Giants lose mind

[Huisj]

Originally Posted by TDog

Teams don't win World Series championships because of luck.

But they usually don't win them without some either.

[RCWHITESOX]

Originally Posted by blandman

It's $17.5 million each of the next two seasons for a guy with a 4.86 era the last two years in a pitcher's park. That's not just an overpay, that's a good $17 million more a year than he should be getting. He hasn't pitched well enough to deserve a guaranteed contract. His ERA plus numbers place him as dead last among qualifying starters the last two seasons. He has been the worst regular pitcher in baseball.

The worst! I don't think so. There were quite a few pitchers who were worse than he was last year. Just on the White Sox staff alone there was Danks and Axelrod.

[Foulke You]

I thought this article offered a lot of insight into the signing:

http://www.mccoveychronicles.com/201...tract-analysis

[blandman]

Originally Posted by RCWHITESOX

The worst! I don't think so. There were quite a few pitchers who were worse than he was last year. Just on the White Sox staff alone there was Danks and Axelrod.

Read my other post. He's dead last over the last two seasons in the only two advanced metrics that matter for pitchers, ERA+ and pWar

[CoopaLoop]

I don't like the Pence contract either.

As for Lincecum, GM's have to be sitting there saying what the **** did you just do to this offseason's pitching market.

I figured he'd get 10-12 mill per because of his name, but this is crazy.

[Huisj]

Originally Posted by blandman

Read my other post. He's dead last over the last two seasons in the only two advanced metrics that matter for pitchers, ERA+ and pWar

Well there you have it, look no further than ERA+ and pWar for the absolute info on how good someone has been and will be!

If ERA+ is the end all be all, why does ERA have a surprisingly low year-to-year correlation compared to other stats that are much less prone to large fluctuations?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/basic...012-2002-2012/

[SoxSpeed22]

This could actually work out pretty well for us, since we have starting pitching depth. Other teams could have difficulty securing FA pitchers and get desperate to trade for one. Or they could just overpay them all. Who the heck knows?

[blandman]

Originally Posted by Huisj

Well there you have it, look no further than ERA+ and pWar for the absolute info on how good someone has been and will be!

If ERA+ is the end all be all, why does ERA have a surprisingly low year-to-year correlation compared to other stats that are much less prone to large fluctuations?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/basic...012-2002-2012/

Because it's not a prediction stat, it's relative to how good a player is right now. ERA+ takes performance and adjusts to make all outside factors even. If you want correlation for future seasons, you don't use ERA+. I used ERA+ because it's past performance that Lincecum is being signed for, and ERA+ is the most unbiased measure of recent performance.

[Huisj]

Originally Posted by blandman

Because it's not a prediction stat, it's relative to how good a player is right now. ERA+ takes performance and adjusts to make all outside factors even. If you want correlation for future seasons, you don't use ERA+. I used ERA+ because it's past performance that Lincecum is being signed for, and ERA+ is the most unbiased measure of recent performance.

The correlation article is looking at actual data from actual seasons that actually happened. It's looking at what pitchers did in certain consecutive seasons to see which stats are more stable and which are more prone to large fluctuations even when other things point to the pitcher performing more or less the same. It can be useful for trying to predict future performance, but those correlations are not calculated from an unknown future performance. Those are based on how good a pitcher has been and is right now.

I would argue that ERA+ is good at telling how many runs a pitcher gave up in a way that normalizes it to ballpark and competition, but that the Giants are not basing the contract they gave to Lincecum solely on that aspect of his past performance. ERA+ can fluctuate (just like actual ERA) significantly and be impacted by strange things, and the Giants probably are looking deeper than that and saying that when looking at a bigger picture, Lincecum's recent past performance isn't as bad as a glance at ERA+ might say it was.

[TheVulture]

Originally Posted by RCWHITESOX

The worst! I don't think so. There were quite a few pitchers who were worse than he was last year. Just on the White Sox staff alone there was Danks and Axelrod.

