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Predicting the 2008 M’s fortunes
As we wait and wait for the axe to fall on the trade…
I’ve run some guesstimates, some numbers, and some simulations using projection data to see where the Mariners might turn out. Normally, those kind of exercises are interesting but kind of pointless: it’s why you play the games, right? And if I’m guessing at one thing and the sims come out a lot lower, so what — it’s not as if any of these things affects the team’s fortunes. I could tinker with the team’s lineup in DMB and run a million simulated seasons and it wouldn’t help or hurt their actual performance.
“My Little Pony” photo by Katie@! and used under the Creative Commons license.
It’s more important this season, though. The M’s have decided they’re going to take a shot at the division title and are making a potentially huge long-term sacrifice for a short-term gain. It’s the result of their assessment of the team’s potential this season. If they’re wrong, they’ve done themselves wrong. If they’re right, the rewards for getting the team to the playoffs are huge.
That’s why I look at the sims, for instance, and frown. If the trade off was Jones for a World Series, I would take it — I think any of us would. It’s not that certain, of course. But if the team’s really only going to win 88 games with Bedard and miss the playoffs, or if they’re going to finish much worse than that, the long-term tradeoff isn’t worth it.
To return to the sims, for a second — I’m as inclined as anyone to look at results like that and dismiss them, but I want to be able to have a good reason to. I don’t. ZiPS projections are pretty good — last year they ran alongside PECOTA. I can argue why I think some of them are off, but as a system, it’s tough to argue with the results.
And when I took a swing at coming up with runs scored/allowed numbers for the team and putting that into wins, there are points where I could say “there’s a pretty large margin for variation here” but it was for both good and bad, and taking only the good isn’t reasonable. Lopez might resume his growth as a hitter, but maybe Sexson doesn’t bounce back at all. Ibanez might be healthy, able to run better and hit well, and Washburn could be bothered by his elbow and have a bad year. I don’t see the team is all potential for improvement, or all candidates for collapse.
The M’s almost certainly understand that given their runs allowed and runs scored numbers last year, their W-L record should have been worse than it was. But I’d bet, as some of our commenters have pointed out, that they’ve got a whole set of reasons why the win total is for real: the disaster starts, injuries, Rick White, veteran grit and clubhouse leadership. There’s a natural tendency to justify favorable luck as the product of things they did, while dismissing bad results as circumstance.
I don’t know what they think supports their belief that they can run with the Angels this year. I would bet they’re not running Diamond Mind sims with projection data, but they’ve certainly had organizational meetings over the winter where they came to agreement about all of this. And we know that they value players much differently than I do, and measure them on different criteria.
But knowing where a team is, and how it’s likely to do, is one of the most important things they can do well. A team that knows when to try to go all out to build a championship team that year or when to look to youth and a longer timeframe will do far better than one that does those things at the wrong times (and the last few years are filled with examples of the former).
I hope, for the M’s sake and my own as a fan, that whatever they’re thinking turns out to be correct this season, because they’re betting a huge chunk of the team’s future on their belief that the short-term improvement of Bedard is worth the long-term sacrifice. That I don’t see that that’s likely doesn’t mean it won’t happen, or that I’m not hoping they’re right.
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Pony!
It would have to be off on multiple things, and would probably have to have some systematic biases which didn’t show up in previous years. Hm. That seems…implausible to me.
Of course, the mindset that led them to use Rick White, not account for injuries and not make contingencies for disastrous starts is still here. Don’t think they’re allowing or that…
In reality, this is probably chiefly about one thing: the current adminstration wanting to do everything possible to keep their jobs and save their careers. Obtaining Bedard, in their minds, makes the M’s better in the short-term (and, while there are obviously counterarguments, that is probably true). Bavasi et al. know that they are gone if they lose this year and, instead, “play for the future” and do what is in the best long-term interests of the club. Therefore, they have every incentive to mortgage the future to do well today.
I think that is what is driving this insanity.
Man. Can the season start already?! Let’s get it on! I’m Jonesing for a little baseball.
Pun intended, I hope…
I don’t think the “they’re just trying to save their jobs” argument is fair. Not sure if you are really saying that, but trying to save one’s job, and doing one’s job well, are incentives that drive favorable behavior most, but not all, of the time in a professional environment. They are goals that are not in conflict, most of the time.
Team ownership and management have almost certainly told Bill that he needs to win this year. They probably tell him that every year. For a club with the Mariner’s resources at its disposal, this is not an unreasonable objective. Bavasi does not have carte blanche to sacrifice the future for the sake of the present. Nor do Lincoln and Armstrong. To make a trade like the Bedard deal, club decision making authority is almost certainly of one mind, though there’s not necessarily a consensus. They think they have a chance to win, so they are doing what in their judgment increases the likelihood of that happening. The fact that they would also save their jobs if they’re successful is not damning.
