Sox Pitching Staff Discussion

[S5Dewey]

Wins are not an accurate tool to assess a pitcher's value in any way, shape of form.

 

Fair enough. What would you like to use? ERA? WHIP? Whatever you use the point is the same. Players get paid according to what the FO thinks they'll do and the best players set the bar. Everything beyond that is ROI.

[Spudboy]

a 2 year deal at slightly more AAV but close enough to be comparable. definitely a worthy replacement to clay. but i wonder if he would have signed with the Sox or had that bridge already been torched?

 

Tough to say. I think that the relationship when he was shown the door may have been rocky but probably not as bad as the press played it.

 

Money has a way of making things right. I would have even gone 3 years on Lackey. That, to me anyway, would have been a no brainier.

[User Name]

Fair enough. What would you like to use? ERA? WHIP? Whatever you use the point is the same. Players get paid according to what the FO thinks they'll do and the best players set the bar. Everything beyond that is ROI.

 

I agree with the overall point being correct, but using pitcher wins distorts actual value way too much. Wright's a good example of a starter who has dominated so far but can't buy a win.

[S5Dewey]

Fair enough. What would you like to use? ERA? WHIP? Whatever you use the point is the same. Players get paid according to what the FO thinks they'll do and the best players set the bar. Everything beyond that is ROI.

 

To carry this a bit further, Price is making 2.3 x as much as Buch. Therefore using any metric you choose Price should be 2.3 x as good. If you think it's realistic for Price to have an ERA of 2.00 then a comparable ERA for Buch would be 4.6. If you like WHIP and think it's realistic for Price to have a WHIP of 1.00 then Buch's WHIP has to be 2.3 for the ROI to be equal.

[User Name]

To carry this a bit further, Price is making 2.3 x as much as Buch. Therefore using any metric you choose Price should be 2.3 x as good. If you think it's realistic for Price to have an ERA of 2.00 then a comparable ERA for Buch would be 4.6. If you like WHIP and think it's realistic for Price to have a WHIP of 1.00 then Buch's WHIP has to be 2.3 for the ROI to be equal.

 

The problem is that you can't assign value in a vacuum like that. This detracts from the overall point.

[S5Dewey]

I agree with the overall point being correct, but using pitcher wins distorts actual value way too much. Wright's a good example of a starter who has dominated so far but can't buy a win.

 

Agreed. Wins was the low-hanging fruit for my comparison but in reality the fruit was tainted.

[S5Dewey]

The problem is that you can't assign value in a vacuum like that. This detracts from the overall point.

 

Why not? How would you establish value if not by salary?

[User Name]

Why not? How would you establish value if not by salary?

 

Not the salary, but rather directly correlating salary with production percentages.

 

Example: If player A makes double what player B makes, then player A needs to be 200% as good player B to justify his salary. Baseball economy doesn't work like that, in part because high-performing rookies would make essentially every contract unjustifiable, and because there's a point of statistical impossibility when you try to value players like this.

[a700hitter]

There is one way to compare Price to Buchholz. If you are the manager and you have to hand the ball to one of the two, which one do you pick? Every other measure of "value" and "ROI" is nothing more than blather and mumbo jumbo. Building a team is not exactly like building a portfolio of assets. There are so many other factors and dynamics at play. When building a portfolio of financial investment assets, there is no possibility of one asset making the other asset perform better or worse as is often the case with players. There is no ballpark factor. Camaraderie is not a factor. In purchasing a financial asset, no one would overpay for one asset because he got other assets below market value. Baseball teams with lots of cost controlled players like the Red Sox will have more budgetary flexibility to pay more for a big ticket player. That doesn't happen in financial business. Also, a big market rich guy would never pay more for a stock or security than would a small investor like me. This happens all the time in baseball. Applying these financial measures like ROI to try to determine definitively which players are more valuable is silly as they don't fit when measuring human capital. There is one measure that is definitive. Ask who you would want to hand the ball. The answer will tell you which guy is more valuable.

[S5Dewey]

Not the salary, but rather directly correlating salary with production percentages.

 

Example: If player A makes double what player B makes, then player A needs to be 200% as good player B to justify his salary. Baseball economy doesn't work like that, in part because high-performing rookies would make essentially every contract unjustifiable, and because there's a point of statistical impossibility when you try to value players like this.

 

Yes. That I agree with.

 

I used the high end of the spectrum to illustrate my point between "the best pitcher in baseball" (or at least the highest paid!) and a veteran player who's making much less money but is regularly being criticized here. And I still think my point is reasonable within that context,

 

Now... at the other end of the spectrum we have players making the Major League minimum. Ideally the players making the minimum should be the worst player at their position across baseball. But that's not true and everyone knows it. However, at that end of the spectrum the minimum is still the barometer. That means that players like JBJ and Bogaerts are netting a YUUUUGE ROI for the parent club, which offsets some of the losers - although in honesty there aren't many of those this year. To put it into a business sense, they're getting a big ROI from their young players.

[S5Dewey]

There is one way to compare Price to Buchholz. If you are the manager and you have to hand the ball to one of the two, which one do you pick? Every other measure of "value" and "ROI" is nothing more than blather and mumbo jumbo. Building a team is not exactly like building a portfolio of assets. There are so many other factors and dynamics at play. When building a portfolio of financial investment assets, there is no possibility of one asset making the other asset perform better or worse as is often the case with players. There is no ballpark factor. Camaraderie is not a factor. In purchasing a financial asset, no one would overpay for one asset because he got other assets below market value. Baseball teams with lots of cost controlled players like the Red Sox will have more budgetary flexibility to pay more for a big ticket player. That doesn't happen in financial business. Also, a big market rich guy would never pay more for a stock or security than would a small investor like me. This happens all the time in baseball. Applying these financial measures like ROI to try to determine definitively which players are more valuable is silly as they don't fit when measuring human capital. There is one measure that is definitive. Ask who you would want to hand the ball. The answer will tell you which guy is more valuable.

