JJ Hardy optioned to AAA- Latest: Per McCalvy, JJ will be left at AAA and add another year before free agency

[sgtcluels]

Branyan didn't fit out organization anymore. If Branyan played 3rd, we probably wouldn't have signed or found the scrape heap turn around that is McGehee. I love the 3TO, but he just didn't fit in.

[Diskono]

Yeah he only has a .750ish OPS in AAA but with the amount of singles he turns into doubles or even triples via the stolen base his actual OPS is probably in excess of .800. If he ever develops power than get the hell out of the guys way.

I know a lot of people here aren't big fans of base stealing, but this is a good point. Escobar's wOBA (sort of like a weighted OPS, but takes base stealing into consideration) the past two seasons have been higher than Hardy's career, even though Hardy's OPS has been better.

[Postseason2006]

Block Gamel? With Macha as coach? How does this even make any sense? He didn't sign a blockbuster deal with Seattle. He could've easily played 3rd this season. Let's compare salaries vs productivity with Hall and Branyan. I bet that's not Doug's fault either?

 

Anyhow, the SS was clearly the position Melvin could've addressed by trading Hardy for pitching last season after CC fell through and Sheets not coming back.

[joepepsi]

fwiw, Since his OPS season high of 1.045 on June 7th, Branyan is hitting .206/.300/.471. 72 Ks and 15 homers in 204 at bats. If you check his OPS game by game since then it's a long steady decline.

 

He was Pujols the first 1/3rd of the season, and Hardy/Hall like the second 1/3rd.

[Postseason2006]

And just how do Jason Kendall's great stats pile up vs other starting catchers.

[Invader3K]

And just how do Jason Kendall's great stats pile up vs other starting catchers.

I wouldn't cry over seeing Kendall leave at this point, but who replaces him? I don't think they're confident Salome is MLB ready yet, and Rivera isn't exactly a big step up.

[Hate those Rodents]

I think that's the problem Invader. "They" are going with the veterans too much and for too long. Gamel could be our third best bat by now after Fielder and Braun if he was treated right. Escobar could have beaten Hardy's stats THIS year and thus improved our team, not to mention having a Bucholtz in our rotation for instance makes us THAT much better. Salome is right after those two, but replacing a far worse player. Whether he's "ready" or not, he's the one we need to turn to (as it's really not going to make us any worse imho).

[DougJones43]

Branyan would have been great to have as a backup for RF, 1B, and 3B. He's far out-produced Hall, Cat, and Hart.

 

I don't really recall him demanding a starting job. I believe he contacted Melvin about coming back, and Melvin said, "No thanks, call Jack Z."

[Thurston Fluff]

Anyhow, the SS was clearly the position Melvin could've addressed by trading Hardy for pitching last season after CC fell through and Sheets not coming back.

 

do you really think Escobar would have been ready to be an everyday shortstop with no experience above AA? Were you so certain that Escobar would really be as good at AAA as he has been to think he could have bypassed AAA altogether before the season started? Was it also certain that Hardy would have flopped so badly this year that his trade value would have diminsihed as it has?

 

I think this is a case of hindsight being 20/20. Of course Melvin would have traded Hardy and put Counsell at short until Escobar would have been ready if he knew ahead of time Hardy would flop, Counsell would play like he is and Escobar was the real deal. Of course if Melvin had a crystal ball there is no reason to believe other GM's didn't have one as well. In that case none of them would have traded anything of value for Hardy since they would have also known he would flop.

 

Branyan would have been great to have as a backup for RF, 1B, and 3B. He's far out-produced Hall, Cat, and Hart.

 

So is McGehee. He has an OPS of 864 to Branyan's 888 and is younger and cheaper. The brewers also control him for another 5 years. I don't see what value Branyan would have brought us when he would have taken away playing time from a younger player with a future on the team. If anything all the non signing of Branyan does is show Melvin was smarter than Jack. Jack signed a stop gap player for a rebuilding team when he could have had his starting third base prospect simply by claiming Casey on waivers. Guess Jack just missed on that one.

