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Post by p23w on Nov 30, 2013 18:17:14 GMT -5
I think part of my point is that this maybe very difficult to do and if the Red Sox can't do that in 2014 that's not necessarily a reason to criticize the management team. Last year the Red Sox hit on every free agent including a few risky ones. That's not going to happen every year. The original idea of the Punto trade was to blow up the core and start fresh by integrating guys from the farm system. That didn't work out so well last year, but they will be starting to do that in 2014. If they have to take a step back or two while while they integrate young players that's fine by me. Getting "lucky" with free agent signings was one thing. Loosing BOTH your closers and then to get what they got out of Uehara..... Meeting up with the Tigers in the playoffs, while the best pure hitter in the game has an abdominal strain.... I mean. Having a late addition to the lineup journeyman turn around the momentum of the WS with a 3-run bomb..... pinch me. Sure, bring on the baby faced beardless newbies. IF the pitching depth lives up to the hype.... what if? I'm not sold on any of the position player prospects.... yet. Somehow the prospect of loosing 4 regulars from the 2013 lineup does not inspire me. To much change/too soon. Besides I would like further verification that 2013 really played out the way it did. To paraphrase Yogi, i want "deja vu"... all over again. Core schmore.... I wants more magic. PS I honestly believe that the psychological (or personality or behavioral.... whatever you wish to call it) attributes that Cherrington and company have applied to the assemblage of this roster flies under the radar of most analysts and fans. If anything i believe that a sincere effort at targeting these positives "types" is/can be every bit as important as SABER statistical analysis. Yes, elite talent can overcome a**hole personalities (the NYY's have a track record to prove this), but a team of lesser talent goal focused players can achieve the same results, as we have been blessed to be witness to. Gotta' believe the newbies exposed to the RS in 2013 (Bogey, JBJ, Workman, Britton, Webster, to a lesser extent Middlebrooks and de la Rosa) benefited more than just from exposure in the show. They got to "absorb' the winning karma from the clubhouse. All this, after the debacle that was 2012. Love this game.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 30, 2013 23:36:44 GMT -5
I'd start with third order winning percentage rank over a five year period from 2009-2013 as my dependent variable. I'd then like to know if Core Roster strength as calculated by Judge is a statistically significant independent variable. You give some reasons why it might not be, but I'd like to see for myself. Eric can you do that since you likely already have a lot of this stuff in excel? If you need some help filling in the years under control, which I think you'd have to do manually, I can do that. OK, this is bizarre, and the second time this has happened. I wrote a paragraph answer, hit post, and the entire answer immediately disappeared, leaving only the quote. So, short version: unfortunately, I don't have the data handy and I'm too busy right now, alas!
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 30, 2013 23:52:02 GMT -5
I honestly believe that the psychological (or personality or behavioral.... whatever you wish to call it) attributes that Cherrington and company have applied to the assemblage of this roster flies under the radar of most analysts and fans. If anything i believe that a sincere effort at targeting these positives "types" is/can be every bit as important as SABER statistical analysis. Yes, elite talent can overcome a**hole personalities (the NYY's have a track record to prove this), but a team of lesser talent goal focused players can achieve the same results, as we have been blessed to be witness to. Gotta' believe the newbies exposed to the RS in 2013 (Bogey, JBJ, Workman, Britton, Webster, to a lesser extent Middlebrooks and de la Rosa) benefited more than just from exposure in the show. They got to "absorb' the winning karma from the clubhouse. All this, after the debacle that was 2012. Love this game. I've often said that Cherington's greatest strength is Theo's major failing*: identifying players who can play in Boston and who collectively will form a clubhouse capable of dealing with adversity. Lugo and Crawford were examples of guys who couldn't play here (for different reasons). Crawford and Gonzalez were low-key, conscientious types (like Theo himself) whose simultaneous acquisition tipped the clubhouse balance too far in that direction. When the 2011 club started collapsing, there was really only Pedroia who believed that last night's loss didn't mean jack when it came to tonight's game. They needed at least one other Millar or Damon type who refused to believe that they wouldn't win, and instead they had the team's new signature player ascribing the collapse to the will of God. *He also had a shaky track record evaluating medicals, of course, losing gambles on Lackey's health and probably Clement's as well, and thinking Lowell had more than one more year left (that re-signing is never listed among his bad FA moves, but it was arguably the worst).
