Rangers Move Pieces Around; Outcome To Be Determined
The Rangers traded Ian Kinsler for Prince Fielder. You know this already. I’ve already written a post about this trade, in fact, detailing why I love this deal for the Tigers. If baseball trading were a zero sum game, this would mean that I hate this move for the Rangers, since a big win would have to be offset by a big loss on the other side. But baseball trades are not a zero sum game. There are mutually beneficial trades. The Rangers are now hoping this is one of those deals where both sides get better.
The Rangers had to move a middle infielder. They couldn’t go into 2014 with Jurickson Profar as a super utility guy behind Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler again. They had three starting middle infielders, and Kinsler wasn’t interested in becoming a starting first baseman, so shifting him over to make room for Profar probably wasn’t an option. Someone had to go.
So, in that sense, this deal is not quite as straight forward as it is from the Tigers perspective. Detroit turned a +3 WAR player into a +3 WAR player and saved a bunch of money in the process. For the Rangers, though, the context is the reason the deal got done, and simply comparing the value of the player going out with the value of the player coming in doesn’t work. This deal was made because of the other players on the roster, the ones not getting traded. So let’s try and sort this all out.
The Rangers are getting, in Prince Fielder, a player who projects for somewhere between +3 and +4 WAR next year. Steamer has him at +3.7, but as I noted in the analysis of this deal from Detroit’s perspective, that’s based on some pretty generous assumptions about his baserunning and fielding values; I’ll take the under on that, personally. Before the trade, Mitch Moreland was penciled in as their starting first baseman, and he’s a below average player, with Steamer projecting him for +1.3 WAR as a regular. This is a pretty clear upgrade for the Rangers at first base.
However, they’re also taking a downgrade at second base. Whereas Steamer saw Kinsler as a +3.3 WAR player, it only projects +1.6 WAR from Profar. If you take these projections at face value, a Kinsler/Moreland combo is expected to produce nearly the same value as Profar/Fielder. In just a straight two-for-two analysis, this doesn’t actually seem to be a huge upgrade for the Rangers, which is a bummer given that they’re taking on an additional $76 million in salary in the trade.
But the reality is that the Rangers weren’t keeping Ian Kinsler. They like Jurickson Profar’s future an awful lot, and he was only going to have that future with the team if they traded Kinsler to make room for him. You could view all of Profar’s future value as an ancillary benefit of the trade, because if Kinsler isn’t traded, you’re probably dealing Profar away for whatever short-term upgrade you can make instead. The Rangers are taking on a lot of extra long term salary, but they’re also creating long term value by going younger at second base instead of sticking with Kinsler and shipping out Profar.
So, if we start with the assumption that Kinsler was going to get traded this winter no matter what, then the Kinsler/Moreland hypothetical wasn’t actually an option. Not a real one, anyway. Kinsler had to go away, and with a guaranteed $62 million left on his contract, he wasn’t going to be super easy to move. Not with Robinson Cano and Omar Infante hanging out in free agency, or with the Angels shopping Howie Kendrick and the Reds making Brandon Phillips available. This was a pretty crappy winter to be trying to sell an aging second baseman making $15.5M per year for the next four years.
Let’s assume, then, that there’s a good chance the Rangers would have had to pay a portion of Kinsler’s salary simply to give him away. Phillips makes $50 million over the next four years, and is probably viewed as a better player by a good portion of MLB teams, based on his superior athleticism and defense, and the fact that Kinsler’s skills are generally undervalued. To make Kinsler a superior option to trading for Phillips, the Rangers might have had to market Kinsler as a $40 million player, picking up $22 million of the cost to woo buyers away from Cincinnati. That doesn’t mean that Kinsler is actually overpaid by $22 million, but that in this particular market, it would be very difficult for the Rangers to move him without giving a discount in order to do so.
If you’re Jon Daniels, and you want to move Ian Kinsler and acquire a first baseman, it isn’t that hard to see this as a potentially better option than just paying to get rid of Kinsler and then bidding up a free agent first baseman. After all, with the Tigers kicking in $30 million, and the $22 million that you aren’t paying to dump Kinsler, now the effective cost of Fielder’s total contract might be viewed as low as $116 million. That’s $16.5 million per year for the next seven years. Fielder’s probably overrated, but that’s not an outrageous commitment for an above average first baseman, especially given the way the market prices power hitters.
Even in the midst of his down season, I guessed that the Tigers would have to pay $48 million to dump Fielder’s contract. They actually paid $30 million, so if you think that Kinsler was a negative $18 million value based on his remaining contract, that this deal would line up with that guess spectacularly well. Given that Kinsler was blocking Profar, and it’s a tough market to be selling a second baseman, swapping Kinsler for Fielder does have some appeal.
They get a good player at a position of need, break their own positional logjam, and avoid the uncertainty of luring a buyer for Kinsler and hoping that they can get a free agent to choose them over other deep-pocketed contenders. There is value in not having your off-season plan built around outbidding the Red Sox and Yankees, after all. This deal was a bird in the hand, and while it was an expensive bird, it’s not a guarantee that pursuing an alternate strategy would have resulted in a better outcome.
That said, I think it might have been worth trying, at least. Even if we assume they would have had to pay $22 million to get rid of Kinsler and had to overpay for Mike Napoli, Napoli’s not going to cost you anything close to $116 million, so it almost certainly would have been cheaper to sign Napoli to play first base and just pay Kinsler to go away and get nothing in return. Napoli’s not as good as Fielder, but the gap isn’t enormous; Steamer has Fielder about +1 WAR better. If Napoli costs 3/45, for instance, and you pay the $22 million to dump Kinsler, then the total cost of acquiring a +2.5 WAR first baseman instead of a +3.5 WAR first baseman would have been $67 million, or basically half of the $138 million they’re going to pay Fielder instead. Is getting a slightly better player worth the extra $71 million in guaranteed money, even if it does buy you four extra years?
And the alternative didn’t have to be Napoli, if you’re not a big fan of his. Could they have signed Shin-Soo Choo for $116 million, then paid someone the $22 million to take Kinsler? Maybe you prefer Fielder to Choo, but I don’t think it’s obvious that one should. They’re probably close in expected future value, depending on how you think about how Fielder’s body is going to hold up. Maybe this is a better option than that, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t cost $22 million to get someone to take Kinsler either. Or, if you’re paying that much to get rid of him, maybe you’d get something interesting in return, and now you’re not getting that.
For the Tigers, it’s easy to see how this trade shakes out and makes them better. For the Rangers, it’s not as easy. They just got better at first base by about the same amount they got worse at second base, and now they have less money to spend than they did before. It is not obvious to me that the Rangers are now better than they were, or at least, are not better than they could have been by spending the money they’re giving to Fielder on other free agents and paying Kinsler to play for someone else.
I don’t hate this for Texas. I don’t think this is a clear loss, where they got hosed and should immediately regret their decision. They got a good player, and they opened up a spot for a kid who may very well become a very good player. But it was an expensive trade to make, and no team has unlimited resources. The Rangers just spent some of their resources to rearrange things, but I’m not sure they improved much if at all. It’s a different Rangers team. We’ll have to see if it’s a better Rangers team.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
…by switching to GEICO?
