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ashbury

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Everything posted by ashbury

  1. ashbury
    You know, it's funny, I actually had typed a few words about game-to-game variability, and then took them out because the thread is about Romero and this additional insight applies to any pitcher. So I weaseled with "*a* chief obstacle" and kept my post briefer. But you're right, construction of your staff needs to take into account that "no plan of battle survives first contact with the enemy." The fact that some innings are going to be higher-leverage than others, and you don't know in advance which ones they are, is also a confounding factor. Covering all the innings with quality pitching is hard. And that's why I am hesitant to lean too far in the direction away from quantity.
  2. ashbury
    Not to mention, his "nice" numbers in the majors were inflated by good home stats in Colorado and an OPS in the .600s on the road. He has really low odds of being called up for any reason in 2019.
  3. ashbury
    The one in the jeans.
  4. ashbury
    Yes. This is the fundamental challenge. And endurance versus peak performance (which differs from pitcher to pitcher) is a chief obstacle to easy solutions. You can't cover the innings with a staff of 1-inning max-effort guys, and you won't win with a bunch of innings eaters. And thus the dilemma with what to do with a high-end arm like Romero.
  5. ashbury
    That was my impression too, watching Duffey in a game at Pawtucket August 3. Unless his curveball is perfect, it is not of use, and hitters can sit on the fastball. And that day, his curveball was far from perfect. It was easy to forecast the game going down the drain as his stint proceeded, and that's indeed what happened. As the PawSox enjoyed a walk-off win on a homer during his second inning of work (after a tying solo shot off him in the eighth), the ever-tolerant Mrs Ash was subjected to my grumbling and I-told-you-soing.
  6. ashbury
    I try not to give in to paranoia too much of the time. But the Spotrac page that nicksaviking referenced elsewhere shows a current $94M payroll without Perez. This figure is for only 17 major league contracts currently in place. Given 8 more roster spots, that's another $4M and change, for the rookies and others with insufficient service time to demand more money. So the Perez signing looks awfully conveniently like the one that puts them safely over the $100M mark, which the FO probably views as a public relations benchmark that they dare not be below going into a season. Occasionally you hear one of the braintrust railing against calls to "just give away their money" or "spend just for the sake of spending", and yet this signing has the earmarks of exactly that. Like others here, I hope they have spotted something in spin-rate or whatever, that other teams missed with Perez, and he has a productive season. I'd rather that my suspicions not be true.
  7. ashbury
    So, we make no judgements, no forecasts, no guesses, whatsoever? Every candidate has an equal shot at contributing? That's what this sounds like.
  8. ashbury
    That ought to play well, when the front office then tries to negotiate a team-friendly contract extension that delays free agency by only a year or two.
  9. ashbury
    Smart money is on your saying it again.
  10. ashbury
    26 pitchers bugged me last year - they were evidently having trouble deciding wheat from chaff, not that I'm a better guesser. 20 now may be too low by a smidgen. Can we not swing to the extremes, please? I think I can see the logic behind all the outfielders, as they individually seem like they could contribute, and none of the ones at the bottom of the totem pole have trade value at the moment.
  11. ashbury
    OK, this will be for the stat geeks only, but since nobody here spoke up to point me in the right direction, I'll share that the nice folks at b-r.com told me how to properly use their Play Index database tools, without going as far as to tell me "Read The F[ine] Manual". The Batting Game Finder does just what I want - open two browser tabs, specifying 2018 in both, and specify >= 1 HR in one, and = 0 HR in the other. Easy peasy. RTFM indeed. So, in the 24 games he homered, Palka OPS'ed 1.729. That looks like a pretty typical number for anyone, given this underlying split. And in the 100 games he didn't homer, he OPS'ed .514. For comparison, Nelson Cruz was 1.901 / .521 respectively, in 33 / 111 games. I don't see enough difference to remark on. JD Martinez: 1.815 / .737 in 40 / 110 games. He did better in his "bad" games, and had relatively fewer of them in proportion. Fine season. Mike Trout: 2.042 / .715 in 35 / 105 games. Ditto and ditto. Miguel Sano: 1.413 / .485 in 13 / 58 games. A not fine season. His OPS in games-homered was one of the lowest in the majors. Byron Buxton: .000 / .393 in 0 / 28 games. A not fine season. Not hitting any homers is one indication, but he didn't measure up even in non-homer games. Anyway, with these benchmarks to go by, I can safely conclude that Daniel Palka had a better season than Sano or Buxton, and worse than Trout and Martinez. I doubt I'll pursue this any further since I didn't find anything pertinent about Palka, and nobody really cares anyway (very much a tangent), but it's kind of a fun thing to look at. For anyone who likes to slice and dice numbers, I really recommend paying baseball-reference.com for the Play Index.
  12. ashbury
    That is indeed the huge caveat. OTOH, if you look at Mookie Betts, he has had good WPA in line with his WAR and other numbers. I don't consider it a junk stat. Palka's OPS+ is kind of in line with the WPA. Again, ALL of his value is in his bat, so with WPA what you see is what you get. WPA isn't the hill I'd choose to die on. It's one indicator, that something happened during the season. And for that reason my mind isn't closed about Palka.
