Neil Weinberg FanGraphs Q&A – 12/17/14

Neil Weinberg: Hey all, we’ll get started at 3pm. Fill up the queue with questions about sabermetrics, data, FG, etc, but also anything and everything else you might want to discuss.

Neil Weinberg: Alright I’m sure you all have a lot of questions about the big deal of the day, so let’s talk Sergio Romo!

Neil Weinberg: I kid.

Comment From Guest
its odd how little “star player __ talking to free agent ___ to get him to stay/join his team” does not work. Ie, Buatista talking to melky. if i was melky i would have trouble saying no

Neil Weinberg: I think in general “star player” is not an influential position. Melky’s best friend on the team might matter, but there’s no reason to think you would listen to the advice of a player about where to sign just because he’s good!

Neil Weinberg: Tried to flip the display mid chat. One sec

Neil Weinberg: Oh well, we’ll live.

Comment From Schillings inner fish
Hey Neil, how awesome would it be if the A’s ran out an outfield almost every day that consisted of Fuld, Gentry, and Reddick? I feel like they should at least be exploring the possibility of Gentry in an everyday role since he’s a super good defender and Coco has a noodle arm attached to a body made of glass.

Neil Weinberg: I love Gentry. I want to see him get 600 PA somewhere.

Comment From mikecws91
I have a hard time believing 3/42 for Melky is an overpay. What do you think?

Neil Weinberg: I like it. You’re paying him to be a 2-2.5 win player (which he is) and only for 30-32. Solid

Comment From meghantron
if you were billy beane, and the minor leaguers exchanged were similar, would you prefer dee gordan or marcus semien?

Neil Weinberg: Semien?

Comment From mtsw
What’s more likely: Orioles are just waiting out the FA market for bargains a la 2014 Nelson Cruz or Angelos is preventing Dan Duquette from increasing payroll over 2014 levels pending the outcome of the MASN lawsuit?

Neil Weinberg: I think they went into the offseason expecting to look around the margins (ala Morse) but haven’t found the right fit. If you aren’t looking for an ace, this is a bad market. I still think they are more in on Scherzer than they let on

Comment From mtsw
How much does the Rays’ willingness to trade Wil Myers decrease his trade value in and of itself? Seems like the equivalent of selling a car with 5,000 miles on it. The fact that you want to get rid of it signals to other teams that you know about something seriously wrong with it.

Neil Weinberg: Not really. If someone approaches you and says they want to buy that car for more than you think it’s worth, you should sell it. If the Rays like Wil Myers but SD likes him more, they should trade him

Comment From Guest
Not that Ruggiano was exactly a difference-maker, but without him in the picture CHN can hardly pretend to even be fielding an LF platoon. Could leave it a black hole until Bryant comes up if they’re committed to him out there, but even then the fourth OF/CF picture is pretty bleak. Clearing up OF roster spot in this trade/giveaway has to mean they’re looking for someone, right?

Neil Weinberg: Cubs probably need to add someone who can play LF/CF and won’t mind doing so in a backup role later in the season.

Comment From Jake
Think Romo would’ve commanded at least $30 million if his 2014 was similar to the rest of his career? I know his slider command just died. Could be a fluke year, but no doubt he cost himself some money.

Neil Weinberg: Yeah. Had a bad walk year and it cost him. 3/30 makes sense if he had been just as good as before.

Comment From Rational Fan
Jose Quintana, a young healthy arm whose done nothing but improve since he came up, is suddenly going to have a half-run or more ERA increase? And you tell me this is the *rational* corner of baseball analysis?

Neil Weinberg: Is half a run right? Maybe not. But I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say he’s going to allow more HR in 2015 than he did in 2014.

Comment From Matt
If Myers is on the move, could you see Zobrist being dealt too? Lot of demand for 2B in LA,TOR,WAS….in fact Washington is rumored to be in on the deal anyways. AJ Cole seems like a Ray

Neil Weinberg: Wouldn’t surprise me to seem them deal Zobrist, especially because he’ll get back something better than Heaney. Rays have a lot of stuff in the air, and it really depends on what they get back for Myers – prospects or MLB ready players.

Comment From Hammer2
In regards to the projection on Brandon Finnegan, how does Steamer handle such little data from him? Looks like he’s been given league average rates basically. Is it regression? And if so, wouldn’t it make sense to project him LOWER than league rates given his small data. A pitcher with a league average K/BB/HR rates is a pretty good little player (no pun intended).

