Blue Jays Discussion: Winter Meeting madness II: Meetings may not be as mad as they appear.

[showtime8]

Scott Kazmir 3 year deal with the Dodgers?

 

[FreeBird]

McCann will be 32, Headley will be 32, Gardner is 32, Beltran is 38 (and their starting RFer), and Ellsbury is 32. Why cutoff at that age when they are all clearly past their peak but heavily relied upon?

And the soon to be 36 year old Bautista, is in his prime.

 

[mikebel111*]

And the soon to be 36 year old Bautista, is in his prime.

We have still a better core than the Yankees.
Though I expect you to think the opposite

 

[Clark4Ever]

We are still top dog in the AL East on paper, but there's no question that the Yankees and Red Sox have narrowed the gap this off season.

We are definitely better than the team that started on opening day last season, but we are also weaker than the team that took the division by storm over the final 3 months of the season.

 

[zeke]

And the soon to be 36 year old Bautista, is in his prime.

guy just turned 35.

 

[mikeyz]

We are still top dog in the AL East on paper, but there's no question that the Yankees and Red Sox have narrowed the gap this off season.

We are definitely better than the team that started on opening day last season, but we are also weaker than the team that took the division by storm over the final 3 months of the season.

This.

 

[Diamond Joe Quimby]

And the soon to be 36 year old Bautista, is in his prime.

Nah, he's in decline. Trouble is (for the narrative), his state of decline (~.380 wOBA) makes him a top ten hitter in baseball.

 

[Eyedea]

Over his 6 year peak, Bautista's worst wOBA was .372 and his worst wRC+ was 135. That would have ranked 2nd to Teixeira's 2015 mark for the Yankees, and that was his (Teixeira's) best season since 2009.

It's not hard to see that the Yank's positional players don't offer up a ton of upside. They have that pinstripe magic, but it'll really be the pitching staff that they will need to rely upon.

 

[zeke]

The projections will like those guys specifically because a bounceback season IS the most likely scenario, based on historical precedent. You may not expect a bounceback, and that's perfectly fair, but based on their ages and track records, 2015 is not likely the new norm.

well, it's not really based on historical precedent, but just an inevitable side effect of regression models. projection systems have a very hard time dealing with players falling of a cliff performamce wise, as they will always project them to bounceback by their very nature, no matter what the circumstances. same thing with late career breakthrough guys like joey ee and josh. steamer seems to regress recent performance more heavily than most, which continues to spit out very rosy outlooks for bounceback guys. but these are amongst the riskiest of the projections (and boy do i wish they included the respective error bars for each projection)...and while their projections will tell you that building a roster out of these bounceback guys is smart, historical precednlent tells us it doesn't really work.

I'm pretty suspicious of Steamer in general. fangraphs has given them all sorts of credibility i'm not sure they deserve, and unfortunately since they're released so early they have started to make an oversized impression on the baseball world each offseason. they're one of the big reasons why the sox were ao crazy hyped last year, when an older more tested system like ZIPs was much more pessimistic on what they were. ZIPs turned out to be much closer to the truth. And again this year ZIPs has a much less rosy outlook for the red sox, at least offensively.

But then there's the issue with WAR projections really muddling the picture by including different quality component projections (i.e. defensive projections are fairly useless). sometimes it's best to break it up into these components. For example, even in the rosy STEAMER projections, here's what they actually say about the red sox offense next year;

Pedroia 105wrc+
Bogaerts 110
Betts 125
Ortiz 123
Ramirez 120
Sandoval 104
Bradley 97
Castillo 91
Swihart 86

Shaw 100
Young 99
Holt 88
Hanigan 77

now that there is solid offense, but nothing special. no elite bats up top, and nothing special depthwise, either. Moreover there's a ton of risk in the top of the order projections - age and injury are a major issue for for Ortiz and Pedroia, Hanley and Panda need to bounceback in major ways, and even young Bogaerts' breakthrough last year was based on questionable grounds. Betts is the only real safe projection up there.

then look at defense seperately and you probably see something similar - solid defense, but nothing spectacular.

