Sunk Costs

[UpandIn]

14 hours ago, WICKDADDY said:

Do we though? Frelick is ready and projects to be a better leadoff hitter.  

Yes. He's no longer slugging nearly .700, but he still walks a ton leading to a very high OBP and...that's exactly what you're looking for atop your order.

I like Frelick as much as anyone, but I'm not sure Frelick does project to be a better leadoff hitter. Walk rates under 8% in AA,~9% in AAA while Yelich was still at ~15% last year and ~14 this past year. 

I'm sure Frelick will get there, but I think you're conflating Yelich being overpaid with Yelich not being useful. 

He IS a sunk cost...in that we've committed money to him and that money is already spent. He is also still a very useful player. Just not the one we'd hoped he'd be. 

Quote

He hits them hard ... and right at the 2b. The shift rules don't change that. 

They do though. Saying he hits them all right at 2B...is obviously hyperbolic. He hits a lot of hard GBs to the right side of the IF....where they've BEEN playing 3 IFers the past several years. Now there will be 2 and they can't stand in the OF. So yeah, hard hit balls to an area where there HAVE been 3 IFers and will now only be 2, that will obviously help him. 

[MrTPlush]

Yelich is a lot closer to replacement level than I think people want to realize. His WAR was 2.5, but he also had nearly 675 plate appearances. So he got to pad his WAR number being at the top of the line up and being surprisingly healthy. His stats weren’t that much different than last year (1.2 WAR). Not sure he will appear that often long term. He also played LF (poorly at that). His production is not very impressive for the position.
For instance, you could have simply played Tyrone Taylor everyday and gotten a higher WAR player. He put up 2.1 WAR in nearly half the PAs.

On a team trying to compete…Yelich just isn’t that good of a LF and honestly pushes pretty close to replacement level.

[wiguy94]

7 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

Yelich is a lot closer to replacement level than I think people want to realize. His WAR was 2.5, but he also had nearly 675 plate appearances. So he got to pad his WAR number being at the top of the line up and being surprisingly healthy. His stats weren’t that much different than last year (1.2 WAR). Not sure he will appear that often long term. He also played LF (poorly at that). His production is not very impressive for the position.
For instance, you could have simply played Tyrone Taylor everyday and gotten a higher WAR player. He put up 2.1 WAR in nearly half the PAs.

On a team trying to compete…Yelich just isn’t that good of a LF and honestly pushes pretty close to replacement level.

102 to 111 wRC+ is a pretty decent jump. Yelich's fangraphs offensive value was 11.9 this year compared to 2.9 last year. Obviously the 200 extra PA help in that scenario but most of the increased WAR was simply because he played better. 

If you are playing Tyrone in LF instead of Yelich he wouldn't be putting up the same fWAR as he did in CF because a good chunk of Tyrone's fWAR comes from his defensive value in CF. It's basically impossible to accumulate positive defensive value in LF. Steven Kwan had 15 DRS, 3.0 UZR/150 and 8 OAA playing 85% of his innings in LF and had a -0.7 defensive value on fangraphs. Basically as a LF if you want to put a high WAR season you need to be very good at the plate something that Tyrone is not. 

[NBBrewFan]

2 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

102 to 111 wRC+ is a pretty decent jump. Yelich's fangraphs offensive value was 11.9 this year compared to 2.9 last year. Obviously the 200 extra PA help in that scenario but most of the increased WAR was simply because he played better. 

If you are playing Tyrone in LF instead of Yelich he wouldn't be putting up the same fWAR as he did in CF because a good chunk of Tyrone's fWAR comes from his defensive value in CF. It's basically impossible to accumulate positive defensive value in LF. Steven Kwan had 15 DRS, 3.0 UZR/150 and 8 OAA playing 85% of his innings in LF and had a -0.7 defensive value on fangraphs. Basically as a LF if you want to put a high WAR season you need to be very good at the plate something that Tyrone is not. 

Exactly.  Also his 111 wRC+ puts him at #110th in MLB for players with more than 250PA.  Two other rate stats put him 69th (xwOBA) and 98th (wOBA) among 317 players with more than 250PA.  Those aren't great, but they are in the top third of hitters to the top 25%, while not approaching his MVP season he is much closer to All-star than replacement level.

[sveumrules]

League average wRC+ this past season at the three viable spots for Yelich to play were 111 (1B), 106 (LF) and 101 (DH).

Maybe as time goes on teams will go back to using DH for a slugger only kinda guy but this year teams were essentially putting a 2B (99 league average wRC+) at DH.

I wonder if some of it is just availability of those kind of bats has decreased as the game has trended younger post-PED testing & now there are 30 spots to fill instead of only 15?

