2023 Trade Deadline

[Tiger337]

13 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

Could you point out “All the signs that pointed to a bounce back that were right there”?

For me, it was:

• He was the best player on the team in 2020-2021 
• His career OPS+ was .723 which is around league average
• He was still under 30

None of that guaranteed a comeback, but there seemed to be a good chance he'd be at least an average player at his position which you couldn't say about every position on the team.  I'm not surprised at what he's doing this year.   

 

[chasfh]

8 minutes ago, Dan Gilmore said:

Could you point out “All the signs that pointed to a bounce back that were right there”?

If you believe projection systems like ZIPS, Steamer, PECOTA even Marcel, you could start there. A couple of those are on Candelario's FanGraphs page. I thought those were really conservative and that he could potentially bounce back to at least the 2-win level (where he is at right now, not even halfway into the season!), mainly because they take recent performance into account and I'm not sure where age fits into them, but again, he's only 29, not 34, so I just couldn't imagine that he was at the end of his career.

I also spent the entire winter in the offseason thread talking about how I thought we should (have) re-sign(ed) Candelario, and irritating a few of the cool kids with my persistence along the way.

All this said, two things:

• I get why we didn't re-sign him, although I didn't agree with that then and I definitely do not now.
• As right as I was about Candelario, I was wrong about an offensive rebounding for Schoop. Even though his defense is still aces, his bat can't support it, so even at 31, he might truly be done done.

[Dan Gilmore]

I would have been okay with resigning Candelario, but as the projections you mentioned noted, his 2022 season was poor. That, and his general inconsistency through the years was why I was also okay with them not retaining (just wanted a solid replacement). I would not say the inconsistency and poor 2022 performance were “all signs point to a bounce back”. Some signs, some counter signs, IMO.

[Jim Cowan]

I wouldn't have minded keeping Candelario, but I also didn't mind letting him go.  I think Harris gave Candelario's money to Lorenzen.

[gehringer_2]

One thing with Jeimer is that even when he does well overall - he's a crazy streaky player. This season his first 163 PA his OPS was 630. Since then he has 148 PA at an OPS of 1010! And then he'll go cold again. His monthly OPS splits from his good year in 2021 are pretty crazy also: 661,884,529,941,790,904. 

Now almost every player is a little streaky, but Jeimer is *really* streaky. On one hand, production is production. On the other, how do you optimize a line-up when you don't know from month to month what to expect from a guy? Maybe he just plays through a lot of subclinical injuries or something, but it is an odd record he makes.

Edited June 26, 2023 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

One thing with Jeimer is that even when he does well overall - he's a crazy streaky player. This season his first 163 PA his OPS was 630. Since then he has 148 PA at an OPS of 1010! And then he'll go cold again. His monthly OPS splits from his good year in 2021 are pretty crazy also: 661,884,529,941,790,904. 

Now almost every player is a little streaky, but Jeimer is *really* streaky. On one hand, production is production. On the other, how do you optimize a line-up when you don't know from month to month what to expect from a guy? Maybe he just plays through a lot of subclinical injuries or something, but it is an odd record he makes.

Do we know Jeimer is really streaky, as compared to other players, or does he just feel streaky to us? Is there any way to figure that out, I wonder?

[gehringer_2]

46 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Do we know Jeimer is really streaky, as compared to other players, or does he just feel streaky to us? Is there any way to figure that out, I wonder?

Is that an invitation to run a regression on monthly splits across the league?  The reservation is the raw data doesn't give you minor injury data and if a guy is fighting/playing over something that's another layer of complexity. And in fact much earlier in his career Jeimer was playing though some kind of chronic wrist condition - I can't remember the exact details. Any maybe he still does but he just doesn't talk about it anymore.  On the other hand, it doesn't seem they let guys play over much anymore, Miguel playing so beat up maybe being the recent exception to putting a guy on the DL as soon as he has a hang-nail......

I mean back in the day those old ball players were stitching themselve up with mitt lacing, rubbing some dirt on it and getting back on the field!   

Edited June 26, 2023 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

34 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Is that an invitation to run a regression on monthly splits across the league?  The reservation is the raw data doesn't give you minor injury data and if a guy is fighting/playing over something that's another layer of complexity. And in fact much earlier in his career Jeimer was playing though some kind of chronic wrist condition - I can't remember the exact details. Any maybe he still does but he just doesn't talk about it anymore.  On the other hand, it doesn't seem they let guys play over much anymore, Miguel playing so beat up maybe being the recent exception to putting a guy on the DL as soon as he has a hang-nail......

I mean back in the day those old ball players were stitching themselve up with mitt lacing, rubbing some dirt on it and getting back on the field!   

Tl;dr: he just feels streaky to us. 😅

[Tiger337]

19 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Tl;dr: he just feels streaky to us. 😅

He's streaky but he's clutch.  He always seems to get a hit when they need it the most.  😃

[casimir]

On 6/18/2023 at 6:59 PM, SeattleMike said:

The Tigers needed a SS entering the 2004 season. DD signed Omar Vizquel. Very fortunately he flunked the physical. DD then trades Ramon Santiago for Guillen. What if Vizquel doesn't flunk his physical? Probably no Guillen. Sometimes better to be lucky than good. 

