SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
Red Sox sign Pablo Sandoval: 5 yrs/ 95 million + Club Option
|
Post by mredsox89 on Nov 25, 2014 14:33:58 GMT -5
Cespedes isn't playing CF, and almost certainly isn't playing RF. They can't just openly say he's gone, or they're looking to move him, but pretty much everyone agrees that it's the case.
Also, I like this signing much more in conjunction with the Hanley deal, because it means the chances of Sandoval being the DH/1B go down. If he is able to stay at 3B throughout the deal, a lot of the downside goes away, because his bat obviously doesn't "play" at either of the other positions, and now Hanley is more likely to take over that spot, with a bat that does fit there
|
|
|
Post by elguapo on Nov 25, 2014 15:01:08 GMT -5
Yeah. Cespedes has a sign of for Sale while a guy next to him is yelling not for sale. What an emotional roller coaster! I take it Kenny Williams is the one yelling "Not for Sale!"
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,911
|
Post by ericmvan on Nov 25, 2014 18:31:50 GMT -5
Back in the 3B thread, I posted my little study suggesting that a hitter like Sandoval actually ages well. That was a regression analysis.
The other sort of study, of course, is to look at stylistically comparable players. As far as I can tell, that's a group of ... one.
Vlad Guerreo, wRC+, ages 23 to 27:
145, 139, 160, 130, 155 = 146
Ages 28 to 32:
152, 154, 148, 134, 143 = 146
He had a peak from 27 to 30 and two or three more years nearly as good (the third being 129), before starting a decline at age 34.
Panda is essentially Vlad without the power. I think there's less reason than ever to fear that, as a bad-ball hitter with elite contact skills, he's due for an early decline.
|
|
nomar
Veteran
Posts: 10,700
|
Post by nomar on Nov 25, 2014 19:20:07 GMT -5
If he ever found his 2011 power stroke I hope he keeps it. Seems like after his first hamate bone injury it never clicked for him.
|
|
TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,835
|
Post by TearsIn04 on Nov 25, 2014 19:57:13 GMT -5
I posted earlier in the thread that Panda has actually hit a lot better in his home park than on the road, so I think it's wise to give up on the idea that getting out of there is going to benefit him enormously.
Career: 313/.365/.488 for an OPS of .853 at home and .277/328/.443 for an OPS of .771 on the road. BABIP is a factor here. He's .327 at home and .299 on the road.
In 2014, he was .293/.342/.432 for an OPS of.774 at home and .266/.308/.399 for an OPS of .707 on the road. Again, BABIP accounts for some of it: .314 at home and .286 on the road.
Five years, about $100 million and a draft pick for a non-elite hitter whose performance has been trending down is a lot for me to get my head around. And that's not even mentioning the weight issues.
|
|
|
Post by orcoaster on Nov 25, 2014 20:06:22 GMT -5
Hey all, long time lurker, first time posting. Did anyone else catch some of the tweets after the Pablo press conference. @brianmac John Farrell pointed to numerous power bats in the lineup, including "Yoenis Cespedes in either center or right." Speier tweeted as well that the Sox have talked to Yoenis about right or center and he's open to playing either one. What does this mean for Betts? Would we really run an outfield out there with Hanley in left, Cespedes in right? If we trade Mookie, I'm going to cry... Translation: Farrell to other teams, "Yoenis Cespedes could be your next centerfielder!"
|
|
|
Post by iakovos11 on Nov 25, 2014 20:14:37 GMT -5
I posted earlier in the thread that Panda has actually hit a lot better in his home park than on the road, so I think it's wise to give up on the idea that getting out of there is going to benefit him enormously. Career: 313/.365/.488 for an OPS of .853 at home and .277/328/.443 for an OPS of .771 on the road. BABIP is a factor here. He's .327 at home and .299 on the road. In 2014, he was .293/.342/.432 for an OPS of.774 at home and .266/.308/.399 for an OPS of .707 on the road. Again, BABIP accounts for some of it: .314 at home and .286 on the road. Five years, about $100 million and a draft pick for a non-elite hitter whose performance has been trending down is a lot for me to get my head around. And that's not even mentioning the weight issues. Yeah, that's way too simplistic. The spray charts posted earlier in the thread are much more useful. Look, besides AT&T, where do the Giants play most of their road games? (Hint: they aren't hitter friendly parks).
