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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 20, 2022 1:12:13 GMT -5
Didn't we just acquire an interesting guy? Oh ... am I actually in his thread? Yes! That saves me a couple of keystrokes. The more I look at the Situational Hitting Value Differential numbers, the more I'm convinced that they are largely driven by: A) The ability to hit the excellent pitchers you see in Late and Close situations B) The degree to which you feast on the marginal pitchers you see with one team up 5 or more runs. These are small samples. Turner has averaged 66 PA Late and Close and 58 in Blowouts per year (excluding 2020). If the results jumped about from year to year, we'd have nothing. But they don't.
Here are Turner's sOPS (OPS relative to league) Late and Close since the Dodgers turned him into a star in 2015, and then, directly beneath, his numbers in all other non-blowout situations (yes, I had to calculate that with algebra!)
061, 108, 208, 148, 147, 179, 132, 182 158, 122, 149, 136, 122, 148, 134, 110 His blowout numbers are noisier, but only because he had just 62 PA combined in 2017-18 (36 then 26). You can still see a marked change in performance over the last 3 seasons, though.
Here's his career with the Dodgers: JT L&C Oth Blwt PA L, B 2015-16 77 137 143 121, 118 2017-19 172 135 184 186, 131 2020-22 158 127 92 177, 176 In mid-career he was 27% better Late and Close than you'd expect given how well he hit in ordinary situations and the pitchers he was facing. In the last three years that's faded all the way to a 24% gain.
In his first two years when was worse than expected Late and Close, he was marginally better in garbage time than expected -- not meaningfully so. In his prime he was a garbage time monster, and when he hit 35, it looks like he asked himself whether all that effort was worth it.
I couldn't help looking at Xander and JDM.
X actually had really good Score Splits (to coin a term) in 2020 and was absolutely neutral in 2021-2 (140, 135, 142). But his performance in his highest leverage situations the last two years was bad beyond belief. In 2021, in his most important 25 PA (excluding IBB) he was 1/20, 3 BB, 2 SF. Last year he made 13 outs in his 13 most important PA -- a single and a GDP.
I'll have more to say about Xander later, maybe.
JDM was just awful in 2020, so I added up 2019, 2021, and 2022:
99 / 135 / 172. 265 PA Late and Close, and 284 in Garbage Time.
Compare 'em:
L&C oth GT
099 135 172 Then
158 127 092 Now
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 19, 2022 16:57:33 GMT -5
I liked Turmer from the beginning, and then quickly decided he wasn't a roster fit.
Some comparisons of Situation-adjusted Batting Wins Above Average. The first figure is Turner.
1.9 to -0.5 (2022) 4.5 to 2.7 (2021-2022) 6.6 to 3.6 (2020 to 2022)
You're probably wondering whether the second figure is Xander or JDM, right?
It's both of them combined.
I like this lineup a lot:
Yoshida Story Devers Turner Casas Hernandez Verdugo catcher Andrus
Yoshida, Casas, and Turner are a huge upgrade over JBJ, Dalbec, and JDM. Kiké and Story are hopefully and credibly a big upgrade over Kiké and Story. The downgrade from Xander to Andrus is smaller than you think ... they were identical last year when you include Sit-Hit.
----
Dalbec would't play an inning now, so they need a LHB outfielder who can play CF if they want to be able to use Kile in the infield. That could be Duran, but with Yoshida in LF and Verdugo in RF they need a defensive stud, not a stiff. And of course a stud could replace Yoshida in the 9th with a lead, with Verdugo moving to LF.
D-Backs have been widely expected to trade either Alek Thomas or Jake McCarthy, so that's doable.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 15, 2022 6:39:04 GMT -5
Alex Speier @alexspeier As recently as this afternoon, my understanding was that the Sox were never meaningfully involved on Correa. Sleep well! Red Sox organization has become incredibly sad. Carlos Correa's ACTUAL WAR, when you factor in his consistently terrible situational hitting. The second number is per 600 PA (which he's reached once since 2016): 2018, 2.8 / 3.6 2019, 3.2 / 6.0 2020, 1.4 / 1.4 (raw figure prorated to 162 games) 2021, 5.2 / 4.9 (walk year) 2022, 3.1 / 3.1
I did a simple Marcel projection (last 3 years weighted 5-4-3, and by PA) for a bunch of guys. Predicted WAR, and same per 600 PA.
