Braves rated the best farm system of the decade by MLB

[nsacpi]

Obviously the pre-arb years are found money, but don't think arbitration awards are all that good at tracking actual value. How accurately people are paid during those years is going to be wildly divergent, and it won't affect all the players the same way.

The arbitration process rewards certain components of value (power) more than others (defense). I'm sure this is something teams take into account to some extent. I wonder though if it extends all the way to affecting draft strategy.

As an aside I've pushed the idea that as part of their draft strategy teams should favor players with multiple paths of success to the majors. For the most part this means giving preference to guys who have a good chance of sticking at a premium defensive position. Who have the potential both with the bat and the glove. But it also involves giving preference to guys who have some potential both as pitcher and hitter. And the Braves have had a certain amount of success with those kinds of players (Simmons, LaRoche, Freeman, Riley, Michael Harris in the 2019 draft).

In general I don't like drafting guys only can succeed by raking enough to make it as a first baseman or corner outfielder. The needle they have the thread is narrower than for other types of prospects. AND the arbitration process makes them more expensive (if they do pan out) than players whose value comes from other components like defense.

[thewupk]

Amazing how much smarter we are with 7 years of hindsight.

Not sure adding them would of done very much - it might "have" done something though.

It was horrible then and even worse a few years later.

And yes. Elvis would have been a huge upgrade over the Escobar, Jack Wilson, and Sea Bass' of the world.

And Harrison believe it or not would of been our best starting pitcher a couple of those years as well.

So yeah, the 2011 collapse might have been averted a long with some possible post season success had JS not given up the farm for a last hooray.

[Enscheff]

fWAR is far superior for catcher and position player values. It includes catcher framing and UZR was recently revamped to remove a portion of the human element grading individual plays...which removed many of the huge outlier seasons (both positive and negative).

I also prefer it for pitchers due to the fact it does a better job of isolating the pitcher’s contribution from that of the defense.

fWAR is all around a better measurement of player value.

[BeanieAntics]

fWAR is far superior for catcher and position player values. It includes catcher framing and UZR was recently revamped to remove a portion of the human element grading individual plays...which removed many of the huge outlier seasons (both positive and negative).

I also prefer it for pitchers due to the fact it does a better job of isolating the pitcher’s contribution from that of the defense.

fWAR is all around a better measurement of player value.

It blows my mind that it took fangraphs so long to incorporate framing into their WAR model. I've preferred fangraphs over BR or BP for years now, but BP has had framing for a really long time.

[Southcack77]

The Braves probably shouldn't have been buying big at that deadline.

The Braves' package was at least a prospect too heavy.

The Braves botched the Tex dump.

Maybe the Braves would have been better off selling.

But I just can't get too worked up about those guys. They contributed to a WS win. Good for them. I'm sure they all enjoyed it. They hardly were the engines that drove it. Andrus has been a nice, above average player with a long career. The other guys had their moments. But there was no Ruth or Bagwell or Smoltz in that deal. I think it gets way too much attention.

[Metaphysicist]

Would love to read up on whatever the latest revisions to UZR are. Link?

FIP is what it says: it measures what the pitcher does completely independent of the defense (though even this is not true, accounting for pitch framing), balls not put in play. This is useful for prediction, as these peripherals are less variable from year to year as compared to BABIP or whatever. That doesn’t mean it is a good assessment of total value.

The other portion of pitching, balls in play, is commingled with the defense. Some portion of this is attributable to the pitcher and some portion to the defenders. fWAR assumes the pitcher’s contribution is zero, which is obviously wrong (see Tom Glavine). The implication there is that 100% of the value should be credited to the defense, but it doesn’t credit that value to any defender either. All that value just disappears into the ether, with the assumption that UZR will capture all that value. But that doesn’t happen in practice. You can find pitchers who solidly beat their FIP, but the defense stats aren’t covering that gap. Where is the credit for the outs on balls in play going? Nowhere. It’s ignored.