You can argue about whether they’re right or smart, but not about their motivation.
Just out of curiosity…
Since the Mariners seem hell-bent on getting Bedard for the next (at least) two years, does that mean they see a team that can be competitive in both 2008 and 2009? All of the excellent analysis has been about next season, but if the M’s are shooting for a two-or-three year window, then that’s a lot easier to live with.
Also, if I were a smarter person, I would love to do an analysis of historical teams at similar points - teams that were rebuilding, played above their heads for a season, and took it as a sign to go for broke. Would they have been better served by finishing out the rebuilding, a la the 2007 Cleveland Indians? Did their jumpy trigger-fingers cause the franchise to collapse in years two and three?
But I’m not a smarter person.
You can argue about whether they’re right or smart, but not about their motivation.
I disagree with this. Bavasi et al. are on the hot seat. This year. Their interests are not necessarily aligned with the long-term interests of the club.
Winning 88 games might save their job. Winning 80 probably won’t.
The current administration — the guys whose butts are on the line — has most of the power when making baseball moves. Those with a longer-term interest — ownership, the fans, etc. — generally defer unless something outrageous is going on.
It’s a done deal. Bedard to Mariners.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/archives/131293.asp?source=rss
He better win 20 games for the M’s or I don’t think it was worth it.
Ummm, he’s coming to Seattle to take a physical. He has the *pass* that physical for it to be done deal. It’s no more done than it was yesterday.
I’m still holding out to the 0.001% chance that it doesn’t get done.
Since Bavasi has never taken a player to arbitration do you think he work out a contract extension at the end of the year as opposed to now?
I agree with you MarinerDan. He has been in baseball along time and I cannot believe that thinks they can win it all. Of course his idea or roster building is terrible. Look at Vidro, he is the worst DH in the league and we are paying him 8 mil. That is absurd.
Tom Singer, the Angels mlb.com writer, has an AL West preview up, putting the M’s in 2nd place behind the Angels …
…because they’re betting a huge chunk of the team’s future on their belief that the short-term improvement of Bedard is worth the long-term sacrifice.
Here’s the one question I have, though. Unknown to us right now is how long the Mariners are going to be able to keep Bedard. It’s known, sure, that the M’s would be inheriting two years of club control (this year and next year). It’s been discussed that Bedard is very interested in free agency, and very dis-interested in a contract extension. But we don’t know as of right now if one of the things that’s making this deal more frustrating to follow than watching the orange paint on Adam Jones’ batting helmet dry is that the M’s and Bedard are working on a contract extension as part of this deal.
Certainly mortgaging a chunk of the future (along with a big part of the here and now) for two years of Bedard hurts a lot more than paying that same price, plus some top-shelf cash for an additional 4-5 years of Bedard. A reasonable contract extension for Bedard, IMHO, softens the blow of this deal considerably.
or if Safeco, the relaxed Seattle press corps, the chance to hang out with fellow small-town hermit Washburn, getting to talk in French with Aumont, and the Nintendo connection all conspire to entice him to stay …
“I disagree with this. Bavasi et al. are on the hot seat. This year. Their interests are not necessarily aligned with the long-term interests of the club.”
Winning now is absolutely in the best long-term interests of the club. Benefits from a championship or World Series appearance trump anything Adam Jones might do in the next 5 years.
i think the m’s have a decent shot at signing bedard long term after this year, which means erik can help out the long term cause of the m’s while he is in the prime of his career. so, this move COULD be the proper move for the future as Bedard and Felix could head the staff for years to come. And Jones will turn out to be Mike Cameron, Sherrill will still be solid, and I highly doubt Tillman, Butler, and Mickolio will really turn into what everyone hopes they will become. Sure, it is a very big gamble, but this is what its all about. Everyone has hoped for the M’s to make a block buster move like this for an ace or an awesome hitter, and here we are with one of the most dominant lefties in the game entering his PRIME. I think Erik is well worth this package. So even though we are giving young prospects to the O’s, if we keep Erik here for 8 more years that is a long term move. I’m pretty sure the FO has their sights on extending Erik beyond his remaining to years.
I have no idea how you could possibly justify this statement.
15
Clearly not a Miami Heat fan, lol
SCL: Well I’m very confident that when I go to the stadium to see my first M’s game this year that Adam Jones will be in the outfield. But that’s because I’ll be watching the M’s at Camden Yards. With luck Bedard will sleep wrong on the airplane and his left shoulder will stiffen up for the physical. No deal!!
