Offseason Discussion - Payroll/Random Blurbs

[m26555]

I know it's chic to rip Lindstrom for his abilities at closer but Nunez wasnt immune to bad performances. I have no problem opening it back up.

I don't want either of them closing.

[Metes]

I don't want either of them closing.

C'mon, we need to give them both an equal opportunity to blow games.

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

I read an interesting article that predicts that Ricky and Volstad should rebound next year. It's from a fantasy perspective but it still applies.

Here's the article.

Let’s conclude our season-ending series on which players our stats consider to be lucky and unlucky by focusing on jinxed pitchers.

To isolate pitching luck, we look at strand rate because, generally, pitcher success or failure here does not repeat year to year to the same degree as broader stats like strikeouts, walks and baserunners allowed. We also isolate the percentage of homers on fly balls for the same reason – wide variation from the league average of about 10.5 percent is common. And we assess a pitcher’s defensive efficiency – the percentage of balls in play (not including homers) that become hits. The average batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is about .300.

This year, we’re also going to project the most disappointing extreme pitchers – those who were top 10 in highest ground ball and fly ball percentage. Our friend and colleague Gene McCaffrey of WiseGuyBaseball.com noted this spring in his baseball annual that these pitchers tend to perform much better than average and we agree. So, who among the most extreme unexpectedly struggled? We’ll bet on them for next year, too.

We do this to further my much considered but never attempted “Portfolio S” strategy. The idea is to draft a team based on last year’s values as long as the players have the same job and are not compromised by injury. Age is a marginal consideration since one year shouldn’t matter too much.

The objective with Portfolio S is to exploit the market’s overconfidence in tethering expected future value to the most recent past results.

First let’s test of our underlying assumptions by looking at the pitchers we labeled as unlucky at this time last year: Justin Verlander(notes), Jonathan Sanchez(notes), Josh Beckett(notes), Ian Snell(notes), Bronson Arroyo(notes), Aaron Harang(notes), Roy Oswalt(notes), Carlos Silva(notes) and Nate Robertson(notes).

Silva and Robertson missed most of the year with injury. Oswalt’s homer rate from last year essentially repeated and thus was not the outlier it seemed. Harang’s homer rate decreased exactly as we expected, with a resulting ERA gain of about a half run. Arroyo’s BABIP allowed has decreased as predicted – from an unlucky .314 to a lucky .268. Snell’s BABIP also declined, but not enough to overcome his poor control. Beckett’s BABIP has gone from .315 to .286, about exactly what we expected. I said Sanchez’s ERA would go from the low 5.00s to the low 4.00s with average luck and it has. And the biggest hit of course was saying that Verlander’s strand rate was a fluke and not due to any lack of intestinal fortitude; it’s sunk from 35 percent of baserunners scoring to 27 percent.

That’s solid forecasting performance. Let’s see if we can replicate it this year by putting “Buys” on all of the following unlucky pitchers.

Ricky Nolasco(notes), Marlins: He hasn’t held his gains after the terrible start as we expected. His post-All Star ERA is 4.78 despite allowing a .238 average against with 89 Ks and just 21 walks in 86.7 innings. He’s stranding 61 percent of baserunners for the season. Last year, he stranded 76 percent.

Brett Anderson(notes), A’s: Here’s another guy with a bad strand rate – 67 percent (average is 71.5). Anderson, like Nolasco, has a good K-rate and great K/BB ratio – 7.9/2.4. Get him in the middle-to-late round range next year because he very easily can end up a top 10 overall AL hurler.

Scott Baker(notes), Twins: He’s been at least a little unlucky almost everywhere. Pitchers with 7.8/2.1 K/BB should be fantasy gold. We also like that Baker is extreme, though it’s better to be ground-ball extreme than fly-ball like he is. Still, it’s another sign of dominance.

Derek Lowe(notes), Braves: The league hit .324 against him on balls in play. Yes, he’s ground ball extreme but he’s been much better than league average in BABIP allowed the prior four years. Also, we like extreme pitchers and Lowe was the second most extreme at inducing grounders (Joel Pineiro(notes) was first).

