JUSTgottaBELIEVE

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 01:58 PM) First, read this, published a couple months ago. This is how even a left fielder can flex defensive value. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-value-o...-using-his-arm/ Second, his offensive numbers are not "very average." American League: .255/.318/.394 Alex Gordon: .280/.356/.436 The article I linked above is one of MANY I have read that references error bars or something like them. Jonah Keri published a piece on Grantland today that includes the phrase "given the vagaries of defensive metrics." I'm sure you have examples to the contrary but I can't really be held responsible for those. And as far as I can tell, you believe the defensive component of WAR is deeply flawed because you believe the defensive component of WAR is deeply flawed. Whether it is or isn't, it's definitely a lot more reliable than saying, "That guy can't be better than this guy because I know it's he's not." this article pretty much sums up my feelings about WAR http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8900693/...eplacement-stat this post pretty much sums up my feelings about defensive metrics and more specifically OF defensive metrics http://itsaboutthemoney.net/archives/2011/...e-sabremetrics/ take a look at this list and I'm sure more than a few names will jump out to you as being out of place or at least they should http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=...=&players=0

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 01:20 PM) 1. I bet you've seen about 0.01% of the games they've played in over the last four years, and I would posit that is not anywhere in the range of enough information to have an opinion that is more reliable than all of the data from the most advanced publicly available statistical analyses of defensive value that currently exist. The concept of "this data must be wrong because it doesn't match up with what I already think" is completely illogical, especially when "what you already think" is based on a very small sample of non-professional observation that happened years ago. 2. Generalizations are useful for context, but outliers always exist. In terms of late-career improvement, they aren't even THAT rare. Jhonny Peralta jumps to mind immediately. Jose Bautista jumps to mind immediately. 3. Why does it make sense that hitters can get better with experience but defenders can't? Quickness declines just like bat speed declines, so why doesn't every player always peak at age 22? 1. Why even bother sending professional scouts to big league games then? How could they possibly form an educated opinion about a player from watching him in 1 game? Why not just go purely with statistical data? 2. I never said there aren't outliers but I do think it is very rare that a player would improve defensively in his late 30s. 3. Simple answer: hitting is far more mental than defense. Hitting is less dependent on physical ability than defense. I guarantee that statistics would prove that a player's peak years defensively happens at a younger age than his peak year's offensively.

