26 year old Cuban SS Alexander Guerrero

[ThePuck]

'Prevailing wisdom is that teams need to overpay for starting pitching, but (again) that’s not an issue for a fan to worry about. (Even less so when Jim Pohlad told Phil Mackey on Saturday in an ESPN 1500 interview that Ryan can increase the payroll significantly.) Find an ace, find a couple of starters more solid than Mike Pelfrey and Kevin Correia and let the others battle for the back end of the rotation.'

 

Mauer, Morneau, (Pierzynski, Johan) and a bunch of Twins thoughts | A Fan's View | StarTribune.com

[kab21]

'Prevailing wisdom is that teams need to overpay for starting pitching, but (again) that’s not an issue for a fan to worry about. (Even less so when Jim Pohlad told Phil Mackey on Saturday in an ESPN 1500 interview that Ryan can increase the payroll significantly.) Find an ace, find a couple of starters more solid than Mike Pelfrey and Kevin Correia and let the others battle for the back end of the rotation.'

 

Mauer, Morneau, (Pierzynski, Johan) and a bunch of Twins thoughts | A Fan's View | StarTribune.com

 

Sounds easy...

I hope you realize that Correia and Pelfrey are pitching similar to most of the pitchers in the <50M price from the last two seasons. Yes, there are a few exceptions but for the most part this tier of pitcher has a 4.25-5.50 ERA. there is no doubt that Ryan could have spent more money and even have spent it better but we most likely would have gotten similar production from a sexier name unless the Twins really went all in on Greinke (my actual suggestion). Sanchez moved to the AL and is by far having his best season ever so that wasn't exactly predictable.

 

The biggest problem with Pelfrey wasn't signing him but rather starting him in the majors 10 months after TJ. He has actually been decent in the second half of the season.

[Oxtung]

Sounds easy...

I hope you realize that Correia and Pelfrey are pitching similar to most of the pitchers in the <50M price from the last two seasons. Yes, there are a few exceptions but for the most part this tier of pitcher has a 4.25-5.50 ERA. there is no doubt that Ryan could have spent more money and even have spent it better but we most likely would have gotten similar production from a sexier name unless the Twins really went all in on Greinke (my actual suggestion). Sanchez moved to the AL and is by far having his best season ever so that wasn't exactly predictable.

 

The biggest problem with Pelfrey wasn't signing him but rather starting him in the majors 10 months after TJ. He has actually been decent in the second half of the season.

 

You can't claim that Sanchez wasn't predictable, and so Ryan gets a pass, at the same time you're claiming Correia/Pelfrey being average, while unpredictable also, makes Ryan a genius.

 

In fact this whole line of reasoning is flawed. Unless you think Ryan has a crystal ball a player's results have no bearing on whether Ryan made the right decisions. What matters is the information Ryan had at hand at the time that he made his decisions and what he chose to do with that information.

 

Think about it another way. You're playing blackjack at the casino. You have 16. The dealer is showing a 5. You stand because the odds are the dealer will bust. The dealer ends up with 18 and you lose. Was your decision to stand wrong? No. You couldn't have known what the dealer had/would draw. You made the best decision you could at the time with the most information possible. The fact that things did not go the way you hoped doesn't mean you made the wrong decision.

 

The same is true for GM's. What matters is the information they have at the time they made the signing. What happens afterwards is out of his control.

[old nurse]

You can't claim that Sanchez wasn't predictable, and so Ryan gets a pass, at the same time you're claiming Correia/Pelfrey being average, while unpredictable also, makes Ryan a genius.

 

In fact this whole line of reasoning is flawed. Unless you think Ryan has a crystal ball a player's results have no bearing on whether Ryan made the right decisions. What matters is the information Ryan had at hand at the time that he made his decisions and what he chose to do with that information.

 

Think about it another way. You're playing blackjack at the casino. You have 16. The dealer is showing a 5. You stand because the odds are the dealer will bust. The dealer ends up with 18 and you lose. Was your decision to stand wrong? No. You couldn't have known what the dealer had/would draw. You made the best decision you could at the time with the most information possible. The fact that things did not go the way you hoped doesn't mean you made the wrong decision.

