1) The linear assumption is wrong
People think offense is cumulative and linear. Add 8 guys worth 20 RAA together than the team will score 160 RAA on average if they play enough seasons.
I believe this is wrong in the case of extreme players...in fact I even ACCOUNTED for why this would be wrong when I invented the supermargin concept in my own value methods. Players near the middle of a talent bell curve are roughly additive only because they're on the part of the cuerve that looks very much like a line. Extremely bad hitters take away opportunities from other hitters and screw up the linear weight value of the events for those other hitters even when they get opportunities. See...every single is worth 0.45 runs to a sabermigo doing the WAR calculation, but if you have three Endy Chavezes on your team, that team's average single is going to be worth more like 0.30 runs. Do a monte-carlo simulation and prove it to yourself if you have to.
2) The position adjustments are wrong
I don't do positional adjustments because I think they're based on pixie dust and fairy magic. IOW, I think where they get the baseline for each position is random and arbitrary and based only on where teams happen to play the 14 guys in a 14-team league that get the bulk of the PA. As Doc has pointed out...first base, for example, had 10 guys that are brutally awesome and 10 guys that are mediocre and they're fighting for 14 jobs. The burtally awesome guys bias the average and thus the replacement level, but they don't represent the expectation for the team with the mediocre player. I think positional adjustments are a bad idea and must be scrapped.
3) Our understanding of how to combine offensive and defensive value is wrong
Tom Tango led a movement to get people to think that there's no such thing as a replacement level fielder...or a replacement level hitter...only a replacement level total player. So he argued that RAA for offense and defense should be added together first and then a replacement level be found. That isn't the right approach IMHO. I think value is value FIRST...I think you have to figure out where the replacement levels are for each skill and then add the results...or you get whacky things like Endy Chavez being worth 25 runs somehow because his defense is way above average and his offense is replacement level and when you combine them, you get a weirdly high number.
All three of these factors create a perfect storm of bad ideas that cause our evaluations to be way...way wrong especially for guys like Mike Morse.
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Offense is not only additive but multiplicative, symbiotic in ways we haven't captured yet.
According to math, there is no clutch and Chone Figgins is worth 5 WAR. According to life, I'm not seeing that. Detroit put Miguel Cabrera at third base - that's how much they worried about defense vs. offense.
It's more important to get the offense functioning - or at least the majority of GMs act (and pay) like it is. If you're going to pay for defense, then that's what pitchers are for. Having my defensive guy standing on 2nd base all the time when the 3rd out is recorded doesn't help me win enough games. Occasionally-chained-together-singles is a poor substitute for a working offense. - Gordon Gross
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Q. Baseball's GM's, universally, pay a lot of money for cleanup hitters who don't generate much WAR. Why is this?
A. This isn't an argument between Dr. D and other Seattle blogs. It is a systemic argument between major league GM's and the math majors who follow the game. In real life, GM's pay:
- $12-15 million for 2+ WAR the way that Paul Konerko and David Ortiz get them, and
- $4-5 million for 2+ WAR the way that Marco Scutaro and David DeJesus get them,
- Nothing for 2+ WAR the way that Endy Chavez gets them.
GM's don't argue with each other about this. It's not like Billy Beane would give you $15M for Marco Scutaro if he had it. It's not like there is a maverick GM out there, snapping up "jack-of-all-trades" 3-WAR players at $12M salaries. Every GM caps Marco Scutaro at $5M, and Every GM will pay you $12-15M for Paul Konerko and David Ortiz. If he has the money.
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Q. Is this because GM's haven't studied the issue?
A. ...
There is no issue that GM's study more. Market inefficiency. The way to improve your team the most, for the least dollars. They bring their massive resources to bear on this question, and they continue the investigation on an ongoing basis.
No, my friend, GM's have studied the issue, and they have ALL concluded that "average-ish" 2-3 WAR cleanup hitters are worth a lot.
That doesn't prove anything, not beyond a shadow of a doubt, but if it doesn't give you pause for thought, that ALL organizations have reached this conclusion independently? Then you have insufficient respect for alternative points of view. We mean it in a good way.
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Q. Was Jaso-for-Morse a trade of an average player for an average player?
A. Keep in mind that WAR dogmatists would say exactly the same thing with respect to trades like:
- David DeJesus for Paul Konerko,
- Ichiro Suzuki (at age 39) for Shin-Soo Choo,
- Cliff Pennington for Curtis Granderson,
- Brendan Ryan for David Ortiz, and
- John Jaso for Mike Morse.
We're not talking about Choo in his walk year. We're saying that if you had David DeJesus signed for four years at $6M per, or Shin-Soo Choo signed for four years at $6M per, the Fangraphs sabermetrician would call them a push. Something is horribly wrong here, either with GM's or with sabermigos.
On the left side of those bullets you have players making $3-6M per year, and on the right side you've got guys (assuming a free agent tour) who pull down $12M to $18M per year.
This is an example of cognitive dissonance: the feeling of discomfort when one has two firmly-held beliefs, which are completely contradictory.
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Q. In the case of Jaso for Morse, a GM actually did swap them straight up.
A. There were complicating circumstances, such as Jaso being under club control. Jaso was NOT deemed equal to Mike Morse ceterus peribus, by anybody inside the game.
You're not actually going to see a David DeJesus traded for a Shin-Soo Choo where the contracts are equal. There is no GM interested in trading Choo's 2.5 WAR for DeJesus' 2.5 WAR (even assuming that is the org's WAR projection for both players).
A Fangraphs writer, if he were given a GM job, could in fact trade all of his 2.0 WAR Konerkos, for all the 2.7 WAR Cliff Penningtons he wanted, and could trade all of his 2.5 WAR Asdrubal Cabreras for all of the 3.0 WAR Marco Scutaros he wanted. Three years on, he might have an epiphany from the 100-loss bunker, but if so, he'd have a lot of fun getting there.
