A Rational Look at the Impact of the Manny Ramirez Suspension

How many wins does the Manny Ramirez suspension cost the Dodgers? Not as many as you may think.

almost 3 years ago Brendan Scolari 7 comments 0 recs |

Comments

Yup, way too rational. ; )

There are a few reasons I think many people are overreacting to how this will hurt the Dodgers:

One, Juan Pierre, even though he didn’t deserve his contract, is better than replacement level. Let’s say 1 WAR over a full season, but maybe a bit higher.

Two, Manny’s not as good as his few months as a Dodger and he’s not a good fielder. A reasonable projection puts him as a 5 or 6 WAR player over a full season.

Three, it’s “only” 50 games. I say only, because some people are reacting like he’s gone for the whole season. He’ll be back around July 1st.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 8, 2009 10:57 AM EDT reply actions

i'm not going to pretend i know a lot about juan pierre.

but one could argue that a player of his skill set and of his age is more likely to play like he did last season than he did prior to that. declines tend to be quick and steep. of course, even if you assume he’s replacement level, it’s still not catastrophic.

White Sox Minor League Updates: http://twitter.com/SouthSidelarry

by larry on May 8, 2009 11:43 AM EDT up reply actions

PECOTA tries harder than most to capture those sorts of things.

Similar players, etc. They put Pierre at .333/.356 this year. With his SB abilities, that’s a .253 EqA, or a touch below average (rep level is about .230 on that scale). That’s about half a win below average. Sean Smith projects similar OBP/SLG, but puts him at -19 runs per 150.

Playing left field, he gets a -7.5 run penalty. But he’s a good fielder. Rally has him at +9 runs in LF, but we’ll take away, say, 5 for his arm.

Adding it up using PECOTA puts him between 1 and 1.5 WAR. Using Rally’s offensive number makes him look more like rep level, although I’m not sure how you get 19 runs worse than average with a league average OBP.

Beyond the Boxscore // Calling BJ Upton lazy is lazy.

by Sky Kalkman on May 8, 2009 2:12 PM EDT up reply actions

i'm aware of all that.

iirc, though, doesn’t PECOTA actually have a “bias” towards speed players? at any rate, what fun is it if we can’t adjust projections.

White Sox Minor League Updates: http://twitter.com/SouthSidelarry

by larry on May 8, 2009 2:24 PM EDT up reply actions

Agreed.

Way too much hysteria, even by Dodger fans in many cases.

by Brendan Scolari on May 8, 2009 4:35 PM EDT up reply actions

Don't you also have to consider chaining?

If you figure that Juan Pierre, as a 4th outfielder, would get 300 PA; than as a 1 WAR player over a full season, he would be worth about .5 WAR as a 4th outfielder. The guy replacing him, Xavier Paul, is projected to be below replacement level. It isn’t really a big difference, however, it’s just another factor that you have to consider.

Also, I’m no expert on linear weights, but I’m pretty sure the value of each event changes by the base states and outs. Manny Ramirez is going to be on base a lot more than Jaun Pierre (thus make fewer outs), so wouldn’t the value of Andre Ethiers doubles be less with Pierre than with Manny? I’m not sure that this is calculated with BRAA, as that strives to assess the true talent level of a player in a context neutral setting.

St. Louis Cardinals... defying win expectancy since 2008

by vivaelpujols on May 9, 2009 3:56 AM EDT reply actions