Post by avonbarksdale on Feb 13, 2019 1:26:29 GMT -5
This is so well done by the great Alex Speier. Think we all accept that relief pitcher production is volatile, but I never would have guessed that not one of the 8 most effective FA relievers from last season was among the top 15 highest paid from last winter’s FA market.
Jeff Sullivan with a good take on the Yankees Bullpen of Doom:
Just how silly is this? I took a look at the current position-by-position WAR projections. Taking those projections, I then calculated, for every team, the number of standard deviations they are away from the positional average. Here are the top five projected positions by that method:
Angels, center field, +4.2 standard deviations (Mike Trout) Red Sox, right field, +3.4 (Mookie Betts) Astros, second base, +2.7 (Jose Altuve) Yankees, bullpen, +2.7 Indians, shortstop, +2.6 (Francisco Lindor)
You see the Yankees bullpen, tied for third place. And the thing is, that’s *before* factoring in Ottavino. The Yankees were already tied for third, here. Then they signed one of the very best relievers available on the market. Nobody wins a World Series on a bullpen alone — you might’ve noticed the Yankees weren’t the 2018 world champs — but this is an overwhelming assortment of weapons. The burden on the rotation will again be reduced, and the pitching staff as a whole is already built to dominate in the playoffs.
Still, I remember a discussion about two years ago as the Yankees were assembling one of their first super pens; it was pointed out that there simply are not enough high leverage innings in a season for the upgrading of your 5th, 6th, and 7th best relievers to be worth the extra money those upgrades cost.
Maybe this argument didn't consider the new aggressive use of relievers to eat innings for which the starters were once considered responsible.
But being hard to hit doesn't necessarily make you capable of an abnormally high workload, so hopefully piling a lot more innings on the relievers will be an unreasonable ask of the Yanks' super pen. And hopefully relatively expensive guys like Brittion and Ottavino will be wasted pitching low-leverage innings and therefore not significantly improve the team's win total.
That shouldn't of been a touchdown, but good call.
I'm very sorry to be a pedant -- I totally understand if you think less of me for it -- but you often make the mistake of using the word "of" when you mean to use the word "have" or the contraction of "have" and it just eats away at me when I see people make that common error because... what do you think "of" means in that situation? I know you're not even thinking about it. I just thought if I were doing it consistently I'd rather just have someone tell me instead of having everyone constantly pretend not to notice since that's arguably more patronizing than just correcting it.
Anyway, I'm sorry for my lack of self-control; I hope there are no hard feelings. Go Sox!
Post by avonbarksdale on Feb 3, 2018 1:14:42 GMT -5
Here’s my solution. Make players arbitration eligible after their rookie year.
The players can’t force the owners to give 30 year olds monster contracts now that we’ve all figured out such deals usually prove regrettable. We have the evidence. 6 years at $180M for Martinez will almost certainly be a disaster. 5 years at $125M has a good chance at working out. So you can’t solve the specific qualms of today’s free agents beyond showing them the data that supports the notion that players in their 30s almost never earn their monster contracts.
But you can improve the players’ lot in general by allowing them to earn what they’re worth in their early to mid 20s when the data suggests they’re more valuable to the team. Paying Betts less than a million for what he did his second year is unequivocally unfair. That’s where the injustice lies, not with 30 year old JD Martinez being offered “only” $125M for the decline phase of his career.
I went with 5/125, but I wouldn't be opposed to upping the overall $ to like 140 or maybe 5/150 if needed. I'd rather overpay AAV than go to a 6th year
Going from 5/125 to 5/150 is the same thing as just adding a 6th year except you don’t get the player’s on field value (whatever that may be) for the 6th year.
I fall victim to this too — detesting the idea of paying a player so deep into his decline and preferring to just increase the money instead. But you have to remind yourself that if you increase the money more than 2 or 3 million per year, you’re actually better off just giving him the extra year he wants instead.
With the Sale deal, this trade looks a lot worse. The Red Sox now have 4 left-handed starters in a park that does not favor them. Boy, I would like to be able to reverse this trade now. Any chance the Red Sox could ask the league to reverse it now due to the medical records? There was no way the Red Sox could have reversed it during the middle of the playoff run since it would have left them a starter short.
But now would be a great time to reverse it.
I know. It will never happen.
In the most recent stitches I read Tomase and Cafardo claim that the Red Sox had turned down the opportunity to reverse the Pomeranz trade after discovering the Padres had withheld troubling medical information about the breakout lefty. Is this true or are they lazily recalling the issue? All I read on this board was that there was no way the deal could be reversed.
If this opportunity really was missed, that's the worst decision Dave has made as our President.
By the way, this is my first post after 10-12 years of visiting this site more than any other. Thanks to all contributors for the great content!