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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 19:55:18 GMT -5
Thanks as always for your unique posts and contributions. Always fun stuff to read. Perhaps not as relevant as potential FA signings, but I’d be interested in the numbers for some of the guys we have moved on from in the last few years. Betts, JBJ, Renfroe, Vazquez, Benintendi etc. 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.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 19:26:26 GMT -5
So, "clutch" hitting is supposedly random. Well, you have to measure it correctly before you make that assertion. And they are not. I've fixed that. (Explanation in the next post). Here are JDM's Situational Hitting numbers since he broke out in 2014, in Wins per 600 PA: 2014 -0.97 2015 -1.54 2016 -1.52 2017 -1.39 2018 -0.18 2019 -2.38 2020 -0.24 2021 -0.36 2022 -1.74
That's not random. And his 26.5 total WAR, based on the notion that situational hitting is random, becomes 17.6 when you factor it in. As I ran the numbers for 14 other guys, I noticed that a lot of them got markedly better after 2 seasons (sometimes 3).
Here's everyone's Situational Wins per 600 PA, first two years and after: Name Y1-2 Post Diff SSS? Note Murphy -3.80 -0.71 3.09 Y Verdugo -1.56 1.22 2.78 Y -.65, 2.03 after 3 Haniger -1.85 0.84 2.69 Laureano -0.08 2.03 2.11 McGuire -2.41 -0.43 1.98 Y Conforto -1.16 0.39 1.55 Bogaerts -0.94 0.19 1.13 But .72 up to 2019 Devers 0.13 0.79 0.66 -.20, .84 after 3 Abreu -0.43 -0.21 0.22 Story 0.09 -0.07 -0.16 Hosmer 1.17 0.82 -0.35 Hernandez 1.37 0.49 -0.88 Contrears -0.49 -1.61 -1.12 Happ 0.06 -1.10 -1.16 The small sample guys have big differences, and that immediately suggests that the whole phenomenon involves relaxing into your status as a big-leaguer. You might break down the first and second halves of first and second seasons and find a meaningful improvement in a majority of hitters.
Fun fact: Hosmer's Sit-Hit adjustment almost doubles his career WAR (10.3 70 21.4).
Who else besides Murphy and Laureanoshould I run full numbers on?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 13:16:10 GMT -5
Well obviously I'm with the haters on this one. I think the best lipstick you can put on this pig is the theory some have mentioned that this is a backdoor way of increasing starter depth by letting both Houck and Whitlock start.
The problem is that that still depends on Jansen actually being good. That's like a 50/50 proposition. And if this is the move, I'd rather have done it with Taylor Rogers, among others.
As for the theory that this makes Houck expendable in a trade... well, there goes the starter depth after all, and they're probably back to needing to add another one.
Obviously you don't do this deal unless you think it's more like 80/ 20. Is it credible that they have reasons to believe this, that we don't know? I just cited one that I bet no one else here was thinking about. There could well be others.
Houck in a trade for a #2 starters from a non-contending team who has maybe 2 years of control left makes a lot of sense. (I am not going to see if such a guy exists!) And yes, in that scenario they sign Wacha or someone else from that tier of FA's.
Adding Houck to the rotation and adding one of the top 3 available FA starters also makes sense.
Looking at Jansen's season, he had two awful 7-game stretches in terms of results, from May 18 to May 31, and August 27 to September 11. FG has his WPA in those games as -2.66. In his other 51 appearances he was +3.68. I will probably look into his 2022 in more detail, even though I really shouldn't.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 7, 2022 12:23:13 GMT -5
Who remembers Barry Bonds taking a called third strike right down the middle the first time he faced Okajima?
It's 100% true that (at least some) pitchers are decidedly more effective when hitters are unfamiliar with them.
No one's going to alter his projection, but I think he projects even better than you'd think given the change of leagues. It may well swallow up any apparent overpay.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 5, 2022 18:48:51 GMT -5
Bad news for the "OMG the Red Sox are such a crummy team that no one wants to play there" narrative. Good news for the "OMG the Red Sox are deluded about costs in the free agent market" narrative. Well, they were the high bidder on Eflin, offering a lot more than anyone expected, so the Good news doesn't really fly.
I've pointed out that if they sign a DH who only plays 1B, they obviously, unquestionably have to trade Hosmer. You can't have 3 guys on your team who only play 1B.
You can figure out a price for Abreu where it makes sense to trade Hosmer and replace him with a different bench guy who bats lefty and is an OFer... like Durran, for instance. And that's what you offer him. Why not?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 5, 2022 18:40:54 GMT -5
We can bet a solid handle on how much Xander will get based on the Turner deal. Obviously (which is to say, I originally missed it!) what matters here is total value, since this is the final contract each guy is getting. Pundit Turner Bogaerts Bowden 264 196 Britton 296 175 Clemens 288 217 McDanl 272 168 MLBTR 268 189 Ave 277.6 189.0 Got 300 [204.3?]
