Will Tigers Pony up for Skubal

[NorthWoods]

39 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

So Rozema flaked out and that means Skubal i wont potch for 10 more seasons. OK...I see your logic ..

Lol, you're working on a Cy Young of Strawmen.   

[AlaskanTigersFan]

41 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

What I'm seeing is a list comparing Skubal to other pitchers that really weren't very good. So to think the best run team in all of baseball will give up multiple talented players for 2 months of his service doesn't really make sense. I mean, what could we get for Dave Rozema in 1977...lmao

I think they will because they won't trust Snell and Glasnow from coming back from their injuries. Then on top of that, their top 4 prospects are all OF'rs and their entire OF is signed for at least 2 years with three of them signed for 3+ years. It's worth it for them to buy insurance and not to mention, then they know they won't have to face him in the playoffs. They literally don't need these prospects. So why not trade things you literally have 0 need for and increase your chances at another WS AND get the inside chance to sign him long term by showing him the organization..... They can then move Snell and/or Glasnow anyway after the season and recoup some prospect capital and all they're really doing is replacing one of them for Skubal...... 

I think Skubal is a top 3 or 4 pitcher in the game right now. In two years though, I'll be amazed if he is. But I strongly disagree with comparing him to Rozema.... I just think a lot of us think he is more valuable being traded now than he is on the team. Our team, even if we did make the playoffs, are so outclassed it's not even funny. So why waste this asset that could really help us in the near future going forward.......... 

[NorthWoods]

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

Really reaching comparing Skubal to Dave Rozema...seriously??

Are we now considering WAR to be obsolete like wins?  

Also Rozema did things by 21 that Skubal will never do.  Skubal has *1* complete game in 7 seasons and has never passed 200IP.

Rozema put up 10 WAR in his 20&21 years.  

Skenes didn't get to the majors until he was 22.

Verlander didn't accumulate 10WAR until he was done with his age 24 year.

Scherzer hit 10WAR accumulated somewhere in the middle of his age 27 season. His 3rd year in Detroit.

Of course Rozema went downhill but you have the power of retrospect on that.   Sitting at the end of his age 21 season he had a pretty high value and bright future.

He never hit 2 WAR or 150 innings again.  Like the Bird another young arm the Tigers of that era burned up.   27 complete games and 430 innings over 2 years at that age.

 

[NorthWoods]

The point of the above post is that it's easy to sneer at Rozema now.  It's not so easy if you put yourself in the time and place and look at what he'd accomplished by the time he was 21.

[gehringer_2]

it's all in how you define terms. I would call 'generational talent' an 'intensive' property - purely a matter of the rareness of a unique skill set. Whether or not that skill set ever gets the chance to bloom in terms of impact on the history of baseball is to me a different question (the extensive properties).  Kerry Wood was probably a 'generational talent' but his career derailed before it ever got off the ground. Denny McLain was a 'generational talent' whose owner completely squandered it across two years of sky rocket success.

Skubal's pitching ability is pretty unique, enough to lead the lead in ERA and K twice and WHIP once already. In this 'generation' of pitchers,  no one else can throw as hard with as much control plus command devastating change of speed to go with it. That's something you only see once in long while, in a 'generation' so to speak, (though I'd say a baseball 'generation' is somewhat less the than common usage one of ~20yrs - more like 5 or 10 yrs) . How much impact will he have as a player over a career? Who knows?

JV was 'generational' because no-one had a fastball that was harder to hit, that he could add and substract so much from and generally go all the way through an opposing line-up once before ever needing to break out his off-speed. That was pretty generational - there still hasn't been anyone very like him since.And JV did it long enough to get help get 4 teams to the WS and accumulate 82 WAR. I'd  call that a generational talent AND a generational impact.

OTOH, Koufax only had 5 great years, but it was 30 years before anyone else dominated hitters like he did over a similar period in the modern era (if you consider that person to be Pedro Martinez). His WAR total is actually pretty modest for the HOF or in terms of how much he accomplished over a full career, but his talent was an outlier across a generation of pitchers.

[papalawrence]

Rozema clearly benefitted from the stellar managing and coaching of Ralph Houk and Fred Gladding his first 2 years.

[Sports_Freak]

5 hours ago, papalawrence said:

Rozema clearly benefitted from the stellar managing and coaching of Ralph Houk and Fred Gladding his first 2 years.

