Tough Decision Time on Ohtani ?

[Docwaukee]

21 hours ago, Troll Daddy said:

Do teams actually use WAR in their decision making process? or does WAR give the writers and fans something to talk about ... used more as a cheat sheet or quick study. 

they use a proprietary version of it where they likely include ratings for intangible stuff like work ethic, makeup etc.  It's not about WAR.  It's about finding metrics that correlate performance to wins and assigning a monetary value to that.  

there are several different versions of WAR available for the general public to see.  

Simmons had an fWAR of 4.9 (fangraphs), a bWAR of 7.1 (baseball reference), and a WARP of 4.8 (baseball prospectus)

Which of those did a better job of estimating his value last year?  I have no clue.  

For the extreme players, it's pretty obvious what their value is.  Would you have thought a guy who hit .285 with 17 hrs and 85 rbi and played visibly subpar OF defense could have a WAR of 0.0 (melky cabrera)?  Or how another guy who hit .288 with 21 hr and 72 rbi with solid defense could be worth 4.7 wins (Chris Taylor).  You watch them play and it's obvious that Taylor was better than Cabrera last year.   But would you have said he's 5 wins better?  

[AngelsLakersFan]

4 hours ago, Dochalo said:

my guess is that when they were developing WAR and doing the regression analysis to determine how strongly it correlates to actual wins, they found it needed tweaking in order to improve the coefficient.  So it works when taking the whole lineup into account, but isn't as accurate for some of the individual positions.  I feel the same way about how it treats relievers.  

You might be on to something. There are some seemingly arbitrary decisions that go into war that make me second guess the methodology. I think we had this discussion last year when discussing relievers, because fWar actual gives more war per inning pitched to starting pitchers than to relievers. Same number of outs recorded, different value. I think the issue comes from there being no consideration for the limitation on roster spots. The game is played completely differently in September. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

4 hours ago, Hubs said:

If you look at Brad Fullmer's 2002 season, he played the vast majority of his games as the DH, but a small amount of games as the 1B. He had a negative -1.1 WAR as the dWAR component in just 29 games at 1st. (He started 27 times). This despite a .995 fielding percentage and only 1 error at the position. So his defensive runs saved must've been horrible, due to what, range? My point with this is that in his 94 games as a DH, he was arguably better served for the team being the DH, because his defensive value is then 0, rather than -1.1, but he still likely lost a similar value in the WAR calculation due to being a DH, when arguably, it was better for the team that he was a DH.

Had he played an only as a 1B, he likely would've provided no additional offensive value, and very likely would've cost the team runs because of his lack of range, but the positional adjustment remains negative.

Granted it's not a defensive adjustment, its a scarcity adjustment, but I contend that DH is actually kind of a difficult position to play. It is not as easy to just hit, but apparently it is arbitrary.

By the way, Fullmer's OPS that year was .888 -- from the left side. We have had just one left handed batter put up an .888 or greater OPS in the last 16 seasons. That Was Mark Teixiera in his limited stint in the organization in 2008. Kendry Morales did it as a switch hitter, and Anderson almost reached the mark at .885, but it shows that a professional hitter can be immensely valuable.

Lets hope a left handed batter like Ohtani can put up a similar OPS and a similar value (maybe not quite the 2.8 WAR because he won't play in the 130 games Fullmer did, but maybe we can hope for 90 and a 2.0 WAR.

 

I remember Fullmer being really awful with the glove, as well as being lost against left handed pitching, but man could he rake. His limitations as a player limited the teams flexibility. This example explores the complexities of the DH situation pretty well. Fullmer's value was as a hitter, but he brought with it a theoretical cost through limited flexibility. The DH position is set at a constant 0 value on defense but war needs to find a way to incorporate the inherent disadvantage of the position. I think Doc's suggestion may be correct - the hefty positional adjustment is simply a way to reconcile these two different issues.

At the same time, with the way war calculates value at other positions, they had to punish the DH position hard to make it lineup with the rest of them. A positional adjustment of 0 would've made things very weird.

This gets back to my idea about how the stat should be calculated. It should simply be total offense - no positional adjustments, and then we can use stat cast data to put a run value on plays made on defense, regardless of position. I think DH's will end up doing very well if calculated this way.

[disarcina]

might be time to re-ignite this thread.

see today's LA TImes.

Angels brass has to be seriously thinking about this -- giving it some thought unlike some of the 'no way' reaction this suggestion received ten days to two weeks ago.

IMO, you leave Ohtani back in Tempe for extended ST and have him join the roster May 1 to May 15.

Relive some of the pressure on him.  Do a 'soft opening' announcing his joining the roster the same day he's added.

