Omar Narvaez to Brewers for minor league right-hander Adam Hill and a Competitive Balance draft pick.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Seager hit 23 HR last year in roughly 400 ABs, while playing in Safeco. He missed a bunch of the early part of the season due a torn tendon in his left hand during spring training, then dealt with right hand issues through the AS break. He had a 0.650 OPS during the 1st half while playing in only 40 games, then OPS'd mid 0.800's (influenced heavily by a 1.116 OPS in August) during the final 2 months of the season once he actually regained some health in his hands.

 

He is overpaid, but Seager is more than just a guy at 3B when he's healthy, otherwise Moose is just a guy, too - especially considering what sort of numbers jump he could get playing home games in Milwaukee and not having to also play a bunch of games in Oakland and against Astros-level pitching outside the AL west. His contract makes him a gettable asset for the Brewers assuming they maintain the payroll flexibility they currently have, plus the likely additional money coming off the books with Braun next year.

 

To me it's just interesting there hasn't been an announcement on the prospect(s) heading to Seattle for Omar - might be something bigger being sorted out with more pieces moving and Seager still being there seems like something both Stearns and Seattle would want to discuss.

[KeithStone53151]

Looking at his spray chart on statcast from last year, he might have 5 or 6 more HR if he'd played all his games in miller park last year.

[homer]

Hader for Narvaez, Kelenic, Kyle Seager and Vogelbach!

 

Just say no. Vogelbach is a DH with a .204 career BA. Hits some HRs, but a PH at best for the Crew. Kelenic is a A ball prospect. Seager is way too expensive. Why not just get the most desirabel player, Narvaez, and keep Hader?

 

Posts in blue are sarcastic.

[MrTPlush]

Somewhat being glossed over another position filled without really spending a dime. SS and C are both filled. Both positions some thought we may spend cash on.

 

The question will live on, when are we going to spend money and on what?

 

Another Thing: I was hoping to see him with some nice PH/Sub numbers for the bench...nope, absolutely hideous numbers. In his entire career zero of his homers are off the bench and he only has two doubles in 63 PA.

 

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong numbers but baseball reference says he was 8-26 as a pinch hitter last year: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=narvaom01&year=2019&t=b

 

Sure, if you are a fan of average. I care more about OPS.

[KeithStone53151]

Hader for Narvaez, Kelenic, Kyle Seager and Vogelbach!

 

Just say no. Vogelbach is a DH with a .204 career BA. Hits some HRs, but a PH at best for the Crew. Kelenic is a A ball prospect. Seager is way too expensive. Why not just get the most desirabel player, Narvaez, and keep Hader?

 

Posts in blue are sarcastic.

 

Also the most desirable player in that group would be Kelenic, and it's not remotely close.

[homer]

63 PAs is a pretty meaningless sample size.

[SRB]

If the Brewers really believe in Narvaez's bat they could even make him a 1B/C to pair with a lefty masher like C.J. Cron. Gives you a solid 1B platoon with added roster felixibilty because Narvaez could also be the backup to Pina.

[jonescm128]

Hader for Narvaez, Kelenic, Kyle Seager and Vogelbach!

 

Just say no. Vogelbach is a DH with a .204 career BA. Hits some HRs, but a PH at best for the Crew. Kelenic is a A ball prospect. Seager is way too expensive. Why not just get the most desirabel player, Narvaez, and keep Hader?

 

It was sarcasm, but if I can get Kelenic, I do it. He is 19 years old and already progressed to AA. He will be in the majors in two years and will be a franchise player. Not sure Hader makes much sense for Seattle though, they are still a year or two away.

[KeithStone53151]

If the Brewers really believe in Narvaez's bat they could even make him a 1B/C to pair with a lefty masher like C.J. Cron. Gives you a solid 1B platoon with added roster felixibilty because Narvaez could also be the backup to Pina.

 

Narvaez has played 5 career innings at 1b, all back in 2017. Before that he hasn't played it since 2011 when he was 19. I'm not sure 1b is realistic, at least not immediately.

[tmwiese55]

With how desperate they are for a 1B/3B I could see it making sense to take on Seager in order to not have to give back our already thin level of prospects. It's a gamble but at this point he's at 2/37 left on his deal. Sure even if he plays well he's overpaid, but you have to get someone and you're doing it to save prospects and you're balancing it by not having to pay much for C the next few years. Surprised it's taking this long to come out on what the cost is, going to be interesting.

[Lathund]

Umps show bias, it's human.

 

Umpires rotate, no individual umpire has a real impact on one catcher. Catchers as a group have their pitches called by the same umpire. Even if they did, there are ways to adjust for that.

 

The opposite could happen with a veteran staff. That has nothing to do with the catcher.