FanGraphs positional splits go back to 2002 & every year from then until 2016 league average wRC+ for DH ranged from 104-111, except for 2013 at 100 even.

Things start going wonky in 2017 with a drop all the way down to 96 from 108 the year before in 2016.

2018/19 rebounded to normal levels, 110/105 wRC+, before dropping back down to 97 in the universal DH pandemicized 2020. Then a jump back up to 104 when it went back to full season AL only in 2021.

[WICKDADDY]

11 hours ago, liveforoctober said:

Ok, champ. You echoed the sentiment. That means you agreed without repeating the same words.

Chief, you tried to do something but you got mixed up. It’s ok. Not everybody can follow along. You might want to sit the next few plays out though. You’re seeing ghosts. 

[WICKDADDY]

21 hours ago, Brewin said:

The amount of grief Yelich takes on this board continues to amaze me. Obviously he isn't MVP Yelich, but is still an above average MLB starter. Everyone understands he has a significant contract, but he is far from the biggest problem on this team

His production relative to contract is the biggest problem facing this franchise. 
 

Also the “grief” he takes on here is nothing compared to what he would be dealing with in a major market. He is coddled by the media and fans here. Honestly he needs a fire to be lit. 

[Redd Vencher]

A -2 DRS and +4.1 UZR is bad defensively in LF? That seems pretty average out there. His arm is dragging his defense down, but he's still showing average or better range. We're nowhere near a Khris Davis situation where the arm eats up the average or better range making him useless in the field.

[sveumrules]

56 minutes ago, Redd Vencher said:

A -2 DRS and +4.1 UZR is bad defensively in LF? That seems pretty average out there. His arm is dragging his defense down, but he's still showing average or better range. We're nowhere near a Khris Davis situation where the arm eats up the average or better range making him useless in the field.

There’s definitely a little bit of Khris Davis syndrome going on with the perception of Yelich’s defense.

Over the last two years there 24 players with at least 1,000 innings in LF. 

Overall, Yelich is at -3 DRS (14th), +6.3 UZR (6th) and -3 OAA (12th). On arm component only he is -6 by DRS (20th) and -4.5 (23rd) by UZR.

Davis was in a whole other stratosphere though with arm components of -25 by DRS and -23.2 by  UZR before moving to a primary DH role.

[Redd Vencher]

6 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

There’s definitely a little bit of Khris Davis syndrome going on with the perception of Yelich’s defense.

Over the last two years there 24 players with at least 1,000 innings in LF. 

Overall, Yelich is at -3 DRS (14th), +6.3 UZR (6th) and -3 OAA (12th). On arm component only he is -6 by DRS (20th) and -4.5 (23rd) by UZR.

Davis was in a whole other stratosphere though with arm components of -25 by DRS and -23.2 by  UZR before moving to a primary DH role.

Davis definitely was a whole other stratosphere. I get with the number of OF we have that moving Yelich to DH makes sense, but I don't think it's the best way of improving on the offense because rookies don't always hit the ground running. There's a lot of 1B/DH bats available that  we should be able to sign on reasonable short term deals. Jose Abreu and Josh Bell are at the top of the list for me, but we never know how hot the market will be.

[Robocaller]

7 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Yelich is a lot closer to replacement level than I think people want to realize. His WAR was 2.5, but he also had nearly 675 plate appearances. So he got to pad his WAR number being at the top of the line up and being surprisingly healthy. His stats weren’t that much different than last year (1.2 WAR). Not sure he will appear that often long term. He also played LF (poorly at that). His production is not very impressive for the position.
For instance, you could have simply played Tyrone Taylor everyday and gotten a higher WAR player. He put up 2.1 WAR in nearly half the PAs.

On a team trying to compete…Yelich just isn’t that good of a LF and honestly pushes pretty close to replacement level.

Jonathan Davis is a replacement level player. Yelich could fall apart and become a replacement level player in a few years, but is not now. A replacement level player is one you can get for the minimum salary; Yelich would be about a $12M player if he were on the market.

[MrTPlush]

8 minutes ago, Robocaller said:

Jonathan Davis is a replacement level player. Yelich could fall apart and become a replacement level player in a few years, but is not now. A replacement level player is one you can get for the minimum salary; Yelich would be about a $12M player if he were on the market.

I’m not going to sit here and nitpick everyone’s definition of a replacement level player. However, a replacement level player is not someone you can just freely sign for league minimum. Thats called garbage.

To me, 0 WAR is not replacement level. An average team is not trotting out 0 WAR OFers…or even anywhere for that matter. I’d say Andrew McCutchen is more like a replacement level guy. Someone you could easily just replace with dozens of options. McCutchen was about 1 WAR value…seems about right.