 

The same is true for GM's. What matters is the information they have at the time they made the signing. What happens afterwards is out of his control.

 

Sanchez is having the best year of his career by far. You can't predict that sort of thing. Your conviction that Sanchez would have signed here if only the Twins offered the most money is what it is.

The claim was Coreia and Pelphrey were pitching better than most of the less than 50 million dollar pitchers signed the last two years, not better than average.Feldman, Kazmir, Hernandez, Guthrie, Iwakuma, and Liriano would be the better pitchers by ERA. Haren is getting there. So his claim is true. Doesn't make the pair average pitchers either.

Ryan went into the dumpster and got the better trash. Nobody is calling him a genius for it. A little credit for picking the better of the worst, a demerit for picking the wrong former Skeeter.

[Oxtung]

Sanchez is having the best year of his career by far. You can't predict that sort of thing. Your conviction that Sanchez would have signed here if only the Twins offered the most money is what it is.

The claim was Coreia and Pelphrey were pitching better than most of the less than 50 million dollar pitchers signed the last two years, not better than average. Kazmir, Hernandez, Guthrie, Iwakuma, and Liriano would be the better pitchers by ERA. Haren is getting there. So his claim is true. Doesn't make the pair average pitchers either.

 

I'm not sure what your responding to in my post for the most part, perhaps you didn't understand my points.

 

You can't simultaneously give Ryan a pass because a pitcher has been unpredictable and then ignore other pitchers unpredictable seasons in order to praise Ryan. FYI, I agree that what happened this season has no bearing on judging Ryan's actions last off season; that should have been obvious from my last post.

 

I was not very clear with my "average" comment. I did not mean that Correia/Pelfrey were average pitchers compared to the league as a whole but instead that they were average compared to most of the FA available last off season (although I'm not sure this is accurate any more either.)

[glunn]

This debate precisely echoes that of about a year ago. The undying Ryan supporters promised that this time they would be "lining up their criticisms" if Ryan failed to deliver in the offseason with "multiple near ready major league talent as well as a high quality FA SP". All the while, they were fully uninhibited in implying that the doubters were really just irrational haters, incapable of finding anything positive in Ryan's approach to the job.

 

Now we get to witness yet another round of their promises and admonitions...Ryan has even more resources to work with than last year...should be fun, or frustrating, or both.

 

Moderator note:

 

It seems to me that there is a continuum here -- Ryan lovers at one end and Ryan haters at the other. I also believe that the vast majority of TD members fall somewhere in the middle.

 

What we have seen since the inception of TD is that the people on either extreme can be strident, and we end up with warring factions. Then the more moderate posters get swept into the maelstrom. Doubters get portrayed as haters, as do agnostics.

 

If people stay within the letter and spirit of TD policy then they may debate whether Ryan is great or terrible, but please realize two things. First, most of us stand somewhere in the middle, and the level of drama makes it harder for us to enjoy a rational discussion. Second, we moderators have been instructed to reduce the hijacking of threads with arguments that have been made over and over in other threads. So we are going to be stricter about any policy violations associated with such arguments.

[PseudoSABR]

You can't claim that Sanchez wasn't predictable, and so Ryan gets a pass, at the same time you're claiming Correia/Pelfrey being average, while unpredictable also, makes Ryan a genius.

I think the point is that yes it's a gamble, but perhaps it's prudent not to put all your chips on a single square.

[Oxtung]

Moderator note:

 

It seems to me that there is a continuum here -- Ryan lovers at one end and Ryan haters at the other. I also believe that the vast majority of TD members fall somewhere in the middle.

 

What we have seen since the inception of TD is that the people on either extreme can be strident, and we end up with warring factions. Then the more moderate posters get swept into the maelstrom. Doubters get portrayed as haters, as do agnostics.

 

If people stay within the letter and spirit of TD policy then they may debate whether Ryan is great or terrible, but please realize two things. First, most of us stand somewhere in the middle, and the level of drama makes it harder for us to enjoy a rational discussion. Second, we moderators have been instructed to reduce the hijacking of threads with arguments that have been made over and over in other threads. So we are going to be stricter about any policy violations associated with such arguments.

