Diffusion

This year it turns out BA copies Tim, not the other way around! You got Pie right, obviously, you got the right three names for 2-4, including Pawelek and Cedeno in the right order, you got Hill and Marshall at 5 and 6 right, you put a pitcher that dominated Double-A at 7 and had Harvey, Dopirak and Patterson rounding it out 8-10, all three right.

I'll retract the "making it up as you go along" comment if it's that much of an issue. Personally I think it's pretty harmless, and, since I doubt think Jehrico will find a single person on the face of the planet to agree with statements such as "Piggy is more overpowering than Ricky Nolasco", I think you can see why I said it and what I was getting at. Put it this way - I've never seen Jamie Moyer described as overpowering. Generally, when people talk about overpowering, it's taken that they mean that a pitcher has great stuff and knows how to use it, a big, big fastball that no-one can catch up too and some unhittable breaking stuff. I don't have a problem with you having seen them play just all of three appearances, which is your line of defence here. I do have a problem with you seemingly drawing all your conclusions from just those three games. You've seen Ricky Nolasco once. Was this recently? Were the Pignatiello appearances you saw recently? Even if they were, how do you know that you caught them on days when their performances were truly reflective of their abilities? How do you know that things haven't changed since you saw them? And why is that all the other people that have seen them, including the professionals, all disagree with the conclusions you've come to [baseball America today name Ricky Nolasco the seventh best prospect in the Cub system, Carmen Pignatiello was nowhere to be seen, and wouldn't be labelled "overpowering" even he was]? Do these questions not occur to you? The strikeout numbers suggest that hitters found it harder to put any kind of wood on the ball against Nolasco than Piggy in 2005. Unless, of course, they weren't trying against Nolasco. Do you know the history regarding Nolasco's promotion to AAA? The Cubs had a vacancy in the Iowa rotation, and didn't have an obvious candidate to fill it. Nolasco had been pitching reasonably well at West Tennessee, but was considered by a lot of people to not be ready for a promotion, particularly since the jump from Double-A to Triple-A is one of the biggest for a pitcher (pitcher's park in a pitcher's league to a neutral park in a hitter's league one level up). Oneri Fleita made the decision though, and, give him credit, took full responsibility for things afterwards, admitting that he pushed Nolasco too hard too soon. Pignatiello on the other hand was wearing Double-A out, as you'd expect since he was repeating the level, and was ready for his promotion when it came. At the end of the day, I can understand scepticism when it comes to Ricky Nolasco. What I cannot understand is that you're convinced that a guy with a fastball that sits at 83mph is a whole lot better a bet to make it. You have to understand that the odds are stacked against Pignatiello ever being given a chance to pitch in the majors. And it's pretty hard to succeed in the majors if you're never given the chance. Nolasco on the other hand will at least be given opportunities, that's almost a certainty, and you shouldn't be surprised if he takes them. It really says it all that the Cubs decided to protect Nolasco from the Rule 5 draft, while Pignatiello wasn't added to the 40-man roster, and so can be had for just about nothing if someone's willing to keep him on their major league roster all next year. And no-one will be willing. Yes, I'd trade Nolasco before I trade Pignatiello too, but only because he's the one that's going to actually yield a return. As JeffH said before, Pignatiello has just about zero trade value.

In a vaccum, it's probably not a bad risk. On the other hand, the Diamondbacks have committed big money to Glaus, have Shawn Green and Luis Gonzalez at the corners and have some of the best young prospects in Quentin and Jackson, along with Chad Tracy. Signing Clark just created another back-up when they had cheaper production which could be better from young players. If I had no internal options, I'd probably extend Clark and hope for the best. On the other hand, the Diamondbacks could have used that money to sign some pitchers and used Jackson, Green, or Tracy at first. Yeh, but vacuums suck. Being in a vacuum sucks too, especially if you're asthmatic, claustrophic and afraid of the dark.

