It's starting to be that time of year again. Fantasy football is just around the corner. This time of year is when Dynasty leagues and Keeper leagues "shine", leaving the late summer timeframe (August) to redraft leagues.
This year is the first time that I have ever done a dynasty draft for fantasy football. Dynasty leagues have a lot of appeal to those that enjoy playing against the same people from year to year and those that enjoy playing for the long term AND short term as far as team construction. I'm a freak, so i enjoy doing this kind of thing (i joined 3 keeper leagues in fantasy baseball just this year, knowing that maybe one will stay around next year)
For those of you who have never done dynasty football or baseball here is generally what it consists of and can bring to the table as far as fantasy sports is concerned:
1) You pick a team. Generally speaking dynasty leagues have more bench spots, though that is not always the case. From here you have a lot of ways you can draft a team. Win now, Win later, win now and later etc. Young "studs" are more expensive in these types of leagues than they would be in redraft leagues. In baseball leagues this is especially devistating for those that put too much stock in one year wonders (Hosmer, Lawrie) and not enough in veterens.
2) Do trades throughout the year. Noone gets the exact team they want. If you do, you are playing against idiots. With that said trades generally happen more often in these kinds of leagues than in others. Once you are halfway through the year, teams will make adjustments to their roster, trying to dump off older players for younger (usually older players end up on the teams that are winning that want the final push to make the playoffs)
3) After the year and before the next year begins, you drop some players and do a small redraft. This is generally for rookies (or anyone else that isnt already taken). In dynasty leagues it's usually something small like 4 rounds (though i have seen some that are 6 or 7 rounds, which is too many for my tastes)
With that said I'll show you what i did in my first Fantasy football dynasty league in the initial draft (slow draft over the ESPN message boards). League had oddish settings for scoring (generally everyone scored about 10x more than standard) so QB totals are inflated alot more than normal. Generally its a PPR league with IDP (individual defensive position) with bonuses for big games (yardage in a single game bonuses). The IDP is tackle heavy. Starters are QB/RBx2/WRx2/Flex/LBx2/DBx3/DFlex/K. 10 bench slots (3IR).
There were 6 things I had in mind going into the draft.
1) QBs were important to draft early. If i could get Rodgers or Brees, I could rest safe knowing I had points others couldnt account for on a weekly basis.
2) Elite LB scored about 400 points more than "normal" LB. attempting to lock up the position earlier than others could would be key.
3)DB were bunched together in about a 200 point difference for the top 15 or so. Of starters these would be my last
4)Get Graham/Gronk in the second round if possible. They represented about a 400 point difference. Prioritize Graham over Gronk (fewer weapons, TD are harder to predict)
5) The one everyone disagrees with. Priortize WR with large upside that are young early. RB come into the league and exit the league at a fast pace. Getting a non-top flight RB in round 1-3 would mean in 2-3 years that pick is out of the league or useless.
6) Along with 5, I wanted a ton of low cost (i.e. low drafted) RB. Like 8 of them. Prioritizing 2 guys who i could draft low that would be servicable for the year until hopefully 1 of the other 6 emerge on their teams. Targets: Hillis, Starks, Donald Brown, Hillman, Pead, Wilson, Ben tate, Stewart.
With that in mind, I got the 7th pick (of 10) and began thinking of what i could/should do.
Picks 1-6 went as expected to me (combination of Rice/Foster/McCoy/Rodgers/Brees/Calvin Johnson). This left me with a decision to make. Do I take Brady? Do i Trust Cam Newton? Do I trust the oft injured Stafford? What happens to Staffords value if either he gets injured OR Johnson gets injured? (my guess is his value tanks). I think I can get Brady if i trade away my second round pick so I take a gamble. I trade my 2.04/3.07/14.04 for someone elses 2.10/3.1/10.1. This move is INTENDED to still get me a QB (Brady is old, I didnt think anyone would take him) and move up in the third to get a stud young WR1 type while also moving up my average pick number (give up a 14 for a 10 is great value to me)
With what I did, I picked Graham first. I dont regret the pick, I knew i would not get him at 2.10 and it locked up a position for me above everyone but 1 person. He scored WR1 numbers.
Then i got a kick in the crotch. Newton, Stafford, Brady all went in the next 5 picks. My gamble did not pay off. So what did i do with my next 2 picks? I went double young WR1 to lock up the position for the next 5-10 years (Hopefully). I got Julio Jones and AJ Green. Both very high upside. Both should be WR1 types for the forseeable future. Both would be gone by my next pick (4.04)
Looking at the landcape of what was happening I decided to amass picks in the first 10 rounds to get RB and LB. The only way to do this was to trade trade trade. I sucessfully traded 4.04/12.04/15.07 for 6.05/8.05/10.05. This left me without another pick until 5.07 which I used ON Percy Harvin. I think he is a top 10 player as long as the Vikings use him. Young, stud number 1 receiver in round 5? Yes I'll take that
Right before I made my pick at 6.04 I noticed something that i had apparently misread earlier. 5 RB limit (talking to the GM its to make waivers more interesting). This screwed my "take a boatload of backup RB" plan. I admittedly panicked. I took Fred Jackson, who is decent value at this spot BUT is old (31) and has a capable backup (Spiller). When i took him i hoped to be able to get Spiller the next round, which did not happen (someone else took Spiller). Without being able to get Spiller to back up Jackson, I decided to do what everyone complained about. Traded my next pick (my recently accquired 6.05). 6.05/16.04/17.07 for 7.05/11.05/12.06 was an exceptional trade for me (and my last, after getting so many picks in a row people stopped trading with me as they saw what I was doing and the players it resulted in themselves getting. For the record he took RGIII/Luck with 2 picks in a row to get his QB position.
You will notice one thing that I had done with this. No QB yet. with the trades, nothing seemed like a good value to me. and once you are past the elites, the difference is not as major as some may believe. So i decided to wait. Some people took backups (4 before I picked 1) which were wasted picks to me, but I was happy to wait.
My next pick was 7.05 (trade). I decided on Roy Helu since Spiller was gone. Helu SHOULD start as the Redskins RB1. He is their best RB and can be a 3 down back all year long on a team with a rookie QB. If he produces like he did in his limited starts last year he is a borderline RB1 IMO. so getting him in round 7 based purely on his coach is a blessing for a guy like me who waited on RB. It also helps that he is young as well.
At this point I am looking at point differentials for players and decide to start the IDP run. 3 LB (I have 3 of the next 9 picks. I wanted Willis but he was taken too early. I wanted D'Qwell Jackson but he got taken directly before my pick. This left me with "settling" for Laurinitis, Daryl Washington, and Derrick Johnson. First 2 are young and the leaders of their teams. Johnson is a little older but really only competes with Berry for tackles. I have 3 top 10 LB which should be a large advantage over everyone else.
By round 9 I couldnt wait on QB any longer and I "settled" for Payton Manning. I might only get 2 years out of him, or zero. But if he is Healthy he can be a top 5 or 6 QB so to get him in the 9th round is outstanding to me.
By now I have a mass of picks lined up to take advantage of everyone else. With my next 6 picks I take: Antoine Bethea (Should get lots of work as Indy figures out how to play offense), Tyvon Branch (always a lot of tackles for consistancy), Beanie Wells (a RB with guarenteed touches every week), Charles Tillman (always a high tackle DB), Payton Hillis (more guarenteed carries), Big ben (Backup QB who can get into the top 10 QBs on a yearly basis).
List of remaining Picks:
Ronnie Hillman (backup to an old McGahee, RB1 upside)
Lawrence Timmons (cannot believe he was not taken earlier, 1 down year and everyone forgets him? excellent value for a bye week fill in)
Darius Heyward Bay (could be WR1 in Oakland this year, Palmer Likes him)
Carson Palmer (shotgun pickup. I wanted to get the max 4 on QB since i waited so long on them and he was best still there)
Mohamud Sanu (another shotgun pickup. with these guys I dont care if i drop them)
Randell Cobb (apparently everyone forgot he existed as less talented backup DB went off the board before him.....kickers too which is a cardinal sin in my book)
Kevin Kolb (If he bounces back to a reasonable level he can be a bye week Fill in)
Rob Bironas (needed a kicker, him being week 11 only helps me. weakish offense as well so that can help a little too)
List of picks by position:
QB:
Payton Manning
Ben Roethlesberger
Carson Palmer
Kevin Kolb
RB:
Fred Jackson
Roy Helu
Payton Hillis
Beanie Wells
Ronnie Hillman
WR:
Julio Jones
AJ Green
Percy Harvin
Darius Heyward Bay
Mohamud Sanu
Randell Cobb
TE:
Jimmy Graham
LB:
James Laurinitis
Daryl Washington
Derrik Johnson
Lawrence Timmons
DB:
Antoine Bethea
Tyvon Branch
Charles Tillman
K:
Rob Bironas
Let me know what you guys think of my team if you read this. I would be interested in knowing what your thoughts are on how I went about making my mind up on this team. i was obviously disappointed in the RB part, but I think I will survive it as long as I dont get too many injuries specifically to guys like Jackson and Wells.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
What I've learned about fantasy baseball (so far)
Were approximately 1/3 of the way through the baseball season so it's as good a time as any to take a look at your fantasy baseball lineups and decide the direction you need to take with your teams. It's my firm belief that the season for anyone in 10 team mixed leagues is still salvagable, dependingon the activity of your league, any deeper and it will depend on circumstances. If you are not in the top half in a dynasty league (I'd count that as a keeper league of 7 or more players with 14 or more teams personally) you are probably in trouble at this point but there is always next year.
Here is a list of things that have shocked me to learn, affirmed what i originally thought (but went against anyways because i was a sheep in some drafts) or generally are things I have learned in my first year of doing fantasy baseball.
Draft hitters early and often
Looking at the top 25 players on ESPNs player rater (not the best metric of course, but it's an easy to understand list of the who is who of fantasy baseball in standard roto leagues) you see the following trends:
10 hitters with an ADP that put them in the first 4 rounds appear in the top 25 on the player rater. In order: Hamilton, CarGo, Braun, Votto, Bourn, McCutchen, Wright, Miguel Cabrera, Castro, Konerko
0 Pitchers drafted in the top 4 rounds of drafts (normally top 12 pitchers) are in the top 25 on the player rater
Of the top 25 BATTERS 13 commonly went in the top 25-30 picks (over a 50% rate)
4 of the top 25 pitchers were top 30 picks.
9 of the top 25 pitchers were waiver pickups in 12 team leagues or less at the beginning of the year.
3 of the top 25 hitters were waiver pickups.
With these kinds of stats I'm inclined to pick up pitching off waivers and stream more. In some leagues i drafted some decent starting pitchers (Targeted Cain in particular along with CJ Wilson) but mostly went for late guys and decided to hit the waiver wire. For the roto leagues I decided to try "good pitching" on I am in an almost unrecoverable position in HR/RBI/AVG.
