S5Dewey

You're probably right. Nobody wanted Iglesias... except Dombrowski, to replace their SS during a pennant drive who was out for a PED extension. And when that player came back he was moved to the OF while Iggy remained at SS. But what does Dombrowski know, anyway??

To be clear: I took the last five years each of them played. For Iggy that period was fron 2013 - now because he lost 2014 due to injury. Since Bogaerts has played in five consecutive years from 2014-now I started in 2014 for him. That's the last five years they've played. Over those past five years in which they've played XBO has a cumulative WAR of 14.0 while Iglesias has a cumulative WAR of 8.0. That's a difference of 6.0 which is an average of 1.2/year (Not 1.0 - my bad). ..and we get into the ongoing discussion of the differences between bWAR & fWAR. I do wish one of them would call it something else so we'd always be comparing apple to apples. :-( I have never disputed that Bogaerts is the better all-around SS. My contention is that he's not "vastly superior". IMHO any player who's 1.2 Wins above another when compared to a Replacement Player is better, but not "vastly superior". In this case WAR told me what I already knew, that Bogaerts is the superior hitter and Iggy the superior defensive player. And I'm good with that.

I'm not at all surprised that the superior hitter gets the nod over an outstanding defensive player. It's all about our expectations. We expect the defensive player to make all the plays while we're happy if the offensive player is successful ~30% of the time. As to opportunities, if you consider every time a defensive player touches the ball to be an opportunity for an error some players probably do have as many chances to make a difference on defense as on offense. IMO one of the great inequities in baseball is that fans don't value defense enough. Our expectations for defense are much higher than they are for offense. When a player makes a mistake in an AB (doesn't capitalize on a hittable pitch) we ignore it with the attitude of "You can't hit them all". OTOH when a defensive player makes a mistake on a playable ball it goes into the record books as an error. While frequently that error results in a run (or more) being scored by the opponent the hitter gets a "pass' on his mistake, which may have cost the offense a run or more. The important thing there is that while we don't hold a hitter responsible for missing a hittable pitch we do hold the defensive player accountable for his mistakes.

It should surprise no one that I used WAR to make my case that Iggy is clearly superior to Bogaerts defensively. I've long said that WAR is useful in comparing players, just not as useful as most people think it is. In this case WAR told me what I already knew, that Bogaerts is the superior hitter and Iggy the superior defensive player. The end.

You kinda make a career out of digging up obscure situations to "prove a point" don't you? It's not cute. I'm saying that in this situation we have two players who are 5 WAR apart over a five year period. That's an average of one win per year. In my mind that's not "Vastly better".

Vastly? Really? In my book if a player is going to be "vastly" superior to another they should be better both offensively AND defensively. I'm not saying that Iggy is as good (overall) as Bogaerts but to say he's "vastly superior" is quite a stretch.

Didn't someone recently ask how long it has been since Mookie got a hit in the first inning? :-)

That's a shame for the kid, regardless of who he plays for.

Now there's some misleading data! Cherry picking at its best! It averages Bogaerts 4 best years and ignores the two before them, then includes the year Iggy lost to his leg injuries!! That average of 93 games includes 2014 when he didn't play at all - and wasn't expected to - because of an injury. Every year that Iggy's been active he's averaged 122 games per season + whatever he plays in the remaining games this year. Bogaert's average since 2014 has been 145 per year since the start of 2014 + remaining games this year. (I didn't average in the 18 games in 2013 because it would have been disingenuous to do so). So the difference in games played per year is realistically 145-122 or 23 games/year, not 151-93 or 58 gpy. What WAR tells us in that situation is what we already know. Iggy is a better defensive SS and Bogaerts is a better offensives SS. *games played from Baseball Reference.

There are two of us? There's a "gentleman" here who feels that way too? Yes, Bring Iggy home!! That may not be as far from reality as one might think. DD traded for him once already.

Ok, but that works best if one only considers offense. Now think of the Sox infield with both of those guys on one side of it and without Panda's contract hamstringing our Luxury Tax ceiling.

There are only a few players on this team I'd use him to PH for. Is the chance that he might get a chance to pinch hit late in a close game a good enough reason for him to occupy a roster spot? I'd rather have a base stealer.

Issue #1: Numbers aside, I'd rather have Nunez or Holt up in any situation. Issue #2: Unless he's going to be used as a PH his presence on the field drags the team down. Right now the Nats have the fewest errors in all of baseball with 55 errors and The Sox are 5th with 62 errors.. Devers has 21 errors in 105 games (or 1 error every 5 games) all by himself. If you take out Devers 21 errors the Sox are first in fewest errors with 41, 14 errors ahead of the Nats and far in the lead with fewest errors. Moon made the case early in the year that the best time to have a journeyman at 3B may not be in a pennant race but that we should bite the bullet and go with him. We did. Now the regular season is over and Devers has proven that he's not (yet) ready to be considered a playoff-worthy 3B. The only way Devers should be on the roster is as a PH and I don't want to fill a roster spot with someone who's a defensive liability.