You get $204.3 for Xander when you scale up his average projection to match Turner. If you $202.8 without MLBTR.
We know Dombrowski loves to add 2 or 3 extra years to bring down the AAV. Will Bloom do the same? Folks had Turner for 8 years max and Xander for 7.
22.5 x 9 = 202.5 25.5 x 8 = 204 29.0 x 7 = 203
They might be able to sign Senga, Conforto, and Haniger of they did 8 years. 9 years might put Rodon on the board.
----
Reports that the Sox are not engaging with Xander come from who? Boras and nobody else, right?
And if Xander and the Sox are in agreement that he ought to finish his career in Boston, why would the Sox even make an offer, given that Boras is his agent? (See below.) You wait for the market to create a price and then you agree on a figure that's fair. Correa's going to sign next, then some teams might up their offers to Xander a bit ... and at that point, you can do a deal.
With players in X's situation, the present team will often jump in with an attractive deal before the market sets, because the market is often more robust than people are expecting. Then the player looks at what other guys are getting with a bit of remorse. Boras's whole M.O. is to never let that happen. The way you get along with Boras, it would seem, is to respect the way he works.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 4, 2022 4:26:41 GMT -5
I've got a spreadsheet with all the major FA $ estimates and I'm about to add the signings to date to see how the market is running. The one thing we know for certain is that contacts for the bottom chunk of notable free agent pitchers are quite a bit bigger than projected.
I give the average prediction for FG (Ben Clemens), FG crowdsource (averaging mean and median), ESPN (Kiley McDaniel), and MLBTR. When other have chimed in, I give a second number after naming them. Bowden was higher than everyone else, and may have been the only guy who got the scale correct, but as he only projected 14 guys I adjusted him to match his total prediction for those guys with everyone else.
Eflin got 13.3, was projected for 10.75; 11.1 including Britton and Bowden. Clevinger got 12, was projected for 9.4 (with Britton but no ESPN)
Relievers have only MLBTR's projection:
Montero: got 11.5, not 8.0 Martin 8.75, not 7.0
We have one data point for major free agent hitters, and the big four collectively nailed it: Abreu got 19.5 and the projection was 19.4.
It makes sense to me that pitchers are getting more than expected, but not hitters, as we've been reminded that superior pitching is more than 50% of of winning a post-season series. (If the hitters are inflated, too, we are severely limited.)
So, big 4 estimates:
28.5 Bogaerts 14.5 Conforto 11.0 Haniger
I think the projectors did not factor in that Haniger would be the only FA OFer who hit righty. Britton had him at 15.
Let's say we can get Xander for 27 with the home town discount, and Haniger for 13. That's 54.5 for the three position players, and you want to spend 69.5 to leave room for a minor deadline trade or two ... that leaves $15M for a pitcher and that's consistent with adding just Eflin (and leaving a bit more headroom, or paying a bit more than I just projected). Who else might they go after instead?
Projections for the remaining SP. In reality, you'll expect an extra 10% at least ...
37.6 / 38.8 Verlander
26.0 / 27.0 Rodon 16.0 / 17.1 Eovaldi 14.6 / 15.9 Senga 13.7 / 13.9 Taillon 13.3 / 13.4 Walker 12.9 / 13.5 Syndergaard 12.5 / 13.2 Quintana 12.6 / 12.9 Manaea 12.0 / 12.0 Kluber 11.6 / 11.9 Heaney 10.5 / 10.6 Stripling 9.3 / 9.4 Wacha
The only pitching additions in the Eflin price range are Kluber, Heaney, Stirpling and Wacha. I'm not sure that any of thpse guys even makes the rotation.
However, if they trade for Laureano (e.g.) rather than sign Haniger, that adds 9.4M to spend on pitching, and that probably accommodates everyone on that list from Senga on down. One of those guys has to be someone with hidden upside, right? We can wish.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 4, 2022 3:05:37 GMT -5
MLBTR now has their arb estimates up, and if you assume they DFA Chang and Taylor, it's $2M less than the figure Spotrac has been using (the $2M being the estimate for that pair).
That leaves us with $75M, less of course if they want to save space for deadline acquisitions.
I've got a spreadsheet with all the major FA $ estimates and I'm about to add the signings to date to see how the market is running.
Do you expect them to DFA Taylor though? I'm expecting him to make the team if healthy. We're already a bit low on lefties and he was solid in '19 and '21. If Taylor is healthy and we're picking a lefty to walk the plank, I'd probably choose Darwinzon. They need to trim the 40-man, and lack of room will be an issue for most teams; plus claiming him on waivers means you pay him whether he can pitch or not. So I'm thinking they try to sneak him through waivers.