Don't Pay for Saves
How many teams are with the same closer that they started Spring Training with? Orioles, Diamondbacks, Braves, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Twins, Brewers, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals. Not even HALF! Besides Kimbral and Axford, none of the teams that have their original closer were drafted as a top 10 closer, most were drafted as a bottom half closer.
Why do I mention this? Kimbrel went for $19 in my 12 team roto auction draft. I got Hamilton for $22 and currently have Rodney, Chris Perez and Soriano closing games for me all for $1 (Perez in draft, Rodney/Soriano in FAAB). Im leading the league in saves BTW.
In the leagues where I thought I would try for the "established" guys I have been bured and have had to get guys off waivers anyways. So I'm going to cut out the middle man and take 2 or 3 guys for a max of $8 in auctions next year.
Don't draft sophomore hitters and project them to be what they are not
I have to admit, I didnt fall for this trick in my leagues anyways. But it bears repeating. Small sample sizes are bad for projecting a whole years worth of hitting. This years darlings of the draft that are the main culprits.
Brett Lawrie: 14 on the Player rater at 3B. .279 5HR 30 R 25 RBI 8 SB. People were projecting about .280/25/80/80/15 and are woefully off on 3.
Eric Hosmer: 27th at 1B on player rater. .221/7HR/25R/30RBI/5SB. Projections: .295/25HR/90/90/12. His batting average is killing his fantasy value.
These were guys in the 4th and 5th round. In a dynasty league I am in, Hosmer was sucessfully traded for Pujols. Yes you read that right. People went crazy for these fellas and they are getting burned by the pick. To put it in perspective I got Hamilton for again, $22. Lawrie went for $21.
Draft HR, get SB/Runs off waivers not the other way around!
HR hitters are hard to come by. Of those with 10 or more, only 7 were not drafted. Average is also hard to chase. 12 players have an average over .300. 9 of those 12 players have 10 or more HR. The perfect players to draft IMO are guys who can bring you both.
My perfect 10 team mixed league dream team if I could redraft today (approximation of where they went in drafts in March):
Round 1: Joey Votto. (1B)
Round 2: Hanley Ramirez (SS/3B)
Round 3: Andrew McCutchen (OF)
Round 4: Josh Hamilton (OF)
Round 5: Matt Cain (SP)
Round 6: Elvis Andrus (SS)
Round 7: Adam Jones (OF)
Round 8: Carlos Beltran (OF)
Round 9: Brandon Beachy (SP)
Round 10: Edwin Encarnacion (3B)
Round 11: Melky Cabrera (OF)
Round 12: Johnny Cueto (SP)
Round 13: Jason Kipnis (2B)
Round 14: Josh Willingham (OF)
Round 15: Adam Dunn (1B)
Round 16: Jose Altuve (2B)
Round 17: Shaum Marcum (SP)
Round 18: Aroldis Chapman (RP)
Round 19: Kenley Jansen (RP)
Round 20: Johan Santana (SP)
Round 21: RA Dickey (SP)
Round 22: Tyler Clippard (RP)
Think about it like this. That team is someones starting fantasy team roster. How badley are they crushing their competition? I'd say they have about a 20 point or more lead on their opponents. While it's easy to show this its harder to predict this team.
Here is a list of things that have shocked me to learn, affirmed what i originally thought (but went against anyways because i was a sheep in some drafts) or generally are things I have learned in my first year of doing fantasy baseball.
Draft hitters early and often
Looking at the top 25 players on ESPNs player rater (not the best metric of course, but it's an easy to understand list of the who is who of fantasy baseball in standard roto leagues) you see the following trends:
10 hitters with an ADP that put them in the first 4 rounds appear in the top 25 on the player rater. In order: Hamilton, CarGo, Braun, Votto, Bourn, McCutchen, Wright, Miguel Cabrera, Castro, Konerko
0 Pitchers drafted in the top 4 rounds of drafts (normally top 12 pitchers) are in the top 25 on the player rater
Of the top 25 BATTERS 13 commonly went in the top 25-30 picks (over a 50% rate)
4 of the top 25 pitchers were top 30 picks.
9 of the top 25 pitchers were waiver pickups in 12 team leagues or less at the beginning of the year.
3 of the top 25 hitters were waiver pickups.
With these kinds of stats I'm inclined to pick up pitching off waivers and stream more. In some leagues i drafted some decent starting pitchers (Targeted Cain in particular along with CJ Wilson) but mostly went for late guys and decided to hit the waiver wire. For the roto leagues I decided to try "good pitching" on I am in an almost unrecoverable position in HR/RBI/AVG.
Don't Pay for Saves
How many teams are with the same closer that they started Spring Training with? Orioles, Diamondbacks, Braves, Indians, Rockies, Astros, Twins, Brewers, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals. Not even HALF! Besides Kimbral and Axford, none of the teams that have their original closer were drafted as a top 10 closer, most were drafted as a bottom half closer.
Why do I mention this? Kimbrel went for $19 in my 12 team roto auction draft. I got Hamilton for $22 and currently have Rodney, Chris Perez and Soriano closing games for me all for $1 (Perez in draft, Rodney/Soriano in FAAB). Im leading the league in saves BTW.
In the leagues where I thought I would try for the "established" guys I have been bured and have had to get guys off waivers anyways. So I'm going to cut out the middle man and take 2 or 3 guys for a max of $8 in auctions next year.
Don't draft sophomore hitters and project them to be what they are not
I have to admit, I didnt fall for this trick in my leagues anyways. But it bears repeating. Small sample sizes are bad for projecting a whole years worth of hitting. This years darlings of the draft that are the main culprits.
Brett Lawrie: 14 on the Player rater at 3B. .279 5HR 30 R 25 RBI 8 SB. People were projecting about .280/25/80/80/15 and are woefully off on 3.
Eric Hosmer: 27th at 1B on player rater. .221/7HR/25R/30RBI/5SB. Projections: .295/25HR/90/90/12. His batting average is killing his fantasy value.
These were guys in the 4th and 5th round. In a dynasty league I am in, Hosmer was sucessfully traded for Pujols. Yes you read that right. People went crazy for these fellas and they are getting burned by the pick. To put it in perspective I got Hamilton for again, $22. Lawrie went for $21.
Draft HR, get SB/Runs off waivers not the other way around!
HR hitters are hard to come by. Of those with 10 or more, only 7 were not drafted. Average is also hard to chase. 12 players have an average over .300. 9 of those 12 players have 10 or more HR. The perfect players to draft IMO are guys who can bring you both.
My perfect 10 team mixed league dream team if I could redraft today (approximation of where they went in drafts in March):
Round 1: Joey Votto. (1B)
Round 2: Hanley Ramirez (SS/3B)
Round 3: Andrew McCutchen (OF)
Round 4: Josh Hamilton (OF)
Round 5: Matt Cain (SP)
Round 6: Elvis Andrus (SS)
Round 7: Adam Jones (OF)
Round 8: Carlos Beltran (OF)
Round 9: Brandon Beachy (SP)
Round 10: Edwin Encarnacion (3B)
Round 11: Melky Cabrera (OF)
Round 12: Johnny Cueto (SP)
Round 13: Jason Kipnis (2B)
Round 14: Josh Willingham (OF)
Round 15: Adam Dunn (1B)
Round 16: Jose Altuve (2B)
Round 17: Shaum Marcum (SP)
Round 18: Aroldis Chapman (RP)
Round 19: Kenley Jansen (RP)
Round 20: Johan Santana (SP)
Round 21: RA Dickey (SP)
Round 22: Tyler Clippard (RP)
Think about it like this. That team is someones starting fantasy team roster. How badley are they crushing their competition? I'd say they have about a 20 point or more lead on their opponents. While it's easy to show this its harder to predict this team.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Baseball (and the Union specifically) is going to eat itself alive.....
I understand the point of the baseball players union, I really do. It was formed when conditions for players was bad. Low pay, crappy team conditions, everyone was unionizing. Unfortunately the players union has kind of gone a little far in the past 20-30 years and they currently have literally all of the power in the Management (owners) vs Union (Players) relationship. Baseball is nothing without it's stars and they know it and teams would lose a very gigantic amount of money if the players went on strike again, so the owners capitulate. Plus the players union has the backing of the Federal Government (which should realistically have zero say in this manner but thats a different topic entirely)
The '94-'95 strike was THE chance for baseball as an organization to clean up what was about to happen. Since the Players Association basically won the strike, small town teams have been part of a boom/bust cycle (some teams mostly bust) which I'll describe here:
starting from a bad team:
1) Team is bad for a few years and has high draft slots while the team stinks. During this period attendance is low because the team is bad and it generally happens in a small market.
2) 3 or 4 players on that team (generally speaking high draft picks) all come to the majors within a couple of years of each other under team friendly contracts and start to perform well. Excitement builds for the team in the local fanbase and additional revenue comes to the team.
3) The team makes their "run" at the playoffs. the increased revenue means they can bring in a few key free agents (usually pitchers) and the team goes into a "win now" mentality trading away whatever other minor league prospects they have to try to reach the postseason.
4) Team starts to underperform because they cannot sign big name free agent targets (mostly pitchers) and cannot generate enough revenue to sign more than maybe 1 or 2 homegrown players to long contracts.
5) As the team starts struggling, attendance drops and the team faces a harsh reality. Mediocrity for the foreseeable future with middling draft picks and a bad farm system (caused by trades for "win now") or trade the stars they signed for prospects and tank a few seasons starting the whole cycle over.
Some teams never complete this cycle out of ineptitude. The Pirates have been especially bad for a long period of time now (20 years!), but this blame can entirely rest on a pretty bad scouting network on the team. They hit on McCutchen, one of my favorite players, but have so far missed on nearly everyone else (Neil Walker is their only other 1st round player thats hit the majors thats any good whatsoever and he's not good.....that tells you something right there)
Some teams are at the tail end of this cycle. The Brewers, Twins are two very good examples of this happening. Bloated contracts for players the team cannot afford to keep during what is likely to be a rebuilding process.
Teams on the rise of the process: Royals, Diamondbacks, Indians, Nationals. They have strong farm systems and/or a good core of young players to build a championship run around.
Tampa Bay is the only real team in the middle of the process, though the Orioles are kind of in the middle (though their pitching is suspect at best)
Why is the process bad for baseball?
This entire process revolves around teams hitting on prospects within the first round or 2 in order for it to lead to something in the future. Specifically it HAS to hit on at least one absolute star on the team to work out (i.e. hitting on Corey Hart is nice, but not as nice as Braun AND Fielder at the same time). The Nationals have Strasberg. The Diamondbacks have Upton (and Skaags/Bauer in the minors who im convinced are aces on almost any staff in the majors someday). The Royals have Hosmer (current struggles aside) and Moustakas. The indians are kind of a mystery to me as it's really Carlos Santana, but they are offensively an all around good club.
