Stroman to Mets for Kay, Woods Richardson

[Schad]

I'd really like to know what the metrics are on MLB prospects. Essentially what are the odds that a decent prospect can in fact become a productive everyday player/rotation pitcher?

Giving Stroman away for:

• A solid 18 year old prospect who in 5 years may just as easily end up in an all-star game, forgetting baseball to pursue higher education and a professional career, or anywhere in between;
• along with a 24 year old Anthony Kay, tossing 6.6 ERA in AAA (by comparison, at his age, Stroman already had 30 major league starts, 15-6 with a 3.32 ERA).

The easiest way to look at it is surplus value...ie., in the aggregate, the value of their production versus what they'd be paid over their years of team control.

This is where team evaluation gets a little tricky, though; using Fangraphs' numbers, the average by surplus value for a pitching prospect at the FV 50, 45+ and 45 level is $21m, $6m and $4m respectively. Right now, SWR and Kay are listed as 45+ and 45; that'd be about $10m in surplus value, where Stroman's worth about $27m (possibly plus a bit depending on how one values the possible comp pick).

So on that score, it's quite light. However, it's also pretty variable; if you rate SWR a bit higher, as a fringe top 100 prospect (and he might actually be that when the ratings are redone at season's end), you're now looking at about $23-27m...still not a spectacular return, but a totally acceptable one. This is why people need to be a little careful with rankings. It generally takes a bit for the consensus to catch up with results; Alford was still quite highly ranked despite performing miserably, and if you just looked at the rankings he was far more valuable than any rational observer would believe, until suddenly his rankings cratered (almost 18 months after the fact).

[fbalmeida]

We kept Ricky Romero at a younger age, re-signed him for 5 years, how did that work out rather than grabbing some prospects. Rather than having him even be a #4-5 starter when we were good enough we had to get Buerhle or Dickey, or another reilable starter to finish off a respectable playoff rotation rather than relying on anyone from within.

Romero was Anthony Kay's age when we signed him. His case just baffled everyone.

An underlying question to ask about rebuilding is if an 80 to 90 win season is preferable to a losing season. I believe it is. Emphatically so. A sustainable winning culture is what breeds championships. We had that prior to 92+93.

At any rate, we will always need the extra-pitcher. In 92, after adding Jack Morris in the off-season to an already strong rotation, we still landed David Cone via trade, and relegated David Wells to the bullpen.

[Schad]

Romero was Anthony Kay's age when we signed him. His case just baffled everyone.

An underlying question to ask about rebuilding is if an 80 to 90 win season is preferable to a losing season. I believe it is. Emphatically so. A sustainable winning culture is what breeds championships. We had that prior to 92+93.

At any rate, we will always need the extra-pitcher. In 92, after adding Jack Morris in the off-season to an already strong rotation, we still landed David Cone via trade, and relegated David Wells to the bullpen.

We aren't going to be an 80-90 win team, and it ceases to be sustainable pretty quickly if we're forgoing young talent in favour of older, more expensive players.

I'm also pretty dubious about the 'winning culture'. Houston's win totals went 56, 55, 51, 70, 86, 84, 101 (won World Series). The Royals have been one of the most consistently pathetic teams in the league until they happened to have their talent line up, at which point they made the Series twice in a row, winning once. Talent creates winning cultures, rather than the other way around. That our World Series wins came at the tail end of that era rather than the beginning is more a product of bad luck (and later, good luck) than culture.

[dagger]

So he should have said "We feel that if he keeps up his progress so far that next year, he could be one the most exciting prospects in baseball". Not "right now". Typical Ross Atkins speak.

Actually, he already is. Its just that prospect lists tend to lag behind on these things.

https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2019/7/29/8934275/toronto-blue-jays-new-york-mets-simeon-woods-richardson-anthony-kay-marcus-stroman-trade-deadlne

OK I agree and I've read about him already and I have hope, but when someone says "one of the most exciting", in baseball, my understanding is that there are 30 teams and a lot of teams have "exciting prospects" that when you add them all up could be in the 60-80 range. When one says "one of the best" i'm thinking top10. And I view Bo Bichette as top10 and "one of the best propsects". Is Simeon Woods Richardson? Maybe to the Jays, but all of baseball? Ok..lets settle down. Anthony Kay had a dominating stretch in AA ball this year and then look at him now in AAA - so we'll see. Anthony Alford was "exciting" 2 years ago and look at him now. I have hope for SWR, but lets not put that much pressure on the young kid, its going take while..he's 18.

