Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat

Don't expect an A's firesale, either. Beane made this kind of trade precisely because the A's are on the margins of legitimate contention this year. He could have waited and watched another Harden injury torpedo another A's season, or he could do what he did and thank his lucky stars that Harden has been healthy and effective long enough to draw interest and trade him now. Having decided to opt for the latter, he could have asked for low level prospects that wouldn't help for years, or fringe major leaguers still in their pre-arb years that would contribute to the 2008 A's chances of sneaking into the playoffs. From Beane's perspective, I'm sure the A's playoff chances aren't substantially worse today than they were yesterday. And he's right about that -- BP had them at 42% coming in to today, and there's no way that any intelligent prognosticator would knock off more than 7% with Harden and Gaudin gone and Gallagher, Murton, and Patterson in.

I'll take a stab at describing how good the players are in Brewer-centric terminology, though I'm not going to try to say what the offer would have had to have been to one-up the Cubs. Gallagher = Parra, but with significantly less upside (offset some by lower injury risk). Or, Villy, but with 1 year less service time. Murton = Cole Gillespie 4 years in the future with his pre-arb years burned. Or, a RH Gabe Gross with better hitting but worse defense. Patterson = Hernan Iribarren, with better hitting but worse defense (nobody seems sure he's good enough to play 2B in the majors). Donaldson = Lucroy, if instead of tearing up low A and high A this year he had come in and utterly failed to hit. All in all, I think people are underestimating the players the Cubs gave up a little bit, but I'll admit there is nothing dazzling in there. I think Gaudin is pretty marginal (walked 100 last year and has been much better in a pitcher-friendly home park than on the road), so this trade entirely hinges on whether Harden can stay in the rotation.

It's not so weird -- the thread was resuscitated after a week-long hibernation in order to address a pretty specific question: does the Sabathia trade change your assessment of Melvin? A few of us are saying "not really" because a trade like this is only a good idea given the persistent strength of the farm system, which we already knew about and which we had already decided had more to do with Jack Z. than with Melvin. I'd long since already handed Melvin his gold star for retaining Jack Z. when he was hired. Nothing much has changed about my assessment of Melvin's capabilities in the last week, except that there's now some evidence that he is capable of quickly pulling off a win-now deadline deal without obviously overpaying. I noted such in my post. The Melvin / Jack Z. divide is, as you note, somewhat artificial, but they are separate dudes with different responsibilities, and the clean divide has to be invoked in order to explain why I'm not currently worshipping at the altar of Dougie. I suppose there's that, and also the fact that the mainstream sports media and seemingly mostly everybody else is obsessed with an entirely imaginary notion of deadline deals as unstoppable forces of nature that irrevocably and fundamentally shift the course human history.

Mr. Kalk, over at Brewcrewball, does the math on how much the addition of Sabathia affects the Brewers' playoff chances using BP's methodology.

Mr. Kalk, over at Brewcrewball, does the math on how much the addition of Sabathia affects the Brewers' playoff chances using BP's methodology.

Welcome, Fridge. This is a good point. The only thing I would add, more as a nuance to this position than direct disagreement, is that I think a big part of this problem has also been a failure on the part of the organization to recognize how most short relievers are developed. Aside from a handful of quick fix college closers, almost all short relievers are failed SP prospects that are converted to RP after having bombed in the bigs or in the high minors. The Brewers don't ever seem to be interested in doing this -- instead, they just give up on the guy and let him go for nothing or include him as a throw-in in some trade that could've happened without him (Zach Jackson, Dennis Sarfate, Dana Eveland being a few recent examples). It is tough to blame Jack Z. for that.

Melvin should get credit for managing to convince Cleveland to do a trade earlier rather than later, especially since he managed to do so without severely overpaying. It certainly would have been in the Indians' interest to let the thing drag out and see who else would eventually get into the bidding. He doesn't really deserve much credit for the price he paid, since by any reasonable estimation the Brewers are giving up at least a fair market value for a half-season rental of an unsignable superstar. But it's really tough to fleece the other guy on the "win now" side of these deadline deals, and fairly easy to get fleeced, so you can pat him on the back for not falling all over himself to include multiple prospects better than any single prospect anybody else was going to offer if you choose. Heck, "falling all over himself to include multiple prospects better than any single prospect anybody else was going to offer" is a pretty good description of what was wrong with the Linebrink deal last year, so maybe he deserves some credit for learning from his mistakes. For "winning the Sabathia sweepstakes", I'm with FtJ -- no credit, or very little. Jack Z. had armed him with a bazooka to bring to a pellet gun fight. It basically was as simple as deciding "Do I want Sabathia?" If Melvin answered "yes", only a total numbskull could have failed to get him. Still, like I said, props for ending the pellet gun fight early and cleanly, and for only using a few bazooka rockets when he could have easily burned the place to the ground.

