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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 14, 2023 23:02:09 GMT -5
This could conceivably be very big.
Kiké's xBA the previous 11 games. No typos!
.166 .057 .011 .017 .180 .115 .000 .030 .086 .158 .185
That's 44 PA, with a .103 xBA.
(Yeah, but what was his actual BA? Also .103.)
Tonight he hit two balls with an EV of 99+ and had a .525 xBA.
If he just puts up a .235 tomorrow, to get to .380 for the two games -- that improvement happens 1 in 1 thousand times randomly. [1]
More fun with numbers: Kiké's .428 in his first two games had a one in 142 chance of being random, compared to the next 11. I remember thinking he looked great at the plate in game 2, so I do think the slump started after it.
As I have mentioned often, my best guess at the typical duration of an elite hitter's slump is 12 games, which Manny did (give or take a game) fairly predictably.
Two years ago Kiké was one of the best hitters in MLB for the bulk of the season (mid-late May on).
So we can dream a little starting now ...
[1] Technically, 1 in 1044 -- T-test with two samples, assuming equal variances, p=.00096.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 14, 2023 13:27:54 GMT -5
The notion that the Rays' karma (wOBA - xwOBA) on ground balls yesterday was the result of the Rays doing something smart or correct -- a notion hammered home by Julian McWilliams of the Globe in his game story, and echoed by Peter Abraham in his -- is complete and utter bilge, nonsense, what have you. Feel free to add several f-bombs to that characterization.
In the young season the the Rays now rank 26th in the number of pulled grounders, and 20th in karma. That includes yesterday.
What happened yesterday? They pulled 5 grounders (their average per game is now 4.65) with a karma of .387. MLB average is -.018.
This performance brought them up to -.050 on the season.
They now rank 28th in number of grounders hit straightaway, and first in Karma. Yesterday they had 3 (average on year, 3.3) and had a .618 karma to bring them from .077 (edging the Astros for first) up to .115.
It's opposite field grounders where you can do damage -- the league has a karma of .150. The Rays had 2 yesterday (average per game now 1.4) with a .235 karma, bringing them up to .152, which is to say, average.
Overall they are 27th in grounders hit and 6th in karma. If their Karma on balls up the middle is for real, why do they do that so rarely? Why are they well below average on karma on pulled grounders?
It's luck. (You don't win 13 straight games without some of it.) But sportswriters hate to cite luck as a reason for an outcome.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 13, 2023 22:30:46 GMT -5
Likely to go with Sale or Bello on Mon, 4/17 Sale on 4 days rest, Bello on 5.
So far only Kluber (opening day) and Whitlock have pitched on 4 days rest. Pivetta and Whitlock will pitch on 4 in this series.
Raking all the starts by xwOBA, from best to worst (I'll insert Kluber 3 tomorrow):
Houck 2 Crawford 2 Houck 1 Sale 2 Kluber 2 ===> MLB Average Pivetta 2 Sale 3 Pivetta 1 Whitlock Crawford 1 Kluber 1 Sale 1
What are the odds that all 5 guys who have pitched twice were better the second time? 1 in 32, and hopefully 1 in 64 after Whitlock's second. The early-season weather is likely a part of that, but the biggest thing is that the starts in bold were all against the Tigers, a much worse offense than the others. I'll do this tomorrow relative to opponent offense.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 13, 2023 14:34:32 GMT -5
Expected hits in the bottom of the 5th: 2.24
Balls hit with xBA of more than .400: 0
Balls hit with EV greater than 91 mph: 1
PA with a higher EV (100.8) and higher xBA (.500) than anything in the bottom of the inning: final out of the top
Odds that any of this will be mentioned by local press (Speier excluded): 0
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 9, 2023 12:39:29 GMT -5
Pre-season WAR projections:
2.3 ZiPS 1.1 ATC 0.7 THE BAT X 0.6 PECOTA 0.6 Steamer 0.2 THE BAT
Mean 0.75 Median 0.65
He's 1.1 fWAR and 0.9 bWAR in 7 games.
