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The Dodgers just DFA'd utility guy Matt Beaty, who has experience at 3B/1B/OF. He'd be a great depth piece and complement to Brosseau if Urias is going to be out to start the season. In his career, Beaty has a solid line against RHP: 493 PA, .267/.339/.440/.779, .334 wOBA, 109 wRC+
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There's a decent chance we will have effectively added the "biggest bat" of any team in baseball going into 2022. I'm bullish on Hiura having a rebound now that he can finally be a DH and does not need to worry about defense, much less learning an entirely new position in the majors, and hopefully (not just for baseball reasons of course) some of his family issues have gotten better. If Hiura can hit RHP anywhere close to how he did at his peak, and if McCutchen continues to hit LHP like he has in recent years, that is without exaggeration MVP caliber production at DH.
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Amen. Brad Miller would be perfect. A longer shot would be taking a flier on a Derek Dietrich comeback, though I doubt the front office bumps Peterson/Brosseau for him. We definitely could use some more firepower vs. RHP. The only other logical place for that would be an upgrade at 1B (Voit or Rizzo), though Tellez is difficult to peg because he's already a LHB but with reverse platoon splits over the last three years. The front office might think that Tellez will already be giving us a boost against RHP.
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We are really cooking against lefties. Splits vs. LHP from 2019-2021: DH Andrew McCutchen - .412 wOBA (seventh in all of baseball) RF Hunter Renfroe - .366 wOBA LF Christian Yelich - .359 wOBA 3B Mike Brosseau - .357 wOBA CF Tyrone Taylor - .347 wOBA SS Luis Urias - .346 wOBA 1B Rowdy Tellez - .337 wOBA C Pedro Severino - .336 wOBA 2B Kolten Wong - .324 wOBA That's not even counting Cain, who used to destroy lefties prior to the last two seasons. (I don't think we're going to have platoons at 3B/SS/CF, just noting our fire power for when we need it.)
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Clemens never failed a test, his name was not on the affidavit for the Grimsley search warrant, and was acquitted of all charges of lying to Congress. And pretty much everyone who has accused Clemens of doing PEDs is a questionable character at best - every mention of Clemens in the Mitchell report was from McNamee. Don't get me wrong, Clemens is a prick, but he hasn't failed a test nor has he been found guilty of lying. Same is true of Barry Bonds. The media made him the poster child for steroids without acknowledging or understanding the quality of actual evidence against him. (I personally think he probably was using something, but to what extent is not clear. The mere fact that he bulked up as he got older and made a deliberate choice to change his physique is such nonsense "evidence.")
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Not sure where else to post this random observation, but it might get some eyes here: I just noticed that Fangraphs must have reworked how its calculates fWAR to change how it factors in catcher defense, because Jonathan Lucroy's 2014 season is now listed at 8.2 fWAR! That gives him the second-highest fWAR season in franchise history, behind Yount's 1982. (And just ahead of Yelich's two 2018-19 campaigns). They also give him 7.0 fWAR for his 2013 season. I think they are probably way overvaluing catcher defense at this point, but still cool!
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Sure, but that's not the argument. People keep saying it's a "below average" offense. It's very clearly, objectively, an average offense. Could it be better? Yes. Would they be better positioned for post season success if the offense were better than average? Absolutely! But it's an average offense. It's not a below average offense, which is what a lot of people continue to try to insist. A 97 wRC+ for non-pitchers is, objectively and by definition, a below-average offense.
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Brewers averaged 4.56 runs per game vs an MLB average of 4.53 runs per game. NL average was a little lower without the DH at 4.46 runs per game. Brewers position players posted a 97 wRC+. Taking out JBJ it would have been about 102. The offense was almost exactly average last year. Using position players only skews the results because AL teams have to field an extra batter. The Brewers 97 wRC+ for non-pitcher position players was fifth worst in the NL (ahead of only Miami, Arizona, Pittsburgh, and Colorado). Simply put, that's not good enough for a team that hopes to compete in the playoffs.
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I'm not sure the .900 OPS threshold is necessary. Whatever your definition of "middle of the order bat," the pragmatic problem is that we simply need a reliable bopper who is going to be a threat in the lineup all year long. Voit is that kind of guy, in my opinion. 133 wRC+ in his career, no real platoon splits, and led the majors in HR in 2020. We hopefully already have a guy like that in Yelich, assuming he rebounds even just some, but obviously there's a question mark there. Adames played like an MVP after the trade last season, but it's probably more realistic to expect a high-.700's/low-.800's OPS going forward (still an All Star caliber player, but maybe not the guy you want to be the best offensive player on the team). The current roster is still a good team, but I think people are underestimating how bad our offense was last season. We succeeded due to Burnes having literally one of the greatest pitching seasons in recent memory, alongside borderline Cy Young campaigns from Woodruff, Peralta, and Hader. Should we count on them all repeating? We also lucked out by a few batters getting red hot at different points in the season without overlapping (first Narvaez and then Garcia/Adames). By the time of the playoffs, nobody was in the middle of a hot streak, and we got rolled in the first round by an inferior Braves team.
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Marcel was designed as one of the simplest projection systems possible to serve as a benchmark for other projection systems, I believe it just uses a weighted average of actual stats for he last three years (3x, 2x, 1x?). No OPS+, ERA+, WAR or other league-contingent projections though. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/2019-projections.shtml
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I'm not sure that "surplus value" mindset is realistic. We need a middle-of-the-order bat. I would love to just purchase an equivalent 1B at that $ price, but one does not exist. The closest guy on the free agent market is Anthony Rizzo, who is probably looking for $18+ million per year on a multiyear deal. The Yankees would justifiably want waaaay more than Warren and Bello.
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Hm, interesting. Kevin Goldstein was pretty adamant in a recent Fangraphs chat that teams had been told not to contact each other, unless I'm misremembering.
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Would have been nice to have that extra +7.5 WAR performance if Shaw and Aguilar had not collapsed that year I guess we technically got to the playoffs anyway, and anything could have happened then.
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Funny illustration of team biases (on both ends) that we are all taking about Voit for Cain, and Yankees fans I've seen are all assuming the starting point is Voit for Willy Adames
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Please define accurate. If you are defining as accurate as being did x player get exactly within the stats? Then no it is not accurate and there really isn't an accurate system for this. If you are defining the predictions if they are within a margin of error then sure you could look at it that way. I think you would find that for the majority of the predictions they are within the margin of error or at least close enough for it to be negligible. What other purpose could they have? Obviously nobody expects them to be exactly accurate, but my concern is that the margin of error is so large as to be of minimal utility compared to just looking at last season's states (or last three seasons) or subjective human guesswork.
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The fact that there is never a more rigorous accounting of past performance (and this being a statistics-driven field) has always been a massive red flag to me about how accurate they actually are. Obviously lots of writers have a vested interest in trying to convince use they are useful, but who knows. I vaguely remember something from years ago suggesting that a simple three-year weighted average (is that what Marcel is/was, or am I misremembering?) was more accurate than most of the complex projection formulas.
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I really don't get why people think that Hicks contract is a huge albatross. It's a very team friendly deal for a guy with All Star potential that already factors in his injury issues with a low AAV. If he wasn't coming off a down 2021 (only 126 PA in which he underperformed his xwOBA by 55 points!) he would have no trouble getting something similar on the open market. I've seen this reasoning in a few threads recently. Isn't this basically an argument against ever making any trade? (the other teams is giving up the players we are acquiring, thus those players must be bad) I think the Yankees are trying to rebalance their offense a bit because they are dominated by a bunch of similar power-first guys who strike out a lot. By contrast, we sort of need a power bat in the lineup. That being said, I doubt the Yankees are going to move Voit unless they are concurrently working on a deal for Olson, Rizzo, or even Freeman.
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Love to see Wiemer in the top 10! I think he's for real.
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Somewhat selective use of stats there, but anyways I doubt the Yankees would entertain this trade in the first place. In 1270 PA in his career Voit has a .368 wOBA and 133 wRC+, or roughly >3 fWAR per full season. That makes him arguably a top 10 firstbaseman if healthy and absent major regression. So far in his career he's hit roughly equivalent to Pete Alonso. Even just an average 1B is not so easy to find, as demonstrated by the Brewers over the last few seasons. If we have to field both a 1B and fulltime DH next season, I'd be willing to give up quite a bit to get that kind of offensive production. The equivalent on the free agent market, a guy like Anthony Rizzo, will cost us more $ than taking on Hicks's contract and without the added high-reward player of Hicks himself.
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I don't think anyone is proposing a straight Cain for Hicks swap.... The idea is to secure a huge upgrade at 1B without throwing in significant prospect capital and while bringing back a "contract dump" guy that still has 4-5 WAR upside. It would be a very good trade.
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Here's hoping the Yankees only view Voit as having +3.1 surplus trade value like the BTV system. (Can't say I understand that one. .368 wOBA/133 wRC+ in 1270 PA over his career, and those numbers are supported by his batted ball data and career xwOBA, suggesting he will comfortably outhit projections as an everyday 1B. One of the clearest offensive upgrades we might have a realistic shot at this winter.)
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I wonder if Hicks's contract is viewed as being negative value at this point? Would be sad to see Cain go, but I would absolutely love to get Voit and Hicks, who perhaps irrationally is one of my favorite non-Brewers. He's got another four years on his contract (plus an option year), but in today's market he's an absolute steal even if frequently injured at <$10M per season. And we can afford to gamble on his health more than the Yankees, since Taylor is a credible stopgap in CF. 2B Wong CF Hicks LF Yelich 1B Voit DH Tellez RF Renfroe 3B Urias SS Adames C Narvaez Suddenly that's actually a pretty good offense!!
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I feel like there's a pretty good chance Tyler White currently has the inside track on a roster spot as DH/1B, assuming Hiura needs more time in the minors.
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Wouldn't make much sense to me, since Moustakas is not that good anymore, and for roughly the same cost per season we could make a serious run at signing Rizzo to play 1B.
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In comparing Renfroe vs. Garcia, it's worth noting that most of the difference ends up being from the flukiness of advanced defensive metrics. Covering the last three full seasons (2018-2021), which includes down seasons in 2020 for each, their offensive performance is remarkably similar: Hunter Renfroe: 1646 PA, .330 wOBA, 107 wRC+ Avisail Garcia: 1637 PA, .326 wOBA, 105 wRC+ Steamer projects remarkably similar offense in 2022: Hunter Renfroe: .329 wOBA, 106 wRC+ Avisail Garcia: .328 wOBA, 109 wRC+ The difference in past/projected WAR comes down to whether you prefer Fangraphs or Baseball Reference defensive stats. UZR thinks Garcia is a much better defender, whereas Total Zone thinks Renfroe is a much better defender: 2018-2021 Hunter Renfroe: +5.2 UZR, +20 Total Zone 2018-2021 Avisail Garcia: +10.7 UZR, +5 Total Zone One reason to be optimistic about Renfroe's defense is that the scouting report seems to be he has so-so range but an excellent arm. It stands to reason that he will pair particularly well with Lorenzo Cain in CF, since Cain has some of the best range in all of baseball and can cover a lot of ground where CF/RF overlap. So I think overall they are remarkably similar players. The difference being that Avisail Garcia is universally beloved on here and just signed a 3/$60M contract, whereas Hunter Renfroe is arbitration eligible for two more seasons and many on here think he is "garbage"...
