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Second half 22 GM Thread!

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Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
Shaw retires. Gose fails out of baseball and is selling insurance. Sandlin is in the bullpen.
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Fair assessment ... don't see why Shaw will get another thought once Vargas is ready. Gose is already on IL so he has no shot/space in next year's pen with limited 40 man space.

My question was -- who is the 8th/9th man in the pen?
Clase, Steph, Vargas (for Shaw), Karinchak, Santos, Hentges, Morgan, 8th man -- for now Sandlin but we have Morris (if he can't get innings up in a hurry), Miko and others like Gaddis/Curry who can make the shift (Assuming Espino, Allen, Cantillo, Burns, Williams, Bibee -- all get their starter shots first) ... You can feel Sad for Sandlin but his days are also numbered after next year. And, if they want Miko up ... Sandlin may have to go on 40 man spot even as soon as this winter.
 
petes999 said:
Fair assessment ... don't see why Shaw will get another thought once Vargas is ready. Gose is already on IL so he has no shot/space in next year's pen with limited 40 man space.

My question was -- who is the 8th/9th man in the pen?
Clase, Steph, Vargas (for Shaw), Karinchak, Santos, Hentges, Morgan, 8th man -- for now Sandlin but we have Morris (if he can't get innings up in a hurry), Miko and others like Gaddis/Curry who can make the shift (Assuming Espino, Allen, Cantillo, Burns, Williams, Bibee -- all get their starter shots first) ... You can feel Sad for Sandlin but his days are also numbered after next year. And, if they want Miko up ... Sandlin may have to go on 40 man spot even as soon as this winter.
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Pretty sure at least Sandlin and Morris are over Vargas in the pecking order and they always want a vet RP.

Also, at this point I believe they will keep Shaw on the 40 throughout the season AND offseason, they just don't care about his performance, they're paying his incentives despite sucking, so this nightmare will continue as long as Tito is coach and Shaw's arm hasn't fallen off.
 
petes999 said:
Fair assessment ... don't see why Shaw will get another thought once Vargas is ready. Gose is already on IL so he has no shot/space in next year's pen with limited 40 man space.

My question was -- who is the 8th/9th man in the pen?
Clase, Steph, Vargas (for Shaw), Karinchak, Santos, Hentges, Morgan, 8th man -- for now Sandlin but we have Morris (if he can't get innings up in a hurry), Miko and others like Gaddis/Curry who can make the shift (Assuming Espino, Allen, Cantillo, Burns, Williams, Bibee -- all get their starter shots first) ... You can feel Sad for Sandlin but his days are also numbered after next year. And, if they want Miko up ... Sandlin may have to go on 40 man spot even as soon as this winter.
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Honestly you are undervaluing and underestimating Sandlin a ton here. He started the season injured and personally I think they handled him wrong, they should have put him on the IL and let him have a full 30 days in the minors. He wasn't right to start the season...

The fact he can throw 95 from the slot he does, especially to right hander, is nasty, plus the 15 mph difference between his fastball and slider, really makes his stuff hard to hit. If he can get better control over his split finger (aka a pitch vs lefties) we have ourselves a converted starter who will be pitching at any time. His problem isn't his stuff, it's been staying healthy...
 
Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
Why would you just present failure rates in Cleveland? It's not like this front office was the same that drafted every other one. I think MLB as a whole would be more valuable data.

I also think the data is less useful than it could be when it isn't presented next to the data for pitchers who were drafted out of college.
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There is plenty of evidence that HS pitchers drafted in the first round are the worst in terms of success rates...by a large margin.

Two articles...one by Tom Verducci, one by Keith Law...are easily available using your search engine.

Just two quick sets of numbers from Keith Law, covering 28 yrs of first round choices...

First round picks that accumulated 10 WAR in their careers:

HS pitchers...........16%
College pitchers....25%
HS batters.............26%
College batters......36%

Even more elite, the 'sure things'...top ten picks:

HS pitchers...........21%
College pitchers...32%
HS batters.............39%
College batters.....50%

The failure rate of a HS pitcher drafted in the top ten is a whopping 70%....and it plummets after that.

Why do GMs continue to draft HS pitchers in the upper rounds when the established odds against them are so high?

There are psychological terms for it, but basically they convince themselves that their guy is the exception that makes the rule.

In that way they are like us fans, even though they have far more data in hand than fans can possibly have.

All the data over decades suggest strongly that as a general rule, prospects seldom become productive long term MLB players...and that the odds against a HS pitcher are by far the longest of long shots. But most GMs and almost all fans think that they know better.

