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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 23, 2024 4:49:04 GMT -5
OK, this is a very big step forward.
Crawford actually didn't have a RISP problem. He had a first base open problem.
Recall that he had a .262 xwOBA allowed without RISP, including his tremendous bulk game.
With runners on 1st and 2nd, 1st and 3rd, or the bases full, he had a .258 -- without including the bulk game.
He had 73 PA with a man on 2B, 3B, or both, and gave up a .418 xwOBA.
And of course pitchers change their approach with men on but first base open ... especially with good hitters up.
I also found decently strong suggestion that stamina was a factor, including stamina within innings, but that's a small factor in comparison.
He's worked all winter to add stamina. All he needs is for someone to tell him to ignore the fact that first base is open.
What I think was happening ... OK, no need to come right at him, let's see if I can get him to chase outside the zone ... damn, that didn't work, but I don't want to walk him.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 17, 2024 18:31:57 GMT -5
A bit more, with updated numbers from Statcast ... I checked the top 30 starting pitchers by xwOBA (of the 150 that had the most PA) for bulk starts ... Crawford was the only one who even pitched in relief, and his 7-inning bulk outing was the only one by any of the 30.
Crawford ranked 10th in xwOBA, with a .285. Here's some new numbers, all including the bulk outing ... With the bases empty he faced 282 hitters and had (again) a .285 xwOBA, which ranked 18th. With a runner just on first, he faced 87 hitters and had a .184 xwOBA. The leaderboard: .182 Taril Skubal (.008 added for regression to mean in small sample size, 62)
.184 Crawford .229 Zack Wheeler (142 PA) .236 Cristopher Sanchez (.004 added for 75 PA; see the geekabe note at the end) .251 Bobby Miller (87 PA)
After that the rankings are closely clustered. What Skubal and Crawford did was insane. And Skubol led MLB in xwOBA with .246 (.235 before regression). Here's the top 5 pitchers for non-RISP PA : Name Non-RISP RISP Ratio Tarik Skubold .226 .348 1.54 (adjusted for sample size) Kutter Crawford .262 .365 1.39 Zack Elfin .264 .301 1.14 Zack Wheeler .264 .340 1.29 Freddy Peralta .268 .357 1.33
Wow. This is somewhat of a thing. The MLB average for RISP is .329. While Crawford was hit hardest, Peralta was not far behind. Eflin was the only guy who was better than average.
All of these made the top 15 xwOBA (= ace-level performance) out of the 150 that faced the most hitters. I did the other 10 xwOBA aces and the worst case was Max Scherzer, a .333 with RISP and a ratio 1.22.
Some thoughts:
If this were just one or two guys, and the effect size smaller, you'd say "luck." But 4 guys whose median performance translates to 2nd best in MLB with no RISP and 28th worst with RISO--super ace vs. average 5th starer? Not happening.
Splits by bases empty / runners on are common and can be ascribed to pitching better or worse out of the stretch. Those splits should be be looked at.
I still suspect that this is at least partly a psychological thing. If a pitcher has RISP rarely, does he tend to put too emphasis on them? Overthinking it, and/or trying to be too fine, getting behind in the count and then forcing things?
Zack Wheeler's ERA off-year looks like it may have been entirely a product of bad RISP outcomes. Comparing his 2023 to the few previous years might be very helpful.
It blows my mind that you can be the second best stating pitcher in MLB without runners in scoring position and the 19th worst (out of 150) with.
The next step is to do all 150 starting pitchers, broken down multiple ways. Easier than it sounds ... maybe next week.
Next: Houck.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 7, 2024 4:18:09 GMT -5
See my previous post ...
But the larger issue is this. The Red Sox literally have an infinitely better set of information on Dalbec's great AAA year than we do, since we have only the rawest data, and know nothing about what he was working on or might have modified or changed.
What we do know is that Sox need a backup 1B / 3B who hits righty, so that the rare off days for Devers and Casas can be against lefty pitchers with a big platoon split. They had an interesting 3B in Urias who could have probably learned 1B and they traded him. They chose not to resign their very good veteran (and clubhouse model). That left one guy for the job. Period.
And since you suddenly seem to be a fan of small samples, the first thing he did upon his his September recall was outhit Devers and Casas for a week. So it's fairly evident that he still has the upside he always has; the difference is an apparent major improvement in staying this last year.
That Dalbec is the backup 1B / 3B is as clear as the starters at those positions.
So one might ask rhetorically, how does this post fit in a thread named "Predicting the 2024 Opening Say Roster?"
I am more than half serious about this: someone should start a thread called "Let's Start Bitching Now!" Those of us with a low tolerance for pointless complaints will be grateful.
Doesn’t the fact that the Sox have had all this data on him and have kept him in AAA kind of go against your own point? No.
They kept him in AAA because he wasn't better than Justin Turner, who filled his potential role by moving from DH. And there were no injuries at either 3B or 1B until late in the season. As soon as one of those finally went on the IL, they called him up immediately. (And he outhit Devers and everyone else his first week!)
(They also called him up on 4/10 when Duvall got hurt, swapping him out for Duran after a week; on 5/7 when Arroyo got hurt, for the 6 days before they got Pablo Reyes; and from 6/23 to 6/27 when Verdugo was on the bereavement list. Three brief recalls to fill positions he didn't even play.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 6, 2024 21:30:30 GMT -5
If Rafaela's defense can even be top 5 in terms of outfielded value over the stretch of his prime he could wRC in the mid 70s-80s and still be a 2-3 WAR guy. Overall if the plan is to have Rafaela as the every day CF out the gate this year I wouldn't hate it. Mix and match with Duran, abreu, O'Neill and refsnyder in the corners. JBJ and Michael A. Taylor: both had career wRC+'s of 82, both have been right about at 2 WAR/600 PAs.
