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Post by jchang on Jan 30, 2014 0:23:21 GMT -5
I find the WAR value of pitchers to be totally baffling player IP ERA bWAR Buchholz 108 1.74 4.3 Uehara 74.1 1.1 3.6 Lester 213 3.67 3.0 Lackey 189 3.52 2.8 Breslow 59.2 1.84 1.6 Peavy 144 4.17 1.4 Tazawa 68.1 2.94 1.0 Doubront 162 4.08 0.9 Dempster 171 4.59 -.2 I would think an elite starter (top 5 in all MLB) might have a 2.5 ERA,
while the top 30 have ERA below 3.25, the top 60 starters have ERA below 3.75 and top 90 starter ERA below 4.25 for RP, elite - ERA 1.25, top 30 ERA 2.0, and top 90 ERA 3.0
Buchholz was on pace for an elite season until the injury, so his WAR 4.3 make sense. Lester and Lackey at WAR 3.0 and 2.8 makes sense as being above average. Peavy was above average but short on IP so his WAR 1.6 makes sense. Dubrount was also above average so I think he should be WAR 2.0+ Dempster is slightly below average for a starter, but should correspond to grade 5 - which would be WAR 2 for a position player. Breslow rates as "late inning RP", also grade 5, i.e. WAR 5 if he were a position player. Tazawa seems right as "reliable RP" - grade 4, WAR 1.
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Post by jchang on Jan 29, 2014 13:55:11 GMT -5
The other factor is in playing for Redsox, there are not alot of save opportunities in tight games - decided by 1 run, Uehara had 7 saves of 1 run plus 2 BS, 8 sv at 2 runs, a 6 at 3 runs. Lots of games with big leads (22 non-saves). Also in 4 of the 13 holds (before he was closer), the final was win by 1. But if he were on a so-so team, his win impact would be much higher.
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Post by jchang on Jan 29, 2014 12:46:11 GMT -5
if any one is interested, I converted the BA top 100 from 1990 to 2013 to Excel, with year, rank, pos, team, W-L, ERA, BA, OBP, SLG, games all in separate columns www.qdpma.com/tools/TopProspects.xlsx
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Post by jchang on Jan 29, 2014 11:32:37 GMT -5
I think we should consider the number of mlb players in each WAR bracket for position & pitcher. For 2013, this is: WAR - position - pitchers war 4.5+ - 36 - 16 war 3.5+ - 72 - 31 war 2.5+ - 105 - 67 war 1.5+ - 169 - 130 In 2013 there were 36 position players with WAR 4.5 and higher versus 16 pitchers. There were 72 position players WAR 3.5 and higher. (This was easier to list because all I have to do is read down the list by WAR order). This would support the current practice of locking up top pitchers while taking more risks in losing position player to free agency. So the lower success rate of pitching prospects may not be entirely due to poor forecasting, but rather the difficulty of achieving high WAR on pitching? Perhaps we should also consider MLB career games + IP in judging prospects?
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Post by jchang on Jan 28, 2014 12:13:26 GMT -5
Wow, having this detailed data is really great! And of course I have suggestions/opinions on interpreting the data. Instead of the absolute success/bust assessment, I suggest rating outcome relative to prediction. Lets assumes the top 20 are expected to be Very Good (WAR 3.5+) or better, and the 21-40 group to be Good (2.5-3.49) and the 41-100 to be Average (1.5-2.49). Then it seems that the prospect have a 30-40% of turning out at their assessed grade level, plus or minus 1 level. Also, there is not a huge difference in the success of the 41-100 group (the 41-60 having better chance of being good).
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Post by jchang on Jan 28, 2014 11:31:07 GMT -5
Given that just more than half of the this year's MLB top 100 had a grade of 55, which is just moderately above average, I would not consider a final outcome of below average to be a true bust (in assessment). This year, only one had a grade of 70 or higher with another 17 at 65, and 30 or so at 60. So that would seem to indicate that the grading scheme for the prospects is conservative in giving out 70's, but there are perhaps 2X more getting 60-65 than what ultimately pans out. I would say that is a reasonable - 1 proven player worth 2 prospects. So if the bulk of the prospects are getting on average a grade 10 points higher than what is actually realized, that would mean the bottom half of the TOP 100 are really grade 45's. Then an ultimate MLB career in the WAR .5-1.49 range should not be considered a bust.
