Mariners acquire Jorge Polanco from the Twins!!!!!

[Donn Beach]

The pitcher defends against a home run by striking the hitter out

[bpj]

I think WAR is a cute little game on paper, but doesn't mean much in practice.

Taking a look at the correlation coefficients, WAR only has a .674 correlation to Runs scored.

More meaningful than a few stats, but it's still a pretty weak correlation compared to adding OPS (.971) or even just SLG (.961), which both quite obviously result in scoring more.

That's obviously because players get WAR from things that don't make the offense better, which is all we actually need.

Preventing runs doesn't help us beat the opponent. It only helps you not get beat. There's a difference, because at some point you still have to put runs across the plate.

And that has been this team's biggest problem, scoring runs. From the players that we've acquired, it looks as though we've managed to cut down on the strikeouts significantly. I wonder how much that will have an effect on this team's offense?

K% is pretty meaningless to scoring runs. See the Twitter thread this kid made about it:
https://x.com/KasperStats/status/175210 ... 65689?s=20

I did a very crude Excel spreadsheet just comparing the 2023 Opening Day roster with the 2024 roster.

Crude because I just added up all their OPS's, wOBA's and K% (using the previous 3 seasons of data) and then divided it by 6 (the number of players in the data set) to get the average "opening day" numbers.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major ... _cr=202301

(Wong, Suarez, Kelenic, Hernandez, Pollock, La Stella)
(Polanco, Urias, Raley, Haniger, Garver, Rojas)

The average OPS of last years players was .746
The average OPS of this years players is .767

The average wOBA of last years players was .323
The average wOBA of this years players is: .332

The average K% of last years players was 22.27%
The average K% of this years players is 24.65%


So, even though the average K% of the group has gone UP, so has the OPS and wOBA.

And, since OPS and wOBA are much more correlated with scoring runs, they're likely to have a better offense this season than last season, despite having guys that K more than last years group.

Overall, that actually looks better than I had expected. Of course, the 2023 guys fell off the map once the season started, so hopefully this years crop doesn't do that.

[bpj]

The pitcher defends against a home run by striking the hitter out

They do that whether the defense is good or bad.

[Donn Beach]

Yup, we switched terms, what I responded to was about run prevention, pitching is an aspect of run prevention. Now we are talking defense. You could say pitching is an aspect of defense but better yet, pitching and defense constitute run prevention. At least that's how I would view it

[bpj]

Yup, we switched terms, what I responded to was about run prevention, pitching is an aspect of run prevention. Now we are talking defense. You could say pitching is an aspect of defense but better yet, pitching and defense constitute run prevention. At least that's how I would view it

Pitchers aren't really relevant in what I'm talking about.

Defense is a part of a batters WAR. Pitching isn't.

Defensive contributions of a player aren't putting runs across the plate for us.

The pitching/strikeouts is going to happen whether the players have good or bad defense.

We had 26 games last season that we lost by 1 run.
The Twins had 25.
The Rays had 25.
The Blue Jays had 21.
The Rangers had 20.
The Astros had 16.
The Orioles had 16.

We missed the playoffs by one game, and the Twins, Rays and Blue Jays eventually exited the playoffs early.

I don't think losing by a run means everything, but I do think we'd have been better off winning a few more of those.

Obviously it will help having good strikeout pitching. But that just makes the defense even less relevant.

[D-train]

Even when you exclude the defensive component our rankings are wonky due to T Mobile.

OPS 16th .734
wRC+ 9th 107
Runs 12th 758

So scored less than expect runs based on wRC+ and more than expected base on OPS. Tells me wRC+ which is the biggest component of player WAR is whacked in this case...This creates a WAR that overestimated win expectations...

[bpj]

Even when you exclude the defensive component or rankings are wonky due to T Mobile.

OPS 16th .734
wRC+ 9th 107
Runs 12th 758

So scored less than expect runs based on wRC+ and more than expected base on OPS. Tells me wRC+ which is the biggest component of player WAR is whacked in this case...This creates a WAR that overestimated win expectations...

Makes sense, park adjusted stats are trash

[bpj]

2023 Home-
OPS: 24th
wOBA: 23rd
Runs: 19th
K%: 29th
wRC+: 12th

2023 Away-
OPS: 6th
wOBA: 6th
Runs: 8th
K%: 26th
wRC+: 6th

[D-train]

2023 Home-
OPS: 24th
wOBA: 23rd
Runs: 19th
K%: 29th
wRC+: 12th

2023 Away-
OPS: 6th
wOBA: 6th
Runs: 8th
K%: 26th
wRC+: 6th

Rangers only played at Globe life field for 25 years.

This is the 25th year for T Mobile. Time to trash it and start over with a hitters park!!!

Globe Life Park in Arlington
Years: 1994-2019

Capacity: 48,114

Location: Arlington, TX