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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. drivlikejehu
    OK, but going back to the original point - BaseRuns doesn't care about RBIs. They are an accounting statistic, not a performance statistic.
  2. drivlikejehu
    I love the idea that it's bad to take a walk with runners on base.
  3. drivlikejehu
    "Misapplication of statistics" thread.
  4. drivlikejehu
    Why do you doubt this? To me it seems like the easy and obvious explanation. A great example is how the Twins went from incredibly lucky in 2015 to incredibly unlucky in 2016. The club wasn't identical, but it certainly wasn't different enough to explain going from one extreme to another. On the other hand, if you average 2015 and 2016 together, you come out pretty close to even. One season is actually not an enormous sample size when it comes to runs scored and allowed. Over time, however, and across MLB, it evens out. Keep in mind that BaseRuns is already accounting for factors associated with sequencing, so long as those factors impact actual results on the field. If a pitcher is horrible with runners on base, then allowing a lead-off single has substantial sequential effects for both teams. But that is already being captured by the algorithm and thus is not being treated as 'luck'.
  5. drivlikejehu
    I don't think system rankings have much in the way of predictive value.
  6. drivlikejehu
    Let's say Team A and Team B both get 9 singles in games against other clubs. Team A gets all 9 in one inning and Team B gets one each in 9 innings. No other players reach base. Team A scores 7 runs in that one inning and the game, while Team B scores 0 runs. Did Team A get "lucky?" I'm not sure that there's really an answer to that question. The only relevant question, however, is whether Team A has a repeatable skill to bunch all of their singles in one inning. If not, our prediction for the future should expect a normal distribution of hits. It's really just an extension of the "clutch hitter" issue. There are such things as clutch hits, but no such thing as a clutch hitter, even though random variation allows for some hitters to appear so on the surface.
  7. drivlikejehu
    There's a difference between saying 80 wins is unlikely - which I agree with - and saying it's hard to see how it happens. The latter is actually pretty easy. One way is that the Twins could be a 70-win caliber team that just gets very lucky with sequencing, along the lines of 2015. Poof, 80 wins. Another is to improve by 8-10 wins and just not get unlucky with sequencing, as in 2016. That gets them to 80 wins or very close to it. Granted, that's a lot of wins, but better roster management alone should be able to get about halfway there. The young guys need to step up as well, but as has been discussed before, the org is doomed without that anyway.
  8. drivlikejehu
    Well OK, but that doesn't really answer the question because even if you equate De Leon to Berrios (pretty reasonable comparison) - the question is how do you value a guy like that relative to Dozier? Under the right assumptions, I could see De Leon plus Stewart being at least somewhat reasonable (in light of the overall 2B market). But saying that is different from spelling it out with numbers. Not because those numbers would be precise - anything like that is a rough estimate - but because you need to convert the players into a common system of value. Are you saying something like, Dozier is worth $50MM, De Leon is worth $35MM, Stewart is worth $15MM, so therefore the deal is fair? Or are you saying something more like, Dozier is worth $50MM, De Leon is worth $25MM, Stewart is worth $10MM, but that's the best return the Twins can get so they should take it? In other words, even if you agree on player value, you can disagree on whether to accept a particular deal. But without breaking it down into those parts, you are not being clear as to why something does or does not make sense. The same is true for a hypothetical Twins trade involving Berrios and Kepler. If you want to put the shoe on the other foot, that same analysis would have to be done. Otherwise you are just tossing names around.
  9. drivlikejehu
    De Leon's modest chances of being a good starter aren't my "opinion." It's an undeniable historical fact that pitching prospects - even top prospects - have a very high failure rate, for various reasons. So unless De Leon is somehow exempt from the same factors that apply to every other pitcher in baseball, he is not statistically likely to reach his theoretical ceiling. That's what you don't seem to get - even if everything everyone says is 100% true, De Leon is STILL not a good return for Dozier. It's nothing against De Leon. He's a nice prospect and it would be great to have him in the Twins organization. You are just not able separate those facts from the reality of pitching prospects. Once you price in risk, two years of cheap Dozier deserves more than De Leon + a mediocre 2nd piece. Of course, unlike myself and some others, you have never actually provided your own valuation of De Leon. It's easy to throw out red herrings and generalities - what is the probability distribution you think is fair for him?
  10. drivlikejehu
    Few posters have alleged that the Dodgers are doing anything nefarious . . . that's been a very minimal and irrelevant aspect of the discussion. Taking advantage of an information asymmetry isn't nefarious when both parties are fully aware of its existence. It all boils down to risk. You seemingly refuse to acknowledge the obvious fact that Dozier carries far, far less risk than De Leon. De Leon is far riskier just by virtue of being a pitcher, even if he already had demonstrated MLB success. But in fact, he hasn't demonstrated that, nor the ability to maintain a starting workload throughout a season (or even the substantial part of a season). Historically, even assuming the Twins knew just as much about De Leon as the Dodgers do, he is still a risky player with a relatively low chance of being a consistently good starter. You're also wrong when you claim that we learn nothing by the fact that the Dodgers are willing to deal him, due to their surplus of pitching. It tells us that the Dodgers don't see him as being a significant upgrade to their 2017-18 rotation, because that would give back a significant chunk of the improvement brought in by Dozier. For a younger prospect, that wouldn't really mean anything, but De Leon will be 25 soon and basically he is who he is at this point aside from some tweaks to approach, etc.
