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#Post#: 199949--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: jacey1 Date: November 7, 2014, 1:25 pm
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WHO'S curt saunders? was he the PTBNL we got back in the A's
deal?
#Post#: 199953--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: Ron Date: November 7, 2014, 1:53 pm
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I predict the possibility of the Cubs trading Castro this winter
is exactly zero.
Glad to see the Cubs are already in discussion with Martin.
Hope they strike while the iron is hot. Hope they do the same
for Lester (or whomever substitutes for Lester, if they don't
sign him).
It's almost certain that whomever gets Martin will "overpay" for
him (that's the way free agency works for quality players who
are not at the beginning of their prime). Does anyone seriously
question whether Martin is one of the four or five best catchers
in baseball? For the Cubs, Martin's primary role will not be a
long-term one, but a transitional one as the team is becoming
increasingly competitive. He'll do that directly through his
exceptional defense (working with pitchers along with all of the
mechanical aspects of catching that have been discussed) and his
performance at the plate. But as important, if not more so, will
be his indirect contribution to the long-term performance of the
team - through serving as a leader (both with the pitchers an
position players) and role model. And if/when Schwarber arrives
as a catcher, he can mentor him as well as ease his transition
into the major leagues. If Martin is vastly overpaid for the
last year or even two, the Cubs can absorb that happily if he's
done his job up to that time.
#Post#: 199954--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: CUBluejays Date: November 7, 2014, 2:25 pm
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Somebody posted if Schwarber sticks at catcher you would be
paying Martin/Schwarber $15.5 million the last 2 years to catch.
#Post#: 199955--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: davep Date: November 7, 2014, 2:26 pm
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[quote author=Ron link=topic=209.msg199953#msg199953
date=1415390007]
Does anyone seriously question whether Martin is one of the four
or five best catchers in baseball?
[/quote]
I certainly do not seriously question that Martin was one of the
four or five best catchers in baseball.
Last year.
But that was because he hit .290, had an OBA of .402, and an OPS
of .832. Career years are almost never duplicated. If next
year he cuts 50 points off BA and OBA, which is extremely
likely, and 100 points off his OPS, is there anyone that
seriously believes he will be one of the best four or five
catchers in baseball?
I certainly do not.
#Post#: 199956--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: CurtOne Date: November 7, 2014, 2:40 pm
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Lucroy, McCann, Molina, Perez, Santana, Wieters, Posey, maybe
Montero?
#Post#: 199957--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: shasson Date: November 7, 2014, 2:41 pm
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DaveP, this is not me attempting to answer your question. I am
re-cutting-and-pasting something only about his offense from
Brett Taylor-- no mention is made of his defense, pitch framing
and leadership in this excerpt:
"...is Martin worth four years and $60 million if we assume
serious offensive regression?
Consider this: if we take an ax to Martin’s BABIP to the tune of
50 or even 60 points, and correspondingly crush his
.290/.402/.430 2014 batting line, and leave him somewhere around
.240/.341/.392 (which happens to be his current Steamer
projection, together with a .328 wOBA and a 109 wRC+), he’s
still an above-average offensive player. More importantly, he’d
be far above average for a catcher. In 2014, the average
offensive line for a catcher was .244/.309/.379 with a .305 wOBA
and a 93 wRC+. Massively-regressed Martin blows that away."
#Post#: 199959--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: DelMarFan Date: November 7, 2014, 2:58 pm
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[quote]Massively-regressed Martin blows that away."[/quote]
And that doesn't even touch the intangibles, which are probably
his biggest selling points to the Cubs.
I'd try pretty hard to get him, but I don't think I'd get into a
bidding war with the Dodgers, who can throw around Stupid Money.
#Post#: 199960--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: brjones Date: November 7, 2014, 3:39 pm
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By at least one measure, Martin is a top 5 catcher. Here's a
Fangraphs leaderboard of all catchers with at least 1000 PA over
the past three seasons sorted by WAR. This includes all PAs by
that player over that time (so Mauer gets credit for 2014 PAs
even though he didn't play catcher). Martin is #5 out of 22
(11.4 WAR):
HTML http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=1000&type=8&season=2014&month=0&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=21,d
For reference, Castillo is #13 (6.6 WAR). So that's an extra
1-2 wins per year by upgrading, and that doesn't even include
pitch framing. And even without pitch framing, Martin is the
5th most valuable catcher in baseball over the past 3 years.
