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Left-handed reliever discussion
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 26, 2014 22:19:14 GMT -5
I could buy the above analysis, but you aren't taking into account the fact that Layne has options left and Britton doesn't. That's huge-- either guy would be the 12th pitcher on the roster and thus have a very precarious roster spot. I think there's something like a 5-10% chance that either guy spends the entire year on the active roster, and if that's the case, the guy with options is much more valuable than the guy who has to be DFAed if the team needs his roster spot. Options don't matter if the player won't be good enough for a major league staff. I have three options and I guarantee that you don't want me pitching for a major league team. Also remember that water finds its' own level. A pitcher who does well will find his way on the roster options or not. You really want Tommy Layne? Go sign Rich Hill or Joe Biemel to a minor league deal. You can probably even sign Layne himself after he clears waivers.
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Post by jmei on Dec 26, 2014 22:39:58 GMT -5
Tom Layne has a 2.03 ERA/2.85 FIP in 44.1 career MLB innings and a 2.97 ERA/3.40 FIP in 94.0 AAA innings over the past two years. That sure seems like a major-league-caliber pitcher to me.
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Post by jmei on Dec 27, 2014 10:07:25 GMT -5
I'm not saying he's great or anything, I'm saying he's likely an above-replacement-level LOOGY with options. That has value, and I'd rather have that than a guy in Britton who is almost certainly going to be DFAed sooner or later.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 27, 2014 16:04:35 GMT -5
Tom Layne has a 2.03 ERA/2.85 FIP in 44.1 career MLB innings and a 2.97 ERA/3.40 FIP in 94.0 AAA innings over the past two years. That sure seems like a major-league-caliber pitcher to me. Small sample size made worse by the fact that he didn't reach the majors until he was 28 and has never pitched more than 19 innings in a season. If we're lucky, and that's a big IF, he becomes the pitching equivalent of Daniel Nava. 27, but who's counting? And it's tough to use innings against him when the Padres were using him as a LOOGY (2012: 16.2 IP in 26 appearances; 2013: 8.2 IP in 14 appearances). If you want, go with the 159 days of service time in three years to make that point - probably fairer.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 28, 2014 11:20:25 GMT -5
I'm not saying he's great or anything, I'm saying he's likely an above-replacement-level LOOGY with options. That has value, and I'd rather have that than a guy in Britton who is almost certainly going to be DFAed sooner or later. But that's just it a LOOGY who is awful versus righties CAN'T be above replacement level by any significant amount and thus has almost no value. Such a player can only accumulate value versus lefties that you won't pinch hit for in close games. The manager has to remove the pitcher when a righty comes to the plate and forces more work on other relievers which in turn reduces their effectiveness. This cost is not included in FIP calculations. There aren't enough situations where a LOOGY can accumulate value to cover their cost. I can assure you, if Layne were used as a normal reliever he would not have an FIP that low.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 28, 2014 15:07:48 GMT -5
I think they should invite some pitchers to spring training especially if they are left handed. Will Downs and Biemel get major league deals?
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Post by jmei on Dec 28, 2014 19:39:22 GMT -5
I'm not saying he's great or anything, I'm saying he's likely an above-replacement-level LOOGY with options. That has value, and I'd rather have that than a guy in Britton who is almost certainly going to be DFAed sooner or later. But that's just it a LOOGY who is awful versus righties CAN'T be above replacement level by any significant amount and thus has almost no value. Such a player can only accumulate value versus lefties that you won't pinch hit for in close games. The manager has to remove the pitcher when a righty comes to the plate and forces more work on other relievers which in turn reduces their effectiveness. This cost is not included in FIP calculations. There aren't enough situations where a LOOGY can accumulate value to cover their cost. I can assure you, if Layne were used as a normal reliever he would not have an FIP that low. I mean, considering the proliferation of LOOGYs in the majors over the past few decades, a vast majority of front offices and coaching staffs disagree with you. There are plenty of lefties that won't be pinch-hit for, and lefties in general tend to have significant platoon splits, so you get a pretty big advantage if they stay in the game. Even if they do get pinch-hit for, because of the pinch-hitting penalty, you almost always have forced them to sub in an inferior hitter, usually by a pretty solid margin, which more than makes up for any bullpen overuse that results from carrying a LOOGY. Oh, and Layne has options, so if the bullpen does get taxed, you just option him and call up one of the many AAA guys (Escobar, Hembree, Hembree, Spruill, Hinojosa, Ramirez, etc). Like I said, he's not hugely valuable, but his value is meaningfully positive, and that's really all it takes for me to want to carry him over Britton, who I think very little of for reasons discussed above.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 28, 2014 21:13:24 GMT -5
Britton is a better pitcher than Layne and has a higher upside. Valid reason to keep Britton in Boston and Layne in Pawtucket, that's using his option more wisely than just dumping an asset. Trading Britton and another lefty that's better than either is an even better way.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 28, 2014 22:14:36 GMT -5
Ok, this not-rhetorical question is going to sound moderately harsh, but here it goes.
