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Post by jchang on Feb 19, 2014 20:55:59 GMT -5
On the Dennis & Callahan broad, Farrell says that Bogaerts looks like he's grown an inch.
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Post by jchang on Feb 17, 2014 18:28:58 GMT -5
Another player rushed through the minors with "plate issues" is Adrian Beltre (MLB at age 19). Strangely, his walk rate shows no particular trend over 16 years (6.7%) other than the 10% in years 2 and 3. More impressive is that his BA has actually been up that last 4 years other than the year 7 anomaly. I do not know is Beltre has poor pitch recognition or just does not care. In any event, he is liable to swing at a pitch far out of the strike zone as well as get a hit on said pitch. Could this have been corrected with more time in the minor?
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Post by jchang on Feb 16, 2014 13:56:55 GMT -5
Best wishes and good health to Dempster and his family. Even though he was paid inline with a 3/4 starter, he did his part last year. He may have only got 8 wins, but we won 17 of the 29 games he started. That's better than expected from a 5 starter. I don't think it will be necessary this year, but recall that Byrd came out of semi-retirement in 09 when there was a dire need.
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Post by jchang on Feb 8, 2014 13:11:20 GMT -5
My preference is that players should be drafted in order of talent, without too much concern for signing concerning, except perhaps in case of expressed intent to attend a top university. In the current system, there is too much risk to the team on the loss of slot money when a round 1-10 draftee does not sign. So the sox have been drafting college seniors in the 7-10 slots to have money for a difficult sign later. I think a better mechanism to implement this is: if a round 1-10 draftee is offered slot and does not accept within 10 or so days, then the can used that slot money elsewhere. In the case of a 1st round pick, the team can opt for either using the money for other draftees in the current year, or electing for compensation the next year. If the 1st round draftee is not offered slot, then there is no compensation.
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Post by jchang on Feb 8, 2014 12:56:56 GMT -5
A defensive alignment of Sizemore, Bradley, Victorino would be nice. Too bad inter-league play is no longer in a single contiguous period. We could have Bradley start in AAA, then when IL comes along, Gomes has a tattoo related injury.
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Post by jchang on Feb 7, 2014 16:30:41 GMT -5
I haven't meet one MFY fan before or after the Tanaka signing who is optimistic for the 2014 season.
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Post by jchang on Feb 7, 2014 16:15:15 GMT -5
Using Baseball Reference, there were: 210 players with >= 400 PA., Avg OBP .331, stddev 0.038 so I don't know where either 0.040 or 0.015 comes from. Unless, this is statistical sampling theory. The expected variation is the square root of the number of samples. So 600 PA, expected variation is 24.49 events, or 0.0408, so technically 0.041 is more correct than 0.040. The is incidentally why small sample size is the big bugaboo. Given that 20 points is the difference between an average and good player, it takes 2500 PA to make statistically valid assessment.
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Post by jchang on Feb 6, 2014 17:32:35 GMT -5
Last year only Cabrera and Wright had OBP higher than .388 among 3B. Donaldson and Beltre were under. Carpenter was over, but he split time in other positions. 16 player in all had OBP .388 or higher. Nice to know our expectations are not being set too high.
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Post by jchang on Feb 6, 2014 11:27:30 GMT -5
winter definitely feels longer when you are in the cold. last several year the DC area was not particularly cold for extended periods, but this winter was. And it is even colder in western MA. Is it necessary to buy ST tickets in advance? I had intended to check periodically for a cheap airfare - and making a spot decision to head down.
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Post by jchang on Feb 5, 2014 17:13:13 GMT -5
There is aspect I find difficult to reconcile on Owens concerning doubts that his stuff projecting to the MLB level. We have had several high pitching prospects in succession (Barnes, Ranaudo, Pimentel, Kelly) who excelled at the lower level and then experienced difficulties in their first exposure to AA. Owens had no difficulties in 6 games other than known game to game fluctuations.