Who is this? Carmen Pignatiello, nicknamed "Piggy", is a 23 year old soft tossing lefty in the Cubs' system. His fastball tops out in the mid eighties, but he has excellent control, very good changeup and curveball, also throws a slider, and has done a good enough job recording outs to move pretty quickly through the system to Triple-A. He's a personal favourite of a lot of people here that follow the minor leagues, simply because the odds are stacked against him ever making it because of the lack of velocity. His numbers over the last three years... 2003, Daytona, 156.1 IP, 144 H,, 13 HR, 55 BB, 140 K, 4.38 ERA 2004, West Tenn, 148 IP, 167 H, 16 HR, 39 BB, 137 K, 4.56 ERA 2005, West Tenn, 80.2 IP, 67 H, 3 HR, 28 BB, 77 K, 2.68 ERA 2005, Iowa, 47.1 IP, 52 H, 6 HR, 20 BB, 43 K, 5.51 ERA I have no idea who Jehrico thought "Piggy" was, because "doesn't have as good control [as Nolasco]", "little more overpowering [than Nolasco]", "I expect his control to improve as he moves up" (he's already at Iowa!) and "better chance of success at higher levels [than Nolasco]" are sentences that have never been used to describe Carmen Pignatiello. Then again, I got the impression that Jehrico was just making it up as he went along. Ricky Nolasco certainly doesn't strike out more than a batter an inning by tossing it up there gently. His fastball sits comfortably in the low-nineties with a lot of movement, and his curveball is definately a plus pitch.

Leaving aside I have no idea what you mean by those last two sentences, the first two are pretty far-fetched. Jones has logged over 1000 innings in in CF over his career, and he certainly has the defensive tools to play the position: he's fast, he reads the ball off the bat well, he takes good routes, all in all he has great range, and he's got a strong if somewhat inaccurate arm too. While obviously we can't be entirely sure how he'd play in centre having not played there for a while, the odds of him not being better than Brad Wilkerson, who defensively is Jones minus the speed (and therefore some of the range) and the inaccurate arm, are pretty long.

You could, but only if you didn't actually know what injury-prone meant. You're not one of those that thinks Mark Prior's injury-prone, are you? Why the need for speed though?

It's lucky for Jacque Jones that he has all that bat speed, because without it he'd be discovering hitting lows we didn't even know existed in about five years time.

.351? Big Deal. Walker clipped .355 and we're ready to ship him out of town. Jones has some intangibles that Wilkerson is lacking IMO, but thats besides the point - if either one ends up a Cub I'll be dissapointed. Neither one are qualified to play RF, so they're going to play CF, meaning we need a guy with speed to play RF? Not happening. Edit: Good points, plus the added realization I just had of adapting to the NL. Something also can be said for having to trade for Wilkerson and Jones being available though. 1) Just because the Cubs seem to want to ship Walker out of town doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. In fact, it's not. It's the wrong thing to do. 2) .351 in an extreme pitcher's park while playing half-injured I actually find somewhat impressive. 3) Which intangibles? 4) Why do we need a guy with speed to play RF? 5) Something can also be said for Wilkerson not being linked to rumoured $20m/3yr offers.

I'm not a fan at all of infering anything from road numbers, particularly not just one year's worth. The vast majority of players are most comfortable at home (all of MLB last year hit .269/.337/.428 at home last year, against .261/.324/.410 on the road), and year to year variations in home/road splits can be enormous. For instance, Derek Jeter hit just .265/.333/.380 on the road last year (against .354/.444/.522 at home) and Rafael Furcal hit just .246/.311/.346 (against .321/.383/.508). I don't think anyone though would try and infer that if you took those players and put them in a neutral home ballpark for a year, that's what they'd hit, largely because they all play in home ballparks no better than neutral as it is. Now obviously there's no doubt that Soriano's numbers, as well as the numbers of every Texas Ranger, are somewhat inflated by playing in Ameriquest Field, but there's no need to try and bring Corey Patterson into things. After all, Corey hit just .192/.234/.289 on the road last year. I understand that players can be more comfortable and generally perform better at home, but when the disparity is as large as Soriano's(almost 400 points in OPS) I think it's worth pointing out and being very cautious towards. Patterson was just a benchmark to show how bad that is. So by pointing it out you were not trying to infer that the difference was primarily attributable to Ameriquest Field? Pardon me if, knowing you, I find that slightly hard to believe. We know with reasonable certainty that Soriano can hit without the assistance of an extreme hitter's ballpark to call home because he did so for two years while playing for the Yankees.

