How much does the Sabathia trade help the Brewer's playoff chances?

by dixieflatline on Jul 7, 2008 6:17 PM CDT

Hopefully this kind of represents the kind of analysis Doug and the gang did when determining if the Sabathia trade was the right move to make. The plan is to calculate how much better this makes the Brewers then calculate how much this move increases their chances of making the playoffs. The first part boils down to determining who gets bumped from the rotation and the net effect of the pen. I ran several trials very similar to what cwyers did using ZIPS and some PECOTA numbers and every trial had the Brewers increasing their wins between 1.4 and 1.7 wins. This is before I heard Suppan was headed to the DL so this actually this study might over estimate things. Anyway, I assumed that the Brewers would be about a 1.5 win better team from here on out. If you add that to BaseballProspectus' third order winning percentage of .510 you get that the crew is about a .530 team from here on out.

I then set up a monte carlo similar to what they use at BP with the full schedule and a .541 home field advantage (stolen from Tom Tango). I then simulated the rest of the season 100,000 times using the regular BP numbers and came up with the Crew making the playoffs 55% of the time with the Cubs at 91% and the Cards at 35% of the time. This matched up well with what BP gets so now I am ready to plug in the new winning percentage of .530 in for the crew and when I do that I get this breakdown:

Team	%Div	%WC	%Playoffs
Cubs	68.17	20.45	88.62
Brewers	26.47	39.50	65.97
Cardinals	4.71	16.65	21.36
Reds	0.45	0.60	1.05
Astros	0.20	0.60	0.80
Pirates	0.00	0.30	0.30

The simulation had the crew winning 90.3 games which is about what you would expect from the input. This isn't a perfect setup as Sabathia will mostly help only on his turn in the roation instead of spreading his help out but this is really the only way to do something like this unless I put in the projected starting pitchers for each team in and the results seem to match up quite well. Anyway, it appears that adding Sabathia only increased the Brewer's chances by ten percent. Honestly that is smaller than I expected. It may make them a force if they get into the playoffs but right now they only look like a two in three shot. The team that takes the biggest hit is the Cardinals who lost slightly more than the Brewer's gained. This might actually be the case as instead of fighting with the Brewers for the wild card it is possible they end up fighting a good Cubs team as well. The crew catch the Cubs and wins the division in one out of four simulations which is where most of their gains are coming actually. Winning the division likely mean home field advantage though I didn't check those numbers.

Obviously what this doesn't include is the future production in the upcoming years from the minor leaguers we traded away but hopefully the front office has some guess as to how much LaPorta and the others would help the winning percentage in the upcoming years. Then you can really do a full analysis but I think this is a very fair representation of the crew's current chances for the playoffs and how much Sabathia has helped them.

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very cool

thanks Dixie

by molitorfan on Jul 7, 2008 7:09 PM CDT 0 recs

rluzinski looked at it too, and came up with just short of +2 wins.

He's extremely quick and good.

by battlekow on Jul 7, 2008 10:00 PM CDT 0 recs

Yeah Zips and such didn't include a move to the NL

Maybe 2 games is more accurate.

Visit my baseball blog ...or else!

by dixieflatline on Jul 7, 2008 10:21 PM CDT up 0 recs

Surprised Dan Szymborski doesn't have a Transaction Oracle thread up yet with updated ZiPS

I’d imagine that’s coming soon.

He's extremely quick and good.

by battlekow on Jul 7, 2008 10:29 PM CDT up 0 recs

maybe we'll finally be getting that podcast

by Zeyes on Jul 8, 2008 6:35 AM CDT up 0 recs

updated ZiPS

He's extremely quick and good.

by battlekow on Jul 9, 2008 1:44 AM CDT up 0 recs

I'm surprised

1.5 wins just seems too small. Let’s just say CC gets 13 starts (missing two let’s say). We have currently won 75% of the games that Sheets has started. If we win 2/3 of CC’s starts, that would be 8 2/3 wins. He will replace some combination of Bush (7/16=43%), Suppan (10/18=56%), and Mcclung (5/9=56%). So let’s say his replacement had a 50% win rate, that would be a gain of over two wins already. But it’s not just replacing Bush or McClung in the rotation, it’s Bush or Mcclung replacing Mota or Stetter in the bullpen, and the bullpen being a lot less taxed. That has to be worth at least another game.

by keephopealive on Jul 7, 2008 11:09 PM CDT 0 recs

I'm not sure

how accurate these projections are in this particular situation. There are just too many factors in play that aren’t accounted for (no, I don’t mean morale or anything like that). The system’s ability to project the performance of an ace pitcher like Sabathia moving across leagues alone is probably shaky.

