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8/12-8/14 Red Sox vs. Rangers Series Thread
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Post by soxfansince67 on Aug 13, 2024 21:46:42 GMT -5
Just noticed an updated injury report was posted earlier tonight' www.mlb.com/news/red-sox-injuries-and-roster-movesthe bad news on Paxton is helped by positive news on Criswell, Pivetta and Slaton (at last!). No active date estimate date yet on O'Neill. Also interested to note that Mata is "playing catch". It's something I guess. FanGraphs playoff odds haven't been updated yet with the KC loss.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Aug 13, 2024 21:47:26 GMT -5
Wong has 4.0 WAR by BR in all of a year and a half's worth of PAs. And that will increase after this game. He caught a foul ball tonight that would have escaped the majority of MLB catchers. You'll have to work hard to convince me that Statcast knows about how little arc that had and how quickly he made his way to it. He steals bases, hits for power, and while his BABIP is sort of cockeyed, he's not the only hitter to do that over an entire year. I'd be glad to get you lots of examples if you're interested. I'm not certain why so many on the site are dead set against him. The question that needs to be asked is why he's accumulated 3 times more WAR on one reputable site than on another reputable site. I was a couple of minutes late. A lot of bad mouthing Connor Wong earlier today, sure maybe he’s wearing down a little bit, but he’s had and continues to have an amazing season. I hope Teel becomes a star, but Wong has been great this year and I’d hang on to him at least til your certain that Teel is an above average big leaguer. It's a prospect site so the anxiousness to get Teel on the ML team is understandable. But having blinders on about what Wong has accomplished at the plate this year is itself cockeyed.
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Post by notstarboard on Aug 13, 2024 21:52:25 GMT -5
White Sox loaded the bases against NYY down 3 in the 9th, but they had a lazy flyout and a strikeout to end it. The strikeout was absolutely putrid too. 5 straight sliders to their SS Baldwin, 4 of which were in the dirt, and he swung at all 5. 2 foul balls, 3 whiffs.
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Post by tjb21 on Aug 13, 2024 21:53:22 GMT -5
Keep stacking wins. Back to back encouraging starts from Bello and Crawford have turned my optimism up. The schedule is brutal, but there’s a path.
Duran back tomorrow. Let’s ride.
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pd
Veteran
Posts: 324
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Post by pd on Aug 13, 2024 21:58:31 GMT -5
Wong has 4.0 WAR by BR in all of a year and a half's worth of PAs. And that will increase after this game. He caught a foul ball tonight that would have escaped the majority of MLB catchers. You'll have to work hard to convince me that Statcast knows about how little arc that had and how quickly he made his way to it. He steals bases, hits for power, and while his BABIP is sort of cockeyed, he's not the only hitter to do that over an entire year. I'd be glad to get you lots of examples if you're interested. I'm not certain why so many on the site are dead set against him. The question that needs to be asked is why he's accumulated 3 times more WAR on one reputable site than on another reputable site. I was a couple of minutes late. A lot of bad mouthing Connor Wong earlier today, sure maybe he’s wearing down a little bit, but he’s had and continues to have an amazing season. I hope Teel becomes a star, but Wong has been great this year and I’d hang on to him at least til your certain that Teel is an above average big leaguer. What are the odds Teel becomes a better mlb player than Wong? Wong's positional flexibility is also an underrated asset.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 13, 2024 22:32:40 GMT -5
