This post wasn't provoked by anything in particular, and for many of you it's all just review. Still, it's important stuff to know, and there's no better way to teach than by repeating yourself, because repeating yourself is the best way to teach.
- Last year's Mariners weren't a 640-run team. Last year's Mariners weren't a 640-run team any more than the 2007 Mariners were an 88-win team. I know, I know; the '07 Mariners did win 88 games, and the '09 Mariners did score 640 runs. But runs scored and wins recorded over a 162-game sample aren't great measures of ability, and more than what a team actually did, what we're interested in is how a team should have done. Many of you have heard this already, and I'll skip the math, but accounting for things like an anomalous performance with runners in scoring position, the '09 Mariners come out as something like a 670-680 run offense. Doing the same on the other end, by the way, yields a 660-670 run pitching/defense total.
That 640-692 run differential and 75-87 Pythagorean record? Ignore them. They're misleading. If you pay attention to wOBA for and wOBA against, you'll gain a much clearer picture. Our offense wasn't as bad as it seemed.
- You shouldn't use the previous season's numbers as the foundation of any projection going forward. I mean, you can, but it's not as simple as, say, adding Kotchman and subtracting Branyan. You want to adjust for things like, I dunno, David Aardsma's home run luck or Ichiro's inflated BABIP, and when you're taking last year's numbers and tweaking them to fit your expectations of future performance, you're basically starting over from scratch, which is the right way to do it. As you head into a new year, you should forget about what happened in the last one on a team level and create a team forecast by forecasting each individual player and adding them up. Combine a failure to do that with a stupid GM and you end up with a $48m pile of crap.
- Along similar lines, a popular argument seems to be that Cliff Lee won't represent a huge improvement, because Jarrod Washburn had a 2.64 ERA over 133 innings. That's all well and good about Washburn, but we don't care about him anymore. As soon as the 2009 season ended, we erased the whiteboard and drew up a new roster of players in the organization, and it's for that roster that Lee will be a huge boost. When Lee came in, he wasn't replacing Jarrod Washburn. He was replacing Doug Fister or Jason Vargas. That's the only improvement that matters. By raw performance, Lee won't necessarily make the rotation way better when compared to 2009, but he will make the rotation way better when compared to what it looked like without him.
- As always, ignore anyone that focuses too heavily on the Mariner offense when discussing the 2010 season. No, our offense probably won't light up many scoreboards, but for the billionth time, we only care about overall value, and in terms of overall value, we're looking all right.
Plus, in case you've forgotten, here are a few 2009 Mariner splits:
Catcher: .224/.282/.354, .280 wOBA
Shortstop: .231/.262/.335, .262 wOBA
Third Base: .247/.294/.349, .292 wOBA
Left Field: .219/.276/.333, .268 wOBA
The M's may not improve at catcher, and they'll get worse at first base, but they're likely to get way better at SS, 3B, and LF. Last year's offense wasn't as bad as its raw runs scored total, and this year's offense has more ability. Unless someone gets hurt, the situation won't be as dire as many fear.
I trust that you can understand how this bullet point and the previous one don't contradict each other.
Point #3
Easily the most abused argument of the off-season. More specifically, “Cliff Lee innings/performance only replaces Washburn/Bedard’s innings/performance.” Why some people are okay with this line of thinking I’ll never know. We already have ways of calculating Cliff Lee’s potential contribution to the 2010 team as well as the contribution of others, while starting from scratch no-less. Projections have been averaging somewhere between 82-87 wins for the team.
Even more irritating is people combining the Lee/Washburn/Bedard argument with 1st order Pythag. “Even with Cliff Lee, Mariners are only going to win 75 games!!”
ThundaPC - February 20, 2010
I had exactly that argument
With somebody a couple of weeks ago. Grasping for an analogy, I suggested that this kind of cluelessness was what led many people to be surprised by the Rays in 2008. His response? “The 2008 Rays were a fluke, and 2009 proves it!”
With some people it’s just better to ignore them; they aren’t going to climb out of their ignorant hole, and it’s just going to frustrate you when you try to hand them a ladder and they use if for firewood.
wandergeist - February 20, 2010
Then give them an aluminum ladder next time.
In other words, an argument that they can’t just break apart and burn at their whimsy.
The Typical Idiot Fan - February 21, 2010
Why do we need them to?
Let people stay in their ignorant holes. I’m not here to educate people; I’m here to learn about the game.
Llewdor - February 22, 2010
It hurts my head to think that the position held down most of the year by Rob Johnson wasn't the worst offensively.
SethGrandpa - February 20, 2010
Yuniesky Betancourt
Can make a lot of other people look surprisingly good. I think that’s why the Royals like him so much.
wandergeist - February 21, 2010
Jeff or anyone else
Maybe it’s the hour, maybe it’s the fact that for the last few hours I’ve been reading trademark cases, but I really don’t explain the differences between the Lee – Bedard/Washburn point and the improvement vs. 2009 at the four positions cited point.
It seems to me what (other) people are saying is that 2010 Cliff Lee won’t be much of an improvement (if any) over what he is replacing in terms of production from 2009. Whether it’d be a 0-run improvement or a 5-run improvement is fairly trivial at least to me for terms of understanding the argument, but logically, this makes sense.
It also seems to me that what you’re saying re the four positions you cited above that 2010 C, 2010 Jack Wilson, 2010 Chone Figgins, and 2010 Bradley/Langerhans/Saunders are mortal locks to improve on what they’re replacing in terms of production from 2009.