Top 4 guys in WPA per 150 G (team scheduled)
15.2 Trout 16.9 Reynolds 20.4 Alvarez
29.8 Duvall
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 3, 2023 5:03:27 GMT -5
Fangraphs has him worth 3.8M through 2 games. And it took him three entire games to reach his projected season WAR total, according to Steamer (which FG used for its projected standings).
He leads MLB in fWAR, wOBA, wRC+, and SA.
Win Probability Added? His lead over #2 Yordan Alvavrez (1.21 to 0.78) equals that of Alvarez's over #13 Aaron Judge.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Mar 29, 2023 1:34:05 GMT -5
Earlier it was suggested that Joely Rodriguez might go on the 60, and that might be a better idea if today they can grab a LHR they like on waivers. The extra unneeded downgrade from JR to such a guy for a week or two, if JR is ready before 60 days are up, would likely be less than the one from Mondesi to Chang, if Mondesi is ready in mid-May.
This would be in conjunction with waiving Ort (with a good chance that he clears).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 26, 2023 6:45:13 GMT -5
How does Eric explain guys who need to tweak mechanics midseason (including Sale l’s slot in the past) if they can just bounce back after years like riding a bike? No athlete has perfect form all the time. And many struggle to regain it after sitting a while. Otherwise there wouldn’t be rehab tips etc. I guess I didn't make this clear. Hitting a baseball is the most difficult thing in sports, and pitching is the second, and then there's a huge gap to whatever is third. Of cours all hitters and pitchers have stretches where their mechanics are optimal and stretches where they're out of tune. The ratio of the former to the latter is as important as your talent when optimal; if JBJ had had Manny's ratio we'd be thinking about the HOF -- but JBJ had one of the worst ratios we've ever seen. My point is that given a full return to health, there's no reason to believe that a three year layoff is significantly different from a winter's one. Some people are freaking out over the big gap and it's really not warranted. One seeming exception I can think of -- sometimes after an injury repair, the hitter or pitcher had to alter their mechanics to avoid discomfort. By all reports Sale has not had to do this. But we should keep an eye out as to whether Paxton looks like his old self, or there are reports that he's had to change arm angle, etc. The latter would likely create a delay in reaching his old effectiveness, and might well prevent him from doing so.
many struggle to regain it after sitting a while. Otherwise there wouldn’t be rehab tips etc.
Well, you've sort of negated your own point, haven't you? It's not the sitting that's troublesome, but the injury that forces it. Guys routinely come back before they're 100% recovered physically. It's very commonplace for guys coming off TJ to be a few ticks down in velo and regain it gradually over the course of the season (or sometimes, the next). What is not at all common is guys struggling with command and gradually regaining it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 24, 2023 17:47:11 GMT -5
Part 1 of TBD ...
So, how good was Casas after he flipped the switch starting September 22? OK, let's back up a step. Is it OK to just toss out what happened previously? Does that trick ever work? Age (July 1) Bad PA wRC+ Good PA wRC+ Gain OPS Player X 22 y, 10 m 41 -51 57 108 159 .242 to .806 Casas 22 y, 5 m 44 24 51 203 179 .441 to 1.096 Do I have to add that Player X had a 117 wRC+ the next year, won ROY, and was MVP the year after? Or that he's currently going after the MOD award (Most Awesome Dad)?
So that's an encouraging comp. Next: where he ranked in that stretch among Sox players, and among all of MLB in xwOBA ... with an aside re Raffy Devers.
(Yeah, I'm crazy busy at present.)
I don't know why we even have to slice his performance into microsamples like this, to be honest. He had a 120 wRC+ as is, and anyone who saw him play - or can read a stat line - saw what ridiculous BABIP luck he had (.208 overall). Just normalizing the BABIP to something non-crazy, like .250, would have hgiven him an extra four hits; if they were all singles that would have been like a .260/.400/.460 slash line. That's basically Juan Soto last year.
In short, he was great. The only real question is how the league adjusts and how he adjusts to the adjustments - the same question as we'd have for any rookie who started off hot.
Statcast has him with neutral BABIP luck.
.197 / .358 / .408 = .344 wOBA actual .193 / .354 / .356 = .325 wOBA expected
So it really does matter whether the early struggle was non-predictive as it was for Pedroia.
