rluzinski

If Fangraph's WAR calculation (didn't initially realize you were specifically criticizing their WAR calculation) were trying to estimate true talent, they should not simply use yearly HR rates. That's not what they are doing. They are estimating the context neutral value for a given performance. So Mauer might hit more HRs in a given year than his true talent suggests and Looper might give up HRs. The reason why FIP is used is because it's both context neutral and defense independent. The defensive part isn't really a problem for batters because they are going to roughly face average fielders over the couse of a year. I agree it's problematic to assume a league average BABIP for every pitcher. A UZR-based estimate for non-HR BIPs would be better, IMO. tRA doesn't know hit location (UZR does) but it does use the GB/LD/IFB/OFB designations for BIP. Depending on how much you trust those subjective designations, tRA might be a more attractive choice compared to FIP. If assuming a league average LOB% bugs you, so should using the league average value of a HR for a batter (ignoring clutch hitting). I think it can be reasonably argued that pitchers and hitters have some context based control over performance but I'm not sure if it's worthwhile to consider it (the estimates control is generally small). I do generally agree that the stat isn't sure what it is but I think it's true for both batters and pitchers. If it wants to measure a player's actual value to their team for a given year, why is it context neutral? Why not just use WPA, then? If I'm doing a lazy projection, I'll often just average FIP and ERA. Sometimes I include tRA in that average. If I had to use just one, it would probaby be FIP.

If the Brewers sign Wolf to 3/27, they'll be fine in 2010. They'll also have a good chance of paying a 4.7 ERA pitcher $9 mil in 2012. Not the worst fate but I hope Melvin can do better.

How is pitching WAR horribly flawed? Is it the 5.5ish ERA replacement level? The Brewer's 2019 season could be a great case study of how a 5.0 ERA pitcher still has positive value.

Call me foolish but I don't expect anything magical to happen to Penny just because Duncan is now his pitching coach. Penny is a tough guy to get a handle on, projection-wise. CHONE has him down for a 4.13 ERA and 159 IP in 2010. I think would prefer the Brewers signing Penny to this deal than Wolf to a 3/$27 mil one.

The whole "Jim is incompetent" angle is bothering me because it's annoyingly out of character. Why would Jim just take Dwight's numbers and run with it? It made no sense. And the fact that Jim didn't even try to explain the situation (lot's of "ummm, ahhh , no!") is SUCH a comedy sitcom cliche. Also, Michael promising something he couldn't possibly deliver on is just so tired. You knew exactly what was going to happen, with no surprises. Seems like they have one episode a year with that template.

I can not think of one good reason why Hall's contract wouldn't count. I would think it all counts.

2010 Chone Projection: Rivera: .230 / .294 / .377 http://www.baseballprojection.com/2010/MIL2010.htm This is not the kind of hitter I want pinch hitting or filling in at 1B. This also illustrates why backup catchers aren't generally used in that role.

To justify "overpaying" (hard thing to define), at least two things would have to be true: 1. There is no other available average infielder capable of playing 3B. 2. The Phillies have no other position they could use that money on to upgrade by a similair amount. If the Phillies have $16 mil to pend and each win cost $4 mil on average, does it matter much where the upgrades are made? I would find it hard to believe that any team would have their hands forced in early December. The Yankees perhaps, but they have a fantasy baseball team.

I offered no opinion about how much risk a team should assume. I'm simply saying that the potential reward needs to justify it. I don't see anyone disagreeing with that. And as for overpaying to win a World Series, we are talking about Polanco, not one of the best players in the league. Players like Polanco are plentiful, relative to players like Cliff Lee. There's little justification for overpaying for an average player, even if you are "going for it". Are we even disagreeing about anything?

All teams need to balance risk vs. reward and some teams have the capital to absorb more risk. No argument there. The Red Sox wouldn't sign the high risk players if the Red Sox didn't feel those players had the correspeonding possibility of reward. If the assumption is that Polanco is worth $6 mil/year but there's a reasonable risk his production could fall off a cliff in year 3, the Phillies probably shouldn't have signed him. If Invader believes (like me) that Polanco's projected performace is actually worth more than $6/mil a year, great. Then there's the payoff for assuming the risk.