Drake Britton walked more batters than he struck out last season and over the last four minor league seasons he has a 5.38 ERA. Why do people think he is good enough to pitch in the majors?
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 28, 2014 23:35:05 GMT -5
Because this was his first year relieving and he's capable of mid 90's. Toward the end of the season, he looked pretty good from a visual perpective. It was also the first year he dropped his curve in favor of a slider. Tommy Layne is a soft toss lefty and he has an option. Seems like a no brainer to either trade for a better lefty or go into spring with all three lefties on the roster and for Breslow and Britton to have the edge because of the option situation.
ADD: Britton pretty much remade himself in his age 24/25 season and it's too early to come to the stats conclusions that are being thrown out there. Layne is 3 years older and an established reliever, he should have better minor league stats.
If stats are the preferred approach, the overwhelming critical statistic here is that we only have 3 left handed relievers on the 40 man roster and of those, only 1 has an option and can be a taxi squad member.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 29, 2014 10:06:54 GMT -5
Ok, this not-rhetorical question is going to sound moderately harsh, but here it goes. Drake Britton walked more batters than he struck out last season and over the last four minor league seasons he has a 5.38 ERA. Why do people think he is good enough to pitch in the majors? Tools.....pitchers with good stuff and command problems figure it out in their mid 20s all the time, with the most extreme case being Randy Johnson.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 29, 2014 10:28:50 GMT -5
But that's just it a LOOGY who is awful versus righties CAN'T be above replacement level by any significant amount and thus has almost no value. Such a player can only accumulate value versus lefties that you won't pinch hit for in close games. The manager has to remove the pitcher when a righty comes to the plate and forces more work on other relievers which in turn reduces their effectiveness. This cost is not included in FIP calculations. There aren't enough situations where a LOOGY can accumulate value to cover their cost. I can assure you, if Layne were used as a normal reliever he would not have an FIP that low. I mean, considering the proliferation of LOOGYs in the majors over the past few decades, a vast majority of front offices and coaching staffs disagree with you. There are plenty of lefties that won't be pinch-hit for, and lefties in general tend to have significant platoon splits, so you get a pretty big advantage if they stay in the game. Even if they do get pinch-hit for, because of the pinch-hitting penalty, you almost always have forced them to sub in an inferior hitter, usually by a pretty solid margin, which more than makes up for any bullpen overuse that results from carrying a LOOGY. Oh, and Layne has options, so if the bullpen does get taxed, you just option him and call up one of the many AAA guys (Escobar, Hembree, Hembree, Spruill, Hinojosa, Ramirez, etc). Like I said, he's not hugely valuable, but his value is meaningfully positive, and that's really all it takes for me to want to carry him over Britton, who I think very little of for reasons discussed above. The first sentence is an appeal to authority which is a logical fallacy. Many front offices also believed for years in the value of the win statistic and RBI, that doesn't make them right. Further, there are far fewer LOOGY's in the majors than there used to be. Hence Layne was available on a minor league contract whereas ten years ago he would have a major league job. Today, most lefties are expected to get righties out too. Though the advantage that you refer to above is real there aren't enough lefties to cover the cost of the extra appearances other pitchers have to make. In a vacuum you could solve this problem by optioning Layne when the bullpen gets taxed as you suggest. But in the real world you can't do that. You have a ten day rule requiring optioned players to be kept in the minors, and depending on where the player is, it can take a day or more to get a player from the minors to the majors. It's not worth the trouble for situations that may arise once a week. Though I guess we will find out who is optioned in a few hours.
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Post by sarasoxer on Dec 29, 2014 11:34:45 GMT -5
Ok, this not-rhetorical question is going to sound moderately harsh, but here it goes. Drake Britton walked more batters than he struck out last season and over the last four minor league seasons he has a 5.38 ERA. Why do people think he is good enough to pitch in the majors? Tools.....pitchers with good stuff and command problems figure it out in their mid 20s all the time, with the most extreme case being Randy Johnson. I have not been that impressed with Britton's "tools".
