Oakland

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Felix

BSR sez,

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So has Felix finally hit the Pedro/RJ level at this point, where you just don't expect the opponent to have a chance to get more than a couple runs on the board unless he has a really bad day? It feels that way to me.  

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The Shout Box Digest for August 7 has a dozen su-perb mini posts on Ackley.  Also on August 6 there are several Shouts, including a neat one from DaddyO and the one from MtGrizzly, who kicked it off by saying tersely:  "Ackley's streak has been going a good while now."

Yah.  Since July 1, Ackley has hit 59 doubles and 22 homers per season, pro-rated.  There's a real shortage of players who hit 58 doubles and 22 homers.  

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Q.  I'm not a geek; I just like baseball.  What is "Pythag"?

A.  Bill James noticed, in like 1984, that if you ratio a team's runs scored to runs allowed, you can come up with an "expected winning percentage."  To James, the algebra of it sort of looked like geometry's Pythagorean Theorem.

Then everybody else tried to claim rights to the formula by making little tweaks to it.  In this section, (whoever wrote) the Wikipedia (entry) argues ferociously that the original formula Just. Wasn't. Good. Enough. For Real. Scientists, so you should get the current "expected" standings from them.

I can't imagine how James feels, to have 100+ major discoveries co-opted by people who took his INSIGHTS and made them a teeny bit more precise, and then ... sigh.  Voros McCracken built a baseball life around ONE James-level insight, the idea of BABIP.  Imagine if everybody tweaked that, and then forgot about McCracken.  Were the Wright Brothers more important, or the average Boeing engineer?

But hey.  James has been named one of the WORLD's 100 most influential people (?!?!), is inside baseball, etc., so it's not like he didn't reap benefits.  :- )

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Q.  Wow.  He invented Pythag in 1984?  That's like before computers.

A.  I dunno when it really was.  Many of James' discoveries did come in the 1980's, even 1970's.

Actually, much of James' early revolution occurred before computers meant anything to the regular person.  "Sabermetrics" was often defined by sportswriters as "the computerized use of baseball statistics."  Personal computers were kind of cutting-edge in the 1980's.

(James himself says "I can't imagine a worse definition" and defines his invention --sabermetrics -- as "the search for objective knowledge about baseball." In his zeal for that, he'll listen to anything as evidence.  Including public perception, sportwriter HOF balloting, advance scouting reports, etc.  

He "gets it," that we are not world-class scientists here, writing for the Journal of the American Medical Association.  We're just fans, trying to "see" baseball better.  We're surprisingly good at it, but the fact that we use algebra --- > doesn't make us scientists.)

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Would Dr. D trade Nick Franklin "in the division"?  The A's seem :- ) to realize something nobody else does:

• You can't teach EYE.  You acquire EYE.
• Also, they need a middle infielder now.
• Also, 2-3 WAR players at $450K are solid gold.
• Also, 4-5 WAR players at club-controls are fairly nice.

So Nick "is a top target" for the A's.  Um, yeah.  Why wouldn't he be?  He's the quintessential Oakland A, right down to the beat-writer-irritating arrogance.

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Prospects for veterans, those trades are understandable to 30 GM's, if not to $/WAR paradigmists.  When you trade good prospects you are acknowledging that they might very well become club-controlled stars; you're not trying to treat fellow GM's like a used-car salesman would.

When an Adam Jones, much less a Wil Myers or Addison Russell, turns out to hit #3 for the other team, in real life a GM is (ostensibly) GLAD that the other team is satisfied with its trade return.  GM's are classy people, generally speaking, who deal in Win-Win scenarios.  They want a rep for delivering the goods when they trade.

Real baseball does not deal in "let's rip off the other side" paradigms.  

You get your ace for 1.5 years - Jeff Samardzija - and you assure the other GM "you're getting quite a player there in Addison Russell."  Oakland fans are not going to spend 10 years wringing their hands that Russell plays well for the Cubs, which he will.  They want their TOR starter, because this year's pennant is worth something, too.

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Zobrist at his age is a complementary piece, not a feature piece, so the argument morphs.  Back on topic:

In an unrelated point, Gordon, for some reason, didn't put this gem on the front page...

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You don't trade D.J. for Zobrist because D.J. is your #1 prospect.  (This rightly presumes Zobrist is far less desirable than Samardzija or Bedard - Dr. D)

... now that Paxton and Walker are presumed to be big-league rotation parts, let's say.  Maybe he's #2 behind Jackson, but little AJ is currently 6 levels away from the bigs, and DJ is in AA, starred in the Futures Game, and should be ready by Spring 2016 if we wanna take it slow.

You don't spend your best trade chip and top-50 minor league prospect on a pretty decent player. It devalues the rest of your system. ;-)

Our system/young player list breaks down like this: