wrathofhahn

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Feb 19, 2018 -> 02:03 PM) Ideally Yolmer really is a 3 WAR 3B and Jake Burger has some work to do in order to supplant him on the next good Sox team. His frame more lends itself to 1B or DH. Hope he sticks as a stocky 3B but it will be hard. First step is proving he can hit he had a decent rookie year in A ball. Needs to show more power but hopefully that comes with time.

He's a kid who came from nothing and is in the ML of course he's a little cocky. If he wasn't confident in his own abilities and his ability to win the job that is the point to be concerned.

Jose Abreu has dropped over ten pounds this offseason with a goal of stealing more bases for the Chicago White Sox this season. "Just because I think I can do it," Abreu said of the goal. "I really believe I can do it and I like the challenge. I like to challenge myself and I think that's a good challenge for me and I'm ready for it." https://theathletic.com/245444/2018/02/18/j...stealing-bases/ Would be something else if he could add that component to his game. At the very least dropping the added weight (assuming it's not muscle) would also allow him to move around in the infield better and possible add a couple of years at 1B before having to DH

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 02:49 PM) We're saying the same thing on the "difficulty" concept, just looking at it different ways. You're saying the positional adjustment is based on scarcity of quality hitters at the position, whereas I'm saying that teams are willing to put up with poorer hitters at those positions because they're harder to play defensively. It's a philosophical difference of source that leads to the same conclusion that defensive adjustments are (and should be) made based on the difficulty of the position. I can understand your point about an influx of .900 OPS catchers, my argument is the likelihood of that happening is nearly zero because catcher is a hard position to play good defense. Apparently, this is also a point of contention between Fangraphs and Baseball Reference, as well. ETA: My argument is not and was never about the market price of WAR. Based on the example I gave in my original post, it's clear that I agree with you on what the common practice of teams is when trying to replace a player, and how they might be best served. The point I'm actually trying to discern is what the VALUE of WAR is, not the market price. I'd also contend that without a true value of WAR, you can't really know what the surplus value of a contract is, just how well you negotiated a contract relative to the market. That's a good thing for GMs to know, but I don't think it provides much information beyond that, and certainly not the information it purports to provide. I think though if you look at the WAR dollars of fangraphs they are already widely inflated for example going off their figures prior to last year Donaldson previous two years was worth 70 million and 60 million. At what point does it become more of a theoretical exercise rather then useful data? I would much rather if the goal is to have a useful stat is for the market value of the player to be calculated. Spotrac already does it to some extent but it's clumsy. Opportunity cost should always be a factor in surplus value and right now it isn't.

QUOTE (ChiliIrishHammock24 @ Feb 18, 2018 -> 01:22 AM) The AAV isn't bad, but something closer to 5 yrs/$90M makes a lot more sense to me. Assuming he doesn't opt out, those last 3-4 years may be really rough. His ascent last year was mainly BABIP driven they probably regret it year one. It really isn't hard to find a .800 ish OPS 1B who can play adequate defense. The worst part of the contract is the fact it's front loaded with an optout. So essentially he gets 5 years 101 million AND the option to opt in for 3/39 if he bombs. This contract has zero chance of ever working out for the Padres.

QUOTE (wrathofhahn @ Feb 18, 2018 -> 12:00 AM) What a joke Boras comments were. He always manages to find a sucker. Hosmer deal already looks bad just imagine what it will look into his mid 30's. If I'm Dickerson and I become a FA I tell teams my stats are comparable to Hosmer he got 8 years I'd settle for 7.

QUOTE (flavum @ Feb 17, 2018 -> 11:21 PM) Hosmer 8 yr deal, opt out after 5 with Pads What a joke Boras comments were. He always manages to find a sucker. Hosmer deal already looks bad just imagine what it will look into his mid 30's.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Feb 17, 2018 -> 10:27 PM) Sox could grab Dickerson and let him DH, or put him in LF and let Delmonico DH. It's a win/win scenario either way, as adding Dickerson makes the Sox undoubtedly better. Yep left handed bat can play the field or DH seems like a perfect fit

Should have taken a look at Odorizzi. He would have helped solidify the rotation and been a perfect buy low guy

