2025-2026 Tigers Off Season Thread

[Shelton]

12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

My question is, how can the dWAR for DHs be anything but zero? How does a DH lose 1.7 games for his team without picking up a glove? The only way any of this comes close to making any sense for me is if 1Bs generally have negative dWARs and SS generally have positive dWARs because the average 1B loses runs for his team and the average SS gains runs for his team, taken against the average of all eight positions, solely by the nature of positional relativity. That would help explain the difference in dWAR between players at those two positions—but that still wouldn’t explain DH dWAR for me. I’m just trying to make the concept click for me mathematically to help me understand how individual players at positions contribute defensively to runs and wins on the field during games, versus accepting it as a purely economic concept applied primarily to roster management.

We can just go ahead and drop it here since our going round and round like this is no fun for anyone, not even me. I can pursue the question on my own in my spare time. 

So, I couldn’t help but dig around a bit last night following the earlier discussion, and I saw something that said basically “we have to assign something” so they kind of settled on a poor 1B. 
 

The actual number is scaled to the number of games spent at DH (possibly even down to innings), so playing 130 games gives a reduced negative value relative to guy that played 150. 

[chasfh]

7 minutes ago, Shelton said:

So, I couldn’t help but dig around a bit last night following the earlier discussion, and I saw something that said basically “we have to assign something” so they kind of settled on a poor 1B. 

The actual number is scaled to the number of games spent at DH (possibly even down to innings), so playing 130 games gives a reduced negative value relative to guy that played 150. 

The scaling part of it makes sense. That part is inside the question’s room. I’m having trouble getting through the question’s door.

[4hzglory]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

My question is, how can the dWAR for DHs be anything but zero? How does a DH lose 1.7 games for his team without picking up a glove? The only way any of this comes close to making any sense for me is if 1Bs generally have negative dWARs and SS generally have positive dWARs because the average 1B loses runs for his team and the average SS gains runs for his team, taken against the average of all eight positions, solely by the nature of positional relativity. That would help explain the difference in dWAR between players at those two positions—but that still wouldn’t explain DH dWAR for me. I’m just trying to make the concept click for me mathematically to help me understand how individual players at positions contribute defensively to runs and wins on the field during games, versus accepting it as a purely economic concept applied primarily to roster management.

We can just go ahead and drop it here since our going round and round like this is no fun for anyone, not even me. I can pursue the question on my own in my spare time. 

I agree with you chas - which is why to me it would make more sense to make a postive base line adjustment for postitions like SS rather than negative base line adjustments to positions.

[Tiger337]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

My question is, how can the dWAR for DHs be anything but zero? How does a DH lose 1.7 games for his team without picking up a glove?

They assign the positional adjustment to both owar and dwar which I agree is confusing.  So, they end up double counting and they don't add up to WAR.   If they just took the positional adjustment out of the dwar part, a full-time dh would have 0 dwar.  

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, Shelton said:

So, I couldn’t help but dig around a bit last night following the earlier discussion, and I saw something that said basically “we have to assign something” so they kind of settled on a poor 1B. 
 

 

yeah, there is definitely some guess work involved in WAR.  It's a good back of the napkin stat for comparing players especially over a long career, but I think it gets overused.  

[chasfh]

21 hours ago, 4hzglory said:

I agree with you chas - which is why to me it would make more sense to make a postive base line adjustment for postitions like SS rather than negative base line adjustments to positions.

Yes, they need to decouple advanced defensive statistical evaluation from the economic-oriented metric that is Wins Above Replacement and create a separate metric that has a baseline of average. I think Wins Above Average (WAA) was supposed to accomplish that, but I don’t know how its calculations comport to WAR, of which I have a basic understanding, and I also don;t know whether or how it includes defense.

[chasfh]

21 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

They assign the positional adjustment to both owar and dwar which I agree is confusing.  So, they end up double counting and they don't add up to WAR.   If they just took the positional adjustment out of the dwar part, a full-time dh would have 0 dwar.  

