With all that's going on in the world, who honestly cares?

Get your minds off baseball, folks.

Top Comps: Sammy Sosa, Ron Gant

Damn...

So according to ZIPS, Maybin sucks.

Or rather he is projected to suck but has all-star comparables. interesting...

So according to ZIPS, Maybin sucks.

That optimistic projection looks nice. Miller's too.

Maybin's only 20. Born in '87, remember that.

Actually, I think that's a pretty good projection - almost league-average, which is impressive for a 21-year-old player that 79 plate appearances above high-A ball. Don't forget, he also struck out more than a quarter of the time down there.

"With all that's going on in the world, who honestly cares?"

Why, what happened?

Why, what happened?

Man sentenced in bizarre satellite diagnosing scam

Wait. There's a world outside of baseball?

Man sentenced in bizarre satellite diagnosing scam

Anyone dumb enough to fall for that deserve to lose their money.

Unfortunately BA did schedule the Marlins Top 10 quite a bit earlier.

But I suppose the next Ask BA will provide info on what it would look like now.

After reading 1, Did anyone else run upstairs from their mom's cellar to check that a bomb didn't go off while they were downstairs with their head in a spreadsheet?

Good.

With all that's going on in the world, who honestly cares?

Get your minds off baseball, folks.

Why do you think our minds are on baseball?

With all that's going on in the world, who honestly cares?
Get your minds off baseball, folks.

I'm going to assume this is a reaction to the horrible shooting in Omaha.

Dude, I don't know what point you think you are making, but it's because I have been following the news every damn day for over 30 years that I need to worry about something as ridiculous as baseball to keep from going insane with rage and sorrow. So shut up.

Top Comps: Sammy Sosa, Ron Gant



Damn...

I'd trade a 90% chance of Ron Santo's career for, what, a 30% chance of Sosa's career everyday of the week. And thanks to do-gooders like Mitchell Maybin likely won't get the same, errr, boost that Sosa got mid-career.

Illitch and Dombrowski are my favourite GM/owner combo in baseball.

#16:

In other words, if you

1) had a player whom you knew was going hit and play 3B like Ron Santo
2) you would definitely trade that player for another who had little chance to be Sosa.

Really? Why?

#17.

Whoops. Other way 'round. I'd rather be pretty sure to have Santo than maybe have Sosa.

I think he's saying he'd trade FOR Santo.

Oh! Well, in that case, I would heartily agree with you.

No one has talked about Willis in this thread. I think he's got more potential than the ZIPS projection. Its hard to project someone going from a terrible defense to a pretty good one, but I could see it having a pretty big impact on someone like Willis.

Unless Willis is hurt, I'm also sanguine about his chances for improvement. Playing in front of a raucous Detroit crowd is likely to be much more inspirational than sweating your ass off in 90 degree heat in front of 500 people. The defense will be better (although I wonder how much - he'll have Renteria at short and Miggy still at third).

Its hard to project someone going from a terrible defense to a pretty good one

If the Tigers have really decided to play Cabrera and third and Renteria at short, I'm going to have a hard time characterizing Detroit's defense as "pretty good."

Agreed with 23. Detroit's 2006 defense was excellent: the Shelton,Polanco,Guillen,Inge infield was really excellent that season. Now, it's 2008, and there are downgrades at every position (in three cases, new personnel, and age for Polanco). Pudge is getting old, and their corner outfielders are no great shakes. It's basically Granderson and a bunch of below average guys.

To me, Detroit has obviously added talent, but it seems like a poorly constructed team at the moment. Bad defense, bad bullpen, not overwhelming starting pitching. Maybe more moves are coming though...

To me, Detroit has obviously added talent, but it seems like a poorly constructed team at the moment. Bad defense, bad bullpen, not overwhelming starting pitching. Maybe more moves are coming though...

I agree the '08 Tigers don't look as good defensively as the '06 Tigers. But I don't think they're bad.

Is 2008 Renteria a downgrade on 2006 Guillen? I'm not sure.

And Magglio did well in UZR this year, for what it's worth.

And Jones will help in the outfield even if it means losing Inge at third.

As for the pitching, Verlander and Bonderman are a good, young 1-2 punch. 3-5 should give 'em quality starts aplenty (even if they're rarely dominant unless Willis magically regains his form). The pen is a slight concern, but Rodney is solid, and Jones keeps doing what he does. (It really is a shame about Zumaya.)

If the Tigers have really decided to play Cabrera and third and Renteria at short, I'm going to have a hard time characterizing Detroit's defense as "pretty good."

Is there any talk about moving Guillen to third and Cabrera to first?

I also think Cabrera's defense will be much, much better this year.

Doesn't the Sosa comp likely have more to do with mass quantities of strikeouts than any other single quality?

Doesn't the Sosa comp likely have more to do with mass quantities of strikeouts than any other single quality?

I won't speak for Dan, but it would surprise me if that were the case. There are a lot of players in the minor leagues who strike out a lot.

Dan, if you see this, is ZIPS done entirely in Excel? If so, how big is the file? I'd imagine it's enormous.

Dan, if you see this, is ZIPS done entirely in Excel? If so, how big is the file? I'd imagine it's enormous.

I'm not Dan, but we discussed this a few times. Yes, it is done in one spreadsheet. Yes, it is enormous.

ZiPS is done entirely in Excel. At one point, the spreadsheet (to project 1 player) was 110 MB, but I got it down to around 70 MB. It's not so much the size that's a problem, but the calculations - it takes my Dual-Core about 20 seconds to model everything on the fly.

