Mephistopheles

Not entirely true. WARP = BRAR + PRAR + FRAR. BRAR is NOT position adjusted. It is batting average over a replacement level hitter, which is .230 EqA. The FRAR adjustment is value for playing a tougher position. Ie in theory it *should* work this way: VORP = BRAR + FRAR baseline for that position. It really does not work that way because VORP does not figure out RP level the same way nor does it figure out runs the same way. If you want a good indicator, EqA RP level for each position C .227 1B .248 2B .231 3B .235 SS .228 LF .250 CF .242 RF .258 If you set the highest as +10 over a DH, you get and give them about 150 games: 33 C (actual 39) 18 1B (actual 10) 30 2B (actual 29) 33 SS (actual 33) 27 3B (actual 22) 23 CF (actual 24) 13 LF (actual 14) 10 RF (actual 14) So it's still a pretty damn good rough indicator. It looks at the same thing but puts the fielding value based on a position. The actual way they get their run values for a position is the average change in defensive +/- output if you make the switch. IE a +4 SS moving to 2B would be expected to be a +8 2B. My beef with WARP really isn't that. I found those EqA RP levels using the spreadsheet's RP level for VORP.

You enjoy making crap up don't you? My God. I can't stand it. If you're going to make a comment on the validity of someone's accuracy in a top XX prospect list and say it is not better than some other prospect list, you had better know what in the world you are talking about. It's comments like this that certainly show that you really don't have a clue about the validity of BP's lists (or BA's). In fact let's compare the results from 2003 and 2004, granted it's early for the last class but we can at least get an idea if one is "bloody awful". Let's see first analyzing the top forty of BA and BP for 2003 (since BP only has a top 40). Total WARP 577.8 - Baseball Prospectus 505.3 - Baseball America Top 10 WARP 205.4 - Baseball America 203.4 - Baseball Prospectus A graph of their success: http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f189/kctigers23/LOLCROMAGNONLOL1.gif Although the regression shows that BA was better for the top 7, they were not, but the log best fit went that way because BA did do well 10-20 and like crap 20+. BP was pretty damn good from 20+. There is not sufficient data to conclude that BPs list is better, but there is more than enough evidence to conclude that BP's list is not "bloody awful". Similar results are found when looking at 2004 Top 50: Total WARP 489.1 - Baseball Prospectus 415.7 - Baseball America Top 10 WARP 133.1 - Baseball America 132.0 - Baseball Prospectus http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f189/kctigers23/LOLCROMAGNONLOL2.gif So in conclusion. Don't even bring up these ideas again without making sure their valid. Selective memory plagues us all, Mephistopheles included. all of that....nevermind that kg is a BA stalwart ...

Alfonso Soriano .290/.335/.545 - Meph .278/.336/.544 - Actual NAILED! Ryan Theriot .279/.331/.368 - Meph .270/.330/.347 - Actual Almost, just 20 pts of SLG. Kosuke Fukudome .301/.381/.467 - Meph .289/.401/.504 - Actual Yeah.... They had a blogpost about him i dont recall if they had his PECOTA listed there or not. Matt Murton .295/.368/.456 - Meph .295/.359/.462 - Actual NAILED! Mark DeRosa .286/.341/.431 - Meph .286/.360/.439 - Actual 20 pts of OBP. Ronny Cedeno .278/.325/.432 - Meph .278/.326/.422 - Actual NAILED! Geovany Soto .285/.356/.478 - Meph .273/.352/.470 - Actual NAILED! Felix Pie .275/.326/.465 - Meph .291/.344/.479 - Actual Meh...they had him with 15 pts higher BA which followed through on OBP and SLG. Derrek Lee .301/.373/.504 - Meph .303/.387/.527 - Actual They didn't project a HR drop as much as I thought they would. Aramis Ramirez .299/.354/.551 - Meph .301/.363/.536 - Actual NAILED! Zambrano 3.93 - Meph 3.81 - Actual NAILED! Rich Hill 4.12 - Meph 4.02 - Actual NAILED! Ted Lilly 4.21 - Meph 4.25 - Actual NAILED! Jon Lieber 4.87 - Meph 4.62 - Actual Meh.... Jason Marquis 5.12 - Meph 5.04 - Actual NAILED! Sean Marshall 4.65 - Meph 4.74 - Actual NAILED! Sean Gallagher 4.76 - Meph 4.91 - Actual Close enough.... PECOTA sucks for RPs....so I missed on Wood and Marmol All in all I thought it was an impressive projection of projections myself. You should all bow down to me.

