Eminor3rd

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 12:41 PM) Keeping Alexei in the 2 hole cost the team some runs. Now that he's moved out of it, his approach is better. Do you have evidence of this?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 12:16 PM) None of that actually translates to some sort of actual win total that can be compared to what a pitcher actually has. As chw said, fWAR is a FIP based metric, and is thus essentially this. You'd have to add more "wins" based on what a replacement level pitcher would actually produce if you wanted to compare it directly to an actual W-L record. I'm guessing that no one has done this yet because no one thinks it's particularly useful to think about W-L records, though I could be wrong. WAR by itself serves the purpose of giving you a number to compare pitchers, but it removes the context of the performance of the rest of the team that exists in W-L.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 12:50 PM) Wouldn't a team of all 0 WAR players hypothetically go 81-81. Everyone is completely average? A WAR of 0 means you are average not that you suck. The Median for this stat, not the average is 0. Thus if every player had a WAR of 0, they would be average in every aspect of the game. Throw a player of 10 WAR on this team and now they are at 86 wins. This was the early 2000's Red Sox with Pedro Martinez. No, this is a common misconception. 0 WAR is replacement level, not average. An average player usually comes in around 2 WAR EDIT: Didn't see this was already said.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 10:58 AM) IMO someone is getting traded for a real hitter. Whether that is Danks, Santiago, Quintana... who knows. This seems to be consensus around here, and I'd like to see it happen. If I had my choice, I'd move Santiago and try to extend Quintana.

QUOTE (almagest @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 11:53 AM) For all of the hate against him, I feel like Ventura has done a good job at constructing the lineup. Unfortunately, he doesn't have much to work with. I agree, especially last year. This year, understandably, it's been more like "just move the hottest hands up toward the front."

