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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 13, 2016 23:44:55 GMT -5
Let's use the Steamer projections to compare three options: standing pat, signing Matt Holliday (easily the best projected wRC+ of guys you could get for two years or less), and signing Eric Thames. I'm going to try to include every relevant factor I can think if. (I'll show my work, too. Edits are in red.) Here's how the three positions involved work out:
DH Ramirez/Young Holliday or Ramirez Ramirez/Young 1B Sandoval/Ramirez Ramirez or Holliday Thames/Ramirez 3B Shaw/Rodriguez Sandoval/Rodriguez Sandoval/Rodriguez [AAA] Shaw Shaw Holliday versus standing pat:
Holliday's bat replaces a Shaw/Young platoon.
Shaw projects at 93 wRC+. He has a career 98 vs. LHP and 96 vs. RHP, which regresses to the mean as a 7.0% split in wOBA, which turns his projection into 95.5 versus RHP.
Young, as I noted earlier, projects at 120 vs. LHP. (That’s a career 125, regressed to 117, plus the difference between his projected 99 and career 96). So this platoon projects to 104 (that is, (2 * 95.5 + 120) / 3).
Holliday projects to 121. Per 150 games, that's 12.5 runs of offense gained. (A point of wRC+ is 0.73 runs per 150 games. A run on defense per 150 games is 1.36 points of wRC+.)
You have 100 games where Sandoval is playing 3B instead of Shaw. They project to -3 and +5 respectively, and 8 runs over 100 games is 5.5 runs lost on defense. (If Shaw has actually been playing 1B a lot less well than he would be expected to, given his actual numbers at 3B, then he’s better than +5 at 3B, maybe quite a bit better. But I think we should believe that the differences are random, and that his performance at 1B and 3B should be combined and then re-apportioned to match a typical 1B / 3B.)
At 1B, the stand-pat combination is Sandoval for 100 games at a projected +2, and Hanley for 50 games at a projected -3.5 (regressed from his -5), which conveniently is 0.
I earlier took Hanley's ridiculous splits at DH versus otherwise, regresssed (yes, that's spelled with 3 s's!) the ever-loving crap out of them, and still came up with 4.5 runs per 150 games. If you can make a full-time DH out of Hanley, you gain 50 games of that, which is 1.5 runs gained on offense. It might well be more.
So this is an 8.5 run upgrade if Holliday plays an average 1B full-time. Can he do that? Possibly. He was +1 DRS in just 61 innings, and you'd probably project that as +2. OTOH, it's hard to believe that a guy with no experience in the infield can step in and immediately become a solid defender at 1B. (I'm remembering Dwight Evans here), and the Cardinals did not use him at all at 1B from late April to mid-July. So he may need to DH at times, if not essentially all of the time. Let’s look at what happens if he’s a full time DH to get a sense of that.
If Holliday is your DH, you have 100 more games where Hanley is playing 1B instead of Sandoval. That's a 5.5 run downgrade over 150 games; over 100 that's 3.5 runs lost on defense.
And now instead of gaining 1.5 runs because Hanley is DHing more, you're losing 3.0 runs because he's not DHing at all. That's 4.5 runs lost on offense.
So of that potential 8.5 run upgrade, you might have to give back as much as 8.0 if Holliday turns out to be your DH. OTOH, if he's a really good defender at 1B, he starts to become a very attractive option. But that seems unlikely.
Let's look at four additional factors.
1) If you sign Holliday, you have added organizational depth, which is always good. Shaw will be at AAA, and he'll spend a decent amount of time on the MLB roster because of inevitable injuries to the main 13, and he will be useful.
2) You have made yourself worse on defense, which is never a good idea. In the most extreme outcome, you have essentially just traded defense for offense, which is the opposite of how you build a better post-season team.
3) DHing is hard. On average, guys hit significantly less well at DH. Matt Holliday has never done it. He's 1/9, BB in his career as a PH, so he's barely done even that. Let's just say that his penalty here is likely to roughly offset any gain he gets from hitting in Fenway, and from hitting in the middle of an elite lineup. (I think he'll benefit from that, or at least it looked that way back when he was originally a FA. I really wanted to sign him, although I'm not sure I would have outbid the Cardinals.) Once again, whether he can play 1B becomes crucial.
