2018 Toronto Blue Jays General Season Thread

[itsgametime]

Looking at players with a WAR of 2 or greater in the WS season

5 cubs were homegrown
Bryant (2013)
Rizzo (drafted by Boston Red Sox 2007)
Baez (2011)
Russell (drafted by Oakland A's in 2012)
Hendricks (drafted by Texas Rangers in 2011)

5 cubs were not homegrown
Lester
Arrieta
Lackey
Zobrist
Fowler

 

[Kin]

Cubs
Jon Lester $155M for 6 years, 2014 WAR 1.9
Miguel Montero $28M for 2 years (traded), 2015 WAR 1.0
Zobrist $60M for 4 years 2015 WAR 1.1

Right, so what you've done here with the only two free agent deals the Cubs actually signed is an easy mistake but is still inaccurate. Lester and Zobrist both played for two different teams in the years you're talking about and you're only giving the WAR for one of the teams they played for. So Lester's 1.9 WAR you reference there was just in his 11 games for Oakland, not his 21 for Boston.

Astros
Beltran $16M for 1 year, 2016 WAR (TEX 0.3, NYY 1.7)
Josh Redick $52M for 4 years, 2016 WAR 0.2
Dallas Keuchel $9M for 1, 2016 WAR 0.4

In general I'm not really sure what point you're making here(also, you did the same 2 teams thing with Redick) but what in the world is Keuchel doing there? He was their own draft pick they had arb rights to and was a year removed from winning a Cy Young.

 

[Kin]

Looking at players with a WAR of 2 or greater in the WS season

5 cubs were homegrown
Bryant (2013)
Rizzo (drafted by Boston Red Sox 2007)
Baez (2011)
Russell (drafted by Oakland A's in 2012)
Hendricks (drafted by Texas Rangers in 2011)

Combined WAR, 25.6

5 cubs were not homegrown
Lester
Arrieta
Lackey
Zobrist
Fowler

Combined WAR of 19.9.

Although, again, I'm not entirely sure what your point is here as I didn't say you shouldn't trade for players or sign free agents when the time is right and you have a reasonable expectation that they'll contribute a great deal. Being on the lookout for trading for the next Jake Arrieta is a far sight different than giving your aging DH 20+ million dollars.

 

[Kin]

Cubs increased payroll by $50M
Astros by $30M

I'm not sure which years this is in reference to but from what I see when the Cubs won the World Series their payroll was 116m and when the Astros did it their payroll was 117m. Not only did the Jays outspend them in both of those years but this year the Jays' payroll is 162m.

 

[itsgametime]

Cubs
Jon Lester $155M for 6 years, 2014 WAR 1.9 OAK (11 games) and 2.8 BOS (21 games)
Miguel Montero $28M for 2 years (traded), 2015 WAR
Zobrist $60M for 4 years 2015 WAR 1.1 KC and 0.8 OAK

Right, so what you've done here with the only two free agent deals the Cubs actually signed is an easy mistake but is still inaccurate. Lester and Zobrist both played for two different teams in the years you're talking about and you're only giving the WAR for one of the teams they played for. So Lester's 1.9 WAR you reference there was just in his 11 games for Oakland, not his 21 for Boston.

Astros
Beltran $16M for 1 year, 2016 WAR (TEX 0.3, NYY 1.7)
Josh Redick $52M for 4 years, 2016 WAR 0.2 OAK (47 games) and 2.3 LAD (68 games)
Dallas Keuchel $9M for 1, 2016 WAR 0.4

In general I'm not really sure what point you're making here(also, you did the same 2 teams thing with Redick) but what in the world is Keuchel doing there? He was their own draft pick they had arb rights to and was a year removed from winning a Cy Young.

Fixed, Lester's WAR weights out to above 2
Fixed, Zobrist's WAR weights in below 1
Fixed on Redick and his WAR weighs in below 2
Correct on Keuchel but he was able to get that money despite having a 0.4 WAR and you say he was a year removed from winning the Cy Young? ..well then Edwin Encarnacion made the All Star team in 2016 and had a 2016 WAR of 3.8, finished 14th in league MVP voting.  So what is that worth?

Point is WAR is not the gold standard on deciding how much to spend on a player.

 

[itsgametime]

Cubs increased payroll by $50M
Astros by $30M

I'm not sure which years this is in reference to but from what I see when the Cubs won the World Series their payroll was 116m and when the Astros did it their payroll was 117m. Not only did the Jays outspend them in both of those years but this year the Jays' payroll is 162m.

I think you have the wrong payroll year on the Cubs.  They won the World Series in 2016 not 2015.  In 2015 the payroll was not $117m but $120 and in 2016 (the World Series year) their total payroll was $171M - hence the increase of $50M from 2015 to the WS winning 2016 season.