Yeah......well he has to try and displaced this Arod kid, that everybody says is real good.[/quote not really.

it is in johans best interest to sign a deal that would be below his market price in a year?

there's an argument in this thread?

sorry im not that funny

pfft getting santana is not a good rebound from our peavy debacle.

David two posters already took a crack at that ;)

my response to the post above me: ...

Babe Ruth

Keith Law has his top 100 prospects and stuff for free (for now)

He'll probably return to his good years now that he's a Yankee, right?

quit with the personal attacks man.

Why? They'll have an elite offense. They essentially signed a quality #2 starter and have an elite closer.

there's one small (big) problem in the desert. they can't get anyone to touch the plate after touching third.

im doing a favor to the cubs. if you aint cheatin you aint tryin!

mwahaha! the spot goes between the cards and royals no? but no matter what they pick grossman

yes 1. Tampa Bay Devil Rays - Pedro Alvarez, 1B/LF - Vanderbilt 2. Pittsburgh Pirates - Tim Beckham, SS - Griffin HS (GA) 3. Kansas City Royals - Aaron Crow, RHP - Missouri 4. Baltimore Orioles - Brian Matusz, LHP - San Diego 5. San Francisco Giants - Eric Hosmer, 1B - American Heritage HS (FL) 6. Florida Marlins - Tim Melville, RHP - Holt HS (MO) 7. Cincinnati Reds- Ryan Perry, RHP - Arizona 8. Chicago White Sox - Christian Friedrich, LHP - Eastern Kentucky 9. Washington Nationals - Kyle Skipworth, C - Patriot HS (CA) 10. Houston Astros - Gerrit Cole, RHP - Orange Lutheran HS (CA) 11. Texas Rangers - Alex Meyer, RHP - Greensburg HS (IN) 12. Oakland A's - Justin Smoak, 1B - South Carolina 13. St. Louis Cardinals - Jacob Thompson, RHP - Virginia 14. Minnesota Twins - Harold Martinez, SS/3B - Braddock HS (FL) 15. Los Angeles Dodgers - Aaron Hicks, RHP - Wilson HS (CA) 16. Milwaukee Brewers - Cole St. Clair, LHP - Rice 17. Toronto Blue Jays - Yonder Alonso, 1B - Miami 18. New York Mets- Brett Hunter, RHP - Pepperdine 19. Chicago Cubs- Sonny Gray, RHP - Smyrna HS (TN) 20. Seattle Mariners - Tyson Ross, RHP - Cal 21. Detroit Tigers - Dennis Raben, RF - Miami 22. New York Mets - Isaac Galloway, OF - Los Osos HS (CA) 23. San Diego Padres - Scott Green, RHP - Kentucky 24. Philadelphia Phillies - Ethan Martin, 3B - Stephens County HS (GA) 25. Colorado Rockies - Kyle Lobstein, LHP - Coconino HS (AZ) 26. Arizona Diamondbacks - Shooter Hunt, RHP - Tulane 27. Minnesota Twins - Luke Burnett, RHP - Louisiana Tech 28. New York Yankees - Aaron Shafer, RHP - Wichita State 29. Cleveland Indians - Gordon Beckham, SS/2B - Georgia 30. Boston Red Sox - Kyle Long, LHP - St. Anne's-Belfield School (VA) 31. Minnesota Twins - Xavier Avery, CF - Cedar Grove HS (GA) 32. Milwaukee Brewers - Brandon Crawford, SS - UCLA 33. New York Mets - Buster Posey, C - FSU 34. Philadelphia Phillies - Jarret Martin, LHP - Centennial HS (CA) 35. Milwaukee Brewers - Daniel Webb, RHP - Heath HS (KY) 36. Kansas City Royals - Cody Satterwhite, RHP - Mississippi 37. St. Louis Cardinals - David Adams, 2B - Virginia 38. Atlanta Braves - Michael Pallazone, RHP - Lassiter HS (GA) 39. San Francisco Giants - Robbie Grossman, OF - Cy-Fair HS (TX)

people always call "different" mechanics ones that hurt your arm. I think Cubs fans should know that we (everyone marshall included) dont know a damn thing about mechanics of pitching. as far i can tell the most important thing is velo. other than that there's no other thing that really makes a big injury difference. sure it may look unhealthy and it may be but it doesnt really mean he's more of a risk. hes had shoulder stiffness before, then again every pitcher who has ever thrown a baseball overhand has had that ... just as much as he has. really in injury risk theres a relationship between velo and injuries (higher velo = higher injury risk). outside of that know one knows a damn thing. ditto for pitch counts.