I can’t believe Texas was THAT stupid.
Hey buddy! How’s your infield shaping up for next year?
The Rangers opened up a spot to sign Robinson Cano. It’s not complicated.
Yeah. Tell him, Wash…
It’s INCREDIBLY complicated.
I think the most fascinating thing about this trade is that Fielder and Kinsler have shown themselves to be fairly high variance players in terms of season-to-performance.
Fielder’s K% and power has moved around quite a bit, as has Kinsler’s BABIP and power. It’s really hard to know which version will show up for each team, which means there’s a decent potential for the trade to look really lopsided within a year or two.
And yet Dombrowski and Daniels were willing to make the trade anyway. You hear so much about how sports is ruled by risk aversion, it’s refreshing to see the opposite behavior in play here. Especially when you add in the fact that there’s an excellent chance these two teams meet in the playoffs.
Which leads me to a side question. When’s the last time a contender like Detroit has made two significant deals with a same-league contender (Iglesias/Peavy/Garcia being the other) in such a short time period? That’s gotta take serious guts.
Dombrowski and Daniels are two of the ballsiest GMs in the game, definitely not afraid of taking the plunge.
I think that both have the Lemmy Klimaster way of doing things..Its called F### YEAH!!!….Although A.A. made an ill advised move last year it was ballsy at the time
I’m all for advanced stats and application of math in baseball, but you’ve gone overboard with projections. ZIPS projections are interesting to look at but they’re ultimately futile. These projection systems aren’t psychic.
It’s short-hand. I could walk through the expected future production based on past performance and aging curves for every player in every transaction, but all it would do is add 1,000 words to every post and not change the conclusions at all. You don’t have to agree with the forecasts, but they’re a good place to start. If you want to make a case that the forecasts are wrong, awesome, let’s hear why, and let’s see whether or not there’s a reason to believe that the models can be improved upon.
But no matter what kind of model you use, statistical or not, you have to have a future forecast in mind when evaluating any kind of decision. You have a forecast for both players, even if you don’t express it in these terms. Using these projections simply allows us to speak a common language and compare apples and oranges more easily.
I know how the projections are calculated. It just seems like they don’t leave room for a player’s improvement and people tend to cling to them like they’re gospel. I’m sure ZIPS projected Mike Trout’s WAR to be fairly low after his MLB debut.
No one clings to them like they’re gospel, and no one claims they don’t get things wrong. The question isn’t whether or not the forecasts are perfect; it’s whether or not they can do a better job of predicting the future than not using them. If you can show that the forecasts are wrong, and why, then the forecasts can be improved. If you can’t, and all you can say is that they’re not perfect, well, great, nothing’s perfect, but you still have to use something.
They are notoriously bad for younger players who do improve, find out they can’t hit a major league curve, etc, etc.
They are pretty good with veterans though and it’s pretty rare for a Marlon Byrd type of scenario. In that case, fancy projection systems, old school scouting or sports radio callers all would miss out on predicting that.
Still, it is prediction him to be a 3.7 WAR player. Every team loves having ~4 WAR players… they just don’t want to be paying them 25M in 6 years from now when they’re close to 40 which is more of Dave’s point.
While I do agree with Sneaky, many at FG cling to WAR. I’d have to guess there is some sort of WAR being used by MLB GM’s. Don’t Daniels and Dombrowski ask themselves what kind of player they are giving and then getting in return? They have to put some value on these players. And that value is based on past performance, age and salary. I don’t like the clinginess (what a word) to WAR. Especially in MVP terms Dave. But it is being used somehow. We just don’t know how. BTW, I like both articles Dave. Good job.
Sorry Dave, I have to agree with everyone else. This post is a bit far fetched. If #1 ranked prospects were expected to be worth 1.7 Wins, then they wouldn’t be top prospects. You seem to talk a lot about context without applying that same logic to this scenario. Now, I’m not saying Profar is Mike Trout, but it isn’t unreasonable to expect the same value from Profar as from Kinsler, and at a much cheaper price. Plus, Fielder is the type of player that most SABR guys rave about, high OBP, high LD%, home runs, extremely willing to wait on a good pitch, extremely durable, etc. This post just seems like a mess of philosophical contradictions from your part.
It isn’t unreasonable, but it also isn’t unreasonable to discover that Profar isn’t ready, or that he’s more Ackley than all-star.
“Extremely willing to wait on a good pitch”? You did watch the ALCS right?
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There have been many top prospects that produced lower than 1.7 WAR in their first/second full year. As someone mentioned before, it’s quiet possible that Profar isn’t ready or we have another Ackley type bust.
And a 1.7 WAR for a 21 year old in their first full MLB season would actually be pretty damn impressive. I think Bryce Harper and Mike Trout has made people overestimate how incredibly impressive it is for someone at that age to not be completely terrible.
As others have noted, the error bars around Profar are huge. But the Rangers need to pick *some* number to expect on average, and I don’t see 1.7 being a bad number. If he posts 3 WAR, that won’t be surprising, but it won’t entirely surprise me if he struggles. Looking at some of the last top prospects from BA since 2000, we have:
Ankiel, Hamilton, Beckett, Teixeira, Mauer, Delmon Young, Dice-K (or Gordon if you don’t count him), Jay Bruce, Wieters, Heyward, Harper.
Guys like Ankiel (kinda?), Hamilton (6 years from #1 to debut), and Delmon Young tanked (at least early on). Bruce, Wieters, Teix, Beckett, and Gordon were all around 1.5-2 WAR their first full season, while Mauer, Dice-K (if you count him), Harper, Heyward were all well above the 1.7 mark. The median seems to be just around where Steamer has Profar. The error bars go from Delmon Young to Bryce Harper, true, but the Rangers have to act based on some concrete prediction.
Since the strike [18 seasons], here are the rookie leaderboards for 21 year olds:
Pujols 7.2
Zimmerman 3.9
Francoeur 3.0
Lawrie 2.5
Wright 2.4
Dunn 2.1
Tabata 1.9
…then 117 position players at 1.7 fWAR or less.
So 1.7 fWAR:
19-20, 9 of 45 [20%]
21yo, 7 of 124 [5.6%]
22yo, 19 of 274 [6.9%]
23yo, 26 of 449 [5.8%]
24yo, 33 of 570 [5.8%]
25yo, 25 of 555 [4.5%]
26yo, 20 of 463 [4.3%]
27yo, 13 of 298 [4.4%]
28yo, 8 of 202 [4.0%]
29yo, 2 of 113 [1.8%]
Tsuyoshi Shinjo[29], Akinori Iwamura[28], Ichiro Suzuki[27], Yoenis Cespedes[26], etc are mixed in there. I suppose you might want to selectively remove guys who are rookies despite having significant play-time at top-level leagues outside of the US
I disagree with your take for many reasons. Fielder is essentially the same player that he has been in recent years, with no discernible change in his approach or batted balls, except only two things:
(1) Fielder’s IBB/HBP plummeted last season, despite the fact that pitcher’s did not noticeably change their approach. Fielder’s total IBB/HBP by season:
34(07); 31(08); 30(09); 38(10); 42(11); 35(12); ….15(13)
and
(2) Fielder’s HR/FB ratio plummeted last season, while his other batted ball data remained the same-
Fidler’s HR/FB ratio by season:
24(07); 18((08); 23(09); 18 (10); 22(11); 18(12)….13.5(13)
While the projection cited anticipates that Fielder will essentially split the difference between his recent 5 year trend and his past season, it is well known that projection systems work best as a roaming average over a period of time, and can fluctuate in misleading manners in short time periods during an extreme peak or value. Fielder’s 2013 valley is twice as likely to be a fluctuation rather than a downturn than Kinsler’s two season valley.
