Oh, Hey, Baseball

My guesses:

…Eric Hosmer follows up his strong rookie showing with a step (or three) forward

A step forward with his hitting, but not a massive step. His defense remains the same: good tools, but the results suffer due to continued poor positioning from the Royals coaching staff.

…Alex Gordon keeps up with his 2011.

He plays well again, but not at the extraordinary level of 2011.

…Billy Butler’s power continues to develop.

No. I haven’t seen his power “developing.” He is a doubles hitter who will continue to some home runs, but that’s it.

…one of the young pitchers steps forward and becomes a legitimate one or two starter.

If he had written “legitimate number three starter,” I probably would have gone along with it. But one of them pitching at the level of a one or two this year? No.

…the bullpen is as good as it looks like it can be

I think the bullpen is going to be very good again. I don’t have faith in Broxton or Mijares, but even without them, there’s a lot of talent and depth. There are many good arms to replace whoever underperforms.

He’s one of my favorite movie characters of all time:

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/the-money-pit/max-makes-a-move-on-anna/

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/the-money-pit/AyGv472Jthtmb/

I couldn’t find a clip of my favorite line of his in the movie: [after the symphony finishes a rehearsal] “The union forces me to allow you to go to lunch in spite of the way you’ve played. Those of you with consciences will not be able to eat. And those who consciences match your talents, go stuff yourselves I hope you choke!”

who has played for a fair amount of conductors in my life, I found the conductor’s piece fascinating. When I was in the Missouri All-State band a few years back, the conductor (an internationally known conductor from the D.C. area) told us all that his main purpose when he conducted was to inspire the musicians.

Any other musicians here?

Lots of really good first round talent. And the Rox got none of it. Hochevar isn’t terrible, but he probably isn’t in the top ten most valuable players from the draft. Funny we didn’t even consider Longoria because we had Gordon and Teahen at 3B – then draft one the very next year with the #2 overall pick.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/are-pitching-projections-better-than-era-estimators/

Somewhat long and pretty far down the rabbit hole, but a very interesting look into predictions (Marcels, etc.) and estimators (xFIP, SIERA, ERA, etc.) and their ability to predict future ERA.

[Based only on 2010/20111] SIERA actually tops the three most commonly cited projection systems in correlation with future ERA. In fact, you would have done a better job just looking at park-neutral SIERAs in 2010 than all four projection systems’ park-adjusted ERAs.
….
The lesson learned from the [2006-2011 table] is that, over time, projections do a better job being closer to future ERA than ERA estimators — other than SIERA.

My thought is that SIERA should be the best metric, but we don’t tend to pay enough attention to it – maybe b/c it’s new and relatively untested.

They are definitely winning the Adrian Gonzalez trade now.

It started off with a bang (trading for Sanchez and signing Broxton), but then the true Dayton showed up and signed Yuni. I would like to see an ace brought in. There’s no true ace on this pitching staff. Our lineup is almost ready to compete. You must account for some Sophomore slumps going on, but 2013 is a real possibility for competing. I’d love to see a trade that brought in a stud pitcher that is under team control for 2-3 years, at least. We have the talent in the minors to make that happen, but I don’t know if I trust Dayton to do it. We need a true pitching stud, not his version of one. Let’s hope he’s competent to pull one of these available guys out without completely depleting our system.