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Q. What is the appropriate way to resolve cognitive dissonance?
A. One of the beliefs has to go.
Maybe both of them have to go. But for sure, one of the beliefs has to go. Because it is FALSE. A healthy human being does not wish to maintain beliefs that are lies.
It's possible that Theo Epstein and Pat Gillick and Jack Zduriencik are wrong, and the sabermigos right. This happens sometimes, and used to happen a fair amount of the time, back in the 1980's. I don't remember it occurring much lately, a systemic blunder on the part of baseball's player valuation, do you? GM's have sabermigos working for them now.
An intelligent neutral party certainly wouldn't assume that the ML think tanks, all 30 of which unanimously agree on this question, are wallowing in ignorance. The question is worthy of study.
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Q. What is the accurate way to reconcile this particular cognitive dissonance?
A. To accept the LOGICAL FACT that either the Fangraphs school of thought, or the community of major league GM's, or both, are completely and irreparably WRONG.
GM's firmly insist that cleanup hitters with lead gloves, such as Choo, Holliday, Morse, Granderson, Butler, David Ortiz, Quentin, Jose Bautista, CarGo, Berkman, Granderson, etc., are worthy of $75M+ contracts. Fangraphs firmly insists that they aren't.
One of the two schools of thought has to go.
This isn't an argument about Mike Morse. It's an argument about cleanup hitters who can't run or field, and it's probably the most fundamental market-inefficiency argument of our time.
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
There's something about the idea of paying for the first and second legit thumpers into a toothless batting order, as opposed to bringing in the 7th such thumper. A Paul Konerko would have one value to a weak lineup, and maybe a lesser value when added to the Rangers' lineup.
It seems to have something to do with preventing the pitcher from getting into a rocking chair, of making him labor against the batters in front of the danger batters, of a lot of factors that we haven't captured yet, as G put it.
Your point 1) sort of reminded me of a non-linear "synergy" for a 100-RBI guy when intersected with a non-functioning offense vs. a functioning offense. Would be interested in your opinion on that.
But I think you could show that GM's are more shrill about getting the first MOTO hitter into their team then they are for the fifth.
maybe front offices just don't value defense as much as WAR and such do.
But surely you'd see SOME teams that believed their fans could be won over by --- > winning, don't you think? Wouldn't SOME teams be paying Scutaro more than David Ortiz, if their contracts are driven by fan reaction?
What WAR doesn't seem to capture is that hitting is the most rare and difficult skill. It's much easier to find an adequate fielder than an adequate batter. The minor leagues are filled with them.
Maybe elite pitching is more rare than elite hitting, but then you need at least twice as many batters as pitchers, so there's less demand for it. But the antiquated saying, that putting a round bat on a round ball at 100mph is the hardest thing in sports to do... that appreciation is lost looking at the numbers. And that's the skill that directly changes the scoreboard.
Not at all tough to find a good-glove no-hit shortstop, or a 4th outfielder who can do enough little things well to add up to 2.0 WAR per 150 games. AAA seems to be filled with guys who could probably do that if given the chance.
A guy who can bare his chest against ML pitchers' machine guns, and sustain 6-7 runs per 27 outs over a long period of time, there aren't a lot of guys in AAA who could do that if given the chance.
Good stuff GL.
For the next 5 years, do you start your team Boog Powell or Paul Blair?
It's '45 years later. Would you rather have Franklin Gutierrez or Mike Morse?
"....Moe raises his hand, knowing the answer he would choose."
moe
kind of reposting this because I had a double post and edited one of them only to find the other gone...
A part of it could simply be that the onfield production is not the only accounts for GMs. The average fan watches league leaders for their guys being among RBI, HR, SB, but not fielding%, UZR, etc.
Those stats gain the team notice more than maybe they should. But that also makes them valuable in an off field way that a fielding Bible award just won't make up for.
but Hr and rbi do lead to winning. not saying def doesn't, just that it may be being overvalued in the value metrics. Home Runs are more marketable than a diving stop, throw from the knees. Fan interest in scoring is generally greater than in stopping scoring, so even if your def is giving up more your fans are more entertained because there's more scoring on both sides. There's value there, in the entertainment, but how does it compare to the value of not scoring as much while not allowing as many runs?
And for the record, PCA recognized at the time of its creation that fielding had a MUCH higher replacement level than batting and that adequate fielders at non-skill positions were even easier to find than adequate fielders at short.
This is the other benefit of judging replacement level skill by skill.
I dunno, have baseball's GM's historically pursued run scoring more than run prevention?
Especially about positional adjustment. It was created as a way to value shortstops, second basemen and center fielders against first basemen, and a fill in for quantifying catcher defense. I think the problem would be solved better if we just stopped comparing shortstop offense to first base offense. If we valued offense only as compared to players that played the same position, that would effectively produce the results we're looking for from positional adjustment.
Bat vs. Glove may just come down to quantity and quality of chances. Without ever looking at it in exactly that manner, basball types may understand it intuitively.
Kyle Seager had 651 PA's last year, "chances' at the plate, as it were. The vast majority of those were going to be quite difficult.
He had 430 "chances" in the field (both 2B and 3B) last year. A fair percentage of those were routine fielding plays for MLB guys. If he were of terrible range, maybe 10% more balls got by him that don't appear as chances. Even so (and I think that would be high) that gets him to 473 "chances" in the field. Most are decently routine two-hopper, pop-up, tag'em out type of plays. That would still be 180 less "chances" than he had batting. Since the batting ones are considerably more difficult, if makes great sense that is the more valuable skill. It's harder....and occurs more frequently.
