Jayhawk Bill

Nate Silver did the study. Would you like me to write him with your concern? It's been part of the accepted body of knowledge for a few years now...but one never knows what might have been missed by a few tens of thousands of readers. By the way, would you object if I were to make this quote of yours my sig?

Notably, MLB.com Pitch F/X overrode the system and just placed the pitch arbitrarily where the umpire called it.

This is a type of stat that Terry Francona has tended to use in the past--let's see if Sean Casey gets the start.

A whole lotta folks agree with you, Mr. Crunchy. Most catchers decline by Tek's age, and few play as late as age 42. Here's an interesting list: the number of players still catching in 50% of their games, 1947-2008, by age: [table]Age | Players 35 | 133 36 | 84 37 | 51 38 | 38 39 | 22 40 | 11 41 | 6 42 | 5[/table] Certainly, leaning to 3 more than 7 makes sense knowing those odds. But, then again, how many players caught 50% or more of their games AND had enough PA to qualify for the batting title at age 35, as Tek did, over that same time period? Just seven...and Tek is one of those seven guys. I continue to post that age 42 is possible, given that Tek is already in a group roughly as small as the group that caught 50% of the time at age 42. Of course, YMMV.

All of these ranges, though, are first-round picks. The average team gets only one pick in one of the top three brackets, and rarely more than two picks total of this caliber. These are very high picks--these are excellent prospects. Picks 1-7 Peak Wins 2.99 (Fourth MLB Year) Picks 8-15 Peak Wins 2.44 (Third MLB Year) Picks 16-25 Peak Wins 1.92 (Second MLB Year) Picks 26+ Peak Wins 0.90 (Second MLB Year) OK...but how good is a 2.99-win player or a 0.90-win player? Let's look at the 2007 Red Sox, evaluated by the same system, WARP (WARP1 to be exact): [table]NAME | Wins DAVID ORTIZ | 8.2 JOSH BECKETT | 7.9 MIKE LOWELL | 7.6 KEVIN YOUKILIS | 6.9 JONATHAN PAPELBON | 6.4 DUSTIN PEDROIA | 6.3 DAISUKE MATSUZAKA | 6.2 COCO CRISP | 5.4 JASON VARITEK | 5.3 CURT SCHILLING | 4.3 TIM WAKEFIELD | 4.3 MANNY RAMIREZ | 3.7 HIDEKI OKAJIMA | 3.6 J.D. DREW | 2.8 JACOBY ELLSBURY | 1.8 JULIAN TAVAREZ | 1.5 MIKE TIMLIN | 1.5 ALEX CORA | 1.4 MANNY DELCARMEN | 1.4 JAVIER LOPEZ | 1.4 JULIO LUGO | 1.4 KYLE SNYDER | 1.3 ERIC HINSKE | 1.1 BRENDAN DONNELLY | 1 JOEL PINEIRO | 0.5 BRANDON MOSS | 0.3 DOUG MIRABELLI | 0.2 DAVID MURPHY | 0.1 KEVIN CASH | 0 BOBBY KIELTY | 0 WILY MO PENA | 0 JEFF BAILEY | -0.1 ROYCE CLAYTON | -0.2[/table] OK...This means that a truly elite draft pick, one of the top eight overall, can be expected to do roughly as well at his peak as JD Drew did in 2007. A sandwich pick would be as good as Brendan Donnelly in 2007 or Eric Hinske in 2007 at their peaks. There are 24 roster slots at Pawtucket. Each year somewhere around two or three players who were starting at Pawtucket (or, more rarely, Portland) the previous year will play more than a handful of innings for Boston. Those players reflect the net value of an entire year's drafting and player development: of 24 roster spots at Pawtucket, maybe a half dozen players fill a few MLB at bats via waivers and just two or three contribute significantly. That's why these value expectations are so low. Some first-round picks thrive--but others wash out badly, never reaching MLB. Washing out is much more common than succeeding. The value of the future stars is offset by the washouts until the result is the 2007 JD Drew. Boston probably uses very sophisticated metrics to balance investment in prospects with investment in free agents. Certainly some draft picks are worth their bonuses--but certainly a very large number wash out completely, too. I'm not yet ready to criticize the FO for failing to sign one guy in the fourteenth round when it would've taken a million dollars to do so.