Not really. They're closer to the Yankees in terms of payroll flexibility than the Brewers. And since they've been to the World Series the last two years, they're probably trying for three-peat. I would guess they're not exactly short on cash. The Phillies have more money than average, so it's OK if they spend it less wisely? I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Unless the Phillies are winning to the World Series every year, they have to try to spend their money wisely, just like every other team.

Averagish hitter, decent defender. He's old for a 3 year deal but he's only getting paid $6 mil a year. This looks like a good deal for the Philly. How much do people think teams should pay for an average player these days? $4 mil or something?

HiAndTight, I think you'll find many at bf.net very much appreciate that drawing walks is a batter skill and not simply failure of the pitcher. You'll also find many that appreciate that, with no one on base, a walks as the same value as a single. We are just skeptical of Escobar displaying that skill for the 2009 season. I'd start him in the 7th and 8th spot and see how he develops offensively.

Offft hard formatted read Russ. I'm not sure what you mean. Hard to read? Remember we also gave up two minor leaguers for Lopez. Doubt they really had a future with the club, but that void needs to be filled with someone. As far as I can see, what Melvin gave up to get Lopez has nothing to do with whether Melvin should have offered him arby. I'm treating a win in 2009 as equal to a win in 2013. of course, Melvin and mark A. probably isn't. And I'd think a draft pick could possibly pay off in the future. Well, sure. The average sandwich pick might be worth $4 mil. That means maybe 60% are worth a slight negative (pay signing bonus and salary and get no production in return), 20% are worth $5 mil and 10% are worth $20 mil. Could be bad to great. As I mentioned in another thread, it seems that if we are that concerned of $4.5m, then our budget has to be razor thin. That might be somewhere between 30-45% of the total surplus money, so it's not trivial.

LOL....based on that, Ueck may be one of the worst of all time. He'll get ya at least once a game. "Get up!!.....Get outta here!!........CAUGHT in shallow CF by the Shortstop". To be fair, as fans, we shouldn't expect every "get up!" call to end in a HR. In a literal sense, he's pleading with the ball to make it over the fence. Sometimes it doesn't listen. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Instead of simply calling Melvin stupid and ending the analysis there, let's at least try to figure out how Melvin rationalized his decision. This ended up being a much longer post than expected, so feel free to skip to the last 2 paragraphs if you want to know my opinion on all this. First, we need to make some guesses on what Melvin's assumptions were. Question #1: What is Lopez worth on the open market? I'll simply formulate a rough projection for Lopez and use Tango's/Fangraphs' methodology to give that projection a dollar value. Here are the run values that Fangraphs has for Lopez's offense over the last three years (as basically a full time player): 07: -17.3 runs, 08: -3.5 runs, 09: 13.1 runs Weighing 2007, 2008 and 2009, 20%, 30% and 50% respectively, I get 2 runs. Add in a little regression, age adjustment and I would say he's about an average hitter. Not bad at all for a 2B. Now let's do defense. Since UZR data isn't as reliable as hitting stats, I'll weight the last 4 years at 10/20/30/40. The UZR run values: 06: -17.5 runs, 07: -6.6 runs, 08: -7.7 runs, 09: 7.8 runs I get -2 runs. Add in Fangraphs' replacement level baseline and positional adjustments from last year, and we get: 0 runs (offense) + -2 run (defense) + 22.7 runs (replacement) + 2.2 (positional) = +23 runs Using 10 runs/win and $4.5 mil/win (it's debatable what is the "right" $ number to use), we get Lopez worth about $10 mil next year. Let's assume Lopez's reputation for having a bad attitude costs him $1 mil (complete guess). That leaves us with a free agent value of $9 mil. Others might find that way too high but considering the kind of year Lopez had last season (.310/.383/.427/.810 line over 680 PA), I don't think that estimate is unreasonable. Question #2: What would Lopez get in arbitration? As end pointed out, comps is a big part of the arbitration process but how those comparisons are formulated is probably not the most sophisticated process (I suspect BA, RBI and fielding % plays a prominent role). Personally, I think $5 mil would be the around the minimum that he would be awarded in arbitration. I would assume somewhere between $5-$8 mil. Let's split the difference and call it $6.5 mil. Question 3: what is Lopez's value to the Brewers? We estimated his FA value to be $9 mil over a full season but I can't see Melvin having projected more than 300 AB for him in 2010. That effectively cuts his value to the Brewers in half, to $4.5 mil. It's funny, but I bet most fans would be OK with Lopez being worth that in 300 AB but most probably wouldn't agree that he's worth $9 mil in 600 AB. I could be wrong on that, but when you get close to $10 mil, people start freaking out, it seems. Question #3: What is a sandwich pick worth? That's a tough question to answer but here's a study on the topic: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/valuing-the-draft-part-one/ He estimates it at $2.63 mil. For the sake of argument, we'll assume Melvin valued the sandwich pick at $4 mil. If Melvin would have offered Lopez arbitration, the risk was that Lopez would accept and Melvin would have had to pay $6.5 mil for $4.5 mil of value (a net loss of $2 mil). Had Lopez declined arbitration and signed elsewhere, the reward would have been the sandwich pick, worth $4 mil. If the odds of Lopez declining were greater than 33%, this analysis suggests that Melvin should have offered arbitration. Indeed, since I estimated that Lopez's FA value was greater than his likely arbitration salary, we would have expected Melvin to offer arbitration and Lopez to decline it. I can only imagine that Melvin estimated Lopez's value in 2010 as being less than I have. It's either that or Melvin and/or Mark A. are desperate to clear as much money as possible off the books, so they can maximize their available cash for what they see as a greater need (pitching). What's more enlightening, though, is that the dollar figures we are talking about are all pretty darn low. $2 mil? $4 mil? Melvin's decision may reflect poorly on his ability to make good baseball decisions but it will probably not have a large effect on the 2010 season. The tens of millions Melvin and Mark A. predictably wasted on Suppan pisses me off. This is a slight annoyance.