Name prWAR pr/600 Turner 6.3 5.8 Swanson 5.2 5.2 Bogaerts 4.0 4.1 Correa 3.7 3.7 Andrus 2.9 3.1 Segura 2.2 2.8 Haniger 2.7 3.1 Abreu 2.8 2.9 Contreras 1.8 2.3
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 15, 2022 6:01:39 GMT -5
It's not Heyman so it might really be the O's that get him. I’m surprised Wacha’s market isn’t hotter. Guy was good last year and will probably come at a reasonable price. Last year he allowed a .281 / .264 (expected, actual) wOBA in 312 PA with the shift on, and a .405 / .360 in 202 PA without it.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 15, 2022 5:48:20 GMT -5
I like Kluber over Wacha on the suspicion (based on a look at data more than actual analysis) that Wacha was a shift wizard.
Re a Houck trade, there's no one on a bad team that works. But there are two obvious targets: Brandon Woodruff and Shane Bieber. Two franchises that are in the bottom 10 in the mix of market size, revenue, payroll, and franchise value, and two pitchers with 2 years of control left.
Baseball Trade Values has Woodruff at 50.5 and Houck at 18.5, despite the fact that Steamer has Woodruff's projected RA-9 WAR as 2.5 times that of Woodruff, while Houck has exactly 2.5 times as much control left. And they have Houck splitting his time (just 15 starts) and throwing 115 innings instead of Woodruff's 182. Houck projects to have more remaining value.
Granted, the bigger the error bars on a player you're trading, the less you get for them.
And granted, value is not linear; if you have one open spot in the rotation you don't trade a 4 WAR guy for two 2 WAR guys unless you're so thin at depth that you expect that injuries will force 30 starts at replacement level.
But I don't buy that you'd need to trade 3 guys exactly as good as Tanner Houck, each with 5 years of control left, and Alex Binelas, to get 2 years of Shane Bieber, which is how Trade Value has it. They have Woodruff for Houck, Rafaela, Bleis, and Murphy as fair. For two years, plus control over free agency? Really? If one of those guys turns out to be 3 WAR player. the Brewers win big. Keep in mind that Houck's pitch movement analytics are extraordinary, and his floor would seen to be solid closer.
True story: I was at my first-ever SABR conference, in Boston, when the Indians traded 1.5 years of Bartolo Colon for Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips. Some Indian fans were beside themselves with anger. I told them "You're going to love this trade, those guys are great prospects." [1]
Note that the Brewers 3 best pitchers (Burns and Freddy Peralta being the others) all have 2 years of control left, so trading the middle guy for someone with 5 makes some sense for them.
I'd much prefer that the Sox believe that Rodon will ultimately be worth what they need to pay him, and keep Houck in a swing-man role. But I'd endorse a Houck for Woodruff or Bieber deal that seemed fair.
[1] This was also the conference where (future Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Research Journal editor) Cecilia Tan and I ran into one another and said "What the hell are you doing here?" I had known her for a decade, ever since she had shown up at the science fiction convention I was Program Chair of, with a self-published, first-of-its-kind chapbook of sci-fi BDSM erotica titled "Telepaths Don't Need Safe Words." She was afraid she had printed too many of them ... and sold it out in a couple of hours. She's had a nice career writing and publishing that stuff, in addition to being SABR's Publications Director.
For a while Cecilia, myself, and Rick Wilber (son of Del, and a very accomplished writer; the title story of his collection "Where Garagiola Waits" belongs in the baseball / fantasy fiction HOF) were the standard 3 of 4 panelists on a "Baseball and Science Fiction" panel at the World Science Fiction Convention, the fourth being someone local. There's a surprising degree of overlap between the two fandoms; Kim Stanley Robinson has goes by "Stan" since his youth in good part because of Musial.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 14, 2022 18:29:20 GMT -5
The two lower-level guys now left are Wacha and Kluber, a guy who pitched for us last year and a guy who lives in Winchester MA. Is that a coincidence?
Meanwhile, the only ways to acquire the extra starter that Bloom described in considerable detail are to a) shell out for Rodon or b) trade Houck's 5 years of control to a rebuilding team that has a #2 starter in arbitration. In the latter case, they then sign Kluber or Wacha for depth.
Having done something more important for several days, I'm going to now look for guys who fit plan B.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 10, 2022 5:59:28 GMT -5
Thanks to Bloom's stating the number of additions, things are in pretty clear focus, and are quite interesting.
Three or four position players. One is a DH, which they already signed. They still need a SS and a RF.
Note that if you think they were ever even considering using Hosmer as a DH rather than 10th player, or that they are still considering Yoshida in LF and Verdugo in RF (which gives them 6 lefty hitters unless they re-sign CV), you cannot make any sense of 3 or 4 position players added. It would be 2 to 4.