|
|
|
Post by bentossaurus on Nov 25, 2014 20:41:24 GMT -5
...Wow, I didn't know AT&T was so pitcher friendly. Makes me a little more excited for Pablo than I was before. Especially since he goes from playing regularly in large parks that for the most part surpress offense to the most hitter friendly division of parks in the majors. Sandoval is going to destroy in Yankee Stadium. Check out the park factors for ML teams. The bottom 6 in descending order are: - AT&T Park
- Angel Stadium
- Dodger Stadium
- Citi Field
- Petco Park
- Safeco Field
It's not a coincidence that, outside of Citi Field, they're all situated on the West coast. There's a taxonomy to the climate up and down that coast, since the planet rotates west to east. Once the sun goes down, the clear skies lead to radiational cooling, the marine air lifts off the ocean, then it drifts inland - even in relatively dry locations such as San Diego and the Los Angeles area. That marine layer really kills fly balls. It was just a few years back that there were no home runs hit after 8:00 pm in San Diego. Think about that in the context of Adrian Gonzalez. From 2007 to 2010 he averaged 34 HRs per year. He averaged little more than 11 per year at home during that period. That's as good an indication as any of the way offense is suppressed at Petco. It probably cost him 10+ HR's a year. All true and that, but Hydrodynamics says balls travel better in less denser air with higher humidity. Your argument is kind of undermining the conclusion
|
|
|
Post by thursty on Nov 25, 2014 20:45:34 GMT -5
Look, besides AT&T, where do the Giants play most of their road games? (Hint: they aren't hitter friendly parks). Yeah, Coors and Chase Field are death to power hitters
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,911
|
Post by ericmvan on Nov 25, 2014 21:53:37 GMT -5
I posted earlier in the thread that Panda has actually hit a lot better in his home park than on the road, so I think it's wise to give up on the idea that getting out of there is going to benefit him enormously. Career: 313/.365/.488 for an OPS of .853 at home and .277/328/.443 for an OPS of .771 on the road. BABIP is a factor here. He's .327 at home and .299 on the road. In 2014, he was .293/.342/.432 for an OPS of.774 at home and .266/.308/.399 for an OPS of .707 on the road. Again, BABIP accounts for some of it: .314 at home and .286 on the road. Five years, about $100 million and a draft pick for a non-elite hitter whose performance has been trending down is a lot for me to get my head around. And that's not even mentioning the weight issues. Some guys just hit much better at home than on the road, because travel bothers them. Mike Lowell had incredibly bad career numbers in the first day in a new city, without a travel day preceding. Guys who play on the west coast can suffer more, if they're not night owls. They fly east, and they're playing games that start at 10 PM in their brain, and get over at 1:30 AM. Well, how about this. Sandoval's career home / road splits by time zone. The Eastern line, for instance, is home games against clubs whose park is in the Eastern time zone, versus what he did against those clubs in that time zone, weighted by the lesser of PA for each team. (This controls for the quality of each team's pitching.) The PAF is relative to his own 95. TaV, as always, is simply a weighted OBP and SA. The adjustment for PAF (a point of TAv per point of park factor) is approximate. Home Road Zone BA OBP SLG TAv BA OBP SLG TAv PAF Diff Adj Pacific .301 .345 .449 .275 .267 .329 .449 .268 99 .007 .006 Mount .292 .353 .486 .287 .294 .354 .497 .290 114 -.003 .011 Central .340 .406 .510 .317 .292 .344 .491 .284 107 .033 .040 Eastern .331 .376 .509 .303 .273 .302 .390 .242 104 .061 .065 His home / road TAv splits, park adjusted, are .275 versus .269 in his own time zone, .287 versus .276 in Colorado and Arizona, .317 versus .277 in the Midwest, and .303 versus .238 on the east coast. Wowza. This is the sort of analysis I used to do for the team (as per the great Youkilis anecdote in ESPN the Mag), and it's entirely possible that they looked into this. For a while I hated the idea of signing this guy, but right now he's looking like a guy who will be a hugely better offensive player for us than he was in SF. One wonders if that was part of the sales pitch to him.
