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Olney's offseason rankings
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Post by JackieWilsonsaid on Dec 28, 2013 8:08:19 GMT -5
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Post by artfuldodger on Dec 28, 2013 8:27:16 GMT -5
It was a fair piece. He had the Sox as honorable mention with "Buckholz looming as a pivotal X factor." Olney indicates Rays will fall out of top 10 if Price is traded. |
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Post by adiospaydro2005 on Dec 28, 2013 8:41:20 GMT -5
The starting pitching ranking by Olney was awful. He had the following 5 to 9...
Pirates
As
Rangers
Braves
Reds
None of the above teams have a number 1 starter and each of those teams have major question marks in their respective rotations. The Red Sox and Rats have better starting rotations then each of the above teams.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 28, 2013 9:27:15 GMT -5
The starting pitching ranking by Olney was awful. He had the following 5 to 9... Pirates As Rangers Braves Reds None of the above teams have a number 1 starter and each of those teams have major question marks in their respective rotations. The Red Sox and Rats have better starting rotations then each of the above teams. Darvish isn't a number one? Also, is there a team in baseball that doesn't have "major question marks" in their rotation? |
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Post by artfuldodger on Dec 28, 2013 9:31:23 GMT -5
The starting pitching ranking by Olney was awful. He had the following 5 to 9... Pirates As Rangers Braves Reds None of the above teams have a number 1 starter and each of those teams have major question marks in their respective rotations. The Red Sox and Rats have better starting rotations then each of the above teams. The primary issue of the list is that it is premature with a number of quality starters available either as free agents or via trade. However, Darvish is a number 1. Cole and Cueto are potential number 1s. Braves and As have multiple young pitchers who can emerge. |
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Post by benfromma on Dec 28, 2013 9:39:32 GMT -5
When you break down the Red Sox starting rotation you certainly understand Olney ratings:
1. Lester(LH)- pitched like an ace in the playoffs, but certainly was not that ace throughout the year,at most times he was at best a 2 and there was a time during the season he pitched like he wouldn't be in the playoff rotation. Lester has pitched @ just below ace level for many years so to think he is an ace is not justified. after a while a track record is established
2. Bucholtz(RH)- could be considered an ace the first half of season but with his injury history can he be counted on next year to produce like one
3. Lackey(RH) really had a solid year and pitched well in the playoffs a good pitcher great #3 and ok #2 but not an ace
4. Doubront(LH) who knows will he be in shape, could be good to very good pitcher, or is he left out of the playoff rotation again (did provide good relief performances in the playoffs)
5. Peavy(RH) Great #4 or 5 but surely not more than that
6. Dempster(RH)ok #5 will provide innings
We know that talent exists in the minor leagues @ AAA Webster, Ranaudo, and Barnes and @ AA Owens while some if not all them may make the majors they certainly will not be aces in 2014. So while we a starting staff that is certainly the envy of many teams you can see why Olney rates our starting pitching as not the best. If Buchholz or Lester or both pitch like aces I am sure he and everyone else will rate us much higher
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 28, 2013 10:24:35 GMT -5
The starting pitching ranking by Olney was awful. He had the following 5 to 9... Pirates As Rangers Braves Reds None of the above teams have a number 1 starter and each of those teams have major question marks in their respective rotations. The Red Sox and Rats have better starting rotations then each of the above teams. Darvish isn't a number one? Also, is there a team in baseball that doesn't have "major question marks" in their rotation? The same can be asked about Cole, but more relevant to my mind I'd the second part, about question marks. Which is why any attempt at pure numerical rankings is a bit silly. If Lester has one of those years where all the parts are in sync, that's a very good top of the rotation guy... If. If Buccholz starts off anything close to what he did last year and can sustain it for more than half a season, he's one of the best in the majors... If. You could do the same with every pitcher for any team on that list. Do some teams have more potential than others? Sure. But I largely ignore lists with absolute orderings. That's a pure crapshoot. |
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 28, 2013 10:38:22 GMT -5
Well the point isn't to ignore them... it's to not be enraged or personally offended when you disagree, right? The point is to generate discussion. There's nothing happening right now, so what the hell... here's my top 10 rotations right now.
