Orioles are one of the teams that the Twins have contacted in regards to Justin Morneau

[DrungoHazewood]

Phillies acquired OF Ben Revere from the Twins for RHPs Vance Worley and Trevor May.

Revere will become the Phillies' starting center fielder, and should thrive defensively in Citizens Bank Park. He'll also add a nice element of speed to the Philadelphia batting order. But it's easy to wonder if the club gave up too much for a guy who hasn't homered in 1,064 career plate appearances and who may never get on base at better than a .350 clip. Speed tends to be overrated in baseball.

That's kind of strange, especially if the part about him becoming the Phillies' starting center fielder. Revere looks kind of like the new Joey Gathright. Has ZERO power and walks in about 5% of his plate appearances.

[OrioleMagic79]

2004/2007 Red Sox

2003 Marlins

2011 Cardinals

2010 Giants

there's five of the last ten

regardless, arguing against statistics is really missing the point, in my opinion. statistics don't replace any of the other aspects of the game, they only quantify them. they don't answer the question "why did Miguel Gonzalez pitch so well in 2012?" or "why did no other team sign Miguel Gonzalez?" or "can Miguel Gonzalez pitch this well again in 2013?". but they do tell you how well Miguel Gonzalez pitched in 2012. statistics combine everything you see with your eyes into one number. that's all they do. they don't predict the future, or explain the past, all they do is quantify it. advanced statistics are merely designed to be a more accurate way of doing the same thing. and if you have a problem with that, then I don't know what to tell you.

statistics don't always tell the whole truth, but words downright lie a lot of the time. accurate advanced statistics, used correctly, are a whole lot more accurate than anyone's eyes or words at telling you what happened. but what makes you good at baseball management is being able to figure out why it happened and whether it's likely to happen again. and while some stats can start to do this (generally raw data like FB velocity or line drive rate), there's a reason why every baseball team has operations that do all the other stuff.

as fans, though, what's easily accessible to us are stats, and in order to quantify what happened then isn't it best to use the stats that give us the most accurate idea of what happened, and then use our own intellect to try and answer the tougher questions?

2004 Red Sox: Pedro Martinez 6 year/$75m with option for 7th at $17m, Curt Shilling had already won a WS and was a bonafide dominant #1 SP - don't have his contract numbers available but will support my point if looked up, Manny Ramirez 8 year/$160m signed in 2000, Nomar Garciaparra made $11.5m that season which was the end of a huge 4 year deal signed in 2001 and was BIG money at the time, and David Ortiz signed a $12.5m two year extension before the season - (guys that would go on to become big FA but most likely weren't expensive at the time include Damon, Varitek, Youkilis, and Derek Lowe to some extent)

2007 Red Sox: I am not going to spend the time to get all the contracts, but will do my best to avoid posting names that weren't making big money at the time - Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Josh Beckett, Eric Gagne, J.D. Drew just signed prior to season for 5 year/$70m, Curt Shilling, Mike Lowell finishing up a 4 year/$32m that he signed with the Marlins and then he signed a 3 year/$37.5m deal after the season with Boston, a few more well paid players on the roster...

oh yeah, and this:

On November 14, 2006, Major League Baseball announced that the Red Sox had competed for the rights to negotiate a contract with Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. Boston won with a bid of US$51.1 million and had 30 days to complete a deal. On December 13, 2006, the day before the deadline, Matsuzaka signed a six-year contract worth $52 million.

2003 Marlins: Ivan Rodriguez signed a $10m one year deal, traded a ton in the offseason beforehand including acquiring several players making $3m or $4m per year, traded for Mike Hampton and then immediately sent him to Atlanta while keeping Juan Pierre...to be honest, this is the closest thing to a "Moneyball" example winning the WS from your examples, but getting Pudge was a pretty big name FA acquisition and he didn't come cheap, especially for 2003...

2011 Cardinals: Matt Holliday (FA signed in 2010) 7 year/$120m, Lance Berkman (FA) paid $8m that year, picked up Pujols (drafted by StL) $16m option, Kyle Lohse (FA) making $12m that year, Chris Carpenter (FA) $14m+ that year, Jake Westbrook (FA) $8m that year (sorry for not knowing the exact year each was acquired, but the team was made up of many moderate to expensive players that were acquired via FA)

2010 Giants: Aaron Rowand 5 year/$60m, Barry Zito 7 year/$126m, Lincecum made $9m that season, Edgar Rentaria 2 year/$18.5m, and the rest is either $6m+ or below which is not dissimilar from some of the Orioles' contracts...