Then I temper my expectations and realize that maybe he hasn't turned the corner after all. How long does he have to perform at a steady .700+ OPS before people start thinking that he's now the real deal? {Interesting that now that we're no longer debating whether he's worth keeping because of his defense if he's hitting .200 some are now wondering when he's going to hit his next slump. That's not a given, folks!}

JBJ's 2018 numbers are dragged down by April & May. I don't much care about what a player did four months ago. Talk to me about what he's done in the past two months. That's a better indication of who he is now.

My bad... I guess Rotoworld has JBJ arb eligible in 2019 and a Free Agent in 2020. Spotrac has him arb eligible in 2019 & 2020 and a FA in 2021. I'll defer to Moon.

The case can - and probably will - be made by the FO that JBJ is nothing more than average offensively while Bora$ will be making the case that JBJ has 'turned the corner' offensively. I expect that the Sox will offer $9-10MM. It'll be interesting to see where Bora$ comes in with their offer. My guess would be at about $12MM - $13MM knowing that in a worst case scenario he gets a 40% raise. That $9-10MM would set JBJ up for ~$15MM in his first FA year which is about 65% of what JDM will get if he stays. I see that as being doable for the Sox. And that's assuming that Bora$ is right and that JBJ has 'turned that corner'. At any rate, I see both of them being in a Boston uni come 2019, after which our 'window' begins to close a bit.

Maybe move JBJ to the leadoff spot?

While using the last 5 years may not be generally accepted methodology, it was done for a reason. I didn't want to be accused of 'cherry picking' so I eliminated JBJ's first season .189 BA in 37 games) but included his second season (.198 in 127 games). That gave me five years of data to work with so I also included JDM's last five years. And you're right in that JBJ will get raises in the next two years. He'll get an arb raise in 2019 ($8 - 10MM?) and he'll be FA eligible after in 2020, coincidentally the first time JDM is eligible to walk. That's the point where this hypothetical situation could take place and it's the point where the decision could be whether to keep JDM or JBJ at possibly half the price.

Easy there Big Guy. I'm just playing their game and using their numbers to play it. JBJ's $6.1MM is chicken feed in today's market and DD likes him in CF. The only way he's going anyplace is if the FO feels that they're getting more value from whomever they receive in a trade. That's a very high bar to reach when one thinks about what JBJ provides for $6.1M.

Continuing the threat that refuses do die but should..... That^^ is an interesting question. On the one hand we have JD Martinez who's an average OF'er at best and most of his WAR comes from his offense. In fact, his dWAR has been a consistently negative value. Over the past five years he has a cumulative WAR of 15.9, with over 1/3 of it coming from the career year he's having in 2018. OTOH we have Jackie Bradley Jr. who's one of the best defensive CF'ers in the AL. However, most of JBJ's WAR has come from his offense (and IMO most people think is an aberration.) His cumulative WAR over the past five years is 12.4. When we consider the two 5-year WARs and allow for a 17% "variability" We find that JDM's 5-year range of WAR is between 13.2 - 18.6 and JBJ's is between 10.1 - 14.5. Since there is overlap between 13.2 - 14.5 they could be the same player although it's reasonable to assume that JDM is the slightly better player (if you ignore the fact that JBJ's WAR is questionable because of the oWAR/dWAR thing) because his range is higher. The big equalizer going forward is that JBJ is 28 years old and making $6.100,000 this year and JDM is 31 and making $23.750,000 this year. So the question is, if you can only keep one of them going forward.... which one do you keep? The younger one who plays better defense or the older one who's offense is better but makes almost 4x as much? And to add yet another wrinkle, if you believe that JBJ has 'found himself' offensively this year what's the REAL difference in their offense? And how much is JBJ's defense REALLY worth? Is it worth almost 4x as much to keep JDM?

That sure would solve some problems!

Really? You're putting ERod ahead of Porcillo?

That certainly would put the Sox between a rock and a hard place. As for me, I'd be unhappy with both JDM and the Sox FO if they agreed to that. Unhappy with JDM because he'd be putting himself ahead of the team (he's got to know that the best team has our regular three OF's out there) and the FO for agreeing to any kind of guaranteed playing time for anyone.

I hope you're right. We've got a lot of eggs in that basket named David Price, and if he pitches better than Sale (assuming Sale doesn't spit the bit!) then we've got a lights out starting staff.