When JBJ had that run of 3 years in a row from 2017-2019 with a 90 wRC+ he was at 2.8 WAR/600.
I'd say the benchmarks are: if Rafaela has wRC+'s in the 70s, he's a bench player; in the 80s, he's a starter; in the 90s, he's above average; 100+, he's a star.
I've been meaning to post the following nugget for probably 10 days now -- but in the prediction thread.
The Davenport Translation (to MLB) for Rafaela's full year was an EqA of .260 -- MLB average (it's scaled to match BA). He would project to be a bit better this year.
If the Sox reached a similar conclusion, it would go a long way to explaining why they haven't resigned Duvall.
Remember that he was dramatically better in AAA than AA, and that only happens if you were largely cold in AA and hot in AAA. So what we saw in his call-up would just be being cold, rather than some mysterious deficit at hitting in MLB.
My sense here is that when he's hot he punishes mistakes and when he's cold he misses them. His offensive tools are not those of someone who gets hits off of good pitches. But if he can have a sufficient ratio of hot to cold and post a 105 or 110 wRC+, as his performance last year suggests, yes, that a star.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 4, 2024 0:49:28 GMT -5
Among other things Refsnyder might be their backup first baseman, as things stand. Well, he has averaged 3.5 innings at 1B over the last 6 seasons. But that's zero over the last three years and 7 innings per year the previous 3, so maybe not.
(Replies to multiple posts are not working right ... apologies for all of these!)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 4, 2024 0:26:26 GMT -5
Dalbec has about 950 mlb PA. For two brief periods, one about 95 PA and one about 120, he has hit like Jimmie Foxx. The rest of the time, he has hit like a poor backup SS. That doesn't include going 0-12 with 5k and zero BB in the postseason, when we were a few hits away from the World Series. Isn't it time to give up hope? See my previous post ...
But the larger issue is this. The Red Sox literally have an infinitely better set of information on Dalbec's great AAA year than we do, since we have only the rawest data, and know nothing about what he was working on or might have modified or changed.
What we do know is that Sox need a backup 1B / 3B who hits righty, so that the rare off days for Devers and Casas can be against lefty pitchers with a big platoon split. They had an interesting 3B in Urias who could have probably learned 1B and they traded him. They chose not to resign their very good veteran (and clubhouse model). That left one guy for the job. Period.
And since you suddenly seem to be a fan of small samples, the first thing he did upon his his September recall was outhit Devers and Casas for a week. So it's fairly evident that he still has the upside he always has; the difference is an apparent major improvement in staying this last year.
That Dalbec is the backup 1B / 3B is as clear as the starters at those positions.
So one might ask rhetorically, how does this post fit in a thread named "Predicting the 2024 Opening Say Roster?"
I am more than half serious about this: someone should start a thread called "Let's Start Bitching Now!" Those of us with a low tolerance for pointless complaints will be grateful.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 3, 2024 23:50:12 GMT -5
Dalbec in AAA was .269 / .381 / .557. Clay Davenport's MLB Translation system pays extra attention to high K rates. and correctly raised a red flag on Will Middlebrooks when everyone else was psyched about him.
He has Dalbec's AAA numbers translating as .256 / .331 / .485 (in an average league offense). That's a really good guy coming off the bench.
Do you know if that model has been updated to account for the strike zone changes or rule changes? I’d find it incredibly surprising to see Dalbec run a .330 OBP when he’s a career .297 guy and that number has fallen year after year (smaller sample last year). He’s a fine up and down guy and if he played better defense would be a really good bench player, but i think he should be traded or starting in worcester. The numbers in every league are adjured for league offense.
Re the incredible, he had a .301 career OBP in AAA (176 PA) before last year, when he had a .381. What you're saying is "I’d find it incredibly surprising if a player did something to improve himself."
In this case, it's entirely about the hot to cold ratio. And despite JBJ's failure to improve his ratio, there is precedence for guys fixing it. In 2006 I did a long analysis for the Sox on Carlos Pena that showed he was one of these guys -- red hot or ice cold -- and added my take on what he was doing wrong to try and bust out of his slumps. The Sox picked him up but couldn't find a space for him in the lineup or the next 40-man ... and he went from a 111 OPS + to 145 (three years before vs. three years after).
See my next reply for more.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Feb 3, 2024 22:38:37 GMT -5
Refsnyder posted a .308/.428/.400 vs LHP last year with an elite 15.9% walk rate and more walks than strikeouts. That’s very valuable imo, this team needs at-bats grinders. That was over 39 starts totaling 145 PA. The Sox had 40 games where they faced a lefty SP.
He also started 9 games vs. RHP and had 98 PA against them. He hit .159 / .261 / .195, but the OBP is misleading because he had 5 GDP's. His effective OBP was .196.
As I mentioned, the trade of Verdugo is likely to reduce his starts vs. LHP to 20, platooning with Duran on the road (more would require injuries to LHB). The only guy he'd pinch-hit for is McGuire.
Finally--and this is the killer--Dalbec vs. LHP has numbers nearly as good the last three years, and maybe just as goodpt better (better xwOBA, .366 to .357). He takes Ref's role as lefty-killer, in addition to backing up 1B and 3B.
