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http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?conte ... 0&c_id=tor

Just saw this video and it gives a good explanation about the WAR (Wins Above Replacement) stat and maybe some insight into why AA thought Dickey was the final piece to this offseason puzzle. I'm not a huge baseball stat geek, but it makes sense instead of just throwing out these projections based on the cumultaive names we've added on paper and how good they look. Obviously injuries will play a huge part, but just thye 'normal' seasons for the players weve added puts us firmly into the low to mid 90s discussion. Whereas, the last few years and as long as I can remember (was in college during the 92' and 93 WS title)s, EVERYTHING had to go right for us to even think about a mid to high 80 Win season and thats no way to keep a fanbase excited.

Having watched that video, does it make you even more confident that this Blue jays team can win an extra 20 games? I was on the gradual bandwagon of maybe topping out in the high 80s in the first year before we are really ready to contend the following year and make that extra jump into an elite team. Just a lot of new faces, chemistry issues, even the discussion of where the starters will pitch in the rotation order, some weaknesses with Lind and maybe 2nd base, unsettled bullpen yet with a lot of talent. Seem slike we woudl have to go through soem sort of transition before we make such a huge leap. We got to learn to win and the guys that were here have never done that on the Blue Jays.

Buehrle 3 wins? Projects older players on the last 3 years is wrong. Need to factor in regression.

I'd be happy with 2 wins for Buehrle.

flatjacket1 wrote:Buehrle 3 wins? Projects older players on the last 3 years is wrong. Need to factor in regression.

I'd be happy with 2 wins for Buehrle.

I'd tend to agree with this statement with regards to 95% of the pitchers out there. That said, Mark Buehrle is just so Buehrle-ish, and oozes reliability.

torontoaces04 wrote:

flatjacket1 wrote:Buehrle 3 wins? Projects older players on the last 3 years is wrong. Need to factor in regression.

I'd be happy with 2 wins for Buehrle.

I'd tend to agree with this statement with regards to 95% of the pitchers out there. That said, Mark Buehrle is just so Buehrle-ish, and oozes reliability.

I agree with that. He is reliable, but last year he pitching like 200 innings and only put up 2ish fWAR.

I know you're still just learning about all of this stuff and I don't want to deter that, but you've got to stop using fWAR as if it is the holy grail of all stats while ignoring context and the particulars (and also the other stat that measures much the same thing and the stat that this program is using).

Mark Buerhle was worth 3.2 rWAR last season and has been worth above three wins using rWAR for each of the last six seasons. A bit like Dickey, he's also shown the ability over his career to keep his BABIP below the league average, so it probably makes more sense to give more weight to that stat than fWAR with him if you want to judge his overall value. Nothing suggests that age has dropped his skill level yet either.

Basically this is a long way of saying that Buerhle could very easily be a 3 win pitcher. I wouldn't be all that surprised if he isn't considering the more difficult league/ballpark transition, but the expectation should probably be for a season much like the last few.

Randle McMurphy wrote:Mark Buerhle was worth 3.2 rWAR last season and has been worth above three wins using rWAR for each of the last six seasons.

Cool because his career BABIP is .289, and last year was .270 last season, compared to .294 the year before. If you are correct, that means he can control his BABIP only in 2012... When he decided to. Because .270 looks like more of an outlier than .289 if you ask me. (or anybody who isn't new at this stuff).

I hope you are also going to the SABR conference in Phoenix, Arizona this March. I'm sure you could use it.

flatjacket1 wrote:Cool because his career BABIP is .289, and last year was .270 last season, compared to .294 the year before. If you are correct, that means he can control his BABIP only in 2012... When he decided to. Because .270 looks like more of an outlier than .289 if you ask me. (or anybody who isn't new at this stuff).

And this has exactly nothing to do with my post at all (and particularly its central issue...your single minded focus on fWAR at the expense of context, particulars, and even other value stats like rWAR which are just as relevant to player value analysis). I never claimed a .270 BABIP was sustainable or a reasonable projection for Buerhle going forward (nor is such a BABIP a prerequisite for him being a three win pitcher as he's showed repeatedly throughout his career).

I hope you are also going to the SABR conference in Phoenix, Arizona this March. I'm sure you could use it.

