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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 1, 2023 5:05:45 GMT -5
I think it depends very much on how you define "average." Ha-seong Kim could be considered an "average" baseball player, I suppose, based on his above-average defense/baserunning and his below-average offensive numbers. However, given that the Red Sox don't currently have a strong defensive shortstop on the roster, and given that there really aren't any strong defensive shortstops left on the free agent market (unless you squint at Andrus or Iglesias), Kim fills a position of need, and you have to give to get. Baseball Trade Values is not an objective authority on player values, but Houck and Kim have identical values according to BTV. Seems like a good match for both sides. I still just feel like andrus at 10-12M for 1 or 2 years + Houck has more value than dealing Houck for Kim. The reason you feel that way is that it's insanely obvious. Or should be.
So, Kim is coming off a season where he was +5 runs on defense and +2 hitting. He's at present real cheap, and he has four years of control, and a lot of his value is in the latter two facts. That's why you'd likely have to trade 5 years of Houck to get him. And no, Houck is not remotely expendable.
Andrus is coming off a season where he was +7 runs on offense and somewhere between 0 and +3 on defense (the uncertainty is how much weight you put on, and likely rounding errors in, DRS's GDP (-1) and Good Fielding Plays (-2) numbers).
You have a projected starting rotation with four flyball pitchers (admittedly, Sale and Paxton mildly so) and 2 groundball pitchers, so why do we care more about defense than offense?
You've got an elite SS prospect who's two years away (or less), so the thing that makes him far costlier than Andrus is not something you need.
Now ... I already included in the offense numbers the facts that Kim has not hit good pitching at all, and Andrus has hit it his entire career. But seriously, which guy do you want to move into the toughest division in baseball?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 31, 2022 0:45:43 GMT -5
I think the idea of Rafaela breaking camp with the team is crazy tbh, I mean I guess if thereâs some sort of horrific plane accident then maybe it will happen You can absolutely ruin players by bringing them up too early. We shouldnât be prioritizing marginal short terms gains over the bigger picture. He doesnât have an approach yet. Do whatâs best for him long term. The best way to premier a young unproven player is to bring them up to fill a slot where there is a need because someone is on the 10 day IL. Rafaela would be a good example of that because SS and CF are positions where defense is very important. What sometimes happens is a player comes up and does so well it's "impossible" to send them back down. There are players whose hit tool seems to play at all levels. In any event there is no huge pressure in a situation like that. When a young player is ruined or badly set back it's more common that they are plugged in and expected to start or play a big role. This is a very savvy point. Bello doesn't seem to have been harmed at all by his premature stint. Mookie his rookie season hit .244 / .279 / .366 in 44 PA in hist first two callups. When he was called up for good he had a .566 OPS in his first 5 games ... and then went .318 / .400 / .492 the rest of the way, in 150 PA.
What's most interesting to me is how other players may affect Rafaela's immediate future. He clearly projects best in CF and less well at SS, but the offensive bar for the latter is much lower, and the difference is likely small. So if SS is your need, I don't think you'd hesitate to use him there until Meyer was ready. So how Kiké, the SS TBD, and Meyer all perform this year will have an impact on him this year. There's a scenario where Kiké is killing it again, the new SS is nothing special, and Meyer is progressing normally, where having Rafaela concentrate on SS is a no-brainer. There's a scenario where it increasingly looks like Kikéâs 2021 was not repeatable, the new SS is rocking it, and Meyer's ETA has moved up to early-mid '04, where Rafaela is in CF almost entirely. And of course there are a bunch of other combinations that would be less obvious to deal with.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 31, 2022 0:13:29 GMT -5
Walter was already good enough for the majors when he was in AA last year. While they were both in AA he was better than Bello IMO. Bello took another step forward as the season progressed though. Pitchers that don't need to improve to help in the majors are a different category than someone like Owens that had a lot of potential but never got good enough.
Walter has his injury issue which is a big unknown. He could be toast for all I know.
Owens problem was always velocity. There's no way to develop it. Unless he was going to be the next Jamie Moyer (highly unlikely), he was never going to be a guy that ever succeeded. There hasn't been a guy who's risen in the farm system as fast as Walter since Mookie, and they're two completely different paths and examples. Ones a position player, another a pitcher. I'd enjoy the ride and see how he looks in spring training, but if he looks like the beginning of last year, the hype train should be in full force. Wow, folks are mis-remembering Owens, and may well have no idea what happened to him. He’s the poster-child for “Sox of that era had no idea how to develop pitchers.”
