Rangers sign Harden

[rluzinski]

I think the idea that replacement level is evenly split among all organizations at all positions is false.

 

Replacement level is low enough that it's likely many teams actually have better than replacement options. It's quite conservative. It's so low that they are the kind of guys you can get for a PTBNL. At least, that's the theory. "Freely available talent". What the exact ERA of "freely available" starting pitchers probably changes somewhat and is hard to define in the first place, though.

 

The Brewers failed to find a number of guys that were replacement level last year. And, perhaps more to the point, it wasn't at all obvious at first glance what they had that was the best option and they lost games while cycling through their options. Neither Villanueva nor Suppan were replacement level as starters last year and although regression to the mean is likely, it's by no means guaranteed.

 

I know you know this but just because you have replacement level options doesn't mean you are going to get replacement level production. It's a pretty good bet that both Suppan and Villy are better than replacement level (Suppan barely). The problem is when a true 5.5 ERA pitcher get's 4 starts and ends up with a 6.0 ERA in those starts. Often, teams get impatient and randomly try someone else. But really, if Melvin didn't have 5.5 ERA starting pitchers to throw into the lineup last year, it's because the choose poorly, IMO.

I certainly don't have the data, but I would estimate that a (projected) 75 win team would make the playoffs something like 5-10% of the time, an 80 win team 10-20% of the time, and an 85 win team 25-30% of the time. Maybe the 85 win team number is low. If the Brewers had a 20% chance to make the playoffs every year, I think I'd be happy. Even with a projected 80-win season, I'm just hoping this will be an exciting year (as in, playoff push).

 

If you treat the whole season as a Bernoulli Trial (flip a coin 162 times), you can calculate the odds of a 75 team winning a certain amount of games just by luck. Try this calculator:

 

http://www.stat.tamu.edu/...pplets/binomialdemo.html

 

n=162. For a 75 win team, p=75/162=.463. Odds of a "true" 75 win team winning at least 85 games is 7%. At least 90 wins = 1%. Of course, we never really know "true talent", so there's error in our projection as well.

[RobertR]

I think the idea that replacement level is evenly split among all organizations at all positions is false.

 

Replacement level is low enough that it's likely many teams actually have better than replacement options. It's quite conservative. It's so low that they are the kind of guys you can get for a PTBNL. At least, that's the theory. "Freely available talent". What the exact ERA of "freely available" starting pitchers probably changes somewhat and is hard to define in the first place, though.

 

The Brewers failed to find a number of guys that were replacement level last year. And, perhaps more to the point, it wasn't at all obvious at first glance what they had that was the best option and they lost games while cycling through their options. Neither Villanueva nor Suppan were replacement level as starters last year and although regression to the mean is likely, it's by no means guaranteed.

 

I know you know this but just because you have replacement level options doesn't mean you are going to get replacement level production. It's a pretty good bet that both Suppan and Villy are better than replacement level (Suppan barely). The problem is when a true 5.5 ERA pitcher get's 4 starts and ends up with a 6.0 ERA in those starts. Often, teams get impatient and randomly try someone else. But really, if Melvin didn't have 5.5 ERA starting pitchers to throw into the lineup last year, it's because the choose poorly, IMO.

See, I don't buy that "replacement level" can be quite conservative. Or, at least, if it is then it's not "true replacement level". And I think "freely available" is a bit of a misnomer as well. I agree that around 5.5 ERA is about where it's likely to be though. I'd suggest that because some teams have better than "replacement level" options at AAA, it also means that other teams have worse than "replacement level" options at AAA. And, frankly, it certainly seemed like the Brewers were the latter. Although like you suggested that could just be small sample size issues. Then again, it's hard to blame a team that's allegedly in contention from wanting to explore other options when the called up pitcher doesn't appear ready to face big league talent. It's likely that the next "replacement level" guy isn't likely to be any worse.

 

I'd suggest also that determining between a guy slightly above replacement level and a guy slightly below is still an inexact science and likely context dependent.

 

Part of it I think is also that managers are so orthodox in how they use guys. A lot of times I think you'd be better off ditching that one inning reliever and bringing up 2 starters and piggybacking them for 3 innings apiece instead of trying to stretch a replacement level guy out for 5 or 6 innings. Of course these guys are likely to run into problems the second or third time through a lineup, they're not that good. So why aren't managers being proactive about it?

 

And, yeah, I agree with the general idea that Melvin blew it as far as AAA depth last year. Which really is a combination of bad drafting/development of pitchers and bad free agent pickups.

 

Robert

[mothershipconnection]

I remember being incredibly envious of the Rangers when they signed Richard Hidalgo for a measly $5MM in December of '04. Dude was coming off a down year, but was one year removed from a .957 OPS. I was completely convinced that they had made a great bet on that guy. Then the next day we traded for Carlos Lee and Hidalgo went on to post a .705 OPS (81 OPS+) over 88 games. Seemingly cheap gambles on good talent generally look good when they happen (conceding that Harden isn't THAT big a gamble since it's been two years since he had very low value), especially if it's someone else's money being wagered, but we need to attend to the hits as well as the misses.

[Roderick]

Why is every other team getting an economic downturn discount but the Brewers?

I don't think it is an economic downturn discount. It is the usual factors that work against Milwaukee.

 

It is I can shelter half of my multimillion dollar contract from state income taxes by playing 81 games in Texas.

 

And / or I get to live someplace that isn't Milwaukee.

 

It seems to me you have players that go out of there way to stay away from Milwaukee. Whether it be the the weather or less recreational opportunities or $ marketing opportunities - it all means the Brewers have to pay a premium. If the Brewers were going after Harden, my guess they would have had to pay at least $8M to sign him versus what the Rangers had to pay.

[brewjihad]

Russ, I think you and I have a very similar perspective on evaluating players in terms of runs produced above a replacement-level player. I think we can agree on evaluation methods and still somewhat disagree about Wolf vs. Harden. Based on Wolf's past performance, including a 4-ish FIP in the last few years, I'd project him for around 180 innings and a 4.20 ERA. I'd put Harden somewhere around 130 and 3.8. Wolf's probably slightly more valuable in this scenario, but again we can't completely ignore the fact that Harden's injury past makes him somewhat of a risk to even put up 80 innings in a given year. Normally I'd be all over that gamble, but I completely understand why Melvin did what he did here. If his main addition to the pitching staff is Harden and there's what, a 30% chance he finishes with less than 100 innings, he might be on his way out as GM.

 

I don't know what to make of Harden. With an injury risk guy like Sheets, your upside is 220 innings and your downside is the same as Harden's. With Harden, your upside is probably 150 and your downside is nothing.