And if I won the lottery, it would trump any savings plan I have now.
My odds are better than the Mariners.
(Ya ever stop to think what the odds are on potential options? That filling a hole by making ANOTHER hole is not the best way to go to the World Series?)
I LOVE THE PONY!
I don’t think we’re gonna have much luck signing Bedard pre-emptively. How often has a player that was intent on testing FA, done just that? Look at Juan Gonzalez, the offers we made to Griffey and A-Rod before they left, etc.
Worst off, he’s going to see that we are paying Carlos fekking Silva 12 mil a year and Ho Ram 2.75 mil a year, so by that comparison, he should be worth 25 mil a year . . . talk about having overlapping moves completely antagonize each other.
Winning now is absolutely in the best long-term interests of the club. Benefits from a championship or World Series appearance trump anything Adam Jones might do in the next 5 years.
But you are missing the point — a relatively modest short-term improvement (say, narrowly missing the playoffs) is in Bavasi’s interest b/c it will preserve his job, even if it comes at a significant long-term cost. It is not in the team’s best interest, however.
Hold on. The organization isn’t stupid enough to trade the future of the franchise for a two-year rental. They will likely overpay Bedard for maybe a 5-year deal, but it will satisfy the “TWO ACES!!!”-loving fans.
“I have no idea how you could possibly justify this statement.”
DMZ himself stated above “the rewards for getting the team to the playoffs are huge” and “If the trade off was Jones for a World Series, I would take it”. How would you justify something Adam Jones might do that’s worth more than a World Series Championship now? That he might help the team be better in 2010?
The goal is to win.
I wouldn’t.
But I’d much rather have the stuff you’re smoking, if that’s making you believe we have a shot at the World Series.
My point was not that I do but that Bavasi and the management team do, and that they are motivated by this and not by selfish interests.
…because they’re betting a huge chunk of the team’s future on their belief that the short-term improvement of Bedard is worth the long-term sacrifice.
But do they see it that way? Do the M’s really believe they are making a long-term sacrifice? I’m not sure (NB: *I* believe they are making a horrible long-term sacrifice - I’m not sure *they* believe they are). The M’s see players as either “proven veterans” or “prospects” and based on their usage of Jones last year, and the fact they sent him to winter ball, the M’s definitely do not believe Jones is a provent major leaguer. Even though they had him penciled in as a starter, he’s still just a prospect to them. A highly rated prospect to be sure, just like Reed was few years ago, but propsects are - to them - crap shoots. The three minor leaguers are even lesser propects. And the way they’ve used Sherrill, the one veteran in the deal, over the last couple of years, it’s clear they view him as “just a LOOGY” and not one of the ten best relievers in the game.
LOOGYs and prospects. I suspect the M’s think they’re getting Bedard for next to nothing. We grimace in pain at how much they’re paying, but they may actually think they’re getting a steal.
The M’s may or may not think they are legit playoff contenders this year, but even if they don’t think they can catch the Angels, they may think that having Bedard and the chance to resign him in two years is better than taking a bunch of risks on “unproven” farm system guys who “might not make the jump” to The Bigs.
Was that “My Little Pony” photo taken by Katie@!, or was it really taken by Willie@!?
Is there anyway the pony can kick Bedard on the way to the physical, thus re-injuring the oblique and nullifying the trade?
Because I could stop being so pessimistic about the team if that would happen.
How large do you all think Ichiro’s window is before he starts declining? 3 more years? 4 more years? I think this “win now” approach (attempt) also takes that into consideration.
Defense needs improvement, but I think the M’s really need a big bat more than anything. Washburn+Morse for Jr anyone? Payroll and arm helps Cincy, Jr helps seattle in revenues and offense (and may not be huge step down from Wilkerson in defense). Morse is out of options and clearly doesn’t have a fulltime role on this team.
Shannon Drayer just reported that Erik Bedard just flew to Seattle, possibly to get his physical. It looks like the deal is almost done.
please see item #8-9
“short term improvement of Bedard”
Huh?
He’s 28.
Proven #1 Starter >>>>>>>>> Outfield prospect.
I believe that ’short term improvement’ refers to the fact the Bedard is signed for only the next two years.
I feel like USSMariner should produce a 50’s style documentary titled, “Where Do Baseball Players Come From?”
In it, they could explain the magical process when a prospect becomes an actual major-league baseball player.
“But Mr. Bavasi, how do I know when I’m ready to be a major league-caliber outfielder?”
“When I’ve traded you, that’s when you’ll know.”
“But….”
“Washburn+Morse for Jr anyone?”
Pocket Lint? Is that you?
