Stearns's First Season: 2016 MLB Transactions Review

[JohnBriggs12]

This thread, while entertaining, is telling. We value a player like Khris Davis or Chris Carter who only gets on-base at a .325 rate or so, yet focus a lot on one of Stearns' possible mistakes.

 

No GM is going to bat 1.000 .... this is just year one of a multi year rebuild. When Corey Ray was drafted over a pitcher I was little concerned with what seems like a preoccupation with athletic outfielders, and wondered: where is the pitching going to come from? We've since added another athletic OF in Brinson, but also added more pitching. I don't know if the Susac acquisition is a reaction to disappointment in Nottingham or not....

 

 

(*note: edited for multiple grammatical errors)

 

I focus on it because I thought at the time (and posted it here) that it was not the ideal time to trade Davis as to me he was clearly on the verge of becoming a premier power bat in all of baseball and they weren't going to get value back that reflected that. Indications are they didn't. It wasn't so much that his absence cost the Brewers anything in the standings this year (though having him and Carter in the same lineup would have been fun and it wasn't much fun watching the likes of Flores for much of the year) For goodness sake, Davis still has a shot at being the top HR hitter in all of baseball this year. Your OBP is irrelevant when you are hitting in a run production spot in the order. He's not a table setter. Davis has produced runs, a lot of them. By the way, Brinson does not walk much either but does that really bother anyone?

[gregmag]

Your OBP is irrelevant when you are hitting in a run production spot in the order. He's not a table setter.

 

To respond with the same degree of respect, attention, and detail that you show to people who disagree with you: No.

[3and2Fastball]

. By the way, Brinson does not walk much either but does that really bother anyone?

 

His career MiLB stats show that he walks at about a .065 rate higher than his BA .280/.345 , that is similar to Braun. I'll take that.

[MrTPlush]

Your OBP is irrelevant when you are hitting in a run production spot in the order. He's not a table setter. Davis has produced runs, a lot of them. By the way, Brinson does not walk much either but does that really bother anyone?

 

I mean it isn't irrelevant just because he is in the middle of the order. You expect your middle of the order bats to score runs too. I think Davis walks enough...not a lot, but enough to where it isn't a big deal in my mind. His AVG. and OBP% difference is about .055. The problem is his average isn't high enough to make his OBP% look respectable.

 

Now where things get interesting is why you want walks. The basic premises of wanting walks is because it leads to more runs scored. Right now Khris Davis ranks #17 among OFers for runs scored(4 more and he is Top 10). A lot of this probably has to do with that extreme power. Hitting 40 HRs lets you score yourself a lot and not need all the walks. The other part of Khris Davis is how many runs he has driven in. Right now he is #3 among all OFers in runs driven in and #10 overall in baseball. Now before you jump on me for mentioning runs/RBIs I am just pointing out it doesn't really seem his lack of OBP% is really effecting his production. I don't see where a low OBP% is hurting him.

 

Now I am not saying Khris Davis is a Top 10 OFer, but that being said he is the exact kind of player Billy Beane lives for and not surprising he traded for him. Honestly I think he is very underrated and more people should realize what we gave up. Khris Davis isn't exactly a flashy player and its not the end of the world we lost him, but he is mashing and getting the job done.

[MrTPlush]

. By the way, Brinson does not walk much either but does that really bother anyone?

 

I don't think how much Davis walks is the problem people have. If Davis was hitting .280/.337 would anyone be complaining? Probably not, but he isn't walking anymore with that stat line so what is the real problem? The real problem is when someone is only hitting .252 so there OBP% is just .307. Many want to see a player make up for a low average by walking.

 

Personally I think Khris Davis makes up for a ton of that low OBP% with his extremely high SLG%. XBHs/Homeruns>Walks/Singles...so in theory one can deal with a lower OBP% if he is providing more in the slugging department. A lot on here want to preach OBP%, but then SLG% is a "one trick pony stat".

 

End of the day OPS+ is probably one of the most accurate ways to really a judge a hitters overall production. Not perfect, but pretty good.

[adambr2]

This thread, while entertaining, is telling. We value a player like Khris Davis or Chris Carter who only gets on-base at a .325 rate or so, yet focus a lot on one of Stearns' possible mistakes.

 

No GM is going to bat 1.000 .... this is just year one of a multi year rebuild. When Corey Ray was drafted over a pitcher I was little concerned with what seems like a preoccupation with athletic outfielders, and wondered: where is the pitching going to come from? We've since added another athletic OF in Brinson, but also added more pitching. I don't know if the Susac acquisition is a reaction to disappointment in Nottingham or not....