I've got Darwinzon already DFA's as well. But I can buy the argument that they keep Taykpr, but then that raises huge questions about fitting the necessary additions into the 40-man. I'm going to run that down in the proper thread.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 4, 2022 2:53:42 GMT -5
Also the arb estimates have been up for months. I looked again and again for the arb estimates and could only find a link to last years. Or did they just forget to update the link?
Chang = brain cramp.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 4, 2022 1:11:34 GMT -5
I wouldn't move Casas for anything less than Othani Well I thought I was bullish on Casas but this takes the cake.. I definitely wouldn't trade Casas for anything less than an all-star caliber player though. I'm with wOBA Fett (best name since "The Allented Mr. Ripley," BTW) on this one, pretty much. And here's why: When you have a guy with an 80 tool ... And that tool is the single most important tool .... And yet is underrated and sometimes barely regarded by most organizations ... You can't possibly get fair value in a trade. That tool is makeup.
Guys with great tools and bad makeup are usually busts. Guys with below average tools and great makeup can get to the bigs. That's the short version of the primacy-of-makeup argument. Two Casas points, also in brief: 1) I have a really strong background in personality psych. I've seen a ton of player interviews in my days and the single most impressive was Casas's. (The least impressive was Craig Hanson.)
2) The reason why makeup is so tough to judge is that a key component has never been touched upon at the point where you draft or sign a player. And that is dealing with failure. It's what killed Lard Anderson, for example. What's failure for almost every player? Getting bad results. Casas in the minors didn't pay attention to results. He was focused on the process of becoming better. If that means hitting a disappointing (to others) number of homers in the minors, given his power, who cares?
I actually have him as #1 in the system, without any change from the consensus about Mayer.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 3, 2022 23:26:21 GMT -5
Don’t really want to make a thread about it in the Trade Proposal forum, but I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of trading Alex Verdugo for Ian Happ. Wonder if the Cubs would take 2 years of a (cheaper) 2 WAR player in exchange for 1 year of a (more expensive) 4 WAR player… There were whispers that the Sox aren’t happy with Verdugo’s physical condition and his production this past year. Might be a “change of scenery” guy. Not thrilled with the cost that acquiring Reynolds will likely necessitate, but, honestly, I’d rather trade Mayer than Casas and then turn around and sign Correa to a 9 year contract or whatever. I’m expecting the Sox to make some outside-the-box moves this winter, and I’ll be disappointed if they don’t. I know it’s easy to look ludicrous if you propose something outlandish, but discussing the same players (and with that, the same stats/analytics) gets boring sometimes. I’m guilty of it myself, considering this is my third post involving Ian Happ, but he’s my biggest binky this offseason. When you measure actual offensive value, by adjusting for the situation of each PA ... Verdugo has been a 3.8 WAR player for the Sox.
Yeah, that's not supposed to be predictive. But his actual offensive value in a Sox uni has been 81% more than it should be, and it's been as predicted twice already. Happ, in contrast, has lost about 25%.
Verdugo did lose sprint speed and you'd hope that he's working on recovering it this winter. He's on record as preferring right field to left, and there should be a need for him in RF this year (as there didn't seem to be last year when JBJ was the expected RF), so he has incentive.
(BTW, all of the recent Win Probability Added numbers at both FG and B-Ref are off by about .25 wins per 600 PA (the exact number for each year is easy to calculate), with hitters being too low and pitchers too high. That's because they're using outdated numbers for the value of each event, numbers from when there was more offense.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 3, 2022 21:11:05 GMT -5
MLBTR now has their arb estimates up, and if you assume they DFA Chang and Taylor, it's $2M less than the figure Spotrac has been using (the $2M being the estimate for that pair).
That leaves us with $75M, less of course if they want to save space for deadline acquisitions.
I've got a spreadsheet with all the major FA $ estimates and I'm about to add the signings to date to see how the market is running.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 3, 2022 7:39:47 GMT -5
My reaction is pretty much *shrug*. That would have been a decent contract, more for Eflin I would have been uncomfortable, the Rays signed him to the biggest deal they've ever done. Not much you can do if he was going to let them match and they were going to match any reasonable offer. I still would like them to sign two starters, Eflin would have been nice as one, but there's other guys out there. This is exactly my line of thinking, could have been a nice piece to the rotation. I think they need two guys, and probably will spend 30-35M between the two. Eflin for 13.3AAV would have left them some solid room to get a guy in the Eovaldi/Senga tier if my 30-35M number is in the ballpark but there are other options out there so at this point in the offseason just gets a shrug out of me. If they run into the same thing with a target when the options are flying off the board then I would be worried. Not there yet though. In fact, it seems pretty clear that they'd like to add two starters but aren't sure that they will.
Why do we know that? Because they told Houck to prepare to be a starter but that he might end up in the pen. If they sign just 1 guy, he's in the rotation.
What's unclear is why they're uncertain and how uncertain they are.
