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Red Sox acquire Craig Kimbrel for Margot, Guerra +
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Post by jclmontana on May 20, 2016 2:40:36 GMT -5
- It is asinine to take the position that an asset is definitively worth what it was acquired for. That position makes it impossible to evaluate any transaction. There are ways to judge whether a deal was good or bad, whether that's comparing it to other deals or using a model to determine how the market historically values a certain asset
Nice name calling, Mr. Moderator. It sure seems like you are trying to limit the definition of what constitutes a valid perspective on the trade, and trying to shape the conversation to bolster your point of view. Your logic does not hold up. It is useful, instructive, to consider the actual cost of a transaction, to acknowledge and contemplate the tangibles that were transferred. That doesn't make it the end of the discussion (indeed, I went on to, you know, discuss the transaction). To the two parties involved, the assets traded were worth, literally, each other. It is a narrow, limited view of value, but it is not a false view, and yes, it is useful. Here are some useful questions that can be generated from looking at, acknowledging, and not glossing over the actual cost of a trade: 1.) "hey, that transaction was way out of the ordinary. Was that a shift in the market, or just an anomaly? 2.) "Huh, is there a big difference in public perception vs industry vs. team valuation of the players traded? Are Red Sox fans valuing their prospects too highly" (Nah, can't be, never mind..) 3.) "What is it about those traded players that might make them more or less valuable than what publicly available information might suggest?" Or, alternately, "What is it about my particular lens, my view of how players are valued, that might be blinding me to certain information or viewpoints that would explain this trade?" The actual transaction, the assets traded, anchor the discussion, but they don't have to limit the analysis or the discussion.
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Post by bosox81 on May 20, 2016 8:30:30 GMT -5
It is useful, instructive, to consider the actual cost of a transaction, to acknowledge and contemplate the tangibles that were transferred. That doesn't make it the end of the discussion (indeed, I went on to, you know, discuss the transaction). To the two parties involved, the assets traded were worth, literally, each other. It is a narrow, limited view of value, but it is not a false view, and yes, it is useful. Here are some useful questions that can be generated from looking at, acknowledging, and not glossing over the actual cost of a trade: 1.) "hey, that transaction was way out of the ordinary. Was that a shift in the market, or just an anomaly? 2.) "Huh, is there a big difference in public perception vs industry vs. team valuation of the players traded? Are Red Sox fans valuing their prospects too highly" (Nah, can't be, never mind..) 3.) "What is it about those traded players that might make them more or less valuable than what publicly available information might suggest?" Or, alternately, "What is it about my particular lens, my view of how players are valued, that might be blinding me to certain information or viewpoints that would explain this trade?" The actual transaction, the assets traded, anchor the discussion, but they don't have to limit the analysis or the discussion. Another useful question to ask, "Hey, did the Red Sox just overpay to acquire an asset that is overvalued by the industry?" One of the things that made Theo so good before he suddenly decided to change his philosophy towards the end of his tenure with the Sox is that he assessed the market and determined that defense and prospects were undervalued by the industry. He also avoided overvalued ones like stars that were past their prime. These DDo led Red Sox so far seem to me like they are doing the exact opposite.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 20, 2016 9:14:23 GMT -5
To the two parties involved, the assets traded were worth, literally, each other. It is a narrow, limited view of value, but it is not a false view, and yes, it is useful. This is, literally, nonsense.
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Post by jmei on May 20, 2016 9:23:49 GMT -5
It is useful, instructive, to consider the actual cost of a transaction, to acknowledge and contemplate the tangibles that were transferred. That doesn't make it the end of the discussion (indeed, I went on to, you know, discuss the transaction). To the two parties involved, the assets traded were worth, literally, each other. It is a narrow, limited view of value, but it is not a false view, and yes, it is useful. Here are some useful questions that can be generated from looking at, acknowledging, and not glossing over the actual cost of a trade: 1.) "hey, that transaction was way out of the ordinary. Was that a shift in the market, or just an anomaly? 2.) "Huh, is there a big difference in public perception vs industry vs. team valuation of the players traded? Are Red Sox fans valuing their prospects too highly" (Nah, can't be, never mind..) 3.) "What is it about those traded players that might make them more or less valuable than what publicly available information might suggest?" Or, alternately, "What is it about my particular lens, my view of how players are valued, that might be blinding me to certain information or viewpoints that would explain this trade?" The actual transaction, the assets traded, anchor the discussion, but they don't have to limit the analysis or the discussion. Sure, those questions are useful, and they have been talked to death in this thread. But your original post ("Stop talking about Margot, et.al.'s trade value as if we don't know what it was, we do know, it is Craig Kimbrel. [...] Stop saying he overpaid, the market set the rate and DD paid it") does imply that that's the end of the discussion, and I'm glad you agree that such a position would be asinine.
