I don't have time to put together the long replies I tend to do, so I'm taking this route: I will post the question/statement made by John Cormac in his last comment in this post and give my reply, piecemeal to this post. Thus, this post, unlike other posts, will grow over time as I add my replies to it.
"Handicapped by poor draft position" is a laughable excuse for a guy who supposedly uses metrics to look at these issues. It's a dog-ate-my-homework excuse which is belied by actual events. Sabean hasn't been hamstrung by anything - apart from when they intentionally forfeited their high picks (see the Michael Tucker incident - the analysts still laugh about that one) the Giants have deliberately chosen to use the high draft picks they have for pitching, pitching, and more pitching. This is an admitted fact - when the club was running well Sabean and Colletti would brag about it. Now that the free agent well for field players has run dry, not so much.
People seem to think that I'm this quant guy, and I am to a large extent, but I am also a touchy-feely guy as well, and can travel between the two worlds comfortably. I know enough to blend the two together (which is why they pay me the, um, bucks :^). I also know that if I go too far with the quant stuff, I'm going to lose people, so I've been doing my best to keep things as digestible as I can make them.
Also, I've written a lot over the past 6 years on the Giants, so I realize you probably haven't read all of it, but like you noted to me when I accused you of something (which I showed I was correct in interpreting what you wrote), I can't say I appreciate your labeling of my position as "laughable". What is laughable is you attacked my position without asking for further explaination. I've obviously put a lot of effort into my blog, perhaps I might have something cogent to say.
The analysts laugh because they don't understand. They don't understand that the distribution (which is a very overlooked analytical tool) is horribly skewed towards failure, they only look at the average, and even then they don't look at the average in context with what type of player that represents. When the odds of success in finding anything is low (about 10% for any successful playoff contending team), bypassing it for more immediate needs is a legitimate option.
Given how Tucker paid off for us in 2004 plus we still have Kelvin Pichardo doing well in the system for us, vs. KC's Campbell, who flamed out already (pick they got from us) and Texas's Hurley, who had a big setback to his prospect status in 2008 (some think he was the prototypical pitcher Sabean/Tidrow would like), it looks like we came out way ahead with this move.
One of my main points is that with the odds of finding any good player, whether position or pitching, is very low anyhow, even if you have a Top 5 pick overall (still much under 50%, about 40-45%), and thus by concentrating on pitching, you speed up the rebuild, make it more likely that it will be successful, and, as I've been reporting on lately, acquire the key ingredients for a successful playoff team, which is pitching, pitching and more pitching (plus defense).
And I haven't even gone into depth on that yet, been meaning to write on it, but the gist is that with a two-prong approach to the draft - pitching via a volume approach and defense which is easy to obtain - you cheaply acquire the main ingredients you need to be a successful playoff team, then supplement with whatever available premium hitters you can get on the free agent market to get the offense you need. As I noted in my "Hey Neukom" series, when you have a plus pitching staff, the offense you need to win is exponentially less because of the relationship between runs scored and runs allowed in the Pythagorean formula that Bill James developed.
The key thing to remember when you complain about the lack of position players (and really, you are talking here about good offensive position players) is that they are not crucial ingredients of a successful playoff team. The Hardball Times had an article on that a few years ago and Baseball Prospectus, after that, took another route to analyzing that and discovered the same thing: offense did not factor into why teams won, while pitching, specifically a high-strikeout pitching staff and a very effective closer, and defense did.
I look forward to reading these responses as they evolve. Hope folks don't mind me chipping in. This reply is for Part I.
ReplyDeleteOn Tucker, SF could have had its cake and eaten it too, that is, it could have had Pichardo too via the trade years later had SF waited a few days and kept SF's draft pick and then signed Tucker. One has nothing to do with the other. The issue was simply forfeiting the pick for nothing in return. Which is what occurred.
And if you're assuming that SF's pick would have been the same as KC's, well, you've made my point for me.
And your last paragraph, well put, baseball prospectus calls their version their secret sauce I think. Strikeout pitching, closer, defense are their 3 key factors.
Based on their 2008 #s, Giants actually did better than the Brew Crew, the Phillies, and the Dodgers. Hmmmm. How could this be?
Maybe because the great Nate Silver himself seems to have only discussed this metric in terms of its value in sorting out similarly situated playoff teams. That is, take the pool of 8 clubs which have gotten to the point of making the playoffs and use this tool. As 2008 demonstrates (as in 2006), it's certainly not infallible.
However, to say that emphasizing this metric in the abstract when deciding whether to make offensive improvements on a club which was next to last in MLB in runs scored in 2008? I question that but look forward to future posts.
OGC-
ReplyDeleteI like your post, I check it often, but lately I've been frequently other sights more often because you seem to be arrogant and defensive when anyone questions you. Other sights don't take differing points personally and continue on with blogging. I think you need to stop trying to embarrass John and continue blogging. It is ok to answer his question or to explain why you think different. But lately your blog has been more about you than it has been about the Giants. I hope you can get back on track because I love your blog when it is focused on the Giants.
'Tain't the pitching and development about which we complain, it's the apparent inability to get useful position players when they do pick them and the often very unfortunate FA signings.
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