Free Agent Harrison Bader is a Strong Target for Cubs' Outfield Bench Role

[squally1313]

27 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

This is all I'm going to say about that - If Soto were an all-glove average hitting OF with a cannon arm he wouldn't be making a quarter of a billion dollars over the next decade. 

Some things are hard to quantify and prone to measurement error, defensive value in baseball is one of them. 

If we lived in a world where the best defender in baseball (who is hypothetically an average bat) got run through the WAR calculations and came out with an 8 WAR calculation this would be a reasonable argument. But an all glove average hitting OF with a cannon arm doesn't get the same WAR value assigned to him as Juan Soto, so this argument doesn't make any sense. 

[squally1313]

Like, we can do this. Pull up FG, go back to 2014, sort by single season best offensive and defensive performances and then isolate the top one where the other value is neutral.

On the defensive side, you have 2021 Nicky Lopez, the fifth best defensive season over that stretch who also put up a 104 wRC. 5.5 fWAR.

On the offensive side, you have 2022 Aaron Judge, second best offensive season over that stretch, defensive value of -0.9. 11.1 fWAR. 

The relative weight of the contributions are already factored into the overall calculations. 

[Bertz]

I think if you want to say that runs saved =/= runs scored then its incumbent on you to prove that out.  Ditto tossing out park adjustments.

[CubinNY]

23 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I think if you want to say that runs saved =/= runs scored then its incumbent on you to prove that out.  Ditto tossing out park adjustments.

The market proves this every day through the contracts they pay. But logic dictates that you cannot win a baseball game (the purpose) if you don't score a run. You cannot prove you've saved a run unless the runner was called out on the play. Therefore, in any case other than that you have to infer a run may have been saved, which is a hypothetical construct and not a real thing. It is only theoretically that one can show a run scored is equal to a run saved, but the math would have to work, and it doesn't because it cannot, because you cannot prove something didn't happen (wich is the basis of our legal system). 

Edited January 23, 2025 by CubinNY

[CubinNY]

Before anyone wants to get their knickers in a bunch, I am not saying that defense is unimportant.

It's very important. But there are so many variables that go into it, that it's importance is difficult to quantify. Putting numbers to it doesn't make it better or add value or precision. The metrics are still useful but likely only in the aggregate (comparing one player to another and throughout many seasons). 

Edited January 23, 2025 by CubinNY

[squally1313]

19 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

The market proves this every day through the contracts they pay. But logic dictates that you cannot win a baseball game (the purpose) if you don't score a run. You cannot prove you've saved a run unless the runner was called out on the play. Therefore, in any case other than that you have to infer a run may have been saved, which is a hypothetical construct and not a real thing. It is only theoretically that one can show a run scored is equal to a run saved, but the math would have to work, and it doesn't because it cannot, because you cannot prove something didn't happen (wich is the basis of our legal system). 

[CubinNY]

51 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I think if you want to say that runs saved =/= runs scored then its incumbent on you to prove that out.  Ditto tossing out park adjustments.

BTW - you are assuming something that is not a fact is a fact. If you think a run saved = a run earned that would need to be proved too. Ditto park adjustments. 

Edited January 23, 2025 by CubinNY

[Bertz]

5 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

BTW - you are assuming something that is not a fact is a fact. If you think a run saved = a run earned that would need to be proved too. Ditto park adjustments. 

No.  It's the contrarian who the burden of proof falls on.  Especially given your propensity to make horsefeathers up, I'm not going to put effort into proving e.g. the sky isn't purple.

[CubinNY]

2 minutes ago, Bertz said:

No.  It's the contrarian who the burden of proof falls on.  Especially given your propensity to make horsefeathers up, I'm not going to put effort into proving e.g. the sky isn't purple.

what have I made up? and you cannot prove the sky isn't anything. 

Edited January 23, 2025 by CubinNY

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

what have I made up? and you cannot prove the sky isn't anything. 

Cade Horton either needing shoulder surgery or twelve months of rehab is a prominent that comes to my mind.