He had a very promising rookie season. He debuted against the Yankees, gave up 2 hits, a walk, and a run to the first 7 batters, then got 12 guys in a row, 4 on K’s and 2 on popups. They sent him out for the 6th to face Chris Young and A-Rod for the 3rd time, and he gave up hits to both (and was charged with 2 inherited runs). After 2 starts he had a .607 OPS allowed and should have had a 1.80 ERA.
Start 3 he gave up 7 runs (3 HR) in the first 2.1 IP and then was unscored on through 6, ending up with 10 K’s and 1 BB. His 4th and 5th starts were .567 OPS, 1.38 ERA. Start 6, Yankees again, 7 ER in 1.2 IP.
Next 4 starts, .514 OPS, 1.61 ERA. His final start was the only one with nothing good, 7 ER in 4.1 IP.
He finished with average overall numbers over 63 IP, but 53.2 IP were fairly dominant and the other 9.1 were awful. That’s a guy with serious upside.
Admittedly, it would be cool if there were some important stat where he was in eye-opening company on the leaderboard for starters (minimum 60 IP), despite the awful stretches. Something like …
Chris Sale Max Scherzer Clayton Kershaw Henry Owens David Price.
Oh, that’s actually the contact percentage within the zone leaders.
You might well ask, how did he do that throwing just 90 mph? He had always fanned a lot of guys in the minors, so it wasn’t a fluke. But the answer is well-known; as a 6-6 guy he automatically gains some effective velo by releasing the ball closer to home, and he had a delivery that hid the ball. I bet his effective velo was about 95.
The next year he couldn’t throw strikes at all.
Now, there is an anecdotal thing about left-handed pitchers taking longer to get their mechanics down. Jamie Moyer had outlier very good seasons at ages 25 and 30 (the year that his BB% dropped a lot, permanently), but his prime years were 34 to 40. You know about Randy Johnson and that Dodger guy.
It makes perfect neuroscientific sense that lefties take longer to master procedural (“muscle”) memory, as evidenced by the fact that most people are right-handed. The two hemispheres of the brain do sensation and motor control the same way, but are otherwise very different. It makes sense that those differences have an impact on the shared duties. (The popular notions of what the hemispheres do are at best a huge dumbing-down, and I’m 20 years out of date wit the latest science, so I won’t go any deeper. at present.)
It's also very likely true that simple mechanics are easier to learn than funky ones. But I would guess that this is 10% of the of the learning curve length. The rest is your inherent ability to learn.
What did the Red Sox do after 2016? They had Owens abandon the mechanics he’s spent his whole life using, without yet mastering, and were a key component of his success, and had him try to learn a simpler delivery. Which is essentially sending him back in time to little league.
I hope I don’t have to explain why this was a criminally idiotic idea. And this is nor a second guess; when I heard they were planning to do this, I more or less barfed in my brain. To call whoever thought this up “clueless” would be an insult to clueless people. I’ve known sheep that could out-think them. I’ve worn shirts with a higher baseball IQ.
More seriously, all it takes to make this blunder is to have no sense at all as to how pitchers lean their mechanics and why some have mechanics that are more repeatable than others. That ignorance is obviously not defensible.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 30, 2022 5:23:58 GMT -5
There's no way that the starting lineup has 6 LHB. That they already have 5 is unusual.
Meanwhile, the only other candidate I can find for backup CF, LHB is free agent Rafael Ortega, who had a good season with the Cubs in 2021 as a platoon starter but was less good this year (3.0, 0.5 WAR / 600, with situational). OK base stealer, a bit below average defensively. Doesn't suck, doesn't excite me. I have no idea whether Duran, Ortega, or Alek Thomas would be the best choice, and I have no plans to look into the question further!
One thing that wouldn't surprise me, and would make sense, is their playing Hamilton in CF to see if he can be that guy by the trade deadline. That would work for Rafeala at SS instead of CF as well.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 30, 2022 3:39:00 GMT -5
I think that is the most likely scenario. Keep in mind, though, that despite his speed, Duran has never been a particularly prolific or effective basestealer. Even in AAA last year he stole 18 bags in 68 games (21 attempts). Compare to Hamilton stealing 70 in 119 AA games (78 attempts). Perhaps someone can look at a rate basis compared to times on first base, but on a per-game basis that's not close. Not saying he won't make the team for that reason or anything, but I'm not sure, for example, that he's a better basestealer than Rafaela, even if I do think he's quicker and probably a better baseRUNNER. Here's the key set of facts, which prove to be unhelpful.
Duran has played almost half a season in CF over two years. How does his defense there look, in terms of runs per 150 games?