Chris Young has bad career numbers at DH in 36 career PA. However, he has only started 3 times in his career at DH vs. LHP. (This makes sense; when the other team throws a LHP, there's usually an OFer you want to sit). The three games came in a span of 18 team games with the 2012 A's, a stretch in which Young played in 14 and went 4/49, 2 2B, 5 BB. So he was ice cold. The three lefties he faced were Chris Sale, Hector Santiago, and C.C. Sabathia, and the A's scored a total of 10 runs in the 3 games. These numbers are meaningless.
What is much more likely to be meaningful is his career .263 / .385 / .450 in 96 career PA as a PH, versus .237 /.314 / .433 in games he started. Part of the boost comes from largely facing LHP, of course, but even factoring that in, that's really impressive. It suggests that he'll have a minimal penalty from DHing, and maybe thrive. In which case the Holliday upgrade is smaller than we've measured so far.
4) If you stand pat, according to my plan, you lose the ability to use Young as a regular platoon partner for Benintendi and Bradley, because he’s your DH against LHP. But is that actually bad? You want to get Young’s bat into the lineup every time they face a LHP, but he’s a big defensive downgrade. That requires a long analysis of its own, which we’ll look at in the next post.
But the short version is that this may actually be a feature, not a bug.
In the meantime, Holliday as a surprisingly defensively solid full-time 1B seems like a really interesting and viable idea.
Holliday as a full-time DH is a pretty clearly terrible idea. He's coming off a 109 wRC+ and will be 36 and has never DH'd; there's no way to argue that he can be expected to be a lot better than 121 as a full-time DH. It's hard to argue that Shaw will be worse than his projection when Steamer doesn't know that he's super streaky, and that gives him upside. It's hard to argue that Sandoval will underperfrom his projection (which is presumably informed by the history of guys who have missed nearly full seasons) when Steamer doesn't know that he was acquired because he was thought to be hugely better in Fenway (relative to standard park factors) than in his old park.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Nov 14, 2016 1:50:13 GMT -5
Your reading way to much into what 36 games Hanley has had at DH over a ton of years. He has never played more than 11 games at DH in a season. Sure it's great he did better than worse, but they mean nothing when projecting future production.
Steamer also doesn't take into account that Sandoval is fat and thus plays like crap when not in shape. I like to think he can bounce back and give us some value, but it's far from certain. If I had to bet on Shaw, Sandoval or Holliday out performing his projections, it's Holliday and it's not even close.
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Post by soxjim on Nov 14, 2016 2:28:23 GMT -5
No thanks to Holiday. You can get Pearce for a lot less and even though Pablo was a bum and may very well continue to be at 3rd, he could still hit decent vs righties. If you had him and Pearce as a platoon that would be fine righty/lefty bat. Why waste so much on Holiday? Maybe one year.
Again - it should be about the bullpen and Chapman. Or get Jansen and whether it be Jansen or Chapman say goodbye to Kimbrel. How can anyone have been confident going into the playoffs with Kimbrel with what he showed us? Perfect time to unload him is this year. His fatsball still has a lot of value so we can get something good.
Have Holt play 3b vs lefties and some righties while giving Shaw limited at bats vs righties at 3b and he'd be our 1b when Hanley or Pearce is getting a blow vs some righties.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Nov 14, 2016 4:19:38 GMT -5
No thanks to Holiday. You can get Pearce for a lot less and even though Pablo was a bum and may very well continue to be at 3rd, he could still hit decent vs righties. If you had him and Pearce as a platoon that would be fine righty/lefty bat. Why waste so much on Holiday? Maybe one year. Again - it should be about the bullpen and Chapman. Or get Jansen and whether it be Jansen or Chapman say goodbye to Kimbrel. How can anyone have been confident going into the playoffs with Kimbrel with what he showed us? Perfect time to unload him is this year. His fatsball still has a lot of value so we can get something good. Have Holt play 3b vs lefties and some righties while giving Shaw limited at bats vs righties at 3b and he'd be our 1b when Hanley or Pearce is getting a blow vs some righties. Shaw has a career OPS over 50 points higher than Holt versus lefties and plays better D at third. So I really don't get that. Steve Pearce has started 8 games in his career at 3B, with all but one coming in 2011 and his D numbers aren't good. He can play 1B, but I don't think he can play third on anything but an emergency basis. So much money on Holliday? A one year 10-12 million deal isn't a ton. While I think you get Holliday on a one year deal, I think Pearce gets a 2-3 year deal on this market. While I do like Pearce bat against lefties, Holliday also has good career numbers versus lefties. DD has said he'll get a bullpen arm, we'll see who he gets. You really need to get off the trading Kimbrel thing because it's just not happening this off-season. We need to add an arm per DD, so we're not adding an arm to get rid of Kimbrel. We would then need another bullpen arm. Yea I feel really confident that Kimbrel bounces back next year. If you want an elite Closer/pitcher to add to pen, great that's what I also want, that in no way means trading Kimbrel right now!
