Sun: Cubs Offer Ceden, Gallagher, Veal and maybe a 4th player - For Roberts

[Migrant Redbird]

But where are you getting 8-9 wins for last year? I don't see it.

Roberts led the O's with 24 win shares last season. The rule of thumb is that each three win shares are roughly equivalent to an additional win for the team.

[davearm]

So if the elbow injury drained Roberts' power in 2006, then what was the problem in '03? And '04?

Roberts' IsoP in the first half of '06 (0.087) was down a bunch relative to '05 (0.201), but not by much at all relative to '03 (0.097) and '04 (0.103).

Again, using '05 as the benchmark is going to lead to some wrong conclusions.

[Pedro Cerrano]

So if the elbow injury drained Roberts' power in 2006, then what was the problem in '03? And '04?

Roberts' IsoP in the first half of '06 (0.087) was down a bunch relative to '05 (0.201), but not by much at all relative to '03 (0.097) and '04 (0.103).

Again, using '05 as the benchmark is going to lead to some wrong conclusions.

Unsure is IsoP takes age into account, but couldn't one assume that in '03 and '04 he was developing into the '05 player we all saw?

Holding his performance against him when he was still developing isn't very fair.

Edit: Looked up what IsoP measures and it clearly has nothing to do with age. Therefore, one can assume that, like 99% of baseball players, he got better as he reached his late 20s.

[mefogus]

His WARP1 was 7

So where does 8-9 come from?

-m

[Sports Guy]

So where does 8-9 come from?

-m

Did you not see where I said his WARP3 was over 9????

[dkdc]

His WARP1 was 7...WARP3 was over 9.

WARP is a pretty flawed stat in my opinion. Very few players are worth 8-9 wins over replacement.

WARP sets a fielding replacement level and a batting replacement level and gives players separate credit for performance above those two replacement levels. The result is that it gives way too much credit overall. Last year the Orioles had a team WARP3 of 63, which implies a replacement level team would win just 6 games in a season.

A better way to do it is to add up all players offensive and defensive contributions and then figure out a combined replacement level for each position.

A quick way to do that with Bpro's numbers is to take VORP (which uses a better replacement level) and add any defensive contributions above or below average to that. Divide by 10.5 to get to wins.

Assuming Roberts and DeRosa are both average fielders (so no credit is given for defense):

Roberts 2005: VORP = 62.0, WAR = 5.90

Roberts 2006: VORP = 31.3, WAR = 2.98

Roberts 2007: VORP = 48.6, WAR = 4.63

DeRosa 2006: VORP = 21.9, WAR = 2.09

DeRosa 2007: VORP = 21.3, WAR = 2.03

[Harry Carry]

OK gonna have to call you on the Veal BS. I've never attributed his struggles on the mound to his family situation. Someone else may have, but not me.

And if they did, it was BS.

Veal's struggles on the mound are due to mechanics. He's either gonna get all that straightened out and be really good, or he's gonna be a fringe player that teases you with potential but puts up lousy numbers, like Daniel Cabrera.

I heard Hendry on Espn 1000 say he thought that the death to Veals parents contributed to Veals problems mentally.That was just Hendry opinion.He thought Veal pitched better in the last month of the season.

[mefogus]

Did you not see where I said his WARP3 was over 9????

I think you are confusing what WARP3 is used for. That is, is a measure of WARP adjusted across eras and then extrapolated to 162 games. Since B-Rob in this case is not being compared to players from other eras, his WARP1 number would be the one to look at since it is league-relative.

-m

[Sports Guy]

So if the elbow injury drained Roberts' power in 2006, then what was the problem in '03? And '04?

Roberts' IsoP in the first half of '06 (0.087) was down a bunch relative to '05 (0.201), but not by much at all relative to '03 (0.097) and '04 (0.103).

Again, using '05 as the benchmark is going to lead to some wrong conclusions.

So, you are telling me that a player can't develop as he plays more and gets better?

You are saying that when a guy first comes up, that is who he is? That playing time, development, weight lifting and things like that can't make the player better?

So Felix Pie mine as well retire at this point, right?

[Moose Milligan]

So if the elbow injury drained Roberts' power in 2006, then what was the problem in '03? And '04?

He was 25 in 2003, pretty much his first full season, if you can call 112 games a full season...it was the most games he'd played in a season up until that point. He wasn't bad, either.

2004, he was still developing...he improved all around.

I don't think you should be bringing up 2003 and 2004...in the three following years, Roberts has provided good to great production while sustaining a gruesome elbow injury.

I'm not gonna get into the WHIPS, DIPS and potato chips stat mongering and twisting that you all seem to love...but it's not like Roberts is an unknown quantity. You can pretty much bank on a .370+ on base percentage and 10-15 homers from the leadoff spot. Depending on the manager and the running game he prefers, he can steal 30-50 bases.

It's not rocket science...as much as some like to make it chess, it ain't. It's checkers.

The only thing to worry about Roberts is to figure out when he'll stop being productive and when he'll start his decline...that's anyones guess and that horse has been beaten to a bloody pulp, so bad that it can't even get sent to the Elmer's factory right now.

[mefogus]

A quick way to do that with Bpro's numbers is to take VORP (which uses a better replacement level) and add any defensive contributions above or below average to that. Divide by 10.5 to get to wins.

I think VORP is the way to make the comparison here.

-m

[davearm]

So, you are telling me that a player can't develop as he plays more and gets better?

You are saying that when a guy first comes up, that is who he is? That playing time, development, weight lifting and things like that can't make the player better?

So Felix Pie mine as well retire at this point, right?

No I'm saying using Roberts' 2005 as the baseline for 2006 and beyond is going to lead to some wrong conclusions.

You yourself admitted 2005 was an anomaly. You don't use an anomalous datapoint as the benchmark for future performance.

If 2005 had never occurred, Roberts' 2006 season wouldn't look odd at all.

[Sports Guy]

No I'm saying using Roberts' 2005 as the baseline for 2006 and beyond is going to lead to some wrong conclusions.

You yourself admitted 2005 was an anomaly. You don't use an anomalous datapoint as the benchmark for future performance.

If 2005 had never occurred, Roberts' 2006 season wouldn't look odd at all.

Dave, no one is using 2005 as a baseline for anything.

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, BRob's elbow injury effected the first half of his ML season in 2006. That is a fact.

You can ignore it, poo poo it or whatever all you want but if you choose to, you are flat out wrong.

You have already admitted in this thread that BRob is the better player.

[Pedro Cerrano]

I have a crazy question. What exactly are we debating here?

It seems that SG seems pressed to get Dave to admit that Roberts is better than Derosa, when he already has....

Either way, it's hard to determine Roberts' value. 2005 is a season he hasn't had since and may never have again, but his follow-up to that 2005 season was plagued by an elbow injury.

[mefogus]

I have a crazy question. What exactly are we debating here?

It took only 521 posts for someone to ask this question. This is some kind of record for efficiency for the OH.

-m