duckymedwick7 wrote: i think we are, perhaps, seeing a shift in the way certain gm's view big contracts.  successful franchises, like the cards, are no longer paying stars based on what they have done.  they are offering them contracts based upon what they will do.

as the money in the game increases, teams that embrace the former will thrive, and teams that embrace the latter will be saddled with horrible contracts.

very comforting to be a fan of a franchise that seems unwilling to be crippled by these bad contracts.  that doesn't mean we don't retain our stars, i believe we will keep wainwright, but it also means we aren't going to give him king felix money.  a 4-5 yr contract for 18-20 mil/year will prob be our best offer.  if aw likes it great, if not, thanks for your time as a cardinal.

if we didn't cripple the team for albert, we're not doing it for anyone.

the cards didn't get matching value on the 4yr $41 mil contract to lohse when he was 4 years younger.  it seems foolish to expect us to match or better that offer now.

Can you clarify this BM? Is your point that Lohse did not live up to the value of his contract?

yes i can.  1 WAR is valued at between $4.5 mil and $5mil.  over the course of the 4 year deal, lohse was paid $41.  that means he would have to have earned between 8 and 9 WAR based upon the value of a single WAR (win above replacement).  to make things simpler i will say each WAR is worth $5mil.  that's not just me making up a number, check out fangraphs or other sites to see what they think.

let's look at lohse's WAR per season:

09:  -0.5
10:  -2.4
11:  2.2
12:  3.9

so despite 2 good years at the back end of the contract where he certainly was more than worth the contract, the first 2 years drag his overall value down.  for the 4 years, lohse was good for 3.2 WAR.

3.2 WAR X $5 mil per WAR = $16 mil of production.

$16 mil in production versus $41 mil in salary is a loss of $25 mil in value.

so yes, my point is that lohse not only did not live up to his contract, he horribly under performed his salary.

duckymedwick7 wrote: yes i can.  1 WAR is valued at between $4.5 mil and $5mil.  over the course of the 4 year deal, lohse was paid $41.  that means he would have to have earned between 8 and 9 WAR based upon the value of a single WAR (win above replacement).  to make things simpler i will say each WAR is worth $5mil.  that's not just me making up a number, check out fangraphs or other sites to see what they think.

let's look at lohse's WAR per season:

09:  -0.5
10:  -2.4
11:  2.2
12:  3.9

so despite 2 good years at the back end of the contract where he certainly was more than worth the contract, the first 2 years drag his overall value down.  for the 4 years, lohse was good for 3.2 WAR.

3.2 WAR X $5 mil per WAR = $16 mil of production.

$16 mil in production versus $41 mil in salary is a loss of $25 mil in value.

so yes, my point is that lohse not only did not live up to his contract, he horribly under performed his salary.

O.K fair enough. If anything this shows what a unrealistic stat this WAR is. We have seen this time and again when this stat is completely out of whack. I think anyone that watches the games will tell you Lohse did not perform to his contract due mainly to the injuries but this stat suggests he flat out was horrible, just not true. IMO the WAR stat is the biggest joke of the saber stats. You could probably use these numbers to show Lohse was the worst pitcher in baseball last year if you dug deep enough. The more i learn of these newer stats the more i see what utter garbage they really are. Thanks guys for that. Now i know i am not missing a thing.

actually WAR shows lohse was excellent last year.  he brought in a value of nearly $20 mil and was only paid $11.3mil.  lohse was a baragin for the cards last year, as WAR and tradidtional stats suggest.

it's not that lohse's injuries affected his WAR.  or rather the fact that he misses time.  it's that he was flat out horrible when he did pitch in 2010.  missed time does not affect WAR.  for example, chris carpenter's WAR this year will be zero.  let's use traditional stats to see if you feel lohse helped or hurt the club when he pitched in 2010:

w/l:   4-8
era:  6.55
ip:    92.0
whip:  1.783

the awesome part of WAR is that it's just a stat, it doesn't care why lohse was a bad value.  it just states that when he pitched in 2009 and especially 2010, he was below replacement level and being paid as somone who was counted to be 2-3 wins better than replacement level.

the danger when we trust our eyes is the proven fact of subjectivity.  when we like a player or someone in our lives we notice and remember the good they do.  when we dislike a player or a person in our lives we harp on the negatives.  stats provide an objective means to break through our prejudices.

the very stat you hate so much WAR, objectively shows kyle lohse was the top pitcher on the cards last year.  seems to match up to your traditional stats and your eyeball test.  lohse was an excellent value in 2011 and 2012, i am not saying he was a bust.  but over the length of the contract we see he didn't pitch up to it.  as a result i would not offer him a similar contract now that he is 4 years older.