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Post by jmei on Nov 14, 2016 6:23:53 GMT -5
Let's stay on topic here. Thanks.
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Post by soxjim on Nov 14, 2016 9:15:01 GMT -5
No thanks to Holiday. You can get Pearce for a lot less and even though Pablo was a bum and may very well continue to be at 3rd, he could still hit decent vs righties. If you had him and Pearce as a platoon that would be fine righty/lefty bat. Why waste so much on Holiday? Maybe one year. Again - it should be about the bullpen and Chapman. Or get Jansen and whether it be Jansen or Chapman say goodbye to Kimbrel. How can anyone have been confident going into the playoffs with Kimbrel with what he showed us? Perfect time to unload him is this year. His fatsball still has a lot of value so we can get something good. Have Holt play 3b vs lefties and some righties while giving Shaw limited at bats vs righties at 3b and he'd be our 1b when Hanley or Pearce is getting a blow vs some righties. Shaw has a career OPS over 50 points higher than Holt versus lefties and plays better D at third. So I really don't get that. Steve Pearce has started 8 games in his career at 3B, with all but one coming in 2011 and his D numbers aren't good. He can play 1B, but I don't think he can play third on anything but an emergency basis. So much money on Holliday? A one year 10-12 million deal isn't a ton. While I think you get Holliday on a one year deal, I think Pearce gets a 2-3 year deal on this market. While I do like Pearce bat against lefties, Holliday also has good career numbers versus lefties. DD has said he'll get a bullpen arm, we'll see who he gets. You really need to get off the trading Kimbrel thing because it's just not happening this off-season. We need to add an arm per DD, so we're not adding an arm to get rid of Kimbrel. We would then need another bullpen arm. Yea I feel really confident that Kimbrel bounces back next year. If you want an elite Closer/pitcher to add to pen, great that's what I also want, that in no way means trading Kimbrel right now! I didn't say to put Pearce at 3b. I said have Pearce play 1b/DH (plus he could play of).
As for Shaw at 1b - he is a platoon player - nothing more. His rookie year vs his 2nd year should be separated. Why this is included in the Shaw discussion I really don't get that either. It shouldn't. His AAA numbers he got wiped out vs lefties too. His shortened rookie year before MLB figured out his weaknesses and in AAA he just wasn't that good of a hitter then so why expect anything more than a platoon? His 2nd year and his AAA year sort of mirrored each other, therefore we need to either keep Hanley at 1b or also find a righty bat that can hit lefties and do a decent job at 1B.
I don't know the 37 yo Holiday can. Keep him at 1B imo he is an "injury waiting t happen/ a boom or bust player because of the potential for injury." While Pearce has also gotten hurt - he's younger and imo a better gamble as a platoon than Holiday would be if you have him play 1b. I read the Rockies are considering giving him an offer and Holiday seems into trying to play 1B which means more than likely he'll want more money. We don't need to be this desperate and because I'd like to see HanRam move to more of a DH role - why go after Holiday?
And if Holiday gets hurt one of the options is Shaw. That's not good as mentioned above vs lefties.
No thanks. There are better ways to allocate the money than Holiday.
