Baseball Thread - Make up a new stat and win a ball

[Frank Delicious]

So pitchers and catchers reported a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to make this thread. This week actually baseball games start and I think I can speak for everyone when I say the best looking match up is the Manatee Community College baseball team Vs the Pirates.

Anyway this is totally the thread to nerd out about baseball. If you have any questions about boring advanced stats I can help a little and I am sure someone else on here knows something about them also.

Good places to geek out for baseball

MLB Trade Rumors

Fan Graphs Tons of advanced stats here

Baseball Reference

Baseball Almanac

The Hardball Times

Anyway, I really want the O's to do well this year and hold out hope that we will finish above .500 for once.

Also if anyone here follows projections besides me, what do you think of this years (PECOTA, CHONE, other)? I am still getting into projections and don't really know which one is usually the most reliable.

and here is the best youtube ever

ICHIROWND

[uNicedmeMan]

Go O's!!!!

My favorite baseball youtubes are:
Glenallen Hill monster Jack
and
George Brett talking about messing himself

[Frank Delicious]

Also here is the best explanation of advanced stats ever

FJM's glossary of terms

[JimW]

If you have any questions about boring advanced stats I can help a little and I am sure someone else on here knows something about them also.

*Raises hand*

Baseball nerd credentials:

Former Rays blogger, both on my own blog and then on DRaysBay soon after it started up. I also wrote for a few years for Raysbb.com and was a very active member of the forum (3rd all time in total posts), I actually was the host and chief admin of the site for a while. I don't read that board much any more though and very rarely post anything, my baseball reading these days basically consists of reading and occasionally commenting on Baseball Think Factory. I don't really read much stuff any more, mainly because I'm both lazy and more interested in other stuff now (like disc golf), my Baseball Prospectus subscription just expired and I don't plan on renewing it and I pretty much never go to The Hardball Times any more either. I also used to keep my own statistical spreadsheets for the Rays, I uploaded the hitting and pitching ones from 2007 (the last year I kept them through the entire season) if anyone is interested in seeing what they were like. I even got kinda sorta known in the local media, one of the beat writers called me for quotes on stuff a couple times and a talk radio host (Bobby Fenton, far and away the best sports radio guy ever) knew of me as well and respected what I had to say. So yeah, definitely a baseball nerd although I don't engage in much nerdiness any longer.

Also if anyone here follows projections besides me, what do you think of this years (PECOTA, CHONE, other)? I am still getting into projections and don't really know which one is usually the most reliable.

You really can't go wrong with PECOTA, ZiPS, or CHONE, all three have good track records. Don't waste your time with the Bill James ones, they're garbage.

I'll post my thoughts on the upcoming season and the Rays in particular when I have time later.

[Frank Delicious]

Hey Jim since you're here now, what do you think of this article on Longoria's contract?

The worst contract in baseball

I mean the dude is still going to make bank and has assured himself some money even if he gets injured but damn if those club option years at then end don't suck for him. I am also surprised that more ball players don't fall for this type of contract and that more clubs don't try to get their young players to sign a contract like that.

[MizzouTiger26]

Go O's!!!!

My favorite baseball youtubes are:
Glenallen Hill monster Jack

That is ridiculous!

[rusch_bag]

Go Brewers! I was ready for the pitchers and catchers to come in the day after the packers got eliminated. Basketball just doesn't do it for me so I am glad that baseball season is almost upon us.

[Mr. Plow]

My favorite baseball youtubes are:
Glenallen Hill monster Jack

Glenallen Hill, the only player ever to go on the DL because of arachnaphobia.

I'm glad to see there are some fellow baseball geeks on these boards. I grew up a Cubs/Yanks fan, but have since come to my senses and now root for the Cubbies exclusively. This is their year! Cubbies in 2010!!!!!! I kid....

Would any of you be interested in joining a DGR fantasy baseball league? I was thinking of starting a league up, and thought it would be fun if we could get a league going composed primarily of people from DGR. Post in this thread or send me a PM if you're interested and maybe we can get something rolling!