Michael Saunders had 553 PA's, "chances" at the plate. He had only 323 "chances" in the OF. Even giving him a 10% bad defensive adjustment...he still would have almost 3 batting chances for every 2 fielding ones. And many of those fielding ones are quasi-routine. Amost none of the batting ones are.
Over the past three seasons, Brendan Ryan has averaged about 487 "chances" at the plate and 606 "chances" in the field. At SS your glove becomes maximized and more valuable. Glove SS's make sense.
Dustin Ackley had approx. 615 "chances" as a batter while playing 2B last year. He 639 chances as a fielding 2B. Dang near equal numbers. But since many of those fielding "chances" are routine, you favor bat over glove, things being relatively equal.
You get the idea. I hadn't thought about it before...but it may be a way of shedding light on this discussion.
moe
You're the Yankees playing the Mariners, who would you rather see in the lineup against you, Gutierrez or Morse?
Jaso, or Morse?
Yeah, there's something too that. That has gone into the defensive metrics vs other positions or players at the same, but not in comparing offense to def that i know of.
The fences are believed to be mainly about hitter confidence, but scoring will increase. The new restaurant is all about the fans and so is the scoreboard.
I can't say its definitive, but there has always seemed to be a leaning toward the PWR bat getting paid the highest among all possible types. Stud pitchers just below, defensive specialists way down the list even atkey positions.
I'd put a Triple Crown Winner at 3B along with his Pb glove any day...maybe even if he threw lefty, if it kept his offense in the lineup. I think, though, that Jaso's value was diminishing in Jack's eyes going forward. Zunino is coming soon to Seattle, and Montero needs to be in the lineup every day. Morales arrival made 1B/DH even more crowded. We all loved Jaso while he was here and he was a frequent hero. Now we also have Morse in the 1B/DH mix so we'll see if Jack has any more moves to make.
I think a lot of Big Blog's outrage stems from the fact that Z sees Montero as a primary catcher, not a DH or 1B as DC has written several times. Big Blog has, to this point, generally regarded our GM well, praising many trades and other moves.
Belief #1: Z is a good and smart GM
Belief #2: Montero is not a C
The Jaso trade gave Dave's brain an opportunity to resolve the vexing case of C.D. Z is no longer the same good and smart GM. It's unfortunate that most of the stuff that is posted over there is colored with the anti-Montero prejudice.
I really hope Montero and Morse rake this season.
All of this is just standard diminishing returns. At a certain point, you're just going to get sick of cookies or have too many cooks and not enough waiters in your restaurant.
Baseball is harder model because there are so many things that go into the Final Problem of winning the World Series.
But it's no surprise that models that don't take into account these factors would be poor predictors.
But I like the implications Watcher :- )
I wish I understood how an average fan would be in a position to know so much more about technical catching than the Mariners seem to.
I mean that literally. I'm mystified at how they could know whether Montero can catch or whether he can't. I mean, Montero's defensive RUNS were only -4.9 last season. Lots of guys are at -5 on the fielding chart.
Have they ever explained why they insist that Montero (1) can't catch, and (2) can't learn to catch?
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I'll tell you one thing that seems odd to me. For somebody who's supposed to be terrible at it, Jesus Montero certainly LOVES what he's doing back there. Not that often you find guys who love to foul up.
Great thread, good points made by all. I would also add that when you are up against aces, handing off to a lights out closer...you have to score runs somehow to win. I think going from zero to one or two mashers is non-linear incremental value against these type of pitchers. The average-solid-at-best hitters that teams like the M's toss out there just can't do anything against the Sabathias of the game. They're stuck trying to get 3 hits in an inning multiple times a game - way too hard. Whereas a slugger has at least the potential upside on their dice rolls.
Basically there's a threshold where without a certain amount of HR/XBH potential, you just fall into the abyss against a good pitcher. We've seen this w/ the M's. Endy Chavez has essentially 0 WAR in a game against Verlander, while Big Papi would maintain some value. And ironically, converting the tough fielding chances has less value when you aren't scoring. You lose 3-1 instead of 5-1, great. Whereas if you've got a competitive lineup keeping you close, suddenly strong fielding becomes much higher leverage.
It all calls for a BALANCED team, above all else. Which all GMs seem to pursue.
people seem to be writing off Smoak and/or Wells. If the team decides to go forward with either or both they can, but no longer have to. With the thought that Morse is either bat first LF (Morales DH, Smoak 1b is an option) or 1b. They don't have to decide the roster before spring training. Excess can be traded late in the spring.
Smoak has been said to have added another 15lbs and become lean this offseason. It was a radio source or I'd link it. He's still in the mix. Its possible that he's traded or sent down, but I wouldn't trade him. his replacements are all (barring Montero no longer catching) only under contract for one year. If he looks good in the spring they don't have to send him down.
Wells is the other guy that might still be valuable as an everyday hitter. They can trade him, but that would leave them with Saunders and Guti as the only good OF defense even invited to spring training. I think if he's traded its toward the end of spring training and they've either decided to punt OF defense in the corners or have picked up someone else. If Saunders or Guti gets injured who's the backup CF then? Jason Bay?
I don't think Ibanez is such a lock to make the team as most others do. Having him around in the spring is valuable regardless, but it's going to be impossible to keep everyone and him and Bay are at best fighting for a 5th OF/DH/1b/PH spot. I guess a move to pick up the 3rd string CF could be a guy with options to stash down the road in Tacoma. Making it through spring training healthy is something Z certainly was reminded is no guarantee just under a year ago. I'm sure he knew the concept before. Right now Wells and Saunders are the only depth and trading either without bringing in another option could easily bring the worst OF defense Safeco has ever had.
yeah...another thing is the offseason programs he's going through. Its no guarantee, but he may not look like 38 year old Edgar running anymore. He has athleticism in the skill department, just not in conditioning.
