i used to like their style in general, and the fact that they were tackling a niche area in a team-independent fashion. I liked both the articles linked on this fanshot (well, one in the comments), but I generally find the articles to be increasingly vague and (kind of) random.

that their simply isn’t enough to make 5-10 posts a day. Finding an interesting factoid itself should take considerable research time.

you didn’t appreciate his column on how the Nationals didn’t overpay that much for Jayson Werth.

Didn’t mean to be a downer. It’s been a long time since ’99.

I think the biggest difference between this team and some of the late Littlefield ones – which, let’s be fair, had some talented players – is that you don’t need to wishcast as much to see them really making a move. With the mid-’00 teams, you needed Pitcher X to blossom, Pitcher Y to maintain his previous year, and Pitcher Z to recover his form from 2 years before, and then on top of that you needed underachievers like Castillo or Duffy to break out.

In contrast, in 2012, Pedro’s the only giant question mark. Lots of guys represent ±1 game swings (e.g., will Tabata be a 1 win letdown or a solid 3 win guy?), but Pedro’s the only guy whose downside is replacement level but we hope he could be above average. If everyone performs right in the middle of their projections, it’s still a 74-77 win team. I might add that this is part of why adding Burnett’s almost-certain 2 wins makes a big difference – not only is he displacing the likely 0 WAR of Correia, but he’s also modulating the wild cards that are Lincoln, Karstens, and the first call up from AAA. Every non-AJB option has/had a downside of 0 wins (or worse), and probably none of them have a real shot at 3+ wins. It’s a big swing in median outcome, which is hard to come by (usually it’s more like Player A is 0-2 WAR, Player B is 1-3, which gives you a max swing of 3 wins and a median swing of 1; AJB has a max swing above 3, but the median is 1.5 or more).

Same with BABIP, those numbers are pretty static in the MLB, partly because guys who do much worse don’t make it. So, at low levels, less than ideal hr/fb, or babip can actually mean that there is a skill deficiency, and not just bad luck.

Plus you could have been blessed to play at a field with a 350ft CF or 300LF, or doomed to a 375ft power alley :(

It seems like he won’t be sticking at 3B and will likely be a corner outfielder who moves to 1B or DH.

For what it’s worth I believe KG rated Sano’s power an 80.