|
|
nomar
Veteran
Posts: 10,700
|
Post by nomar on Nov 25, 2014 22:02:39 GMT -5
I posted earlier in the thread that Panda has actually hit a lot better in his home park than on the road, so I think it's wise to give up on the idea that getting out of there is going to benefit him enormously. Career: 313/.365/.488 for an OPS of .853 at home and .277/328/.443 for an OPS of .771 on the road. BABIP is a factor here. He's .327 at home and .299 on the road. In 2014, he was .293/.342/.432 for an OPS of.774 at home and .266/.308/.399 for an OPS of .707 on the road. Again, BABIP accounts for some of it: .314 at home and .286 on the road. Five years, about $100 million and a draft pick for a non-elite hitter whose performance has been trending down is a lot for me to get my head around. And that's not even mentioning the weight issues. Some guys just hit much better at home than on the road, because travel bothers them. Mike Lowell had incredibly bad career numbers in the first day in a new city, without a travel day preceding. Guys who play on the west coast can suffer more, if they're not night owls. They fly east, and they're playing games that start at 10 PM in their brain, and get over at 1:30 AM. Well, how about this. Sandoval's career home / road splits by time zone. The Eastern line, for instance, is home games against clubs whose park is in the Eastern time zone, versus what he did against those clubs in that time zone, weighted by the lesser of PA for each team. (This controls for the quality of each team's pitching.) The PAF is relative to his own 95. TaV, as always, is simply a weighted OBP and SA. The adjustment for PAF (a point of TAv per point of park factor) is approximate. Home Road Zone BA OBP SLG TAv BA OBP SLG TAv PAF Diff Adj Pacific .301 .345 .449 .275 .267 .329 .449 .268 99 .007 .006 Mount .292 .353 .486 .287 .294 .354 .497 .290 114 -.003 .011 Central .340 .406 .510 .317 .292 .344 .491 .284 107 .033 .040 Eastern .331 .376 .509 .303 .273 .302 .390 .242 104 .061 .065 His home / road TAv splits, park adjusted, are .275 versus .269 in his own time zone, .287 versus .276 in Colorado and Arizona, .317 versus .277 in the Midwest, and .303 versus .238 on the east coast. Wowza. This is the sort of analysis I used to do for the team (as per the great Youkilis anecdote in ESPN the Mag), and it's entirely possible that they looked into this. For a while I hated the idea of signing this guy, but right now he's looking like a guy who will be a hugely better offensive player for us than he was in SF. One wonders if that was part of the sales pitch to him. I like what I see here, but I'm unsure if the east coast sample size is large enough to be thoroughly significant. Then again, obviously the front office is seeing something in him that many others don't.
|
|
|
Post by Oregon Norm on Nov 25, 2014 23:36:19 GMT -5
... All true and that, but Hydrodynamics says balls travel better in less denser air with higher humidity. Your argument is kind of undermining the conclusion I've heard all that before. We're not talking about warm moist air. Think cold dense air, with fog rolling in every once in a while. Believe me that air is denser than what you started with.