-29 DRS -20.5 UZR -8 Statcast
One of these things is not like the others. But even if he's -8, you don't have anyone who can improve your OF defense when Pivetta or Kluber is on the mound, which is extra desirable if giving Turner the day off and adding a LHB is a plus.
Given his offense (.323 / .324 wOBA vs. RHP in 155 PA last year, plus the AAA track record) he would work on the 26 man if the Statcast numbers are for real and he could get the defense up a bit. You still would have no elite defense configuration for the OF, but you would have a serviceable backup CF, which the roster does not have at present.
The new rules are going to make raw speed a lot more important relative to SB smarts, so he would be a solid pinch runner.
It's quite possible that this is the plan, because they have reason to believe he can play adequate defense in CF.
Ideally, though, you find a good defensive CF who bats lefty, can hit RHP OK (but not LHP) and can steal a base. A guy who overall projects to be as good as Duran but whose strength is great defense rather than good offense. The D-Backs' Aled Thomas, who is definitely available, is a lousy base stealer, alas. Will I try to find someone else?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 30, 2022 2:47:58 GMT -5
FWIW, they traded a legit RP prospect in Wallace for Mills. Going to have to disagree he's on the potential DFA list. It's one thing to trade a DSL guy you didn't even invite to the US for the FPP for Park. It's another to trade a AA Top 60 prospect with pitch characteristics that analytics love. I have a feeling the hold up on Turner is them trying to find a trade that clears 40-man space if not also addressing the 4th bench spot or even the final up-the-middle regular spot. I was briefly living up to the slogan under my logo when this trade happened, which is why I remembered it as a waiver claim.
So who would be the 4th trim, instead (assuming no Houck and Dalbec for SP trade?) I think Ort is the most fungible guy, and could likely being back someone no one has heard of.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 15:58:09 GMT -5
Wondering if Eric can pump out leverage stats on Kim. I’d be intrigued to see if he also provides some clutch value w/ the bat and on the basepaths. Consistent with his post-season struggles, he was -1.4 Wins situationally, -1.5 per 600 PA. He was actually worth 62% of his measured WAR.
Career leverage splits: 61 / 88 / 123.
Career Late & Close / Other / Blowout splits: 81 / 96 / 138.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 15:26:39 GMT -5
This table may be helpful. Eovaldi Sale Wacha Paxton Hill Kluber Winckowski Bello Brasier Jansen Sawamura Martin Strawm Taylor Diekmann / J. Rodriguez Davis Bogaerts Yoshida Martinez Turner Dalbec / Casas Cordero Bradley Jr. SS TBD Vazquez McGuire Plawecki Wong Duran / OF TBD Pham
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 15:17:50 GMT -5
No thanks on that, I feel like their 4th OF will need to be sound defensively to take over late in games for Yoshida/Verdugo. Duran just doesn't fit the team at all to me. I'd try and deal him and one other 40-man fodder piece to clear up room on the 40 for Turner and Kluber. and that sounds like Refsnyder to me. Point being that they have OF options. The gaping hole right now is starting SS. They do not have a good backup OF option against RHP, because Refsnyder is a pure platoon guy. Nor is he a guy who can excel in CF.
Because Kiké can play the INF, the Sox have the capability of having a 2-player platoon as the fourth outfielder. Many 4th OF types are what they are because they are platoon players, fundamentally.
OFers will get hurt and a Guy X / Ref platoon gives you a really good backup. Can you think of a better way to fill the last spot on the bench?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 14:46:38 GMT -5
That CF guy can be Duran. Shaky but we are talking a backup role. Worth another shot. No thanks on that, I feel like their 4th OF will need to be sound defensively to take over late in games for Yoshida/Verdugo. Duran just doesn't fit the team at all to me. I'd try and deal him and one other 40-man fodder piece to clear up room on the 40 for Turner and Kluber. Not just late-innings, either. I ran the GB% for the four veteran starters: last 3 full seasons for Sale and Paxton, Kluber in his 2 seasons since coming back from his injury, and Pivetta since we traded for him. You really donât want to look at FB% when you're looking at pitcher-dependent defense, since LDâs that arenât caught probably do as much or more damage than FBâs. So, youâve got: - Two SP in Pivetta and Kluber with a GB%+ of 89, which puts them in the 75th percentile for balls in the air
- Some opposing pitchers who are very tough on RHB but relatively struggle to get LHB out
- Some ballparks with big LFâs
- A LF whoâs not that good defensively and a DH whoâs 38.