More later, as promised.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 23, 2023 5:51:44 GMT -5
It would be nice, but think it'll be tough in general for a first baseman to win ROY unless he hits 30+HRs and has a high OBP. Specifically for Casas, ZiPS has him projected as a 1.7 fWAR player, which makes this a tough ROY candidate, at least if he performs near the projection. Along with Gunnar Henderson (ZiPs has him at a 5.0 fWAR player this year), this class has Anthony Volpe (ZiPS 3.5 fWAR), Jordan Westburg (ZiPS 2.7), Bo Naylor (ZiPS 2.3) and, of course "rookie" Matsataka Yoshida (ZiPS 3.7). Casas will basically have to be Joey Votto with 30 or more bombs to get this done. I'm up for that, but I'd be elated if he had a .350 OBP with 20 HRs and 45 Doubles. Projections systems are by design unintelligent. Projections for Casas are basically laughable.
First, they are unaware of the numbers I just posted; ignoring or even giving half-weight his first 44 MLB PA would make him project rather better.
But the real fly in the ointment here is that by all reports, Casas in the minors was (in the big picture) not trying to get the best results. He was trying to become the best hitter possible. We know he spent a lot of time developing a different two-strike approach which, it now seems, is something he wants to have in his back pocket for certain situations only.
He didn't hit a lot of homers in the high minors, and every scout that saw him said that his in-game power would likely be better in MLB, once he started to try to get the best results.
Here's a great set of stats: his HR / Contact, the best measure of in-game power.
.058 -- 2021 .055 -- 2022 before call-up .094 -- MLB.
Now, the sample size is so small that the increase is not significant (p = .36). But if I adjusted his MLB numbers relative to the expected drop-off from his high-minors numbers, it would come a lot closer. You also have to factor in the eerie consistency of the first two numbers, which makes the third number look a lot less random, and, most importantly, that the scouts all called this. There's every reason to think this is more or less for real.
And I think that almost nobody is factoring in his 80 makeup. That's one more thing he has in common with Pedroia.
I'm with David L. (whom I go way, way back with, almost two decades now) on this.
Part of that is that I see two related red flags for Gunnar Henderson.
First, he faced eight teams, 4 playoff teams and 4 failures, and all the former had better-than-average pitching (as measured by wxOBA allowed) and all the latter were below average. The diving line is clear.
The 4 playoff teams combined for a .295 xwOBA. GH had 71 PA against them and put up a .292.
The 4 teams that missed the playoffs combined for a .325 xwOBA allowed. GH had 60 PA against them and had a .398.
Totally average against good pitching, feasted against bad. And that usually corresponds to bad situational hitting.
Well, he was -2.1 wins per 600 PA. His 0.8 fWAR gets knocked down to 0.3.
In contrast, all of Casas's good hitting was against the AL East (more details to follow). He was +3.3 wins per 600 PA situationally, which turned his fWAR (and you can't make this up) from 0.3 to 0.8.
Now, the ROY voters are not going to know these splits if they happen somewhat again, but if the Sox finish ahead of the O's and Casas has just a couple of big hits that make the highlights, and Henderson doesn't, and there's a big RBI gap between the two ... that accomplishes roughly the same thing.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 23, 2023 3:41:51 GMT -5
Part 1 of TBD ...
So, how good was Casas after he flipped the switch starting September 22? OK, let's back up a step. Is it OK to just toss out what happened previously? Does that trick ever work? Age (July 1) Bad PA wRC+ Good PA wRC+ Gain OPS Player X 22 y, 10 m 41 -51 57 108 159 .242 to .806 Casas 22 y, 5 m 44 24 51 203 179 .441 to 1.096 Do I have to add that Player X had a 117 wRC+ the next year, won ROY, and was MVP the year after? Or that he's currently going after the MOD award (Most Awesome Dad)?
So that's an encouraging comp. Next: where he ranked in that stretch among Sox players, and among all of MLB in xwOBA ... with an aside re Raffy Devers.
(Yeah, I'm crazy busy at present.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 16, 2023 5:31:44 GMT -5
Yeah once your body knows how to pitch you can always pitch at your same high level no matter what age. It's easy. It's just like riding a bike.... Meanwhile, do we have a separate thread about cavemen? I need to know if Eric was referencing Neanderthals or Cromagnon. In response to champs: We're talking about mechanics here, and repeating your mechanics is pretty much the same thing as command and control. And in fact, yes, if you have perfectly repeatable mechanics you can pitch effectively until you're 45.