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 29, 2014 12:28:11 GMT -5
Tools.....pitchers with good stuff and command problems figure it out in their mid 20s all the time, with the most extreme case being Randy Johnson. I have not been that impressed with Britton's "tools". Good I am on the phone with BC letting him know of your report. CLICK.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 29, 2014 13:55:27 GMT -5
I split this out of the Breslow thread because it had very little to do with Breslow himself anymore.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 29, 2014 14:31:57 GMT -5
I mean, considering the proliferation of LOOGYs in the majors over the past few decades, a vast majority of front offices and coaching staffs disagree with you. There are plenty of lefties that won't be pinch-hit for, and lefties in general tend to have significant platoon splits, so you get a pretty big advantage if they stay in the game. Even if they do get pinch-hit for, because of the pinch-hitting penalty, you almost always have forced them to sub in an inferior hitter, usually by a pretty solid margin, which more than makes up for any bullpen overuse that results from carrying a LOOGY. Oh, and Layne has options, so if the bullpen does get taxed, you just option him and call up one of the many AAA guys (Escobar, Hembree, Hembree, Spruill, Hinojosa, Ramirez, etc). Like I said, he's not hugely valuable, but his value is meaningfully positive, and that's really all it takes for me to want to carry him over Britton, who I think very little of for reasons discussed above. The first sentence is an appeal to authority which is a logical fallacy. Many front offices also believed for years in the value of the win statistic and RBI, that doesn't make them right. Just because something is a fallacy doesn't make it wrong either. You could also say "Many front offices today believe that OBP is more important than AVG".
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Post by sarasoxer on Dec 29, 2014 14:42:18 GMT -5
I have not been that impressed with Britton's "tools". Good I am on the phone with BC letting him know of your report. CLICK.Well, you must be my lackey then.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Dec 29, 2014 15:17:47 GMT -5
The first sentence is an appeal to authority which is a logical fallacy. Many front offices also believed for years in the value of the win statistic and RBI, that doesn't make them right. Just because something is a fallacy doesn't make it wrong either. You could also say "Many front offices today believe that OBP is more important than AVG". It doesn't have to be false to be a logical fallacy, which is just an error in reasoning. Just because a group in authority believes something doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the veracity of that belief. Saying, "the political party in control of the US Congress thinks man-made climate disruption is a hoax" OR "the political party in control of the US Presidency thinks man-made climate disruption is a critical issue to the future of our society" doesn't make it any more or less real. Just because the LOOGY has been extensively used doesn't mean it's necessarily an optimum decision ... I also think it's true that the use of a LOOGY is on the decline, so even as an "appeal to authority" fallacy, it may not hold a lot of water on its own sake. For me, I'd wager that a LOOGY is like a pinch-runner on the bench, something that's just not worth it in the season but probably valuable in the playoffs with the shorter bullpens and heightened leverage in each situation. Which perhaps argues for keeping Layne stashed in AAA for a possible playoff run since that's an acceptable use of a 40-man roster slot on a team like the Red Sox. Or, maybe it argues for keeping Britton since you gotta get to the playoffs first, as we've all said many times. In the end, I think you're talking very small differences in value at the very fringe of the 40-man, but I fall on the side of Britton because at least with him you've got some long-term upside in his valuation. Layne is who he is, which is a very marginal asset with only one more option. I think it's unlikely that he's of much value after this year.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,931
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2014 16:05:09 GMT -5
I'm not saying he's great or anything, I'm saying he's likely an above-replacement-level LOOGY with options. That has value, and I'd rather have that than a guy in Britton who is almost certainly going to be DFAed sooner or later. But that's just it a LOOGY who is awful versus righties CAN'T be above replacement level by any significant amount and thus has almost no value. ... There aren't enough situations where a LOOGY can accumulate value to cover their cost. Mark Rzepcynski ranked 52nd among 537 MLB relievers last year in Win Probability Added (which means he was the 2nd or 3rd most valuable reliever on a typical club), with 0.97. RHB hit .338 / .437 / .507.
