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drivlikejehu

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Everything posted by drivlikejehu

  1. drivlikejehu
    You mean the part where it says "pitchers lose velocity from the beginning"? Sounds like exactly what I said. You can have whatever opinions you like, but velocity of pitch types is pretty easy to measure, in the aggregate, yet no one has found any evidence that larger differences in velocity are helpful. A lot of people thought it would matter, but that's why data is so valuable.
  2. drivlikejehu
    Velocity actually starts declining earlier than that: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/pitcher-aging-curves-introduction/ Also, separation of velocity is irrelevant. You can google that one, it's been studied a lot and doesn't matter. In fact, all the rage recently has been the hard slider/cutter.
  3. drivlikejehu
    The chances of Dozier busting are much, much lower than De Leon, who has a much higher chance of getting hurt, plus a much higher chance of just not being very good. You don't assess value by saying, well, anyone could bust, so let's not worry about it. Future value is determined based on a probability distribution. If fictional player A has a 90% chance of 3 WAR and 10% chance of 0 WAR, and fictional player B has a 45% chance of 3 WAR and a 55% chance of 0 WAR, then all else being equal, player A is twice as valuable as player B. De Leon's chances of being a successful starting pitcher are way, way below 50%, even if his prospect status is fully justified. That's the problem with being so short on pitching - De Leon is, from a probability standpoint, basically 1/4th of a starting pitcher, maybe 1/3rd if you want to be unreasonably optimistic. Trading Dozier for 1/3rd of a starting pitcher just does nothing for me.
  4. drivlikejehu
    His floor is getting shelled for a month or two and then being diagnosed with a torn labrum and never recovering. That sort of thing happens all the time. His floor is zero, nothing, zilch. The chances he materially improves the Twins rotation for any real length of time (1 year+) is much, much lower than you seem to think. Jimmer - obviously the team has to evaluate the prospect. The fact you may get a good surprise, or a bad surprise, doesn't really matter. I only meant that massive upside justifies more risk.
  5. drivlikejehu
    I do not understand why you keep saying De Leon provides a high floor, when historically there is like a 50% chance he produces a career WAR of 0 (or less!). How much lower could the floor be for a return on Dozier? Quantity helps to mitigate pitcher injury risk. Maybe you roll the dice on a single pitching prospect if he's, I dunno, Pedro Martinez. De Leon isn't that kind of guy. He averaged 91 mph on his fastball last year and there's no guarantee that MLB hitters will be as helpless against his change as AA and AAA hitters were.
  6. drivlikejehu
    Stewart is a B prospect. But really the focus on particular names misses the point - the difference is over value. There are all kinds of combinations that theoretically could be put together, around De Leon, around Alvarez, without either of them . . . no matter how the Twins slice up their request, the Dodgers clearly do not want to offer the Twins the ~$50 million in surplus value that is needed to make the deal fair. That's obviously the Dodger's prerogative, of course, and there's no harm in trying to get a good player on the cheap. Just didn't work in this case.
  7. drivlikejehu
    No team in history has been unaffected by injury, particularly when it comes to pitchers. That's why the Dodgers are reluctant to part with pitching depth.
  8. drivlikejehu
    In the Wild Card era, lots of teams go into the season looking to contend, with varying degrees of confidence and investment. Some teams will be surprised one way or another about how the season is going, all teams will have injuries . . . I ultimately expect he will be dealt before the trade deadline, but it will depend on the combination of events that play out in the months leading up to that.
  9. drivlikejehu
    You didn't pay attention to what I said. In response to the negatives cited by Rosenthal, I noted that those were already priced in - the Twins surely are not asking for a return based on, say, 6 WAR a year. In other words, if Dozier didn't have some drawbacks, then it would just mean the asking price would move up accordingly, and De Leon + junk would be a 'complete joke.' My take was that the Dodgers offered about 60% of a fair return, with obviously a high variance since we don't know for a fact what the best offer was. That % is based off the difference I expect between Dozier's financial value to a generic team compared to the financial value of De Leon and a couple mediocre prospects to a generic team (making it team-specific is very complicated because WAR has to be adjusted for where the team is on the win curve). It's also not correct that the best offer at this moment reflects Dozier's market value. Because there are so few MLB teams, and since the other teams face various circumstances and constraints, it can be hard to make a deal even when other teams place a reasonable value on Dozier (say, $50-55 million in surplus value). True, Dozier loses value as his remaining contract time erodes, but the mere fact the Twins haven't traded him indicates that the offer was not even close to equivalent value.