After adjusting for league (both league difficulty factor and pitchers faced in the National League), defense and park factors. I am getting a difference of about +9 runs for Jake Peavy. I haven't put them on the Cubbies yet, but given Jake's tendency to get the ball on the ground a bit higher rate than Santana, and one of the things Peavy is hurt by more (walks) is actually helped for pitchers at Wrigley, we're probably talking about Peavy squeezing out 3 runs or so there putting him down by about 6 runs. He's a very good hitting pitcher, and while Santana has done quite well in his 30 ABs there's a pretty damn good chance that the six run lead evaporates with the bats, ever so slightly going into Peavy's favor. How'd I do this. Basically I derived factors for Peavy and Santana using their home parks. Petco Park shows no statistically significant park effect on Jake Peavy. I did however, use a method of scaling park factors for a regression to the mean kind of way. I completely took out pitchers ABs and did some adjustment for league in a similar manner, although using pitchers converting leagues of course. I used the last three seasons of data weighted 11, 8, 5. We would expect Peavy's opponents to hit about .234/.297/.383 in MLB average settings and Johan's to hit about .221/.266/.380. So really the only differences are about .013 BA, .018 BB/PA, and -.010 IsP. Over the course of a full season that comes out to approximately 14 singles, 10 walks, and 8 singles becoming doubles (helping peavy). There's also a slight expected increase in double plays added for Peavy. This is because the main difference in BA (okay the only difference in BA) is the difference of .013 in BABIP (.283 Peavy, .270 Santana). That BABIP may be a little low on Santana, given Wrigley's tendencies however. Either way the higher BABIP is a direct result of groundballs being more prevalent for Peavy. Wrigley's only going to increase GB outs for Peavy. Either way in a nuetral setting there's 2 or 3 more GIDPs that Peavy gets (that's 2 or 3 extra outs). Jake Peavy is also a better defender by Santana, going by PMR we're talking about a difference of about 3 singles that Peavy would have snagged and converted into outs. Finally summing all of this up and converting them to runs of course, we get Santana being +8.7 runs over a full season without adjusting for Peavy being a better fit for the Cubs and Peavy being a likely better hitter by a half a dozen runs. Either way it's either a slight favor to Peavy or a tie. It's hard to make a great case for Santana being a better fit for the Cubs than Peavy. Santana's also at greater risk for an injury if coming to the Cubs. His pitch count has always hovered near 100 - rarely going over 110. This may sound like he does not have a lot of wear and tear on his arm, but the 220+ seasons he has really means more than the PC (screw you BP). Peavy's really not that much a risk for wear and tear. He throws about 105, going 110 every now and then. Keep in mind that pitchers tend to increase their PC coming to the NL (i know it's backwards). They also tend to increase their walk rates (which I actually did NOT take into account oh there's more reason to like Peavy). Not only all of this, but there's another adjustment to be made: Handedness. With the notable exceptions of Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn (for now) most of the best hitters in the National League Central are right handed (and relatively speaking there's a higher RH percentage in this division than in others and one of the biggest park effects in baseball is Enron's RH HR factor, helping Peavy there). Now, Santana gets righties and lefties out at the same rate but Peavy is nails against right handed hitters. So there's that other factor I did not include in this analysis. All of this probably pushes to Peavy being around +5-10 for the Cubs. Other clubs value Santana more than Peavy (and rightfully so), so Peavy's production is a bigger bang for less money. There's certainly no question that the given a choice between Peavy and Santana, the Cubs gotta go with Peavy.

someone and pete rose

Heres a link to his UZRs http://www.tangotiger.net/mgl/ UZR0307 shows it from 03-07 What is the translation like take 10 runs away to go from LF to CF? I wasn't saying hes not fine, but hes no Everret. Lets see in left field those put him at +36 in LF. That translates to about +25 in CF.

white shortstops automatically have grit.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080130&content_id=2360377&vkey=hotstove2007&fext=.jsp&partnered=rss_mlb The Birds are trying a last ditch attempt to sign him for five years....which would be monumentally stupid.