[MNBrew]

Branyan would have been great to have as a backup for RF, 1B, and 3B. He's far out-produced Hall, Cat, and Hart.

 

I don't really recall him demanding a starting job. I believe he contacted Melvin about coming back, and Melvin said, "No thanks, call Jack Z."

Branyan didn't demand a starting job -- he had no leverage to -- but he knew he had better odds to get PT in Seattle than in Milwaukee. The Brewers' IF depth has only improved -- even w/o Hall & the injured Weeks -- with the play of McGehee and the acquisitions of Lopez & Catalanotto (even though Cat's seemingly more useful an as OF).

 

Had Branyan signed here again, it's doubtful he would've had the chance to play so much and get on the roll that's enabled him to outproduce the 2 bench players and one injured starter you named

[MNBrew]

Yeah he only has a .750ish OPS in AAA but with the amount of singles he turns into doubles or even triples via the stolen base his actual OPS is probably in excess of .800. If he ever develops power than get the hell out of the guys way.

I know a lot of people here aren't big fans of base stealing, but this is a good point. Escobar's wOBA (sort of like a weighted OPS, but takes base stealing into consideration) the past two seasons have been higher than Hardy's career, even though Hardy's OPS has been better.

Add Escobar's net of 32 additional bases (42 SB - 10 CS) to his total bases and what do you get? A .484 SLG and a .837 OPS. Not bad!

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Add Escobar's net of 32 additional bases (42 SB - 10 CS) to his total bases and what do you get? A .484 SLG and a .837 OPS. Not bad!

This is quite simply not how it works, at least if your intent is to preserve any modicum of the sorta-useful-in-a-back-of-the-envelope-kinda-way utility of OPS as a run estimator. Those stolen bases aren't like turning singles into doubles, which is what you are doing here. They only advance Escobar an extra base, whereas turning a single into a double advances Escobar and all other baserunners at least one extra base.

 

Using linear weights values, Escobar's 42 SB have been worth 42 x .22 = 9.24 extra runs. His CS have cost 10 x .38 = 3.8 runs. Net gain from attempted steals is 5.44 runs.

 

If you turned 32 singles into doubles (which is what your OPS calculation is doing), that would be worth the .38 x 32 = 12.16 runs. That's more than twice as many extra runs.

[MJLiverock]

Just wondering on the creation of the linear weight values and how they are determined. Looking at the example above a stolen base is valued at .22 while a caught stealing is essentially a negative .38, that seems to either undervalue the successful stolen base, i.e. putting a guy on 2nd or 3rd or overvaluing the negative impact of a caught stealing. It just seems odd when looking at 42 steals and 10 caught is only 5.44 runs over just leaving a guy on 1st 52 times and having one less out 10 times.

 

I'm not saying its wrong, it just looks odd in a quick thought of logical outcomes that come through my mind. Sort of like the defensive impact on WAR, I always seem to think it over values defense whenever someone devalues a great hitter's production to barely better than a horrible hitter who is a good outfielder. A la Manny Ramirez comparison's to players whose offense is vastly inferior. It seems to imply the guy is making run costing errors every other game and it never appears that bad. Or guys like Kendall offsetting horrific offense, it's not like they are saving runs every other or every third game by great plays.

[endaround]

Because one base just isn't worth that much while losing a baserunner and making another out is a huge price.

[logan82]

I know a lot of people here aren't big fans of base stealing, but this is a good point. Escobar's wOBA (sort of like a weighted OPS, but takes base stealing into consideration) the past two seasons have been higher than Hardy's career, even though Hardy's OPS has been better

 

wOBA is a better way to measure offense than OPS. His stats are still in the minors even though they are higher than Hardy's. Escobar has been ver good at stealing last year and this year. Before that he got caught so much he actually hurt the team on the bases.