Lmao....I cant even imagine anybody comparing Dave Rozema to Tarik Skubal. If it weren't so ridiculous, I would just laugh it off. Seriously?? Hee-hee-hee Dave Rozema...😅😅🤣

[oblong]

I got to chat with Rozema when I had the opportunity to take batting practice at Comerica Park.  He was one of the pitchers, along with some WSU guy. I didn't get to hit off Dave but we hung out in the dugout.  He told stories.  I mentioned to my friend that my arm was hurting from playing so much catch in the OF and Dave reached into his pocket to offer me "something".  I'm sure it's part of his schtick to entertain the clients.  I was there on behalf of a sponsor so they had to kiss my ass.  He was charming.  I told him about meeting the team in '81 or '82 at the airport.  They had just missed out on the playoffs and some fans met their plane and bus as they landed to welcome them.   I got a ton of autographs that were lost.  He and Gibson avoided us and got into a limo with 2 women, I assume their girlfriends/future wives.

 

[chasfh]

10 hours ago, monkeytargets39 said:

 Not much if any for a trade soon, but it’s a concern if you’re the team that signs him long term in the offseason

Agreed. I’m open to signing him, but I also think most people here are resigned to that being someone else’s problem.

[chasfh]

9 hours ago, NorthWoods said:

I wouldn't argue that he's not an ace right now.   Your ace pitcher doesn't automatically rise to the level of generational talent - which is what I'm arguing.

Dave Rozema was the ace of the 1977 and 1978 Tigers with a WAR of 5.7 & 4.0  was he a generational talent?  Those years were at 20 and 21 years old, think of what people would be saying today about him.

 

His accomplishments were pretty well masked by the attention around Mark Fydrich, too.

[chasfh]

8 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Skubal's pitching ability is pretty unique, enough to lead the lead in ERA and K twice and WHIP once already. In this 'generation' of pitchers,  no one else can throw as hard with as much control plus command devastating change of speed to go with it. That's something you only see once in long while, in a 'generation' so to speak, (though I'd say a baseball 'generation' is somewhat less the than common usage one of ~20yrs - more like 5 or 10 yrs) .

You got me wondering how long a baseball generation really is, so I did a cohort retention query of the Lahman database to determine how quickly a generation of players turn over. The table below contemplates all players who played in the majors in 2005, the most recent season I believed there are no more players from, and what percent of them played at any point during each of the next 20 seasons.

The generational turnover answer depends on how you define at what point the generation turns over. Is it when half of players no longer appear in the majors? That’s four years. Two-thirds? Six years. Eighty percent? Nine years. Ninety percent? Eleven years. One hundred percent? More than 20 years.

What surprise me here is how closely hitters and pitchers align when it comes to attrition. I would have thought pitchers attrit much faster than hitters.

|Year|Hitters %|Pitchers %|Every Player %|
|----|---------|----------|--------------|
|2006|76.9%    |76.6%     |76.7%         |
|2007|68.6%    |66.3%     |67.5%         |
|2008|58.0%    |54.1%     |56.1%         |
|2009|49.0%    |46.0%     |47.5%         |
|2010|43.4%    |36.3%     |39.9%         |
|2011|35.3%    |29.9%     |32.7%         |
|2012|28.4%    |23.9%     |26.2%         |
|2013|22.8%    |19.6%     |21.3%         |
|2014|18.1%    |14.9%     |16.5%         |
|2015|11.9%    |13.4%     |12.6%         |
|2016|8.6%     |8.7%      |8.6%          |
|2017|5.4%     |6.3%      |5.8%          |
|2018|4.0%     |3.3%      |3.6%          |
|2019|2.4%     |2.3%      |2.3%          |
|2020|1.4%     |1.0%      |1.2%          |
|2021|1.1%     |1.0%      |1.1%          |
|2022|0.8%     |0.8%      |0.8%          |
|2023|0.3%     |0.7%      |0.5%          |
|2024|0.0%     |0.3%      |0.2%          |
|2025|0.0%     |0.3%      |0.2%          |

[NorthWoods]

2 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

Lmao....I cant even imagine anybody comparing Dave Rozema to Tarik Skubal. If it weren't so ridiculous, I would just laugh it off. Seriously?? Hee-hee-hee Dave Rozema...😅😅🤣

The comparison was not direct so again a strawman.   The question was whether Tarik Skubal was a "generational talent".   My argument is that using WAR through his early career, health issues, similarity scores and other measures he is not at this point a generational talent.

