning or two almost every time. Matt Morris is a good example of it. He wasn’t the best but knowing he had to get through the whole year he’d raise and lower his effort depending on the situation. Alot of people will say it’s an excuse by a borderline pitcher but I believe it’s what most did most of the time. You’re up by 3 it’s the 6th and two outs, you don’t have to go max effort and might get dinged up but he’ll get the win deservedly so while raising his era to 1.5
Yea but what if you aren’t up by 3 in the 6th? That’s the whole issue with wins and losses. Plus the fact that he doesn’t need to push himself to go those 1 or two extra innings to get a win after the 5th inning.
Maybe you need to shake your fist even harder at the cloud
Eduardo Rodriguez, Domingo German, Max Fried, Mike Fiers, Wade Miley, Kyle Gibson, James Paxton, and Dakota Hudson all had more wins and less losses than both Jacob DeGrom, and Jack Flaherty. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have either deGrom or Flaherty than any of the other 8 pitchers I listed above.
What a silly comment.
Wins tell you absolutely nothing about a pitcher other than that he pitched 5 innings (or got lucky in a relief appearance) and his team scored more runs than he gave up. Knowing just those two things, you can not tell me one single thing about how good or bad a pitcher is.
I will however say, I tend to think you and Kevin are quite likely the same person, and that your only purpose here is to troll with as silly comments as you can think, said over and over again without an actual argument to stand on, solely as bait. Would be too poor of odds for 2 such ignorant people to show up in the same thread posting in the same exact manner
Ugh.
SteveM
12:01 What happened to the adoration of the 20 game winner?
Mark P
12:02 The general realization that wins are a largely meaningless stat
A grain is a small, hard, dry seed, with or without an attached hull or fruit layer, harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legumes.
Former players, managers, coaches and executives should vote, not writers. THEN you might have a real HOF.
Who did you think voted in Baines? You just contradicted your first point with this post. You need to stop.
I only know one person who shouldn’t vote for HOF.
Me too. My mom. She don’t know nothin bout baseball!
We’ll find out in 2029 when Bryant’s grievance is settled
I’m guessing half the people on here never watched Walker play in his prime. Reading some of these comments is so freaking comical. The cherry picking of certain stats, comps to a few players, etc is hilarious. Does anyone remember he started the first 5 years of his career in Montreal? Is Coors really any better park to hit in than Fenway or Wrigley? Just stop with the nonsense and do some research if you never saw him play. He only played 597 games out of 1988 at Coors, so there’s that.
Watched a ton of Expos games being a Canadian. Walker was a very nice player in Montreal. Definitely not Hall of Fame material.
Is Coors a better park to hit? Yes. It’s the best park to hit. Head and shoulders above the next best park. That is a fact.
Cooperstown standards should be tough. With Walker, he’s in the Hall of Fame thanks to the new age stats. Can’t wait for John Olerud’s induction.
Larry Walker – 141 OPS+ (that’s park adjusted, so you know)
John Olerud- 129 OPS+
That wasnt hard to look up and easily prove how silly that statement is.
You “watched” Walker, and that’s your criterion as to whether he’s a HoFer? Did you see every one of his 2,690 PAs in Montreal? Seeing even a “ton” of games can be misleading. I once read someone’s comment that Barry Bonds was overrated because he went to a game when Bonds struck out 3 times with men in scoring position in a Giant’s loss. Your comment is just an extension of that same subjective bias. That’s what stats are for, to remove the subjective aspect.
Yes, Coors is the best hitter’s park. So what? He played 597 games there, He also played 723 games in Montreal, Stl. SD, LA, and NYM, all pitcher’s parks.
And what are “new age stats”? Stats have gotten better and more informative. Just because you don’t understand how OPS+ and wRC+ are infinitely better than BA and RBI, is a poor reason for rejecting an obvious Hofer.
Standing ovation.
Did John Olerud steal 230 bases? Did he hit 380 HR? Did he win a MVP? Did he have a cannon for an arm? Did he play the same position as Walker? Did he run the bases as well as Walker? Has anyone with a functioning brain ever thought John Olerud should be considered for the HOF? Did you know that Walker only played 597 of his 1988 games at Coors? Change your name to, “Imjustadopehere.”
Haha nice
Olerud is probably the best player ever to regularly wear his batting helmet while fielding though*
* non-catchers division
Dick Allen. George Scott. Me in 10th grade.
Ok, so I was just making a silly joke, but then I was curious and I found this:
baseballguru.com/archives/entries/00000985.htm
So maybe Dave Parker really is the best
Maurice, halfway through your post I was getting excited because I thought you were talking about the Cobra.
Why can’t I reply to certain comments?
I guess some people would prefer to have that shiny era title instead of winning and having a chance at a title.
Strassburg 18 and 6
Edwardo Rodriguez 19 and 6
Each have rings.
To each their own.
“What happened to the adoration of the 20 game winner?” If this was truly a serious question, then that guy needs to understand baseball a little better. Back in the day when pitchers basically pitched complete games, “wins” mattered more than they do now. To attribute wins and losses to a starting pitcher these days is wrong, for several reasons. First is one that was even true in the old days – run support. You pitch a gem but your team doesn’t score, or scores only one run? How is that the pitcher’s fault? But nowadays with the proliferation of the bullpen, starters only go 5-6 innings most of the time. Then there are other reasons such as defense, etc., so the W-L record is not an effective way to judge a starting pitcher. However when a starter does win 20 they do make a big deal out of it.
Wins & Losses for a pitcher? I’ll tell you how worthless the stat is. I’m trying to figure out how a pitcher starts 34 games. Pitches 304 innings. Has a 1.12 ERA, and loses 9 times?? The league ERA was 2.99. Juan Marichal went 26-9 with a 2.43 ERA. Denny Mclain went 31-6 with a 1.96 ERA. Oh, I just figured it out. McLain’s run support that year was 5.23. Marichal, 4.92. Gibson, 3.03.
I wouldn’t say wins & losses are a totally useless stat. But they are like RBI, very depend on factors beyond a guy’s control. Why some fans put too much value into W/L and RBI, is that good pitchers in general have more wins than bad pitchers, and the same holds true for hitters and RBI. But apparently some people don’t seem to get it that there are infinitely better ways to determine value. But because those out-dated stats are generally true, in a very broad, scatter-shot, kind of way, some fans still cling to them.
The baseball travels further with lower air pressure. There is less resistance with lower air pressure. Higher elevations have lower air pressure. That is because there is less weight on the air. That is why Coors Field is an extreme hitters park.
Need to remove Denver and environs from United States. It makes people stupid.
The Brockstar MUST stay in Boston!!!!!