Chris Volstad(notes), Marlins: With average defense, his ERA would be 4.42. So use that as a baseline. His HR/FB has jumped from 4.7 to 19.2 percent conversion. Next year, expect an ERA in the high 3.00s and decent Ks.

Ervin Santana(notes), Angels: No way he gives up homers on 15 percent of fly balls next year. He has an ERA of 3.98 after the break with good K/BB despite giving up 16 homers since then. Otherwise, the okay second half would be great.

Jorge De La Rosa(notes), Rockies: His ERA should be about 3.90, not mid-4.00s. He’s dominant – over a K per inning. He needs to cut the walk rate down to about 3.5, but it’s moving in the right direction. How can you not love a lefty with an average heater of 93.3 mph?

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I'll post the link later. I can't scroll down in the edit feature on my iPhone

[emkayseven]

oh God please no Helms starting at 3B

i can deal with coghlan in left, boner at 2b, gaby at 1b, trading uggla and hermida and cantu, but please please please don't start wes helms

[Swifty]

Combo Cantu/Hermida - .765 (eyeball rounding) < - Maybin/Gaby/BC
Combo Uggla/Bonifacio - .750 (eyeball rounding) < - Whoever is new at 3B/Vet 1B/LF

Replaced.

I'm honestly speechless. This is how we're going to dumb this thing down? At least save face and just say "we go as far as the pitching goes." That's fine, I'll even agree with that, but come on, you're better than this fake statistical analysis.

Bonifacio has 100 AB's fewer than the other players you're talking about, if we're going to start saying 3 guys can replace the aggregate production of one, it's only fair to look at it fully. To replace Bonifacio, you also have to do something about Johnson and his .457 OBP in 100 AB's.

If these are our outgoing players:

Uggla, Hermida, Cantu, Ross we are losing a collective OBP of .335. Here's how many qualified OBPs over .335 we had this season: 5. Guess who they are. Yep, Uggla, Hermida, Cantu, Hanley and Coghlan.

This is not going to be easy to replace them.

[nny]

Stats: They matter when they say Volstad will do better

Not trying to pile on, just so funny that so much fuss was made at the start of the year when they (correctly) projected Volstad as a 5 ERA pitcher about them but now you're using them to support him

[Namaste]

Before we declare this team the Washington Nationals of 2010 why don't we just see how the pieces fall first, then we can have some serious debate that can be backed up by some concrete names.

[Swifty]

Nobody's calling them the Nationals.

In Hanley, JJ and to an extent Coghlan and Nolasco we have too much talent to lose 100 games if we surround them with just average talent.

The point I'm trying to make is that we can't just tear this thing down right now and keep on chugging. We can lose 1, 2, maaaaaaaaaybe 3 and be OK, but we can't lose all 4 and say "replaced." We just don't have the players in our system ready for 2010. Logan? Who knows...Maybin? We've been down this road enough already, right? Stanton? Sure, bring him up in May. 2011, absolutely, we'll be on schedule for an internal replacement, but 2010 is a year too soon to pull the plug and expect the train to keep on rolling.
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Part 2:

I'm on board with the Nny plan (which won't happen) but if we're saying "OK, we've got around $80 million to spend on payroll in 2010 and 2011 why not go for broke in 2010 and have the Jacksonville clan take over in 2011."

[lou]

I'm honestly speechless. This is how we're going to dumb this thing down? At least save face and just say "we go as far as the pitching goes." That's fine, I'll even agree with that, but come on, you're better than this fake statistical analysis.

Bonifacio has 100 AB's fewer than the other players you're talking about, if we're going to start saying 3 guys can replace the aggregate production of one, it's only fair to look at it fully. To replace Bonifacio, you also have to do something about Johnson and his .457 OBP in 100 AB's.