I'm not a fan at all of infering anything from road numbers, particularly not just one year's worth. The vast majority of players are most comfortable at home (all of MLB last year hit .269/.337/.428 at home last year, against .261/.324/.410 on the road), and year to year variations in home/road splits can be enormous. For instance, Derek Jeter hit just .265/.333/.380 on the road last year (against .354/.444/.522 at home) and Rafael Furcal hit just .246/.311/.346 (against .321/.383/.508). I don't think anyone though would try and infer that if you took those players and put them in a neutral home ballpark for a year, that's what they'd hit, largely because they all play in home ballparks no better than neutral as it is. Now obviously there's no doubt that Soriano's numbers, as well as the numbers of every Texas Ranger, are somewhat inflated by playing in Ameriquest Field, but there's no need to try and bring Corey Patterson into things. After all, Corey hit just .192/.234/.289 on the road last year.

In what way is he a good player?

When we already have Walker, why? Soriano is, at best, a marginally better all-round second baseman, but his skillset is far less suited to what ought to be the Cubs' needs: on-base percentage and up the middle defence. Furthermore, he'll command a far higher salary than Walker, and his trade value to the Rangers has no relation to his actual value to Cubs, in large part thanks to the reputation he created for himself in New York, with the assistance of the Yankee media machine. As such, if any upgrade at all exists, and that's debatable, the cost in terms of salary and players is almost guaranteed to be disproportionate, and, by definition, not worth paying. We'd be considerably better off upgrading at positions where more pressing needs exist, investing in players that represent bigger upgrades yet at the same time cost less resources. And believe me that's possible: you put together a package of Williams, Patterson, Cedeno, Aardsma, and two other minor leaguers, and that'll get you a whole lot further in the outfield than the same package (substituting Patterson for Walker) will get you at second base.

Please be true... Jones wouldn't be a bad fit in St. Louis. They don't need the same type of player the Cubs do. What kind of players do they need then? Bad players? yes :D In seriousness he is not that bad. but if the money is true that would be a bad contract. Very bad. He's a GG caliber OF & a mediocre hitter. JJ would be a nice fit for the Cards. He is a 6-8 type hitter in that order. I don't think there's much doubt that Jacque Jones is good enough defensively to be able to handle centre field with relative ease. However, assuming the Cardinals aren't intent upon moving Jim Edmonds elsewhere, Jones would be occupying a corner outfield spot, where his defence is obviously more impressive but considerably less important. To describe Jacque Jones as a "mediocre hitter" is just plain wrong. Over the last two years the average National League corner outfielder hit .272/.353/.464, against which Jones' .251/.317/.432 stacks up very unfavourably. Even Jones' career numbers, .279/.327/.455, which include a 2001-03 run that's not particularly likely to be repeated, given that it coincided with what you'd expect to be his peak years and that he's now the wrong side of 30, don't measure up. One other thing worth pointing out is that Jones' career numbers, as with all his numbers, don't tell the full story. Jones is a hitter desperately in need of a platoon partner. Over the last two years, Jones has hit a pretty unremarkable .263/.328/.466 against right-handed pitchers. Against left-handers though, .223/.289/.350. For his entire career, .294/.341/.488 against righties, .227/.277/.339 versus southpaws. Jones is not a player you can run out there everyday, though the Twins never really did figure that out. So you have a guy that's above average defensively at a position where defence is a very secondary concern, that's below average with the bat, and that needs to be platooned. He's a good runner, but a poor basestealer. He does at least stay healthy, and he's not a problem in the clubhouse as far as I'm aware. That's Jacque Jones. A perfect fourth outfielder, perhaps. An acceptable starter on a team without any real championship ambitions. But most definately not a guy that should be anywhere near a team that wants to win it all, and not a guy you want to be paying any more than about $3-4m. As for multiple years, he ought to be able to forget about it.

I hope it is Patterson and prospect, not couple of prospects. Wilkerson is good but not that good. I wouldn't mind if Wilkerson at all. Depends on who the prospects are. Nolasco and Aardsma? Count me in. Pinto and Piggy? No thanks. What's your opinion on Nolasco, and what's your opinion on Piggy?