I guess that it's a semantic difference. What you call "baloney" I call "research;" what you call "stones" I call "links."

Christian Lara had a nice glove, but he was never going to hit. In hitter's heaven Lancaster he hit .238/.325/.399; in the Venezuelan Winter League he hit a miserable .224/.321/.245 last winter. When you're slugging .245 as a pro, you've got troubles. Eric Hull is a slightly undersized guy who posted good stats in relief for Las Vegas. Here's his "Stars and Scrubs" chart from BP PECOTA: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/pecota/images/huller01_010.png There's a 50-50 chance that he'll wash out, but there's one chance in three that he'll make a positive difference and one chance in six that he'll be an All Star-caliber relief pitcher next year. Good acquisition by Theo and the FO.

BP PECOTA has minor league FRAA for the player's primary position at each minor league stop. *** Regarding RZR, an excellent stat, THT also lists OOZ plays. While I like RZR by itself, for some players taking the quotient (Plays In Zone + Plays Out of Zone)/Balls In Zone gives a better picture of the player's skill. RZR rewards sure-handedness within the assigned zone; including OOZ rewards better positioning as well as greater range. Using a very small 2008 sample to demonstrate this: RZR Manny Ramirez 1.000 Joey Gathright 1.000 (Plays In Zone + Plays Out of Zone)/Balls In Zone Manny Ramirez 1.111 Joey Gathright 5.000 Manny's off to a great start, but Joey Gathright has the speed to do much better once range is considered. *** I'm a fan of Dan Fox's new SFR system, and I've gotten some stats for players through the 2000's, but it's not yet widely available.

I think that it all turned out pretty much as expected.

You're posting in absolutes, so I'm presuming that you've researched this point, as I have. For each of the following groups of first-round draft picks, at what MLB year do they peak and what is their average value to their teams in wins over replacement-level (AAA) talent? Picks 1-7 Picks 8-15 Picks 16-25 Picks 26+ (including sandwich picks) See, this is pretty important stuff, and it's been researched...you know the answers, right? :dunno:

To be fair, you are yet again ignorant.

Great point, ORS...MDC's Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP, a Hardball Times stat, on the same scale as ERA) went from 4.04 in 2006 UP to 4.07 in 2007. There's nothing wrong with a reliable 4.00 ERA pitcher--such a guy who doesn't choke can even be an adequate, albeit not great, closer or setup man. But let's not get kidded by that 2.05 ERA--it's not his true talent level.