Applying positional adjustment for defense is totally valid, to the degree they can demonstrate, for example, that the average shortstop gains x runs per season and the average first baseman loses y runs per season, just by the nature of how the positions relate to one another during the course of play. But I believe that should apply only to evaluation of play on the field, and not to the economic question of player replacement. After all, if I am studying the performance of Hall of Famers, their level above freely available major leaguers is far less relevant.

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Applying positional adjustment for defense is totally valid, to the degree they can demonstrate, for example, that the average shortstop gains x runs per season and the average first baseman loses y runs per season, just by the nature of how the positions relate to one another during the course of play. But I believe that should apply only to evaluation of play on the field, and not to the economic question of player replacement. After all, if I am studying the performance of Hall of Famers, their level above freely available major leaguers is far less relevant.

I still don't understand your problem with positional adjutment beyond presentation, but let's talk about WAA.  WAA does include all the same defensive calculations as WAR.  There are pros and cons of using WAA that go beyond presentation. The main difference between WAA and WAR is playing time.  An average player can keep accumulating WAR as long as he performs above replacement.  On the other hand, this player will always be 0 WAA whether he has 100 PA or 10000 PA.  This might be appealing in HoF or MVP discussions, but maybe less so in roster construction discussions or comparisons between players who are not great players.  For Hall of Fame discussions, players with high but short peaks will rank better in WAA, whereas players with longer duration but lower peaks will rank better with WAR.  I think it's worth looking at both.   

For other discussions, the problem with WAA is that an average player who is actually a pretty valuable player will always be 0 wins no matter how much he plays.  A player who has a great 50 PA before going down with a season ending injury will have a higher WAA than an average player with 600 PA.  With WAR, the full-season, player will be about 2 whereas the 50 PA player will be between 0 and 1 which I think is more appropriate.  That's one extreme example, but illustrations the potential problem with WAA in player evaluation.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I still don't understand your problem with positional adjutment beyond presentation, but let's talk about WAA.  WAA does include all the same defensive calculations as WAR.  There are pros and cons of using WAA that go beyond presentation. The main difference between WAA and WAR is playing time.  An average player can keep accumulating WAR as long as he performs above replacement.  On the other hand, this player will always be 0 WAA whether he has 100 PA or 10000 PA.  This might be appealing in HoF or MVP discussions, but maybe less so in roster construction discussions or comparisons between players who are not great players.  For Hall of Fame discussions, players with high but short peaks will rank better in WAA, whereas players with longer duration but lower peaks will rank better with WAR.  I think it's worth looking at both.   

For other discussions, the problem with WAA is that an average player who is actually a pretty valuable player will always be 0 wins no matter how much he plays.  A player who has a great 50 PA before going down with a season ending injury will have a higher WAA than an average player with 600 PA.  With WAR, the full-season, player will be about 2 whereas the 50 PA player will be between 0 and 1 which I think is more appropriate.  That's one extreme example, but illustrations the potential problem with WAA in player evaluation.

"My problem" is the DH with the -1.7 defensive WAR, suggesting he's losing 1.7 games for his team with his defense without even picking up a glove. I've explained why over and over, so if you don't understand what I mean by now, you never will, so please let's drop that part of the discussion.

I agree that WAA is no more the perfect stat than WAR is. Neither stat is the end all be all for all circumstances at all times. WAR is good for economics and roster construction. WAA is good for comparing player performances on the field, especially among those with a lot of trigger time under their belts. But even if it's a better measure with more playing time, I don't think the idea that a guy with 50 PA could have a better WAA than a guy with 600 is anything like a problem. That kind of thing already happens with WAR right now. There are lots of guys during just the wild card era with 600+ PAs who've had negative WAR, and lots of guys with right around 50 PAs during the same period who've had better than that.

All that said, I will not stop using WAR. I just think there might be something out there that better reflects value in areas where WAR is deficient, such as in characterizing a guy who never picks up a glove all season as being -1.7 wins below replacement, as if a freely-available replacement DH would be +1.7 wins better with the glove.

 

 

Edited yesterday at 05:59 PM by chasfh

[Tiger337]

5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

"My problem" is the DH with the -1.7 defensive WAR, suggesting he's losing 1.7 games for his team with his defense without even picking up a glove. I've explained why over and over, so if you don't understand what I mean by now, you never will, so please let's drop that part of the discussion.