Either way, these are not really "Moneyball" type teams with most of them signing guys to contracts over $100m, although the 2003 Marlins is maybe a good example. I can admit that what makes it tough for me to view it that way is that so many of their players developed into big stars that make lots of money now, but I have to remember to look at it as it was in 2003...so I can agree that it was pretty close...though signing Pudge was a big offseason FA acquisition...

[DrungoHazewood]

I don't like WAR either, especially in the ways that El Gordo and JTrea like(d) to use it, but if you have any faith in statistical analysis you should recognize that at least its offensive component is statistically sound.

I find its defensive component to be fundamentally flawed (because it relies on defensive metrics), and I don't like built-in positional adjustments, but this is an argument I feel like Drungo and I have had several times so I'm not going to go into it again here.

The offensive component, though, is based on wOBA which is as perfect a metric as exists in baseball, so if you want to find fault with WAR you'd be best served steering your arguments away from that.

I'm going to try to not come off as too snarky or sarcastic here, but how do you weigh and compare players, and how is that way better than the framework WAR gives us?

The way I look at it is that WAR uses the best available metrics, and assembles them into a single number of wins in the most reasonable, logical way possible. If you don't use positional adjustments... then how do you deal with positional scarcity? If you don't like the current defensive metrics, then how do you account for a player's defensive value? And if you don't like positional adjustments or defensive metrics, how do you compare two players in an accurate, defensible way?

WAR is simply assembling the best estimates of player value in a logical, consistent way. I'm not saying you do this, but most of the alternatives to WAR seem to be doing exactly the same thing in a less repeatable, defensible, quantitative way.

[DrungoHazewood]

Either way, these are not really "Moneyball" type teams, although the 2003 Marlins is maybe a good example. What makes it tough for me to view it that way is that so many of their players developed into big stars that make lots of money now, but I have to remember to look at it as it was in 2003...so I can agree that it was pretty close...though signing Pudge was a big offseason FA acquisition...

I thought your point was that modern statistical analysis was fatally flawed, not relevant to real baseball, and nothing good teams would rely on. And that you were using "Moneyball" as a proxy for a team that would use modern statistical analysis in its decision-making process. And my response was "all teams now use modern statistical analysis as key part of their decision-making processes."

If your point was to say that Moneyball = low-budget teams that use statistical analysis, well, that's certainly going to be harder to find. No matter what approach they take there are far fewer low-budget teams that make and succeed in the playoffs.

[OrioleMagic79]

I'd argue the concepts of moneyball are pretty much main stream at this point and have been for awhile, so basically, every team (including those who have won the world series in the past 15 years) have likely incorporated them to one degree or another, most going well beyond the scope of the original premises into new areas of analysis and economics.

But that's not the point. The point is that using these advanced statistics in a "Moneyball" type approach has proven time and again that in order to take it to the level of WS Champion, you need to also go spend some money on a superstar or two...the only team that has been mentioned that didn't really do much of that was the 2003 Marlins, however they did acquire Pudge for a 1 year/$10m deal that offseason...

Even if the 2003 Marlins count, a lot had to fall into the right place for that to occur and good for them...but the fact it has only occurred one time says that it does in fact need to be a combination, like you are talking about...Now that every team has these type of stats boosting their scouting and their offseason approach, teams that don't spend money are at even more of a disadvantage...another excuse BB uses today...what a salesman that guy is though, seriously, bravo...

[eb45]

throwing around money doesn't mean they didn't use advanced statistical analysis, which the Red Sox, Cardinals, and Marlins were known to do (and the Diamondbacks in 01 and Angels in 02). I assumed that was your point. but if you want to make it solely about money: 02 Angels, 03 Marlins, 05 White Sox, 06 Cardinals, 08 Phillies. and, if you want to include teams that lost the World Series: 02 Giants, 05 Astros, 06 Tigers, 07 Rockies, 08 Rays, 10 Rangers.

the playoffs are obviously not entirely a crapshoot: the leverage of each play is higher, thus the highest leverage innings are massively high, thus teams with good pitchers pitching the highest leverage innings (read: good bullpens) are most often the teams that win. the 05 White Sox are the obvious example of that, and they'd be a good example of a "Moneyball" team if you accept that the Moneyball thesis has nothing to do with statistical analysis. additionally, in playoff series, a team's best pitcher is likely to be leveraged much more heavily than in the regular season, so there's another advantage for teams with one great pitcher (this advantage has been true literally forever).

still, the formula for constructing a team to do well in the playoffs is very different from those for constructing a successful baseball team, and even then the playoffs can often be reduced to randomness (and by "randomness" I mean Raul Ibanez). so I don't think it's fair to hold a lack of postseason success against a team because of just how narrow the margins of error are in the postseason, especially compared to the regular season.

