As part of the most recent labor agreement between the league and the players association, a compromise was made to try and address the players’ concerns about service time manipulation—the Prospect Promotion Incentive, or PPI.
To this point I hadn't realized that this applies to all 3 pre arb years, that's better than I thought. Maybe one day they allow guys outside top 100 lists to qualify?
What I most don't like about this is how hard it is for a player to finish top 3 in MVP or Cy Young, and that their ability to do so is not entirely in their control. Instead, I'd rather it be based solely on the player's performance using something like WAR. For example, a team gets a pick if the player earns 6+ WAR in any one of the three years or, perhaps, 12+ total WAR in that three-year period. I think something like that would encourage more teams to call up more prospects to start the season.
I fully agree with this. It is pretty accurate to say not every MVP (or top 3 in voting) are the same from year to year. Its akin to any NL shortstop during the Ozzie Smith career could not win a Gold Glove even if they were superior in theory to those winning the same award in the AL.
One thing that struck me with Carroll is that not only did he earn his team the extra pick, but bringing him up at the start of the season was almost surely the difference in them making the playoffs or not (he averaged about a WAR per month and they finished one game ahead of the Cubs for the last playoff spot).
Similarly, without Henderson up from day one, the Orioles may not have earned the bye and homefield advantage for the playoffs (they only finished two games ahead of the Rays), even though that didn't help in the end.
I thought about looking at his splits, but then thought that perhaps he'd have the adjustment period whether he was called up in April or in June but letting him go through that adjustment period early meant they got four really good months from him instead of maybe two. We'll never know, of course.
Carroll was a 6.0 fWAR for 154 games played in 2023; Henderson a 4.6 fWAR for 150 games played in 2023. A positive for the Pirates is that Jared Triolo was called up and did very well - a 1.7 fWAR in only 54 games played with the Pirates in 2023.
Other young guys seeing action in '23 and doing well were Ji-Hwan Bae, Liover Peguero, Jauri Moreta, Endy Rodriguez, Carmen Mlodzinski, and Jose Hernandez. We may not be in the pay line, but we are starting to see more young quality ballplayers hit the MLB level and stick
In bWAR, Carroll was worth 5.4 wins and Henderson 6.2. I tend to go with bWAR for looking backwards at results and fWAR for projecting forward, but in any case Carroll was more impactful as his team needed every win just to make the postseason.
Why are they so different? When I started on PP, it seemed as if everyone on the site was using Fangraphs for WAR. Between Henderson and Carroll the most obvious difference is positions played - Henderson was 3B/SS and Carroll an OF. Looked at Triolo and he was a bWAR of 2.1 as a 3B/2B/1B compared to an fWAR of only 1.7. Could part of the difference be just that simple?
"WAR is available in two places: FanGraphs (fWAR) and Baseball-Reference (rWAR or bWAR). Both statistics use the same framework and calculate replacement level the same, but use different methods for estimating offensive, defensive, and pitching value, so their results differ in some cases."
You can find more details at each site but they don't give enough of the details for us to replicate the calculations (for obvious reasons). Both adjust for positions, though. Links:
I'm sure someone has done a year-to-year correlation and other analyses to determine which is more reliable and which is more valid. As an aside, Hayes also differs quite a bit--4 WAR at BR and 3.2 WAR at Fangraphs. And Suwinski, for example, goes in the other direction--2.2 at BR but 2.8 at FG. This would suggest BR factors in defense a little more than FG and BR says that they treat strikeouts different than other outs which would also hurt Suwinski.
Carroll was already signed to an extension, so it actually didn’t matter when he was promoted from years of control standpoint. But your point w Henderson is valid.
The extension shifted the risk for the Dbacks from losing a year of control to committing $111MM to a rookie, but the main point is that it's easy to disregard having a player for April and May but sometimes that's the difference in making the playoffs or not.
As an aside, I don't think this is the year for us to add a top prospect at the start of the season because
1. Unless we add a couple more key players, we're not likely to be a game or two from the playoffs (though few thought the Dbacks were in that position a year ago).
2. Skenes would be the logical candidate but with so few professional innings, I don't think that would be best for his development.
But perhaps in '25 there will be enough reason to start the season with Chandler or Solo or Johnson...
so what pirate rookies do we see in 2024? i guess they need split before and after sept 1
before Sept:
Skenes, Nicolas, Jones, Harrington, Burrows, Wolf, Malcom
After Sept:
Solo, Bubba, Cheng, Brannigan, Bowen, Ashcraft
Side note, J.T. Brubaker signed for $2.275 million per Mackey.