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Post by James Dunne on Nov 14, 2016 10:16:40 GMT -5
Recalibrating Holliday's 2016 BABIP to .292 (essentially splitting the difference between his career level and his actual 2016 performance), would have given him a .275/.347/.490 line. That's a very serious offensive contributor, the equivalent of about a 125 wRC+. The risks of injury and the BABIP crater being due to skill erosion are there, but given the costs people are throwing around the reward is extremely high as well.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Nov 14, 2016 10:31:57 GMT -5
Shaw has a career OPS over 50 points higher than Holt versus lefties and plays better D at third. So I really don't get that. Steve Pearce has started 8 games in his career at 3B, with all but one coming in 2011 and his D numbers aren't good. He can play 1B, but I don't think he can play third on anything but an emergency basis. So much money on Holliday? A one year 10-12 million deal isn't a ton. While I think you get Holliday on a one year deal, I think Pearce gets a 2-3 year deal on this market. While I do like Pearce bat against lefties, Holliday also has good career numbers versus lefties. DD has said he'll get a bullpen arm, we'll see who he gets. You really need to get off the trading Kimbrel thing because it's just not happening this off-season. We need to add an arm per DD, so we're not adding an arm to get rid of Kimbrel. We would then need another bullpen arm. Yea I feel really confident that Kimbrel bounces back next year. If you want an elite Closer/pitcher to add to pen, great that's what I also want, that in no way means trading Kimbrel right now! I didn't say to put Pearce at 3b. I said have Pearce play 1b/DH (plus he could play of).
As for Shaw at 1b - he is a platoon player - nothing more. His rookie year vs his 2nd year should be separated. Why this is included in the Shaw discussion I really don't get that either. It shouldn't. His AAA numbers he got wiped out vs lefties too. His shortened rookie year before MLB figured out his weaknesses and in AAA he just wasn't that good of a hitter then so why expect anything more than a platoon? His 2nd year and his AAA year sort of mirrored each other, therefore we need to either keep Hanley at 1b or also find a righty bat that can hit lefties and do a decent job at 1B.
I don't know the 37 yo Holiday can. Keep him at 1B imo he is an "injury waiting t happen/ a boom or bust player because of the potential for injury." While Pearce has also gotten hurt - he's younger and imo a better gamble as a platoon than Holiday would be if you have him play 1b. I read the Rockies are considering giving him an offer and Holiday seems into trying to play 1B which means more than likely he'll want more money. We don't need to be this desperate and because I'd like to see HanRam move to more of a DH role - why go after Holiday?
And if Holiday gets hurt one of the options is Shaw. That's not good as mentioned above vs lefties.
No thanks. There are better ways to allocate the money than Holiday.
Your first paragraph states Sandoval was a bum at third, but can still hit righties and him and Pearce would make a good pair. Sure sounded like you wanted them at third. In no way was it clear. As to Holliday that's why I want to DH him, see if you can keep him healthy and he can have a bounce back year. We've seen the DH extend elite hitters careers in the past.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Nov 14, 2016 10:54:57 GMT -5
I wanted to add that Hanley hits lefties well, so if he's at 1B, you could always have Chris Young hit DH against lefties. That's why if you get an infielder to hit against lefties he needs to play 3B. The one spot we really need a lefty specialist. That's why Pearce doesn't make a ton of sense in my opinion. Let's be real, we want our 3 OF's playing the majority of games, your not going to platoon them on a regular basis. I'm in no way ready to say Bradley can't hit lefties. He still has a higher career average against lefties than righties. Let's see how he does next year.
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Post by James Dunne on Nov 14, 2016 11:46:45 GMT -5
Just as an aside: for all of the deep disagreements we have on this board, I am really proud that absolutely nobody is suggesting Mark Trumbo. You're all good eggs.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 14, 2016 11:47:51 GMT -5
I see JD Martinez being the best option via trade this off season, I said this in the non manager off-season thread and I'll say it here on this related thread to since its relevant. If JD Martinez was willing to play first base and could be decent there, I still see him hitting better than most of the players mentioned on this thread and he would be a defensive upgrade over Hanley too if he could handle the transition well.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 14, 2016 12:17:02 GMT -5
Here's a handy table showing the wRC+ needed for various 1B / DH solutions. I show the break-even point and the wRC+ that'll get you a 1 WAR upgrade over 150 games. Each type of 1B solution is listed twice, once for an average defender and once for a +5.
(In the course of throwing this together, I found some tweaks I needed to do to the big analysis from last night; those edit are in red.)