 

[Kin]

Fixed, Lester's WAR weights out to above 2
Fixed, Zobrist's WAR weights in below 1
Fixed on Redick and his WAR weighs in below 2

I'm not sure why there's any need to be vague. Lester's was 4.6, Zobrist was at 1.9(in 126 games, I have no idea where you're getting below 1 from) and Redick was at 2.5.

Correct on Keuchel but he was able to get that money despite having a 0.4 WAR and you say he was a year removed from winning the Cy Young?

That money? It's 9 million on a short term. That seems pretty reasonable, especially given his age and prior success.

..well then Edwin Encarnacion made the All Star team in 2016 and had a 2016 WAR of 3.8, finished 14th in league MVP voting.  So what is that worth?

Well, leaving aside the fact that he was also 34 and some decline should be expected, that season was worth 3.8 wins. Which would have not changed the stakes for the Blue Jays no matter what they paid him and still wouldn't even if he were able to maintain that play, which he clearly hasn't.

Point is WAR is not the gold standard on deciding how much to spend on a player.

Cherry picked examples of one year of any number seems designed to be misleading. Zobrist, for instance, in the 3 years before his injured year was above 5.0 every year, a mark Edwin has only hit once in his career. Nobody gets signed on the basis of just one year, you take the wealth of information you have, including things like a player's age, and try to make a smart decision for the future.

But even then I think the Zobrist vs. Edwin thing is instructive. Zobrist(who signed for substantially less money than Edwin wanted despite being historically a significantly more valuable player) is the sort of player a team might be well served by if they've got enough talent already on the roster that he could push them over the edge and, indeed, he did have that one very good year for the Cubs where he helped them win the World Series.

If the Jays were meaningfully close to contention then signing older players to bad deals in the hopes that one or two good years might push you over the top is a decent enough strategy, however they weren't that close to contention after 2016(as we saw in 2017) and so it didn't make sense at the time.

 

[Kin]

I think you have the wrong payroll year on the Cubs.  They won the World Series in 2016 not 2015.  In 2015 the payroll was not $117m but $120 and in 2016 (the World Series year) their total payroll was $171M - hence the increase of $50M from 2015 to the WS winning 2016 season.

You're absolutely correct. My numbers on that year are wrong.

So how much did the Jays payroll increase from 2015 to 2016?

edit: also, where is your source on this? I don't have good year by year salary data and would love to look at it.

 

[itsgametime]

Fixed, Lester's WAR weights out to above 2
Fixed, Zobrist's WAR weights in below 1
Fixed on Redick and his WAR weighs in below 2

I'm not sure why there's any need to be vague. Lester's was 4.6, Zobrist was at 1.9(in 126 games, I have no idea where you're getting below 1 from) and Redick was at 2.5.

Correct on Keuchel but he was able to get that money despite having a 0.4 WAR and you say he was a year removed from winning the Cy Young?

That money? It's 9 million on a short term. That seems pretty reasonable, especially given his age and prior success.

..well then Edwin Encarnacion made the All Star team in 2016 and had a 2016 WAR of 3.8, finished 14th in league MVP voting.  So what is that worth?

Well, leaving aside the fact that he was also 34 and some decline should be expected, that season was worth 3.8 wins. Which would have not changed the stakes for the Blue Jays no matter what they paid him and still wouldn't even if he were able to maintain that play, which he clearly hasn't.

Point is WAR is not the gold standard on deciding how much to spend on a player.

Cherry picked examples of one year of any number seems designed to be misleading. Zobrist, for instance, in the 3 years before his injured year was above 5.0 every year, a mark Edwin has only hit once in his career. Nobody gets signed on the basis of just one year, you take the wealth of information you have, including things like a player's age, and try to make a smart decision for the future.

But even then I think the Zobrist vs. Edwin thing is instructive. Zobrist(who signed for substantially less money than Edwin wanted despite being historically a significantly more valuable player) is the sort of player a team might be well served by if they've got enough talent already on the roster that he could push them over the edge and, indeed, he did have that one very good year for the Cubs where he helped them win the World Series.

If the Jays were meaningfully close to contention then signing older players to bad deals in the hopes that one or two good years might push you over the top is a decent enough strategy, however they weren't that close to contention after 2016(as we saw in 2017) and so it didn't make sense at the time.

Please lets start with you showing me where I was vague?

 

[itsgametime]

I think you have the wrong payroll year on the Cubs.  They won the World Series in 2016 not 2015.  In 2015 the payroll was not $117m but $120 and in 2016 (the World Series year) their total payroll was $171M - hence the increase of $50M from 2015 to the WS winning 2016 season.

You're absolutely correct. My numbers on that year are wrong.

So how much did the Jays payroll increase from 2015 to 2016?

$11M

 

[itsgametime]

http://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/

 

[Kin]

Please lets start with you showing me where I was vague?

Referring to their WARs as "over" a certain number instead of specifically saying what it was, like I did.