I'm kind of intrigued, more so than usual, by a projectable 18 year old who has just made it to his fourth minor league level in 13 months with an 11 per 9 inning K rate.

[BigLeagueChew]

Romero was Anthony Kay's age when we signed him. His case just baffled everyone.

An underlying question to ask about rebuilding is if an 80 to 90 win season is preferable to a losing season. I believe it is. Emphatically so. A sustainable winning culture is what breeds championships. We had that prior to 92+93.

At any rate, we will always need the extra-pitcher. In 92, after adding Jack Morris in the off-season to an already strong rotation, we still landed David Cone via trade, and relegated David Wells to the bullpen.

That's the goal. Am not interested in just appearing in the playoffs as a wild card team and having a less than %5 chance of winning the world series when you get in the playoffs. You need to be the best team in the league and we're not getting there by spending $200 million. But maybe we will eventually spend that much if our team is sustainably good enough.

Romero had a very good season in ERA under 3.00 but his FIP indicated it was a very lucky ERA under 3.00.

If I had to guess Stroman's era is going to go up the remainder of this season, this is the first year he has outperformed his FIP so far. part of that was luck , other part is the Jays infield wasn't as terrible as last year..ie 7 different shortstops, injured Donaldson, Travis+ etc.

[polo007]

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[And1Skip]

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[guvernator]

While SWR is 18, it doesn't necessarily mean he is far away from the majors. I mean jays seem to be agree with mets' assessment that hes ready for A+. So if he doesn't stumble in dunedin for rest of the year, its not out of the realm of possibility that he could be starting AA as a 19 year old. As long as the command holds up, he will arrive sooner rather than later. Having said that, TINSTAPP.

[gundysmullet]

Romero was Anthony Kay's age when we signed him. His case just baffled everyone.

An underlying question to ask about rebuilding is if an 80 to 90 win season is preferable to a losing season. I believe it is. Emphatically so. A sustainable winning culture is what breeds championships. We had that prior to 92+93.

At any rate, we will always need the extra-pitcher. In 92, after adding Jack Morris in the off-season to an already strong rotation, we still landed David Cone via trade, and relegated David Wells to the bullpen.

We aren't going to be an 80-90 win team, and it ceases to be sustainable pretty quickly if we're forgoing young talent in favour of older, more expensive players.

I'm also pretty dubious about the 'winning culture'. Houston's win totals went 56, 55, 51, 70, 86, 84, 101 (won World Series). The Royals have been one of the most consistently pathetic teams in the league until they happened to have their talent line up, at which point they made the Series twice in a row, winning once. Talent creates winning cultures, rather than the other way around. That our World Series wins came at the tail end of that era rather than the beginning is more a product of bad luck (and later, good luck) than culture.

Excellent post! Thus far I do not believe that Shatkins is the right management but I hope I am wrong.

[dagger]

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[fbalmeida]

Romero was Anthony Kay's age when we signed him. His case just baffled everyone.

An underlying question to ask about rebuilding is if an 80 to 90 win season is preferable to a losing season. I believe it is. Emphatically so. A sustainable winning culture is what breeds championships. We had that prior to 92+93.

At any rate, we will always need the extra-pitcher. In 92, after adding Jack Morris in the off-season to an already strong rotation, we still landed David Cone via trade, and relegated David Wells to the bullpen.

We aren't going to be an 80-90 win team, and it ceases to be sustainable pretty quickly if we're forgoing young talent in favour of older, more expensive players.

I'm also pretty dubious about the 'winning culture'. Houston's win totals went 56, 55, 51, 70, 86, 84, 101 (won World Series). The Royals have been one of the most consistently pathetic teams in the league until they happened to have their talent line up, at which point they made the Series twice in a row, winning once. Talent creates winning cultures, rather than the other way around. That our World Series wins came at the tail end of that era rather than the beginning is more a product of bad luck (and later, good luck) than culture.

The literature certainly says it was unspeakably bad luck that denied the Jays the title in 85.