A team that needs a full-time platoon partner in an OF spot (as we no longer do) would gladly pay him $1.8M.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 31, 2024 22:54:37 GMT -5
Some good thoughts in here. Giving any sort of meaningful ABs to Dalbec is terrifying to me, though. I would much rather give some run to Abreu in RF, who looked the part last year, and use a guy like Valdez as the sometimes-DH LHH bench bat. Dropping Dalbec from the roster also has the advantage of making Refsnyder less redundant, although a Duvall signing would once again cannibalize a chunk of his role. The obvious counterpoint is, "If not Dalbec, who is going to back up 1B?" To that I'd reply, "Refsnyder, or Duvall if he gets signed". If Casas actually gets injured, Dalbec should of course get called up, but otherwise I'd fine with one of those two swapping in to give Casas a breather. Dalbec in AAA was .269 / .381 / .557. Clay Davenport's MLB Translation system pays extra attention to high K rates. and correctly raised a red flag on Will Middlebrooks when everyone else was psyched about him.
He has Dalbec's AAA numbers translating as .256 / .331 / .485 (in an average league offense). That's a really good guy coming off the bench.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 30, 2024 23:10:46 GMT -5
My take:
1) Dalbec is (at the least) the backup 1B / 3B (plus occasional RF and emergency SS). I endorse that: let's find out of he can stay in that role.
2) With the swapping-out of Verdudo for a RH bat TBD, Refsnsyfer barely has a role to play. Both Yoshida and Duran had great numbers versus LHP in Fenway, so that gives Ref 20 - 25 starts platooning with Duran on the road. I might keep him around through spring training, but it's hard to justify him for the 26. And that's because ...
3) You really want a LH bat with some talent on the bench, since there are are 3 RHP for every lefty. And in Abreu we have a guy who has already demonstrated that he's a solid backup outfielder. He can also start against RHP with a big platoon spit.
4) How many different ways is re-signing Adam Duball a smart move?
* He gives you a guy who can start the season hitting 5th, thus removing any pressure on O'Neill to hit there, if he latter has not had a great spring. In the long run they can share the 5 and 7 spot based on matchups.
* That allows you to hit Yoshida 6th, where he'd be great [1], and not waste him. The 7 hole is for a lower OBP / higher SA type while 9 is opposite, and they have a great 9 guy in Grissom. If Rafela struggles you have to pop Grissom up to 7, but then there's very little hitting in front of Casas or Devers in the 2 hole. A 9 hitter who can get on base at an average clip or better is a big plus in today's lineups. In short, adding Duvall transforms a week 7 through 9 to a strong one.
* If Duvall gets hurt, you just call up Rafaela and give him another taste of the show, with no pressure on him. It turns a negative into a positive!
* If they're not in contention at the deadline, you can trade him and call up Rafaela for good.
RHB, TBD, Find out what it means to me
Scenarios ...
Stand Pat for Now. The expectation or hope is that Rafaela will be a bottom of the order asset sometime around June 1. In the interim, Dalbec is the most frequent 9th man in the lineup. You might get a better handle on his offense and you definitely will get a better handle on Yoshida's defense in LF. When Rafaela arrives, Duran goes to LF, Yoshida goes to primary DH, Dalbec goes to the bench, and if all the outfielders are healthy, the little-used Refsnyder is dealt.
Major drawback: at this point in the season you're not looking to give Casas or Devers the occasional DH half-rest (in fact, it would probably piss them off). That means Dalbec is a near-regular at DH, and most hitters do not hit as well as normal when they DH. So maybe the only thing you learn about Dalbec is that he's one of those guys.
In short, it's a formula for a slow start on offense (and bad vibes to overcome for Dalbec, who above all needs the opposite). How much of the fan base tunes out?
Rafaela Starts the Season in CF.
No. No. Let's imagine that they have a secret reason to believe that the kid who put up a 74 wRC+ in 82 PA last fall will put up 100+ out of the gate this year. How much is gained by that if you're right? Why not wait a few weeks to confirm your idea works in AAA? The downside is that he starts to doubt himself and you wreck him for good. The reason why there's an edit is that I forgot to point this out, because it seems so obviously wrong. (Note that tremendous ST could change that, if there was a specific new thing he's doing ... JBJ's rookie year was not that.)
Duvall Imminent / Playing Salary Chicken. The only FA I could find that might be an interesting alternative was Aaron Hicks, and he just signed withe Angels, the only other team that was reported to be engaged with Duvall. It's possible that ownership is OK with Duvall at the right price and that they made him an offer a while ago that he rejected. Does his agent give in now? If I were him, I propose to split the difference the two offers ... but do the Sox insist on their number, since there's no other bidder? Hey, everyone can lose!
Same, But With am Ownership-imposed Salary Cap ... that they are struggling to meet. Trading Jansen and handing the closer job to Martin would be the obvious route. That actually wouldn't suck if they could pick up a (secretly?) high-upside replacement.
Having said that ... do I really believe that ownership could be so blindingly idiotic as to impose a salary cap so extreme that at present it makes Duvall impossible? I don't have an answer to that.
Hicks, BTW, cost the Angels the minimum, as the Yankees pay the remainder.
[1] Rationale for this claim is in theory owned by the Red Sox.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 10, 2024 5:12:33 GMT -5
STEAMER has him sixth among all first basemen in wOBA - only Olson, Freeman, Yandy Diaz, Vlad Jr., and Harper are better. Slash is .259/.370/.487, which looks right on, to me. If you look at his numbers, he never really had that one season where he put everything together in the minors either -- until he does, that looks like a totally reasonable projection, whether by computer or human. Projection systems don't generally project breakouts unless it's someone whose stat line showed that they got weirdly unlucky. You've nailed what the algorithm is doing, I'm pretty sure. They need three years of data (weighed 5 - 4- 3) and will convert ml numbers to MLB equivalents and then add in an average improvement given age and level.