I'd like to think that everyone on this board got at least one non-interactive, start-with-control athletic skill (pitching, shooting hoops in practice, bowling) down well enough that they can relate to this directly. In college I was one of the better frisbee players on campus; I probably haven't thrown it seriously going on 40 years and it still feels as if I could step outside and have it down cold (three different deliveries) in maybe 10 minutes. [1] It therefore baffles me that some people think Sale is a huge question mark; it's literally mindless pessimism.
Response to Guidas:
Joking answer: Denisovians. Real answer: I used to be a great two-fingered typist, but am now really bad. And "caveman" was much less typing than "oldest pre-historic hunter / gatherers." Which I just ended up having to type anyway!
[1] Since I previously mentioned my hoops-shooting skill, I feel I ought to mention that I have four entertaining stories about hitting a baseball or softball ... because they are the only four base hits I can remember ever getting (in other than a pickup game). In fact, every other PA I can recall ended with either a K or a grounder back to the pitcher.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 16, 2023 4:40:03 GMT -5
Eric, your description of Pivetta feels like a reach. His xFIP hasbeen over 4 for each of the last four seasons. He had a couple of good months but he was bad in the second half last year. Pivetta's strikeouts per 9 also went down because apparently he had a loss in velocity. Pivetta is going into his age 30 season. I don't see how he has #2 upside at this point. His value seems to be in eating innings...that is about it. FIP and xFIP are crap, ancient stats. We know from Statcast that there are large, real variations in the things they assume vary only by luck or because of defense.
He had a couple of good months
Actually, from May 1 to June 23 he was the 4th best pitcher starting pitcher in MLB according to wOBA, and the 14th best according to xwOBA. Some of the difference between the two stats is likely for real. The only pitcher who threw more innings with a better xwOBA was Sandy Alcantara.
There was something he was doing different, and correct, in those 12 starts, and/or something he was doing different and wrong in the others. Like I said, all you have to do is swap the good and bad frequencies and he's a #2.
Does that trick ever work? I noticed the same bimodal distribution in Carlos Pena's hitting, and also identified what I thought was the reason his slumps were so long, and hence how to break out of them more quickly. The Sox picked him up 100% on my advice -- the only time they ever did that -- but had to let him go months later when there was no 40-man room. The Rays signed him and he went from a 111 career OPS+ to 145 over the next three seasons, completely by shortening his slumps. At some point I'd like to find out whether I was partly responsible for that!
(If you're looking for a pitching example, there's a great one featuring Good Derek Lowe vs. Bad, and the 2004 post-season. In the present case, however, I'm resisting the desire to figure out what the difference between Good Pivetta and Bad Pivetta is.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 15, 2023 23:53:37 GMT -5
Sale and Paxton: It's actually easier to argue that three years of inactivity will help rather than hurt. Imagine a caveman who goes three years without throwing a spear to kill for food. You think he forgets how? That's the actual evolutionary reason why complex motor skills like this are just not forgotten. Meanwhile, you've saved three years of wear on your arm. Sale is putting that spin on things. When you add that Paxton has never pitched with a reliever's work schedule, these are locks if healthy. [...] This seems a little optimistic. Every pitcher that has ever lived still remembers at age 40 how to throw all of his pitches. The question is whether his body has changed so that when he tries to do what he could do at age 25 or 29, the same results happen. Subtle changes to the legs, hips, shoulders, elbows and wrists can throw off these complication mechanisms. Saying "these are locks if healthy" seems overstated. Locks to be in the starting rotation. Which is what this post is analyzing, if you read it through -- how they choose 5 from 7.
(What I meant by "a lock"is also rather extraordinarily clear [1] from the last sentence you quoted! How is the fact that Paxton has never pitched in relief remotely relevant to how good he's going to be this year, as opposed to whether he's part of the Fab Five coming out of ST?)
