Fangraphs hates our rotation

[Chicago White Sox]

14 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

Just my opinion. I disagree with ALL the projections. They are wrong constantly and always go middle of the road. Projections are nothing more than a guess with a little math behind it.

I actually don’t disagree, but that applies to all teams and projections in general are useful for providing a first pass baseline on expectations.  Personally, I find their Rodriguez projection to be too low, so all else being equal I’d bump you guys up a few spots.  Not sure anything else looks that far off though.

[Satyr3206]

Trading 2 to 4 players for 1 pitcher is a recipe for disaster. Roughly 20 years of service time against 2 or 3 years. Makes no sense.

[Chicago White Sox]

16 minutes ago, Malike said:

How accurate can their data be on pitchers who have thrown 286, 122, 380, 279, 370 innings? It's hard to project what young players who are starting to figure it out are going to do. It's much easier to do with 6+ years of SP data so you have a sample that you can more accurately project off of.

I also don't care where they are ranked, it means absolutely nothing.

I don’t disagree with you on younger players, but projection models are going to be mostly based on the most recent few years of performance.  Very little weight would be placed on years 4 to 6 or beyond that, especially for pitchers.

[Chicago White Sox]

16 minutes ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

Maybe an ignorant question but why the divergence between fWAR and ERA? Seems like they should be more closely linked? Or are they just saying factors like the Os park + defense makes that much of a difference between the pitching results and the quality of the pitchers?

Yeah, I believe that’s what is driving the divergence or at least the bulk of it.

[Chicago White Sox]

5 minutes ago, Satyr3206 said:

Trading 2 to 4 players for 1 pitcher is a recipe for disaster. Roughly 20 years of service time against 2 or 3 years. Makes no sense.

Prospects bust so expecting 20 years of service time (or at least quality service time) is simply not realistic.

[ChosenOne21]

I'm guessing the 10th in ERA 25th in fWAR is because they're projecting low innings totals from our starters. Fangraphs seems to do this with all younger pitchers. "Oh, he only threw 140 innings in MLB last year? Better project him for similar next year, even if there's no reason to suspect he won't hit 180-190 if healthy."

And our lack of depth is then what drops us down to 25th in fWAR, because those innings have to go somewhere.

If our starters are healthy and as effective as last year, we'll be a top-10 rotation. I think you need to ding us somewhat for the chances of that not happening, but 25th seems super low. Means is a definite injury risk, and Wells is a risk to run out of gas, but Bradish, Kremer, and Irvin seem as likely to stay healthy as any pitcher in MLB. Grod is a bit of a wild card there.

[Orioles0615]

Every outside opinion doesn't like our rotation. The only people that think its fine and good to go are delusional homer fans

Edited January 4 by Orioles0615

[Sports Guy]

7 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Plenty of ways to improve your rotation that don’t involve Dylan Cease.  But it’s weird these message boards need to become safe spaces for their respective fan bases.  And that’s an equal dig to this board as it is my own.  I’ve enjoyed Frobby & Sports Guy sharing their opinions on Soxtalk even if it riled a bunch of my brethren up.  Isn’t having a difference of opinion the fun in all of this?

To be fair, your brethren says a lot of really stupid things.

 

Overall though, you are correct here. We have a lot of people on here that really overrate the back half of this rotation and we would be in deep trouble if either GRod or Bradish get hurt.

Our only true saving grace is DL Hall and he’s a tough guy to rely on.

[Sports Guy]

6 hours ago, Malike said:

How accurate can their data be on pitchers who have thrown 286, 122, 380, 279, 370 innings? It's hard to project what young players who are starting to figure it out are going to do. It's much easier to do with 6+ years of SP data so you have a sample that you can more accurately project off of.

I also don't care where they are ranked, it means absolutely nothing.

While I don’t think a lot of this rotation as a whole I also agree with this.  I can’t stand these preseason projection systems and it is hard to say how young guys and/or guys coming back from injury are going to produce.

Its not surprising to me to say the fWaR will be low and ERA will be good because the wall makes a difference in run prevention but in the things fWAR measures and values, the Os don’t have a lot of starters that are strong in those areas.

That said, if GRod and Bradish stay healthy, the rotation fWAR will be much higher than 25th.

Edited January 4 by Sports Guy

[btdart20]

8 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Fangraphs on the money.  The Orioles’ rotation isn’t bad, but it’s one bad injury away from being in real trouble.  Whether you trade with us, you guys should really acquire a TOR starter.  Banking on exceeding your Pythagorean again without the benefit of Bautista would be incredibly shortsighted IMO.

I'd argue it's long-sighted.  At least if the cost of a TOR is a Holliday/Basallo/Mayo+.  And I'm a guy who actually sees Cease as a top 15-20 type pitcher and 2024 will be much better than 2023 (especially with a coaching staff that knows what they're doing).

8 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Look, you guys can do whatever you want.  But I truly believe you guys are nuts if you think your rotation is good enough as is.  There is nothing more dangerous than the arrogance of prior year results.  The good news is Mike Elias isn’t stupid and I highly doubt he doesn’t augment the rotation with an impactful starter.

Is the discussion around the FG ranking or adding another pitcher?  The FG ranking is silly with or without adding another TOR.  We've got 2, FG just doesn't recognize them because of how their math works.  No one is saying the rotation is great (it's nearly universally agreed that it's an area of weakness).  Most aren't even saying Bradish and Grayson will be better than 2023.  No one is saying it competes toe-to-toe with the best rotations (i.e. a 3-man rotation in the playoffs).  No one is saying that an injury won't severely impact our rotation (like it would for most teams with a small payroll but maybe moreso for the O's).  The drop off in talent after those two is pretty big.  I suspect Elias sees the last point as the biggest motivator.  If he's done anything at the ML level, it's been addressing risk factors and raising the floor.  

