2019 Trade Deadline Thread:

nsacpi said:
Position players assigned a 70 FV go on to be more productive than pitchers assigned a 70 FV. But this covers a very small number of players.

Looking at the 65s, it looks like the pitchers go on to be more productive on average by a small amount.

Looking at the 60s, it also looks like pitchers do better by a small amount.

Then for the 55s and 50s, the hitters do better by a significant amount. A 55 pitcher is closer to a 50 hitter than a 55 hitter.

I suspect the results for the 60s and 65s are flukes due to small samples. But maybe this needs to be looked at more closely.
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Most prospects are 55s and 50s. These types of results are why we saw FG unilaterally shift the grading of pitchers down half a grade, and is why Soroka suddenly went from a 60 to a 55.

This shift in grading stopped this type of mismatch from happening, which was the first kind of work done to show just how much value pitchers gave up due to risk:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/valuing-the-2017-top-100-prospects/

This has been a gradual process to get pitchers valued roughly equal to position players. Folks who have followed along over the years have a good understanding about why pitchers have seen their overall value drop over the last 3-5 years.
 
a similar and maybe more intuitive rule is that any list of Top 100 players should have twice as many hitters as pitchers. Same for any draft board for the first 2 rounds of the draft.
 
Enscheff said:
Data says you're wrong. Data says the volatility of pitchers make them less valuable overall. Data says to value prospects roughly as: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/an-update-to-prospect-valuation/

Pitching prospects are still valuable, as long as their risk is factored in correctly when calculating their overall value.
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i don't remember making a claim as to which is the more valuable prospect overall. my sentence about stockpiling pitching has little to do with value and more to do with how much pitching is needed and how and when it's acquired, especially by a mid-market team.

again, i've yet to see anyone lay out a blueprint for a mid-market team to acquire the necessary amount of solid pitching to be competitive for more than a year. "already developed" guys are either old and risky, young and risky, or will be expensive in terms of money and/or prospects.
 
you especially have to consider where the Braves' pitching was at the time. there were like 2-3 potential big league starters. pitching was desperately needed.
 
Super said:
i don't remember making a claim as to which is the more valuable prospect overall. my sentence about stockpiling pitching has little to do with value and more to do with how much pitching is needed and how and when it's acquired, especially by a mid-market team.

again, i've yet to see anyone lay out a blueprint for a mid-market team to acquire the necessary amount of solid pitching to be competitive for more than a year. "already developed" guys are either old and risky, young and risky, or will be expensive in terms of money and/or prospects.
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It is cheaper in terms of prospect capital to buy a finished product like Archer or Gausman with position prospects than it is to develop them while suffering massive pitcher attrition. Those guys are then supplemented by short term deals like the Braves just did with DK.

The Dodgers have shown the blueprint...

Invest in the most valuable prospects, period. As long as the risk inherent in being a pitcher is properly baked into the valuation, pitchers are still among the most valuable prospects...just not "stockpiling them".
 
Super said:
you especially have to consider where the Braves' pitching was at the time. there were like 2-3 potential big league starters. pitching was desperately needed.
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You are rehashing tehteh's silly comment, "if pitchers are so risky you better get a lot of them!".

I think that's a pretty good sign you're wrong...
 
Enscheff said:
This analysis doesn't include any contender's premium for the 2019 season.

Scherzer's trade value is probably closer to $100M. The Braves aren't getting him for Pache and Wilson...
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And I honestly wouldn’t want them to, at that price. Scherzer’s still one of the top three or so starters in the game, but age isn’t on his side and he’s due a ton of cash.
 
Super said:
i'm all ears here.
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You do have to take some pitchers. The approach I would take is:

1) Populate your draft board for the first three rounds so that there are twice as many hitters as pitchers. Make sure that over time this results in you taking twice as many hitters as pitchers in those rounds.

2) College pitchers are a good bet in rounds 4-10. Mostly this reflects the fact that you won't find too many high ceiling types in those rounds from any demographic. So might as well go for a disproportionate number of high floor college pitchers in those rounds.

I think the above approach will leave you a little thin in pitching and any team taking it will have to compensate by acquiring major league level talent to fill in the back end of the rotation.
 