Doc loves to talk about extra light bulbs coming on.
Twenty years ago I believed firmly that the people at the top of organizations were not only smart - but that the vast majority of them were probably much smarter than I am. Today, i no longer hold that opinion.
I have watched as the richest, most powerful people on the planet sprinted down a path toward financial Armageddon while ignoring every dissenting voice, every 4th-grade-simple mathematically certain reason for why the house of cards was guaranteed to crumble. And armed with the history of a near perfect repeat of the financial choices made in the 20s, they made the same choice again. Why? Because, almost to a man, they were utterly convinced they were simply smarter than everyone who came before. And their justification for their intellectual arrogance? Because they were rich.
Understand ... Bill James began his battle in the 80s ... but didn't get traction IN THE INDUSTRY until near the end of the 20th century. The richest, "smartest" men in the MLB trusted average, HR and RBI for almost 100 years with blind faith. And they, to a man, were ALL wrong. Oakland proved just how utterly wrong they were.
So, they learned something, didn't they? Probably. But how much? After Moneyball "forced" owners to form SABR teams to keep up with the competition, MLB owners CONTINUED to collectively ignore the PED issue and deposited the HR driven daily receipts until Congressional Hearings forced them to address the situation. Why were they so slow to act? Was it due to more lightbulbs being on than the average fan? No. Greed. Simple greed. HRs sell tickets. Winning sells tickets, but only half the teams can win at any time. But if you aren't winning ... HRs still sell tickets. The spectacle of the 500 foot shot draws fans - creates revenue.
The cognitive dissonancce over the paycheck vs. WAR is simple. Baseball rosters are not assembled JUST to win. The financial considerations are not only first and foremost for many owners - winning is OBVIOUSLY not the priority for many, many organizations, (not that they will ever admit it).
Me? I don't believe for a second that the SABR wave has made owners even one lightbulb smarter than they were during the entirety of the 20th century. It has given tools to their subordinates that "might' be better utilized - so "some" GMs get to employ new theories - (but mostly only if they can justify how this makes more money for the owners).
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The problem here is the self-fulfilling prophecy. Doc nots "all 30" GMs believe the same thing. If that is so, then there will NEVER be a counter example to refute the premise, (whatever the premise might be). And every counter-example of the self-fulfilling prophecy will be dismissed as noise.
The reality that Detroit dropped from 95 to 88 wins after moving their MVP to 3B is ignored. (They made the Series, didn't they?). Yes. They lost in 4 straight to the winner of 2 of the last 3 WS. The Giants, whose HR leader in 2010 was Aubrey Huff with 26 with the #2 "masher" being Juan Uribe with 24. They would net 85 and 84 RBI, just fhi.In 2012, Posey would lead the Giants with 24 HRs. The #2 slugger would have 12.
NOBODY paid attention to the reality that the SFG 2012 team that swept the bat-first Tigers finished 16th - (that is - DEAD LAST) in HRs with a grand total of 103.
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While I do not believe the SABR guys have it "all" correct. I do believe there is "enough" scientific background where they are at least trying somewhat to "get it right". I have no such illusions when it comes to the intelligence and motives of the super rich. When you are set for life 10,000 times over, it is typical, I believe, to assume you are smarter than everyone else in the room - even as you continue to utilize belief systems that were created 100 years ago. The same goes for the vast majority of the players, who were also treated as prima donnas from early childhood.
The near inability of Beane to get ANYONE to buy into his plans in the late 90s is telling. I do not believe for an instant that the dogma of 100 years of "accepted knowledge" vanished overnight.
For me, there is no cognitive dissonance. I resolve the conflicting data with one assumption. The owners really are not that bright. How did they become owners? And how does that make them qualified to understand baseball?
Arrogance is at the root? Maybe.
I don't think its that simple even if true. There have been at least 5 reasons given that potentially are a part of it. There certainly are much less options for players you can expect 30+ hr from since at least the 80s if not even earlier. Ownership on average is probably still stuck on hr and rbi, but I think they mostly have less to do with decisions on specific acquisitions than they did in the middle part of the 20th century. I could be wrong though.
GMs that value SABR contributions and use them as a part of evaluation certainly exist now. I mainly question how much they agree with defensive metrics when it comes to this conversation. When talking about catching in particular just about everybody agrees it can't be measured accurately with even the newest stats. Defensive contributions just aren't as easy to measure as offensive. Do all or even most GM's value defense less than UZR and such say they should? The evidence seems to showshow that at least most do. So the question is whether its better knowledge or stubbornly ignoring the truth? I don't even think that is so black or white in truth. I don't have any faith that present defensive metrics are beyond the point of "approaching the truth". It's theory, not law.
...is that in terms of plays on the field - discrete events over which it can be clearly established that catchers played a role, the catcher is nearly worthless defensively. And that is all SABR can see. The things that it can count. But sabermetricians all agree that this isn't fair. So they invent ad hoc methods of fairly evaluating catching skill...position adjustments and the like all came from that.
I am even guilty of this, though at least I'm honest about the source of my assumption. When I look at HOF and all time player rankings, I give catchers a 40% bonus because the top catchers are that much less valuable than the top players at other positions with the explicit assumption that catchers fail to capture normal value due to the physical demands of the position. That's...cheap. But there you go.
I think we need to find a way to rate the impact of catchers on pitching staffs...and no, I don't think that's an impossible task. But that is where the true value of catching is hiding (along with the position scarcity, which can be measured by looking at the full distribution of player performacne position by position and curve-fitting to account for positional differences, rather than making a linear addition that is bound to overrate and underrate certain groups of players.
