Khris Davis to the A's for C Jacob Nottingham and RHP Bubba Derby; Latest: Sean Nolin claimed from A's, too

[Ennder]

But honestly I don't know where you get the notion that 50% of the wins is completely out of the team's control.

 

50% of a win or loss is one team, 50% is the other team. Strength of schedule plays a large role in the number of wins a team has as does the timing of when they face certain opponents.

 

To use a silly example. If the Brewers played my High School baseball team every game they would probably win 162 games. If they played a 81 win MLB team every single game they'd likely win somewhere in mid to high 60s. If they had to only play the best team in baseball every game they would lose over 100 games. The talent on the Brewers doesn't change in any of these examples but I'd assume you agree their win total would change. They can only control half of the game, the other team gets to dictate the other half.

 

There is a reason that year to year win rates are all over the place for most teams and why even consistent winning teams just have flat seasons thrown in even though the players might not change much. Wins are just not a good correlation with talent over a single season of play.

[monty57]

Well said Ennder, and I like how you said the 2016 Brewers would "probably" beat a high school team 162 times :-)

[Thurston Fluff]

Kind of funny how these conversations come up and go on for way longer than they should at this time of year. The itch for real baseball is so strong this time of year I'll sit and cover pages on purely the academic and abstract. But what the hell, nothing better to talk about now.

 

50% of a win or loss is one team, 50% is the other team. Strength of schedule plays a large role in the number of wins a team has as does the timing of when they face certain opponents.

That doesn't mean you can't use it as a measurement of talent. You just use it in relative terms. Team A is X more talented than Team B because team A won Y more games than team B. You're making out the differences between the schedules as so extreme that it renders wins useless in comparing two teams abilities. While i am all for balancing the schedules to take the little effect it has completely away I don't think it's nearly as significant to wins as you re making it out to be. If it did then what's the point of a small market team spending money to acquire better talent? Just sit around and wait for the dynamics to favor you and reap the rewards. The goal should be to maintain an average team and wait for the baseball gods to bless us.

 

There is a reason that year to year win rates are all over the place for most teams and why even consistent winning teams just have flat seasons thrown in even though the players might not change much. Wins are just not a good correlation with talent over a single season of play.

 

I think maybe we are defining talent differently. I say it is by definition production not potential. The problem is when people put so much stock in the predictive model that when it fails they look for excuses to why reality got it wrong. The tools used to find a definition of something should never superseded the actual definition. Interchanging predictive tools as reporting tools is a misuse of them.

The definition of how good a team is by how many games they win. That's not me saying it. It's the game that says wins is what matters. You get to the playoffs by winning more games than the other teams in your division. How many strikeouts, runs, errors a team has is completely irrelevant to wins when it comes to judging success. They may be useful tools to judge potential or explain past events but they have no intrinsic value on their own. Wins is the only factor used to determine how good a season a team had. As far as explaining why some teams may have a down year when they were not predicted to is simple. Talent is not static. Players ability changes every year. What doesn't change is the only result that matters is wins and losses. While they may not predict future events it certainly told us what actually happened.

 

It know it seems silly to define talent level this way but it isn't. Accepting where we are instead of where we feel our projections said we would be has value. It allows us to use what happened as a way of determining what can be changed to make the predictions meet the results. To refuse to accept the reality of the situation means you continue down that path of failure. To say we got it right because our predictive models says we were leads to never improving the model. To say wins don't show talent would just lead to sitting around and waiting for all these other supposedly significant factors to help them win. Teams don't do that because all those other factors really don't effect wins all that much. The team's talent level is the single biggest factor in how many wins a team gets. So it stands to reason it should be the single most important indicator of a team's true talent level for that given year.

[Warning Track Power]

Quick fun story...

 

Ran into Nottingham's older brother, who I knew previously before the trade. He works at a restaurant in my hometown. He never knew I was from Wisconsin and when I told him I was and I was a Brewer fan, he got real excited. High fives across the bar and a bunch of Brewer talk. His older brother is almost as big as Jacob so he comes from good genes.

 

Thought I'd share.

[QuevedosTongue]

It know it seems silly to define talent level this way but it isn't. Accepting where we are instead of where we feel our projections said we would be has value. It allows us to use what happened as a way of determining what can be changed to make the predictions meet the results. To refuse to accept the reality of the situation means you continue down that path of failure. To say we got it right because our predictive models says we were leads to never improving the model. To say wins don't show talent would just lead to sitting around and waiting for all these other supposedly significant factors to help them win. Teams don't do that because all those other factors really don't effect wins all that much. The team's talent level is the single biggest factor in how many wins a team gets. So it stands to reason it should be the single most important indicator of a team's true talent level for that given year.