Not only did Casas not burn up the minors, he didn't arrive in MLB early.
The unavoidable error here is the assumption that that Casas was trying to achieve the best results--as opposed to trying to learn how to achieve the best results, later. I always felt he was trying to do the latter, e.g., his experimentation with choking up on two strikes. His entire approach -- trying to match his bat angle to the ball angle, while worrying much less about timing, is radical, and certainly seems correct to me.
Among 1B he was 4th in MLB and 2nd after the ASB, in the two different major metrics I looked at (a few weeks ago!). I think he'll be better this year than last.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 26, 2023 22:34:33 GMT -5
It’s not captured in xwOBA, since xwOBA assumes an average baserunner. It’s important to keep that in mind since his speed helping him outperform his actual batted ball output is a key way he contributes to the team. xwOBA incorporates sprint speed. It may only be for ground balls / singles though, not sure add: but yes I do expect him to regularly outperform his xwOBA based on his profile, but whether it will be by as much as in 2023 is TBD According to who?
Or more strongly, no, it doesn't. That would defeat the entire purpose of the metric.
xwOBA ignores where you hit the ball. A 400' fly ball that is hit directly at CF for an easy out has the same value as one pulled for a homer. You can see in the 2023 MLB totals for fly balls, by direction (wOBA, xwOBA, diff):
.888 .652 = +.236 pull .312 .487 = -.175 straightaway
.241 .242 = -.001 opposite
xwOBA is based on exit velocity and vertical launch angle only. It is designed to be a pure measure of quality of contact, regardless of batted ball direction.
The reason why the metric ignores BB direction is that it's unclear that pitchers have any control over that. And the offensive and defensive xwOBA numbers are identical.
----
A 15-way breakdown -- fly, LD, grounder x 5 directions (fly and LD split home and away) -- of BA and SA, expected vs. actual, would cast some light on Duval. Speed is not an element in BA vs. xBA for liners and fly balls.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 15, 2023 16:43:42 GMT -5
Yamamoto options laid out...lets say everyone will offer 300 plus million. He reportedly would like to be in a big market and loves attention. Mets-have to compete with Senga and always being compared to him Phillies-have a star in Harper who will always be center of attention Dodgers-second fiddle to Shohei Yankees-have Cole as their ace and Judge as the star Red Sox-one of his best friends on the team. Will be the unquestioned ace and most marketable player and center of attention I hope ultimately he comes to the Sox to lead the rotation and to play with one of his best friends. We'll see... He's expressed a desire to play on a team that already has a Japanese player, which is more than reasonable.
The Yankees and Giants have none.
The Dodgers have one that, as you point out, will always overshadow him. And it's hard to imagine them making a billion dollar investment. With the impending Glasnow trade, this would make three expensive aces added in one off-season. My first reaction to the trade news was, the Dodgers are out of the Yamamoto chase.
That leaves the Sox and the Mets (with Senga). The Mets ... who play second fiddle to another team in their own city, play in a ballpark that no one lists as among the best, and have only one non-stupidity-assisted WS victory in their history. Whereas the Sox are revered in 5 1/2 states, play in the most renowned park in the sport, and have easily been the most successful team in the tax-limit era.
Some unusually perceptive sportswriter (whose post I can't find) pointed out that Dice-K loved Boston so much that he actually moved here for a long stretch, and that Koji Uehara has also been vocal about how much he loved the city. Keep in mind that a newly wealthy person can buy a nice house in the Boston suburbs that's just a 15 minute drive to the ball park. Try that in NYC.
And how many MLB teams are run by an over-achieving pitcher whose career backup plan was MD, who has a working knowledge (at least) of biomechanics, and who brought with him one of the game's best-regarded pitching coaches?
But the best argument that the Sox are the front-runners is that almost every supposed expert has the Sox as having just an outside chance. These are the folks who watched Ron Santo retire as the second greatest 3B of all time (after Eddy Matthews) and couldn't get him into the HOF before he died.
Sportswriters (and many fans) seem to believe that ballplayers just take the highest $$$. But the latest study (2023!) shows that beyond 500K of annual income there's no increase in happiness. That is of course less than the MLB minimum. I'm sure the occasional player goes for the highest bid as a substitute for the unconditional love they didn't get from their parents (I'm being just half sarcastic here), and it also makes sens if new (or newly motivated) ownership wants to simply buy a WS, like the Mets have been doing. But their first shot was a colossal misfire.
Players want a) a fair amount of money given the market (and I'd like to hope that most can recognize a desperate overpay or two); b) a pleasant and hopefully great experience with teammates, the manager and coaches, and the city and fans; and c) WS rings.
In this specific case, I think everyone (again, including many fans) is thinking, well, they didn't pay you-know-who what he was worth, so why would they
pay this guy? The Sox under John Henry have gone over the tax limit 12 times in 21 years, second only the Yankees and double the next team (the Cubs), so what sense does it make to think they've suddenly gone penurious? (Admittedly, you have to go all the way back to 2022 to find them over.)
This is neither the time nor (especially) the place to argue again that y-k-h was never going to sign an extension. But in fact, signing a really expensive, coveted FA would not just make some folks re-think that unfortunate bit of recent history ... it would signal to everyone, smart and clueless alike, that the the Sox were still / back in the money-spending business. That itself will sell tickets.