If these are our outgoing players:

Uggla, Hermida, Cantu, Ross we are losing a collective OBP of .335. Here's how many qualified OBPs over .335 we had this season: 5. Guess who they are. Yep, Uggla, Hermida, Cantu, Hanley and Coghlan.

This is not going to be easy to replace them.

I don't take much stock in your projections when you routinely predict the Marlins lose 100, and then are a 72 win team this year, when both years it was easy to predict a 80-85 win ballclub. You don't see the big picture.

Alright so let's add Johnson to the mix over 125 PA. That's a miniscule spike compared to the 2000 PA of everyone else. We're going to have to replace an aggregate .775 OPS with Uggla, Cantu, Johnson, Bonifacio, Hermida. A .775 over 4 positions is nothing crazy. We have this to replace that:

-Maybin
-Gaby
-Carroll
-New 3B
-New 1B/LF Veteran Gload Type, who plays a bit more
-And if Morrison, Petersen, whoever come up and play a bit.

Considering we are getting rid of the defensive-disaster team above, realistically speaking overall production of these hitters is going to have to be about .750 for us to match 2009's performance (of course, this is assuming Hanley, Catcher Combo, Ross, and Coghlan all are relatively the same That would be about an .850 OPS between the 4. If Hanley is .950, Ross .800, Coghlan .800, and Catchers .800, that's only a few points off of where they need to be). I'm sure NNY could kill this with an exact number if he is up for it, but this is all that needs to happen to replicate 2009. Count me into that group matching that level of offensive production in 2010. Unless we give Bonifacio 500 PA starting at 2B (which I will acknowledge, could happen because they are insane) or have an absolutely abysmal .650 OPS performance elsewhere, it's not going to be a problem. I'm optimistic they don't field EB, turn him into Amezaga, and let the better options play.


Again, it's the other Johnson, Nolasco, Volstad, Miller, West, and Anibal. This growing up turns us into a contender. The offense is absolutely not the problem with the talent we have in this organization, as long as they figure out a decent stopgap at 3B and a good bench replacement for Gload.
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I'm on board with the Nny plan (which won't happen) but if we're saying "OK, we've got around $80 million to spend on payroll in 2010 and 2011 why not go for broke in 2010 and have the Jacksonville clan take over in 2011."

Because 2011 and then going into the stadium, is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more important than 2010. If they don't win in 2010 under your plan, they'd have to "firesale" a year before moving into a new building. It makes sense to us, because we understand what could be brewing in Jax/NOLA right now, but that would be an epic failure for the normal baseball fan. They would never have a chance of establishing confidence in the organization if they do that the year before moving into the new digs.

Get rid of most of them now. Be another .500ish team, with the potential to be better if the starting pitchers grow up, then up payroll another $10 million in 2011 and keep the pitching together. Then 2012 hit people in the face with a big free agent signing to fix whatever hole is on the team that the AA/AAA kids do not fix internally.

[Swifty]

The average baseball fan doesn't live in Miami. The average baseball fan would come see Hanley and JJ.

The average Miami fan only cares about playoffs. The best shot we have at that over the next 3 seasons is going for broke next year.

I don't know if it's ideal, but then again, nothing about this team or market is, when the window's there, go for it. If you make it on a small budget, it gives you carte blanche as a "genius" for at least 3 seasons. Otherwise there'd have been handwringing and heads rolling over the 2005 debacle.

[Nick]

I know it's chic to rip Lindstrom for his abilities at closer but Nunez wasnt immune to bad performances. I have no problem opening it back up.

It's not chic to rip on Lindstrom for his abilities at closer. He pretty much proved he has no abilities as a closer. Nunez shouldn't be a closer either, though. Beinfest is going to have to pull one out of his ass for us to have a decent closer next year.

[Goodfella]

Why own a baseball team if you're going to set a payroll budget well below every other single team in the league?

[Party]

1) The economy is in a deep recession
2) Marlins are way behind the league in revenues
3) Team has tons of debt if Braman is to be believed

[Metes]

They do it because they can and they make money doing so.

[Party]

And that.