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Post by jchang on Feb 3, 2014 16:31:18 GMT -5
m.mlb.com/fantasy/preview/
sorry if this is the wrong place, but the fantasy list came out, here is the sum total by team
Angels 120.00 Astros 39.00 Athletics 68.00 Blue Jays 109.00 Braves 128.00 Brewers 118.00 Cardinals 134.00 Cubs 42.00 D-backs 100.00 Dodgers 176.00 Free Agent 65.00 Giants 104.00 Indians 79.00 Mariners 115.00 Marlins 81.00 Mets 70.00 Nationals 145.00 Orioles 98.00 Padres 46.00 Phillies 82.00 Pirates 102.00 Rangers 184.00 Rays 97.00 Reds 137.00 Red Sox 90.00 Rockies 101.00 Royals 105.00 Tigers 157.00 Twins 51.00 White Sox 59.00 Yankees 109.00 and Red Sox
Dustin Pedroia 27.00 David Ortiz 15.00 Shane Victorino 11.00 Koji Uehara 8.00 Jon Lester 5.00 John Lackey 4.00 Jake Peavy 2.00 Clay Buchholz 1.00 Mike Napoli 1.00 Will Middlebrooks 1.00 Xander Bogaerts 1.00 A.J. Pierzynski 1.00 Daniel Nava 1.00 Ryan Dempster 1.00 Jonny Gomes 1.00 Jackie Bradley Jr NULL Felix Doubront 1.00 Mike Carp 1.00 Edward Mujica 1.00 Junichi Tazawa 1.00 Jonathan Herrera 1.00 Craig Breslow 1.00 Grady Sizemore 1.00 David Ross 1.00 Allen Webster 1.00 Ryan Lavarnway 1.00
Edit: Also Ellsbury $33 Drew and Salty were only $1 ea.
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Post by jchang on Feb 2, 2014 14:27:40 GMT -5
Sometime last year when we were speculating on a position for Mookie, I said DH - half in jest. Assuming that in the post-Papi era, we platoon the DH spot. Still one player will get listed as DH on the roster regardless of the actual playing time distribution. I would find it most amusing to have Mookie listed as DH.
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Post by jchang on Feb 2, 2014 12:39:33 GMT -5
Its complicated. Baseball Reference provides this as a guide (same on position and pitcher): 8+ MVP, 5+ A-S, 2+ Starter, 0-2 Sub, < 0 Repl. which clearly says a Starter is 2 and that 0-2 (lets say it really means 0-1.9) is a sub (I will consider a good closer to be equivalent to a starter). And yes, I do acknowledge that this is different from FG. This is (kind of) the definition used in one of the articles cited at the top of this thread, except that they used 1.5+ as the standard for prospect success instead of 2. Also, most of the WAR data I am using is BR, not FG.
But you are right in that one of the 2 anchor points of WAR is that 0 is a replacement player (and a replacement team wins 48 games). The second anchor point of WAR is that the average team is WAR 33 (48 + 33 = 81), otherwise WAR would not be a win above replacement.
OK, now that we have stated the description, what do the actual WAR values assigned say? The average team is WAR 20 in batting and WAR 13.7 in pitching for an excess of 0.7 (meaning the replacement team should have 47.3 wins).
On the position side with WAR 20, this would support WAR 2 for each of 9 positions (NL no DH really messes up my model) and WAR 2 for the 4 bench roster spots. Note that this is by roster spot. Given that playing time is distributed with platoon and AAA players, expect to see viable players between WAR 1-2.
On the pitching side, there is sufficient information in the Baseball-Reference data set to further assess that the WAR 13.7 pitching is split 9.1 on IP starting and 4.6 on IP in relief. This works out to WAR 1.82 for 1/5th of the starts for each team (32.4), but starting is really tough so we could normalize SP WAR to 32 games and 192 IP (starters average 5.9IP per start) to assess an individual pitcher against the WAR 1.82 per roster spot.
