S5Dewey

Just as a nagging thought during this off season... Has it occurred to anyone but me that we're putting an awful lot of stock in Benintendi for 2017? This guy has about 100 AB's in 30 games. That seems like an awfully small samples size to have anointed him as our starting LF'er and sometimes leadoff hitter. Some of us do, after all, have a proclivity to overrate our prospects!

Two very excellent points. Am I the only one who remembers the 2nd half Buch had last year and his contribution to winning the AL East? This guy can flat-out pitch when he's right and could be instrumental in a team that's all-in to win in 2017. The Sox FO had two options with Buch - keeping him or trading him. I can see no good reason for trading a player with his ability unless the goal was to get under the LT limit and adding Bautista to the salary would be counter to what they're doing. And given where our minor league system is at the moment one of the last things we should do is to be losing draft picks. While what we get may be down in the list that player would still be better than the one we'd get if we lose a pick to acquire Bautista. Sure, Batts would be nice to have, but when one figures what the future cost could be of signing him this year as it pertains to the LT in 2017 & 2018 he could be darned expensive to have, both in terms of money and in terms of a draft pick to replenish the farm.

Thanks, Kimmy. It's an interesting read for me and I now don't feel quite so alone in the wilderness. And BTW, your posting it in spite of much of it being in conflict with what you seem to believe was a...er... classy act.

I will defer to the poster who knows more about arrogance than anyone here.

And that has to be the worst criticism of a post, ever. The highlighted part has to be one of the most egregious examples of a straw man I ever saw. I did not say that, so please don't try to hold me to it. My point was and remains that the more people who are assessing a player's range the more subjective it is, and the more subjective it is the less reliable it is.

Moon said: Plus who among us watches every single mlb game? Not according to what I read here. I don't personally know anyone who develops the UZR stat but this is the first time I've read that the same person who puts together the UZR stat watches all the games. I would find it impossible that one person watches all (averaging 3+ hours pers game) and still has time to enter all that info into a computer, and then post the results on line. What I've read in the past is that there is a cadre of people who watch the games and make these decisions. Since no two people see things exactly the same way that means that there is some subjectivity involved in it. I made half a career of training people to do things that could be quantified objectively and even then there were nuances in their testing procedures that made them less than 100% perfect. If someone wants to see UZR as the be-all, end-all of range then have at it! I'm going to continue to roll my eyes every time I see it knowing that there is an element of subjectivity in it. I'm not saying that there's no value in UZR, but it ain't all it's cracked up to be by the stat geeks.

Agree. But Cleveland isn't in our division. We don't have to finish with a better record than the Guardians to get into the playoffs. All we need to do is to be able to win a 5 or 7 game series against them in October and right now I see any one series against them as being a toss-up.

Why? There are two days off in the first two weeks. Would you suggest starting the year with a six man rotation? Or would you add one more to the pen? But.. ok. If we go with 13 pitchers we still have the same problem, only we do get to add one more from the four homeless ones - but he may very well not see any innings.

So let's look at the pitching staff as it sits. Assuming we go with 12 pitchers we have... 3 starters with their spots locked up: 1) Sale 2) Price 3) Porcillo Now we need two more to fill out the rotation 3 Relievers with their spots locked up 1) Kimbrel 2) Smith (when he comes back) 3) Thornburg That’s six and it leaves us needing two starters and four relievers from Pomeranz, Wright, Barnes, Abad, Elias, Hembree, Kelly, ERod, Ross, & Scott, not to mention a plethora of other guys like Noe Ramirez. After we pick those six out we’re left with four more pretty good pitchers whom we don’t have a home for out of the ones I listed, plus the plethora. My guess is that one of Pom, Wright, & Erod won’t be listed among the starters, so where does that person go and, with the TOR set and the last three innings set, where does he get to pitch? And wherever he pitches he occupies a BP slot leaving only three of the remaining seven + with the Sox. Can you spell “LOGJAM”?

So when Smith comes back we'll have Kimbrel for the 9th, Smith for the 8th, Thonburg for the 7th (?) and Kelly for the 6th. Then if we can't get five innings out of our starters we have a choice of three others to fill in the gap. Wow. I see a lot of late inning victories for this team.

Yep. Motivation is a wonderful thing!

With all due respect, I think we're looking at this from two different perspectives. While you're looking at it from the statistical perspective of hindsight I'm looking at it from the baseball perspective of nothing current happening in a vacuum. While you can rightfully use statistics to approximate what could happen I'm recognizing that each situation is different. The aggregate of those differences will make a statistical difference but every statistical calculation has outliers and those outliers are, almost by definition, impossible to predict statistically. Yet the outliers are a part of the statistical calculations. While you're looking at the averages I'm looking at the data points and those data points are affected by the human affect of the players and umpires.