If the old school scouts knew exactly who was going to be a major leaguer, why did so many top-ranked prospects wash out in the days before radar guns? *** If you'll look back at what I've done to evaluate Tek, though, I DIDN'T use PECOTA as the "complete way of evaluating a player." I looked at the comparables and described why 18 out of 20 didn't really apply: - 15 weren't starting catchers...Tek is so good a hitter so late in his career that 3/4 of his closest comparables aren't even everyday catchers. The trouble with that is that those other hitters were mostly 1B/DH types by the time that they were Tek's age. Their defensive skills were almost gone. Conversely, Tek is still able to catch roughly as well as the average starting MLB catcher. Tek can be expected to last longer than those players--he hits roughly as well, but he fields much better. - 3 weren't established starting catchers of Tek's caliber at age 35. Parrish and Robinson had already declined steeply before they were Tek's age; Ashby was a career back-up who had a couple of good seasons late. - That left Posada, whose future is unknown but whose catching skills are already the worst among AL starting catchers--Tek is different. That left only Fisk, who played until age 45...so I gave Tek a subjective chance of playing through age 42, as well as a chance of tailing off as early as age 38. *** Almost all players leave baseball for one reason: their skills are no longer adequate. Pitchers leave because they can no longer get guys out. Position players leave because they can't hit well enough to justify remaining in MLB at a position at which they're competent to play. More rarely, they leave because they choose to do other things, but that's an exception. As cases in point, let's first look at the other MLB catchers who got at least 100 PA at age 27 the year that Tek was 27, 1999: Jorge Posada remains an All Star-caliber batter. His defense, however, is fading, and he may be moved to first base or DH. Ivan Rodriguez, the best catcher in the AL in 1999, is still starting for a team that believed itself to be a pennant contender before the season began. His defense has gone from sterling to maybe a bit above average, and his batting average is still high but pretty empty--his strike zone discipline appears to be gone. Mike Lieberthal, maybe the second-best NL catcher in 1999 (behind Mike Piazza), appears to be out of MLB. He's still an adequate catcher, but he hit .234/.280/.260 in 2007. LA didn't pick up his option, and Lieberthal chose not to pursue free agency, saying that he'd made enough money. Charles Johnson, who looked promising as a youngster, had career-long injury troubles and lost his skills early. He extended his career two years by playing in Colorado. Away from the mountain air, he was completely washed up in 2005 at age 33, unable to hit .200. Paul Bako, a career .234/.306/.315 hitter, still has a job despite barely clearing .200 two years running. :dunno: Paul LoDuca, who hit his peak at age 29 and flourished through his early thirties, has hit a brick wall thus far in 2008 with the Nats. Notably, though, he'd already had two seasons where his OBP was lower than Tek's was in his miserable injury-marred 2006 season, and his once-renowned defense had tailed off considerably. He still has a job. Henry Blanco, an excellent catcher, appears to be unable to hit any more. He hit .167/.193/.222 in 2007, and it appears that the Cubs are searching for a better option after his contract ends. *** Now, for a better look at how old catchers fade away, those catchers from 1999 with 100+ PA who were 35 and older that year: Tom Lampkin caught through age 38, retiring after two seasons of roughly .220/.310/.360 hitting and average catching. Jim Leyritz, never an adequate catcher, retired after one more year when his average dropped to around the Mendoza Line. He now drives drunk in Florida. Mike MacFarlane retired immediately after 1999, when his OPS had dropped below .700 for the first time. Jeff Reed caught very badly in 1999. He did a little better defensively in 2000, but his batting average dropped to .214, and that was the end. Terry Steinbach's catching skills, never regarded as great, declined further in 1999, his last year in MLB. He was still an excellent batter. *** There's a pattern here: if you can hit around .200--more to the point, if you can keep your EqA around or over .200--you can keep a catching job in MLB. The three big exceptions were Lieberthal, Macfarlane and Steinbach, all of whom had career earnings of eight digits when they chose not to bounce to another team to continue their careers as bench players. There's nothing suggesting that Tek won't be able to hit .200 in the near future. PECOTA has him retiring after 2011 having hit .241 (EqA .255) his last year, but that probably won't happen: remember, PECOTA compared Tek to lots of 1B/DH types, and one has to hit better than .241 or .255 to stay in MLB at first base. I'll concede that Tek's batting might dip precipitously--but it's not likely. It's more likely that he would choose to pursue other interests, such as coaching--but Tek still seems to love his role from what I read and see. I consider the reasonable range for Tek to be 3-7 years. I may be among a minority who see seven more seasons as possible, but I have my reasons. As always, YMMV.

Yeah, he's gonna be good...I tell ya, I see Cueto as possibly being the next Moose Haas.

