2018-19 Offseason Thread
- Thread starter Devizier
- Start date
In the proud tradition of Gedman, Hatteberg, Shoppach, and Hanigan. Will he be playing some catcher?
I mean if Harold Baines is getting into the HOF than Dewey should be right around the corner.
Considering that Dewey's credited with 67.1 WAR and Baines with only 38.7, it would if the Hall worked that way.
Hopefuly he's as successful as the last Sox LHP to wear it. 214 ERA+ / 1.69 FIP / 0.818 WHIP / 4.0 K/BB
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mccarda01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mccarda01.shtml
Excuse me?Haha, the first two were before my time, but how could I forget Monty's helmet hat???
Dave Winfield is sitting in the Hall with a 64.2 WAR while Dewey was dumped quickly from balloting. WTF was that all about?
Winfield retired with 3,110 hits when nobody had ever even heard of Wins Above Replacement, it’s not that difficult.
3,110 hits
465 home runs
1,833 rbi
one of the best defensive RF ever with an absolute cannon for an arm
12-time all-star
7 times top 10 in MVP voting
Yeah in an age before advanced metrics and WAR (and back when RBI mattered), Winfield being in the HOF was an absolute no-brainer lock. Not even remotely a difficult call for him to be in the HOF.
Spring training is less than two weeks away now, and Machado, Harper, and Kimbrel are still all unsigned. This has to be the latest in the offseason that star players like this are still unsigned, right?
EDIT: Keuchel as well. (Buchholz too!
)
EDIT: Keuchel as well. (Buchholz too!
)
Does JD Martinez count as a "star" player for this question? He signed a week after camp opened last year.Spring training is less than two weeks away now, and Machado, Harper, and Kimbrel are still all unsigned. This has to be the latest in the offseason that star players like this are still unsigned, right?
EDIT: Keuchel as well. (Buchholz too!
I've wondered about this too, which is why I always source it to what Farrell himself said.
Like, it seems entirely plausible that, especially when you throw in things like who the opposition is and who's hot and not on the other teams, the sample sizes start getting really small and dominated by that luck element.
I think the alternate hypothesis that they really don't know, middle reliever success is wildly probablistic even compared to other positions in the game, and we just credit or blame FOs after the fact based on semi-random outcomes may be valid.
That would seem to support the spaghetti-on-the-wall approach as valid, wouldn't it?
Thoughts?
Also Darvish and Hosmer signed 9 figure deals last February, this may just be the new normal for this awful CBA.
A little research just revealed to me that while #10 has had a bunch of catchers, nothing beats #39 as the number for Red Sox scrub catchers: Tim Blackwell, Bo Diaz, Creighton Gubanich, Joe Oliver, Andy Dominique, Salty, and my own beloved avatar. Monty himself wore #39 as a rookie in 1970 before getting promoted to #10.
And with 12,358 plate appearances and 22 years of MLB play, he led the league in runs batted in in 1979. Oh, and total bases and intentional walks that year, also. Through the 1979 season, Jim Rice (who began his career the year after Winfield did), had led the league in hits, triples, home runs twice, RBI, SLG twice, OPS, total bases three times. Admittedly, his MVP year accounted for a lot of those but his career was several years shorter than Winfield's.
To me, Winfield is a classic case of a player who was good enough to have a very long career, which led to 3000+ hits (an automatic entry). From 1871, on, there have been 21 players who have had at least 12,000 PA in their career, 14 of whom have been elected to the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Omar Vizquel, and Pete Rose are four who are not in the Hall while Alex Rodriguez, Adrian Beltre, and Derek Jeter are not yet eligible because they haven't been retired long enough, yet. Bonds and Vizquel had fewer than 3000 hits. Bonds's home run total would make up for that were it not for other issues, which Palemiro and Rodriguez also will face.
Vizquel was 123 hits short of 3000 for his career but he only averaged about 246 PA per year for his last five seasons. If he had gotten those hits, would he have been elected to the Hall? Well, Brooks Robinson got in with 2848 career hits while batting five points lower lifetime than Vizquel did.