Neil Weinberg: Projection is going to just rely on what little data it has and be very cautious. Some people use college info too. Basically, if there’s limited data, the projection isn’t that useful

Comment From s
What is your stance on the “front office baseball ops members are woefully underpaid” argument and do you think it will ever change?

Neil Weinberg: They are underpaid, especially at the lower levels, but there’s such a large supply of capable people for some of those jobs that teams aren’t going to throw money at people the way you would see in a lot of industries.

I think the real issue is that the financial difference between a winning regularly and winning semi-regularly (i.e. the difference an awesome front office could make) is not high enough that you can convince ownership to give you more money. Like, can you prove that an ops employee should make 75K instead of 35K and will you lose them if you don’t pay them that?

Neil Weinberg: I think we’ll see higher salaries for the big shots, but not much growth for the average person

Comment From Guest
Everyone can see when a car has 5000 miles on it, don’t have to have special insight to know that’s a risky buy.

Neil Weinberg: But that’s not proof that those insights exist. I recently bought a slightly used car for like $16K. If someone offered me $18K for it today, I would sell it whether I knew it was really worth 16 or if it was actually worth 5.

Comment From Phillies113
Is there a way to look at projections for past seasons on Fangraphs? Like, Steamer projections for 2011, for example.

Neil Weinberg: http://www.bbprojectionproj…

Comment From Guest
What’s the best way to sort through year-to-year changes in numbers? For instance, I think someone recently wrote an article isolating the biggest changes from 2013 to 2014 in a stat. That sounds like a lot of work to export to excel, then going down the list of each player and subtracting the difference year-to-year. Any quicker way?

Neil Weinberg: Here’s how I would do it. Download the stats from our site using the little export button. Open them up as two sheets in excel. Go to the more recent sheet (ie 2014) and use VLOOKUP to bring in the relevant stats for 2013, then create a column to compare. If you know what you’re doing, that’s

Comment From Guest
Who does CHN reasonably have for CF? Alcantara? Coghlan/Valaika? Junior Lake??????

Neil Weinberg: I assume Alcantara will get most of the reps

Comment From Brian
Buster thinks the AL Central is the best division in baseball, mostly due to the high caliber pitching. what says you?

Neil Weinberg: Would have said AL West for sure before the OAK trades. Not sure if that’s tipped the balance.

Comment From Guest
who would you rather have on your team, Bauts or Edwin

Neil Weinberg: Joey Bats

Comment From Guest
jason heyward to the cardinals this offseason is crazy!!!!!

Neil Weinberg: Is this a comment from the past?

Comment From Steamer
What’s the best pizza you’ve ever had?

Neil Weinberg: I am partial to a place called Pizza House in Ann Arbor/East Lansing. That’s the best pizza I’ve had regularly at least

Comment From Guest
TREBEK CONSIDERED LEAVING JEOPARTY HOW COULD HE DOES THIS TO ME

Neil Weinberg: Projections for him are still pretty good.

Comment From Jake
Think a Denorfia/Blanco platoon would be an acceptable thing to do for SF if they acquire a starter and/or 3B? Denorfia has hit lefties well in his career (123 wRC+) but struggled with about everything last year. Could be a cheap late option for SF.

Neil Weinberg: Blanco himself isn’t bad as a starter, so Denorfia as a backup/platoon works for me.

Comment From Guest
the word in my industry (law) is that you take a pay cut if you want to do sports or entertainment. it’s the nature of the beast, because so many ppl would be glad to do it.

Neil Weinberg: Yeah, I don’t know how official these numbers are, but data scientist/analyst type jobs in other industries pay crazy well relative to MLB jobs I’m aware of….the value of working in baseball ought to be build into what people want as far as salary is concerned, but you’re not going to attract the same level of talent as if you paid more. I just don’t think teams expect higher enough benefits to bother

Comment From Guest
have you ever homebrewed beer, home-fermented wine, or home-distilled spirits?

Neil Weinberg: No. I don’t really drink. Couldn’t tell you the last time I did.

Comment From Snid
Can it be possible to change the way a hitter hits? Could a ground ball hitter change to hit more fly balls?