 

Except that there are a myriad of reasons why the true talent level might not be properly measured in wins in a given year.

 

Look, I get what you're saying in that we can talk all we want about talent level and expected results, but the bottom line is wins. And, to a certain extent that is correct. But to say wins are all that matters is false.

 

What if a team won 90 games but they had 2 middle of the order hitters who had BABIPs 15% higher than normal and those players subsequently hit better than normal with RISP? What if 2 SPs had significantly higher strand rates than normal? Or significantly fewer fly balls go for HRs than normal? Those are just a couple circumstances that can change outcomes.

 

I think the point is that predictive models have value because they try to strip all the random events out and show what a team is likely to do in a given year. Now, because players aren't robots and some get hurt, or outperform the predictions, or underperform the predictions, or have certain outcomes that are outliers (but not repeatable) teams (and players) don't perform as predicted. That is why it's important to understand the underlying talent level.

 

Let's use this season as an example. Everything that I've seen says the Brewers' win total will be somewhere in the high 60s. Suppose a lot of things break their way: Braun hits like it's 2010, Santana puts up a line better than 2015 Khris Davis, Nieuwenhuis gets on a hot streak that lasts all year and crushes RHP, Lucroy plays like 2014, Peralta and Garza pitch like it's 2014, and the bullpen of Knebel, Blazek, and Smith look like the NL Central version of the Royals. That team would win a lot more games than predicted. But would it realistically be sustainable? Would that be the baseline that we could expect in 2017?

 

If you think so then you become the Brewers of 2015, who don't recognize that the team was, in reality, closer to the August/September 2014 version than the April/May/June/July 2014 version. But, if you recognize that several players all played above their true talent level, for whatever reason, you know that 'a few tweaks' to the roster won't put them into the playoffs.

[1992casey]

Wins and losses trump individual performances when it comes to the standings and making the postseason (or not). But they're not the tool that a GM should be using to determine talent. Besides the reasons mentioned by Ennder and others, over the course of the season, there's player turnover, which puts talent in a constant state of flux. In the case of the Brewers, since the start of 2015, there's been more player turnover than one would see on most teams.

[sveumrules]

The team's talent level is the single biggest factor in how many wins a team gets. So it stands to reason it should be the single most important indicator of a team's true talent level for that given year.

 

While the talent level of a team has the most influence over the number of games a team wins or loses, there is still enough noise in the signal (namely sequencing of events), that a team's win total alone tells you about as much about that team's "true talent level" as the number of wins a pitcher has tells you about his "true talent level".

 

The best measure of a team's "true talent level" is probably their baseruns record, which is essentially a more nuanced version of pythagorean record that looks deeper than just runs scored/runs surrendered.

 

Take for instance pre-season WS favorites Washington & predicted AL Central cellar dwellers Minnesota last year. Both ended with identical 83-79 records even though the Nationals scored 68 more runs than their opponents over the course of the season compared to Minnesota scoring 4 less runs than their opponents.

 

By pythagorean record the Nationals would have been expected to go 89-73 & the Twins would have been expected to go 81-81. Using BaseRuns the disparity in actual versus theoretical record grows even wider with Washington ending up at a 90-72 expected record with the more nuanced methodology against 73-89 for the Twins.

 

So why did the Twins who everyone thought was a worse team coming into the season, had a worse run differential and looked even worse under the baseruns microscope finish with the same record as what by all indicators appears to be a more talented Washington team? Clutch performance, namely. On both the pitching side (MIN +0.82, WAS -3.44) & batting side (MIN +3.81, WAS -3.50) Minnesota largely outpaced Washington.

[pacopete4]

This trade could get even better now that Sean Nolin was claimed by the Brewers. Nolin was originally drafted by the Brewers and was DFA'd when the A's obtained Khris Davis. Like this a lot.

[And That]

Nolin being out of options coupled with his big velocity drop last year makes me rather "meh" on this claim. Have to think his chances at making the club as things stand now is pretty slim, and he'll have to be exposed to waivers on his way out the door at the end of March.

 

But, better than having an empty 40-man spot.

[pacopete4]

Nolin being out of options coupled with his big velocity drop last year makes me rather "meh" on this claim. Have to think his chances at making the club as things stand now is pretty slim, and he'll have to be exposed to waivers on his way out the door at the end of March.