  10. drivlikejehu
    Not to get into semantics, which is rarely productive, but I disagree. The fact that there wasn't a match has no real bearing on whether, objectively, the Dodgers offered less than fair value. The low-balling isn't some kind of slight to the Twins, but instead reflects the Dodgers' assessment of how much they were willing to give up. There's nothing wrong with making below-market offers, particularly when you know there's limited interest among other parties. That's the whole reason I like eBay.
  11. drivlikejehu
    The Dodgers low-balled the Twins for a reasonable projection of Dozier. Their reported offer was a complete joke for the optimistic version of Dozier, 20 cents on the dollar. So pointing out his flaws is pretty meaningless in this context.
  12. drivlikejehu
    I don't believe De Leon + Alvarez was ever on the table. Maybe the Dodgers made them both available as the main piece, i.e., the Twins could get De Leon +, or Alvarez +. If the Dodgers were willing to give up both De Leon and Alvarez, the teams would have made it work. This thread in hindsight was much ado about nothing, because giving Dozier away is pointless. His chance of busting is much, much lower than the Dodgers' pitching prospects. Taking 60 cents on the dollar isn't very enticing when next winter they have a decent chance of getting 50 cents on the dollar (i.e., he will have half as much time under contract remaining). I get where the Dodgers are coming from, because quantity is important when it comes to pitching, and they already are one of the few best teams in baseball. I think the more surprising thing is that some other teams aren't interested (or seriously interested) that really should be. The Royals' window is closing hard - if they aren't going to jump into rebuilding, they need to get better, and that's by far the most logical way they could.
  13. drivlikejehu
    The worst-case scenario is that De Leon is ineffective or gets hurt, and basically provides zero value, ever. The chances of that are pretty high just by virtue of him being (1) a pitcher that (2) hasn't proven he can succeed in MLB. De Leon has maybe a ~25% chance of being a solid starter, at best. Then there's another 25% where he is an OK 5th starter or solid reliever, and the other 50% where he's the 11th or 12th guy on the staff, in AAA, or out of baseball. I cannot understand the imperative to trade Dozier for that set of expectations. Yeah, it sucks if the Twins can't get a legit offer, but what can they do about it? If De Leon is a headliner but backed by other prospects, it's obviously a different story.
  14. drivlikejehu
    No. The issue is that he doesn't project playing time. If you adjust for playing time then there's nothing wrong with using it as a team projection - Fangraphs already does this, though it is 50/50 between Steamer and ZiPS, with playing time projected manually by their staff. Obviously, if you assume a team gets a thousand extra ABs because you didn't adjust for playing time, the resulting WAR will be too high.
  15. drivlikejehu
    The OP was wrong to say persistent, but it's an entirely legitimate concern. Very, very often some "soreness" turns out later to be a structural issue that either leads to a serious injury or pushes a guy to the bullpen. Unlike elbow issues, shoulder injuries are basically career ending for most guys. The fact that Friedman has historically held onto his top prospects makes me even more concerned, because a standard medical exam can't match the Dodgers' history with De Leon as a member of their organization . . . the game theory is just all kinds of wrong for the Twins here. I'm not sold on De Leon anyway, based on his average velocity and inconsistent command. I don't think he needs to be part of a Dozier deal and hope the Twins are flexible on that . . . if the Dodgers think he's so great, fine, keep him. And if everybody else with talent is off limits too, then clearly the teams have no room to make a deal.
  16. drivlikejehu
    How Dozier compares to Grandal, Turner, or any other non-2B-playing member of the Dodgers is utterly irrelevant. It's as meaningful as comparing them in terms of hair styles or anything else . . . what if Dozier is a better driver than Kershaw? Well now Dozier is worth De Leon + Alvarez for sure! The only relevant factor is how much Dozier improves the Dodgers, which then has secondary effects that impact: (1) LAD odds of making the playoffs, (2) LAD odds of winning in the playoffs and (3) the resulting financial consequences of those events, or alternatively, the absence of those events. The expected baseball-financial positive value from adding Dozier has to be weighed only against the negative baseball-financial value of the players dealt for him. The relevant factors are the same 3 as above, over a timeline that accounts for the expected distribution (e.g., Alvarez could provide surplus value for 0 years or deep into the 2020s).