That they were prepared to sign Eflin suggests that they're not in on Rodon ... but maybe he's still an option if they miss out on two guys they think have big upsides and hence bang for buck. Elfin was clearly such a target.
BTW, the no-brainer re-signing of Wacha may well have gone out the window (alas) when they banned the shift. Wacaha had a crazy shift / no-shift split; he may have been the pitcher who benefited from it the most.
Whether they fill both hitting positions with free agents, or trade for one, is another factor.
You'd love to add a guy who projects to be a game 2 starter, but failing that, adding two free agents with that upside to join Bello and Whitlock would give you a decent chance of adding one.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 3, 2022 7:23:21 GMT -5
What this team really needs is a RHB who can hit 5th. Right now Kiké is the team's 3rd best RHB and it would be nice to bump him down to 4th (on paper) and remove any pressure to repeat his second half of 2021. You want to go into the season with Super Kiké as a bonus rather than something you're depending on.
I had despaired of finding a guy who could play RF in Fenway and hit 5th, but Haniger can fit the offense and be OK for the defense. He peojects to have a 113 wRC+ vs. RHP. Fenway will add some to that, and if they have someone dangerous behind him, that will really help.
This would be a killer offense against RHP:
Bogaerts Devers Story Casas Haniger Conforto / Yoshida
Hernandrz McGuire Verdugo
However, it's unclear that they can stay under the limit if they re-sign Xander and add (e.g.) Senga, Conforto, and Haniger. But if there's someone they reallu like in the next tier (Walker, Syndergaard, Taillon, Quintana, etc.), that would obviously work. Or maybe Eovaldi sings with a decent-sized hometown discount.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 2, 2022 22:12:21 GMT -5
This is a side track but is 66M correct? I have it closer to $74.5 still per Red Sox Payroll. That extra $8M could be a pretty big difference. It is very possible I'm wrong. I had it in my head that they were at $75 million before this, but now I can't remember why I thought that. We have $73M left to spend per Sportrac. The lower figure was from my allotting $5M for deadline trades and then rounding down to $75M.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 29, 2022 20:26:52 GMT -5
Maybe Abreu was their #1 outside target for DH? And then you have three 1B-only defenders, so you have to trade Hosmer. And then you have no LHB on the bench. So you have to obtain one (an OF), at a higher cost than Hosmer, and very likely he won't be as good.
It makes no sense. You have an ideal backup IB / LH bench bat (amazingly cheap, off-the-scale clutch differential over the course of his career, Fenway swing somewhere between very good and best possible), and if you add a pair of outfielders, one hitting from each side, one capable of playing RF in Fenway (and hence CF) you have a huge amount of roster and lineup versatility thanks to Kiké.
I can't stress this enough: if you have just 3 OFers, a big injury at 2B or SS means that Arroyo is a full-timer. If you have 4 OFers, then Kiké moves to the infield and the position that's vacant is now DH. You can call up the best Worcester hitter on the 40-man, regardless of where he plays.
On paper, there are at least three solid candidates for the LHB / frequent (but by no means full-tme) DH guy in Conforto, Winker, and Brantley, and the DBacks have an excess of those guys as well.
I believe you're going to have to trade for the RHB.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 29, 2022 6:11:57 GMT -5
Brantley sounds like the best option at DH if you're not spending on Yoshida. Probably a cheap option. He's better than Hosmer, at least. Wouldn't hate it. I do like that Brantley would have the versatility to play some outfield at least. I also like that he's had an OBP above .360 each of the last five seasons, and no obvious signs of offensive decline. Wouldn't mind him at all. I've been plugging for Confoto but obviously Brantley would be more than fine. Both are projected for a 117 wRC+ and both have a career 111 tOPS platoon split (11% better vs. RHP than overall). Conforto has been shifted on more often in his career but both guys have actually hit a bit better when shifted on, which can be explained by teams shifting more often when weaker pitchers were on the mound. Either guy would platoon with Refsnyder. Conforto's major advantage is that he can play RF.
The new DH has to be a capable outfielder. Combined with the new RF, that gives you 4 outfielders who can hit RHP, which means that Kiké can be in the infield whenever you need him. If Xander (or whomever), Story, or Devers goes on the IL, you can call up whoever is raking most at Worcester and construct a solid lineup. When one of those guys needs to take a day off, there will be games where your best lineup will be Hosmer at DH, Conforto / Brantley / etc. in the OF, and the new RF in CF, rather than just plugging Arroyo into the INF.
One of the oddities of this post-season is that only one of the significant FA OF's bats righty -- Haniger. They need a righty bat (replacing JDM) to either be the DH / OF or the RF / CF. Haniger doesn't have the bat to DH or the glove to play RF in Fenway, which is why the RH bat is going to have to come in a trade.