Very good explanations, Ducky. You can bet that every MLB organization's analytics department has run some kind of comparable analysis on Lohse (perhaps using different metrics) and have established what they believe his value will be in upcoming years. Chances are good there is a mismatch between that and Boras' asking terms.

duckymedwick7 wrote: actually WAR shows lohse was excellent last year.  he brought in a value of nearly $20 mil and was only paid $11.3mil.  lohse was a baragin for the cards last year, as WAR and tradidtional stats suggest.

it's not that lohse's injuries affected his WAR.  or rather the fact that he misses time.  it's that he was flat out horrible when he did pitch in 2010.  missed time does not affect WAR.  for example, chris carpenter's WAR this year will be zero.  let's use traditional stats to see if you feel lohse helped or hurt the club when he pitched in 2010:

w/l:   4-8
era:  6.55
ip:    92.0
whip:  1.783

the awesome part of WAR is that it's just a stat, it doesn't care why lohse was a bad value.  it just states that when he pitched in 2009 and especially 2010, he was below replacement level and being paid as somone who was counted to be 2-3 wins better than replacement level.

the danger when we trust our eyes is the proven fact of subjectivity.  when we like a player or someone in our lives we notice and remember the good they do.  when we dislike a player or a person in our lives we harp on the negatives.  stats provide an objective means to break through our prejudices.

the very stat you hate so much WAR, objectively shows kyle lohse was the top pitcher on the cards last year.  seems to match up to your traditional stats and your eyeball test.  lohse was an excellent value in 2011 and 2012, i am not saying he was a bust.  but over the length of the contract we see he didn't pitch up to it.  as a result i would not offer him a similar contract now that he is 4 years older.

Great explanation! That was truly nice. I guess what i dislike about it is that there is no adjustment in there for Lohse two bad years which i have to give the guy. Some will just simply state "Kyle sucked in 2011 and 2012" when in reality he tried to pitch through a couple of freak injuries in order to help the club. Often these guys play through pain to their own statistical detriment as well as risking further damage to their bodies but are never given credit for it. These two years damaged his stats over the length of the contract in a huge way. I personally have to throw those two years away b/c i believe that Lohse is a lot closer to the pitcher we saw in the other three years of his contract but that is just my opinion. If you are saying that you would not give him the same four year deal he got 2009 you would also have to assume that Kyle would be injured and ineffective for two of those years. My problem is with this idea that WAR shows a players actual value. This seems to be the manner it is used more times than not. You can find all kinds of anomaly in this stat as we see every year. Just for one instance Allen Craig had a War of 2.2 last year while David Freese WAR was 3.6. Does anyone else out there think that Freese was better than Craig last year and in fact was quite a bit better? Am i even reading this right?

very good questions, thanks for the chance to explain things.  the revolutionary part about WAR, for me, is that for the first tome in my baseball fandom, i have a way of measuring the toal contribution of  a player.  you bring up a great comparison between freese and craig.

based upon offesnive counting stats (avg, hr, rbi, r, obp, slg) craig had a much better year than freese.  but when taking into account defense, we see that freese was better.  3b is much harder to play than 1b, and freese played his more difficult position better than craig played his easier position.  although based upon offensive WAR, the stats say freese outperformed craig.  this is based upon obp being more important than slg.  freese was better in obp, craig was a better masher.

according to defensive WAR, freese added value to his overall WAr, while craig lost value.  i will readily admit, defensive metrics are still evolving, but for the first time, in my lifetime, defense and baserunning are being factored in, on a statistical level, towards the overall value of a ball player.

and this is where we truly see how amazing yadier molina is.  not only is he a good offensive player, he is an epic defensive player.  when that is factored in, his true value can be shown.  not that any of us in stl didn't already appreciate him.