The Sox seem to be the last team he's meeting in person. I'm beginning to think that signing here was the default position. I mean, he's talked to Masa, and quite possibly Koji and Dice-K, the former before he was posted.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 11, 2023 16:18:07 GMT -5
"When I started writing this post, my viewpoint was that O’Neill is a low-risk, high-upside player whom Boston acquired for basically nothing. And even when compromised the past two seasons, he was essentially a league-average part-time outfielder. Seems like there’s little to lose and much to gain.
Now, I’ve talked myself into O’Neill being two Advil and a yoga class away from turning back into the Canadian Adolis García. "
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 11, 2023 15:41:27 GMT -5
Many sportswriters spent all year asserting that Dalbec had "fallen out of favor" with the team, presumably because he was languishing in AAA. He was, of course, the backup to Devers, Casas, and Turner, and after about August, Refsnyder (more on that in a moment), and none of them went on the IL until September. When Casas did they called him up and he was the best hitter on the team for a week (by all metrics). They then gave him an extra day off after an off day, and after that he was one of the worst hitters on the team. He finished in the middle of the pack for those games. Also left nearly unmentioned anywhere is that he started 35 games in RF, including 18 of his last 23. And Cora volunteered positive words about him, talking to the press at the Winter Meetings. So, if Turner re-signs as expected, and assuming they won't have an all-RH bench, there's no spot for him on the MLB roster. It would be unfair to him to send him back to AAA. But you could trade Refsnyder at the end of ST and put Dalbec in his spot, with the added value that he plays not just RF but 3B and 1B, and SS in an emergency.
Refsnyder is a FA at the end of this tear and is a known commodity; Dalbec has 4 years control left and may well have upside. Interesting decision.
Without getting into any small sample discussion: If an extra day off is going to mess up a role player like Dalbec would be, then he's not a better fit than Refsnyder, who has shown the ability to stay sharp and have good at-bats with inconsistent playing time. Some, I might even argue many, players need to play every day to stay their sharpest. If that player's sharpest isn't quite good enough to be an everyday guy, well, that's why being a quality backup is a hard job. Refsnyder's ability to offer relatively consistent play with inconsistent playing time is an underrated part of his value. I actually meant to note that there were serious doubts about his ability to come off the bench. I've also been wondering whether a guy or guys like that could take a daily early BP session that simulated a game, which is doable now that they have pitching machines that can duplicate any pitchers' repertoire.
As for the the idea that he has no trade value at all because they already tried to move him and no one offered anything -- I think that's silly. First, he had a role with the big league club; they just didn't need him until September. But more to the point, a guy who ranks 5th in MLB in a solid power metric and slashed .269 / .381 / .557 in AAA will always be a person of interest. Every team with no credible chance of contending would take a look, and it just takes two who are genuinely interested to strike a deal. Every GM dreams of getting a guy like this for little and having him blossom into solid adequacy under his watch. That he can play 3B, 1B, and RF adds to the interest, because it means you can get him into the lineup more easily.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 11, 2023 0:14:58 GMT -5
Many sportswriters spent all year asserting that Dalbec had "fallen out of favor" with the team, presumably because he was languishing in AAA.
He was, of course, the backup to Devers, Casas, and Turner, and after about August, Refsnyder (more on that in a moment), and none of them went on the IL until September. When Casas did they called him up and he was the best hitter on the team for a week (by all metrics). They then gave him an extra day off after an off day, and after that he was one of the worst hitters on the team. He finished in the middle of the pack for those games.
Also left nearly unmentioned anywhere is that he started 35 games in RF, including 18 of his last 23.
And Cora volunteered positive words about him, talking to the press at the Winter Meetings.
So, if Turner re-signs as expected, and assuming they won't have an all-RH bench, there's no spot for him on the MLB roster. It would be unfair to him to send him back to AAA. But you could trade Refsnyder at the end of ST and put Dalbec in his spot, with the added value that he plays not just RF but 3B and 1B, and SS in an emergency.
Refsnyder is a FA at the end of this tear and is a known commodity; Dalbec has 4 years control left and may well have upside. Interesting decision.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 10, 2023 22:27:16 GMT -5
Reading Law's take on the trade, I finally realized why I have such a low opinion of him.
To my mind, the first thing you do when a trade like this happens is, figure out why the teams made the trade. In the Sox case, it's very clear that they believe O'Neill can start in the OF; you wouldn't trade Refsyder to replace him with an identical guy who costs $3.5M more. It's also likely that they think he can play RF, a position almost any team would put him in given his speed and arm strength.
You also have to realize that the team that made the trade knows 10 times as much about the player as you could ever know.
Law is so convinced of the accuracy of his assessments* that he is disinterested in what the teams believes. In this case he's so sure that O'Neill's offensive decline is the inevitable consequence of his high K rate that he simply reports that it cane "immediately" without offering any evidence or explanation as to why it happened overnight. He then mentions the four injuries an as apparent aside.
This is as useful as spam. At best.
* Assuming there may be folks on the board who became Sox fans after 2006, and admittedly because it's just plain fun to repeat, Law was vehemently certain that "Dustin Pedroia lacks the bat speed to hit major league pitching" and that his upside was backup middle-infielder, but he was unlikely to reach even that.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 10, 2023 20:51:51 GMT -5
This set of splits blew my mind so severely that I'm still looking for it. Men On PA OPS+ _ _ _ 293 157 1 _ _ 109 170 _ 2 _ 58 188 _ _ 3 12 80 1 2 _ 30 53 1 _ 3 15 57 _ 2 3 11 36 1 2 3 9 2
Yes, four of these buckets are very small, but the overall pattern is bonkers. His performance starts to collapse when there are 2 runners in scoring position or a runner on 3rd--clearly higher leverage than just a man on 1st or or 2nd-- and the more important the situation is, the worse he hits.