So it's pretty much F9, cross your fingers and pray?

What takes up all the space? All the stats for the database of comparable players? I'm sure there's a lot of code, but as you well know it takes a long time to write enough code to use up 70mb of space.

Willis's ZiPS projection is not bad, a solid #3 who eats innings at roughly league-average quality. A front three of Buehrle/Vazquez/Willis is not awe-inspiring but it's good.

Yeah, there's a lot of information there that takes up space - ZiPS has information on every two, three, and four year stint in MLB history, including MLEs since 1993. When the SABR minor league project's done, I hope to translate every minor league season, too.

To make a long story short, I'm never going to look at a probability density function again and go "Hey! That's platykurtic!"

To make a long story short, I'm never going to look at a probability density function again and go "Hey! That's platykurtic!"

Neither am I.

Willis's ZiPS projection is not bad, a solid #3 who eats innings at roughly league-average quality. A front three of Buehrle/Vazquez/Willis is not awe-inspiring but it's good.

I think it's comparable to the Halladay/Burnett/Pettitte trio.

The one thing Detroit cannot, cannot do with the club is bat Jones against left-handers for any reason. Aaron Gleeman would gladly tell you why.

I'd trade [for] a 90% chance of Ron Santo's career <s>for</s> [and give up], what, a 30% chance of Sosa's career everyday of the week.

and

had a player whom you knew was going hit and play 3B like Ron Santo

I think everyone would but let's clarify a couple things. Miguel Cabrera doesn't play 3B like Ron Santo. Santo won 5 gold gloves, Cabrera is probably a bad 1B (unless you actually believe BPro's defensive ratings which have Cabrera above average the last 2 years). Gary Sheffield, with less speed, might be a better overall comp for Cabrera (an awfully nice comp obviously).

The younger Sosa looked pretty good defensively to me and he added baserunning value (most of the time) and he does look like a pretty good overall comp for Maybin. That narrows the gap some between the Santo/Sosa comp.

I'll let Dan chime in but I'm guessing both the 90% and 30% guessimates are highly optimistic. Santo's post-24 career would be pretty sweet -- 1500 games, 131 OPS+ which includes his decline phase. Jim Ray Hart's post-24 career, not so much -- 124 OPS+ but just 649 games. I assume that's more a cautionary tale about the risk of injury than the risk of cliff-diving, but the chances that Cabrera stays healthy and productive for the next 10 seasons (i.e. Santo) are likely a good bit less than 90%. And yes, Maybin's chances of being Sosa seem less than 30% too.

Thirdly, the Marlins aren't of course trading a likely Santo for a longshot Sosa -- they're also getting several other players and several millions in salary reduction. Everybody would trade 30% Sosa for 90% Santo. But even limiting it to those two, it's 2 years of Santo (when Cabrera will be an FA) for 3+ years of potential Sosa and about $20 M over the next 2 years. That's still a good deal but it's a much different deal.

And then you add in the 1-2 years of Willis (saving $6-14 M ... I'm not sure when he's an FA) and getting back the 50% chance that Miller becomes Willis plus the 10% chance that Miller becomes Cole Hamels (?) plus the 10% chances that each of those other guys have of proving useful and the trade again starts to look different.

Of course, being the Marlins, by the time any of these guys get good, they'll be "expensive" and they'll get swapped for the next round of budget prospects who, by the time they get good, ...

Stupid me. I meant a front three of Verlander/Rogers/Willis is not awe-inspiring but it's good. Don't know why my brain malfunctioned like that.

Stupid me. I meant a front three of Verlander/Rogers/Willis is not awe-inspiring but it's good. Don't know why my brain malfunctioned like that.

You have Rogers ahead of Bonderman?

I think everyone would but let's clarify a couple things. Miguel Cabrera doesn't play 3B like Ron Santo. Santo won 5 gold gloves, Cabrera is probably a bad 1B (unless you actually believe BPro's defensive ratings which have Cabrera above average the last 2 years). Gary Sheffield, with less speed, might be a better overall comp for Cabrera (an awfully nice comp obviously).

True. Cabrera's better than Sheffield was at the same age, though. (Not quite the same attitude problems, for one.) Hank Aaron shows up as Cabrera's most similar by age, and although that's a lot of pressure to put on the next 15-20 years of a guy's career, so far it fits. (Now if only the Tigers would put him in the outfield!)

The younger Sosa looked pretty good defensively to me and he added baserunning value (most of the time) and he does look like a pretty good overall comp for Maybin. That narrows the gap some between the Santo/Sosa comp.

Maybe. I like Sosa as a comp (the .280/.330/.520 Soriano-like Sosa before '98), but he wasn't providing positive offensive value until his age 24 season. That's 3-4 years away for Maybin if things go right. Cabrera is a superstar now. Besides, Granderson is their CF, and he's a darned good one. Maybin's glove is lessened in LF.

The thing to keep in mind is Detroit's window to win with the current core is the next 2 years. Cabrera and Willis both help fill that need now, and both are still young enough that if they're resigned they'll be valuable for the next 6-8 years. Good on the Marlins for getting quality and quantity, but I think it's a stellar trade for the Tigers.

Remember there was a time when only the Red Sox and Yankees would have the chutzpah to pull this sort of thing off? This ain't your father's MLB anymore.

I think Bonderman's going to spend most of this year on the DL.