Additionally, Kinsler’s refusal to move to 1B and Detriot’s propensity to keep poor fielders at positions they shouldn’t play, is an empirical reason to expect that Kinsler is more likely to be misused than Fielder. Surely, Fielder’s WAR is hurt by the fact that he never should have played the field for Detroit to being with, and this misuse is unlikely to continue in Texas. Your skepticism of Fielder’s 3.7 WAR appears to be based on an extremely marginal concern – that Fielder’s baserunning is projected to be two runs better than probably ought to be expected. This concern seems rather goofy, considering that 2 runs is a smaller margin than the potential positional adjustment difference between 1B and DH.
All told, while I definitely agree with your logic that Fielder’s baserunning projection is optimistic and is based on his recent career high- I think you are failing to recognize that some of Fielder’s offensive projections suffer from the same deficiency, and are two low due to recent career worsts in categories such as HR/FB percentage and IBB/HBP totals.
Lastly, as many others have mentioned, Fielder’s home/road splits from two different parks are much more encouraging than Kinsler’s split from the only place has played:
Fielder’s career Home RC+: 150
Fielder’s career Home RC+: 131 (difference: 19)
Kinsler’s career Home RC+: 132
Kinsler’s career Home RC+: 91 (difference: 41)
I personally regard this trade as a pretty big win for Texas, and your line that a package of Granderson, Kinsler, and Joe Nathan is superior than Fielder seems to me as an almost Bizzaro Dave Cameron statement. Granderson and Nathan are old and very prone to injury, making their projections inherently less reliable, while Kinsler already has a well documented history of leg injuries that are particularly worrisome for a 2B, and have prevented him from playing as often as Fielder. I am sure if we ran the numbers, using “known leg injuries” as a dummie variable, we would find plenty of reason to be concerned that Kinsler’s declining speed and defense are more likely to continue than to reverse. Therefore, I consider Kinsler’s projections to be more optimistic than Fielders.
I’m not sure it’s an absolute assertion that Fielder will DH vs. play first base, but he’s sure to DH far more than he did in Detroit.
I realize that Kinsler’s sample size in Detroit is ridiculously small but his performance in Comerica Park has been absymal. He’s a .200/.298/.329 player. And it’s not just about Detroit’s excellent pitching, because he lit them up in Arlington.
Also, if the Rangers hadn’t made the trade and picked up McCann instead the cost for next year for McCann/Kinsler is probably around 34 million vs. Fielder/Profar at $24 million.
The projections are expecting Prince to have the same peripherals as his 2012 season in terms of walk rate, homerun rate, etc. The difference is that they do not project a .321 BABIP. This leads to a difference of about 10 runs on offence hence the lower projection.
Fielder had a disconcerting loss of power this year. His .178 ISO may be a fluke (given that this is his lowest ISO of his career), or it may represent a real drop in ability.
Outstanding post, Craig.
Suuuuuure, DD got taken.
I’m sure that’s what the Indians, Marlins, D-Backs/Yankees and Mariners thought when they did the Peralta, Cabrera, Scherzer/A-Jax and Fister trades thought too.
So Craig, it’s not that I disagree strongly with any specific in the analysis, it’s that the over-detailing regarding minor variances in _projected_ WAR are pointless, both here and in the post. Normal variance and not predictable injuries will, as ever, swamp any potential ‘inaccuracy’ regarding who is +/- .5 WAR ahead on The Whale Deal—as of 2013.
You do not think Prince Fielder has already entered his batted ball results decline, and you have your reasons. And yes, I’d regress one year’s down numbers more heavily. But there is no projection system, or tweaks thereof, which will make the last four years of the Whale Deal look good for whoever is holding Prince’s ransom note. Maybe, just maybe, Fielder stays ahead of his body-type projection. I’ll take the crater under the under on that, because he doesn’t seem to be trying all that hard to manage his physique. Dude can hit, but his type gets old early, which shades his numbers to the lower side.
I’ll agree that the post could have packaged the WAR offsets better, but none of that really changes the assessment over the lengths of the deals. And what is really missing is that you are holding focus on the ‘Kinsler/Fierlder who wins?’ part when what matters at least as much in the Whale Deal is how each team moves around other pieces on the 25-man in consequence of the opportunity-potentials gainded—which could, and should, amount to FAR more WAR gains than the variance potentials for either guy.
To put that in context, I’ll agree that in my view projected results are somewhat over-emphasized in this particular venue of performance and player analysis. There is simply too much variance for the LEVEL of confidence often attached to the projections. Much of that bias is unintentional in my view, and commenters well know the strengths and flaws of their material, it’s just that a number fixes one’s attention inherently.
One area where projections have seemed dubious in particular have been in over-estimating the ability of player’s to bounce back from injury. Some guys do, but enough guys flounder terribly or flatly don’t get on the field at all that, to me, one has to cite the ‘error margin’ first and then the number there. Another area, mentioned by another commentor, is in projection systems’ under-evaluating the ability of younger guys to learn and shore up their skills, exactly because ‘what if’ isn’t a variable which can be quantified in.
In general, whenever I hear a player’s discussion start with “The projections are . . . .” I mark down the reliablityof the conclusion at 15% discount. Because projetions just are not a solid number, so that is not the place to START one’s assessment to me. One should start with their skill set, proceed through results, and then come to projections. Because that is the context >> assessment . . . . Of course with 10,000 characters as a limit, a lot of that has to get junked. I’m just sayin’ . . . .
Regarding Kinsler’s ZIPs projections you cited…wouldn’t they change somewhat now that he’s playing in Comerica instead of Arlington?
Kinsler’s HOME / ROAD splits are eye-popping:
HOME: .304 / .387 / .511
ROAD: .242 / .312 / .399
HOME tOPS+: 123
ROAD tOPS+: 77
The guy is a completely different player in terms of offensive production outside of Arlington. Does Steamer’s projections account for his change in home park?
You do realize that they are probabilistic? No projection system can ever be perfect because there will always be unanticipated injuries and events, but modern player projection systems, from Nate Silver’s PECOTA to Steamer, have changed how we can look at baseball.
Well put. When planning for the future you’re trying to hedge your bets and make a decision base on the most likely outcomes. Projections are part of that process.
Fielder also profiles more as a DH for Texas, which likely means that Moreland still plays. Or that 1b can still be upgraded separately for the Rangers. So the WAR should net out a little higher for Texas than suggested in the post. . . . I’m not wild about this deal from the Texas side, and yeah, I agree with most every other conclusion stated here. Prince as a lefty DH in Arlington may sustain value somewhat better than in other places though, even though as another commenter summarized Fielder has _already_ begun his batted ball results decline.