7 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

But I’m asking which player projections do you guys disagree with?  The 25th ranking is simply the total fWAR of your various player outlooks.  They do have your rotation 10th in ERA, so not radically different from this year.

@ThisIsBirdland - FG uses FIP and not ERA for fWAR IIRC.  FIP (by design) tries to minimize BABIP noise and sequencing as factors that increase (and decrease) ERA beyond the pitcher's control.  The goal is to focus on what's in the pitcher's control (not the fielders or luck).  It does so by focusing on Ks, BBs, and HRs.  It doesn't take quality of contact into consideration (other than HRs).  For low IP guys, it uses a league average type HR/9 rate IIRC.  OPACY doesn't play like league average.  Bradish and Grayson are not league average.  I didn't actually dig into the rankings and underlying stats, I'm just laughing at the idea that we're 25th currently.  Even with some regression...  And probably even if Bradish (or Grayson) is injured.

39 minutes ago, Orioles0615 said:

Every outside opinion doesn't like our rotation. The only people that think its fine and good to go are delusional homer fans

Group think is a powerful factor.  Both for delusional homer fans of all varieties and media outlets.

[Frobby]

25 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

To be fair, your brethren says a lot of really stupid things.

 

Overall though, you are correct here. We have a lot of people on here that really overrate the back half of this rotation and we would be in deep trouble if either GRod or Bradish get hurt.

Our only true saving grace is DL Hall and he’s a tough guy to rely on.

Looking at this board and then Soxtalk or vice versa is kind of like looking in a funhouse mirror.   Each side accusing the other of overrating their guys, underrating the other team’s guys, etc. and a few posters taking personal shots at the “invaders” and distorting their positions for effect.  Personally I’ve enjoyed @Chicago White Sox’s posts over here.   On SoxTalk, most posters have treated me well but there’s a few who just can’t tolerate other points of view, just like here.  I happen to like hearing other points of view from fans who really pay attention to their own players’ strengths and weaknesses and their team’s needs, so long as the conversation is civil.  

[Sports Guy]

2 minutes ago, Frobby said:

Looking at this board and then Soxtalk or vice versa is kind of like looking in a funhouse mirror.   Each side accusing the other of overrating their guys, underrating the other team’s guys, etc. and a few posters taking personal shots at the “invaders” and distorting their positions for effect.  Personally I’ve enjoyed @Chicago White Sox’s posts over here.   On SoxTalk, most posters have treated me well but there’s a few who just can’t tolerate other points of view, just like here.  I happen to like hearing other points of view from fans who really pay attention to their own players’ strengths and weaknesses and their team’s needs, so long as the conversation is civil.  

Sure..Im good with most of their board but I do find it amusing that they are getting excited about the Yankees when they aren’t and can’t provide them with that highly ranked guy they all so crave and are giving them more of a quantity package vs quality package.

Perhaps the Yankees package is a little of both but I see a lot of risk in their guys and there is a lot of unjustified hype that always surrounds Yankee prospects.

[TommyPickles]

Baseball Reference is better than Fangraphs.

 

[CaptainRedbeard]

These Fangraphs rankings are just using the fWAR from the Steamer projection system, and they don’t incorporate any subjective evaluation. There’s limitations with any projections system. There’s plenty of reasons for each of Grayson, Bradish, Means and Kremer to far exceed their current 50th percentile projections of 2.7, 2.5, 1.2 and 1.2, respectively. 

Listing all teams in order also creates an impression of precision that just isn’t appropriate. There’s no meaningful difference between the quality of rotations that are within fractions of 1 WAR with each other. If you instead break them into tiers:

1 (15.4-16.1 WAR): Braves, Phillies, Dodgers

2 (12.8-13.6 WAR): Marlins, Reds, Blue Jays, Mariners, Astros, Twins, Brewers

3 (11.2-12.2 WAR): Tigers, Cardinals, Yankees, Diamondbacks, Giants, Rays, Red Sox, Padres

4 (10.0-10.7 WAR): Royals, Rangers, Cubs, Angels, Mets, Guardians, Orioles 

5 (<8.8 WAR): Pirates, Nationals, White Sox, Athletics, Rockies

 

You can easily argue that the Orioles should be in the third tier as-is based on their current SP’s upside. They would only need to produce ~1 WAR more collectively. If they add a SP like everyone expects them to, they’ll likely pick up at least ~1 WAR that way too. 

FWIW, Cease is projected for 2.7 fWAR. If they add him, they’ll pick up something like 2.2 WAR (since it will reduce the innings allocated to Irvin/Povich/etc.), which would put them tied for 11th overall at the top of the 2rd tier with the Tigers.

[Frobby]

7 hours ago, ThisIsBirdland said:

Maybe an ignorant question but why the divergence between fWAR and ERA? Seems like they should be more closely linked? Or are they just saying factors like the Os park + defense makes that much of a difference between the pitching results and the quality of the pitchers?

The impact of Camden Yards is extremely overblown.  The O’s pitchers had a 3.83 ERA at home, 3.98 on the road.  Not only is that 0.15 difference relatively small, it’s actually smaller than the MLB-wide differential between pitching at home (4.23 MLB average) and on the road (4.44).   The O’s were 0.40 better than average at home, 0.46 better than average on the road.   (All pitchers, not just starters.)

As to our defense, yes it was well above average.  +34 Rdrs, +35 Rtot.  That amounts to roughly 0.21 runs/game.  So if you added that to our starters’ ERA they’d go from 4.14 to 4.35, or from 11th in MLB to 16th.   

So, my bottom line is, the stadium and our defense make our pitchers’ numbers look a bit better than they otherwise would be, but it’s not drastic enough to say our pitching staff will be 25th-best.