Awhile back I learned of a really interesting statistic in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.
In some standardized tests, test administrators like to ask students survey questions before the test so they can try and correlate test performance to other social factors. These questions are pretty normal, things about your social life, friends, and family. However, this survey is so long and tedious that many students just give up and don't even complete the survey before taking the test.
What several researchers found was that there is a strong correlation between percent of the survey completed and performance on the test. Students that complete a higher percentage of the survey perform better on the test. Note that it's not how they answered the questions on the survey, simply the fact that bothered to complete to the survey.
The suggestion is that patience, diligence, and work ethic are actually more important than smarts. If you can stomach through this tedious survey, you've probably stomached through a lot of homework assignments to be able to learn the material well.
Not so long ago, I was on a committee to review a contract for a procurement. While reviewing the bids, I noticed that there were bids that were horrifically bad. At the same time I noticed the bad bids were much shorter in length than the better bids. In fact, by the time the committee was done with the selection process, the ranked order of the bids was strongly correlated to the thickness of the printed bids. My recollection is that if only two bids had been flipped in their ranking, the correlation between thickness of printed bids & rank would have been perfect.
It got me thinking, the correlation was similar to the correlation with the standardized tests. The companies that put in way more effort and time into their bids, probably cared about their bid a lot more. At the end of the day, the fact that they cared about the bid a lot more, probably meant they wanted to win the contract a lot more, and meant they would care about fulfilling the contract a lot more.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Would you trade 5 first round draft picks for 14 years of Hall of Famers?
Back in 1990, the St. Louis Blues signed future Hall of Fame defensemen Scott Stevens as a free agent. As compensation to the Washington Capitals, the Blues had to give up 5 first round draft picks to the Capitals.
In 1991, the Blues signed future Hall of Fame forward Brendan Shanahan. As compensation, the New Jersey Devils demanded Scott Stevens and won him in arbitration.
In 1995, Brendan Shanahan was traded for future Norris trophy winner and MVP Chris Pronger. While not a Hall of Famer yet, he's considered a strong candidate for the Hall of Fame. (Edit: He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015).
So if you're following along, effectively the Blues give up five first round draft picks for Stevens, which led to Shanahan (although unintentionally), and then led to Pronger.
If Pronger indeed makes it to the Hall of Fame, the Blues would have effectively given up five first round draft picks to get 14 years out of three future Hall of Famers.
The Blues were incredibly smart or (likely) incredibly lucky that these string of signings and trades could net them three future Hall of Famers.
Was it worth it? Well, on the one hand, many first round draft picks end up as busts. While some of those first round draft picks led to quality players like Sergei Gonchar, it didn't net the Capitals any significant progress towards a Stanley Cup. The three players weren't able to get the Blues a Stanley Cup either, or even a trip to the Conference championships.
Many teams have done way worse with their first round draft picks. Getting 14 years of Hall of Famer performance is probably way better than you could do on average with draft picks.
In 1991, the Blues signed future Hall of Fame forward Brendan Shanahan. As compensation, the New Jersey Devils demanded Scott Stevens and won him in arbitration.
In 1995, Brendan Shanahan was traded for future Norris trophy winner and MVP Chris Pronger. While not a Hall of Famer yet, he's considered a strong candidate for the Hall of Fame. (Edit: He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015).
So if you're following along, effectively the Blues give up five first round draft picks for Stevens, which led to Shanahan (although unintentionally), and then led to Pronger.
If Pronger indeed makes it to the Hall of Fame, the Blues would have effectively given up five first round draft picks to get 14 years out of three future Hall of Famers.
The Blues were incredibly smart or (likely) incredibly lucky that these string of signings and trades could net them three future Hall of Famers.
Was it worth it? Well, on the one hand, many first round draft picks end up as busts. While some of those first round draft picks led to quality players like Sergei Gonchar, it didn't net the Capitals any significant progress towards a Stanley Cup. The three players weren't able to get the Blues a Stanley Cup either, or even a trip to the Conference championships.
Many teams have done way worse with their first round draft picks. Getting 14 years of Hall of Famer performance is probably way better than you could do on average with draft picks.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Why bother to have specifications ...
Ugh ... a very annoying e-mail thread from earlier this week. For the record, I'm not attacking the other fellow on the other end of this thread. They're just doing their job too.
Company: We noticed in your open-source software that you output X incorrectly. Please look at this other open-source software Y to see how it should be output.
Me: Please look at standard Z. According to standard Z, I'm doing things correctly. Here's the code snippets to show it.