As I just suggested, the 4th possible addition is a catcher who hits righty. That allows Wong extra time to refine his game, and it gives you a 3rd catcher on the 40-man. Could that be a backup catcher, rather than a starter? In theory, yes, but we're going to see that it might not make sense.
Seven to nine guys overall. That means 4 or 5 pitchers, and that has to include the two guys he had signed already when he outlined the plans. So it's actually 2 or 3 more pitchers, and Jansen's one, so it's 1 or 2 left. And one of them is of course a starting pitcher, a strong #3 or better (the better, the better).
So who's the optional pitcher? It has to be a second LHR, right? And that makes perfect sense, because if Josh Taylor is healthy, he's that guy, and if he isn't, you have to get someone. If he's not healthy, he fairly likely clears waivers, so I think you can count either him or his replacement for a 40 (and 26) man slot. So there's no need to clear an extra spot for the extra pitcher -- unlike the possible extra catcher.
So, they have to make room for Jansen, Yoshida, SS, RF, SP, and maybe a C. 5 or 6 trims.
Park is an obvious DFA and hope he clears waivers guy.
Are folks aware that Darwinzon fanned 5 and walked nobody in back-to-back 1-inning stints 7/29 and 8/2, and then fanned 1 and walked 6 in 2 outings and 2 innings immediately after his recall? Here's a guy who badly needs a to go to a team where relatively nobody cares what he does. He still has nasty stuff, and I have him as fetching a lottery ticket in a trade, or being added to a package for Laureano.
They hyped Brasier continually before acquiring so many relievers that there is now no roster room left for him. They should able to to trade him for a lottery ticket to a bad team that hopes he'll be good enough to move to a contender at the deadline.
Once they add their starter, Connor Seabold and Josh Winckiwski are 9th and 10th on the SP depth chart (Crawford is 8th, and the guy they can option to the minors if they ever get all 13 guys ahead of him healthy simultaneously). They both have some small trade value, and it's easy to move one of them, perhaps in a trade for a RF.
Might the pressure of being in the Mookie trade have affected Downs? That's not crazy, so some team might see him as a scenery-change guy. Trading him would also open up more PT for Rafaela at SS, and it would be malpractice to not have him play there a lot this year. He might be your starting SS by August 1, and he could conceivably stay here until Meyer is ready. He's not going to forget how to play CF.
So that's 5 easy trims.
The 6th is tougher, because you have Dalbec and Duran as change-of-scenery candidates, but they are also MLB depth. I'd be reluctant to trade either one for that reason; they constitute the likeliest candidates to be recalled when a position player is on the IL. It'll be a few months before Rafaela, Valdez, Abreu, or Hamiltion become viable options for that role, so if you trade one and have 2 injuries you're suddenly looking at selecting Narcisco Crook. So maybe it makes more sense to deal Valdez or Abreu. Or trade Ort for a comparable relief prospect who's not yet 40-man eligible
Given the absence of a 6th guy who is excess talent (unless they're lower on Ort than you'd expect), I think it follows that they don't add a catcher unless he's a starter, and the only one that makes sense to me is CV returning on a team-friendly deal with a promise of a position on the team after he retires. He can take Varitek's role when 'Tek becomes manager.
Who is supposedly interested in CV? Twins, Giants, Diamondbacks, Guardians, maybe the Cubs. Guardians would be attractive but they are also reportedly going after Murphy. If that happens, the Sox might be the most appealing destination. Bringing CV back would help offset the loss of Xander from the clubhouse ... I'd trade Valdez (or maybe Ort) to make room.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 10, 2022 4:41:02 GMT -5
I'm sorry, but this thread has become an object lesson in how not to use rational thought.
In one day the Sox (by consensus) OVERPAY for Kenley Jansen and even more so OVERPAY for Masataka Yoshida; and Bloom is smiling over the prospects of re-signing Xander, which means upping their $160M offer to the $200M range.
Then Preller offers Xander 280M$, an offer so inflated that it borders on mental illness. I did a simple Marcel projection (last 3 years weighted 5-4-3 and by PA), and if Turner is worth $300M, Xander is worth $198M. That's very close to the $204M you get if you use the pundit estimates, adjusted for Turner's extra cash.
Xander jumps on 75 or 80 extra million dollars before Preller can realize how crazy it is.
And Preller's actions somehow indicate that the Sox Ownership or F.O. are really not committed to spending or winning?