Combos that work:
Nimmo / RH DH-OF Conforto / RH RF-CF
Brantley / ditto
Winker / ditto (walk year; same 111 platoon split; may benefit from shift ban)
I can't see them signing Benintedndi as a mostly-DH.
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 26, 2022 0:25:49 GMT -5
A comparison between what I'd do and the current projection, with just a bit of suggestion for the latter. Me Projection 1B Valdez Aquisition 2B Duran Hamilton 3B Dalbec Koss SS Kross Downs LF Hamilton Duran CF Rafaela Rafaela RF Abreu Cook DH Cook, etc. Valdez 1B / RF / DH. There's no way you send a guy with a 124 wRC+ in AA (and whom you just protected on your 40 man) back down to AA for his age 24 season ... just because you don't have an experienced AAA 1B and therefore need to acquire one. Instead, you have Valdez try to learn to play 1B for a year, which is all upside and no downside if you think he likely ends up as just a DH. In 2005 Sam Horn was still pissed that the Sox had done that to him and I'm sure he's still pissed.
2B / LF. Hamilton's entry here has LF as his likely best position. Would anyone disagree that Duran would be better at his old position, once he gets some rust off, than in the OF, where he doesn't seem to have made any progress? His quickness should give him adequate range at 2B, and with the shift banned, 2B returns to being more difficult than CF on the defensive spectrum ... and hugely more so than LF, the easiest position after 1B (as in, Hamilton looks like he can play there). The odds of him having more defensive value in LF than 2B are microscopic.
SS / 3B. I keep on coming up with a trade of Downs to accommodate all the additions, and Dalbec being optioned to AAA (because Hosmer has that bench spot), at least whenever no one in MLB is on the IL. Trading Downs allows Koss to play SS, where he really should be if AAA is going to be Utility Infielder Academy for him.
Thoughts?
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 25, 2022 0:04:24 GMT -5
A thought, phrased as a philosophical argument (P = premise, C = Conclusion). "Premises" are statements believed to be true. P1. So far, if there has been any correlation between well-sourced reports about what Bloom is looking to do, and what he's actually done, it's negative. It seems as if their M.O. is to leak what they'd like other teams to believe they're looking to do, and tell no one about what they actually have in mind. P2. They went over the tax limit last year when the odds were very much against it paying off by getting them into the the playoffs. This strongly suggests that they actually place less value on the penalties than we think. What's the projected talent value of Rodon or Verlander minus the penalties, versus Senga, etc. without them? P3. This team still makes a lot of money. The owner has been wiling to spend. Being a serious contender next year by ending the "Tampa Bay North" nonsense will more than pay for the money it takes, when you add the change in fan attitudes.
P4. They just filled the LHR need with a dirt-cheap attractive upside guy, which is consistent with saving money to spend on other positions.
P4. It's difficult to see them getting anywhere near $75M in new salary (saving $5M for deadline trades) by signing the rumored targets, including Xander.
P5. The only very expensive position player who fills a need is Nimmo. I may well be wrong about his being unlikely to sign with the Sox because Fenway is a bad fit, but given that it appears to be, and how many other teams will be after him, it can't be the case that they are banking on signing him.
P6. Bloom just stated that they haven't ruled any FA out. He'd say that anyway, of course, but he may well be telling the truth.
P7. In today's Globe, O'Halloran is quoted as saying the Sox want to build a "championship-caliber rotation." What does that mean? From 2010 to 2017 only one WS winner had two starters with 3.7 bWAR or more, the exception being the curse-busting '16 Cubs (who had 3). In the 5 latest years four of the 5 WS winners have had 2 starters with 3.7+ WAR, and the '19 Nats and '22 Astros had 3 each (the '20 Dodgers were the exception).
P8. To even compete in the AL East you have to be a championship-caliber team. Per P3 above, they need to be a serious contender.
P9. Nathan Eovaldi, a rumored target, has had one season in his career with 2.4 bWAR or better. Michael Wacha, who seems like an excellent bang for-buck depth option (and O'Hallaron mentioned adding depth), has had seasons of 3.0 and 3.3 (last year). Neither guy is a game 2 starter the way the game is now.
C. Reports to the contrary, they are still in on Rodon and maybe Verlander and DeGrom as well (although the latter two might require filling both DH / OF and corner OF via trade).
3.7 WAR feels like an arbitrary number to include Price in the 2018 Red Sox count. If you raise it to 4.0 they had one guy - Sale - who wasn't even very good in the playoffs anyways. I also disagree with P4 - I think it's really easy to see how they spend $75M without getting one of those guys and multiple posters here have laid out paths to doing it. Not to say they definitely won't but I disagree with this premise, as well as the premise that they need to do this to have a chance next year. Between Sale, Bello, Paxton, Whitlock and an addition like Senga/Eovaldi, they could get to that 3.5+ WAR range across multiple guys anyhow. I started with 2022 and worked backwards. I picked 3.7 WAR because both Framber Valdesz and Cristian Javier were 3.7, and they were both intimidating. After all the guys who were that good (and I should gave included Kershaw, Gonsolin, and May from 2020, prorated to 162 games), the next best guy is either Julio Urias's prorated 3.0 or Anibal Sanchez ('19 Nats) 2.8. The idea is to put a ballpark number on the quality of a #2 playoff starter that is so good that the other team has to include them in their story about how to win 4 games.
