Just a quick question for reference, are these numbers what the player would do in a vacuum?  In other words, are the PA and IP numbers normalized for one team season or do they just come from the players’ projections? 

Also, wasn’t McCutchen in the Nady/Marte deal?

How sad is it that Igawa is that low on the list, even considering the number of minor leaguers in there…. sheesh.

It’s interesting to see the projections not very bullish on Coke, Bruney, or Albaladejo.  I’m hoping one of them at least beats those numbers.

Awesome stuff.  Lots to discuss.

Someone has to go first. I see where the Royals picked up Jacobs a first baseman from Florida for a reliever. He hit 32 homers this year. I remember him as a Met. I feel lazy today. Can someone tell me whether Cashman missed a trade opportunity here or instead list this guy’s shortcomings.  The power looks good especially when you play in that yard, but can he hit leftys and hold his own in the field?

The projections are hard for me to understand but they seem always too pessimistic for veterans and unreasonably to generous with the unproven players. Seems like Jeter is always projected in the 290’s but almost always hits over .300. Chien Ming W L also seems very pessimistic, but there are surely reasons.

In other words, are the PA and IP numbers normalized for one team season or do they just come from the players’ projections? 

Right now they are not adjusted for playing time.  The final version I release should be.

The power looks good especially when you play in that yard, but can he hit leftys and hold his own in the field?

His OBP is very poor, and he’s a butcher with the glove.

Oh, and he can’t hit lefties.

IIRC, Mike Jacobs is a terrible, terrible fielder.  Too lazy to look up his splits.

SG, you’re missing Marte on your pitcher list (and McCutchen is gone).

Jacobs led league in worst OBP for a 1Bman.

Jacobs would not be a good acquisition for the Yanks, but perhaps the fallout of the trade could be an opportunity.  maybe Cashman could pick up Shealy at a low-ish cost in case plans A and B (whatever they are) for 1B fall through.

if you gave Shelley Duncan 500 ABs, you might get something close to Mike Jacobs.  his CAIRO isn’t that far off.

How is Zach McAllister projected to save 17.2 runs above average next season when he has never thrown a pitch above high A ball?

Probably a problem with his MLE.  I’ll check it.

Who is Wilkins De La Rosa?

Who is Wilkins De La Rosa?

Lefty, recently converted (from OF?).  Appears to have some potential.

Who is Wilkins De La Rosa?

YM beat me to it, but here is some more about him.  I think they have to make a decision on putting him on the 40 this year…

Oh, and Russ Johnson?  Who hasn’t played in the majors since 2005 and (best I can tell) not in the Yankees org since 2006?  And apparently didn’t play at all last year? 

Yanks can’t be that desperate for a backup IF, can they?

Yeah, I need to clean up some of the players on here.  Anyone who played in 2005 or 2006 but not in 2007 or 2008 is still projected.

A-Jax’s offensive projections are just a hair below Gardner’s which are just a notch below Melky’s.  Doesn’t say much for the older youngsters.  Whatever the Yankees plans, it is quite possible that by August he will deserve playing time more than they will.

SG,

Any chance you could also include the BRAR projections adjusted for position in the next iteration of your projections?

pBRAR is particularly useful when it comes to winter Hot Stove and what moves the team should consider.

Looks to me like the BRAR above is position-adjusted.  Compare BR and BRAR for e.g. Abreu and Jeter.

That’d be great if they got that from Posada. Is that 109 games total, or 109 games at catcher?

Did I scare everyone away or something?

Her’s a question, how much of a difference would Giambi to Teixiera be in terms of defense? assuming we somehow let Jason trott out there 150+ games like Teix.

Her’s a question, how much of a difference would Giambi to Teixiera be in terms of defense? assuming we somehow let Jason trott out there 150+ games like Teix.

Something on the order of 15-20 runs, based on some stuff SG posted a few articles ago.  There are only two reasons not to get Tex: 1) he really, truly, doesn’t want to come to NY 2) someone else gives him a contract that makes the Zito deal look frugal.