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Post by p23w on Dec 1, 2013 9:41:47 GMT -5
Gabe Kapler wrote an interesting article recently regarding players health and attitude. He included several examples (including himself) and made mention of the importance of roll models, ego, leadership and being in touch with one's condition. He also related the roll that agents play when it came to advising their clients about injuries. One example dealt with Pedroia, a team leader, who played the entire season despite an injury. Kapler also made strong reference to Ryan Kalish, whom he viewed as a potential team leader but who only made his physical condition worse by trying to play though it and come back to soon. Kapler observed that Kalish reminded him of Trot Nixon. Tenacity is a personality trait that deals well with adversity. And yes, one can measure for tenacity. Nixon had it. As did Kapler. Pedroia is currently the Northeast distributor for tenacity. I'd like to see one or more of the prospects with this personality trait. I think I've seen flashes of it in Middlebrooks and Webster, perhaps JBJ also. Kalish has it, and unless his adversities have overwhelmed him Ryan could be a valuable roll model and example if he came back 100% intact. Think of the impact on the newbies if one of them rivaled veteran Pedroia in tenacity. Last year it was about testosterone and beards. I'm hoping 2014 is about tenacity and repeats.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 3, 2013 9:52:32 GMT -5
Didn't Clemente fall apart after taking a line drive off the face while he was in Boston?
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 3, 2013 10:10:58 GMT -5
Didn't Clemente fall apart after taking a line drive off the face while he was in Boston? Roberto? jk
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 3, 2013 13:59:52 GMT -5
Didn't Clemente fall apart after taking a line drive off the face while he was in Boston? He started pitching badly prior to Crawford lining a ball off his face. What really did Clement in was lousy control and major shoulder issues, not the linedrive.
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Post by okin15 on Dec 3, 2013 14:25:54 GMT -5
I don't disagree about the injury issues, but it's hard to hold Lowell against Theo. He was under tremendous pressure after Lowell won the WS MVP and everyone was crying for him to return. He probably thought it would be bad for the clubhouse to just shuffle the guy out the door, and so he gave him a fair offer, that he was sure wouldn't be accepted due to anther offer for more years and avg value on the table. Lowell wanted back in though, and was actually a useful part (but not a 3B) for 2 of the 3 years.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 3, 2013 20:07:44 GMT -5
Also let's not forget that neither Theo or Ben sit on a throne decreeing what free agents will be signed and what trades will be made. Yes the General Manager has close to the final say, but the decision making process involves input and information from several people. When a move turns out poorly it's not just the failure of one man, but an organizational failure. Same goes for organizational successes. Ben Cherrington was a huge part of the decision making process for several years before he ultimately became the GM. Further he said in his introductory press conference that he was a major advocate of the Crawford signing. He probably advocated many other unsuccessful signings as well.