So the actual WAR values assigned match your definition of average, even though the stated definition is otherwise, i.e., its complicated. The WAR values assigned to position players do seem to make sense. It is with starting pitchers that the values are goofy. Because SP and RP seem to be graded on the same scale, a perfectly reasonable 5 starter at 32GS, 180IP, RA9 5.25 get assigned WAR -1.06 (Wily Peralta). By comparison, a relief pitcher with 36 IP RA9 6.94 has WAR -0.92. Also, a call-up with 1 ok start gets WAR ~0, below that of a 5-starter.
The whole point of my line of argument is that using WAR 1.5 as the standard of success for assessing prospect contributed heavily to the apparent low success rate of pitching prospects. If we consider that most of the top 50 prospects are grade 60 and 65, this maps to a 3-starter, and 51-100 are grade 55 mapping to a 4/5 starter. In the actual WAR results, a 3-pitcher might be in the 1.25 to 2.25 range, and the 4/5 starters in the -1 to 1.25 range. So the fact that 20% of the 51-100 achieved WAR 1.5+ actually represents the over-achievement group. There are about 20% in the WAR 0.5 to 1.0 range that were classified as busts should actually be considered to be successful projections.
Edit: League W L bWAR-pos bWAR-pit bWAR-tot AL 81.3 80.8 21.05 14.36 35.4 NL 80.7 81.3 18.9 13.00 31.9 What interesting is that AL has 3.5 WAR higher than NL, but only 0.5 extra W to show for it?
Edit 2: By the prospect grading scheme, a grade of 5 can be assigned to a prospect projecting to be a 4/5 starter or late-inning RP/2nd div closer. In other words, a 5 starter producing 160-180 IP at RA9 4.8 or so is much more than a generally available replacement level player. But in actual WAR values, the 4/5 starter is ranging from -1 to 1 (avg 0) while the group 2 RP get WAR ranging from 1.25 to 2.0, averaging perhaps 1.5. As it
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Post by jchang on Jan 31, 2014 22:48:13 GMT -5
if there are 5 starting pitchers, then the 3-pitcher should be the middle (or average) starter in terms of value. However, there are 12 pitchers on 25-man MLB roster. The 5 starters and the closer should be the best 6 out of 12 in talent/value, and other 6 RP should be least talent/value, hence the 5 SP + closer are above average pitchers and the 6 RP are below average. Depending on the difference between the 5 starter and closer, one should be close to being an average MLB pitcher, hence map to a grade of 5 (elite closers are 6). The 3 starter is an average starter (3 of 5) but an above average pitcher as he is 3 of 12, hence the grade of 6.
I would say that we should assess position players in the same manner. Assume an average team. There are 13 position players including the DH, 9 starters and 4 bench. Presumably 6 are above average, one is average, and 6 are below average. Hence only 7 of the starters are average or better, 2 in principle are below average along with the 4 bench players, barring a coach decision to do quirky alignment (NBA 6th man strategy?)
Apparently bWAR pitching is based on RA9, while fWAR is based on FIP? which attempts to remove luck?
Given that SP have higher RA9 than RP, I say that we need to rethink how pitching WAR should be calculated focusing first on correctly assessing starter pitching to properly reflect that between 2 starters with the same RA9, the SP that can sustain higher IP/GS is more valuable, not just in the higher season IP.
Lets assume that baseline Win is the following sequence. The starter pitches his average IP/GS and avg RA per outing. From here we calculate the probability that he has the lead against the opponents average SP. If the starter does 7 IP, then he is followed by the setup man (RA9 2.6?) and then closer (RA9 1.8?). Because his team has the lead, these last two innings are against below average RP (RA9 4?) If the starter completes 6 IP, he is followed by the 3rd RP, who might be RA9 3+. But given that the average starter has RA9 4.3, there needs to be some mechanism to assign a higher value to the starter who can put up more IP/GS, even though his RA9 is lower than the better RP?