I just looked at all the losing WS teams and the same pattern holds. 2018 Dodgers had Kershaw and Buhler and a big dropoff to Ryu at 2.5. 2019 Astros had the awesome Verlander / Cole duo and nobody else at 1.8 or above. Phillies this year had Nola and Wheeler and then Suarez at 2.5. The '21 Astros were led by McCullers at 3.3, so it would be fair to use 3.5 WAR as the goal for your #2 starer.
But the fact remains that all 5 winners and 3 of the 5 losers of the last 5 WS had 2 or more guys with 3.7 WAR (or the COVID equivalent).
The scouting reports on Senga are iffy about being that good. I completely agree that Bello and Whitlock have the potential, and you can also hope that Eovaldi has a 2021-like season.
As far as spending all the available money, I cannot find a FA RHB that seems to me to be a good idea. You need a DH or LHB on the bench who can play the OF, as that unlocks Kiké's versatility. Signing Abreu would mean trading Hosmer and adding two LHB who can play some RF, at a lot more cost. If Abreu were secretly better than his numbers this could work, but the opposite is true; he's more than 20% less good as a hitter from the 7th inning on.
Xander, Senga, and Eovaldi project to $58M, and hometown discounts should trim that by $2M +/- $1M. That means that you need Nimmo to spend close to the limit. I do think that's one the the plans they're considering, especially as Nimmo has name value, and would be happy with that (if they trade for a RH DH / OF) ...
But my argument is actually only that they are still considering the elite starters, just as Bloom implied. You can remove the two premises you disagree with and it's still a strong argument. I might add that adding one of the elite trio would take a lot of pressure off of Sale, and that can't hurt, while at the same time challenging his ego in a healthy way.
I don't think it's likely, but neither is it impossible.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 23, 2022 16:11:49 GMT -5
A thought, phrased as a philosophical argument (P = premise, C = Conclusion). "Premises" are statements believed to be true. P1. So far, if there has been any correlation between well-sourced reports about what Bloom is looking to do, and what he's actually done, it's negative. It seems as if their M.O. is to leak what they'd like other teams to believe they're looking to do, and tell no one about what they actually have in mind. P2. They went over the tax limit last year when the odds were very much against it paying off by getting them into the the playoffs. This strongly suggests that they actually place less value on the penalties than we think. What's the projected talent value of Rodon or Verlander minus the penalties, versus Senga, etc. without them? P3. This team still makes a lot of money. The owner has been wiling to spend. Being a serious contender next year by ending the "Tampa Bay North" nonsense will more than pay for the money it takes, when you add the change in fan attitudes.
P4. They just filled the LHR need with a dirt-cheap attractive upside guy, which is consistent with saving money to spend on other positions.
P4. It's difficult to see them getting anywhere near $75M in new salary (saving $5M for deadline trades) by signing the rumored targets, including Xander.
P5. The only very expensive position player who fills a need is Nimmo. I may well be wrong about his being unlikely to sign with the Sox because Fenway is a bad fit, but given that it appears to be, and how many other teams will be after him, it can't be the case that they are banking on signing him.
P6. Bloom just stated that they haven't ruled any FA out. He'd say that anyway, of course, but he may well be telling the truth.
P7. In today's Globe, O'Halloran is quoted as saying the Sox want to build a "championship-caliber rotation." What does that mean? From 2010 to 2017 only one WS winner had two starters with 3.7 bWAR or more, the exception being the curse-busting '16 Cubs (who had 3). In the 5 latest years four of the 5 WS winners have had 2 starters with 3.7+ WAR, and the '19 Nats and '22 Astros had 3 each (the '20 Dodgers were the exception).
P8. To even compete in the AL East you have to be a championship-caliber team. Per P3 above, they need to be a serious contender.
P9. Nathan Eovaldi, a rumored target, has had one season in his career with 2.4 bWAR or better. Michael Wacha, who seems like an excellent bang for-buck depth option (and O'Hallaron mentioned adding depth), has had seasons of 3.0 and 3.3 (last year). Neither guy is a game 2 starter the way the game is now.
C. Reports to the contrary, they are still in on Rodon and maybe Verlander and DeGrom as well (although the latter two might require filling both DH / OF and corner OF via trade).