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Post by soxcentral on Dec 28, 2013 10:47:11 GMT -5
Just as important as a list ignoring volatility is the other side - who you turn to when someone inevitably goes down. I'd say for each team about 20-40 games per year are started by someone other than your projected rotation, and what those pitchers do likely has as much impact on your success than anything else.
From that perspective I'd venture to guess if you ranked the 6-9 starters in an organization we'd be #1 right now.
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Post by larrycook on Dec 28, 2013 11:29:02 GMT -5
1. Lester(LH)- pitched like an ace in the playoffs, but certainly was not that ace throughout the year,at most times he was at best a 2 and there was a time during the season he pitched like he wouldn't be in the playoff rotation. Lester has pitched @ just below ace level for many years so to think he is an ace is not justified. after a while a track record is established The funny thing about Lester last season was that at the start of the season when the weather was colder, his cutter had bite. When the weather was hotter, his cutter became a big juicy meatball that batters teed off on. Then toward the end of the season, as the weather got colder, his cutter came back to life and had bite again. I just don't think you can count a guy as a true #1 when he is inconsistent with his out pitch! PS: Bananas don't bruise as easily as Buchholz. If he's only good for 10 to 12 starts a season, I would rather they are August through October rather than April through June. |
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2013 11:52:00 GMT -5
Olney (and many of you) make the same mistake most folks do when they do off-the-cuff rankings like this-- they focus on the top few guys in each rotation and for the most part ignore the guys at the back end of it. It's like how everyone thought the Red Sox offense last year would suck because Ortiz was the only "middle-of-the-order hitter." Yeah, Ortiz was the only elite hitter on the team, but the Red Sox were still the best offense in the league because everyone else in the batting order was above-average. A lineup full of good but not great hitters will score more runs than a lineup with two great hitters but two or three black holes.
That same dynamic is true with the 2014 rotation-- Lester may not be an ace, but each of the projected five starters are above-average #2/3-types. Lackey, Peavy, and Doubront are all coming off 2.5+ win seasons, which is pretty damn impressive for the back end of your rotation. Darvish or Kershaw or Price might be better than anyone the Red Sox have, but Peavy and Doubront are much better than Perez/Ogando or Haren/Beckett or Archer/Hellickson. The Red Sox also have averagish-to-better depth, with guys like Dempster, Workman, and Webster that would appear to be better than the depth of most teams.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 28, 2013 12:11:20 GMT -5
Olney (and many of you) make the same mistake most folks do when they do off-the-cuff rankings like this-- they focus on the top few guys in each rotation and for the most part ignore the guys at the back end of it. It's like how everyone thought the Red Sox offense last year would suck because Ortiz was the only "middle-of-the-order hitter." Yeah, Ortiz was the only elite hitter on the team, but the Red Sox were still the best offense in the league because everyone else in the batting order was above-average. A lineup full of good but not great hitters will score more runs than a lineup with two great hitters but two or three black holes. That same dynamic is true with the 2014 rotation-- Lester may not be an ace, but each of the projected five starters are above-average #2/3-types. Lackey, Peavy, and Doubront are all coming off 2.5+ win seasons, which is pretty damn impressive for the back end of your rotation. Darvish or Kershaw or Price might be better than anyone the Red Sox have, but Peavy and Doubront are much better than Perez/Ogando or Haren/Beckett or Archer/Hellickson. The Red Sox also have averagish-to-better depth, with guys like Dempster, Workman, and Webster that would appear to be better than the depth of most teams. I agree with you in principle, but I'm not actually sure any of those examples are true (ok, I'm pretty sure Josh Beckett sucks). Peavey and Doubront COULD be better, but Peavey might also make 15 starts next year and Doubront could be sub-mediocre. Honestly, the biggest problem with these rankings is the volatility of pitchers themselves. How many of you played in a fantasy league last year where Jose Fernandez went undrafted? Who saw Bartolo Colon's resurrection coming? It's easy to say that Martin Perez isn't as good as Felix Doubront. Then Perez shows up to spring training with a cutter or something and all that goes out the window. |
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2013 12:22:04 GMT -5
Yes, pitching is volatile, especially with regards to young pitchers where the scouting doesn't match the results. But most projections have Peavy/Doubront as better pitchers. Here are the Steamer FIP projections for the above guys:
Peavy: 3.92
Doubront: 3.87
Perez: 4.34
Ogando: 4.48
Haren: 3.55
Beckett: 3.72 [these I find pretty suspect, but they could be in line for a Lackey-esque revival, I suppose]
Archer: 4.13
Hellickson: 4.25
Would you really take any of these guys in 2014 over Peavy/Doubront? Maybe the error bands are large enough that you can't be too sure, but if you had to pick, it'd be the Red Sox guys, right?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 28, 2013 14:29:58 GMT -5
Doesn't it kind of say everything about the usefulness of these projection systems when Haren and Beckett are the two pitchers Steamer likes the most? It's going to give more favorable projections to guys with a ton of quality MLB innings. And what can it possibly tell us about a guy like Chris Archer who doesn't really have a meaningful statistical track record at all?