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:18 AM) Did not say Dunn was vastly better, just said he was better. Tyler's AVG/OBP/SLG right now stand .053/.060/.021 points higher than last season; if that is not a vast improvement, I don't know what is. Yes, and if balls hit to left field off KC pitchers are caught instead of going for doubles or runners hold at third instead of scoring on singles, that is valuable. Again, you're basically saying that WAR is bad because it doesn't seem to back up whatever feelings you already had. Whether or not Gordon is the third MVP isn't really the point. The defensive component of his WAR is the highest in baseball. That means he is doing something at an elite level and his WAR reflects that. The bolded is a straw man argument that I can't deal with. I think you have a misconception that people just look at WAR and rank the players by that list. The people who use it acknowledge its imperfections, which is why other stats come in as well. If you think that a good defensive LF is so very important, why is the worst defensive OF typically put in LF? Why are guys that can't hack it in the infield moved to LF? Maybe you have unearthed some new discovery that the rest of baseball has missed. He's playing LF at an elite level, whoop-de-doo. It shouldn't result in the 2nd highest war in baseball when combined with his very average offensive numbers. Regarding the use of WAR, just take a look at the discussions on this board and most articles analyzing the trades at the deadline. Nearly every one of them is using WAR and player salary as the baseline to evaluate a trade. They certainly are not acknowledging its imperfections when they say that a trade was better for team X because the guy they received has a surplus value of X based on his WAR. As I said, I have a huge issue with WAR serving as the baseline when I believe the defensive component is deeply flawed.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 13, 2014 -> 10:37 AM) How is this possibly a convincing argument that the metrics are wrong? You just said "I saw a guy play before and can't imagine he's gotten better the last four years" and passed it off like some kind of factual account of his defense. What if he got WAY better at reading pitches and positioning? What if continued practice made him an even more accurate thrower who made fewer mistakes? On the flipside, what if Beltre has just lost a step? Or maybe he's just having a worse year than usual on defense. Conflicting pre-determined opinions are not anything like evidence against statistical data. In fact, they happen to be exactly why we NEED the statistical data. You do not see any of these guys even remotely close to enough to be able to have an accurate account of their defense -- and that's nothing personal, it's true of all of us. Our brains lie to us, especially in extreme cases and especially when we see very little of something and try to generalize. There are several legitimate criticisms and limitations of the current crop of defensive metrics, but "to my eyes that can't be true" is NOT one of them. Yea because everyone knows guys improve defensively as they approach 40... Come on, you can't be serious with this. What is a pre-determined opinion any way? I have an opinion based on what I have seen. Have I seen everyone of the games that both of those guys have played over the past 4 years, no. Do I need to have seen every game in order to come up with an opinion of who the better defender is, no. In general, a guy is either a good defender or he isn't. This isn't hitting where guys become smarter, more confident, etc. as they age until their physical abilities fail them. Very rarely do guys make vast improvements or become drastically worse defenders from one year to the next.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 07:49 PM) Well, nobody ever said Jackson was good without Cooper. As far as Alcantara, a 700ish OPS out of a rookie is acceptable if he can play as well as he has been defensively in CF (and stay healthy, unlike Eaton). Those numbers are way down from where he was a week or two ago, so these are his first offensive struggles...up to him to respond. I don't remember anyone taking Danks seriously as a Top 80-100 prospect in all of baseball for five years now. Let's wait before we start comparing him to Danks, Marcus Semien, Junior Lake and Mike Olt, etc. I guess we could have said the same thing about Abreu and Avisail in Coors Field. Up to Baez to perform against every pitching staff, obviously. Alcantara down to .679 now and this is coming off a game of 2/3 with a double. Baez down to .784 and dropping fast. Amazingly, he has no walks in 37 at-bats. He's going to give 2010 Dayan Viciedo a run for his money in the walk category. Also, no homers yet outside Coors. I think some Cubs' fans are starting to come to the realization that IF these guys turn out to be studs, it's still a few years down the line. I think most Cubs' fans thought as soon as they brought these guys up, they were going to have an immediate impact and top 5 offense in baseball as a result but never underestimate the growing pains that come with the jump from the minors to the majors, especially when expectations are enormous (unless you're mike trout, who is the very exception to every rule)

Seriously, what kind of era and whip would sale have in the NL? 1.6 and 0.75?

6, not even fair

5 in a row lol

QUOTE (Jose Abreu @ Aug 12, 2014 -> 09:54 PM) they'd be Kershaw or better Probably better, at least this year

Can you imagine if Sale pitched in the NL. His numbers would be downright silly

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 12:17 PM) Of course, Ken Rosenthal had no clue about any of the big trades that happened in July, so not sure if I would trust that information or not. I would. Soler has the same agent as Jose Abreu and Abreu has the same clause in his contract

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 10, 2014 -> 11:45 AM) 14:$2M, 15:$2M, 16:$3M, 17:$3M, 18:$4M, 19:$4M, 20:$4M Jorge Soler's contract. Likely to replace Alexei Ramirez's first deal, Chris Sale/Jose Quintana or Steve Trout's first 3 years as the friendliest contract in MLB. The last three years of Mike Trout's new deal, $100 million, or $33.33 million per season. Except for this... http://www.sbnation.com/2012/6/11/3078976/...ontract-opt-out