[OrioleMagic79]

I thought your point was that modern statistical analysis was fatally flawed, not relevant to real baseball, and nothing good teams would rely on. And that you were using "Moneyball" as a proxy for a team that would use modern statistical analysis in its decision-making process. And my response was "all teams now use modern statistical analysis as key part of their decision-making processes."

If your point was to say that Moneyball = low-budget teams that use statistical analysis, well, that's certainly going to be harder to find. No matter what approach they take there are far fewer low-budget teams that make and succeed in the playoffs.

I didn't say that all modern statistics are not useful...I said I think WAR is not valuable. It tries to place reasoning and cause/effect to unspecified team victories. I.e. The Orioles would have lost 2 games if MR wasn't on the roster last year or if he had to be replaced by a AAA player...

As we have seen with our very own favorite team, how can you predict what that replacement player would have been able to do? I bet nobody in baseball would have predicted McLouth's and Hammel's and (insert other surprise player performances from the team here) contributions, therefore maybe if MR goes down with an injury and Machado comes up to replace him at 3B, we actually could win MORE games...even though he has a WAR of 1.6 or whatever...

So let's pretend just for a minute that MR was our 3B and we had an established 1B and DH...since this is hypothetical, I have to just pretend his WAR would still be 1.6 in that scenario...then MR goes down with a season ending injury last July and Machado comes up and does what he did for us last year...does that mean MR's WAR goes down? I would assume so, but then what good was his WAR during the 2011 offseason anyway?

I don't like how WAR just arbitrarily says MR was worth 1.6 wins last year. Or worse yet telling me he will be worth that THIS year. OK, which games did he win for us? It makes sense to look at a game on an individual basis and say "MR won that game for us" - but that is a specified game, that can be looked at closely and this can be said, although it still would remain an opinion at that point, not a proven statistic. What if MR was batting in front of Adam Jones that day and the reason the pitcher grooved MR a fastball down the middle is because he feared pitching to Adam? Then wouldn't any player put in front of Adam in that situation, facing that same pitcher, get grooved a fastball in that situation? Maybe not if they are a better hitter than Adam, but otherwise, almost certainly...

So then any hitter very well could have launched that game-winning HR out of the park...so even specified games are hard to pin down on one player being "the reason" for a victory. Hence the "team game" aspect of baseball. Some would argue that Adam Jones was the reason we won that game in this example. Some would say "The pitcher lost that game"...it is all so speculative and contrived to say a player is worth x number of Wins Above Replacement...

THAT is my problem with WAR...I don't have a problem with advanced statistics, but when they try to do too much with a single stat, it often ends up not being worth much...similar to QB Rating in football...few people consider it all that reliable...it hangs around because it is something to throw into the mix, but many people completely dismiss it as not having any value...

This is how I feel about WAR. To me it is an attempt to try and calculate something that cannot be calculated...

[OrioleMagic79]

throwing around money doesn't mean they didn't use advanced statistical analysis, which the Red Sox, Cardinals, and Marlins were known to do (and the Diamondbacks in 01 and Angels in 02). I assumed that was your point. but if you want to make it solely about money: 02 Angels, 03 Marlins, 05 White Sox, 06 Cardinals, 08 Phillies. and, if you want to include teams that lost the World Series: 02 Giants, 05 Astros, 06 Tigers, 07 Rockies, 08 Rays, 10 Rangers.

the playoffs are obviously not entirely a crapshoot: the leverage of each play is higher, thus the highest leverage innings are massively high, thus teams with good pitchers pitching the highest leverage innings (read: good bullpens) are most often the teams that win. the 05 White Sox are the obvious example of that, and they'd be a good example of a "Moneyball" team if you accept that the Moneyball thesis has nothing to do with statistical analysis. additionally, in playoff series, a team's best pitcher is likely to be leveraged much more heavily than in the regular season, so there's another advantage for teams with one great pitcher (this advantage has been true literally forever).

still, the formula for constructing a team to do well in the playoffs is very different from those for constructing a successful baseball team, and even then the playoffs can often be reduced to randomness (and by "randomness" I mean Raul Ibanez). so I don't think it's fair to hold a lack of postseason success against a team because of just how narrow the margins of error are in the postseason, especially compared to the regular season.