I calculated the Run Expectancy for each man-on situation starting with a lone runner on 1B, and correlated it to the hitting results. The situation explains 82% of the results. The odds of this being random are 1 in 208. (If you think about it, the small sizes of some of the buckets makes this even more impressive.)
My immediate guess was that this is a guy who is altering his approach based on the situation, to his detriment. If this is the case, his splits with 1 out should be a lot better than 0 or 2 outs, because those two situations are regarded as special -- men on with no outs threatening a big inning. Here are the slash lines: PA 0 outs 14 .083 / .143 / .167 1 out 27 .304 / .296 / .522 2 out 36 .171 / .167 / .343
So that worked.
The three words are "ignore the situation."
.
Maybe a stupid question: how is this different from doing poorly in high-leverage situations, which you’ve criticized other players (JDM, Bogaerts) for? Actually a really smart question. Because he did hit poorly in high-leverage situations.
There are three or four different ways, I think, that a hitter can end up as a bad high-leverage performer.
1) Presses, i.e., puts too much pressure on himself. Opposite: thinks hitting with the game on the line is ... fun! Familiar poster children: Xander Bogaers (last 5 seasons) vs. Alex Verdugo (2021 - early 2023).
1b) Self-doubt vs. confidence, lumped together with the above because it's also psychological, and the two can be part of the same feedback loop. The more Papi succeeded in walk-off situations starting in the '04 playoffs, the more certain he seemed to become that he would get it done again.
Note these can come and go, as they are states of mind. In psych terms, they are state variables rather than trait variables.
2) Feasts on the crap pitching in garbage time, so is significantly less good in high-lev than expected. Poster child: J.D. Martinez.
3) Alters their approach in certain base/out situations. Tries to make a productive out, or tries to hit a homer with 2 on and 2 out. That a;most always backfires in the long run.
I went deeper into O'Neill's numbers than the stuff I posted, and he definitely has type 3 going. I think it's pretty likely he has a type 2 effect, and I was about to look into it when I realized ... OK, maybe he got 1.0 WAR or more that's bogus because of feasting on bad pitching ... at 6.1 per 600 PA to start from, he's still damn good if you make that adjustment.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 10, 2023 0:18:20 GMT -5
Buying low on a toolsy, oft-injured guy in hopes of a bounceback. Why does this feel so familiar. Grady Sizemore says, What's your problem? A tale of two declines:
Age PA WAR/600 PA WAR/600 Surgeries 25 420 1.5 745 6.0 Elbow, Hernia 26 482 6.1 503 2.5 L Knee 27 381 1.9 140 -0.9 Hernia, R Knee 28 266 1.8 295 0.4 Back, R Knee 29 ? DBP 30 DBP 31 oops
Except for the five medical conditions requiring seven surgeries, and the two years at replacement level followed by two years of inactivity, a close comp.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2023 20:20:57 GMT -5
Totally brilliant. This dude had 6.1 WAR / 600 PA in 2021, but more importantly, he was 1.9 and 1.8 the last two years, playing through injuries. If he can stay reasonably healthy (the one big if), his floor is probably 2.5 or even 3.0. So he's comparable to Verdugo, but a) has huge upside, b) restores the proper R/L balance, c) costs about $4M less and c) is not on Alex Cora's **** list.
There is even the hope that he'll be good enough to sign to an extension. Given that the top three prospects are all position players who hit lefty and are due to arrive in 2025, we can really use a RHB who rakes. (I'm still reasonably high on
And here's a bonus: the ceiling is conceivably higher than [6.1 - regression]. His 2021 had a subset of PA that was awful, but should be fixable with 3 words of advice. This set of splits blew my mind so severely that I'm still looking for it. Men On PA OPS+ _ _ _ 293 157 1 _ _ 109 170 _ 2 _ 58 188 _ _ 3 12 80 1 2 _ 30 53 1 _ 3 15 57 _ 2 3 11 36 1 2 3 9 2
Yes, four of these buckets are very small, but the overall pattern is bonkers. His performance starts to collapse when there are 2 runners in scoring position or a runner on 3rd--clearly higher leverage than just a man on 1st or or 2nd-- and the more important the situation is, the worse he hits.
I calculated the Run Expectancy for each man-on situation starting with a lone runner on 1B, and correlated it to the hitting results. The situation explains 82% of the results. The odds of this being random are 1 in 208. (If you think about it, the small sizes of some of the buckets makes this even more impressive.)
My immediate guess was that this is a guy who is altering his approach based on the situation, to his detriment. If this is the case, his splits with 1 out should be a lot better than 0 or 2 outs, because those two situations are regarded as special -- men on with no outs threatening a big inning. Here are the slash lines: PA 0 outs 14 .083 / .143 / .167 1 out 27 .304 / .296 / .522 2 out 36 .171 / .167 / .343
So that worked.
The three words are "ignore the situation."
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 6, 2023 14:47:10 GMT -5
63 players taken in the minor league section, 7 of them from the Red Sox.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 6, 2023 13:11:53 GMT -5
(I wrote this yesterday and forgot to post it (something I do fairly often!) ... in today's Globe Peter Abraham asserts that Verdugo was "a goner" after the second benching )
Hmm .. player who was benched twice for disciplinary reasons is traded to your arch-rival ...
I've always thought that the keep-or-trade decision came down to makeup. Here's a guy who was consistently "clutch" because he regarded hitting with the game on the line as fun. And a guy who fell apart when he was denied an All-Star berth he likely deserved.