Kelly Shoppach is a back-up catcher, but he's among the best in MLB: his PECOTA was for 3.0 WARP, suggesting that he may be worth three wins to the Guardians this year. Terry Francona misused Shoppach in 2005, giving him just two starts while subbing for Mirabelli, one against Mike Mussina and one against Bartolo Colon in his Cy Young season. Shoppach hit .000 in those starts and in a few more scattered at bats, and he was gone...the rumor was that Boston gave up Shoppach for Bard, and that the core Marte-for-Crisp deal didn't require his inclusion. Wily Mo Pena hit .301 with medium power in 2006, and Boston still got JD Drew--it's not that WMP didn't hit. He didn't hit in 2007--but that's largely because Terry Francona kept using him as a pinch-hitter, and WMP is below the Mendoza line (with a .233 OBP) over his career as a pinch-hitter per BR. He was 1-11 as a PH and 0-1 as a PH for the DH, for a 1-12 contribution to his batting average. WMP hit .277 with power against starting pitchers in 2007 (counting both Boston and DC), but only .220 against relief pitchers--that futility as a late-inning pinch hitter drove the low stats he put up for Boston. WMP could've covered for Manny or, especially, Coco when they struggled in April 2007; he could've covered for Drew when Drew should've been put on the DL in May; instead, Terry Francona used him from the bench, giving him irregular chances to start and lots of late-inning use, a role in which he always struggled. WMP hit .293/.352/.504 as a regular for the Nats, in a pitcher's ballpark. One could legitimately criticize WMP's ability to play RF--he's always struggled defensively in RF more than he has in CF, where the balls come right at an outfielder instead of tending to drift--but WMP always hit well when he was given regular playing time. *** The other listed prospects...well, we lost a whole lot of draft picks due to free agent signings under Duquette.

Bryan Smith on Pedro Alvarez, in January: Strong praise. Kevin Goldstein on Pedro Alvarez, a week ago: Bold added: that's a really bad sign. Only the few best NCAA pitchers make it as far as AA baseball--here's evidence that Pedro Alvarez is still perhaps AA-level or lower in his skills despite the hype--and as-yet undeveloped skills, while projectable, aren't sure things. jm, your comments about fixed prices are good. A contributing factor that you don't mention is, essentially, price-fixing by MLB, although they'll strongly deny it. Teams are under strong peer pressure not to give higher bonuses to lower picks, because that sets precedent in the market for all ballclubs. In economic terms, the draft is a way to artificially reduce the price of entry-level talent as well as a way to increase parity among teams with dissimilar media market sizes. If ballclubs start paying substantial bonuses in the 14th round, 14th-round picks will start to demand such bonuses, and there's even a wild-card chance that unsigned draftees might bring a class-action suit against MLB for artificial price fixing in the labor market. If ballclubs stay close to the "appropriate" signing bonus by draft position, there's less chance of that happening. Yes, some lower picks get larger bonuses than expected, but $1 million for a 14th-round pick would be very unusual. But RobZombie, your core point is that there has to be a balance between developing amateur talent and buying free agent talent, and I strongly agree with that core point, if not with the details of the Pedro Alvarez situation. I think, though, that Boston has been going in the direction of developing their drafted pitching and investing in key, young pitchers under John Henry: look at Lester, Buchholz, Delcarmen and Papelbon for the home-grown side, and at Beckett and Matsuzaka for the key young pitcher side. For position players, they're looking at acquiring proven veteran talent except where a perceived bargain (Pedroia, Ellsbury) pops up. IMHO. YMMV.

They most certainly do. Check BP seven-year projections: they predict "out of baseball" at some point in the next seven years for around half of all players forecast. I know that Varitek doesn't do tobacco ads during his playing career, as Fisk did. Did you read my very lengthy post? I didn't pick Fisk out of thin air--I picked him as one of just two valid PECOTA comparables. Varitek's longevity is already practically unique--Fisk is our only hint of how such a player might perform in his late 30's and early 40's. And Fisk didn't have 21st Century sports medicine, either. Nor hGH. I think that it's a big part of the reasonable range, too. I respectfully disagree...we'll see.

