How much did the Astros lose in Wigginton?

by Stephen Higdon on Feb 18, 2009 3:35 PM CST

Looking at baseball projections may be one of my most enjoyable hobbies. As a fantasy nut and legitimated blogger, by virtue of being here, I love slicing and dicing a player's projected line; comparing the strenghts and weakness of each system, trying to devine where the truth lies.

I have really come to trust PECOTA's projection system (for hitters)–especially after I read this interview with Nate Silver (PECOTA's father). Perhaps my favorite part of PECOTA are the Breakout and Collapse rates and the Beta scores they give each player.

Something that caught my eye, since player cards are available now, was Ty Wigginton's beta score on his projected line. It's a 2.00. I can't remember if I've ever seen a 2 before (1 is PECOTA's most confident assertion of where a player will be). Maybe it's because Ty Wigginton is heading back to the AL East and PECOTA isn't comfortable predicting how he fares facing off against Burnett, Sabathia, Kazmir, Shields, Garza, Beckett, etc., but it's not confident in his weighted average triple slash of .272/.335/.477. It thinks that it's waaaaay to lenient on him.

I know that Wigginton would be a valued commodity for us this year, but the difference in losing Wigginton is less than a win according to PECOTA, and it's not very confident in saying that either. So that begs the question, did we really lose too much in losing Wigginton?

On an unrelated note, this weekend I'm going to go through and readjust the Community Project project to include PECOTA's projections for our hitters...so we'll see how that goes.

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wow

I’ve never seen a beta score that high either….

Wigginton has been a serviceable major leaguer, and I guess BPro thinks last season was an exception to an otherwise average major league career…

His 2008 season lays somewhere between his 75th and 90th percentile projections for this season, and with an improvement rate of 43%, PECOTA doesn’t believe that it’s likely

Taking Blum, Boone and Wigginton’s weighted means into account, like you said, we shouldn’t lose all that much in this transaction. Losing Wiggy’s not so great defense helps out

by Evan Hochschild on Feb 18, 2009 3:46 PM CST reply actions

Wigginton's loss is significant mostly in relation to the replacement...

in the form of Blum and Boone. Let’s face it. If Wigginton has risk issues in terms of decline, that would apply doubly or triply to Blum and Boone. I don’t think a total collapse by Boone is very far out of the question. We have been getting comfortable with the idea that a Blum/Boone platoon gives us some value. But if either Blum or Boone decline precipitously—and look at their age and the fact that they are utility players at best—that platoon doesn’t help us much. That’s one reason I have been hoping to pick up another good utility player who might sub at both 3d and shorstop. At this point, Gruzelanek is the only one left that I can recall. (Ironically, what we need is a Loretta.)

Having said that, I think the odds of Wiggy regressing to a high-700’s OPS are not insubstantial (even though .800 is probable). As I’ve said before, I also think Wigginton is the type of player who could undergo a rapid decline at some point over the next 2 or 3 years. That seems to go with 3d baseman of his type. Really, Wigginton would be excellent as a platoon player. His platoon splits are distinct, and he will probably continue to murder LHP for some time.

by clack on Feb 18, 2009 4:39 PM CST reply actions 1 recs

I see the point in the replacement level

And should have addressed the better above, but a nap was a siren’s song rushing me.

PECOTA doesn’t see the difference, in terms of WARP, to be very great for the Blum/Boone-Wigginton trade-off. That is something that could easily change if age related effects bring other side of that pairing down, but it was interesting to me how uncertain a projection system that pays so much attention to comparable career paths things was with Wigginton.

The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.

by Stephen Higdon on Feb 18, 2009 5:24 PM CST up reply actions

I agree with Clack

My knee jerk response with the article was that losing Wiggy cost the Astros one game – -compared to what?? Blum and Boone at third or to the average third baseman ; or to the average third baseman who could also fill in at left or first or second if needed? or if Carlos Lee plays an entire year in left as opposed to last year. I admit I have no clue how PECOTA works – so I cannot challenge it or endorse it – but its explanation does not make me accept with any great confidence its conclusion that the Astros will lose one extra game than it would if he were on the team.

Astros fan for life

by Joe in Birmingham on Feb 18, 2009 5:54 PM CST up reply actions

It's according to Blum and Boone

But I think that clack makes solid points. I’m sorry that this came across as a certainty that we didn’t lose too much. This article was really my own shock at how PECOTA sees it playing out because prior to seeing that, I had just assumed the worse.

by Stephen Higdon on Feb 18, 2009 8:19 PM CST up reply actions

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