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 28, 2013 16:29:40 GMT -5
I might take Archer/Helickson first. Archer would be my first choice out of all of them with Doubront a close second. I could probably go either way tho. Peavy concerns me. He looked like junk late. I just hope its nothing.
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2013 17:16:49 GMT -5
Doesn't it kind of say everything about the usefulness of these projection systems when Haren and Beckett are the two pitchers Steamer likes the most? It's going to give more favorable projections to guys with a ton of quality MLB innings. And what can it possibly tell us about a guy like Chris Archer who doesn't really have a meaningful statistical track record at all? That's a fair criticism-- Steamer, like all projection systems, has its systemic biases. It overrates veterans with strong track records who have suffered injuries and might not be the same guy anymore and underrates young pitchers with better scouting reports than statistical projection. That combination might lead it to overrate the Red Sox rotation and underrate the stable of young arms in rotations like Tampa Bay (Cobb, Hellickson, Archer) and Atlanta (Minor, Teheran, Beachy, Wood). But despite these flaws, Steamer routinely outperforms the competition in projecting pitching performance. And even if you want to go to the trouble of manually projecting everyone, I still think Peavy and Doubront generally look better than the competition. Here are the 2013 innings pitched and FIP/xFIPs for each of the above pitchers, as a quick and dirty measure: Peavy: 144.2, 3.96/4.03 Doubront: 162.1, 3.78/4.14 Perez: 124.1, 4.23/4.04 Ogando: 104.1, 4.36/4.64 Haren: 169.2, 4.09/3.67 Beckett: 43.1, 4.66/3.81 Archer: 128.2, 4.07/3.91 Hellickson: 174.0, 4.22/4.15 |
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2013 17:40:53 GMT -5
Olney just posted his top bullpens. The Red Sox are in the honorable mention category again. The top 10:
1. Atlanta
2. Oakland
3. KC
4. Pittsburgh
5. L.A. (NL)
6. St. Louis
7. Cincinnati
8. Arizona
9. San Francisco
10. Tampa Bay
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 28, 2013 17:55:08 GMT -5
Something else I want to address here... are you really trying to take issue with the idea that the Tigers have the best rotation in baseball? Because the Tigers have the best rotation in baseball and I don't think it's a particularly tough call. Everyone AFTER the Tigers you can probably argue about, but come on, that rotation is disgusting even without Fister. |
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 28, 2013 17:56:19 GMT -5
Olney just posted his top bullpens. The Red Sox are in the honorable mention category again. The top 10: 1. Atlanta 2. Oakland 3. KC 4. Pittsburgh 5. L.A. (NL) 6. St. Louis 7. Cincinnati 8. Arizona 9. San Francisco 10. Tampa Bay Best BULLPENS?! Now that's just silly. You might as well draw team names out of a hat... |
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 28, 2013 19:08:38 GMT -5
Doesn't it kind of say everything about the usefulness of these projection systems when Haren and Beckett are the two pitchers Steamer likes the most? It's going to give more favorable projections to guys with a ton of quality MLB innings. And what can it possibly tell us about a guy like Chris Archer who doesn't really have a meaningful statistical track record at all? That's a fair criticism-- Steamer, like all projection systems, has its systemic biases. It overrates veterans with strong track records who have suffered injuries and might not be the same guy anymore and underrates young pitchers with better scouting reports than statistical projection. That combination might lead it to overrate the Red Sox rotation and underrate the stable of young arms in rotations like Tampa Bay (Cobb, Hellickson, Archer) and Atlanta (Minor, Teheran, Beachy, Wood). But despite these flaws, Steamer routinely outperforms the competition in projecting pitching performance. And even if you want to go to the trouble of manually projecting everyone, I still think Peavy and Doubront generally look better than the competition. Here are the 2013 innings pitched and FIP/xFIPs for each of the above pitchers, as a quick and dirty measure: Peavy: 144.2, 3.96/4.03 Doubront: 162.1, 3.78/4.14 Perez: 124.1, 4.23/4.04 Ogando: 104.1, 4.36/4.64 Haren: 169.2, 4.09/3.67 Beckett: 43.1, 4.66/3.81 Archer: 128.2, 4.07/3.91 Hellickson: 174.0, 4.22/4.15 Baseball HQ routinely outperforms the competition including Steamer. But I guess that doesn't count since their customer base is fantasy baseball players. |