BTW, Pete Abraham's narrative is pure bullshit. The Sox were unaware that Xander would take $200M to sign? As soon as Turmer signed for more than expected, that was obvious, as I stated right here.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2022 23:18:09 GMT -5
It was his choice, so it was not robbery. Well, the problem is they are in the exact same situation with Devers right now. And I don't think Devers will accept a deal that is $100 million under what his market value is the way Xander did. The flaw in most of these discussions: the thought that that the market value was correct. I just did my best to estimate the true average annual past WAR for each of the four shortstops. I used the last 3 years for Xander, after his situational hitting cratered, and all but the first two for Correa, ditto. Turner is his whole career and Swansby is his whole career but the PT adjustment starts when he became a good hitter. Rate per 600 PA follows in ().
6.1 Turner (5.4)
4.7 Swanson (4.4)
4.1 Bogaerts (4.0)
3.6 Correa (4.1) To put the Xander numbers in perspective ... here's a comparison to Rafyy. Year by year, true WAR, what actually happened on the field, not what overall numbers equate to. 2020 is prorated to 162 games and of course is more randomized. And of course Raffy is entering his prime and Xander is past his.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2022 7:44:46 GMT -5
1) Lots of criticism about his defense, apparently under the assumption that he was signed to play LF. I'm actually excited that he was primarily a DH last year, because that's hard. Almost everyone hits worse as a DH. And any doubt I had that they're still looking for a RHB to play RF and sometimes CF is eliminated.
2) I suspect that the Sox pay attention to situational hitting (although perhaps not to the degree I do!). Most guys with low K rates fare better against elite pitchers, and the initial reports mentioned his great high-leverage numbers.
All it takes is two teams that get the value of situational hitting, guys with low K rates, and guys who thrive while DH'ing, and you get the $ figure that it took to land him. The folks Kiley talked to who had him valued at much less are almost certainly missing those strengths.
Kiké (pray for 2021 simulation Yoishida Story Devers Laureano Casas Andrus catcher Verdugo (second leadoff)
That's a potent offense, if things break decently.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2022 7:25:11 GMT -5
I very much wanted us to re-sign Xander, because I thought his value to the fanbase and in the clubhouse would justify his contract. I believe I alluded to this more than once. Here's the thing, though: if I were a fan of another team I would not have had Xander Bogaerts on my FA target list.
People have cited his drop in power this year as a concern. But what bothers me most is this: +1.12 +0.56 -0.12 +1.48 +0.65 -1.20 -0.70 -1.19
These are his Situational Hitting (Sit-Hit) wins per 600 PA from 2015 to 2022. The odds of the split (indicated by the blank line) being random are 1 in 562. This is a difference of 1.83 wins per season (pro-rating 2020). That's s decline in value of $14.7M annually -- more now that $ / Wins have spiked this off-season.
Situational hitting appears to have a psychological component, but I think that it mostly derives from the ability to hit good pitching. It's tough to measure this with leverage splits because there can be lots of high leverage situations against starters, who run the gamut of possible quality. It's hard to measure it by performance in the late innings, because often the elite relievers are not pitching. But comparing Win Probability Added to (neutral-situation) Batting Wins Above Average captures it really well, if it exists.
It makes some intuitive sense to me that the ability to hit elite pitching would go first, and be followed a couple of years later by a decline in hurting average pitchers. I've run the year-by-year Sit-Hit numbers on 20 guys now and only Xander has had this sort of marked, real decline.
And was anyone looking forward to the "what do we do with Xander and Meyer?" dilemma?
Xander leaving, in isolation, is not good. Xander leaving because someone game him a contract that may well rank among the worst ever doesn't suck, and may even be the best-case scenario. I think we dodged a bullet here, if you understand that the bullet was aimed to give you just a painful flesh wound.
I dont expect X to give the Padres the value they paid for him, but then again in 11 years the average salary might be 35 million. With the way things are going who the heck knows? That said that doesnt mean the Sox FO should be off the hook. When Fred Lynn left he wasn't the same player so you can say see the Sox dodged a bullet because he wasn't the same player without Fenway but had he stayed Lynn would have continued to excel at Fenway and they wouldnt have been stuck with Rick Miller, Reid Nichols, and eventually Tony Armas, inferior players. With X I dont think hell be terrible with San Diego but he wont be what he was if he stayed. And meanwhile the Sox are stuck with yet another on the field downgrade whether they get Elvis (as pointed out he had 4 mediocre years prior to being decent last year) or whoever. Short of Correa they're looking at a downgrade and as constituted presently lack a truly good RH bat. Yes it might have been sticky with what to do with X when Mayer arrives, but I think X at 3b and Devers if they keep him, as a DH probably made sense. But we'll never know. All I do know is they'll be a lot weaker overall at SS in 2023 and 2024 with his loss This may strain credulity, but it's true ... before his PED suspension Ramon Laureano had 1257 career PA with a 6.0 WAR / 600 PA, when you include situational hitting. If they can get him, that would be a bit of an upgrade over JBJ, eh?