I realize that the Pythagorean record from last year and the overall production of the team from last year don’t factor in at all to how the team will perform in 2010. But, I also believe it was written here and other places that we were a true 83-85ish (I’m not recalling the exact number) win team by WAR last year.
My question, then, is this: when looking at the 2010 projections vs. the 2009 performances, why do we take into account the improvements that 2010 Jack Wilson will put forth over 2009 Yuni / Josh Wilson / Jack Wilson and not 2010 Cliff Lee over 2009 Washburn / Bedard?
Thanks for your patience in helping me grasp this.
andrewgolfsalot - February 21, 2010
I believe it has to do with simple regression to the mean.
in the Washburn/Lee case, 2009 Washburn (at least with the Mariners) severely over-preformed his true talent level. His production was due mainly to luck combined with the M’s outfield defense. Since luck does not carry over from one season to the next, one should ignore Washburn’s production completely when projecting the 2010 team. Cliff Lee’s projection for 2010 is what we expect to be his true talent level.
In the case of the position players, all four were significantly below average. The players involved had poor seasons for whatever reason (either bad luck or general suck) that won’t be repeated this coming season, in all likelihood. When projecting those four positions (well, maybe not catcher), one should assume players to play at their true talent level.
Did that make any sense? It’s pretty late so I’m not exactly sure.
I Lick Squirrels - February 21, 2010
Fair question
On the Lee point, Lee will not greatly improve our rotation’s raw stats when compared to 2009. However, 2009 was not our baseline going into the season. Everything went back to zero. So while Lee won’t make our rotation ERA way better than it was, he will make our rotation ERA way better than it would’ve been without him.
On the offense point, the people who think our offense is going to suck think that because they’re still thinking about what happened in 2009. But the 2009 offense wasn’t as bad as its raw runs total, and it was almost irrepeatably bad at three or four positions. So those people need to readjust their perspectives and see this year’s lineup as being independent from last year’s.
Both points are about forgetting 2009 when looking ahead to 2010. Don’t let Jarrod Washburn bias your opinion of Cliff Lee, and don’t let last year’s offense bias your opinion of this year’s offense. They’re separate.
Jeff Sullivan - February 21, 2010
Man I hope this makes sense
Jeff Sullivan - February 21, 2010
If I'm getting it then it must do.
Eyeball Kid - February 21, 2010
I remember when I had a way with words, once
I’m still not satisfied with my explanation.
Jeff Sullivan - February 21, 2010
It makes perfect sense to me
although I’m pretty sure ‘irrepeatably’ isn’t a real word.
Eyeball Kid - February 21, 2010
Me too!
Jeff Sullivan - February 21, 2010
The thing that gets me is the arbitrary nature of saying that Cliff Lee is replacing 1/2 of one season by the 2009 #3 starter.
When you could just as easily claim that he’s replacing Vargas/Fister/Olson.
You could cobble together a good slash line by picking out the 20-30 best starts of Fister/Vargas and say that Lee might not replace those too, but that misses the point – Cliff Lee is a better pitcher than any of them, and he’s making the rotation better.
The fact that it’s just half a season make it a bit stranger this year… if you use rate stats, limit the sample to half a season, focus solely on Washburn, squint a bit… you can sort of contort yourself into believing that this is a ‘problem.’
It’s sort of like saying that the M’s figure to lose two more games than they did last year because we need to ‘replace’ Langerhans’ 2 walk-off HRs. No, if we improved the team we don’t need to replace specific events from 2009.
marc w - February 21, 2010
Thanks Jeff.
This makes sense almost in its entirety. I still don’t get a piece of it, but that’s neither your doing nor very important.
Thanks.
andrewgolfsalot - February 21, 2010
Also, I should say that my opinion of Cliff Lee will never be biased by Washburn, only benefitted.
andrewgolfsalot - February 21, 2010
Lee: better!
Offense: better!
Jeff Sullivan - February 21, 2010
Overall value is NOTthe only thing that matters...
Take the edge case if the point needs a vivid illustration, but even a team that prevents all but two runs per game is shot if it can’t hardly match those two. If a starter goes out knowing that he has to be practically perfect – every night, all year – in order to win… that will eventually start to wear on him and cause his performance to deteriorate.
However, the point is only theoretical… as you established, the M’s offense is NOT anywhere near THAT bad… despite some fans’ nightmares to that effect.
KingCorran - February 21, 2010
Huh?
The ability to hit is part of the overall value.
OlSalty - February 21, 2010
In that case, the team's overall value would be low, because they never score runs ever
Jeff Sullivan - February 21, 2010
Speculative Psychology is not a predictive tool
“[Having to be perfect every night] will eventually start to wear on [a pitcher] and cause his performance to deteriorate.”
This is completely speculative psychology. We have no idea how such a thing will affect a pitcher’s performance. Maybe it “charges him up”, maybe it “wears him down”. Maybe it has almost no effect at all. We don’t know and shouldn’t pretend to.
philosofool - February 22, 2010
Not to mention every pitcher is different
And maybe the other teams might get worn down knowing they have to find a way to score on these tough M’s pitchers and airtight defense.
Whatever the case, as philosofool said, without data we’re just speculating without basis.
wandergeist - February 22, 2010
.
I learned alot from this sentence.
ToddK - February 22, 2010
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