Company: Hmm, you're right. I guess a number of vendors are not properly sending the data in the right format. Unfortunately, we can't get all those vendors to change the format.
Me: Well, how about I add a workaround option on the command line. Those who are knowledgeable of this subject matter can specify it if they want to.
Company: We tried out your workaround option and it's almost correct. A few bytes were flipped in the output.
Me: Huh, that's strange. The first few fields are sent little-endian, but the latter few fields are sent big-endian. This is really weird.
Company: For legacy reasons, it appears large company A has been doing this, so I guess vendors have followed suit.
Company: We noticed in your open-source software that you output X incorrectly. Please look at this other open-source software Y to see how it should be output.
Me: Please look at standard Z. According to standard Z, I'm doing things correctly. Here's the code snippets to show it.
Company: Hmm, you're right. I guess a number of vendors are not properly sending the data in the right format. Unfortunately, we can't get all those vendors to change the format.
Me: Well, how about I add a workaround option on the command line. Those who are knowledgeable of this subject matter can specify it if they want to.
Company: We tried out your workaround option and it's almost correct. A few bytes were flipped in the output.
Me: Huh, that's strange. The first few fields are sent little-endian, but the latter few fields are sent big-endian. This is really weird.
Company: For legacy reasons, it appears large company A has been doing this, so I guess vendors have followed suit.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Cardinals 2014 Off Season Moves Analysis
This is a follow up to my prior blog post "Cardinals Questions for 2014".
The Cardinals made two big moves that pretty much answer all of their off-season questions.
1) Who plays right field next year?
2) How do you handle David Freese, Matt Carpenter, and prospect Kolten Wong?
The Cardinals solved these two problems with one trade. They traded David Freese & Fernando Salas for Peter Bourjos, Randal Grichuk.
I love this trade. It gives the Cardinals so many options.
First, it allows the Cardinals to move Allen Craig to right field and put Matt Adams at first base.
Second, it moves Matt Carpenter to third and gives Kolten Wong the starting job at second base.
With Allen Craig in right field, the Cardinals were concerned with their outfield defense. They improved it greatly by getting Peter Bourjos. When healthy, he is a gold glove calibre centerfielder.
Bourjos' offense is questionable, however, he's a right handed hitter. In certain games the Cardinals can platoon Bourjos with Jon Jay, who is left handed.
In addition, Jon Jay can play right field on certain days. Jon Jay would be a huge upgrade in defense in right field over Allen Craig.
So the Cardinals improve the defense of centerfield, third base, and second base with this move. The defense in right field presumably goes down (Allen Craig < Carlos Beltran), but it's an overall big win.
In addition, it was an incredibly smart trade. The Cardinals traded a 30 year old third baseman who appeared to be in the decline on offense and defense, and only had two years of control left. They also gave up a relief pitcher who had already been demoted back to AAA.
In return they got a 26 year old centerfielder with three years of control left and potential to grow. They also got a nice mid-tier prospect to refill their minor league system with.
The only risk the Cardinals take is that Bourjos does have injury history. That is the risk they take, however the overall risk/reward appears to be favorable to the Cardinals.
3) Can the Cardinals upgrade shortstop?
The Cardinals solved this by signing Jhonny Peralta to a four year $52M contract.
While I personally preferred the signing of Stephen Drew, the signing is a decent one. It's a bit of an overpay, but not by a ridiculous amount. The Cardinals had Carlos Beltran, Chris Carpenter, Rafael Furcal, and Jake Westbrook's contracts coming off the books. So they had more than enough money to make a push for Peralta. They had enough money to even stretch the contract a little bigger than they'd be comfortable with. A 3 year contract would would have been better, but it's not a crazy stretch.
There are natural concerns over how Peralta will fair after his PED suspension last year. Regardless, his offense will be a huge upgrade over Pete Kozma in 2013. Even if Peralta regresses to his 2012 form (.239/.305/.384) it's still a good upgrade over Kozma in 2013 (.217/.275/.273).
Overall:
A great thing about these offseason moves (so far) is that the Cardinals didn't give up a single high value prospect. They kept Taveras, Wong, Wacha, Miller, Rosenthal, Kelly, Lynn, Siegrist, Martinez, Piscotty, etc
In addition, by not signing Stephen Drew (who had received a qualifying offer from Boston) the Cardinals retain their first round draft pick in 2014. With the Carlos Beltran signing, they'll get another first round draft pick in 2014 too.