You also have to hit on homegrown pitchers. This is how the Brewers have done it (Gallardo), Tampa (too many to name!), Nationals (Strasberg/Zimmerman). This has to be at the same time.
And here is the problem with the process and why it's so maddening as a baseball fan, and Brewers fan in particular. This is what small market teams have to do in order to compete. This is why the owners voted a staggering 25-3 for a salary cap during the 1994-1995 strike (presumably the teams with the most income are the only ones to vote against). It's hard to do hit on players this often.
Lets take a look at the first round players drafted for the years 2000-2005 and see which ones are currently considered anything close to "stars":
2000: Adrian Gonzalez (Marlins), Chase Utley (Phillies), Adam Wainwright (Braves)
2001: Joe Mauer (Twins), Mark Teixeira (Rangers), David Wright (Mets, compensation pick)
2002: Zack Greinke (Royals), Prince Fielder (Brewers), Nick Swisher (A's), Cole Hamels (Phillies), Matt Cain (Giants)
2003: Rickie Weeks* (Brewers), Carlos Quinton (Diamondbacks), Adam Jones (Mariners, compensation pick)
2004: Justin Verlander (Tigers), Jared Weaver (Angels)
2005: Justin Upton (Diamondbacks), Ryan Zimmerman (Nationals), Ryan Braun (Brewers), Rickey Ramero (Blue Jays), Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies), Andrew McCutchen (Pirates), Jay Bruce (Reds), Jacoby Ellsbury (Red Sox)
* My Rickie Weeks hatred is well known but I'll include him on the list
Thats 24 picks in 6 years (average 4/year with average picks per year of about 32 with compensation round or somewhere around a 12.5% chance.
Teams have about a 12.5% chance of hitting on a draft choice in the first round. The numbers go down drastically after the first round. If you are one on the struggling small market teams these picks mean pretty much everything to your chances for success in the future. Even inside the top 10 picks the success rate is an abysmal 20%. And this is what small market teams have to do to compete!
Long Term health of baseball
Many "baseball people" point to TV ratings for a Red Sox/Yankees matchup in the playoffs vs a Brewers/Diamondbacks (as an example) and say that the Red Sox/Yankees matchup is what MLB wants. and it's true......in the short term. But it's not good for the long term health of baseball. What is good for the long term, and MLB attendance/popularity overall is to have a reasonable expectation of being able to compete across the board. Every franchise should have these swings in their team, and only those who draft and scout well should be immune to this.
People need to be honest about this topic and realistic. Does it make sense to anyone that a sport can be so heavily based off money? (note, this is NOT in any way paralleled to the "free market" because baseball has an agreement of monopoly privilege with congress). Baseball is the only sport not truly covered under anti-trust laws, therefore has no actual competition aside from other sports.
Over the course of the last decade, which teams have been the most competative nearly every single year?
Yankees
Red Sox
Angels
Phillies (last 5-7 years)
2 of those teams: regularly top 3 (Yankees always the top), Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies currently are the top 3 and the Angels almost always top 10
This is what money buys, consistently being able to compete over a long period of time.
number of first round picks these 3 teams have truely hit on? 2 (Ellsbury/Weaver)
number of first round hits that are currently on these teams? 7 (out of the 24 or almost 30%)
This is not good. Baseball is for all intents and purposes, putting most of the best players onto a few specific teams and leaving maybe one star, who happened to sign a long term early deal with the club that drafted them (in my eyes, a mistake on their part with the current system)
Well what about this year!? is something people will mention. Right now The Red Sox are in last, Yankees in third (of 5), Phillies in last (Angels in second to last). A lot of this can be attributed to a few things:
Angels: Pujols has not been playing very well, neither has Dan Haren. Thats $45 million or so in payroll not playing like that amount of money. if they play better, the team is at worst in second place in the division.
Phillies: Injuries and players getting old. Howard is out, utley is out, Rollins is getting older. Plus they play in the most competative division in baseball right now and are only 4 games from first. Eventually their hitting will catch up to their pitching and they will be in first
Yankees: Injury/pitching concerns (Pineda out for year), Orioles playing out of their minds. They will right the ship, they always do. They will make a trade at the deadline and make the playoffs as either the division winner or a wild card
Red Sox: Injuries. Youkilis (back with team), Crawford, Ellsbury, Bailey, Lackey, Dice-K, Cody Ross. They are playing Adrian Gonzalez in right FFS!
How the union screwed up baseball
Lack of a salary cap. When players went back to playing in 1995 and the new contract didnt have a salary cap system in place, they basically damned the smaller market teams to the boom bust cycle. And this exact thing has been happening for nearly 20 years now. This is of course in the players favor, salaries have gone waaaaaaaay up since the strike. $1.07 million in 1995, $3.44 million in 2012. or 321% increase.
What does this do? It drives away players to teams that are ready, willing, and able to pay the lofty amounts for free agents. Small teams cannot take the possibility of a pitcher who could make $20 million+ per year either underperforming or getting hurt. It basically screws their team. They cannot pay possibly more than 1 player that kind of money at all because of the same reason. Plus, if the big teams find that they really want a player, they can always just outbid the other teams, or offer longer contracts for the same amount because if there is an injury, they can soak up the difference and get someone else in free agency.
How I would fix it
The owners should have never signed the new CBA. It does nothing for about half or more of the teams. The new "harsher" luxury tax hits mean almost nothing to teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies. These are teams estimated to be worth upwards of over $2 billion and have a HUGE fanbase. Meanwhile smaller teams get a little bit of cash meant to help them compete that ultimately means nothing. if the Rays for instance get $25 million in luxury money, they could conceiveably sign say, Albert Pujols, but then have almost noone else on their team but homegrown talent and thus, nothing is accomplished because they don't have a revenue stream to compete long term and sign other players.
What the luxury tax really does is mean small teams sign middling talent, because they have to in order to even attempt to compete. And they end up either mediocre or bad (and thus find themselves somewhere in the small market baseball team cycle).
The owners of the small market teams really need to just grow some balls. It's in their best interest LONG TERM to say no to the players union and to implement a salary cap. If it takes the players striking again, let them. And let this be the sole issue that the strike is about.
If the players had a strike over a salary cap, the fans of nearly every team in baseball will be on the owners side. In the last strike it was that way anyways and it took years for fans to return (but they did return, and in a huge way). But what the owners need to know, is that the fans in every baseball city would welcome balanced teams with balanced salaries (except Yankees/Red Sox/Phillies/Angels fans). You want to see baseball revived? Let the idea of a Pirates vs Royals World Series be something that people actually want to watch because the teams aren't just lucky but actually good.
Responses to common questions/complaints
1) Baseball has competitive balance. How many times have the these big market teams even won the World Series lately?
9 times out of the last 17 years (over 50% have been 4 of the largest spenders. but 13 times they have made the World Series. The number of times the highest spenders have made the playoffs however is very high. how many times have the Yankees missed the playoffs since the spending spree started?
2) You're a communist. Apparently you don't believe in the free market.
Actually I believe in the Austrian School of economics, which is the only truely free market system devoid of government control. Baseball falls outside of "free market" for 2 reasons.
a) It has laws through congress which makes it a virtual Monopoly. It has no competition in the realm of baseball in the US, because they are the only ones officially recognized as professional baseball. Summer ball, Winter ball, Arizona leagues etc all fall under the purview of MLB. Baseball also has many stadiums funded by local governments.
b) Baseball is allowed to make its own rules concerning it's own independent league. free market means no government interference, and actually if it was free market the baseball strike in 1994 would have probably ended with the players losing and a salary cap (and thus more revenue for every team as they would be more balanced in the long run). The current setup happened precisely because baseball is NOT a free market, and the labor union cried to congress.
3) You just hate the Yankees, if your favorite team could spend like the Yankees, you wouldn't complain.
Yes I would. I don't know how people can enjoy winning a game where the deck is stacked in their favor. I've never understood cheaters in things that are meant to be played for fun, and I don't understand wanting to have such a strong grip on competition in what is meant to be a fan enjoyed past time. If what you enjoy is watching your favorite team beat inferior competition based almost entirely on the size of the city it is in (or how old the team is) then you must really love the first week of the college football season (which i personally hate)
4) Look at the Rays, they are a model franchise. Or the Brewers!
They are an outlier and are going to crash in the near future. Once the Rays cannot sign more than one of their stars to long term contracts, their run is done. They are in the middle of their cycle, and trust me when they fall it's going to be noticeable.
The Brewers are right at the cusp of the end of the competitive part of their cycle and need to be smart with how they proceed. By all means keep Braun, but they can pretty much dump the rest of their roster (maybe keep Gallardo) to attempt to shorten their cycle by revamping their minors.
The '94-'95 strike was THE chance for baseball as an organization to clean up what was about to happen. Since the Players Association basically won the strike, small town teams have been part of a boom/bust cycle (some teams mostly bust) which I'll describe here:
starting from a bad team:
1) Team is bad for a few years and has high draft slots while the team stinks. During this period attendance is low because the team is bad and it generally happens in a small market.
2) 3 or 4 players on that team (generally speaking high draft picks) all come to the majors within a couple of years of each other under team friendly contracts and start to perform well. Excitement builds for the team in the local fanbase and additional revenue comes to the team.
3) The team makes their "run" at the playoffs. the increased revenue means they can bring in a few key free agents (usually pitchers) and the team goes into a "win now" mentality trading away whatever other minor league prospects they have to try to reach the postseason.
4) Team starts to underperform because they cannot sign big name free agent targets (mostly pitchers) and cannot generate enough revenue to sign more than maybe 1 or 2 homegrown players to long contracts.
5) As the team starts struggling, attendance drops and the team faces a harsh reality. Mediocrity for the foreseeable future with middling draft picks and a bad farm system (caused by trades for "win now") or trade the stars they signed for prospects and tank a few seasons starting the whole cycle over.
Some teams never complete this cycle out of ineptitude. The Pirates have been especially bad for a long period of time now (20 years!), but this blame can entirely rest on a pretty bad scouting network on the team. They hit on McCutchen, one of my favorite players, but have so far missed on nearly everyone else (Neil Walker is their only other 1st round player thats hit the majors thats any good whatsoever and he's not good.....that tells you something right there)
Some teams are at the tail end of this cycle. The Brewers, Twins are two very good examples of this happening. Bloated contracts for players the team cannot afford to keep during what is likely to be a rebuilding process.
Teams on the rise of the process: Royals, Diamondbacks, Indians, Nationals. They have strong farm systems and/or a good core of young players to build a championship run around.
Tampa Bay is the only real team in the middle of the process, though the Orioles are kind of in the middle (though their pitching is suspect at best)
Why is the process bad for baseball?