... if you've got the specific reasons to do so.
IIRC, Cameron was a catcher in high school, and I'd be glad to hear his take on catching.
What I don't get is why, if they're right, they don't simply EXPLAIN why Jesus Montero is physically incapable of learning to catch. In the absence of that explanation, I'm going to assume that they're talking out of their ears.
But I suspect you're right about all that BSR. Back in the late 1990's, Baseball Prospectus floated the concept of "lineup synergy," because they thought the Cleveland Indians of that era were all having suspiciously UP performances together. But they never figured out how to measure it, that I saw.
M's fans have seen a whale of a lot of starting pitchers who were out there in rocking chairs, enjoying the evening thoroughly.
They're getting squeezed out but not quite dead yet. They certainly can save themselves with Seager-like performances early in 2013....
If Smoak is stronger, that's huge for him ... a lot of his best shots were to the warning track in 2012...
... presuming that there's any CERA-type influence that takes place in reality. (Which I DO presume.)
Pitch framing was recently "discovered" -- because they found a way to measure it -- and is now all the rage. That alone has a swing of +20 runs to -20 runs over the course of a season.
But five years ago, saberdudes would have scoffed just as much about Eric Wedge's beliefs on framing, as they scoff now about CERA.
The Giants went all-in with arms and one tremendous bat, while the Tigers have had a luminary pitcher (who's getting some help) and a bunch of great bats.
SF's plan was more risky, because arms are inherently more risky. You keep bringing up how the Tigers "lost" 7 games after adding Prince Fielder, while ignoring that the Giants don't make that first WS (or even the playoffs) if they call up Posey a week later, or Bumgarner, or if the Padres don't do a pratfall down the standings. The master plan was to hope that their 1st round draftpick was ready to be an MVP after 600 ABs in the minors and their 20 year old arm could throw 220+ innings to help them run down the Padres in a 163rd game and then make a playoff run to the title? That's a really good lightbulb right there.
All that said, another axiom for 100 years has been that "good pitching beats good hitting" so I wouldn't call what SF has done recently to be revolutionary. They cashed in on some career years from some vets in '10 as well as some amazing performances from rookies promoted mid-season. They had a great steroid performance from Cabrera in '12 to complement Posey, built an OBP team that got "lucky" (+6 Pythag) and overcame a collapsing pitching staff but managed to put it together in the postseason by juggling the rotation and getting some timely performances.
Why did the Tigers lose 7 more games? Avila and Peralta came back to earth, and Young was no V-Mart (who missed the whole year). Without that Fielder signing to help hold up the offense, they would have missed the playoffs. It's not like moving Cabrera to 3B hurt the staff - they were better than in 2011.
Why did SF win? Detroit sat around for a week and a half waiting for San Fran to finish their NLCS and came out ice-cold, then never recovered. These things happen in baseball. It's not a sign of a better master plan in SF or more lightbulbs on the west coast, it's just baseball.
Detroit did what they had to do to get there, and SF did the same. If SF had won their CS in a sweep while Detroit took 7 games to kill the Yankees, it could easily have gone the other way. Or not.
# of teams relying on a bat-first catcher to lead a batting-average-driven offense to a world series title while investing $75 mil (2/3 of the payroll) in the staff? Not a large number. Do I expect teams to copy the Giants' formula going forward? Not really.
Why? Because it's very risky, and getting that many quality arms to stay healthy long enough to make this work is difficult.
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You know who might be trying a variation on that formula?
The Mariners. Felix = Cain, Zunino (or Montero) = Posey, we have a couple of one-year fliers on vets who should have a good batting average (with power), we have a ton of young arms who could surprise...
The Giants built their team from within, and had most of their expensive FAs crash and burn. They came up aces on farmhands Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Posey and Sandoval, put together a pen that could withstand the loss of their closer and still be great, and eked out the rest even when some of their choices crashed and burned spectacularly.
Is Seager, Saunders, Zunino, Montero, Felix, some of the Big However Many, and a deeeep pen enough to work with, if the one-year-bats work out?
Maybe. It might actually be. We have a LOT of straws to draw in an attempt to get real contributors.
But I wouldn't recommend too many other teams try to repeat that formula either, because, "Step one, suck for a decade, step two hire the best minor league mind around, step 3 keep your home grown Cy Young winner in town, step four..." is not the easiest blueprint to find success with either.
When you can't draft or sign sluggers, though, necessity becomes the mother of invention.
I'm curious to see how many young arms we're willing to roll out there while trying to catch lightning in a bottle - or get some lightbulbs to turn on.
~G
Who are the cutting edge GMs right now? Theo Epstein, obviously, he's the one who paid Carl Crawford for his defense, probably the first player to make big money off his defense. And in Chicago he's still doing it, signing underrated 2-3 WAR guys like David DeJesus and Paul Maholm last year for $5M a piece. If there's one GM in the world that believes sabermetric stuff 100% it's Theo Epsetin, the guy who gave Bill James his MLB shot, and lucky for him, he has the full support of the organization to test his theories as he pleases.
Andrew Friedman is clearly another one. Why did he trade John Jaso, a guy who clearly was going to bounce back with his BABIP and provide an above average bat at the Catcher position for 2012? Because he was the first one on top of the pitch framing data. You don't replace a strong ROTY candidate like Jaso at Catcher with 37 year old Jose Molina who's bat is Brenden Ryan-esque, unless you believe in the pitch framing data that puts Jose Molina as the best framer in the game (+20 runs), and Jaso as one of the worst (-20 runs). Andrew Friedman bought into catcher defense way before anyone else. Think about it - the one GM who's not shackled at all by his owners, who loves to think outside the box, didn't make moves based on catcher framing until 2012. This stuff is brand freakin' new to GMs too, not just fans. And you're expecting GMs to buy all-in on this stuff and put their jobs on the line the minute they hear about it? Most GMs aren't 20-something year olds like AA or young Theo Epstein, who grew up in a sabermetric environment. Most GMs are like Jack Z in their 50-60s, and those guys grew up in an environment where BA, HRs, and RBIs were king. Old habits die hard.