Was looking at pitching modeling data by month for the Sox. These are the rankings by month, via Fangraphs.* March/April - 4th Stuff+, 2nd Pitching+ May - 2nd Stuff+, 1st Pitching+ June - 1st Stuff+, 1st Pitching+ July - 6th Stuff+, 2nd Pitching+ August - 6th Stuff+, 5th Pitching+ It’s not a surprise the quality of “stuff” is down of late given fatigue from a number of guys as well as injuries to huge contributors like Slaten. But the Pitch Modeling Super Electric Computer Machine still grades the staff as having effective overall pitch quality. What is the discrepancy here between this supposed quality and giving up 150 runs over the last 21 games? Are they throwing high quality pitches most of the time and then the bad quality ones are getting destroyed? Is the model grading the pitches incorrectly? Or are they really throwing quality “stuff” and teams are just crushing it anyway? Just anecdotally, the Altuve vs Sims at-bat saw Altuve let a fastball go right by him before jumping on Sims’ sweeper for a homer - is the team too predictable with pitch selection? I totally get not being the same pitching staff as from April and May - but how is it currently horrifically bad instead of just kinda bad if the stuff quality is as portrayed *Stuff+ is designed to measure how well a pitch quality compared to the average, while Pitching+ tries to incorporate location and count. (These have been popularized by such folks as the dudes at Driveline - founded by Breslow advisor Kyle Boddy. A primer here: library.fangraphs.com/pitching/stuff-location-and-pitching-primer/)Data here - www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&season=2024&season1=2024&ind=0&qual=0&team=0%2Cts&sortcol=13&sortdir=default&type=36&month=0Was thinking about this as Crawford went 5.1 perfect innings and then ended up with 4 earned runs.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on Aug 13, 2024 23:26:24 GMT -5
Just noticed an updated injury report was posted earlier tonight' www.mlb.com/news/red-sox-injuries-and-roster-movesthe bad news on Paxton is helped by positive news on Criswell, Pivetta and Slaton (at last!). No active date estimate date yet on O'Neill. Also interested to note that Mata is "playing catch". It's something I guess. FanGraphs playoff odds haven't been updated yet with the KC loss. Hendriks throwing apparently his last live BP session tomorrow, too. If all goes well, he’ll be starting a minor league rehab assignment.
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Post by Soxfansince1971 on Aug 14, 2024 0:00:17 GMT -5
Hopefully we don’t trade him for a reliever (and then trade him for another reliever) Jed Lowrie was a walking injury every other year. The only reason he didn’t stay on this team longer was his unreliability injury wise. He went to Oakland, was gangbusters and then went to the Mets and was a liability. Lowrie got $20,000,000 for 7 ABs - 0 hits - 1 Walk. He only played for Oakland and Houston (otherwise, he was hurt).
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 14, 2024 6:39:12 GMT -5
Connor Wong has 1.3 career WAR he kinda stinks and Danny Jansen is probably like the 10th best catcher in baseball. My dream offseason has heading into next season with a Jansen/Teel duo and with a new #19 ranked prospect that we got from the Cubs. Wong has 4.0 WAR by BR in all of a year and a half's worth of PAs. And that will increase after this game. He caught a foul ball tonight that would have escaped the majority of MLB catchers. You'll have to work hard to convince me that Statcast knows about how little arc that had and how quickly he made his way to it. He steals bases, hits for power, and while his BABIP is sort of cockeyed, he's not the only hitter to do that over an entire year. I'd be glad to get you lots of examples if you're interested. I'm not certain why so many on the site are dead set against him. The question that needs to be asked is why he's accumulated 3 times more WAR on one reputable site than on another reputable site. The answer to your last question is that Wong is one of the worst framers in baseball and Fangraphs considers that while bref does not. I like Wong, I’d love to hear a good argument for why we should use the bref number instead, but personally I can’t think of one.