Last year Yelich had a 1.2 WAR…This year it was up, but as I said before that was largely due to batting a ridiculous amount of times. So again, I don’t think Yelich is that far off being a level of production that we could easily replace with a random dude on a one year deal.

My concern is more him being healthy and on the field. His stat line isn’t a disaster when he plays 155 games. However his stat line in like 120 games is a different story depending on what is filling in for him when he is on the IL. Of course if he moves to DH not sure how I will feel about it.

[wiguy94]

12 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

I’m not going to sit here and nitpick everyone’s definition of a replacement level player. However, a replacement level player is not someone you can just freely sign for league minimum. Thats called garbage.

To me, 0 WAR is not replacement level. An average team is not trotting out 0 WAR OFers…or even anywhere for that matter. I’d say Andrew McCutchen is more like a replacement level guy. Someone you could easily just replace with dozens of options. McCutchen was about 1 WAR value…seems about right.

Last year Yelich had a 1.2 WAR…This year it was up, but as I said before that was largely due to batting a ridiculous amount of times. So again, I don’t think Yelich is that far off being a level of production that we could easily replace with a random dude on a one year deal.

My concern is more him being healthy and on the field. His stat line isn’t a disaster when he plays 155 games. However his stat line in like 120 games is a different story depending on what is filling in for him when he is on the IL. Of course if he moves to DH not sure how I will feel about it.

1. McCutchen had 0.3 fWAR so yes, he was basically replacement level. 

2. No. Yelich's increased fWAR was not largely due to his increase in PA it was largely due to the fact he was better as both a hitter and baserunner.

[UpandIn]

5 hours ago, WICKDADDY said:

His production relative to contract is the biggest problem facing this franchise. 
 

Also the “grief” he takes on here is nothing compared to what he would be dealing with in a major market. He is coddled by the media and fans here. Honestly he needs a fire to be lit. 

Well...it's not really, but the title of this thread is "sunk costs." So what his contract is...based on your own thread, is completely irrelevant. It's purely about the player he is right now...and that's where you contradict the point of the post. 

Quote

 

That's why this team cannot go into 2023 with Christian Yelich as a full-time starter. The sample size doesn't lie. Our eyes don't lie. A change needs to be made. 

 

I take no joy in saying this, but it's time for the Brewers to make Yelich earn his spot back. Sunk costs should not dictate the direction of this franchise. 

 

If you want to talk about how he's underperformed expectations in the first year of his contract extension, sure, lets do it. 

But again, by definition, you're saying ignore the price, just worry about Merit, he's making the money either way.

So based on what Yelich did last year, he SHOULD be a full time starter, he doesn't need to "earn his spot" back. He also should play less OF and hopefully get that old 1B glove back out.

The Sample Size does NOT lie. Yelich has not been an MVP and almost certainly won't be. He IS still a very solid hitter. 

[MrTPlush]

2 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

1. McCutchen had 0.3 fWAR so yes, he was basically replacement level. 

2. No. Yelich's increased fWAR was not largely due to his increase in PA it was largely due to the fact he was better as both a hitter and baserunner.

I don’t use fWAR, so…not really relevant to me. Again, I don’t care to nitpick one’s definition of replacement level to the end of time.

The number of times he batted most certainly boosted his WAR this year, that really isn’t debatable. Which to me is relevant because he really isn’t that good to warrant batting almost 700 times. You could point out his OBP…but that is more reflective of how pathetic most of our lineup is at trying to get on base. I mean Adames is largely considered our best hitter and player, off the top of my head I’m pretty sure he ended up sub .300

He really wasn’t even a better hitter this year. Everything was nearly identical. His OPS+ saw a bit of a boost so I imagine the league batting was down or he just ended up with his good production happening at less hitter friendly ballparks. Not sure that says anything about his future ‘WAR value’…as both of those things may have just been fluky this year.

[UpandIn]

3 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Again, I don’t care to nitpick one’s definition of replacement level to the end of time.

Isn't it pretty important to be in agreement on what a replacement level player is in order to have a discussion that's entirely focused on a *stat centered on exactly that?

 

Anyway, Yelich, more than anyone on this team stands to benefit from the new rules regarding the shift. Teams were shifting ~24% of the time vs Yelich in 2018 and up to almost 53% this past year. For a guy who hits a lot of hard ground balls/line drives to RF. Probably why his worst 3 years in terms of BABIP have been the last 3(though his BABIP this past year was still good enough). 

The question should also be asked...to the OP, who is Yelich going to have to win back a spot from and who would he platoon with? 