  17. drivlikejehu
    Actually it's a horrible comp, because Frazier is 2 years older, has 1 year left that will be similar in cost to Dozier's 2 remaining years combined, and Frazier is coming off his worst full season while Dozier is coming off his best. They are similar players in some respects, but not in terms of trade value.
  18. drivlikejehu
    There is no objective analysis where in De Leon straight up for Dozier is even close to a fair return. Maybe 60% if you're being generous. It's so bad that the Twins really can't accept it even if they desperately want to deal Dozier.
  19. drivlikejehu
    That's a stretch. The original claim was a done deal within 24 hours. Now a trade may not happen at all. Completely different situation than what was claimed. All we have is rumors, from various sources. Potential transactions often see the same pattern of conflicting reports and the like . . . sometimes the actual result wasn't predicted by any of them. We can only go off things that actually happen.
  20. drivlikejehu
    There is no reason to block Polanco with Wong. Zero upside for the Twins there. The bigger question is whether the Cardinals can move him if they acquire Dozier - Wong's contract doesn't look real rosy these days. They could use Wong as a utility player, and did start him in the outfield 11 times last year (and he played outfield in 8 other games), but they've never used him at an infield position other than 2B. The thing is, at a high level, Dozier makes a lot more sense for the Cardinals than he does the Dodgers. For one thing, St. Louis doesn't have an unlimited payroll and really broke the bank last year, only to miss the playoffs. Dozier's affordability is a bigger deal to them than the LAD, even if the Dodgers notionally would like to cut their luxury tax bill. The Cardinals also occupy a much more precarious place than the Dodgers in terms of competitiveness. The Dodgers are already one of the two best teams in baseball, and their farm system will allow them to upgrade at the deadline as needed. The Cardinals are huge underdogs in their division, which is bad enough given the revised Wild Card, and still have to worry about the Pirates, plus the strong possibility of solid 2nd place finishers in the East and West. The team that could really use Dozier is the Royals, not that it would happen.
  21. drivlikejehu
    It's highly academic since there is no chance of any of them being dealt in the foreseeable future. Teams just don't operate that way, on top of the fact that the Twins are desperate for pitching. Because fans overrate their team's prospects, there often appears to be a "surplus" when in fact there is a severe deficit. The Twins could easily wind up with 0 starting pitchers out of that group of 5. The Twins need all the potential they can get, so as to maximize the chances of realizing actual production in the Majors.
  22. drivlikejehu
    I think the two approaches are overlapping. The Twins and Dodgers are a good match but, from the Dodgers' perspective, why surrender more future value than necessary to acquire Dozier? It's akin to the legal doctrine that taxpayers aren't required to pay more than the bare minimum they can achieve within the confines of the regulations. For an example, I think there's no doubt that the Rays knew all along that they had fleeced the Twins in the Garza-Young deal, even though on paper it was widely regarded by outsiders, including analytical commentators, as reasonably fair. The Rays' knowledge of Young led them to believe he would never fulfill his potential in the long-run, otherwise they never would have given him up for Garza in the first place. Now, the Dodgers (or any club) do not have an unlimited series of options in how to acquire talent via trade. Only certain teams will have what they want and be willing to deal, and the Dodgers themselves only have a finite number of prospects with any potential trade relevance. So that at least helps narrow the universe of possibilities and partially limits the Dodgers' ability to leverage information asymmetry. My point isn't to reach conclusions about this particular negotiation, to the extent it's ongoing, because I don't have the information necessary to do so. I do think that the underlying dynamics help explain why a deal hasn't happened.
  23. drivlikejehu
    Yeah that would probably be my over/under, not factoring in differences in future position.
  24. drivlikejehu
    Pitcher aging is tricky. It usually overlaps with a decline in velocity . . . but in Santana's case, velocity has been quite stable, fluctuating a bit but basically between 92-93 since 2008. His recorded velocity last year was higher than it was in 2009. Peavy's peak season was with a fastball averaging 94. Last year he was at 89. His loss of fastball velocity over the years is fully consistent with his decline in performance. Injuries of course are a major factor, whether impacting velocity or not, and are closely related to the declines of many veteran pitchers. So while Santana could go off the rails at any time, that's true of basically any pitcher. His unusual career progression limits the degree to which age itself should be seen as a risk factor independent of injury.
  25. drivlikejehu
    That's not going to be close to the actual 2020 lineup.
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