Finally, Billy Beane's the last one. This is the one GM who would trade his Ace the same off-season he signs a big time FA like Cespedes. If there's any GM in the game who values production and on-paper value over marketing, HRs, narrative, etc. it's Billy Beane and his cold-hearted Moneyball ways. Rumor is Beane was calling Jack Z every day asking about Jaso. Why? Because 10 years after Moneyball, and teams are still undervaluing OBP. Who else would happily trade his top prospect for a "back-up platoon catcher with no power?" The one guy who sees a hitter who OBP'd .380 and .420 vs RHP (who make up 70% of the game) 2 of his 3 years, his potential upside vs LHP if his issues really are just BABIP, his upside in power if last year was legitimate, and has a manager he trusts to use him to his full potential. Beane paid 100 cents on the dollar to get the guy he wanted. And he's laughing all the way to the bank, because in his mind, he paid 50 cents.
You make the argument that because 15-20 GMs pay more for HRs than they do for defense or OBP, that that's the right valuation method. That's a straight up fallacy, an appeal to authority. The way I see it, GMs are a bunch of old guys who grew up thinking BA and HRs were king, and they pay accordingly. There's a reason Brenden Ryan makes $1M in arbitration for 2-3 WAR of production, while any decent slugger who hits 2-3 WAR of production is clearing $6M. The arbitration system was set up by MLB old guys, and that's how they value production. The cutting edge GMs though, they came into the game when they were in their 20s. They grew up on Bill James. They don't see the game the same way, and the moves they make reflect that. They value defense, OBP, they're the guys who buy the 2-3 WAR guys for $5M a pop because who wants to pay Coco Crisp for his defense? The best GMs in the game value defense highly, and seek it out when they can. There's a reason Brian Cashman said Brett Gardner is as good as Carl Crawford. Seriously - the Yankees GM said a corner OF with 15 career HRs in 1600 PAs is as good as a $100M+ player. He doesn't have elite OBP. He doesn't hit for power. What he does do is save 25 runs a season in the OF. And when the richest organization in baseball is saying he should be getting paid like Josh Hamilton, maybe, just maybe, the guys who are trading potential .420 OBPs for 30 HRs are in the wrong.
But the little sniff that "Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy" (gag) works only in a university classroom with 21-year-olds who would like to think that they could run a world that they haven't even met yet.
Nobody with any authority in a winning real-world organization thinks like that. They're all busy paying top dollar for expertise.
I just let a surgeon cut my guts open because I had reason to believe he knew what he was doing. You could find 9,000 other examples of "appeal to authority," respect for expertise, in our lives every day.
When Steve Jobs said "this device will sell" and "that device won't sell" he was not infallible. But his projection was worth a whale of a lot more than yours or mine, amigo. F-500 companies pay billions to invest in projects essentially because of that "logical fallacy" that you sniff at. No, sorry, you and I with our 3.9 GPA's are not equal to the legends of the game.
Like I said originally, if you've got hard facts that call the authority's judgment into question, facts that TRUMP an intuition that indeed is fallible, then you most definitely use those facts. But this total lack of any respect whatsoever, for the accomplishments of people who are the best in the world at what they do, is merely a beginner's attempt to put himself on equal footing with people who have won games that he never has played. We mean it in a good way.
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I'm wide open to an intelligent case that the industry over-values the Paul Konerkos, Shin-Soo Choo's and David Ortizes of the game. But any child can see that the INDUSTRY - not a majority of GM's, but the INDUSTRY - pays 100 RBI men twice their Fangraphs value.
It's not a question of an antiquated arb system. Shin-Soo Choo is gonna get paid, my friend. And by Billy Beane if he's got the dough.
Yeah, I had one account banned because I expected him to explain something. Don't know how much better he's doing now, but he offered derision and sarcasm rather than answers and didn't appreciate me calling him on it. That was probably 8 years ago, so he may be more patient explaining things to us unenlightened folk.
but my contention is that Brendan Ryan s 2-3 WAR may not be equivalent to Mike Morse s 2-3 WAR. I think the defense may be being overrated.
When a defender makes a nice pick, that's great. But when a hitter doubles off the wall, he might kick a pitcher out of his rocking chair.
We're speculating, of course, and could speculate all day. But the fact is, there aren't a lot of Earl Weavers and Tony Larussas who appreciate playing with nine Endy Chavezes. Some managers will put up with funky defenses, with makeshift rotations, etc. But EVERY manager wants a rainmaker or two in his batting order. They ALL think they need that.
Doc,
I think it is important to remember that all of the pro sports are monopolies.
MLB is not actually 30 different companies competing for the "same" customers. Call it an "Un-distry" if you will. Seattle is actually competing with NOBODY for its fan base. They are literally the only game in town for most of the year.
The "natural" progression in any normal competitive industry is actually to end up with a monopoly. And in non-sports industries, the silent goal of every company is to become THE monopoly.
Sports doesn't play by the same rules. No pro sport can survive if market superiority ACTUALLY puts half the competition out of business.
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But, here's a question. How many GMs and Managers entered profession baseball AFTER the late 90s SABR revolution? What percentage of the baseball people that actually make the final decisions today were raised from childhood with an understanding of OPS+ ... xFIP ... DER ... versus how many were told from the time they were in little league how important HRs are ... and how it's terrible to ever take strike three?