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2013 19:49:42 GMT -5
Do you have a comparison link? I've frankly never heard of Baseball HQ before, but it looks like they're a subscription-only projection system which is regularly manually tweaked. That makes comparing it to "dumb" projection systems like Steamer or Marcel or PECOTA or ZiPS slightly unfair, because it can take into account stuff like injuries and scouting reports and such that the automatic ones cannot. You would also expect it to get better than the free stuff, because why else would anyone pay for it?
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2013 19:57:05 GMT -5
Buster has his best lineups posted today. The top 10:
1. Texas
2. Boston
3. Detroit
4. St. Louis
5. L.A. (AL)
6. Oakland
7. Cleveland
8. Colorado
9. Kansas City
10. N.Y. (AL)
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Post by JackieWilsonsaid on Dec 28, 2013 20:00:31 GMT -5
Something else I want to address here... are you really trying to take issue with the idea that the Tigers have the best rotation in baseball? Because the Tigers have the best rotation in baseball and I don't think it's a particularly tough call. Everyone AFTER the Tigers you can probably argue about, but come on, that rotation is disgusting even without Fister. Look, as a discussion point rankings can be a good time but I really could care less and would prefer to not have sox ranked anywhere near the top. Having said that, was anyone watching the playoffs? Red Sox starters matched the tigers pitch for pitch, inning for inning. The tigers traded away one of the mainstays of their staff. The sox will have a full year of Peavy, Dempster as a depth option, countless aaa prospect starters as depth as well. If the Indians record was inflated by the easy schedule, so is the tigers. Whatever arbitrary rank you place, they sure seem a close match. In many ways, the sox were underrated last year. I'm surprised in this forum, they still are. In my humble opinion, to think either or both halves of this staff aren't at the top of the majors after winning the World Series and then improving over what was rolled out throughout the year is a crock. And tonight will be better than this morning. |
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 28, 2013 20:42:08 GMT -5
Do you have a comparison link? I've frankly never heard of Baseball HQ before, but it looks like they're a subscription-only projection system which is regularly manually tweaked. That makes comparing it to "dumb" projection systems like Steamer or Marcel or PECOTA or ZiPS slightly unfair, because it can take into account stuff like injuries and scouting reports and such that the automatic ones cannot. You would also expect it to get better than the free stuff, because why else would anyone pay for it? It's been a while since the sabermetric society did comparisons but you are correct in your assumptions that they are adjusted for scouting. They also publish an annual magazine that is available at the news stands around the end of January and the data from that magazine is what is generally used for comparisons. Unfortunately for me, the Filipino book stores and news stands have zero baseball coverage. To me the methodology is not the important consideration here. If they got their answers from a Ouigi board(spelling) but consistently outperformed everybody that is the more important consideration. This is a performance projection topic not a methodology topic. As it is, the basis of their system is sabermetrically derived (Ron Shandler) but they do tweak for reality before their annual numbers are published. |
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 28, 2013 20:58:14 GMT -5
The perfect Red Sox example of where Shandler is most likely to blow out the competition is Mujica where the 2013 health issues had a much more significant impact on his performance that just looking at the year's statistics.
It should also be mentioned that as ericvan pointed out in another thread that Shandler weighs the season splits more heavily than other systems which is a sabermetric difference.
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