Pssst.  Rich Aurilia says hello.  The funny thing is Seattle signed him and dealt away Guillen in that same offseason.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Tl;dr: he just feels streaky to us. 😅

LOL - I'll turn the arg around and say while willing to be proven wrong, I'll stand on 400 OPS pts being on the high end of the distribution of 150 AB performance swings.

Edited June 27, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tenacious D]

Does anyone believe that Candelario would be putting up those stats with us?

[gehringer_2]

Thats a fair question. The Tigers have been very aggressive with guys trying to get them to change their hitting styles. Maybe that's not always a good idea for every batter. I believe at least our old buddy Willi Castro has been quoted as saying he's been able to do better by worrying less about his peripherals outcomes. Javy has cut down his K's, but he's not more productive for it overall. Schoop has increased his walk rate, but it's coming at the expense of everything else as well. Of course Schoop may just be done - we won't know unless he goes somewhere else and recovers his career.

 

Edited June 27, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

16 hours ago, Tenacious D said:

Does anyone believe that Candelario would be putting up those stats with us?

Yes, in the first two weeks before his injury.  

[Shinzaki]

That chronic wrist issue was always a worry with him...felt you were one hard swing way from "Ouch!!"

[RatkoVarda]

 

[Tenacious D]

3 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

 

Couldn’t just let us enjoy our victory today, eh?

[mtutiger]

I guess I'm the only one who doesn't care what Jeimer Candelario is doing in someone else's uniform? 

[mtutiger]

On 6/26/2023 at 7:50 PM, Tenacious D said:

Does anyone believe that Candelario would be putting up those stats with us?

Even setting that aside, because of how the division has played out (ie. Tigers still only 4 games back at the beginning of July), it's not even clear that the Tigers would be seeing any benefit from Candy as a trade piece anyway.

So, again, we're ruminating on a one-and-done player when the future (ie. Colt Keith), who projects to be a much better hitter, is sitting in AAA right now.

Edited June 30, 2023 by mtutiger

[casimir]

57 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Even setting that aside, because of how the division has played out (ie. Tigers still only 4 games back at the beginning of July), it's not even clear that the Tigers would be seeing any benefit from Candy as a trade piece anyway.

So, again, we're ruminating on a one-and-done player when the future (ie. Colt Keith), who projects to be a much better hitter, is sitting in AAA right now.

It’s easy to assume Candelario was due for a bounce back season.  I’m guilty of that.  But what we can’t quantify is how much of this season is a bunch back to the means, simply a return to form (and maybe beyond form).  And we also don’t know how much of that can be attributed to being in a different environment.  Perhaps there’s something that occurred in Washington to help his rebound that wouldn’t have happened in Detroit.  Perhaps he simply needed the rebirth of a different setting to start fresh.  I don’t know, I don’t think any of us can know.  Heck, Candelario might not even know.  But, hey, good for him to extend his career.

Harris didn’t have an easy decision with him this past off-season.  I think there was reasonable rationale to retaining him and similar to letting him loose.  I’d have probably preferred to keep him, but I was vehemently against Cisnero and look how he’s done.  So what do I know?

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, casimir said:

It’s easy to assume Candelario was due for a bounce back season.  I’m guilty of that.  But what we can’t quantify is how much of this season is a bunch back to the means, simply a return to form (and maybe beyond form). 

This was basically the reason I thought he would be due for a bounceback. His mean was way higher than his performance last year, and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone, including Scott Harris and A.J. Hinch, saw that.

[gehringer_2]

53 minutes ago, chasfh said:

This was basically the reason I thought he would be due for a bounceback. His mean was way higher than his performance last year, and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone, including Scott Harris and A.J. Hinch, saw that.

I guess what they also saw was: "if we're not going to be good, why spend $7M to be marginally less bad" 

Of course now that comes back to bite them with the division being so bad they can be bad and still contend.

[chasfh]

Just now, gehringer_2 said:

I guess what they also saw was: "if we're not going to be good, why spend $7M to be marginally less bad" 

Of course now that comes back to bite them with the division being so bad they can be bad and still contend.

That might have been part of the calculation, although of bounceback season of this type, being a very good bet, should have been able to unlock some very good return in trade, the value of which could have far exceeded the extra couple Ms.

I think the truth is probably closer to some combination of there being too much media pressure on Baby Doc was too great to dump Jeimer, and Jeimer himself not wanting to play here anymore under any circumstances.

[gehringer_2]

45 minutes ago, chasfh said:

That might have been part of the calculation, although of bounceback season of this type, being a very good bet, should have been able to unlock some very good return in trade, the value of which could have far exceeded the extra couple Ms.

I think the truth is probably closer to some combination of there being too much media pressure on Baby Doc was too great to dump Jeimer, and Jeimer himself not wanting to play here anymore under any circumstances.

and also maybe a little wet behind the ears hubris on Harris' part to the effect of "I can find a better 3B than Jeimer for less money."

TBH that is exactly what I expected given the hype around Harris' hiring.

Edited June 30, 2023 by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

5 hours ago, mtutiger said:

I guess I'm the only one who doesn't care what Jeimer Candelario is doing in someone else's uniform? 

I care about him not so much because the Tigers "lost him", but because I followed his career as a Tiger closely for several years and I am naturally curious with his progression.