And now the unveiling of WARt or Wins above Replacement for trades (inspired by the first two paragraphs of this article). Simple rules: to have positive WARt, each team must end up better as a result. Maybe a trade opens space for a prospect or DH (like this one did for both teams), maybe it is just a mutually beneficial trade of positions. If a trade decreases the competitiveness of one team, then we all lose. For a baseline, the Mark Hutton for Curtis Goodwin trade is a zero WARt–neither team was improved significantly, neither was hurt significantly and both players went off to do something besides baseball soon. Ryan-Fregosi trade is probably about a -8 WARt. Now we can finally compare real and hypothetical trades. For example:
Kinsler-Fielder: +2 WARt
Profar-Taveras: +4 WARt
Fielder-Brandon Phillips: +2.5 WARt
What you all think? Your own WARts?
Also, there is of course NERD-t, which relates to the general aesthetics of baseball as a result of trade. But that’s for another night.
I do think this deal looks much better for Texas if they have a good belly-flop coach to help refine Fielder’s technique.
Fat chance.
I’m generally all for WAR when comparing two players, especially when comparing two players who are both hitters or both pitchers, but in this case, I don’t think that it makes a good basis for comparison. First off, you ignore the part factors, where Kinsler is moving to a less hitter friendly park and Fielder to a more hitter friendly park. Moreover, Kinsler may be projected to be worth 3.3 WAR next year, and while you believe that he can achieve that by simply repeating this year’s performance in a higher number of games next year, that is not a given for Kinsler who has had only 2 seasons in his career where he has played more than 150 games. To expect that trend to improve as he ages is a little ridiculous. Furthermore, Kinsler in his prime was a 30/30 player, who could steal bases when needed and hit home runs as well. His power and base stealing has been on a downswing the last two years, so I doubt either stats would start improving in a less hitter friendly park, when he will be a year older. So I actually think 3.3 WAR is an overestimate. However, the main reason that I think that WAR is not a good comparison for Kinsler and Fielder is because they are completely different players. Kinsler derived much of his WAR from speed and defense during his heyday, whereas, Fielder mainly derived his from his bat. The Rangers already have good defenders as well as good baserunners on their team. What they are lacking is power and hitting, and those attributes are worth more to them at this point than defense and speed. Lastly, Fielder did have a bad year last year, but that doesn’t mean that he has already began declining at age 29. Fielder’s walk rate dropped 5% in the last two years, and walking is not generally thought of as a age declining skill. Hence, adjustments in his approach could easily lead him to increases in OBP and OPS. His power could also slightly improve at the Rangers ballpark. While these two points are not very sabermetric friendly, Fielder also was supposedly going through a very difficult personal situation last year with his divorce, and with those issues resolved, he could be a more focused player in 2014, and Fielder has also been a player who has been kind of a see-saw as far as production, where a good year is usually followed by a down year and so on. These are external factors and observations that may or may not affect his production, but are worth noting anyway.
Fielder’s power has been steadily declining for years now. Since 2009, his BBIP distance has dropped 20 feet. On top of this, he didn’t make this up via better hit results. His contact % dropped to 78, while he saw an uptick in infield fly balls. He’s been steadily declining, and with this decline, it appears unlikely a return to power materializes unless some time of talent change occurs.
The back end of Fielder’s contract doesn’t look appealing. But, it doesn’t look as if to handicap the team. Especially come 2017, $/win is likely to be higher than it is today. And with all the reasons Dave mentioned, the logic is understandable for Texas. Kinsler wasn’t going to get moved. Profar needs to play. Rangers need a first baseman. They got one at an above average tier price.
you need paragraphs.
The advanced statistics website for skydiving?
WAR is designed to be able to compare two different players, that was one of its main objectives. It is meant to demonstrate that a run produced via a swing of the bat is just as valuable as a run gained/lost on the bases/in the field. Prince Fielder and Ian Kinsler are different types of players, but baseball doesn’t discriminate as to how certain players produce/save runs.
WAR accounts for park factors, on average. If Kinsler hits worse, and all of the difference is accounted for by the change in park, his WAR remains the same. The only way WAR doesn’t work is when players have skills tailored to their ballpark. E.g., Curtis Granderson in Yankee Stadium looks better with WAR than we would expect because he benefits from that stadium more than the average hitter. The ballpark of the Rangers is a better hitting environment than Comerica, but is there reason to think that is is even more better for Fielder than Kinsler?
I guess you’ve never been to Rangers Ballpark. It was built for left-handed power. Super short right field and home run porch. And a “jet-stream” headed out to right field as well. (not sure of the science, but the ball carries really well to right)
The answer to your last sentence: yes.
See: Kinsler’s Home / Road splits, which don’t bode well for his future performance outside of RBiA. AND…Fielder being perfectly suited for the RBiA jet stream out to right-center field.
While Kinsler is indeed slowing down, so is Fielder. The problem for Texas is that Fielder may be declining at a faster rate. Fielder has the classic heavy slugger profile and those guys begin their declime much quicker than other guys.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-will-prince-fielder-age/
I think Jon Daniels extreme risk aversion has caught up to him and bit him in the ass. Go back to last off season … trading Profar probably gets you Stanton, or definitely James Shields. Trading (the then) two years left on the Andrus contract could have gotten Justin Upton. Any of those scenarios is way better than the albatross Fielder contract. Not to mention having a severely under utilized asset for all 2013 in Profar. Daniels held his cards too long and now his hand was forced.
well said. it didn’t help that he was in a battle for control of the franchise throughout either.
the Rangers have a long history with profar and have been working with him since he was a teenager. they know him personally and as a player more than anyone else. I think it’s a mistake to it assume that 2012s no doubt number 1 prospect in baseball does not have an exciting future because he struggled in his first half season. The rangers are retaining profar for the long haul and it’s far too early to say whether he should have been traded for 2-3 years of James Shields or giancarlo stanton or Oscar taveras for that matter
Jon Daniels is risk-averse? Hah, that’s pretty funny.
Daniels has done a great job the last few years. Not signing Hamilton/CJ Wilson/Nelson Cruz/Nathan, signing Holland/Harrison/Perez to under-market deals, building around strong defense, and collecting enough assets to trade for Rios/Garza during a playoff push.
This is one of the first moves of Daniels that I’m questioning openly, and makes me wonder if ownership grew tired of Mitch Moreland and told Daniels to fix 1st base.
I don’t think so. There were reports last night that Daniels wanted Fielder when he was a free agent but ownership (Ryan?) shied away from it. Now he’s got his man, and for 7/$138 instead of 9/$200+.
but lost 2 (expected) best years of the contact. i’m not sure that is a selling point.
There’s no evidence whatsoever that “Profar probably gets you Stanton”.
And it’s way too early to say that 2-3 years of James Shields is better than 6 seasons of Profar.
How is this post getting plus votes? Okra discusses trading Profar and Andrus, who have more long term value than Kinsler, and then pans a Kinsler trade? Texas wanted to trade Kinsler, not the other guys. They got a slugging 1B who profiles well for the park and is something they have lacked. Trade discussions on this site have gotten weird… crazy judgemental and just out for blood. Why is this even a little bad for Texas?
Likely scenario is that as Profar’s value increases, Fielders will likely decline at less of a rate than the increase for the 2B for a few years.