"My thing is that you guys eat meat all day and you can't hit a ball. That's my thing." - P. Fielder

by SRB on Jul 7, 2008 11:41 PM CDT 0 recs

1.5 Wins... 2.0 Wins... same Difference.

It’s in the right ballpark. Sabathia might increase the odds of the Brewers winning his starts by 10-12% (.480 to .600, or something along those lines). Throw in a half a game or so to pad the number for secondary benefits (mainly, the bullpen) and you come up with a reasonable number.

And I guestimated a 10-15% increase in the probability of making the playoffs, so your results certainly seem reasonable to me. One player, no matter how good he is, still can only have a limited impact to a team over half a season.

Did your simulation account for head to head match-ups during the season? Did you do that in excel?

by rluzinski on Jul 8, 2008 7:08 AM CDT 0 recs

Yes I used head to head matchups

It really should be basically exactly what BP does once you have the 3rd order winning percentage the only question is what they use for home field advantage. I didn’t do this in excel as I do everything in C++. One of the reasons for this is I am considering putting the code online so anyone can check the value of any trade or potential trade if they like. The only thing is right now it takes about 5 minutes to run 100,000 seasons which is too slow for online. I am considering replacing the head to head with a Gaussian distribution which should be fine until the trade deadline when this tool would probably run out of value.

Visit my baseball blog ...or else!

by dixieflatline on Jul 8, 2008 8:40 AM CDT up 0 recs

I thnk that'd be a great tool to have available.

I has a blog.

by cwyers on Jul 8, 2008 11:07 AM CDT up 0 recs

This was for the playoffs

2 games may not seem like much of a difference, but that could certainly mean the difference of making the playoffs or not. I think Melvin had already anticipating making the playoffs with the team as it is. But we need him to go anywhere in the playoffs. With Sheets, Sabathia, and potentially Gallardo pitching 6 times in a 7 game series? I’ll take my chances with that!!! Go Brew!!

by trl1020 on Jul 8, 2008 7:09 AM CDT 0 recs

Speaking of Gallardo

Who remembers those cringes whenever a pitcher covered first with Fielder in close proximity shortly after the Gallardo injury? Thankfully for me those have passed, but what happens if CC is the pitcher covering 1st? I don’t want to find out who wins that battle, but my gut says Fielder might end up on the short end of that stick. Either that or we might get a first hand encounter of what the Big Bang looked like.

"He's been very, very impressive," Yost said. "I mean really impressive. I mean really, really impressive."

by MadJimiBrewha on Jul 8, 2008 12:28 PM CDT 0 recs

perhaps we will finally discover the Higgs boson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

by warwick5s on Jul 8, 2008 3:20 PM CDT up 1 recs

Haha, I read this book in high school and enjoyed it. Didn’t think the Higgs boson would ever get name-checked on BCB.

He's extremely quick and good.

by battlekow on Jul 8, 2008 4:53 PM CDT up 0 recs

Discover magazine

Had scientists discover the top quark in their April (fools) Issue about 15 years ago. Claimed it was not only the size of a bowling ball, but also looked just like one, complete with finger holes:)

by PagsBrewCrew on Jul 8, 2008 5:52 PM CDT up 0 recs

I myself am fond of the Hotheaded Naked Ice Borer

He's extremely quick and good.

by battlekow on Jul 8, 2008 5:59 PM CDT up 0 recs

Relative difference vs. absolute numbers

Isn’t this showing that we’re closer to 20% improvement with the CC trade? If we’re projected to go to the playoffs 55% without him, and 66% with him, aren’t we increasing our chances by 20%? (11/55) Or am I missing something?

Either way, cool analysis.

by Brew Angel on Jul 8, 2008 1:16 PM CDT 0 recs

hmmm

you guys are going to have to re-run the sims with the present pitching staffs of the Brewers and Cubs;)

by PagsBrewCrew on Jul 8, 2008 6:08 PM CDT 0 recs

I certainly can rerun tomorrow but I can already tell you this will help the Cubs far less

The Brewers were right at the sweet spot at nearly 50/50 to make the playoffs before the trade so a few extra wins mean a lot. Most likely for the Cubs the extra win or so Harden provides won’t mean nearly as much. This move is for the playoffs.

Visit my baseball blog ...or else!

by dixieflatline on Jul 8, 2008 9:13 PM CDT up 0 recs

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NL Central Standings

	W	L	PCT	GB	STRK
Chicago Bleed Cubbie Blue	85	55	.607	0	Lost 5
Milwaukee Brew Crew Ball	80	60	.571	5	Lost 4
St. Louis Viva El Birdos	75	65	.535	10	Lost 1
Houston The Crawfish Boxes	74	66	.528	11	Won 8
Cincinnati Red Reporter	62	78	.442	23	Won 1
Pittsburgh Bucs Dugout	59	80	.424	25.5	Lost 1