Role 0 WAR 1 WAR full time DH 120 133 0 D full time 1B 109 122 +5 D full time 1B 102 115 0 D LH 1B 109 129 +5 D LH 1B 105 125 Pearce projects at 111, but that probably assumes some platooning. But he's been a +10 defender, which projects to +7 with regression. You can see that he's close to a 1 WAR upgrade, so he should definitely be in the discussion.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 14, 2016 12:42:36 GMT -5
Here's a handy table showing the wRC+ needed for various 1B / DH solutions. I show the break-even point and the wRC+ that'll get you a 1 WAR upgrade over 150 games. Each type of 1B solution is listed twice, once for an average defender and once for a +5. (In the course of throwing this together, I found some tweaks I needed to do to the big analysis from last night; those edit are in red.) Role 0 WAR 1 WAR full time DH 120 133 0 D full time 1B 109 122 +5 D full time 1B 102 115 0 D LH 1B 109 129 +5 D LH 1B 105 125 Pearce projects at 111, but that probably assumes some platooning. But he's been a +10 defender, which projects to +7 with regression. You can see that he's close to a 1 WAR upgrade, so he should definitely be in the discussion. What would be your take on a potential JD Martinez acquisition if he was able to play first base?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 14, 2016 18:52:35 GMT -5
Here's a handy table showing the wRC+ needed for various 1B / DH solutions. I show the break-even point and the wRC+ that'll get you a 1 WAR upgrade over 150 games. Each type of 1B solution is listed twice, once for an average defender and once for a +5. (In the course of throwing this together, I found some tweaks I needed to do to the big analysis from last night; those edit are in red.) Role 0 WAR 1 WAR full time DH 120 133 0 D full time 1B 109 122 +5 D full time 1B 102 115 0 D LH 1B 109 129 +5 D LH 1B 105 125 Pearce projects at 111, but that probably assumes some platooning. But he's been a +10 defender, which projects to +7 with regression. You can see that he's close to a 1 WAR upgrade, so he should definitely be in the discussion. What would be your take on a potential JD Martinez acquisition if he was able to play first base? Steamer's projecting a big decline: 154, 137, 142 -> 118. Someone will be trading for the last three years, so I'd have to understand why they think that's happening. I also think I've already got the data file where I can look at OF to 1B conversions, which is relevant to him, Holliday, Bautista (128 projection, plus a likely Fenway boost), maybe Beltran, and probably some others.
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Post by telson13 on Nov 14, 2016 20:03:15 GMT -5
Recalibrating Holliday's 2016 BABIP to .292 (essentially splitting the difference between his career level and his actual 2016 performance), would have given him a .275/.347/.490 line. That's a very serious offensive contributor, the equivalent of about a 125 wRC+. The risks of injury and the BABIP crater being due to skill erosion are there, but given the costs people are throwing around the reward is extremely high as well. Probably the most overlooked thing is that, depending on how Panda, Shaw, Travis, Moncada et al do, Holliday could bring something valuable back in trade at the deadline.
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Post by soxjim on Nov 14, 2016 20:08:00 GMT -5
I didn't say to put Pearce at 3b. I said have Pearce play 1b/DH (plus he could play of).
As for Shaw at 1b - he is a platoon player - nothing more. His rookie year vs his 2nd year should be separated. Why this is included in the Shaw discussion I really don't get that either. It shouldn't. His AAA numbers he got wiped out vs lefties too. His shortened rookie year before MLB figured out his weaknesses and in AAA he just wasn't that good of a hitter then so why expect anything more than a platoon? His 2nd year and his AAA year sort of mirrored each other, therefore we need to either keep Hanley at 1b or also find a righty bat that can hit lefties and do a decent job at 1B.
I don't know the 37 yo Holiday can. Keep him at 1B imo he is an "injury waiting t happen/ a boom or bust player because of the potential for injury." While Pearce has also gotten hurt - he's younger and imo a better gamble as a platoon than Holiday would be if you have him play 1b. I read the Rockies are considering giving him an offer and Holiday seems into trying to play 1B which means more than likely he'll want more money. We don't need to be this desperate and because I'd like to see HanRam move to more of a DH role - why go after Holiday?
And if Holiday gets hurt one of the options is Shaw. That's not good as mentioned above vs lefties.
No thanks. There are better ways to allocate the money than Holiday.
Your first paragraph states Sandoval was a bum at third, but can still hit righties and him and Pearce would make a good pair. Sure sounded like you wanted them at third. In no way was it clear. As to Holliday that's why I want to DH him, see if you can keep him healthy and he can have a bounce back year. We've seen the DH extend elite hitters careers in the past. You're right - sorry about that. My 1st paragraph was unclear. I can see why you would think that I was speaking of Pearce and Pablo as 3b. My fault. On the thread called "Red Sox Offseason (non-manager) on page 11 Matt Picard pointed out how poor Pearce is as a 3b. I had replied to him that I didn't realize Pearce was so poor at 3b so I dropped him. But I can see why you thought on this thread I was saying put him at 3rd.