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Post by jchang on Jan 31, 2014 10:36:25 GMT -5
One addendum. It would appear that (b&f))WAR is a complex calculation based on IP x win percentage above replacement (which I will call W%), with W% strongly influenced by RA9?. This would mean that a SP with 165 IP has about the same value as a RP with 60 IP if both have W% near zero. This seems to be the case for the 5th group of 30 SP and for the 5th group of 30 RP. My argument is that the 5th starter is more valuable than the RP when their WAA% are both near zero. The 5th starters job is to grind through enough innings so that even when he is getting hammered, the marginal RP's can finish the game and allowing the better RP's to be available to finish games when there is a lead to protect. This would mean WAR calculation must employ situational RA9?
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Post by jchang on Jan 31, 2014 2:48:10 GMT -5
The two articles patrmac04 started this thread with on prospect success rate were great. I had been interested in this subject for a while but did not have data to put it together + laziness. I had expected that success rate may only be 50% or so, consistent with the expression that one proven player (in hand) is worth 2 prospects (in the bush). What bothered me was the much lower success rate (based on the standard WAR 2 or 1.5 being a success) for pitchers compared to position players. Is something wrong with the way we evaluate pitching prospects?
The 51-100 prospects this year are all grade 55, and I am assuming that this is common. This should correspond to either a 5 starter or closer by the grade definition. There are typically 12 pitchers on an MLB roster. WAR definition is 2 - average or SP. I would expect that the average pitcher at WAR 2 should mean the 5 starter and best RP (6 of 12 pitchers at WAR 2 or above, 6 pitchers below, hence WAR 2 being average). It is the last one or two RP that should constitute the replacement level player valuation. And yet the WAR rating puts both the 5-starter and the 5th best RP at about the same value, Below is a distribution chart for SP, bWAR on the vertical axis, and RA9 on the horizontal
Below, the same for RP There were 186 pitchers who started 10 or more games in the top graph. There were 258 pitchers with >= 20IP but <= 3GS (ok, this may have a couple of spot starters). There a number pitchers with between 4 and 9 starts excluded from the above, 7 of whom between 0.9 to 2 bWAR.
Note the WAR 0 point is about 5.0 RA9 for SP and 4.6 RA9 for RP (eyeball, stats help would be appreciated). I would argue that the 5-starter with 165 IP over 30 starts (5.5 IP/game) at 5 RA9 should indeed be considered MLB average value for WAR 2 (ok, perhaps 1.5), while the RP good for 60 IP at 4.6 RA9 might be just above replacement level. Another curiosity: MLB 30 team total bWAR
BR bWAR WAR/team Avg WAR/roster spot pitching 410.0 13.67 1.14 batting 598.6 19.95 1.53 This would mean that the argument of WAR 2 = avg is untenable, also contributing to the low success rate of prospects using WAR 1.5 as the standard of success? Edit: actually this could work? See bottom for pitchers. Of the WAR 20 per average team for batters, assume the 9 starters average WAR 2, and the 4 bench average WAR 0.5?
Below is the bWAR + fWAR (previously I had just bWAR) Starting pitchers by WAR descending in groups of 30
SP bWAR range fWAR range 1-30 3.6 to 7.8 3.4 to 6.5 31-60 2.3 to 3.4 2.4 to 3.3 61-90 1.4 to 2.2 1.6 to 2.3 91-120 0.6 to 1.4 1.1 to 1.5 121-150 -0.3 to 0.5 0.4 to 1.1 Same for RP RP bWAR range fWAR range 1-30 1.7 to 3.6 1.2 to 3.3 31-60 1.2 to 1.7 0.8 to 1.2 61-90 0.8 to 1.2 0.6 to 0.8 91-120 0.5 to 0.7 0.3 to 0.6 121-150 0.3 to 0.5 0.2 to 0.6 151-180 0.1 to 0.3 0.0 to 0.2 Below is the number of players by bWAR bracket bWAR Pos SP RP 0-0.9 xx 35 124* 1-1.9 69 26 52 2-2.9 58 24 19 3-3.9 29 23 5 4-4.9 25 9 5-5.9 15 6 6-6.9 9 5 7+ 7 3
*(min 20 IP) same by fWAR bracket fWAR Pos SP RP 0-0.9 182 43 141 1-1.9 73 53 39 2-2.9 53 30 6 3-3.9 38 22 2 4-4.9 19 11 5-5.9 13 4 6-6.9 7 6 7+ 6 Updated Excel sheets to include fWAR, and to adjust the RP excluded pitchers with less than 20 IP) www.qdpma.com/zBaseball/WAR_pitching_2013b.xlsx www.qdpma.com/zBaseball/WAR_position_2013b.xlsx
Edit 31 Jan 6:49PM