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Post by jchang on Jan 27, 2014 11:53:23 GMT -5
I think this quote from the OTM article was being excessively polite "There's a lot agents out there that are not as honest..."
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Post by jchang on Jan 27, 2014 10:26:25 GMT -5
last year, BP had 1.IF Xander Bogaerts 2.CF Jackie Bradley 3.RHP Matt Barnes 4.RHP Allen Webster 5.C Blake Swihart 6.3B Garin Cecchini 7.LHP Henry Owens 8.OF Bryce Brentz 9.SS Jose Iglesias 10. LHP Brian Johnson
this year its: 1.SS Xander Bogaerts 2.CF Jackie Bradley, Jr. 3.3B Garin Cecchini 4.RHP Matt Barnes 5.LHP Henry Owens 6.C Blake Swihart 7.RHP Allen Webster 8.2B Mookie Betts 9.C Christian Vazquez 10.LHP Trey Ball
so Webster is below 101?
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Post by jchang on Jan 25, 2014 14:15:11 GMT -5
without dwelling on this sub-topic excessively. I would like to suggest that the true value of a prospect is as a source of low price WAR (with respect to the salary cap). By the time a player reaches his final arbitration year, he is close in cost to value (say 15M vs. 20M free-agent, but still a good deal). Lets assume that it takes 50 WAR (combined bat + pitching) to go deep into the playoffs. At 5M per WAR, the price of this team in free-agent (or equiv. cost) players is 250M /yr. + injured + overpays. Many players reach free agency at around age 30. It seems that the WAR 5 (all-star level) players get a 6yr+ deal while the WAR 3 (above-average) player might get a 2-4 year deal, meaning less risk of overpay in the final years? If a team's budget is $110M/year, it could purchase 18 WAR at free agent pricing with $90M, and try to fill the remaining 32 WAR with internally developed prospects. Suppose this were in the form of 8 above average players (WAR 3) and 4 average players (WAR 2), i.e., 12 players internally developed in their first 5 years of service. Then it is necessary to produce 2.4 players per year from the farm. If the average prospect takes 4 years to develop, then there must be 10 prospects in the grade 50-60 range or equivalent with zero fallout. If we factor in the fallout rate for prospects successfully achieving projection, then ..., well this probably does not work for the $110M budget. This could work for a team with 180M budget, WAR 40 at free agent pricing, then produce WAR 10 from internally developed prospects in their cheap years. In this case, it is only necessary to graduate 1 prospect per year, with 6 legit prospects in the farm system to allow for fallout.
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Post by jchang on Jan 24, 2014 12:31:54 GMT -5
If we wanted to establish the strength of the prospects or farm system (which are different when the prospects are on the MLB 25 roster). I would put the greater emphasis on each prospect's grade. Buxton is all alone at 75, #2-17 are 65, #18-49 are 60, and the rest are 55. There might be more prospects at 55 that did not make the top 100, and 50 prospects also have value. I would suggest using WAR, a grade 70 (All-Star) should be WAR 5, a grade 50 (MLB aver) should be WAR 2. So we could make up some mapping for 55, 60, and 65. A question to ask: is an elite player (WAR 10) worth 2 All Star level (2 x WAR 5). Also is an elite position player the same value as an elite pitcher. To account for the ranking, we might say that of the grade 60 prospects, the highest ranked is 62.5 trending down to the lowest at 57.5.