What do you do with the Hall of Fame? You have players who compiled "sacred numbers" because they played a long time. You have players with "sacred percentages" compiled in eras when the game was very different. You compare pitchers from an era when a club might only have three on the roster to a time when there are 12 to 13 pitchers. You accept the status quo or build your own Hall.
I'm digging your updated signature. Top notch.
Edit... just noticed it was from 2017! Worth adding 1/20/19?...
I picked up the same jersey a couple months ago. I think it’s even cooler now.Fuck...I just ordered this yesterday...
kidding
So why is his career WAR so "low"? Defense...along with his great lifetime assist total of 166 came his statuesque ability to go get them and a lifetime BDWAR of -22.7. Dewey had a positive DWAR and that's why he surpassed Winfield in overall WAR. How many of the current writers that have a HOF vote dig this stuff out? Apparently with Baines getting in, not enough.
Of course both these guys played before today's advanced defensive metrics, so their DWAR is based on Total Zone Rating, which as I understand it is way better than flipping a coin, but still a pretty blunt and potentially misleading instrument. So there's that. But it's probably true that his defense was always a bit overrated in the way good hitters' defense often is, and certainly I think there's reason to view the 5 Gold Gloves he won after age 30 with a jaundiced eye.
How do they measure defensive range from decades ago like that? Even current public defensive metrics can be pretty flawed, really not sure how much stock we should be putting in retroactive defensive numbers from the seventies and eighties (but am willing to hear I'm wrong if I am).
Edit: Crosspost with Savin, that helps.
Edit: Crosspost with Savin, that helps.
Well, I’d put it into reducto ad absurdum professor and say that there has to be some minimum level of talent that makes it possible to survive right? No one would suggest the Red Sox look for a guy off the street and put him in the bullpen, or sign that woman from Japan who pitched in Indy Leagues a few years ago. And, on the other side, you can’t tell me that there’s no meaningful difference in the error bars around the projection for Kenley Jansen and the projection for Brian Johnson. So, clearly, the difference in “stuff” matters a lot to the reasonable projection. And, once you conclude that, I think you have to base your middle relief decisions on “stuff” not numbers. Think Aceves in 2011 vs Aceves in 2012 against Melancon 2011 vs Melancon 2012. Which of those two players would you have expected to have been best in 2013?I've wondered about this too, which is why I always source it to what Farrell himself said.
Like, it seems entirely plausible that, especially when you throw in things like who the opposition is and who's hot and not on the other teams, the sample sizes start getting really small and dominated by that luck element.
I think the alternate hypothesis that they really don't know, middle reliever success is wildly probablistic even compared to other positions in the game, and we just credit or blame FOs after the fact based on semi-random outcomes may be valid.
That would seem to support the spaghetti-on-the-wall approach as valid, wouldn't it?
Thoughts?
Waiting to see if there's a good reason to address this after Sunday...
The gold gloves were most likely due to his assist totals: 13 or more in 6 different seasons. Oh, his hitting also.
(I know you know something about this stuff, JA, but I'm just compiling it in one place because others may find it useful.)
TotalZone is actually quite clever. It's based on batter-fielder pairs, using play-by-play data, i.e: Bottom 1 1-2. 0 outs, runner on 1st. Enrique Hernandez vs. David Price. Ground Ball Double Play, 543, ball hit to SS-3B hole. They take averages for the number of balls hit to each position by each batter, and then use that to produce a denominator against which to measure the recorded outcomes, and credit or debit each fielder accordingly in run values. It makes no distinctions about the difficulty of plays, defensive positioning, or the various weird situations that can happen on balls in play: left fielder runs into the wall and falls down, ball is fielded by the center fielder backing up... TotalZone only knows about what's in the play-by-play data. So yeah, it's really noisy, but when you consider that it's jury-rigged out of the data available, it's extremely impressive work.
More modern systems are based on video scouting. Baseball Info Solutions hires interns to watch games and code the zones where hits fell or plays were made, as well as a bit more information (angle, speed, etc.), so this allows them to grade the outs by difficulty, distinguishing a routine grounder to SS from a tough play deep in the hole or a can of corn fly ball from a diving catch in the gap or a robbed HR. They've now been doing this for about a decade, so they have populated a large universe of plays to get a sense of the rarity (and thus value!) of a particular play. Ultimate Zone Rating and Defensive Runs Saved are different metrics derived from this data, according to methodologies that differ in ways I only partly understand.
