FTN wrote:

MattS wrote:Tim Redding to the Mets, 1 year, $2.25MM.

Projected ERAs have him between 4.61 and 5.28, with most sitting around 5. He's probably worth a win or so over replacement level. If you go through most of the projections, we probably have a 3-4 game advantage over the Mets right now, approximately equal to the value of, say, Derek Lowe. Probably another photofinish coming up in '09.

i think your projections are off, to be honest. i don't see us as 3-4 games better than the mets. even at best. when hamels spends half the season on DL, Rollins and Howard don't magically revert to MVP form, and Lidge shows hes human, we're not 3-4 wins better than the Mets.

I’ve used a few different projection systems to approximate these things. Each system I’ve looked at has put the Mets about 4-5 games behind the Phillies except for CHONE seems to have the Mets about 8 games behind. That seems like an outlier. This is all before Lowe joins the Mets. Here are the numbers that I’m seeing. I didn’t include defense, because I assumed that the projections for pitcher ERAs and RAs were supposed to reflect the defense that was behind them last year. Regardless, with the Phillies better than the Mets at defense by your numbers, that should only help my argument that the Phillies project better than the Mets as currently formed. I’m not weighting the bullpen by leverage, so that could be another source of mistake.

I’m factoring in SB/CS but not other measures of baserunning. I’m not sure if baserunning is factored in your analysis or your dollar value of players, but it should be. There seems to be nearly as much variance among player contributions in baserunning as there is in defense if you believe Baseball Prospectus’ EqBRR.

When I plug in the marginal lineup value compared to a replacement level player at their respective positions (I reverse engineered replacement level their previous years’ VORP to do this), I get the following numbers for a few projection systems:

Phillies Hitters + Bench WAR (Marcel, Bill James, CHONE, Shandler)
Howard: (4.3, 5.7, 5.1, 5.1)
Utley: (5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.8)
Rollins: (4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 5.7)
Victorino (2.2, 2.7, 2.8, 2.8)
Werth (2.4, 3.4, 1.8, 3.5)
Ruiz (0.3, 0.8, 1.1, 0.2)
Feliz (-0.2, 0.2, 0.8, -0.2)
Ibanez (2.2, 2.8, 3.3, 2.9)
Coste (1.3, 0.5, 0.3, -0.1)
Bruntlett (-0.1, -0.2, 0.2, -0.2)
Dobbs (1.4, 1.0, 1.2, 0.9)
Jenkins (0.2, 0.6, 0.7, -0.1)
Stairs (1.0, 0.6, 0.9, 0.5)

PHILLIES TOTAL (23.6, 27.9, 28.2, 30.8)– average 27.6

Mets Hitters WAR (Marcel, CHONE, Bill James, Shandler)
Wright (5.9, 6.6, 7.1, 7.1)
Reyes (5.1, 5.4, 5.0, 6.1)
Beltran (4.6, 4.3, 5.1, 4.8)
Delgado (2.1, 2.2, 3.3, 3.3)
Church (1.2, 0.9, 1.6, 1.4)
Schneider (0.5, 0.7, 0.7, 0.9)
Castillo (0.8, 1.1, 1.0, 0.9)
Tatis (1.2, 0.8, 0.4, 0.8)
Murphy (1.4, 1.1, 3.1, 2.2)
Anderson (0.1, 0.0, 0.0, 1.4)
Castro ( 1.1, 1.0, 0.6, 0.7)
Evans (0.6, 0.0, 0.8, 0.9)
Pagan (0.4, 0.5, 0.0, 1.3)

METS TOTAL (25.0, 24.6, 28.7, 31.8)– average 27.5

The lineups/benches do seem very comparable like you said. Where we really differ is the projections of the pitching staffs.

Phillies pitchers WAR w/ 6.00 RA as replacement level (Marcel, CHONE, Bill James, Shandler)

Hamels (4.9, 4.8, 6.2, 5.4)
Myers (2.3, 2.9, 3.3, 4.0)
Blanton (2.8, 3.9, 3.7, 2.7)
Moyer (2.6, 1.2, 3.1, 2.3)
Happ (1.0, 1.6, 0.0, 2.3)
Lidge (1.5, 2.0, 1.9, 2.2)
Madson (1.5, 1.6, 1.4, 1.8)
Romero (1.5, 0.9, 1.0, 0.9)
Durbin (1.6, 1.6, 1.0, 1.1)
Eyre (0.8, 0.8, 0.6, 0.9)
Condrey (1.2, 1.0, 0.7, 1.0)
Park (0.9, 0.8, 0.2, 0.6)

PHILLIES TOTAL (22.6, 23.1, 23.1, 25.0)– average 23.4

METS pitchers WAR w/ 5.50 RA as replacement level (Marcel, CHONE, Bill James, Shandler)

Santana (4.8, 4.4, 5.8, 5.0)
Maine (1.9, 1.8, 2.0, 2.3)
Pelfrey (2.3, 1.1, 1.9, 2.5)
Niese (0.5, 0.3, 0.0, 0.4)
Knight (0.4, 0.5, 1.0, 0.3)
Rodriguez (1.3, 2.1, 1.7, 1.9)
Putz (1.2, 1.5, 1.2, 1.3)
Green (0.5, 1.1, 0.9, 0.7)
Sanchez (0.7, 0.8, 0.7, 0.8)
Feliciano (0.9, 0.7, 0.7, 0.7)
Stokes (0.3, 1.2, 0.2, -0.1)
Muniz (0.3, 0.4, 0.0, 0.2)