No need for opening day usual hype plus all the Ohtani international watch going on -- it's over-whelming enough for Ohtani to make the transition as it is .

Folks tend to forget that when Ichiro joined the Seattle Mariners, he already had Japanese League HOF stats.

None of this is intended to be a negative comment/ take on Ohtani. More of a concern of a 23 year old kid with out-sized expectations of OTHER's potentially perceived as flopping on the big stage...........it's almost like setting him up for failure unless he just shines out of the box (the way a very accomplished Ichiro did back when). I think Ohtani deserves some protection from all that.......just sayin'  I also understand the realities.........but then there's the real life reality and a young athlete with tons of talent and potential. Confidence plays a large role in success.

[Ohtaniland]

On 3/9/2018 at 10:57 PM, Scotty@AW said:

He's MLB ready.

thanks

[Puget Sound Angel]

I will never hear the  end of it if Ohtani starts the season in Triple A.

[disarcina]

Then there's the added bonus that it delays his F?A eligibility by a year.

and with the Spring he's had while folks (like the MLBPA) can gripe about that -- keeping Ohtani off the big stage for the opening day/ month makes sense.

as for the apparent other gripes "collusion" by the MLBPA about this year's slow F/A signings this off-season.

aside from griping, have they really stepped back and taken a good look at the F/A class?

as per typical -- some of the top players either go extended late last year and avoided F/A altogether or accepted early deals while others (not so top players except in their and perhaps more so in their agents' minds) passed up extension offers (Moustakas) to their regret.

Look at some of the folks they were griping about : Moustaksas, Arrieta etc.  Players who are big guys playing corner infield (or OF) who may have seen their best years - perhaps not- but in terms of replacement -- a solid rookie or less expensive (younger) MLB player can put up perhaps 10-15 maybe 25 less ribi's but then you do the math, signing a Moustakas as his orignial asking price makes those 10-15 HRs and 25 more RBI's REALLY expensive.

Arrieta ? Any one pay attention to his pitching lines/ stats the past two years -- his best years may be behind him -- a loss in effectiveness the past two years. Why over-pay for that? Why pay for PAST performance UNLESS and then MAYBE (and more often these days NOT)  he's a legacy player for your franchise and you want to give the player one last deal (economics of MLB mean fewer and fewer teams will be doing this - giving the big star a huge contract NOW for his declining swan song year -- most of those type deals (Pujols) were long term contracts that stink now but everyone knew at the outset that the final few seasons of that deal were not going to be value for value at the end of the contract.

[WeatherWonk]

What's the big deal? He's hitting like a pitcher, isn't he? 

[JustATroutFan]

Last time the Angels called up a big time prospect from the minors during the season, he would go on finish 2nd in the AL MVP voting as a rookie and would go on to have a career that should land him into the MLB HOF. 

[Ace-Of-Diamonds]

11 minutes ago, JustATroutFan said:

Last time the Angels called up a big time prospect from the minors during the season, he would go on finish 2nd in the AL MVP voting as a rookie and would go on to have a career that should land him into the MLB HOF. 

Wasn't he sick, and missing much of ST before starting the season in AAA though?

[Warfarin]

30 minutes ago, WeatherWonk said:

What's the big deal? He's hitting like a pitcher, isn't he? 

lol, well played.

[JustATroutFan]

38 minutes ago, Ace-Of-Diamonds said:

Wasn't he sick, and missing much of ST before starting the season in AAA though?

Stupid sickness cost him that MVP. 

[disarcina]

and pitching like a hitter.........

[Tank]

3 hours ago, JustATroutFan said:

Last time the Angels called up a big time prospect from the minors during the season, he would go on finish 2nd in the AL MVP voting as a rookie and would go on to have a career that should land him into the MLB HOF. 

i never really considered bedrosian that good of a prospect. thanks for the reminder!

[IheartLA]

Kind of hard to believe that his agent didn't go through all the scenarios in the recruitment pitch. Remember the Angels were a long shot, they promised him the moon to get him to come. Sending him to AAA is an overreaction. Is anyone judging Trout or Pujols on ST? It's just because of the hype surrounding him, even if he's not the Japanese Babe Ruth he can still be a contributing player. If 20 PA and 5 INN were enough to change someone's mind then Eppler and co. wouldn't be the businessmen they are.

No way his agent agrees to push his FA back one year. They'd probably give up hitting for a year before that. All the possible scenarios were probably covered before he agreed to come. 