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Post by patford on Aug 14, 2024 8:11:08 GMT -5
Connor Wong has 1.3 career WAR he kinda stinks and Danny Jansen is probably like the 10th best catcher in baseball. My dream offseason has heading into next season with a Jansen/Teel duo and with a new #19 ranked prospect that we got from the Cubs. Wong has 4.0 WAR by BR in all of a year and a half's worth of PAs. And that will increase after this game. He caught a foul ball tonight that would have escaped the majority of MLB catchers. You'll have to work hard to convince me that Statcast knows about how little arc that had and how quickly he made his way to it. He steals bases, hits for power, and while his BABIP is sort of cockeyed, he's not the only hitter to do that over an entire year. I'd be glad to get you lots of examples if you're interested. I'm not certain why so many on the site are dead set against him. The question that needs to be asked is why he's accumulated 3 times more WAR on one reputable site than on another reputable site. People are down on Wong because he was part of the Betts trade and believe the Red Sox blew it by not extending Betts. Which was never going to happen as the Dodgers almost certainly tampered with Betts, just as they did with Yamamoto and Ohtani, working out a deal via private communications.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 14, 2024 8:36:52 GMT -5
Wong has 4.0 WAR by BR in all of a year and a half's worth of PAs. And that will increase after this game. He caught a foul ball tonight that would have escaped the majority of MLB catchers. You'll have to work hard to convince me that Statcast knows about how little arc that had and how quickly he made his way to it. He steals bases, hits for power, and while his BABIP is sort of cockeyed, he's not the only hitter to do that over an entire year. I'd be glad to get you lots of examples if you're interested. I'm not certain why so many on the site are dead set against him. The question that needs to be asked is why he's accumulated 3 times more WAR on one reputable site than on another reputable site. People are down on Wong because he was part of the Betts trade and believe the Red Sox blew it by not extending Betts. Which was never going to happen as the Dodgers almost certainly tampered with Betts, just as they did with Yamamoto and Ohtani, working out a deal via private communications. Is anyone in this conversation even down on Wong? Maybe julyanmorley but I don't think they're holding a grudge about the Betts trade.
The thing about Wong for me is that he came into this season as a different kind of hitter. After having a 33% K rate last season he struck out only 19% of the time through June. But that's bumped up to 27% in July and 37% in August.
So on the one hand the way he hit early in the season shows him still growing as a hitter. But on the other hand he's regressed since then, and he is already 28 so he might already be peaking.
(And then there's the framing issue, which is annoying because it doesn't seem like it should be that hard, and it shouldn't really be a needed "skill" to begin with.)
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Post by incandenza on Aug 14, 2024 8:50:38 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
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asm18
Veteran
Posts: 2,524
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Post by asm18 on Aug 14, 2024 8:56:13 GMT -5
Was looking at pitching modeling data by month for the Sox. These are the rankings by month, via Fangraphs.* March/April - 4th Stuff+, 2nd Pitching+ May - 2nd Stuff+, 1st Pitching+ June - 1st Stuff+, 1st Pitching+ July - 6th Stuff+, 2nd Pitching+ August - 6th Stuff+, 5th Pitching+ [clipped] Was thinking about this as Crawford went 5.1 perfect innings and then ended up with 4 earned runs. Between the Crawford start, Bello the other day, and Houck’s meh but still effective 6 innings vs Houston, are we seeing positive regression in terms of the pitching staff’s results being more in line with the quality of their “stuff” (as measured by these fancy pitch data models)? If the lineup had a rough month at the plate but still showed some good things under the hood, you probably chalk it up to bad luck or a slump. But because it’s the pitching staff and it’s August and there’s some PTSD the last two years, it’s natural and understandable to attribute the struggles as “the staff is gassed and all their arms are about to explode.” But the pitch quality data - as a whole at least - doesn’t exactly scream that. That’s not to suggest that guys are 100% fresh here or anything. But are we sure it’s not something as simple as the last month has just been a slump for the pitchers?
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Post by rhswanzey on Aug 14, 2024 9:28:06 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Rafaela is the first player to start at least 60 games at SS and at least 60 games at CF, in the same season, since at least 1901
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pd
Veteran
Posts: 324
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Post by pd on Aug 14, 2024 9:35:20 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Rafaela is the first player to start at least 60 games at SS and at least 60 games at CF, in the same season, since at least 1901 For me CR has been no doubt the most valuable rookie for the Sox, primarily due to the above. Manning two critical defensive positions and being in the lineup day after day means more than fwar can capture.