Now, nobody thinks otherwise for Sale, but plenty of guys do not have Paxton in the rotation at first, beginning with Ian Browne, who has him opening the season on the IL and rehabbing. And others just think he'll be in the pen.
Oh, and three years of inactivity might well help, compared to three years of steady work. Not compared to prior quality. Your points about decline with age are good but off-topic here; projecting Sale and Paxton is another thing entirely.
[1] Yes, I'm yanking your chain by intentionally exaggerating. Note that I thought it was a good idea to point this out.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 15, 2023 3:04:17 GMT -5
After a putrid story in today's Globe, I'm trying to get a handle on why people can't adequately evaluate the current Sox roster ... even people who are getting paid to do so.
I'd like everyone to answer the following question quickly and simply, without research. Make a gut-feeling educated guess.
Where did the 2022 Boston Red Sox rank, among all teams in MLB, in wins (or Win %, same thing) outside their own division?
I'll compile the answers and give the correct one at 3 AM, Thursday morning.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 12, 2023 6:03:09 GMT -5
Sale and Paxton: It's actually easier to argue that three years of inactivity will help rather than hurt. Imagine a caveman who goes three years without throwing a spear to kill for food. You think he forgets how? That's the actual evolutionary reason why complex motor skills like this are just not forgotten. Meanwhile, you've saved three years of wear on your arm. Sale is putting that spin on things. When you add that Paxton has never pitched with a reliever's work schedule, these are locks if healthy. As are Bello and Whitlock, a/k/a The Future.
The last three guys are not so easy to assess.
Tanner Houck would be as easy choice if it weren't for his career times-around-order splits of .504, .647, 1.017. All four of his pitches rank in the 75th percentile or better for overall effectiveness, so the easy explanation is wrong. It could be in part stamina -- his splits by pitch count, in buckets of 25, are .455 , .675, .754. It could be in part stubbornness about following his catchers' game plans, or another word that begins with "st" and is even less flattering -- either one is consistent with not vaxing. We won't know anything about this until late in ST.
Nick Pivetta had mediocre results and is easy to kick to the curb for that reason. However, at no point in the season was he a mediocre pitcher.
First, it's really easy to divide his outings into good and below-average to bad ones. The average MLB start last year was .314 xwOBA and wOBA, and Pivetta had 22 starts ranging from .316 to .555 (average of actual and expected, for ease). But his least good better-than-average start was .291 -- .023 better than average. That's a lot. Now, if you looked at his season in order you'd expect to see those good and bad starts mixed up more or less at random, whereupon on you'd declare that .023 gap to be random. But here's his actual season (as you probably recall). G is a good start and B a bad one. What Exp Act 4 B .448 .401 7 G, 1 B, 2 G .270 .235 9 B .354 .393 2 G .222 .201 2 B, 1 G, 5 B .374 .391
The odds of having both a 9-game bad streak and a 7-game good streak in 33 starts are 1 in 197. Add in further bad streaks of 4 and 5 games and it gets much smaller (and too much trouble to calculate!). He's still a guy with #2 upside -- just swap the good and bad frequencies -- and he has extra incentive to figure things out.
Corey Kluber would be easy to put at the bottom of the depth chart if it weren't for the startling fact that he had better results without the shift than either Verlander or de Grom -- in fact, only Rodon was better among the free agent starters. Assessing how meaningful that is is gnarly and not something you do without getting paid . But he's a a very solid depth addition, and he'll get plenty of starts, especially if Houck is in the pen for the year.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 12, 2023 3:34:59 GMT -5
I can't name the entire roster?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 31, 2023 11:36:20 GMT -5
This is a classic "change of scenery" trade for Barnes. If he can regain his mechanics and hence recover his control and command, he should be good. But recovering your mechanics is a brain thing, and given how strong procedural ("muscle") memories are, when you lose mechanics and can't recover them it's usually mental / psychological. Once you're aware that they're messed up, thinking about them just gets in your way.
It has to be much easier to put your past struggles out of your mind when you're playing in Miami to fans who don't know you, then playing here. Just a "fresh start" of any sort helps accomplish that.
Some folks (and most of the Boston media) will label this a meh or bad trade if Barnes end up with value comparable to Bleier (since we're paying $1M extra versus keeping him, and $1.8M extra towards the tax limit), but I don't think that comeback can happen in Boston. And the $1.6M club option for 2024 (with nothing against the tax) can help the final accouting, too.