This entire process revolves around teams hitting on prospects within the first round or 2 in order for it to lead to something in the future. Specifically it HAS to hit on at least one absolute star on the team to work out (i.e. hitting on Corey Hart is nice, but not as nice as Braun AND Fielder at the same time). The Nationals have Strasberg. The Diamondbacks have Upton (and Skaags/Bauer in the minors who im convinced are aces on almost any staff in the majors someday). The Royals have Hosmer (current struggles aside) and Moustakas. The indians are kind of a mystery to me as it's really Carlos Santana, but they are offensively an all around good club.
You also have to hit on homegrown pitchers. This is how the Brewers have done it (Gallardo), Tampa (too many to name!), Nationals (Strasberg/Zimmerman). This has to be at the same time.
And here is the problem with the process and why it's so maddening as a baseball fan, and Brewers fan in particular. This is what small market teams have to do in order to compete. This is why the owners voted a staggering 25-3 for a salary cap during the 1994-1995 strike (presumably the teams with the most income are the only ones to vote against). It's hard to do hit on players this often.
Lets take a look at the first round players drafted for the years 2000-2005 and see which ones are currently considered anything close to "stars":
2000: Adrian Gonzalez (Marlins), Chase Utley (Phillies), Adam Wainwright (Braves)
2001: Joe Mauer (Twins), Mark Teixeira (Rangers), David Wright (Mets, compensation pick)
2002: Zack Greinke (Royals), Prince Fielder (Brewers), Nick Swisher (A's), Cole Hamels (Phillies), Matt Cain (Giants)
2003: Rickie Weeks* (Brewers), Carlos Quinton (Diamondbacks), Adam Jones (Mariners, compensation pick)
2004: Justin Verlander (Tigers), Jared Weaver (Angels)
2005: Justin Upton (Diamondbacks), Ryan Zimmerman (Nationals), Ryan Braun (Brewers), Rickey Ramero (Blue Jays), Troy Tulowitzki (Rockies), Andrew McCutchen (Pirates), Jay Bruce (Reds), Jacoby Ellsbury (Red Sox)
* My Rickie Weeks hatred is well known but I'll include him on the list
Thats 24 picks in 6 years (average 4/year with average picks per year of about 32 with compensation round or somewhere around a 12.5% chance.
Teams have about a 12.5% chance of hitting on a draft choice in the first round. The numbers go down drastically after the first round. If you are one on the struggling small market teams these picks mean pretty much everything to your chances for success in the future. Even inside the top 10 picks the success rate is an abysmal 20%. And this is what small market teams have to do to compete!
Long Term health of baseball
Many "baseball people" point to TV ratings for a Red Sox/Yankees matchup in the playoffs vs a Brewers/Diamondbacks (as an example) and say that the Red Sox/Yankees matchup is what MLB wants. and it's true......in the short term. But it's not good for the long term health of baseball. What is good for the long term, and MLB attendance/popularity overall is to have a reasonable expectation of being able to compete across the board. Every franchise should have these swings in their team, and only those who draft and scout well should be immune to this.
People need to be honest about this topic and realistic. Does it make sense to anyone that a sport can be so heavily based off money? (note, this is NOT in any way paralleled to the "free market" because baseball has an agreement of monopoly privilege with congress). Baseball is the only sport not truly covered under anti-trust laws, therefore has no actual competition aside from other sports.
Over the course of the last decade, which teams have been the most competative nearly every single year?
Yankees
Red Sox
Angels
Phillies (last 5-7 years)
2 of those teams: regularly top 3 (Yankees always the top), Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies currently are the top 3 and the Angels almost always top 10
This is what money buys, consistently being able to compete over a long period of time.
number of first round picks these 3 teams have truely hit on? 2 (Ellsbury/Weaver)
number of first round hits that are currently on these teams? 7 (out of the 24 or almost 30%)
This is not good. Baseball is for all intents and purposes, putting most of the best players onto a few specific teams and leaving maybe one star, who happened to sign a long term early deal with the club that drafted them (in my eyes, a mistake on their part with the current system)
Well what about this year!? is something people will mention. Right now The Red Sox are in last, Yankees in third (of 5), Phillies in last (Angels in second to last). A lot of this can be attributed to a few things:
Angels: Pujols has not been playing very well, neither has Dan Haren. Thats $45 million or so in payroll not playing like that amount of money. if they play better, the team is at worst in second place in the division.
Phillies: Injuries and players getting old. Howard is out, utley is out, Rollins is getting older. Plus they play in the most competative division in baseball right now and are only 4 games from first. Eventually their hitting will catch up to their pitching and they will be in first
Yankees: Injury/pitching concerns (Pineda out for year), Orioles playing out of their minds. They will right the ship, they always do. They will make a trade at the deadline and make the playoffs as either the division winner or a wild card
Red Sox: Injuries. Youkilis (back with team), Crawford, Ellsbury, Bailey, Lackey, Dice-K, Cody Ross. They are playing Adrian Gonzalez in right FFS!
How the union screwed up baseball
Lack of a salary cap. When players went back to playing in 1995 and the new contract didnt have a salary cap system in place, they basically damned the smaller market teams to the boom bust cycle. And this exact thing has been happening for nearly 20 years now. This is of course in the players favor, salaries have gone waaaaaaaay up since the strike. $1.07 million in 1995, $3.44 million in 2012. or 321% increase.
What does this do? It drives away players to teams that are ready, willing, and able to pay the lofty amounts for free agents. Small teams cannot take the possibility of a pitcher who could make $20 million+ per year either underperforming or getting hurt. It basically screws their team. They cannot pay possibly more than 1 player that kind of money at all because of the same reason. Plus, if the big teams find that they really want a player, they can always just outbid the other teams, or offer longer contracts for the same amount because if there is an injury, they can soak up the difference and get someone else in free agency.
How I would fix it
The owners should have never signed the new CBA. It does nothing for about half or more of the teams. The new "harsher" luxury tax hits mean almost nothing to teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies. These are teams estimated to be worth upwards of over $2 billion and have a HUGE fanbase. Meanwhile smaller teams get a little bit of cash meant to help them compete that ultimately means nothing. if the Rays for instance get $25 million in luxury money, they could conceiveably sign say, Albert Pujols, but then have almost noone else on their team but homegrown talent and thus, nothing is accomplished because they don't have a revenue stream to compete long term and sign other players.
What the luxury tax really does is mean small teams sign middling talent, because they have to in order to even attempt to compete. And they end up either mediocre or bad (and thus find themselves somewhere in the small market baseball team cycle).
The owners of the small market teams really need to just grow some balls. It's in their best interest LONG TERM to say no to the players union and to implement a salary cap. If it takes the players striking again, let them. And let this be the sole issue that the strike is about.
If the players had a strike over a salary cap, the fans of nearly every team in baseball will be on the owners side. In the last strike it was that way anyways and it took years for fans to return (but they did return, and in a huge way). But what the owners need to know, is that the fans in every baseball city would welcome balanced teams with balanced salaries (except Yankees/Red Sox/Phillies/Angels fans). You want to see baseball revived? Let the idea of a Pirates vs Royals World Series be something that people actually want to watch because the teams aren't just lucky but actually good.
Responses to common questions/complaints
1) Baseball has competitive balance. How many times have the these big market teams even won the World Series lately?
9 times out of the last 17 years (over 50% have been 4 of the largest spenders. but 13 times they have made the World Series. The number of times the highest spenders have made the playoffs however is very high. how many times have the Yankees missed the playoffs since the spending spree started?
2) You're a communist. Apparently you don't believe in the free market.
Actually I believe in the Austrian School of economics, which is the only truely free market system devoid of government control. Baseball falls outside of "free market" for 2 reasons.
a) It has laws through congress which makes it a virtual Monopoly. It has no competition in the realm of baseball in the US, because they are the only ones officially recognized as professional baseball. Summer ball, Winter ball, Arizona leagues etc all fall under the purview of MLB. Baseball also has many stadiums funded by local governments.
b) Baseball is allowed to make its own rules concerning it's own independent league. free market means no government interference, and actually if it was free market the baseball strike in 1994 would have probably ended with the players losing and a salary cap (and thus more revenue for every team as they would be more balanced in the long run). The current setup happened precisely because baseball is NOT a free market, and the labor union cried to congress.
3) You just hate the Yankees, if your favorite team could spend like the Yankees, you wouldn't complain.
Yes I would. I don't know how people can enjoy winning a game where the deck is stacked in their favor. I've never understood cheaters in things that are meant to be played for fun, and I don't understand wanting to have such a strong grip on competition in what is meant to be a fan enjoyed past time. If what you enjoy is watching your favorite team beat inferior competition based almost entirely on the size of the city it is in (or how old the team is) then you must really love the first week of the college football season (which i personally hate)
4) Look at the Rays, they are a model franchise. Or the Brewers!
They are an outlier and are going to crash in the near future. Once the Rays cannot sign more than one of their stars to long term contracts, their run is done. They are in the middle of their cycle, and trust me when they fall it's going to be noticeable.
The Brewers are right at the cusp of the end of the competitive part of their cycle and need to be smart with how they proceed. By all means keep Braun, but they can pretty much dump the rest of their roster (maybe keep Gallardo) to attempt to shorten their cycle by revamping their minors.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Post number 2 about the state of the Brewers
The Brewers are in trouble. Im not just talking this year, or next. I'm talking about the next 3-5 years. What is holding the Brewers back so much? A lot. There is a lot going AGAINST them in the foreseeable future.
The Brewers play in Milwaukee
I'm sorry to all of you guys out there that are diehard Milwaukee Wisconsin fans, but Milwaukee is small. It's the smallest market in the majors. it's one of the smallest in professional sports. It's just a fact of life.
A few things to consider in modern baseball, with the current money structure:
1) How many small market teams are relevant for extended periods of time (longer that 5 years)? Not many. The Cardinals are about the only team that has stayed competative over a long period of time not from a very large market, but they had Albert Pujols for most of the decade.
2) How often do small market teams get to the playoffs and/or win the WS then dump their team and suck the next year? Without looking it up I can think of at least 3 or 4 instances. But why does this happen? The team cannot generate enough money to pay its players. They trade long term team health for the short term win now mentality.
3) The fans are finicky. When the team doesn't win, the fans don't show up. This is a truism throughout most of baseball. The larger the city, the easier it is to maintain the seats full (Chicago has sucked for over 100 years and they sell out all the time). If the Brewers don't compete, people stop going to the park which means we have even less money to pay players.
4) Once the brewers stop winning they won't be able to pay players.
The Brewers team is in shambles
Currently our entire lineup has a lot of holes filled by stopgap players that are not going to help us in the future. To me here is the list of players that will not be of much help to the club in trying to compete (note: positional players not pitching which is harder to predict)
1) Rickie Weeks. I've never been a fan, but to be fair he had a good year last year. As of right now he's hitting about .170 and has about a 30% strikeout rate. he is pressing, but he has ALWAYS pressed. He's not a good defender either, which is an organizational weakness overall.
