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Brock Beauchamp

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Everything posted by Brock Beauchamp

  1. Brock Beauchamp
    No, one can't say it with utmost certainty. But the odds of Sanchez propelling the Twins to the playoffs in 2012 is mighty, mighty low.
  2. Brock Beauchamp
    You're treading a fine line between debate and condescending antics with this post. These are two completely different arguments and you know it. One argument is "how well has Kevin Correia pitched" and you used an inferior statistic to about a dozen other available statistics, which I called out, using other statistics that show that no, he wasn't all that bad. The other argument is "how many wins would the Twins have if they signed Anibal Sanchez", in which I didn't even use the WAR statistic to prove anything, only to illustrate the difficulty in one player essentially "winning" 20 games for their team in one season.
  3. Brock Beauchamp
    I didn't even quote the WAR of Sanchez (or of Pelfrey for that matter). I used the metric to loosely show just how bloody difficult it is for one player to basically amount to a 20 game swing in the standings in one season. Think about that for a second. 20 games? Really?
  4. Brock Beauchamp
    I use the WAR stat when the sample size is large enough to compensate for some of the incredible weirdness produced by the statistic. It's hardly the One True Metric To Rule Them All but when used in the right situations, it's useful. Especially in a situation like this where the argument basically boils down to "how many wins do you get by replacing a below replacement level player with a very good player". If you can't use WAR there, you can't use it at all.
  5. Brock Beauchamp
    Amy set a bad precedent in Doctor Who. The hot companion with very little to offer as a character. Now it appears Clara is in the same vein. Personally, I want to see Judy Dench rock it as the Doctor. That would reaffirm some faith in Moffat as the show head.
  6. Brock Beauchamp
    I looked at the wrong page. No matter how much impact Anibal has, 12 games is too much for one player. Replacing Joe Mauer with Drew Butera and giving Joe to the Tigers will not result in 12 games in half a season. This is why the WAR stat exists. It's incredibly difficult for a player to have a WAR of 10 over one season, much less a WAR of 18 (extrapolating the 55% of this season into 100%).
  7. Brock Beauchamp
    You could replace Mike Pelfrey with Sandy Koufax and it's not going to result in 13.5 games over a half season (the Twins current deficit in the standings). Adding Koufax to the rotation means you still have three bad starters on the team for a good chunk of this half season. That is simply too many holes to fill.
  8. Brock Beauchamp
    Payroll certainly shouldn't be a concern in 2015 but many of those departing free agents will have to be replaced and not all of them will come from the farm system. The point is that there is a risk in signing a big contract free agent. Is that risk debilitating? Probably not in this case, but it does open up holes that can't be filled should something disastrous go wrong with the pitcher. A team can get around a Barry Zito contract but it's not easy to do and it means you need to hit on almost every other move you make to overcome that wasted money.
  9. Brock Beauchamp
    It hurts if Anibal spends 2015 on a Jamaican beach while earning $16m that could be going to a pitcher to help an 88 win team make the playoffs. Let's not pretend that there is no risk in signing a guy right now. There is a risk. There is always a risk when you drop $100m on a single player. Whether you want to take that risk should be the argument.
  10. Brock Beauchamp
    Which is a fine argument but the "sign 'em and trade 'em" argument is great in theory and incredibly difficult to execute in reality, particularly in multi-year contracts. When do you trade Anibal? After year one? Two? Three? And what happens if he gets injured the year you "planned" to trade him? It's a tightrope walk and not one a team should aggressively pursue when $100m is on the line. For the Feldmans, Pelfreys, and Bakers of the world, sure. It's a one year deal. Risk is incredibly low, almost zero. But a five year deal? That's dancing with the devil. You sign a guy you want with the idea that he will help your team when you need it. Trying to extrapolate 100 different situations from there is just going to lead to option paralysis and bad decisions.
  11. Brock Beauchamp
    Not if the team is going to miss the playoffs either way, which they would this season. Anibal doesn't change that. Now mind you, I am not advocating the "they're not going to win anyway so don't pick up anyone good" argument, I'm just making an observation.
  12. Brock Beauchamp
    While I don't disagree with the idea of picking up a guy and thwarting a division rival (mostly I disagree with some here on the timing of such a move), you're assuming that Sanchez will continue to be a value. There's a good chance he will spend years 3-5 of that contract as an albatross. In that case, who "won"?
  13. Brock Beauchamp
    5 IP, 4 ER can net a Win. 9 IP, 1 ER can net a Loss. 5.2 IP, 0 ER is not a QS. 6 IP, 3 ER is a QS. 9 IP, 4 ER is not a QS. Both arbitrary, both flawed. One is certainly worse than the other. That doesn't mean the latter is good because the former is worse. And, again, use W/L in large enough numbers and you'll see a correlation to quality, much like the QS. Bad pitchers don't win 15 games, just like bad pitchers don't compile 20 QS in a season. That doesn't mean either stat is worth a damn in the short-term.
  14. Brock Beauchamp
    As bad? Probably not, because the Win is so reliant on teammate performance. In the same category? In my opinion, yes. When you get right down to it, the QS is nearly as arbitrary and flawed as the Win. It's dependent on some pretty arbitrary numbers and can be awarded for mediocre performances while not awarded for quite good performances... Much like a Win. But if you look at the end of the season, you can parse pitchers based on Wins and their ERA, IP, and several other stats generally fall in line with Wins, much like they do QS. Which is kinda my point. It tells something about the pitcher but not enough to be very useful, particularly when many other, better, stats are readily available.
