DET extends Dontrelle Willis (3yr/29M)

[JJHardy7]

Link

[sgtcluels]

Interesting. Seems like a ton for a 5.4 ERA guy. I assume they are gambling on a rebound, as he at time has awesome stuff.

[PeaveyFury]

Moderately surprising, considering that they were looking to deal him, supposedly.

[Fatter than Joey]

Moderately surprising, considering that they were looking to deal him, supposedly.

 

If nothing else it makes him more tradeable. I guess if you are a GM and you think Willis (25 yrs) is going to be a starter for the next ten years -- his value probably is not going to get any lower, and $10M probably is a heck of a lot less than you would have to spend if he started pitching at his 2005 level. The Tigers seem to be buying low, it's risky for sure, but if he rebounds it will be a shrewd deal.

[Brian the Automator]

He's still 25, and probably won't be as bad as last year. 200+ innings over each of the past 3 seasons as well... Given that Silva got 4/44, this is a better deal. But yeah, there's definitely some risk here.

[Tbadder]

Interesting. I thought the Tigers were trying to win--guess not.

[TooLiveBrew]

That's a good deal. Did he do them a favor? Seems like his value'd be more.

[Brian the Automator]

That's a good deal. Did he do them a favor? Seems like his value'd be more.

It's only extending one year of FA

 

[GAME05]

I've never been a big Willis fan or anything, but I think that's a pretty good deal considering the market for pitchers.

 

I wonder if Detroit isn't going to push him to 220+ innings each year like the Marlins always did and he's going to rebound some because he's just not as tired from throwing so much.

 

Every year I'm hugely amazed that this guy's arm doesn't fall off considering the number of innings the guy's always throwing. Mark Prior has to be wondering the same thing.

[SoCalBrewfan]

Willis is hard to figure out. Most anyone would look bad pitching in front of the Marlins 2007 defense, and he had a spike in HR/FB rate that might be expected to turn around.

 

Still, even his FIP was lousy (5.10), his xFIP was the same in '07 and '06, and there's a bad three year trend in his performance...K/BB has gone from better than three to below 2. He's a guy who threw a lot of innings in his early 20s, and there's certainly a very real chance that he'll melt down completely within these three years. The innings mean that he's valuable even if he's league average, and it wouldn't take a lot for that to happen, but they also point to a sustained workload on a young arm that may well have taken a heavy toll. This contract is exceedingly cheap for the 2005 version of Willis, but that guy might no longer exist....

[TheBrewer]

I don't think it was alot. If Wills never figures himself out again and does what he did last year and or worse, the Tigers are stuck with it and it'll suck for them. If he figures himself out in the near future going back to the days where he had a 2.96era or w/e, then it'll be a good deal. High risk, high reward type deal here I'd say. Willis probably wanted to get locked up incase he does worse next season, and the Tigers think he could possibly improve ..

 

If Silva got 45?? million, Willis is alot younger and has been more successful in the past, this amount is reasonable.

[TooLiveBrew]

It's only extending one year of FA

 

Aaaahhh. I didn't remember that he's still that young. Ok, the deal gets a, "Meh."

[Ennder]

His xERA was 4.52 last year which is about what to expect from him in general. Even his really good year had an xERA of 3.73. There is no reason to not expect another 4.00-4.50 ERA out of him since that is what all of his skills have pointed to his entire career so far. I'd error on the side of a 4.00 ERA since his deliver is rough on hitters the first few times he faces them.

[rluzinski]

Is xERA from here:

 

http://www.xera-baseball.com/answers1.htm

 

I'm not familiar with it.

[And That]

Is xERA from here:

 

http://www.xera-baseball.com/answers1.htm

 

I'm not familiar with it.

That page made my eyes explode. Highlighting black, blue and red with sea green = no bueno.

Edit: Oh my gosh, the main page is even worse. It can't be a good stat if they guy who designed it also designed this web page.

 

 

 

 

[TooLiveBrew]

When he was a boy, he must've gone through crayons like a chain-smoker does cigarettes. My eyes hurt.

[Fatter than Joey]

It can't be a good stat if they guy who designed it also designed this web page.

 

There is a lot of highlighting. That said, stat guys aren't the best web guys.

[Ennder]

xERA is a stat made by Shandler at baseball HQ. Can't really get it without buying his book or paying for the site.

 

Just like every other metric it isn't perfect but in my experience it has had better predictive value than FIP or xFIP. Just hard to get the stat mid season since I won't pay the $100 or whatever for baseball HQ access.

[danzig6767]

I don't ever give crap to any saber guys that get into reading up on and looking for all the stats out there that you find useful in evaluating players, people like what they like, but my first thought when clicking on that link was it looked like some math formula from school that bored me silly. There are so many stats out there now and it seems like new ones pop up all over the place that when i read threads, it almost feels as if i'm reading a foreign language at times except it's made up of abbreviations derived from math formulas.

 

I am curious though, what brought on wanting to know about and spending all the time to examine the myriads of stats out there now? A love of math and numbers? What makes you want to know what a guys XERA is?

[Fatter than Joey]

I am curious though, what brought on wanting to know about and spending all the time to examine the myriads of stats out there now? A love of math and numbers? What makes you want to know what a guys XERA is?

 

I think that the big(gest) thing that has and continues to push statistical development in MLB (especially the predictive type stats) is fantasy baseball. If you think how predominant fantasy sports has become, and how much money is generated in leagues, publications and stat services, people will always be looking for that new stat that will give them an edge in their league or help them sell more books.

 

Baseball has always had a love affair with stats, however if fantasy baseball didn't exist I think people as a whole would be pretty content to sit around and keep track of "triple crown stats".

 

I think more teams today use more predictive stats, however, I think that the impetus has always been outside MLB.

[Ennder]

Fantasy baseball got me interested and opened my eyes to all the randomness that exists in baseball stats. I really do just love playing with numbers, even as a kid my friend and I made up our own little random baseball player making program and built a few of our own baseball games in basic(which I guess shows how old I am that we did it in basic!).

[homer]

Before I got to Danzig's post I was thinking to myself "I wonder if I can use this stat for fantasy baseball?". I think I'll start a thread in the stats category about predictive stats for fantasy baseball.

 

There's a reason the guy that subscribes to BP always finishes top three in our league.

[Glennron]

I know it's not much risk cause it's only an extra year, but wouldn't they at least like to see him pitch in the American League? Coming off a 5.2 ERA in the inferior hitting league wouldn't really inspire me to give the extension. Then again like other people mentioned it's better than Silva's. I'm still surprised Willis isn't injured more often with that weird delivery, plus 800+ innings over the last 4 seasons at age 22-25.