None of any of these sims are accounting for the addition of Sabathia, from what I can discern. The BP versions are to be preferred, at least in my view, because they are using third-order winning % instead of just pythagorean expectations. Long story short, coolstandings is only concerned with how many runs a team has scored and how many runs a team has allowed, and whether the team is the home team or the visitor. BP is actually looking at the constituent building blocks of run scoring and run prevention, so they should be getting a more accurate picture of how strong the teams actually are when simulating. Now, they are using their own black-box EQA equations to do that, and even though they make such a big secret out of those, they aren't quite as good as Base Runs and Linear Weights (which is what you wish someone was using for this type of deal), but it's still a darn sight better than just assuming that RS and RA tell you exactly how strong a team is. Why? Briefly, because how your hits and hits allowed are distributed (i.e. between innings) affects how many runs you score, and this is no less subject to random variation than how the runs you score and allow are distributed between your games. This is why it's better to use individual offensive events and defensive events as BP does on their adjusted standings. The different versions BP offers appear to simply regress this season's results so far to different targets -- the mean (.500 winning %) vs. pre-season PECOTA standings (Gallardo's injury wouldn't affect this, nor would the addition of Sabathia) vs. something called ELO. (Not sure what's different about ELO -- the substantive explanation isn't free, and I'll be darned if I'm going to pay them for their mostly inferior-to-what-is-freely-available content). Not sure how helpful I've been, post follow-up questions if you have any. This is hard stuff to figure out, in part because BP is pretty bad about inventing new language and not offering you the cipher, at least in an easy-to-find, you-don't-have-to-pay kind of way.

None of any of these sims are accounting for the addition of Sabathia, from what I can discern. The BP versions are to be preferred, at least in my view, because they are using third-order winning % instead of just pythagorean expectations. Long story short, coolstandings is only concerned with how many runs a team has scored and how many runs a team has allowed, and whether the team is the home team or the visitor. BP is actually looking at the constituent building blocks of run scoring and run prevention, so they should be getting a more accurate picture of how strong the teams actually are when simulating. Now, they are using their own black-box EQA equations to do that, and even though they make such a big secret out of those, they aren't quite as good as Base Runs and Linear Weights (which is what you wish someone was using for this type of deal), but it's still a darn sight better than just assuming that RS and RA tell you exactly how strong a team is. Why? Briefly, because how your hits and hits allowed are distributed (i.e. between innings) affects how many runs you score, and this is no less subject to random variation than how the runs you score and allow are distributed between your games. This is why it's better to use individual offensive events and defensive events as BP does on their adjusted standings. The different versions BP offers appear to simply regress this season's results so far to different targets -- the mean (.500 winning %) vs. pre-season PECOTA standings (Gallardo's injury wouldn't affect this, nor would the addition of Sabathia) vs. something called ELO. (Not sure what's different about ELO -- the substantive explanation isn't free, and I'll be darned if I'm going to pay them for their mostly inferior-to-what-is-freely-available content). Not sure how helpful I've been, post follow-up questions if you have any. This is hard stuff to figure out, in part because BP is pretty bad about inventing new language and not offering you the cipher, at least in an easy-to-find, you-don't-have-to-pay kind of way.

I'd say "Just say no to Colorado HITTERS." If the Brewers really want to shift Hart to CF this season and displace Cameron (not sure why they'd bother), a much cheaper alternative (in terms of loss of talent due to trade) who would likely give very similar overall production to Holliday would be Brian Giles from the Padres. For that matter, why not just sign He Who Shall Not Be Named for the league minimum, since that's what his agent says he's offering his services for - he's still probably a significantly better hitter than anybody else you could get.

On Yount -- he was mostly a poor hitter his first 4 years in the majors. It wasn't so out of the ordinary to employ a poor hitting shortstop in the mid 70s, but if the FA climate was such as it is today, it is very likely that had the Brewers insisted on calling him up at age 18, he would have been on another team by the time he was truly a great player. That 166 OPS+ MVP age 26 season? The one that's pretty much as good as any SS (save Honus Wagner) has ever had, including any of AROD's seasons at short, once you adjust for context? Sure would've be a lot less fun to watch him put up those numbers for the Yankees. As the story goes, the Brewers called him up because they were terrible anyway and they didn't have any better options in the entire system. In so doing, they helped him get to 3000 hits, but they also sabotaged his career rate stats so that only a careful observer really gets how special his prime was. They were also quite lucky that Robin was the kind of 18 year old kid that could handle big league failure psychologically.

This is absolutely true. However, based on how terrible an idea it was, the only outcome about which I wouldn't feel compelled to complain would have been unmitigated disaster from day one, resulting in a deep, persistent embarrassment for the entire organization, as well as firmly entrenched ill-will with Pie, who is still a legitimate prospect and probably an important element of the best-case scenario for the team's future. None of that has come to pass so far, hence, I complain.