Skubal racked up 5.1 WAR through his 1st 4 seasons at age 26 while pitching 378 innings and nary a complete game.

Rozema had accumulated 9.7 WAR through 2 seasons at age 21 while pitching 428 innings 27 complete games and 3 shutouts.

Putting aside mindless snickering - 2 questions.

1) How differently Dave Rozema would be handled today and how would that have affected his career?  

2)  Remove the names, thus removing the bias.   IF you were building a team which would seem the more valuable pitcher?  The 22 year old throwing 200 innings, complete games and shut outs?  Or the 27 year old getting you under 100 innings a year?

Now return to your laughing.

[monkeytargets39]

36 minutes ago, chasfh said:

You got me wondering how long a baseball generation really is, so I did a cohort retention query of the Lahman database to determine how quickly a generation of players turn over. The table below contemplates all players who played in the majors in 2005, the most recent season I believed there are no more players from, and what percent of them played at any point during each of the next 20 seasons.

The generational turnover answer depends on how you define at what point the generation turns over. Is it when half of players no longer appear in the majors? That’s four years. Two-thirds? Six years. Eighty percent? Nine years. Ninety percent? Eleven years. One hundred percent? More than 20 years.

What surprise me here is how closely hitters and pitchers align when it comes to attrition. I would have thought pitchers attrit much faster than hitters.

|Year|Hitters %|Pitchers %|Every Player %|
|----|---------|----------|--------------|
|2006|76.9%    |76.6%     |76.7%         |
|2007|68.6%    |66.3%     |67.5%         |
|2008|58.0%    |54.1%     |56.1%         |
|2009|49.0%    |46.0%     |47.5%         |
|2010|43.4%    |36.3%     |39.9%         |
|2011|35.3%    |29.9%     |32.7%         |
|2012|28.4%    |23.9%     |26.2%         |
|2013|22.8%    |19.6%     |21.3%         |
|2014|18.1%    |14.9%     |16.5%         |
|2015|11.9%    |13.4%     |12.6%         |
|2016|8.6%     |8.7%      |8.6%          |
|2017|5.4%     |6.3%      |5.8%          |
|2018|4.0%     |3.3%      |3.6%          |
|2019|2.4%     |2.3%      |2.3%          |
|2020|1.4%     |1.0%      |1.2%          |
|2021|1.1%     |1.0%      |1.1%          |
|2022|0.8%     |0.8%      |0.8%          |
|2023|0.3%     |0.7%      |0.5%          |
|2024|0.0%     |0.3%      |0.2%          |
|2025|0.0%     |0.3%      |0.2%          |

Vision and reaction time can really fade without being noticeable.  I’d also think any type of injury or general wear and tear on the hips and legs can expedite the fall off.  

[chasfh]

36 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

The comparison was not direct so again a strawman.   The question was whether Tarik Skubal was a "generational talent".   My argument ...

 

Edited July 1 by chasfh

[chasfh]

15 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Vision and reaction time can really fade without being noticeable.  I’d also think any type of injury or general wear and tear on the hips and legs can expedite the fall off.  

Agree, and further to this, not only do the players slow down in a physical sense as the reach the fifteenth or twentieth years of their career, I also believe an unacknowledged factor is that the players are just so much better in aggregate than they were fifteen to twenty years prior—bigger, stronger, faster, more athletic, and yes, more grounded in fundamentals.

I also believe the long beards in the game might be getting a longer leash than younger players, meaning within the first couple or three years, who have similar stats.

[Shinzaki]

9 hours ago, papalawrence said:

Rozema clearly benefitted from the stellar managing and coaching of Ralph Houk and Fred Gladding his first 2 years.

The Tigers minor league pithing coach was a guy named Johnny Grodzicki...he had a specific way of throwing a change up that he taught to guys like Fidrych, Rozema and Jack Morris.  The fact that al three of those guys threw a lot of change ups and had shoulder issues shortly after moving through the system is interesting

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, NorthWoods said:

The comparison was not direct so again a strawman.   The question was whether Tarik Skubal was a "generational talent".   My argument is that using WAR through his early career, health issues, similarity scores and other measures he is not at this point a generational talent.

Skubal racked up 5.1 WAR through his 1st 4 seasons at age 26 while pitching 378 innings and nary a complete game.