There will be games when you want to DH Yoshida and play the bench guy in RF or LF, or even CF with Kiké moving over. Probably itâs any time 2 of the first 3 things are happening, unless Bello or Whitlock, the only GB pitchers in the rotation, are on the mound (Paxton is a 95 and Sale a 97). Unless Duran has had a secret defensive breakthrough in the off-season, heâs not going to work in this role.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 13:52:07 GMT -5
I think Taylor needs to be in the discussion for cutting. He is going to be 30, barely pitched last year, and is really not that good anyway. Which planet do you live on again?
Combining his two healthy seasons, he ranked 16th of 59 LHR in xwOBA (minimum 250 BF; he had 396), and 18th in wOBA. And seven of the guys ahead of him pitched less.
Just two years ago we made the playoffs and he was the team's second most effective reliever after Whitlock (based on leverage-adjusted WPA per IP; he was 3rd in WPA, also trailing Ottvino). In the post-season, he ranked 4th of 15 LHR (minimum 10 PA; he had 16).
The fact that they shed Strawm, Davis, and Diekmann from last year's beginning roster and picked up just one LHR suggests to me pretty strongly that they have good reports on his health and expect him to be really good again.
If you meant to say that he's not great, that is true. He's not an all-purpose 8th-inning guy who happens to pitch lefty. He is really good, though, a guy who can pitch the 7th and 8th whenever there are 2 LHB due up, and get the job done with some regularity.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 12:34:36 GMT -5
Sox *badly* need to add another OF who can play CF. If Kiké goes down, OR if a middle IF goes down (or even just wants a day off) and they need to put Kiké at 2B/SS, they have zero backup plan. Absolutely, and a ideally a lefthanded bat. And they need a SS.
So they need to trim four guys.
I think they claimed Mills in the hope that he gets through waivers when the time comes to trim him.
Brasier, Darwinzon, and Seabold or Winckoswki have always been on my trim list, so there you have it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 29, 2022 5:12:05 GMT -5
Not sure why people keep putting Hernandez and his career wRC+ of 97 towards the top of the order.If he isn’t out 8 or 9 hitter, it means we are in trouble. The only decision should really be do we want him or McGuire/Wong hitting 9th. I think the only thing at this point we can do is sign Andrus. Yoshida Story Devers Turner Casas Andrus Verdugo Hernandez Wong/McGuire Very weak after the 5 hole and a huge question in the lead off spot Just a wild-assed guess, but maybe it was because he was the 12th best hitter in baseball in his last healthy season, from June 19 to
the end of the playoffs? (By wOBA, minimum 350 PA).
And June 19 is not an arbitrary date. He had just gone 2 for 21, and they gave him 2 games / three days off and on his return moved him down in the bating order from 1st to 7th / 8th. He put up an .845 OPS in his first 7 games and they moved back to leadoff, where it seemed thy thpight he could thrive ...
Whereupon he hit .297 / .410 / .563 in 41 G / 232 PA before getting hurt and missing 11 games.
Either he came back too soon or the layoff messed up his stroke (probably some of both), because he hit .111 / .150 / .167 in his first 7 9 games back. But he then hit .283 / .387 / .509 in the remaining 13 regular season games and then .408 / .423 / .837 in 11 post-season games ... and that's without adjusting for the opposition pitching quality.
He should hit 6th, where he would be an average 6 hitter with his career numbers. Verdugo is 7th, and that's actually a great 7 hitter. 7 hitters hit .234 / .299 / .372 last year, and Verdugo hit .293 / .343 / .425 when you eliminate his 1 for 31 with a leverage index of .04 or less, which is to say, complete garbage time. And the odds of that being random are 1 in 10,000. Oh, and he did the same thing the year before (and both seasons he was tremendous in high leverage ... I'll have more to say about that in the Clutch thread).
McGuire projects to be an average 8 hitter (by Steamer) but I think he'll be better than that, based on what he did after the trade. Andrus should /. would hit 9th if they signed him and he projects to be well above average.
Oh, and big question mark at leadoff has a consensus 80 hit tool.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 28, 2022 22:59:19 GMT -5
I’d like Eric’s next statistical rabbit hole to include exploring the correlations between performance and distance from hometown and/or place of residence, either by home field or broken down by individual stadiums. Don’t forget the cover sheet. Please and thank you Never going to happen.
But I liked this deal even before I crunched his numbers that follow, and thought it was one of the better choices in that tier of starters. Now I'm thinking he may have been the best. For me, I wanted Wacha but this deal is a steal. I actually think we're set to rock and roll but I'm a proponent of Rafaela at SS and Story at 2B, that would be one of the best infield defences in baseball, maybe the best given the new rules. For me, now minor tinkering, with RF upgrade in mind. Dalbec should be in Woosta or part of the upgrade (the insurance is nice though). Wacha, Eovaldi and Kluber. Numbers are expected / actual wOBA.