Overall, a great set of moves that improves the offense and defense of the team, keeps the depth of the minor league system strong, doesn't overburden the team with a huge contract, and keeps draft picks for the future.
The Cardinals made two big moves that pretty much answer all of their off-season questions.
1) Who plays right field next year?
2) How do you handle David Freese, Matt Carpenter, and prospect Kolten Wong?
The Cardinals solved these two problems with one trade. They traded David Freese & Fernando Salas for Peter Bourjos, Randal Grichuk.
I love this trade. It gives the Cardinals so many options.
First, it allows the Cardinals to move Allen Craig to right field and put Matt Adams at first base.
Second, it moves Matt Carpenter to third and gives Kolten Wong the starting job at second base.
With Allen Craig in right field, the Cardinals were concerned with their outfield defense. They improved it greatly by getting Peter Bourjos. When healthy, he is a gold glove calibre centerfielder.
Bourjos' offense is questionable, however, he's a right handed hitter. In certain games the Cardinals can platoon Bourjos with Jon Jay, who is left handed.
In addition, Jon Jay can play right field on certain days. Jon Jay would be a huge upgrade in defense in right field over Allen Craig.
So the Cardinals improve the defense of centerfield, third base, and second base with this move. The defense in right field presumably goes down (Allen Craig < Carlos Beltran), but it's an overall big win.
In addition, it was an incredibly smart trade. The Cardinals traded a 30 year old third baseman who appeared to be in the decline on offense and defense, and only had two years of control left. They also gave up a relief pitcher who had already been demoted back to AAA.
In return they got a 26 year old centerfielder with three years of control left and potential to grow. They also got a nice mid-tier prospect to refill their minor league system with.
The only risk the Cardinals take is that Bourjos does have injury history. That is the risk they take, however the overall risk/reward appears to be favorable to the Cardinals.
3) Can the Cardinals upgrade shortstop?
The Cardinals solved this by signing Jhonny Peralta to a four year $52M contract.
While I personally preferred the signing of Stephen Drew, the signing is a decent one. It's a bit of an overpay, but not by a ridiculous amount. The Cardinals had Carlos Beltran, Chris Carpenter, Rafael Furcal, and Jake Westbrook's contracts coming off the books. So they had more than enough money to make a push for Peralta. They had enough money to even stretch the contract a little bigger than they'd be comfortable with. A 3 year contract would would have been better, but it's not a crazy stretch.
There are natural concerns over how Peralta will fair after his PED suspension last year. Regardless, his offense will be a huge upgrade over Pete Kozma in 2013. Even if Peralta regresses to his 2012 form (.239/.305/.384) it's still a good upgrade over Kozma in 2013 (.217/.275/.273).
Overall:
A great thing about these offseason moves (so far) is that the Cardinals didn't give up a single high value prospect. They kept Taveras, Wong, Wacha, Miller, Rosenthal, Kelly, Lynn, Siegrist, Martinez, Piscotty, etc
In addition, by not signing Stephen Drew (who had received a qualifying offer from Boston) the Cardinals retain their first round draft pick in 2014. With the Carlos Beltran signing, they'll get another first round draft pick in 2014 too.
Overall, a great set of moves that improves the offense and defense of the team, keeps the depth of the minor league system strong, doesn't overburden the team with a huge contract, and keeps draft picks for the future.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
The Baseball Scheduling Problem
Came upon this ESPN video at random the other day.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9930115/our-latest-30-30-documentary-short-tells-story-how-husband-wife-ended-creating-schedule-mlb
For years I had assumed that baseball (and all professional sports) had used computers to determine their season schedules, but apparently the scheduling problem was so difficult and so complex, human beings did Major League Baseball's schedule by hand until 2004. The couple highlighted in the video did it for about 20 years. Apparently multiple companies and research universities (MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, IBM are mentioned) failed to come up w/ schedules in the 80s and 90s. In some cases, it was not failed to come up with "good schedules", but apparently failed to come up with a schedule at all.
The scheduling problem seems mighty complex. The scheduling conditions below are from the video and my own knowledge of baseball.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9930115/our-latest-30-30-documentary-short-tells-story-how-husband-wife-ended-creating-schedule-mlb
For years I had assumed that baseball (and all professional sports) had used computers to determine their season schedules, but apparently the scheduling problem was so difficult and so complex, human beings did Major League Baseball's schedule by hand until 2004. The couple highlighted in the video did it for about 20 years. Apparently multiple companies and research universities (MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, IBM are mentioned) failed to come up w/ schedules in the 80s and 90s. In some cases, it was not failed to come up with "good schedules", but apparently failed to come up with a schedule at all.