In any normal industry ... if the competition puts out a new ground-breaking device, the penalty for not responding is you go out of business. What is the penalty in Pittsburgh for not developing a robust SABR department AND implementing policy that seriously takes it into account?
And after 2006 ... how many veteran baseball men in organizations throughout baseball stood up and said loudly ... "See, they never made it to the Series, and now they're dogmeat. I told you Beane just got lucky for awhile." How many said ... "Sure, Boston says they are all over these math geeks ... but give me Manny and Ortiz and I'll make the playoffs, too!"?
Did Bavasi start focusing on OBP after Moneyball?
In this forum, we have some of the most math-savvy rational baseball fans around ... and the reality that OBP links much stronger to run generation than slugging is openly challenged routinely. Hey, it's good to challenge conceptions over time ... but to my knowledge nobody has come close to refuting the basic OBP vs. Slugging reality that James started preaching 20+ years ago.
It's easy to call the 2012 Oakland results a fluke. They were only 12th in OBP, yet finished 8th in runs. But San Fran was 4th in OBP, 8th in slugging, (16th in HRs), and nice solid 6th in runs scored.
Yeah, Melky had a drug induced career year. But, in his 113 games he still only managed 11 HRs and 60 RBI. And, of course, San Fran did not collapse after he got suspended. They actually extended their lead from then until year end,
The kneejerk reaction of baseball insiders as well as fans is to support their established beliefs. If you believe a team MUST have 2 or 3 mashers to be "legit", then you will naturally run to any lineup with that feature to support your belief - ignore all the ones that had that trait and failed - AND find ways to dismiss alternative success stories, (like SF), by altering premises or alleging "fluke" results.
San Fran had a perfectly acceptable offense - absent ANY 30-HR bats - and possessing only a single 20-hr bat. But, the top 13 bats - ZERO had an OPS+ below 84 -- and only 3 had an OPS+ below 95. They also won 2 of the past 3 WS. So, they can hardly be characterized as a fluke, (especially since their run production went up even as their HR production dropped significantly).
What I'm wondering is ... why NOBODY has ever given a Carlos Lee-type contract to a David DeJesus- or John Jaso-type player.
You and Kite are arguing that MOST current shot-callers are USUALLY idiots. I'm observing that ALL of them, the young guys like Epstein and the old guys like Gillick, ALWAYS agree on some very important issues.
The argument that MOST GM's are idiots, the argument that there is a LOT of stupidity, that is totally irrelevant to this entire discussion.
There have been no exceptions to this syndrome. Nobody has ever given David DeJesus $100M. There has never been a Soriano-style bidding war for a "projectable" soft-skills WAR hero who couldn't hit.
EVERY GM IN THE GAME will pay a 110-RBI man -- if they are confident that the man will deliver the 110 RBI. It's not old-school GM vs young GM, and you can't show me any young GM's who paid a David DeJesus. It's just a matter of, "Do I think this guy will gimme the RBI?"
Theo Epstein gave Ortiz the money. He didn't worry about Manny Ramirez' defense, baserunning, or WAR when he took on that 7-year contract. He wanted the RBI.
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But let's cut to the bottom line. Are you saying that, if you were GM, you'd give JJ Hardy the same money as Shin-Soo Choo? You'd give Erick Aybar the same money as Paul Konerko? Mark Ellis the same money as Billy Butler?
Does that mean you'd give Choo only $5M, or does it mean that you'd give Mark Ellis $17M?
Nobody is going to voluntarily pay MORE to any player than they are forced to.
In addition, the innovators are going to typically be those teams that do NOT have lots of funds. Teams like Oakland or KC are going to be the ones far more likely to "gamble" on a new paradigm. The teams without money are looking for bargains - so they find the "cheap" guys they CAN get.
Of course, it is the majority that set the market. One idiotic team with money can reset the salary scale for ALL slugger types, (AROD deal), skewing the slugger pay scale. The smart team goes out and picks up the value cheaply.
But ... I wanted to see just how skewed the payroll issue was in regards to sluggers vs glove-first spray hitters.
#2 on the ALL TIME list of salary is Derek Jeter. The #16 guy is Ichiro.
So, the #2 highest paid player of all time managed 100 RBI exactly once in an 18 year career ... which is the same number of times he broke the .500 slugging line. Of course, this wasn't because the modern stats SAY he's a great defender. He plays short, and he "looks" like a great glove. But, all that aside, he does in fact rank 4th among all active players in total WAR.
I think it important to remember that even most of the guys that use the modern defensive stats either admit they are lacking or at the very least are suspect of their overall accuracy or predictive ability.
But, that might be a good study for someone to do --- find out which GM(s) have churned out the most value OVER payroll for the last decade. Or, (more time consuming), greatest value over salary specifically for players beyond their 6th season.
That's what were looking at here. The distinction seems like a rare situation. A lineup that has potential MOTO bats for down the road that's struggled and has been considered to need the pressure taken off of them. Is that something that can even be researched or is it such a rare lineup to have 6+ regulars with less than 3 years experience to even add a couple MOTO to?
There's some debate a to whether adding run scoring and run prevention are linear and how much so. It seems that prevention would hit a point of little return in game situations easier than scoring, but both have been statistically shown to not be linear.