I wonder if I can get an Ms jersey with A1 on it.
That’s conventional wisdom, of course.
You can support that, of course?
If the Proven #1 starter is better than the outfield prospect, why are the O’s trading a Proven #1 starter for an outfield ‘prospect’?
Note: I do not believe Jones is a prospect, please do not send the bees after me. Just repeating his words.
There’s no point arguing with Auburn. He refuses to learn, even when his lack of knowledge smacks him in the face.
This trade makes excellent sense from Baltimore’s perspective (which why I’m shocked they havn’t f***** it up yet). They are not going to get by the Sox and Yanks and BJs for the next couple years. The best bet for them is to stock up on real prospects and good, young, cheap players and lurk for 3 or 4 years down the road. This provides 1)financial flexibility and 2)pieces to trade if in year 3 one of the Big Two fall on their faces and the O’s can make a move.
How any even remotely rational O’s fan can be against this is beyond me.
Dave, I played baseball as a kid, coached little league for awhile, and have been a fan all my life. I understand the value of numbers in this game, but yes, I believe the conventional wisdom in most cases. Its why its called “wisdom.”
One thing I believe is that starting pitching is the key to winning. Everything is important, of course, but starting pitchers are the most valuable players on the team.
OK, pull out some metrics to prove that 100 years of baseball wisdom is wrong and that an outfielder with less than one year in the majors is somehow more valuable than one of the best starters in baseball.
SIGH…there goes the season…hello Bedard…
I feel like USSMariner should produce a 50’s style documentary titled, “Where Do Baseball Players Come From?”
Like TikiBarTV’s explanation of how Volcanos work? I’d love that.
Plenty of teams have made it to the World Series without a Proven Number One Starter (2002 Angels, 2004 Cardinals, 2005 White Sox, 2006 Tigers, 2007 Rockies). The goal is to score more runs than you surrender it doesn’t matter what route you take to get there.
Dave, I played baseball as a kid, coached little league for awhile, and have been a fan all my life.
I didn’t play baseball as a kid, have never coached anyone at anything, and have been a fan for 8 years.
I’m also a better analyst than you, which more than makes up for your experience.
AuburnM,
You don’t even need fancy statistics to prove that pitching is less important. Unless your pitcher is pitching 9 innings everyday and striking everyone out, there is only so much he can do. The best pitchers are going to pitch 1 out of every 5 games for about 7 innings and strike out about 7 batters. That means that the defence alone is responsible for making 21 of his outs and a different pitcher is responsible for the last 6.
The key to baseball is scoring more runs than you give up. There are many ways to do this. A great offense allows you to have a weaker pitching staff and defense. A better defense can mask a weaker offense and pitching staff. It doesn’t matter how you do it. The difference between them is cost. Starting pitching is expensive. Bullpens and defense are cheap.
Auburn- History is full of examples of horribly incorrect ‘conventional wisdom’, that shouldn’t have to pointed out.
Starting pitching is very important. But so is offense and defense.
No one is arguing against Bedard being a most excellent pitcher. What we’re arguing is the M’s would be better off not trading away Adam Jones, George Sherrill and 2 or 3 quality minor leaguers for him. For what will probably amount to only 2 years of him until he ends up in NY or Boston or LA.
I would highly recommend Baseball Prospectus’ Baseball Between the Numbers for a lot myth debunking. There’s even a really good chapter about ‘pitching wins championships’. Also, go back through some of the old posts here and look at the quantifying Dave and Derek do. Even more important, look at the arguments against the trade. They’re well thought out and make a lot sense.
I think the way this trade makes the most sense is if you define ‘now’ as 2009. I believe it is highly unlikely that Bedard alone can take this team to a World Series…and the Angels are still better in our division.
However, take away the contracts we’ve all been lamenting…and for the sake of argument, subtract Vladdie from the Angels outfield (he’s a free agent after 2008) and add him (or someone similar) to the M’s outfield.
How would the simulations run in that case?
43: Starting pitching isn’t the key to winning. The key to winning is to score lots of runs and prevent your opponents from scoring very many. While pitchers obviously have a significant impact on run prevention, they are very dependent on the defense behind them to turn balls in play into outs. Ignoring this dependence leads to overestimating the impact of pitchers. Position players get to impact both run scoring AND run prevention, everyday, whereas pitchers make their mark on only one side of the ledger only once every five days.
I understand that life is full of what-if’s, but how do we know that A.J. will be a great player. He could always go the way of Ryan Anderson(the little unit). Plus Bedard is a fantastic asset. I do agree with the majority on the trade, but we never know and Bedard could be a piece of our puzzle. While A.J. struggles and never reaches that level of greatness everyone puts on him. I know it’s just speculation, but you can always hope. Two years from now we might be singing a different tune. Here’s to hope and here’s to Bedard. Good Luck.
