The Brewster

Okay...this one's long...almost 40 minutes. But it's so full of Matt and Ron that you'll still enjoy it. At least the Matt parts, anyway. He talks the Hustlers and what's going on there. There's a little OOTP 19 there and some history, and his own take on the best division in baseball. We put him in the lightning round, of course...but then he turns the tables...boy howdy...don't go into a discussion with Matt without wearing your big-boy pants, I' say.

Then, of course, there's his very special guest.

If you're only going to listen to one podacst this year, this is the one.

GET IT HERE!

This was a lot of fun!!!

Another good podcast, Ron. And nice to hear you on there Matt, but.. Another Charm City doubter.

listened to this while watching the national title game on mute, great listen for sure. Also love the JLS love that matt gave, i dont disagree either.

also i may be a bit biased, but if you are going to talk about guys to start a franchise wise, i gotta think that Feliciano Rafael deserves a mention. He is probably a hair behind Lynch (although putting up awfully similar numbers this year), but i would put him on par with Kelly. He is younger than both of those guys too, wont be 22 until after the season.

I just want to say, I never said anything bad about Baca and Cortez (I don't think). I actually said in the trade post that I'll probably regret trading Baca and I know I've said that I very nearly killed the trade when you added Cortez, but in the end decided that a solid corner outfielder wasn't something I should balk at when potentially picking up the best corner outfielder in the league (when healthy)

usnspecialist wrote:also i may be a bit biased, but if you are going to talk about guys to start a franchise wise, i gotta think that Feliciano Rafael deserves a mention. He is probably a hair behind Lynch (although putting up awfully similar numbers this year), but i would put him on par with Kelly. He is younger than both of those guys too, wont be 22 until after the season.

Rafael would be on a top five list, that's for sure. I might put Louisville's Kevin Morales ahead of him, but mostly because I'm a fan of Morales's repertoire advantage. I would take Kelly over Rafael for that reason, too. The real issue with Kelly is that he needs to be in the minors. He's using up all his cheap seasons as an average BBA pitcher while his ratings come in. So, if I have to take a guy along with his contractual status, Kelly gets a downgrade.

And, to me, the Kelly thing is not really about saving service time. I just don't think he was ready to pitch when he was brought up. Close, yes. But it was a big price to pay.

I like the point that Matt briefly alluded to about certain batters, Braun in this case, hitting better in certain parts of the order. I agree with this philosophy. I believe there is a hidden "clutch" rating for every player which influences thier Low/Med/High Leverage splits. While leadoff hitters are only gauranteed to hit with no one on once, and cleanup hitters only theoretically bat with runners in scoring position. You can manipulate the lineup to put players in favorable positions. I think this is also yet another reason why certain players underachieve. If you have a 8/8/10/8/9 guy on your team, where are you going to hit him? Probably 3rd or 4th right? But if he is terrible at being clutch then it will dilute his abilities to where maybe he performs as if he were 7/7/9/7/8. On the other hand though, if you bat him 8th, you loose out on a lot of what makes him awesome. It's a tricky balance to get the most out of lineup construction.

RonCo wrote:

usnspecialist wrote:also i may be a bit biased, but if you are going to talk about guys to start a franchise wise, i gotta think that Feliciano Rafael deserves a mention. He is probably a hair behind Lynch (although putting up awfully similar numbers this year), but i would put him on par with Kelly. He is younger than both of those guys too, wont be 22 until after the season.

Rafael would be on a top five list, that's for sure. I might put Louisville's Kevin Morales ahead of him, but mostly because I'm a fan of Morales's repertoire advantage. I would take Kelly over Rafael for that reason, too. The real issue with Kelly is that he needs to be in the minors. He's using up all his cheap seasons as an average BBA pitcher while his ratings come in. So, if I have to take a guy along with his contractual status, Kelly gets a downgrade.

the flip side of bringing Kelly up early and getting the struggles out at the BBA level is that it might lower his arb numbers a bit, you get some savings there.

ae37jr wrote:I like the point that Matt briefly alluded to about certain batters, Braun in this case, hitting better in certain parts of the order. I agree with this philosophy. I believe there is a hidden "clutch" rating for every player which influences thier Low/Med/High Leverage splits. While leadoff hitters are only gauranteed to hit with no one on once, and cleanup hitters only theoretically bat with runners in scoring position. You can manipulate the lineup to put players in favorable positions. I think this is also yet another reason why certain players underachieve. If you have a 8/8/10/8/9 guy on your team, where are you going to hit him? Probably 3rd or 4th right? But if he is terrible at being clutch then it will dilute his abilities to where maybe he performs as if he were 7/7/9/7/8. On the other hand though, if you bat him 8th, you loose out on a lot of what makes him awesome. It's a tricky balance to get the most out of lineup construction.

I have no idea how right or how wrong this idea is, but I love that they exist. If nothing else, I do think that personal desires like ths can influence how players feel at certain times. That may well influence play, though, again I have no idea how real that is.

But, yes, really enjoyed hearing Matt's views on that element of lineup construction.

The best are always trying new things.

usnspecialist wrote: the flip side of bringing Kelly up early and getting the struggles out at the BBA level is that it might lower his arb numbers a bit, you get some savings there.

Everything's possible. But right now Kelly's showing at $3.6M/$5.5M/$7.5M, and he's not throwing Ace numbers yet. He's got another year to play before arbitration, by which point his ratings should be much better, and hence his performance. I suggest that those numbers aren't going to go particularly _lower_. It makes me wonder if the right thing to do would be to extend him NOW through two years of arbitration. I did a similar thing with Tim Oliver in case he went ballistic. He hasn't, but I've still locked him in at a reasonable value at the cost of over-paying for that third min-sal year.

Excellent podcast

Never fear friends, I was concerned for a while, but the cast picks up considerably around the 29 min mark when Louisville and Clough get a lot of love...so you may want to start there, and then go to the beginning...

I was hoping for some discussion on a briefly mentioned new ootp 19 feature - which has to do with online leagues

You’re both on the beta - are the days of being able to manage head to head in an online league - upon us soon?

excellent work guys

udlb58 wrote:I just want to say, I never said anything bad about Baca and Cortez (I don't think). I actually said in the trade post that I'll probably regret trading Baca and I know I've said that I very nearly killed the trade when you added Cortez, but in the end decided that a solid corner outfielder wasn't something I should balk at when potentially picking up the best corner outfielder in the league (when healthy)

Good point. I think it was Ted who said he was "meh" on those guys.