The scheduling problem seems mighty complex. The scheduling conditions below are from the video and my own knowledge of baseball.
- 30 baseball teams, each plays 162 games (2430 games total)
- The schedule is unbalanced, teams in the NL or AL play within their league more often than the other (15 teams per league).
- Teams within divisions play each other more often than other divisions in the league (5 teams per division).
- Teams cannot play any other team in the other leagues (interleague play) but only specific ones in certain divisions.
- Cities w/ two teams (Chicago, NY, etc.) must not be in the city at the same time on specific days (especially weekends and such)
- Special games are scheduled in for specific rivalries. e.g. New York Yankees and New York Mets will play each other each year no matter what.
- For ratings/ticket sales, specific rivalries (intra division or otherwise) must be scheduled at specific times. e.g. intra-division battles almost always must be scheduled at the end of the year in September. e.g. Boston vs NY or St. Louis vs Chicago games should almost always be on weekends.
- A specific number of rest days are mandated for each team. They must be distributed evenly throughout the year (i.e. not back to back).
- Rest days must be scheduled in when long travel occurs (e.g. west coast teams going to east coast).
- Traveling must not be unbearable (e.g. you can't schedule team to play in NY, then LA, then Miami back to back to back).
- Each team has special requests to be home/away on certain dates b/c of special occasions or city specific events. For example the SF Giants may not want to be in town during Fleet Week.
- Scheduling must be fair and equitable for holidays. For example, it would be unfair to never allow a team to have a home game during the July 4th weekend. In addition, you must handle Canadian holidays.
- Some teams may share their stadium with other professional sports teams, so that must be handled. Although this constraint certainly existed in the past, it may not exist anymore (off the top of my head, St. Louis, San Diego, San Francisco, and Houston used to share their stadiums but no longer do). Although I'm sure special case handling probably still exists (e.g. state championships, conventions, etc.).
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Cardinals Questions for 2014
It was a good run for the Cardinals in 2013. No one likes to get to the World Series and lose, but there's no shame in just making it to the World Series. Overall it was still a great year for the Cardinals. They lead the National League in wins and had a team filled with rookies or second year players. They should be competitive for years to come.
Needless to say, a team that can boast a World Series victory two years ago, a NLCS appearance a year ago, and a National League pennant this year, is in pretty good shape. There's no need to make any rash decisions for re-shaping the team. In fact, they could do absolutely nothing in the off-season and still field a pretty darn competitive team for next year.
However, here are the three roster questions I believe the Cardinals will be thinking a lot about this off-season.
1) Who plays right field next year?
Carlos Beltran was an incredible pickup in 2012. In two seasons he produced a 6.2 WAR and two All-Star appearances. I'm sure that higher ups in the Cardinals organization were hoping top prospect Oscar Taveras would be ready to join the Cardinals in 2014, but it appears he'll need some more time in AAA.
So what are the Cardinals options.
Option A) Re-sign Carlos Beltran
After two All-Star seasons, Beltran will probably get a lot of offers. If the Cardinals could finagle a one year deal for Beltran for a good price, they should do it. However, it appears he's performed well enough to deserve (and get) a two or three year deal from another team.
Option B) Sign a stop-gap right fielder for one year
There's plenty of outfielders that could be signed for one year at a cheap price until Oscar Taveras is ready. Chris Young is an outfielder that comes to mind. After a pretty awful 2013, he could have a rebound year.
Option C) Move Allen Craig to Right, put Matt Adams at first
Craig can play the outfield and Matt Adams has shown himself a capable starter. In limited playing time, Adams produced a .839 OPS in 2013. As a starter in September (after Allen Craig got hurt), he was incredible, posting a .952 OPS with 8 home runs.
What should the Cardinals do?
I think the Cardinals should take option C. Oscar Taveras seems to need a little more time at AAA. He very well could be available by mid-season so signing Carlos Beltran to a multi-year deal doesn't seem like the best option.
If Matt Adams is used for trade bait, I think the Cardinals should sign a cheap one-year stop gap solution.
For those wondering what happens when Oscar Taveras is called up, he will likely compete w/ Jon Jay for the centerfield starting position.
2) How do you handle David Freese, Matt Carpenter, and prospect Kolten Wong?