(He was 1.0 in 383 PA last year coming off the suspension, which is the reason why he's likely available. He projects to be much better with a change of scenery, so it's in the A's interest to move him.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2022 7:01:20 GMT -5
When you include his consistently poor situational hitting (knocking 22% off his official WAR) he projects be be a 4 WAR player next year.
As a point of comparison, Alex Verdugo, using the same adjustment, is coming off seasons of 3.9 and 3.5 WAR. And he was visibly out of shape last year! And he's a year (actually 20 months) younger.
Correa got $35 M last year, and if you look at situational-neutral WAR, that was exactly what he was worth. But he was -1.3 WAR adjusted for situation, and his actual worth was $25M. At last year's prices he's average $9M a year of invisible negative value.
No team that has a serious SS prospect in the pipeline should be interested in him at the price he'll get. That's an understatement.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2022 4:39:37 GMT -5
I very much wanted us to re-sign Xander, because I thought his value to the fanbase and in the clubhouse would justify his contract. I believe I alluded to this more than once.
Here's the thing, though: if I were a fan of another team I would not have had Xander Bogaerts on my FA target list.
People have cited his drop in power this year as a concern. But what bothers me most is this:
+1.12 +0.56 -0.12 +1.48 +0.65
-1.20 -0.70 -1.19
These are his Situational Hitting (Sit-Hit) wins per 600 PA from 2015 to 2022.
The odds of the split (indicated by the blank line) being random are 1 in 562.
This is a difference of 1.83 wins per season (pro-rating 2020). That's s decline in value of $14.7M annually -- more now that $ / Wins have spiked this off-season.
Situational hitting appears to have a psychological component, but I think that it mostly derives from the ability to hit good pitching. It's tough to measure this with leverage splits because there can be lots of high leverage situations against starters, who run the gamut of possible quality. It's hard to measure it by performance in the late innings, because often the elite relievers are not pitching. But comparing Win Probability Added to (neutral-situation) Batting Wins Above Average captures it really well, if it exists.
It makes some intuitive sense to me that the ability to hit elite pitching would go first, and be followed a couple of years later by a decline in hurting average pitchers.
I've run the year-by-year Sit-Hit numbers on 20 guys now and only Xander has had this sort of marked, real decline.
And was anyone looking forward to the "what do we do with Xander and Meyer?" dilemma?
Xander leaving, in isolation, is not good. Xander leaving because someone game him a contract that may well rank among the worst ever doesn't suck, and may even be the best-case scenario. I think we dodged a bullet here, if you understand that the bullet was aimed to give you just a painful flesh wound.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2022 3:41:41 GMT -5
Andrus had 3.5 WAR last season. And 4.4 fWAR in the four seasons before that. Combined. Which I [expletive redacted] mentioned upfront. Except I used non-misleading numbers (there was a 60 game season in there) ...
You might ask yourself, is there a former elite SS -- consecutive seasons of 5.9 and 6.1 WAR, when you include tremendous situational hitting (and I can recall him hurting us when it mattered), who then signed a big contact and averaged 1.6 WAR / 600 PA over the next four seasons?
... and I then cited numbers that seemed to demonstrate that he had changed his hitting approach fairly dramatically with the ChiSox.
So I would have to say that this post had negative informational value. Not that I think that this was your intent [1], but I come to this board in part to take refuge from people actively working to make other people stupider.
[1] Hanlon's Razor, "never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." In this case, by knee-jerk negativity it would seem.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 12:48:29 GMT -5
Meh, wouldn't say Andrus is terrible now. He did fWAR 3.5 last season and 1.6 the year before. That being said looking at the possible options out there, he's pretty low on my list for the MI. Put it this way, if come January-February we're sitting here and Andrus is about the only veteran SS option available then I wouldn't get upset if they signed him then but yea hopefully every other avenue is explored before we possibly sign him. Yeah, I deleted my post because terrible isnt the right word and I didn't want to get into a debate about the level of Elvis Andrus' mediocrity. It's a huge step down, so I have no appetite for debating (dont mean you, ematz) how big a step down. Maybe I was being too subtle ... the White Sox traded for him because they thought they had a fix for him. I'll look into this in detail, but it seems like they had him be much more aggressive, and was a completely different hitter.
I also think that playing for a contender mattered, because all +3 of his Runs Above Average were in his 1/3 of a season with the Wrong Sox.
The result ... he was the best SS in baseball those two months, I'm pretty sure. But he could be half as good as that and just as good as 2022 Xander, when you factor in great "clutch" hitting versus fairly dismal (4.7 WAR / 600 versus Xander's 4.6.)
