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Post by ethanbein on Apr 23, 2016 15:33:24 GMT -5
Yes, thanks. The interesting idea I've been looking at is how early does the data just start to normalize, or IOW how early can you have even a low confidence level. (ADD: reliability is a spectrum, not a single point.) I suspect that the Red Sox would want to analyze even a low confidence level as soon as they can, in order to trade (as with Margot) or keep and promote (as with Benintendi) while they have a market advantage. www.baseballprospectus.com/a/14215www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-new-way-to-look-at-sample-size/Yes, reliability is a spectrum, not a point. You just picked a different point - there's nothing special about 47 PA. XBH rate is a noisy stat and requiring a lower threshold to call it "normalized" does not make it less so. Benintendi is amazing and should be in AA, but lot because his PA passed some threshold such that XBH rate has some tiny but nonzero split sample correlation.
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Post by ethanbein on Apr 23, 2016 13:11:29 GMT -5
Nobody is worthy of promotion after 10 games or so, unless they have the track record from previous years and were conservatively placed. Also, players have stated goals heading into the year and meeting those goals is typically the main reason for a promotion. Those goals aren't often stats, I'll bet. Unfortunately this thread gives an opportunity for people to mention all these guys that started off well this year and they should be in line for a promotion. I think nowadays at least some goals are likely to be statistical and short term. An easy one is extra base hits (doubles and triples), which normalizes around 48 1610 PAs. By this goal Benintendi has a dominant 13 doubles and triples. By comparison, Moncada has 6, Devers 3. Have you thought about moving Benintendi to #1 in your rankings? At least among position players. FTFY. www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=17659
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Post by ethanbein on Apr 23, 2016 8:53:52 GMT -5
The "stabilization point" is not a magic threshold at which point things become predictive. It's just a shorthand way to show which peripherals become predictive sooner (it's the point where you only need to regress observed performance by 50%). It also was derived from MLB performance, and I suspect minor league performance (especially low minors walk rate) takes much more of a sample to become predictive. There's a special place in sabermetric hell for all the analysts that continue to use the word "stabilization point" and know better. Could there possibly be a term that confuses casual consumers of analytics more? (I mean, Russell Carleton is great, but come on.)
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Post by ethanbein on Mar 4, 2016 9:52:24 GMT -5
I'd be curious to ask him if Stankiewicz was an oversight or is really so low on him that he's not in our top 30. I mean he's 17 here. I can see be low on him, but outside our top 30 seems a little out of the ordinary. What makes Stankiewicz a top 30 prospect other than that that he was a second round pick? (Non-rhetorical question, honestly curious what people see in him.)
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Post by ethanbein on Mar 1, 2016 12:00:08 GMT -5
Rijo is going to surprise a lot of people this year. I think I'm about to start up the Rijo bandwagon, if anyone wants to hop on now. He's criminally underrated, imo. EDIT: Realized that 13th-best 2B prospect in baseball is far from 'criminally' underrating a guy. I just think people sleep on him. Maybe Dubon has a better shot at being an MLB player because he has the better utility profile, but I think Rijo's ceiling is much higher. I think people forget he's basically as age-advanced as Devers and has been an above-average hitter at a minimum at every level, while being at least a capable second baseman. I know he's got a funky swing, but I like him a lot as a sleeper.
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Post by ethanbein on Feb 15, 2016 20:37:56 GMT -5
Eric, I'm nursing a ruptured Achilles, so I have some free time, as long as I can find Excel access...I don't have ms office suite on my laptop. I could send you a text file, with a comma after each name, and after each one, you could type L or R, a comma, and the height. Trivial to import that into Excel. In fact, that's probably easier than putting the data into spreadsheet columns! Can I just say that it's absolutely crazy how difficult it is to find data for handedness? It seems like such an obvious variable but there's no simple way to run even a basic study on handedness with the data we use all the time available at Fangraphs or BR.
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Post by ethanbein on Jan 29, 2016 20:22:04 GMT -5
From a Keith Law chat a couple weeks ago:
Roddy: What is the most optimistic callup time for Benintendi? Klaw: Schwarber and Conforto reached the majors about a year after signing. I don’t see why Benintendi couldn’t do the same.