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Post by mandelbro on May 20, 2016 9:30:36 GMT -5
Another useful question to ask, "Hey, did the Red Sox just overpay to acquire an asset that is overvalued by the industry?" One of the things that made Theo so good before he suddenly decided to change his philosophy towards the end of his tenure with the Sox is that he assessed the market and determined that defense and prospects were undervalued by the industry. He also avoided overvalued ones like stars that were past their prime. These DDo led Red Sox so far seem to me like they are doing the exact opposite. Yeah, I don't think the discussion of downsides should be limited to the abstraction of where relief pitchers stack up in the value pyramid. Personally I am quite willing to accept the value of relief pitchers as being understated by fWAR. But whether or not is Kimbrel the RIGHT relief pitcher is another question. Watching him so far this year has been both awesome and worrying. Awesome because what he does is great TV. Worrying because he doesn't appear to have much control over his stuff, and if the velocity declines then what comes next could be ugly. When we made the trade I was quite fine with it. Happy to move Guerra, less so Margot but I could buy in. Didn't know anything about Logan Allen other than the scouting report. From what I've seen so far, I'm not convinced Kimbrel was the right reliever to make the big move for.
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Post by mandelbro on May 20, 2016 9:44:13 GMT -5
As for the part about whether or not the Red Sox will anticipate trends as well as they did under Theo, Dombrowski's track record has been built on case-by-case successes. He's the anti-Theo in that regard. I wouldn't frame it as "analytics vs old school" the way the sports writers seem desperate to but if you put him in charge, what you are hoping is that his grand moves are indeed grand moves. I think Ben, in trying to balance making the team competitive with managing risk, ended up getting burned by half-measures. Large, splashy contracts that still had enough risk built in to keep them out of megadeal territory. DD so far has done it differently - overpay to get the "best of the best". If he was right, and Price and Kimbrel are in fact just that, the Red Sox will profit immensely. So far I am not impressed by his taste in grand moves.
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alnipper
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Living the dream
Posts: 619
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Post by alnipper on May 20, 2016 10:42:00 GMT -5
I think we slightly overpaid for Kimbrel. If we had not traded Allen then I would of been happier. I am high on all three players we traded. I really like Kimbrel though.
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Post by jclmontana on May 20, 2016 11:16:59 GMT -5
With starting pitching continuing to get more expensive, frequent injuries to starting pitchers, and the increasing recognition of the penalties for 3rd and 4th time through the order (leading to shorter outings for starting pitchers), a high quality bullpen is becoming increasingly more valuable. With a better bullpen, you can have a crappier (and cheaper?) starting rotation, and take more steps to protect the pitcher's health by having shorter outings. Hence, the market for relievers is changing.
The transactional cost to acquire Kimbrel, those prospects we traded away, may well reflect that changing market. Precedent is not always a good guide to current events. Don't agree? Great! But it makes at least as much sense as believing the Sox front office had a sudden bout of delirium during trade negotiations.
The cost to acquire talent changes, and relievers are starting to cost more then we feel it should. And yes, the Sox probably felt the pressure to make that particular move, and felt it was worth a slight overpay.
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Post by justen on May 20, 2016 11:44:20 GMT -5
I didn't take Debate and I sucked in philosophy class /:
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Post by umassgrad2005 on May 20, 2016 11:49:17 GMT -5
If you buy a new car and someone says you overpaid. That means you could have gotten it cheaper or you could gotten another similar car with more options for the same price or less. Reports show that DD had to increase offer because there were other teams trying to get Kimbrel, so by all accounts he couldn't get him cheaper. Now looking at trades for players like Giles you can't say there were cheaper options out there that were just as good. You can't count Chapman with all his issues either. Looking at the trades made this offseason I find it crazy that people keep saying it's a clear overpay. Based on what? What you think you could have got for those players. News flash your wrong, the market clearly showed that the value of prospects went down this offseason. DD needed a new closer, got the best one he could get and paid the market rate. Waiting was not an option. Now I know your going to say well they could just have signed O'Day. Now I've asked this question a bunch and no one has ever answered it. If DD thought O'Day would be nearly as good as Kimbrel why did he trade 2 top 100 prospects for Kimbrel? ? If you thought it was a bad trade OK, we will be debating that for years. But to say it's a clear overpay at this point is crazy. Looking back at the trades made this offseason it was clearly a market rate trade.
