HQ Radio

[elias]

I have been listening to PD's HQ Radio since January -- it's a wonderful feature. However, in season, the new show is posted so late on Friday that much of the discussion about the weekend action is academic by the time I listen to it.

It's 4:00 p.m. EDT and the new show is not available. My suggestion is that no references be made to Friday's games since I probably won't hear the show until Saturday.

[RAY@HQ]

Show's up now.

[kjordan]

Playerlink

I know this questions is probably misplaced but I have a terrible time navigating around the forums so I am going to take a chance. Chris Ianetta is a starting catcher but Player Link projects him for just 54 AB for the rest of the season. It also projects just 1 HR in those 54 AB, even though he has hit 10 in 179 AB so far. Is that on purpose? Same with Caleb Joseph, who is splitting games 50/50 in Baltimore. P.L. projects just 59 AB and 1 HR, while he has hit 7 in 203 so far. Is that stuff just out of date or what? If so, what do you really think these guys are gonna do down the stretch? Thanks

[RAY@HQ]

Iannetta: I think "Starting catcher" is an overstatement. We have him projected for 35% playing time, with Mathis getting 35% and Herrmann 30% behind the plate for Arizona. If you look at the Weekly tab in Playerlink for Iannetta, he's been getting around 10 AB a week. I think that's pretty close to 35% playing time. Short answer... unless there's been some recent declaration from Lovullo about more AB for Iannetta, then I don't think I see a problem here.

Joseph's situation is nearly identical. Also projected for 35% playing time, behind Castillo's 60%.

We can quibble over whether either of these guys should be set at 50% rather than 35%, but at this point in the season the difference in the projection would amount to just a handful of ABs.

[Michael@HQ]

I'd move your post to its own thread, but I don't want you to have difficulty finding it.

Iannetta is projected for 35% playing time, which strikes me as reasonable given that the Diamondbacks are carrying three catcher plus acquired a AAA catcher in late July. Iannetta walks a lot too so projected PA differs from projected AB for a batter like him. 1 HR for 54 AB also strikes me a bit low but (1) in a 54 AB sample, rounding error is increased and (2) it's consistent with his pace in 2016.

Caleb Joseph is projected for 35% playing time (versus 60% for Wellington Castillo). That does seem a bit low given the last 31 days playing time split between Joseph and Castillo. It's looking to me as if Joseph is getting 45% of the playing time lately. Given that Joseph is regarded as a better defender than Castillo is, I tend to think Joseph will hang onto his playing time.

To address your broader questions, the projections are always up-to-date in the sense that (1) playing time analysts are assigned to each team and are diligent at keeping those allocations updated and (2) the quality of a player's performance is automatically updated by folding in a player's YTD skills into our pre-season projections. However, we're not spending a lot of time at this time of year combing through the projections one-by-one.

[Michael@HQ]

Ah, Ray beat me to the bunch by less than a minute.

[RAY@HQ]

Thanks Michael. Glad our stories check out.