If your point is that a minority of players have displayed an ability to walk despite having little power, I think no one would disagree. The fact remains, however, that there is a strong correlation between isolated power (SLG-BA) and walks. For a guy like Escobar, who hasn't displayed much skill for drawing walks or hitting for power, it's tough to get a decent OBP out of them. Escobar may very well develop both skills at some point but we are talking about the 2009 batting order, not the 2011 one. The prospects of Escobar carrying an OBP next year that would make him attractive in the 1 or 2 spots are not good.

This award isn't really worth getting worked up about, IMO. Nobody can even agree on what it means. Agreed. It seems almost odd to care about an award without any real selection criteria.

Add in Riske's as well and the point is that we can make about 25 million worth of a mistake and still be competitive. 80 wins, sure. Playoff contenders?

I think the Helton example proves otherwise. If I find an example where a bad signing crippled a franchise for years, does that "prove" otherwise? Anecdotal evidence can prove anything you want it to. And Helton's contract hasn't even really hurt the club so far, anyway, so the example is probably a bad one. According to fangraphs, he's earned his money during his current contract. The chances of him doing so going forward is pretty small, though.

He'll be 38 next year and hasn't done anything noteworthy for years. Just filler.

Never use single year park factors. If you want to use ESPN's park factors, you need to use 3-5 years' worth of data.

There's more uncertainty in the defensive data used to formulate UZR and (defining the type and speed of a BIP is subjectively determined). Furthermore, the sample size of a year's worth of defensive data is around half the size of hitting stats. One year of data tells us around what 300 AB does. Using two years of defensive data to suggest Braun is the worst defender in the league is like saying someone is the worst hitter in the league after his rookie year. As Brewer fans, we've seen Braun enough to know that while he's not been a good defender so far, he's certainly not the worst.

I don't buy into the notion that just because in the immediate term we could get equal value for Prince it's the best move. I don't think anyone said that. I know I didn't.