I’ve given up trying to convince you of anything, Auburn. You cling to your wrongness like a life boat. The key to learning is an open mind, which you don’t possess. I have no interest in debating dogma.
When you get to the point where you feel like there’s things about baseball that you don’t know and you might want to learn the answer to, we’ll talk. Until then, you can keep tilting at windmills.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to point out that I played T-ball when I was 6 years old.
How would the simulations run in that case?
We can only really run sims for the coming year. The projections I think Derek is using (ZiPS) are for this year only. We can make educated estimations as to future performance however.
And I’m sure you were a fine t-ball player too, Jeff.
If Bedard is only here two years this is a bad deal.
If, however, Felix and Bedard anchor the rotation for the next 5-10 years this is a very, VERY good deal, even if Jones turns out to be the next Barry Bonds.
I don’t look at this as a desperate move to try and win this year, I look at it as a trade that gives us a great young starter we can build around.
Ah, you never know.
Card counters never know what the next card is going to be. They just know what the probabilities of a good card vs a bad card are. They could get unlucky and bust. They don’t know that they’ll win that hand.
But the casinos still kick them out if they catch them counting cards.
I wonder why?
I guess you never know.
52: I know it’s just speculation, but you can always hope. Two years from now we might be singing a different tune.
Things stranger than the M’s taking a sub .500 team to the playoffs have happened in the past.
Just not very often.
So the trade would be a good idea if, after 2 years, we sign Bedard in free agency.
Ooookay then.
My question.
Is the AJ for Bedard trade better than the Jose Cruz Jr. for Timlin/Spoljaric trade?
(For one thing, it’s not just AJ for Bedard…and that automatically makes it worse.)
But the howling I’m hearing about giving up AJ sounds a LOT like the howling heard about our letting a “guaranteed hall of famer” like Jose Cruz Jr. go.
I’d rather have kept Adam Jones, too…as I think AJ would have been a better piece for the long term puzzle. But I’m aware that we as hopeful fans might be guilty of overvaluing the potential we think we’re offering up.
Auburn- Bedard isn’t young. Well, he’s a couple years younger than me, but he’s no young ballplayer. If he was Scott Kazmir being traded from the Mets to the D-Rays it’d be a different story, but it’s not. He’ll be 29 when the season starts. If his career follows anything close to normal aging patterns you’re looking at maybe 5 years worth of production. And that’s not counting his injury history.
I’d just like to take this opportunity to point out that I played T-ball when I was 6 years old.
Aha! You played T-ball, where there are, of course, no pitchers. That explains why you can’t fathom the undeniable, unstoppable Chuck-Norris-roundhouse-kick-like force of the ONE…TWO…PUNCH!!
Re #57:
Since when did a near 30-year-old starter with injury risk become [quote] “…a great young starter we can build around”? I’m probably the dumbest guy here and even I understand the error of this statement.
Generally with regression analysis your predictive results will leave you with a confidence interval. Such as, we are 95% confidence this team will win between 80 and 90 games. ZiPs sounds as though it might be different, perhaps it is a random outcome/number generating (monte carlo?) system that provides a set of possible results. After running these results you would have a sample set to run conclusions from that would give you your confidence intervals.
Regardless, there must be some confidence range that these estimations suggest, but I don’t think I have ever seen them posted. So, when the m’s won 88 games last year but their pythagorean projection was 81 (or whatever), can anybody say with what probability the m’s were expected to win as many as 88 games. Should I suppose that this is similar to a player’s 90th percentile PECOTA projection, or are we looking at a non-breakout but above average performance year.
Pitchers don’t age like hitters. I don’t really care that he’s 29 - that’s not all that relevent to the discussion.
The standard deviation of the good projection systems on a team basis is about +/- 4 wins. So, if we call the Mariners an 85 win team, we’re saying we expect them to win between 81 and 89, and anything outside of that requires something strange to occur.
Well, being within one standard deviation from the mean is only ~70% likely, so it’s not really that strange for a team to over/underperform by a significant amount.
Dave, I played baseball as a kid, coached little league for awhile, and have been a fan all my life. I understand the value of numbers in this game, but yes, I believe the conventional wisdom in most cases. Its why its called “wisdom.”
Oh, nevermind then, Auburn. Now that we know you played baseball as a kid and coached little league, we’ll just ignore the reams of data and accept your opinions prima facie.