Neil Weinberg: Definitely. Guys make swing adjustments a lot and that can lead to a change in profile

Comment From dom
the qualifying offer system is terrible. will it be changed next CBA? there’s already luxury taxes and revenue sharing why is baseball punishing teams trying to get better by taking away draft picks/why would the union agree to put a hindrance on what its star players can earn?

Neil Weinberg: I assume the system will change, but the QO is a way to depress salaries. All the talk of competitive balance is really just about making is sound better. Union will try to eliminate, teams will try to keep.

Comment From Matt
If the MLBPA agreed to represent Minor League players, how would it change the game? Wouldn’t it only help major leaguers because if potential replacement cost more, teams will pay major leaguers more. I really only see it hurting the owners pocket.

Neil Weinberg: There’s a $9 billion pie. Some of that goes into non-discretionary operations, rest is salaries and profit. If MiLB players get a bigger slice of the pie, someone gets less. Owners and MLBPA don’t want less and most of the MiLB players will never be part of MLBPA. It’s a bad situation for minor leaguers

Comment From dom
re Headley; does 3B defense age differently, than say, OF or middle infield defense?

Neil Weinberg: Hmmm I’m trying to remember if there was a study about this or someone I talked to was just talking about it, but I think positions that require speed versus reaction age differently. But I’m not sure!

Comment From dom
opinion on the “Selig Experience” museum Brewers are going to create?

Neil Weinberg: The name kills me. Experience?

Comment From mtsw
Hypothetically, if the MLB abandoned the draft (along with rookie salary scale, arb years etc) and just had all incoming players be free agents, who would benefit more: smart teams or rich teams?

Neil Weinberg: Rich teams.

Comment From A. Hopkins
What does the end of the Cuban Embargo mean for players still in Cuba?

Neil Weinberg: Presumably, much easier jump to MLB.

Comment From JayT
Do you guys ever run your projections on past seasons using the actual number of plate appearances the people had to see how well the projection matches up with reality?

Neil Weinberg: People run all sorts of tests on the projections. That link I dropped earlier has other links to studies of projections. THT has a post tomorrow I think about testing them. Not sure if PA is much of a focus, but usually included somewhere

Comment From EthanB
How would I go about finding, or calculating, replacement level FIP-?

Neil Weinberg: Short way, go find pitchers with 0 WAR and look at their FIP-. They will be clustered around the right number. Should be something like 120 give or take

Comment From Trapped in Detroit
Hey Neil, another Michigander here, recommend anything besides the Tigers for getting my live baseball fix come summer?

Neil Weinberg: Lansing Lugnuts or West Michigan Whitecaps do a nice job. UM has a nice college experience.

Comment From mtsw
Front office guys will never be paid more because its too tough to quantify the marginal value between having one of the 30 best guys in the world as an analyst vs the next 100 guys after that. There’s not enough separation at the top for superstar effects in pay to come into play given the limited number of jobs.

Neil Weinberg: That’s generally what I think, but there are people who swear the gap is larger than you’re saying. However, I do think we’re pretty early in the computery-analyst front office era and things have a lot of room to change

Comment From Josh I
What do the A’s do with this cash they’re sitting on after missing out on Headley? International? Maybe something crazy like Scherzer?

Neil Weinberg: I have no idea. My guess is they use it to acquire a post arb player or two.

Comment From Guest
Do players adjust their approach depending on the park they’re in? Should they?

Neil Weinberg: I don’t know, and yes if it doesn’t affect their ability to readjust once they leave

Comment From Guest
is there a convincing argument to be made that we shouldn’t be letting players into the HOF on a percentage basis, but rather an absolute value basis? that is to say, when we criticize that 25% of players with such-and-such a tenure are in the HOF from an earlier era but a much smaller percentage today, is there a reasonable rebuttal that we’re shooting for the same absolute number of players?

Neil Weinberg: I think that voters are generally protective of the good old days and aren’t great at adjusting for context. But there are way fewer new adds than their should be

Comment From Richard
What are your thoughts on Christian Bethancourt short-term? And, his projection long-term? Will he hit enough to be relevant?

Neil Weinberg: Catcher offense comes later than normal and he’s a great defender by all accounts. Very likely to me that he winds up as a solid MLB regular with long odds to be a star

Comment From DP
Is it worth giving up $90 mil & the 19th pick for Shields if you’re San Francisco?