And you could do without the petty juvenile insults.

We weren't a 73 win team to begin with. It's more likely that we'd be going from an 80 win team to 90+. Which seems quite doable.

Randle McMurphy wrote:

flatjacket1 wrote:Cool because his career BABIP is .289, and last year was .270 last season, compared to .294 the year before. If you are correct, that means he can control his BABIP only in 2012... When he decided to. Because .270 looks like more of an outlier than .289 if you ask me. (or anybody who isn't new at this stuff).

And this has exactly nothing to do with my post at all (and particularly its central issue...your single minded focus on fWAR at the expense of context, particulars, and even other value stats like rWAR which are just as relevant to player value analysis). I never claimed a .270 BABIP was sustainable or a reasonable projection for Buerhle going forward (nor is such a BABIP a prerequisite for him being a three win pitcher as he's showed repeatedly throughout his career).

I hope you are also going to the SABR conference in Phoenix, Arizona this March. I'm sure you could use it.

And you could do without the petty juvenile insults.

Well I'm going actually so it wasn't meant as an insult. Seeing as we are both new to this, I would highly recommend you coming.

You initially cited BABIP as the reason fWAR was not accurate, but that theory was quickly shot down when recently his BABIP has been normalized except for last season. rWAR uses ERA. Buerhle could load the bases every single inning then somehow magically have a triple play turned behind him and he'd get more credit than Kershaw.

BABIP for Buehrle is around league average and only deviated last season, the reason he posted a lower fWAR total. FIP is not just a predictive stat, it measures what an ERA should be considering all the of things that the pitcher can control. Your BABIP argument made 0 sense.

flatjacket1 wrote:Seeing as we are both new to this, I would highly recommend you coming.

Not quite as new to this (unless you define new as 10 years ago). Which isn't to say a SABR conference doesn't sound like fun, but I expect to be quite busy this spring.

flatjacket1 wrote:You initially cited BABIP as the reason fWAR was not accurate

Didn't say it wasn't accurate (and if you think that was the point of my post, you've missed it). fWAR is, on the whole, quite accurate for what it attempts to measure. The point was your singled minded use of that stat at the expense of taking other factors and worthy stats into account when judging a player's value.

BABIP for Buehrle is around league average and only deviated last season

Which isn't quite true because he's managed to have a .289 BABIP over his entire 12 year career. Not significantly lower than the average to be sure, but he's definitely managed to keep it down more than the average pitcher over a long sample size.

, the reason he posted a lower fWAR total.

Actually, the chief reason he posted a lower than usual FIP (and therefore lower fWAR total) was his higher than usual HR rate (the most discouraging thing about his 2012 in my mind).

FIP is not just a predictive stat, it measures what an ERA should be considering all the of things that the pitcher can control. Your BABIP argument made 0 sense

I know what FIP is. It assumes a league average BABIP for all pitchers even though in some cases (guys like Dickey, Cain, Hellickson, and perhaps even Buerhle who have shown some extended ability to keep their BABIP down) it doesn't make sense to do that.

If there are no major injuries, the good players play at their average and the underperformers this year get back to average (Romero, Lind, Santos) or a bit above average (Lawrie/Rasmus improving), this team should absolutely break the 100 win barrier. Anything less than 95 would be a disappointment because there's been no AL East winner with less than 95 wins since 2000, and there have only been seven total since we entered the league.

I have no expectations that this team will even come close to 100 wins. Maybe top out at 95 if all goes well. To the one poster that said we werent a 73 win team - how can anyone say that? we won 73 games, didnt we? If teh reply is that we would have won more if we didnt have our starters go down and every other excuse known to man, cant every team pretty much say the same? We are a 73 win team and we obviously had no depth and couldnt deal with the adversity we faced as a team. Im in the Bill Parcells scholl of thought when he says you are what your recod says you are. If we really had won 80 games aand were a legitimate .500 ballclub, i dont think AA would have gone so far over the top to add the pieces he did and gone all in with the number of prospects he had to give away. Just teh Marlins trade would have possibly taken us to a high 80 win team because we did win 73 wins. If it had been 80 wins last year, the Marlins trade would have been enough.

magani wrote:To the one poster that said we werent a 73 win team - how can anyone say that? we won 73 games, didnt we?