FWIW, I agree
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Post by ethanbein on Jan 6, 2016 1:27:34 GMT -5
It appears that the voters who have made their ballots public in the last three days or so are stingier than those who reported earlier. Piazza had been up over 90 percent and is now down to 86. Schilling was over 60 percent and is down to 58. Bagwell is hanging tough at 79.5. It looks like Piazza is in while Bagwell and Raines (77.8 percent at the moment) are setting themselves up for next year. Schilling will need another four years or so of gains. If I recall correctly, I believe ESPN will post the ballots of all its voters tomorrow morning. I think there are about 20 or 30 of them, so that's something to look for. Bagwell has gained several more new votes than Raines up to this point, which means he's likely to fall less in the final voting. Raines has a great chance next year, Bagwell could be down to the wire this year. Projections have him somewhere between 68 and 78%. Larry Walker is still the most-snubbed HOF candidate. The weird thing is that, despite being an obvious stat-friendly candidate, his vote totals go up with the non-public votes, while basically everybody else except Lee Smith goes down. He seems so obviously at least in the Edgar Martinez tier to me (almost as good as a career hitter as Edgar, much more defensive value) but never gets any love. Is it just Coors over-adjustment? Steroid suspicions?
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Post by ethanbein on Dec 21, 2015 13:46:25 GMT -5
This is a pretty good study overall, and I'm definitely with you on the usefulness of it, but their biggest problem is that they start the discounting in year 0, meaning they assume that all prospects are going to start producing their WAR *next year*, which is obviously false. If say, you think the average top 100 prospect is 2 years away, the correct values would be about 1/1.08^2 ~ 85% as large. On the other hand, their $/WAR is old and too low and they don't discount salaries (which is definitely wrong), both of which would bias their numbers in the other direction, so maybe their values are close in the end.
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Post by ethanbein on Dec 9, 2015 23:33:56 GMT -5
Hard to overstate how effective Smith was, how many batters he froze at the plate. Playing out here in Seattle his name wasn't widely known. That will probably all change now that he's in Boston. Of course he has to stay healthy. But if he does, and if he's anywhere near as good as he was last year, people are in for a treat. I see this as a trade that benefits both teams. Didn't he completely run out of gas and actually lose the closer role in the second half of the season? We already have holt as the team's designated second half fade to black player. Carson Smith, September/October: 12.2 IP, 50 BF, 20 K, 3 BB, 0 R
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Post by ethanbein on Dec 9, 2015 11:18:22 GMT -5
Am I a huge homer for thinking Benintendi is a better prospect than Swanson, but just wasn't drafted #1 so is ranked lower? Benintendi strikes out less, has a lot more power, is just as fast and both are probably 55 defenders at premium positions. I know shortstop is a weaker hitting position than CF, but not enough to make Swason project as well as Benintendi does. It's close, but I would probably rather have Benintendi than Swanson.
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Post by ethanbein on Dec 3, 2015 14:03:18 GMT -5
I see no reason to assume Shaw has a reverse split. No assumption at all. It's in the data. 329 versus LH, .243 vs RH. Since he's a lefty, that is the definition of a reverse split. "Had a reverse split in 85 PAs versus lefties" is not the same as "has a reverse split".
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Post by ethanbein on Dec 1, 2015 12:18:10 GMT -5
Was there an extra multiplying factor if you were in the Dodgers organization. That list is littered with Dodger prospects. Well, A) they have a good system and B) it could reflect an organizational philosophy to push their players to age-advanced levels, because as I've mentioned, that's the most important factor in this list. The author has bounced around from site to site with this formula. I want to say he was on Sickels' site for a while. It's never been good. I don't really love KATOH so I feel stupid taking this on, but I feel like the bashing has gone a little too far. He first published KATOH at the Hardball Times last year, and then moved over to Fangraphs, so he hasn't been bouncing around. It's also not just some random formula, it's a model that he's tested pretty thoroughly and now seems pretty good. Last year it had huge flaws (didn't regress to the mean, ignored position), but he's fixed those. It's also not really true that age relative to level is really the only important thing. Of course it is very important, as it should be, but a 5% reduction in K% is about equal to being a year younger, so performance can change things quite a lot. Is it better than BA or BPs list? No, of course not, but it's not trying to be. It's not perfect, but for a stats-only model, I'm not sure you could get more than marginal improvements at this point.
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Post by ethanbein on Nov 23, 2015 21:04:16 GMT -5
I'm not the only one that this seems absolutely insane to, right...?