 

Which is why the metrics adjust for the tendencies of pitchers. CSAA is calculated for pitchers as well, where for instance Zach Davies is consistently one of the best. If you have pitchers who are good at stealing strikes, the catcher gets less credit.

 

On top of that, does it factor in spin rate, degree of break into the "did he steal a strike" evaluation? Location as a determining factor isn't enough. Movement of the pitch surely matters. Pitch type isn't good enough. Actual movement comparisons need to be done.

 

The whole point is that it doesn't make a "did he steal a strike" evaluation. It makes no judgement whether a pitch is even really a strike or a ball. Or why the umpire called what he did. It takes the pitchers tendencies into account and does separate pitcher and catcher impact. If a catcher somehow ended up with an entire pitching staff that threw curveballs with such break that were significantly harder to frame than other curveballs, that would reflect in the pitchers "ability" to get fewer strikes called. And thus not be blamed on the catcher.

 

Luck of the draw exists, no matter how many outcomes you test. It'll be a constant variable that needs to be omitted over the whole but will not present itself at a constant degree upon any individual no matter how many outcomes you test.

 

Does it, though? Luck as defined as something like randomness, or chance, or an outcome being decided by something outside the influence of any of the involved parties, does exist. A gust of wind, an insect in the eye distracting the umpire as a pitch is thrown, or whatever. Yeah that happens. But if these things are completely random, then they affect everyone to the same degree. 6000-8000 data points in a season makes their impact miniscule. And if "luck" affects someone significantly more than others over a long period of time, then is it really "luck" or something else? If a catcher gets more strikes called because of some bias, or his reputation, or something else not related to his actual catching and presenting of pitches, then it doesn't entire measure his "skill" at it. But if Wayne Gretzky racked up points to the degree he did in part because once he was established as "The Great One" opposing players didn't tackle him as hard becuase of who he was, then not all of his points were due to his own skill or ability. But they were still due to him being on the ice, and those points still counted. Same goes with framing; if you're getting more strikes over a statistically significant sample, when adjusting for other factors, then those extra strikes factor into how many runs you give up when the catcher is playing, and thus how valuable he is.

 

So can luck be completely eliminated? No. But the large sample sizes do minimize the effect. Same as they do in any kind of statistical analysis, in any field. There are ways to handle that, and minimize the effect it has. And whatever effect there still is, it doesn't invalidate or completely change the data. It just adds some uncertainty, a wider range of outcomes. At BPro for example they even include that standard deviation prominently among their numbers. Luck isn't why Yasmani Grandal rated as one of the best pitch framers, and Narvaez as one of the very worst. For every year they have both been in the league. With both of them switching teams, and thus catching completely different sets of pitchers, in that timeframe. It's not "luck" that Grandal gets more strikes called. Luck might mean that the differential isn't exactly 27 runs worth of extra strikes as it was this year, but it doesn't change the fact that he got significantly more strikes called.

 

So again the metrics don't make a judgement on whether an umpire was fooled or not. They're essentially saying that if two catchers were catching the same pitchers throwing the same pitches, with the same batters and the same umpire over a large enough sample size, a catcher getting more strikes called is a better (or more valuable) pitch framer. Regardless of how or why he achieves that. Which I don't think is controversial. The problem, of course, is that this scenario doesn't happen. You can get close with catchers on the same team where there's no "personal catchers", but that's not perfect either. But there is the combination of the size and rotation of the umpire pool and batter pool, the many different pitches caught, pitchers and catchers changing teams, and the sheer enormity of the sample size, that you do get usable data from it, albeit with error bars to them. Statistical methodlogy can further cut down on the error bars (The articles linked do a much better job of explaining how and why; I'm not a statistician).

 

Basically what I'm getting at is this: To say that we can't exactly quantify the impact of framing is a valid criticism, because we can't. The metrics, and those behind them, don't even make that claim themselves. But that's not the same thing as saying we can't quantify it at all, or that we can't compare catchers defensive value. We simply have some uncertainty to it. Which is the same as any statistics you see anywhere. So treat it as you would the statistics in a scientific article; "There is a 95% probability that the value added above average by framing for catcher A is between 4.9 and 9.3 runs per season, and a 95% probability that the same number for Catcher B is between 1.2 and 5.7 runs". The takeaway from that could be that we can't say anything conclusively about who the better framer is, since the two ranges overlap. And you could treat the p<0.05 as saying that it could be all wrong. And that would be technically correct. But acting accordingly, and treating them as equally good framers, probably isn't the smart choice by a front office. Add another season to that data, double the sample size and change the pool of pitchers they catch, and you get a smaller range, perhaps even with a lower p value, and you'd in most cases see a clearer difference. Use it correctly and it's valuable.