Because the team had a 'true talent' level above 73 wins.

WAR and a true talent level are just new age ways of saying that we look good on paper. They are merely predictions based on historical data, but you still have to play the games. At the end of teh year when the games were played by real ballplayers, we ended up with 73 wins. Do you really think AA would have gone all in or felt the pressure to make the moves he did if we were really a 80 in team (even a predited one before the last season started)? No way. We won 73 games and that was a huge reality check for this franchise. He would have stayed teh course if we had really won 80-84 games with the team from last year. Maybe added more starting pitching depth, but would have hung on to our prospects. We were a 73 win team, period. Nobody gives a shiiet how many games we were supposed to win.

It's not only talent level, we would have been well above 73 wins had Bautista and 3/5'ths of our pitching staff not been injured. As well as the month that Lawrie had to sit. We we're easily a .500 team and above had the injuries not occured, so around 85-87 wins is where we would have been, in my opinion.

Metallikid wrote:If there are no major injuries, the good players play at their average and the underperformers this year get back to average (Romero, Lind, Santos) or a bit above average (Lawrie/Rasmus improving), this team should absolutely break the 100 win barrier. Anything less than 95 would be a disappointment because there's been no AL East winner with less than 95 wins since 2000, and there have only been seven total since we entered the league.

Should break the 100 win barrier? I guess if absolutely everything goes right they could break 100 wins but every player isn't going to meet your expectations and/or stay healthy. That's just being realistic.

I don't care how many games they win as long as they make the playoffs. 95 is generally considered a safe number for making the playoffs but I certainly wouldn't consider the season disappointing if they win less than that.

BigLeagueChew wrote:It's not only talent level, we would have been well above 73 wins had Bautista and 3/5'ths of our pitching staff not been injured. As well as the month that Lawrie had to sit. We we're easily a .500 team and above had the injuries not occured, so around 85-87 wins is where we would have been, in my opinion.

I think they were about a .500 team last year, maybe a couple of games under but definitely not a 85-87 win team.

The Jays were right at 31-31 the week all the pitchers went down in June and 45-45 the day that Jose got injured on July 16. Plus the Aug/Sept schedule was brutal playing all the top teams in the AL.

Randle McMurphy wrote:

flatjacket1 wrote:Seeing as we are both new to this, I would highly recommend you coming.

Not quite as new to this (unless you define new as 10 years ago). Which isn't to say a SABR conference doesn't sound like fun, but I expect to be quite busy this spring.

flatjacket1 wrote:You initially cited BABIP as the reason fWAR was not accurate

Didn't say it wasn't accurate (and if you think that was the point of my post, you've missed it). fWAR is, on the whole, quite accurate for what it attempts to measure. The point was your singled minded use of that stat at the expense of taking other factors and worthy stats into account when judging a player's value.

BABIP for Buehrle is around league average and only deviated last season

Which isn't quite true because he's managed to have a .289 BABIP over his entire 12 year career. Not significantly lower than the average to be sure, but he's definitely managed to keep it down more than the average pitcher over a long sample size.

, the reason he posted a lower fWAR total.

Actually, the chief reason he posted a lower than usual FIP (and therefore lower fWAR total) was his higher than usual HR rate (the most discouraging thing about his 2012 in my mind).

FIP is not just a predictive stat, it measures what an ERA should be considering all the of things that the pitcher can control. Your BABIP argument made 0 sense

I know what FIP is. It assumes a league average BABIP for all pitchers even though in some cases (guys like Dickey, Cain, Hellickson, and perhaps even Buerhle who have shown some extended ability to keep their BABIP down) it doesn't make sense to do that.

Admit it you two, you thought the world was gonna end yesterday so you both decided to try and show off your SABRepeen before leaving this earth.

magani wrote:Do you really think AA would have gone all in or felt the pressure to make the moves he did if we were really a 80 in team (even a predited one before the last season started)? No way.

For serious? Really?

Us finishing last year with 80+ wins would have made this offseason MORE likely, not less. Do you not recall all the talk about 'we'll make moves when we're just those moves away'?

He went all in not because our team was terrible, but because our team had the chance to be great.