Yelich hit .~.270/.380 as a leadoff hitter in ~400 PAs

We didn't sign him to be a leadoff hitter who can't hit for power, but if he can keep that up, the Brewers can certainly get by paying him 22M a year. Not that they have a choice, but as long as he does what he's done the last couple years, it's not going to be this giant albatross(If/when he starts to decline more...then it'll be an albatross). 

Edited October 9, 2022 by UpandIn
Type

[Robocaller]

10 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

I’m not going to sit here and nitpick everyone’s definition of a replacement level player. However, a replacement level player is not someone you can just freely sign for league minimum. Thats called garbage.

If you want to communicate with someone, words need to mean the same thing to each other. While there is some diversity in how legitimate websites define "replacement player," yours seems to be outside the norm.
One description I seem to remember is that a team full of replacement players would win about 40 games in a season.

Feel free to do an internet search.

[MrTPlush]

6 hours ago, Robocaller said:

If you want to communicate with someone, words need to mean the same thing to each other. While there is some diversity in how legitimate websites define "replacement player," yours seems to be outside the norm.
One description I seem to remember is that a team full of replacement players would win about 40 games in a season.

Feel free to do an internet search.

Haha, it isn’t out of the norm…thanks though. I know how to use the internet too.?

Replacement level descriptions don’t need to be taken word for word (not to mention most definitions are pretty subjective)…just like WAR valuations shouldn’t be taken like gospel. Because if you do you can convince yourself Christian Yelich was underpaid last year.

[Robocaller]

9 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

Haha, it isn’t out of the norm…thanks though. I know how to use the internet too.?

Replacement level descriptions don’t need to be taken word for word (not to mention most definitions are pretty subjective)…just like WAR valuations shouldn’t be taken like gospel. Because if you do you can convince yourself Christian Yelich was underpaid last year.

apparently not. God Bless.

 

[monty57]

I think that Yelich and Renfroe are both sub-standard defensive players, but in a different way. Yelich's problem is that he has a wet noodle for an arm. Renfroe's problem is that he takes bad routes to balls and sometimes loses them and gets turned around. If I had to rate them, Renfroe is probably a better defensive OF, but neither is good.

I think there will be some kind of split with Yelich and Renfroe both getting reps at DH and corner OF, with Frelick and Mitchell playing nearly everyday in the field. If everything goes right, with no injuries and everyone playing well, it could be possible that they'd trade Renfroe mid-season. Realistically, there should be plenty of PAs to go around with the guys shuffling between the three OF spots and DH.

No one would argue that Yelich is worth what he's being paid. He does, however, provide value by getting on base at the top of the lineup while being a good base-runner. I hope that all of our prospects pan out, and if they do then there could come a time where we have too many guys for the available spots, and Yelich could be the guy least deserving of a starting role. We're not there yet.

[WICKDADDY]

On 10/8/2022 at 8:25 PM, UpandIn said:

Isn't it pretty important to be in agreement on what a replacement level player is in order to have a discussion that's entirely focused on a *stat centered on exactly that?

 

Anyway, Yelich, more than anyone on this team stands to benefit from the new rules regarding the shift. Teams were shifting ~24% of the time vs Yelich in 2018 and up to almost 53% this past year. For a guy who hits a lot of hard ground balls/line drives to RF. Probably why his worst 3 years in terms of BABIP have been the last 3(though his BABIP this past year was still good enough). 

The question should also be asked...to the OP, who is Yelich going to have to win back a spot from and who would he platoon with? 

Yelich hit .~.270/.380 as a leadoff hitter in ~400 PAs

We didn't sign him to be a leadoff hitter who can't hit for power, but if he can keep that up, the Brewers can certainly get by paying him 22M a year. Not that they have a choice, but as long as he does what he's done the last couple years, it's not going to be this giant albatross(If/when he starts to decline more...then it'll be an albatross). 

He needs to compete with Frelick, Ruiz, and possibly Wiemer for OF playing time in 2023. I look at Mitchell being a lock to be our starting CFer and Renfroe as starting corner OF. Looking into 2024 then the OF becomes more logjammed with Chourio potentially being ready. 

He needs to compete with Rowdy and Keston for playing time at 1b ... if he's even capable of doing that. Although I doubt it. 

Most likely I see him slotting in as LH half of a platoon at DH and getting spot starts in OF. We should target a RH hitter this offseason to get ABs at DH and 1B. I would target either Jose Abreu, JD Martinez, or Trey Mancini for that role. 

 

[clancyphile]

Why not try to move Renfroe in some sort of trade (see Adam Lind) and roll with a Frelick-Mitchell-Wiemer OF with Taylor as the 4th OF?