Rozema had accumulated 9.7 WAR through 2 seasons at age 21 while pitching 428 innings 27 complete games and 3 shutouts.

Putting aside mindless snickering - 2 questions.

1) How differently Dave Rozema would be handled today and how would that have affected his career?  

2)  Remove the names, thus removing the bias.   IF you were building a team which would seem the more valuable pitcher?  The 22 year old throwing 200 innings, complete games and shut outs?  Or the 27 year old getting you under 100 innings a year?

Now return to your laughing.

Get back to me in 10 years when you have to possibly find somebody else to compare Skubal to. You've already lost all credibility comparing him to a pitcher most current Tiger fans under the age of 45 have never even heard of. And yes, I will continue to laugh at ignorance. 

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

You got me wondering how long a baseball generation really is, so I did a cohort retention query of the Lahman database to determine how quickly a generation of players turn over. The table below contemplates all players who played in the majors in 2005, the most recent season I believed there are no more players from, and what percent of them played at any point during each of the next 20 seasons.

The generational turnover answer depends on how you define at what point the generation turns over. Is it when half of players no longer appear in the majors? That’s four years. Two-thirds? Six years. Eighty percent? Nine years. Ninety percent? Eleven years. One hundred percent? More than 20 years.

What surprise me here is how closely hitters and pitchers align when it comes to attrition. I would have thought pitchers attrit much faster than hitters.

|Year|Hitters %|Pitchers %|Every Player %|
|----|---------|----------|--------------|
|2006|76.9%    |76.6%     |76.7%         |
|2007|68.6%    |66.3%     |67.5%         |
|2008|58.0%    |54.1%     |56.1%         |
|2009|49.0%    |46.0%     |47.5%         |
|2010|43.4%    |36.3%     |39.9%         |
|2011|35.3%    |29.9%     |32.7%         |
|2012|28.4%    |23.9%     |26.2%         |
|2013|22.8%    |19.6%     |21.3%         |
|2014|18.1%    |14.9%     |16.5%         |
|2015|11.9%    |13.4%     |12.6%         |
|2016|8.6%     |8.7%      |8.6%          |
|2017|5.4%     |6.3%      |5.8%          |
|2018|4.0%     |3.3%      |3.6%          |
|2019|2.4%     |2.3%      |2.3%          |
|2020|1.4%     |1.0%      |1.2%          |
|2021|1.1%     |1.0%      |1.1%          |
|2022|0.8%     |0.8%      |0.8%          |
|2023|0.3%     |0.7%      |0.5%          |
|2024|0.0%     |0.3%      |0.2%          |
|2025|0.0%     |0.3%      |0.2%          |

Thanks for doing this research. A lot of players are done after a small number of games because they are not good enough to last in the majors.  When talking about "generational talent" though, I think the question would be what percentage of legitimate MLB players last 4 years, 5 years, etc.  Maybe you could limit the sample to something like hitters who had at least 100 PA and pitchers who had at least 40 IP.

[Tiger337]

22 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Get back to me in 10 years when you have to possibly find somebody else to compare Skubal to. You've already lost all credibility comparing him to a pitcher most current Tiger fans under the age of 45 have never even heard of. And yes, I will continue to laugh at ignorance. 

Rozema is a poor comp to Skubal for a couple of reasons, but I think you are missing the point.  Is Mark Fidrych a generational talent? He had one season that was as good, if not better, as any season Skubal has had.  He didn't win a Cy Young, but was arguably the best pitcher in baseball in 1976.

Edited July 1 by Tiger337

[Tiger337]

11 hours ago, NorthWoods said:

Are we now considering WAR to be obsolete like wins?  

 

 

I think neither is good for comparing across eras because starters are used differently today.  WAR is largely a cumulative statistic, so a good pitcher with more innings will have a higher WAR than an equally good pitcher with fewer innings.  Even an average pitcher can accumulate a high WAR with enough innings.  The one good thing about WAR versus wins is that it is more independent of what teammates do.  A pitcher's WAR will not suffer if his team can't hit and it is not affected too much by a weak bullpen (except when inherited runners score). 

This debate brings up a good point about pitchers from different eras though.  Pitchers tended to have higher WAR in the old days because of how there used.  They may not have been better, but they may have been more valuable.   

