Author Topic: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats [but who gives gives a rat's ...]  (Read 17892 times)

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Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #300: September 04, 2012, 01:55:10 PM »
Hard not to notice Desmond improving in the field dramatically this year.  less hands of stone, fewer airmailed, rushed throws, cleaner on routine plays.  As for Zimmerman, last year he started his fielding slump when he was hurt and had to relearn how to throw.  Lately his throws have been bad, so it is easy to forget the year to year improvement.  Espinosa always looked good in the field, so that may be more a quirk of the measuring system.

Offline LostYudite

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #301: September 04, 2012, 02:12:08 PM »
Guys can get a high OBP based on BA. For example Ichiro or Tony Gwynn.

And do you know what that means when they do?  It means THEY HAVE A HIGH OBP.  Tony Gwynn - didn't walk enough.  :rofl:

Offline NatsDad14

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #302: September 04, 2012, 02:53:31 PM »
And do you know what that means when they do?  It means THEY HAVE A HIGH OBP.  Tony Gwynn - didn't walk enough.  :rofl:


Except that Lombo doesn't even have a high OBP. It's at .326 right now. Not really good for a no power guy

Offline PC

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #303: September 04, 2012, 03:26:36 PM »
Swydan isn't alone.  Over among the espn "experts" predicting the playoff teams, Marty Bernoski, AJ Mass, Mark Mulder predict the Braves will win the NL East.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8310688/espn-experts-predict-which-teams-make-postseason

Offline sportsfan882

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #304: September 04, 2012, 03:38:45 PM »
Swydan isn't alone.  Over among the espn "experts" predicting the playoff teams, Marty Bernoski, AJ Mass, Mark Mulder predict the Braves will win the NL East.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8310688/espn-experts-predict-which-teams-make-postseason
lol at almost no one picking the O's to make the playoffs even though they are only 1 game behind the Yankees.

Offline nobleisthyname

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #305: September 04, 2012, 03:39:28 PM »
I would just like to interject that if you take out Espinosa's April then going by .wOBA he has been a better hitter than last year.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #306: September 04, 2012, 04:34:20 PM »
It's interesting how the timing of a bad month can color your perception of a player or a team.  for example, the team started with only LaRoche hitting well for power, with Desmond and Werth getting hits but not great power.  Some believed this would be a historically bad offense.  After injuries, both Zimmerman and Morse started slowly, confirming the view that this was an underwhelming offense even when Desmond started to show power and others recovered from April.  As it turns out, the offense now looks pretty good.  When folks said the talent when healthy was there for at least an average offense, there was skepticism.  OTOH, had Jordan Zimmermann had a stretch like he had in August in April, my guess is people would be less optimistic about his overall season.

Offline Sharp

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #307: September 04, 2012, 05:46:46 PM »
With UZR, it's always important to keep in mind that it takes about three seasons to stabilize.  So Espinosa could exactly the same defensive 2B that he was last year, but a couple of really good plays this year or really bad plays last year might have impacted his UZR significantly.  The eye test combined with UZR tell me that Espinosa has been a well-above average second baseman since he joined the team, which is something I think we can all agree on; precisely how much value that defense has added this year vs. last year, which is what UZR is trying to measure, is much harder to gauge.

Offline Clever

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Re: Paul Swydan Believes Braves Will Catch Nats
« Reply #308: September 04, 2012, 06:36:17 PM »
I still can't understand why people are still reading articles written by the  :idiot: s at ESPN.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

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I still can't understand why people are still reading articles written by the  :idiot: s at ESPN.

Changed the title to something more Clever.

Offline Clever

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Changed the title to something more Clever.
That's awfully.....

smart.

Online Slateman

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Offline OldChelsea

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Swydan isn't alone.  Over among the espn "experts" predicting the playoff teams, Marty Bernoski, AJ Mass, Mark Mulder predict the Braves will win the NL East.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8310688/espn-experts-predict-which-teams-make-postseason

...but 37 others pick the Nats. There'll always be some hold-outs; also, one writer (Meyers) has the Braves finishing out of the money altogether (Nats for title, Cardinals and Pirates for wild cards).