I don't think Holiday is going to come to the Red Sox or any other AL Team unless he gets paid like an infielder plus a DH. Here is what I said: I read the Rockies are considering giving him an offer and Holiday seems into trying to play 1B which means more than likely he'll want more money.
I don't want the Sox to pay a lot of money fro an old man DH when they need imo to focus on other positions. Pearce is cheaper and gives Sox defense.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 14, 2016 22:40:24 GMT -5
Let's boil this down.
Travis Shaw has a career 96 wRC+ against RHP. I've taken his 2017 Steamer projection, his career platoon splits, and the standard way of regressing those splits for SSS, and projected him for 95.5. It's really hard to argue that we should expect him to be worse than that.
Because he's hugely streaky, it is, in fact, true that he may well be better; all he has to do is shorten his slumps, which is how Carlos Pena broke his career wide open (I'm sure there are other examples).
I've projected Shaw to be a +5 R/150 defender at 3B. It's really hard to argue he'll be worse than that, because he's played 906 innings there in MLB and has been +16.
5 runs of defense are worth 7 points of wRC+. So Shaw's a 102.5 wRC+ guy at 3B.
Historically (last 10 years weighted 10 to 1), the average 3B is ... 102 wRC+.
What do you with a league-average 3B like this going into his second full year?
-- Give him another 100 starts at 3B vs. RHP and see if he can become a really good 3B by shortening his slumps. Worst case, he's not remotely any kind of weakness; best case, you acquire a very valuable commodity.
-- Send him back to AAA. Move your 1B back to 3B where his bat, of course, is the same but his glove is 9.5 points worth of wRC+ worse. Spend big bucks or prospects to upgrade 1B.
Now, this makes some sense if you can steal a great 1B for very little. Which is why Eric Thames remains interesting. But the other options that are workable on paper, like Pearce and maybe a few others, seem all too likely to be not worth their price.
Can anyone cite an example of where a team made a significant off-season acquisition and optioned a player as good as Shaw (league-average big side of a platoon) back to AAA? I don't believe it's ever happened.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 15, 2016 16:48:11 GMT -5
No one in the media is talking about adding both a Hill replacement and a bat. The assumption is we're adding one extra player.
How good does a full-time DH like Beltran need to be, if he takes the Sean Rodriguez roster spot and Shaw's on the bench ?
I believe you'd platoon Sandoval and Shaw at 3B. So Beltran would be filling a lineup spot that's a Shaw / Young platoon, which is (97 * 2 +120)/ 3 = 104.5. (The 97 is a new estimate for Shaw's offense, up from , based on using 2016's wOBA to wRC+ conversion.)
1B defense goes from Sandoval/Hanley to Hanley full time, a 3.5 run loss.
3B defense goes from Shaw / Rodriguez (a +1 defender) to Sandoval / Shaw, a 4 run loss.
The new platoon has Shaw playing vs. LHP instead of Rodriguez, which is a 3.5 run loss (thanks to heavy regression on Rodriguez, who projects at 100 wRC+ vs. LHP. Note that this includes a Steamer projection which is way, way below his Marcel; it has him as 89, below his career 92, despite the career year).
Hanley playing 1B full time instead of DH is a 3 run loss on offense.
14 runs are 19 points of wRC+.
So the break-even point for a full-time DH is 123.5. That can be reduced a bit and maybe more because you can mix and match Sandoval and Shaw at 3B, e.g., riding the latter while hot. But still -- there's no one available that good.
Now, if you're signing a 1B, you eliminate the 1B defensive loss and the Hanley DH loss. Now the break-even point is 115. So Steve Pearce, who is 120 or 121 with his defense, projects to be a 4 run upgrade over signing Rodriguez. But he's going to be much costlier, and he makes your lineup even more right-handed. DDo is on record as wanting a LHB, just as he's on the record as not wanting to go more than 2 years.
I have some Oliver projections for Thames, which I need to convert. I suspect they'll be easily better than 115, especially when you factor in his defense based on his reputation (Korean GG). And he provides the solution to the problem of getting Young's bat into the lineup vs. LHP on days when JBJ is hot and hitting LHP great. Rather than platoon Young with Benny (which I'll argue later is a bad idea), you can platoon him with Thames, via Hanley at 1B.