2011 World Series hero David Freese was an All-Star in 2012 posting a respectable 3.8 WAR. However, he was pretty bad in 2013. He posted a WAR of -0.3 and is entering his second year of arbitration. I'm not sure what Freese can command in 2014, but it'll probably be a small bump up to 4M.
Normally, a team wouldn't think twice of trading a player only one year removed from an All-Star season. However, the Cardinals are in the lucky (or unlucky?) situation that they have multiple infielders available to play third base and second base. This gives the Cardinals two options.
Option A) Trade David Freese, move Matt Carpenter to third, put Kolten Wong at second base
Option B) Keep David Freese at third, Matt Carpenter at second, and use Kolten Wong as bencher/trade bait
What should the Cardinals do?
It seems almost blasphemous to entertain the thought of trading a local St. Louisian World Series hero, but I think it's the best move long term for the Cardinals.
Freese is already 30 years old and has never been a strong defender at third base. 2012 All-Star Matt Carpenter is a few years younger at 27 and his natural position is third base. Prospect Kolten Wong appears to be ready to play second base.
While the Cardinals aren't going to get a grade-A prospect for Freese, they should be able to get atleast some low to mid-tier prospects in return. Freese still has two arbitration years left, and as I said, he's only 1 year removed from an All Star appearance. In addition, the third base free-agent market is very weak for 2014.
As an aside, according to Baseball America, these were the top ten prospects in the Cardinals organization going into 2013.
The Cardinals farm system is far from weak, but it does take away some of the depth in the farm system. Some trades for prospects might be good to help re-fill the coffers.
3) Can the Cardinals upgrade shortstop?
Pete Kozma's overall WAR in 2013 was -0.2. While he did a good job defensively (1.3 WAR), his offense was quite bad (-0.9) and amongst the worst in the league. Casual searching shows he had the worst OPS (.548) amongst shortstops with atleast 400 at bats.
What are the Cardinal's options?
Option A) Play Daniel Descalso at shorstop
Daniel Descalso got some playing time at short towards the end of the year, presumably because Kozma was hitting so poorly.
Descalso is a little bit better as a hitter (.656 OPS) but a bit worse on defense. It's about a wash.
Option B) Sign a free agent
Johnny Peralta and Stephen Drew will headline the shortstop free agents out there. There will be decent demand for them, but either could be had for a non-ridiculous amount of money. Maybe several years for ~10-12M a year. Peralta normally would get more per year, but his PED suspension might lower the overall market for his services.
If they are priced out of the market, there are cheaper options, most notably Rafael Furcal. After being out all of 2013 with an injury, the Cardinals could sign him and give him another chance. He's another year older, but still performed admirably in 2012 when he was healthy.
One free agent that catches my eye is former Cardinal Brendan Ryan. He's a similar no-hit shortstop like Kozma, but is a better defender.
Option C) Trade for a shortstop
With so many major league ready players, a trade is certainly an option. If the Cardinals keep David Freese and sign a stop-gap right fielder, Matt Adams and Kolten Wong could be available for trade. One of the young pitchers, such as Carlos Martinez, could also be made available. Not-yet MLB ready prospect Stephen Piscotty's name has also been thrown around as trade bait. Some have even suggested Shelby Miller is tradeable, although I doubt it.
Troy Tulowitzki's name has been brought up at times and the Cardinals are one of the few organizations with the trade chips the Rockies would want. However, Tulowitzki is owed 130M over the next 7 years, which is probably outside of the Cardinal's comfort zone given Tulowitzki's injury history.
Jose Reyes' name was also brought up during the season as the Blue Jays began to fade. He has a more reasonable 80M due to him over the next 4 years.
Asdrubal Cabrera's name was also brought up during the regular season. He seems like a more likely target as the Indians won't command an arm and leg for him. However, he only has one year left on his contract, therefore he may not be a long term option at shortstop.
Not so long ago a rumor began that the Cardinals and Rangers were talking about swapping their top prospects, Oscar Taveras and Jurickson Profar, for no reason other than organizational needs at certain positions. It doesn't appear such a trade will occur.
What should they do?
I'm hoping the Cardinals will sign Stephen Drew or Jhonny Peralta. With Chris Carpenter, Jake Westbrook, and Rafael Furcal's contracts off the books, there is more than enough money to sign one of them. Throwing a few million stretch dollars in there won't hurt the Cardinal's budget much. Even more money will be available assuming Carlos Beltran isn't resigned. This also allows the Cardinals to keep their prospects w/o trading them away.