2) Aoki: bad signing. He wasn't going to help the club win games if Braun went down, and now he's basically a third center fielder when we had at least some outfield depth.
3) Aramis Ramirez. I never liked the signing, but it made SOME sense. unfortunately this one is blowing up in our faces right now and was unnecessary. Taylor Greene, our only truly good hitting prospect, should have gotten the callup. he cannot possibly be worse than Ramirez is right now and cost next to nothing. Instead the team has a player that will be hard to trade and costs a lot while the team is going nowhere.
4) Alex Gonzalez. we should have gone after Clint Barmes. He was cheaper and a better defender and very reliable. I don't bemoan this signing, but it is noteworthy that we HAD to sign someone because we lacked anyone in the minors to even consider bringing up.
5) Carlos Gomez. he tries to hit with too much power for a speed guy. a plus defender, but a bad hitter overall. I don't like guys you have to platoon to make them a worthwhile player. It takes up a valuable roster spot.
6) Nyjer Morgan. My mom would kill me for suggesting this, but Morgan is no longer needed on the club. He cannot get away with his antics if the team is not winning and it looks like he lost his stroke. Another guy thats necessary to platoon, another reason i dont like him. He also lost all of his speed (i.e. he doesnt steal bases anymore)
I list these players because they are not the future of the franchise. Unfortunately it's who we have right now and it's expensive.
The Brewers farm system is in shambles too!
Please, if you read this do not get me wrong. I know why the farm teams have a derth of talent. I get it. We successfully traded for Greinke and Marcum to make a Playoff run last year and i fully support it. The Brewers HAVE to do that if they ever want to win. Its how small markets survive.
But look at what we gave up for last year and you will understand where the Brewers stand.
Brett Lawrie for Shaun Marcum: Lawrie is considered a "special" talent. he is likely going to be a David Wright type of player (though not necessarily to his caliber) for a lot of years. I personally think that this was a bad trade by the Brewers if they could have gotten Greinke regardless of the Marcum trade. This trade paved the way though as it showed we were serious about winning now. What we gave up though was the 3B we could have used for the next 5-7 years or longer that would have been a cornerstone of the franchise (along with Braun)
Alcides Escobar/Lorenzo Cain (and others) for Greinke: Compaired to the Marcum trade, this one was a steal (but again, doesnt happen unless the Marcum trade happens). Unfortunately we did give up our next starting shortstop and Center Fielder for 5-7 years.
Here is the best way to describe how bad farm system is. 2 out of our top 3 rated prospects were drafted last year.
Here's another way to put it. We have season ending injuries to 2 positional players and are relying on Travis Ishikawa and Cezar Isturis to score us runs.
Were ranked 28th with our farm system.........
Going forward
If I was GM for the Brewers for the next 5 years this is what i would do:
1) Trade Trade Trade: The whole small market team thing ONLY works if we can get a good farm system.
a) If Ramirez gets hot, trade him immediately and put Taylor Green at 3B. We don't need Ramirez, he's not a long term solution. Getting Greene some consistant AB can only help the club. If he starts panning out, sign him to a long term contract.
b) Weeks: try to get whatever you can out of him at this point, which might not be much.
c) Marcum: trade deadline guy. He's not in our future either.
d) Greinke: I know people want to keep him, but I'm renigging on this. We need to get as good of a prospect as we can out of him if were going to retool for the future.
2) Draft some hitters for crying out loud! Hitters take the longest to get major league ready, pitchers can come up in their rookie season and be successful. We have been dreadful at drafting hitters. This years class looks really really bad though. There is no "cant miss" players coming up ready to be drafted, but we need to try to get as many valuable hitters as possible.
As it stands we currently do not have an in house answer that could actually help us win in the future for the following positions: 1B, 2B, SS, CF. RF (assuming Hart leaves which he probably will after his contract is up). We also currently have almost no power in the minors. we have speed, but without on base skills. we have a couple of on base guys, but who are terrible defenders.
3) Philosophy change. The Brewers overall need a change of philosophy on how they draft, pick up free agents and hand out contracts. Overall the team's front office has done a decent job the last couple of years, but a lot of that was based off a foundation created nearly a decade ago with the draft when the team was so bad, they overloaded on top tier hitters.
Its hard to mess up a team when within a few years you draft Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovanni Gallardo, Corey Hart and Rickie Weeks (though he has always underperformed). That team was assembled in pretty short order and laid the groundwork for the two playoff berths.
Baseball has unfortunately changed since then. Hitting is down, pitching is generally up. There are plenty of debates as to why this occurs (the most common is the end of the steroid era) but thats the trend as of right now. Were stuck in the same mode as before however with how we assemble our teams (be it drafting or free agency or trading).
We need to develop hitters in house. Hitters have the lowest success rate of being long term players, and as this year has taught us, not having hitting depth can ruin a franchise. We knew Fielder was leaving, yet we had no true replacement for him. The organizations soft spot for players like Carlos Gomez and Rickie Weeks to me is frustrating, and their lack of even a good attempt to have organizational guys to replace them when they struggle is not a good thing.
The Brewer need to make a concerted effort to draft on base guys and guys with speed and good defensive skills. Ultimately these are the things that consistantly kill the club. The best part of this approach is that it comes cheaply, meaning we can spend more on free agents, specifically pitchers.
The Brewers play in Milwaukee
I'm sorry to all of you guys out there that are diehard Milwaukee Wisconsin fans, but Milwaukee is small. It's the smallest market in the majors. it's one of the smallest in professional sports. It's just a fact of life.
A few things to consider in modern baseball, with the current money structure:
1) How many small market teams are relevant for extended periods of time (longer that 5 years)? Not many. The Cardinals are about the only team that has stayed competative over a long period of time not from a very large market, but they had Albert Pujols for most of the decade.
2) How often do small market teams get to the playoffs and/or win the WS then dump their team and suck the next year? Without looking it up I can think of at least 3 or 4 instances. But why does this happen? The team cannot generate enough money to pay its players. They trade long term team health for the short term win now mentality.
3) The fans are finicky. When the team doesn't win, the fans don't show up. This is a truism throughout most of baseball. The larger the city, the easier it is to maintain the seats full (Chicago has sucked for over 100 years and they sell out all the time). If the Brewers don't compete, people stop going to the park which means we have even less money to pay players.
4) Once the brewers stop winning they won't be able to pay players.
The Brewers team is in shambles
Currently our entire lineup has a lot of holes filled by stopgap players that are not going to help us in the future. To me here is the list of players that will not be of much help to the club in trying to compete (note: positional players not pitching which is harder to predict)
1) Rickie Weeks. I've never been a fan, but to be fair he had a good year last year. As of right now he's hitting about .170 and has about a 30% strikeout rate. he is pressing, but he has ALWAYS pressed. He's not a good defender either, which is an organizational weakness overall.
2) Aoki: bad signing. He wasn't going to help the club win games if Braun went down, and now he's basically a third center fielder when we had at least some outfield depth.
3) Aramis Ramirez. I never liked the signing, but it made SOME sense. unfortunately this one is blowing up in our faces right now and was unnecessary. Taylor Greene, our only truly good hitting prospect, should have gotten the callup. he cannot possibly be worse than Ramirez is right now and cost next to nothing. Instead the team has a player that will be hard to trade and costs a lot while the team is going nowhere.
4) Alex Gonzalez. we should have gone after Clint Barmes. He was cheaper and a better defender and very reliable. I don't bemoan this signing, but it is noteworthy that we HAD to sign someone because we lacked anyone in the minors to even consider bringing up.
5) Carlos Gomez. he tries to hit with too much power for a speed guy. a plus defender, but a bad hitter overall. I don't like guys you have to platoon to make them a worthwhile player. It takes up a valuable roster spot.
6) Nyjer Morgan. My mom would kill me for suggesting this, but Morgan is no longer needed on the club. He cannot get away with his antics if the team is not winning and it looks like he lost his stroke. Another guy thats necessary to platoon, another reason i dont like him. He also lost all of his speed (i.e. he doesnt steal bases anymore)
I list these players because they are not the future of the franchise. Unfortunately it's who we have right now and it's expensive.
The Brewers farm system is in shambles too!
Please, if you read this do not get me wrong. I know why the farm teams have a derth of talent. I get it. We successfully traded for Greinke and Marcum to make a Playoff run last year and i fully support it. The Brewers HAVE to do that if they ever want to win. Its how small markets survive.
But look at what we gave up for last year and you will understand where the Brewers stand.
Brett Lawrie for Shaun Marcum: Lawrie is considered a "special" talent. he is likely going to be a David Wright type of player (though not necessarily to his caliber) for a lot of years. I personally think that this was a bad trade by the Brewers if they could have gotten Greinke regardless of the Marcum trade. This trade paved the way though as it showed we were serious about winning now. What we gave up though was the 3B we could have used for the next 5-7 years or longer that would have been a cornerstone of the franchise (along with Braun)
Alcides Escobar/Lorenzo Cain (and others) for Greinke: Compaired to the Marcum trade, this one was a steal (but again, doesnt happen unless the Marcum trade happens). Unfortunately we did give up our next starting shortstop and Center Fielder for 5-7 years.
Here is the best way to describe how bad farm system is. 2 out of our top 3 rated prospects were drafted last year.
Here's another way to put it. We have season ending injuries to 2 positional players and are relying on Travis Ishikawa and Cezar Isturis to score us runs.
Were ranked 28th with our farm system.........
Going forward
If I was GM for the Brewers for the next 5 years this is what i would do:
1) Trade Trade Trade: The whole small market team thing ONLY works if we can get a good farm system.
a) If Ramirez gets hot, trade him immediately and put Taylor Green at 3B. We don't need Ramirez, he's not a long term solution. Getting Greene some consistant AB can only help the club. If he starts panning out, sign him to a long term contract.
b) Weeks: try to get whatever you can out of him at this point, which might not be much.
c) Marcum: trade deadline guy. He's not in our future either.
d) Greinke: I know people want to keep him, but I'm renigging on this. We need to get as good of a prospect as we can out of him if were going to retool for the future.
2) Draft some hitters for crying out loud! Hitters take the longest to get major league ready, pitchers can come up in their rookie season and be successful. We have been dreadful at drafting hitters. This years class looks really really bad though. There is no "cant miss" players coming up ready to be drafted, but we need to try to get as many valuable hitters as possible.
As it stands we currently do not have an in house answer that could actually help us win in the future for the following positions: 1B, 2B, SS, CF. RF (assuming Hart leaves which he probably will after his contract is up). We also currently have almost no power in the minors. we have speed, but without on base skills. we have a couple of on base guys, but who are terrible defenders.
3) Philosophy change. The Brewers overall need a change of philosophy on how they draft, pick up free agents and hand out contracts. Overall the team's front office has done a decent job the last couple of years, but a lot of that was based off a foundation created nearly a decade ago with the draft when the team was so bad, they overloaded on top tier hitters.