QUOTE (Jerksticks @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 11:40 PM) Interesting point: The FO asked Dunn to change his approach going into this year despite his "productive" 2012. Even in his comeback year management insisted he change his approach. So many of you cling to his 41 HR 100 RBI as production, like he wasn't a problem last year. Management disagrees with you...why is that? I think I know. 110 hits. That's right. 110 hits all year out of the 3-hole. That's a minimum of 52 games without a hit. Lucky for everybody I did the math. He actually went hitless in 69 games last year. 69 if I added right. He started 145 games in the #3 spot and got a hit in barely half of them. Phantom production at its finest IMO. Sure you can't discount the 41 HRs just like you can't discount the 430 PA that ended in s***. Except that all research on batting order over the last five year has concluded that high contact rates out of the 3-hole have been extremely overrated historically, and that the 2, 4, and 5 spots actually benefit much more from the "traditional" 3 hole profile, which just happens to be ENTIRELY consistent with RV's use of the 2 spot, having put Kevin Youkilis there last year and having a rotating cast of the hottest contact hitters (Gillaspie, Beckham, Ramirez) in the 2 spot all of this year. Your speculation about management's attitude toward Dunn is just that -- speculation. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. There's just as much "evidence" to go against it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 10:56 AM) It would be interesting to see if someone could come up with a way to isolate factors such as defense and run support while factoring in their own ERA and other pitcher numbers, to get some sort of an expected win total to see which pitchers "out-perform" their expected win totals. As they've said above, this is essentially what FIP (Fielding Independent ERA) is. FIP is a stat scaled to ERA that ONLY factors in things that a pitcher controls completely, which are Ks, BBs, and HRs. The idea is that the rest of what factors into ERA have at least something to do with defense. And so one way that people commonly identify pitchers that are candidates to improve or get worse is by looking for large discrepancies between FIP and ERA. If a guy's FIP is lower than his ERA, he has been getting bad results from some combination of defense and batted ball placement luck, and he'll likely see better results if he continues doing what hes's doing, and vice versa. This works out well most of the time, but there are some notable exceptions, typically whenever pitchers show abnormal consistency in homerun rates, either in an ability to suppress them or to give them up. Matt Cain is sort of the posterchild for a guy that always had a better ERA than FIP suggested he should. Zack Greinke is a guy who always had a worse ERA than his FIP suggested.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 08:06 AM) I never said that other stats aren't useful or should be ignored. I'm not sure where you got that. Of course they are useful. I said they are an important piece and in my view is where you start for starting pitcher. If I'mgoing to spend money on a freeagent. I want a pitcher who knows how to use his stuff not a guy who has stuff. So the underlying stats are important however I start with wins. Take Javier Vasquez vs. Mark Buerhle. One has better "stuff" the other knows how to use it. Most of vasquez stats are better. However, we've seen both pitch and who would you rather have. Edit: Looking back I did see what I said. It didn't come out the way I meant it. The only stat that matters was in reference to a season or career and as a primary variable with some hyberbole. I'm sorry, I thought you were talking about team wins. QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 20, 2013 -> 07:52 AM) Yes. Because he has the most control over it. Does he have it all, no. However, he is the most significant variable in it. It obviously doesn't tell everything and can't be looked at only for individual games but needs to be over a season and multiple seasons. The advent of specialzed relievers has made it less important as the starter pitches less. I understand your argument that some pitchers are better than others despite having worse "stuff," but I don't agree that the Wins statistic is a way to root that out. Run scoring is half a win, run prevention is half a win. When you break down run prevention, it's partially pitching and it's partially defense. Even if you give 80% of the credit for run prevention to a pitcher, the pitcher still has LESS THAN HALF of the control over a win. He may be wield more personal responsibility than any other individual on the field, but it's not even half. He's never truly "in control." He can literally throw a no-hitter and still lose. All you have to do is look at the pitching leaderboards for ANY given year to see why this doesn't add up -- and it never adds up. This year, Chris Tillman has more wins than Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, and Felix Hernandez. Bronson Arroyo has more wins than CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Zack Greinke, and Doug Fister. Freaking Joe Saunders has more wins than Matt Harvey! Matt Harvey is possibly the Cy Young! You might say, "well, that's why we look at other numbers too. We know there are flaws to Wins." Well, why look at it at all? What does this stat tell you? At best, it's a proxy for run support, but it's not even useful for that, because you can just look at run support! It's not that these arguments that Hawk/HR/etc. make that there's an element of rising to an occasion and being clutch that doesn't show up in the numbers is BS -- that element DOES exist. It's not BS and it DOESN'T show up in the numbers, despite a lot of effort that's been put into nailing it down. The Win stat is not a way to root that out. It's a number just like the others, except it's among the worst, because it tells us nothing that other numbers don't tell us more accurately.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 09:25 PM) Considering that's what we base a good or bad season on and who goes to the playoffs, I would agree it's the most important. That has nothing to do with it being "the only stat that matters." How are you going to analyze player performance? How easy would it be to put together a winning team if you ignored every stat except wins and losses? I've said it a million times -- statistics exist to answer specific questions. If you insist on ignoring their intended uses, you shouldn't be surprised that they aren't that useful for you. But you should also not be surprised that others are finding them extremely useful -- to answering specific questions.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 06:32 PM) My post was a bit sarcastic, I do enjoy the new stats, I just find it annoying that the first response to a post about Sale's WAR is "No, that one sucks, don't use it!" How are you supposed to have a good discussion about player value if that's the first thing that pops up? Ahhh. Yeah I see what you mean. Pitching is tough. It's so hard to separate defense from the equation.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 05:59 PM) Well until these geniuses get together and create one standard WAR stat then I say they both suck. Suck at what? They are designed to answer specific questions. And they are questions that "traditional" stats don't have an equivalent for. If all versions of WAR suck, then what is the "correct" way to compare individual player performance on both sides of the diamond while controlling for team context? WWHRD (What would Harold Reynolds do?) The answer to WWHRD, as far as I can tell, is argue about it and never come to a consensus. If that's as far as you want to be able to take it, then fine. But what's wrong with trying to find answers to interesting and useful questions about baseball? Well he strikes out too much, well he doesn't walk enough, well his defense good enough to justify his bat, blah blah. Well don't you want to actually try to find out? This post probably reads jerkier than I want it to. I'm sorry if that's the case.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 05:20 PM) You know it's a great stat when everybody calculates it differently. They don't though. They are different numbers and you should decide to like or hate them based on their own merits. It makes no sense to say fWAR sucks because bWAR sucks, for example.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 05:34 PM) I don't care about this WAR garbage, I just look at his W/L record, tells you all you need to know. - Hawk Harrleson Right except it absolutely doesn't, lol. It tells you which teams have played the best relative to the ones they've played against. If that's the question you're asking, then yes, it tells you all you need to know.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 05:03 PM) A "replacement player" is worth 0 wins right? A player like Chris Sale is going to guarantee you at least 10 wins by dominating games. No. a replacement player is worth 0 wins above replacement. because he's a replacement player. A team full of replacement players is expected to win like 40-something games.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 04:35 PM) Starting pitcher WAR doesn't make sense to me. A true ace is going to guarantee anywhere from 10-15 wins even on a bad team. You're looking at it wrong. It isn't saying Sale is only worth 6 wins, it's saying he's worth 6 wins ABOVE REPLACEMENT. So it's really 6 wins above what a guy like, say, Dylan Axelrod would contribute.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 04:43 PM) When Ben Zobrist ranks as one of the best players in baseball, you know it's a flawed system. I've heard they are going to combine in to one exact calculation at some point, but it hasn't happened yet that I know of. The only flaw I've seen w/ fWAR is that they sometimes favor defense too heavily, but overall everyone seems to agree fWAR is overall far superior than bWAR, which, OF COURSE is the on ESPN cites, so people often discredit WAR all together once they see the funky things like Ben Zobrist being an MVP candidate. Yeah, I'm actually not that familiar with the differences when it comes to position players. I just know that the primary difference for pitcher's is that fWAR uses DIPS theory and rWAR/bWAR use earned runs, which is the basically the same thing as using wins and losses -- bWAR ends up telling you more "what happened while the pitcher was on the mound" whereas fWAR tells you "what the pitcher absolutely contributed on his own." There definitely appears to be something missing from the fWAR equation, namely a pitcher's ability to consistently suppress home runs relative to other hits, but fWAR is conservative in that it would rather miss assigning some credit to a pitcher than definiftely assign too much credit for the sake of completeness. Which, I think makes sense -- it allows you the flexibility of assigning your own value to the things that the math hasn't been able to nail down. it allows you to be subjective about the subjective things, whereas bWAR attempts to weigh factors that no one has been able to accurately weigh.