[SRB]

Say yes to Kyle Seager!!!

[KeithStone53151]

 

Haudricourt seemingly dismissed the notion that Ashby would be an acceptable return for Narvaez on twitter. He seems to think we'll be giving up more, hopefully he's wrong but that makes sense.

[homer]

It would be weird to trade for Narvaez and then later on down the road trade for Seager. Wouldn't they just get both of them at the same time if they really wanted Seager?

[MrTPlush]

63 PAs is a pretty meaningless sample size.

 

It isn't meaningless, it the only sample size, and all I said was I was disappointed it wasn't more promising. PH/Sub numbers can be fluky year to year, but unfortunately to this point Narvaez has only show to be poor at it.

 

Regarding Seager there is way to much love for a grandpa aged 3B who had one good month all of last year.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

63 PAs is a pretty meaningless sample size.

 

It isn't meaningless, it the only sample size, and all I said was I was disappointed it wasn't more promising. PH/Sub numbers can be fluky year to year, but unfortunately to this point Narvaez has only show to be poor at it.

 

It's a good thing he's likely to be the primary catcher then.

[SRB]

It would be weird to trade for Narvaez and then later on down the road trade for Seager. Wouldn't they just get both of them at the same time if they really wanted Seager?

 

That could be why it is taking so long to get details on this, as the teams are working on a larger package.

 

I could see Rosenthal's source being the agent of a Brewers prospect told he's getting traded to Seattle for Narvaez, but the front offices are hammering out more as we speak.

[KeithStone53151]

Where's HH19 with the return package?

[bill hAll Star]

With how desperate they are for a 1B/3B I could see it making sense to take on Seager in order to not have to give back our already thin level of prospects. It's a gamble but at this point he's at 2/37 left on his deal. Sure even if he plays well he's overpaid, but you have to get someone and you're doing it to save prospects and you're balancing it by not having to pay much for C the next few years. Surprised it's taking this long to come out on what the cost is, going to be interesting.

 

Seager's club option turns into a player option (or just guaranteed?) if he gets traded, so it's more like 3/$52.

 

That said, I'd take it. He's essentially 1 year older Mike Moustakas but does have some injury concerns.

[Fear The Chorizo]

It would be weird to trade for Narvaez and then later on down the road trade for Seager. Wouldn't they just get both of them at the same time if they really wanted Seager?

 

Sure - but the smoke with Narvaez is that he's in the works to be traded to Milwaukee...I've heard nothing official that he's for sure the only player from the Mariners involved with a trade that hasn't been finalized. They might be weighing options of a trade with just Omar, and potentially one that includes other players for a different return package.

[harmony]

As recently as October 31 Baseball Trade Values assigned Omar Narvaez with a surplus value of $11.9 million before downgrading Narvaez last month to a surplus value of $5.1 million.

 

https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/teams/478/

 

According to that website, a trade of Narvaez for Ethan Small and Drew Rasmussen would be fair even under the downgraded assessment of Narvaez.

 

It will be interesting to learn Seattle's return on the trade of Narvaez.

[MrTPlush]

63 PAs is a pretty meaningless sample size.

 

It isn't meaningless, it the only sample size, and all I said was I was disappointed it wasn't more promising. PH/Sub numbers can be fluky year to year, but unfortunately to this point Narvaez has only show to be poor at it.

 

It's a good thing he's likely to be the primary catcher then.

 

He is likely to split a good chunk of time and will likely see plenty of PH opportunities being the "best" hitter when on the bench. It would be nice if he can produce in that type of capacity too.

[JDBrewCrew]

Greg Johns

@GregJohnsMLB

Per source, Mariners have trade in place that would send C Omar Narvaez to Milwaukee for RH pitcher Adam Hill, a 22-year-old who is Brewers' No. 24 prospect by MLB Pipeline, as well as a comp draft pick. @Ken_Rosenthal first reported a deal was in the works.

[Baldkin]

But isn't a passed ball credited to the C

And a wild pitch credited to the P

 

Could they have just been overly wild?

 

Navarez:

WP/Inning Caught: 54/816 = 0.0662

 

Murphy:

WP/Inning Caught: 21/576 = 0.0365

 

So, he was 1.8 times worse than the other guy ON HIS TEAM in regards to passed balls.

[TURBO]

As recently as October 31 Baseball Trade Values assigned Omar Narvaez with a surplus value of $11.9 million before downgrading Narvaez last month to a surplus value of $5.1 million.

 

https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/teams/478/

 

According to that website, a trade of Narvaez for Ethan Small and Drew Rasmussen would be fair even under the downgraded assessment of Narvaez.

 

It will be interesting to learn Seattle's return on the trade of Narvaez.

 

That would really really really really really really blow.