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Post by rhswanzey on Aug 14, 2024 9:41:10 GMT -5
Rafaela is the first player to start at least 60 games at SS and at least 60 games at CF, in the same season, since at least 1901 For me CR has been no doubt the most valuable rookie for the Sox, primarily due to the above. Manning two critical defensive positions and being in the lineup day after day means more than fwar can capture. Ceddanne Rafaela since June 6 (219 PA): .329/.365/.469 - 21.9 K% - 129 wRC+
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Aug 14, 2024 9:57:02 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Theyd be in much bigger trouble if Rafaela went down with an injury than if Abreu went down. I dont think "the numbers" encapsulate everything all the time. You cant always be a subservient to them, especially when some of them are subjective.
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Post by puzzler on Aug 14, 2024 10:11:08 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Posting everyday has to count for something. Rafaela has been hurt by having to play SS for half his games - otherwise, he would be neck and neck with Gil and we wouldn't be having this conversation. At the end of the day though, you need to play every day to be the best - and falling down the dugout steps and not playing against and getting pinch hit for against lefties means you're not the best.
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on Aug 14, 2024 10:18:38 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Theyd be in much bigger trouble if Rafaela went down with an injury than if Abreu went down. I dont think "the numbers" encapsulate everything all the time. You cant always be a subservient to them, especially when some of them are subjective. If the comparison is to Cowser, I say no contest, Ceddanne hands down should win. The impact he has made in the field playing SS and close to elite CF trumps a LF if the offensive #'s are relatively close. Cedanne's 109 runs produced ( Run + RBI - HR) to Cowsers 91 is a big difference maker for me as well. Comparing to Abreu, Ceddanne plays every day while Abreu has been primarily a platoon player. The defense favors Ceddanne as well, although Abreu's RF Fenway defense makes it closer. Aren't we blessed to have both of these guys !!!! Who else is there ?
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 14, 2024 10:19:19 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Rafaela is the first player to start at least 60 games at SS and at least 60 games at CF, in the same season, since at least 1901 Someone did a study on the max WAR value of versatility and found it could add like 0.5 to a guy's season. Whether or not Rafaela is worth the max value there I think is debatable, given he's been a horrendous shortstop overall (although I think much better recently)
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Post by brendan98 on Aug 14, 2024 10:27:33 GMT -5
I have no problem with any Rafaela ROY talk, he got off to a slow start offensively but has performed extremely well for a few months now. I don't care what anyone says about his SS defense, when the Red Sox were hemorrhaging defensively at SS, Ceddanne stepped in and stopped the bleeding or at the very least slowed it, he was gave the Sox what they needed defensively at that time and despite some hiccups (at SS and CF) has been mostly great defensively.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 14, 2024 10:29:51 GMT -5
Theyd be in much bigger trouble if Rafaela went down with an injury than if Abreu went down. I dont think "the numbers" encapsulate everything all the time. You cant always be a subservient to them, especially when some of them are subjective. If the comparison is to Cowser, I say no contest, Ceddanne hands down should win. The impact he has made in the field playing SS and close to elite CF trumps a LF if the offensive #'s are relatively close. Cedanne's 109 runs produced ( Run + RBI - HR) to Cowsers 91 is a big difference maker for me as well. Comparing to Abreu, Ceddanne plays every day while Abreu has been primarily a platoon player. The defense favors Ceddanne as well, although Abreu's RF Fenway defense makes it closer. Aren't we blessed to have both of these guys !!!! Who else is there ? Qualified players with higher WAR than Rafaela (1.0): Cowser (3.0) Wells (2.7) Gil (2.4) Abreu (2.3) Miller (2.0) Schuemann (1.9) Smith (1.9) Woods Richardson (1.8) Gaddis (1.6) Hamilton (1.4) Arrighetti (1.3) Slaten (1.3) Criswell (1.2) Keith (1.2) Horwitz (1.1) Personally I'd vote for Cowser, Wells, Gil, Abreu, and Miller certainly over Rafaela and I'd have to look more deeply at the other guys.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 14, 2024 10:36:31 GMT -5
Dave O'Brien on the broadcast went on and on, not just about how Rafaela should be the ROY, but that it was completely obvious he should be... Totally bizarre to me. He's plainly not even the best rookie on the Red Sox! (In fact he's fifth on the Red Sox in rookie fWAR, which I wouldn't take too literally but it is nevertheless kind of remarkable.)