For the most extreme example, imagine a perfect game with 27 perfectly easy groundouts that are made 100% of the time. The pitcher will have a league average FIP of 3.20 or whatever, an RA of 0.00 and the defense will have 0 UZR. Now if you are interested in what the pitcher will do going forward, FIP is a better bet than ERA. But if you want to value what actually happened, the pitcher generated 27 easy outs, the 0.00 RA is actually capturing the value created.

The less extreme cases happen with some regularity. There are pitchers that add value (ex: generate more popups, shutdown the running game, etc.). fWAR ignores this value completely.

bWAR starts with the actual real value from the runs allows and then adjusts it based on actual team defensive stats. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have the structural problem of just obliterating real value.

[Enscheff]

Using RA/9 is crediting the pitcher for what he and the defense did together. By that measure, the same pitcher would be considered more valuable in front of a better defense. The logical failure of such a metric should be readily apparent, and the discussion ended there.

The reason FIP is more predictive is precisely because it measures the contributions of the pitcher alone...which is exactly what we want to measure.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagra...7-uzr-updates/

They no longer rely on humans to classify batted ball types, and it flattened out the extreme outliers (good and bad). My guess is the humans got biased when they saw Kemp allow the 13th ball to drop, or saw Simmons make his 17th good play...which skewed the results to the extremes.

fWAR is, without question, the best of the WARs. FG also has, by far, the best prospect rating/value system. They are also the best place to find pitch movement data. And splits data. And player comp data. Oh, and it's free.

The only things BRef is good for are easily looking up what age a player was for a particular season, and their awesome searchable database (that requires a subscription fee).

[Super]

I think this is a fair way to evaluate drafts and draft eras. The Golden Wren Era looks pretty good when you add up the surplus value generated by Simmons, Wood and Gattis during their pre free agent years. Draft positions were generally low in the Golden Wren Era, so the performance relative to draft pick value looks good.

the guy missed on almost every single 1st round pick he had. regardless of where they were, the last few years the Braves have consistently gotten better prospects at 28+ in the draft than Wren got in pretty much any of his 1st rounders save for Minor, who had one good season with the team.

the farm was depleted when he was let go. thank god two complete lottery tickets he had basically nothing to do with panned out, because the future of the team would've been bleak. the Braves under Wren had hit their peak, mainly with players he did not draft or acquire. the 79-win season before he was fired was disturbing considering what was on the farm and who was going to be a FA after just one more season. Wren got canned because of that. you were losing two of the best players from a 79-win team with no internal help coming.

successful teams maintain good farms all the time while picking low in the draft. Wren couldn't do it. defending how bad the farm was is strange.

[nsacpi]

the guy missed on almost every single 1st round pick he had. regardless of where they were, the last few years the Braves have consistently gotten better prospects at 28+ in the draft than Wren got in pretty much any of his 1st rounders save for Minor, who had one good season with the team.

1) The right way to analyze drafting acumen is to do what meta has done, which is to look at outcomes relative to draft position. And NOT cherry pick by focusing on particular picks in particular rounds.

2) With respect to 1st round busts, the Braves have a long and distinguished history. Since 1980 they include: Acker, Roberts, Ward, Benson, Lilliquist, Houston, Kelly, Arnold, Shumate, Zapp, Cameron, Thorman, Burrus, McBride, Devine, Johnson, Gilmartin, Sims, Hursh, Allard. All taken with a pick in the top 30. The ones bolded were taken in the top 15.

[Metaphysicist]

Using RA/9 is crediting the pitcher for what he and the defense did together. By that measure, the same pitcher would be considered more valuable in front of a better defense. The logical failure of such a metric should be readily apparent, and the discussion ended there.

Good thing that’s not how bWAR works. It adjusts for the specific defense. We have different goals apparently. I don’t want to just measure what the pitcher does alone. I want to measure EVERYTHING the pitcher does, as best as I can.

The rest of that post comes off as weirdly partisan, considering we are just talking about what particular site to use for baseball stats. FanGraphs has tons of great info; you can actually add the ages to the standard stats page if you make an account and customize it. But that doesn’t mean everything they publish is perfect.

