I don't disagree with any of this, although I'd have liked to see us add someone who can be good for multiple years. I'm still a bit surprised to hear you say that we didn't give up anything of value (I agree we didn't), since you were Tobias's biggest booster this summer and just about the only poster seeing him as a potential MLB starting 2B and better than Kingery.
Huh? I thought Tobias was a better pure hitter than Kingery, he was in college as well, but he lacks a position, what is good hitting for 2B is meh in LF as we've seen with some other IF prospects who couldn't field well enough to stay there (Pullin).
I had Tobias at #71 for that reason, I think they held him back too much for his age, but it may have been to try to teach him to field.
His future is probably as a utility IF/OF/PH type at best.
Nobody had Tobias ranked anywhere near the top 30. He was more an advanced hitter than a pure hitter (whatever that means). Kingery is just as pure a hitter as Tobias was. He was just a couple of years younger, better defensively at the same position, and a better athlete with superior tools that have a chance to advance beyond where Tobias might.
All those are calculation that diminish Tobias' value. He is not good enough defensively at any position where his offense (which is not bad potentially for a middle infielder) might play. FWIW there are more AL fits for a guy like that with the DH in play, though I doubt that factored much in Boston's conclusions. This was a salary dump plain and simple and Boston needed a prospect with a non-zero chance of making the majors. We gave them one that is behind 2 other guys at higher levels who are better prospects and younger at the same time (Kingery and Valentin). And we have someone like Brito behind Tobias as well. So little cost to the Phillies because it is a fairly deep position and some face-saving for Boston since Tobias can hit a little bit.
Richie we hardly knew ya/
Striked me as a Featherston with more upside, still a long-shot given his extremely high K rate.
For years, I have gone to the rosters at the official website (phillies.com) often, generally a few times a week, year round. I usually also print out a roster periodically. Since MLBAM has gone to the new roster format, I find it difficult to get the roster information I have easily gotten from them for years. The pictures of each player make the roster too long for printing on one page, and even makes it difficult to review the roster on-line. I wish they had a print option that would produce the roster without photos. Right now, I am unable to view the entire roster of pitchers on one screen. Maybe I'm just an old fussbudget, but I just hate the new format. I know my time visiting phillies.com has gone down considerably of late.
I aired a similar complaint when they first changed the roster and someone posted a link to the old version. That link, however, no longer works, but just goes to the new version rosters.
Does anyone have a good site for ML team rosters? I think I'm about done with the official web site.
Julio, that's a good one. Even shows when last updated. Could you make that a sticky or put it in the library forum?
Added, in the "Reference Works" subsection of the Library. Note that there's a link to the official phillies.com roster (and to all the minor league home pages, rosters, and transactions) in the Baseball Links subsection, in the post "Organizational Sites."
Thanks. That is very good and pretty much what I wanted. A nice summary of basic information on one page.
I would also add that Jason Martinez (now with MLBTR) has devoted what seems to be his life to the rosters...created Roster Resource and was acquired by Trade Rumors as a result. No link as I am tied up right now but can add it later, or anyone can head over there and take a look. If memory serves, his was fairly concise but very detailed on his spreadsheets.
Here's the link. I love how he formats this. Might not be the best for printing, but it has a lot of information.
You love how he formats that (rosterresource.com)? I find it more or less "blinding," and very noisy. I'm guessing what you really like is not so much the formatting as the content?
Lots of information, for sure - and a place to go to find (or at least to check/confirm) things like options remaining. But it's just too neon for me to treat it as a primary/regular source.
As you noted, not "the best for printing," which is what LSP was looking for - something clean and simple that he could access periodically/keep on hand as a quick resource. There's an inherent tradeoff in such things - as you add more kinds of information to your web page (or overhead slide, or embedded graphic in a document, etc., etc., etc.), you inevitably make the thing less accessible, harder to follow, etc. I know in my own spreadsheets - when I know going in where all the relevant data lives, etc. - I still make use of showing/hiding columns, for instance, to reduce the data clutter so I can focus on what I need at a given time.
Yes, I really meant that I find it interesting to read given the information (how acquired, etc.). Neon doesn't bother me on web pages, but if I were formatting my own graphs for publication I'd avoid it like the plague.
Used to wrestle with this in the budget office, regularly. Somebody would ask, "Can you add yadda yadda to that table?" Answer is, "Yes, I can." But the downside is that if you add yadda yadda, the table now has two additional columns, and the page (of the publication) didn't suddenly get wider, so everything is now in a smaller typeface, with less white space between the columns... and somebody (not infrequently the same somebody) would now object that the table was hard to read. Umm...yes, it is.
I love retirement!
Agree with both of you as I love his detail and his obsession with getting the information; but he is too busy in the presentation.
For me, I will use what he has...the information is worth it and I don't want to go back and forth with multiple sources. If I were going to design one for my own use, it would have to branch into multiple sheets for the more detailed stuff and the core sheet / front page would be easier to read.
Almost everything about MLB is optimized for mobile (or within the app) I suspect. I still like it during the season because you can toggle between 25 and 40 and it also includes the 60-day DL guys. I would think that for printing purposes there will be PDFs and/or media rosters at some point, though it seems a basic roster is not part of the usual game notes package (still fun to read though, here's one example: http://mlb.mlb.com/documents/0/6/6/204068066/9_29_16_at_ATL_efxl0rt6.pdf1)
Seems to be a bit of buzz on Brandon Moss being on the radar. Think we might hear something soon on that front... just a guess. Good move if he is used as aPH and lefty substitute at various positions. Shouldn't steal at bats from Altherer though.
LOL...I was just going to post about Moss. I agree that there has been some buzz lately about him and it sure seems a mutually beneficial marriage. Moss might even get a 2 year deal with the Phils and he has to see that he should get plenty of action [1b, LF, RF] if he signs with the team.
I do expect the Phils to do something fairly soon, now that Encarnacion has signed the log jam should begin to sort itself out and Moss to the Phils sure seems like a logical one.
