Is the Orioles evaluation process for bounce back players "sophisticated"?

[E-D-D-I-E]

I don't know if its sophisticated or not. Like any evaluation, alot of it is based on probability. To me, its irrelevant with Frazier and here is why.

-Signing a guy like Frazier, has 2 outcomes, both suck IMO. Frazier signing for 8 million, IS playing most days.

*If we are really trying to win now and Frazier was your addition, well then our front office truly is lost. Payroll was certainly available to make a big move. Hell, a medium sized move. Barring anything big forthcoming, I don't see it. That would be sad.

*If we are not trying to win now, then he blocks players we all want to see. Our future. The guys that have to be good for us to win.

-I don't believe the O's are trying to "win now". They obviously don't feel they are a player or 2 away from being true contenders. They've proven that this off-season with no real additions. I mean, think about it, we have debated whether we are better than last year, many times on this site. If we are truly trying to win, counting on bounce backs and big leaps from our young players, is a dangerous game to play during year 1 of your "window".

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by E-D-D-I-E
wording

[Frobby]

10 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

So, you think it’s fine that they blocked young bats with this guy?  Perfectly ok with that?  This is a yes or no question. 

I don’t think we should rehash here the arguments about the issues in the Frazier transaction other than as it relates to the question Tony raised about evaluating bounce back candidates.  The rest was covered ad nauseum in the Frazier thread, which Tony closed before opening this one to discuss the bounce-back topic.  

[interloper]

Yeah I also don't think guys like Odor and Chirinos were expected to "bounce back". They got them knowing they were ok with who they were currently, because that's how you have to approach it. And because they were super cheap. The money factor should not be discounted here.

Franco? Sure, maybe they really hoped he would bounce back. But mostly they just needed a body for the infield. 

Aguilar, sure. But mostly they needed a backup 1B after trading Trey, or in their opinion they did. It didn't work out, but he was super cheap. 

On the pitching side, it's much easier to predict bounce backs IMO. Lyles was a good bet to bounceback, but again, they got him for innings period. Anything else was a bonus. 

I think if you want to judge the Orioles on how their bounceback candidates work out, this might be the year with Frazier. But again, McCann doesn't have to bounce back offensively to be a good backup, and they got him for peanuts. Givens isn't a bounceback candidate. Gibson a little, but we're focusing on position players here. 

[interloper]

Frazier I think is the first guy they are really truly banking on bouncing back a little. All the other guys before? They just acquired to fill holes and hold places and eat innings. Bouncing back didn't really matter.

Iglesias was a great one, as was Miley. 

Edited January 3, 2023 by interloper

[Sports Guy]

11 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

No.  I don't think it's fine.  BTW, If I asked you for a yes or no I bet there have been plenty of times when you wouldn't have played that game.   I can remember giving you hypotheticals that required a yes or no and you didn't like it one bit.   I don't like it if they blocked Westburg but the offseason isn't over.   You said "not matter what" their reasoning is extremely flawed.

 

Suppose they:

Scenario #1

1. Trade Urias and others for a #3 pitcher or better

2. Use Westburg at 3B/SS/2B with most of his time at 2B

3. This eases the pressure on Westburg.  He's not just handed a job.   The better he plays, the more time he gets.

 

Scenario #2

1. Trade Westburg and others for a #3 pitcher or better

2. Now Urias is the backup at 3B/SS/2B

3. Joey Ortiz percolates more at Norfolk ready to replace Mateo or Frazier.    Norby percolates at Norfolk as well.

 

 

 

I hate both of them because he still impacts young bats in some way, including Stowers. He’s not a good enough player to take any at bats away from any of these young guys.

Thats why it’s horrible no matter their reasoning.

And btw, the whole “what if they trade…” scenario doesn’t make the deal better. They had zero idea at the time they signed him if they would make a move or not.  If they knew, the deal would be done already.

[Sports Guy]

9 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I don’t think we should rehash here the arguments about the issues in the Frazier transaction other than as it relates to the question Tony raised about evaluating bounce back candidates.  The rest was covered ad nauseum in the Frazier thread, which Tony closed before opening this one to discuss the bounce-back topic.  

Well, I was talking about the evaluation process.  RZ is the one who wanted to take it a different direction.

Whatever their evaluation process was, it was poor and should be thrown in the garbage.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Okay. 