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Post by sox fan in nc on May 20, 2016 11:58:42 GMT -5
I'm still wondering why we didn't get Chapman for pennies on the dollar (as well as Kimbrel). I know the history & all, but he never had a clubhouse problem. Basically the Yankees have what we could of had. (Uehara/Kimbrel/Chapman). I've watched the recent games when he comes in, home & road, & haven't heard any boos from the crowd. Would it have been that terrible to have him in Boston. He's not Aaron Hernandez. Even Bobby Cox and Kirby Puckett had similar issues.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on May 20, 2016 16:58:32 GMT -5
I'm still wondering why we didn't get Chapman for pennies on the dollar (as well as Kimbrel). I know the history & all, but he never had a clubhouse problem. Basically the Yankees have what we could of had. (Uehara/Kimbrel/Chapman). I've watched the recent games when he comes in, home & road, & haven't heard any boos from the crowd. Would it have been that terrible to have him in Boston. He's not Aaron Hernandez. Even Bobby Cox and Kirby Puckett had similar issues. I think teams feared what could happen. If teams knew it would play out like it has I'm sure a bunch of teams would have been in on him. On flip side what if a video comes out like Ray Rice or Johny Manziel. This all came out when Dodgers backed out of deal, which I'm sure scared a bunch of other teams. Why did the Reds trade him for pennies on the dollar, when they could have gotten a huge return at the deadline? Makes we wonder if Chapman got lucky and a bunch of bad stuff never got out and Reds feared if it did it would kill his value even more.
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Post by deepjohn on May 20, 2016 17:52:46 GMT -5
I see your point, he actually has a better slash line while playing two levels higher. What a bum. Never mind that if a prospect is in the PCL at 21 (or 22...who wants to bet Margot would improve that line next year?), he's probably, you know, an OK prospect? Seriously, Margot's skillset is not limited to offense. Get rid of the age 22 players, because he's not 22. And use WRC+, because, well, he steals bases. And even so...there are six players in that age group, meaning he's a median performer, the three who are better are older, and there's no accounting for his baserunning contributions. That's a lot of data for a wholly unconvincing argument. And that's in lieu of any consideration of his defensive contributions. telson, I appreciate your point. The reason I look at ISO is that it correlates with exit velocity and stabilizes in a fairly small sample (120-160 band of PAs). I also look at K% and BB%, which stabilize quickly and I think show command of the zone. I don't look at batting average or SB% (or WRC+) because those are too noisy and take a very long time to stabilize, if ever. As ericmvan points out, some stats measure value added looking backward, and others can be more predictive looking forward. The KATOH study claims that K%, BB% and ISO/exit velocity together can be well correlated with career VORP. Margot has a good K% and BB%, and with his speed, he could make the most of an above average ISO (hard contact). He gets more chances to take the extra base. Benintendi, for example, had all three, plus speed, at Salem, and was good at stretching hard singles into doubles, and hard doubles into triples. But when you adjust Margot's current ISO downward for the PCL league, he's below average, and Steamer is projecting a .109 ISO for him, which would be below below-average (Brock Holt is at .115). I hope that seems like a fair critique to you.
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Post by bosox81 on Jul 5, 2016 21:33:08 GMT -5
I miss Manuel Margot.
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Post by thursty on Jul 5, 2016 21:50:15 GMT -5
I wonder if this blight of a trade hasn't had another unfortunate side-effect; viz encouraging other GMs to play hardball with Dombrowski because they know how profligate he is with prospects. Impossible to measure (and so positivists would reject its existence), but can't help.
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Post by telson13 on Jul 5, 2016 23:59:26 GMT -5
More evidence for why you don't trade position players for relievers. Frankly, trading position players for pitchers is generally probably a bad idea. I've never been a fan of this trade, but I at least "got" it. Now that Kimbrel is routinely imploding, I can't help but hope this serves as some cautionary tale against 1) listening to Frank Wren, and 2) trading prospects for perceived needs that can likely be filled in alternate ways.
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Jul 6, 2016 0:19:36 GMT -5
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ianrs
Veteran
Posts: 2,414
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Post by ianrs on Jul 6, 2016 1:25:11 GMT -5
It just doesn't make sense to trade all our best excess trade pieces and not get a starter back. A little ominous quote back from November on page 2 of this thread, funny to read initial reactions to this deal now. At least we have a 6th All-Star...
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 6, 2016 8:26:34 GMT -5
Holy crap, ProBoards ate a thorough analysis of Kimbrel's declining trends coming into this season and their continuation. Here's a short version:
ERA-: 26, 33, 44, 69, 81 xFIP-: 23, 50, 51, 64, 78
Your scouts were supposed to figure out whether the first four numbers augured the fifth.
He ranks 12th among closers in xFIP- and 23rd in ERA-.
He ranks 7th in Win Probability Added ... among the 7 regular relievers on his own team. 24th among closers.
I started the "Under the Radar Hopes and Fears" thread in large part just to talk about the possibility that he's not elite any longer, in which case he's worth neither his salary nor his prospect package, let alone the combination.
And we debated whether it was worth the price to get an elite closer.