Possibly. Varitek is, and has been, extraordinarily fit for an MLB player, particularly for an MLB catcher. He caught comparatively few professional games in his twenties for a player of his caliber--unlike Posada, it seems that he's still competent behind the plate. Remember that I posted "starting:" certainly he'll catch fewer than four out of five games if he's "starting" at age 42. The big issue, of course, is bat speed. Dude, he only hit .253 at age 26 and .248 at age 28. He hit higher than that in 2007. Tek was worth more at age 35 than he was in any year in his 20's (Metric WARP1/WARP3)--I think criticisms of his bat speed are WAY premature. :lol: Gom, who cares? You're not an MLB-caliber All Star catcher paid $10 million a year to catch. Your experience in Little League or whatever is practically irrelevant. Some bodies can't endure catching. Tek has caught in MLB for a decade--it seems that he has conditioned his body to endure the strain. Barry Bonds can hit, too. Nobody seems interested in signing him as a catcher. :dunno: Posada was probably the worst defensive starting catcher in the AL in 2007. Varitek was among the best. That matters regarding forecasting. Varitek was, by VORP, the fifth-best MLB catcher at the plate in 2007. That's far removed from "liability." Most good catchers fade away because they lose their ability to hit, not their ability to crouch. Bad catchers move to first base, just as bad shortstops move to third or second base...good catchers catch into their 40's if they can hit .200. But Jeter should've moved to third base a decade ago. Boston will contend as long as John Henry owns the team. The farm system has thrived since 2004, and I expect that to continue. Regarding Jason Varitek, be careful what you wish for.

If you check BP PECOTA, Jason Varitek is running out of comparable players. Here are his BP top 20, in alphabetical order by first name: Aaron Robinson Alan Ashby Bobby Bonilla Boog Powell Carlton Fisk Chris Chambliss Deron Johnson Eddie Mathews Ellis Burks Fred McGriff Gil Hodges Jamie Quirk Jim Hickman Jim Thome Joe Adcock Jorge Posada Ken Singleton Lance Parrish Sammy Sosa Todd Pratt Most of these players are aging sluggers, not large-but-nimble catchers. That’s very unusual: BP comparables are almost invariably players from the same position. Varitek’s hitting has surpassed that of other 35-year-old catchers by so much that his best comparables are mostly All Star-caliber corner infielders and outfielders. But the decline of slow-moving sluggers will offer little insight regarding what we can expect from Tek. Let’s look at the ones who meet this modest set of criteria indicating that they were at least half-time catchers: 1) They caught 243 or more games between ages 33 and 35, and 2) They caught 81 or games at age 35 Here is the new list of comparable players, in the correct order of descending comparability: Jorge Posada Lance Parrish Aaron Robinson Carlton Fisk Alan Ashby Let’s look at these five catchers a bit closer. Jorge Posada has five Silver Sluggers and five All Star Games to his credit. Only three catchers in MLB history have won more Silver Sluggers than Jorge Posada: Lance Parrish, Pudge Rodriguez, and Mike Piazza. Posada is Varitek’s age, so his future is unknown. He would currently be a marginal HOF candidate. Lance Parrish had six Silver Sluggers and eight All Star Games before retiring. Parrish declined swiftly starting at age 35—actually, he started to decline on a reasonable curve for a catcher after age 27, but he had a bizarre season in 1990 at age 34, probably his career best, and his decline continued on the other side of 34 as if his great year had never happened. Were it not for his freak year at age 34, though, Lance Parrish might not have been good enough to be among Jason Varitek’s twenty best comparable players. Aaron Robinson has an interesting story. He was one of the good-to-great players who never got a chance to play in MLB in their primes back before the establishment of the modern MiLB systems and the Rule 5 Draft. The Yankees bought him in 1938 and eventually stashed him in Newark, but he was blocked by Bill Dickey and he didn’t get an MLB at bat until age 28 in 1943, when the Yankees brought him up for one strikeout before he went off to World War Two. Starting his real MLB career at age 30 in late 1945, probably three years past his peak already, he hit .281/.368/.481 in 50 games for an OPS+ of 141 in his rookie debut. He was 16th in MVP voting in 1946, and he was an All Star in 1947. Traded away to the White Sox to make room for Yogi Berra, he had a league-average season at the plate but he began to decline on defense. The next year, 1949, he had a resurgence at the plate in limited playing time with Detroit, hitting .269/.402/.423 in 331 at bats. At age 35 in 1950 his batting average dove for the Mendoza Line, and after two more years as a bench player he was gone. Carlton Fisk had three Silver Sluggers, eleven All Star games, 1.27 MVP Award Shares, a Rookie of the Year Award, and so many years playing baseball that by the end of it his two closest comparable players at the same age were Julio Franco and Minnie Minoso. Carlton Fisk is, of course, in the Hall of Fame. Alan Ashby was a journeyman catcher who couldn’t hit well in his twenties and who couldn’t field well in his thirties. He had his best season at the plate at age 35, in the hitters’ year 1987, nudging him into Varitek’s comparables, but he declined swiftly and was out of baseball after two more years. Of these five catchers, only two are good comparables: Fisk and Posada. Parrish and Robinson were clearly declining by Varitek’s age, and Alan Ashby’s best year wasn’t as good as Varitek’s last year (or four of the five previous years). When your only two good comparable players are Jorge Posada and Carlton Fisk, even at age 36 your future can be rosy. Furthermore, Posada is clearly losing his ability to catch--Varitek is doing well behind the plate. Jason Varitek has an excellent chance, IMO, of exceeding both normal aging curves for catchers and his current PECOTA projection. If he ages anything like the way Fisk aged, he’s got several good years left. And, as a final aside, Fisk hit his career high for home runs when he was a year older than Tek is now. *** Well, Jason Johnson was betrayed by the defense in Boston. He was getting ground balls and his middle infield couldn't range effectively, so he looked like crap, but he pitched at better than replacement-level with Boston despite the high ERA. Furthermore, Terry Francona was terrible about pulling him when he became ineffective--he was good for 75 pitches, not the 90-100 most starters can throw. Go back and look at the Game Logs--you'll see what I mean. That said, otherwise you're right. If you weren't right, there'd be this big gaping hole in the stats that could be attributed to catchers' game-calling. It's just not there--it's not there for any catcher. Sabermetricians have been through the whole CERA thing, and it's been disproven. Can I find small sample sizes supporting Tek's greatness as a game caller? Probably. They might reflect pitcher-catcher rapport and synergy--but a whole lot of better stats guys than me have looked at catchers' game calling as a factor and they've disproven that it makes a difference.