[Blarg]

No way his agent has a say. The ink is long dry and the Angels can do whatever is best for the ball club. Ohtani signed a minor league contract. That means he never had a guaranteed spot on the 25 man roster. He knew it when he signed and understood he would have to earn a roster spot. 

[IheartLA]

19 hours ago, Blarg said:

No way his agent has a say. The ink is long dry and the Angels can do whatever is best for the ball club. Ohtani signed a minor league contract. That means he never had a guaranteed spot on the 25 man roster. He knew it when he signed and understood he would have to earn a roster spot. 

I disagree. This wasn't your ordinary recruitment process. The angels FO and Ohtani's agent/people were building a long term relationship/ wining-dining, schmoozing whoever needed to be. On the outside we underestimate the amount of face to face time agents/FO have. Why do you think the Nationals are Boras' client warehouse, he obviously has a good personal relationship with the people there. 

Eppler definitely pitched to Balelo that Ohtani would be taken care of if he came here and every effort would be made for him to succeed. Kind of like how Pete Carroll would have recruited a 5 star QB to USC. Telling his family that he will be treated like a son and that this is a long term investment between the organization and the player.

There's honestly not even that much to be worried about from the pitching side, he's still K'ing people and throwing some good stuff. I'd be more worried about his hitting because he's not hitting anything in the air and is rolling over everything on the ground. 

[IheartLA]

Also to add we always hear how in the NFL every time there is a new FO they want their own HC and their own QB. Usually the QB is tied to the regime that drafted him. There is emotional/financial and psychological investment in that particular player due to generally going through the pre draft/combine/schmoozing/etc. Same concept, this wasn't just a handshake, Ohtani didn't just come here thinking if he plays bad for a couple games then he's back to square one. Pujols never moved lower than 4th even though he was the worst player in MLB for a whole year.

It will take Ohtani being this bad till at least the ASB before Eppler and Balelo have a face to face on a potential change of course from the plan they agreed to.

[Stradling]

31 minutes ago, IheartLA said:

Also to add we always hear how in the NFL every time there is a new FO they want their own HC and their own QB. Usually the QB is tied to the regime that drafted him. There is emotional/financial and psychological investment in that particular player due to generally going through the pre draft/combine/schmoozing/etc. Same concept, this wasn't just a handshake, Ohtani didn't just come here thinking if he plays bad for a couple games then he's back to square one. Pujols never moved lower than 4th even though he was the worst player in MLB for a whole year.

It will take Ohtani being this bad till at least the ASB before Eppler and Balelo have a face to face on a potential change of course from the plan they agreed to.

Or the Angels will have him start in the minors because they can and he hasn’t played very well.  Remember when Ohtani said he felt like the Angels were the team to help him improve?  Well maybe they view helping him is starting him off in AAA.  Do I think it will happen, no, but is it out of the question, not at all.  

[disarcina]

AAA?  No. If he needs some technique work and fundamentals -- AA ball is the place to be.

[disarcina]

I can see all the Japanese media at the Arkansas Travelers press box now.......

[Chuck]

Remember when Trout hit .220 with .281 OBP in 2011 over 135 PA? 

I think we need to give Ohtani more time before we think we got this guy figured out. 

Trout's minor league numbers and Ohtani's numbers in Japan speak for themselves. 

Both had a rough time in their first cup of coffee against major league pitching. 

[red321]

1 minute ago, Chuckster70 said:

Remember when Trout hit .220 with .281 OBP in 2011 over 135 PA? 

I think we need to give Ohtani more time before we think we got this guy figured out. 

Trout's minor league numbers and Ohtani's numbers in Japan speak for themselves. 

Both had a rough time in their first cup of coffee against major league pitching. 

Agreed...though Trout was allowed to spent time in the minors...and was focused on one discipline.

I think the challenge with Ohtani is he has to learn both how to pitch...and hit...in the big leagues...while in the big leagues...at the same time.

[Chuck]

1 minute ago, red321 said:

Agreed...though Trout was allowed to spent time in the minors...and was focused on one discipline.

I think the challenge with Ohtani is he has to learn both how to pitch...and hit...in the big leagues...while in the big leagues...at the same time.

True and I agree, but can't Ohtani's time here in ST be viewed as his first cup O coffee like Trout's?

We know he has the talent as he's performed at a high level with incredible #'s in Japan and against our best in the bigs on a national level. 

[DMVol]

On 3/19/2018 at 9:30 PM, SuperTroopers said:

Or the Angels will have him start in the minors because they can and he hasn’t played very well.  Remember when Ohtani said he felt like the Angels were the team to help him improve?  Well maybe they view helping him is starting him off in AAA.  Do I think it will happen, no, but is it out of the question, not at all.