 

But, better than having an empty 40-man spot.

 

Nolin missed the first part of this season recovering from offseason sports hernia surgery and also missed time at Triple-A Nashville to a strained left groin and strained shoulder.

 

This could be a big reason for velocity drop.

[recte44]

Yeah, we need another lefty in the pen. Why not?

[Thurston Fluff]

Wins and losses trump individual performances when it comes to the standings and making the postseason (or not). But they're not the tool that a GM should be using to determine talent. Besides the reasons mentioned by Ennder and others, over the course of the season, there's player turnover, which puts talent in a constant state of flux. In the case of the Brewers, since the start of 2015, there's been more player turnover than one would see on most teams.

 

Yes the team's talent level is always in a stat of flux. I said so myself in the last post. Talent is not static. Which seems to me only reinforces the idea that the best way to evaluate past performance would be through the record. All other things would depend on everything staying the same. Let me be clear I am not saying a team's record has anything to do with how good the talent will be in the future. Only that it tells us what it was in the past. Predictive measurements should never be mistaken for ones that show past events.

As far as a tool a GM would use that is an entirely different story. A GM would probably tell you the same thing I have. There is a difference between predicting future potential and analyzing what happened in the past. Every GM looks at the team"s record to decide where to go from where it is. Why? Because it tells them what level of talent they had at their disposal so they can plan accordingly for the future. If the injury bug drove down their talent level then they can look for better depth. If a lack of front line talent was the problem then they look to boost their star power. You don't do that by looking at runs scored, WAR, or whatever and say no problem we just had a tough schedule or were unlucky.

[Boomer5]

This trade could get even better now that Sean Nolin was claimed by the Brewers. Nolin was originally drafted by the Brewers and was DFA'd when the A's obtained Khris Davis. Like this a lot.

 

I always liked Nolin, admittedly only off his 2012/13 years. I wonder why he wasn't just included in the trade?

[pacopete4]

This trade could get even better now that Sean Nolin was claimed by the Brewers. Nolin was originally drafted by the Brewers and was DFA'd when the A's obtained Khris Davis. Like this a lot.

 

I always liked Nolin, admittedly only off his 2012/13 years. I wonder why he wasn't just included in the trade?

 

Maybe the A's thought they could stash him

[brewerfan82]

Yes the team's talent level is always in a stat of flux. I said so myself in the last post. Talent is not static. Which seems to me only reinforces the idea that the best way to evaluate past performance would be through the record. All other things would depend on everything staying the same.

 

This seems to be the first thing causing the argument. "talent" does not equal "performance" in most books. Performance and wins are the result of talent plus a million other unpredictable factors that affect the outcome of games and individual performances.

 

Edit: I think I misread/interpreted this point of yours. Still seems like you're arguing how to evaluate past performance while the other side of the argument is trying to determine a teams' current talent level, which are very different things.

 

Let me be clear I am not saying a team's record has anything to do with how good the talent will be in the future. Only that it tells us what it was in the past. Predictive measurements should never be mistaken for ones that show past events.

 

If you agree wins don't have "anything to do with how good the talent will be in the future", then why would you base what you have going forward on wins?

 

As far as a tool a GM would use that is an entirely different story. A GM would probably tell you the same thing I have. There is a difference between predicting future potential and analyzing what happened in the past. Every GM looks at the team"s record to decide where to go from where it is. Why? Because it tells them what level of talent they had at their disposal so they can plan accordingly for the future. If the injury bug drove down their talent level then they can look for better depth. If a lack of front line talent was the problem then they look to boost their star power. You don't do that by looking at runs scored, WAR, or whatever and say no problem we just had a tough schedule or were unlucky.

 

I highly doubt most GM's base what they have solely on the previous year's record. I think you have to look at what you believe your team's talent level is and analyze why your record didn't reflect that. I'm sure in many cases you may decide you had players' whose talent level had taken unexpected drops due to age, etc., and you need to re-assess your team as a whole at that point. But if you can identify several factors that contributed to a poor season that are unlikely to repeat themselves, like abnormally high injury rates, several players who had uncharacteristically bad years, an unusually bad record in close games, etc., it would be foolish not to consider those factors in determining what your team's true talent level is going into the next season, or you risk making moves just to make moves and potentially worsening/and/or financially hamstringing your team in the process. Just as a team that has an unusually healthy team, wins all their 1-run games, and has career years from all their players probably should still identify potential holes in their team and not just rely on getting "lucky" again.

