SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
|
Post by greatscottcooper on Nov 9, 2014 15:50:33 GMT -5
I haven't been following this thread like at all, but is it just me or is Pablo Sandoval woefully unworthy of a $100 million deal. Tack on the draft pick compensation, and I wouldn't give him half that I'm very skeptical on Pablo, but I'd take him for 5/50 6/60 in a heart beat. ....hypothetically speaking that is.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on Nov 9, 2014 17:58:51 GMT -5
Steamer projects 3.8 WAR in 2014 and that's worth $20M. Plus Steamer doesn't take into account an increase in offense from Fenway or the possibility that he improves his conditioning. Steamer projects his wRC+ to go from 111 to 120. What are you talking about it isn't taking into account an increase in offense? Steamer projections are based upon past performance. Past performance was affected by poor home and road parks, and a lack of conditioning. Obviously if those two things change for the better he would outperform the projection. Not too hard to understand
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on Nov 9, 2014 19:32:45 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by James Dunne on Nov 9, 2014 20:30:30 GMT -5
Steamer projects his wRC+ to go from 111 to 120. What are you talking about it isn't taking into account an increase in offense? Steamer projections are based upon past performance. Past performance was affected by poor home and road parks, and a lack of conditioning. Obviously if those two things change for the better he would outperform the projection. Not too hard to understand I might be wrong, but aren't wRC+ and fWAR park adjusted? So while his rate stats would surely go up at Fenway, I don't think the value measures would be affected. And if they were, that seems to me like it would be a flaw in a value measure. Also, are we sure his conditioning or size are negatively affecting his current performance? He's played in 140+ games in the last two years, and in four of his six full seasons. He moves around pretty well. I think losing weight would decrease his chances of getting hurt in his 30s, so hopefully he makes that commitment. But are there cases of heavy players in their 20s losing the weight and getting a performance boost from it?
|
|
|
Post by johnsilver52 on Nov 9, 2014 20:58:11 GMT -5
Add in he just scored his big pay day and there is less incentive to lose the weight, or work harder on his game.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Nov 9, 2014 21:00:28 GMT -5
Yes, wRC+ is park adjusted.
|
|
|
Post by larrycook on Nov 9, 2014 21:10:47 GMT -5
if sandavol resigns with the Giants would trading some lesser prospects for freese of the Angels be a decent plan b for us?
|
|
|
Post by mattpicard on Nov 9, 2014 22:24:11 GMT -5
if sandavol resigns with the Giants would trading some lesser prospects for freese of the Angels be a decent plan b for us? Pros: - Crushes LHP’s - Cheap and only a one year commitment - Wouldn’t cost top prospects Cons: - RHH / been below average hitting RHP two years in a row. 26.4 K% vs. them in 2014. - Below average defense - Will be 32-years-old for 90% of the 2015 season - Angels have a lack of depth behind him at third, so they’ll probably focus on dealing Kendrick, who, regardless, will net a greater return. He had a -0.6 bWAR season in 2013, while fWAR put him at 2.1. DRS hated him for the second season in a row, while UZR, which thought he was epically horrible in 2013, graded him out as average in 2014. Steamer sees him being worth 1.9 wins in 2015. I see a player who fits the team worse than a player in a similar tier in Daniel Murphy (Murphy is a LHH and more consistent, while also likely offering better defense). The matchup between teams (lining up chips/replacing the 3B coming to the Sox/potential for a multi-player deal) is also worse in this case than it would be with the Mets. If the big ticket options fall through, would he be a terrible option? No, and you’d want him out there on opening day over Cecchini. But if we have to give up anything we’ll miss even a modest amount, then we might as well run Brock Holt out there instead.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 9,017
|
Post by ericmvan on Nov 10, 2014 2:17:58 GMT -5
There are certainly reasons to be wary of Sandoval, but as far as I can determine, his hitting style is not one of them. jmei has pointed out that the ability to make contact on pitches outside the zone drops off rapidly after age 29, but that doesn't mean that a hitter who swings successfully at such pitches at ages 25-7 will fare badly st he ages. In fact, the opposite may be true: if you have the hand-eye coordination to do that, and you adjust, you'll age better than usual.
I took all of BIS's discipline data (it starts in 2002) and found all the guys who had 350 or more PA in each of their ages 25, 26, and 27 seasons, then calculated their RC+ and plate discipline metrics for those years weighted 3-2-1. I then found all of their age 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32 seasons with 350 or more PA, and, for each season, grabbed the difference between their wRC+ and their age 25-7 baseline of same.
After looking at the data a bit, I decided to do a regression on all the age 30-32 season wRC+ differentials, as a function of original wRC+, age, and the plate discipline measures.