[Bertz]

By the way this math has been done ad nauseum.  Here's a Pete Palmer article from 43 years ago that built on three already existing analyses:

https://sabr.org/journal/article/runs-and-wins/

Quote

 

The initial published attempt on this subject was Earnshaw Cook’s Percentage Baseball, in 1964. Examining major-league results from 1950 through 1960 he found winning percentage equal to .484 times runs scored divided by runs allowed. (Example: in 1965 the American League champion Minnesota Twins scored 774 runs and allowed 600; 774 times .484 divided by 600 yields an expected winning percentage of .630. The Twins in fact finished at 102-60, a winning percentage of.624. Had they lost one of the games they won, their percentage would have been .623.) Arnold Soolman, in an unpublished paper which received some media attention, looked at results from 1901 through 1970 and came up with winning percentage equal to .102 times runs scored per game minus .103 times runs allowed per game plus .505. (Using the ’65 Twins, Soolman’s method produces an expected won-lost percentage of.611.) Bill James, in his Baseball Abstract, developed winning percentage equal to runs scored raised to the power x, divided by the sum of runs scored and runs allowed each raised to the power x. Originally, x was equal to two but then better results were obtained when a value of 1.83 was used. James’ original method shows the ’65 Twins at .625, his improved method at .614.)

My work showed that as a rough rule of thumb, each additional ten runs scored (or ten less runs allowed) produced one extra win, essentially the same as the Soolman study. However, breaking the teams into groups showed that high-scoring teams needed more runs to produce a win. This runs-per-win factor I determined to be equal to ten times the square root of the average number of runs scored per inning by both teams. Thus in normal play, when 4.5 runs per game are scored by each club, the factor comes out equal to ten on the button. (When 4.5 runs are scored by each team scores .5 runs per inning –totally one run, the square root of which is one, times ten.) In any given year, the value is usually in the nine to eleven range. James handled this situation by adjusting his exponent x to be equal to two minus one over the quantity of runs scored plus runs allowed per game minus three. Thus with 4.5 runs per game, x equals two minus one over the quantity nine minus three: two minus one-sixth equals 1.83.

 

 

[mul21]

21 hours ago, CubinNY said:

BTW - you are assuming something that is not a fact is a fact. If you think a run saved = a run earned that would need to be proved too. Ditto park adjustments. 

So you're trying to tell me that a guy robbing a home run and thereby "saving" a run isn't the same as a guy hitting a solo homer?  That's some, uh, interesting logic there.

[CubinNY]

6 minutes ago, mul21 said:

So you're trying to tell me that a guy robbing a home run and thereby "saving" a run isn't the same as a guy hitting a solo homer?  That's some, uh, interesting logic there.

No, you obviously didn't read the discussion. 

[Tryptamine]

There are scenarios in which adding a bench guy like Bader makes sense, but given how horrifically awful the bat benches are,  he just doesn't for this team. I'm not sure there's a single current bench player who even sniffs a .700 OPS. 

[CubinNY]

20 hours ago, Bertz said:

By the way this math has been done ad nauseum.  Here's a Pete Palmer article from 43 years ago that built on three already existing analyses:

https://sabr.org/journal/article/runs-and-wins/

 

as a rough rule of thumb,

But regardless, the "studies" don't differentiate between pitching a defense. Scoring fewer runs is an aggregate of both and not amenable to the precision you ascribe to the most commonly used metric, "defensive runs saved". There is too much noise.

Edited January 24, 2025 by CubinNY

[mul21]

28 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

No, you obviously didn't read the discussion. 

I read it and you're both wrong and missing the forest for the trees.  Nobody is arguing that teams don't pay more for sexy offensive numbers than they do for great defense and are also conceding that there is absolutely a limit to the amount of value that can be derived from defense.  The argument is that a WAR is a WAR, not whether or not you can achieve the same peak WAR on offense as you can on defense.  A player having the best offensive season in history may be able to put up 10 WAR on offense and the best defensive season in history may be 5 WAR, but those first 5 WAR are equivalent or they wouldn't be statistically valued the same.