as an add on, remember that WAR does nto take into account the pro-rated season.  freese beat craig in offensive WAR only b/c craig misses a chunk of the season.  so he only contributed perhaps, 75% of what he would have if healthy.  tryng to justify freeese's added value in offensive war shows they had similar season, outside of rbis, which saber stats aren't fans of, but freese was on the field, therefore contributed more.

it certainly can be confusing, but i hope that helps, a bit.

duckymedwick7 wrote: very good questions, thanks for the chance to explain things.  the revolutionary part about WAR, for me, is that for the first tome in my baseball fandom, i have a way of measuring the toal contribution of  a player.  you bring up a great comparison between freese and craig.

based upon offesnive counting stats (avg, hr, rbi, r, obp, slg) craig had a much better year than freese.  but when taking into account defense, we see that freese was better.  3b is much harder to play than 1b, and freese played his more difficult position better than craig played his easier position.  although based upon offensive WAR, the stats say freese outperformed craig.  this is based upon obp being more important than slg.  freese was better in obp, craig was a better masher.

according to defensive WAR, freese added value to his overall WAr, while craig lost value.  i will readily admit, defensive metrics are still evolving, but for the first time, in my lifetime, defense and baserunning are being factored in, on a statistical level, towards the overall value of a ball player.

and this is where we truly see how amazing yadier molina is.  not only is he a good offensive player, he is an epic defensive player.  when that is factored in, his true value can be shown.  not that any of us in stl didn't already appreciate him.

as an add on, remember that WAR does nto take into account the pro-rated season.  freese beat craig in offensive WAR only b/c craig misses a chunk of the season.  so he only contributed perhaps, 75% of what he would have if healthy.  tryng to justify freeese's added value in offensive war shows they had similar season, outside of rbis, which saber stats aren't fans of, but freese was on the field, therefore contributed more.

it certainly can be confusing, but i hope that helps, a bit.

It actually helps a lot. What i think WAR has going against it is the defensive metrics which IMO are atrocious. This is what i beleive causes the craziness you see once in a while where player A will have a better WAR than player B even though not one fan in a hundred would trade player B for A. The second thing you mention here is that Sabrs is not a fan of RBI and i think there is a big rub there also especially to the "old school" fans like myself. This game is still about running around the bases and coming home as well as knocking guys in that are already on base. That and preventing the opposition from doing the same is what baseball is all about. That is the entire object. How can RBI not be one of the most important stats there is? I know i am getting off base from the Lohse discussion but this is why i mistrust the newer metrics so much. To me they minimize some of the most crucial things like scoring runs and preventing them by relegating RBI, E.R.A and Whip to the background.

the rbi thing is tough. as best as i understand it, the saber argument is that a player cannot influence who is on base in front of them.  so player A and player B had identical stats, but player A hit with say an extra 35 runners in scoring position, he would produce more rbi.  so it's not that player B was less skilled at driving in runs, it's that he was presented with less opportunities for his hits to drive men in.

this can be seen when comparing pujols and ryan howard in the late 2000's.  albert was a better all around and offensive player, but b/c howard had more hr's and rbi, there was a debate about who was the superior player.  howard's higher rbi totals were due to rollins and utley being better table setters and on base more frequently than the players hitting in front of pujols. 

if philly management had looked beyond traditional counting stats, they may have never offered howard his current ridiculous contract.

another thing working against lohse, in my opinion, is that now that steroids have been cleaned up a bit, we are back to the reality that players start declining at 31 or 32.  lohse is on the wrong side of that hill.  i think lohse will get a 4 year contract, will be injured for a chunk of 1 season and put up between 4.5-5 WAR over the life on the contract.  money wise that would mean 4 years $25 mil, which he wouldn't sign.  though some gm will likely take a chance on him, will probably see good results in years 1 and 2, but not get value in years 3 and 4, imo.

