Clay Davenport: Cespedes = Adam Jones

[Fan4Life]

Okay, I read the piece. Can someone explain to me how performance in Cuba can be translated to a projection of MLB performance with any degree of accuracy? Looking at totals doesn't fly when you are talking about a league with widely varying talent levels.

Of his WBC stats, is there any breakdown against respectable pitching? I realize this is exceptionally SSS... however.. if there are MLB pitchers he has faced and been successful, doesn't that at least show he wasn't over matched?

[Stotle]

Of his WBC stats, is there any breakdown against respectable pitching? I realize this is exceptionally SSS... however.. if there are MLB pitchers he has faced and been successful, doesn't that at least show he wasn't over matched?

It certainly doesn't give you any data that would allow you to project future MLB stats with any accuracy. At best, you get to see his approach against good pitching. That can be multiplied out to various appearances in international tournaments. But even then, we are talking about mixed talent levels. I just can't assign much useful meaning to these projections.

[Frobby]

This is exactly why I don't understand it when people think that AJ will be impossible or expensive to lock up. In my mind, AJ is very equal to Howie Kendrick. Both have been a bit of a disappointment, but both are still considered to have a lot of good baseball ahead. Howie's career slash line is .329 .434 .763, while AJ's is .319 .437 .756 in only 219 more PAs than Jones. Meanwhile, Kendrick just signed a 4 year deal worth jsut over $33M. Why can't we expect that type of contract from Jones? If he wants more years and more guaranteed money, offer him a 6/52 deal and let him walk as a FA after his age 31 season.

Jones will get more money because he plays a more important defensive position, and because he has more power.

[Stotle]

Jones will get more money because he plays a more important defensive position, and because he has more power.

Isn't CF and 2B generally considered equally valuable from a positional standpoint? Atleast as relates to calculation of Win Values?

[flashjordnk]

For the Orioles I guess the question would be do you trade Jones, then sign Cespedes for 6/60 or whatever similar amount it takes? They'd be essentially just re-upping Jones and taking the surplus value from the trade, plus taking on the risk that Cespedes' projections have wider variation because of the uncertainty in translation.

Would I be willing to take a bit more risk on Cespedes than Jones if it adds me Minor, 37th prospect according to BA last year.

I'd be relying pretty hard on my talent evaluators here. If they say he's got the same tools or better than Jones, I'd take the potential upside given the Orioles lack of window to win now and the additional players Jones could net us.

[El Gordo]

If Cespedes is about Adam Jones in the ML, but is a plus defender, I would ratheR get the pitchirg for Jones, and have Cespedes in CF for 4-5/30 M.

[Sanfran327]

Jones will get more money because he plays a more important defensive position, and because he has more power.

Isn't CF and 2B generally considered equally valuable from a positional standpoint? Atleast as relates to calculation of Win Values?

I also thought there might be some small similarity there, as they're both up-the-middle defenders.

[SrMeowMeow]

I would be ecstatic with a Jones for high-upside prospects, sign Cespedes maneuver. That would be brilliant.

[DrungoHazewood]

Okay, I read the piece. Can someone explain to me how performance in Cuba can be translated to a projection of MLB performance with any degree of accuracy? Looking at totals doesn't fly when you are talking about a league with widely varying talent levels.

I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around in my head, and I've started to type this post three or four different times and kind of given up.

I guess it boils down to you know the error bars will be bigger, but are they so big as to make the data worthless? I tend to think not. I think there's a relatively static spread of talent in Japan/Cuba. Different players will be able to take advantage of the differing talent levels differently, but I'm not sure that's a game breaker.

You often read that a AAAA guy is taking advantage of crappy AAA pitchers, but gets used by real major leaguers, and I've always thought that was a little overstated. I don't think you have too many guys who hit .500 against AAA pitchers with 83 mph fastballs, but .177 against better pitchers, while others have a .300/.270 split. But that's just gut, little or no data.

It would be interesting to see a comparison from Clay on standard deviations of his translations between MLB-MLB, Japan-MLB, Cuba-MLB, and AAA-MLB.

[DrungoHazewood]

Renders it a really cocktail-napkin-like analysis. Not irrelevant, but not enough to gamble big money on, certainly.

Or as I like to call it, a "D. Szymborski-ESPN-pays-me-to-write-about-projections-so-I'll-throw-something-together-for-page-hits" article.

So you guys have gone through a significant sample of Davenport's translations over time, and have come to the conclusion that the standard deviation of his Japan/Cuba projections is so much higher than minors-to-majors or majors-to-majors that they're essentially valueless?

Yes, I'm being snarky. I want to see proof before throwing this information out the window.

[Sports Guy]

So you guys have gone through a significant sample of Davenport's translations over time, and have come to the conclusion that the standard deviation of his Japan/Cuba projections is so much higher than minors-to-majors or majors-to-majors that they're essentially valueless?

Yes, I'm being snarky. I want to see proof before throwing this information out the window.

Doesn't common sense need to come into play here?

If Cespedes was a 26 y/o top prospect tearing up AA or AAA, how much weight would you put into his long term potential?

[Stotle]

So you guys have gone through a significant sample of Davenport's translations over time, and have come to the conclusion that the standard deviation of his Japan/Cuba projections is so much higher than minors-to-majors or majors-to-majors that they're essentially valueless?

Yes, I'm being snarky. I want to see proof before throwing this information out the window.

What are your data points? There have been, what, fewer than 20 pitchers that have come over from Japan -- all of varying ages and skillsets (reliever/starter, pitch type, etc.) over the last 15 years or so? What's the pool of Cuban players that have come over and performed in the US such that we can even start to determine what the actual standard deviation is?

[DrungoHazewood]

Doesn't common sense need to come into play here?

If Cespedes was a 26 y/o top prospect tearing up AA or AAA, how much weight would you put into his long term potential?

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Cespedes or a Japanese player aren't the same as someone who'd been floating around the minors for years and then suddenly tore up AA like Luis Montanez. They're players who were forced to play at a lower level because of local laws or customs.

If someone were transported from space to the BaySox at age 26 and started hitting .350 with power I'd certainly take notice.

[Lucky Jim]

So you guys have gone through a significant sample of Davenport's translations over time, and have come to the conclusion that the standard deviation of his Japan/Cuba projections is so much higher than minors-to-majors or majors-to-majors that they're essentially valueless?

Yes, I'm being snarky. I want to see proof before throwing this information out the window.

I guess we have different ideas about where the burden of proof resides.

[DrungoHazewood]

What are your data points? There have been, what, fewer than 20 pitchers that have come over from Japan -- all of varying ages and skillsets (reliever/starter, pitch type, etc.) over the last 15 years or so? What's the pool of Cuban players that have come over and performed in the US such that we can even start to determine what the actual standard deviation is?

I think there are about 40 Cubans who've played in the majors over the past 10 years, and I'd assume a larger number who've played in the minors. 50-some Japanese players. The error bars will be higher than a AAA-to-MLB translation. But how much? I'm not willing to say they're so large that the information is useless.