Otto von Ballpark

There is no report that Darvish is "asking" for 7/175, just that he wants something "closer" to that than to the 5 year offer on the table. So he is likely still just asking for that 6th year, as has been suggested all along. If the Twins were really prepared to spend 6/160, this could be over by now. And I doubt the rumored 7/160 Yankee offer was true, that would have put them over the luxury tax threshold. If it was contingent on another team taking Ellsbury's contract, then it was effectively not a real offer.

I agree, as long as he doesn't have anything greater than a 5 year offer, there shouldn't be any need to go beyond 6. I guess I was thinking, what if the Cubs finally relented with a final offer of 6/160, and we were given one last chance to top it.

Would you consider 7/175? If you consider 6/160 kind of "market rate" (per MLBTR and ZiPS, anyway), it doesn't seem unreasonable to maybe tack on a little extra to actually bring him to Minnesota, does it? Although if he wouldn't sign today for 6/160, after this crazy offseason, I'd really question whether he wanted to come to Minnesota at all. But he seems like a cool dude, and if he performs well out of the gate, that would probably help everybody get acclimated nicely (as opposed to the Ricky Nolasco opening gambit ).

I didn't want to start another Darvish thread with no news, so I'll just put his here. In his age-30 season, Darvish posted 3.5 fWAR and 4.0 RA9-WAR (basically the Fangraphs version of bWAR, using actual runs allowed instead of FIP) over 31 starts. From age 25-30, those figures averaged 4.5 and 4.7, respectively, per 31 starts. So I grabbed a list over every MLB starting pitcher in the expansion era (1961-2017) who fell in that range for age 30 (minimum 100 IP), and also for age 25-30 (minimum 600 IP, an average of 100 per year). The range I used was plus or minus 1 WAR, and I used it across both fWAR and RA9-WAR. So the age 30 seasons had to fall between 2.5 and 5.0 (per 31 starts) for both fWAR and RA9-WAR, and the age 25-30 seasons had to fall between 3.5 and 5.7 (per 31 starts) for both metrics too. Basically, I wanted to get a gauge of quality. (I'll address quantity later.) The result was a list of 32, after I excluded David Price (who only just completed his first post-30 season) and kept Verlander and Greinke where appropriate (who already have 7 post-30 seasons between them). A.J. Burnett Andy Messersmith Bob Veale Brad Radke Camilo Pascual Charles Nagy Chris Bosio Dave Goltz Dennis Leonard Don Drysdale Erik Hanson Fergie Jenkins Jered Weaver Jim Bunning Jimmy Key John Lackey Justin Verlander Kelvim Escobar Kevin Tapani Larry Jackson Mark Buehrle Pat Dobson Rick Reuschel Rick Wise Roy Oswalt Sonny Siebert Steve Carlton Steve Rogers Teddy Higuera Tommy John Vida Blue Zack Greinke Now, I wondered, how did this group fare in their careers over the next 6 years? Here are some stats about them for that period (ages 31-36): Median total fWAR: 12.25 (Lackey/Oswalt) Median total RA9-WAR: 11.4 (Radke and Tapani!) Median fWAR per 31 starts: 2.7 (Burnett/Buehrle) Median RA9-WAR per 31 starts: 2.75 (Buehrle/Lackey) For those wondering, only one player on this list accumulated negative WAR from 31-36 (Dave Goltz, with -0.7 RA9-WAR, although +3.3 fWAR). In terms of quality, these figures look in line with my rough aging projection for Darvish, starting with 4.4 WAR per 31 GS based on his 2018 ZiPS projection, and deducting 0.8 WAR each season going forward: 2018: 4.4 2019: 3.6 2020: 2.8 2021: 2.0 2022: 1.2 2023: 0.4 That's a total of 14.4 WAR, and an average of 2.4 per year. (Would look better if you stopped at 5 years, of course: an average of 2.8 per year.) There are obviously busts in this group (Jered Weaver), and success stories, but looking at the median performance results, it does appear that my rough projection passes a kind of sanity test. Now, to deal with quantity -- Darvish missed roughly 2 seasons worth of starts from age 25-30. Burnett missed a comparable quantity of time, and 3 others missed roughly a season, but the other 28 on this list were pretty healthy from 25-30 (although a few were in the minors or swingmen for part of that time too). However, another 7 went on to miss basically a full season by age 33 (including Tommy John himself!). So it's not clear at this point whether Darvish is really less durable than this group, or if he and AJ Burnett just had unfortunate timing to have their mid-career injuries just before 30 rather than just after. Obviously to really project health and durability, you'd probably need access to a lot of data that I don't have (and know how to analyze it!).