[MNBrew]

Add Escobar's net of 32 additional bases (42 SB - 10 CS) to his total bases and what do you get? A .484 SLG and a .837 OPS. Not bad!

This is quite simply not how it works, at least if your intent is to preserve ....

I only meant that loosely, simplistically, generally, whatever.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Just wondering on the creation of the linear weight values and how they are determined. Looking at the example above a stolen base is valued at .22 while a caught stealing is essentially a negative .38, that seems to either undervalue the successful stolen base, i.e. putting a guy on 2nd or 3rd or overvaluing the negative impact of a caught stealing. It just seems odd when looking at 42 steals and 10 caught is only 5.44 runs over just leaving a guy on 1st 52 times and having one less out 10 times.

Linear weights values have been derived a number of different ways. You can read about them here. The values I used came from Palmer, the inventor of the concept, and I believe he was using what is described in that link as the "empirical approach". Basically, this method involves calculating the average change in run expectancy that results from every play over the course of, say, an entire season of data.

 

As to whether the coefficients I used undervalue successful steals and unduly punish CS, most versions you see lately are even more unkind. Check out the "run SB" and "run CS" columns in this table. Those are the run values that serve as the basis for all of the advanced offensive stats at fangraphs (they are the "w" in wRC, wRAA, and wOBA). In recent seasons, it looks like I should have used something more like .20 and -.43 for SB and CS, and .30 for the difference between a single and a double.

 

That gives a net value of 4.1 runs for Escobar's SB/CS vs. 9.6 runs for 32 extra doubles. The ratio is about the same, though the run values are lower across the board.

 

For individual players, linear weights are generally considered to be the gold standard of run estimation in the analytical community.

[Postseason2006]

do you really think Escobar would have been ready to be an everyday shortstop with no experience above AA? Were you so certain that Escobar would really be as good at AAA as he has been to think he could have bypassed AAA altogether before the season started? Was it also certain that Hardy would have flopped so badly this year that his trade value would have diminsihed as it has?

Hardy didn't exactly have a boatload of time at AAA before he had an opportunity to have the job in the majors? He missed 3/4 of the season at AAA.

[tigerbrew]

With the exception of Prince who will cost $10.5M next year, we need to go cheap on the other position players. This means that players like Cameron, Kendall, Hardy and Hart could be replaced with players like Escobar, Gamel, McGehee, Rivera, Catalanotto, Iribarren, Gerut, Heether and Salome next year. Weeks and Braun are still relatively cheap next year. I also think we should let McClung go and buyout Looper. With these savings, we really need to upgrade our pitching, especially the rotation.

 

Our pitching staff next year currently consists of: Yo, Suppan, Bush, Parra, CV, Coffey, Stetter, DiFelice, Riske, Weathers (option pickup).

[Postseason2006]

Escobar batting 9th tonight. I can't imagine him being a worse hitter than Kendall.

[JJHardy7]

I don't know if this should be in the minor league section, but is something still 'up' with JJ? He's only had one at-bat (as a PH) since the move. I wonder how long they're going to 'rest' him.

[jeffy]

My understanding is a player gets 3 days to report, and Hardy had clearly indicated that he would take the full 3 days, so I don't think having only the one PH appearance since he was reassigned 3 days ago means anything.

[jhart05]

Escobar batting 9th tonight. I can't imagine him being a worse hitter than Kendall.

I think this is more to use him as a kind-of "leadoff" hitter without putting the pressure on the kid by actually batting him 1st.

[JJHardy7]

My understanding is a player gets 3 days to report, and Hardy had clearly indicated that he would take the full 3 days, so I don't think having only the one PH appearance since he was reassigned 3 days ago means anything.

That is true...I just wonder why he didn't start instead of having only one PH appearance. If he wanted three days off...that's fine, but to come in and just PH is somewhat strange. He needs to get it 'back together' and if he starts...that will help. He did hit a 2-run HR tonight while going 1 for 4.

[cwolf2012]

I love Escobar batting 9th. Perfect spot for that type of hitter.