If you demanded statistical significance of the discipline metrics, you'll get nothing. There's just too much noise in the data. In fact, if you confine yourself to just the fundamental metrics, O-Swing, O-Contact, Z-Swing, Z-Contact, and Zone %, you can't even get one to show up with a p value of <.5. You just get the baseline wRC+ as hugely significant (regression to the mean), and Age as nearly significant. A 115 wRC+ hitter has no change at age 30, an 85 hitter gains 12 points (since the real 85 hitters have been selected out), a 140 hitter loses 13 points. And everyone loses 4 points from 30 to 31, and again from 31 to 32.
However, if you toss in SwStr% (percentage of all pitches which are swings and misses), which is basically a complex interaction among all of the above, a funny thing happens. You can get a regression formula with similar wRC+ regression to the mean and the same age factor, but with four discipline metrics (O-Swing, O-Contact, Z-Contact, and SwStr%) having p values ranging from .20 to .43. Since we certainly have an a priori expectation that at least some of these metrics should be predictors for aging, we can take this with a huge grain of salt and see what it tells us about Sandoval, if anything.
And what it says is that his high O-Swing would be a big red flag if he had an ordinary O-Contact (his Z-Contact is precisely average). He'd project to -8 at age 30 instead of 0, and it would be worse if he didn't see an insanely low percentage of pitches within the zone, which drives down his SwStr%. But thanks to his very high O-Contact, he projects to +3. The regression formula basically says:
Players with low SwStr% age better, which makes obvious sense, because a low SwStr% reflects both high contact rates and low swing rates, i.e., selectivity. Given a certain SwStr% ...
1) Players with lower Z-Contact and lower O-Contact age better. Note that these are not actually about Contact rates, since SwStr% has captured those. Rather, they reflect fewer pitches in the zone (in order to have the same SwStr%).
2) Players with a higher O-Swing age better. If you can manage the same percentage of swings and misses while swinging at more pitches out of the zone and fewer in the zone, then you have especially good bat-to-ball skills.
This makes some sense to me. I wouldn't use it to justify a belief that Sandoval will age well, but I think it erases the fear that he'll age poorly because he's a bad ball hitter. If you don't buy it, go back to the finding that none of the five basic metrics comes close to correlating with aging.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Nov 10, 2014 10:27:13 GMT -5
|
|
nomar
Veteran
Posts: 11,501
|
Post by nomar on Nov 10, 2014 11:34:02 GMT -5
Steamer projects his wRC+ to go from 111 to 120. What are you talking about it isn't taking into account an increase in offense? Steamer projections are based upon past performance. Past performance was affected by poor home and road parks, and a lack of conditioning. Obviously if those two things change for the better he would outperform the projection. Not too hard to understand And it's projecting a park adjusted stat....
|
|
|
Post by mattpicard on Nov 10, 2014 12:00:04 GMT -5
Steamer projections are based upon past performance. Past performance was affected by poor home and road parks, and a lack of conditioning. Obviously if those two things change for the better he would outperform the projection. Not too hard to understand And it's projecting a park adjusted stat.... Your original post makes it seem like you think Steamer is projecting an increase in Sandoval's offense due to playing in a more hitter friendly park, like Fenway. But Steamer has no idea where he's going to play, and the increased wRC+ is park and league-adjusted such that the number should be the same no matter what team he ends up on. I think? That projected increase in Sandoval's wRC+ is being driven nearly entirely by a substantial increase in slugging (and slight OBP boost), and thus wOBA, which is not park-adjusted. It sees him slugging .451, with his 2011-14 percentages coming in at .552, .447, .417, and .415. His wOBA is projected to be .344, his highest since coming in at .383 in 2011. Is Steamer just giving heavy consideration to his seasons three and four years ago? His walk rate in 2014 was at a career low after he BB'd more than he tends to in 2012-2013, so that makes sense for explaining a small amount of the wOBA increase. His BABIP has been extremely stable, making it appear that Steamer simply expects Sandoval to recapture his past power that's dwindled in recent seasons. Do Steamer wOBA projections, since the stat isn't adjusted, just assume the player has played in a single environment over his career and will continue to do so?
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on Nov 10, 2014 12:47:38 GMT -5
Your original post makes it seem like you think Steamer is projecting an increase in Sandoval's offense due to playing in a more hitter friendly park, like Fenway. But Steamer has no idea where he's going to play, and the increased wRC+ is park and league-adjusted such that the number should be the same no matter what team he ends up on. I think? Didn't we discuss this to death after the Cespedes trade? These stats are park- and league-adjusted based on a uniform offensive profile. A player with an unusual profile might do better or worse in a given park - a player excellent at avoiding popups, like Joey Votto, might thrive in O.co Colliseum, whereas a player with a lot of just-foul balls, like Cespedes, might do better moving to Fenway. A RH Pull hitter might get a lot of doubles at Fenway - those might be singles or HRs in another park. I would assume that Steamer projections for free agents are based on an average, neutral park.