Enscheff said:
It is cheaper in terms of prospect capital to buy a finished product like Archer or Gausman with position prospects than it is to develop them while suffering massive pitcher attrition. Those guys are then supplemented by short term deals like the Braves just did with DK.

The Dodgers have shown the blueprint...

Invest in the most valuable prospects, period. As long as the risk inherent in being a pitcher is properly baked into the valuation, pitchers are still among the most valuable prospects...just not "stockpiling them".
Click to expand...

Dodgers have the luxury of already having one of the greatest pitchers of all time / The funds to keep that pitcher as well as the funds to make acquisitions like Ryu/Hill.

The Dodgers are clearly the best run team in baseball but they have some inherent advantages on how they can plan for a complete build.
 
We are now firmly in the area that I predicted several years ago IMO of being good but with too many holes to really be great and not enough cash flexibility to buy what's needed that way.

That leaves a likely scenario pf 2 possibilities:

1. The Braves decide to "go for it" and open the prospect vault to trade for what is necessary to flesh out the current team as a competitor in the short term. I'm not talking about trading marginal prospects for marginal upgrades. I'm talking about significant adds that cost significant prospect capital. The Cubs took that route and won a WS but gave up a couple of high value prospects in Gleyber Torres and Eloy Jimenez to do it. They've won at a pretty good clip through their window and stand a good chance of making the playoffs again. But, even without the sanctions and money problems of the Braves, the Cubs find their farm mostly barren and their ML club getting relatively old, expensive and without a lot of significant player control. Their window is clearly closing. But I think you say it was worth it given the WS win. Without the WS win, I don't think most Cubs fans would be happy.

or

2. The Braves choose to hold the prospect capital and hope for enough development from within or a scrap heap trade reclamation to fill the holes well enough to get the job done. This is the Pittsburgh approach which extends a period of "good" baseball but largely precludes "great" baseball. Pittsburgh went away from that approach with the Archer trade of last year in a gamble that they apparently hoped would put them over the top. It didn't work. Their window is closed and they are headed for rebuild.

The Braves look to have secured a reasonable window of good baseball no matter what they do, especially with the unexpected Acuna and Albies extensions. But, given the apparent payroll constraints, any significant trade improvement will come as a significant prospect capital cost which will in turn limit the flexibility of future teams and shorten the window and ability to become a great team.
 
Enscheff said:
It is cheaper in terms of prospect capital to buy a finished product like Archer or Gausman with position prospects than it is to develop them while suffering massive pitcher attrition. Those guys are then supplemented by short term deals like the Braves just did with DK.

The Dodgers have shown the blueprint...

Invest in the most valuable prospects, period. As long as the risk inherent in being a pitcher is properly baked into the valuation, pitchers are still among the most valuable prospects...just not "stockpiling them".
Click to expand...

buy a finished product like Archer and Gausman...are we seeing what's happening with them this year?
you better pick the exact right guys i guess. Archer also cost *a ton* in prospect capital. i'm sure the Pirates aren't thrilled, to say the least, with investing what they did in him.
the Dodgers' payroll/situation is also nothing like the Braves'.

but to your last paragraph, i think the Braves' "emphasis" on pitching during the rebuild is overblown, while other teams' "emphasis" on hitters is similarly overblown, anyway. i think they probably did often take the best player offered to them, whether in a trade or via draft. a lot of times that could have been an undervalued pitcher they liked a lot.
 
nsacpi said:
I think the above approach will leave you a little thin in pitching and any team taking it will have to compensate by acquiring major league level talent to fill in the back end of the rotation.
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and i think it's extremely easy to pick the wrong ones.
how many guys are reliably good year after year? a select few. now what will it cost to acquire them? how much money, how many good prospects? it'd be great if there were a crystal ball available for guys like Odorizzi, Morton, and Minor, but a lot of it is luck and guys just kind of randomly putting it together.
 
Horsehide Harry said:
We are now firmly in the area that I predicted several years ago IMO of being good but with too many holes to really be great and not enough cash flexibility to buy what's needed that way.

