Other Sports: Philadelphia Phillies: The Road To .500 (2023 Edition)

[DancingPanther]

Take whatever chances you want, like whoever you want to like, and all of that. And yes, there is risk.

But the disconnect here is that you’re wildly underrating Witt’s 2023. It was fantastic by every reasonable definition. He was a Gold Glove quality SS and a well above average ML hitter. There wasn’t even an unexplainable BABIP spike. He succeeded in exactly the ways it was projected that he eventually could. It’s as clean of a forecast as you’ll get.

I mean without even looking beyond surface level metrics we're talking about a 115 wrc+ with 50 swipes as a 23 yr old quality fielding SS

If you don't lock that kind of player down past arb years you're kind of a loon

 

[JojoTheWhale]

I mean without even looking beyond surface level metrics we're talking about a 115 wrc+ with 50 swipes as a 23 yr old quality fielding SS

If you don't lock that kind of player down past arb years you're kind of a loon

Or cheap. I still can't believe KC put the money down. Happy for their fans, though.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

The worst case scenario played out for Kingery & the Phillies were on the hook for $24M over six years. The Phillies in that time have had & continue to have one of the highest payrolls in the league.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

The Corbin Carroll deal is looking like a steal for Arizona.

 

[wankstifier]

That Witt Jr. contract is a no-brainer. A more interesting question: would you extend Elly de la Cruz now or wait and see what he does next season?

 

[trostol]

so atm in my fantasy league i am at an 8x8 but i want to pare it down.. any suggestions for what's cut? or changed...would like to get down 6x6 but even 7x7 is a step

batters: R, 2b, 3b, HR, RBI, SB, Walks, BA
Pitcher: IP, W, Saves, K, Holds, ERA, WHIP, QS

 

[wankstifier]

so atm in my fantasy league i am at an 8x8 but i want to pare it down.. any suggestions for what's cut? or changed...would like to get down 6x6 but even 7x7 is a step

batters: R, 2b, 3b, HR, RBI, SB, Walks, BA
Pitcher: IP, W, Saves, K, Holds, ERA, WHIP, QS

3B, BA, Saves, and W

 

[DancingPanther]

so atm in my fantasy league i am at an 8x8 but i want to pare it down.. any suggestions for what's cut? or changed...would like to get down 6x6 but even 7x7 is a step

batters: R, 2b, 3b, HR, RBI, SB, Walks, BA
Pitcher: IP, W, Saves, K, Holds, ERA, WHIP, QS

Take away triples and use obp instead of walks + ba

Take away wins and use SV+HD instead of separate categories

 

[DrinkFightFlyers]

As always, please tell me if my assumptions are incorrect.

You seem to be taking this as a sign of front office approach. The NBA and the NHL both have maximum contract terms. They couldn't sign these kinds of deals today, but when it was allowed in the NHL, it is where contracts were going. And of course the NFL doesn't have guaranteed contracts, which means you're well into apples and oranges.

Not all that long ago, the Flyers signed Owen bleeping Tippett to 8 years. He's a fine player, but no one would call him one of the best players on the planet. (Ok, someone would. No one should.)



I'm going to do my best to avoid what you would consider new advanced stats. WAR is also not the almighty, but we'll let that one go for now.

First, Stott is almost 3 years older. That's not a small deal. Without even getting into the quality of the defense he provides, Stott is a 2B and Witt plays the most valuable and expensive defensive position on the field. So we have best athletes in the sport generally funneled into Witt's position and him being a perfectly reasonable choice for the best defender among them. I don't want to disparage Stott because it's not a fair comparison to take a good defensive 2B and compare him to a top flight SS. You wouldn't compare Mickey Morandini and Jimmy Rollins as defenders, right? They exist on completely different planes.

Things I know you like to use like Batting Average and OBP are largely washes, but the difference in power is not small. Stott Slugged .419 to Witt's .495. That kind of difference in power is enough to take you from pretty much a league average hitter to well above it.

What I will use fWAR for is one stat I will steal from Michael Baumann to illustrate just how rare it is for a Shortstop to do what Witt did last year. You may or may not be familiar with wRC+, so the only thing you need to know is that 100 is league average and high is good.



Source: What Could Keep Gunnar Henderson and Bobby Witt Jr. From Making the Hall of Fame?

Your assumptions are largely correct I am looking at it from the perspective of front office approach, but specifically in baseball. Unless I have missed a lot, these types of monster contracts for these types of players (e.g., 1-2 seasons in) are pretty rare. The post was not meant to knock Bobby Witt in any way or even say he doesn't deserve it, only that the way baseball contracts and player control goes it just seems like such a bigger risk to sign him to this type of contract now than to see where the next few seasons go.

KC is a bit different because of their market and finances so it may make sense to them to do it this way, but so much can change between now and when they would actually have to make this type of deal it just seems too risky. He may plateau. He may get hurt. He may regress. Even something crazy and unexpected like Wander Franco's situation. Baseball is too risky when the players are this young. I will admit that Witt's season did stack up better as compared to other SS than I initially realized as I was just looking at it from his pure stats without factoring that in, but still I just would be too worried for this type of deal.

If I'm not mistaken he would have I think 4-5 more years of team control if he didn't sign this deal. If I'm the GM I'm waiting at least another 2-3 years before I pull the trigger on something like this. That's just me though. Again not a knock on him or even saying it is overpriced or anything like that, just that I wouldn't take the risk when there's so much more control here than there is in other sports.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Did anyone in baseball lose more of his luster than Keith Law when data became more widely available?

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Did anyone in baseball lose more of his luster than Keith Law when data became more widely available?

I always felt he was wildly annoying. He would always seem very condescending & judgmental whenever a two sport athlete picked football over baseball.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

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