I'm not hopeful a trade for Jose Reyes or Troy Tulowitzki will happen. The asking price from those teams will simply be too high. I'd rather keep the young top prospects.
A trade for Asdrubal Cabrera is certainly possible and the price may be reasonable given he's likely a 1 year rental.
Overall
With so much success in the last three years, the Cardinals don't have to make any rash moves. I think keeping and playing their young players is a smart move and will still keep the team competitive. They may even be able to lower their team salary a bit to prepare for free agents in 2015 (Asdrubal Cabrera is on my radar) or sign their younger players to contracts through their arbitration years.
I'd love to see this lineup in 2014:
3B Matt Carpenter
2B Kolten Wong
LF Matt Holliday
RF Allen Craig
1B Matt Adams
C Yadier Molina
CF Jon Jay
SS Stephen Drew (hopefully, but perhaps Furcal, else it's Kozma)
with a rotation with
Adam Wainwright
Shelby Miller
Michael Wacha
Joe Kelly
Jaime Garcia (yes, he's due back)
and a bullpen with
Lance Lynn (back to the pen + sixth starter)
Seth Maness
Kevin Siegrist
Carlos Martinez (setup man + occasional starts)
Trevor Rosenthal (closer)
Randy Choate
John Axford (arbitration eligible)
Jason Motte (back from surgery - due 7.5M)
and a bench with
Shane Robinson
Tony Cruz
Daniel Descalso
One additional bench player
Of course I'm hoping at some point Oscar Taveras is brought up, and he will replace Jon Jay in centerfield.
Needless to say, a team that can boast a World Series victory two years ago, a NLCS appearance a year ago, and a National League pennant this year, is in pretty good shape. There's no need to make any rash decisions for re-shaping the team. In fact, they could do absolutely nothing in the off-season and still field a pretty darn competitive team for next year.
However, here are the three roster questions I believe the Cardinals will be thinking a lot about this off-season.
1) Who plays right field next year?
Carlos Beltran was an incredible pickup in 2012. In two seasons he produced a 6.2 WAR and two All-Star appearances. I'm sure that higher ups in the Cardinals organization were hoping top prospect Oscar Taveras would be ready to join the Cardinals in 2014, but it appears he'll need some more time in AAA.
So what are the Cardinals options.
Option A) Re-sign Carlos Beltran
After two All-Star seasons, Beltran will probably get a lot of offers. If the Cardinals could finagle a one year deal for Beltran for a good price, they should do it. However, it appears he's performed well enough to deserve (and get) a two or three year deal from another team.
Option B) Sign a stop-gap right fielder for one year
There's plenty of outfielders that could be signed for one year at a cheap price until Oscar Taveras is ready. Chris Young is an outfielder that comes to mind. After a pretty awful 2013, he could have a rebound year.
Option C) Move Allen Craig to Right, put Matt Adams at first
Craig can play the outfield and Matt Adams has shown himself a capable starter. In limited playing time, Adams produced a .839 OPS in 2013. As a starter in September (after Allen Craig got hurt), he was incredible, posting a .952 OPS with 8 home runs.
What should the Cardinals do?
I think the Cardinals should take option C. Oscar Taveras seems to need a little more time at AAA. He very well could be available by mid-season so signing Carlos Beltran to a multi-year deal doesn't seem like the best option.
If Matt Adams is used for trade bait, I think the Cardinals should sign a cheap one-year stop gap solution.
For those wondering what happens when Oscar Taveras is called up, he will likely compete w/ Jon Jay for the centerfield starting position.
2) How do you handle David Freese, Matt Carpenter, and prospect Kolten Wong?
2011 World Series hero David Freese was an All-Star in 2012 posting a respectable 3.8 WAR. However, he was pretty bad in 2013. He posted a WAR of -0.3 and is entering his second year of arbitration. I'm not sure what Freese can command in 2014, but it'll probably be a small bump up to 4M.
Normally, a team wouldn't think twice of trading a player only one year removed from an All-Star season. However, the Cardinals are in the lucky (or unlucky?) situation that they have multiple infielders available to play third base and second base. This gives the Cardinals two options.
Option A) Trade David Freese, move Matt Carpenter to third, put Kolten Wong at second base
Option B) Keep David Freese at third, Matt Carpenter at second, and use Kolten Wong as bencher/trade bait
What should the Cardinals do?
It seems almost blasphemous to entertain the thought of trading a local St. Louisian World Series hero, but I think it's the best move long term for the Cardinals.