Below, SP: IP by pitchers that started 1 or more games (308), then broken out by IP in GS, and in relief, RA are apportioned RP: IP by pitchers 0 starts (418 pitchers), IP in relief is then totaled IP IP_st IP_re RAst RAre RA9st RA9re RA9 IP/GS bWAR SP 30648.7 28676.3 1972.3 13823 951 4.338 5.90 272.5 RP 13004.7 4?? 13000.7 0 5479 3.793 137.8 All 43653.3 14973 6430 3.865 4.18 410.3
Pitchers with 1 or more starts have RA9 = 4.338 (based on apportioned RA by start/relief mix), and the composite RA9 in relief inning is 3.865, and the overall RA9 (all IP) is 4.18. The net result is that starters pitched 70.2% of the IP, while getting only 66.4% of the WAR. Given the SP total bWAR 272.5 over 30 teams and 5/team, the average SP is bWAR is 1.82, and the average RP bWAR is 0.66.
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 22:13:45 GMT -5
On the matter of Coyle as a prospect, as I said above, he should stop the big swings, which should cut down his SO rate, and then his production might also not fall off a cliff after 150 or PA. I am inclined to think he has great talent for putting the barrel on the ball, but his body does not have the endurance to slug like Ortiz.
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 22:10:09 GMT -5
I am of the opinion that Owens will not change his velocity. Neither righties or lefties could hit him last year with his 88-90 FB. He gets incredible SO against RH, ok against LH. It is only his BB rate against LH that is way high. It could be just that he did not face a lot of LH in the low minors so he never bothered to think about a different pitch sequence for lefties. The last 6? games in AA, Owens saw a higher percentage of LH than in A+. By AAA it could be a 50-50 R/L mix. Anyhow, I will try to make his first two starts,
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 21:29:19 GMT -5
below is the bWAR of starting pitchers in descending order, in groups of 30. SP1 does not represent a 1-pitcher, just the top 30.
The purpose of the grouping of 30 is to test whether the 30 team MLB roster can be filled in accordance to the bWAR definition: starter being WAR 2+, of course not all teams have 5 starters.
below are relief pitchers by bWAR in descending order, groups of 30
below are position players by bWAR in descending order, groups of 30
finally, the number of players: position, SP and RP by WAR bracket the number of low WAR (0-0.9) position players is difficult to assess as there are lots of players with few AB and low WAR. The main point is that the bWAR system is unfair to SP, as there are fewer than 150 (5 x 30) starting pitchers (10+ starts) with WAR > 0. A perfecting viable 5-starter might have negative WAR.
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 20:47:39 GMT -5
here is distribution by WAR for position, SP and RP
WAR Pos SP RP 0-0.9 xx 35 205 1-1.9 69 26 52 2-2.9 58 24 19 3-3.9 29 23 5 4-4.9 25 9 5-5.9 15 6 6-6.9 9 5 7+ 7 3
there were a few pitchers who started 4-9 games with positive WAR but were excluded from my SP/RP separation method
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 20:25:49 GMT -5
I don't think I have derailed this thread - top prospect to lower prospect value using the success rate using the data in the McKinney article. I am only trying to clarify the assessment of the failure rate for pitching prospects based on WAR definitions, which seems to value SP and RP out of line relative to the definitions of the 20-80 grade scale. - yeah that my excuse. I am fully on board with grade 8 - 1 pitcher being elite, and that there are only a handful of elite pitchers, far less than 30, and this is reflected in the WAR list. My grouping in batches of 30 is purely to see whether we could fill the MLB roster spots according to definition. Also that grade 7 - all-star is good as there enough WAR 5 players to fill the all-star roster for both position and pitchers (there were 18 pitchers at WAR 4.4 and above in 2013, so the remaining pitching spots are for elite closers?) The tricky part is what grade corresponds to a 2-pitcher? I would like to say that a 3-pitcher should be grade 6 - above average, same as a 1st div position player, and 4/5 pitchers being grade 5. The BR WAR definition is 2+ Starter, 0-2 Sub, <0 Repl. So I would like to say that WAR 1.5-ish should be a decent 5 starter. Finally, the last 1-2 RP should represent the replacement level line. the Excel sheets with graph are below www.qdpma.com/tools/WAR_pitching_2013.xlsxwww.qdpma.com/tools/WAR_position_2013.xlsxoops I did the graphs differently.