The Red Sox overall have done very well in player acquisition which is why they have one it all three times since John Henry took the keys in 2002. But the reason they have done well, particularly this past year, is because they have a lot of smart and experienced people working there. It's not as if Ben has some special magic evaluative power that Theo didn't have. They evaluate players in much the same fashion, and admittedly often came to the same conclusions when they worked together.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 5, 2013 11:18:49 GMT -5
Didn't Clement fall apart after taking a line drive off the face while he was in Boston? He started pitching badly prior to Crawford lining a ball off his face. What really did Clement in was lousy control and major shoulder issues, not the linedrive. Actually, the line dive was off his head, and he had a 2.50 ERA in six starts in August and September after that (although there's reason to believe his shoulder was already bothering him). What did him in was having such a high pain threshold that he damaged his shoulder literally beyond repair by the time he thought he should maybe give it a rest. His ERA that year was inflated by mind-bogglingly bad inherited runner support; before his shoulder started shredding he was one of the top two or three pitchers in the league, and as late as September he was still among the top dozen. Great scouting job by Theo, lousy wishful thinking on what must have been some red flags on his medicals.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 5, 2013 13:59:55 GMT -5
He started pitching badly prior to Crawford lining a ball off his face. What really did Clement in was lousy control and major shoulder issues, not the linedrive. Actually, the line dive was off his head, and he had a 2.50 ERA in six starts in August and September after that (although there's reason to believe his shoulder was already bothering him). What did him in was having such a high pain threshold that he damaged his shoulder literally beyond repair by the time he thought he should maybe give it a rest. His ERA that year was inflated by mind-bogglingly bad inherited runner support; before his shoulder started shredding he was one of the top two or three pitchers in the league, and as late as September he was still among the top dozen. Great scouting job by Theo, lousy wishful thinking on what must have been some red flags on his medicals. That's correct. I meant head, but said face. Bryce Florie in 1999 actually took one in the face - right near his eye if I recall correctly - off the bat of the Yanks' Ryan Thompson.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 6, 2013 20:45:37 GMT -5
I had a great seat for that Florie shot... Gross
Also was right behind the plate when Viola threw his arm out... Gross also
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Post by bachlaw on Dec 7, 2013 23:28:48 GMT -5
Eric referred me over to this forum. I'm flattered that my article generated this much discussion, and I enjoy reading all comments, positive and negative.
A few thoughts for you all to consider, just putting everything into one post:
(1) I'm not sure I agree with the criticisms of WARP. It's not my impression that Pitcher WARP involves DIPS at all; that said, I also ran this analysis with Fangraphs WAR, which does involve DIPS, and the results generally were similar. I also don't think BRef is any talisman here. BRef essentially gives the pitcher the benefit of the doubt on anything that cannot be specifically credited elsewhere. I think, in general, we want to be more conservative and give pitchers credit, for core evaluation purposes, only of the contributions we know they definitely made. In any event, the underlying point is that the Red Sox had an extremely narrow window to accomplish something this year, and they did so, which is great. But, it is absurd to believe that the Red Sox did not have some serious work in front of them once the World Series was over to continue to be true contenders in 2014. Their resources and farm system are good advantages in that regard, but those options also create volatility.
(2) I sense some dissatisfaction with the overall conclusions of the study. You are right: it was limited to one year, and to profile team accomplishments for one year only. Keep in mind that nobody else tried to associate this data before I did, and it takes a long time to put together, particularly if you are gainfully employed otherwise. As I fill out data for past years, I will start to look for correlations, but the main point is still there: volatility. Either your team has a stable core or it does not. Teams with the most core contributors can basically rely upon what they have and rearrange the drapes. Others --- including the Red Sox --- have significant structural work to do. In adding those assets, particularly free agency, you need to somehow spot things that 29 other shrewd GMs do not. That is difficult to do on a consistent basis. Some teams will succeed in making those improvements, and others will not. And I think the difference between where the Red Sox found themselves on November 1 versus the Cardinals is rather significant going forward.
(3) I'm not persuaded by the criticism that the study is unduly "arbitrary" in what it values. The entire collective-bargaining system is arbitrary; yet, we need to quantify its affect on how rosters ought to be built. Many commonly-discussed baseball measurement systems are arbitrary, including the JAWS hall of fame system, or pitcher abuse points --- yet, people find them helpful. OPS is a common go-to metric for many, and it is arbitrary in how it is put together. At the end of the day, what matters is not how it was put together, but whether the metric is generally informative and if it at least does not mislead you. I'm happy to either develop myself or see someone else develop the linear weights of what constitutes a good core roster; that would be the gold standard. But until then, I respectfully disagree with the idea that building a team under the Rays' blueprint is "arbitrary" or meaningless. Many readers seem to find the idea of an OPS for roster cores rather intriguing.
(4) I thought I explained in the article why the manner in which a player joined a team --- CBA vs. free agency --- makes little difference once the player is under team control, but I'm happy to readdress that if people found it unclear.