 

Hijacking threads is not specifically mentioned in the TD comment policy. Are we to take this as an official warning and therefore an unwritten rule? Is this a general policy for all hijackings or just specific to reoccurring themes? Not trying to be a PITA just trying to clarify things a bit. -THnx

[Oxtung]

I think the point is that yes it's a gamble, but perhaps it's prudent not to put all your chips on a single square.

 

Can you explain this further? I don't think I understand the point your trying to make here.

[kab21]

You can't claim that Sanchez wasn't predictable, and so Ryan gets a pass, at the same time you're claiming Correia/Pelfrey being average, while unpredictable also, makes Ryan a genius.

 

Sanchez was a good pitcher but he wasn't 80-100M good before this season. And that price range isn't at all comparable to the 5-50M group of pitchers that have mostly pitched between average (a stretch at that) and awful. Correia and Pelfrey compare very favorably to almost every pitcher in that group even though they were cheaper. The seasons that Corriea and Pelfrey have had are not unreasonably good compared to their career either.

 

I'm not sure people feel like everyone needs to be labeled as a Ryan lover or hater. I have been quite critical of Ryan in the past and will continue to be. I won't be critical because Ryan didn't sign a bunch of declining veterans that aren't part of the long term plans for the sake of spending money. By not doing so the Twins are actually in a position to make a splash after one of the 3 big int'l FA's mentioned in this thread. That doesn't mean they will do it but it's more likely than if they had 50M tied up in Edwin Jackson and Joe Saunders. And they wouldn't be much better if they had signed these (types of) FA's.

[old nurse]

I'm not sure what your responding to in my post for the most part, perhaps you didn't understand my points.

 

You can't simultaneously give Ryan a pass because a pitcher has been unpredictable and then ignore other pitchers unpredictable seasons in order to praise Ryan. FYI, I agree that what happened this season has no bearing on judging Ryan's actions last off season; that should have been obvious from my last post.

 

I was not very clear with my "average" comment. I did not mean that Correia/Pelfrey were average pitchers compared to the league as a whole but instead that they were average compared to most of the FA available last off season (although I'm not sure this is accurate any more either.)

 

There is a gamble anytime you sigh a free agent. In the penny ante game, Ryan did ok. When he went to the big stakes table, we do not know what happened other than he didn't get to play. It is not giving him a pass, it is not criticizing when I have no information. To fault Ryan on the negotiation process with the cream of the crop free agents would mean I would have to see some indication they were interested in coming here.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Moderator note:

 

It seems to me that there is a continuum here -- Ryan lovers at one end and Ryan haters at the other. I also believe that the vast majority of TD members fall somewhere in the middle.

 

Along time ago, Mr. Bonnes wrote an article about he and Mr. Gleeman were arguing against their perception of what the other person was saying and not against their actual statements. He might want to consider going through his archives and reposting that. I think it fits much of the TD debates of late very well. Lots of people are arguing against what they think the Ryan lovers/Ryan haters stand for, when in reality, their opponents are doing the exact opposite.

[jay]

second, we moderators have been instructed to reduce the hijacking of threads with arguments that have been made over and over in other threads.

 

thank you!

 

Along time ago, Mr. Bonnes wrote an article about he and Mr. Gleeman were arguing against their perception of what the other person was saying and not against their actual statements. He might want to consider going through his archives and reposting that. I think it fits much of the TD debates of late very well. Lots of people are arguing against what they think the Ryan lovers/Ryan haters stand for, when in reality, their opponents are doing the exact opposite.

 

Great point. I do find it humorous how often two people can actually want the exact same thing to happen, but manage to paint each other to the complete extremes.

[Mike Sixel]

I think the point is that yes it's a gamble, but perhaps it's prudent not to put all your chips on a single square.

 

but he never puts his chips on any squares, that's my issue with him, right there. Unless you consider Marquis, Pelfrey, and KC actual squares (and if you do, shouldn't he be accountable for being wrong about these pitchers every time?).

[ThePuck]

Sanchez was a good pitcher but he wasn't 80-100M good before this season. And that price range isn't at all comparable to the 5-50M group of pitchers that have mostly pitched between average (a stretch at that) and awful.