Totally agree that they're not going to pay more than they have to for any player, but I've never been struckby the price of a defensive player, while other types have a contract given out that surprises me often. If we look at the 5 tools, I contend that defense is the one that can be below average while still getting a top contract. a record breaker in Ichiro breaks that rule to an extent but I'd argue that Jeter is below average defensively and being the captain of the Yankees alone makes his contracts more understandable as well.
is also a player who has been said to have been payed for what he's done when extensions have been signed rather than just what they expect him to do. That's something that happens to an extent throughout the game, but I'm pretty sure I've read that regarding Jeter more than anyone else. He's also the all time hits leader for the Yankees and has a chance to break Rose's all time MLB record. He's a no doubt hall of famer with 3304 H, 524 2b, 95 3b, 255 HR, 1868 R, 1254 rbi, 1039 BB, 348 SB and career .313/.382/.448 line in 2585 games with countless "moments" that would give a much lesser player a decent chance to get the votes. Jeter is a very rare example anyway, but doing all that from SS when the SABR community would argue moving him off for a Brendan Ryan type pts him squarely in that bat first category. not MOTO, but still valuing offense over defense.
The problem is that even cutting edge saber guys aren't doing multivariate linear algebra yet. If CERA is to be measured...it should begin with the assumption that a catcher's influence on each pitcher will be unique and that we must look at each pitcher's battery pairs and then sum up the "partial stories"...while at the same time accounting for a blizzard of external variables (umpires, parks, strength of offense faced, etc). I have long considered adding the starting catcher into the mix of the F/S Matrix (which is a linear algebraic system that tries to plce credit for run scoring to the various pieces that can contribute...parks, umpires, starting pitchers, team offenses and defenses, etc).
That is the only freameowkr that will ever have any hope of figuring out the impact of a catcher on his pitchers.
experience is the coin of the realm. I doubt the Ms front office is nearly as anxious as the blogosphere right now. Morse may have been plan C, but he is clearly part of a plan.
I agree that Morse was about plan F or G...not plan A. And I would also agree that, considering he was a fallback to a fallback to a fallback (at a minimum), he's a pretty darned good fallback and we didn't have to give up anything of long-term value to get him.
The plan, for right now, seems to be "hold things together as best as possible until the young players actually start playing well"
I'm OK with that.
Quantifying all of that is one thing, but I've seen 2 major problems with equating CERA accurately.
(1) A pitchers stuff on any given day seems to be random. Who's to say the same pitcher, caught 20 times by one catcher and 12 by another didn't have better stuff on average with one of them that skews the #'s. I've never heard of anyone trying to quantify a pitchers repertoire start by start, but this seems to me to be a required component of CERA to make it more accurate.
Sample sizes are very difficult to adjust for when one pitch can be a 2, 3, 4 run difference. One day the same batter could see a low outside slider on 2-2 and swing through it, the next day he could put the same pitch on the same count in the stands. the movement and location are basically never the same twice. The batters expectations in what they're looking for can vary. The amount of runners on base when they do connect will vary. Sample sizes for Felix to a particular batter type with a particular pitch in a particular count to an approximate location with an approximate movement and velocity could be a very very low sample size over a given season. How can we account for that to get an accurate CERA, or do you think it could be accurate without accounting for that?
given the history of the M's it is hard to conclude that there is no justification for cynicism. In fact, one would have to willfully ignore that history to preclude a certain degree of cynicism. This is precisely because "experience is the coin of the realm." No doub the M's have a plan. What remains to be seen is how effective is that plan.
.. that day, added/subtracted against actual outcomes? You'd just have to have his expected base/outs against each batter he's matched up against that day, right? With ballpark and umpire adustments. I don't think weather would be worth the effort. A team's DER for that day's fielders would be rough (impossible) to calculate accurately, but doesn't sound like it would muddy the water too much. The fielders behind a given team's pitchers would usually be pretty stable from one day to the next.
True Wishiker that pitchers' stuff is random, but this is precisely where a catcher makes a difference - both in bringing the SP into rhythm, and in helping his cope with his Grade B game. Over the long run, the CERA would reflect the catchers' abilities to bring in pitchers ahead of or behind expectation.
Just saying that it needs to be accounted for to grasp the amount of change a pitch caller affects on the pitcher.
Do you break down pitch types and counts etc.like i was explaining as well? I don't think it would be really accurate without doing it but I don't see a way to accurately do it. Maybe using expectations of situations in some way would be better than figuring based on the exact outcomes. I don't know. Its mostly in the difference of runners on base when an extra base hit occurs that it seems like a big crap shoot, but then in most of those cases both the pitcher and catcher are responsible for the baserunners. It's just that the outcome of a called pitch don't necessarily reflect the likely outcome and it seems much larger samples would be required to come up with an expected outcome. You can throw the right pitch for the situation, including count and hitter, and just get beat on any given day. Every start includes usually a handful of mistake pitches the catcher is not at all responsible for, but they often get away with it anyway. A catcher shouldn't be responsible for a curve just not breaking, should they? Many a grand slam has been hit from breaking pitches not breaking.
Pitch framing seems much easier to figure, but even with that the umpires ultimately control a variable thatseems incalculable.
CERA doesn't have to be a perfect stat, but I find it very difficult to get rid of enough noise in the base model to make it worth even considering. CERA is something I ignore because of the problems I see with samples, but a stat with the same idea could be very valuable down the road. It's going to take a lot of work though.
...which means that over the long haul...it should even out...but...we all know how that assumption goes. Not saying what I try to do will always be a perfect measure...but I believe CERA can be measured just as accurately as, say, a park factor can be - or a platoon split. :) It just takes a certain number of reps to get a clear picture.
You don't have to worry too much about the defense behind a pitcher if you measure everyone against his team's total defense - it won't account for the random luck of who gets who as their fielders, but those variables are likely small.
The approach would be the runs scored for a game by the opposing team are equal to:
The league average R/G + the dR/G for the opposing team's offense + the dR/G of your side's defense + dR/G of the home plate umpire + dR/G of the wind direction relative to the park + dR/G of the starting pitcher as a whole + dR/G of the starting catcher.
dR means delta Runs (as in the skew from average by the component skill)