Pitching wise they actually look pretty good. While their mediocre offense last year was lucky to produce more runs than they should have, their mediocre pitching last year was unlucky in conceding more runs than they should have. Now add Price and Kimbrel to that mediocre pitching and it probably ends up pretty good. Not awesome, but good.

of course ZIPS again isn't as rosy on the sox. here's the zips ops+ projections:

pedroia 101
bogaerts 103
betts 123
ortiz 135
hanley 119
Pablo 96
bradley 97
castillo 84
swihart 82

shaw 89
young 93
holt 92
hanigan 82

which actually looks like a below average offense to me.

compared to the jays:

travis 110
donaldson 138
bautista 147
encarnacion 140
Tulowitzki 114
Martin 107
cola 105
saunders 103
pillar 96

smoak 103
revere 91
goins 68
thole 70

 

[zeke]

zips ops+, yanks v sox:

pedroia 101 ---- ellsbury 97
bogaerts 103 -- gardner 104
betts 123 -------- teixeira 119
ortiz 135 --------- rodriguez 115
hanley 119 ----- mccann 107
Pablo 96 -------- beltran 104
bradley 97 ----- headley 102
castillo 84 ----- castro 98
swihart 82 ----- gregorius 93

shaw 89 ------ bird 122
young 93 ---- hicks 95
holt 92 -------- ackley 100
hanigan 82 -- Romine 83

travis 92 -- judge 105
marrero 67 - refsnyder 98
vazquez 69 - sanchez 99

and fip-

price 75 -- pineda 81
buchholz 87 - eovaldi 88
porcello 94 - tanaka 90
rodriguez 93 - severino 93
kelly 101 - nova 104
elias 107 - sabathia 108

kimbrel 67 - miller 54
uehara 73 - chapman 55
smith 74 - betances 58
tazawa 79 - goody 89
ross 92 - lindgren 90
layne 94 - shreve 92

 

[zeke]

McCann will be 32, Headley will be 32, Gardner is 32, Beltran is 38 (and their starting RFer), and Ellsbury is 32. Why cutoff at that age when they are all clearly past their peak but heavily relied upon?

32 isn't old. and for all the actual old guys ARod tex and beltran, they have bird, judge, and hicks ready to jump in and replace them. in fact, hicks likely starts ahead of beltran from the beginning.

and if you really believe that over 30 is old, the sox also have pedroia 32, hanley 32, young 32, Buchholz 31, Price 30, Tazawa 30, Layne 31 compared to the yanks ' mccann 32, gardner 32, headley 32, ellsbury 32, miller 31 in that 30-34 age range.

 

[p.l.f.]

seems alot for kazmir

 

[Eyedea]

32 isn't old. and for all the actual old guys ARod tex and beltran, they have bird, judge, and hicks ready to jump in and replace them. in fact, hicks likely starts ahead of beltran from the beginning.

and if you really believe that over 30 is old, the sox also have pedroia 32, hanley 32, young 32, Buchholz 31, Price 30, Tazawa 30, Layne 31 compared to the yanks ' mccann 32, gardner 32, headley 32, ellsbury 32, miller 31 in that 30-34 age range.

I never said Boston didn't have old players. Pedroia has been through hell and back and in decline. Bo Sox are logically going to be giving him more days off next season in hopes of keeping him consistent throughout the season. Hanley, well, is a first basemen at this point in time (and likely not a very good one).

I also don't believe 30 is old. I believe those players, despite only being a couple years older than 30, carry significant risk due to the amount of time they have played as well as their past injuries. Adding a cutoff to mask their age is iffy because they are still injury prone or in a phase of decline. Pineda for instance is only turning 27 in January, but he has played just 3 seasons over 5 years, all of which he spent time on the DL*.