As for the right-handed DH spot... I'm disinclined to go for a big-name FA. I'd rather try to keep one (or both) of Burnes-Woodruff if possible. Maybe use Wiemer/Taylor/Urias for that in a rotation. Is Yelich that bad vs. lefties?

[monty57]

3 hours ago, WICKDADDY said:

He needs to compete with Frelick, Ruiz, and possibly Wiemer for OF playing time in 2023. I look at Mitchell being a lock to be our starting CFer and Renfroe as starting corner OF. Looking into 2024 then the OF becomes more logjammed with Chourio potentially being ready. 

He needs to compete with Rowdy and Keston for playing time at 1b ... if he's even capable of doing that. Although I doubt it. 

Most likely I see him slotting in as LH half of a platoon at DH and getting spot starts in OF. We should target a RH hitter this offseason to get ABs at DH and 1B. I would target either Jose Abreu, JD Martinez, or Trey Mancini for that role. 

 

wRC+ is a nice little "all inclusive offense" stat.

Here is how the everyday players for the 2022 Brewers fared in wRC+:

Renfroe 124
Wong 116
Yelich 111
Urias 110
Tellez 110
Adames 109
McCutchen 98

Renfroe, Yelich and Adames are the three that were really everyday players and weren't protected by some sort of platoon, so they were really our three best offensive players in 2022. We should not be actively trying to find ways to sit them on the bench when we have more important holes to fill.

I agree that Mitchell will be the starting CF, and in limited time, he posted a wRC+ of 136, so I'm excited to see how he does in a full season. I think that Frelick will be an everyday player as well, and since he and Mitchell are plus defenders, Yelich and Renfroe should get most of the PAs at DH.

If Stearns wants to sign a big bat for 1B and trade Tellez, that could make sense. Yelich will not be sitting on the bench all year, so signing a big DH bat would simply mean that Frelick would be in AAA to start the season while Yelich and his weak arm would remain in LF.

I do think that if we were to sign Abreau or Martinez, we would see a similar thread to this in a year or two wondering why we're spending so much money on a guy who can't play defense and has declining offensive skills. However, I believe that the team will not have enough money to sign any of the players you referenced, so I don't think we'll have to worry about this happening.

I think our biggest offensive upgrade next year will be that the combo of Mitchell and Frelick will outperform McCutchen and what we got from CF prior to Mitchell's call-up. That should keep us in the top third of MLB offenses like we were this year, and a healthy pitching staff paired up with a much-improved defense should help us keep the other team from scoring runs, which is really where the Brewers dropped the ball this year.

[monty57]

12 minutes ago, clancyphile said:

Why not try to move Renfroe in some sort of trade (see Adam Lind) and roll with a Frelick-Mitchell-Wiemer OF with Taylor as the 4th OF?

As for the right-handed DH spot... I'm disinclined to go for a big-name FA. I'd rather try to keep one (or both) of Burnes-Woodruff if possible. Maybe use Wiemer/Taylor/Urias for that in a rotation. Is Yelich that bad vs. lefties?

Wiemer hit some hurdles this year, and I think he could probably use some more "seasoning" in AAA. Plus, Renfroe was our best overall hitter last year. I see Wiemer as the heir-apparent in RF, at least until Chourio is ready, but I think he'll start the year in AAA.

It is possible they trade Renfroe to save the $10M or so he'll get in his final arby year, but $10M spent on Renfroe is much better than $8.5M on McCutchen, so I think they'll bite the bullet and pay to keep Renfroe around. 

As to Yelich vs LH, he had a 99 wRC+ vs LHP, and a 119 wRC+ vs RHP. He doesn't need a platoon partner, but his off days should definitely be against LHP. 

With all the lefties on our roster, it does make sense to look for another RH bench player who hits LHP well. Brosseau does this, but he's only one guy. At the very least, I think we'll look for a RH catcher who fits this bill.

[Brewcrew82]

1 hour ago, clancyphile said:

Why not try to move Renfroe in some sort of trade (see Adam Lind) and roll with a Frelick-Mitchell-Wiemer OF with Taylor as the 4th OF?

As for the right-handed DH spot... I'm disinclined to go for a big-name FA. I'd rather try to keep one (or both) of Burnes-Woodruff if possible. Maybe use Wiemer/Taylor/Urias for that in a rotation. Is Yelich that bad vs. lefties?

Because we're currently in the midst of a competitive window whereas we were in a rebuild when we traded Lind. No way they go into next season with an all-rookie starting outfield, while retaining Burnes and Woodruff. Then, there is the fact that Renfroe was by a significant degree our best hitter this year.