Its hard to mess up a team when within a few years you draft Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovanni Gallardo, Corey Hart and Rickie Weeks (though he has always underperformed). That team was assembled in pretty short order and laid the groundwork for the two playoff berths.
Baseball has unfortunately changed since then. Hitting is down, pitching is generally up. There are plenty of debates as to why this occurs (the most common is the end of the steroid era) but thats the trend as of right now. Were stuck in the same mode as before however with how we assemble our teams (be it drafting or free agency or trading).
We need to develop hitters in house. Hitters have the lowest success rate of being long term players, and as this year has taught us, not having hitting depth can ruin a franchise. We knew Fielder was leaving, yet we had no true replacement for him. The organizations soft spot for players like Carlos Gomez and Rickie Weeks to me is frustrating, and their lack of even a good attempt to have organizational guys to replace them when they struggle is not a good thing.
The Brewer need to make a concerted effort to draft on base guys and guys with speed and good defensive skills. Ultimately these are the things that consistantly kill the club. The best part of this approach is that it comes cheaply, meaning we can spend more on free agents, specifically pitchers.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Sorry for the long absence
I havent blogged in a while. Starting this blog was kind of at a weird time for me. Since my last blog I got married to my wonderful wife Nicole and went on my honeymoon to the West Coast. Anyone who has a chance should take the time to drive the Pacific Coast Highway if they can, it's a pretty great drive up the California coast in particular.
Anyways, back to business. Baseball is still here and I have a few topics to talk about.
1) Brewers are in a little bit of trouble. Narveson out for the year (rotator cuff). Alex Gonzalez out for the year (ACL). Mat Gamel out for the year (ACL). Carlos Gomez is also out with a hurt hamstring and Ryan Braun has an achey achilles tendon. All of these are gigantic blows to the team.
While I'm not giving up on the team, this significantly decreases their chances of repeating as NL Central champions and possibly pushes them out of the playoffs. I'm sure Doug Melvin is a realist and knows this as well. a Travis Ishikawa/Taylor Greene/Brooks Conrad platoon at first base alongside a Cezar Isturis/Maysonet share at shortstop is not a lot of offensive production as pretty much none of them would be starters on any other team. I don't see how they get out of that kind of hole with their players. They don't have a lot of help in the minors as of right now due to previous trades (Marcum and Greinke trades specifically)
My feeling on this is that by the trade deadline the Brewers are going to be heavy sellers. They can get a lot of value for a lot of their players in the form of prospects that they desperately need and at the same time they can get some of their minor leaguers some professional experience. If I was the GM here's what I would do:
a) Sign Zack Greinke if at all possible. If it's not trade him. This must be done first. Greinke wants to play for a winner and theres no way he will agree to stay if he sees the team selling off parts.
b) Trade Marcum. Were not going to be able to keep both Greinke and Marcum after this year. We want Greinke above Marcum for obvious reasons. If Greinke wont sign we might as well keep Marcum. Keeping either would maintain a competitive 1/2 pitching combination going forward.
c) Controversy number 1: trade Weeks. I've never liked Weeks. His career year has been slightly above league average which is decent for a second baseman but not for how much we pay. The Brewers desperately need people who can consistently get on base. Scooter Gennet i believe can be the guy to do it. The other option, start Scooter playing SS instead of second base.
d) Trade K-Rod. His signing was a "mistake". He wasnt expected to take arbitration as no GM in their right mind pays that kind of money to a set-up man. This ones easy to see coming if they are out of competition by July.
e) Controversy number 2: Trade Axford. Listen, I like Axford as a pitcher, but his value may never be higher if he continues to pitch well. And other teams will (mistakenly) give a lot for a closer like him. The easiest way to put this is this: Closers are simply NOT important. Historically, the team that leads going into the 9th wins something like 87% of the time. During most of baseball history there was no such thing as a closer. Relief pitchers should be used in high leverage situations based on the order of importance of the situation. I don't know exactly where "closers" comes from (a subject I'll try to learn about and explain later) but it's a weird phenomenon
The Brewers need minor league players more than anything else. Actually they need good minor league POSITION players more than anything. Specifically infielders
2) A Small rant for anyone who reads this. This point concerns trading in fantasy sports. so beware it's bitchy but great advice overall.
In order for a trade to happen in fantasy baseball some Key things need to occur. This is because it doesnt piss the other guy off, making them not want to trade with you again and it helps keep the league more balanced and fun.
a) The trade must be fair. Before hitting submit for the trade think this to yourself. If I had his team and He had mine, would I consider this trade at all? If the answer is no, don't hit submit.
b) Generally speaking, trade the same number of players. a 2 for 1 trade is almost never a fair trade. It looks fair on paper for the guy gaining the 2 players i.e. the production of those 2 players in some combination makes the production (or is slightly over) of the one player. but this doesnt mean it's fair.
Take this example (actual trade offer i received)
I trade Miguel Cabrera
I receive Carlos Beltran and Carlos Pena.
On the surface it seems like a fairish trade, but it's not. Carlos Beltran and Pena will defintly have more HR more RBI more SB than Cabrera. But here's the problem, it's not just them vs Cabrera. It's those 2 vs Cabrera AND the player i'd have to bench in order to play both of them (If i bench one it's more like a straight up trade for say Pena for Cabrera which would be terrible).
Furthermore there's another reason this specific trade is bad: Cabrera is a top 3 pick on every single draft I did. This is because of his year to year consistency. He's not always the best 1B (or 3B this year) but he's pretty much always top 5. Beltran and Pena are not consistant at all. No matter what their current start of the season production, you have no idea where they end the year. Beltran specifically is an injury risk. Cabrera is pretty much (barring unforseen random injury) .300 avg 100 RBI 100 runs 20-30 HR. History says thats his floor. Beltran hasnt hit those numbers in about 5 year (when he used to be a stolen base threat as well but before injury)
3) Trading hitters for hitters (or pitchers for pitchers or RB for RB or WR for WR or Goaltender for goaltender) is in general a bad trade unless its a multi player trade and gives both sides something they are missing. If a team needs pitchers offering him (like my last trade) Beltran and Pena for Cabrera isnt a good trade. It doesnt help his team at all. However if it was say Bourne and Beltran it would be more fair as it gives SB that the intiial guy doesnt have.
Anyways, back to business. Baseball is still here and I have a few topics to talk about.
1) Brewers are in a little bit of trouble. Narveson out for the year (rotator cuff). Alex Gonzalez out for the year (ACL). Mat Gamel out for the year (ACL). Carlos Gomez is also out with a hurt hamstring and Ryan Braun has an achey achilles tendon. All of these are gigantic blows to the team.
While I'm not giving up on the team, this significantly decreases their chances of repeating as NL Central champions and possibly pushes them out of the playoffs. I'm sure Doug Melvin is a realist and knows this as well. a Travis Ishikawa/Taylor Greene/Brooks Conrad platoon at first base alongside a Cezar Isturis/Maysonet share at shortstop is not a lot of offensive production as pretty much none of them would be starters on any other team. I don't see how they get out of that kind of hole with their players. They don't have a lot of help in the minors as of right now due to previous trades (Marcum and Greinke trades specifically)
My feeling on this is that by the trade deadline the Brewers are going to be heavy sellers. They can get a lot of value for a lot of their players in the form of prospects that they desperately need and at the same time they can get some of their minor leaguers some professional experience. If I was the GM here's what I would do:
a) Sign Zack Greinke if at all possible. If it's not trade him. This must be done first. Greinke wants to play for a winner and theres no way he will agree to stay if he sees the team selling off parts.
b) Trade Marcum. Were not going to be able to keep both Greinke and Marcum after this year. We want Greinke above Marcum for obvious reasons. If Greinke wont sign we might as well keep Marcum. Keeping either would maintain a competitive 1/2 pitching combination going forward.
c) Controversy number 1: trade Weeks. I've never liked Weeks. His career year has been slightly above league average which is decent for a second baseman but not for how much we pay. The Brewers desperately need people who can consistently get on base. Scooter Gennet i believe can be the guy to do it. The other option, start Scooter playing SS instead of second base.
d) Trade K-Rod. His signing was a "mistake". He wasnt expected to take arbitration as no GM in their right mind pays that kind of money to a set-up man. This ones easy to see coming if they are out of competition by July.
e) Controversy number 2: Trade Axford. Listen, I like Axford as a pitcher, but his value may never be higher if he continues to pitch well. And other teams will (mistakenly) give a lot for a closer like him. The easiest way to put this is this: Closers are simply NOT important. Historically, the team that leads going into the 9th wins something like 87% of the time. During most of baseball history there was no such thing as a closer. Relief pitchers should be used in high leverage situations based on the order of importance of the situation. I don't know exactly where "closers" comes from (a subject I'll try to learn about and explain later) but it's a weird phenomenon
The Brewers need minor league players more than anything else. Actually they need good minor league POSITION players more than anything. Specifically infielders
2) A Small rant for anyone who reads this. This point concerns trading in fantasy sports. so beware it's bitchy but great advice overall.
In order for a trade to happen in fantasy baseball some Key things need to occur. This is because it doesnt piss the other guy off, making them not want to trade with you again and it helps keep the league more balanced and fun.
a) The trade must be fair. Before hitting submit for the trade think this to yourself. If I had his team and He had mine, would I consider this trade at all? If the answer is no, don't hit submit.
b) Generally speaking, trade the same number of players. a 2 for 1 trade is almost never a fair trade. It looks fair on paper for the guy gaining the 2 players i.e. the production of those 2 players in some combination makes the production (or is slightly over) of the one player. but this doesnt mean it's fair.
Take this example (actual trade offer i received)
I trade Miguel Cabrera
I receive Carlos Beltran and Carlos Pena.
On the surface it seems like a fairish trade, but it's not. Carlos Beltran and Pena will defintly have more HR more RBI more SB than Cabrera. But here's the problem, it's not just them vs Cabrera. It's those 2 vs Cabrera AND the player i'd have to bench in order to play both of them (If i bench one it's more like a straight up trade for say Pena for Cabrera which would be terrible).
Furthermore there's another reason this specific trade is bad: Cabrera is a top 3 pick on every single draft I did. This is because of his year to year consistency. He's not always the best 1B (or 3B this year) but he's pretty much always top 5. Beltran and Pena are not consistant at all. No matter what their current start of the season production, you have no idea where they end the year. Beltran specifically is an injury risk. Cabrera is pretty much (barring unforseen random injury) .300 avg 100 RBI 100 runs 20-30 HR. History says thats his floor. Beltran hasnt hit those numbers in about 5 year (when he used to be a stolen base threat as well but before injury)
3) Trading hitters for hitters (or pitchers for pitchers or RB for RB or WR for WR or Goaltender for goaltender) is in general a bad trade unless its a multi player trade and gives both sides something they are missing. If a team needs pitchers offering him (like my last trade) Beltran and Pena for Cabrera isnt a good trade. It doesnt help his team at all. However if it was say Bourne and Beltran it would be more fair as it gives SB that the intiial guy doesnt have.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Over Reacting
This is my third blog post and already I'm going to talk about two separate things with the same theme. Overreacting. Brewers fans and fantasy baseball players are both doing the same thing. Small sample sizes are small. The beauty of the 162 game season is that it provides a very large sample size with which to draw conclusions (both of your team and the individual players.