 

I'm all for that. Just remember that it completely scraps all those metrics that so many fans hold near and dear to their hearts.

[a700hitter]

I'm all for that. Just remember that it completely scraps all those metrics that so many fans hold near and dear to their hearts.

No it doesn't. Most fans are not sabremetric nerds who bury themselves in advanced stats that convince them that Todd Benzinger was better than Carl Yastrzemski.

[TheBabeStrikesBack]

Only a fool would equate Price with Buchholz, but then again there are Yankee fans.

 

Only a fool would read what I posted and draw that I was equating Price with buch. But then again, it is you.

 

I simply stated that at times he has performed like buch, not that they are equals by any means.

[a700hitter]

Only a fool would read what I posted and draw that I was equating Price with buch. But then again, it is you.

 

I simply stated that at times he has performed like buch, not that they are equals by any means.

You just equated them again. Do Yankee fans go to school? They cannot be equated in any meaningful way. Maybe you just meant to equate them in a meaningless way?

[sk7326]

Why not? How would you establish value if not by salary?

 

Correlating salary linearly with production makes no sense because of supply. Price makes 2.3x as Buchholz, not because Price is 2.3x better than Buchholz - but because there are MANY MANY MANY fewer pitchers who are let's say 50% better than Buchholz (or whatever)

[TheBabeStrikesBack]

You just equated them again. Do Yankee fans go to school? They cannot be equated in any meaningful way. Maybe you just meant to equate them in a meaningless way?

 

I said at times, geez.

[a700hitter]

I said at times, geez.

Okay, so it was a meaningless remark that you passed as part of the discussion without meaning to compare the two. Okay, thank you for clarifying.

[Bellhorn04]

To carry this a bit further, Price is making 2.3 x as much as Buch. Therefore using any metric you choose Price should be 2.3 x as good. If you think it's realistic for Price to have an ERA of 2.00 then a comparable ERA for Buch would be 4.6. If you like WHIP and think it's realistic for Price to have a WHIP of 1.00 then Buch's WHIP has to be 2.3 for the ROI to be equal.

 

You're illustrating the value of the WAR concept which gives you a much clearer way to compare 2 guys. For 13 million Buchholz should produce a WAR of about 2 to earn his pay. Price should produce a WAR of about 4.5.

[Slasher9]

There is one way to compare Price to Buchholz. If you are the manager and you have to hand the ball to one of the two, which one do you pick? Every other measure of "value" and "ROI" is nothing more than blather and mumbo jumbo. Building a team is not exactly like building a portfolio of assets. There are so many other factors and dynamics at play. When building a portfolio of financial investment assets, there is no possibility of one asset making the other asset perform better or worse as is often the case with players. There is no ballpark factor. Camaraderie is not a factor. In purchasing a financial asset, no one would overpay for one asset because he got other assets below market value. Baseball teams with lots of cost controlled players like the Red Sox will have more budgetary flexibility to pay more for a big ticket player. That doesn't happen in financial business. Also, a big market rich guy would never pay more for a stock or security than would a small investor like me. This happens all the time in baseball. Applying these financial measures like ROI to try to determine definitively which players are more valuable is silly as they don't fit when measuring human capital. There is one measure that is definitive. Ask who you would want to hand the ball. The answer will tell you which guy is more valuable.

 

awesome. then let's hand the ball to Price 162 times this year?

[Slasher9]

Correlating salary linearly with production makes no sense because of supply. Price makes 2.3x as Buchholz, not because Price is 2.3x better than Buchholz - but because there are MANY MANY MANY fewer pitchers who are let's say 50% better than Buchholz (or whatever)

 

thats a fair point. hopefully Price will end up being 50% better than clay by the end of the season.

[User Name]

No it doesn't. Most fans are not sabremetric nerds who bury themselves in advanced stats that convince them that Todd Benzinger was better than Carl Yastrzemski.

 

That fan does not exist.

[a700hitter]

awesome. then let's hand the ball to Price 162 times this year?

This makes what point?

[User Name]

thats a fair point. hopefully Price will end up being 50% better than clay by the end of the season.

 

History says he will.

[Slasher9]

I said at times, geez.

 

there was nothing wrong with what you stated. well...maybe there was. actually at times this season Price has pitched much worse than Clay.

[a700hitter]

thats a fair point. hopefully Price will end up being 50% better than clay by the end of the season.

If Price pitches to Buch's numbers, he will be 50% better, because Buch only pitches half of a season.

[User Name]

there was nothing wrong with what you stated. well...maybe there was. actually at times this season Price has pitched much worse than Clay.

 

Can't tell if trolling.....

[Slasher9]

This makes what point?

 

it makes the same point as saying "if the manager has to give the ball to a pitcher for 1 game". of course the answer is Price. i mean, we did spend $217MM for an "Ace", right? you absolutely give the ball for 1 game to your "ace" and not the pitcher that you picked up a reasonable 1 year option on. right?

[a700hitter]

That fan does not exist.

Some are close to that. This Buch vs. Price discussion isn't far off.

[Slasher9]

Can't tell if trolling.....

if you dont think that some of David Prices starts thus far this season have been as bad or as frustrating as some of Clays starts then you havent been watching the games.

[User Name]

Some are close to that. This Buch vs. Price discussion isn't far off.

 

That happens if you can't align "value" with the very specific dynamics of baseball economics.