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Further to my earlier point about back up players and experience. The New York Yankees have acquired Andruw Jones, Raul Ibanez, Eric Chavez, Jayson Nix, Casey McGehee and Dewayne Wise for bench strength, and are paying them a TOTAL of $7.4 million. Any team could have signed them, the Yankees did, and that lineup alone would probably play nearly .500 ball by themselves.
A replacement level team would win about 43 games.
If we give the Yankees all average players (2 wins) for the empty positions (except relief pitchers who get .5 wins) we get 19 additional wins.
That's a total of 63 wins.
I then calculated WAR per plate appearance for rest of season ZiPS for each player and prorated for the difference between actual plate appearances and 700 plate appearances (a full season) and added those tow numbers together. This should give a reasonable (minus things like platoon advantage which the Yankees have utilized - ie Ibanez playing vs righties and Jones vs lefties) expectation of full season WAR.
I got the following WAR:
1B Chavez = 2.3
2B Nix = 1.2
3B McGeHee = 1
LF Jones = 2.3
CF Wise = 3.2
RF Ibanez = 1.3
Adding those WAR to the other 63 expected wins gives us 73 expected wins for the Yankees' bench.
Filihok, is that an argument that the Yankees would be better or worse, if their whole bench consisted of callups from AAA? And by extension, is it better to have those seasoned veterans, or replacement callups? What conclusion did you draw, vis-a-vis my premise? In other words, did you go to all that trouble just to prove that I was right about the advantage of seasoned vetersns, but you only wanted to quibble with my off-the-cuff "nearly .500" projection?
There are 7 teams in MLB who are now on a pace to win less than 73 games, therefore their starting lineup is inferior to the Yankees yard-sale bench. The Astros, with almost all callups with very little MLB experience, would be projected to win 53, but that is diluted by the fact that many of the seasoned players who contributed to their earlier success are now gone, they will probably not come close to 50.
Maybe you also have to consider that the Yankees have redefined "average replacement", since any team that needs a replacement can find an Ibanez or Chavez. They just don't.
Why are you so defensive? I'm not quibbling. You said a team composed of the Yankees' bench players would be a .500 team. I thought that was interesting so I wanted to see if it was true.
Maybe you think I have a personal vendetta against you, but I don't. I participate on this board because people make interesting observations and ask interesting questions. If it seems that I'm out to get you that's only because what you say so often is contradicted by the truth.
As for the questions you posed about replacement players and my methodology, I will address those later.
You might consider leaving the emoticons off, as the preamble to your comment. It would lead, at the outset, one to believe that are dubious about the entire post you are replying to.
I said "nearly .500", which means a lot closer to .500 than the .265 you would ascribe to the replacement player team, which was the comparison I was addressing in the first place. How much closer to .500 appears to be the central focus of your argument, but I blew off as a detail too irrelevant to exhaustively sabermeticate..
By the way, so far this season, how many games have the Cardinals won, in which the Cardinals never had a 3-run lead? The answer is SEVEN. Every other game, they lost, or had built up a 3-run lead at some point in the game (or both). The seventh one was today, and the closer loaded the bases with none out in the 9th and came within a sac-fly of blowing that save.
Filihok, is that an argument that the Yankees would be better or worse, if their whole bench consisted of callups from AAA?
And by extension, is it better to have those seasoned veterans, or replacement callups?
That totally depends upon who the call ups are.
It's better to have Mike Trout on your bench than Delmon Young.
It's better to have Paul Konerko on your bench than Chris Parmalee.
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What conclusion did you draw, vis-a-vis my premise? In other words, did you go to all that trouble just to prove that I was right about the advantage of seasoned vetersns,
You're not right about seasoned veterans. Some young players are better than some veteran players. Some veteran players are better than some young players. The advantage is in having the best players.
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There are 7 teams in MLB who are now on a pace to win less than 73 games, therefore their starting lineup is inferior to the Yankees yard-sale bench. The Astros, with almost all callups with very little MLB experience, would be projected to win 53, but that is diluted by the fact that many of the seasoned players who contributed to their earlier success are now gone, they will probably not come close to 50.
Remember, however, that for the Yankees team I gave them 13 average players on their roster, not 13 replacement players. An average player produces 2 WAR (except relievers who produce .5 WAR) while a replacement player produces 0 WAR.
Note that only 1 of the Yankees bench player projects to be significantly better than average (Duane Wise) at 3+ WAR).
