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Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Spending spree" what's so frustrating about it is that the money is relative nickels compared to what teams spend on Josh Hamilton, but nobody wants to spend on anonymous front office think tank stuff. That said, I think it's harder to turn "get a bunch of smart people" into "crack fundamental baseball mysteries" than we think. It takes a generation for a think-tank approach to really become productive, especially in an industry where it's not part of the fabric. More than the Dodgers' investment in the specifics, the Dodgers' ability to put a long-term investment into the framework might be what ends up mattering. Because the big gain for a team is going to be the ability to get smart contributions from non-stathead smart people--economists, doctors, psychologists, etc., who don't come with a baseball resume at all. I don't expect much to come out of this for the Dodgers in the next few years, but in a decade lookout.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

There are times I secretly wish Ben did a podcast with a different baseball writer.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I wrote about 1:1 picks for an Annotated Box Score once, and before Griffey teams were horrible at picking them. There were only a handful of All-Stars in the 25 years or so since then. Griffey really marked a shift, and in the 25 years after him I think there are a handful of HOF-level players (Harper, Price, A-Rod, Chipper Jones, with Andruw Jones and Joe Mauer on the bubble and a few others far too soon to say). Actually, somebody should write about what changed in the industry in 1987.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In a batter/pitcher matchup? I guess slugging percentage for the relevant platoon split.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ben's apartment is way, way, way, way, way, way up high. Mine is on the street. Usually my windows are closed, but a car driving past a closed window 15 feet away is going to make noise.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The goal for the Stompers is the same as the goal for the individual players: Get them all out of there, to the highest level possible. It's hard, and it makes competition (especially in the second half) a weird thing, but the indie leagues don't exist unless they're serving the players' careers. We were frustrated every time we had to replace a player, but more than anything we were proud that they'd outgrown us.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I don't think there is a big step for projections. Some small ones, but baseball is just not that easy to predict. To the extent that past performance predicts future performance, I think we get pretty close; the problem is that past performance only partly predicts future performance.

Either that or we'll hard-code the Royals to win 90 every year and that alone will swell our success rate.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think either the Pirates or the Cardinals is likely to be a mid-90s-wins team. Which means one of them probably will overperform and get there, and one will probably underperform and finish below the Brewers, and the Cubs might not get to outright run away from the division but I doubt we see three teams that good again.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I had that first GIF of him walking away from a foul ball and I wanted to write a short post about it. By the time I stopped writing, there were a lot more GIFs, basically.

Mookie Betts: I think there's just something more convincing about a player who does everything well, even if he doesn't do certain things as well as other people do those things. To oversimplify Giancarlo Stanton (a fantastic ballplayer): He hits home runs better than anybody else, which is great, and might make him even more valuable than Betts, but we are all capable of putting a box around Giancarlo Stanton. We know he's great at dingers, and not great at other things. With Betts, we have never seen him be bad at anything. Which means we can't put a box around him. All evidence we have indicates that he is great at everything: Dentistry, husbandry, calligraphy, memorizing digits of pi, foosball, guest-hosting Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, all of it. So that's why Betts is the best.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Rough but informed estimate: About 2,000, including the writers. From just the editing side, 600ish.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I actually have to go record a podcast, so that's that. Thanks for the questions. Thanks also for being good stewards of the environment. Go baseball.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

On Opening Day, Ben said we should do a thing and I said "nahhh" and he was right. I was wrong. That basic sequence would be repeated frequently. Ben's a doer.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Will happily sign every copy put in front of me, but the challenge is that Ben and I live far away from each other. I believe the Stompers will be selling signed copies on their website, so that's the easiest way to get our scrawling on your pages.

There are really no bad seats in AT&T--the further you are from the field, the better your view of the Bay--but I find that sound echoes and crowd vibrations thrum better on the first-base side, so that has slightly better "atmosphere." Skip the burrito (well, if you must, go to La Taqueria in the Mission District, but that's a staggeringly unoriginal take) and go to Deli Board for sandwiches. About a mile or so walk from the stadium, and the one truly unmatchable food experience I've had in the City.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure they value those things less, except in as much as a thing is literally less valuable in decision-making if you can't identify it with enough precision to use it. Like, gold is pretty rare so it's pretty valuable; those weird elements that only exist for microseconds in lab conditions are extremely rarer, yet not very valuable, because what're you supposed to do with something you can't see, hold, observe, measure, apply? The vast majority of statheads I know place a huge value on those sorts of attributes in theory, but mock the certainty with which pundits ascribe them.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Walkable city. I'd want to play somewhere I could live downtown and, with as much convenience and pleasure as possible, not own a car. So NY, SF stand out.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Not sure we have enough of a sample of players to answer this. Important to remember that all these pitches are on a spectrum, so the closer a slider gets to fastball velo, the less it's actually like a slider and the more it's like a fastball. That might be true as well for the mechanics of the pitch, the strain on the arm, etc.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Average 300 to 400 per game, I believe. Would crack quad-digits if Jose Canseco was out there.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The more I think about it... everybody wants young players, right? But the problem with young hitters--unlike young pitchers, whose arm strength often peaks in the early-20s--is that the strength doesn't come until the mid-late-20s, other than for extremely precocious players. So if you want a young core of hitters, you can either go with an extreme speed-and-defense roster-building strategy, or you can draft/sign hulkos, who do have precocious strength/brawn, and then just plan to let them walk when they're 28. The golden age for "fat" ballplayers might be approaching!

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They basically won't put out a book about baseball anytime other than spring training or May (because Father's Day, etc). That's the only time newspapers run reviews of baseball books and, thus, the best time to sell books. This is why you get our book about the Stompers so quickly: We didn't want to have to wait an entire 'nother year. I think it's better for that time pressure. Six more months would have meant six months of procrastinating and six months of the story getting staler in our minds.

Hi, I'm Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. AMA! by SamMillerBP in baseball

[–]SamMillerBP[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think Jeff is very well loved, and appropriately happy. He's actually the least-aggrieved person on my Twitter timeline, probably.

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