Piazza not such a hot deal
DMZ · December 8, 2006 at 3:44 pm · Filed Under General baseball
I thought the Piazza deal was an interesting gamble for the A’s, especially in that it gives them a particularly weird tool to work in and out of games using the DH, but that certainly was a lot of money for them to wager.
Over at BP’s blog o’snippets, Nate Silver went through a lot of convolutions to try and get Piazza’s projected value up, tweaking things to give him a break, but the best he got to was .272/.336/.436.
The A’s do make mistakes. We can hope this is one, for the division’s sake.
(Also, Gil Meche’s projected ERA is 5.40)
You think that going to a smaller ballpark and playing on fresh legs would at least allow him to tread water.
Also, Gil Meche’s projected ERA is 5.40
I need to rustle up a BP subscription so I can get an easy couple of points in HACKING MASS.
The Piazza line does not surprise me. I would think some of his value would be in being the backup C and catching once or twice a week along with his DH duty. Stricly as a DH, Broussard should pan out better over the entire year.
The A’s are going to be considerably worse this year. Zito’s gone, Frank Thomas is gone. Payton is gone. Harden is a question mark. And frankly I think the magical baseball gods have made them play better than the ever really were the last couple of years.
Piazza is a nice backup Catcher, and hit those 20 dingers in a pitcher’s park last year. But I thought he’d go for a steal like last year at $2 million, being closer to $5 million.
Edit: I mean he’s a decent DH, and has the ability to be an emergency backup which is nice.
(Also, Gil Meche’s projected ERA is 5.40)
That’s extra funny because Rany asked for it.
Don’t get too excited on the HACKING MASS front, though. I tried that last year by choosing the Royals’ #2 pitcher and he got released after 6 starts (0-4, 10.27 ERA).
Okay, so maybe Meche won’t be that bad (though he could be over just a few starts). And he’s probably too expensive to just release.
Texas is also considerably worse after the events of this offseason.The list of players they lost is pretty long and substantial. Even if they land Zito and Kenny Lofton I don’t think you could call them improved. Seattle could pass them for 3rd place just by treading water. Oakland’s losses might not be enough to knock them down to our level of mediocrity thouh.
LA on the other hand got better with Speier and Matthews and they haven’t really lost any players of note. Plus that farm system is about to kick in.
Beane must have decided that Piazza could approximate his road totals over a whole year: .332/.372/.564.
I think it’s possible, given that they’re not going to ask him to catch.
I don’t trust that projection on Piazza. He’s extremely unique (how many catchers have EVER put up the numbers he put up at the age of 38?) and I’m not sure PECOTA knows what to do with him. I’m guessing that 50% percentile projection Nate provided for Piazza includes a huge range from 10% to 90% and that he’s probably more likely to hit the 70% mark than the 50%. I back this up with… nothing.
Extremely unique? As opposed to merely unique?
Sorry, I’ve come over all pedantic again.
He’s extremely unique (how many catchers have EVER put up the numbers he put up at the age of 38?) and I’m not sure PECOTA knows what to do with him.
This year’s Piazza forecast had him with a similarity index of 40. Nate Silver didn’t post his similarity index this time, but I’m guessing if it was substantially lower, he would’ve noted it. PECOTA, at least, doesn’t think that Piazza is very unique at this point in his career.
This year’s Piazza forecast had him with a similarity index of 40.
Let’s compare that to recent scores for players like Ichiro (11), Jamie Moyer (3), and King Felix (1). Piazza’s not even particularly unusual.
Also, I’m not totally sold on BP’s little blog, but I’m loving Nate Silver’s posts. Having PECOTA forecasts hot-off-the-press when a transaction goes down is awesome.
Let’s compare that to recent scores for players like Ichiro (11), Jamie Moyer (3), and King Felix (1). Piazza’s not even particularly unusual.
Which was exactly my point?
Piazza shouldn’t inherently be that hard to project at this stage of his career. Remember, PECOTA is trying to do present-day similarity scores — not career similarity scores. He’s a slow guy who relies mostly on his power, and still has something left, but is several presidencies removed from his peak. That’s not all that unusual a profile for a 38-year-old. The one oddity is that he was a catcher, but we tested that for the Unfiltered piece, and it turned out not to be terribly sensitive to it.