(5) Overall, I think the point to take home from the article is that if you are in the top 5 to 10 teams, you are probably in good shape; if you are in the bottom 5 to 10 teams, you have work to do, and if you are in between I really wouldn't worry about it, either about a particular team or as to how teams related to each other. As for Kansas City, all I'll say is that some of their most highly-touted contributors are not as controlled as you might think. I don't think that is apparent from glancing at any 40-man roster list I've ever seen --- hence, the need for an analysis that makes that fact clear. Indeed, sweeping assertions about the supposedly-obvious quality of a particular team's core are what motivated me to start this project.
Thanks again for the interest and commentary. Best of luck to you guys this year.
Jonathan
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 8, 2013 9:12:03 GMT -5
First of all, thanks for taking the time to visit and to respond to the forum's questions. That is very much appreciated.
I look forward to following this as you extend it to other years. Once you do that, you might want to also correlate your findings with a longterm performance measure for each of the teams.
That correlation could then be used as a gauge on the accuracy and completeness of the analysis. Moving forward, it could also help you decide what additional factors might be added in to hone that correlation.
Good luck, and please keep the forum updated if possible.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 8, 2013 10:49:33 GMT -5
John-
I would agree with Norm that what's missing from the article is an analysis of how well core roster ranking has forecasted winning over a long period. Obviously having young stars under controll for a long time is desirable, but can you win without that?
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Post by larrycook on Dec 8, 2013 11:13:37 GMT -5
Magic or timely hitting? We ran a tremendous gauntlet of pitching all through the playoffs and the one thing that resonated with me was, our starting pitching's ability to keep it close, great defense when we needed it and then timely hitting in crucial situations.
This is a tried and true formula for success.
Developing a core is one thing, but identifying players that want to win deep down in their core and who can rise up in pressure situations is an art form.
This is where Cherrington has a huge advantage over Theo.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 8, 2013 11:30:20 GMT -5
Developing a core is one thing, but identifying players that want to win deep down in their core and who can rise up in pressure situations is an art form. This is where Cherrington has a huge advantage over Theo. I suppose simple dumb luck isn't an option? We forget this at our peril.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Dec 8, 2013 12:07:55 GMT -5
Isn't it a little unfair to judge Theo on his the ups and downs of his career and Ben on only his first coupla years? Theo seemed pretty good in his first four years at acquiring free agents and draft picks that wanted to win deep down in their core and could rise up in pressure situations.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 8, 2013 13:24:43 GMT -5
It's interesting how no one seems to be able to identify which players really want to win deep down in their cores until after the World Series ends.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2013 12:44:32 GMT -5
Eric referred me over to this forum. I'm flattered that my article generated this much discussion, and I enjoy reading all comments, positive and negative. A few thoughts for you all to consider, just putting everything into one post: (1) I'm not sure I agree with the criticisms of WARP. It's not my impression that Pitcher WARP involves DIPS at all; that said, I also ran this analysis with Fangraphs WAR, which does involve DIPS, and the results generally were similar. I also don't think BRef is any talisman here. BRef essentially gives the pitcher the benefit of the doubt on anything that cannot be specifically credited elsewhere. I think, in general, we want to be more conservative and give pitchers credit, for core evaluation purposes, only of the contributions we know they definitely made. In any event, the underlying point is that the Red Sox had an extremely narrow window to accomplish something this year, and they did so, which is great. But, it is absurd to believe that the Red Sox did not have some serious work in front of them once the World Series was over to continue to be true contenders in 2014. Their resources and farm system are good advantages in that regard, but those options also create volatility. A principle you are contradicting by using fWAR or WARP. Neither of these metrics (I don't know how WARP for pitchers works, but it certainly seems to factor out BABIP allowed) gives pitchers credit or penalty for their BABIP skill, which is a contribution they definitely made. If we know someone made a contribution, but we don't know exactly what that was, you have to estimate it as best as possible, which is precisely what b-ref is doing. Perhaps you are coming at this from the POV that BABIP skill is still controversial. Well, yes, in the sense that global warming and evolution are. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. I literally cannot do an analysis of pitching where BABIP allowed doesn't correlate significantly to whatever else I happen to be looking at. (And that's BABIP unadjusted for team defense, or relative to teammates, which is a quick and dirty way of doing that). Nor is it the case that, because the observed correlations are weak, the skill must be small -- a point I made directly to Voros McCracken on Usenet while in the process of being the first person to demonstrate that BABIP did correlate from year-to-year significantly (yes, before Tom Tippett). As a general critique of your study, using Buchholz was a cheat, because I picked the poster child for BABIP skill. Again, I could demonstrate he had that skill a bunch of different ways, including the fact that I keep on demonstrating it different ways and then he goes out the next year and does it again. The WAR values I posted are another: paired t-test, two sample for means, last five years, actual WAR versus fWAR, p = .0014 (one-tail). So what happens when you use WARP or fWAR is that you run the risk that a couple of guys who are big-time core pitchers because of their BABIP skill (Jered Weaver is another candidate who comes to mind) don't get classified as such, and as a result, their teams are mis-ranked. The Sox, with your methodology as conceived, are more middle of the pack, because Buchholz is a core pitcher. Folks here who reacted to your ranking of the Sox were in part reacting to that. Given the ridiculous amount of work that doing it the "right" way, as I outlined, would be, I think this is a very good defense of the sort of seat-of-pants methodology you did come up with. Again, any such common-sense metric is bound to have errors when guys fall just short of just barely qualify for chosen limits, no matter how well chosen they are. The Sox get no credit for Lester, as a 4 Core Win pitcher, and your system doesn't include any way of factoring in the likelihood of his signing an extension. So that's another way the Sox were underrated. Add a Lester extension and a proper ranking of Buchholz, and the team looks pretty good. Wait a year and add Bogaerts, and they'll look even better. So the rock-bottom rating of the Red Sox doesn't really represent a ton of work needed by the organization to rebuild its core. It's just a fluke result of their best pitcher having a BABIP skill and being overlooked, their other best pitcher being on the verge of a contract extension, and the best prospect in baseball not yet counting. Thanks for visiting and contributing! Like I said, I think the idea is a great one. The current methodology is good enough to be informative (the Sox may well be the team it missed most on). Deriving a regression-based metric like the one I outlined would, I think, be a real sabermetric accomplishment.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 9, 2013 14:30:26 GMT -5
I think this analysis of the Red Sox finds us in a very unique situation. The Red Sox probably would have been ranked higher before the Punto trade but that hardly means they were in better shape.
2013 was supposed to be the bridge year to developing our new core. Actually it was probably supposed to be 2-3 years. But now that we've won the World Series, many people are forgetting that we still need to find a way to get to those kids in the farm system that will actually BE our new core. There will be growing pains for sure, but it has to be done else we wind up exactly where we were in 2012.
I see 2014 as taking a few steps back to go forward. The kids have to play and we've gotta see what we have. The most interesting thing to me is to see how we evaluate the 5-6 possible starting pitchers we have in AAA and AA when we already have 6 in the majors not including Workman. Don't they have to be put into a position where they sink or swim at some point?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2013 17:08:41 GMT -5
The most interesting thing to me is to see how we evaluate the 5-6 possible starting pitchers we have in AAA and AA when we already have 6 in the majors not including Workman. Absolutely -- except there are 8 guys: Workman, Webster, Ranaudo, Barnes, Wright, De La Rosa, Hinojsa, and Owens. I leave Britton out because it seems he's already on a relief track. In contrast, I think De La Rosa has had too much success already as an MLB starter, before his TJ, to close the book completely on that possibility. Looking at the next few years, you can imagine Lester, Buchholz, Doubront, X, and Y. If I'm wrong that Doubront is about to blossom into a legitimate #3, maybe we need X, Y, and Z. Among the 8, you need to identify the two or three best. One more probably sticks around as a 6th starter / long man, and given that knuckleballers are usually undervalued, you could see Wright in that role. For everyone else, you need to first decide whether they're most valuable as a starter or reliever. The extra starters will probably be more valuable as trade chips than in a relief role for us, but maybe not. There are many decisions here -- who ends up in the rotation, who in the pen, who gets traded -- and the degree to which we make the best set of decisions will go a long way to determining how rosy the future is. It's interesting that the Cardinals are currently facing the same challenge, and are basically a year further along than we are. Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha may be the only sure things for their rotation a few years from now, and they have Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, Jaime Garcia, Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, John Gast (once he recovers from shoulder surgery), and possibly Tyler Lyons, and the possibility of returning Trevor Rosenthal, Kevin Siegrist and/or Seth Maness to the rotation. So that's 11 or 12 guys, compared to our 11.