Thames is absolutely the guy you want. Signing Rodriguez as well would make you even better and deeper, but the marginal value gets very narrow compared to the likely cost.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 15, 2016 17:21:56 GMT -5
I want to start a poll, assuming they will add a LHH 1B or DH with 1 or 2 years of control as DDo has said. Am I missing anyone?
Carlos Beltran J. D. Martinez Brandon Moss Eric Thames
Josh Reddick's not on the table, I think, because so much of his value is defensive.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 15, 2016 17:34:10 GMT -5
I want to start a poll, assuming they will add a LHH 1B or DH with 1 or 2 years of control as DDo has said. Am I missing anyone? Carlos Beltran J. D. Martinez Brandon Moss Eric Thames Josh Reddick's not on the table, I think, because so much of his value is defensive. Matt Holiday should be on the poll too.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 15, 2016 20:46:07 GMT -5
What would be your take on a potential JD Martinez acquisition if he was able to play first base? Steamer's projecting a big decline: 154, 137, 142 -> 118. Someone will be trading for the last three years, so I'd have to understand why they think that's happening. I also think I've already got the data file where I can look at OF to 1B conversions, which is relevant to him, Holliday, Bautista (128 projection, plus a likely Fenway boost), maybe Beltran, and probably some others. I forgot to comment on this but I see no reason why JD Martinez would start declining offensively already. He's in the middle of his prime years. Maybe if he was traded to Fenway, that would boost his projections.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Nov 15, 2016 21:04:09 GMT -5
Steamer's projecting a big decline: 154, 137, 142 -> 118. Someone will be trading for the last three years, so I'd have to understand why they think that's happening. I also think I've already got the data file where I can look at OF to 1B conversions, which is relevant to him, Holliday, Bautista (128 projection, plus a likely Fenway boost), maybe Beltran, and probably some others. I forgot to comment on this but I see no reason why JD Martinez would start declining offensively already. He's in the middle of his prime years. Maybe if he was traded to Fenway, that would boost his projections. Not sure what steamers reason is, but it could be the major decline in his D. That has to be a major red flag. He went from being an average OF defender to Hanley Ramirez bad last year. His injury was an elbow injury, so I don't see that as a reason for such a major decline in OF D. Sure seems that he has lost speed and range and that almost never happens at age 28.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 15, 2016 21:53:58 GMT -5
I want to start a poll, assuming they will add a LHH 1B or DH with 1 or 2 years of control as DDo has said. Am I missing anyone? Carlos Beltran J. D. Martinez Brandon Moss Eric Thames Josh Reddick's not on the table, I think, because so much of his value is defensive. Matt Holiday should be on the poll too. Yeah, the preference for a LHB is strong but not as clear cut as the need to limit any commitment to a year or two. Holliday, Pearce, anyone else? Mike Napoli, I suppose. I'll also include an option for the contrarians, that DDo is wrong to limit the commitment, but I'm not going to itemize names
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Post by telson13 on Nov 15, 2016 22:12:48 GMT -5
No thanks to Holiday. You can get Pearce for a lot less and even though Pablo was a bum and may very well continue to be at 3rd, he could still hit decent vs righties. If you had him and Pearce as a platoon that would be fine righty/lefty bat. Why waste so much on Holiday? Maybe one year. Again - it should be about the bullpen and Chapman. Or get Jansen and whether it be Jansen or Chapman say goodbye to Kimbrel. How can anyone have been confident going into the playoffs with Kimbrel with what he showed us? Perfect time to unload him is this year. His fatsball still has a lot of value so we can get something good. Have Holt play 3b vs lefties and some righties while giving Shaw limited at bats vs righties at 3b and he'd be our 1b when Hanley or Pearce is getting a blow vs some righties. Except Holliday can hit RH, too. And would probably take a similar deal. That flexibility has value, especially if he's traded.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Nov 15, 2016 22:26:20 GMT -5
Matt Holiday should be on the poll too. Yeah, the preference for a LHB is strong but not as clear cut as the need to limit any commitment to a year or two. Holliday, Pearce, anyone else? Mike Napoli, I suppose. I'll also include an option for the contrarians, that DDo is wrong to limit the commitment, but I'm not going to itemize names Dae-Ho Lee too I suppose.
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