Are the same guys who are saying ‘Profar is no lock’ the same guys who thought KC gave up too much for Shields? Just checking.
Using a projection system on Profar is useless. The error bars on projection systems for players like Profar are huge. Historically, there are very few players like him.
A poor man’s Barry Larkin, maybe? Same ISO and BB%, but with much less speed and a 10-20 point lower BA due to way more Ks and a lower BABIP.
Mr. Cameron, you’re a human, so I wish you wouldn’t analyze the trade as if you’re a computer. Start with your projection system, and then adjust for the external information that you have and the system doesn’t. The general managers making the trades are smart enough to realize that while the 8-5-4-3 weighted average for veterans may work well when averaged over an entire population, there are nagging injuries and divorces to take into account that change the reliability of certain results and therefore should alter the weights on certain coefficients when projecting an individual’s performance. It’s overfitting if applied to everyone, but in small cases, one would be wise to exploit the unique advantages man has over computer in the field of information processing.
For instance, Steamer Fielder’s 140 wRC+ is very close to a standard 8-5-4-3 weighted average of Fielder’s last four years, but given Fielder’s personal issues last year, doesn’t it seem reasonable to believe that 2013 was a worse indicator of Fielder’s true talent level than the three-year average prior to 2013, which would suggest a wRC+ in the low 150’s? (I wouldn’t be shocked if Daniels had someone research all divorces involving MLB players to see how they impacted performance going forward, and maybe he found a significant signal there.)
Also, Steamer implicitly projects a 15.6% HR/FB rate for Fielder in 2014 (assuming 8-5-4-3 weighting on FB%), well below his 19.2% career average. Does that look right, given that Fielder’s fly-ball distances have remained very consistent since 2007? It’s tricky to stay away from confirmation bias when adjusting for outside factors, but Daniels and his staff are smart enough to do so.
Of course, it’s quite possible that the Rangers could have found slightly worse options for much cheaper, but those options are likely to show more downside and volatility during the next three years – during which the Rangers have enough cost-controlled pieces to be true contenders – than a younger and more consistent commodity like Fielder.
“The general managers making the trades are smart enough”
You give too much credit here.
I always laugh when I see people say GMs are dumb. They each hold one of the most prestigious, competitive jobs in sports. Most of the time, you don’t get that high up by being a moran. And even if they aren’t that smart, every front office does have a myriad of smart people that advise them, as well as in-house stats that we as fans do not have.
Armchair GMing is fun to do and to discuss, these people have their jobs for a reason. This doesn’t mean that a GM can’t be bad at their job (RAJ, Dayton Moore) but they’re better than almost all fans who think they’d make great GMs.
Incompetent people get to the top all the time, through networking, having quality underlings making them look good, nepotism, ect. Why would it be any different in baseball, an industry that is pretty notorious for needing ‘ins’ to enter. Many of these guys are still former players. You can’t just assume the job market is perfectly competitive. I don’t know anywhere where that is true.
have you never had a stupid boss? I have, once or twice, and I’ve known a few people with prestigious jobs who had stupid bosses. It happens. Dumb people somehow end up attaining high office.
Look no further than Rob Ford, crackhead extraordinaire, mayor of Toronto!
Jim Bowden
What about Barack Obama as President ? Incompetent people certainly do get some prestigious jobs .
“you don’t get that high up by being a moran” LOL
Yep and in this case it is two of the smartest GMs in the game by popular opinion. The knee-jerk reaction is similar to Dave’s 1st story, this story captures the dynamic much better.
Wait, Cameron is a human?
Humans blink at a much faster rate than Dave Cameron.
Research tries to eliminate the “human” element of subjectivity.
Thanks, Dave. Keep going.
I suggest you take a look into Nate Silver’s writing about the evolution of weather forecasting. It’s a similar principle. Computers run ridiculous numbers of simulations because they are superior to humans in calculation speed and power, and the computers hand off pictures that humans interpret because humans are generally superior image processors to computers. And while you may think weather forecasting may suck, it has improved tremendously over the last 30 years.
In baseball, projection systems are designed to de-noise results for an entire population and do so quite parsimoniously. Those techniques are much less useful with small samples. Hence humans enter the process to do what they do better: adjust parsimonious projections using all the extra information they have.
For instance, ZiPS projected Joe Nathan to have a 3.80 ERA in 2012. People with brains that ZiPS couldn’t tell that Nathan’s poor 2011 much more likely resulted from his Tommy John recovery rather than from being a crappy true-talent pitcher, so they could predict that Nathan would be very likely to beat his projections. It’s subjective, but subjectivity isn’t necessarily bad.
I expect Profar will be great sooner or later. If I’m Texas, I’m not worried that this trade has made me a worse team. But it’s a really bad trade nonetheless. It may have been a poor market for 2B this winter, but the Rangers had the option of trading Profar or Andrus in the alternative. You have to come back to the point that Texas basically got (in my view) a slightly worse player for whom they have the privilege of paying $76 million extra for. Hard to see that as anything other than foolish.
Obviously there’s something I’m missing, but I just don’t see all the love for Profar. He’s a (minor league) career .276/.367/.449 with great base running and great fielding. He’s obviously a very good prospect, but no one else in the baseball world gets this kind of love for being an average hitter with great everything else. Heck, it took Ellsbury having a 30/30 season for him to get this kind of love.
Hitting doesn’t mean numbers, especially for teenagers, its a skill that one improves on with age, and Profar’s hit tool is outstanding, he is going to be a very good hitter, probably as good as Kinsler when all is said and done.
If you make age vs. level translations, your view on Profar would likely change.
Well scouts evaluations essentially are that his hitting is expected to get substantially better. That said, there is no doubt that it is a very inexact science and that there is a lot of room for those projections to be completely wrong as they often are for some prospects.
In what world is .276/.367/.449 “average”? That’s a 125-130 wRC+, as a good fielding shortstop.
And that’s a 5 win player.
I think that Texas could have gotten a really good cost-controlled pitcher for Kinsler. Prince is a DH playing 1B who hurts every team he’s ever played for with his defense. The Rangers really have to play him at DH for this to be a good move.
Nobody is giving up anything much for Kinsler. He probably isn’t even worth his contract – it wouldn’t shock me if he actually cleared waivers.
What GM would give up a “good, cost-controlled” pitcher for a weak-hitting (away from Arlington), 31 year old 2B coming off the two worst seasons of his career and owed $60M+?
In the Napoli and Choo scenarios, The Rangers would have to forfeit draft picks and pool money in order to sign those 2, along with the salary. The point remains the same…I’m just saying
Very good point. When adding up value to determine the best course, good analysis should use all value.
Rangers basically need Profar to come in and do good quickly. If they do, the trade is probably a mutual win. But if he doesn’t, the Rangers lose out pretty bad. It’s a risky deal, though with some nice upside.
I don’t particularly agree with the idea that they couldn’t have kept Profar, Kinsler and Andrus. What’s wrong with keeping Profar for utility a year and easing him in to the MLB level?
They did that all year last year, and the general consensus was that it was hurting his development. Also, there’s a bit of a disconnect between JD/Washington about letting younger guys play, so this gets Profar in the lineup.