Will he put pressure on himself to maximize his next contract? That's a recipe for disaster. He could also put that thought aside, juice up his self-confidence, and asserts that Verduho was a have a huge year. I don't pretend to know which is likelier. But I certainly imagine that Breslow talked to Cora and probably some teammates about that, and about his general clubhouse presence. Even if he's personally liked (which I think is ... likely), no one likes needless drama.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 5, 2023 3:37:11 GMT -5
(I imagine that folks are using the "predict the roster" thread for this, just as they were using this thread for pitching. It deserves some on-topic attention.
I actually think 11 or 12 of the 13 spots are spoken for. First, Jen McCaffrey at The Athletic has kept on top of the Yoshida LF / DH issue: The other thing worthy of note is that the Red Sox have no starting pitchers who put significant extra stress on the outfield defense.
You can't measure this with simple GB and FB rates. A high-K pitchers gets outs without using the defense at all.The correct metric is:
Air Balls [FB + LD] / (Air Balls + GB + SO + Popups). I did that for last year's starters and converted the results to a + score where 100 is MLB average.
Name AB+ ------ --- Pivetta 103 Crawford 98 Sale 98 Houck 86 Bello 83
So, Yoshida is in LF, most of the time. You'll want at him at DH on the road, when one of the three neutral pitchers are starting, and when there's also a big or tricky LF and/or an opposing lineup full of flyball hitters.
This of course makes room Turner, who hugely wants to return to the Sox.
And here's Breslow on the reality of Turner's value in the clubhouse (again from McCaffrey): "It’s a subjective evaluation for sure, but that is very, very different than saying it doesn’t matter," and then he mentions "the value ... of an additional coach on staff or someone who can get an entire clubhouse moving in the same direction."
So as soon as Ohtani signs, all the losers will make their offers to Turner, and he and the Sox will know what a fair price is. The same thing is very likely to happen with Duvall, who was born to hit in Fenway.
Wong, Casas, Devers, Story, Duran, and the aforementioned trio gives you 8 starters. McGuire, Refsnyder, and, Reyes are on the bench. The Angels are likely waiting until they lose Ohtani before trading Brandon Drury ... if he goes elsewhere, the Sox will find a different plus defender who hits righty for2B.
So, what do we want from guy # 13 ?
The standard bench is backups for catcher, middle infielder, and corner infielder, plus a fourth OFer. The Sox will have the regular DH as the corner IF backup, and when he's in that role, the LF will be at DH. So you want a 5th outfielder.
You also have 5 LF hitters and 7 RH hitters, and one of the 5 lefties is the backup catcher. 5 vs. 8 would be a huge imbalance, so you want a lefty bat.
Of course we already have two outfielders who hit lefty: Alex Verdugo and Wilyer Abeu. And this decision is way trickier than it seems. I'm going to put that in the Verdugo trade thread.
---- Batting order vs. RHP looks strong on paper.
Duran Casas Story Devers Tuner Yoshida Duvall (or Verdugo) Wong 2B
If Stoy is struggling he swaps with Turner. And there are days when you swap Duran and Yoshida, and if Verdugo exists, Duran and him.
Note that putting two LHB back-to-back is not a problem. If needed, you pinch-hit Refsnyed for Duran, and (if applicable) Duvall for Verdugo. Just the threat of that will scare opposing managers away.
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 2, 2023 3:06:28 GMT -5
Brayan Bello had two huge splits: four days rest vs. five or more, and day vs. night. Both of these are about rest. Extra day, extra hours of sleep. All of the following numbers are xwOBA adjusted for opposing team's offense over the season, vs. RHP. The translations of xwOBA into rotation slots (on an average team) has the top 15 pitchers as aces (because we wouldn't call then aces if there were enough to go around), and then groups of 30, which leaves the last 15 guys as needing replacement. This system happens to put the line between #3 and#4 exactly at MLB average, which seems right, right?
------ Time Off
.360 (7 G, 154 PA) 4 days rest .303 (21 G, 514 PA) 5 or more days. .360 is a somewhat below average #5 starer, while .303 is a slightly below average #2. A further breakdown: .296 (15 G, 365 PA) 5 days rest .313 (6 G, 149 PA) 6+ days
.296 is a great #2 , while .313 is a good #3. ----- Like Day vs. Night (because it is!)
.353 (10 G, 220 PA) Day .296 (18 G, 448 PA) Night Similar numbers, eh? Here the bad split gets promoted from "somewhat" to "slightly" below average #5. It's kind of cute that the best conditions for each of the splits differ by just .000. But this doesn't tell you that much. You want to break it down 6 ways, 3 x 2, with the 3 being short, normal, and long rest. I mean, what if all his games with extra rest came at night? Which is exactly what happened. And that's where it gets really interesting.
------ On the 6th Day He Rested (damn, again?)
To begin with, after the ASB he had 8 days of rest, and had an xwOBA of .191. Remove that, as you should, and his longer-rest goes from .313 to .337, which is worst #4 starter. What to make of this? It's very likely that his experience with 6 days rest was minimal, right? Which means he had no between-game throwing regimen for it, and likely did what the team told him to. And it didn't work. But you'd like to hope that he worked on that regimen over the season. We're not looking for a statistically significant result with just 5 starts, but a trend in the right direction would be a good sign. So here are the starts: .389 (5/17) .389 (5/30) (Really!) .310 (6/18) .321 (7/26) .293 (9/27) OK, I set you up. If you just number the starts 1 to 5, and use that as the dependent variable, that trend is statistically significant, p = .035.