---- Fun with carefully selected cutoffs: There were 309 pitchers last year that had 150+ Batted Ball Events. Just 17 had a Barrel % (of all PA) less than 3.8 and a Launch Angle less than 5.4. That's being in the top 58 and top 30, respectively. The Red Sox now have 4 of the 17: Schreiber, 91st percentile Barrels, 95th Launch Angle Houck, 89th, 93rd Bleier, 86th, 93rd Bello, 83rd, 91st I agree with your main point here, but on the bolded - where are you seeing that we're paying extra towards the tax limit? I'm still seeing even with the latest reported numbers that the Sox save a little bit. Trusting FanGraphs' AAV figures!
This year's payroll is indeed going up by $1M.
But they're saving $1.375M off the tax limit.
Next year we have a $3.75M option on Bleier which will count $3.5M against the tax. The Marlins will have an $8M option on Barnes that counts $5.75M.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 31, 2023 4:15:28 GMT -5
Bring him home with a minor league deal. No thanks. He cannot throw strikes, like at all, and when he does, he's very hittable. I'm good to move on from the Darwinzon Hernandez experience. Actually, that's not true.
The last time we saw him in MLB he fanned 3 and walked 6 in three 1-inning outings.
What had he done in Worcester immediately before that, that eared him a quick callup after a previous struggle? 2 G, 2 IP, 5 SO, 0 BB.
And that was the end of a stretch in Worcester where he fanned 14 in 8.1 inning while walking (or hitting 3), and allowing a .457 OPS.
And yes, that was sandwiched around 4 games against the AL East where he walked or hit 4 in 3.2 IP and allowed a 1.125 OPS.
So ... an up-and-down guy who goes Woo, Bos, Woo, Bos, and has these results:
Woo: 33 PA, K% 42.4, BB% 9.1. Bos: 43 PA, K% 14.0, BB% 23.3.
This is one massive head case, that's what it is.
At some point he'll be great. Over / under for how many organizations he's with before this happens? Either 4 or 5, I'd guess.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 31, 2023 1:00:15 GMT -5
This is a classic "change of scenery" trade for Barnes. If he can regain his mechanics and hence recover his control and command, he should be good. But recovering your mechanics is a brain thing, and given how strong procedural ("muscle") memories are, when you lose mechanics and can't recover them it's usually mental / psychological. Once you're aware that they're messed up, thinking about them just gets in your way.
It has to be much easier to put your past struggles out of your mind when you're playing in Miami to fans who don't know you, then playing here. Just a "fresh start" of any sort helps accomplish that.
Some folks (and most of the Boston media) will label this a meh or bad trade if Barnes end up with value comparable to Bleier (since we're paying $1M extra versus keeping him, and $1.8M extra towards the tax limit - EDIT: no, saving $1.375M, no thanks to FanGraphs!), but I don't think that comeback can happen in Boston. [Comment on 2024 option deleted -- see below.)
---- Fun with carefully selected cutoffs: There were 309 pitchers last year that had 150+ Batted Ball Events. Just 17 had a Barrel % (of all PA) less than 3.8 and a Launch Angle less than 5.4. That's being in the top 58 and top 30, respectively. The Red Sox now have 4 of the 17: Schreiber, 91st percentile Barrels, 95th Launch Angle Houck, 89th, 93rd Bleier, 86th, 93rd Bello, 83rd, 91st
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 30, 2023 8:14:53 GMT -5
This is silly. We’ve seen many posts with actual projections that put the Sox at 4th place or so. I have yet to see any major outlet say anything about a good year. Doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but being pessimistic about the season hardly means one is congenitally grim. Be optimistic, but spare the condescension. I agree. A better marker for congenital grimness, I think, is when people refer to the team as "finishing in last place 2 of the last 3 years," since that casts a misleadingly negative light on a 3-year stretch that included a) the covid season, and b) a 78-win team that was hardly terrible despite a spate of horrendous injury luck. And they went 12-27, then 7-7, and then 5-2, at which point they were 3 GB the 2019 Nationals after their first 60 games.
