I find myself agreeing with the old-schoolers about pitchers (Corbin thread) but BB% for hitters might be better than K/W. For Baez, the fact that he made better contact is tempered by the fact that he was even less selective. 

Maybe we should show BB% and SO% for hitters, BB/9 and SO/9 for pitchers? The same things, just expressed differently.

I too prefer the old-school, Ancient Mariner, 2016 K and BB stats. 

Call me old-school, but I prefer K/BB and K/9 over these new metrics.

I think $13 is spot on. 

K/W is easy to calculate with K% and BB% next to each other.

Instead of SO% followed by K/W we are now showing BB% followed by SO%. The idea being to show the same info for hitters that we are now showing for pitchers.

The change does seem to show Kepler in a better light last year: more walks and fewer strikeouts per plate appearance.  Maybe DRC+ is right. He wasn't as bad as he seemed.

Is BB% better than K/W?

I ask because we are at the limit of what we can show and we can't have both.

The pitcher's page used to have K/9 followed by K/W. Now, as you see, it's BB% followed by SO%.

For me, K/9 is more descriptive than SO%, but I reasoned that if we are going to express the walk rate, which a lot of people asked for, as BB/BFP, we should show the strikeout rate as SO/BFP. 

Given what is generally thought of him, very positive, and what he produced last year in 300 ABs, seems too low to me.

Signs on with the Phillies with the rumour being 3-years at a total of $50 mill. Is there room for Bryce Harper in that outfield?

I'm a lot less impressed with longevity when (a) from age 28 on, the dude was almost exclusively a DH, and (b) over 14 seasons where he was a regular DH, he had 7 where his WAR was 2.0 or less, 7 with an OPS+ of 120 or less.

That's damning to me, because I consider the DH to be a useful tool for a manager to keep a good bat in the lineup while giving a guy a day off from playing the field.  I want a DH who is consistently above those thresholds if he's going to justify taking that tool away.  I just  don't think that Harold Baines made his teams much better over a good portion of his career, and that's kind of important for a HOFer in my opinion.

We've been dealing with some difficulties in my league.  The problems are related to dump trades, staying active all season, you know the normal stuff we deal with.  One owner is now proposing what I consider a ridiculous high-low payout structure, where 1st, 2nd, 11th, and 12th win money with 11th and 12th having to qualify in AB and IP to win.  I don't know why we would incentivize teams to do poorly.

My suggestion is to move to a pyramid keeper system similar to what Alex has described in the past, but perhaps even more aggressive.  Right now each team can keep up to 5 major leaguers, plus 2 minor leaguers, or additional minor leaguers in place of major leaguers.  All told, that's 60 major league keepers maximum.

Perhaps this is too drastic, but I was thinking of proposing:

1st - 2

2nd - 3

3rd - 4

4th - 5

5th - 8

6th - 7

7th - 7

8th - 6

9th - 6

10th - 5

11th - 4

12th -3

This would be the same number of major league keepers (60), greatly incentivize the teams who try to improve throughout the season by making free agent pickups who could be kept and not trading out.  It may create unwanted incentives for teams at the very bottom to trade out for that one or two great keepers, though.  

The minor leaguer keepers would be unchanged and people could keep more minor leaguers at the expense of these major league slots if they so wished.

What do people think?  What tweaks would you make and what side effects do you foresee?

Interestingly the one year Eugene saw Lee play for the Orioles....Baines was his teammate. 

They both started their career in 1980.

They both started their career in Chicago. 

My tossed-off comment yesterday -- it's all WAR's fault -- turns out to be quite wrong. Will Clark, Orel Hershiser and Albert Belle all have much higher career WARs and came up short. 

Baines ended with 38.7 career wins above replacement; 19 players on this year's BBWAA ballot have scores of 50 or more. Something tells me they won't all get in.

It's a good thing, for their sake, the 16 members of the Today's Game Era Committee are allowed to vote in secret; the baseball writers who vote for the MVP in each league should be so lucky.

For those in an AL-only league, the bidding on Hamilton will be fascinating since we're not that familiar with his one-category approach. Also, in going to the Royals, I assume that he will be encouraged to steal every time he gets to first base. With SBs down across the board, I am trying to work out not only pricing, but also how you deal with giving over a slot to such a black hole in HRs and RBIs and probably batting average. 

I have to admit, I've moved from a small hall guy to a more accepting version. Compared to other sports' HOFs baseball's is way more restrictive. Acknowledging that there are guys with marginal stats in the HOF isn't to say that guys on the margins shouldn't get in. And, saying that the process for the Today's Game Era is weird doesn't mean I think that Baines shouldn't be in the hall. It does mean I think like guys like Walker should be there too.

Reportedly signed a 1 year deal with KC. 

Highest similarity score to Baines on Bref…….Tony Perez 943.9.

Led in slugging average in 1984 (.541, someone else had more than 308 total bases).

Didn't he lead the league once in a category, perhaps total bases?

When I was growing up and had the Topps sticker book with the All-Time HR leaders on the inside cover (was that 82 or 83?), this tied group was the #1, 3, 4, and 5 on that list.  If I recall, the top 4 had stickers across the top (Ruth #2), but the others were merely listed. Reggie and Schmidt were climbing the leaderboard.

I think the top 4 All-Time also had foil stickers. I'll have to check when I get home.