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Maybe you also have to consider that the Yankees have redefined "average replacement", since any team that needs a replacement can find an Ibanez or Chavez. They just don't.
You may be misunderstanding what a replacement level player is. A replacement player is considered to be a player of "freely available" talent. That means his level of play is so mediocre that there is no advantage to having him as to having any other number of players who could play in his stead.
Superstar talents are quite rare.
Star players are less rare.
Good players are less rare than that.
Average players are abundant.
Bad players are more abundant.
Replacement players are so abundant that they have no real worth (as baseball players, not as human beings).
But Mike Trout is not an example of "freely available talent", is he? But Chavez and Wise and McGehee and Ibanez are, because they were in fact freely available to any team that would pay their salary. So were Shane Robinson and Tony Cruz, in that they were already under contract and only needed to be sent a bus ticket.
The difference is, the Yankees see 2012 as a year in which they have a serious potential to win the world series, and employ personnel who can help then in the short term to win in 2012. But the Cardinals, also with a serious potential to win in 2012, employ personnel that is unproven and untested, in an experimental effort to develop or assess players for future years (or maybe hoping one of them is Mike Trout), at the cost of critical wins in this championship season.
They already have two second basesmen. They have a roster slot open, and the call up a third one from Memphis. For what immediate strategic purpose? Their all-star catcher needs a few days off, they have only a backup who has started a total of 27 games in the major leagues. That is not how you win THIS YEAR, and the Yankees are holding themselves up as an example that will prove that, and have been proving that every year since Johnny Mize and Enos Slaughter. With Chavez and Ibanez, you know what you are getting, and you know the talent level that you are infusing into your team when you write them on the lineup card, and you know they are somewhere in the vicinity of "average players" who, day to day, are likely to perform at their known mean. That is very different from using players in crucial games with the championship on the line, who are "replacement players", almost certainly lacking the skills that come only with experience, and only by sheer good luck going to somehow heroically win you a game on a pitch in their wheelhouse.
"Let's see what the kid's got" is not the correct approach to trying to win a few games against the team that you're tied with in the wild card standings and you already have the best runs-against ratio in the major leagues.
But Mike Trout is not an example of "freely available talent", is he? But Chavez and Wise and McGehee and Ibanez are, because they were in fact freely available to any team that would pay their salary.
That's not what I mean by "freely available". Freely available means a player is being paid the major league minimum and costs no real prospect to acquire.
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With Chavez and Ibanez, you know what you are getting, and you know the talent level that you are infusing into your team when you write them on the lineup card, and you know they are somewhere in the vicinity of "average players" who, day to day, are likely to perform at their known mean.
And I do mean dubious.
From 2000 to 2006 Eric Chavez was a well above average hitter hitting .350/.495 which was 20% better than average. He produced a total of 31 WAR.
From 2007 to 2011 Chavez' performance was hampered by injury and he only produced a .296/.390 line which was 20% worse than average. He produced a total of .5 WAR.
This season Chavez has hit .363/.547 which is 40% better than the league and has produced 1.5 WAR.
The Yankees had no reasonable expectation of getting this performance out of Chavez. Chavez only hit .320/.356 for the Yankees last year. That was 20% worse than the league and he was worth .6 WAR.
The Yankees got lucky with Chavez this year.
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That is very different from using players in crucial games with the championship on the line, who are "replacement players", almost certainly lacking the skills that come only with experience, and only by sheer good luck going to somehow heroically win you a game on a pitch in their wheelhouse.
"Let's see what the kid's got" is not the correct approach to trying to win a few games against the team that you're tied with in the wild card standings and you already have the best runs-against ratio in the major leagues.
You're still using replacement player incorrectly. A replacement player is a player who's on-field contributions are readily equaled by such a high number of players that he has no value specific to him. If you don't get that specific payer, you can get any other player who will provide the same performance.
I think you over estimate the value of experience. There are plenty of young players who are just as capable of producing as many aging veterans.
In my mind, the best approach for a contending team is if they think they have a young player who is capable of producing then give him April, May and June to show it. If, by that time, you realize that his performance is substandard, then make a deal for a bench player at the deadline.
If you know prior to the season that your minor league system hasn't produced a player who is ready to produce then get the veteran at the beginning of the season.
and now at least 18.....it was 2-2 after six innings, then neither team scored for the next ten innings, then they each pushed across a run in the 17th.
Very even game...Pirates have 11 hits, Cards have 10. Pittsburgh has used 20 players so far, St. Louis has used 20. Each side has had seven pitchers.
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