The league will probably catch up to his new approach but even if he's one-third as good, that's still 3.1 WAR and that's not mediocre.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 12:38:19 GMT -5
Thought Rafaela was supposed to be the 2024 CF. And no thank you to Andrus. He terrible now. Andrus had 3.5 WAR last season. Technically, yes. But he had a full extra win of value because he hit better when it counted the most, and he's been doing that his entire career.
Starting in 2011 (when my spreadsheet begins, but the first two years of situational hitting, more often that no, do not match with the rest of career) he has 29.6 fWAR .... and 12.2 wins of Sit-Hit (Situational Hitting). That's an extra 41% of value.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 12:09:04 GMT -5
Rafeala by all reports is a solid defensive SS. His ETA is late this year, and he can bridge the gap until Meyer is ready and then go to CF.
Can you say "stopgap"? Sure you can.
You might ask yourself, is there a former elite SS -- consecutive seasons of 5.9 and 6.1 WAR, when you include tremendous situational hitting (and I can recall him hurting us when it mattered), who then signed a big contact and averaged 1.6 WAR / 600 PA over the next four seasons?
And then this year got traded from one of the worst teams in MLB to a contender, put up the lowest BB rate of his career and the best Iso, and then ended up with an overall 4.4 WAR including .95 Situational?
And is a free agent that no one is talking about?
And has definitely not left the building?
Sign Elvis Andrus to a 1 year deal with a team option and move on. Story get to stay at 2B where he's a whiz.
Edit: Andrus was already having a 2.4 WAR / 600 season with the A's, his best in 5 years, when he got dealt. With the ChiSox he had 2.0 WAR and another 1.0 situational, for a 9.4 WAR / 600. You can take a lot of air out of that and get a solid guy to play plus defense and bat 7th .
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 5:01:49 GMT -5
Correa Situational Wins starting in 2015 0.34 1.69 -1.00 -0.63 -0.57 -0.67 -1.00 -1.32
Over the last 6 seasons he's lost 22% of his value, by averaging -1.15 wins per 600 PA. Swansby had great Situational numbers when he was a bad hitter. 0.10 (107 wRC+; 145 PA) 2.63 (63) 2.65 (79) -0.34 1.53 -0.19 0.55
Since then he's been 0.43 wins per 600 PA.
Now here's a side-by-side actual WAR + Situational comparison Co Sw 5.6 1.1 4.0 2.4 2.8 4.1 3.2 1.7 0.5 3.8 5.2 3.2 3.1 7.0 This may be the most helpful. Each line is their career Win+ per 600 PA if you start with that year.
Co Sw 2016 4.3 4.1 2017 4.1 4.1 2018 4.0 4.4 2019 4.1 4.4 2020 3.6 5.2 2021 4.0 4.5 2022 3.1 6.0
Thanks to his amazing defensive year, you have to go back to 2017 before the two are equal.
What would we get if we ran this a year ago? 2016 4.6 3.6 2017 4.1 3.6 2018 4.0 3.8 2019 4.1 3.6 2020 3.6 4.6 2021 4.0 3.0 1) Over the four years before this one, there was almost no difference in situation-adjusted WAR per 600 PA. Correa has a 0.2 edge.
2) However, Swanson played 22% more: 4169 innings at SS while Correa played 3411.
3) Swanson's coming off a 7.0 adjusted WAR season and Corea a 3.1. A full win of Swanson's edge comes from extra playing time.
4) Punditry projects that Correa's deal will be for $310M while Swanson gets $165M.
Who would you sign?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 1:06:41 GMT -5
Red Sox screwed around with him now he's gone. Last year didn't they offer 1 year for 30 million on his contract he had. Let's hope they don't do this to Devers but starting to look that way. I'm going to assume you're naive about this, but Scott Boras is his agent and his clients always go to free agency to maximize their dollars. That's why they choose him for an agent.
If a Boras client gets an offer that literally everyone believes is an overpay (by about 40%!), from a team that is really good to play for, there's nothing you can do. At any point in time.
Devers does not have Boras as an agent.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 0:59:17 GMT -5
Bogaert's Situational Wins per 600 PA:
- 1.75 (cup of coffee) - 0.87
+1.12 +0.56 - 0.12 + 1.48 + 0.65
- 1.20 - 0.70 - 1.19
You've seen this. From 2015 to 2019 he was THE guy you wanted up with the game on the line.
The last 3 seasons he's struggled when it counted. You can see that he fared better the year we contended, so there may well be a psychological factor in 2020 (no crowds) and 2022. But it's really hard to explain 2021 (and the baseline it maybe sets) without wondering whether he started struggling (relatively) against the tough pitchers at the end of close games. That might well start a couple of years before what we saw last year, with the decline in xwOBA, which he compensated for by a real ability to get cheap hits.