Please be true... Jones wouldn't be a bad fit in St. Louis. They don't need the same type of player the Cubs do. What kind of players do they need then? Bad players?

So why use metrics at all then? Yes, according to me. What other terms do you use for a metric that thinks Andruw Jones has no range and that thinks Mark Kotsay showed less range than Bernie Williams in 2005? "Valuable"? "Of worth"? "Reliable"? And this could not be explained by the fact that CF in Boston is amongst the hardest to play? I digress, but the word you're looking for is "regressed". And you should care. Your point was that Damon is in a state of steady decline that can be expected to continue. If Damon's decline can be linked to a one-off incident, that obviously undermines that argument. Because you think there's a statistical trend of decline. A statistical trend of decline that just so happens to be very contestable. I think you mean there's nothing in the particular statistic(s) that you're looking at. Sadly, a number of other statistics, all for the most part as unreliable as the one(s) you're looking at, if not a bit more or a bit less, disagree... For instance, Juan Pierre was -6 FRAA last year, Johnny Damon just -5. Pierre had a Rate2 of 97 last year, Damon too. Damon had 5.7 fielding win shares. Pierre had a mere 2.9. Damon had a .985 fielding percentage, 2.93 Range Factor, Pierre was at .988 and 2.21. UZR used to absolutely hate Pierre and rate him as one of the worst in baseball, but recent numbers aren't available. Probabilistic Model of Range put Damon reasonably comfortably ahead of Pierre in 2004 at least. There are numerous other attempts at defensive statistics, and so on and so on. Nothing to suggest that Pierre wasn't better? Hmm. Oh, and then you've got any assessment of the players from actually watching them play that disagrees. Not that you'd put any value in that, because you just think I'm making it all up about Pierre taking rubbish routes and reading balls badly just for the fun of it, all because I secretly love Johnny Damon and want the Cubs to really, really sign him. Ha, yeh right. Except there's no such thing as an infallible defensive metric. That's exactly the problem. That's why it's kind of instructive to try watching the players play defence. Without anything statistical to support my statement, you mean. Just the way I like it when it comes to defence. I think my scouting report was more than detailed enough though. And strangely no one has seen fit to pick any holes in the scouting report. No, on the contrary, people have only commented on how they've seen the same traits.

The trouble is that my eyes are actually wide open and you're not able to get a half-baked argument past me. The .935 is a very nice attempt on your part to shift the goalposts, because all of a sudden you're referencing a time in Damon's career that we haven't previously discussed, and with good reason - he was working in a completely different ballpark, with completely different corner outfielders, with a completely different pitching staff, all factors that you yourself have in this thread previously admitted can have impacts on Zone Rating, your flawed defensive metric of choice. Meanwhile, I've made it perfectly clear that there has been a decline in Damon's defence, that just does happen to be reflected in Zone Rating, one that I believe is probably best explained by the one-off collision with Damian Jackson he had in October 2003. At this stage there is simply not enough statistical evidence to suggest that a trend of gradual decline exists. It may well exist. I'm certainly not saying it doesn't. I'm just saying that you can't really say at this stage. Suppose that Damon had registered a .910 Zone Rating in 2002, .906 in 2003, .909 in 2004, .904 in 2005. There you have three movements, the first a -4 and the third a -5. Would you argue that Damon was in gradual decline based on those numbers? Of course you wouldn't. But the only fundamental difference between that hypothetical example and the actual scenario with Damon's Zone Rating is the second movement, a difference of 30 points. If it's one movement that's making all the difference, how can you possibly define it as a trend? Because it's an awful lot better still than Juan Pierre's defence, that's why. That was the basis of your argument, which isn't going to get a free pass just because you pluck an unreliable defensive metric out of the air, start talking about trends in it that aren't at all established and then accuse other people of burying their heads in the sand.