Even if you're living in 2003 or something and think only HRs and RBIs matter, Cowser has 5 more homers and 3 fewer RBIs, while also having an OPS that's 60 points higher, if you allow that to count for anything at all.
But I don't begrudge a little homerism when it comes to such things. It's overlooking Abreu that I find so weird; I'm watching these games! Abreu is having a really good season, clearly better than Rafaela!
Theyd be in much bigger trouble if Rafaela went down with an injury than if Abreu went down. I dont think "the numbers" encapsulate everything all the time. You cant always be a subservient to them, especially when some of them are subjective. I'm not being "subservient" to the numbers; that's the thing I was accusing O'Brien of doing, though his numbers are especially dumb ones. What I'm doing is watching the games and seeing Abreu doing a ton of damage on offense and playing great defense in RF and running the bases really well. Which the numbers confirm. And I don't even buy the premise that Rafaela is the more indispensible player. They have Duran for CF and they have Romy/Hamilton/Valdez/Sogard for the middle infield, whereas they don't have anyone else who can play a really solid RF.
Positional versatility has some value that the numbers don't capture, it's true; but that's pretty well mitigated by the fact that he's been a dreadful defensive shortstop.
I'm being pro-Abreu here, not anti-Rafaela. See the Rafaela thread for what I currently think of him as a player. It just seems obvious to me that Abreu is having the better season.
ADD: Maybe the disconnection is that others are thinking about this in terms of the kind of player Rafaela is now, vs. the kind of overall season he has had? I would be a lot more open to the case that "Rafaela is the best player among rookies in August 2024" as opposed to "Rafaela is having the best season among all rookies."
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Post by notstarboard on Aug 14, 2024 10:41:54 GMT -5
Connor Wong has 1.3 career WAR he kinda stinks and Danny Jansen is probably like the 10th best catcher in baseball. My dream offseason has heading into next season with a Jansen/Teel duo and with a new #19 ranked prospect that we got from the Cubs. Wong has 4.0 WAR by BR in all of a year and a half's worth of PAs. And that will increase after this game. He caught a foul ball tonight that would have escaped the majority of MLB catchers. You'll have to work hard to convince me that Statcast knows about how little arc that had and how quickly he made his way to it . He steals bases, hits for power, and while his BABIP is sort of cockeyed, he's not the only hitter to do that over an entire year. I'd be glad to get you lots of examples if you're interested. I'm not certain why so many on the site are dead set against him. The question that needs to be asked is why he's accumulated 3 times more WAR on one reputable site than on another reputable site. I dug into this a bit, and the bulk of the answer seems to be that Fangraphs relies on Statcast FRV and considers catcher framing in WAR, while Baseball Reference relies on DRS and does not consider catcher framing in WAR. Wong grades out as the second-worst framer in MLB by Statcast, so the decision to include or neglect his framing in his WAR makes a big difference.