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 06:33 PM) 10 strikeouts in 23 AB's for Baez, 43.4% OTOH, a .957 OPS with 5 RBI's with 4 of his 5 hits for XB, which is basically what Leury Garcia has given us for an entire season. Alcantara with a 705 OPS but stellar defense, especially considering he mostly played IF up until recently. Baez has 6 hits out of the 13 balls he's put in play. Pretty sure that's unsustainable. No walks in 23 at bats. All 3 homers in coors against the worst pitching staff in baseball. I wouldn't get too excited about that .957 OPS because it's only headed down from here. And Alcantara is the 2013 version of jordan danks, sweet. Let's see how these guys' numbers translate at the mlb level over 200+ at bats before getting too excited. Possibly this is just the first chapter in the development of the best offense in baseball but I'm skeptical. Oh yea and their pitching still sucks. Thought I'd go ahead and reiterate that small piece of information.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 01:59 PM) What players in the majors WOULDN'T a package of Castro or Russell (let's say Russell for argument's sake), Almora and/or McKinney, Vogelbach and Schwarber get you? Maybe Pierce Johnson or CJ Edwards if the other team is balking or wants a pitcher. That's four former 1st round draft picks that are "expendable" and don't force you to trade Baez/Soler/Bryant. Right now, they're getting plenty out of Coghlan, so it's not imperative that they add another outfielder when they have Alcantara and either Baez or Bryant who could possibly be shifted to LF/RF, not to mention Soler. That still leaves you: Coghlan LF/RF Alcantara CF Soler LF/RF Sweeney 3B Bryant SS Castro or Russell 2B Baez 1B Rizzo C ???? You are assuming all those prospects turn out. The royals were thinking the same thing a few years back. I don't think hosmer, starling, moustakas, etc. are helping the royals much this year.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 02:00 PM) Just to note, from the White Sox's side I wouldn't do either of those. I know. I was being cub friendly to make a point.

That's a great stat because it once again highlights how valuable jose is to this team. If he's not hitting, we ain't winning. Hence, it's no coincidence the sox have a terrible record this year on Saturdays

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 11:24 AM) And the White Sox still have two huge holes in their rotation, even under the assumption that Rodon starts out as a 3. The ONLY player they have to use as trade bait with any value to the rest of MLB is Alexei Ramirez, who just so happens to be our best defender, when we have one of the five worst defenses in baseball. Besides, the easy rebuttal to that is the Braves winning only once in 14 years with all that Cy Young pitching, or the A's and the Twins. I'm not comparing the sox to cubs. I'm talking strictly about the cubs. And regarding the braves, A's, and twins, they never had the offense to compliment the pitching. Like I said, you need both to win. Not that you need a 95 Indians offense or a 95 braves pitching staff but generally speaking you need to be very good on both sides of the ball to win the world series. Of course there are exceptions, but more often than not, the team that is balanced both offensively and defensively wins the World Series. Relying too much on either offense or defense is a recipe for failure in the playoffs because as soon as that one side of the ball struggles you need the other to pick up the slack to get through a 7 game series. When was the last time a team won the World Series while being in the bottom third in runs allowed in their league? To get that pitching they are either spending big money (which is a big question mark right now) or trading away their offensive prospects. What would it take to get a guy like Chris Sale in a trade? Russell and Baez maybe? Well there goes 40% of their big time offensive prospects just to get an ace. How about rodon and Quintana? Soler and bryant? It's not easy to build a strong staff without spending money on big time free agents (Lester, scherzer, etc). Until they get the pitching, they aren't winning the World Series. That's not jealousy or envy or anything of the sorts. It's just a fact.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 9, 2014 -> 09:25 AM) OTOH, Darwin Barney's low 600's OPS was so boring and predictable (offensively AND defensively) in the same way a Gordon Beckham season is... No Cubs' fan wants to watch that, anymore than Sox fans want to continue watching Dunn/Beckham/DeAza/Konerko. No one expected Barney to be an all star, they do with Baez. Main reason sox fans have been riding gordon so hard. No one expected an average 2b, they expected Dustin pedroia. Cubs fans going to get pretty impatient if he hits .220 with 25 hr and 200 strikeouts the next 3 years. Even with all this potential offense, where's the frontline pitching needed to win? Best lineup in modern day baseball, 95 Indians, couldn't even win the World Series. 2 hof (thome and Murray), 1 would be hof if not for peds (manny), best hitter in the game that year (belle), and 8 guys that were all stars at some point in that era. All world pitching (braves starting staff) beat the all world offense. Goes without saying that you need both to win