I'd agree that mortgaging solid prospects for title runs is risky and unnecessary business, while submitting that there is more than one way to skin the world series cat. I've never understood that the quest to increase a baseball's team talent base should come at the expense of winning. It's sufficient for me to know that it is perfectly possible to balance a healthy scouting operation, farm system, and a winning team, simultaneously. Looking at baseball's current and past hegemons, two main trends emerge.

1. Rebuilding while losing heavily, followed by two to three seasons of rapid ascension to dominance.
2. A decade of lurking in or around the 80 to 90 win zone, with spurts of excellence and championship winning seasons.

Extending Stroman, for instance, would've garnered us roughly 5-to-10 extra wins every season vs starting someone hopelessly ineffective in his place. The difference, perhaps, in finishing close or around to a .500 record versus finishing around 60 wins to 70 wins. I think it's important to keep the team on the inner orbit of a playoff spot, and If every transaction thus far had been sought with a similar intent of balancing the starting roster with prospects, that's where we'd probably be.

[Schad]

The literature certainly says it was unspeakably bad luck that denied the Jays the title in 85.

I'd agree that mortgaging solid prospects for title runs is risky and unnecessary business, while submitting that there is more than one way to skin the world series cat. I've never understood that the quest to increase a baseball's team talent base should come at the expense of winning. It's sufficient for me to know that it is perfectly possible to balance a healthy scouting operation, farm system, and a winning team, simultaneously. Looking at baseball's current and past hegemons, two main trends emerge.

1. Rebuilding while losing heavily, followed by two to three seasons of rapid ascension to dominance.
2. A decade of lurking in or around the 80 to 90 win zone, with spurts of excellence and championship winning seasons.

Extending Stroman, for instance, would've garnered us roughly 5-to-10 extra wins every season vs starting someone hopelessly ineffective in his place. The difference, perhaps, in finishing close or around to a .500 record versus finishing around 60 wins to 70 wins. I think it's important to keep the team on the inner orbit of a playoff spot, and If every transaction thus far had been sought with a similar intent of balancing the starting roster with prospects, that's where we'd probably be.

I agree with most of this, with one exception: Stroman isn't worth anything close to 5-10 extra wins. He is worth about 3, in the main. Perhaps 4 this season, though that's a career high. That's a good player, but only the most elite are worth 5-10...only 8 players in all of baseball were worth 7+ wins.

And the second option is made much more difficult in the AL East. We did the "decade of lurking in or around the 80-90 zone"...it was called the Ricciardi era. Those teams were better than they are given credit for, but in the AL East, that doesn't matter. You can't merely be pretty good in these parts: unless it corresponds with a time when two of the Rays/Sox/Yankees are having a down period, you need to be one of the best teams in baseball to even get a sniff of the Wild Card. We cannot build to be solid and hope to occasionally exceed that.

[fbalmeida]

The literature certainly says it was unspeakably bad luck that denied the Jays the title in 85.

I'd agree that mortgaging solid prospects for title runs is risky and unnecessary business, while submitting that there is more than one way to skin the world series cat. I've never understood that the quest to increase a baseball's team talent base should come at the expense of winning. It's sufficient for me to know that it is perfectly possible to balance a healthy scouting operation, farm system, and a winning team, simultaneously. Looking at baseball's current and past hegemons, two main trends emerge.

1. Rebuilding while losing heavily, followed by two to three seasons of rapid ascension to dominance.
2. A decade of lurking in or around the 80 to 90 win zone, with spurts of excellence and championship winning seasons.

Extending Stroman, for instance, would've garnered us roughly 5-to-10 extra wins every season vs starting someone hopelessly ineffective in his place. The difference, perhaps, in finishing close or around to a .500 record versus finishing around 60 wins to 70 wins. I think it's important to keep the team on the inner orbit of a playoff spot, and If every transaction thus far had been sought with a similar intent of balancing the starting roster with prospects, that's where we'd probably be.

I agree with most of this, with one exception: Stroman isn't worth anything close to 5-10 extra wins. He is worth about 3, in the main. Perhaps 4 this season, though that's a career high. That's a good player, but only the most elite are worth 5-10...only 8 players in all of baseball were worth 7+ wins.