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 23, 2022 14:58:17 GMT -5
I've said before but I would just be really surprised if they signed both Xander and Devers to market rate contracts, particularly after the Story signing. The Red Sox like to spread their money around a bit more than that. I could be wrong but I would need to see it to believe it. Xander was already getting paid and what was Devers number? Without looking it up I wanna say $13. So combined they will add about 22-25 million more in AAV. That gives them about 50-55more to spend this year. And if they punt Devers extension into kicking in next year that number is closer to 70. Give or take a few million.
Regardless, I don’t buy the narrative that they can retain both AND still go out and get some pitching and another OFer. Not saying you’re wrong, but if you’re right it’s for the wrong reasons. They’re not financially constrained from making other moves if they retain both Bogey and Devers this year. The thing about a Devers extension is that his expected salary in his last year of of arb is considerably less than his AAV as a potential FA. So it's two separate negotiations to begin with. It's a no-brainer to announce the 2023 arb number first, while saying you're putting the last touches on an extension, and then announce the extension after the season's start (if necessary via the CBA; if not, just announce them together).
And Sportrac's $82M (now $80M) available figure clearly includes an arb estimate for Devers. They have him, Verdugo, Pivetta, Arroyo, Brasier, Taylor, and McGuire getting $37M. Those guys made $21M last year, and only McGuire is newly eligible.
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 23, 2022 14:28:06 GMT -5
Winckowski was pretty good in the pen in the AFL last year (along with a velo uptick), if I recall correctly. Not sure if it means more missed bats, but I think with the depth, he needs to be given an opportunity in the pen. I think he has some potential there to be a solid 7th inning-ish guy. Two things that struck me about Winck was his start-to-start inconsistency, and that his first half was much better than his second half. Was that typical of pitchers of his caliber, based on the overall results?
So I dug up the best comps I could find -- pitchers who faced 250 to 350 hitters as starters, and whose wOBA and xwOBA allowed in their starts were the closest to Winck's.
300 PA, .340 / .363 (xwOBA / wOBA) -- Winck, age 24 rookie
259 PA, .330 /.352 -- Kutter Crawford, age 26 rookie 258 PA, .354 / .367 -- Adrian Martinez, age 26 rookie, A's
345 PA, .360 /.360 -- Keegan Thompson, age 27 sophomore, Cubs (mostly a reliever his rookie year)
Consistency (average standard deviation over 12 successive starts, which is what Crawford and Martinez had as totals):
.071 / .140 Crawford .094 / .110 Winck .111 / .126 Martinez .139 / .166 Thompson
I was thinking that more inconsistency would correspond to upside. Thompson is perhaps an outlier and there's no real difference among the other three.
First half vs. second (dividing their starts into two equal halves), xwOBA:
.353 / .356 Martinez
.306 / .351 Crawford
.313 / .371 Winck .324 / .397 Thompson
First half vs. second, wOBA:
.346 / .375 Thompson
.326 / .405 Winck .328 / .405 Martinez
.286 / .411 Crawford
Again, Thompson is a bit of an outlier in that his karma (wOBA-xwOBA) actually improved. Since that's partly real (not giving up pulled fly ballsy), that again suggests some upside. But all of these guys were less effective in their second halves, which is consistent with the league getting a better book on them as data accrues.
The one thing that might work in Wink's favor is that in debuting at age 24, he has more time to work on improving his ratio of games where he has his plus command to games where he doesn't. And perhaps pitching more often would help that.
I don't see him as a 7th inning guys but he might have a really solid role as the go-to guy to pitch 2 or 3 innings when you're trailing early. That is presumably Crawford's role whenever they have enough healthy guys to populate the rotation, so if pitching more often helps his consistency, he'd be a nice guy to have in Worcester to recall when Crawford has to go into the rotation.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 18, 2022 22:19:08 GMT -5
Redoing my analysis from 4 days ago:
New math: you always project one extra guy to be on the MLB roster, because there's almost always someone on the IL at any point in time, and there's almost always a pitcher on the IL. That's why I haven't changed the number of pitcher acquisitions even though I've promoted Brasier from likely trim to keeper. They must know something about his bad stretches last year (and he did have some real good ones).
They need to add a SS, a RF/LF, a DH, and 3 pitchers. They likely will add a RHH catcher as well.
That's 6 or 7 adds.
Likely trims, DFA'd one by one as they add players, and hopefully clearing waivers.
Taylor D. Hernandez R. Hernandez
That's 5 spots for a likely 7 additions. (If they draft someone in the Rule 5, that would be the extra pitcher acquisition. I think that's unlikely.)
Players who project to be on option (15)
Dalbec Mata Wong Seabold Duran Downs Winckowski Ort German Valdez Rafaela
Walter Murphy Hamilton Abreu
You want that number to be 13.
And like I said last time, you can trade either Winckowski or Seabold, and Downs.
So the difference here is adding Brasier to the MLB roster, and subtracting Franchy from the optioned player list.