 

[Kin]

$11M

Okay, and it's in the 160's now then, right?

 

[itsgametime]

Please lets start with you showing me where I was vague?

Referring to their WARs as "over" a certain number instead of specifically saying what it was, like I did.

This?

Cubs
Jon Lester $155M for 6 years, 2014 WAR 1.9
Miguel Montero $28M for 2 years (traded), 2015 WAR 1.0
Zobrist $60M for 4 years 2015 WAR 1.1

Astros
Beltran $16M for 1 year, 2016 WAR (TEX 0.3, NYY 1.7)
Josh Redick $52M for 4 years, 2016 WAR 0.2
Dallas Keuchel $9M for 1, 2016 WAR 0.4

 

[itsgametime]

$11M

Okay, and it's in the 160's now then, right?

Correct

 

[Kin]

This?

Cubs
Jon Lester $155M for 6 years, 2014 WAR 1.9
Miguel Montero $28M for 2 years (traded), 2015 WAR 1.0
Zobrist $60M for 4 years 2015 WAR 1.1

Astros
Beltran $16M for 1 year, 2016 WAR (TEX 0.3, NYY 1.7)
Josh Redick $52M for 4 years, 2016 WAR 0.2
Dallas Keuchel $9M for 1, 2016 WAR 0.4

Well, no, that's where you said the numbers specifically but were also wrong. Then you followed it up with being not specific:

Fixed, Lester's WAR weights out to above 2
Fixed, Zobrist's WAR weights in below 1
Fixed on Redick and his WAR weighs in below 2

Again, we can just say the specific, correct numbers.

edit: or is the issue that you think that WAR's put up for two different teams would result in an average? Because it's not, it's cumulative.

 

[Kin]

Correct

So then, give or take a few million dollars, the difference in their respective success isn't that the Cubs are willing to spend money and the Jays aren't.

 

[itsgametime]

This?

Cubs
Jon Lester $155M for 6 years, 2014 WAR 1.9
Miguel Montero $28M for 2 years (traded), 2015 WAR 1.0
Zobrist $60M for 4 years 2015 WAR 1.1

Astros
Beltran $16M for 1 year, 2016 WAR (TEX 0.3, NYY 1.7)
Josh Redick $52M for 4 years, 2016 WAR 0.2
Dallas Keuchel $9M for 1, 2016 WAR 0.4

Well, no, that's where you said the numbers specifically but were also wrong. Then you followed it up with being not specific:

Fixed, Lester's WAR weights out to above 2
Fixed, Zobrist's WAR weights in below 1
Fixed on Redick and his WAR weighs in below 2

Again, we can just say the specific, correct numbers.

All my WAR values are specific to the year leading into the player signing the FA contract (except for Keuchel).  Fixed means I took into account the WAR as a result of playing on 2 teams but I was not precise and it really didn't matter since we were comparing to a 2 WAR threshold but here they are : 

Lester 2014 had 2 WAR's 2.8 and 1.9 = 2014 WAR 2.5. 
Redick 2015 had 2 WAR's 2.3 and .2 = 2015 WAR 1.44
Zobrist 2015 had 2 WAR's 0.8 and 1.1 - 2015 WAR 0.94

The point of all this was to show that Encarncion's WAR leading into 2017 was well worth a FA sign because you mentioned it wasn't worth throwing money at a 2 WAR player yet the Cubs and Astros did it.  I'm using WAR as the gold standard as you stated at the begging of this discussion the other numbers were not relevant (paraphrasing)

 

[itsgametime]

Correct

So then, give or take a few million dollars, the difference in their respective success isn't that the Cubs are willing to spend money and the Jays aren't.

Not sure what you mean, you said the Cubs built from within to win the WS and I showed you that 5 players were indeed homegrown either drafted or traded but still homegrown and another 5 were brought in from other orgranizations

 

[bustaheims]

All my WAR values are specific to the year leading into the player signing the FA contract (except for Keuchel).  Fixed means I took into account the WAR as a result of playing on 2 teams but I was not precise and it really didn't matter since we were comparing to a 2 WAR threshold but here they are : 

Lester 2014 had 2 WAR's 2.8 and 1.9 = 2014 WAR 2.5. 
Redick 2015 had 2 WAR's 2.3 and .2 = 2015 WAR 1.44
Zobrist 2015 had 2 WAR's 0.8 and 1.1 - 2015 WAR 0.94

The point of all this was to show that Encarncion's WAR leading into 2017 was well worth a FA sign because you mentioned it wasn't worth throwing money at a 2 WAR player yet the Cubs and Astros did it.  I'm using WAR as the gold standard as you stated at the begging of this discussion the other numbers were not relevant (paraphrasing)

Why are you averaging out a cumulative stat? Lester's WAR in 2014 was 4.7, not 2.5.