I made a pair of desirable adjustments (schedule strength and affect of garbage-time AAA pitchers on Pythagorean wins) and had them playing at a 98-win pace that last week ... which was a big factor in my predicting 92 wind and the first WC for 2021.
Re the projections ... projections are designed to be ignorant. No one's going to look at every player on every roster and determine whether there's a good reason why their stats should be modified before being fed into the algorithm. No one's going to look at Raffy Devers' season and see that he had a 170 wRC+ after 380 PA, missed 10 games, and then had a 92 wRC+ the rest of the way while frequently grimacing after swinging. You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that he was actually a 141 wRC+ hitter last year when at no point was he within 30-odd points of that in either direction. But projection algorithms are idiotic by design.
You want to get a good laugh, look at the projections for J.D. Martinrz and Jose Bautista after their first seasons breaking out after completely re-inventing themselves as hitters.
Almost every player on the Sox 2023 roster had a gotcha! where an informed analysis comes up with a significantly better projection.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 27, 2023 6:03:18 GMT -5
If you look at the pitching depth chart, it's pretty clear that Brasier is the guy they're trying to move. He's out of options and, though still useful, is thus blocking two even better pitchers.
The seven starters (including Houck) begin the pitching depth chart. Jansen, Martin, and Rodriguez are acquisitions with no options left, Barnes has no options left and still projects as at least a 7th inning guy, and Schrieber is way too good to option. So now we're up to 12 guys for 13 spots.
HOW I COULD BE WRONG
It's possible that they have a much higher frequency of pitcher IL trips projected. If 3 guys hurt at once is common (the way I think 2 is), then both Crawford and Mills will see lots of time in MLB and Brasier as the 16th guy may be someone you want to keep around. In that case they're shopping someone else, perhaps Abreu as they've added so many NRI outfielders. And in that case, they might decide that no one is offering enough and DFA Ort after all.
I love a guy who can sum up “how I could be wrong” in a few sentences. Obviously I had the depth chart wrong (like everyone else) so it's interesting to reconstruct it after the fact.
You start with an easy 11, the guys I named above less Barnes. If they acquire another LHR like Moore, there's a solid 12.
The next tier is Brasier, Crawford, and Mills. Brasier, not Barnes, is your #4 RHR, and is a constant. If everyone's healthy then one (if no added LHR) or both (if there is) of Mills and Crarwford is optioned.
I don't think you dump Barnes if he's 15th on the depth chart. In that case, he's likely alternating between blocking one of the better pair (just 1 injury), or neither (two or more).
There are 2 ways of his being 16th. One is, they're absolutely planning on signing Moore or someone else as an upgrade to Taylor.
The other is that they are collectively high on Germano, Kelly, and Ort and figure that one of them is bound to pass Barnes. That seems unlikely.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 27, 2023 5:24:43 GMT -5
It's deceiving in the sense that it implies he doesn't hit the ball hard when it COULD mean he doesn't hit the ball hard, but it could also just mean he doesn't hit the ball hard consistently. If a guy hits one ball 120 and taps two balls 70, that averages out to about 87. That's a very different type of player than a guy who just hits a lot of balls 85-90. You should look at something like max EV if you want to understand a guy's raw power. The average just isn't descriptive enough without other data points. Absolutely.
What you really want is a) Hard hit % of all AB, and b) average EV of hard-hit balls.
How often you make hard contact (when not walking of getting HBP), how hard it is when you do.
(And for accuracy hard hits should maybe be 96 or better, not 95. The 95 was picked because it's a round number. But last time I checked there were more balls hit 96 than 95, and then you start to see a decline in frequency as you move up. I'll have to check to see if this was still teh case last year.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 27, 2023 5:06:43 GMT -5
This is a great set of posts. We can't ignore facts: the starting pitching got shredded because of injuries and the pen gave up what leads they did have over and over again. But the larger point holds. Incentivizing the all or nothing approach has brought the game to its current state. So there's an effort to reset. That's going to be on ownership, to value the parts of the game that got pushed to the side. I guess that's what MLB is shooting for, but herding owners will only work if they see success on the alternative. The Yankees are running proof that the all or nothing approach gets torched by good sps in the playoffs. 2018 we had power but damn we worked out a lot of lengthy at bats. But the 2022 team is not constructed at all that way. We just do not have a deep lineup Yoshida Turner Devers Casas Thatâs really what our top 4 in the lineup should look like, even with 2 lefties in a row there. We canât have Hernandez and a career .314 OBP in the top 4 of the lineup, that is just not productive. We might have to default him At 5 because we donât have a right handed power bat after Turner at this point The Sox inexplicably hit Kiké leadoff in 2021, as if they knew something no one else did. I believe I said from the outset that they must be trying to transform him as a hitter, seeing upside that others didn't.