You know..  Mike Lupica is an idiot, but Steve Lombardi’s idiocy is moving him into asshole territory.

Needless to say, I’d be highly, highly disappointed if we only got 170 Merciless innings for a record of 10 and 9.  Is that all due to taking the injury into account?

I hate Lupica as much as anyone, but I loved this:

When they started chanting “We Want Steph!” the other night at the Garden, I thought they meant for him to pull that famous truck of his around.

Now I’m off to run a marathon.

You know..  Mike Lupica is an idiot, but Steve Lombardi’s idiocy is moving him into asshole territory.

Can’t say I disagree, but what brought on this particular outburst?  I’ve been Lombardi-free for a while now.

I thought from SG’s # a bit back the G-man was -10 in just 90 innings, that would make him like -16 to -17 in a 150 IN frame… while Teix is projected to be something like +7 ?

that’s a ton man. if we look at 24 runs in the context of 200 innings. that’s a 1 run difference already. the difference between a mediocare pitcher and a pretty darn good one. of course that’s spread out between like 1350 inning though.

I thought from SG’s # a bit back the G-man was -10 in just 90 innings

That was a -10 in RS/162, so that’s over the whole season.

Needless to say, I’d be highly, highly disappointed if we only got 170 Merciless innings for a record of 10 and 9.  Is that all due to taking the injury into account?

it’s worse, it’s actually 163 innings.  the 170 is hits.

i wouldn’t read too much into it.  it’s just from rolling the 95 innings he threw in 2008 into a formula to predict playing time.

Can’t say I disagree, but what brought on this particular outburst?  I’ve been Lombardi-free for a while now.

He took a line from a George King article, which may as well have been written by a child with a crayon (as it would have had the same amount of credibility), where King speculates that the Yankees are not likely to pick up Marte’s $6M option.  He turns that into “Cashman is an idiot for not picking up Marte’s option.”

This also from Pete Abe:

George King of the Post reported today that the Yankees would not pick up the $6 million option on Damaso Marte.

And here’s the actual line from the article:

Add Damaso Marte to Jason Giambi Jason Giambi and Carl Pavano Carl Pavano as players the Yankees New York Yankees aren’t likely to exercise options on - which will make them free agents.

Oh yeah, George? Says who? You? This one isn’t even tagged with a “person with knowledge of the situation” or “Yankee officials” or “industry sources.”  I guess the janitors at the stadium weren’t willing to go on record.

The lines for Brackman are getting better. This from the game on 10/30, courtesy of RAB:

Andrew Brackman: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 3 WP, 7-4 GB/FB - 57 of 91 pitches were strikes (62.6%)

I figure there’s only two really possible options regarding not picking up Marte’s option

1. The Yanks don’t think he’ll be a Type A next year, so want the draft picks this year

and

2. The Yankees think they can re-sign him for noticeably less than $6 million (less the buyout).

#2 seems unlikely, and #1 is a bit farfetched, as well, so add me to the “Huh?” crowd.

3. You can sign as many type A and B FA as you lose, so with losing Abreu, Moose, Pettitte, Pudge, and now Marte, the Yanks could sign 5 FA (Pettitte and Moose would be included in those 5 if they were signed)  Otherwise they would be limited.  Just something else to think about.

4. King is making this up, and they are picking up his option.

That’s actually probably the first possibility.

Kei’s ERA will not be a drop above 5.85 if he gets a chance to work out the kinks.  I guarantee it!

Wow, I thought Igawa had a 4 year deal, not a 5 year deal.

5.  The yankees will sign Marte for a 2yr 8 million deal.

“if anyone sees anything that doesn’t look right just let me know. “

Yeah how about Shelley Duncan having 25 Home runs.
Or Wilson Betemit having 12
or Kei Igawa actually making enough starts in the majors to have 18 decisions
or Wang having only 10 wins

I understand its only a calculation, but still some of those just won’t happen
otherwise good work

if Betemit got 307 ABs, i think he could easily hit 12 HRs. 

and i think SG would tell you to not get hung up on wins and losses.