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Fangraphs uses FRV (Statcast's Fielding Run Value, aka Fielding Runs Prevented) for its defensive WAR contribution, which includes framing, throwing, and blocking. Wong is at -11 FRV (Fielding Run Value) for the year, -10 of which he racked up at the catcher position, and -6 of which is just from framing. His FRV is 1st percentile and dead last among MLB catchers, so it's no surprise that it translates into a horrible defensive contribution. Last year he put up -4 FRV, which led to a roughly neutral defensive contribution. Baseball Reference uses DRS (CTRL + F on "catcher"), which in theory also includes framing, blocking, and throwing. However, when you hover over "Rfield" on a given player's stats page, they specify that they actually don't consider catcher framing runs in their calculation. Wong had -8 rSZ (catcher frame runs) last year and -4 rSZ this year, so leaving this contribution out massively inflates Wong's defensive value on Baseball Reference. Unlike FRV, DRS also includes a contribution for pitch calling, and if the link is to be believed I think Baseball Reference does use this in their WAR calculation. They loved Wong in that metric last year (+6 "rCERA") but hate him this year ("-6 rCERA"), but given that he's exactly neutral in this metric for his career, it shouldn't explain the difference between bWAR and fWAR. Wong had 4 DRS last year and -9 this year, so on the whole he gets a boost from DRS versus FRV (which again was -4 and -11); when you remove his cumulative -12 runs from catcher framing from DRS, his defense looks night and day better on Baseball Reference than it does on Fangraphs.
I don't think it makes any sense to discount framing when it is a huge part of the potential value a catcher can add, so I am inclined to trust Fangraphs' calculation here. With that said, I don't think FRV considers things like catching foul balls, fielding throws to the plate / tagging, and fielding balls in front of the plate; Statcast should have the technology to consider most of this, but FRV for catchers seems to only be based on framing, blocking, and throwing. DRS may include some of this other stuff for catchers, but it's hard to say without reading this book.
Fangraphs and Baseball Reference both apply a positional adjustment for defensive WAR to account for the the fact that guys playing more difficult positions are more valuable (e.g. an average defensive SS inherently provides more defensive value than an average defensive 1B). Fangraphs actually gives a slightly larger boost to catchers than Baseball Reference on a per-inning basis, but it's a small difference.
On the offensive side, both Fangraphs (see here) and Baseball Reference (CTRL + F on "Rbat" in the Baseball Reference link above) use park-adjusted wOBA. There there are little differences in their respective calculations, but given that they're based on the same underlying stat, I doubt this is moving the needle much. Baseball Reference gives him a total of -6 batting runs ("Rbat") for his career, while Fangraphs gives him -0.3 weighted runs above average (wRAA) for his career. Even with smaller differences in how these run totals get turned into WAR, given that Fangraphs has him as the less valuable player overall, this is definitely a small factor compared to the defensive component.
Both baserunning calculations have a lot of parts and it's hard to see at a glance how similar they are. Both end up grading Wong as an average baserunner, though, so that doesn't seem to be moving the needle much.
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on Aug 14, 2024 10:49:35 GMT -5
If the comparison is to Cowser, I say no contest, Ceddanne hands down should win. The impact he has made in the field playing SS and close to elite CF trumps a LF if the offensive #'s are relatively close. Cedanne's 109 runs produced ( Run + RBI - HR) to Cowsers 91 is a big difference maker for me as well. Comparing to Abreu, Ceddanne plays every day while Abreu has been primarily a platoon player. The defense favors Ceddanne as well, although Abreu's RF Fenway defense makes it closer. Aren't we blessed to have both of these guys !!!! Who else is there ? Qualified players with higher WAR than Rafaela (1.0): Cowser (3.0) Wells (2.7) Gil (2.4) Abreu (2.3) Miller (2.0) Schuemann (1.9) Smith (1.9) Woods Richardson (1.8) Gaddis (1.6) Hamilton (1.4) Arrighetti (1.3) Slaten (1.3) Criswell (1.2) Keith (1.2) Horwitz (1.1) Personally I'd vote for Cowser, Wells, Gil, Abreu, and Miller certainly over Rafaela and I'd have to look more deeply at the other guys. Well that is sure a long list and the reason why I do not concern myself with WAR. Any metric that values Hamilton over Rafaela is very much flawed.
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