Versus the shift:
61%, .281 / .264 Wacha 43%, .312 / .303 Eovaldi
42%, .352 / .353 Kluber.
Versus standard defense:
39%, .405 / .360 Wacha 57%, .328 / .342 Eovaldi
58%, .281 / .291 Kluber
Last year there were 159 pitchers who had 200+ PA without the shift. Kluber ranked 29th in xwOBA (90th percentile) and 48th (81st %) in wOBA. Eovaldi ranked 118th and 129th and Wacha 159th and 148th, respectively.
Rank of Kluber among 2022-23 Free Agent SP in xwOBA without the shift: 2nd (to Carlos Rodon).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 25, 2022 7:28:17 GMT -5
In 2021 Alex Verdugo was 2/20 (both singles) in his 20 least important PA ....
And he hit .448 / .476 / .658 in his most important 42 PA. That's excluding 4 IBB, which boost his OBP to .522.
This last year Verdugo went 1/31 in his 31 PA with a Leverage Index of .04 or less ...
And he hit .429 / .471 / .429 in his most important 17 PA.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 25, 2022 4:11:57 GMT -5
I've seen enough raw data to be fairly certain that the Situational Hitting adjustment -- which, keep in mind, actually does measure actual player value, while unadjusted WAR does not -- can be predictive.
I've run the yearly numbers on 26 guys. Seven of those have 8 or more seasons of data. If this were random, you'd expect the majority of players to have roughly as many seasons where they had a positive differential as a negative, right? What we have is this (I'm including 2020 if it's part of a streak, or huge) Eric Hosmer 11 - 1 (the exception being his walk year)
Elvis Anrdus 9 -3 Juan Segura 5-4 Xander Bogaerts 4-5 Jose Abreu 1 - 6 (and a season of exactly 0.0) Carlos Correa 2-6, with a current 6 year negative streak J.D. Martinez 0-8 (starting after the Astros released him)
That's nothing like the expectation. It's very tough to show this is real, in part because this is a stat that centers at zero, which means that outlier seasons muck up year-to-year correlations. But I've come up with 2 approaches that should work around this. More thoughts on this in the Clutch thread I started, at some point soon.
How? I have no clue what you're actually doing, you aren't posting formulas. So I can't say your formula does what you think it does. You know this, you know the leg work that needs to be done. You're one of the few people that likely understands the crazy work that done for war and what changing it would actually require. You know Fangraphs isn't doing 26 players and changing the war formulas. Your talking whole league over years I'm not changing WAR at all. I'm simply adding an extra component of the game that isn't being measured. I've mentioned what it is I'm doing, but here's the whole method.
First, Win Probability Added as measured by FG and B-Ref is incorrect. Last year all the hitters had a WPA that was .27 wins too low per 600 PA. I've corrected it, a different correction factor for each year. The explanation for this is at the end.
Second, I determine each season's Runs per Win from FanGraph's data, in order to be able to convert them into one another.
Third, I grab FG's Batting Runs above Average, and convert it into Wins Above Average. [1]
This gives us the situation-neutral Batting Wins Above Average.
WPA gives you the situation-adjusted Batting Wins Above Average (and a bit more; see below).
WPA - BWAA gives you the Situational Hitting differential.
Now, if you add this number to WAR you are double-counting the easily measured components of base running -- stolen bases and caught stealing, pick-offs and advances on passed balls and wild pitches. But WPA already credits hitters with the baserunning performances of guys on base (more on that below). These inaccuracies are very likely smaller than the error bars in fielding ratings. Fixing them is a job for someone getting paid to do it.
When you use (adjusted) WPA instead of Batting Wins Above Average, there's no double-counting, and you have included not just the win values of the aforementioned baserunning plays, but their situational importance.
[1] Fun fact: last year, according to FG, all the hitters in baseball were collectively 62.2 Runs Above Average! What a neat trick. Fortunately, that amounts to just .02 wins per 600 PA, so I decided to not bother correcting it. My guess is that they do recalculate the run value of each event each season -- a staple of the linear weights methodology -- and have never noticed that they need to go to an extra decimal point for each run value to avoid this obvious error. It looks much worse than it is in practice.
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Finally, I am sympathetic to the plight of the hitter who starts a rally from down a bunch of runs and gets just a tiny WPA, even if his hit is crucial. I actually had a conversation about this with Clay Davenport years ago at a SABR conference. Nothing was concluded, IIRC.