 

According to Fangraphs, Annibal Sanchez was worth over 16M in each of his previous three seasons prior to this year (16.9, 16.1, 16.6...an average of 16.5). This year he's getting 8.8M, followed by 15.8 next year and 16.8 the next three years.

[glunn]

Hijacking threads is not specifically mentioned in the TD comment policy. Are we to take this as an official warning and therefore an unwritten rule? Is this a general policy for all hijackings or just specific to reoccurring themes? Not trying to be a PITA just trying to clarify things a bit. -THnx

 

Every moderator has discretion to interpret this, but in my mind hijacking will be a factor if there is some other clear violation of TD policy, such as attacking another poster or trolling.

[PseudoSABR]

but he never puts his chips on any squares, that's my issue with him, right there. Unless you consider Marquis, Pelfrey, and KC actual squares (and if you do, shouldn't he be accountable for being wrong about these pitchers every time?).

Well, we're acknowledging that it's a gamble, so that's why he's spreading out the FA money (what little he spends) on a variety of players like Pelfry, KC, Marquis, Harden, Willingham, Doumit, Carroll, etc. So his hitting and not hitting isn't necessarily credit-worthy as much as it is gambling prudently.

[howieramone1406390264]

but he never puts his chips on any squares, that's my issue with him, right there. Unless you consider Marquis, Pelfrey, and KC actual squares (and if you do, shouldn't he be accountable for being wrong about these pitchers every time?).

 

I believe he did, he just never won. I wonder how Correia would rank on the list of most valuable pitchers, on a fan boards most hated list.

[kab21]

According to Fangraphs, Annibal Sanchez was worth over 16M in each of his previous three seasons prior to this year (16.9, 16.1, 16.6...an average of 16.5). This year he's getting 8.8M, followed by 15.8 next year and 16.8 the next three years.

 

Nobody ever said Sanchez wasn't a good pitcher. This year he is elite and that wasn't predictable at all. A reasonable person would have projected him to be in the high 3's this year considering a move to the American League. And then declining a little in each year of his contract. But that doesn't really matter since it would have taken a 90M offer to make contact and possibly 100M to sign him. This is not the neighborhood of pitcher that you would have replaced Correia or Pelfrey with. And I'm more interested in guys like Tanaka or Guerrero since they are likely available for less than half of that.

[ThePuck]

Nobody ever said Sanchez wasn't a good pitcher. This year he is elite and that wasn't predictable at all. A reasonable person would have projected him to be in the high 3's this year considering a move to the American League. And then declining a little in each year of his contract. But that doesn't really matter since it would have taken a 90M offer to make contact and possibly 100M to sign him. This is not the neighborhood of pitcher that you would have replaced Correia or Pelfrey with. And I'm more interested in guys like Tanaka or Guerrero since they are likely available for less than half of that.

 

I understand no one said that, what you did say was 'Sanchez was a good pitcher but he wasn't 80-100M good before this season. ' And yet the three seasons before he was worth over 50M. His FIP was lower than his ERA in those three years. His contract is right in line with how he had performed the three years prior to this one. Even if he wasn't having a ridiculous year this year, there's no reason at all to believe he wouldn't at least perform up to his contract. And, as fans,we should just be looking at whether or not he was performing quite up to his contract or not. Why is that important to us...as long as he's doing well. You seem obsessed with worrying about whether or not a player is worth their money or finding a bargain. I'm obsessed with having a quality product on the field.

[old nurse]

I understand no one said that, what you did say was 'Sanchez was a good pitcher but he wasn't 80-100M good before this season. ' And yet the three seasons before he was worth over 50M. His FIP was lower than his ERA in those three years. His contract is right in line with how he had performed the three years prior to this one. .

 

So when 18 of the worst ERAs in MLB for qualified starting pitchers all have FIP lower than their ERAs they are just unfortunate pitchers? FIP may be predictive, but it took three years to come true in the case of Sanchez.

[Mr. Brooks]

So when 18 of the worst ERAs in MLB for qualified starting pitchers all have FIP lower than their ERAs they are just unfortunate pitchers?

 

Don't you think that makes sense?

It seems obvious to me that most of the guys at the bottom of the ERA list are going to have a little bit of bad luck bringing their ERA up. If they were TRULY that bad, they probably wouldn't be allowed to throw enough innings to qualify.