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Feb 17, 2018 -> 08:47 PM) What was his FIP before his last start with the Padres on 5/31/2016? Shields had one horrible start up until the trade(the aforementioned 10 run start) that skewed everything. Sure, it was a harbinger of things to come, but nobody could have known that at the time. It was probably just seen as a blip. He had been pitching to a 3.06 ERA up until getting shelled on 5/31/16. I went and looked at his starts on Baseball Reference, there was nothing in his game to assume that he'd get shelled. Sox FO probably thought he just didn't have it on 5/31/16 vs Seattle. FYI- Shields, up until that start, hadn't given up more than 4 runs in a game up until that start on 5/31/2016, and was 2 starts removed from a 7 inning 0 run 9 K game vs the then-defending NL champ Mets. This was the box score of the start before Shields got shelled on 5/31/16 https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SF...201605250.shtml I don't know but his WHIP was atrocious and heavily influences FIP so yeah most likely it wasn't good. Also remember in 2015 he had a 4.45 FIP. Also remember that he was pitching in the NL (no DH) and one of the most pitcher friendly parks. http://www.parkfactors.com/SD

QUOTE (Jack Parkman @ Feb 17, 2018 -> 07:17 PM) With all due respect to the White Sox Front Office, before that start in which Shields gave up 10 runs in less than an inning, Shields was pitching to a 3.02 ERA in April and May of 2016. At the time of the trade he had a 4.44 FIP. 1.426 WHIP (pitcher park in the NL) was 34 with diminished velocity and still had 3/65 remaining on his deal. Sure the Padres ate some money around half his salary but it was always a bad bet to take even if he was uninjured.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 02:24 PM) That is absolutely a ridiculous leap, especially when the Padres were busted by the league for improprieties. This just comes off as petty. Possibly but it's hard to feel a whole lot of sympathy for Williams when he has done the exact same thing. The padres were busted by the league but only the marlins and sox cases were cited and in both cases Manfred offered to rescind the trade. Of course it's possible if not likely the Padres did the same repeatedly before but it's also possible for players to get injured just by happenstance as well. So we will never know. Also remember James Shields was already 34 at the time of the trade and had a ton of mileage on his arm and was making way more then he was worth moving forward. Whether the Padres were honest or not with their medicals isn't even the point. The trade should have never been made even if he was completely healthy.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 11:44 PM) the problem with tilson is that he's like plato's forms. I'm not sure he exists outside of our minds. Then we move on to Cordell. We have three CF right now that we need to evaluate. Tilson, Garcia, and Cordell. Engel can play in AAA if his bat improves we can give him another look but lets not forget at time of his callup he was batting .218 in AAA. He really didn't deserve the callup and just got the job as the next man up not because his play in the minors merited it.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 10:46 PM) Wow hold on here, are you suggesting Tilson’s defense is comparable to Engel’s? Cause Adam is a f***ing stud out there and Tilson from what I’ve read (since he’s never really played for us) is average at best in CF. Tilson has a much better hit tool, but he’s probably a huge downgrade defensively and has far less raw power & speed. I don’t know, it’s really hard for me to buy into the Tilson hype. I don’t see much more than second division starter potential and I think it’s far more likely he ends up being a 4th or 5th OF. Everything I've read indicates he is a ++ runner with an average arm sort of your prototypical good defensive CF. The problem with Tilson seems to be his lack of power so yeah why not bring him in and see what you have. We sort of know what Engel is and with Robert knocking on the door I kind of want to give the other guys a look before he gets called up so we at least know what we have with Tilson and Cordell.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 08:36 AM) I can’t wait to see Cordell on the field. There’s something about this kid has me excited. I think his physical abilities are a little undervalued as it sounds like he’s a five tool talent even if none of them are truly plus. I hope they give him plenty of time in CF this spring and see if there’s any chance he could stick there. He claims it’s his position of choice which I’ll take a positive for now. I really like Tilson as well. I think his hit tool is much better then Engel and his defense will probably not be all that different question for him is how much power does he have in that swing.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 01:11 PM) The fact that the Padres also conned the White Sox on Shields medicals also keeps getting left out of the debate. Possibly it's hard to feel sorry for and give the benefit of the doubt considering his own history *cough* Mike Sirotka. I do know the Red Sox were given the option of avoiding the trade so if they did some real shady stuff we would have had the same opportunity.