My fix is this: whenever a run or runs are scored in an inning, you also take the run value of each event in the inning, and use that to divide up the increase in Win Probability of the inning. So if there are two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth, down two runs, and you win the game with 5 straight singles, each of the five guys who hit a single gets, at this stage, equal credit for the win, just under .2 wins each. WPA has it as .03, .05, .08, .44, .38 (with no runners going first to third).
You then average this with WPA and call it "Team-Context WPA." In this example the five guys would get .11, .12, .14, .32, .29, which seems to track our subjective sense of the importance of each PA better than the actual odds! (This is the first time I ever ran numbers on this idea, which has to be close to 15 years old).
It is of course partly a measure of the hitters hitting after a given hitter, but it still might identify hitters each year who had a good or bad season at starting rallies.
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Why all WPA figures are off, and how to correct them.
The sum of the league WPA for both hitters and pitchers needs to be zero. Offense and defense are equally important by definition, and so they must have the same total WPA at season's end, and since every game has a winner and loser, the sum of each must be zero.
When the pitchers start to dominate the game a bit and scoring drops, that makes the value of hits greater, and the value of preventing hits less great, because the former has become harder and the latter easier. As a result, the win values of each event need to be adjusted to conform to the level of offense in a given year.
That has not been done. As a result, all the pitchers are combining to have a supposed positive effect on wins and all hitters are combining to have a negative effect. We know that's impossible. And it makes no sense; the improved pitchers are not extra responsible for teams winning, they're just responsible for less scoring. If the former were true, pitchers would be getting better contracts and hitters worse ones.
So my first step is to sum the supposed pitching WPA of each season (the hitting WPA is always the negative of that) and calculate how many runs are being mistakenly credited per 600 PA. The WPA of every hitting season is adjusted based on the year's error size and the hitter's PA.
This is not a precise adjustment. There should be a new set of Win Probabilities for every situation, created at the end of each year. That will change the measured WPA of every hitter ... but the differences are again, likely small. The adjustment for baserunning is likely quite a bit larger -- i.e., a double with a man on first should get the average WPA of that event with an average baserunner and the actual fielder handling the ball, and the baserunner gets the difference from average -- the positive value of scoring when it was unexpected, or the negative of failing to do so when it was easy. You'd track that separately.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 24, 2022 19:20:17 GMT -5
Eric said: “ I've run the yearly numbers on 26 guys. Seven of those have 8 or more seasons of data. If this were random, you'd expect the majority of players to have roughly as many seasons where they had a positive differential as a negative, right?” Ah, no. Not enough guys. I've been eyeballing data and then doing actual significance testing ... for twenty years now. I have a really, really good sense of how one translates to the other. Yes, it's possible that these seven guys are weird in some way. But you don't expect seeing what we see.
Odds of JDM 8 straight negative, 1 in 128. Given the actual numbers, much lower, but let's run with that.
Odds of one guy among the 7 having 8 straight are .053.
Just JDM is likely statistically significant.
Hosmer having 11 (or 12) the same is .0032, and the odds of that happening if you had 6 more guys with a career that long are .022.
The odds of having those two guys in this 7 player sample are something like 1 in 850.
And that's ignoring Corea's six straight negative (and I have noted that the first two seasons are often not predictive of the remainder) and Andrus's 9 out of 12, and Abreu's 1 or 2 out of 7.
Ah, yes. Enough guys.
(The error you're making, which is very common, is to regard the sample size as the dominant component, when the effect size is equally important. In this tiny sample of 7, the effect size is huge. And I did look at all 26 guys first and as a group, they did not at all resemble what you'd expect if this were random.
I'll also point out that I demonstrated that players hit differently over the course of their careers with runners on versus the bases empty, and to a statically insane level of certainty. I presented that at a SABR conference; both Rob Neyer and Christina Kahrl mentioned it at ESPN, and Dick Cramer, the guy who originally demonstrated that there wasn't clutch hitting, gave it a thumbs-up. I should update that and publish it, I imagine. And of course that is a component of this.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 24, 2022 15:57:10 GMT -5
To Eric’s point though, if that WAR is better distributed by leverage, they’ll be more valuable even if their situation-neutral numbers are worse. Also, Xander’s defensive WAR is probably overstated IMO. The Red Sox supposedly were very good at positioning him, which would mean he didn’t actually add as much defensive value over whoever else they would have played at short as the raw numbers indicate. War is a system based off replacement players and what their record would be. It's designed to be meaningful, a certain amount of war will get you into a range of a certain amount of wins. It's back tested to make sure it basically does it job, though it's not perfect by any means. Fangraphs notes that any elite relievers over 1.7 war usually results in their teams having an extra win on average for example. My point is you can't just go changing part of if because you feel that's better. You'd have to adjust every player, then back test it and see if it works or destroys everything. Without doing that, it literally means nothing. Eric knows this better than most people, yet we get this stuff all the time. He knows what he needs to do to test that theory. You can't just adjust war and act like it’s meaningful, without the crazy amount of data needed to back it up. I've seen enough raw data to be fairly certain that the Situational Hitting adjustment -- which, keep in mind, actually does measure actual player value, while unadjusted WAR does not -- can be predictive.