But again, I don't think the Orioles or anyone really expected Odor to "bounce back."  He hasn't had more than 1.0 WAR (baseball reference WAR) since 2018 when he was at 2.5.  He's been in the negative each year since then except one year where he was 0.3

So I get where you're coming from to a certain extent but I think Odor was brought in as a placeholder of sorts, maybe a guy who could run into a fastball every so often and not be completely helpless on defense.  And that whole pesky veteranosity thing, clubhouse guy....his teammates loved him, there's no doubt about that.  

I think they were trying to see if they could capture lightning in a bottle with Jesus Aguilar and, again, see if he could run into a fastball every once in awhile.  Yeah, it was a bad signing but, IIRC, they were in a funk and looking for a spark.  I'll agree that Aguilar wasn't the guy to give it to them.

In other words, I don't think the Orioles ever advertised that they have a sophisticated system to get guys to "bounce back."  I don't think Elias would ever really claim that. 

In a game where there's risk in every move that you make, I would argue that the "bounce back" player who hasn't had a good season in 2+ years is arguably the riskiest proposition of them all.  And quite frankly, I'm doubtful there's such a "system" or a "program" in place for guys like that here.  All you can really do is bring them in, have the coaches work with them, show them tape from when they were successful and see if they can get back to that.  But for a lot of reasons they can't and that's why they're winding up in situations like Odor and Aguilar found themselves in last year. 

I mean, the history of baseball landscape is littered with guys who had a few good seasons and couldn't replicate it anywhere else.  To say that the Orioles are bad at rejuvenating careers is a bit of an strange flex.  I'm not trying to be antagonistic or disrespectful, mind you, but I don't really see a strategy such as this as being a focal point to building a winning team.  The focal point for Elias has been -and probably will always be- building a great system to continue to bring talent through the system via draft and the international market.  And, hopefully, being able to spend some smart money in free agency.

His goal isn't to rejuvenate players who were once established and have fallen off.    

Good post, and I don't really disagree, but I've seen posts where people "assume" that everything the Orioles do is because of sophisticated evaluations system and all I'm saying is the results are just not there for bounce back player, which of course leads us back to Frazier. 

I was just trying to prove, and I think I did, that we just can't assume Frazier is going to bounce back because the Orioles signed him to $8 million because of some "sophisticated evaluation system" that may or may not exist.

Now we all hope he does, but hope is just that, hope. It only get frustrating when people use hope as fact vs just admitting they are just being hopeful it works out. 

 

[Frobby]

Just now, Tony-OH said:

Good post, and I don't really disagree, but I've seen posts where people "assume" that everything the Orioles do is because of sophisticated evaluations system and all I'm saying is the results are just not there for bounce back player, which of course leads us back to Frazier. 

I was just trying to prove, and I think I did, that we just can't assume Frazier is going to bounce back because the Orioles signed him to $8 million because of some "sophisticated evaluation system" that may or may not exist.

Now we all hope he does, but hope is just that, hope. It only get frustrating when people use hope as fact vs just admitting they are just being hopeful it works out. 

 

I definitely don’t think we can assume Frazier will bounce back.  I think we can assume that the Orioles have reasons to believe that it’s probable that he will.  And that their belief is based on consideration of more information than we have.   That is all I’m saying.  

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Spy Fox said:

The Odor failure wasn't his performance (it was about as expected) but in keeping him in the lineup when others were ready enough to take over. 

I somewhat agree with this. Odor is threshold we have right now of an underperforming player played everyday by the Elias/sig. But I think that's a separate issue from evaluation. 

I truly think the Orioles thought Odor would hit better because of the short porch in RF or something else that came up in their evaluation system. I doubt they would have signed him to play 2B all year if they knew he was going to slash .207/.275/.357/.632 with a -0.4 WAR overall. 

I do think you bring up a good point though that piggybacks on the bad pre season evaluation. Once a player performs poorly, are the Orioles willing to pull the plus faster now that they should in theory be a playoff contending team? 

 

[Sports Guy]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I definitely don’t think we can assume Frazier will bounce back.  I think we can assume that the Orioles have reasons to believe that it’s probable that he will.  And that their belief is based on consideration of more information than we have.   That is all I’m saying.  

But whatever their reasons are, they aren’t good enough to block young players.  That’s the bigger point here imo.

[RZNJ]

12 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

I hate both of them because he still impacts young bats in some way, including Stowers. He’s not a good enough player to take any at bats away from any of these young guys.

Thats why it’s horrible no matter their reasoning.