|
|
|
Post by mattpicard on Nov 10, 2014 13:19:01 GMT -5
Your original post makes it seem like you think Steamer is projecting an increase in Sandoval's offense due to playing in a more hitter friendly park, like Fenway. But Steamer has no idea where he's going to play, and the increased wRC+ is park and league-adjusted such that the number should be the same no matter what team he ends up on. I think? Didn't we discuss this to death after the Cespedes trade? These stats are park- and league-adjusted based on a uniform offensive profile. A player with an unusual profile might do better or worse in a given park - a player excellent at avoiding popups, like Joey Votto, might thrive in O.co Colliseum, whereas a player with a lot of just-foul balls, like Cespedes, might do better moving to Fenway. A RH Pull hitter might get a lot of doubles at Fenway - those might be singles or HRs in another park. I would assume that Steamer projections for free agents are based on an average, neutral park. I know how park and league-adjustments work. I realize we're dealing with uniform offensive profile assumptions. I may have missed some of the conversation you mention, and apologize if what I'm writing about has been clearly explained somewhere. Your last sentence is what I'm curious about. wOBA doesn't contain any inherent adjustments, but Steamer's projections for the stats that comprise wOBA are projected with the park and league in mind.
|
|
|
Post by rangoon82 on Nov 10, 2014 13:47:08 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Nov 10, 2014 13:57:17 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Nov 10, 2014 15:08:16 GMT -5
Not that difficult % off peak on y, age on x
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Nov 10, 2014 15:13:13 GMT -5
I don't get how they can predict a rise in wRC+ because of a change in ballpark.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater on Nov 10, 2014 15:20:44 GMT -5
What do you guys think of signing old friend Jed Lowrie for like 2yr/22MM as a fallback option at 3rd? Assuming Sandoval and Headley resign with Giants and Yanks respectively. Coming off a down year, he could be serviceable and cheap. A little stopgap until Cecchini or Devers.
|
|
|
Post by grandsalami on Nov 10, 2014 15:47:48 GMT -5
“@gordonedes: Jay Alou Jr., agent for Yasmany Tomas, said Sox had him take some ground balls when he worked out. Said he could play third. He’s an OF”
Hmmmmmmmmnnmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
|
|
|
Post by mgoetze on Nov 10, 2014 16:05:58 GMT -5
What do you guys think of signing old friend Jed Lowrie for like 2yr/22MM as a fallback option at 3rd? Assuming Sandoval and Headley resign with Giants and Yanks respectively. Coming off a down year, he could be serviceable and cheap. A little stopgap until Cecchini or Devers. I think your Devers schedule is very optimistic. He might get a September callup in 2017 but he won't be our opening day starter. I agree with the point that's been made several times (by jmei IIRC) that Lowrie will be more valuable to a team looking for a SS or 2B than to us.
|
|
|
Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 10, 2014 16:20:41 GMT -5
What do you guys think of signing old friend Jed Lowrie for like 2yr/22MM as a fallback option at 3rd? Assuming Sandoval and Headley resign with Giants and Yanks respectively. Coming off a down year, he could be serviceable and cheap. A little stopgap until Cecchini or Devers. I think your Devers schedule is very optimistic. He might get a September callup in 2017 but he won't be our opening day starter. I agree with the point that's been made several times (by jmei IIRC) that Lowrie will be more valuable to a team looking for a SS or 2B than to us. And the September 2017 callup timeline would make him one of the best - if not THE best - prospects in baseball at the time he makes his debut - he'd be even younger than Bogaerts was. 2018 is probably the earliest you could reasonably project him to be up if his development literally suffers no setbacks of even the mildest sort.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on Nov 10, 2014 16:44:20 GMT -5
Steamer projections are based upon past performance. Past performance was affected by poor home and road parks, and a lack of conditioning. Obviously if those two things change for the better he would outperform the projection. Not too hard to understand And it's projecting a park adjusted stat.... The park adjusted stat assumes that all hitters will be effected equally by a change in home park which of course isn't true. It also only takes home parks into account, and not the composition of road parks.
|
|
|
Post by freddysthefuture2003 on Nov 10, 2014 16:46:31 GMT -5
Ken Rosenthal ?@ken_Rosenthal 42s43 seconds ago Sources: Hanley Ramirez on #RedSox's radar. Willingness to play LF or 3B adds to his appeal. Possible alternative to Sandoval.
|
|
|
Post by moonstone2 on Nov 10, 2014 16:51:04 GMT -5
What do you guys think of signing old friend Jed Lowrie for like 2yr/22MM as a fallback option at 3rd? Assuming Sandoval and Headley resign with Giants and Yanks respectively. Coming off a down year, he could be serviceable and cheap. A little stopgap until Cecchini or Devers. Even if they sign someone to a long-term deal they can still put Cecchini or Devers at 3B when they are ready. Ideally if you sign someone long-term, you want someone who could DH or play 1B during the final year or two of their contract. That's why I like Headley the least out of the big three 3B free agents as he likely has the worst bat of the three.
|
|
|