Texas didn’t “have” to trade Kinsler. They could’ve easily traded Andrus or Profrar, and the trade should be examined in that light, in which case it looks significantly more baffling.
I don’t think that trading Andrus would be easy.
If I am Daniels my order of preference of MI to trade was 1. Kinsler 2. Andrus 3. Profar ,though getting Profar over to SS and maybe Odor at 2b next year looks sweet .
No one is taking Andrus, he’s in a harder to move contract than Prince. He can barely hit and is on a 8/124 deal. Defense is good but not outstanding.
Andrus’s deal is like if the Twins gave Jason Bartlett $100M after his 2005 season, you just don’t do that.
Andrus has played five seasons, putting up 17 WAR. Bartlett had played 82 games in the bigs, for a total of 1.7 WAR.
Given their circumstances, why wouldn’t the Cards want Andrus?
A 24-year old SS who has averaged 3.4 WAR per year in his career is unmovable with a 8/124 contract? I think if the Rangers said “we’ll give you Andrus as-is” about 20 teams are lining up.
There are rumors the Rangers could still move all of Andrus’ contract and make a play for Cano – not sure how I feel about that.
Is Prince still a vegetarian? Nobody tells Prince about chicken fried steak and the fried buffalo chicken flapjacks, ok?
Best Regards,
Jon Daniels
Prince is one of the worst defensive 1B in the history of the game, if the Rangers play him there, this becomes one of the dumbest moves in their history. If they play him at DH then this is an ok pickup. 7/138 is too big for a DH but if they aren’t paying Profar or Martin much then it works for them.
Come on, he’s not that bad.
If Detroit plays him at DH, Miggy at 1B and Castellanos at 3B, they’d have 2 rings right now.
His D is the single reason why that team didn’t go further.
Really? You think a minor improvement in infield D would have swung the 2012 World Series, where the Tigers weren’t hitting at all and got swept? It certainly wouldn’t have changed the biggest issue against Boston this year (that would be bullpen meltdowns).
Plus Castellanos wasn’t even hitting this year. What makes you think he would have been a starter on a championship winning team in 2012 (when he was not really hitting the crap out of AA pitching)?
” This was a pretty crappy winter to be trying to sell an aging second baseman making $15.5M per year for the next four years. ”
Dan Uggla 🙁
I think Texas’ scouts (who in my opinion are the best in baseball) see the decline in both players, but they also see that Comerica was holding Prince down, just as Safeco held down Beltre. Prince is better than he’s shown the past 2 seasons. The short porch in RF is going to provide 20-25 homers per season for him, IMO.
Secondly, who’s to say that money not spent on Prince could actually be spent elsewhere on bettering the team? You can only do the deals that are possible. They had a real opportunity to get better with this deal, and they know there is a real increase in cost per win, but ultimately they need to get better. The organization is obviously after WS rings. Who cares if the payroll stays lower if the championship potential doesn’t increase? An acquisition of talent had to occur, and you can only do that by executing the trades that both sides want to happen.
Would Stanton or Price or Upton have made Texas much better? Sure, but the deals couldn’t get done, and anyone who thinks all of those potential deals were simply a matter of the Rangers saying, “yes” to the other GM’s demands is delusional. The matchup of rosters won’t work out way more often than it will.
Sure, free agent signings and trades that get executed don’t all involve taking such a big salary onto the books, but there are 2 parties to every deal. Outbidding everyone on the open market to increase your talent doesn’t work out very often when GMs are willing to make stupid contract offers (see Pujols or Greinke contracts). Trades are difficult to agree upon when you’re talking about a truly talent-boosting deal. Texas liked Upton, and would have given up Andrus to get him (if rumors were true), but the match wasn’t there. That is probably the case 19 times out of 20.
If the considerable Texas brain trust decides they need to beef up with a couple of the big bats of players the scouts really like, then success will ultimately be dictated by whether the bats get acquired, as long as ownership is willing to buy off on the costs. Wash doesn’t care what the terms of the deals were while he’s filling out his lineup card in late October. I’m sure the organization looked at cheaper ways to get over the hump and back to the World Series, but ultimately, they were presented a rare chance to get significantly better, and jumped on it despite some risk that the scouts obviously think isn’t prohibitive.
Lastly, don’t forget the potential monetary rewards for the organization by going from an expected 91-93 wins to 93-95 wins is much greater than a team who simply is trying to reach 88-90 wins. What makes this a great deal for Texas (instead of say, Toronto or Washington) would not necessarily be as rewarding for most other teams.
Fielder doesn’t get the ball up in the air to right as much as you think. The shorter fence in center might help him more. Considering how many PA’s he gets, Fielder has not been a premier power hitter the past two seasons.
The projection for Profar is the obvious place where this analysis falls apart. With a young player like him, you simply do not know. You either believe he’s going to be a great player or you don’t. Based on everything I’ve read and seen about him, he’s going to be great, but obviously you never know for sure.
Why do you have to assume he’s either going to be great or not? There are plenty of top prospects that spend a few years being just ok before they actually figure it out. Top prospects don’t all turn into great players or busts, there’s plenty in the middle ground.
Is there a middle ground between great and not great? Great and bad? Yes, but not between great and not great.
Why do you have to assume he’s either going to be great or not? There are plenty of top prospects that spend a few years being just ok before they actually figure it out. Top prospects don’t all turn into great players or busts, there’s plenty in the middle ground.
Dave – its worth including in your analysis the pretty meaningful benefit of the $30 million coming to Texas upfront (assuming that it does come up front). It definitely makes sense to analyze the deal by spreading out that $30 million over the life of Fielder’s contract and looking at is as lowering the AAV, but that $4.3 million ($30 / 7 years left) is clearly going to be worth a lot less in 2020 than it is now. I just assumed 3% inflation a year, purposely to be conservative, and that $76 million gap in dollars paid ($62 to Kinsler, assuming 2018 buyout, vs. $168 to Fielder less $30 offset) becomes more like $62 million effectively. 5% inflation drops the gap to $54 million. Not sure it should change the conclusion but it is material, although I haven’t been able to confirm that the $30 million is indeed changing hands right now.
From ESPN:
“Detroit will send the Rangers $30 million to cover a portion of the $168 million left on Fielder’s deal.
The yearly payments will start in 2016.”
Well there you go. Scratch my comment.
It’s not upfront. Texas doesn’t recieve any of it until 2016, where it will come in installments until 2020.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Prince return to a 4 – 5 WAR player over the next couple of years. I think he is far from done at 29. I think everyone is underestimating the impact that his divorce had on him last year. I think sabremetricians think players are robots and forget they’re human beings. If anyone has gone through a divorce knows how that it can take over your life. I think a change of scenery is just what he needs now. It would not shock me at all to see him hit 40 home runs and slug .950 next year in Texas. I’m pulling for him. He’s always been one of my favorite players to watch and expect to see his violent swing jacking many balls into that right field jet stream in Arlington.
Its borderline impossible for a perennial -20 UZR defender to have a 4-5 WAR, he’ going to have to hit 40+ HR with an OBP of over .400 to that, but good luck anyway.
I don’t see him being anything but Brandon Moss with an absurdly overpriced contract.