To this point I hadn't realized that this applies to all 3 pre arb years, that's better than I thought. Maybe one day they allow guys outside top 100 lists to qualify?
What I most don't like about this is how hard it is for a player to finish top 3 in MVP or Cy Young, and that their ability to do so is not entirely in their control. Instead, I'd rather it be based solely on the player's performance using something like WAR. For example, a team gets a pick if the player earns 6+ WAR in any one of the three years or, perhaps, 12+ total WAR in that three-year period. I think something like that would encourage more teams to call up more prospects to start the season.
I fully agree with this. It is pretty accurate to say not every MVP (or top 3 in voting) are the same from year to year. Its akin to any NL shortstop during the Ozzie Smith career could not win a Gold Glove even if they were superior in theory to those winning the same award in the AL.
Interesting summary!
One thing that struck me with Carroll is that not only did he earn his team the extra pick, but bringing him up at the start of the season was almost surely the difference in them making the playoffs or not (he averaged about a WAR per month and they finished one game ahead of the Cubs for the last playoff spot).
Similarly, without Henderson up from day one, the Orioles may not have earned the bye and homefield advantage for the playoffs (they only finished two games ahead of the Rays), even though that didn't help in the end.
I could be wrong here, but didn't Henderson struggle initially? I don't believe he had equal WAR per 6 months. Not certain with Carroll.
I thought and again I could be wrong, but my memory is telling me that Henderson was around replacement his first month or so, then took off.
I thought about looking at his splits, but then thought that perhaps he'd have the adjustment period whether he was called up in April or in June but letting him go through that adjustment period early meant they got four really good months from him instead of maybe two. We'll never know, of course.
Carroll was a 6.0 fWAR for 154 games played in 2023; Henderson a 4.6 fWAR for 150 games played in 2023. A positive for the Pirates is that Jared Triolo was called up and did very well - a 1.7 fWAR in only 54 games played with the Pirates in 2023.
Other young guys seeing action in '23 and doing well were Ji-Hwan Bae, Liover Peguero, Jauri Moreta, Endy Rodriguez, Carmen Mlodzinski, and Jose Hernandez. We may not be in the pay line, but we are starting to see more young quality ballplayers hit the MLB level and stick
In bWAR, Carroll was worth 5.4 wins and Henderson 6.2. I tend to go with bWAR for looking backwards at results and fWAR for projecting forward, but in any case Carroll was more impactful as his team needed every win just to make the postseason.
Why are they so different? When I started on PP, it seemed as if everyone on the site was using Fangraphs for WAR. Between Henderson and Carroll the most obvious difference is positions played - Henderson was 3B/SS and Carroll an OF. Looked at Triolo and he was a bWAR of 2.1 as a 3B/2B/1B compared to an fWAR of only 1.7. Could part of the difference be just that simple?
From Fangraphs' Glossary:
"WAR is available in two places: FanGraphs (fWAR) and Baseball-Reference (rWAR or bWAR). Both statistics use the same framework and calculate replacement level the same, but use different methods for estimating offensive, defensive, and pitching value, so their results differ in some cases."
You can find more details at each site but they don't give enough of the details for us to replicate the calculations (for obvious reasons). Both adjust for positions, though. Links:
https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/
https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_position.shtml
I'm sure someone has done a year-to-year correlation and other analyses to determine which is more reliable and which is more valid. As an aside, Hayes also differs quite a bit--4 WAR at BR and 3.2 WAR at Fangraphs. And Suwinski, for example, goes in the other direction--2.2 at BR but 2.8 at FG. This would suggest BR factors in defense a little more than FG and BR says that they treat strikeouts different than other outs which would also hurt Suwinski.
Carroll was already signed to an extension, so it actually didn’t matter when he was promoted from years of control standpoint. But your point w Henderson is valid.
The extension shifted the risk for the Dbacks from losing a year of control to committing $111MM to a rookie, but the main point is that it's easy to disregard having a player for April and May but sometimes that's the difference in making the playoffs or not.
As an aside, I don't think this is the year for us to add a top prospect at the start of the season because
1. Unless we add a couple more key players, we're not likely to be a game or two from the playoffs (though few thought the Dbacks were in that position a year ago).
2. Skenes would be the logical candidate but with so few professional innings, I don't think that would be best for his development.
But perhaps in '25 there will be enough reason to start the season with Chandler or Solo or Johnson...
Pirates will never ever prioritize wins in April and May. It'll always be cheap future team control for them.
I'm ready for the lists to start coming out!
Which will mean a whole other article!
Can't wait!
FanGraphs put a few out already, so that means they should be finished super early, or mid-season again lol
They're way ahead of the curve this year!