Neil Weinberg: I think it’s possible. That means he’s got to average just under 3 wins a year for 5 years. I doubt that happens, but SF is in a position where they can afford to spend a little more than the average team on a player like him.

Comment From mtsw
Is there a racial bias in the HOF? It seems like players from Latin America are getting less consideration than American-born players. Has someone studied this?

Neil Weinberg: I don’t know about that. Interesting question.

Comment From Richard
What do you envision the Cubs OF looking like in 2014?

Neil Weinberg: placeholder/Bryant-Alcantara-Soler….assuming you mean 2015!

Comment From Matt
Is it really a pie? I’m not convinced teams just wouldn’t spend more money. I mean it isn’t like ownership could stop minor leaguers from joining the union and baseball would still be printing money.

Neil Weinberg: If MLB players let MiLBers into the union, they would bargain for better MiLB pay. Owners would allow that, but it would come at the expense of MLB salaries

Comment From mtsw
What can/will the Orioles get for Brian Matusz now that they signed another lefty specialist? Does Matusz’s former status as an elite prospect make him more valuable than his ugly numbers in 2013-14 would suggest?

Neil Weinberg: Not very much. Two years of control for like a minimum of $10 million . Not sure anyone gives up a lot for that, but his prospect status helps

Comment From mtsw
Who is the NL player who would most improve his value by being traded to an AL team where he could DH instead of playing in the field?

Neil Weinberg: Kemp comes to mind. It has to be an NL player with a DEF below -17.5. Not a lot of those guys out there.

Comment From Guest
why is it “Michigander”?

Neil Weinberg: What else would it be?

Comment From Dylan
Why is James Shields going to get so much less than Lester? He isn’t much older and they essentially have been the same player over the past 5 years. Is a good contract year really worth $50M?

Neil Weinberg: Two years older, left handed, draft pick attached.

Neil Weinberg: Alright, quick two minute break then I’ll answer a few more before we’re done. Fire off any last questions

Comment From mtsw
Do front office personnel sign non-compete agreements with their teams before being hired? Seems like the potential to conduct industrial espionage through poaching mid-level FO employees would be very high

Neil Weinberg: They sign NDA, but I don’t know what it covers specifically.

Comment From Matt
What is the trade value of someone like Eovaldi?

Neil Weinberg: Decent. Three years of control at arb prices for an MLB average starter or so who’s still pretty young.

Comment From Dylan
Another take: If Jon Lester’s 2014 looked more like his 2013, how much do you think he would have gotten?

Neil Weinberg: Shields money, give or take. 5/100?

Neil Weinberg: /looks sadly at Verlander extension

Comment From Guest
Dave’s mea culpa re: Myers trade going to finally calm down all the prospect hype around here?

Neil Weinberg: Young, cost controlled players are super valuable. Great prospects rarely bust. The game is figuring out which ones might bust and avoiding them.

Comment From mtsw
I work in a dingy old building in the financial district of NYC. Which is more likely to be clean: the air inside my building or outside my building?

Neil Weinberg: Outside?

Comment From Guest
In regard to Lester: Isn’t it concerning when it take a pitcher 3 years to make a mechanical change to strikeout righties? 2010 Lester disappeared and reappeared in 2014.

Neil Weinberg: Yeah, obviously there are red flags, but perfect players don’t get to FA very often. The potential risks are built into what Lester got paid.

Comment From mtsw
Is there a good rationale for why teams can’t trade draft picks beyond the fact it would make badly-run teams look dumb?

Neil Weinberg: League doesn’t want poor teams selling the picks, basically. But I would advocate for a rule change

Comment From Rob
Unlikely the game will ever figure out which ones will bust and which won’t. I think what the FanGraphs side needs to learn is seeing the overall picture, understanding that putting a dollar value on a win varies from organization to organization, and from different times in development. One size fits all doesn’t fit all.

Neil Weinberg: The dollar value is based on what the same level of production would cost if you had to buy it on the FA market. Obviously teams will care about that trade off in different ways. A great prospect is valuable because they’re going to provide you above average production for below average cost!

Neil Weinberg: Alright, why don’t we close up shop for the week. I don’t know what the FG holiday schedule is, but I’ll be around on Twitter if you have questions (@NeilWeinberg44) whether or not we have new chats next week.