Remember that I got a figure of $205 based on Turner. One pundit (Clemens, IIRC) had him at $215.
Meanwhile, I have no idea where they're even going to play him. Well, LF after four years, where he'll be league average.
I wanted Xander back as much for what he meant for the team as for his talent. No teammate is going to think they were let down by the F.O. in not keeping him in a Sox uni, so no harm done there. And I hope the fans and sportswriters will get it as well.
It's a lovely city, a beautiful park, the fans are great, and the team is dedicated to winning. I think it took all that AND the crazy amount of cash to land him. I can see Xander taking the extra $75M he just fell into and starting a charitable foundation with it. Impossible to turn that down.
Meanwhile, do they have enough offense to go after Swanson, or do they do the obvious and sign Correa? (And it has occured to me that the Padres are planning to trade Tatis Jr.). All of their Situational histories coming up.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 8, 2022 0:27:33 GMT -5
He's been a 3.2 fWAR / 600 PA player since his rookie season?
He's been a 4.8 fWAR player when you adjust for situational hitting?
He can play RF in Fenway and CF when Kiké's in the infield or out of the lineup?
A guy who thrives under pressure and phones it in when nothing's at stake, moving from a lousy team with the lowest attendance in recent MLB histpry to a contender with a famously passionate fan base, gee, I wonder of that's a good fit?
How would we know if a guy who doesn’t play in front of anyone thrives under pressure? Adjusting WAR for leverage assumes that sample could be maintained. But it would be nice, too, to be professional in low leverage situations. Pass on the “mail it in.” I’ll take free Refsnyder over this guy. The A's made the playoffs in 2019 and drew 1.67M fans.
Laureano had a 4.1 fWAR and added another 0.6 of Situational.
Next question?
He looked like he was going to be a major star.
In 2020, with no fans anywhere, he had a wRC+ of just 104 (down from 127) but had insane situational stats: 2.4 extra WAR in 60 games, which is 6.5 per 600 PA. His OPS+ splits by leverage: 238 / 105 / 21. Seriously. Really. The A's finished first.
In 2021 the A's drew just 700,000 fans and missed the playoffs, going 87-76. Laureano had a 131 wRC+ on May 27 when he missed 17 games with a hip strain. After that he had a 91 wRC+ until he was suspended for PED use. I've already given the argument that he wasn't cheating.
This last year, serving most of his suspension and then plagued by injuries, was not good. He even had a -.2 wins of Situational. The A's in the interim had dismantled themselves, and went 60-102 and drew 788K fans despite having full ticket sales all year. The park is no gem, either. I can't imagine a more dispiriting set of circumstances, even for a player in ordinary personal circumstances.
it would be nice, too, to be professional in low leverage situations.
Actually, I have less regard for guys who fatten their stats in garbage time. They're playing for their numbers more than for the win.
The only thing the Verdugo / Laureano types are actually harming is their own reputation (q.v. Verdugo). (You're not going to learn anything by working on your game against these pitchers .... well, maybe you could practice bunting, but that would look bush in a blowout.) It's not unprofessional to have trouble motivating yourself in situations that have little or no meaning -- it's just human nature for certain types of human.
For someone with my background*, the psychological / motivational story here is written in capital letters on a neon sign the size of cruise ship. This is one of the all-time "needs a change of scenery" guys and Fenway Park might be the best new scene possible.
*19 psych and neuroscience classes at Harvard as a non-degree grad student, 780 on the Psych GRT ... and with an emphasis on personality psych.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 23:33:36 GMT -5
There is zero chance that Hosmer is the regular DH , Yoshida the regular LF, and Verdugo the regular R, and and they do not add a RF who can play CF. In that lineup, you have six lefty hitters, and in order to free Kiké to play the infield, you either have to keep Duran rusting on the bench or ... or acquire another outfielder to fill that spot. Voila! You've traded away Verdugo to acquire ... someone less good!
So then the question becomes, do you trade Verdugo so Yoshida can take his spot? You now still need the starting RF who can play CF. And you don't have a DH.
In Verdugo you have a guy who is way better than his simple numbers. The average hitter is 20% better than their own average once the game gets out of hand (5 run lead or more by either team) and the fringe guys in the pen get a chance to pitch. In 2021 Verdugo was 47% as good as usual. His high / medium / low leverage numbers (OPS+) were 154 / 132 / 88.
Last year he was 11% as good as usual in garbage time, and had 121 / 120 / 91 leverage splits.