Yes, because Zone Rating is a really reliable defensive metric. According to Zone Rating, in 2005, looking just at centre fielders, Jim Edmonds and Juan Pierre were just about defensive equals, Mark Kotsay was worse than Bernie Williams, and Andruw Jones ranked in the lowest quartile. Like it or not, it is reliable to show a trend in a player's performance, provided he's on the same team. Stadium, team, quality of a pitchers staff, etc, can have impacts on Zone Rating. Damon's numbers have declined every year in Boston, there's no reason to expect improvement from him next year, or even holding even. I don't dispute that there's been something of a decline in Damon's Zone Rating numbers, and indeed I don't dispute that there's been a decline in Damon's defence. He has lost a few steps of pace over the years, but the biggest factor was definately the collision with Damian Jackson in the 2003 postseason, which by his own confession still affects him today - he suffers from headaches, it's possible I'd suppose that his brain doesn't function quite as well as it used to in some ways, ways that perhaps affected his centre field play, and he's also maybe slightly more cautious in the field, perhaps just subconciously. Let's suppose for a moment I put any stock in Johnny Damon's Zone Rating, or any other defensive metrics. I don't think that a single 4 point decline (from .910 to .906) can be regarded as indicative of anything whatsoever given the enormous natural year-to-year statistical variations that are possible. For the exact same reasons, I don't think that a single 5 point decline (from .879 to .874) means anything either. And I don't think that two 4/5 point declines in three years is that significant, because it's improbable to anywhere near the extent that you could only attribute it to decline. No, the big problem for Damon, in terms of Zone Rating, still pretending that I put a great deal of value in it, is that after suffering the collision he then suffered a single 27 point decline, one that he showed little sign of significantly reversing in 2005. As such, though it's still too early to say, it looks as though his defence may have suffered permanently as a result of that collision in terms of Zone Rating. That's an observation that simply watching him play bears out to some extent. None of this validates any part of your theorising though. Your position that Damon cannot reasonably be expected to even hold his own in terms of defence as measured by Zone Rating next year is completely untenable, seeing firstly as you've based that conclusion on a statistical trend that you simply cannot say exists at this stage, secondly as year-to-year statistical variation works both ways, up and down, and thirdly because I suppose it's possible that Damon may with time overcome the collision. The brain's a complicated thing, and I don't understand it. If anyone else here does, please opine. Finally, the fact that Damon has suffered a one-off decline, or is suffering a gradual decline, which may be the case but right now is probably the less likely of the two possible explanations, doesn't necessarily mean that he's worse than Pierre at this stage. I can say quite definitively, and I did before, that Damon is still comfortably a better defender than Pierre, and that Damon is still above-average defensively at his position. I don't think it's necessary for me to run through the player's defensive skillsets again to explain why I think that that's the case, and I think my point about the comparative value of Zone Rating was well enough made in my last post that I don't need to repeat it.

Yes, because Zone Rating is a really reliable defensive metric. According to Zone Rating, in 2005, looking just at centre fielders, Jim Edmonds and Juan Pierre were just about defensive equals, Mark Kotsay was worse than Bernie Williams, and Andruw Jones ranked in the lowest quartile.

Just to be clear on this, Johnny Damon is comfortably a better defensive outfielder than Juan Pierre. Damon is obviously the slower of the two, but he more than makes up for that by reading the ball off the bat and in the air considerably better, and so gets bigger jumps, takes better routes and all in all has better range, which is by far the biggest factor in any evaluation of a centre fielder. The arm, a secondary consideration, is a relatively minor black mark against both of them. On the whole, Johnny Damon is above-average defensively, Juan Pierre slightly below, and Pierre's the one whose defensive game is most likely to completely collapse, since any injury that impeded his running speed would rob him of the only current means he has of not embarrassing himself out there. Quite honestly, I'm not sure what is more remarkable: that Pierre, for someone so fast, is such a poor defender; or that he's still widely assumed to be a good defender despite years of evidence to the contrary. The sooner the idea that speed and athleticism is all it takes to play defence is disspelled, the better. It's a pity that most a lot of examples of good defence just aren't as eyecatching as Eric Byrnes getting a God-awful jump, taking the worst route possible, roll cameras, and then making a pretty cool diving catch.