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 18:28:04 GMT -5
I think Drew would make our team better, but I still want to get WMB enough PA to see what we have. People keep pining for a power hitter, WMB's HRs are still on a rising trajectory as the ball clears the fences. Give this guy a chance. If Jenny Dell is dating WMB, then good for her. I am not concerned about whether she is reporting objectively on WMB, keeping the camera on her will only boost ratings!
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 17:34:44 GMT -5
Since Coyle and Betts are mentioned, I will speculate on Coyle that might also apply to Betts. Coyle started 2013 with an incredible tear in both BA and XBH. I am thinking that the cumulative effects of hard impacts with the bat puts wear and tear on the smaller bodies. This may not lead to an injury requiring to be placed on the IR list, but it would sap their hitting power, meaning lots of GB outs. Given that we all know BA and OBP are more critical to winning than SLG, and that power develops in the late 20's, I would rather the little guys focus on having a good AB and defense instead of fireworks.
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 17:06:07 GMT -5
thanks, I will grind through the bWAR/fWAR details later as I should maintain the appearance of working (any complex Excel spreadsheet qualifies, but not looking at the BR and FG websites). Anyways, my maintain point is that the excellent article by Scott McKinney in RoyalsReview/SB (great information, as I have certainly inquired whether such information was available) over-estimates the bust rate of pitching prospects. Using Baseball Reference pitching WAR, I separated the starters from the RP, then restored the sort by WAR, then made sub-groups of 30 (30 MLB teams, even though talent is not evenly distributed) For Starting Pitchers, below is the WAR range for the top 30, 2nd 30, 3rd 30 etc
SP bWAR range 1-30 3.6 to 7.8 31-60 2.3 to 3.4 61-90 1.4 to 2.2 91-120 0.6 to 1.4 121-150 -0.3 to 0.5
For Relief Pitchers (0-3 starts), below is the WAR range for the top 30, etc
RP bWAR range 1-30 1.7 to 3.6 31-60 1.2 to 1.7 61-90 0.8 to 1.2 91-120 0.5 to 0.7 121-150 0.3 to 0.5
I am inclined to guess that ERA translates to win probability with other factors, and IP * WP translates to WAR? My point is that I think the rating/grade system is valid: 8 elite, 7 all-star, 6 above avg., 5 avg. Grade 6 can be either a 2/3 starter or 1st div closer Grade 5 can be either a 4/5 starter or late inning RP Grade 4 a good RP Yet the bWAR system puts 4/5 starters in the below avg. range (grade 3 to 4). The RP WAR values seem to be consistent with the grading principle.
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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 13:43:45 GMT -5
the stats above are from Baseball Reference, I only saw the WAR column, not bWAR or fWAR. I understand that WAR is a complex formula that should be consistent with its principles. My point is that both Doubront and Dempster put up 2013 performance in line with 4/5 starters. The 51-100 prospects in the top 100 list all have a grade of 55, which corresponds to either 4/5 starter or late inning RP. So if a prospect to were to produce in the range of Doubront and Dempster in 2013, we should consider that both a correct assessment of talent and a SP. Yet by the WAR calculation, they fall into the bust category (even though WAR 1 - grade 4 is still a productive RP). Based on this, it is possible that the success rate of pitching prospects is higher than was suggested by the article that initiated this discussion.
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