Yeah, in a typical year there are only four guys like that (with no declining trend, BTW). Over the last decade, only Randy Choate has had a long, consistently successful career as an extreme LOOGY, and there are just a handful or two of others who have had repeated success: Javier Lopez, Trever Miller, George Sherrill, Mike Myers, Brian Shouse, Tim Byrdak, Joe Thatcher, and Dennys Reyes. There's a world of difference between rare and nonexistent. The reason why succesful extreme LOOGYS are rare is not because of any general, overriding principle, as you keep on asserting while failing to provide any logical or empirical justification; it's because such a pitcher has to be ridiculously good against LHB to offset the bad numbers against RHB. Layne's numbers suggest he has the potential to join this small group. Of course, I already cited what Myers did in '05, so in theory you already knew how wrong this assertion was. If you have an extreme LOOGY in your bullpen, each of the other guys has to pitch about 4 more innings over the course of the season, which is to say, retire one extra batter every two weeks. This cost is not included in calculations of value because it's too small to measure.
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Post by gator39 on Dec 29, 2014 17:36:46 GMT -5
I don't understand why this debate has become britton vs Layne. What about Dan Butler? Or even Hembree or Spruill.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 29, 2014 17:56:46 GMT -5
WPA doesn't calculate the cost of having to use another player versus righties. There is no publicly available stat for an abnormal reliever who works effectively but in very few situations. No Eric, my assertion was not wrong. You used two examples neither of which was able to accumulate a bWAR over 1 even without deducting for taxing the rest of the bullpen. In fact most LOOGY's face a large amount of righties. www.vivaelbirdos.com/2012/5/19/3025884/in-search-of-the-value-in-loogysRzepcynski himself only faced lefties 55% of the time in 2014. Really these personal attacks are becoming a bit tiresome.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 29, 2014 17:58:36 GMT -5
I don't understand why this debate has become britton vs Layne. What about Dan Butler? Or even Hembree or Spruill. All three of these might be possible, but I would keep Hembree or Spruill above Britton or Layne. All three have a better track record and are more likely to help the major league team. Butler is a possibility, but if you cut him you are risking that you may have to force feed Swihart to the majors before he's ready.
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Post by moonstone2 on Dec 29, 2014 18:00:13 GMT -5
Just because something is a fallacy doesn't make it wrong either. You could also say "Many front offices today believe that OBP is more important than AVG". It doesn't have to be false to be a logical fallacy, which is just an error in reasoning. Just because a group in authority believes something doesn't necessarily tell us anything about the veracity of that belief. Saying, "the political party in control of the US Congress thinks man-made climate disruption is a hoax" OR "the political party in control of the US Presidency thinks man-made climate disruption is a critical issue to the future of our society" doesn't make it any more or less real. Just because the LOOGY has been extensively used doesn't mean it's necessarily an optimum decision ... I also think it's true that the use of a LOOGY is on the decline, so even as an "appeal to authority" fallacy, it may not hold a lot of water on its own sake. For me, I'd wager that a LOOGY is like a pinch-runner on the bench, something that's just not worth it in the season but probably valuable in the playoffs with the shorter bullpens and heightened leverage in each situation. Which perhaps argues for keeping Layne stashed in AAA for a possible playoff run since that's an acceptable use of a 40-man roster slot on a team like the Red Sox. Or, maybe it argues for keeping Britton since you gotta get to the playoffs first, as we've all said many times. In the end, I think you're talking very small differences in value at the very fringe of the 40-man, but I fall on the side of Britton because at least with him you've got some long-term upside in his valuation. Layne is who he is, which is a very marginal asset with only one more option. I think it's unlikely that he's of much value after this year. I agree. Yes LOOGY's definitely have more value in the playoffs where the value of one win is higher, and there are more off days.
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Post by sarasoxer on Dec 29, 2014 18:46:49 GMT -5
I don't understand why this debate has become britton vs Layne. What about Dan Butler? Or even Hembree or Spruill. All three of these might be possible, but I would keep Hembree or Spruill above Britton or Layne. All three have a better track record and are more likely to help the major league team. Butler is a possibility, but if you cut him you are risking that you may have to force feed Swihart to the majors before he's ready. Good. I am on the phone with BC letting him know of your in depth report. CLICK. Might have been a bad connection. I was not impressed by Hembree either. He has lost velocity. I think the Sox go outside for one or two relievers of the power oriented variety.
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Post by larrycook on Dec 29, 2014 23:25:25 GMT -5
All three of these might be possible, but I would keep Hembree or Spruill above Britton or Layne. All three have a better track record and are more likely to help the major league team. Butler is a possibility, but if you cut him you are risking that you may have to force feed Swihart to the majors before he's ready. Good. I am on the phone with BC letting him know of your in depth report. CLICK. Might have been a bad connection. I was not impressed by Hembree either. He has lost velocity. I think the Sox go outside for one or two relievers of the power oriented variety. Can you help clarify this a bit for me? Who are these available power lefty relievers?
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