S5Dewey

Moon and I go back a long way, years back on the BDC board, and I have a huge respect for his research and his postings. However, we've also had a basic difference of opinion regarding WAR. He likes it. I don't. I don't because there are too many moving parts. Have you even looked up how WAR is calculated? Especially dWAR? It reminds me of something Eck once said about tall pitchers with a big motion - and I'm paraphrasing here - 'These big guys with big motions, there's just too much that can go wrong here, and when one little thing is wrong it messes up the whole delivery'. That's my bigger issue with WAR - there are too many moving parts and too much subjectivity, most especially on the defensive side of it. I have no issue with oWAR - straight forward numbers calculation, but one simply cannon merge data obtained one way with data obtained another way (hard numbers vs. subjective numbers) and come to any meaningful conclusion. Now, to respond to the last two paragraphs of Moon's post - the synopsis if you will: Lumping the criteria listed, (OPS, ERA-, WHIP, OPS against, UZR/150, BA, OBP, Fldg%, CS%) does nothing but muddy the waters. BA, OPS, & OBP are offensive numbers that can be precisely calculated using data at hand. ERA- & OPS against are pitching metrics that shouldn't even be brought into this conversation. It's patently unfair to compare pitchers against position players because pitchers don't even hit in the AL while they do hit in the NL (Do they use a pitcher's offense in the NL in calculating WAR? Does anyone even know, without looking it up?). There are too many differences between a pitcher's contribution and a position player's contribution for WAR to have any meaning when comparing the two. So let's not try to compare them and weed them out of this conversation. That leaves us with the offensive side of the game (OBP, OPS & BA) vs. the defensive side of UZR/150 and Fldg % (I'm a bit shaky about Fldg % due to the subjectivity of what's an error and what isn't, but I'll defer to Moons post on that one). So again, I fail to see how one can combine had numbers with subjective opinions and draw any meaningful conclusions. To answer the question of how I propose to rank a player's total value, I don't. And that's why I don't think we should try. I have always been very frustrated at how we subconsciously (?) overvalue offense/undervalue defense. [When we talk about players one of the first things said is, "He has an OPS of .xxx" With only a very few notable exceptions offense is ALWAYS the first thing we think about, even though offense may be the weakest part of one's game. Why? Because it's easy to quantify and reliable. We stay away from defense because deep inside we all know it's subjective and unreliable - and yet it's one of the main components of WAR. Does that make any sense? IMHO it's very possible that we've become overly obsessed with numbers and quantifying everything and everyone in baseball to the point that we're overlooking the fact that not everything can be quantified. Sometimes the eye test can be as reliable as the stats. But, that's just MO.

This post ^^^ says what many Sox fans would consider unspeakable. Unfortunately it's the truth.

Yes, and UZR or any other defensive metric is flawed because they're subjective from the 'stringers' who rate each play. And yet, defensive metrics are ...what?...half of WAR? WAR is the merging of perfect mathematics (offense) with imperfect subjective rankings (defense) and then passing the total off as a perfect result. And before anyone says that nobody says WAR is perfect, saying that is a lot like talking out of both sides of one's mouth. People will say in one breath that WAR isn't perfect and in the next breath use WAR to "prove" that one player is better than another.

This post is dead-nuts on. When you have six guys in the lineup hitting over .300 and seven guys with an OPS >.800 the offense is not the problem. Leave it alone.

That's something you and I will always agree on every day, and twice on Sunday. Defense statistics are Voodoo statistics. When two sites can calculate the same statistic (DWAR) and get two different results ....

IMO Theo fleeced the Y's in a big way. Now pardon me while I :D

Nope. Not me. I'm trying to keep this season in some sort of perspective. This team finished last the past two years and to expect another WS victory this year is asking a lot. This could/should be a building year, a year when we build for the future and building for the future includes keeping as many top-flite MiL's as we can while they mature. What's going on this year is, as a friend of mine would say, "gravy on the cake". I have no interest in going through 2013, 14, & 15 again even with the WS victory in 2013.

It wasn't even a good trade giving up Iggy for Peavy. We traded the runner up ROY SS (SS no less!) for an aging pitcher on the downside of his career. Moon has made a believer out of me when he says that the FO had decided Bogaerts was the SS of the future and that made Iggy expendable. I can live with that. But to trade Iggy for Peavy was lunacy. The Sox didn't get nearly enough for their young SS.

It's also worth mentioning that according to some of the posters who have been critical of JF, anything THEY do would have worked, and I see almost NO chance of that being the case.

Scary, huh?