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Post by ethanbein on Nov 19, 2015 13:07:33 GMT -5
Thanks, Chris! Now I don't feel so dumb as I've been scouring around and wasn't able to find any besides Kimbrel (and the Wade Davis ill-fitting example). It looks like we might get some other top relievers traded yet, in Melancon and Chapman, and possibly Bailey, Tolleson, Giles and Storen. www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/11/mark-melancon-available-trade-closer-market.htmlI hope some do move, as it could give me some indication, for the theory I'm working on, as to whether there is newly discovered surplus value in top relievers, as compared to their free agent salaries. The problem with this is that if it were true, the correct move wouldn't be to trade for elite relievers, it would be to sign all of the elite relievers (where you can supposedly get them for less than their real value). I know there's nobody on the level of Kimbrel on the FA market this offseason, but if very good relievers are worth more than their salary, why not just sign O'Day (who might even be just as good)?
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Post by ethanbein on Nov 19, 2015 2:13:25 GMT -5
Agreed. In general, people seem to be using prospect lists as a guide to people's trade value. I don't think that's the best idea. I wouldn't trade Espinoza, Devers, or Benintendi for Gallo straight up, and he's a top 10 prospect. Not everything is as cut and dry as people have been acting when it comes to trades. I think this is a good argument for prospect lists having systematic biases that everybody knows about but nobody actually acts on when making their lists. Baez was another similar player that never really had the trade value of a top 10 prospect I would guess, and people knew it. Kiley was was of the few that thought about these things...
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Post by ethanbein on Nov 13, 2015 15:05:22 GMT -5
Does hard work alone suffice to improve pitch framing skills? Can you give some examples of catchers who have improved their pitch framing skills measurably? Jason Castro comes to mind.
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Post by ethanbein on Oct 23, 2015 22:31:56 GMT -5
Question for those who prefer Margot (which is completely reasonable): who do you think reaches the majors first, and by how much?
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Post by ethanbein on Oct 22, 2015 22:47:32 GMT -5
Go back to last December/January and look at some peoples' prognostications of team wins based on individual WAR and/or Steamer projections. Rely on that stuff and you'll end up looking like a monkey. And how accurate were your win projections? Baseball is hard!
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Post by ethanbein on Oct 6, 2015 16:20:46 GMT -5
1 Yoan Moncada 2 Andrew Benintendi 3 Anderson Espinoza 4 Javier Guerra 5 Rafael Devers 6 Manuel Margot 7 Michael Kopech 8 Brian Johnson 9 Sam Travis 10 Logan Allen 11 Wendell Rijo 12 Deven Marrero 13 Luis Alexander Basabe 14 Michael Chavis 15 Marco Hernandez 16 Yoan Aybar 17 Ty Buttrey 18 Nick Longhi 19 Carlos Asuaje 20 Mauricio Dubon 21 Jonathan Aro 22 Roniel Raudes 23 Pat Light 24 Luis Ysla 25 Williams Jerez 26 Edwin Escobar 27 Christopher Acosta 28 Noe Ramirez 29 Travis Lakins 30 Josh Ockimey 31 Dayan Diaz 32 Trey Ball 33 Teddy Stankiewicz 34 Marc Brakeman 35 Garin Cecchini 36 Jordan Procyshen 37 Sean Coyle 38 Chander Shepherd 39 Ben Taylor 40 Austin Glorius
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Post by ethanbein on Oct 6, 2015 15:26:30 GMT -5
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Post by ethanbein on Oct 1, 2015 20:23:32 GMT -5
Phew. Was almost worried Rich Hill would finish with fewer strikeouts than innings pitched.
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Post by ethanbein on Sept 30, 2015 8:41:59 GMT -5
I can't fathom why people think a fourth time seeing a pitcher makes a big difference. Fatigue is the only thing that matters in terms of pulling a pitcher who has been effective, IMO. He got lit up the first time through the order, then dominated. How does seeing him again a fourth time matter? Because there is a lot of evidence that pitchers do worse each TTO, regardless of pitch count. www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22156
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Post by ethanbein on Sept 28, 2015 13:55:29 GMT -5
Whats infuriating about this? The timing of Pap's actions were wrong, but several of the quotes comment on that. I'm down with the general idea of someone needing to send Harper a message. I think thats the tone of the article and I wouldn't call that infuriating. Which of Harper's actions were so egregious that somebody needed to choke him in response?
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Post by ethanbein on Sept 25, 2015 10:37:37 GMT -5
Hazen wasn't just some VP, he was Assistant GM, no? How many teams have no baseball ops-focused AGM?
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