And the second option is made much more difficult in the AL East. We did the "decade of lurking in or around the 80-90 zone"...it was called the Ricciardi era. Those teams were better than they are given credit for, but in the AL East, that doesn't matter. You can't merely be pretty good in these parts: unless it corresponds with a time when two of the Rays/Sox/Yankees are having a down period, you need to be one of the best teams in baseball to even get a sniff of the Wild Card. We cannot build to be solid and hope to occasionally exceed that.

Heuristically speaking yes, but it all depends on how good his actual replacement would be. Two-thirds into the current season, the Jays are 8-13 when he starts and 6-17 when, for the sake of comparison, Aaron Sanchez does.
A +/- difference of 6.

[Schad]

That's actually a difference of three wins, not six; each win/loss is a half game (as is reflected in the standings).

That's also not the best measure, because it generally gets into things outside the pitcher's control. We have posted the same 8-13 record in games that Thornton started, but few would argue that he's been as good as Stroman. The best winning percentage in the games of any starter? Clayton Richard, whose .400 exceeds Stroman/Thornton at .381, and Sanchez at .261.

[vaff87]

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His numbers since that start are exceptional. Although, I think it’s just him finally getting some decent luck. As his FIP is 2.65 over that span, which is actually slightly higher than his 2.55 FIP on the season.

[vaff87]

The literature certainly says it was unspeakably bad luck that denied the Jays the title in 85.

I'd agree that mortgaging solid prospects for title runs is risky and unnecessary business, while submitting that there is more than one way to skin the world series cat. I've never understood that the quest to increase a baseball's team talent base should come at the expense of winning. It's sufficient for me to know that it is perfectly possible to balance a healthy scouting operation, farm system, and a winning team, simultaneously. Looking at baseball's current and past hegemons, two main trends emerge.

1. Rebuilding while losing heavily, followed by two to three seasons of rapid ascension to dominance.
2. A decade of lurking in or around the 80 to 90 win zone, with spurts of excellence and championship winning seasons.

Extending Stroman, for instance, would've garnered us roughly 5-to-10 extra wins every season vs starting someone hopelessly ineffective in his place. The difference, perhaps, in finishing close or around to a .500 record versus finishing around 60 wins to 70 wins. I think it's important to keep the team on the inner orbit of a playoff spot, and If every transaction thus far had been sought with a similar intent of balancing the starting roster with prospects, that's where we'd probably be.

I agree with most of this, with one exception: Stroman isn't worth anything close to 5-10 extra wins. He is worth about 3, in the main. Perhaps 4 this season, though that's a career high. That's a good player, but only the most elite are worth 5-10...only 8 players in all of baseball were worth 7+ wins.

And the second option is made much more difficult in the AL East. We did the "decade of lurking in or around the 80-90 zone"...it was called the Ricciardi era. Those teams were better than they are given credit for, but in the AL East, that doesn't matter. You can't merely be pretty good in these parts: unless it corresponds with a time when two of the Rays/Sox/Yankees are having a down period, you need to be one of the best teams in baseball to even get a sniff of the Wild Card. We cannot build to be solid and hope to occasionally exceed that.

Are we really supposed to take WAR literally? I just view it as a metric to measure a player’s value.

[Schad]

Are we really supposed to take WAR literally? I just view it as a metric to measure a player’s value.

It's not a situation where you can just add up the WAR of players on a team and get to their win total, definitely (a replacement-level team would win, like, 50 games perhaps?). But it is a good measure of how much you'd lose if, as we are, you're trading a player and their replacement is likely to be some AAAA scrub.

And it kinda bears out here, even using the player records (and their many flaws). Stroman's been a very good pitcher, yet we're still losing most of his starts. Jacob deGrom had a historically good season last year, and the Mets lost 56% of his starts. People tend to seriously overestimate the impact of a single player, even if that player is elite. The Angels have Trout and Ohtani and had Simmons playing at an elite level in 2017-2018, but they're probably going to miss the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season (and generally haven't even been close).

[vaff87]

Are we really supposed to take WAR literally? I just view it as a metric to measure a player’s value.

It's not a situation where you can just add up the WAR of players on a team and get to their win total, definitely (a replacement-level team would win, like, 50 games perhaps?). But it is a good measure of how much you'd lose if, as we are, you're trading a player and their replacement is likely to be some AAAA scrub.