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Post by jchang on Jan 24, 2014 0:04:35 GMT -5
I am not a big fan of ranking. I much prefer the grade. So I don't care when about the rank when both are grade 7. That said, Byron Buxton at 75 is a full grade over the 2-17 prospects (15 is listed as 5/6). Buxton Hit: 70 | Power: 60 | Run: 80 | Arm: 70 | Field: 75 | Overall: 75 Bogaerts Hit: 60 | Power: 70 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 55 | Overall: 65 I can see how both are about equal in batting, with Buxton being an elite defender and Xander being above average, and finally Byron projecting to be an elite base runner. Given that we have Xander at 8, can a player be elite based on offense + above average at a premium position? Miguel got the MVP even though Trout lead in WAR, so I suppose yes, but Xander may not have the same bat as Miguel.
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Post by jchang on Jan 23, 2014 23:16:19 GMT -5
I am disappointed Ranaudo was not on the list. I suppose Workman is because he is 25? I had Owens over Bradley, but I will concede it is very close and not worth quibbling over.
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Post by jchang on Jan 22, 2014 22:57:16 GMT -5
Some one who is 31 should not be fundamentally over the hill even in a demanding position as CF. So it must be some aspect of the injury that derailed his career and perhaps it is something that will not heal. I will hope that he might regain some semblance of a MLB player.
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Post by jchang on Jan 22, 2014 17:40:07 GMT -5
My issue with the Top 10 by position is something along the lines of what eric said, except that I would not bother with the exact number, but rather list all the prospects projected to be 60 and above, that is, above average MLB players. Not sure on the prospects graded 55 should be included. Note all 10 RHP and OF are grade 60 or above, but many of the other lists have a number of grade 55 or even 50's. I suppose there are more RHP and OF that are grade 60 and should be included.
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Post by jchang on Jan 22, 2014 12:49:02 GMT -5
Is WAR a good metric for evaluating pitchers from the team's point of view? What would be the difference between 2 starting pitchers, playing 30 games each, one averaging 7 IP/gm and the other 6 IP/gm, both the same ERA? Suppose this were 1 WAR for a cost increment of $6M. Then I might take the cheaper starter, relying on a good bullpen to cover the 1 IP/gm delta, spending the money elsewhere. For the us, it looks like we could have a strong pen this coming year (of course this is a difficult thing to project)
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Post by jchang on Jan 20, 2014 15:07:35 GMT -5
Based on Owens heavy reverse split with L/R hitters, I'm try to get a line on what he will face at the MLB level. Both Lester and Buchholz have moderate conventional splits. And yet Lester faced 159/626 L/R batters in 2013. Buchholz faced 180/145 L/R hitters in 2013. Owens faced 124/307 L/R with Salem and 45/80 L/R with Portland in 2013. Assuming that projection of existing tools in a 21 year old pitcher is feasible, but attempting to project pitch not currently in his arsenal is a wild guess. I can see how his future at the MLB could span a wide range. If Owens can build a strategy for reducing walks to LH, then he could be awesome. Otherwise expect a stacked deck of LH to be facing him. Notice the LH do have a poor BA against Owens.
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Post by jchang on Jan 20, 2014 14:51:14 GMT -5
as to whether "MLB had even figured him out?" notice that Webster faced 70/58 LH/PH batters in MLB, and 218/218 in Pawtucket, surely those were stacked lineups?
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Post by jchang on Jan 20, 2014 11:11:00 GMT -5
A logarithm increases rapidly at low end, and then the slope decreases as you move right. To be precise, it is necessary to be clear on whether we are talking about: 1) (a difficult to quantify) talent level, 2) the impact on a team and 3) the number of players at that level. It can definitely be said that the number of players at each level falls off sharply with increasing talent level, but in principle this should be a Gaussian distribution. We might expect there to be a nonlinear relation between talent and impact. I would expect that even a slight increase in pitching "talent-skill" would have a disproportionate impact, I am not sure how this would be quantified. There is a clear linear correlation in WHIP-ERA, and even WHIP-IP/Gm for starters. On the position play side, it does seem that there is a nonlinear relation in talent to WAR. If grade 3 is a replacement player then Grade / War 3 : 0 4 : 1 5 : 2 6 : 3-4 7 : 5-6 8 : 7-10
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 15:12:01 GMT -5
the complete sentence finished with: "while he is getting adjusted to playing at the MLB level". I am not arguing that Webster's .362 OBP against RH makes him the best choice to take the last RP spot on the roster. It is that there is not much development for Webster to be done in AAA. Why would we accept marginal performance while he works on the final phase of his training? Because we believe he could be a 3 starter with possible upside. Per my comment in the Owens thread, a free agent 3 starter costs $15M per year. I am sure we can find some low stress middle innings for Webster to pitch. The more difficult matter is finding a roster spot give the pitching depth we have. -- Oh Sh!t, the game has started.