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Post by bosox81 on Jul 6, 2016 8:31:44 GMT -5
If the Sox don't win it all this year, I hope the Rangers and their 5 ERA bullpen do. Then people may shut up about how valuable relievers are and how their fangraphs WAR value undervalues them. KC winning the WS last year may be the worst thing that has happened to baseball fans' overall IQ.
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Post by patford on Jul 6, 2016 8:56:44 GMT -5
If the Sox don't win it all this year, I hope the Rangers and their 5 ERA bullpen do. Then people may shut up about how valuable relievers are and how their fangraphs WAR value undervalues them. KC winning the WS last year may be the worst thing that has happened to baseball fans' overall IQ. Kansas City didn't win the WS last year. San Francisco did due to their long reliever Madison Bumgarner.
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Jul 6, 2016 9:25:09 GMT -5
If the Sox don't win it all this year, I hope the Rangers and their 5 ERA bullpen do. Then people may shut up about how valuable relievers are and how their fangraphs WAR value undervalues them. KC winning the WS last year may be the worst thing that has happened to baseball fans' overall IQ. Kansas City didn't win the WS last year. San Francisco did due to their long reliever Madison Bumgarner. Congrats on recovering from your coma.
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Post by deepjohn on Jul 6, 2016 10:42:20 GMT -5
Holy crap, ProBoards ate a thorough analysis of Kimbrel's declining trends coming into this season and their continuation. Here's a short version: ERA-: 26, 33, 44, 69, 81
xFIP-: 23, 50, 51, 64, 78Your scouts were supposed to figure out whether the first four numbers augured the fifth. He ranks 12th among closers in xFIP- and 23rd in ERA-. He ranks 7th in Win Probability Added ... among the 7 regular relievers on his own team. 24th among closers.
I started the "Under the Radar Hopes and Fears" thread in large part just to talk about the possibility that he's not elite any longer, in which case he's worth neither his salary nor his prospect package, let alone the combination. And we debated whether it was worth the price to get an elite closer. eric, is this one that supports your player psychology profiling maybe? In save situations: Kimbrel has a 1.45 ERA and a 0.643 WHIP. Opponents hit .143 with a .432 OPS against him. He owns a 9.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio. In non-save situations: Kimbrel has a 6.75 ERA and a 1.650 WHIP. Opponents hit .231 with a .730 OPS against him. He owns a 2.10 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The sample sizes are comparable, too, as he’s faced 67 batters in save situations and 63 batters in non-save situations. In save situations, he’s walked just three of the 67 batters he’s faced, or 4.5 percent. In non-save situations, he’s walked 10 of the 63 batters he’s faced, or 15.9 percent. It’s now become noticeable in his career numbers, too. In 269 save situations, he owns a 1.49 ERA and 0.783 WHIP. In 119 non-save situations, he owns a 2.51 ERA and 1.299 WHIP. You've noticed something like this with Pedroia, that he hits worse when he has weak hitters behind him and he's too aggressive. That's how Kimbrel feels about pitching when you're ahead, the hitters need to be more aggressive and his own aggessive approach works better. “I think it’s more mental [because I have] to get out there and make sure I’m throwing this pitch as if there is a runner on third in a one-run ballgame with no outs,” Kimbrel said on his approach. “You kind of have to stay in attack mode -- you can’t try to get to cute and paint the corners. You just have to go out there and attack because that’s exactly what the hitters are doing. They’re going to go up there and trying to swing the bat because in a game like that they’ve got to swing the bat to get back in it.” It may not really be a projectable decline, in the sense that it's always happened in Kimbrel's career in save vs. non-save situations. Kimbrel's Z-contact% is still top 5 where it's always been, but hitters are swinging less aggressively in non-save situations.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 6, 2016 10:55:27 GMT -5
I really don't know how someone can "get up" for a game with a 3 run lead but can't "get up" for a tie game, as if a freaking meaningless statistic is more important than possibly winning the game. Is anyone arguing that he'd be terrible in the top of the 9th of a tie game in game 7 of the World Series because it's not a save situation?
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Post by deepjohn on Jul 6, 2016 11:13:23 GMT -5
I really don't know how someone can "get up" for a game with a 3 run lead but can't "get up" for a tie game, as if a freaking meaningless statistic is more important than possibly winning the game. Is anyone arguing that he'd be terrible in the top of the 9th of a tie game in game 7 of the World Series because it's not a save situation? I think it's the opposite, that hitters are less aggressive when the team is not behind, and if anything that makes Kimbrel even more aggressive. ADD: the analogy might be to Pedroia, who wants to win so bad that when the pressure is on, he becomes even more aggressive, and pitchers can exploit that. I think of it as part of the ongoing PitchFx war to analyze the tendencies of pitchers and exploit them. I think it's been very successful not only against Price, Erod and Buch, but really all across MLB. Lately, even Arietta and Lester have been touched by it. It's had an effect all across baseball the way that PEDs did, but it's legal.
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