[Sports_Freak]

18 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Rozema is a poor comp to Skubal for a couple of reasons, but I think you are missing the point.  Is Mark Fidrych a generational talent? He had one season that was as good, if not better, as any season Skubal has had.  He didn't win a Cy Young, but was arguably the best pitcher in baseball in 1976.

True but the book is closed on both The Bird and Rosie. The book is still wide open on Skubal. Will he pitch effectively into his 40's? Probably not but most pitchers don't. But it's still possible, for all we know, his best years may still be in front of him. We just don't know. If he does sign a 10 year contract and pitches effectively for, say...3 or 4 years as a solid #1, 2 or 3 years as a top of the rotation guy and a couple of seasons as a decent #5 type? Well, in my eyes, that would be a generational talent. But finding some player, like Rozema, to cherry pick some stats from, just makes zero sense. Use a stat comparing both of those guys thru their age 30 seasons. Lol...I think we have The Return of Jake going on. He spent the entire 2013 season explaining to us why JV wasn't really an "ace." I think he even used some cherry picked stats...

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

True but the book is closed on both The Bird and Rosie. The book is still wide open on Skubal. Will he pitch effectively into his 40's? Probably not but most pitchers don't. But it's still possible, for all we know, his best years may still be in front of him. We just don't know. If he does sign a 10 year contract and pitches effectively for, say...3 or 4 years as a solid #1, 2 or 3 years as a top of the rotation guy and a couple of seasons as a decent #5 type? Well, in my eyes, that would be a generational talent. But finding some player, like Rozema, to cherry pick some stats from, just makes zero sense. Use a stat comparing both of those guys thru their age 30 seasons. Lol...I think we have The Return of Jake going on. He spent the entire 2013 season explaining to us why JV wasn't really an "ace." I think he even used some cherry picked stats...

But is Skubal a generational talent at this point in time?  

[Sports_Freak]

21 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think neither is good for comparing across eras because starters are used differently today.  WAR is largely a cumulative statistic, so a good pitcher with more innings will have a higher WAR than an equally good pitcher with fewer innings.  Even an average pitcher can accumulate a high WAR with enough innings.  The one good thing about WAR versus wins is that it is more independent of what teammates do.  A pitcher's WAR will not suffer if his team can't hit and it is not affected too much by a weak bullpen (except when inherited runners score). 

This debate brings up a good point about pitchers from different eras though.  Pitchers tended to have higher WAR in the old days because of how there used.  They may not have been better, but they may have been more valuable.   

Look at this guy's first few full seasons of WAR. How was anyone to know he would end up being one of the best pitchers of all time? Some people would rather have.....Dave Rozema...lmao

And yes, cherry picked Nolan Ryan stats...

 

Edited July 1 by Sports_Freak

[NorthWoods]

3 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

True but the book is closed on both The Bird and Rosie. The book is still wide open on Skubal. Will he pitch effectively into his 40's? Probably not but most pitchers don't. But it's still possible, for all we know, his best years may still be in front of him. We just don't know. If he does sign a 10 year contract and pitches effectively for, say...3 or 4 years as a solid #1, 2 or 3 years as a top of the rotation guy and a couple of seasons as a decent #5 type? Well, in my eyes, that would be a generational talent. But finding some player, like Rozema, to cherry pick some stats from, just makes zero sense. Use a stat comparing both of those guys thru their age 30 seasons. Lol...I think we have The Return of Jake going on. He spent the entire 2013 season explaining to us why JV wasn't really an "ace." I think he even used some cherry picked stats...

I don't consider it cherry picking because I remember well how excited I was about all the wonderful things Rozema was going to do in the future and of course the trajectory took a decided turn down after 1978, he did make a meaningful contribution to the 1984 team.   He threw 100 innings with a 3.74 ERA that year so.   

A similar turn down is what scares me about Skubal.   I don't think  he's built to last, we'll see.

And no matter your strawman arguments, 2 years does not make a "generational talent".

[NorthWoods]

3 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Look at this guy's first few full seasons of WAR. How was anyone to know he would end up being one of the best pitchers of all time? Some people would rather have.....Dave Rozema...lmao

Of course I didn't say that.  But then again the proof of a losing argument is lying to "win" it.

You're offering nothing to support your "generational talent" bloviation. 

Throwing up Nolan Ryan as a comparison to what Skubal is going to be is laughable.   He didn't make MLB at 19 and he sure as hell won't be pitching in MLB at age 46.