 

 

(*note: edited for multiple grammatical errors)

 

I focus on it because I thought at the time (and posted it here) that it was not the ideal time to trade Davis as to me he was clearly on the verge of becoming a premier power bat in all of baseball and they weren't going to get value back that reflected that. Indications are they didn't. It wasn't so much that his absence cost the Brewers anything in the standings this year (though having him and Carter in the same lineup would have been fun and it wasn't much fun watching the likes of Flores for much of the year) For goodness sake, Davis still has a shot at being the top HR hitter in all of baseball this year. Your OBP is irrelevant when you are hitting in a run production spot in the order. He's not a table setter. Davis has produced runs, a lot of them. By the way, Brinson does not walk much either but does that really bother anyone?

 

Khris Davis had 1 HR every 14.5 ABs last year, he has one every 13.1 this year.

 

He hit .247 last year and .252 last year, slugged. 505 last year and .529 this year. He had a .323 OBP last year and a .307 OBP this year, a .828 OPS last year compared to a .836 OPS last year, and a 126 OPS + this year after a 123+ OPS last year.

 

Khris Davis is a good player. He was also a good player last year. He is having a very similar year to last, he's just not sharing time with Gerardo Parra anymore. We also got what most people felt was a pretty good trade for him at the time. We'll hopefully see what Nottingham gives us with another full year at catcher and see where we're at. But Davis is not some star player with Lucroy value that we let slip through our fingers for nothing.

[MenchHead]

I liked Davis. That being said, we needed to make room for Santana. Santana lit up AAA and had nothing else to prove. I don't think we sold crazy low on Davis but I don't have a problem with the return since we had to make room for Domingo-a guy who isn't a center fielder and better fits the direction of this team. We got what we could for a player when the prospect behind him was ready. It wouldn't have made sense to have Carter and Santana in a platoon. You wouldn't get value for Davis and Santana would lose valuable playing time (lost due to injury but you can't foresee that). So for me, the timing of the trade has no effect on how I view the return.

[LouisEly]

Looking at team data over the last five years (n=150), I ran correlation coefficients between runs/PA and BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, and OXS. BA had the least correlation (.692), followed by OBP (.755), then SLG (.906), and OPS (.922) was essentially tied with OXS (.920). When looking at runs/game and BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, the results were similar - BA (.712), OBP (.806), SLG (.894), and OPS (.931) also essentially tied with OXS (.933).

 

While correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it suggests that SLG and OPS may be more important to runs scored than OBP.

[homer]

Davis is probably one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball. That needs to be part of the discussion.

[1992casey]

While correlation does not necessarily imply causation, it suggests that SLG and OPS may be more important to runs scored than OBP.

 

I think it suggests which stats may be more accurate in reporting offensive value rather than suggesting which trait might be the most important in a player.

[logan82]

Part of it is probably the data set. OBP has a smaller variance between the best and worst teams.

[adambr2]

I haven't dove too deep into this kind of statistica analysis, but I thought it had pretty much been proven over time that OBP is considerably more important/valuable than SLG.

[LouisEly]

Part of it is probably the data set. OBP has a smaller variance between the best and worst teams.

No, OBP technically has the third lowest variance - slightly higher than BA and OPS, but essentially the same as those two (exactly the same as OXS). SLG has the highest variance.

[LouisEly]

I haven't dove too deep into this kind of statistical analysis, but I thought it had pretty much been proven over time that OBP is considerably more important/valuable than SLG.

Depends on how they do the calculations and whether they normalize the data. I ran both runs/game and runs/PA; while runs/game will be essentially the same as total runs (unless a team plays less than 162 games, which has happened), teams that win a lot of games will frequently not bat in the bottom of the 9th. They might score more runs had they batted a 9th time; then there is the issue of extra innings games. Thus runs/PA may be more appropriate. Also, OBP/SLG/OPS are technically a per-PA stat, so it might make more sense to look at runs/PA as opposed to runs. Were the calculations based on runs/PA or just runs?

 

It also depends on the time series you are looking at. Maybe that was the case 10/20 years ago, but is that relevant today? Has PED testing changed the game such that different variables have different importance now? That's why I looked at only the last five years.

 

They could also have looked at it from an individual player standpoint, but since it is a team game and it usually takes multiple players to generate runs (unless it is a HR - one guy must get on base and another guy drive him in) it may be more appropriate to look at it from a team stat standpoint.

[MKE81]

Davis is probably one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball. That needs to be part of the discussion.

YES. Fangraphs must not have written an article for people on here to read detailing how an OF plays 9 innings of defense per game and how important that side of the game is. Davis, due to his arm, is one of the biggest defensive liabilities in MLB. His OBP is pitiful. His BA is decent. He's been 247/305 past 3yrs with no defense - if Stearns acquired this type of player you all would be whining about how much you hate him. Instead, he's being labeled as "good" and "very underrated" because you focus on one tool and literally ignore everything else. He's neither of those. Why aren't those 2 descriptions thrown around about Carter then? He's on base more and has 37HR, 88rbi while actually playing a position in the field.