Freese is already 30 years old and has never been a strong defender at third base. 2012 All-Star Matt Carpenter is a few years younger at 27 and his natural position is third base. Prospect Kolten Wong appears to be ready to play second base.
While the Cardinals aren't going to get a grade-A prospect for Freese, they should be able to get atleast some low to mid-tier prospects in return. Freese still has two arbitration years left, and as I said, he's only 1 year removed from an All Star appearance. In addition, the third base free-agent market is very weak for 2014.
As an aside, according to Baseball America, these were the top ten prospects in the Cardinals organization going into 2013.
- Oscar Taveras
- Shelby Miller
- Carlos Martinez
- Trevor Rosenthal
- Kolten Wong
- Michael Wacha
- Matt Adams
- Tyrell Jenkins
- Carson Kelly
- Stephen Piscotty
The Cardinals farm system is far from weak, but it does take away some of the depth in the farm system. Some trades for prospects might be good to help re-fill the coffers.
3) Can the Cardinals upgrade shortstop?
Pete Kozma's overall WAR in 2013 was -0.2. While he did a good job defensively (1.3 WAR), his offense was quite bad (-0.9) and amongst the worst in the league. Casual searching shows he had the worst OPS (.548) amongst shortstops with atleast 400 at bats.
What are the Cardinal's options?
Option A) Play Daniel Descalso at shorstop
Daniel Descalso got some playing time at short towards the end of the year, presumably because Kozma was hitting so poorly.
Descalso is a little bit better as a hitter (.656 OPS) but a bit worse on defense. It's about a wash.
Option B) Sign a free agent
Johnny Peralta and Stephen Drew will headline the shortstop free agents out there. There will be decent demand for them, but either could be had for a non-ridiculous amount of money. Maybe several years for ~10-12M a year. Peralta normally would get more per year, but his PED suspension might lower the overall market for his services.
If they are priced out of the market, there are cheaper options, most notably Rafael Furcal. After being out all of 2013 with an injury, the Cardinals could sign him and give him another chance. He's another year older, but still performed admirably in 2012 when he was healthy.
One free agent that catches my eye is former Cardinal Brendan Ryan. He's a similar no-hit shortstop like Kozma, but is a better defender.
Option C) Trade for a shortstop
With so many major league ready players, a trade is certainly an option. If the Cardinals keep David Freese and sign a stop-gap right fielder, Matt Adams and Kolten Wong could be available for trade. One of the young pitchers, such as Carlos Martinez, could also be made available. Not-yet MLB ready prospect Stephen Piscotty's name has also been thrown around as trade bait. Some have even suggested Shelby Miller is tradeable, although I doubt it.
Troy Tulowitzki's name has been brought up at times and the Cardinals are one of the few organizations with the trade chips the Rockies would want. However, Tulowitzki is owed 130M over the next 7 years, which is probably outside of the Cardinal's comfort zone given Tulowitzki's injury history.
Jose Reyes' name was also brought up during the season as the Blue Jays began to fade. He has a more reasonable 80M due to him over the next 4 years.
Asdrubal Cabrera's name was also brought up during the regular season. He seems like a more likely target as the Indians won't command an arm and leg for him. However, he only has one year left on his contract, therefore he may not be a long term option at shortstop.
Not so long ago a rumor began that the Cardinals and Rangers were talking about swapping their top prospects, Oscar Taveras and Jurickson Profar, for no reason other than organizational needs at certain positions. It doesn't appear such a trade will occur.
What should they do?
I'm hoping the Cardinals will sign Stephen Drew or Jhonny Peralta. With Chris Carpenter, Jake Westbrook, and Rafael Furcal's contracts off the books, there is more than enough money to sign one of them. Throwing a few million stretch dollars in there won't hurt the Cardinal's budget much. Even more money will be available assuming Carlos Beltran isn't resigned. This also allows the Cardinals to keep their prospects w/o trading them away.
I'm not hopeful a trade for Jose Reyes or Troy Tulowitzki will happen. The asking price from those teams will simply be too high. I'd rather keep the young top prospects.
A trade for Asdrubal Cabrera is certainly possible and the price may be reasonable given he's likely a 1 year rental.
Overall
With so much success in the last three years, the Cardinals don't have to make any rash moves. I think keeping and playing their young players is a smart move and will still keep the team competitive. They may even be able to lower their team salary a bit to prepare for free agents in 2015 (Asdrubal Cabrera is on my radar) or sign their younger players to contracts through their arbitration years.