 

The bottom line is, talent level is neither representative of past performance nor predictive of future performance (hence the 10 game swing that people are giving projections), but it does try to strip out all the luck/unpredictable/unrepeatable elements that occurred in the previous year that affect how many wins a team happened to have, which seems like a much better starting point for a team going forward rather than assuming every good or bad thing that happened the previous year is likely to repeat itself.

[splitterpfj]

There's no reason to grab Nolin, to take a look. It won't take long to know if the velocity drop was from the injury he had, or whether it's permanent.

 

If he's stuck throwing in the mid 80s, this won't work, but it would be easy enough to let him go if that's what he shows up with.

[LouisEly]

At this point there isn't really anyone better available for virtually no cost to fill the 40th spot than a 26-year-old lefty who sported a 2.66 ERA in 12 starts in the PCL last year. If his velo is down and he's hurt, stash him on the DL. If his velo is down and he's not hurt, outright or DFA him. But I don't see anyone younger with more upside who is available for just a waiver claim.

[Point Beer Is Best]

Is it true that Smith & Nolin are the only lefties on our 40 man roster at this point?

[And That]

Is it true that Smith & Nolin are the only lefties on our 40 man roster at this point?

Yep. Capuano, Hader, and Jimenez are in camp as NRIs. Except Jimenez isn't in camp yet.

[MKE81]

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/164812320

 

Well it's official....Khris Davis has the saddest most pathetic noodle arm in baseball.... Dead last (#121) averaging 78 mph on competitive throws (Gomez 2nd best at 98 mph). To say the least, I'm not sad to see that are go in LF. Could score on him all day

 

And all everyone wants to discuss is his power, even though he's averaging 29HR per 500AB with 64% being SOLO. Every run matters but if a decent majority of your power doesn't produce runs than its not as great as it appears on the surface. And he doesn't produce a lot of runs outside of HRs either. Santana, using last years stint with us, would have hit 25HR in 500AB. Back to Davis' arm, id be curious to see the numbers comparing his run production vs how many runs he's essentially giving up because of his arm, which allows so many extra bases to be taken putting much more pressure on the pitcher and defense. No doubt this year it would have been worse given what the Cubs, etc were doing vs him 2nd half last year. 78mph on competitive throws is literally comical

[Baldkin]

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/164812320

 

Well it's official....Khris Davis has the saddest most pathetic noodle arm in baseball.... Dead last (#121) averaging 78 mph on competitive throws (Gomez 2nd best at 98 mph). To say the least, I'm not sad to see that are go in LF. Could score on him all day

 

And all everyone wants to discuss is his power, even though he's averaging 29HR per 500AB with 64% being SOLO. Every run matters but if a decent majority of your power doesn't produce runs than its not as great as it appears on the surface. And he doesn't produce a lot of runs outside of HRs either. Santana, using last years stint with us, would have hit 25HR in 500AB. Back to Davis' arm, id be curious to see the numbers comparing his run production vs how many runs he's essentially giving up because of his arm, which allows so many extra bases to be taken putting much more pressure on the pitcher and defense. No doubt this year it would have been worse given what the Cubs, etc were doing vs him 2nd half last year. 78mph on competitive throws is literally comical

 

If only they had defensive metrics to show runs saved... oh wait... He's pretty much graded out as an average to slightly below average fielder in LF, which includes his arm, which each of the last two years was worth about -5 runs, or 1/2 a win in WAR.

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9112&position=OF

 

I really think you're overrating how many 'extra bases' and 'extra runs' his arm gives up. It's the same as people who complain about a C's throw to 2nd. It just doesn't happen as often as you think.

[jerichoholicninja]

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/164812320

 

Well it's official....Khris Davis has the saddest most pathetic noodle arm in baseball.... Dead last (#121) averaging 78 mph on competitive throws (Gomez 2nd best at 98 mph). To say the least, I'm not sad to see that are go in LF. Could score on him all day

 

And all everyone wants to discuss is his power, even though he's averaging 29HR per 500AB with 64% being SOLO. Every run matters but if a decent majority of your power doesn't produce runs than its not as great as it appears on the surface. And he doesn't produce a lot of runs outside of HRs either. Santana, using last years stint with us, would have hit 25HR in 500AB. Back to Davis' arm, id be curious to see the numbers comparing his run production vs how many runs he's essentially giving up because of his arm, which allows so many extra bases to be taken putting much more pressure on the pitcher and defense. No doubt this year it would have been worse given what the Cubs, etc were doing vs him 2nd half last year. 78mph on competitive throws is literally comical

 

Please explain how there not being runners on base when Davis is at the plate has anything to do with his value or talent as a hitter.