The odds of a HS pitcher taken in the first round becoming a productive MLB pitcher (10 career WAR) are one in six. Thats for a career, but our concern is strictly in his years of control...and those odds are considerably longer.

Jaret Wright is considered a success for us by many fans in Cleveland. Over 100 starts in his years of control with us he was worth about 5 fWAR.

Many fans would love to...and advocate....to trade Plesac and/or Civale.

With three years of control left, Plesac has been worth 4.3 fWAR in 73 starts. With three years of control left, Civale has been worth 3.9 fWAR in 55 starts.

The historical odds that Espino will put up 10 fWAR in his career are one in six. But nobody would trade him for a player projected to put up 9/10 fWAR over the next three/four years.
 
CATS44 said:
There is plenty of evidence that HS pitchers drafted in the first round are the worst in terms of success rates...by a large margin.

Two articles...one by Tom Verducci, one by Keith Law...are easily available using your search engine.

Just two quick sets of numbers from Keith Law, covering 28 yrs of first round choices...

First round picks that accumulated 10 WAR in their careers:

HS pitchers...........16%
College pitchers....25%
HS batters.............26%
College batters......36%

Even more elite, the 'sure things'...top ten picks:

HS pitchers...........21%
College pitchers...32%
HS batters.............39%
College batters.....50%

The failure rate of a HS pitcher drafted in the top ten is a whopping 70%....and it plummets after that.

Why do GMs continue to draft HS pitchers in the upper rounds when the established odds against them are so high?

There are psychological terms for it, but basically they convince themselves that their guy is the exception that makes the rule.

In that way they are like us fans, even though they have far more data in hand than fans can possibly have.

All the data over decades suggest strongly that as a general rule, prospects seldom become productive long term MLB players...and that the odds against a HS pitcher are by far the longest of long shots. But most GMs and almost all fans think that they know better.

The odds of a HS pitcher taken in the first round becoming a productive MLB pitcher (10 career WAR) are one in six. Thats for a career, but our concern is strictly in his years of control...and those odds are considerably longer.

Jaret Wright is considered a success for us by many fans in Cleveland. Over 100 starts in his years of control with us he was worth about 5 fWAR.

Many fans would love to...and advocate....to trade Plesac and/or Civale.

With three years of control left, Plesac has been worth 4.3 fWAR in 73 starts. With three years of control left, Civale has been worth 3.9 fWAR in 55 starts.

The historical odds that Espino will put up 10 fWAR in his career are one in six. But nobody would trade him for a player projected to put up 9/10 fWAR over the next three/four years.
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First, I am not arguing for or against anything here. You asked why you were getting pushback, and I explained why your dataset was less than optimal. Saying the data is out there for people who want to Google it isn't actually a defense of the limitations of the data you chose to utilize.

To piggyback off that point, do you think it's fair to still lump Espino in with every single high school pitcher? I think he's surpassed what a lot of them do, and therefore it would be more fair to compare him to players who have similar levels of performance in the minor leagues. After all, the fact that he was drafted out of high school is ancient data that only loosely corresponds to a prospect's abilities. His performance in professional situations over the past few years should have a much higher correlation to his big league prospects.

When we choose to use old data instead of the best data, we can get arguments like "We should trade Mike Trout for whatever we can--after all, the average bWAR for the #25 pick is 6.5!" Obviously that's an absurd argument nobody would make because Trout's MLB performance trumps an old data point like draft slot. In the same way, Espino's minor league performance trumps whether he was drafted out of high school or college.
 
CATS44 said:
There is plenty of evidence that HS pitchers drafted in the first round are the worst in terms of success rates...by a large margin.

Two articles...one by Tom Verducci, one by Keith Law...are easily available using your search engine.

Just two quick sets of numbers from Keith Law, covering 28 yrs of first round choices...

First round picks that accumulated 10 WAR in their careers:

HS pitchers...........16%
College pitchers....25%
HS batters.............26%
College batters......36%

Even more elite, the 'sure things'...top ten picks:

HS pitchers...........21%
College pitchers...32%
HS batters.............39%
College batters.....50%

The failure rate of a HS pitcher drafted in the top ten is a whopping 70%....and it plummets after that.

Why do GMs continue to draft HS pitchers in the upper rounds when the established odds against them are so high?

There are psychological terms for it, but basically they convince themselves that their guy is the exception that makes the rule.

In that way they are like us fans, even though they have far more data in hand than fans can possibly have.