Not sure if you saw his 2011 and 2012 WAR #s but they were 4.9 and 4.8 respectively. We’re just one season removed from that 4.8 season.
Also, I’m less concerned with his defense in Texas. Instead of Cabrera and Peralta throwing to him from the left side of the infield he’ll now have Beltre and Andrus throwing to him.
If you are a Ranger fan, you WILL soon be concerned. He’s awful. Watch him take pickoff throws–he can barely handle them. Or watch him try the 3-6-3 DP, or his toss to the pitcher covering. Its really brutal.
So you’re essentially saying Fielder has done the impossible 4 times.
It would surprise me to see Fielder return to be a 4-5 WAR player. It’s possible, but unlikely.
Fielder is not done at 29, but players with comparable body types do tend for fall off a cliff at around that age:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-will-prince-fielder-age/
Just ask David Ortiz.
Smash cut to Billy Beane sitting in his office crying with laughter at both his main rivals playing their aging, declining 1B’s who are actually DH’s-playing-1B hundreds of millions while Brandon Moss outperforms them both.
LOL, you do realize that Moss is a terrible defender too and is not going to outperform Prince anytime soon. I’d be pretty stunned if he even outperforms Pujols in 2014, steamer thinks he’ll be worth half the WAR.
Not to be crude, but we shouldn’t avoid the weight issue. How many position players of Fielders build stay in the league past their 35th birthday?
Nearly all of the truly big guys (not considering Tony Gwynn and Kirby Puckett) I could think of were out of the league before their age 36 season: Mo Vaughn, Kevin Mitchell, John Kruk, Dmitri Young. The one guy still going strong is David Ortiz. We’ll see about Miggy, Pablo Sandovol and Ryan Howard. Two out of three aren’t looking so hot. Fielder is only entering his age 30 season, so perhaps he holds up throughout, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Suffice it to say that as much as we want to analyze this by average values, the biggest win here is the Tigers offloading a massive (pun intended) downside risk. There’s a pretty significant non-zero chance of the Rangers getting little or no production from Fielder for a sizable portion of the time they have him.
On a completely unrelated note, does Fielder keep his limited no-trade through 2016 (when he would have gotten 10-5 rights as a Tiger) or will it now extend until 2018 when he gets 10-5 as a Ranger?
So, we’re talking about 3 of the 7 big fat guys you can think of continued to play well into their 30s, and weren’t out of the league by 36, and you’re using that as evidence that Fielder won’t age well?
3/7 is probably better odds than most 30 year old MLB players have of being in the league at 36.
i don’t think the rangers are concerned about Fielder post 35.
Three quick notes. First, Comerica has been more of a hitter’s park the last few years than the Park With No Name, and Fielder had a big split in its favor in his two years there. Second, Fielder’s past wRC+ (prior to 2013) include a silly amount of intentional walks that he’s unlikely to receive in the future. Finally, there’s no question that Fielder’s power peaked at age 23 and is in significant decline, but there’s also no question that a career path like that is anomalous and suggestive of someone who hasn’t worked hard enough at his job. And I don’t just mean physically: in the fairly large sample of his entire career, he has a reverse times through the order split, which is suggestive of someone who doesn’t study opposing pitchers much.
The error bars on his future projection are very high. You can guess that the Rangers believe they can motivate him to work on his craft.
… say what? He has a reverse time through the order split? How uncommon is that–and what other players have it? Is there a leaderboard or something? Where did you get the data? Very curious.
vs. SP, 1st: .307/.386/.538
vs. SP, 2nd: .270/.362/.551
vs. SP, 3rd: .347/.427/.655
That’s not suggestive of anything.
Maybe it’s suggestive of a small sample size.
.. except that if we’re really dealing with career data, then each of those 3 has hundreds upon hundreds of at bats (right?), more than enough for at least OBP and SLG to stabilize.
But I agree, I can’t make sense of a pattern there–it’s more like an “inverse” times through the order split than a “reverse” split.
Hypothesis: he’s not very good at adjusting to pitchers, so the 2nd time through, while pitchers still have some energy, they can outsmart him. However, by the 3rd time, even though pitchers have a tactical advantage, it’s outweighed by their inability to control velocity and location sufficiently, and so Fielder more often then not gets the best of them.
THing is, pretty much every pitchers stats look like this. They’re all better the first time through the order than the second, and better the second than the 3rd.
Fielder hitting for less OBP (but significantly higher ISO) is a little strange, but “doesn’t work hard enough” isn’t what I would guess. I’d guess more that Fielder is trying to kill the ball as pitchers get more tired, and striking out more because of that.
“there’s no question that Fielder’s power peaked at age 23 and is in significant decline”
This is why I hate this deal for Texas. If Fielder’s power is in decline, what other skills is he bringing to the table? Average? Defense? Baserunning? Not so much.
Is it possible we’re giving too much credit to Jon Daniels in this deal? With respect to both meanings of the word?
Maybe this wasn’t Daniels’ deal. Maybe it was Ryan, deciding his team needed a Middle of the Order Bat(TM).
As in “Ryan” the guy who was ousted a couple months ago?
Oops, looks like he’s out. In that case I don’t know what logic is going into this deal. It seems like nothing but taking on downside risk for Texas.
” If Fielder’s power is in decline, what other skills is he bringing to the table?”
We’re talking about the Prince Fielder who has had a OBP higher than .400 4 of the last 5 years, right? That guy?
I hate this deal (for the Rangers) only because of the large and in my view, likely downside for the Rangers. If Fielder hits his ZIPS projections or just undercuts it by a little I agree with your assessment, Mr. Cameron.
However I think there’s an awful wide bell curve in the performance of Prince Fielder, and a lot of that curve is more negative than his projection. Maybe that’s just a head-fake toward trying to sound more saber-oriented when I say “I am bearish on Prince Fielder” but honestly:
The guy hasn’t posted a positive defense since 2009. Hasn’t posted a positive baserunning since 2006. He’s listed at 275 pounds which means he’s closer to 300 pounds than 275. Most people probably look at his performance and see a single year of decline which could easily be a blip (though, have you noticed an awful lot of < 2 WAR seasons? He has a lot of those blips, huh?) I see a more consistent offensive decline that was buoyed by a brief improvement in his defense.
Am I the only guy in this room who thinks Fielder stinks of Mo Vaughn, Dmitri Young, or Ryan Howard?
Well, there’s at least one guy who agrees:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-will-prince-fielder-age/
“They just got better at first base by about the same amount they got worse at second base”
This depends on the comparison of Kinsler as a 3.3 win player to Profar as a 1.6 win player. Obviously the Rangers think a little more highly of Profar than ZIPS does.
But even if this turns out to be true, it’s just the first year. I doubt many people would predict Kinsler to out perform Profar over the next 4 to 7 years.
If you’re going to talk about the downside of Prince in the long term, you have to look at the upside of Profar long term, especially vs. the anticipated decline of Kinsler.
I’m not saying this makes it a good trade for Texas. I think long term this is still a ticking bomb. And they already had Profar locked up for 7 years. I just don’t think Profar for Kinsler is a huge drop-off, even next year. Considering Kinsler’s home-road splits, they might be equal as early as next year.