[JimW]

It's funny how, in an industry where players make incredible salaries and are often perceived as greedy, just looking for the biggest paycheck, and lacking in loyalty, a guy is being derided as a fool because he's satisfied with just $44 million and sticking with the team that he started out with for the next decade.

That being said, it is a pretty crazy contract. The guaranteed $17.5 million for the first six seasons is pretty normal (it's actually $20.5 million guaranteed overall though, the first club option has a $3 million buyout), it appears low for a player of his caliber but that's because it was signed a week into his major league career instead of after a couple years of proven major league performance like most arbitration-year buyout contracts. He gave up some money in exchange for not having to risk a year or two of possible injury/underperformance before having the chance to get his first payday. I dislike the author's use of Kershaw as a comparison because in that paragraph he's talking about the time before free agency and while Kershaw may well earn a bunch of extra money over Longoria he may also tear his rotator cuff in his third start of the season and never make more than $500K in baseball.

The club options of course are where it gets amazing. There's no doubt it's a fantastic deal for the Rays and will probably seriously underpay Longoria compared to what his peers will get. I'm very surprised that he signed a contract with those options.

In the end though I say "so what?" Maybe Longoria realizes that $44 million plus pay from endorsements and such is a hell of a lot of money even after taxes and assuming he's healthy/playing well enough that he'd be missing out on money from his previous contract then his next contract will be pretty damn big too despite him being 31 when signing it. Maybe he's just a guy that really doesn't care if he's the best paid player at his position or anything like that and he recognizes that if you're the kind of person who just wants to live a relatively normal life instead of spending crazy money on cars, boats, Vegas, whatever then it really doesn't make a damn bit of difference whether you made $150 million or $210 million. It's not like he didn't know what he was getting into when he signed the contract, I'm sure his agent was warning him against it in the strongest possible terms and explained just how much money he'd be missing out on.

There were some other things in the article I didn't like.

But those back-side options are just killers. $7.5 million as a 28-year-old? $11 million at 29? $11.5 at 30? This is the kind of thing that should get agents fired.

This is just dumb. As I said in the above paragraph there's no way his agent was recommending that he sign the contract, he would have known that he was watching a prize client sign away tons of agent commision with that contract. Longoria is the one and only person responsible for the decision to sign, I can guarantee he was going against his agent's advice to agree to that.

And what's worse, the option years pretty much ensure he won't get a mega-deal when he finally hits the market; he'll be heading into his age-31 season. Coincidentally, the Yankees will be preparing to pay 41-year-old Alex Rodriguez $20 million for his 2017 services. Think teams will be eager to put Longoria in the same position? I doubt it.

I agree that GMs and owners are gradually getting a little smarter and more careful about giving away huge contracts (the current economy is helping with that too) but you're seriously naive and inattentive if you believe that A-Rods contract is actually going to deter teams from throwing huge amounts of money at other stars in the future, even ones on the wrong side of the 30. Longoria won't get a 10-year contract of course but he should have no trouble getting 5-6 years at the market rate for a player of his caliber. Superstars are where you actually want to be throwing big contracts around because they tend to be worth it (and they age much better than average players). The contracts that really screw over teams are the big ones given to players that are merely above average (and sometimes not even that). When you sign Alfonso Soriano, Vernon Wells, Barry Zito, Gary Matthews Jr., Carlos Lee, Juan Pierre, etc. to long contracts with high AAVs that's how teams get screwed over and hamstrung on payroll because they're paying gobs of money to players who are in no way worth it. A superstar may take up a lot of your payroll but he also makes your team significantly better.