It could still be random, of course (1 chance in 28). But it sure looks like Bello, who by all reports is both smart and a dedicated and had worker, figured out a routine that worked for him.
Now, if we were to find another such improvement, we'd be that much more confident that he does this, right? ----- As You Wish ... or, Normal Rest, Short Sleep Bello had 7 of his day game starts on 5 days rest (starts 1 through 4, and 7 through 9), and 3 on four days. Here are the 7 rested game results: .371 (4/14) .375 (4/23) .380 (4/29) .270 (6/5) .354 (8/24) .218 (9/4) .260 (9/10) Even with the August hiccup, that is also statistically significant, p=.048. Every article online about work schedules for MLB players references night games only. But my guess is that starting pitchers arrive by 10 AM or earlier for day games. If Bello goes to bed after midnight, that's going to be tough for him. I will spare you the complete explanation of sleep bed-times, and just note that most night-owls make things worse by exposing themselves to blue (other than red, really) light, in the evening, which fakes out the brain into thinking it's still daytime. If someone told him about this after April, and he started a project of finding how early he needed to go to all red-light, that would explain what we see. August could well be, "hey, that really worked, maybe I don't need to start that early."
(There are other way to get extra sleep, of course, but the pattern works with those as well.)
Opposites Intrigue: Short Rest, Normal Sleep
The four night games on 4 days rest are very interesting. Overall he's .306, somewhat below average #2. BUT ... .355 (5/4) .279 (6/23) .421 (8/29) .199 (9/15) This is also hone, road, home, road. That's .386 at home and .239 on the road.
The odds of the results happening by chance are 1 in 10, but if you look at the average event in each of the two sets, it just misses significance (p = .057).
His kid arrived too late to explain the first home game, but of course there are plenty of reasons why behaviors might be different (in either direction) home vs. road. I think this is probably for real, but they if go to a 6-day rotation it may well not happen again.
---- The Other Split Splits ...
Which are his Worst and Best situations.
1) Short Rest Day Games
Annihilation. .495 on 7/19, .367 on 8/12, .514 on 9/20 = .445. This suggests that he's still a bit sleep-shy for day games, but it's not an issue unless he's also lacking rest both ways. Again, they should keep him off short rest as much as possible.
2) Immediate Upside ...
a/k/a Optimum-Rest Night Games
It's just 8 games, with 205 PA.
It's .280, which is an average ace. Obviously he's not that good (wait for it ... wait for it ... yet). Two ways of looking at this: Given that he had splits that were both good and bad, it makes good sense to regress the .280 to the mean, and that's .295 (by my metric), which is the best #2 in the game. That's credible for his 8 ideal games, I think.
And obviously, if you took the best split from every pitcher who has them, .280 is likely not extra-special. But that just stresses the importance of getting your pitchers into the situations where they're at their best. Bonus Feature: The Second-Half "Fade"!
The first pair is before the ASB and the second one is after. Split G xwOBA G xwOBA Night-5 5 .265 3 .303 Day-5 4 .341 3 .290 Night-6+ 3 .359 3 .268 Night-4 2 .312 2 .300 Day-4 0 3 .445 He was .312 in the first half, and .289 in the second excluding the death combo, which he never had to face in the first half. The .265 in his most common situation would have ranked him 3rd in MLB if sustained for a whole season, so that was likely due for regression. The resulting .303 (still a bit below average #2) was more than offset by improvements in the others. Meanwhile, the 3 ultra-tough games boosted his overall number to .317. So there's .028 of illusory struggles.
His adjustment for opponent hitting went from adding .004 (meaning the opposition was .004 below average) to subtracting it, so that adds another .008.
But both of those pale in comparison to his luck and defensive support on balls in play. In the first half his wOBA was .295, so that's .017 of good luck / defense. In the second half it was .373, an amazing .056 of unearned badness. That's another .073 of mirage decline (relative to the first half), for a total of .109!
And yes, wOBA - xwOBA is almost entirely luck and defense. If anyone disagrees, we can talk. Conclusion: Throwing You a Changeup
Of the 72 pitchers who had 100+ PA end with a changeup, Bello ranked 8th with a .210 xwOBA -- but none of the 7 guys with more success approached his 626 pitches and 172 PA. (Next best was Nick Martinez with 504 /141.) It's well-established that the more you throw a good pitch, the less effective it becomes, so it's likelier than not that Bello had the best change in MLB.
A good thing, because that was his only pitch that was above average. That he still finished with a .315 -- a somewhat above-average #3 -- was impressive for a rookie with one reliable pitch.
What, you say? Even his sinker --a glorious pitch to watch, when he has it working -- was subpar? Yes : .343.
But I gave it away, didn't I? When he had it working.
In his 11 starts from 5/10 to 7/19, he had a .280 in 98 PA. But in 5 earlier and 12 later starts, he had a .408 and .371 (46 and 120 PA).
(At present I have no plans to break down all of his pitches. Ha!)
Consistent execution of your pitches, for both command and movement ... that is very big. It sure looks like Bello has resolved his day / night problem, so this is his final frontier. And man, if I were Andrew Bailey I'd be over the moon with excitement at helping a talent this large achieved that step.
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 29, 2023 5:29:05 GMT -5
I remember Heymen saying Max Scherzer will sign with west coast team only because of family reason but he signed with the Mets. Yamamoto will go where the money is they always do.False. For instance ...
The Red Sox outbid the Mariners for Adrian Beltre the first time he was a free agent. They wanted to use him at SS for a year until
Bill Mueller's contract was up.
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