And it kinda bears out here, even using the player records (and the many flaws). Stroman's been a very good pitcher, yet we're still losing most of his starts. Jacob deGrom had a historically good season last year, and the Mets lost 56% of his starts. People tend to seriously overestimate the impact of a single player, even if that player is elite. The Angels have Trout and Ohtani and had Simmons playing at an elite level in 2017-2018, but they're probably going to miss the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season (and generally haven't even been close).

Yeah, that sounds fair.

Also, though, aren’t WAR for pitchers and WAR for everyday players not totally equal?

[Schad]

There are a couple things there. WAR depends on which version you're using, where it's a bit more consistent with position players and can vary dramatically for pitchers. In particular, Baseball Reference and Fangraphs use different measures for determining defense (and different measures for determining league-average performance), which means that they often come up with significantly different values.

Take Vlad: the defensive metric used by BR thinks that he's been decent enough defensively, leading him to actually be worth 1 run above replacement on that front (so, 0.1 WAR). That means that his offense stands out, and he's been worth 1.3 bWAR. Fangraphs' defensive metrics think that he has been quite bad defensively (as do a lot of other measures), and consequently he has only been worth 0.2 fWAR.

There's also the matter of figuring out where replacement-level actually is, and that seems to vary more for pitchers. With Fangraphs' numbers, it's fairly hard for even a pretty bad starter to be deemed below replacement-level; Chris Archer, at -0.1 fWAR, is the only starter below replacement-level. That's a reflection of Fangraphs' model (which is based on FIP) believing that the average AAAA pitcher is a heaping trash fire, and I find it hard to disagree. They see Sanchez as someone who has been fairly bad, but also quite unlucky, and thus rate him as being below-average but still well above a AAAA scrub. Baseball Reference's model (which isn't based on FIP) thinks that the average AAAA pitcher is bad, but not that bad, and consequently rates Sanchez as below replacement-level.

I tend to use Fangraphs' version, but it's definitely imprecise. Still, it gives you a decent idea overall: Stroman's a good but not elite player, and losing him is probably going to cost us between 2.5 - 5.0 wins per year when healthy, assuming we have nothing of substance to replace him, where 2.5 is the low end of his range, and 5.0 is a season where he performs a bit better than he has in 2019.

[vaff87]

There are a couple things there. WAR depends on which version you're using, where it's a bit more consistent with position players and can vary dramatically for pitchers. In particular, Baseball Reference and Fangraphs use different measures for determining defense (and different measures for determining league-average performance), which means that they often come up with significantly different values.

Take Vlad: the defensive metric used by BR thinks that he's been decent enough defensively, leading him to actually be worth 1 run above replacement on that front (so, 0.1 WAR). That means that his offense stands out, and he's been worth 1.3 bWAR. Fangraphs' defensive metrics think that he has been quite bad defensively (as do a lot of other measures), and consequently he has only been worth 0.2 fWAR.

There's also the matter of figuring out where replacement-level actually is, and that seems to vary more for pitchers. With Fangraphs' numbers, it's fairly hard for even a pretty bad starter to be deemed below replacement-level; Chris Archer, at -0.1 fWAR, is the only starter below replacement-level. That's a reflection of Fangraphs' model (which is based on FIP) believing that the average AAAA pitcher is a heaping trash fire, and I find it hard to disagree. They see Sanchez as someone who has been fairly bad, but also quite unlucky, and thus rate him as being below-average but still well above a AAAA scrub. Baseball Reference's model (which isn't based on FIP) thinks that the average AAAA pitcher is bad, but not that bad, and consequently rates Sanchez as below replacement-level.

I tend to use Fangraphs' version, but it's definitely imprecise. Still, it gives you a decent idea overall: Stroman's a good but not elite player, and losing him is probably going to cost us between 2.5 - 5.0 wins per year when healthy, assuming we have nothing of substance to replace him, where 2.5 is the low end of his range, and 5.0 is a season where he performs a bit better than he has in 2019.

Fair enough. I like to use Fangraphs version as well. But when using that, I don’t compare the WAR of position players directly with the WAR of pitchers. For example, I don’t think Jacob deGrom necessarily should have been MVP or was necessarily more valuable last year than Yelich just because he had an fWAR of 9.0 compared to 7.6 for Yelich.