Like I said, there is certainly value in many forms/uses of advanced statistics, but I think it needs to be used as a supplement to scouting and seeking players in what many would call "the old fashioned way"

My distaste is for a stat that claims it can calculate how many wins a player is worth, because there is too much involved in how a win is acquired. There are so many minuscule examples of how this can be determined, but in order to concisely and clearly make a point, sometimes a dramatic example must be given...

If MR goes 0 for 16 in a 4 game stretch, but he introduce each of the starting pitchers for those games to their dream woman and future wife the morning of each game, maybe each pitcher felt extra motivated to impress the new chick...therefore MR is responsible for 4 wins...

That is a ridiculous example, but it displays randomness, which is my point...I like my example that is more baseball related with MR getting grooved a fastball because Jones is hitting behind him...if he had hit 7th that day, maybe he doesn't hit the HR and they lose...

But I do think that the A's won't win a WS unless the "randomness" of the playoffs falls EXACTLY into place for them, unless they go out and pay for a FA or two that will be the difference maker...even A-Rod is a difference maker when he is terrible in the playoffs...because people pitch better to the guy in front of him, or they walk him to get to the next guy...

To reiterate, I believe there is value in advanced stats, just not ones that claim to be able to tell you things that cannot be determined and/or predicted like "how many wins a player is worth above his replacement"

[Os84]

http://twitter.com/JimBowdenESPNxm/status/276758646552150016

JIM BOWDEN ‏@JimBowdenESPNxm

Terry Ryan just told us he will continue to listen on deals for Josh Willingham and Justin Mourneau if he can get more starting pitching

[OrioleMagic79]

http://twitter.com/JimBowdenESPNxm/status/276758646552150016

I really hope this happens somehow. At this point, we need an answer and we don't have anyone to fill the MOO bat, including MR (who would likely bat 7th)

[CA-ORIOLE]

But that's not the point. The point is that using these advanced statistics in a "Moneyball" type approach has proven time and again that in order to take it to the level of WS Champion, you need to also go spend some money on a superstar or two...the only team that has been mentioned that didn't really do much of that was the 2003 Marlins, however they did acquire Pudge for a 1 year/$10m deal that offseason...

Even if the 2003 Marlins count, a lot had to fall into the right place for that to occur and good for them...but the fact it has only occurred one time says that it does in fact need to be a combination, like you are talking about...Now that every team has these type of stats boosting their scouting and their offseason approach, teams that don't spend money are at even more of a disadvantage...another excuse BB uses today...what a salesman that guy is though, seriously, bravo...

Obviously a team that has more money will have an huge economic advantage, that doesn't mean that teams with more money disregard statistical analysis in their player acquisitions, superstar or not. I'm not going to get into an argument that DD and the Orioles could spend more money and be more competitive. Of course they likey could be better with more resoruces. DD is doing what he feels he needs to do within his budget (like it or not) to field and build the best team possible. A huge part of that is baseball economics and statistical analysis.

The point is that moneyball used statistical analysis to find marketplace inefficiencies allowing lower payroll teams like the A's to be more competitive. For the most part, those inefficiencies have been recognized and are no longer inefficiencies. Much of that has probably been replaced into new areas of baseball economics like player acquistion (including international players), development methodologies, physical conditioning strategies, organizational depth, platooning strategies, defensive analysis and defensive shifts, bullpen utilization and acquisition, modernization of scouting techniques and methodologies, etc. etc.

I'm not sure why Soxhotcorner thinks that every stat guy is anti-scout, it may be the scouting of international players, injured players, recognzing flaws in current players etc., are new market place inefficiencies.

[eb45]

I'm going to try to not come off as too snarky or sarcastic here, but how do you weigh and compare players, and how is that way better than the framework WAR gives us?

The way I look at it is that WAR uses the best available metrics, and assembles them into a single number of wins in the most reasonable, logical way possible. If you don't use positional adjustments... then how do you deal with positional scarcity? If you don't like the current defensive metrics, then how do you account for a player's defensive value? And if you don't like positional adjustments or defensive metrics, how do you compare two players in an accurate, defensible way?