[TheEndless7]

And all everyone wants to discuss is his power, even though he's averaging 29HR per 500AB with 64% being SOLO. Every run matters but if a decent majority of your power doesn't produce runs than its not as great as it appears on the surface. And he doesn't produce a lot of runs outside of HRs either.

 

This made no sense to me and seemed just oddly off. My initial thought was 'well of course that's the case, you get more at bats with no people on than with people on, thus you'd expect more solo home runs. So I decided to do some math.

 

Khris Davis has 1142 career ABs; 628 of them have come with no runners on. That meas 55% of his at bats the only 'home run' outcome is a solo home run.

 

There were 4909 home runs hit last year in MLB. 2887 of them were hit with no one on. That's .588, we'll say 59%. All of MLB isn't a power hitter.

 

Khris Davis hit 17 solo home runs last season; 27 home runs total; or .629. So we'll call it 63. Players with a higher percentage of solo home runs include Alex Rodriguez at 76%, Mike Trout at 78%, Manny Machado 74%, and Josh Donaldson at 68%

 

More striking to me is that 10 of Davis's home runs came when he was leading off an inning. Over half of his solo home runs, he was the first person to Bat that inning. I'm sorry he didn't hit a single instead?

 

Albert Pujols ended with .625. or 63% as well.

 

Bryce Harper ended with 25 solo home runs, on 42 total home runs or 59.5%. 12 of his 42 came when leading off an inning. His last four home runs were with runners on. If you take those out, it's 66%. Which to me shows how finicky this statistic can be.

 

So really looking at league averages, I don't think it's unreasonable for a power hitter to have 63% of his home runs be solo shots while playing on a team that ranks 25th in OBP. So lampooning Davis because he hits solo home runs, seems, well, off, for lack of a better term.

 

And, further to the point of not producing runs outside of power, I'm pretty sure if every one of his lead off home runs had been a single or a double, the Brewers would have scored fewer runs on the season.

[joepepsi]

Endless7 for poster of the week!!!. No, Poster of the Month!!

[Boomer5]

And all everyone wants to discuss is his power, even though he's averaging 29HR per 500AB with 64% being SOLO. Every run matters but if a decent majority of your power doesn't produce runs than its not as great as it appears on the surface. And he doesn't produce a lot of runs outside of HRs either.

 

This made no sense to me and seemed just oddly off. My initial thought was 'well of course that's the case, you get more at bats with no people on than with people on, thus you'd expect more solo home runs. So I decided to do some math.

 

Khris Davis has 1142 career ABs; 628 of them have come with no runners on. That meas 55% of his at bats the only 'home run' outcome is a solo home run.

 

There were 4909 home runs hit last year in MLB. 2887 of them were hit with no one on. That's .588, we'll say 59%. All of MLB isn't a power hitter.

 

Khris Davis hit 17 solo home runs last season; 27 home runs total; or .629. So we'll call it 63. Players with a higher percentage of solo home runs include Alex Rodriguez at 76%, Mike Trout at 78%, Manny Machado 74%, and Josh Donaldson at 68%

 

More striking to me is that 10 of Davis's home runs came when he was leading off an inning. Over half of his solo home runs, he was the first person to Bat that inning. I'm sorry he didn't hit a single instead?

 

Albert Pujols ended with .625. or 63% as well.

 

Bryce Harper ended with 25 solo home runs, on 42 total home runs or 59.5%. 12 of his 42 came when leading off an inning. His last four home runs were with runners on. If you take those out, it's 66%. Which to me shows how finicky this statistic can be.

 

So really looking at league averages, I don't think it's unreasonable for a power hitter to have 63% of his home runs be solo shots while playing on a team that ranks 25th in OBP. So lampooning Davis because he hits solo home runs, seems, well, off, for lack of a better term.

 

And, further to the point of power not producing runs, I'm pretty sure if every one of his lead off home runs had been a single or a double, the Brewers would have scored fewer runs on the season.

 

Great post you clearly did your homework.

 

Davis hit 20 HRs in Aug and Sep, which I would have to imagine is a Brewer record. Guys like him arent easy to replace especially factoring in age and years of control.