I think that it is fair to note that Mitch Moreland is actually still on the team and something is going to have to be done about him. There is no sense in having a sub-100 wRC+, left handed first baseman backing up Fielder. There were reports earlier in the offseason that teams had called the Rangers to inquire Moreland as a buy low option. Maybe they trade him. Or maybe they move him to left field and try to find someone to platoon with him.
I’ve wondered this before, so I’m going to mention it here. Could it be that maybe GMs don’t analyze players the same way WAR does? Could it be that first basemen get more money as free agents per WAR than 2nd basemen, because GMs think that 1st base type players are worth more in a vacuum that 2nd base type players?
The average MLB 2nd baseman had a wRC+ of 91 last year. The average MLB 1st baseman had a wRC+ of 110 last year. Maybe the consensus around baseball is that the ABSOLUTE value of defensive runs saved by 2nd basemen don’t compensate for the absolute value of offense added by 1st basemen. And because of this, a team is going to be willing to spend more if to fill a hole at 1st base than a hole at 2nd base.
Or am I just a complete idiot?
I’m sure that varies from GM to GM. And WAR certainly isn’t the only criteria that can go into evaluating a player. Shit, nobody can even agree on what’s better, fWAR or bWAR. (Or gWAR?)
And the market has, indeed, systematically overvalued certain positions over others. But that’s not just the GM who’s paying the contract:
If, say, Friedman or Beane, (or Cherington, if you find the prospect of either of those guys ever spending money implausible) goes out and decides he wants to sign a FA First Baseman, he has to compete with all the other guys out there who aren’t living and dying by WAR. The market’s dictates the price of a Free Agent collectively, with a dozen different GM’s kicking the tires on a player, exploring, with varying degrees of seriousness, the prospect of signing that player.
For example, there may very well have been a market in the past 5 years when Robinson Cano might very well have gotten his 10/$310M, but it doesn’t look like this year’s going to be that market. You look around and it’s pretty hard, particularly after this trade, to make a case that there are any big-money teams out there who’d be inclined to spend > $150M on a Second Baseman except the Yankees. (Unless Texas just sets fire to it’s budget, trades Profar, and turns around and replaces him with Cano.)
So there’s a decent chance that Cano gets less than would otherwise be expected, primarily due to the vagaries of the market. My point is sometimes the market’s affected by random chance (which often just boils down to “Can I get the Yanks or Sox involved?”) as much as it’s affected by GM predisposition.
But yeah, many less statistically-inclined GMs seem to undervalue defensive contributions.
I think I’ve got a good comp for Prince Fielder:
Age WAR
26 6.5
27 3.8
28 2.5
29 1.3
30 2.0
after 2.2 over 4 seasons
The comp is Cecil Fielder. Prince Fielder will be 30 in 2014. Mo Vaughn is another comp with one very good season after 30.
I’ve never seen a father/son comp before, but that’s a really interesting way to look at it. Wouldn’t have worked with Bobby and Barry Bonds, though.
lazy comp.
cecil’s best season – .377 obp.
No question Prince is better, but doesn’t make sense they will have a similar aging curve?
The Rangers have been good at developing talent. If they believe in Profar, so do I. The ackley comparison and possibility is logical but the mariners took Montero, Smoak, and Ackley and non have lived up. Harrison, Perez, Feliz, Andrus, and even Saltalamacchia have more or less performed.
Clear loss for TEX, for several reasons.
Firstly, they don’t actually improve anywhere. Fielder, a player already in his decline phase, will cease to provide value in perhaps as early as a year: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-will-prince-fielder-age/. He will certainly be worse than Kinsler beyond 2015.
Secondly, Kinsler’s replacement in Texas, Jurickson Profar, appears to be an average player at best whose main strength when coming through the minors was a high floor. He has accrued a year of service time to date with nearly 350 PA’s, and has produced a 74 wRc+ and has also contributed negative value baserunning and fielding. Note that Texas elected to move Profar off of SS to 2B when they gave Andrus his own albatross contract, a move that makes little sense unless the org which knows Profar best does not see him as a future impact player at the MLB level. Conversely, Nick Castellanos produced a 121 wRC+ at AAA last season, which should indicate that he can be at the least an average bat at the MLB level.
The only outcome this move really has on TEX, other than accelerating the arrival of the end of their run as a contender, is that it moves them back towards their older roster construction: an all power team with no emphasis on the other aspects of baseball. I wouldn’t be surprised to see their pitchers’ observed run prevention regress towards their FIP, now that they intend to play two substandard defensive players on the right side of their infield.
Thirdly, consider that the only media market smaller than Dallas in the AL West is Seattle, and that the rangers are the only team in the division that play miles away from their urban center. Freely spending will not be an advantage for them: If oakland was to be awarded a new stadium, every other team in their divsion will be in a position to sustain a higher payroll.
Lot of assumptions. Kinsler is 31 and Texas is a hitters park. So maybe Kinsler ages worse.
Assuming anything about Profar is a bad idea but I trust the rangers have a pretty good idea. He’s still so young too, small sample defense and baserunning value aside.
The media market thing is kind of moot. The Dallas/FW metro area is enormous. The gap in size isn’t much and I’d like you to prove their media market is the smallest because I’m skeptical.
Look at the age curves article I linked. It establishes that, in the population of all baseball players, the effect of age on performance decline is higher in heavier players, like fielder, than it is in athletic players, like kinsler. You’d have to say you believe that both kinsler and fielder will put up careers that are statistical outliers to claim that kinsler will decline more rapidly than fielder.
As far as market size, here are the US government’s census figures. I’ve added san francisco, san jose, and oakland when claiming that Dallas is smaller than that market.
http://www.census.gov/popfinder/?fl=0653000:0667000:0668000:4835000:4819000:5363000:0644000
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean Kinsler would age worse than fielder, I meant more than you might predict given his whole career has been in a hitters park.
You can’t just use “Dallas”, because it’s really all one huge city of Dallas/Fort Worth. Which is the 4th largest metropolitan area.
Give up at baseball. And demographics. Just start over.
Do you see a bit of irony coming on to FG and admitting “I’ve added san francisco, san jose, and oakland when claiming that Dallas is smaller than that market.”?
🙂
did you just use “350 PAs” and “negative fielding value” in the same sentence?
“Thirdly, consider that the only media market smaller than Dallas in the AL West is Seattle”
Eh.
http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets
That’s a fantastic link. The cards also reach to Memphis and several other larger cities so their lower placement is deceptive.
You also have to consider how much money each person has and how much money from local businesses can be had. Dallas has a ton of huge companies with headquarters and regional offices. Plus it’s not like the only people buying tickets and watching live in Dallas/FW. If I lived in Austin or San Antonio, I’d probably be a rangers fan. Though I’m not sure how their tv broadcast rights are split.
“Nick Castellanos produced a 121 wRC+ at AAA last season, which should indicate that he can be at the least an average bat at the MLB level”
Forgets to mention Profar was 117 at AAA.
See the problem in your story?
Kinsler sucks. Glad he’s gone. Once fans in Detroit actually start watching him on a daily basis they will realize that he is very meh. Profar will easily accomplish what Kinsler has done the past 2 years. Fielder will bounce back fine. Texas wins in this deal, but it’s close.