That leaves a likely scenario pf 2 possibilities:

1. The Braves decide to "go for it" and open the prospect vault to trade for what is necessary to flesh out the current team as a competitor in the short term. I'm not talking about trading marginal prospects for marginal upgrades. I'm talking about significant adds that cost significant prospect capital. The Cubs took that route and won a WS but gave up a couple of high value prospects in Gleyber Torres and Eloy Jimenez to do it. They've won at a pretty good clip through their window and stand a good chance of making the playoffs again. But, even without the sanctions and money problems of the Braves, the Cubs find their farm mostly barren and their ML club getting relatively old, expensive and without a lot of significant player control. Their window is clearly closing. But I think you say it was worth it given the WS win. Without the WS win, I don't think most Cubs fans would be happy.

or

2. The Braves choose to hold the prospect capital and hope for enough development from within or a scrap heap trade reclamation to fill the holes well enough to get the job done. This is the Pittsburgh approach which extends a period of "good" baseball but largely precludes "great" baseball. Pittsburgh went away from that approach with the Archer trade of last year in a gamble that they apparently hoped would put them over the top. It didn't work. Their window is closed and they are headed for rebuild.

The Braves look to have secured a reasonable window of good baseball no matter what they do, especially with the unexpected Acuna and Albies extensions. But, given the apparent payroll constraints, any significant trade improvement will come as a significant prospect capital cost which will in turn limit the flexibility of future teams and shorten the window and ability to become a great team.
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yawnnnnnnnnnnnn
 
Super said:
and i think it's extremely easy to pick the wrong ones.
how many guys are reliably good year after year? a select few. now what will it cost to acquire them? how much money, how many good prospects? it'd be great if there were a crystal ball available for guys like Odorizzi, Morton, and Minor, but a lot of it is luck and guys just kind of randomly putting it together.
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Sure you need a little luck. We have hit on guys like Anibal and Harang for a year. I'm talking about signing a few guys like that to be your fifth starter, not making trades for someone like Archer.

So in any given season your rotation would look something like this:

1) Former high round pick
2) Former high round pick
3) International signing
4) Later round pick who panned out
5) Someone like Anibal
 
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nsacpi said:
Sure you need a little luck. We have hit on guys like Anibal and Harang for a year. I'm talking about signing a few guys like that to be your fifth starter, not making trades for someone like Archer.

So in any given season your rotation would look something like this:

1) Former high round pick
2) Former high round pick
3) International signing
4) Later round pick who panned out
5) Someone like Anibal
Click to expand...

That takes a massive internal investment from an amateur perspective. Similar to the one that the Braves undertook during the rebuild.
 
nsacpi said:
Sure you need a little luck. We have hit on guys like Anibal and Harang for a year. I'm talking about signing a few guys like that to be your fifth starter, not making trades for someone like Archer.

So in any given season your rotation would look something like this:

1) Former high round pick
2) Former high round pick
3) International signing
4) Later round pick who panned out
5) Someone like Anibal
Click to expand...

unless you don't develop any high round picks...
 
thethe said:
That takes a massive internal investment from an amateur perspective. Similar to the one that the Braves undertook during the rebuild.
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Huh? I outlined a draft strategy that would involve investing far fewer high picks in pitchers than we did during the Hartcoppy years.
 
nsacpi said:
You do have to take some pitchers. The approach I would take is:

1) Populate your draft board for the first three rounds so that there are twice as many hitters as pitchers. Make sure that over time this results in you taking twice as many hitters as pitchers in those rounds.

2) College pitchers are a good bet in rounds 4-10. Mostly this reflects the fact that you won't find too many high ceiling types in those rounds from any demographic. So might as well go for a disproportionate number of high floor college pitchers in those rounds.

I think the above approach will leave you a little thin in pitching and any team taking it will have to compensate by acquiring major league level talent to fill in the back end of the rotation.
Click to expand...


I think that's a reasonable strategy.

I don't think it's the only reasonable strategy, but over infinite repetitions it probably would prove to be the most efficient approach by some likely relatively small degree, based on what the numbers seem to show.

Even so, the context of a team's circumstances matter. Organizational need (as opposed to MLB roster need) has to factor into decision making. The Braves did not begin the rebuild in pitching equilibrium.
 
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