I've run the yearly numbers on 26 guys. Seven of those have 8 or more seasons of data. If this were random, you'd expect the majority of players to have roughly as many seasons where they had a positive differential as a negative, right?
What we have is this (I'm including 2020 if it's part of a streak, or huge)
Eric Hosmer 11 - 1 (the exception being his walk year)
Elvis Anrdus 9 -3 Juan Segura 5-4 Xander Bogaerts 4-5 Jose Abreu 1 - 6 (and a season of exactly 0.0) Carlos Correa 2-6, with a current 6 year negative streak J.D. Martinez 0-8 (starting after the Astros released him)
That's nothing like the expectation.
It's very tough to show this is real, in part because this is a stat that centers at zero, which means that outlier seasons muck up year-to-year correlations. But I've come up with 2 approaches that should work around this.
More thoughts on this in the Clutch thread I started, at some point soon.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 22, 2022 17:30:47 GMT -5
I'm bullish on everyone. Everyone.
And in other news, the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
Seriously ... no one has mentioned Trevor Story? I'm calling a return to his pre-2021 form and maybe even his health. sWAR is fWAR adjusted for situational hitting.
PA sWAR Per600 2016 415 3.1 4.5 2017 555 2.5 2.7 2018 656 4.9 4.5 2019 656 5.5 5.1 2020 259 2.0 4.7 2021 595 3.3 3.3 2022 396 2.1 3.2 There's 2 to 3 extra wins of team improvement.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 22, 2022 4:02:40 GMT -5
I've spent way too much time looking at "clutch" numbers today ... A widespread mistake is to equate results with talent. Here is the 2022 Red Sox rank in team offense, wOBA, in various situations. 9th -- Overall innings 1 through 6 4th -- Innings 1 through 6, tying run on deck, at the plate, or on base (three different splits, same rank) 11th -- Innings 1 through 6, go-ahead run at the plate, or on base (2 splits, same rank) 11th -- Overall innings 7 + 16th -- Innings 7+, tying run on deck or at the plate, go-ahead run at the plate
19th -- Innings 7+, tying run on base 28th -- Innings 7+, go-ahead run on base. And they ranked 30th in xwOBA. Seriously. The same guys who put up a .355 wOBA (.335 expected) in 276 PA with the tying run on deck or better, in innings 1 through 6 (instead of the MLB average .309) managed just a .270 wOBA (.250 expected) in 170 PA with the go-ahead run on base in innings 7 and beyond (instead of the MLB average .313). This is a team psychology thing. You fail, and almost everyone starts pressing. You succeed, and everyone relaxes. But obviously it helps to have guys who innately hit better than expected against the pitchers you see in these situations. More on this whole topic at some later point ... But I want to end by posting JDM's Batting Wins Above Average per 600 PA each year since 2014, with his situational hitting adjustment next to it. 3.9 -1.0 2.7 -1.5 3.2 -1.5 5.0 -1.4 5.2 -0.2 2.9 -2.4 -1.8 -0.2 2.0 -0.4 1.4 -1.7
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 21, 2022 14:09:19 GMT -5
My point basically is -- Red Sox seem to be at about 39-40 WAR right now, Yankees and Jays 50+, Yanks well higher than that.
Huge gap to fill via trades.
On the position player side they let JDM and Xander walk, and added Yoshida and Turner. That is probably a wash at best.
JDM was below replacement level last year when you factor in his usual awful situational hitting (2028 a glorious exception, when he was just a tad below average). He and Xander combined for 4.1 WAR. (All figures here include situational hitting). Turner's good for 2.0 minimum and could be quite a bit better than that, so the bar for Yoshida is really low to make this a gain.
You also omit that we'll be replacing the JBJ / Pham combo in the OF corner with the new SS. Those guys had 525 PA and were -1.7 WAR even with JBJ's defense! Simple Marcel projection for Andrus is 2.9, and I think that's really doable So there's a potential almost 5 win upgrade .
And I haven't done Casas for Dalbec / Franchy. Or Story for Story and Kiké for Kiké. I'll do those later.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 21, 2022 7:17:55 GMT -5
What's the interest in Conforto at this point? We already have Turner at DH and Verdugo/Yoshida for two corner OF spots. Is this assuming we'd trade Verdugo? And ... Conforto's not better than Verdugo, except in garbage time. Given that, I'll take the young guy you're hoping to light a fire under over the guy who's just signed a big contract ... and that's ignoring the extra money you'd be spending.