[MrTPlush]

Whine about people supposably viewing a player due to one tool and you proceed to use his arm as a reason why he is a horrible defensive liability. Outside of his arm he does well in the field. Though I always remember him making a head scratching error on occasion.

 

Saying his defense is a "liability" due to his arm is like saying someone is a liability due to making too many errors. Just like offense one tool doesn't make or break you.

 

Once again he isn't a good fielder, but making him out to be a DH attempting to play the field is just plain wrong.

[Greenleaf1]

I always viewed Khris Davis as an above average player with lots of flaws. I was always baffled by how much in-game power he could show for such a little guy who can't throw the ball at all. His arm is one of the worst in left field I've seen for a non-DH, but I always thought of him as a better fielder than he was given credit for, he seemed to have decent enough range in left field, but I don't have stats to back that up that's just my feeling from watching him play for a couple years. I would say Ryan Braun is a much better left fielder in every respect over Davis though.

 

Davis was always interesting to me as a unique combination of OBP and SLG. His AVG was always below average, but if he was capable of batting .250/.340/.450, I knew he'd be a valuable member of the team even with some defensive liability (which, I will say, his arm did get a little better after that first year where he was oh so terrible. I could never imagine why a runner would stop at 3rd on a base hit to left field, he never would've gotten them).

 

This year he's .250/.307/.529 for an OPS of .836. In addition, his OPS+ is the highest of his career. He's no doubt mostly living up to what I consider his potential to be, but I don't think this was a breakout year for him because he more or less did the exact same numbers last year (.247/.323/.505).

 

Domingo Santana showed at the end of last year that he was capable of matching those numbers in 2016. He got off to a slow start and had injury problems, but Santana's potential ceiling is higher than Davis's both on offense and defense, he is cheaper with more years of control than Davis, and was flashing talent enough to show that his odds of hitting his ceiling were pretty likely (killed AAA, walked a ton after getting called up and hit a good amount of homers). I don't see much of an argument against clearing a spot for Santana by trading Davis.

 

The only real question to me is if Davis netted a big enough return. I think so far the return doesn't look THAT great, but Nottingham has plenty of time, and even though Derby didn't work out as a starter this year he could transition to being a very useful bullpen arm and at the time we traded for him he was coming off a rookie campaign with a 1.21 ERA. And he was the throw in!

 

Maybe the prospects don't work out, but to me that's always been like saying you were right to play a hand in Texas Hold Em because you lucked out on the river and made your hand and won. With prospects of course you'd rather be lucky than good, but getting two prospects of that caliber for a player who had essentially become outfield depth for us was a pretty good trade. Stearns has made a lot of moves already and, on average, his success level per move has got to be a lot higher as of today than most other GM's this year.

 

In 3 years, Jacob Nottingham might be our starting catcher and Isan Diaz might be hitting home runs in Japan for all we know. That's certainly not the most likely of scenarios but how would you feel about each trade we made then? If trading established players for prospects was a sure thing then no team would ever trade their prospects. I thought the deal was pretty good at the time and I still do, and I will even if Nottingham/Derby both wash out and never make it to the majors.

 

You win some, you lose some. As of right now, the acquisitions of Villar/Diaz/Broxton/Supak/Brinson/Ortiz/Cordell/Bickford/Susac/Peralta far outweigh the bad performances of a couple prospects. DS has a pretty good record so far of trades, even if you're only judging based on 2016 success of players/prospects.

[homer]

Odd thing about Davis is that he was an OBP machine during his minor league career. And his BA was always up there too. Maybe he just decided he'd be better off jacking homers. Who knows?

[JohnBriggs12]

I haven't dove too deep into this kind of statistica analysis, but I thought it had pretty much been proven over time that OBP is considerably more important/valuable than SLG.

 

Depends on where you hit in the order. Davis has scored 82 runs (almost as many as Villar who's OBP is .368 batting in front of the 2, 3 and 4 hitters), Davis started the year batting 5th (he eventually was moved up to 4th). Those are run producer spots, not table setter, and he's driven in 99. That kind of production is extremely valuable.. Those would be 2nd and 1st on the Brewers in 2016.

[Outlander]

I do think some view Chris Carter as underrated because there is certainly value in a guy hitting 40+ homers and still having an OBP around 320. I think Khris Davis still is more valuable though because Carter has pretty much hit his ceiling, he just swings and missed too much. Davis has shown in the minors he can get on base as shown by his career OBP being 100 points greater than his average, it just hasn't translated in the majors yet. Even last year people around here were saying 30 home runs is pretty much his ceiling but he obviously has done much better than that. I don't know why anyone would say Carter has a edge defensively, they both play a position in the field and both are considered below average.