Dave or Derek,
I was wondering if you could sometime (maybe an off-season boredom post) expand on DM and/or ZIPS. I LOVE the managerial side to sports (baseball in particular) but the only program I have used or gotten used to is Baseball Mogul, which is great fun - I just want something where I can sim out seasons with my decisions. I have been to the Diamond Mind site a few times, but I just get confused. Is it a personal program, an online fantasy type, a strict baseball sim? Derek I just thought with the amount that you reference to it maybe someone other than me would like to get involved with it - but doesn’t want to pay for the cd’s before knowing what the hell is going on. Are there any other great simulation programs? Anyone with comments please let me know
Really?
A starter that has yet to reach 200 innings?
A starter who is only certain to be here for two years?
Do you think we can win in the next two years? Because those are the only two years we can count on him
Dave, how “certain” are we that Bedard will be out of Seattle after two years?
AuburnM, I played baseball as a kid, in high school, and a little bit in college; coached little league, and have been a fan all my life. I also have greatly increased my understanding of baseball as an adult from becoming comfortable with the metrics whose conclusion you dismiss.
In today’s MLB, Bedard’s salary and upcoming free agency matter. AJ’s service time and depressed salary matter. Perhaps you disagree with the projections of their future performance. Use whatever method of projection you want, and contrast the lineups that add Bedard and subtract AJ, et al.:
How many more (or fewer) runs will the M’s allow?
How many more (or fewer) runs will the M’s score?
How much more (or less) money will the M’s spend, out of what total budget?
This year? Next year? Over the next few years?
Then we have a discussion.
I guess then we might say it is not a total impossiblity that the M’s have internally justified their performance at the top end of the predicted range and reasonably believe that the addition of a key player or two might project their team into elite status. Perhaps its wishful thinking, but any statistically inclined person can make a case for bias in a model and give the m’s their justification.
And, they may not be all that far off. Maybe Squiggy showed ‘em something that would fool the market.
Who is more likely to be with the Mariners in two years, Bavasi or Bedard?
I’m taking Bedard, but that’s because I’m a sunny, Reagan-esque optimist. I only read USS Mariner to strengthen my optimism.
I don’t understand how Bedard’s decision in two years is relevant to the trade. He would be a free agent in two years anyway, right? And if we sign or don’t sign him then is not related to the two years of his contract we get from a trade?
Unless a contract extension is a possible part of the trade, but… is that probable? Has that ever been part of a trade?
I don’t recall a lot of ‘howling’ about him being a Hall of Famer on the old asb-sm list in ‘97 (well, Dave was pretty upset, but Dave was also a decade younger than he is now)– I think there is also a better grasp of how Jones projects out than there was back then for how Cruz projected … has anyone ever gone back and re-done his numbers?
Oh, dear, not only did I not play or coach baseball I started watching baseball when ERAs were under 2. So according to my conventional wisdom, there are no good pitchers today. And the last Triple Crown was Yaz in ‘67, (and AVG, HR, and RBI have to be the best way to evaluate a hitter, since there’s an award devoted to them), so there really aren’t any good hitters either. And real pitchers pitch complete games, not to mention trying to get to McLain’s 31 wins.
Maybe that’s why the trade is taking so long. There is a super secret contract extension in the works. McPhail and Angelos have been providing the smokescreen with leaks about their own extensions, other teams, etc… very plausible.
It is important that there will be some draft picks in two years if Bedard walks.
“There’s a natural tendency to justify favorable luck as the product of things they did, while dismissing bad results as circumstance.”
This is very true. With that said, it’s a bit of a leap in logic to say that the results are unsustainable simply because we have no means to account for them. I think the whole pythag debate has at its heart some pretty irreconcilable epistemological positions: one side will say that run differential is an accurate means to account for wins and losses; whilst the other will say that there are so many potential influences on run distribution that it’s impossible to account for anything.
Both are valid positions to take in my view, even if the motivation for picking one or the other tends to be flawed.
(also, everything I need to know about baseball I learned in Little League)
Jose Cruz Jr. at Tacoma, age 23, 1997 (only 50 games): .268/.382/.468.
Career minor league OPS: .854 (including his big year at age 24)
Adam Jones at Tacoma, age 21, 2007 (101 games): .314/.382/.586
Career minor league OPS: .830
Adam Jones as a prospect>>>>>>>>>>Jose Cruz Jr. as a prospect.
#42: How any even remotely rational O’s fan can be against this is beyond me.
As a fan of both teams, some Oriole fans have complained about:
- quantity over quality (in terms of prospects)
- could the Orioles compete if Bedard extended?
- why is Sherrill in the deal (at the expense of whom?)
Also…re: the 200 inning thing, is 196 really that much different?