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 18, 2022 21:43:51 GMT -5
Chris Cotillo reporting that Franchy was not interested in a minor league deal to come back End of an era
He's not going to be able to get an MLB deal with any kind of good club, but some re-building team may well take a flyer on him. If no one does, I'd love to see him back at Worcester.
I believe the only thing he needs to do is learn how to (greatly) improve his hot-stretch to cold-stretch ratio.
(The following applies to David Hamiltion as well ...)
Streakiness is real, of course. Manny used to fix his slumps in 12 or 13 games with remarkable consistency. When I joined the Sox in '05 he had put up wRC+ of 156, 185, 158, and 153, and in my first year he had 153 again (I was using OPS+ but the same 2002 outlier season showed up, of course). What did Manny do different in 2002 to have that monster season? Nothing! His numbers hot and numbers cold were the same. He just had one slump all season instead of 2 (I believe that was the norm).
Calrlos Pena is the living proof that a player can learn to shorten the duration of his slumps even if he is well into his career. Pena is the only player the Sox ever picked up solely on my recommendation (per an e-mail from Theo), after I demonstrated that his hot and cold streaks were unquestionably distinct, and offered an explanation for why the cold streaks were so long. When Pena started slumping, it was clear that he was trying to make better contact and reduce his strikeouts. But of course, he wasn't slumping because he was striking out too much; he was striking out too much because he was slumping. You don't try an alternate set of mechanics for a bit; you try to recover your correct ones.
(The Sox let him go that winter because Youk had 1B, Eric Hinske had the back spot, and given that, it didn't make sense to use a 40-man spot on him. The Rays signed him and he had one brief slump, which he ended against us, and put up a 167 wRC+, not bad for a guy with a 109 over 1888 career PA. He was 132 each of the next two seasons, and I assume he had 2 or 3 slumps per season like most streaky hitters.)
Jackie Bradley, Jr. is, of course, living proof that some guys can never learn to do this.
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 16, 2022 3:20:25 GMT -5
Yeah so this comment is all I have to go on, but if the deal here is that he got busted for steroids, then when he returned his performance was worse *and* he had injuries associated with heavy steroid use, then I'll go ahead and give Laureano a hard pass. I've read a lot of responses to positive PED tests, or accusations of PED use, and I beliebe I'm very good at telling the cheaters from the victims of accidents. A lot of that comes from having the equivalent of a degree in psychology (as a non-degree grad student at Harvard), with an emphasis on personality psych.
The single most basic thing in personality psych is that everyone believes that everyone else thinks just like them, because, after all, their own brain is the only one they have any knowledge of. This is the reason that sociopaths will out themselves on a simple set of true / false questions -- they believe that there is an unspoken social contract to fake empathy for others, and that everyone will stop faking altruistic behavior and do things out of naked self-interest whenever it's to their benefit. [1]
Yes, most folks who get busted for PEDs claim it was accidental. But not only would an actual cheater be unable to go into the sort of detail that Laureano does, they would be incapable of conceiving that they might want to do so.
When Laureano was suspended he had just started hitting again (4/10, 3 2B, 2 BB) after a miserable month (.211 / .254 / .309) that dropped his OPS from .850 to .780 It's reasonable to think that his 113 wRC+ would have more closely resembled his first two seasons (131, 127, and in fact he was at 136 when the bad month started).
I pointed out the first time I mentioned him that the two seasons he had no spring training are huge outliers (104, 96), but I can't find anything in the game logs that suggest rust. In 2020 he started hot and it looks like the season just ran out before he could bring his numbers up (as the Red Sox did). Last year, though he did start terribly, he wasn't much better beginning with his first good stretch.
But consider this: when Laureano was suspended the A's were 2 games ahead of the Yankees for the 2nd WC, after a thrilling 10th-inning walk-off against the Padres, where Laureano had played a big part (leadoff double in the 9th off Melancon, down 3-1). They went 25-28 thereafter and of course missed the playoffs, and Billy Beane decided to tear it all down and start over.
When Laureano rejoined the team this year they had lost 8 straight games and were 10-17.
Average A's attendance per game in his 4 seasons where tickets were sold (adjusting 2021 for COVID):
19,427 20,521 12,488 9,973
I can't imagine how dispiriting it would be to play in front of so few fans ... while the team was one of the worst in MLB. I think that being traded to the Red Sox would be for him like escaping from prison.
Yes, this is purely a buy-low gamble, but for both baseball and psychological reasons it's one of the most enticing I've ever stumbled on.
[1] This is not book-learning. I've encountered this directly online, debating Ayn Rand (an off-the-scale sociopath) with her followers. This happened twice (once as described and once a lot like it): during a long back-and-forth, they assert that empathic altruism is a sham and that fundamental human behavior is ultimately all naked self-interest; I tell them this is completely wrong and that they have outed themselves as sociopaths and should take an online test of sociopathy; and the conversation ends there.
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