Brewers Fans:
I understand the frustration. lost 2 of 3 to the Cardinals (who are hitting out of this world right now. .346 BABIP which is unsustainably high and a .206 ISO which is also unsustainable), won 3 of 4 against the lowly Cubs (lost the last game 8-0 though) and then got swept by the Braves at Turner Field.
Now we get the red hot Dodgers at home. 9-1 through 10 games vs 4-6 through 10 games.
Let me emphasize this point: It's 10 games into the season.
That's less than 1/16th a full seasons sample size. Player projections are based off of what people believe he is going to do over the course of the year. Lets look at some of the scapegoats so far this year:
Aramis Ramirez: People like to talk about how he's not a replacement for Fielder. Yes, he's not. He's not going to get the walks, he's not going to get the homeruns, he's not going to get people pitching around him.
You know what else he's not going to do? Bat .114 with a .149 OBP and a .171 SLG. If he batted those kinds of numbers two things would happen: First he'd make history as having the worst every day players batting line in league history. Second he'd be benched before too long for someone else.
Aramis has a .143 BABIP, in other words when he hits the ball in play, he is only getting a hit 14.3% of the time. League average? .300 or so. Can you imagine his line if he came up to league average in BABIP which is largely luck based?
If you want to be angry at Aramis for something, make it his K% of 20%. As a matter of fact make that a common theme for the next 2 guys as well.
Rickie Weeks: Batting Leadoff, but he shouldn't be. .184 AVG, .295 OBP, .342 SLG. Partially due to his lower BABIP than league average (.238) but mostly due to his gigantic K rate (34%). Why he is batting leadoff is beyond me. Managers like Roenoke like to talk about how good he is at making things happen and scoring runs. Well he's not getting on base to score and he's not even really seeming to try. You don't need 2 HR 10 games into the season from your leadoff hitter in the National League. You are leaving a lot of runs hanging out there with him at leadoff
Nyjer Morgan: Even smaller sample size than the last 2 guys since he platoons. I like Nyjer, i really do. But he's more likable because of his antics than his play to me. He's too prone to streakiness. .143 batting, .143 OBP, .143 SLG with a .190 BABIP. He will improve, but i don't ever believe he should hit out of the 2 hole.
Dispite all of those stats one thing needs to be noted. Even a single hit in a game will drive those numbers up by a pretty decent amount. Why? Very small sample sizes.
Last years lines for these 3 players: (AVG/OBP/SLG/BABIP/K%)
Ramirez: .306/.361/.510/.308/11%
Weeks: .269/.350/.468/.310/20.8%
Morgan: .304/.357/.421/.368/16.3%
Note: BABIP tends to be higher the faster you are and the more infield hits you can leg out.
These guys will be fine. As the inevitable correction (or benching) happens the Brewers will win more games.
Fantasy and reasons not to worry/reasons to not believe:
Tim Lincecum:
Bad: 10.54 ERA in 13.2 IP over 3 starts
Good: 3.32 FIP, 2.64 xFIP, 10.54 K/9, 2.63 BB/9
Reason for bad outings: BABIP of .426 is historically bad and won't continue. peripherals look great for an Ace on a roto staff dispite 2 losses.
Miguel Cabrera:
Bad: .222 AVG (you went the number 1 or 2 pick expecting somewhere around .310-.320)
Good: 3 HR, 7 Runs, 9 RBI and almost a 16% walk rate.
Reason for bad(?) start: BABIP of .179. when he puts the ball in play it seems like its a home run or an out. This will rebound and so will every other number of his.
Austin Jackson:
Good: .405 avg, .511 OBP 11 runs.
Bad: 24.4% K rate
Reason for start: BABIP is close to double league average. everything is falling his way right now, it will not last and the almost 25% K rate will catch up to him. He's going to bat .250 by the end of the year mark my words
Brewers Fans:
I understand the frustration. lost 2 of 3 to the Cardinals (who are hitting out of this world right now. .346 BABIP which is unsustainably high and a .206 ISO which is also unsustainable), won 3 of 4 against the lowly Cubs (lost the last game 8-0 though) and then got swept by the Braves at Turner Field.
Now we get the red hot Dodgers at home. 9-1 through 10 games vs 4-6 through 10 games.
Let me emphasize this point: It's 10 games into the season.
That's less than 1/16th a full seasons sample size. Player projections are based off of what people believe he is going to do over the course of the year. Lets look at some of the scapegoats so far this year:
Aramis Ramirez: People like to talk about how he's not a replacement for Fielder. Yes, he's not. He's not going to get the walks, he's not going to get the homeruns, he's not going to get people pitching around him.
You know what else he's not going to do? Bat .114 with a .149 OBP and a .171 SLG. If he batted those kinds of numbers two things would happen: First he'd make history as having the worst every day players batting line in league history. Second he'd be benched before too long for someone else.
Aramis has a .143 BABIP, in other words when he hits the ball in play, he is only getting a hit 14.3% of the time. League average? .300 or so. Can you imagine his line if he came up to league average in BABIP which is largely luck based?
If you want to be angry at Aramis for something, make it his K% of 20%. As a matter of fact make that a common theme for the next 2 guys as well.
Rickie Weeks: Batting Leadoff, but he shouldn't be. .184 AVG, .295 OBP, .342 SLG. Partially due to his lower BABIP than league average (.238) but mostly due to his gigantic K rate (34%). Why he is batting leadoff is beyond me. Managers like Roenoke like to talk about how good he is at making things happen and scoring runs. Well he's not getting on base to score and he's not even really seeming to try. You don't need 2 HR 10 games into the season from your leadoff hitter in the National League. You are leaving a lot of runs hanging out there with him at leadoff
Nyjer Morgan: Even smaller sample size than the last 2 guys since he platoons. I like Nyjer, i really do. But he's more likable because of his antics than his play to me. He's too prone to streakiness. .143 batting, .143 OBP, .143 SLG with a .190 BABIP. He will improve, but i don't ever believe he should hit out of the 2 hole.
Dispite all of those stats one thing needs to be noted. Even a single hit in a game will drive those numbers up by a pretty decent amount. Why? Very small sample sizes.
Last years lines for these 3 players: (AVG/OBP/SLG/BABIP/K%)
Ramirez: .306/.361/.510/.308/11%
Weeks: .269/.350/.468/.310/20.8%
Morgan: .304/.357/.421/.368/16.3%
Note: BABIP tends to be higher the faster you are and the more infield hits you can leg out.
These guys will be fine. As the inevitable correction (or benching) happens the Brewers will win more games.
Fantasy and reasons not to worry/reasons to not believe:
Tim Lincecum:
Bad: 10.54 ERA in 13.2 IP over 3 starts
Good: 3.32 FIP, 2.64 xFIP, 10.54 K/9, 2.63 BB/9
Reason for bad outings: BABIP of .426 is historically bad and won't continue. peripherals look great for an Ace on a roto staff dispite 2 losses.
Miguel Cabrera:
Bad: .222 AVG (you went the number 1 or 2 pick expecting somewhere around .310-.320)
Good: 3 HR, 7 Runs, 9 RBI and almost a 16% walk rate.
Reason for bad(?) start: BABIP of .179. when he puts the ball in play it seems like its a home run or an out. This will rebound and so will every other number of his.
Austin Jackson:
Good: .405 avg, .511 OBP 11 runs.
Bad: 24.4% K rate
Reason for start: BABIP is close to double league average. everything is falling his way right now, it will not last and the almost 25% K rate will catch up to him. He's going to bat .250 by the end of the year mark my words
Monday, April 16, 2012
Concepts from Moneyball
I love baseball statistics, always have and always probably will. There's just something to them that rings true to me.
At their core, baseball statistics are a measurable way of calculating the worthiness of individual players and a way that baseball games of the past can be recreated in some fashion. Due to the nature of the statistics, they are inherently less obscure in telling individual outcomes than say, football statistics are. In football the stat line you will see about say, a running back, will look like 23 carries, 104 yards, 1 TD, 1 Rec. 5 yards. On average that means 4.52 runs per carry which doesn't tell you that he had one carry for 87 yards and the rest averaged .77 yards per carry. It's harder to recreate games in football through the box score so usually, without watching the game, its harder to tell what exactly happened without further analysis.
Baseball box scores read simpler and easier to understand what happened in an individual game basis. Traditional stats (RBI/H/Runs/AVG/SB for hitting Wins/ERA/WHIP/Ks/Svs for pitching, also known as the 5x5 rotisserie statistics for fantasy baseball) are easy to comprehend (except WHIP which is a fantasy made up stat but we will get into specifics later). You see that say, Ryan Braun went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI's 1 run and 1 HR and you already have a good idea what happened.
Traditional stats are however, misleading and in many ways bad indicators of true performance both past and future, and this is the over-reaching concept of the book Moneyball. I liked the movie, as far as movies go, but to get a true understanding of the concept one would have to read the book. The movie spent a lot of time showing the emotional side of book and did it in a great manner. Unfortunately it had the opportunity to get others to think more critically about baseball and it's base statistics and why they are bad indicators of true performance.
This article will attempt to show the general themes of the book, broken down by stat used or concept used by Billy Beane and Paul Depodesta during their 2002 season. Whether or not they are trying to use these concepts anymore is a different story (the downside to the book I believe is that their concepts made their way into other teams so the players they wanted were not longer cheap which is what they need to compete)
Walks
Walks in baseball are highly underrated, even today, but less so than they used to be. Walks have a lot of advantages to them and basically zero disadvantages. Many people wrongly associate walks are solely on the pitcher giving them up, which is wrong depending on the player. Plate patience plays a larger role in the number of walks a batter has over the course of the year than anything else. There was an interesting chapter of the book entirely dedicated to Scott Hatteberg based almost entirely on walks and plate discipline. Walks do the following for the batter and their respective team:
a) It's not an out. This is the most important concept to note on why a walk is a great outcome. It's not an out and has zero possibility of becoming an out on it's own. An average baseball player will have an out something like 67% of the time they head to the plate (league average OBP is somewhere around .330 i believe but it fluctuates yearly). Walks are not subject to luck like hitting a ball in play does.
b) It makes the pitcher throw more pitches. Generally speaking, Starting pitchers are the best pitchers on their team. Followed by closers (an overrated position), then set up (8th inning guys), then long relief. Long relievers are who you want to get to. In modern baseball, starters are generally out of the game around 100 pitches. (Earlier in the year it's lower, later in the year it sometimes means more innings). The sooner you get the starter to that mark, the sooner you get to the worst pitchers on the team and the higher chance you have of scoring more runs (and thus winning)
c) Taking pitches forces the pitcher to give you better pitches to hit. The better the count is in the hitters favor, the better the likely outcome of not producing an out. Everyone knows this already, but it still bears pointing out. 3-1 is a better place to be in while batting than 1-2. Guys who walk more get to 3-1, 2-0, 2-1 more than other hitters because they consistantly force the pitcher to make good pitches over the plate.
d) The more you walk, the more often you are going to hit mistakes rather than swing at the pitches the pitcher wants you to swing at. This is all about selectivity and getting pitches you can drive rather than just making contact and hoping for the best. Line drives give more hits on average than grounders which on average give more hits than flyouts. Selectivity why Pujols or Prince Fielder seem to crush the ball when they hit it (and thus produce Homeruns by the truckload)
Pitching
Moneyball spent an entire chapter discussing Chad Bradford. While most people think this is about as exciting as watching paint dry, it had a very key concept written into it that most people either fail to understand, or don't ever even consider:
On average, a pitcher cannot control where the ball ends up if he allows a ball to be hit into play.