METS TOTAL (15.1, 15.1, 16.1, 16)– average 15.6

Therefore I get:

PHILLIES PITCHERS & HITTERS (46.2, 51.0, 51.3, 55.8)–average 51.1
METS PITCHERS & HITTERS (40.1, 39.7, 44.8, 47.8)–average 43.1

The average is a little inflated from when I did this with runs scored. I adjusted the Phillies and Mets replacement level RS so that their Pythagorean record would be 45-117 if they had 6.00 and 5.50 RA respectively, and got that the Phillies beat the Mets by 4-8 games depending on the projection system. The real difference in between how we each did it was that you seem to give the Mets starting pitching a whole lot of credit. Did you adjust your wins above replacement for the fact the projections used reflected different parks? I assumed the Mets pitching projections were for a stadium with similar park factors as Shea. Otherwise, I don’t see how Maine, Pelfrey, and Niese look as good as they do in your numbers.

kruker wrote:I hope Ruben is paying attention to what Theo's doing.

MattS wrote:

FTN wrote:

MattS wrote:Tim Redding to the Mets, 1 year, $2.25MM.

Projected ERAs have him between 4.61 and 5.28, with most sitting around 5. He's probably worth a win or so over replacement level. If you go through most of the projections, we probably have a 3-4 game advantage over the Mets right now, approximately equal to the value of, say, Derek Lowe. Probably another photofinish coming up in '09.

i think your projections are off, to be honest. i don't see us as 3-4 games better than the mets. even at best. when hamels spends half the season on DL, Rollins and Howard don't magically revert to MVP form, and Lidge shows hes human, we're not 3-4 wins better than the Mets.

i'm not using my projections for that, though they do yield a similar result. i'm converting CHONE, Ron Shandler, Marcel, and Bill James into win values and summing them up, and each of these systems make the Phillies about 3-4 wins above the Mets. There's an article by Eric Seidman on fangraphs.com from last week where he compared the two teams if the Mets get Lowe, and found that the Mets were about 1-2 wins better than the Phillies. But discussing things with him in the comments section, I realized that he was adjusting the hitters win values for park factors and not the pitchers, which explains about a 3-win difference if i calculate correctly, so his numbers with that tweak would get the phillies about 3-4 wins better if the mets don't get lowe too.

the hitting is about the same on both clubs and the bullpens are similar, but the mets rotation is just so weak after santana.

VFB wrote:

kruker wrote:I hope Ruben is paying attention to what Theo's doing.

comparing rube to epstien, is kind of like comparing chan-ho to saito or smoltz. no?

FTN wrote:

Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com reports that the Red Sox have agreed to terms with Takashi Saito on a one-year contract with a team option for 2010.

According to Rosenthal, the deal includes around $2 million in guaranteed money with an additional $5 million or so in potential incentives. Elbow problems make the 39-year-old Saito a question mark, but when healthy he's been one of the most dominant relievers in baseball over the past three seasons, saving 81 games with a 1.95 ERA and 245/52 K/BB ratio in 189 2/3 innings. Much like the John Smoltz and Rocco Baldelli signings, Saito represents a low-risk, high-upside gamble for Boston.

Phillies Sign Smoltz, Saito and Baldelli

AP - Sources have indicated that the Phillies have reached agreement with John Smoltz, Takashi Saito and Rocco Baldelli. Smoltz will earn a $5.5 million base salary with the Phillies, and can earn up to $5 million in an incentive clause. Saito's deal includes around $2 million in guaranteed money with an additional $5 million or so in potential incentives. The Phillies did not announce terms of Baldelli's contract, but a baseball source has indicated that he will receive $500,000 guaranteed, and can earn another $1.75 million in bonuses solely for remaining on the active roster -- in other words, his salary would be $2.25 million if he remains on the active roster all season. On top of that, the 27-year-old also has significant bonuses based on plate appearances that could elevate the value of the contract to as high as $7.5 million.

Just more examples of Amaro's hard-on for old, injured and diseased players. I can't believe he just guaranteed ~$8MM to those 3 guys, 2 of whom may not even pitch this season and the other whose career could basically be over at any time because of disease. It's essentially $8MM down the toilet. And, even worse, all they have to do is basically "remain on the active roster" all season -- even if they totally suck -- and the Phils could be on the hook for as much as $25MM!!! He could have used that money to sign Lowe and re-sign Burrell, who at least will probably be healthy next year, and probably had money left over. Hell, for that amount of money, he could have signed Manny and pocketed the change! Instead, we get two pitchers whose arms are shot and an OF who can't play back-to-back or even full games. What a joke! Fire that sucker NOW!!!

FTN wrote:Hey we should just be happy we won the World Series. No more complaining/analyzing/critical thinking for another 28 years.

BigEd76 wrote:Shawn Estes goes from the Padres to the Dodgers

steagles wrote:so, to make room for baldelli, smoltz, and saito, the red sox designated for assignment AAA knuckleballer charlie zink.

i know it won't happen, and i know that his 2008 success in AAA was a BABIP related fluke, and i know that even if it did happen, the phillies would never give him the rope he'd need to grow into being a major league pitcher, but it'd be kind of cool if they picked him up.