QUOTE (shysocks @ Aug 5, 2014 -> 10:32 AM) Alexei Ramirez and Tyler Flowers have been vastly better. Dunn has been better. That's six spots in the lineup that are better than last season. You also have to consider that we're getting at-bats from Abreu instead of Paul Konerko's corpse, so while Abreu is a massive improvement, the level of production he is replacing was miserable. And that's exactly why we need the metrics. I'm not saying they are perfect, but Jake and others have done a beautiful job of explaining their value. They help measure something that is otherwise fuzzy. They tell you something, which is exactly what good stats should do. Why? Have you watched every inning they've played? I know I haven't. All I know is that Beltre gets more press for his glove - largely because of his bat. Which, again, is why the stats are useful. We can see that, hey, even though he doesn't get the same level of attention, Polanco has played the field pretty well. I'll give you ramirez but how has Dunn been vastly better this year? And flowers has improved his average but power numbers haven't improved. I wouldn't say he is vastly better. As we have seen over the past week, if abreu isn't driving in runs this entire offense is lifeless. He is was what makes this thing go. Without him, they are easily in the bottom third in runs scored and bottom 5 in record again even with the "vast" improvement of everyone else in the lineup. Regarding defensive metrics, yes they give you an idea of whether a guy is a good defender or not but my problem is the use of them as the end all be all. If they aren't perfect then they shouldn't be used as a large component in everyone's favorite modern age statistic - WAR. When people start using WAR as the single most important metric when evaluating trades, players's worth, etc. that's where I have an issue. Alex Gordon has the third highest WAR of position players this year, that's comical. Is he the third most valuable player in baseball this year? If you went by WAR, the answer is yes but I would love to hear an argument from anyone on this board that justifies this rank. Again, he's a LF, not a SS, 2b, or C, he's a LF!

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Aug 5, 2014 -> 01:27 PM) This cracks me up. How many innings have you watched of those guys over the past few years? So the measure of a good metric is "does it confirm what I already think"? I've seen enough of Beltre playing against the sox over the last few years to know he's a damn good defensive 3b. I saw enough of polanco when he was with the tigers and I can't imagine he's gotten better the last 4 years now that he's 38 years old turning 39 in 2 months. I'm not saying polanco is bad defensively, hell he's own gold gloves, but no way he's better than Beltre in my eyes

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 10:27 PM) Minor league totals, 88 BB's and 350 K's in 1212 AB's. That's around 27% In 600 AB's, it would be 175ish, and that's not adjusting for the major league level pitching, so that would put him around 200-225 K's. You'd like to see a power hitter at BB/2K or BB/3K, ideally. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/pro...p?P=javier-baez Adam dunn struck out in 22.4% of his minor league ABs. Yea, big league pitching is much tougher...I wouldn't be surprised if that 27% turns into 35% in the bigs

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 8, 2014 -> 04:18 PM) So far the K rate is 25%. Of course, the OPS is 1.188. He'll need 150 at-bats before any conclusions can begin to be drawn about his readiness. Even then, some will argue he's facing some AAA/AA call-ups for non-contending teams in September. Up to 37% now. He's going to make a run at Flowers' 38% this year. No walks in 19 ABs. He better slug .450+, otherwise I foresee Cubs' fans getting fed up with his act rather quickly. Even at .475, he's going to have a tough time posting an OPS of better than .800 because I don't see him putting together an OBP of greater than .325 (I'd say he's closer to .280-.300, at least for the next few years)