 

 

 

I think you understsand this, but the "suggestion" is just how you are reading it, not what is actually happening with the stat. You are the one that keeps bringing it up! 😃 I agree that the presentation could be better.

[papalawrence]

Torres has until Tuesday to decide on his QO. Hopefully this week we'll hear more buzz. 

[gehringer_2]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think you understsand this, but the "suggestion" is just how you are reading it, not what is actually happening with the stat. You are the one that keeps bringing it up! 😃 I agree that the presentation could be better.

I think one thing that comes out of all this that if the adjustments reflect an underlying reality, team should be probably be looking at upgrading their fielding at a position like 1B. Maybe it's the next unexploited efficiency! I suppose a traditionalist might argue that if fielding were 'really' more important at 1B teams would have already discovered that, but considering the history of bunting, one should never underestimate the ability of the major leagues to get it wrong for decades on end.....

Edited yesterday at 06:09 PM by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

49 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I think you understsand this, but the "suggestion" is just how you are reading it, not what is actually happening with the stat. You are the one that keeps bringing it up! 😃 I agree that the presentation could be better.

If a stat says a DH is -1.7 wins in his defense, I think there's something wrong with the stat. Maybe I'm just too stupid to see the logic of how it accurately measures defensive performance after all, but I'm not the only one.

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, chasfh said:

If a stat says a DH is -1.7 wins in his defense, I think there's something wrong with the stat. Maybe I'm just too stupid to see the logic of how it accurately measures defensive performance after all, but I'm not the only one.

You are definitely not stupid!  I think you are very concerned with how things are presented because you are good at that.  You won a SABR award for that.  Right? 

Anyway, I think you have said you are/were a center fielder in your baseball leaugue.  You provide more defensive value to your team than a DH.  Shouldn't you get credit for that? Maybe make the DH 0 points and add points for being able to play a position.  It would still come out to be the same WAR.  Does that work for you? 

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

You are definitely not stupid!  I think you are very concerned with how things are presented because you are good at that.  You won a SABR award for that.  Right? 

Anyway, I think you have said you are/were a center fielder in your baseball leaugue.  You provide more defensive value to your team than a DH.  Shouldn't you get credit for that? Maybe make the DH 0 points and add points for being able to play a position.  It would still come out to be the same WAR.  Does that work for you? 

What I am talking about is not simply the ability to play the position. It's about the value the player is producing on the field with their actual defense.

I get the concept of positional adjustment for a CF over a 1B, that the value of a CF's defense is higher than 1B, because the average CF provides more value than an average 1B, and that a typical CF does more with his defense to win games over a season than a typical 1B does with his defense. That reflects value accrued on the field during games. Understood.

I also get that when a team is constructing a roster, a CF who provides better defense provides more value to winning to the team with his hitting that's the same as the 1B's and his position-average defense, than a 1B does to the team with his hitting that's the same as the CF's and his position-average defense. IOW, hitting being equal, the difference reflects that estimated value between the two based solely on each player's defense at their respective positions for the purpose of roster construction. Also understood.

What I don't get is the idea of looking back at a DH's defensive contribution, as reported on his card by defensive WAR, as being a negative number, because DHs do not contribute to defense at all during games. Since DHs provide zero defense, the numbers for defense on a DH's card should be zero, or blank, or n/a—take your pick.

My understanding of the difference is one of measuring actual defensive performance for the purpose of providing an accounting looking back at the games played, which is what I am talking about, versus the estimation of potential defensive performance for the purpose of constructing a roster looking forward before the games are played, which is what you are talking about.

Therefore, I am advocating separating the measurement of defensive runs accrued on the field as a result of actual defense performed, as a backward-looking metric, from defensive runs estimated when constructing a roster, as a forward-looking metric.

Does that work for you?

Edited 21 hours ago by chasfh

[1984Echoes]

On 11/15/2025 at 10:49 AM, 4hzglory said:

I agree with you chas - which is why to me it would make more sense to make a postive base line adjustment for positions like SS rather than negative base line adjustments to positions.