Here are Eric Gagne's 20 2007 appearances with Boston: [table]Leverage | WHIP 0.00 | 1 0.02 | 0 0.04 | 2 0.20 | 2 0.23 | 1 0.27 | 0 0.28 | 2 0.48 | 1 0.48 | 1 0.53 | 2 0.69 | 1 0.69 | 1 0.75 | 0 1.13 | 3 1.64 | 2 1.65 | 1 1.97 | 12 2.20 | 3 3.31 | 4 3.70 | 5 [/table] When the leverage was under 1.00--when the situation was less critical than it would be for a starting pitcher on his first pitch--he was great. The mean of these 13 WHIPs is 1.08. When leverage was over 1.00--usually a save or hold situation--he was terrible. The mean of those seven WHIPs is 4.37...the median is 3.00. Look, this seems to be a case of an MLB pitcher losing his nerve...this seems to be Calvin Schiraldi redux, except with an ex-Cy Young closer suffering from the problem. Signing such a pitcher to a $10 million contract to close for a contending team may have been a mistake.

Every major system had Varitek's 2008 somewhere between his 2007 and his 2006...no precipitous drops in the mix, despite his age. The future remains Tek. Whether or not the future includes Kottaras depends upon his ability to show that 2007 was a fluke, and that may have been the case. But the future is Tek as the "starting" catcher with his games caught diminishing over the next 3-7 years. And yes, I typed "seven." That's within the reasonable range, IMHO.