If every pitcher better than Axelrod was making 17.5/mil a year, the average pitching staff would run about 200 million a year. Just having to bring up Axelrod should nail home the point. If you have to cite Axelrod's performance in a single season where he should have been playing semi-pro ball to begin with to dispute a claim that Lincecum is the worst pitcher overall over the last two years, only says to me that the claim Lincecum was the worst over those two years has validity.

I wouldn't agree Danks was worse, either, when you consider ballpark factors and the fact the Sox had a far inferior defense.

I'm starting to think people are disagreeing just because its blandman...paying 17.5 million for a guy you wouldn't even put in your playoff rotation is ridiculous.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by Huisj

But they usually don't win them without some either.

Generally a team can't win a championship without luck, but that luck doesn't make them lucky to win a championship. The Red Sox on Wednesday night were lucky to score five runs in the first two innings when they could have scored none because the Cardinals played such uncharacteristically poor defense. That doesn't mean it was a lucky win.

The Yankees might have lost the 1941 World Series but for a strike-three passed ball in the ninth. Giants in 2012 went into an NL postseason in which Steven Strasburg wasn't pitching, and hypothetically, it is possible he could have beaten them. The Mariners in 2003 were lucky that the Cubs collapsed after a fan behaved badly when it looked like their season was over. In addition to the Pierzynski ACLS strikeout that led to an ACLS win, the White Sox were lucky a double-play ground ball went through the legs of a Red Sox player in Game 2 of the 2005 ALDS. The 1983 Orioles were lucky the White Sox screwed up on the bases in Game 4 of the ALCS. That doesn't mean any of those teams were lucky to win the World Series or won the World Series because of luck.

There are plenty of teams that get lucky breaks that don't capitalize on them to win championships. It doesn't mean the teams that do capitalize on lucky breaks are lucky to win. The Cardinals are not unlucky to have lost because their shortstop made errors and the team can't catch an infield fly at the pitcher's mound.

By the same token, the White Sox were very unlucky in 2013. It doesn't mean they would be in the World Series if luck had gone their way.

[blandman]

Originally Posted by Huisj

The correlation article is looking at actual data from actual seasons that actually happened. It's looking at what pitchers did in certain consecutive seasons to see which stats are more stable and which are more prone to large fluctuations even when other things point to the pitcher performing more or less the same. It can be useful for trying to predict future performance, but those correlations are not calculated from an unknown future performance. Those are based on how good a pitcher has been and is right now.

I would argue that ERA+ is good at telling how many runs a pitcher gave up in a way that normalizes it to ballpark and competition, but that the Giants are not basing the contract they gave to Lincecum solely on that aspect of his past performance. ERA+ can fluctuate (just like actual ERA) significantly and be impacted by strange things, and the Giants probably are looking deeper than that and saying that when looking at a bigger picture, Lincecum's recent past performance isn't as bad as a glance at ERA+ might say it was.

If ERA+ truly doesn't do a good job at discounting outside factors, there's still a matter of his actual ERA of 4.89 over the last two seasons in what's probably the best pitcher's park in the game. He's still dead last in pitcher's who qualify for enough innings over that span. His peripherals are also terrible. His physical skills have also degraded (and it's measurable across the board on all of his pitches, from velocity to movement). They're not paying based off his ability the last two years, or if they are they're not using any kind of analytic that is available to anyone else.

[Huisj]

Originally Posted by blandman

If ERA+ truly doesn't do a good job at discounting outside factors, there's still a matter of his actual ERA of 4.89 over the last two seasons in what's probably the best pitcher's park in the game. He's still dead last in pitcher's who qualify for enough innings over that span. His peripherals are also terrible. His physical skills have also degraded (and it's measurable across the board on all of his pitches, from velocity to movement). They're not paying based off his ability the last two years, or if they are they're not using any kind of analytic that is available to anyone else.

Which peripherals are terrible?

[mzh]

If the White Sox had signed him to this deal we would have burned down the internet.

[winstonage]

Lincicum is a back of the rotation pitcher at this point. They could get the same production from Scott Feldman for the same money, but over 4 years.