Outside of a couple teams who have really good starting pitching depth, and a couple of teams who have really terrible starting pitching depth, most of the back end starting pitchers in baseball are going to be of relatively comparable quality. So, it makes sense that in any given season, it is going to be the ones with the most unfortunate luck who will find themselves at the very bottom of the ERA list.

 

Just so I'm clear, is your argument that there is no luck in baseball? Or is it that the luck cannot be measured? Or, is it that the luck can be measured, but that FIP does not do a good enough job of measuring it?

 

Somewhere online there is a good article regarding how accurate FIP, xFIP, and ERA are at predicting future ERA. It is done with a massive sample size, and has repeatedly shown that FIP is more accurate at predicting future ERA than past ERA is.

I'll see if I can dig it up.

[ThePuck]

So when 18 of the worst ERAs in MLB for qualified starting pitchers all have FIP lower than their ERAs they are just unfortunate pitchers? FIP may be predictive, but it took three years to come true in the case of Sanchez.

 

There are plenty of articles that can explain FIP and it's relation to ERA. I'm not going to cover that here.

[jokin]

Don't you think that makes sense?

It seems obvious to me that most of the guys at the bottom of the ERA list are going to have a little bit of bad luck bringing their ERA up. If they were TRULY that bad, they probably wouldn't be allowed to throw enough innings to qualify.

Outside of a couple teams who have really good starting pitching depth, and a couple of teams who have really terrible starting pitching depth, most of the back end starting pitchers in baseball are going to be of relatively comparable quality. So, it makes sense that in any given season, it is going to be the ones with the most unfortunate luck who will find themselves at the very bottom of the ERA list.

 

Just so I'm clear, is your argument that there is no luck in baseball? Or is it that the luck cannot be measured? Or, is it that the luck can be measured, but that FIP does not do a good enough job of measuring it?

 

Somewhere online there is a good article regarding how accurate FIP, xFIP, and ERA are at predicting future ERA. It is done with a massive sample size, and has repeatedly shown that FIP is more accurate at predicting future ERA than past ERA is.

I'll see if I can dig it up.

 

SIERA has come on as a stat strong in predictive value, as well.

 

SIERA | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library

[old nurse]

There are plenty of articles that can explain FIP and it's relation to ERA. I'm not going to cover that here.

 

The correlation of fip to the next year's ERA was .42 in comparing 2011 fip to 2012 pitching. If that is all the better correlation you need to say something is related, fine. .42 is closer to 0 than 1.

[old nurse]

SIERA has come on as a stat strong in predictive value, as well.

 

SIERA | FanGraphs Sabermetrics Library

SIERRA had a .48 correlation, still closer to zero than 1

[Mr. Brooks]

Old Nurse, can you please link to whatever data you are using for your posts please?

[bird]

I would like to fess up and state that I was on the "Ryan will change his tune" bandwagon last year. I was making the exact same arguments drjim is making right now, at least the his arguments about how things are different now then they were in the Dome. Fool me once....

 

I'm in this camp too. I hoped (expected even) that Ryan would find 3 SP's that met or exceeded the "Diamond Standard". Unfortunately, Diamond lowered the bar from being an acceptable #3 to a #6 and then Worley, Gibson, and Pelfry spit the bit. What I've witnessed runs a bit contrary to a couple of sentiments expressed. Ryan failed to solve the SP problem this winter.

 

I disagree with the sentiments expressed by Leviathan and jokin. Being willing to acknowledge that your expectations weren't met has nothing to do with being a "Ryan defender" or a "Ryan hater". Frankly, the use of terms like that are simply insulting and incendiary and harm all of us.

 

But yeah, I still hold out hope that Ryan will change his tune, like drjim.

[old nurse]

Old Nurse, can you please link to whatever data you are using for your posts please?

 

Are Pitching Projections Better Than ERA Estimators? | FanGraphs Baseball

[Mr. Brooks]

Old Nurse, the correlations that you point out were only for one season.

In the larger, 6 season sample size, FIP was more accurate than ERA both in terms of correlation and RMSE.

In fact, ERA was the LEAST accurate (of 8) measure in both methods.