QUOTE (Chilihead90 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 04:34 PM) No he's not, STOP using bWAR. Agreed here. fWAR is best for starting pitchers, IMO. I'm not sure I like it for relievers, but at least it takes leverage index into account.

QUOTE (TaylorStSox @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 04:35 PM) A true ace is going to guarantee anywhere from 10-15 wins even on a bad team. Based on what?

NOTABLE: according to Pitch F/X, Garcia's O-Swing since the trade is at just 27%, which is a touch better than league average (29.6%) and a billion times better than his previous ML career average (37%). I do not know if this is sustainable BUT this is an example of a successful major league hitting approach. His walk rates are ~5% where they always were, but it's fine because he's being selective in the pitches he swings at. Please, keep this up!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 12:39 PM) League average with the bat though would be one of the best run-producing shortstops in the league. Alexei is about 10th in MLB in OPS at the shortstop position. Right, but this is in response to him as a cornerstone of the offense, or as someone put it "our most consistent hitter all year long." It's an 84 wRC+. It is nice out of the SS position but it is not a substantial part of a core offense.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 11:29 AM) What took him so long? Hawk Harrelson, I mean Ken Harrelson, has said he has the power to hit it out to any field. That ridiculous shift would be on every single at bat and yet he'd still strike out or ground out or pop out into the shift. Fixed. It was never about his power, it was about his hit tool. If Dunn or his coaches felt there were legitimate questions about his ability to control the bat against pitches that are harder to hit, there would be a real risk of even moire strikeouts with even less power. Based on this, it sounds like the coaches thought he could do it but Dunn wasn't so sure. Nice that it's working

QUOTE (oldsox @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 11:29 AM) Defensive stats are very subjective. Official Scorers have their own agenda. Happened lat night. A one hopper hit to Pedroia, he muffed it, they gave the guy a hit because they wanted to keep Pedroia's error total down. Alexei would have gotten an error on same play. That's one of the chief benefits of UZR -- it's calculated based on BIS records about the location of plays being made or not made.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Aug 18, 2013 -> 11:30 AM) We should all definitely want the Sox to lose, but not at the expense of development. This season is a sunk cost in terms of winning, but some good can still come of it if the young guys can continue to learn and start connecting the dots. I'd love to get the #2 pick, but if a guy like Garcia or Viciedo goes on a tear and prevents that from happening I'll be even happier. Hopefully the bullpen and poor fundamentals will lose us a lot of games going forward though. THIS If we end up winning a bunch of games in September because our young players start taking legitimate strides forward in their development, then we'll take it. But the important thing here is that the WINS aren't what we need right now. We need the kids to have good numbers themselves. They don't need to lead to wins this year, those wins do us no good. So you can watch games and be really invested in the performance of the players but still shrug your shoulders when the team loses anyway.

QUOTE (scs787 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 10:23 AM) What are your guys thoughts on "buying low" on Headley? I'm not sure if it would cost Q or Santiago but if it did would you do that? If he returns to his 2012 numbers that would go a long way towards contending. Would be great, but I don't think they'd sell low.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 19, 2013 -> 07:50 AM) Except in 2012, that wasn't the case with him. He finally cleaned up so many of those stupid, easy mistakes last year. That's the thing -- guys can have good years and bad years defensively just like they can at the plate. He's not as good as he was in 2012 and not as bad as he's been this year. He's a defensive asset at the end of the day, but he's an aging one with no surplus value on his contract. Useful for a contender, not useful for us.