sk7326

There are exactly 12 players in the major league younger than Devers. Of those 12, four have delivered more value (Acuna, Soto, Albes, Torres) Devers has also outperformed EVERY OTHER position player below the age of 23 besides the above.

Kluber was almost 2 wins better than any AL pitcher per bWAR, and neck and neck with Sale in fWAR. Usually for awards I look much harder at bWAR first (since it's built off of runs allowed instead of peripherals). Kluber was brilliant last season before the postseason. He also benefitted by not running out of gas like Sale did. Here is the thing with the quantity/quality argument. WAR is an accumulated stat, but it can also be negative. So a stretch where you pitched like garbage would subtract from WAR. So - for a position player - a high WAR performance from a platoon player in absolute terms has to be looked at skeptically, since his usage was giving him the best chances to succeed. If he faced right-handers, it would likely have been worse. The performance over a smaller number of innings can also be a reflection of usage - keeping a guy away from positions where value can decrease (actually where negative value can be accumulated). It's not a simple numerator/denominator thing.

Verlander is a perfectly good choice for Cy Young. Voters have gotten smarter over time - and have done a better job researching (includes using the advanced metrics). While WAR supports Sale over Verlander - the 50 IP advantage has tangible value outside of the WAR produced. Sale is not a bad choice - and if he won it'd be great. Last year Kluber was the best pitcher in the AL by a pretty significant margin. If anything the makeup call would be for Porcello winning the Cy over Kluber in 2016.

ftfy

For a closer to win the Cy Young - generally voters had to have made a mistake. No reliever provides as much value as a starter. That said, I am sympathetic to the idea that relief pitching should not be compared to starting - and effectiveness should be baselined separately. Edwin Diaz has been magnificent. But Blake Treinen and Jose LeClerc have been roughly as good. More to the point, the starter crop has been good enough that I don't feel the need to go to the relief one.

Mean, median and mode have been used casually as definitions of average ... that is all. I agree with your interpretation of Bogaerts defense - and where median is probably a better baseline than the mean here.

That one I did not like - I think I've forgotten that happened. Shaw certainly blossomed in a way which I did not anticipate - and anytime a traded guy goes under the knife immediately, you worry about due diligence. By contrast the Carson Smith deal struck me as a good deal which didn't work.

i look at it realistically - teams self scout all the time. large market teams are prone to hold on to their stars and look at everybody else a bit more flexibly. the red sox have traded a lot of kids, but have aimed high when doing so. i justify the deal on two fronts - they traded guys they did not identify as their star tier, and they traded them for uncontroversially high quality pieces. The Pomeranz deal was a notable exception, though that goes with the high variability that comes with low minor pitching.

possibly. young players get better all the time. these are hard decisions - but someone has to make them.

that ain't happening.

Benintendi was Golden Spikes winner who had made a monumental leap in college in 2015, and then just obliterated low-A in his cup of coffee there. Management knew what they had - and traded Margot without qualms.

Right their ages and such - at least as a metric - don't say much about their outlooks. They are on a fairly normal path. Now for Dalbec, there is clearly more of a project vibe. You usually don't expect a college kid to be at Gulf Coast and Greenville - that is a bit slow. That said, he ripped through Salem and has held his own in Portland aside from striking out a ton.

Here is the thing - "we don't know the future" describes every trade, signing, hell every second of day to day life. But you have your best guess based on the information you have - whether it be your scouting, or general suspicions about pitcher outcomes. Espinoza has missed almost 2 full seasons, Kopech is going to miss 2019, Margot is 24 - but he was blocked in Boston. So he goes somewhere where there was a job opening.

But did he? I mean - he traded a bunch of prospects ... but how many were future starters? He promoted the hell out of the guys he identified as stars. Most of the Red Sox premium quality are on the major league roster. The ebb and flow of a farm system is inevitable. The Cubs are facing the same thing. You do your best to try to replace them, but a constant supply of Top 100 prospects is both incredibly unlikely - but in some senses kind of inefficient.

Owners of professional sports team buy them not just as businesses, but the way someone buys a piece of art or a rare album. It's a toy and marker of being megarich. And the rules in each sport make it nearly impossible to lose money.

He will do what ownership wants ... he built systems in Montreal and Miami. Huizenga burned to the ground - and then the players Dombrowski brought into the system won another World Series. Detroit he was doing was Ilitch wanted. If Henry wants this to be more sustainable, it will happen. Dombrowski has done it both ways.

You are off by a level or two here.

It IS very close - I agree there (and I should have put more people on the list now that I am looking at bWAR and diving a bit) A pretend ballot since we're here Cy Young 1. Verlander - Numbers with Kluber are close, but Verlander was much better against the other playoff contenders (5-2, 3.07 ERA vs 4-3, 3.84 ERA) 2. Sale - He's been pitch to pitch the best guy in the league 3. Snell - Snell is really close. But hey, I'm a Sox fan! Rookie 1. Torres - Given a close race, I am inclined to go with younger players. And Torres has been at times spectacular 2. Ohtani - The pitching was disappointing, but the hitting was a genuine surprise. 3. Wendle - Has let the rookies in bWAR, but I do value age and style a bit here - and Wendle is just a bit short on those areas. Manager 1. Alex Cora 2. Kevin Cash 3. Bob Melvin Who the hell knows what "best manager" is. And also, with the job really transcending a year's performance (a manager establishes culture which pays off over a longer period of time). These three stand out - though Francona, Hinch are perfectly good choices too. MVP (I think the writers do ten choices, but I'll do 5) 1. Betts (easy, the best player on the best team, narrative and numbers align nicely) 2. Trout (he is the utility - could have won 6 MVPs in a row) 3. Ramirez (given folks who are close in WAR, I tend to lean towards WAR built more from offense, due to it just being easier to measure) 4. Chapman (he has had the best defensive season in the league and clearly the hitting has been there too) 5. Martinez (I am not sure of the intangible effects, but I am not saying that is zero ... but he has a 6 win season entirely on offense, and his contribution has coincided with Boston's greatest need) Bregman, Lindor are tough omissions

The Red Sox example here is Yoan Moncada.

I tend to be positive about athletes who get better at stuff as they get exposure ... so Dalbec gives some optimism, albeit cautious

I think the question is what does cliff mean - and I think that's where my head is at. If we are thinking CLIFF as in turning into the 2018 Kansas City Royals - that ain't happening, and the franchise won't let that happen. (it might, but they will go into the season trying to avoid that) If we think of it as the Yankees CLIFF, where things bottomed out at 84 wins, and you at least had 3-4 months of a credible playoff chase - THAT is what I'd expect as a worst case.

It really comes down - does missing a month of the season matter? I think yes. This is really turning up like the Sabathia-Beckett race in 2007, where that giant innings gap became decisive.

*NARRATOR* He was already

median is a reasonable definition of average ... now if you prefer mean to median in this context is up to you.

It should be in the mix - he has been amazing. But right now he is 30+ innings behind the other starters. So some of the inherent value of a #1 starter (allow the manager to not have to burn bullpen staff once every five games) has not been there. Every inning Sale pitches is an inning an inferior player doesn't.