  11. drivlikejehu
    Well, information asymmetry is a defining feature of MLB trades. It is in fact relevant for pretty much any deal that is ever made. Your post framed it in stilted, hyperbolic terms, but the underlying concern is 100% valid. I don't see how that can rationally be questioned - do you really think the Twins can project De Leon as accurately as the Dodgers? Nor is it an all-or-nothing issue. De Leon doesn't have to be a "lemon" for there to be a question of whether he's legitimately worth ~$50 million in surplus value or more like ~$25 million. He's not a "lemon" in either scenario, but that's a huge difference that will result in very different analyses.
  12. drivlikejehu
    I could see Hughes as being an upper-half-of-6th inning-reliever guy as early as sometime in 2017.
  13. drivlikejehu
    I'd platoon him with Park.
  14. drivlikejehu
    Well even so that's pretty limited praise, 'good job not getting taken to the cleaners.' And TR had established a clear pattern of failing to make trades when he should have.
  15. drivlikejehu
    This is a distortion - Johnson was clearly "promoted" only in a face-saving sense. In reality he was removed as scouting director.
  16. drivlikejehu
    There's a difference between praising and withholding judgment. I don't see a lot of 'praise' for the new regime, just recognition of the fact that there's only so much they can do with respect to various issues. Pohlad forced them to keep Molitor for 2017, the trade market for 2nd basemen is tragic, the crop of free agents is atrocious, etc. Dozier-related criticism is largely premised on the idea that surely there is some way to get a fair return . . . yet no one on here has any evidence to support that view, and the available reports contradict it.
  17. drivlikejehu
    I'd like to see a Castro/Garver platoon out of the gate. I think that easily gets to the Twins to average at the C position, maybe even a little above.
  18. drivlikejehu
    There are always a lot of unknowns in baseball. I think it may be hard for Falvey & Levine to basically give away Dozier and his 2018 season without seeing if they can make progress on run prevention in 2017 and set the Twins up to be respectable in 2018. Now, they haven't actually done anything, but at least part of the problem has been management of existing talent (e.g., moving May to the bullpen). They also may be willing to move more aggressively with prospects, when appropriate. We know that Falvey & Levine are both from orgs that made plenty of deals, and that they are willing to trade Dozier. They undoubtedly understand the ramifications of not trading him.
  19. drivlikejehu
    Lots of guys hit home runs when their home park is a little league stadium, but Trumbo really is not particularly good and moreover is a horrible fit for the Twins.
  20. drivlikejehu
    I'm not convinced De Leon is even a must-have for the Twins. All along it's felt to me like Friedman selling high on De Leon because he doesn't really believe in him.
  21. drivlikejehu
    Well you can't really use a WAR prospect projection like that, because in a lot of scenarios the prospect, say De Leon, isn't even on the team. In other scenarios, he's giving you 4 WAR a year and is really valuable. The problem is just that pitching prospects don't turn into good starters very often, so the average results from the possible scenarios returns a small WAR number. No matter what, prospects will have a much higher variance in performance than an established major leaguer. But surplus value is still a useful concept to probabilistically evaluate the future production both sides can expect.
  22. drivlikejehu
    The history of pitching prospects is just awful, even for guys ostensibly ready for the big leagues. The failure rate is extremely high. That's why I want several in return, even if none are elite prospects. Surplus value also isn't completely linear. Teams have a limited number of plate appearances and innings to give out. If De Leon is theoretically a 1 WAR talent (as one possibility among others), that's really of very limited value to the Twins because a competent organization should be able to find guys like that for less than 2 years of Dozier.
  23. drivlikejehu
    Dozier has a much, much lower chance of getting hurt. You cannot meaningfully compare the two and ignore the differences in injury and performance risk. There is a roughly 50% chance that De Leon is an absolute zero in terms of future value. Basically everyone advocating for the deal is completely ignoring this or asserting that Dozier has similar risk, which is flat wrong.
  24. drivlikejehu
    Does your surplus figure for De Leon factor in the good chance he gets hurt and provides minimal WAR?
  25. drivlikejehu
    All MLB players have cold streaks - at what point were they a "pumpkin" vs. the natural ups and downs that every single player has? Dozier's have been pretty extreme, true, but over the course of a full season he has never been bad since his partial season rookie year. Four straight full seasons, ranging from above average to ~ #13 position player in baseball. Fluctuations like that are pretty standard. I would try to trade Dozier for fair value, and would be open to position players as well as pitchers. All I would ask for is the same surplus value Dozier can reasonably be expected to provide - around $50 million. If it was somewhat close, say 80%, I'd think about it. At 60% it's just not something I would accept, nor apparently would Falvey. Basically, I want a probabilistic return of 1 whole pitcher, factoring in that I could potentially trade a position player I received for pitching down the road. An example trade I would probably take from the Dodgers is Verdugo, Stewart, Buehler, and Ruiz. Around half a pitcher and half a position player, and not even including their big names. Regardless of the Dozier trade, the Twins need a lot of their young players to step up, because otherwise there is no possible course of action that could result in a competitive team within the next several years. One prospect that throws 91 mph isn't going to make any difference in a world where Buxton doesn't pan out, Sano is mediocre, Berrios is in the bullpen, and so on.
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