In other words, hits other than homeruns are at least partially luck based. This is the only conclusion that makes sense when you look at the careers of some of the most widely known pitchers who have had some of the widest variance in ERAs. Greg Maddox went from 2.22 to 3.57 from '98 to '99. From 2.62 to 3.96 from '02-'03. Why did this happen? Luck.
1998: 251 innings, 201 hits, 13 HR given up 45 walks, 204 Ks
1999: 219 innings, 258 hits, 16 HR, 37 walks, 136 Ks
Same pitcher, different outcomes, nothing noticeably different about mechanics. This is the kind of thing that led to two stats being created that I will discuss about in later posts. BABIP and FIP(xFIP).
To put them simply for now, BABIP is Batting Average on Balls In Play. Basically over a long enough sample size batters will hit approximately .300 against every pitcher on balls that are put into play (all plays in fair territory that are not homeruns). Both hitters and pitchers can be counted the same way using the same numbers without correcting for any park factors. If a pitcher is getting lucky (Like Maddox in 1998) his BABIP will be significantly lower than .300 until he has his eventual correction (1999) which brings his career average closer to the .300 mark.
BABIP doesn't tell the whole story because it takes the defense behind the pitcher into account. This is where FIP was created (they didn't call it FIP in the book if i remember correctly but it was basically FIP). FIP is Fielding Independent Pitching. It takes everything about fielding out of the equation and gives you the stats that the pitcher can control. Meaning Walks (non intentional including HBP), Ks, and Homeruns and puts it on an ERA scale.
In that season Billy Beane used FIP to secure Chad Bradford, basically a quad-A player who the White Sox didn't trust to be in their bullpen because he didn't throw a fastball in the 90's and had a weird delivery (submariner). Even though Bradford allowed very few homeruns because of his delivery (in the Pacific Coast League in the worst pitching park in AAA) and walked few batters, the White Sox did not trust the results he was getting.
Player Evaluation
Billy Beane has never had a lot of money to throw around at players like other teams (Yankees, Red Sox, now the Angels and Rangers for instance) so he had to construct his teams utilizing concepts that other teams valued very little. Namely in hitters, walks and in pitchers FIP. Think of who the big name high dollar players are and what they bring to teams. ARod speed and power. Giambi (at the time) pure power player. What teams undervalued was not getting outs for hitters and teams overrated ERA stats and throwing velocity in pitchers (particularly high school pitchers).
A lot of Billy Beane's draft picks over the years have been not so good, and people will look at that as a damnation of his method of drafting, but fail to recognize how cheaply he does it and how seemingly random drafts are anyways. When you pick a player out of high school or college you have very little to actually go on besides what his statistics tell you for how good of a player he is going to be, that is the Billy Beane, baseball player story. "natural talent" is random, statistics are definite.
Well that's all I can think of for now on what to write about my takeaways from Moneyball for now. If I think of anything else I'll write either an addendum or a separate blog entirely about a different concept.
At their core, baseball statistics are a measurable way of calculating the worthiness of individual players and a way that baseball games of the past can be recreated in some fashion. Due to the nature of the statistics, they are inherently less obscure in telling individual outcomes than say, football statistics are. In football the stat line you will see about say, a running back, will look like 23 carries, 104 yards, 1 TD, 1 Rec. 5 yards. On average that means 4.52 runs per carry which doesn't tell you that he had one carry for 87 yards and the rest averaged .77 yards per carry. It's harder to recreate games in football through the box score so usually, without watching the game, its harder to tell what exactly happened without further analysis.
Baseball box scores read simpler and easier to understand what happened in an individual game basis. Traditional stats (RBI/H/Runs/AVG/SB for hitting Wins/ERA/WHIP/Ks/Svs for pitching, also known as the 5x5 rotisserie statistics for fantasy baseball) are easy to comprehend (except WHIP which is a fantasy made up stat but we will get into specifics later). You see that say, Ryan Braun went 2 for 3 with 2 RBI's 1 run and 1 HR and you already have a good idea what happened.
Traditional stats are however, misleading and in many ways bad indicators of true performance both past and future, and this is the over-reaching concept of the book Moneyball. I liked the movie, as far as movies go, but to get a true understanding of the concept one would have to read the book. The movie spent a lot of time showing the emotional side of book and did it in a great manner. Unfortunately it had the opportunity to get others to think more critically about baseball and it's base statistics and why they are bad indicators of true performance.
This article will attempt to show the general themes of the book, broken down by stat used or concept used by Billy Beane and Paul Depodesta during their 2002 season. Whether or not they are trying to use these concepts anymore is a different story (the downside to the book I believe is that their concepts made their way into other teams so the players they wanted were not longer cheap which is what they need to compete)
Walks
Walks in baseball are highly underrated, even today, but less so than they used to be. Walks have a lot of advantages to them and basically zero disadvantages. Many people wrongly associate walks are solely on the pitcher giving them up, which is wrong depending on the player. Plate patience plays a larger role in the number of walks a batter has over the course of the year than anything else. There was an interesting chapter of the book entirely dedicated to Scott Hatteberg based almost entirely on walks and plate discipline. Walks do the following for the batter and their respective team:
a) It's not an out. This is the most important concept to note on why a walk is a great outcome. It's not an out and has zero possibility of becoming an out on it's own. An average baseball player will have an out something like 67% of the time they head to the plate (league average OBP is somewhere around .330 i believe but it fluctuates yearly). Walks are not subject to luck like hitting a ball in play does.
b) It makes the pitcher throw more pitches. Generally speaking, Starting pitchers are the best pitchers on their team. Followed by closers (an overrated position), then set up (8th inning guys), then long relief. Long relievers are who you want to get to. In modern baseball, starters are generally out of the game around 100 pitches. (Earlier in the year it's lower, later in the year it sometimes means more innings). The sooner you get the starter to that mark, the sooner you get to the worst pitchers on the team and the higher chance you have of scoring more runs (and thus winning)
c) Taking pitches forces the pitcher to give you better pitches to hit. The better the count is in the hitters favor, the better the likely outcome of not producing an out. Everyone knows this already, but it still bears pointing out. 3-1 is a better place to be in while batting than 1-2. Guys who walk more get to 3-1, 2-0, 2-1 more than other hitters because they consistantly force the pitcher to make good pitches over the plate.
d) The more you walk, the more often you are going to hit mistakes rather than swing at the pitches the pitcher wants you to swing at. This is all about selectivity and getting pitches you can drive rather than just making contact and hoping for the best. Line drives give more hits on average than grounders which on average give more hits than flyouts. Selectivity why Pujols or Prince Fielder seem to crush the ball when they hit it (and thus produce Homeruns by the truckload)
Pitching
Moneyball spent an entire chapter discussing Chad Bradford. While most people think this is about as exciting as watching paint dry, it had a very key concept written into it that most people either fail to understand, or don't ever even consider:
On average, a pitcher cannot control where the ball ends up if he allows a ball to be hit into play.
In other words, hits other than homeruns are at least partially luck based. This is the only conclusion that makes sense when you look at the careers of some of the most widely known pitchers who have had some of the widest variance in ERAs. Greg Maddox went from 2.22 to 3.57 from '98 to '99. From 2.62 to 3.96 from '02-'03. Why did this happen? Luck.
1998: 251 innings, 201 hits, 13 HR given up 45 walks, 204 Ks
1999: 219 innings, 258 hits, 16 HR, 37 walks, 136 Ks
Same pitcher, different outcomes, nothing noticeably different about mechanics. This is the kind of thing that led to two stats being created that I will discuss about in later posts. BABIP and FIP(xFIP).
To put them simply for now, BABIP is Batting Average on Balls In Play. Basically over a long enough sample size batters will hit approximately .300 against every pitcher on balls that are put into play (all plays in fair territory that are not homeruns). Both hitters and pitchers can be counted the same way using the same numbers without correcting for any park factors. If a pitcher is getting lucky (Like Maddox in 1998) his BABIP will be significantly lower than .300 until he has his eventual correction (1999) which brings his career average closer to the .300 mark.
BABIP doesn't tell the whole story because it takes the defense behind the pitcher into account. This is where FIP was created (they didn't call it FIP in the book if i remember correctly but it was basically FIP). FIP is Fielding Independent Pitching. It takes everything about fielding out of the equation and gives you the stats that the pitcher can control. Meaning Walks (non intentional including HBP), Ks, and Homeruns and puts it on an ERA scale.
In that season Billy Beane used FIP to secure Chad Bradford, basically a quad-A player who the White Sox didn't trust to be in their bullpen because he didn't throw a fastball in the 90's and had a weird delivery (submariner). Even though Bradford allowed very few homeruns because of his delivery (in the Pacific Coast League in the worst pitching park in AAA) and walked few batters, the White Sox did not trust the results he was getting.
Player Evaluation
Billy Beane has never had a lot of money to throw around at players like other teams (Yankees, Red Sox, now the Angels and Rangers for instance) so he had to construct his teams utilizing concepts that other teams valued very little. Namely in hitters, walks and in pitchers FIP. Think of who the big name high dollar players are and what they bring to teams. ARod speed and power. Giambi (at the time) pure power player. What teams undervalued was not getting outs for hitters and teams overrated ERA stats and throwing velocity in pitchers (particularly high school pitchers).
A lot of Billy Beane's draft picks over the years have been not so good, and people will look at that as a damnation of his method of drafting, but fail to recognize how cheaply he does it and how seemingly random drafts are anyways. When you pick a player out of high school or college you have very little to actually go on besides what his statistics tell you for how good of a player he is going to be, that is the Billy Beane, baseball player story. "natural talent" is random, statistics are definite.
Well that's all I can think of for now on what to write about my takeaways from Moneyball for now. If I think of anything else I'll write either an addendum or a separate blog entirely about a different concept.
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