Comments on: Bang for the Buck: Pitchers

By: Gary D

Gary D — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:38:36 +0000

When Jason Varitek gets to the Hall of Fame, the employee at the door is going to ask him to buy a ticket if he wants to come inside the museum. What are you brain surgeons going to say next, Jake Gibbs is a freaking Hall of Famer?

By: Gary D

Gary D — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:30:33 +0000

Yankees: Immediately go sign Ben Sheets for one year at the $10 million a year with performance incentives that a washed-up Andy Pettitte wouldn’t take and watch the baseball world drool.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:22:24 +0000

Wow. There’s an exact science for you. The MRIs never lie. To hell with it — pay him $16 million.

If there was no health issue, what’s your thinking on why he stunk up the joint so bad after the All Star Break? You don’t give up a 5.35 ERA, a 1.53 WHIP and a .302 batting average against for no reason. What’s your theory exactly?

By: BJ

BJ — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:19:46 +0000

The problem that I have with your line of thinking is that getting value (which here is exclusively on the field value) equal to investment (in this case slightly higher than investment) is a bad thing. The thing you have to keep in mind is that value is defined by what people are spending for a win on the free agent market. In this way, if you are giving contracts to free agents, you have to pretty much presume that the value you will get is going to be equal to the amount you are paying. In fact, on long term deals, you presume that the the value you will get in the last few years is less than the amount paid, as you expect value to diminish and many contracts are backloaded, and these factors combined can be greater than inflation.

The way you become “efficient” is by using cost controlled players who have not yet hit the free market. The Yankees have not really employed this strategy and have not been in a position to do so, but with the farmhands maturing they look to be able to do so in the future. Still, considering that the Yankees’ strategy was to go on the free market and find players to fill their needs, you cannot be disappointed that they have a return equal to investment, especially when performance has been so high for so long.

By: tommiesmithjohncarlos a/k/a Ridiculous Upside

tommiesmithjohncarlos a/k/a Ridiculous Upside — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:01:52 +0000

ICWUDT

By: BJ

BJ — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:56:18 +0000

tRA FTW

ERA is definitely flawed (takes into account fielding) but FIP does not include enough. tRA adds in pretty much everything that a pitcher can do to contribute to a win, so is the best for these purposes.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:50:57 +0000

That said, neither you nor I nor the Yankees know if he’s injured.

The Yankees sent him for 2 MRI’s in the second half last year, so I think they have a pretty good idea of his health. They’ve also said that he had a shoulder injury that was less severe than Joba’s.

By: BJ

BJ — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:48:39 +0000

Just wanted to add that this only applies if the opponent is league average as well. But yeah, it does show how much more important the starters are. Still, the author leaves out the fact that a league average starter would be a .12 advantage for approximately 1/5 of the games, while a league average bullpen would would be a .03 advantage for all of the games. The starter IS more important and less replaceable, but not by as much as the author implies.

By: ikl

ikl — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:11:49 +0000

Most pitchers look bad when you only consider their worst stretch of the season. Pettitte has a long track record and isn’t especially injury prone. If the Yankees think that he was bad in the second half because he was hurt, then fine. Since he was on their team, they should have a better read on the situation than anyone else does. If not, then you are just cherry-picking stats to make Pettitte look bad.

Of course Pettitte could get hurt. Pitchers get hurt a lot. It is a risk for any pitcher. At his age, I wouldn’t want to give him a long term contract. But a one year deal really isn’t too big a risk and has plenty of upside. Look at what Mussina did last year. It could go either way. If the expected value is a sub-par Pettitte season is significantly better than $12 Mil, then this looks like a good risk.

By: Mike A.

Mike A. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:09:31 +0000

Also, some people are taking my “at some point, something has to give line” as “they need to stop spending.” At means that something’s going to have to change soon, and that could just as easily mean more – and lots more – winning.