  15. Brock Beauchamp
    *wanders off, whistling a tune innocently*
  16. Brock Beauchamp
    Funnily enough, I agree with this... I don't like the QS stat, as I've made abundantly clear to but clarify my point further, it does have merit when used in larger numbers. Given its arbitrary threshold and limited numbers of inputs, it's very flawed in the short term (because, as mentioned previously, a guy can go 8 IP, 4ER and not get credit). That situation can happen over the short-term and seriously skew the stat over a month-long period or even a half season because of the limited number of QS opportunities a pitcher receives in a season (we're talking about a metric that allows no more than ~33 outputs in a season). But, like most metrics, the more inputs you throw at it, the more stable it becomes because the arbitrary outliers are offset by sheer numbers. Honestly, it's not unlike the win stat when you get right down to it. Flawed and pretty crappy over the short term but over multiple years and/or a career, it starts to form a solid idea of who that guy was as a player. Obviously, I also dislike the win statistic so there you go.
  17. Brock Beauchamp
    I'm pulling for Ryan to get both Garland and Pettitte next season. Proven winners.
  18. Brock Beauchamp
    Sure, in theory. If the stat wasn't arbitrary and junk. If QS actually tried to reasonably gauge the actual quality of a start instead of tossing numbers on a board and saying "meet these qualifications exactly and you win!", I'd be more on board with it. I'm all for breaking down pitching starts into "good", "bad", and "mediocre"... Except QS doesn't even try to do that much. Guys can easily pitch better than the metric demands and not get awarded the stat. That means it's a bad statistic. That's not short-sighted. That's simple analysis. There's a reason why teams like the Rays and A's scoff at the metric (and others of its ilk). Given the amount of real stats available to us, it's like using a chisel to make a Ferrari while the competition is using a supercomputer and robots.
  19. Brock Beauchamp
    My point isn't that you didn't use any other numbers, it's that you leaned a bit on the worst of them. I'll argue all day on the merits of a guy's FIP, ERA, IP, whatever... But not QS, especially over a short period of time. IMO, it's a junk stat over a short period of time (and still mostly junk over a long period of time).
  20. Brock Beauchamp
    I'm not saying the stat is without use entirely. If you get a large enough sample size, the metric's arbitrary nature will sort itself out over the long run, as many stats do. But in a world where we have hundreds of metrics available to you, why use something that is so obviously flawed over the short term and unnecessarily boxes itself in? Any time you reduce the number of inputs in a metric and combine it with a shorter period of sample time, the more flawed your stat. Quality Starts takes IP and Earned Runs, two stats that are broken down into the many pieces every start (usually 4-9 for IP, 1-infinity for ER), and reduces them to one boolean output in total (each input doesn't even get its own output, as both inputs must be met for a "yes" output). So, over the course of, let's say a month, you have reduced ~35 IP and ~17 ER (in other words, many input/output figures) into 5-6 boolean "yes" or "no" outputs. Instead of getting a more nuanced look at a guy's pitching (say, 36.2 IP over 5 starts with 14 ER allowed), you get an output of "4". And that's not even bringing up the completely arbitrary nature of "6 IP, 3ER". In my experience, QS is often used by people who want to prove a point with a single number, except every other stat says something differently so they can't use any conventional metrics to illustrate their point. It's way too easy to use the QS to cherry-pick whatever information you want to tell because it's so incomplete and arbitrary.
  21. Brock Beauchamp
    Wait. You just said that it's Ryan's fault because the mid-2000s drafts were bad and the Twins had no good players come through the system. Then you said that the draft is the responsibility of the head scout, not the GM. You can't have it both ways. Yes, Ryan holds responsibility for those mid-2000s drafts, which initially looked awful (as it turns out as Perkins, Plouffe, Revere, etc. turn into decent players, it was more "mediocre" than "OMG TERRIBLE"). On the other hand, he gets credit for adding to a full-of-potential-but-flawed farm system handed to him by Smith. To quote Harry S Truman, "The buck stops here." The guy in charge gets both credit and blame for things the might not always be under his complete control.
  22. Brock Beauchamp
    Berrios, Stewart, possibly Albers. But your point stands. The Twins need starters and lots of 'em.
  23. Brock Beauchamp
    Time should tell us the answer to this... The Twins were concerned that his arm would explode under an extreme slider load. Now that he's throwing more sliders, we'll probably know whether they were right or wrong in that belief.
  24. Brock Beauchamp
    Pretty much.
  25. Brock Beauchamp
    I think this offseason should be a lesson to many about the dangers of building through free agency. Going into the offseason, it looked really strong in pitching. Near the end of the offseason, it still looked pretty good. In the beginning of the season, the luster started to wear off. Halfway through the season, it's starting to become hard to count the "busts" on your hands because you'll run out of fingers. The Twins could have done a better job this offseason. That is without a doubt in my mind. They didn't have to scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel. On the other hand, this should be a pretty good example of why Terry Ryan is a General Manager and we are not. Most of us would have spent far more and gotten far less in return. Maybe, just maybe, Terry isn't a dumb ol' hick stuck in the 1960s. We don't have to like all of his moves (I certainly don't) but we should at least acknowledge that the guy has a pretty good idea of what he's doing.
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