*(2011 he was rested for fear of an arm injury, which sure enough happened in 2012)

 

[zeke]

Sox

35+ (3): DH Ortiz, RP2 Uehara, BC Hanigan
30-34 (7): SP1 Price, SP2 Buchholz, RP4 Tazawa, RP5 Layne, 2B Pedroia, 1B Ramirez, LF Young
25-29 (10): SP3 Porcello, SP5 Kelly, RP1 Kimbrel, RP3 Smith, RP6 Ross, RP7 Elias, CF Bradley, 3B Sandoval, BOF Castillo, BIF Holt
0-24 (4): RF Betts, SS Bogaerts, C Swihart, SP4 Rodriguez

Yanks

35+ (4): 1B Teixeira, DH Arod, SP5 Sabathia, BOF Beltran
30-34 (5): C McCann, LF Gardner, CF Ellsbury, 3B Headley, RP3 Miller
25-29 (13): SP1 Tanaka, SP2 Pineda, SP3 Eovaldi, RP1 Chapman, RP2 Betances, RP4 Shreve, RP5 Lindgren, RP6 Pinder, RP7 Nova, SS Gregorius, 2B Castro, RF Hicks, BIF Ackley
0-24 (3): SP4 Severino, BUT Bird, BC Sanchez

Jays

35+ (2): RF Bautista, SP2 Dickey
30-34 (9): 3B Donaldson, SS Tulowitzki, C Martin, DH En'cion, 1B Cola, SP3 Happ, SP4 Estrada, SP5 Chavez, RP6 Schultz
25-29 (12): SP1 Stroman, RP1 Cecil, RP 4 Loup, RP5 Tepera, RP7 Hutchison, CF Pillar, LF Saunders, 2B Travis, BUT Smoak, BOF Revere, BIF Goins, BC Thole
0-24 (2): RP2 Osuna, RP3 Sanchez

ugh this offseason. made us even older.

 

[Eyedea]

Bird will very likely be in AAA to start the season.

And again, these cutoffs are dumb and offer no analysis.

 

[zeke]

"yanks are old" is dumb analysis, and the biggest reason why they are underrated every year.

 

[Eyedea]

"yanks are old" is dumb analysis, and the biggest reason why they are underrated every year.

I never said the Yankees are old. I said they have old(er) players that they are relying significantly upon for offensive production. Most of which carry significant risk of injury.

Their rotation is also incredibly solid, but again, other than Severino all of them have experienced arm problems.

 

[RayzorIsDull]

I never said the Yankees are old. I said they have old(er) players that they are relying significantly upon for offensive production. Most of which carry significant risk of injury.

Their rotation is also incredibly solid, but again, other than Severino all of them have experienced arm problems.

I imagine you don't have high expectations for a guy like Tulowitzki then.

 

[Eyedea]

I imagine you don't have high expectations for a guy like Tulowitzki then.

Well I certainly don't expect him to play the full season.

I don't have crazy expectations regarding his offence either.

 

[p.l.f.]

I seem to recall Girardi taking his starters out often after 5 or 6 innings and going to like 4 or 5 relievers every night . so 3 star relievers might not do it lol

 

[Cor]

Well I certainly don't expect him to play the full season.

I don't have crazy expectations regarding his offence either.

What about his offense? 20-25 HR's, 85-90 RBI's, and is roughly a .300 hitter.

Not exactly horrible.

 

[habamillions]

The bluejays are going to be hungry. Donaldson, Bautista, EE, Tulo,Dickey have never won the world series. They know what it takes to do so now. Running out of time and they know it. I expect a big year from the team. Still need some pitching help though, obviously.

 

[Eyedea]

What about his offense? 20-25 HR's, 85-90 RBI's, and is roughly a .300 hitter.

Not exactly horrible.

I think his 2016 steamer projection is fairly bang on.

There was a 40 point gap in his AVG/OBP in his home/road splits. Something like his .350 wOBA and 116 wRC+ road split would still be very good to go along with his defence.

 

[Cor]

I think his 2016 steamer projection is fairly bang on.

What's the projection?

 

[Eyedea]

What's the projection?

.260/.334/.441, 21 HRs, 27 2Bs, 1 3B, 72 RBIs, 74 Runs, 2 SBs. 130 games/573 PAs, maybe he won't reach that mark but the offensive rates are fairly appropriate.