And it certainly looks like they did just that in June. That it might not happen right away is understandable if the idea is "you can be a much hitter if you do X" and there is more than one way to do X.
On June 2 he was hitting .228 /.284 / .388 (.290 xwOBA, .289 wOBA), exclusively as a leadoff hitter. They had him sit for two games and dropped him down to 7th. This is consistent with giving up on what seemed to be the best way to do X and trying a plan B.
He went 1 for 8 in his first two games, a .109 xwOBA and .155 wOBA.
On June 7 they dropped him down to 8th (2 games) and ninth (1) and he went 4/10 with a 2B and BB -- a .391 xwOBA and .416 wOBA while the team as a whole had a .303 and .241 (scoring just 9 runs). Those bad numbers were including Kiké, of course. That was enough to get him promoted back to leadoff.
And from June 7 to the end of the playoffs Kiké Hernandez had 453 PA and hit .282 / .371 / .530, a .380 wOBA. Luck? His xwOBA was .378, with an expected .278 / .371 / .510 line. And note that this was against tougher than average opposing pitching.
Hot streak? I looked at the game logs of his entire career and there was nothing like this. And he did have a cold streak. He got hurt on August 26, missed 11 games, and hit .111 / .150 / .167 in his first 9 games back -- clearly out of sorts. There was some bad luck there -- his xwOBA was .279 versus a wOBA of .141 -- but that's still an obvious downgrade from before and after.
There were 268 hitters -- almost exactly 9 per team -- that had 200+ PA (including the post-season) from June 7 on. Kiké ranked 29th in both wOBA and xwOBA. That's good enough to be one of the two best hitters on a good team. And he had far more PA than most guys, so if you regressed everyone to the mean, properly, he'd fare better.
I think I'll do that tomorrow or over the weekend, but in the meantime here's the wOBA leaderboard for guys who had 400 PA June 7 and onward ...
Harper Soto Votto Goldschmidt * Freeman * Guerrero, Jr. Stanton Reynolds, B.
* Alvarez Turner, T. Hernandez Judge Devers Alonso
* Had as many or more PA than Kiké.
So I kind of think his career stats are kind of meaningless here. I see no reason to believe that he couldn't be sort of the same hitter as he was two years ago, after the breakthrough, if he avoids injuries that affect his hitting, as he couldn't last year. There's a lot of leeway where he can still be good enough to hit 4th or 2nd:
.282 / .371 / .530 Kiké in 2021 .276 / .352 / .481 Cleanup hitter, 8th best team's production in 2021 from that spot (Rays) .275 / .336 / .483 Same, for #2 hitter (Jays)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 27, 2023 3:07:27 GMT -5
I tell these two stories for three reasons ... 1) To entertain the youngsters on the board. 2) Because you may well remember them! 3) Because they go a long way towards explaining why I'm so smitten with the game -- I got two early lessons that anything can happen.
Maybe I'm the only one on here who thought, Eric, you were a young whipper snapper! Lol. Love your stuff but am surprised and actually pleased. Quick resume:
1) First-generation sabermetrician. Defined as: you saw the first nationally published Bill James Baseball Abstract and said, "oh my God, somebody else does this!"
2) Hired off the internet by John Henry to be a baseball ops consultant for the Sox, 2005-2008. Laid off when management ordered all but one of the consultants to be let go, but got six months severance pay.
3) Subject of a 6-page profile in the 15th Anniversary Issue of ESPN the Magazine (5/13/13).
4) Current Chair of SABR's Science and Baseball Committee.
All of these have interesting stories behind or alongside them.
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