I'd love to see this lineup in 2014:
3B Matt Carpenter
2B Kolten Wong
LF Matt Holliday
RF Allen Craig
1B Matt Adams
C Yadier Molina
CF Jon Jay
SS Stephen Drew (hopefully, but perhaps Furcal, else it's Kozma)
with a rotation with
Adam Wainwright
Shelby Miller
Michael Wacha
Joe Kelly
Jaime Garcia (yes, he's due back)
and a bullpen with
Lance Lynn (back to the pen + sixth starter)
Seth Maness
Kevin Siegrist
Carlos Martinez (setup man + occasional starts)
Trevor Rosenthal (closer)
Randy Choate
John Axford (arbitration eligible)
Jason Motte (back from surgery - due 7.5M)
and a bench with
Shane Robinson
Tony Cruz
Daniel Descalso
One additional bench player
Of course I'm hoping at some point Oscar Taveras is brought up, and he will replace Jon Jay in centerfield.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Crazy Grad. School Stories
Not so long ago, I had a chance to meet and listen to a talk from Jorge Cham, the created of PhdComics. He gave a hilarious talk about his comic strip, suffering through graduate school, and about how to deal with grad. school.
At the talk, I asked him what the craziest grad. student story of suffering or pain was that he had heard during his touring and talks. He said that amongst the worst he ever heard were about students that went into their final thesis defense without a presentation or slides.
So I began to think of the best "grad. school" story I've heard. Here's the one I could think of. It's not about research or grad. school suffering, but it's still a funny story none the less.
My friend was TAing the CS class for business students. It's the class where you teach Excel, Powerpoint, and some introductory programming in Visual Basic. Since the class is all business students, and the majority of them do not intend to ever look at code in their life, the programming assignments are not liked.
So he tells me there is a website called hireacoder.com, where you can find programming contract work. While the website is mostly for small contract work (i.e. design this aspect of a website for me) a fair amount of the contract work posted is apparently homework assignments from students. While most of the people posting contracts are smart enough to anonymize the assignment, one was not and listed the class name and school in the contract (apparently cut & pasting it from the assignment).
A good samaritan found the class online and e-mailed the Professor and TAs about the cheater. At first, the Professor said she was irate, but eventually got over it, realizing there was nothing she could do to catch the culprit. After all, how were you going to catch the cheater out of a class for several hundred students.
Weeks later while grading the assignments, one of the TAs found a very special submission where "Written by Joe Smith @ Hire A Coder" was at the top of the comments. Clearly, the student didn't even bother to look through the code they had bought and blindly turned it in.
When questioning the student, the Professor and TAs asked how much they paid for the assignment to be done. The student said about $50 (late 1990s money). Which the Professor replied, "There are senior CS students that would have done that for a slice of pizza. So not only did you fail my class, you've also failed finance."
At the talk, I asked him what the craziest grad. student story of suffering or pain was that he had heard during his touring and talks. He said that amongst the worst he ever heard were about students that went into their final thesis defense without a presentation or slides.
So I began to think of the best "grad. school" story I've heard. Here's the one I could think of. It's not about research or grad. school suffering, but it's still a funny story none the less.
My friend was TAing the CS class for business students. It's the class where you teach Excel, Powerpoint, and some introductory programming in Visual Basic. Since the class is all business students, and the majority of them do not intend to ever look at code in their life, the programming assignments are not liked.
So he tells me there is a website called hireacoder.com, where you can find programming contract work. While the website is mostly for small contract work (i.e. design this aspect of a website for me) a fair amount of the contract work posted is apparently homework assignments from students. While most of the people posting contracts are smart enough to anonymize the assignment, one was not and listed the class name and school in the contract (apparently cut & pasting it from the assignment).
A good samaritan found the class online and e-mailed the Professor and TAs about the cheater. At first, the Professor said she was irate, but eventually got over it, realizing there was nothing she could do to catch the culprit. After all, how were you going to catch the cheater out of a class for several hundred students.
Weeks later while grading the assignments, one of the TAs found a very special submission where "Written by Joe Smith @ Hire A Coder" was at the top of the comments. Clearly, the student didn't even bother to look through the code they had bought and blindly turned it in.
When questioning the student, the Professor and TAs asked how much they paid for the assignment to be done. The student said about $50 (late 1990s money). Which the Professor replied, "There are senior CS students that would have done that for a slice of pizza. So not only did you fail my class, you've also failed finance."
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