[Enscheff]

If we are taking absolute best pitcher metric, I like xwOBA because it takes into account quality of contact. Being a rate stat has its limitations (200 IP is more valuable than 100 IP), but as a skill measurement I believe it to be the best.

[Super]

1) The right way to analyze drafting acumen is to do what meta has done, which is to look at outcomes relative to draft position. And NOT cherry pick by focusing on particular picks in particular rounds.

2) With respect to 1st round busts, the Braves have a long and distinguished history. Since 1980 they include: Acker, Roberts, Ward, Benson, Lilliquist, Houston, Kelly, Arnold, Shumate, Zapp, Cameron, Thorman, Burrus, McBride, Devine, Johnson, Gilmartin, Sims, Hursh, Allard. All taken with a pick in the top 30. The ones bolded were taken in the top 15.

you don't think the fact the Braves had nothing in the pipeline to help after a 79-win season, with two of their best players eligible for FA after just one more season, speaks to poor drafting/developing? i do. if Wren had drafted well...there would've been some semblance of a decent farm. there wasn't. Simmons reeeeeally carries that analysis. fact is, Wren got very few players out of his drafts.

https://www.minorleagueball.com/2013...pects-for-2014
https://www.minorleagueball.com/2014...pects-for-2015

these are brutal, and the guys who turned out the best weren't drafted/acquired by Wren.
good teams who draft well don't have a farm system like that 2014 list. sorry, but they don't.

[Enscheff]

I lost track of the debate...

Is anyone suggesting the Braves didn't suck at drafting/developing talent under Wren, which is why they had to fire him and start the rebuild? Can we not agree on that while also acknowledging that Acuna and Albies were signed under his watch?

I figured that was settled history already.

Or are folks trying to assert that the poor farm system was Wren's fault, but he gets no credit for acquiring Acuna/Albies? Because...reasons?

I always assumed Wren was fired because the dynasty inevitably ended, and someone had to take the fall for it. Then Coppy was hired because he was the 12 year old showing the dinosaurs in the old folks home how to set the timer on the VCR, and they thought he was a genius for it. Coppy later proved he was nothing other than a weasel with almost zero baseball leadership acumen. Now AA is running the show, and while not a super-wiz, he is definitely a competent modern GM.

[Carp]

Gotta go with Meta on taking bWAR for pitchers. I appreciate what FIP intends to do, but I don't find it all that valuable when quantifying value for actual production.

[nsacpi]

you don't think the fact the Braves had nothing in the pipeline to help after a 79-win season, with two of their best players eligible for FA after just one more season, speaks to poor drafting/developing?

Acuna and Albies were in the pipeline. Just sayin. Golden Wren Era.

[Metaphysicist]

If we are taking absolute best pitcher metric, I like xwOBA because it takes into account quality of contact. Being a rate stat has its limitations (200 IP is more valuable than 100 IP), but as a skill measurement I believe it to be the best.

xwOBA is in the same category as FIP: it is predictive and/or counterfactual in that it is based on "skills" and "what should have happened" rather than describing real outcomes. Thus it is good for looking forward* (thus, "expected" wOBA), and potentially valuable as a narrative description, but it is a misuse to use it as a retrospective value stat. wOBA, on the otherhand, uses linear weights to tell us the value of things that actually happened. It is thus a much better retrospective value stat. If a pitcher gives up a 2B, it is useful information to know that similar batted balls usually end up as 1B; however, it doesn't change the reality that there was actually a man standing on second at the end of the play.

These basic concepts aren't particularly new, though we have much better underlying data these days. I remember JC Bradbury developed a similar concept with PrOPS 10 million years ago. (link).

None of this has anything to do with fWAR for pitchers, which is bad for the reasons described above. Thanks for the UZR article. I'll check it out.

*Except, again, for when it isn't. See Teheran, who beats his xwOBA and FIP every year.