I was curious how pitch framing would impact the results,
though. So I pulled data from this website:
HTML http://www.statcorner.com/CatcherReport.php
(I used RAA/10 to
approximate pitch framing wins above average), and here are the
results sorted by Adjusted WAR (WAR + RAA/10):
Rank - Catcher - RAA/10 - Adjusted WAR
1 - Posey - 5.2 - 23.4
2 - Lucroy - 7.5 - 20.9
3 - Molina - 3.9 - 18.5
4 - Martin - 5.3 - 16.7
5 - Mauer - -0.1 - 11.6
6 - McCann - 4.5 - 11.2
7 - Ruiz - -1.2 - 8.6
8 - Montero - 1.2 - 7.9
9 - Castro - 0.2 - 6.6
10 - Perez - -3.0 - 6.5
11 - Santana - -3.8 - 6.0
12 - Wieters - -1.6 - 5.7
13 - Avila - 0.3 - 5.4
14 - Saltalamacchia - -2.0 - 4.8
15 - Iannetta - -2.5 - 3.8
16 - Pierzynski - -2.6 - 2.0
17 - Castillo - -4.6 - 2.0
18 - Ellis - -3.7 - 1.8
19 - Arencibia - 0.7 - 0.0
20 - Suzuki - -3.9 - -0.9
21 - Rosario - -5.1 - -1.1
22 - Doumit - -3.8 - -3.1
While some here probably doubt that pitch framing has that much
of an impact, I don't think anyone would deny that it has some
impact. So I also ran a more conservative version where the
pitch framing metric was divided by 3 (so it had only 1/3 the
impact on WAR). Martin is still boosted to 4th in WAR (13.2),
while Castillo falls to #16 (5.1). Even with the conservative
measure, there is a huge gap between Martin and Castillo.
#Post#: 199961--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: craig Date: November 7, 2014, 3:40 pm
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[quote author=shasson link=topic=209.msg199957#msg199957
date=1415392880]...Consider this: if we take an ax to Martin’s
BABIP to the tune of 50 or even 60 points, and correspondingly
crush his .290/.402/.430 2014 batting line, and leave him
somewhere around .240/.341/.392 (which happens to be his current
Steamer projection, together with a .328 wOBA and a 109 wRC+),
he’s still an above-average offensive player. More importantly,
he’d be far above average for a catcher. In 2014, the average
offensive line for a catcher was .244/.309/.379 with a .305 wOBA
and a 93 wRC+. Massively-regressed Martin blows that
away."[/quote]
Brett argues that Martin will be "blows-that-away" above average
offensively, even assuming massive regression. I have two
concerns with his argument.
First, he doesn't assume enough regression. His regressed
projection is still .733 OPS. But Martin has fallen short of
that during the previous 5 years, during which his median OPS
was .703 and his average OPS .701. Why should Brett or Steamer
or Hoyer project 32(-35) year-old Russell to post a .733 OPS
when the 26-30-year-old Russell was a .701 OPS guy?
Second, I think comparing to average can be deceiving. I'd
rather compare to starting players. Regular starters should
predominantly be above-average, because most subs can't hit.
The average catcher may have a .688 OPS, but I expect most
starters are somewhat higher than that. If Martin posts a .703
OPS, I think that will be pretty average for a starting catcher,
rather than being an offensive asset.
#Post#: 199963--------------------------------------------------
Re: Hot Stove 2015
By: craig Date: November 7, 2014, 3:58 pm
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br, I have some hesitation about using WAR too heavily for
making future decisions, given that WAR is a volume stat.
1. For example, comparing 3-year-WAR when Castillo spent most
of 2012 in the minors is somewhat more confusing than when
rate-stats are used.
2. Being a volume stat, guys who lose time to injury tend to
show reduced WAR. But then I struggle with evaluating to what
extend past injury projects future injury.
*I think about this with Hendry: Soriano had been very durable
and healthy before signing with the Cubs, but then in his 30's
he wasn't so healthy, and it impacted his subsequent WAR
substantially. Martin has been very durable during his 20's,
but when we look ahead to years 32-35, is he really a superior
bet to be uncommonly healthy/durable and thus to have
volume-strengthened WAR? I'm not sure.
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