Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Baseball's 50 Most Valuable Players?

Over at SI.com Nate Silver of the incomparable Baseball Prospectus (which has brought us, among other things, the projection system known as PECOTA) has a lengthy piece that might arouse some debate. His premise is simple: "If you were starting a team from scratch, which players would you build around?" The list goes from 50 to 1. Enjoy. (My own issues? Lots of them. I know BP's stock in trade is projection of young players, but there are an awful lot of young guys on this list who have accomplished bupkes, many rated in the top 10 or 20. There are others who are very early on in what might be fine careers who similarly get placed far too high. He overrates David Wright, for example. CC Sabathia too. And whither Manny?)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The premise is that we are building a team from scratch and looking at the team over a 6 year period. It may be that your ideas of what you are building toward makes the difference. Given that you are Sox fan (here comes the big generalization) and Sox Nation is all about winning today (not as much as the Evil Empire, but close), you may be more focused on the player's value this year or next. Silver and BP have assumed it should be the team that could perform the best over a longer period of time, hence the selection of Lincecum at No. 41 who has proven absolutely nothing in the majors (though he has considerable upside).

I also don't know that he overrates CC by too much (perhaps its the homer in me). CC has made the evolution from being strictly an overpowering pitcher to being a pitcher that understands the nuances of at-bats over the course of the game and can use his power when necessary. It is also worth noting that CC has something like 20 or 25 more wins than anyone else his age or younger (of course part of that is the run support he gets from the Tribe).

Berkman may be overrated given that he is a 38 year old.
-Donnie Baseball

dcat said...

Donnie B --
I understand the premise of the exercise, and I do not think I am being blindly loyal as a Sox fan-- I think the rest of the Sox are rated where they should be. But the idea of Manny as not one of the top fifty guys over the next five or six years? That is simply insane. the guy works as hard at his hitting as anyone in the game and though he has started slow the last two years, he always, always, always ends up with 35/110 and will have an OPS over 1000 and possibly over 1100. You can bet on Manny not performing in 2011, but I won't. Of course it is umlikely that he will be doing so in a Sox uniform by then, so my own rooting interest will actually be relatively limited!

I simply do not have that much faith in Sabathia. i think he is good and I think he is talented, but I can think of at least five or six pitchers I would want more over the allotted time period, and I cannot justify the fifth or sixth (maybe even lower) most valuable pitcher ahead of the ten best position players.

Now that Sizemore fella -- he's good.

dcat