 

With all of that said I don't have any issue with Stearns trading Davis as I do think Santana can exceed Davis offensively, even though I will continue to claim he is just as bad defensively. Sure Davis would have more trade value now if Stearns held on to him but nobody could have predicted Santana's injury and as stated by someone previously it is certainly possible that Davis could have been injured again.

[homer]

Davis has 23 solo home runs. He's not clutch.

[Greenleaf1]

Leaving aside the fact that clutch hitting seems to not even be a thing, solo home runs alone determines nothing. Without guys on base you're probably free to swing for the fences a bit more, whereas you can score runs in many more ways than a home run with guys on base. Also, you could never hit a home run with guys on base and still get way more RBIs than if you hit all your homers with guys on base.

 

Fangraphs has a clutch statistic. Davis is -0.09 this year, which is slightly below average (0 would be average obviously).

 

He has varied in that stat over the years. When people started taking notice of him in 2013, he actually had his career-worst clutch rating of -0.75 (between "below average" and "poor"). The next year he was 0.33, then last year he was -0.26.

 

However, by comparison, Carter's rating this year is -1.35, which ranks between "Poor" and "Awful". He wasn't any better in 2015, but in 2014 he was 1.21, which ranks between "Great" and "Excellent".

 

So, small sample size of two players over a couple years, but the inconsistency in their stats does seem to suggest that "clutch hitting" is not nearly as much of a thing as people act like it is.

 

There's also this: http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-statistical-mirage-of-clutch-hitting

[homer]

Leaving aside the fact that clutch hitting seems to not even be a thing, solo home runs alone determines nothing. Without guys on base you're probably free to swing for the fences a bit more, whereas you can score runs in many more ways than a home run with guys on base. Also, you could never hit a home run with guys on base and still get way more RBIs than if you hit all your homers with guys on base.

 

Fangraphs has a clutch statistic. Davis is -0.09 this year, which is slightly below average (0 would be average obviously).

 

He has varied in that stat over the years. When people started taking notice of him in 2013, he actually had his career-worst clutch rating of -0.75 (between "below average" and "poor"). The next year he was 0.33, then last year he was -0.26.

 

However, by comparison, Carter's rating this year is -1.35, which ranks between "Poor" and "Awful". He wasn't any better in 2015, but in 2014 he was 1.21, which ranks between "Great" and "Excellent".

 

So, small sample size of two players over a couple years, but the inconsistency in their stats does seem to suggest that "clutch hitting" is not nearly as much of a thing as people act like it is.

 

There's also this: http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-statistical-mirage-of-clutch-hitting

 

 

The smiley face on my post meant I was kidding around.

[MrTPlush]

I think Khris Davis still is more valuable though because Carter has pretty much hit his ceiling, he just swings and missed too much.

 

Comes down to position more importantly. Khris Davis was the #24 of 55 ranked outfielders this year while Carter was #19 of 23 at first base. Khris Davis DHed enough to be ranked there by Fangraphs and was #5 out of 13. Chris Carter would have slotted in at #11.

 

I also see a lot of people say Khris Davis should be a DH. I don't think his defense is that bad. Actually Fangraphs lists 36 players as worse defensively compared to Davis. A lot of those players are full time no DHing players right now. Fangraphs actually rates two Brewers worse (Carter/Villar) and two Brewers right there with Davis (Braun/Gennett). Reality is Davis just isn't as bad as people think defensively. A strong arm is great and all, but a lot of guys don't know how to use it they might as well have Davis' wet noodle. Khris Davis' arm without a doubt if well under average, but it is not a crippling liability like people are making it.

[stoutdude04]

 

So, small sample size of two players over a couple years, but the inconsistency in their stats does seem to suggest that "clutch hitting" is not nearly as much of a thing as people act like it is.

 

There's also this: http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-statistical-mirage-of-clutch-hitting

 

I personally do believe players can rise up to a situation more often or not. Whether you call that clutch...I don't know. Perhaps it shows up more at lower levels when nerves can get to a person, but I do think the way a persons body reacts can affect their performance. I found this quote that I thought was interesting.

 

According to psychologist Tim Woodman, "when people are low in cognitive anxiety, or low in worry, the difference between their best performance and their worst performance is not very big. They can perform pretty well, but it's not fantastic, and it's not crap. But if you put them in a very high-worry situation, like Olympic Games, what you find is that their best performance is significantly better than before and their worst performance is significantly worse. So what that tells you is that when you're under a very high-stress situation, you either perform very well or very badly."