Adam Rosales OWNS Chris Sale. I asked him about this last night and he said he just sees him well. Interestingly enough he also said that a pitcher that he really struggles against and hates facing is John Danks. Now that's ironic.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 04:38 PM) Generally speaking, it's far easier to find a good 1B than good 3B. The best 3B in FA this past offseason was Juan Uribe. The year before that it was some combo of Eric Chavez/Jeff Keppinger. The year before that, you had one good player - Aramis Ramirez. For 1B, several solid guys became available - Mike Napoli, James Loney, Justin Morneau. The year before that - Nick Swisher, Mike Napoli, Adam LaRoche. The year before that - Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder. With that said, it is harder to find a guy who is good at multiple things than good at one thing. Great at one thing? Always difficult. The whole point of this process, though, is there is no requirement for an amazing hitter. This entire discussion is about the fact that you can quantifiably reproduce the run value of a great bat by being an all-around good player. There's nothing magical about a great hitter that makes the hitters around them better. Who has Abreu turned into a good hitter this year? What about Barry Bonds? The only guy I can see him seemingly having an effect on was Rich Aurilia in the 72 home run year, though Aurilia played far worse the years before and after in the same spot in the batting order, so that seems dubious. There is a lot of research on protection that shows that, over many many years of baseball, protection is never measurable beyond the extent to which you would expect random variation in performance. While a great hitter is always better than not a great one, a good hitter that is a good fielder is usually better to have than a great hitter who can't field. The more a guy's game is focused on a single thing, the more that single thing can make his value disappear entirely. Compared to last year, Donaldson is having a bad year at the plate. However, because he's an excellent fielder and decently quick on the basepaths, he's still having one of the best years in the game. I understand what you are saying in theory, but how do you explain the huge jump in offense for the White Sox this season? As I mentioned before Eaton and an improved Conor have been a boost but we have also seen a decrease in production from other guys as well to temper the Eaton/Conor boost. Take away Abreu and I would wager we are somewhere in the bottom third again in runs scored. That's just one guy making that kind of difference. I don't think one guy can make that much of a difference on defense (with catcher maybe being the one exception). I do undersell defensive metrics for a number of reasons. Outside of errors, putouts, assists, etc. they aren't tangible. I don't always see a 3B get to a grounder that another 3B would not have. It's not always obvious. I see when a guy hits a homer and knocks in three runs. Also, I feel like there's a lot of gray and fluff in the defensive numbers. I have a hard time believing that Placido Polanco has a UZR/150 of 9.9 while Adrian Beltre is at 8.4 since 2010. Does anyone really believe that Polanco has been a better defensive 3B than Beltre over the last 4 years? For these reasons, I have a hard time putting defense at the same value as offense

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 4, 2014 -> 03:58 PM) Advanced statistics make baseball better. They help to eliminate gut reactions and misguided assumptions over small sample sizes. It helps us to value different aspects of the game properly. Bill James always says that a statistic is no good if it doesn't surprise you. That's because a given statistic is supposed to tell you something you don't already know. We know Abreu is good. We know he's been phenomenal at the plate. We don't know how to properly value his contributions in comparison with other players that play other positions. To ask whether, based on this season's WAR, you'd trade for someone, is a misuse. It's not a projection - it's a measure. WAR is a way to look at players' contributions and separate them from context so you can make valid comparisons. A guy like Donaldson plays different competition, in different places, with different people batting around him, and at a different position. WAR is a way to look back and disentangle all those confounding factors. When I'm deciding between Abreu and Donaldson, there are several concerns for both players. Abreu, being new, has considerable upside that we just don't know about yet. Could he play even better than this? There's reason to believe so. However, given his newness to the league, maybe he could get dramatically worse. Look at the way Yoenis Cespedes's production fell off after his first year. At 27, Abreu can't punt too many years solving his sophomore slump. He also plays first base, meaning a down year at the plate means he'll be simply valueless. Donaldson plays a more valuable position and defends it extremely well - we have three years of sample size to back up his defense. His year last year, with a 7.7 WAR, is probably better than any year Abreu will ever have. However, he is a year older than Abreu. He's also a guy who wasn't worth a s*** until he was about 27. While "fluke" might not be the right word, there is reason to step back when a guy blooms this late and wonder what's going on. He was never an impressive upper-level MiLB player until he was 26 over 50-some games in AAA. Seems like a candidate for regression, if not a guy who might be thriving only under a particular coach or whatever is going on. So no, I wouldn't pull of that particular deal, money aside. We effectively have a prospect in Abreu, which I think makes him worth the gamble that his position or lack of experience could make us lose the deal. To me, it's a simple question. Who is harder to replace? Isn't WAR all about replacement value after all? In my opinion, it's always harder to find the star offensive player, the guy that makes everyone else in the lineup better (ala Miggy, prime Pujols, Bonds, Big Hurt), than a guy like Donaldson who is very good at everything but not great at any one thing.