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Post by okin15 on Dec 9, 2013 17:13:09 GMT -5
It's interesting how no one seems to be able to identify which players really want to win deep down in their cores until after the World Series ends. Farrell gave it a damn good try.* The bridge years though... those are hard to discern until November... hehe :-D *see decisions at C and LF during WS. Let's hope the decision at 3B doesn't fall into the same category.
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Post by bmitchsox on Dec 9, 2013 19:08:05 GMT -5
The most interesting thing to me is to see how we evaluate the 5-6 possible starting pitchers we have in AAA and AA when we already have 6 in the majors not including Workman. Absolutely -- except there are 8 guys: Workman, Webster, Ranaudo, Barnes, Wright, De La Rosa, Hinojsa, and Owens. I leave Britton out because it seems he's already on a relief track. In contrast, I think De La Rosa has had too much success already as an MLB starter, before his TJ, to close the book completely on that possibility. Looking at the next few years, you can imagine Lester, Buchholz, Doubront, X, and Y. If I'm wrong that Doubront is about to blossom into a legitimate #3, maybe we need X, Y, and Z. Among the 8, you need to identify the two or three best. One more probably sticks around as a 6th starter / long man, and given that knuckleballers are usually undervalued, you could see Wright in that role. For everyone else, you need to first decide whether they're most valuable as a starter or reliever. The extra starters will probably be more valuable as trade chips than in a relief role for us, but maybe not. There are many decisions here -- who ends up in the rotation, who in the pen, who gets traded -- and the degree to which we make the best set of decisions will go a long way to determining how rosy the future is. It's interesting that the Cardinals are currently facing the same challenge, and are basically a year further along than we are. Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha may be the only sure things for their rotation a few years from now, and they have Shelby Miller, Carlos Martinez, Jaime Garcia, Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, John Gast (once he recovers from shoulder surgery), and possibly Tyler Lyons, and the possibility of returning Trevor Rosenthal, Kevin Siegrist and/or Seth Maness to the rotation. So that's 11 or 12 guys, compared to our 11. I agree, who do you see as the x, y and z's? Personally, I think Webster should be a trade chip. I see Workman getting some starts this year, with Barnes and Ranaudo getting bids in '15. Owens is probably 3 years away. I'd like to see Ruby as the closer when Koji retires, I think he has the stuff well suited to strike guys out, and he can throw a little harder from the pen. Wright may not pan out, and Hinojosa is probably coming out of the pen.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 9, 2013 23:19:13 GMT -5
I think what he's getting at is if you look at last years team, there is a decent chance that by 2016 most of the roster is turned over. It's conceivable that Pedey, Bogaerts, Bucholtz, Doubront and Workman are only ones from WS roster here.
C1- Salty - Gone C2- Ross - high prob gone 1b - Napoli - questionable - not under contract (FA) 2b- Pedey - here SS - Drew - high prob gone 3b - WMB - questionable (performance related) SS- Bogaerts - here LF - Gomes - likely Gone (FA) Cf- Ellsbury - Gone RF - Victorino - likely gone (FA) DH - Ortiz - likely gone (age)
SP1 - Lester - Questionable (FA) SP2- Bucholtz - here SP3 - lackey - likely gone (FA) Sp4 - Peavy - gone (FA) Sp5 - Doubront - here SP6 - Dempster - gone
Closer - Koji - gone (age) Pitcher - Workman - here Pitcher - taz - questionable
Pitchers- Breslow-Morales - questionable (RP turnover)
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