Boras shares his current spin on Lohse here.

duckymedwick7 wrote: the rbi thing is tough. as best as i understand it, the saber argument is that a player cannot influence who is on base in front of them.  so player A and player B had identical stats, but player A hit with say an extra 35 runners in scoring position, he would produce more rbi.  so it's not that player B was less skilled at driving in runs, it's that he was presented with less opportunities for his hits to drive men in.

this can be seen when comparing pujols and ryan howard in the late 2000's.  albert was a better all around and offensive player, but b/c howard had more hr's and rbi, there was a debate about who was the superior player.  howard's higher rbi totals were due to rollins and utley being better table setters and on base more frequently than the players hitting in front of pujols. 

if philly management had looked beyond traditional counting stats, they may have never offered howard his current ridiculous contract.

another thing working against lohse, in my opinion, is that now that steroids have been cleaned up a bit, we are back to the reality that players start declining at 31 or 32.  lohse is on the wrong side of that hill.  i think lohse will get a 4 year contract, will be injured for a chunk of 1 season and put up between 4.5-5 WAR over the life on the contract.  money wise that would mean 4 years $25 mil, which he wouldn't sign.  though some gm will likely take a chance on him, will probably see good results in years 1 and 2, but not get value in years 3 and 4, imo.

Thanks for helping me work through this. RBi is contingent on who is on base in front of you but are not all stats affected by what has come before? Being this is a team game i think that is how it should be anyways.To me there will always be a problem trying to isolate a players stats w/o the rest of the team factoring in. This is where reality departs from the numbers and we see all kinds of strange things like according to team WAR i believe St.Louis wins their division last year. This i suspect is due to run differential which can be another confusing issue. I mean it can confuse a teams overall worth. I wonder when is the last time the team with the best overall WAR won the World Series? This is not to condemn the stat i am just curious as to how that plays out.

duckymedwick7 wrote: the rbi thing is tough. as best as i understand it, the saber argument is that a player cannot influence who is on base in front of them.  so player A and player B had identical stats, but player A hit with say an extra 35 runners in scoring position, he would produce more rbi.  so it's not that player B was less skilled at driving in runs, it's that he was presented with less opportunities for his hits to drive men in.

this can be seen when comparing pujols and ryan howard in the late 2000's.  albert was a better all around and offensive player, but b/c howard had more hr's and rbi, there was a debate about who was the superior player.  howard's higher rbi totals were due to rollins and utley being better table setters and on base more frequently than the players hitting in front of pujols. 

if philly management had looked beyond traditional counting stats, they may have never offered howard his current ridiculous contract.

another thing working against lohse, in my opinion, is that now that steroids have been cleaned up a bit, we are back to the reality that players start declining at 31 or 32.  lohse is on the wrong side of that hill.  i think lohse will get a 4 year contract, will be injured for a chunk of 1 season and put up between 4.5-5 WAR over the life on the contract.  money wise that would mean 4 years $25 mil, which he wouldn't sign.  though some gm will likely take a chance on him, will probably see good results in years 1 and 2, but not get value in years 3 and 4, imo.

I am close to your thinking on the next Lohse contract but i believe he is actually a pitcher that will improve especially if he stays in St.Louis or went to a place like San Diego or San Fran. He has never relied on power and has had to find different ways of getting outs for years so he should age nicely if the arm holds out. Seems to me that we have a good idea what we would get from this guy and i think he is getting better. I doubt he will ever be 16-3 like last year but solid. Do we really know what we have with these 4 young guys? I still count Lynn as an unknown. I am as excited as anyone about the potential there but it could be Waino, Westy and the Kids all year w/o Garcia, Carp and Lohse if Jaime is unable to go as many believe including me. Can they win with 60% of the rotation being inexperienced?

very good questions.  are we really prepared to go with aw, westy, and the kids (meaning lynn, miller, and rosie/kelly)?  that's why mo gets the salary he gets.  you and i can so yeah they'll be fine, or no they're gonna' choke in the heat of the summer.  we may get teased by our fellow posters, but our decisions aren't scrutinized by fans and the media.  we have it easy...lol.

i am high on lynn, miller, and rosenthal.  i believe lynn will put up 1.5-2 WAR, miller 1.25-1.5 WAR, and rosie, partly b/c i think he will spend time in memphis 0.75-1.1 WAR.  since they are all being paid $500k, that's great value.  but does that value translate into wins?  that's the trick.  lohse would cost more, and likely provide 2+ WAR, better production, but also at a higher cost.  the front office has to weigh value.

you raise some excellent questions in the 1st post about WAR saying we should win the division.  i'll try to do some research on that.  but don't get confused with pythaogrean w/l.  that says the cards' records should be such and such based upon their run differential.  that's not tied into WAR.  we lost a lot of 1 run games last year, which affected our actual record.  now teams lose close games for reasons, inexperience, bad luck, etc.  but the SABR thinking is that a team's record in 1 run games should be similar, winning pct wise, to their record in non 1 run games.  it would be an interesting exercise to see why we lost so many close games.  was their a pattern?