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 10:48 PM) The positional adjustment doesn't account for scarcity at the position, it accounts for, essentially, the "difficulty" of the position, i.e. SS is a lot more difficult to play good defense consistently than 1B. As for the linearity argument, all he's saying is that in practice teams just use the strategy I gave in the example. If a team is actually trying to win, having 6 WAR out of one roster spot is more valuable than having 3 WAR. I don't think even the author of those articles would dispute that. What is disputed is the value of roster spots, and I don't agree with his premise that most teams just have 4-5 roster spots they could improve at any given moment, at least not the ones trying most to win. Also, the market is going to give bad data points. For example, Bryce Harper is going to get $400 million over 10 years from some team next offseason. Does that mean that team thinks he'll average being a 5 WAR/year player over those 10 years, or does that mean the market price for WAR has gone up? Of course, that question gets stickier if the contract is closer to 12 years and $500 million as some have speculated. I suppose surplus value works by measuring each individual contract against the market average, but then all it's really telling you is whether the contract was negotiated well or not. It's not actually telling you anything about value. It's essentially an index stat at that point, like OPS+ or wRC+, and it's not actually telling you anything about the value of WAR. They should call it the market price of WAR based on what it actually measures, not the value. Many things have far more value than what the market is willing to pay for them. I think I see that I'm looking to measure a different thing than what Fangraphs is measuring, though, and this their linear market price of WAR makes much more sense. They should just call it that, though, because they're measuring market price of WAR, whereas I'm more looking for the intrinsic value of WAR. To me, the surplus value of a contract would be the intrinsic value of the WAR provided less what was actually paid to the player, and what Fangraphs measures is the price the team should've paid for the WAR produced based on market average against what they actually paid. It seems more a measure of good (or poor) contract negotiation and less a measure of how much more (or less) valuable a player was to a team than what they were paid on their contract. You are misinterpreting what that means. When they say difficulty of position they referring to scarcity (the lack of quality defensive and offensive players) and the amount remains fluid. Say for example all of sudden the market gets flooded with catchers who are hitting .900 the amount of runs added to the positional adjustment would change. You can read more here: https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/wa..._position.shtml CTRL + F : Rpos, Positional Adjustment Runs As far as the rest goes I can't disprove your theory mainly because I don't want to do the work for an internet argument. You are just going to have to put two and two together from the numbers I posted earlier. Like I said there were 135 players who had 2 WAR or less with 300 PA. 89 with 1 WAR or less. That is without going into starting pitching. There are certainly outliers of teams with relatively full lineups the Yankees situation comes to mind but for the vast majority of teams when you look at their lineups they'd be better off with using the cheaper $/WAR figure I provided earlier on two three players rather then overspending on a single elite FA. That's before even getting into the weeds of regression and length

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Feb 16, 2018 -> 08:03 AM) So they only get dinged for trading him. Apparently they don't get any credit at all for scouting him and signing him. This is exactly why people get so angry about the trading getting brought up ad naseum. I think if he was properly scouted he would have never been moved and if Shields was properly scouted he would have been never traded for. It wasn't like Tatis was part of some reverse Sale trade he was traded for a terrible pitcher who was pitching awful when he was acquired. Or to use another example remember when the Jays traded for Donaldson and it was some A ball player I think it was Barreto(sic) well he was ranked 33rd last year if memory serves. I think they got him plus Lawrie. That's sort of how you would have liked Tatis used in a trade but clearly the FO didn't think he was an up and coming prospect. Like I said they need to evaluate what ever processes led them to there because it was a huge miss. This is why everytime I read us connected to some sort of trade like Machado or Yelich I cringe not only because I don't think were ready because I'm not sure I trust the FO to decide which of the top prospects to trade or keep.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 10:29 PM) How about Doyle Alexander for John Smoltz? Thor and TDA for RA Dickey has got to rank up there

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 09:36 PM) Probably the worst trade I can remember is the Red Sox trading prospect Bagwell for Larry Anderson. Still, the Bagwell trade was made in August, Anderson was pitching well, he pitched better for Boston and they won the division. Bad trade, but some justification. It was June, the White Sox were tanking, and Shields was having a terrible year. There was no justification for that trade. The FO gets a do-over, one that I don't believe they earned. The dispersal phase has been fine. HOpefully they build a good team this time. Here is a portion the updated writeup: Tatis Jr. has all the ingredients to become an offensive force in the Majors, as his bat speed, leveraged swing and overall capacity to make adjustments all portend a future plus hitter with plus power. He proved vulnerable to spin and sequencing early in the year but tightened his approach as the season progressed en route to pacing the Midwest League with 75 walks. Many evaluators believe Tatis Jr. is merely scraping the surface of his offensive potential, as he still has considerable room to grow into his tall and athletic frame. That larger frame doesn't currently impede Tatis Jr.'s abilities at shortstop, where he makes highlight-reel plays on a daily basis thanks to his athleticism, range and rocket arm, though further physical development could ultimately force him to third base. Even if that's case, Tatis Jr.'s bat gives him the ceiling of a perennial All-Star, possibly even an MVP candidate in his prime." I'm sort of over the trade but I hope Tatis is a teachable moment and they correct whatever caused them to mis-evaluate him so badly.