Well, if we take the front office at their word, they have maintained interest in Darvish all winter, even with offers apparently around 5/125. That suggests they don't have too many doubts about the value of Darvish -- and they probably have enough concerns about the state of our starting pitching that we need more than just a Tillman type. Or, if we doubt their word, they have exaggerated their interest in Darvish for PR gain, but I hope not.

I don't think he is asking for $175 mil yet -- the report Nick linked said he wanted something "closer" to 7/175 than the reported 5 year, ~$125 mil offers so far. That could just mean 6/150 or 6/160 (which is what MLBTR predicted at the beginning of the offseason, by the way), and perhaps invoking 7/175 makes 6/150 seem more reasonable.

Maybe we should be scouting the California Penal League for a new pitcher too?

With the relatively small number of players that trickle out into the FA market each year, I think you have to time your splash more by its availability than by the clarity of your needs. (That said, I doubt our SP needs will be meaningfully reduced by next winter anyway, assuming we fail to land Darvish this winter.)

Back to the title of this post: how high would folks go for Darvish? The OP mentioned 5 years, $150 mil. How about that? MLBTR predicted, and ZiPS projected, at the start of the offseason that Darvish would get 6 years for about $160 mil. Would you do that? Nick linked a Heyman piece that referenced the Strasburg deal, 7 years, $175 mil. Would anyone do that? Would it change things if you knew it wasn't merely a bid that the Cubs could match, but rather he was ready to sign immediately with the Twins at these terms? Say, 6/160 or even 7/175 for a done deal, today? I am curious. At the start of the offseason, I was hoping we'd make a competitive pursuit of Darvish, but the more I have read, the more I really like him. And I wonder, if the Twins are really serious about him, maybe he is worth a premium just to get it done. And while the price could be lower if we wait this out, a lower price would also probably attract more suitors and give Darvish more options to choose over us. (I could see the Angels being a factor at some point.) If the "best deal" isn't in the cards for us, could it be worth it to settle for a lesser deal but actually land the best player?

You're much more confident than I am that the Twins can figure out a lot about their internal SP candidates in a single season. None of their SP prospects even have any meaningful AAA experience yet. They might debut later in 2018 but I don't think we'll be confident enough in any of them to lessen our need for external reinforcements before 2019.

As it relates to Darvish? Sure. As it relates to 40 year olds, or 20 year olds? No, not here anyway.

Nobody is doing that. The 0.5 (or 0.8 for pitchers) is an approximation of the aging curve for players around 30. No projection system is applying that same aging figure to 40 year olds, or 20 year olds. Nobody here is even discussing 40 year olds or 20 year olds, this was just about Darvish and the other ~30 year old FA pitchers.

Projection systems have aging curves, not WAR. WAR is just a metric for player performance. Many projection systems can express their results in terms of WAR. Minus-0.5 WAR is just the approximation of a yearly performance reduction for an early 30's player. It is not any part of WAR, but it would be part of a projection system expressing itself in terms of WAR. I will amend my earlier statement, I think 0.5 is the approximation for position players, but 0.8 might be more appropriate for pitchers (I just read an analyst using those two figures). So let's take a projection system, like ZiPS. Given 31 starts, it has Darvish pegged at 4.4 WAR for 2018. So the multiyear projection with the aging curve is as follows: 2018: 4.4 2019: 3.6 2020: 2.8 2021: 2.0 2022: 1.2 That's a total of 14 WAR over the next 5 years. That's not great, but keep in mind it's just a median projection. Darvish may do better, he may do worse, but this represents our best guess right now. And it's very basic/crude. An actual multi-year projection by a system like ZiPS would apply a more precise aging factor to each of Darvish's peripherals (K rate, batted ball profile, etc.), and then come up with a total WAR value based on those peripherals. I think that would actually help Darvish, as ZiPS apparently projects him as worth a 6 year, $156 million contract this offseason.