I'll make a $12,000 contribution to every single person registered at NSBB if Furcal signs a contract that in any shape or form can be interpretted as $100m/6yrs. I'll throw in another $12,000 each if the Cubs make a Williams/Walker/Cedeno/Aardsma/2 other minor leaguers for Soriano/Mench deal. And have another $12,000 each if the Cubs then give Soriano a $100m/6yr deal similar to Furcal's. So that's $36000 for every single person registered at NSBB if this rumour has anything behind it. There just happen to be 2755 registered users. So all in all, if it all goes down, I'll be paying out $100m myself. Something tells me though that Jim Hendry can sleep easy tonight, that you guys are still going to be miserably poor tomorrow, and that I'll still be alive the day after that to have to suffer more stupid websites making up stupid rumours that only the stupidest person on earth could believe for one thousandth of a second. Edited to remove inappropriate comment.

One of my sources, on the condition of anonymity, has leaked the details of the $100m/6yr deal that the Cubs have offered Furcal. It breaks down as follows... 2006: $6m 2007: $7m 2008: $8m 2009: $9m 2010: $10m 2011: $60m team option vs $3m buyout

Those numbers are from Baseball Prospectus, and they involve a enormously prohibitively and largely outdated 1871-2003 sample size. The 1955-97 sample size used by Jim Furtado quotes the following numbers... On-base plus slugging .914 41.4 Equivalent Runs .974 21.8 BaseRuns .970 23.7 eXtrapolated Runs (per PA) .975 20.9 Runs Created (per PA) .964 25.9 Now you start to see what I mean. You're talking about differences of 10% in r squared between OPS and every single other metric you've listed there. That means that OPS explains 10% less of the variation in R/G than the other metrics. That's statistically enormous. And you're talking about OPS having a far, far higher margin of error, in some cases being twice as inaccurate. That's statistically enormous too. There's reason to believe that the climate has continued to shift since 1997, and that even the 1955-97 correlations are out of date, using a prohibitively big sample size, the earlier chunks of which are pretty much irrelevant these days. Primitive studies that I know of (by Dan Agonistes and Cyril Morong) have shown that there's reason to believe that the value of slugging percentage has increased over the few years relative to the value of on-base percentage, and the convergence of the two scales would of course lead to OPS correlating better than previously. However, neither of these studies looked at anything more than a single full year, and in Morong's case it was just short of a full year. Furthermore, Morang made a point of mentioning that on-base percentage was still more important than slugging percentage, and Agonistes' study showed that OPS was still less accurate than every single other run-appropriating statistic. Given it's inaccuracy relative to plenty of other measures (and yes, I appreciate that it's better than average and RBI, obviously, but this is the whole "Juan Pierre is better than what we had last year" argument), I see absolutely no good reason for the propagation of OPS as the catch-all statistic of choice. If people that used it went to great pains to point out that it's quick, it's dirty, it's inaccurate, they're only using it because they can't be bothered to find something better, fair enough. But for the most part they don't. As a result there are far too many people around that have just got into the habit of using OPS, largely because other people have got into the habit of using it, that are completely oblivious to its considerable limitations and use it as if it's incontrovertible. I completely understand the desire that a lot of people have to use the basic numbers, numbers they can conceptualise, numbers that people can easily relate to, as opposed to abstracts such as VORP. I have that desire myself, but .AVG/.OBP/.SLG is still the simplest and the best way to present the basic numbers. It takes you maybe a second or two longer to type. It doesn't require you adding numbers up. It tells you a lot more about a player and his game, how patient he is, how powerful he is, how sustainable his numbers are likely to prove. OPS on the other hand tells you absolutely nothing. It's just a number plucked out of the air. .819. Could mean anything. And even if you could decifer a meaning, with OPS' inaccuracy, it'd probably be half-wrong anyway.

It correlates lousily compared to similar statistics that compensate for the different scales used to measure on-base and slugging percentages.

Meh. WHIP is used far too much as it is. The logic that a single is the same as a double, a triple, a home run or a walk, but a walk is not the same as a hit by pitch, and so on, is absolutely farcical. That's not to even mention the relative lack of control a pitcher exhibits over the number of hits he allows beyond his ability to strike batters out and to induce certain types of batted balls making the inclusion of hits in any cursory analysis of a pitcher's effectiveness entirely inappropriate and unreliable. Don't even get me started on OPS, the statistic that'd think 300 pounds and 500 dollars exactly the same as 300 dollars and 500 pounds. The difference, incidentally, is approximately 145 dollars.