Any chance you could also include the BRAR projections adjusted for position in the next iteration of your projections?

Yeah, they are already in there.

and i think SG would tell you to not get hung up on wins and losses.

Yeah, I would think most people understand that, but apparently not.

W/L is calculated using last year’s offense for now, which was average.  Once the Yankees have finished their offseason it’ll be adjusted accordingly, so the pitchers should all see an uptick in their W/L record.  Of course, anyone that uses W/L as a meaningful way of evaluating pitching probably shouldn’t bother with projections anyway.

Gently, gently.  JFTR 4.3 ERA for CMW wouldn’t thrill me.

Wang’s projection bothers me too.  Last year CAIRO projected him at a 3.84 ERA.  His peripherals were worse this year, but I didn’t think they were that much worse.  Certainly not enough to change his forecast all that much.

It looks like there are a few bugs in here, especially on the MLE side of things.  Some of the lower level minor league pitchers’ forecasts are way too optimistic, and it looks like I’m missing some strikeout data for minor leaguers (Brett Gardner will almost definitely K way more than 50 times if he gets 600 PA), so I may need to rebuild these.

If I understand your procedure, you mix in some RL into your projections.  Does that mean that a pitcher with fewer innings gets relatively more RL performance in his forecast?  That might help account for Wang anyway.

If I understand your procedure, you mix in some RL into your projections.

Not replacement level, regression towards the mean.  In the case of the position players, I add in some league average performance, some performance by players of the same age, and some performance by players who play the same position.  In the case of the pitchers, I just use some league average.  This does mean that a pitcher with fewer innings is regressed more heavily, but in Wang’s case that’s not an issue since we have a fairly significant actual performance from 2005-2007.

I think the difference with Wang this year is I am incorporating tRA, which seems to dislike Wang more than most other metrics.  I’m doing some testing to see if that’s actually beneficial or not, and may remove it or at least reduce the weight of it for v0.2.

“Not replacement level, regression towards the mean.”

Yeah, that was meant metaphorically.

“This does mean that a pitcher with fewer innings is regressed more heavily, but in Wang’s case that’s not an issue since we have a fairly significant actual performance from 2005-2007.”

I don’t understand the latter point unless you by-hand (or by algorithm) handle Wang differently.  Can you trivially rerun just him without regression for comparison?

I don’t understand the latter point unless you by-hand (or by algorithm) handle Wang differently.

It just means that since Wang has thrown 628.7 innings over the last four seasons, the weight of the regression component will not be as strong as it would be for someone like say, Carl Pavano, who’s thrown 145.3 innings.  For starters I add in 200 league average innings, for relievers I add in 80 league average innings (to the 7 x 2008 + 5 x 2007 + 4 x 2006 + 2 x 2005 weighted performance).

Can you trivially rerun just him without regression for comparison?

Without regression, Wang’s projection is:
163 IP, 171 H, 77 R, 74 ER, 9 HR, 55 BB, 83 K,  4.07 ERA

If I remove tRA, his projection is:
163 IP,  164 H, 74 R, 71 ER, 9 HR, 55 BB, 83 K, 3.90 ERA

So it looks like like it’s a tRA issue moreso than a regression issue.  Like I said, I’ll do some testing to see if removing or at least reducing the weight of the tRA component of the pitching projections improves accuracy at all.

Thanks for the #s.

4.3-4.07 = 0.23, 4.07-3.90 = 0.17: seems pretty even to me (4 ER vs 3).

I would think tRA and no regression would be best, but the data decides.

Couple of notes for your version 0.2 sheet: Chris Young (the OF, not the P) looks like he’s missing; also, Jose Reyes is projected to play 169 games.