And then the *really* modern systems are based on StatCast information: Not just where did the ball land, but how far did the fielder have to run from where he was positioned? Not just was it a a popup or a fly ball or a fliner or a line drive, but what was the launch angle, and how long was the ball in the air to the fraction of a second? This allows them to populate a universe of comparably challenging plays that allows them to say that a player just made a catch that is made only 19% of the time or whatever.
The opposite side of this is that a player's batting/pitching prowess or already possessing a Gold Glove seems to be a factor in getting one. After winning Gold Gloves in 1997 and 1998 at first base, Rafael Palmeiro won again in 1999 despite playing only 28 games at that position. Jim Kaat won 16 times as a pitcher and Greg Maddux, 18. Is it hard to believe that there may have been other pitchers during their time frames who might have been better? Then there was a few years in during which the Gold Glove awards for outfielders did not differentiate between LF/CF/RF and all went to center fielders.
Fielding is impossible to track across the ages. Even if there was video of all the games, you still would have to make adjustments for equipment, day games doing into twilight, the grooming of the fields (in addition to better drainage, mowing, infield dirt, you have to contend with clubs having different mounds--height, slope, manipulation of foul lines in the infield to help keep balls fair or make them go foul, and like things. STATcast may be the answer but it would help if the data were made available to all as PITCHf/x was.
I haven’t really put much stock in to the Gold Glove award winners since 2002. That season ARod won the award at SS. He had 10 errors in 741 chances for a fielding percentage of .987 and had a total fielding runs above average of 1. That same season Mike Bordick of Baltimore made 1 error in 570 chances, percentage of .998 and had a rtot of 18. Granted I’m biased as I played HS ball with him, but it really seemed like a joke from then on.
Rafael Palmeiro laughs. He won the GG at 1b in 1999 playing 28 games at 1b and 128 at DH.
With JT Realmuto heading to Philadelphia, which teams might now be interested in trading for one of the Sox catchers (assuming one is truly available)?
Looking at Alfaro's numbers, unless he's a defensive butcher, nobody who has him is going to be interested in one of our guys.
Honestly, I think the prospects for getting more than a bag of balls for any of our Cs are pretty dim at this point.
The same teams interested before Realmuto was traded. I can't imagine acquiring one of the Sox catchers would have taken any team out of the running for Realmuto. If they wanted one of them, they'd have pulled the trigger by now.
Martin Maldonado, Devin Mesoraco, and Matt Wieters are all still available too. Don't think the Sox catchers are in much demand.
It's pretty clear that people have enormous recency bias with Sale and the injury shortened 2018 season. He's third in fangraph WAR since the 2012 season for starting pitchers behind Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer.
His K rates have exploded his walk rate is insanely low and he's 29. The amount of pitchers out there with his ability, performance, and long track record really just don't come available often.
His K rates have exploded his walk rate is insanely low and he's 29. The amount of pitchers out there with his ability, performance, and long track record really just don't come available often.
It’s not just the injury of last year. It’s the consistent and predictable 2nd half decline he suffers each year.
And yes, recency bias should be a thing when it comes to injuries. Especially since we have no idea what actually happened, how it healed, or if it is a one time thing or the beginning of a new trend thanks to his recent uptick in velocity. And oh by the way, is he actually better now? I mean, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?
"Recency bias"? He hurt his shoulder. We have no idea how the injury will affect him going forward, but its immediate impact was a 5-mph decrease in FB velocity and a non-trivial decrease in effectiveness, culminating in notable struggles in the postseason. I don't think there's anything remotely irrational about wanting to see his bounceback before we invest in it.
I’m guessing if we agree to a deal that it’ll be confirmed after the season begins so the new AAV kicks in next year instead of this year.
Also if Werner is saying this, it must mean that it’s close. I’m sure they have extension talks with every player every year but no point in mentioning anything unless it’s close.
Also if Werner is saying this, it must mean that it’s close. I’m sure they have extension talks with every player every year but no point in mentioning anything unless it’s close.