At age 21 (Cruz’s youngest, he was at @ Rice before that)
Avg. OBA SLG Level
Cruz .257 .363 .465 High A
Jones .314 .382 .586 2nd full year @ AAA
By almost any measure Jones is light years ahead of Cruz at the same age. At the time of his trade Cruz was 23 and had only 260 AAA ABs to his credit.
and i owe marc w a Coke apparently.
If Jones alone is worth more than Bedard (a premise I completely reject), and if position players are more valuable than pitchers (ditto), then who is the more valuable player at this moment, Adam Jones or Felix?
Felix is one of the five most valuable players on earth. But you’re still wrong about everything else.
Ha, it had been almost 6 months since I had been so summarily dismissed.
Dave, have you ever done a top-10 or top-20 of MLB’s most valuable players based on the criteria you used in the Jones/Bedard post? Sorry if you have and I missed it…
Not based on the numbers, no. I don’t remember the last time I updated the MLB trade value post, but it seems like it was about 18 months ago, and that was based off gut feeling and not a formula.
I’ll be ranking the entire Mariner organization by win value next week, though.
Looking forward to it. I’d just be curious to see what players might be more valuable than Felix, and what pitchers (other than Felix) might be more valuable than Jones.
Just googled the old trade value post, Bedard at #39. Will be interesting to see if he is higher or lower this year.
Without running the numbers, I’d have to guess that the guys at the top of the list will be Tulowitzki and Hanley Ramirez. Both are remarkably good, young, and dirt cheap.
Is that SS Hanley Ramirez or CF Hanley Ramirez?
86 - Per the methodology used in this article, it’s very plausible that Jones is worth more than Bedard.
I ran the numbers based on Bedard’s salary and performance over the past three years, and found that his value in Wins Above Bench (WAB) for the next two years would be about 10.4 (assuming his 2008 and 2009 performance and salaries were identical).
Meanwhile, over the next six years, Jones has a value of 15.37 WAB (this based on the assumption that he’d be a top-10 prospect this year, but for 9 ABs too many).
You might ask - why compare six years of Jones to two years of Bedard? Because that’s the number of years each will be under control of the Mariners.
If you add in the values of Sherrill, Tillman, Butler, and Mickolio, it’s a blowout win for the Orioles. Only if we re-sign Bedard and he maintains a high level of performance for four years AFTER 2009 will this work out to be a value for the Mariners.
At least, so says the Hardballtimes article.
I’m of the opinion that much of the M’s success this season will depend on a bounce-back by Richie Sexson. McLaren has made some near-lunatic statements about how confident he is that Sexson is going to come back into the 40 home run range level of performance, so it’s safe to say the M’s decision-making is influenced by a belief he’ll be a big part of the offense. What was wrong with him last year? Was it an injury of the kind that just gets better in one offseason? Or was it age and a slowing bat for a guy who couldn’t afford to lose any bat speed?
Re: #43
Dave, I hear there is a study done which shows winning is 52% run prevention (only 80% of which is pitching) and 48% run production.
Do you know where I can find it?
Somehow, swapping a potential Cy Young Award winner for 7-13 Jeff Weaver seems like a good idea. Bad pitching killed the Mariners last year. Go Bill!
Ok, so it looks like Sexson was bothered by a knee injury last year. Rick Griffin has checked in on him during the winter and found him to be in “great shape” and thinks he won’t be bothered by the knee any more. Sexson is taking about 200 swings a day in his home batting cage so he can “swing into spring” this year. It sounds like we can at least hope he’ll put up something like 2006 numbers.
My question is when did he suffer the knee injury and why didn’t he sit out sooner? If he takes the month of June off surely someone could have put up a .700 OPS in his place. If he spent two or three months hitting .205 with an injury I have to say he was pretty selfish.
Who does Bavasi have to get to sign off on this trade? Team president? It doesn’t seem right that someone without much job security should be able to sell the farm in an attempt to keep his job.
Whoever pointed out that if “now” is 2009 this deal is more appealing is onto something. If management lets Morrow learn how to be a starter in AAA this year and adds an OF bat and/or glove next off-season the M’s will be looking pretty good. Lots of “if’s” here (especially Morrow in AAA), but not as many as heading into this season.
Of course it’s no fun speculating on 2009 — it’s like waiting for Jake Locker’s junior/senior seasons.
Have we ever discussed Bedards spike in K’s per IP in 2007? Is it sustainable.
#99 Guess what? Lockers accuracy is still going to suck when he is a junior and senior.
Have we ever discussed Bedards spike in K’s per IP in 2007? Is it sustainable?
#99 Guess what? Lockers accuracy is still going to suck when he is a junior and senior.