They need to sign Andrus and (probably) Kluber, trade for a backup CF who bats lefty, and hopefully trade Houck for Wodruff in a fair deal. If Milwaukee asks for too much, I'm comfortable with hoping that one of Bello, Whitlock, or maybe even Houck can become a #2 starter (Whitlock adding a cutter and Bello adding his Rich Hill curve and then a cutter). Paxton in his prime was a guy you'd love to have as a game 3 starter, acceptable at #2 ... they can stand pat and have a decent shot at having a playoff-caliber rotation. I wouldn't mortgage the future to try to make that certain for this year; the offense should be much better.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 21, 2022 6:44:07 GMT -5
Thanks for the praise. I do this for myself (out of curiosity and often against my will ), so sharing is a natural next step. That would be very interesting. And they might bring CV back! I've got a scrumptious spreadsheet that can spit out a player's year-by-year numbers in something like 30 seconds ... putting them here is much more timr-consuming. My hagiography: Manny always seemed to get a hit with a man on second when they needed it. Was he good in the clutch or just average? P.S. I always believed Manny could fall out of bed from a dead sleep, stand up, grab a piece of barbed wire and get a hit off any pitcher in baseball, so I may be a bit biased. Just saw this. It's a bit of work to create the background data for a given MLB season, so extending my spreadsheet to cover Manny's career would be a lot of work.
Manny's career OPS+ by leverage, where 100 is himself overall, 105, 103, 93. He was 83 Late and Close, so he didn't have the tough-relievers-no-problem thing going, but he was 90 with the bases empty, 106 with a man in 1st, and 112 with RISP.
.297 / .385 / .562 career bases empty .327 / .454 / .594 career RISP
That certainly backs up your memory.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 21, 2022 6:21:09 GMT -5
Exactly. The Sox and Dodgers traded DHs and in doing so they knocked about $10M off the cost of that position: the Sox by not offering a QO, the Dodgers with the $2M buyout. Others have mentioned this as the motivation for this "crypto-swap". There's also this. Here's raw Batting Wins Above Average, last four years.
JDM / JT
3.1 / 2.2 -0.7 / 0.8 2.1 / 2.0 1.4 / 1.5
Keep in mind that JT's numbers would be a bit less if he had been a DH.
Swapping Turner for JDM seems very sound if you just need a DH.
Now, the same numbers including situational hitting.
0.5 / 0.5
-0.8 / 1.9
1.7 / 2.6
-0.4 / 2.1
The Dodgers do not seem to be looking much at situational hitting adjustments or (largely the same thing) splits by opponent quality. I'm guessing the Sox are doing the latter, as they would have motivation to do so playing in one of the toughest divisions in MLB history.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 20, 2022 23:04:47 GMT -5
I think every number with Turner has to be taken with a grain of salt at this point. He's 38 and will DH 90-95% of the time and had a .788 OPS with 13 HR last year. Not only that, but he hasn't exactly been a beacon of health either. 2022 - 128 GP 2021 - 151 GP 2019 - 135 GP 2018 - 103 GP 2017 - 130 GP I think he's potentially an upgrade from JDM, but not by much. Using a simple Marcel projection (no age adjustment), Turner projects to 2.9 Batting Wins Above Average (with situation adjustment) and JDM projects to be 0.3. Turner will lose a bit off his number by DH'ing.
And this is including his entire 2022. Apparently, his offseason routine was hampered more than most by the lockout and shortened ST. On May 9 he had a 33 wRC+ (.168 / .226 / .242) in 106 PA, with a -.63 Win Probability Added.
Thereafter he had 425 PA and hit .306 / .379 / .488 for a 146 wRC+ and 2.54 WPA.
And it wasn't a case of staying hot the whole time, a feat that's hard to repeat. He had a 14-game, 59 PA stretch in June where he had a .450 OPS, a terrible 8 days in August (30 PA, .387 OPS), and an even worse end to the season (34 PA, .362), which continued into the Padres series. But because he does hit good pitching unusually well, he has a career .830 OPS in an insane 368 career post-season PA. The Dodgers made the playoffs every year he was with them and he was nearly as good in post- as he was in regular-season (.835, .863).
I've had great success projecting guys by tossing out chunks of PT that seemed as if they should not be predictive. Even without doing that for Turner (because it's too much work to measure the before and after situational hitting), he projects to be a very big upgrade to JDM.
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