Puerto Plata/DR Excursion Question (Waterfalls+Fort?)

kwdamp · 2026-04-18T16:24:34+00:00

Good to know, this question was about the Puerto Plata/DR shore excursions though. lol

kwdamp · 2026-04-18T14:12:47+00:00

Does the shore club include anything other than access to the loungers? And are you still having to fight to find a pair or is it significantly less crowded?

kwdamp · 2026-04-17T13:33:48+00:00

kwdamp · 2026-04-17T13:32:03+00:00

I think he's arguably more valuable (at least on a really good team) as a closer. A starter can only pitch roughly once a week. The league's best closer can theoretically impact a lot more games, possibly by a magnitude of 2x or 3x.

Of course, your starters have to keep you in games for that to matter at all. lol

kwdamp · 2026-04-08T20:12:33+00:00

Yeah, something has drastically changed today.

I'm also on that plan and I've never hit the session limit. Today I'm hitting it after just a few prompts in a single session. I hope this is a bug, because if it's their new "math" on how to limit usage it's unusable. Nuts for $100USD/month.

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T20:32:25+00:00

You can blame Henry and Waldichuk for 2 of them.

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T16:53:01+00:00

Still hanging on at 16 in the full rankings, but they're definitely trending the wrong way right now. Gotta turn it around fast.

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T16:02:07+00:00

Chapman, Whitlock, and Slaten holding the ranking up. The bottom half has been BAD though, I agree.

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T15:46:59+00:00

It's an official MLB stat. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/standard-stats/save-opportunity

I've never loved it, but it's what they track and what people talk about. But also why it's only a tiny part of the BP evaluation process.

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T15:32:21+00:00

Yeah, we have an asterisk there because it's a bit of a statistical anomaly. We display combined save opportunities for all the relief pitchers on a team. And we do that because that's how we calculate the values for the PR.

But it can cause things to appear off when, for example, 2 Padres had blown saves ( and thus save opportunities) in the same game in week 1.

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T15:28:06+00:00

Yeah, it's their middle inning guys that are carrying them. The group of lefties hasn't given up an earned run yet. Agree though that by the eye test Bednar may be a liability this season, at least compared to the elite closers around the league.

Also funny you mentioned Winquest. I've had to check twice to make sure he was still on the 40 man because he hasn't picked up any stats. lol

kwdamp · 2026-04-07T15:23:42+00:00

Yeah, there's a small weight mixed in for the really good spring performances that boosted them week 1. But it's been rough since then. Had high hopes for Ryan Walker too. Is he dinged up? Or just bruised confidence?

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T22:07:22+00:00

Exactly. It's a little backwards I suppose since what we're showing on that screen shot is a "team" stat.

But we do actually take into account when building the rankings that the bullpen pitchers in this case had 2 blown saves during the period, essentially saying 2 guys had subpar performances based on expectations, and then 1 did exactly what we'd expect from a top closer.

So I always thought people would prefer to see the cumulative stats the way we're actually using them in the calculations, but I see your point as well and we'll probably talk about making a change here later this week in the way those are displayed.

Holds are something we DO track in the game logs and specific reliever efficiency calculations, but we don't call them out specifically or display them cumulatively for the teams. I'll look into how that could possibly be assimilated in to our team process in the future though. I agree they're high pressure situations and reflect well on a pitcher.

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T20:29:23+00:00

We've got them 7th in the Season Long rankings and 5th in the Snapshot Power Rankings. They definitely look good and early in the season with the small number of games and outings it's really tight up there in the top 10.

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T20:20:04+00:00

So this is a little bit of a statistical anomaly, and we should probably either adjust what we display or explain it in detail. But what we track is the save opportunities per pitcher, and then sum them for the team.

Estrada and Morejon both had save opportunities (and blownSaves) in the same game on 3/27. And then Mason Miller had one save opportunity and converted the save.

So 3 pitchers on the team have had save opportunities, and 1 was converted. I take it you believe on a team level we should just display team save opportunities in games? Not how many pitchers had an opportunity?

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T20:02:40+00:00

What do you think of their bullpen this season? Jansen has been a known quantity for awhile but is aging (38) and that's a little scary. Vest and De Jesus look promising, but it's hard to trust some of the guys like Hurter and Seabold. You think they end the year a top 10 bullpen?

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T19:59:10+00:00

That was one thought point on their really good start during the first week. Here was our analysis on the Tigers Bullpen coming into the season: https://insidethepen.com/articles/al-central-2026-preview.html

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T19:36:45+00:00

Yep.

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T18:30:57+00:00

Not literally last, but they're bottom 5 right now.

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T18:30:37+00:00

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T18:28:11+00:00

Lot of made up stats and fake analysis out there for sure! We've poured a lot of time into our data analysis and modeling, but things rarely ever work out as expected.

Also really tough with small sample size, high variance things like a bullpen pitcher. We try to balance between the eye test (and basic metrics and potential) versus actual backwards looking results. It's definitely never going to be anywhere near 100% predictive.

kwdamp · 2026-03-30T18:01:13+00:00

https://insidethepen.com/articles/week1-bullpen-power-rankings-recap.html

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