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QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 12:26 PM)
Ugh. Tyler Flowers sucks. I wish we could've put someone more consistent behind the plate.

 

Flowers isn't great, but neither is the vast majority of all major league catchers. For the price, it ain't bad.

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QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:12 PM)
WAR sometimes doesn't agree with the eye test, but FWIW, Flowers had a 2.3 bWAR and 1.8 fWAR last year, so he's considered to be a league average catcher. $2.7 mil for a $10 mil value ain't bad at all.

 

Not a league average CATCHER, but a league average PLAYER. There's a huge positional adjustment for catchers, which makes a mediocre catcher a more valuable player than a mediocre guy at almost every other position. He ranks #20 for catchers. So Flowers, on the strength of a BABIP and HR/FB rate that are well into the range of unsustainable, ended up approximating a league average player. There's no reason to believe he'll do that again, and even if he did, he'd still be a below average catcher.

Edited by Eminor3rd
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QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:22 PM)
Not a league average CATCHER, but a league average PLAYER. There's a huge positional adjustment for catchers, which makes a mediocre catcher a more valuable player than a mediocre guy at almost every other position. He ranks #20 for catchers. So Flowers, on the strength of a BABIP and HR/FB rate that are well into the range of unsustainable, ended up approximating a league average player. There's no reason to believe he'll do that again, and even if he did, he'd still be a below average catcher.

 

FWIW, that BABIP didn't come out of nowhere. He drastically increased his LD% and GB%. His HR/FB% wasn't too terribly far off career norms, either. He definitely looked lucky a lot, but I wouldn't want to suggest that the only difference between 2013 and 2014 Flowers was luck.

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QUOTE (Jake @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:27 PM)
FWIW, that BABIP didn't come out of nowhere. He drastically increased his LD% and GB%. His HR/FB% wasn't too terribly far off career norms, either. He definitely looked lucky a lot, but I wouldn't want to suggest that the only difference between 2013 and 2014 Flowers was luck.

 

LD% is crazy volatile though, which is a big part of the reason that BABIP is volatile. His career HR/FB is 3% lower, which I think is definitely significant especially when you consider that the 21.1% had to have brought that up quite a bit. Also, it's easier to believe in HR/FB jumps if a guy has made a change to try to swing for the fences, but Flowers' actually had a higher-than-normal GB% too, which means the change in rate is extra strange.

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QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:34 PM)
Way more than he is worth. 1.6 mil would be about the top for him.

 

I mean the salary is fine -- he's a decent backup catcher who just happens to be starting for us. I'm just arguing that he's a weakness. I know we can't expect Hahn to fix literally everything in a single offseason, I just want to make clear that C IS a hole on the current team.

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QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 02:36 PM)
LD% is crazy volatile though, which is a big part of the reason that BABIP is volatile. His career HR/FB is 3% lower, which I think is definitely significant especially when you consider that the 21.1% had to have brought that up quite a bit. Also, it's easier to believe in HR/FB jumps if a guy has made a change to try to swing for the fences, but Flowers' actually had a higher-than-normal GB% too, which means the change in rate is extra strange.

His career HR/FB if you strip out 2014 is 16.3%, which would have given him 12 homers instead of 15 last year. Somewhat significant but not very. ZiPS has him hitting 13 next year in about 100 fewer PA's. ZiPS also has him at a nearly identical wOBA as 2014 - .310 compared to .308.

 

His season was really strange. The BABIP is driven up by all the 48-hoppers through the infield early on. Then he hit that horrible slump, and then he put on a power show in the second half. Look at his ISO by half - .086, .273. Or GB/FB by half - 2.27, 1.03. A lot of that fluctuation is SSS, but how do you know he didn't make a change?

 

Put it all together and I don't think a 90-95 wRC+ is unreasonable to expect. I'd be surprised if it's lower.

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QUOTE (shysocks @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:55 PM)
His career HR/FB if you strip out 2014 is 16.3%, which would have given him 12 homers instead of 15 last year. Somewhat significant but not very. ZiPS has him hitting 13 next year in about 100 fewer PA's. ZiPS also has him at a nearly identical wOBA as 2014 - .310 compared to .308.

 

His season was really strange. The BABIP is driven up by all the 48-hoppers through the infield early on. Then he hit that horrible slump, and then he put on a power show in the second half. Look at his ISO by half - .086, .273. Or GB/FB by half - 2.27, 1.03. A lot of that fluctuation is SSS, but how do you know he didn't make a change?

 

Put it all together and I don't think a 90-95 wRC+ is unreasonable to expect. I'd be surprised if it's lower.

 

If we assume everybody who has a hot month "made a change," we're going to be wrong practically every time. The better question to ask is: "do we have any reason to believe he DID make a change?" Because history shows us that month-over-month performance is frequently all over the place for all players. The normal effect is that he'd be inconsistent.

 

Also, I disagree that 12 vs 15 homers is insignificant. the wOBA constant for a homer was 2.135 runs last year, so those three extra homers were worth 6.405 runs, or roughly two thirds of a win. Without those homers, he had a 1.2 fWAR season, which is suddenly NOT within earshot of a league average season.

 

Still well worth $2m, but not starting-catcher-on-a-contender material.

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QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:05 PM)
If we assume everybody who has a hot month "made a change," we're going to be wrong practically every time. The better question to ask is: "do we have any reason to believe he DID make a change?" Because history shows us that month-over-month performance is frequently all over the place for all players. The normal effect is that he'd be inconsistent.

 

Also, I disagree that 12 vs 15 homers is insignificant. the wOBA constant for a homer was 2.135 runs last year, so those three extra homers were worth 6.405 runs, or roughly two thirds of a win. Without those homers, he had a 1.2 fWAR season, which is suddenly NOT within earshot of a league average season.

 

Still well worth $2m, but not starting-catcher-on-a-contender material.

Those flies could also become doubles, which adds about a half run back on (1.283 double constant * .126 league fly ball BABIP * 3 = .485; I'm assuming the type of flies that affect HR/FB rate would turn into doubles far more often than singles).

 

I cited GB/FB rate by half as evidence that perhaps he changed his approach.

 

Unless a 95 wRC+ from him next year would shock you, I don't think we even disagree by much here. Lemme put it this way - I'll live with 1 WAR because Flowers is about 20th on my list of things that will make or break the Sox.

 

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:23 PM)
Tyler Flowers, September: 43 PAs, .268/.302/.683/.985, 11 H (4 1B, 2 2B, 5 HR), 1 HBP, 1 BB, 18 K, 1.43 GB/FB, 71.4% HR/FB

 

Bolded for emphasis.

I'm not expecting him to repeat a .401 OPS June either.

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QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 03:38 PM)
I mean the salary is fine -- he's a decent backup catcher who just happens to be starting for us. I'm just arguing that he's a weakness. I know we can't expect Hahn to fix literally everything in a single offseason, I just want to make clear that C IS a hole on the current team.

 

World Champion A.J. Pierzynski: 2005 WAR 1.8

Tyler Flowers : 2014 WAR 1.8

 

 

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QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jan 16, 2015 -> 04:23 PM)
Tyler Flowers, September: 43 PAs, .268/.302/.683/.985, 11 H (4 1B, 2 2B, 5 HR), 1 HBP, 1 BB, 18 K, 1.43 GB/FB, 71.4% HR/FB

 

Bolded for emphasis.

 

Tyler Flowers, June: 76 PAs .129/.187/.214/ .401 15 OPS+ .206 BABIP

 

Sometimes he was lucky, sometimes he was unlucky, it all averages out to a Tyler Flowersy .700 OPS roughly. That doesn't seem unreasonable.

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