Yes. This is exactly why I believe we traded Buch too soon. It does raise a question with me. When to player's contracts start and end? Are they structured to begin on January 1 of the year? Do they begin at the start of ST? Or some other date certain with each player's contract date being different? It matters (a little) because as in the case of Buch, if his contract starts on Jan. 1 and we traded him on June 30 we'd owe him ~$6.7M which would count toward our LT, but if his contract starts on.... say.... April 1, we'd only owe him ~$3.4M. That $3.4 million difference could be very significant if we're bumping up against the LT ceiling.

Ok. We've established that you don't know that statisticians can predict what future hitters could have done if a third out hadn't been made in an inning, but you think it's theoretically possible. I'd like to see how that's done! And I also have to wonder if it's worth doing. IMO it'd be difficult to have any faith in any prognostication with an almost infinite number of variables involved in it. As to your second point, about Pedey hitting a HR after a bad umpire's call, I was using my personal remembrance to demonstrate what I said in my first paragraph, that "baseball doesn't occur in a vacuum. There are a lot of residual affects from everything that happens and many of them are close to impossible to quantify because they're so dependent on what everyone else (on both teams) does." My example was showing that every facet of the game is dependent on other facets. Whether it's JBJ making an outstanding catch or even an umpire blowing a call, everything matters and has an impact on the outcome of a game, whether it's something done by a player or by an umpire. Does that help?

I see Kelly as the 7th inning guy in the best case scenario, but he'd also make a good swingman IF he can get his control together.

So are you saying that they DO take those things into account, they don't do it, or you don't know? I'd be interested in knowing how they prognosticate what the second, third or fourth batter who would have come up after a third out is made would do. I've noticed that the more moving parts there are to something the greater the chance that something will fail.

If that happens you'll never head the end of it from me... and possibly Kimmie!

I thought of that too. I'll bet we don't get him back for a 26 year old High-A 2B.

Ya. I wasn't trying to be a dick with that post. I was just pointing out that each play in baseball doesn't occur in a vacuum. There are a lot of residual affects from everything that happens and many of them are close to impossible to quantify because they're so dependent on what everyone else (on both teams) does. IMHO the biggest thing statistics overlook is the effect of extending or shortening an inning for the offense when a player makes - or doesn't make - a play. When JBJ makes a play in CF that most/none of the other CF's make it (allegedly) is reflected in his WAR value but it doesn't reflect the fact that he shortened the offensive team's inning by 1/3 over what a "normal" CD would have done. It reflects on him but not on the game. The only way it could reflect on the game would be if there was some way to assume what the next batter would have done, and so on until the inning would have been over. Another situation... which I saw: Pedey gets a gift call of a ball on a 2-strike pitch that keeps him alive in the box. Then he hits the next pitch for a HR that scores enough runs that the Sox won the game. That one call improved Pedey's OPS and gave the Sox a win, but how can that be statistically quantified? Again, no one thing in baseball occurs in a vacuum, which is why I don't put as much faith in statistics as some do.

Good question. But it raises a question I'd been asking for some time. If a good defensive catcher throws out a runner trying to steal 2B he uses up 1/3 of an offensive inning by the opposing team. Does fangraphs take into consideration the fact that the offensive team may have scored more runs had they had that 1/3 of an inning at their disposal? If a poor defensive catcher fails to throw out a runner trying to steal 2B but an average or better catcher would have made the play it extends the offensive team's inning by 1/3. Does fangraphs take into consideration the runs that may have scored by the offensive team using that "extra" 1/3 of an offensive inning? And conversely.... A good hitting catcher will make fewer outs, thereby sometimes extending his offensive team's inning bu 1/3. Is that a part of the 20 runs created in your example?

You may be right, but I don't see how waiting a couple of months could have garnered us any less for him. We already got essentially nothing.

I guess I'm the only one here who doesn't like this deal. First of all, I wanted him around for rotation depth. As has been pointed out, we had O'Sullivan making starts for us last year and IMO that's not acceptable. I don't want to jinx anyone but we now have a starting pitcher whose motion implies that he may have elbow trouble at some time and it would be nice to have someone around with ace stuff in case it happens. Second, I don't think we got nearly enough for him. If they were Hell-bent on trading him that's fine. I understand their desire to get under the LT level so they can exceed it next year if necessary. However, Buch is still a good pitcher, albeit unreliable for more than half a season. In what world is that not worth more than a 26 year old High-A 2B? I just cannot believe that there wouldn't be a club that will figure out in February, March, or April that they need a pitcher like Buch and would be willing to give up someone who would at least make us believe that we're rebuilding our farm. But.... I've been the lone voice in the wilderness before....

LOL.. I thought of that immediately!!

While I don't agree, even if you're right it says more about our OF than it does about Bradley.

Don't even think that! Besides, if something were bothering Pedey DD would be aiming higher than a High-A 2B. I hope!!