  13. ashbury
    OK, but league-wide, DHes combined for a .778 OPS. Palka's 2018 was, by coincidence, .778. As a team, the White Sox got only .725 out of that lineup spot. Simplistically, Palka full-time there would have lifted their production. Maybe this was Palka's career year. In that case, the story's over. If this is his baseline, he still won't last too long - roster/lineup construction isn't as simplistic as I laid out. But, if he has a career year still in him, at age 27, the story might turn out more interesting than we all had previously suspected.
  14. ashbury
    Agreed, that defensive skill makes a given player more valuable. But (and this is where I differ to a small degree with Riverbrian too), the league rules allow you to DH a player, every game. If you go to the extreme of having excellent Positional Flexibility for all the hitters on your 25-man roster, then by definition a very good glove (and whatever you "paid", in any sense, to have it) is wasted each and every game in the DH slot. For me, the value of Positional Flexibility is when it allows you to roster one (ONE) guy who has no defensive value, if his bat is strong enough. Nelson Cruz, for example. Is Palka that guy? Probably not. But it looks like his offensive contribution to the 2018 Sox was enough above average that I'm still in evaluation mode.
  15. ashbury
    I started to say something like this yesterday, but then looked a little deeper and decided to hold back. Palka had a few multi-HR games, so there were 24 games in which he hit a HR. That leaves an even 100 where he did not. Unfortunately b-r.com's excellent analysis tools didn't let me compute an OPS for those specific 100 games, and I didn't have the patience to try to compute it by hand. I wish my database skills were better, because it shouldn't be a hard thing to generate. So instead, I went to look at his Win Probability Added, a situational stat, expecting to find that it was close to zero if not downright negative. I mean, hitting the occasional homer, often in games where the outcome isn't going to be changed, shouldn't be too valuable - 16 of his 27 HR were solo shots, not an unusual ratio. To my surprise, he led his team in WPA. Now, that stat is offense-only, but it's kind of like a results-oriented WAR statistic as opposed to computing WAR from the individual stats (walks, doubles, etc). Apparently he was doing something to move the offense forward when it counted, and it might or might not be from just the home runs. Now, the White Sox weren't a good team, by a far stretch. For a team leader, WPA of 1.6 isn't high. But, it's not nothing either - unlike WAR, I believe 0.0 is about average, or even slightly above. Eddie Rosario led our Twins with 1.7 (again, it doesn't include any defensive value). The mighty Red Sox had 4 guys better in this stat. Bottom line, for me: I'm going to withhold judgement for another season. Stats can fluctuate, but it's possible that Palka can have value as a bat-only guy for a few seasons, in which case it'll be unfortunate to have misjudged with that waiver try.
  16. ashbury
    There's a school of thought in aeronautical engineering that if your wing design isn't developing enough lift then get a bigger jet engine and the wing will be just fine.
  17. ashbury
    That's nothing. I can saw a post in half, and put it back together in reverse order.
  18. ashbury
    It's better than a two-year contract, as well. Even a positive is taken as evidence for the opposite. Not that I disagree, of course. Cruz would be acceptable as the second-best signing of the off-season.
  19. ashbury
    Nelson Cruz is under control for two years. That's a start.
  20. ashbury
    I'd be interested to know the methodology of such studies. For instance if the same conclusion applies to high-school draftees, college draftees, and international signings. Also, how to separate talent from promotion speed - since a guy brought up to the majors at age 21 might be, you know, just really good in the first place - that seems the hard part, to me.
  21. ashbury
    I don't buy this. If you wait too long, he could wind up having a Hall of Fame career before you even get a chance to offer him the benefit of your wisdom.
  22. ashbury
    I hope they don't replace Robbie Grossman at all. Robbie had no useful role on the team.
  23. ashbury
    A big-time catcher is a rich team's luxury. Acquiring one consumes resources that could have been applied to someone who plays 150+ games a year or starts 32.
  24. ashbury
    Because the contract would be two years shorter and if he's still productive then that part of the contract is less risky than the entire one now. But that's the flaw in the other poster's argument. what if the first two years are when something bad happens. We may believe that risk is small, due to factors such as his current age. But it's not zero. If some other team can get the Twins to shoulder the risk now, and then take him off their hands when that initial risk has played out without harm, then it's a win for that other team versus just signing him to the same contract in the first place. Balancing that would be whatever benefit the Twins get from those two years. And, IF the front office believes that these next two years aren't likely to be competitive anyway, then the deal becomes Heads I Lose, Tails You Win - or maybe breakeven at best. I wouldn't go into a contract with a high end talent with that kind of scenario planning as the primary motivation. Do it for the purpose of making your team better now and for several seasons to come.
  25. ashbury
    If an opinion's misguided on a par with denying the color of the sky, a good rebuttal should be easy to write. Consider doing that, instead of implying that people ought to keep their thoughts to themselves. If the disagreement is more nuanced, then a good rebuttal is even more worth writing, as it may contribute to a worthwhile discussion. PS: the sky outside my window is currently rather gray, in contrast to the "blue" I keep reading about. Moderator's note: OK, I guess I've talked myself into realizing that what I'm really asking is to not threadjack this article with a tangent about positivity, negativity, sarcasm...
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