QUOTE (IowaSoxFan @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 02:58 PM) I would look at someone like CarGo on a 1 year deal and see if his health can hold up a bit better alternating at DH with an eye on flipping him at the deadline. I would also check in on Jaime Garcia as another sign and flip guy. Both guys you get to hold spots through July, if they rebound, you deal them to a contender for some assets, if not you waive them in August when/if you need roster space for young guys. Garcia just signed with Jays 1 year 10 million

QUOTE (Dam8610 @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 06:33 PM) There are a lot more 2-3 WAR players than there are 6+ WAR players. Also, the positional adjustment is only designed to equalize WAR values between positions, it has nothing to do with the incremental value of WAR itself, it more accounts for teams being more willing to tolerate less productive bats at positions like CF, SS, and C than positions like LF, 1B, and DH. The point I was making is that WAR isn't linear. It accounts for scarcity via the positional adjustment. So if you are a star SS and there is a lack of quality SS in the league that is accounted for. The same goes for CF and so on. The rest of your post I don't agree with. You keep saying that stars are more valuable because they only take up one position but like I stated earlier I don't take that view. In my opinion when you look at FA and how fangraphs does the dollar per war figure often it's inflated versus what they get in FA. Thats because teams recognize they need to fill out the rest of the roster and thats hard to do in a 152 million dollar payroll (league average last year) while still paying stars what they are worth. I could break it all down but I already have in other threads b. I actually make the case the opposite is true for example Baseball reference indicates there were 153 players with 300 PA or more with WAR less then or equal to 2. 89 less then or equal to 1. Lets go with 1. That means on average teams carried three players who received significant amount of PA who contributed 1 WAR or less. Thats just positional players not even taking into account your bullpen or starting pitching. Lets say they instead got 2 WAR from those players. Thats at minimum an extra 3 WAR production in some cases more depending on who they are replacing. What is 2 WAR going for in FA? EDIT: I just googled when typing up this post should have known fangraphs already did a similar study. Could have saved myself some time it confirmed much of the research you can read it here: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-lineari...f-cost-per-win/ and https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-recent-...-agent-pricing/ And these articles don't even get into the regression and return on investment that these players provide in the latter half of their deals.

QUOTE (Joshua Strong @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 04:49 PM) As one of the people who was really beating the drum for Jason Heyward getting paid like a top player, even I can't deny that he has been an epic failure for the Cubs. I think that it is right up there with Pujols for being the worst contract in the sport. Yep, Heyward is going to cost them one of their good young players when it comes to having to pay them.

They already take most of this into account via the position adjustment. So for example if a player plays a position where there is scarcity of good players like SS or CF for example they get a positive adjustment if they play one where there are more options like say DH or 1B they are adjusted as such. Which is the right way to account for what you are talking about. I also disagree with the premise you made there isn't a deluge of good players anymore then there are stars. Most teams struggle to fill out their rotations and lineups with quality players. For most clubs the question isn't oh well how do I fit this star into my lineup it's how do I pay this star 20 30 million and still round out the rest of the roster.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Feb 15, 2018 -> 05:13 PM) That seems debatable. I think many of us want to turn the page on him and forget about the f*** up of a trade that is and not hang onto the past. No offense. That's fair just to be clear I manually scanned both years lists for Sox prospects and whether they fell or rose in the ranking and it was something I noticed and felt worth mentioning. No other reason and with all due respect as much as we'd like to pretend away the trade it happened. In any case I'd rather discuss the Sox prospects do you have an opinion on our current guys and where Mayo ranked them? Personally I think Rutherford was hit too hard. He should maybe drop to the 80's like Maitan but he also showed some positives he had an extremely advanced approach at the plate and wasn't pulling the ball to either side of field. His BABIP was .257 after the trade so there is reason believe there was a certain amount of bad luck involved as well.