The last two years he had fWARs of 2.0 and 1.2. But that's assuming average situational hitting. He actually had 3.9 and 3.5. And no argument can be made that this isn't sustainable, because the gap between what the standard stats tell you and the real numbers is the result of him sucking when it doesn't much matter.
I swear to whatever deity you root for that I will repost the previous three paragraphs any time someone claims that Verdugo is mediocre, a disappointment, trade bait, or the like. He's a disappointment only in that he hasn't done the work to maximize his talents.
So yeah, Yoshida will spend a lot of time at DH. Plenty of days when he's in left and Hosmer is the DH because any one of six different guys are not in the lineup. Is it at all possible they just think Refsnyder is the first guy you described? No, he's really only a platoon player. But that raises a question: when does be play? Yoshida is replacing JBJ in the lineup, but doesn't need to be platooned.
Looks like he'll play against lefties as follows:
In place of Verdugo against the lefties with bigger platoon splits (maybe 20 starts)
Any time an OF is out
Some of the time when 2B / SS / 3B is out; they'll have a choice between Arroyo, or Kiké in the INF with Refsnyder in the OF.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 23:01:59 GMT -5
Wait⦠why would we want Laureano? He's been a 3.2 fWAR / 600 PA player since his rookie season?
He's been a 4.8 fWAR player when you adjust for situational hitting?
He can play RF in Fenway and CF when Kiké's in the infield or out of the lineup?
A guy who thrives under pressure and phones it in when nothing's at stake, moving from a lousy team with the lowest attendance in recent MLB histpry to a contender with a famously passionate fan base, gee, I wonder of that's a good fit?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 22:30:38 GMT -5
So, is he the DH or is Verdugo gone? There's also the "he's the LF and Verdugo is the RF" option. If the season started today that would be the alignment. I do think this makes Verdugo more expendable though if we wanted to include him in a trade for a better defensive RF. I'd also be very surprised if we paid 5/90 for Yoshida with the intention of him DHing. There is zero chance that Hosmer is the regular DH , Yoshida the regular LF, and Verdugo the regular R, and and they do not add a RF who can play CF. In that lineup, you have six lefty hitters, and in order to free Kiké to play the infield, you either have to keep Duran rusting on the bench or ... or acquire another outfielder to fill that spot. Voila! You've traded away Verdugo to acquire ... someone less good!
So then the question becomes, do you trade Verdugo so Yoshida can take his spot? You now still need the starting RF who can play CF. And you don't have a DH.
In Verdugo you have a guy who is way better than his simple numbers. The average hitter is 20% better than their own average once the game gets out of hand (5 run lead or more by either team) and the fringe guys in the pen get a chance to pitch. In 2021 Verdugo was 47% as good as usual. His high / medium / low leverage numbers (OPS+) were 154 / 132 / 88.
Last year he was 11% as good as usual in garbage time, and had 121 / 120 / 91 leverage splits.
The last two years he had fWARs of 2.0 and 1.2. But that's assuming average situational hitting. He actually had 3.9 and 3.5. And no argument can be made that this isn't sustainable, because the gap between what the standard stats tell you and the real numbers is the result of him sucking when it doesn't much matter.
I swear to whatever deity you root for that I will repost the previous three paragraphs any time someone claims that Verdugo is mediocre, a disappointment, trade bait, or the like. He's a disappointment only in that he hasn't done the work to maximize his talents.
So yeah, Yoshida will spend a lot of time at DH. Plenty of days when he's in left and Hosmer is the DH because any one of six different guys are not in the lineup.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 21:44:38 GMT -5
Best part about today is that it made Pete Abraham look bad, exactly as he deserved. I feel a little sorry for Dan S., as I actually almost sent him an e[mail telling him to chill on his entire Bloom narrative.
Remember, you need 4 outfielders so Kiké can play in the infield whenever it's a good idea. That does require a RF who can play CF and who bats righty. Ramon Laureano should be available and fits that bill perfectly.
So Verdugo's going nowhere. You tell him (back in early October) that he can get his name into All-Star consideration if he works his but off, and if he loses that weight he'll see a lot of action in RF, which he likes better and which he handled well his first year with us.
That Yoshida has no platoon split will be helpful, given that they have 5 lefties unless they re-sign CV, which is an actual possibility ...
Bloom said he's adding 3 or 4 position players, and Bogaerts and Yoshida are two and the new RF is 3. The fourth guy is a RHH starting catcher, right? And it would have to be a good bang-for-bucks deal. I'm guessing they offer CV a somewhat below market deal and remind him "hey, this is where you really want to play ... and we and all your teammates really want you."
More on the lineup later ...
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