And btw, the whole “what if they trade…” scenario doesn’t make the deal better. They had zero idea at the time they signed him if they would make a move or not.  If they knew, the deal would be done already.

But what if they do make the trade?   Let's forget the part about they didn't know it before signing Frazier.   They may not have had a trade in place.   That doesn't mean the plan wasn't to sign Frazier with the idea of trading Urias or Mateo later on.

[Daddy-O's]

I wonder if the Orioles care if they bounce back.  Their objective in signing a one year player seems to be to check the box of fielding a major league team while they develop their organization and collect a number of top draft picks a long the way.  If the player bounces back great.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Here’s my question, Tony.  Taking Frazier as an example, do you think the Orioles didn’t know that his sprint speed dropped last year when they signed him?   Do you think they don’t know what his EV and barrel % are?  Do you think the O’s would have signed him for $8 mm if they thought it was probable that his performance wouldn’t bounce back?

I submit: of course they knew those data points, and I do not believe they would have signed Frazier for $8 mm if they thought a season as bad or worse than last year was the most likely outcome.  Therefore, they must have other reasons to believe that a bounce back is likely.  (I note in passing that even his bad 2022 was worth 0.9 rWAR compared to Odor’s -0.4, so he’s an upgrade over Odor even if he repeats 2022.)   And those reasons probably involve inputs that we don’t have access to, both in terms of numerical data and other information.   That’s why I say it’s a more sophisticated decision making process than a poster here can make based on the limited information we have available    Again, it doesn’t mean they’ll be right.   All these things are something of a crapshoot but you make the best judgments you can.

 

I would certainly hope they took all of those things into consideration, but what other sophisticated data do you think they have that we don't on Frazier? 

The reason why I'm skeptical of this "system" is because that system also thought Odor and Aguilar would help. Heck, I'm only going to use last year as an example because I will assume all systems can improve with more data points so in theory, the system should be better this offseason.

They very well may have some kind of sophisticated evaluation system that determined Frazier was worth $8 million and everyday PAs next season despite having Urias and two rookies potentially ready to play the position.

I know they don't like Urias at second base defensively and perhaps they've made that determination about Westburg. Heck, maybe they will be moved in trades and at least singing an everyday second baseman makes more sense (regardless of whether it should have been Frazier or not). 

Maybe it will all make more sense come spring training or maybe Frazier will have a remarkable rebound and become the players he was in Pittsburgh once again at 31-years of age. 

Heck, I hope he does even though I'll take a lot crap for it.

I'd rather be wrong and the Orioles win than vice versa. 
 

 

[Sports Guy]

4 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

But what if they do make the trade?   Let's forget the part about they didn't know it before signing Frazier.   They may not have had a trade in place.   That doesn't mean the plan wasn't to sign Frazier with the idea of trading Urias or Mateo later on.

You can’t plan for something that you have no idea if it will happen.

I care about the process of the decision. I know you don’t.

The process of this was horrible. Every thing about it is poorly done by the team.

That’s why my stance remains unchanged even if he is a 2ish WAR guy in 2023, which I have said is possible.  Most of my issue has less to do about the player as it does the decision.  Sure the stats and where he is in his career factor into it but I didn’t want to sign one of the top SS for similar reasons.  It’s not about the talent, it’s about the decision and thought process.

It makes me question his thought process in other things.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, owknows said:

I have offered the observation (to little fanfare, and more than a little hostility) that there is a certain vicarious thrill for a GM that goes along with dusting off a piece out of the dumpster based on "something you saw that you think can be corrected"... and having that work out well. It makes you look like a genius. And when you have a few successes (I'd count several pitchers and several position players in that list)... it maybe becomes a little addictive.

And maybe you do a little more of that than you should... even at the expense of the advancement and development of some of your better drafting decisions.

That's my armchair psychology for the situation. I can't really explain Odor, Aguilar, Phillips, and Frazier any other way.

I do think there is a little bit of "we're the smartest people in baseball" vibe that sometimes goes into decisions. The thing is, I don't think we can say that one way or the other yet. As you said, it's hard to explain some of the decisions they've made even if it's for a small amount of PAs with Phillips and Aguilar. 

I wish I could figure them out at the major league level positional player portion. 

As you said, they have drafted and developed well so far, and I'm starting to become a believer in Holt after what he's done with the pitching at the major league level last season, but they are going to need Frazier to really defy the odds for his signing to make sense. 

Hopefully he will.