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 12:49:31 GMT -5
I think it is more effective to point out that the going rate for a free agent 3/4 starter seems to be $15M & $10M/year respectively. Money talks. So a 3 starter is comparable in value to Napoli.
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 12:38:09 GMT -5
here are Webster's 2013 L/R splits
___ IP _ PA/AB _ FIP _ K% _ BB% _ WHIP _ BA / OBP/ SLG BOS v L 13.0 70/59 10.6 11.4% 10.0% 2.38 .407/.443/.847 v R 13.1 58/48 3.28 22.4% 12.1% 1.58 .250/.362/.271 PAW v L 50.0 218/186 4.56 20.6% 12.4% 1.44 .220/.332/.355 v R 55.0 218/188 3.09 32.6% 7.3% 1.05 .160/.266/.250
granted the sample size is very small, especially for MLB, but I could live with his line against righties while he is getting adjusted to playing at the MLB level. Given his excellence in AAA over 105 IP, I would be inclined to think that pitching out of the bullpen with Boston is the better place for Webster to complete his development. If he has success against lefties, then we can re-evaluate his potential as starter?
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 12:25:11 GMT -5
my bad on MinorLeagueCentral, they do have KS% 2013 K% KS% KL% vL 24.9% 15.4% 9.5% vR 32.6% 26.2% 6.2% Ownens 2012 splits were similar, but I do agree that we should see how this plays out.
I am not sure how 26.2 + 6.2 = 32.6? but that what MiLeaCen shows
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 12:04:08 GMT -5
I always maintained that there was much more to Owens than his stat line. There is just too much regularity in the way he mows down batters until some point after which he becomes ineffective. But I had not noted his L/R splits before this. Too bad MinorLeagueCentral does not have K's looking versus swinging at the AA level. It cannot be that a pitcher has control issues only against lefties and not righties??? I would be more inclined to think that Owens power of deceptions is not as effective against lefties. Note that the BA is awesome against both L+R.
Is the cutter more effective against lefties? This coming season I will be on the watch for the L/R. Somewhere (on SP?) someone wrote about how several Sox pitchers had wipeout pitches in MLB that they did not have in the minors.
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 9:42:06 GMT -5
Owens 2013 splits (both Salem and Portland). 2012 L/R split was similar
___ IP _ PA/AB _ FIP _ K% _ BB% _ WHIP _ BA / OBP / SLG v L 37.0 169/133 5.09 24.9% 17.8% 1.65 .203/.365/.338 v R 78.1 386/341 2.61 32.6% 9.8% 1.02 .167/.260/.249 Portland plays at Reading and Trenton to open the 2014 season. Can't wait! Hoping no urgent matters for work that can't be handled remotely.
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Post by jchang on Jan 19, 2014 9:25:05 GMT -5
My question was to what degree does Swihart hit LH pitchers better than RH, versus bats R better than L (He bats R against LH pitchers, and L against RH pitchers). jmei had a good answer that this might be BABIP variance, as Swihart only had 85 PA against lefties versus 336 against RH pitching, and that in 2012 Swihart had a poor split against lefties. Swihart's .279/.352/.404 line against RH pitchers (batting L) is a perfectly respectable above average, it is his 2013 .367/.419/.519 line against lefties that is exceptional, which jmei points out: it might be BABIP variance.
Earlier in this thread, someone suggested Vazquez may not be able to sustain his high BB rate at the MLB level if his bat is not dangerous. I am trying to thing of players that had high walk rate in the minors. Nava maintained his high walk rate into the majors. Shaw saw a big drop in BA in AA, but maintained a high BB rate.
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