I think the other homeboy is just mad because Morales played for the Mariners when he blew last year, and I think you're mad because you're a Cardinals fan.

But the fact of the matter is still that Rios has only had 6 full healthy seasons in his career (defined as 600+ AB in one season), and he's posted a WAR of at least 3.0 in 5 of them.

I never once spoke to his health, because I'm not a fucking genie. But if he is healthy, let me do some Economics for you:
His average WAR in those 6 healthy seasons = 3.5
The probability that he will post a war of 3+ if healthy (5/6) = 83%

Expected Value = 3.5 * 0.83. Holding everything else constant, you can expect Rios to post a WAR of exactly 2.9, which is a big improvement over Aoki.

Meanwhile, Morales has only had three full healthy seasons (defined as 500+ AB, as you bat and play less as a DH lower in the order), and he's posted an SLG of at least .449 and an OPS of at least .785 in all of them. His OPS+ was at least 119 and averaged 125 those three years (2009, 2012, 2013).

So once again, because both of them had reasons to do bad last year, and because both of them have great track records when healthy, and because both of them will be healthy to begin the season, it is nowhere near a stretch to imagine that two of the most productive offensive positions in an AL roster will be able to do better than a combined 2.1 WAR.

The reason that's important is because I could come up with similar numbers and argue that Butler is a good DH because he used to previously have a ton of doubles, high slugging rates, and so on. But unlike both of them, Butler has been completely healthy, and he's shown concrete signs of regression. Neither Rios nor Morales has shown concrete signs of regression, there are reasonable explanations to just about everything.
As a GM, health history is important when making a decision, but as a fan offering predictions, I can't control if Rios stays healthy or not, I just know that he's currently healthy, and I know his production when healthy.

This post was edited by GoodOleZeus on Jan 29 2015 04:17pm

Morales' slugging has dropped each of his last 5 years, his wrc+ also has, and he's at the end of his prime it's not like he's going to get better. I'm not bitter about Morales, he actually performed better for us than he did the twins but he still was complete shit. You felt butler did bad with a league average season.... Morales was 25% worse.

Butler was league average? ... No, he wasn't.

Morales was way worse, expect it really never happened. He might as well have not played last year.

They literally signed him after being with no club for 9 months and put him straight in the major leagues. He played zero games in the minor leagues last season. You can't just expect somebody to do good with no type of practice and being out that long, regardless of who it is.

Maybe that's Morales/Boras fault for holding out/not accepting qualifying offer, or maybe that's the CBA's fault for a broken QO system that is meant to allow small market teams at a chance to retain their best players during free agency, not to suck one-dimensional players like Morales into a loop. I don't care if it's Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw. Remove them from a major league team, facility, coaching/training staff for 9 months and they won't come back strong immediately.

It is surely possible that Morales won't be good, but using last year as measurement is useless, it's an outlier. His declining SLG is a much better identifier of regression, but even then, it still never declined lower than 450 in a full season. Regression from an OPS in the 550s to one in the 450s isn't that bad. Regression from one in the 450s to one in the 350s IS.

It's like when Zack Greinke left baseball after the 2005 season. He completely left the Royals -- out of baseball. When Allard Baird convinced him to come back near the tail end of 2006, to which he got to pitch in half a seasons worth of minor league and major league games, he fucking blew. It meant nothing though. Obviously they are completely different, one was in the early stages of his career and one in the latter, but the idea is the same: No matter who you are, you leave baseball for 9 months, you won't be any good right away.

Heck, Morales improving hella between MIN and SEA only serves as proof he just needs a full spring to get ready...

lol... cuz getting zobrist negates losing lester, donaldson, moss, callaspo, hammel, soto, lowrie, samardzija, gomes... etc.

the angels won the division by 10 games, had the best record in MLB, and scored the most runs in mlb. they didnt need to make a ton of moves to be "better"
how can u not be sold on richards (dude was top 3 pitcher in the AL with kluber and sale until he fucked up his knee), shoemaker (2nd in ROTY voting), and heaney (top prospect) yet be sold on w/e pitchers the A's are gonna throw out there this season?
middle infield still has aybar, so its not that bad. and grant green is a former #1 pick (same year as trout, in fact picked before trout). he just needs some playing time.

A's on the other hand are a completely different team, with basically no team chemistry because its all new people.

Butler had a 97 wrc+, 100 is league average. That's basically the same thing. So yes he was a league average hitter last year, the year before he was 117 which is just below his career norms. So they are both 1 year removed from their last normal season... Butler is 3 years younger and didn't look like Brendan Ryan at the plate.

His huge improvement from the twins to the mariners? Lol, look at his monthly ops from last year. .560, .530, .709, .631. Yea he was so good the second half of the year, it took him two months to become to a below average hitter.

wRC+ is just one statistic. He also had a -0.3 WAR. The book definition of below average.

A 180 point swing in OPS is not huge/significant? Okay. Whatever you say.
And he virtually didn't play the first half, it's all second half.

This post was edited by GoodOleZeus on Jan 29 2015 04:53pm

You're right it's only one stat, which other stat should I use to show you how bad Morales was? Sure he had a 180 point swing, but his HIGHEST ops month was still the same as butlers season... Then the next month and a half he hit .70 points worse! So after 3 months of practice he was worse than Butler... You think ST is going to fix him but 3 months of games wouldn't?

When DH's, who unlike position players only get WAR from offensive production, have a negative WAR, you know they aren't league average. Also, 100 is only league average outside of context. The league average wRC+ for the nine full-time DH's in 2014 was 127, meaning butler was 25% worse than league average.

And before you try using the same reasoning for Morales, once again, what Morales did last season was meaningless, he virtually didn't play. Any time he's had a full season, he's produced.

This post was edited by GoodOleZeus on Jan 29 2015 05:05pm

Of course. It's much more than ST. He signed at the start of the off-season for a reason. He immediatley gets access to Royals facilities and camps he didn't have when he was un-signed. It's not just a month of ST, or even the month of February of practice, it's everything, and largely not so much that ST does a huge deal of help, but not having ST DOES a huge deal of hurt. Look at all other players who sign mid-season.

I'm done, I'm not going to change your mind. I'm just glad he's not my dh any more. Good luck getting better than league average hitting out of him.