Offline mimontero88

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Paul Swydan looks so smart right now.  Especially when you consider that the Nats have historically been hot in September while the Braves have been... um... actually my mother told me if I had nothing nice to say to say nothing at all so this post ends here.


EDIT:  Couldn't help but point out that Swydan was so right.  Ben Sheets is SUCH a stud.

Online HalfSmokes

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Except that Lombo doesn't even have a high OBP. It's at .326 right now. Not really good for a no power guy

You expect more from a utility middle infielder?

Offline mimontero88

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You expect more from a utility middle infielder?

This.  He is far and away an upgrade over Alex Cora last year who batted .224/.287/.276

Offline PC

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Swydan is back, behind the Insider wall:


Quote
With 24 days still remaining on the baseball calendar, there are 15 teams with at least a 10 percent chance of reaching the postseason, according to Coolstandings.com. These 15 teams are also ranked Nos. 1-15 in the ESPN Power Rankings (PR) this week, from the Washington Nationals at the top of the heap to the Pittsburgh Pirates at No. 15.

With 15 teams competing for 10 playoff spots, their remaining schedules will become major factors. As such, we have taken the liberty of creating a strength of schedule for the season's final three-plus weeks, and it shows the Nationals, Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Dodgers as having the toughest roads ahead of them.

To get a good strength of schedule (SOS), we want to consider more than a team's current winning percentage. Winning percentage needs to be considered, but the mix of players who were on a team in previous months might not be the same as it is now, so we don't want to rely solely on that. So we compiled a list of every player who was on an active roster as of Saturday and used ZiPS' rest-of-season projections -- which quite simply forecast how a player will produce for the remainder of the season -- to create as clear a picture possible of each team's wOBA and FIP.

Then, the team's winning percentage, projected wOBA and projected FIP were weighted equally to determine opponent difficulty, which then were applied to each team's remaining schedule to determine whose schedule is filled with warriors and whose is filled with creampuffs. I did not consider defense or home versus road or number of days off, because with such a small sample of games there would be too much noise in including those variables in the data for them to add any value.

Washington Nationals: PR: 1 | SOS: 1


The Nats are not only the toughest team to face, they also face the toughest road. In addition to series with contenders the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals, they have 10 games with two teams making such a hard push to be spoilers that they remain on the fringe of the playoff picture in the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies. The series with Atlanta this weekend could be particularly key. The Braves remain just 5.5 games back, and if they were to sweep, they could still have a chance to steal the National League East from the now Stephen Strasburg-less Nats.

Atlanta Braves: PR: 4 | SOS: 4

The Braves' toughest opponents are their most immediate ones, as they will close the season with series against the Marlins, Mets and Pirates -- who don't score particularly well in these forecasts.

Offline Clever

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Offline welch

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Just win the next 17 games in a row.

Online Mattionals

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This dude have twitter?  I say twitter bomb him to death with #Natitude.  Yes it's asinine, but he is just as much of an idiot as those saying that the Phillies are still in the "playoff hunt".

Offline mimontero88

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It's cool.  I've defended ridiculous statements I've made too because I didn't wanna admit I was wrong.  Tom Brady was a hell of a one-year wonder after all :P

Offline OldChelsea

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His po wittle Wed Sox aren't going anywhere this year so he needs some other team's bandwagon to climb aboard....

Offline loshjott

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That strength of schedule analysis makes a lot of sense. Nats ARE facing WC contenders the entire way once they leave NY.  Milwaukee and Philly are both playing very well now, have identical 70-71 records, and are 5 games out of the WC race at the moment.

He still puffs up the Braves ridiculously but that schedule analysis is spot on.

Offline LostYudite

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Just win the next 17 games in a row.

Well, I guess, we'll just have to win the whole damn thing.


Offline captkirk42

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Whats the latest on this guy's fantasy?