laroche and lohse connected at the hip.

excellent article about laroche.  to me lohse and laroche are the same player on different sides of the ball.  the key here is that good but not great players aren't going to get huge contracts when they're on the wrong side of 32. 

this issue will play out for us when freese hits free agency at the baseball age of 32.  he was alate bloomer and probably will never see the ridiculous money, but should get a 2 or 3 year offer from us reflecting his entering his decline.  or if our kids are ready to take over 3rd, we may just pass on him and thank him for his time in stl.

key in this argument, is that the MLBPA went along with it.  if they didn't anticipate it's negative impact on some of it's memebers, they didn't do their job.

duckymedwick7 wrote: laroche and lohse connected at the hip.

excellent article about laroche.  to me lohse and laroche are the same player on different sides of the ball.  the key here is that good but not great players aren't going to get huge contracts when they're on the wrong side of 32. 

this issue will play out for us when freese hits free agency at the baseball age of 32.  he was alate bloomer and probably will never see the ridiculous money, but should get a 2 or 3 year offer from us reflecting his entering his decline.  or if our kids are ready to take over 3rd, we may just pass on him and thank him for his time in stl.

key in this argument, is that the MLBPA went along with it.  if they didn't anticipate it's negative impact on some of it's memebers, they didn't do their job.

I would guess there are literally hundreds of issues on the bargaining table as each CBA is being negotiated. Both sides can't win on every point or a deal would never get done.

As has been discussed extensively, this qualifying free agency process has not worked out badly for anyone other than Lohse (so far). And even he turned down a very nice offer for 2013.

This will be interesting to monitor next winter. My guess is that not every qualifying player will be made an offer and perhaps not every player will reject the offer he receives.

agreed, brian.  i think next year we see good but not great players taking the qualifying offers.

Domeboys wrote: Very good explanations, Ducky. You can bet that every MLB organization's analytics department has run some kind of comparable analysis on Lohse (perhaps using different metrics) and have established what they believe his value will be in upcoming years. Chances are good there is a mismatch between that and Boras' asking terms.

I agree. Great explanations and analysis. I agree with your posts 100%.

duckymedwick7 wrote: yes i can.  1 WAR is valued at between $4.5 mil and $5mil.  over the course of the 4 year deal, lohse was paid $41.  that means he would have to have earned between 8 and 9 WAR based upon the value of a single WAR (win above replacement).  to make things simpler i will say each WAR is worth $5mil.  that's not just me making up a number, check out fangraphs or other sites to see what they think.

let's look at lohse's WAR per season:

09:  -0.5
10:  -2.4
11:  2.2
12:  3.9

so despite 2 good years at the back end of the contract where he certainly was more than worth the contract, the first 2 years drag his overall value down.  for the 4 years, lohse was good for 3.2 WAR.

3.2 WAR X $5 mil per WAR = $16 mil of production.

$16 mil in production versus $41 mil in salary is a loss of $25 mil in value.

so yes, my point is that lohse not only did not live up to his contract, he horribly under performed his salary.

Thank you for putting into words something which I cannot, due to frustration.

Secondly, I generally take both B-R.com and Fangraphs WAR values and average them out to get a more accurate WAR value.

For instance, Lohse had these COMBINED WAR values for the life of his contract:

2009:  (0.8 & -0.5) or 0.3, $1.34M
2010:  (0.7 & -2.4) or -0.9, -$4.03M
2011:  (2.5 & 2.2) or 2.35, $10.62M
2012:  (3.6 & 3.9) or 3.75, $17.02M

Total = $24.95M, which is a little bit less of a loss on a $41M contract.



Note: the marginal dollar value of one win of WAR was lower than $5M in the past and even reached "just" $4.53M / win this past season, not $5M.

thanks for the update and additional info, pads.  i didn't want to add confusion to a tricky subject so i stuck with b-r figures, and slid the WAR value up a bit to $5mil.

I don't think a player should be penalized, WAR-wise, for being injured; it's not like he got hurt on purpose.

But maybe that's why J.D. Drew refused so often to play hurt.