I would guess JJ's complaints about hitting in front of the pitcher. I don't know if Joe's comment is entirely fair to Hardy, but I do think it is a sensible thing to be concerned about. The younger / newer guy nearly always has to play out of position in these situations, no matter how stupid a decision that is.

I just can't agree with that last part. It was a borderline miracle that he still had some game left in him. Last 4 single season OPS+ totals for Edmonds, at the time the Cubs signed him: 137, 110, 88, then 37 in SD. It wouldn't have been a miracle if Edmonds had rebounded to put up another 88 OPS+ or so, just lucky. But the 151 OPS+ he has actually put up is like 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more than they should've reasonably expected.

Why is this "unprovable"? If such a psychological boost exists, and if it is important, it will have measurable effects. It will lead to pennant wins for active deadline teams and pennant losses for stagnant ones. What's wrong with being sceptical about something when it clearly ought to have measurable effects, but nobody can find any when they go looking for them?

The other thing is that Hardy is a player the advanced defensive metrics really struggle with because of the extent of shifting the Brewers employ. We know he doesn't have outstanding range, yet he is lapping the field in OOZ plays over at Hardball Times. Okay, so that's exaggeration, but he is in first place out of all major league shortstops: link Given his strengths and weaknesses, he should be a guy with an extremely high RZR (measures balls in his zone), but a subpar number of OOZ plays (measures plays made he wasn't supposed to be able to make). Yet, the reverse is true. I'm not 100% clear on how UZR, which dislikes Hardy, handles this problem. But I know that there isn't a metric yet that does a good job accounting for shifts.

That's the thing - I don't want to pay ANY pitcher $20 mil a year for his decline phase. I don't want to roll the dice on this year alone either. We've got a window no shorter than this year and the next 3. If we re-sign Sheets or Sabathia, I'd rather offer a ludicrous premium in the hopes that one of them might take a shorter extention. I'd pay $25 mil a year for 3 years much more readily than $20 mil for 5 or 6. I don't think either would be interested in that kind of extention though, because they can get a 6 year deal from somebody. I can't trust the org after the Linebrink deal last year. I'm worried Melvin has somehow totally missed the fact that NOBODY gives up multiple premium prospects for rentals or expensive vets anymore. EVERYBODY values cost-controlled talent correctly now, even the Yankees.

I think this is absolutely right.

This season, this has been true. Over his career, it is not. (I emphasized there bc I cringe when I hear baseball announcers say, "He's a .293 hitter", or "He's hitting .293 this year" -- it's something that happened in the past, not an indicator of what a guy 'is' or 'isn't' as a hitter) Darn tootin'. To me, this needs to remain the #1 item on the stat geek informational agenda -- the difference between using statistics descriptively and predictively. Everyone understands that there is a difference. You can tell because nobody looks at a split and says "Since Mike Rivera is batting .525 on Tuesdays this season, Yost is a goof for persisting in starting Kendall on Tuesdays." We know (or at least strongly suspect) that there's nothing special about Tuesdays, so we look at this as a fluke. Yet every televised baseball game, you will see a graphic displaying a guy's BA w/ RISP, and the announcers will say, present tense, "This guy is one of the best hitters on the team in this situation," fully intending to convey that he is more likely than someone who has a low single season BA w/ RISP to get a hit. This is no less stupid a statement than the hypothetical one about Rivera on Tuesdays. I will say again, we do not have enough information to assume that there will be anything abnormal about DiFelice's expected platoon differential going forward, so we should project league average splits. There is enough historical information about Shouse's higher-than-normal platoon differential to suggest that his correct usage pattern should be as a LOOGY, however effective he has been against righties this season.

I agree that it is silly to hand out AS appearances based on half-seasons. But the fact that 90% of baseball fans believe something does not make that thing correct, nor does the fact that 90% of baseball fans want to see something make it fair or just. I think that it is possible to objectively decide who are the best performing players that are actually good players, and I think those guys should play in the AS game. You think it would be a farce to have Nate McLouth start in the AS game - I see your point. Personally, I wouldn't vote for him this year. But if he finishes the year hitting about as well as he is now, and puts up a similar season next year, I'll feel a bit like a shmuck for being dismissive of his first half numbers. I think that it is even more of a farce that the mould'ring corpse of Ken Griffey Jr. gets to have one more shining moment in the sun. Especially given that this exhibition decides who gets HF advantage in the WS. I think that both of the leagues now have a responsibility to their playoff-contending teams to ensure that the participants in the game are at least good players. I do not hesitate for a second in saying that Nate McLouth is currently a vastly superior player to Ken Griffey Jr. That said, I still wouldn't vote for him. I would vote for Burrell, Bay, and Giles. Beltran is next on my list. If I could hand out AS appearances by executive fiat, I'd make Beltran a starter (because Giles in CF does not give the NL the best chance of winning the game) with Burrell and Giles and I'd make sure that Bay was one of the reserves.