|
|
|
Post by bentossaurus on Nov 26, 2014 0:13:44 GMT -5
... All true and that, but Hydrodynamics says balls travel better in less denser air with higher humidity. Your argument is kind of undermining the conclusion I've heard all that before. We're not talking about warm moist air. Think cold dense air, with fog rolling in every once in a while. Believe me that air is denser than what you started with. As with most things, it depends.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Nov 26, 2014 1:11:45 GMT -5
I posted earlier in the thread that Panda has actually hit a lot better in his home park than on the road, so I think it's wise to give up on the idea that getting out of there is going to benefit him enormously. Career: 313/.365/.488 for an OPS of .853 at home and .277/328/.443 for an OPS of .771 on the road. BABIP is a factor here. He's .327 at home and .299 on the road. In 2014, he was .293/.342/.432 for an OPS of.774 at home and .266/.308/.399 for an OPS of .707 on the road. Again, BABIP accounts for some of it: .314 at home and .286 on the road. Five years, about $100 million and a draft pick for a non-elite hitter whose performance has been trending down is a lot for me to get my head around. And that's not even mentioning the weight issues. Pretty much every hitter hits better at home than they do on the road. Whether because it means they haven't traveled as much, they sleep better/more at home, they know the ballpark better (i.e., they're more used to the batter's eye, etc.), opposing pitchers perform worse (due to travel, sleep, etc.), there is an intrinsic benefit to playing at home that we can usually expect to transfer. The question is not whether he is better at home or away. The question is whether he is better at home in Fenway versus at home in AT&T, and the answer to that question clearly leans Fenway.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,911
|
Post by ericmvan on Nov 26, 2014 2:39:51 GMT -5
Sandoval's career home / road splits by time zone. The Eastern line, for instance, is home games against clubs whose park is in the Eastern time zone, versus what he did against those clubs in that time zone, weighted by the lesser of PA for each team. (This controls for the quality of each team's pitching.) The PAF is relative to his own 95. TaV, as always, is simply a weighted OBP and SA. The adjustment for PAF (a point of TAv per point of park factor) is approximate. Home Road Zone BA OBP SLG TAv BA OBP SLG TAv PAF Diff Adj Pacific .301 .345 .449 .275 .267 .329 .449 .268 99 .007 .006 Mount .292 .353 .486 .287 .294 .354 .497 .290 114 -.003 .011 Central .340 .406 .510 .317 .292 .344 .491 .284 107 .033 .040 Eastern .331 .376 .509 .303 .273 .302 .390 .242 104 .061 .065 His home / road TAv splits, park adjusted, are .275 versus .269 in his own time zone, .287 versus .276 in Colorado and Arizona, .317 versus .277 in the Midwest, and .303 versus .238 on the east coast. Wowza. I like what I see here, but I'm unsure if the east coast sample size is large enough to be thoroughly significant. It's 520 PA. Comparing East versus Pacific and Mountain (actual totals on the road), K rates and BABIP are identical. BB rate is .033 versus .073, which has a 1 in 490 chance of being random. His HR/Contact is .024 versus .044, which has a 1 in 13 chance. Or, another way: there's no significant home/road splits in those components for Pacific / Mountain teams, but large ones for Eastern teams. His K rate goes from .089 to .148 (1 in 282 chance of being random), his BB rate from .056 to .033 (1 in 14), and all of his hardness of contact metrics are worse as well.
|
|
|
Post by brianthetaoist on Nov 26, 2014 7:01:02 GMT -5
Guys who play on the west coast can suffer more, if they're not night owls. They fly east, and they're playing games that start at 10 PM in their brain, and get over at 1:30 AM. Doesn't really do anything to the analysis, but you have your time zones backwards ... a 7pm ET start is 4pm on the body clock of a West Coast player, not 10pm. So, it's not so much if someone's a night owl or not in that situation. But I wonder if some people in general are affected more by time changes, and I'd guess some baseball players - with heavily routinized pre-game schedules - are more affected than others.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 26, 2014 7:46:56 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Oregon Norm on Nov 26, 2014 10:15:25 GMT -5
Looks like he was on that Venezuelan team for six seasons, including their championship year. It must be something that's important to him.
|
|
|
Post by deepjohn on Nov 26, 2014 11:04:57 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 26, 2014 12:08:21 GMT -5
Looks like he was on that Venezuelan team for six seasons, including their championship year. It must be something that's important to him. It is. It's in his Twitter bio and he says in the link that he's disappointed. He probably gets it though. Probably something to the kidnapping concerns, a la Wilson Ramos. He's much more of a target than the likes of Edwin Escobar. Also, one wonders if they'd prefer he stay in the U.S. as much as possible to keep an eye on his weight.
|
|
|
Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Nov 26, 2014 13:57:30 GMT -5
A. Pablo now will play about 75% of his games in AL East parks. B. But, Pablo now will play half his games vs. the allegedly superior AL East pitching.