Yeah? Well, the casual fans think they’re gonna win NOW since they’re getting Bedard….
Coasty — just wait until Locker’s coming out of the M’s pen in 2010.
I’m not sure how believing that Bedard gives the M’s a much better chance to win NOW makes you a “casual fan”.
Good call. I’m looking foward to seeing him on Daves future 40
He said that casual fans think that, not that if you think that you’re a casual fan.
Geoff Baker seems to think Vidro is the bestest #2 hitter ever, pointing out that he had a .900 OPS when coming to the plate with a runner on first only. Geoff says that it wasn’t Vidro killing rallies last year.
Except when he did. Vidro was tied for seventh in the AL with 21 GDP last year. He joined Johjima (22 GDP) in the top ten for GDP. I did a quick GDP per plate appearance, and lo and behold Joh was the worst at .043 and Vidro was ninth at .034. No wonder the M’s were tied for the most GDP in the MLB with St. Louis.
I can’t think of any reason to think that this team will be better at staying out of the double play this year than last. And the odds Vidro continues to be a machine with a guy on first?
Fair enough Wishhiker. I just think in this case that if the “casual fan” view is that getting Bedard gives the M’s a better chance to win in 2008, the casual fan view is correct.
Sure, it gives them a better chance in 2008, but does it give them a GOOD one? I really doubt it. Ergo, trade sucks.
OMG Ponies! Wait, this isn’t /.?
My recollection is that the love of Cruz came more out of his performance (slugging .541, 12 homers in 49 games for the greatest home run hitting team of all time) once he got to the M’s than his prospect status up to that point. I’d seen him play in Tacoma and I’d not been impressed, but it seemed like he was really responding to the winning atmosphere and the veteran leadership on the club. Edgar was an incredible mentor to young Hispanic players. And let’s face it, we’d not had a left fielder since Phil Bradley we actually wanted to see stay here. I never thought he was going to be a world beater, but he was going to fill a hole. If you look at his stats for the Blue Jays and compare them to what we actually had in left field from 1998-2002, you’d have been perfectly satisfied to have him during his club control and arbitration years.
The thing with Jones is that our expectations are a lot higher because we don’t have Griffey, Martinez, Rodriguez and Buhner. The second coming of Chet Lemon wouldn’t win us a lot of division titles (and it won’t win the Orioles any either).
You just don’t get it. It’s why they play the games, man…….
Unless a contract extension is a possible part of the trade, but… is that probable? Has that ever been part of a trade?
I believe that the Twins-Mets Santana trade was just like that.
I don’t know what to make of the fact that the trade is still hanging fire–I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought usually the teams announce trades contingent on the players passing physicals, rather than have them take physicals before the trade is announced. When the Tigers made their big trade for Willis and Cabrera last fall, it was all official and announced as a done deal within hours.
I don’t think it’s out of the question for the Mariners to be a contender this year–playing an unbalanced schedule in the weakest division is the league has certain advantages. But it’s going to take some serious good luck–probably something has to go majorly wrong with the Angels. Hey, sometimes, trying to draw to an inside straight works!
Well, there’s winning, and there’s winning…
Better team? Yes…. Playoff team? Probably not. Getting deep into the playoffs? Nope….
And the casual fan is thinking towards the latter when they think “winning”…
113: MLB will allow teams to make a deal contingent on negotiating an extension within a certain window of time. However, that is entirely optional with the teams and there is no indication that the Bedard trade is so contingent. Just another damn thing that Bavasi was unwilling to ask for.
I’m sure he was. of course, Cheito was raised in Houston, the son of a major leaguer and went to college at Rice, so he might not have needed all that much major-leage mentoring…
more mindreading?
Well, has anything about this Bedard trade been finalized YET? I just want to know, because I’m beginning to think this is Bavasi’s way of getting even with all the criticism of him here on USSM.
terry: So what’s Vidro going to fix…the fact that he hits a lot of weak grounders or the fact that he’s really slow? It was predicted on this blog that Vidro would lead the league in GDP and he came very close to doing so. If you think this will change you should come up with a reason why, other than “that’s why they play the games.” So in your universe Pirates fans have as much reason to expect to win the WS as Red Sox fans…because until they “play the games” there’s no reason to believe one team has a better chance than the other? I hope the M’s FO isn’t making decisions like that…but I suspect they might be.
[button term violation]
Anyone know if we got an adjustable rate on this mortgaging of our future? I’m assuming so…
I think we should reset the counter.
Official Counter Reset coming in 3…2…1…
[ponies]
I think you completely missed the point.
Can we start the official Yu Darvish countdown now?