WAR is simply assembling the best estimates of player value in a logical, consistent way. I'm not saying you do this, but most of the alternatives to WAR seem to be doing exactly the same thing in a less repeatable, defensible, quantitative way.

With my brain, with logic? WAR has no flexibility and makes key assumptions (that all teams use players perfectly efficiently is a BIG one) that I can't abide by. I recognize that these are things that need to be accounted for, I just don't like the way WAR builds them into the actual number.

I'll generally use oRAA or oRAR to judge a player's offensive contribution, and wOBA to judge his efficiency. Defense is obviously sketchier, but I like +/- more than the rest I guess. Generally though I'm happy with an estimate of a player's defensive worth as well as an understanding of where it comes from (arm vs. range vs. instincts). I honestly prefer not to have defensive value quantified, because of its variance from year to year, or if it is quantified, then broken up into component parts.

Positional scarcity is something I'd rather handle on my own than be given a number for if I'm trying to predict the future, especially when that number relies on an often untrue assumption (perfectly efficient usage). I don't have a whole lot of use for team-dependent metrics, which is what any stat that makes that perfectly efficient usage assumption is relying on.

For pitchers I use SIERA. I generally find its methodology is statistically valid and it deals adequately with the nuances of the game rather than saying "oh well, can't deal with that" like FIP or xFIP, and thus fWAR.

My method is a whole lot more nebulous than WAR, obviously, but I think that's an advantage, in that it allows for a whole lot more flexibility. I wouldn't even call it a method, more of an approach. I'm trying to get an accurate picture of a player with all the grey areas that can require, and if that means ending up with eight numbers and a couple sentences then I'll take that, because there's so much about a player that "5.0 WAR" doesn't tell us, and there's also so much room for that 5.0 WAR to be misleading.

[Os84]

I really hope this happens somehow. At this point, we need an answer and we don't have anyone to fill the MOO bat, including MR (who would likely bat 7th)

I agree. Morneau or Willingham would be a nice addition.

[OrioleMagic79]

Obviously a team that has more money will have an huge economic advantage, that doesn't mean that teams with more money disregard statistical analysis in their player acquisitions, superstar or not. I'm not going to get into an argument that DD and the Orioles could spend more money and be more competitive. Of course they likey could be better with more resoruces. DD is doing what he feels he needs to do within his budget (like it or not) to field and build the best team possible. A huge part of that is baseball economics and statistical analysis.

The point is that moneyball used statistical analysis to find marketplace inefficiencies allowing lower payroll teams like the A's to be more competitive. For the most part, those inefficiencies have been recognized and are no longer inefficiencies. Much of that has probably been repaced into new areas of baseball economics like player acquistion (including international players), development methodologies, physical conditioning strategies, organizational depth, platooning strategies, defensive analysis and defensive shifts, bullpen utilization and acquisition, modernization of scouting techniques and methodologies, etc. etc.

I'm not sure why Soxhotcorner thinks that every stat guy is anti-scout, it may be the scouting of international players, injured players, recognzing flaws in current players etc., are new market place inefficiencies.

I don't think that SoxHotCorner was saying that, but I know for sure I wasn't. Someone said or implied (seems like years ago now) that Morneau shouldn't be the answer over MR because of MR's WAR. That is what set this whole discussion off...I still cannot believe that people would prefer to have MR over Morneau, but it would be easier to swallow if the sole reason wasn't based on the WAR of two different players who play for different teams in different divisions and hit from the opposite sides of the plate. There are so many variables (including an injury recovery) that would skew a stat like WAR in this scenario...even though many will argue the point is that WAR takes those into account...but what WAR takes into account doesn't validate it at all in my opinion.

OK, I've said my point of view about 300 different ways, can we agree to disagree?

[CA-ORIOLE]

To reiterate, I believe there is value in advanced stats, just not ones that claim to be able to tell you things that cannot be determined and/or predicted like "how many wins a player is worth above his replacement"

You're getting way too wrapped up in the concept of "WINS". Basically what you're saying is that there is no statistical way to assess a players value because there are too many variables. For the purpose of this discussion we'll stick with offensive value (as defensive value is way too much of a leap for you imo).

I disagree with your premise and (quite frankly) pretty bizarre analysis.