You are losing me here. - WAR doesn't have anything to do with "risk", it isn't a projection system. - The rough aging curve I mentioned is not 5%, it is 0.5. - It's only generally applied to multiyear projections of free agents around age 30, so it doesn't have to fit all age groups. I would cite a specific, custom multi-year projection for players outside that age range, like for Bryce Harper. Or just laugh for Bartolo Colon. - And because 0.5 is constant, while the player's projected WAR declines yearly, the 0.5 becomes a progressively larger percentage decline each year. Hence the "curve". - And the aging curves already include players who wash out of MLB, by virtue of including the decline which precipitates their exit. Like I mentioned before, Mike Pelfrey is already in the aging curve calculation for crashing from age 32 to age 33. And that in turn is baked into Darvish's projection going from age 32 to age 33. There is no reason to discount Darvish further once he reaches age 34+ just because Pelfrey didn't make it to age 34+. With his exit at 33, Pelfrey is no longer a comparable for Darvish at 34+, just like Shooter Hunt was no longer a comparable for him once Darvish reached the majors, and just like I was no longer a comparable for him once Darvish made his junior high team. (And for all we know, if given the chance, Pelfrey wouldn't have performed any worse at age 34 than he did at 33 -- he was kicked out because it was bad enough already, not because it was sure to drop further. Pelfrey posting the same negative 1.2 WAR at age 34 as he did at 33 would actually make a less steep aging curve, but you wouldn't want to use that to project that anyone else should perform roughly the same at age 34 as they did at 33!) These aging curves are calculated based on thousands of careers and player seasons, and sudden career enders are the exception, not the rule. We didn't discount Torii Hunter's projections every year past 35 because hey, Kirby Puckett got glaucoma. The vast majority of careers end like Mike Pelfrey's with a reduction in on-field performance, which is already accounted for in the aging curves. You are certainly free to disagree with a projection when making your own prediction, folks do it all the time, but that doesn't mean the projection doesn't have a valid basis. I'll bow out of this tangent now.

You seem very concerned about the uncertainty in Darvish's performance projection, but at the same time you seem to completely disregard the future uncertainty of your proposed alternative. Darvish isn't perfect, but part of the benefit of signing him now is that "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Even after they sign Darvish, if circumstances change (whether about Darvish's performance, the rest of the roster, external factors around the division or league), the team could always approve a payroll increase, become more aggressive about promoting or dealing prospects, etc. (Even with Darvish, they will be gaining significant payroll flexibility the next couple offseasons.) But if they pass now, they won't be able to jump back and sign Darvish -- they will be fully at the mercy of external forces presenting an opportunity to address this need.

Do you have a cite for any of that? It doesn't seem to conform to any published baseball analysis or observable baseball market behavior. It is certainly possible that Darvish posts a cumulative negative WAR over the next 5 years. But no projection system will say that is the most probable outcome, or even a particularly likely one (given that his first year, the one where our projection carries the greatest confidence, is already 3.6 WAR -- heck, he would probably be permanently DL'ed before he could accumulate enough negative WAR in subsequent years to offset that. Even Barry Zito wound up with +3 WAR for his San Francisco years). The -0.5 WAR per year aging curve is not "based on age 27", it is chained from year to year (age 31-32, age 32-33, etc.). It accelerates with age in a multiyear projection because 0.5 WAR represents an increasingly larger share of the yearly diminishing WAR totals. I'm also not sure about your take on survivorship. When we project how a 30 year old player in MLB will perform at age 31, we want to compare him to other 30 year old players in MLB who likewise survived to play at age 31. Guys who washed out at 28 or 25 (or 14, like me ) are no longer relevant. Guys who washed out between age 30 and 31 presumably did so because of their poor age 30 performance or health, which is something that our returning age 30 player has already overcome. It's not some random event between November and March that we have to account for. And in a multiyear projection, those dropouts are already accounted for in their final season performance. For example, the aging curve applying to Darvish's 2020, age 33 season right now will already include Mike Pelfrey's craptastic final season age 33 performance. And because the projections are done on a year by year basis, with one year's projection carrying over as the basis for the next, it affects his future years too. There is no need to apply any additional penalty/correction to Darvish just because Pelfrey washed out at that point. Also the effect of survivorship bias as players leave the league may actually make for a slightly too-steep aging curve, as described here: https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/how-do-baseball-players-age-part-2/

The Stanton trade was great (for them!), but they pretty much used up all their flexibility to do it.