JBJ's reputation may have saved a run

Good Sweet God. What are the demographics for folks who watch the Sox on NESN? During this commercial break I saw 1) a commercial for prepaying funeral expenses, 2) an "opportunity" for for a cash settlement for people who have permanent hair loss from chemotherapy for breast cancer, and 3) a commercial for a back brace!

Due to unrealistic expectations.

Yeah. Buch said the same thing.

I just hope they don't make Price look like our 3rd starter. :-(

That's what I think too. I saw him for the first time at The Fort and I was amazed at how small he is. I was expecting 6'+ and built like a linebacker but he's not.

We're approaching the point now where we can afford to bring him up. The rosters can expand in about a month so if we bring him up we can keep him there regardless of how he performs. I believe that defense is defense. Catching a fly ball is catching a fly ball whether it's hit by a minor leaguer or a major leaguer. It's totally different from trying to hit major league pitching after hitting minor league pitching. So if we need a DEFENSIVE replacement I'm fine with bringing him up but let's not do it with expectations that he's going to be a major league hitter. We currently have no black holes in the order so we can probably afford one if having it brings us solid defense.

I've got no problem with Beni coming up - - as long as he doesn't go back down.

...and here's where the rub comes. Trading prospects is always a crap shoot, whether trading them away or trading for them. Some are less than a crap shoot than others but at the end of the day, with a few exceptions (Mookie, Harper, Trout) it's hard to predict who's going to be an impact player and who isn't. And even then sometimes one will bite you. As an example, when JBJ was a minor leaguer there were posters screaming to trade him away because he couldn't hit. [in fairness, that was on that other board because I wasn't here then.] The Sox weren't in a position where they had to trade someone with his upside so they held onto him to see if he'd blossom. He did. There was some risk involved in it but the Sox were able to take that risk because they weren't in a rebuilding mode where they had to trade away a prospect with a huge upside. How would we feel right now if we'd traded him away one year ago today - before his August run last year - for a #3 pitcher because we needed to rebuild our pitching staff?

Yes, I do think Moncada's trade value is higher than Swihart's. We're talking trade value here, remember, and not actual long-term value. Swihart has a lot of value because he's a catcher but that value may have fallen slightly because of his injury and because he's also been playing a position other than catcher. Outstanding MiL'ers have a lot of trade value mostly because everyone wants that immediate impact player. Whether he turns out to be that player or not is beside the point. It's all about perception at the time of the trade. Where Swihart's value is a known quantity, Moncada's value is all speculation and an optimistic GM looking for that young impact player would be willing to pay dearly for it. That's not to say that I'm looking to trade Moncada for a Prince's ransom (as opposed to a King's ransom). I'm not. One of the benefits of being where the Sox are is that they have the option to hold onto a player with Moncada's perceived ceiling with the only risk being that he doesn't pan out. In short, the Sox aren't as desperate as some 2nd division team looking to break into the 1st division. So they hold onto him.

Also, given the fact that he's in Portland and there's nearly always a transition period when a player moves up a level I don't see Beni's coming to Boston and being an impact player in the next month as being probable. Especially since he'd be jumping AAA. If you figure as I do, that he'd be brought up for defensive purposes only I'd rather see any one of those guys in Pawtucket in a short-term call-up than risk wasting an option year on him this year. Nope, no Beni in the Sox future in 2016, at least I hope not.

The thing that concerns me about Beni is that since he's not the prototypical power hitter I have to wonder how long his power will last. He's listed at 5' 10" / 170 and after seeing him I'm not sure those numbers aren't a gift. While there are power hitters who are small in stature when I think of a power hitter with a long career I think of those guys who are 6" and 60 lbs bigger than Beni is.

I see bringing him up now as a panic move and we're not in panic mode now. We're 1/2 game ouf of 1st as I type this and that's far from panic time. If they bring him up now I hope he sticks because of OPTIONS. DO NOT make 2016 an option year for him. Bringing him up now and sending him back in August would be a very stupid thing to do.

Yes, and the fact that there were bowls of greenies in every clubhouse is why I wouldn't count those years. It's my understanding that everyone had access to them and essentially everyone used greenies at one time or another. IMO that's different from what we now refer to as PED's - the anabolic steroids and HGH - in that only a relatively few players have used today's PED's. Back then the playing field was (relatively) equal between players. Now it's not.

Yes. this ^^ IMO MLB should designate certain years as the "steroid era" and every record set during that era should have an asterisk attached to it saying, "This record was established during the so-called 'steroid era' and may or may not have been the result of Performance Enhancing Drugs". This would recognize the existence of PED's as well as the records set during those years and allow the fans to do their own research and draw their own conclusions as to who the "culprits" were.