Overall, I think you did a good job, but you've got too much weight placed on this season. My takes: Too low: Peralta Too high: Furcal, Guzman, Theriot And I'm not sure where I'd put Tulowitzki and Escobar. Too little information - basically one major league season for both, and they were both rushed through the minors pretty quickly. I don't see anything wrong with putting them as high as you have, necessarily, it's just that it is hard to feel very confident in that assessment.

I might be. His age 23 and age 24 seasons were pretty poor though, and his career OPS+ is still only 106, despite the year he's having. His minor league numbers are nothing special, but they're not terrible, and he had good doubles power, which often turns into legit HR power as a hitter matures (as has seemed to be the case here). He'd get a CF positional bonus, but I'm not sure he's really a capable defender there -- I think he's playing that position because he's the least terrible option the Pirates have (Bay and Nady are obviously not CFers). I confess, I dismissed him in the same stroke as I dismissed Nady, and that may not have been fair. I still need to see more from him to be convinced that he deserves an all-star vote, but I wouldn't think anybody was crazy for disagreeing, even assuming they had the same voting philosophy as me.

Ken Griffey Jr. was a star. Now, he's a stiff. Fukudome has nearly about as much claim to "stardom" as Braun, if you're just talking about fame. In terms of established performance level, Braun has an edge because last year he was spectacular and this year they're close (Braun trails currently trails in GPA .277 to .272). None of these guys really belongs anywhere near the discussion in terms of the best 3 OF so far this year. I'm not a guy who would confine himself to this year's stats to figure out who to vote for -- that's how you end up voting for lousy players having flukish career years, like Xavier Nady or Ryan Ludwick. But I tend to want to vote for the guys who are having the best seasons among those with established performance levels worthy of being an all-star. In the case of really young players like Braun, I absolutely would look at minor league stats (in the form of MLEs) if I needed to get a better handle on how good they actually were. In the NL this year, as of right now (and really, since the Braun for AS push began), the 3 OF that best meet that description are Pat Burrell, Jason Bay, and the criminally underappreciated Brian Giles. I'd vote for those 3, if I cared enough and didn't realize that I would be utterly wasting my votes. The first 2 will probably be reserves, Giles won't even sniff the game, which stinks. 4-6 would be Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, and Adam Dunn. Hart and Braun are in the group just below that, with Fukudome, Carlos Lee, Aaron Rowand, and maybe Rick Ankiel. Vote for them if you want, you're not being ridiculous by doing so, but you are seeing the world through homer-tinted glasses.

And another thing - how's a team gonna call itself the Highlanders? "There can be only one!!!!" ring a bell?

I hope Brawndo can weigh in here, since he knows DiFelice much better than I do. I don't, really, I only know the numbers, and I know a lot about how really smart folks currently use the numbers to make an informed guess about what a player's true talent level is like. You already said the one thing I wanted to say that didn't get said yesterday (I was sorta trying to stay out of this thread...), i.e. that cutters tend to be very effective against opposite-handed hitters. If you don't believe that, check the career platoon differentials for some pitchers that throw it (or threw it). You could start with Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Al Leiter. All of them have smaller than average platoon differential (25 - 30 points of AVG is normal); Rivera's (rather famously) is actually backwards. So I guess what I'm saying is I really don't buy the notion that anybody could look at DiFelice's stuff and say "lefties are going to eat him alive." Couple that with a recognition that, quite literally, anything can happen in sample sizes as small as we're using here ("DiFelice can't get lefties" believers should find this illustrated rather nicely by the fact that in a slightly larger, albeit nowhere near large enough, sample of 2008 AAA pitching, DiFelice was actually a lot more effective against lefties than righties) and I don't see how it is possible for an informed person to intelligently conclude that left-handed batters are a problem for DiFelice. Unless, of course, anybody knows where to dig up minor league split data from previous seasons. My fundamental point is that we don't have nearly enough information to draw any confident conclusions one way or the other on Mark DiFelice's future expected MLB platoon differential, so we shouldn't talk about it as a reason to promote / demote him, nor should we factor it into our discussions about how best to employ him strategically. As far as the DiFelice vs. Stetter discussion goes, I wish we weren't even in a position to be having it. Stetter may have a slightly higher true k-rate than Mark, and probably is better at HR prevention -- those two things offset DiFelice's enormous control advantage enough to make it a very difficult call. I think it's an easier call to say that both of them are probably better than Gagne and Mota. edit: fixed split infinitive