First off, this is wrong because all players on the 40 man roster count towards the tax. Craig wasnt optioned, he was outrighted off of the 40 man entirely.
I am happy to learn something today - didn't realize the full 40 man counted against the tax as opposed to the 25 man. In that case you're absolutely right, there are no additional tax savings. There is a reason I've lurked for so many years with so few comments - follow a ton of baseball and still way more knowledge on this board than I possess.
That's fair, but there's not one bullpen in baseball where every member is trusted and consistent. When Ross is your primary lefty and/or 7th-8th inning guy, you may have a problem. When he's the last man, not so much.
Oh sure. I'm not exactly quaking in my boots in fear that we're going to start the season with Ross instead of someone better. Who knows, maybe the someone better will end up being Elias. Or hell, maybe Ross will just be better when management can pick the spots they use him in better.
I feel like we think that every two or three years. Reliever volatility is a bitch.
Or he could just be a great LOOGY. Great LOOGYs have value.
Yeah, going into the season, the 2013 bullpen seemed dominant, starting with Hanrahan, Bailey and Miller at the backend, and they all went down over the course the season. By playoff time, it was really Uehara pitching out of his mind, with Breslow/Taz and sometimes Workman running on fumes and being just competent enough to get by. Breslow may have put up a gaudy ERA, but I think he was more crafty/lucky skillwise, with a mediocre 4.37 xFIP.
His career fielding independent numbers are much more reasonable considering Safeco is a definite pitchers park and players do tend to perform better at home. 1.55 FIP/2.09 xFIP at home, 2.66/2.59 away. Not much to be worried about.
True, you never know when everything is going to go all Hanrahan on you. Or Melancon. But the more demonstrated quality you have, the better you chances are, right? Looks like they have a lot of guys who could be closers if need be.
Can we just take it as read that people who read about baseball on the internet have already seen any and all randy puns based on players' names?
This is absurd. Miley is much more valuable than Slocumb was. If Smith or Elias are as much more valuable than Lowe or Tek, they're going to have to be really fucking good.
Right. Slocumb for Lowe and Tek was highway robbery. This looks like a good value-for-value swap with a bit more upside for us and a bit more bankable projection (but also higher payroll bite) for them.
I think it's as simple as DiPoto being really high on Miley, with his knowledge of him from AZ, and perhaps also low on Smith
This is where I'm at. I think Smith was available because of the velocity drop he experienced over the 2015 season; whether this is even an issue (didn't look like it -- performance-wise -- last year) is an empirical question.
Workhorse or overworked? It's a little hard to know when you've got only 1.5 seasons in the bigs from a 24-25 year old. I mean, that he could make 70 appearances last year and continue to perform at a high level is impressive, but also a little bit of a cause for some concern. 70 appearances and 70 innings for a reliever is a big number. This decade so far (so I looked back the six years starting 2010), the Red Sox have only had 6 guys go over 70 appearances -- Taz x 2, Bard x 2, Koji and Badenhop. Hopefully, though, having him and Price (an innings eater) and a healthy Koji can get everyone down into the 50s for appearances.
These points are kind of related, right? WAR is a counting stat for relievers I think. (I'm sort of asking, not declaring.) I mean, if you know a guy's innings pitched and his ERA (FIP for fWar) it sort of already tells you what WAR does for a pitcher anyway, right?
I wouldn't say that Miley is much (ERA- of 106/FIP- of 96 in 192 innings last year) more valuable than Slocumb was (ERA- of 60 in 83 innings in 1996 for the Sox, following two straight seasons of ERA- under 70 for the Phillies; so basically 30 percent better than league average over 200 innings across three seasons). I'd say Miley is more valuable by maybe a win +/- half a win, tops.
Have the fangraphs guys done anything to account for the widening gap between starter and reliever ERA/FIP? I think it's starting a bit to distort using WAR to compare starters and relievers, and I don't think current pitcher WAR methodologies take into account the ERA advantage inherent in the reliever role. (Not all relievers are created the same either, though -- a guy like Carson who pitches complete innings probably has a less significant ERA advantage as compared to a one-out guy.)
I have not yet seen Furbush's relative on baseball-reference listed as Rusty Kuntz so no, not everything.
I can't find the calculations online from Fangraphs but they do incorporate a leverage index component with relievers now with pitcher WAR.
One thing I will miss for sure is runners on first base terrified even to take a step toward second when Miley is on the mound. That was great theater.
Here's a chart of his average fastball velocity per appearance (it only shows 69 because in one outing he didn't throw any).
WAR compares relief pitchers to replacement level relief pitchers and starters to replacement level starters - which is kind of the point of WAR, to be able to compare players playing different positions using a common scale. So theoretically it should be ok to compare relievers and starters regardless of the different in performance between the two positions. But, like grimshaw said, fWAR also uses a leveraged index factor in relievers' WAR for some reason, which makes everything all f'ed up, since relievers don't really have control over how they're used. I mean, there's a certain value to relievers "clutchness," but WAR for every other position basically assumes that game state is irrelevant. I always thought it was weird that salaries for various positions are used as good evidence to justify some of the adjustment factors for 1B/SS/CF etc, but that high salaries for elite relievers weren't used in the same way. I'm not sure we should even really use fWAR for relievers, to be honest. The samples for relievers are already pretty tiny and I think we basically get the information we need from IP/ERA/FIP etc.
I have a friend who actually writes for Fangraphs and other data oriented websites. His opinion is that the latest Ivy Leauger created proprietary data analytics used by major league teams are light years ahead of the now almost conventional statistical measures fans rely on. Obviously, there could be something to this because, cutting against the recent wisdom about the superiority of starters compared to relievers (based obviously on the difference in IP among other things), DD traded 4 decent prospects, Aro plus a more or less than average innings eater SP for 2 hard throwing relievers plus Elias. If my friend is right, the Sox could be using metrics that aren't accessible to even the most statistically sophisticated fans in their player value calculations.
This pretty much sums up the trade for me.
This is the corresponding move I've been wondering about. Move Miley, sign Maeda, then move Buchholz or Kelly for prospects is an interesting way to use the Sox financial muscle to retool the ML pitching staff from top to bottom without emptying the farm.
No, I totally get what you're talking about. I've been thinking about that, too, as we've all been coming to terms with Dave making trades for relievers.
The AL East isn't the best place for a 37 year old who hasn't pitched in a year and a half to try to try to make a comeback.
Don't they have enough will-he-be-healthy/will-he-be-effective question marks in their rotation already? I feel like the pillow contract type deals are for teams that are running short of starting rotation options, not teams with an abundance (and even with Miley gone, there's still arguably an abundance). If they're going to be adding anyone that bumps Kelly or ERod from the top 5, I would think it would need to be more of a sure thing than a 37 year old who's thrown 80 injury-riddled innings in the last two years.
Agreed although I don't think I would start breaking chairs if Lee signed. I think this team needs another Veteran SP. Bring in someone like Latos on a pillow to challenge Kelly/Owens/Wright etc. Can't hurt
