Sky Kalkman

I've seen/heard some folks downgrading CAs just because, and the DraftKick app downgrades them via higher replacement level. I don't know why.

No. Patreon subscribers to a baseball nerd thing. Should be better than noobs, worse than pros.

🤜

Just grabbed him as my second catcher in a league. No respect.

PowerBI number of decimal places shown as a function of the number of decimal places I tell it to show me:

3: 3
2: 2
1: 1
0: 2

Fun.

okay, I think I'm into wrestling now

I miss the publicly available dead zone app.

Engineer then psychiatrist, commercial artist

You disagree with the rates or the quantity?

In addition to being a war crime, this makes us LESS safe, not MORE safe.

@nickpollack.pitcherlist.com @blandalytics.pitcherlist.com Hope you guys bring the pitcherlistplv accoun to BlueSky, too.

Doing my first one!

In a league that accidentally has more flexible positional qualifications. Grabbed Yordan as an OF and Ivan Herrera as a CA. Not a huge deal, but kind of fun.

I LOVE different rules in different leagues. New puzzles to figure out.

@sandwichpick.bsky.social How do draft and hold drafts generally differ from weekly leagues? So certain positions or categories go higher or lower?

I'm calling this out because people use it for articles sometimes, and it's ignorant at best, manipulative at worst.

Just as manipulative as the "two setup guys are as productive as Tarik Skubal" argument people use for clicks.

The argument that you shouldn't take a certain type of player in the Xth round because on average they return only 70% of value is misleading. You can say that about many types of players and rounds. A lot of value comes from undrafted players. Picks are inefficient. That's known, now make a pick.

When we talk about Baby Boomers not getting off the stage: In 1997, the US president was born in 1946.

In 2007, the US president was born in 1946.

In 2017, the US president was born in 1946.

And next year in 2027? The US president will have been born in 1946.

Is six starters a must?

The Hall of Nearly Great by Sky Kalkman is a novel often discussed on Goodreads, sometimes highlighted within user-curated lists or discussions regarding books that are enjoyable but perhaps not considered "classics" or "masterpieces" by all readers. It appears to be a work that falls into the "good, not great" category. Key Aspects of The Hall of Nearly Great: Availability: Information, including quotes, is available on Goodreads and the book can be found through platforms like Amazon and Audible. Genre/Style: It is generally known to explore themes of ambition or personal growth, often resonating with readers who enjoy character-driven stories. Discussion: The book sometimes features in discussions about "nearly" great works—books that have potential but don't quite achieve the status of a literary classic.

Nailed it.

One argument against taking on lots of risk is that at a certain point, there's such a thing as *too much* positive variation. Let's say your team is all Byron Buxtons. Hitting on 70% might win you the league. Anything more is overkill.

One thing I've noticed with a bunch of pitchers who have added avg movement to their pitches this spring, whether it's increased iVB on a four-seamer or more horizontal break on a sinker or slider, is that they haven't done anything beyond last year, they've just cut out the less-moving results.

Changeup has less horizontal movement than the fastball, huh.

Ha, I'm sending it over.

6/7 of the top players available in my current draft are all catchers. I can probably wait to take one.

Love it, thanks. The other guy he was asking about was Tenace ;)

Line graph for the three players in the tweet, with seasonal WARs sorted best to worse. Tenace and Freehan are similar, with Posey clearly better in years 1-7 and ending his career a touch sooner.

Well that's cool, the WAR Graphs page at FanGraphs was revamped. There's a cool hover feature that shows all players' WAR in a specific season. One of my old ideas that I'm super proud of.

Here's Buster Posey, Gene Tenace and Bill Freehan.

www.fangraphs.com/leaders/war-...

@adarowski.bsky.social Hey, a friend is asking about catchers from yonder era and their HoFame candidacies. Any thoughts on Bill Freehan? Maybe where he ranked in your old system or why he didn't get more support?

Denzel Clarke, 2026

Forecasts account for inexperience and skills (many more skills than BABS uses) and partially accounts for injuries (missed time implies future missed time.) The missing injury part might even HELP some players, because they can explain poor past performance.

And if I may critique BABS while admitting I've only spent 15 minutes reading and thinking about it, intentionally removing precision because a numerical forecast isn't as precise as some people think it is just seems like shooting yourself in the foot.

And my question is for someone to please present a better argument than "it seems sensible". It very well might be right! The arguments are unconvincing.