All the data over decades suggest strongly that as a general rule, prospects seldom become productive long term MLB players...and that the odds against a HS pitcher are by far the longest of long shots. But most GMs and almost all fans think that they know better.

The odds of a HS pitcher taken in the first round becoming a productive MLB pitcher (10 career WAR) are one in six. Thats for a career, but our concern is strictly in his years of control...and those odds are considerably longer.

Jaret Wright is considered a success for us by many fans in Cleveland. Over 100 starts in his years of control with us he was worth about 5 fWAR.

Many fans would love to...and advocate....to trade Plesac and/or Civale.

With three years of control left, Plesac has been worth 4.3 fWAR in 73 starts. With three years of control left, Civale has been worth 3.9 fWAR in 55 starts.

The historical odds that Espino will put up 10 fWAR in his career are one in six. But nobody would trade him for a player projected to put up 9/10 fWAR over the next three/four years.
Click to expand...
You would absolutely suck at building an MLB franchise. You would disregard the Sabathias, Holladays, Woods, Becketts, Wainwrights, Wrights, Greinkes, Billingslys, Kershaws, Lynns, Strasburgs etc etc etc. You draft the best talent when you can. Everything else is hypothetical BS.

Edited to say with the advancements in medical and physiological practices the risks are more mitigated than ever before.
 
I have a question. If you took the top 25 starting pitchers in WAR over the last 20 years, how many were drafted as high schoolers vs. college vs international FAs?
 
I got bored and made this, I used a Bleacher Report article titled:

Ranking MLB's Top 25 Starting Pitchers Since 2000 <- Link to article/source​

I do NOT agree with their rankings (and I mixed them up sorting anyway) and it is a couple years old.. Using their list, 9 of 25 signed directly out of high school. Several more were drafted out of high school but did not sign. A couple more were not drafted in high school but drafted out of CC and some "colleges" that are/were JR/Community types as they were playing MILB ball as teenagers (19).

Randy Johnson - drafted in the 4th out of HS (did not sign) drafted in the 2nd out of college..... Though technically a college pitcher, he was drafted in the 4th round previously so.... This is a tough call right? Cliff Lee is similar, but not as stark.

So - drafting high school pitchers ... It appears the boom may outweigh the bust. At least in the 1st round.

Player names are links to their Baseball Reference pages:
 
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If two decades of data doesn't do it for you, nothing will.

Espino is the exception to the rule, just as every other first round HS pitching draft pick has been in the eyes of the GMs who chose him and in the eyes of the fans that follow that team.

That doesn't mean that I dont think Espino will be a huge success. A lot of HS pitchers have done just that...beat the odds.

But keep drawing to an inside straight....and let me know how much money you lost.
 
CATS44 said:
If two decades of data doesn't do it for you, nothing will.

Espino is the exception to the rule, just as every other first round HS pitching draft pick has been in the eyes of the GMs who chose him and in the eyes of the fans that follow that team.

That doesn't mean that I dont think Espino will be a huge success. A lot of HS pitchers have done just that...beat the odds.

But keep drawing to an inside straight....and let me know how much money you lost.
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Sounds like you're the one deciding to ignore data. Instead of using data that would be the most pertinent, like I suggested, you're picking and choosing what to use--only things that support your narrative.

That's not arguing in good faith.
 
No system, especially Cleveland's drafts nothing but high schoolers. There is risk involved, but there's also immense talent. Those that are fortunate enough to keep it healthy usually come out ahead. Therein lies what seems to be the biggest issues with HS pitchers, and that is longterm health. Take Adam Miller or the Happ kid we got for Philly. There is no doubt that they could/would have been huge successes, but they couldn't stay healthy or suffered career threatening/ending injuries.
 
CATS44 said:
If two decades of data doesn't do it for you, nothing will.

Espino is the exception to the rule, just as every other first round HS pitching draft pick has been in the eyes of the GMs who chose him and in the eyes of the fans that follow that team.

That doesn't mean that I dont think Espino will be a huge success. A lot of HS pitchers have done just that...beat the odds.

But keep drawing to an inside straight....and let me know how much money you lost.
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What about Triston McKenzie?
 
Out of the Rafters at the Q said:
Sounds like you're the one deciding to ignore data. Instead of using data that would be the most pertinent, like I suggested, you're picking and choosing what to use--only things that support your narrative.

That's not arguing in good faith.
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No sir.

You have offered nothing to contradict studies by two experts on the subject.

But continue to ignore the facts.
 
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