old nurse

You don't need much for statistics to understand the value of a David Price nor to understand that Hector Noesi had a bad season. The issue would be assessing the relative values of the middle of the pack. Baseball remaina a team sport. Not many pitchers have every skill. The factors of your home park and defense of the players behid the pitcher would influence a team's opinion of the value of the player. Putting a player in a position to succede will influence the outcomes measured by WAR. David Price would pitch completely differently to a major league team with major leagures behind him than a bunch of little leaguers. How your team plays behind you will change how you pitch. You cannot isolate that. The pitcher in WAR is deducted for giving up a home run. Is there a stat that says every home run was a mistake pitch? ANd yes 85% correlation is good, not excellent. It is leaving a lot of room for error. The variabilty of WAR from year to year is either the player is inconsistent, or the stat is.

So if your measurement is incorrect 15% of the time that is good? Where in there does WAR measure the mistake pitches that end up multiple hits in the inning. The inabi;ity to hold a runner on base? The ability to make someone hit weak grounders? How good a pitcher is is again a component of skill sets that correlate with their teammate's skills. What you can do with your skill does depend on the rest of the team. To only look at one component to compare is half blind.

[TABLE=width: 100%] [TR=class: ysptblthbody1] [TD=class: yspdetailttl, align: left] Date[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl, align: left]Opponent[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl, align: left]Score[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]Dec[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]IP[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]H[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]R[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]ER[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]HR[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]BB[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]K[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]W[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]L[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]SV[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]BS[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]HLD[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]IP[/TD] [TD=class: yspdetailttl]ERA[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: ysprow1] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left] Sep 26[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left]NYY[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left]L 2-8[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]-[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]1.2[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]2[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]2[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores] [/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]6[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]5[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]79.0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]4.44[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores] [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: ysprow2] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left] Sep 22[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left]@ DET[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left]L 0-8[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]L[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]2.1[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]7[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]7[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]7[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]2[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]3[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]1[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores] [/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]6[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]5[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]77.1[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]4.54[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores] [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: ysprow1] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left] Sep 15[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left]CHW[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left]L 3-5[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]L[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]4.0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]3[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]4[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]4[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]1[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]5[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]6[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores] [/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]6[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]4[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]75.0[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores]3.84[/TD] [TD=class: yspscores] [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: ysprow2] [TD=class: yspscores, align: left] Deduno's last three major league starts. Don't read about him tearing up winterball either.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

By comparing dollar ammounts from free agents that switched teams

What possible upside does Duensing, Deduno or DeVries have? Last year was an extended enough period of time each showed what they could do as a starter. Duensing was put back in the bullpen, Deduno regressed as the season wore on. DeVries does a workman like effort but appears to be a 5 inning 6th starter.

They perused Buerhle for 2012. What other free agent that was obtainable (ie no Cliff Lee) would have you gone for and what was their 2012 result?

Since the thread was on pitching. Fangraphs defines a good to great pitcher as one with a WAR above 3. There was only 35 of them last year in the majors, 46 the year before. A solid starter as one with a WAR of 2-3. There was only 36 of those last year, 21 the year before. Given those numbers are from fangraphs they should meet your standard. Random clicking on the names on the solid range of players reveals that either these pitchers are really inconsistent as their WAR score fluctuates widely, or there is an issue with the metric.

Jay, as bad as people want to quantify things, some things you can't without subjectivity. When there is subjectivity, there is error.

Ninth year will be the charm? He has been working on pitching for 9 years between the majors and the minors.

I believe that Heyman used the numbers posted on fangraphs. Having a problem with the inaccuracies of WAR?

What free agent pitcher out there has consistently won more than a dozen games per year? What are you expecting a team devoid of tradeable talent to do? Are you even aware that Pelfey pre injury won 15 games for a bad Mets team, Correia at least pitched .500 and 10+ wins on some very bad teams. Diamond won 12 games last year. Based on past performances , what are you basing your claim on? That the rest of the team is less talented?

To me, the concept of WAR is not bad, the method of the computation is the problem. Heyman had to say this on WAR Jamey Carroll has a better WAR than Derek Jeter, 2.6 to 2.5. That's absurd. And Denard Span has a better WAR than Josh Hamilton, 4.0 to 3.7. Even more ridiculous. And Heymen supports the concept

Given the history of injuries and ineffectiveness the Blue Jays would need to keep all of their pitchers.

I think it is a nice idea except for the fact that there isn't a correlation between WAR and actual wins.

2011 class of free agent pitchers Buerle WAR 3.6 14/yr ave CJ Wilson 6.1 15 Edwin Jackson 3.9 11 Kuroda 2.2 and 10 The fifth best starter per espn that pitched last year was Bedard 2.3 4.5. I doubt you could run statistics on that small of sample to come up with a reliability number, but the millions per WAR for the best five last year are variable.

In regarding correlations one must remember the number of burglaries and ice cream sales correlate. Does the metric measure what it says it does? The accuracy of the number for an individual as well as for a team may be way off. The reliability number for WAR and actual wins by a pitcher is so variable to render it moot. The 4 season long starters for the Angels finished with a record of 54-41 combined war of 6.4. According to WAR, 4 replacement pitchers would finish 48-48 with that team. In a study of replacement level pitchers across the major leagues they found the win percentage of replacement level pitchers to be .430, or 5 wins. As a descriptor of the season, WAR would be significantly off

So Thomas is your 4th outfielder. What is the problem with that?

Garry Gaetti was bad until he got good. Then he tried to throw the ball when his hands were on his throat. Sadly, the rest is history.

Jason Vorhees might also be available.

ERA does not correlate at all well to salary levels. The question of the thread was about metrics correlating to salary. War does not correlate to what actually happened in the season in terms of wins nor does it appear to correlate to salary. IMO there is no metric yet devised to tell you wether or not you got a good deal on a pitcher.

The best way to get a good free agent contract appears to be to have two teams interested in you. If you strike out batters and don't walk many or give up many home runs you will have a high WAR. Little things like actually winning games means nothing in WAR. Yet if you win a lot of games, you are viewed as valuable yet Jared Weaver has a low WAR despite winning 20 games. (And do you really think a replacement player would have won 17 in his place? Fangraphs had Dempster a 3.3. His contract was nowhere near 16.5. Dan Haren with a 10 year career, averages 3.85 WAR and got 12.5 million. So what pitchers are actually paid is not based on WAR. What players are paid is of no consequence when your team is winning

Why these types of players have to be signed is attributable to the lack of development of the outfielders drafted by the Twins. That someone would think they would block the development of a player the Twins have invested millions in is entertaining. Many of theses minor league FA will be a FA again depending on the development of the Twins. It is not inconceivable that Hicks, Benson, and Arcia would be up with the big league club in May whenever their super 2 time has passed. Then they would need the Thomas types unless Ramirez, Wilkins and Ray show so much at AA that they need to be promoted. Highly unlikely

Is a good free agent pitcher one who has won more games than they lost? Pitches every 5th day for 6 innings? Or is the sole determinant of a good pitcher their ERA or xfip? Fangraphs calls a good player one with a WAR above three. For pitchers that would have been Sachez and Grienke. Neither were going to come here. Sanchez used the Cubs to get his deal with Detroit. There is no middle infield help that qualifies as a good player. So is your definition of good one that is average?

Tis the season to be jolly. Can people here find yet another thing to complain about (see random observation thread)?