Community Projection: Richie Sexson
140 of you guys have chimed in so far, and there was far more agreement in the projections than I expected. Let’s go to the numbers:
Community Projection: .260/.344/.512, 548 AB, 34 2B, 0 3B, 34 HR, 65 BB, 4 HBP, 153 K
Low Projection: .220/.297/.411
High Projection: .281/.378/.606
Dave Projection: .260/.327/.474
Jeff will provide you with all the gritty details in cool graph form, I’m sure, but I find it interesting how close the absolute best case projection is to the overall assessment – basically, the community thinks there’s a really good chance that Richie’s going to have the same year he had last year, and has almost no upside beyond that. There’s a few people that foresee a major collapse, but no one has him performing at an MVP-type level. Basically, Mariner fans think that ’07 Richie Sexson is essentially going to be a repeat of ’06 Richie Sexson with some real chance to underperform and not much of a chance to overperform.
The .850 OPS he’s projected to have in Safeco Field is a pretty good offensive performance, but even with that line, he’s still a bad defensive first baseman making $14 million a year with significant downside. They should have dumped him when they had the chance.
Coming tomorrow – the Jose Lopez projection opens its doors.
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113 Responses to “Community Projection: Richie Sexson”
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If we are gonna talk about 14 million as a waste on Richie (being overpaid) how do you talk about the combined salaries of Washburn, Batista, Weaver, and Vidro and tell me all of that money could not be better spent?
actually this thread has ALOT going for it….
Thanks.
Since we’re still with Mr. Hargrove,lets try to reign back the absolute certainty that some of these refutations come dressed with. You have been wrong before and recently.
Why the law of large numbers is relevant to this discussion:
Each time an unknown or average baseball player comes to the plate, there is a certain probability that he’ll make an out, or hit a home run, etc.
Each baseball player has a certain amount of talent. The meaning of talent, at least in sports, is the amount by which a player’s performance probabilities deviate from the norm. How do we know what a player’s performance probabilities are? They reveal themselves slowly, over time, as the data points accumulate. The more times they hit, the more their observed performance rates converge with their true talent, which previously existed only in a platonic-form kind of state, somewhere only a scout could see it.
There’s a lot of grumbling over Sexson’s annual salary. Isn’t that only a problem if the $14 million would be spent wisely elsewhere?
As guys who constantly criticize the front office’s policies and practices for talent acquisition, what makes you think that getting rid of him would leave the Mariners in better short-term [i]or[/i] long-term shape?
Why the law of large numbers is relevant to this discussion:
Each time an unknown or average baseball player comes to the plate, there is a certain probability that he’ll make an out, or hit a home run, etc.
Each baseball player has a certain amount of talent. The meaning of talent, at least in sports, is the amount by which a player’s performance probabilities deviate from the norm. How do we know what a player’s performance probabilities are? They reveal themselves slowly, over time, as the data points accumulate. The more times they hit, the more their observed performance rates converge with their true talent, which previously existed only in a platonic-form kind of state, somewhere only a scout could see it.
WHich is, of course, an overly simplistic model which ignores several factors. One of the biggest is aging and physical deterioriation. Which is what Dave is pointing out.
Or do you REALLY think that you can project this into age 45, 46 and 47 with absolutely no changes?
David Dellucci has 2,294 major league at bats. I think that’s enough to judge his talent level. That has nothing at all to do with the law of large numbers.
#101 For the sake of objectivity, pretty much everything I have read on this blog has indicated that the Mariners front office is basically incompetent and at least in regards to Batista, Washburn and Vidro, they are way overpaid.
Yes, so a theoretical GM With A Working Clue Phone could put the Sexson money to better use, but the actual GM We’re Stuck With probably couldn’t. So there you go. Enjoy your 34 homers and try not to think about it too much after you’ve had a few beers. That’s approximately 10 minutes of cumulative happiness in what is otherwise going to be a long season.
mmm, beer and baseball..i cant wait!
hmmmm….using a structured system of projecting performance and relating it to salary to determine a player’s value verses worshipping at the alter of the homer,skirting the lack of a true system by discussing *the law of large numbers*, and seemingly ignoring payroll altogether….
While Poisson and Bernoulli are two of my idols (really, i so want to be them)and chicks do dig the longball, i’ll error on the side of the structured system maybe just this once…
106. gwandung
Bring something to the discussion or just read.
yes…you really weren’t just thinking that….your fingers were moving too…
I don’t think anyone is arguing the Pecota is destiny.
However, this thread does have some compelling arguments supporting the conclusion that Sexson is a lousy value given his contract and projected performance.
You be the judge concerning how damaging it is to have roughly 15% of payroll dedicated to paying one player twice the going rate for performance.