Somebody surely as developed a simple Adj-OPS with a simple factor for ballparks and opponents.
On the pitching side, the most noticeable example of this need is often starting pitching for the all-star game or Cy Young, where one pitching candidate runs up big stats against very poor opponents. Adj-OPSA ... where are you? I never read exactly how ERA+ is calculated, which factors home ball-park somehow. (based on innings pitched in that park?)
We also now likely will see results of a pre-Dec2nd outright, with Lavarnway. If he does not end up a free agent after clearing, it would seem to indicate that he has already signed a '15 contract. It sure would be to his benefit to go elsewhere.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Dec 3, 2014 8:07:42 GMT -5
Really interesting work from Rob Arthur on Sandoval's unique ability to hit good pitches: www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/sandoval-s-unique-talents-outweigh-red-sox-roster-juggling-problems-120214This trend is something others have noticed before. Vince Gennaro of SABR has been touting Sandoval's ability to hit top-tier pitching for years, and Sam Miller of BP has noted how Sandoval somehow maintains a similar BABIP on pitches in the zone as he does on pitches outside the zone (suggesting that he's an excellent bad-ball hitter and that it's tough for even good pitchers to get him out). Just this past fall, Jeff Sullivan discussed how Sandoval doesn't really have a weakness, because he can hit pitches anywhere even close to the zone. This skill (which appears consistent enough and is tied enough to scouting observations that I'm confident is not just small sample noise) explains some (but not all) of Sandoval's postseason success, and I'd bet that it was something the Red Sox considered in signing him. (Of course, this is not an entirely positive skill. It means that Sandoval isn't punishing meatballs as much as he should, which suggests that despite six+ years in the league, his plate discipline/approach hasn't improved much. It's also a skill that doesn't look to age well for most players, because it's really hard to maintain the physical tools (think quick wrists/forearms, elite hand-eye coordination, and top-end batspeed) necessary to consistently hit unhittable pitches. But maybe Sandoval will be an exception, as he already is.)
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Dec 3, 2014 8:56:38 GMT -5
Vlad without the power is the comp I've read over and over.
|
|
|
Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 3, 2014 10:07:31 GMT -5
Vlad without the power is the comp I've read over and over. And the exact opposite body type. As far as I can tell there's no good comps for Sandoval.
|
|
|
Post by tjb21 on Dec 3, 2014 10:20:12 GMT -5
Really interesting work from Rob Arthur on Sandoval's unique ability to hit good pitches: www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/sandoval-s-unique-talents-outweigh-red-sox-roster-juggling-problems-120214This trend is something others have noticed before. Vince Gennaro of SABR has been touting Sandoval's ability to hit top-tier pitching for years, and Sam Miller of BP has noted how Sandoval somehow maintains a similar BABIP on pitches in the zone as he does on pitches outside the zone (suggesting that he's an excellent bad-ball hitter and that it's tough for even good pitchers to get him out). Just this past fall, Jeff Sullivan discussed how Sandoval doesn't really have a weakness, because he can hit pitches anywhere even close to the zone. This skill (which appears consistent enough and is tied enough to scouting observations that I'm confident is not just small sample noise) explains some (but not all) of Sandoval's postseason success, and I'd bet that it was something the Red Sox considered in signing him. (Of course, this is not an entirely positive skill. It means that Sandoval isn't punishing meatballs as much as he should, which suggests that despite six+ years in the league, his plate discipline/approach hasn't improved much. It's also a skill that doesn't look to age well for most players, because it's really hard to maintain the physical tools (think quick wrists/forearms, elite hand-eye coordination, and top-end batspeed) necessary to consistently hit unhittable pitches. But maybe Sandoval will be an exception, as he already is.) Thanks for sharing. He is just a really interesting player to watch. Still not a huge fan of this signing, but that study was fascinating.
|
|
|