I would take the “over” on the forecast ,but I think the A’s got swept up in the past. A player with no defensive value has to be very good — not quite Hafner/Ortiz good, but pretty damn good — to be worth something like $8.5 million dollars. Piazza’s offensive numbers last year probably aren’t worth $8.5m, and that was his best year since 2002.
Anyway, glad to see that you guys are checking out the Unfileted feature.
#15: Anyway, glad to see that you guys are checking out the Unfileted feature.
Unfileted is good descriptor. There’s good meat there, but there’s also a lot of bones and entrails that haven’t yet been pared away.
Steve,
Unfiltered is definitely a bit of an amalgam of different things right now, but keep in mind that it’s our new toy and we’re still figuring out how to use it. We’re pretty happy with it overall, though.
If anyone has more specific opinions about what is and isn’t working, please feel free to e-mail me off list.
And he’s probably too expensive to just release.
That’s my theory on Meche in HACKING MASS. I think his established level of production is good (bad?) enough to contribute to a solid (stiff?) team, but KC will keep giving him innings.
Of course, Meche has poor endurance in games; what’s really needed is someone who can give you eight bad innings like clockwork.
If Piazza actually catches, though, he has a ton of defensive value, even if he’s not such a good catcher. I’m not sure what the A’s plans are for him, but if I were them, I’d let him catch 60 games or so. Again, these are benefits that are difficult to quantify, but it seems like the combination of (a) giving your regular catcher a lot of days off and (b) getting an .800+ OPS out of the Catcher position in 60 games/season is pretty valuable. Put another way, in the AL, having a player who can play catcher and hits well enough to be a decent DH seems to be a good strategy.
Oh, Lord, do I know the feeling.
Ok, I guess I’m the only person who briefly read that as “Pizza not such a hot deal” and thought DMZ had done another recalculation of the ROI for the last feed and was apologizing for the slices/dollar again. And I was thinking “Hey, it wasn’t that bad…” — I mean, it was a better deal than the A’s are probably getting with Piazza. (Now, if we had a feed where the food per dollar was on par with the Thomas deal last year, that would be amazing — but I think that would have to involve outright theft).
Cubs sign another FA pitcher. Adding Marquis to their rotation and they are still looking for a CFer.
Man, Bavasi needs to be on the horn calling them every other hour tell the give us a deal. I’d love to swap Reed for one of their extra young arms (Marmol or Guzman).
I agree with 22….Shop REED!! Do it now!
However, as I’ve seen what Bavasi does to tradeable commodities, and I’m not sure I trust him with this one.
Oh come on, his trades are generally nowhere close to being as awful as his free agent signings.
Mind you he’s been doing his best this week to correct that impression.
Peter Gammons on the Soriano/Ramirez deal:
Unbelievable indeed! They should arrest him for taking advantage of Bavasi! It should have read “Like taking candy from a baby” because it wasn’t even a fair challenge!
Unbelievable indeed! They should arrest him for taking advantage of Bavasi! It should have read “Like taking candy from a baby†because it wasn’t even a fair challenge!
Ironically, “Like taking candy from a baby” was exactly what rotoworld said of the deal.
Unbelievable indeed! They should arrest him for taking advantage of Bavasi! It should have read “Like taking candy from a baby†because it wasn’t even a fair challenge!
Even babies aren’t that dumb.
Cubs sign another FA pitcher. Adding Marquis to their rotation and they are still looking for a CFer.
Did they decide against putting Soriano there after all?
Right now the Cubs outfield is Murton, Soriano, and Jones. There’s some rumbling that Jones could play CF but I think they’d try Soriano there first. But between now and spring training, I expect Jones will be traded — he seems to be pushing for a trade and the Cubs have three corner outfielders and he’s clearly the odd man out. Once that happens it’s Murton in RF and Soriano in LF and ??? in CF until Pie is ready. They may sign Kenny Lofton as a one-year fill in.
I wonder what Frank Thomas’ projected line was when the A’s signed him last year?