[Frank Delicious]

I agree with a lot of what you are saying in the sense that Longoria probably doesn't care about being the highest paid player ever and just wants some guaranteed money but I think you missed the point a little

I agree that GMs and owners are gradually getting a little smarter and more careful about giving away huge contracts (the current economy is helping with that too) but you're seriously naive and inattentive if you believe that A-Rods contract is actually going to deter teams from throwing huge amounts of money at other stars in the future, even ones on the wrong side of the 30. Longoria won't get a 10-year contract of course but he should have no trouble getting 5-6 years at the market rate for a player of his caliber. Superstars are where you actually want to be throwing big contracts around because they tend to be worth it (and they age much better than average players).

The article isn't saying A-Rod's contract is going to deter people from handing out new contracts, the article was saying that no one is going to pay a 31 year old Longoria $20 million. What Longoria does, by being under contract until 31 is play through the years where a player can usually get a nice contract that takes them from 28-34 with a high AAV because teams are willing to overpay for the later years knowing they will get good production in the first years. His AAV is going to be significantly lower (unless he becomes Pujols) when signing a contract at 31.

I liked the article b/c it looked at contracts from the player side instead of the owners side.

This old guy contract talk reminds me, I read a quote recently from Jermaine Dye that pretty much said he was shocked that no one has signed him yet. Which considering how the FA market shook out this winter he is probably the only one shocked by it.

Also Mr. Plow, I'd be down with the DGR fantasy league, I haven't been one in a few years and would love to get my feet wet again.

[Mr. Plow]

Also Mr. Plow, I'd be down with the DGR fantasy league, I haven't been one in a few years and would love to get my feet wet again.

Sweet, I'll start up a new thread then so it might get a little more attention.

[JimW]

The article isn't saying A-Rod's contract is going to deter people from handing out new contracts, the article was saying that no one is going to pay a 31 year old Longoria $20 million. What Longoria does, by being under contract until 31 is play through the years where a player can usually get a nice contract that takes them from 28-34 with a high AAV because teams are willing to overpay for the later years knowing they will get good production in the first years. His AAV is going to be significantly lower (unless he becomes Pujols) when signing a contract at 31.

I disagree though and that was the point I was making. A-Rod is being used as the example because he was signed to a huge deal in his thirties and the author says that having him being paid that much at 41 with the expected performance decline at that age will deter teams from giving out a huge deal to Longoria when he is 31. I don't think that will happen if Longoria is performing as expected at that age because superstars usually age well and teams are still going to be willing to pay him lots of money on a 5-6 year contract. A-Rod being overpaid at 41 won't do much to keep that from happening.

[Mark Ellis]

Win a baseball? What am I supposed to do with a baseball?

Baseball only exists because it has slightly more action than soccer. Boy those pitchers battles are fascinating! Hours and hours of no scoring. If it were years and years of no scoring then it could represent my high school experience.

So in highlights of baseball games (the closest I can get to watching) when the home run ball goes into the stands I see fans fighting over the ball. You know none of them play the game. Why do they want the ball? What are they going to do with it?

[marmoset]

...when the home run ball goes into the stands I see fans fighting over the ball. You know none of them play the game. Why do they want the ball? What are they going to do with it?

Trade bait for DGR.

[Frank Delicious]

I disagree though and that was the point I was making. A-Rod is being used as the example because he was signed to a huge deal in his thirties and the author says that having him being paid that much at 41 with the expected performance decline at that age will deter teams from giving out a huge deal to Longoria when he is 31. I don't think that will happen if Longoria is performing as expected at that age because superstars usually age well and teams are still going to be willing to pay him lots of money on a 5-6 year contract. A-Rod being overpaid at 41 won't do much to keep that from happening.

Oh, my bad. I misread you then.

also on a Projections note, I looked up Longoria's stats on Fangraphs and see that James is the only one predicting him to get over 100 RBIs, over 30 homers and has really upped his SLG and ISO (although his projection is close to Evan's 08 season). Do you think James is overvaluing Longoria's power or Chone and others are undervaluing it? I kinda see James view here and think Longoria is going to improve or at least maintain last year's power levels.

p.s. Rays suck, Go O's.