That assumes Cobb and Lynn are willing to move much at this point. If Darvish gets 6 years, Cobb and Lynn probably think they could leverage that into 5 year deals for themselves. With a ton of guys still unsigned, there is not much risk for Cobb and Lynn to continue to wait too. Also, the Yankees talk around Darvish is just that, talk. Same for the Dodgers. There is no way those teams can move the Ellsbury or Kemp contracts at this point, and they need to reset the luxury tax penalties before next offseason.

I will give you some credit if you are willing to deal Lewis-plus, but you still have to name specific potential targets if you want to convince anyone that it's clearly a better path than Darvish. The common name is Chris Archer, but is he really any better than Darvish? Peaked at 4.3 WAR, and has posted only 1.8 and 1.2 the last 2 seasons at age 27-28. Michael Fulmer, 3.9 WAR last season. Would Detroit trade him within the division? Fulmer has 5 years of control left so Detroit is in no hurry to deal him. (His 2017 season also ended early due to elbow trouble.) James Paxton, 3.9 WAR last year. Already 29 years old, only 3 years control left, has yet to top 136 IP. Missed time with a "forearm strain" last year. Marcus Stroman, hit 5.8 WAR last year, although that could be his peak, he was a lot lower than that previously, and his peripherals only suggested 3.4 fWAR (Fangraphs WAR, based on FIP rather than ERA). 3 years of control left. The Jays are trying to contend, not sure how eager they will be sell assets. Am I missing anyone? When you factor in the risk of waiting (some of these teams might become contenders and not want to sell, the pitchers in question might sign extensions with their current clubs, the Twins might fall short of contention themselves due to a lack of SP early in the season, Lewis might get hurt or regress a bit and lose value as our premier trade chip), it is not clear to me at all that this is a better or safer plan than simply ponying up the dough for Darvish today.

Yup, that is basically his MLB season average WAR so far. And even that contains almost another full season lost to rehabbing the same TJ injury/surgery over 2014 and 2016. Per 31 starts, he is at 4.6 WAR for his career so far.

Tommy John surgery is not a "trend." And simply because of the timing, NOT the severity, it affected 3 seasons for Darvish. TJ surgery is a consideration on its own, of course, but it is worth noting that Darvish has returned from it without missing a beat so far: 6.5 WAR in 48 starts over a season and a half, which is right in line with his Steamer projection for 2018. I am sure he will miss some time in the future too, but simply projecting his 2 seasons out of the last 4 missed from TJ is a crude and likely incorrect way to account for that. If you want to account for health and aging, a rule of thumb WAR aging curve is to subtract 0.5 WAR each year. Starting at 3.8 WAR in 2018 (Steamer projection over 31 starts) and subtracting 0.5 each year, he would be at 14 WAR after 5 years. On a $125 mil contract, that would represent about $8 mil per win, or roughly market rate. And that's not really an optimistic projection, just a baseline.

I also realized in the other thread that Steamer projects Cobb and Lynn to about 3.8 WAR combined in 2018 (prorated to 31 starts each, or 62 total), and Darvish at 3.8 WAR per 31 starts all by himself. The latter would be significantly more valuable than the former.

Check out WAR. It is not as context-dependent as ERA. By B-Ref, Darvish peaked at 6 WAR, and has been a ~4 WAR pitcher (full season pace) each year of his MLB career, even the last 2 seasons after his surgery. 4 WAR is basically the same as Ervin each of the last two years. Roughly the 20th most valuable pitching performance in any given season. On the open market, at $7 mil per win, that's worth about $28 mil. Steamer has Darvish pegged around the same 4 WAR next year too, meaning it hasn't seen any strong signs of decline yet in his peripherals. By comparison, Lynn and Cobb peaked close to 4 WAR pre-surgery and were both at 3 or below last year. Steamer has Lynn and Cobb projected at about 2 WAR each next year. 2 WAR is roughly the 90th most valuable pitching performance in any given season. The Twins have received similar performances recently from the likes of Tommy Milone in 2015, and Kevin Correia in 2013. (For those advocating for Cobb plus Lynn over Darvish, note that 4 WAR is more valuable coming from one roster spot than from two.)

The universe of baseball players who are that good is quite small. There may only be one player who meets your "best chance later" criteria, and you may be competing with more teams for his services. Heck, there may be zero such players.

Sure. But we don't need him to improve from 31 to 37 to get value out of the contract. If he can stay a 4 WAR pitcher for just a few more years, and tack on some 1-2 WAR seasons at the end, that will work just fine.