Broken Bat - Suggestions: Left handed catchers, etc.

Forum >> Suggestions >> Left handed catchers, etc.

Post ID	Date & Time	Game Date	Function

#10079	09/12/2014 2:44:23 am
Holmes Joined: 11/07/2013 Posts: 1175 Inactive	Hmmm, obviously, a Yankee fan gets a totally biased view of a typical age distribution. Cashman must employ about half the senior citizens in the game... Point is, while they are few, some of them are still extremely productive, and you never really know for how long they will be. In bb, no matter how good, you can be absolutely certain no pitcher will ever get 44 saves with an ERA of 2.11 in his age 43 season. I've also never seen a bb player anywhere near able to club 32 HR in five months of his age 38 season. Even Ichiro Suzuki's meagre .660 OPS with a stolen base every ten games at age 40 is probably far out of reach of any of our veterans here. On the other hand, we don't have any Mark Priors or Mark Mulders here, either. So our aging is not unrealistic in the sense that it is too early. It is just very predictable, which makes the game easier. Some will like that, others won't. Updated Friday, September 12 2014 @ 2:46:23 am PDT

#10080	09/12/2014 2:51:47 am
Holmes Joined: 11/07/2013 Posts: 1175 Inactive	What looks much more interesting to me in the player census is the handedness distribution, because it shows for all players what I already found for catchers above: There are way more opposite-hand-hitting players than switch hitters. That's totally different in our player base, where there are several times more switch hitters than opposite-hand hitters.

#10100	09/12/2014 12:10:28 pm
admin Joined: 01/27/2010 Posts: 4985 Administrator	Newer players do have greater variation in aging than the older generation. Will future Broken Bat players hit 50 HRs at age 44? Not sure…keep injecting your computer with steroids. There are way more opposite-hand-hitting players than switch hitters. That's totally different in our player base, where there are several times more switch hitters than opposite-hand hitters. This has also changed too with newer prospects. There are now very few L/L catchers and infielders (excluding 1B of course) prospects. But there are now a lot more L/R players...so that percentage will eventually come into line with MLB. The number of switch hitters is still about the same. Steve

#10153	09/16/2014 8:55:00 am
Brewers1994 Joined: 08/23/2013 Posts: 7 Inactive	Thanks Steve. Your recent posts have calmed my growing annoyance. I was going to mention some power hitters who are 5'6" 165 lbs. But your height/weight research is refreshing. Another observation that others have touched on is LH hitting RH throwers and RH switch hitters. Could you also look into improved variation of hitters to right handed throwers...and switch hitting LH? YANKEES: Are older purely because they over spend for free agent, which are typically are around 30. 5 to 7 year contracts equals an elderly team. As soon as they agree to a salary cap the age of the team will go down quickly.

#10156	09/16/2014 12:30:41 pm
TheBaconator Joined: 08/03/2014 Posts: 70 Inactive	You should send the note about the Yankees to Cashman. Updated Tuesday, September 16 2014 @ 4:37:10 pm PDT

#10163	09/17/2014 2:45:11 am
Holmes Joined: 11/07/2013 Posts: 1175 Inactive	@Brewers1994 (and sorry to everyone else for the OT): Wrong, the old Yankees roster has nothing to do with long contracts. None of the active Yankees players over 35 this season signed their current contract with the Yankees while they were under 35. Teix and CC are just 34 with limited time left on their contracts, and A-Rod is gone and may or may not return. In fact, they let Cano go not because he wanted 25mil/yr but because he wanted ten years. Hiroki Kuroda (39) is on his second one-year contract. Ichiro Suzuki (40) is in the second of two contract years. Carlos Beltan (37) is in the first of three years, and Derek Jeter (40) has a one-year contract that replaced the option year of a previous contract that started at age 36. At the start of the season, they also had Brian Roberts (36, one-year contract) and Alfonso Soriano (38, came by trade with 1.5 seasons left on contract). Cashman does this on purpose, putting more trust in experienced players than in the quality of younger guys that would be available (and affordable). A farm system that had to draft from the bottom of the heap for many years gives him few good prospects and little to trade from; the money vault for prime, young free agents is large, but not unlimited, and you can hardly shoot for the playoffs with players that were discarded by the Astros. Aging stars, on the other hand, like to come to the Bronx, often taking a discount for making one last run at a title and to be on a team where they are just one of the guys again instead of their previous team's former superstar whose decline is blamed for every woe the team encounters. So, is it a bad strategy? 39 year-old Kuroda was the only one from the Yankees' original rotation to make it through the season, pitching 184 innings so far with a 3.81 ERA, while Nova (27), Pineda (25), Tanaka (25) and CC (34) all missed most of the season due to injury. If Kuroda wants to give it one more go at 40, Cashman sure ain't gonna say no. Last year, Pettite (41) and Mo (43) were worth more than their money, too. Beltran was a bit disappointing, playing through a nagging injury most of the year, but still hit 15 homers in 108 games. Ichiro, like last year, played well as long as he didn't have to do it every day, which of course, he ended up doing in the end. Roberts and Soriano sucked, but were cheap enough to just let go by mid-season. The only old Yankee who was so bad this season that he really shouldn't have been on a baseball field was... Derek Jeter. But then (like Ichiro) he has means of making profit for a team that have nothing to do with the way he swings a bat.

#10181	09/17/2014 5:34:52 pm
Brewers1994 Joined: 08/23/2013 Posts: 7 Inactive	Not worth the money. Your facts are biased. Signing at 27/8 through age 35 is a luxury only the Yankees can afford. Didn't sign Cano, but that was because he felt slighted. He took less money to go to Seattle. Please stop posts. Please email in the future.

#10183	09/17/2014 5:53:48 pm
Holmes Joined: 11/07/2013 Posts: 1175 Inactive	You don't seriously want me to list the tons of mid-career, long-term signings by basically all halfway competitive clubs that happen every year? I'm certainly not going to compile that data to send to you by mail...

#10184	09/17/2014 6:09:36 pm
Peekay Joined: 03/26/2014 Posts: 146 Inactive	Cano took less money to go to Seattle whaaa? As a Seattle fan I wish this was true. The reports were that the Yankees were offering around 8yr/160M ($20M/year). By comparison Seattle ponied up 10yr/240M ($24M/year). I'm sure the back end of this contract is going to strangle the considerably smaller Seattle payroll.

#10233	09/19/2014 5:58:38 am
Brewers1994 Joined: 08/23/2013 Posts: 7 Inactive	It was true. Yankees drive costs up and some teams get desperate. None the less, the yankees are the prime example that broken bat players too often have skills that start fading at 30. When you combine that with the fact that players must play to develop... equals cut the 30-33 year old player at 2-5 million.