2 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

...  Maybe make the DH 0 points and add points for being able to play a position.  It would still come out to be the same WAR.  Does that work for you? 

 

I thought we already decided this a week ago...?

 

On 11/9/2025 at 3:39 PM, 1984Echoes said:

I'm with Chas on this one.

-1.7 WAR for a DH reads as stupid.

Here's an easy fix:

Instead of assigning negatives for positions (1B -12???, DH -1.7???), add bonus points for more important positions.

DH starts at 0, finishes at 0.

1B starts at 0, actual results give actual numbers (speaking only to defensive WAR that is...).

Catcher, SS, and CF get +6, +12, +8 for positional value?

Just my 2 cents.

On 11/9/2025 at 3:53 PM, Tiger337 said:

That would be fine.  In terms of ranking players which is what I use it for, you would end up with the same result if you added instead of subtracted.  

The key is you have to have a way of rewarding players for playing more difficult positilons.   The subtracting of -17 for a DH is not a logical flaw.  It could be argued that it's a presentation flaw though.  

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

 

I thought we already decided this a week ago...?

 

I thought so too.  

[Tiger337]

17 minutes ago, chasfh said:

What I don't get is the idea of looking back at a DH's defensive contribution, as reported on his card by defensive WAR, as being a negative number, because DHs do not contribute to defense at all during games. Since DHs provide zero defense, the numbers for defense on a DH's card should be zero, or blank, or n/a—take your pick.

 

That is what DRS and OAA do.  A DH gets a zero for those stats.  The DH does not hurt you on the field with his defense.    

Quote

 

What I am talking about is not simply the ability to play the position. It's about the value the player is producing on the field with their actual defense.

I get the concept of positional adjustment for a CF over a 1B, that the value of a CF's defense is higher than 1B, because the average CF provides more value than an average 1B, and that a typical CF does more with his defense to win games over a season than a typical 1B does with his defense. That reflects value accrued on the field during games. Understood.

 

yes, a CF provides more value defensively than a 1B and a 1B provides more defensive value than a DH.  At least, that is how I see it.

Let's say you take positional adjustment out if altogether and make WAR = OWAR + DRS.  That would be a stat which is totally based on what they do on the field.

Then we can argue about about which player is better, the SS with 2 WAR or the DH 2.5 WAR.  There is nothing wrong with that.  Arguing is fun.  But if we want just one number to answer our argument, we need to figure out how to compare players from different positions.  How should we do that?  

 

Edited 20 hours ago by Tiger337

[1984Echoes]

5 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I thought so too.  

😉

[IdahoBert]

If I were drinking man, which I’m not, I would be reaching for a drink right now to drown out the sound of the crickets because of the inactivity in baseball news affecting roster changes. 

[Tiger337]

6 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

If I were drinking man, which I’m not, I would be reaching for a drink right now to drown out the sound of the crickets because of the inactivity in baseball news affecting roster changes. 

It starts getting interesting on Tuesday:

November 18 is the deadline for players to accept or decline qualifying offers and the deadline for teams to set their 40-man rosters to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft. 

Speaking of the Rule 5 draft, has anyone seen Liston lately?  I don't think he has posted since the summer?

 

[Tiger337]

I hope that Torres accepts the offer.  There may be a couple of more interesting options in free agency, but it sounds like the Tigers will be pursuing pitching more than hitting and I wouldn't want them to lose Torres and not replace him.  

[1984Echoes]

7 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I hope that Torres accepts the offer.  There may be a couple of more interesting options in free agency, but it sounds like the Tigers will be pursuing pitching more than hitting and I wouldn't want them to lose Torres and not replace him.  

On board with this.

Torres is a baseline...

But I also hope they pursue the higher end options as well. Specifically Tucker and Bregman as I keep broken-record mentioning... but also unrelated: the best closer (Finnegan also, as a set-up or secondary closer sign...) they can convince to sign with the Tigers.

Just my 2 cents.

[papalawrence]

1 hour ago, IdahoBert said:

If I were drinking man, which I’m not, I would be reaching for a drink right now to drown out the sound of the crickets because of the inactivity in baseball news affecting roster changes. 

You can borrow my tinnitus if you want

[IdahoBert]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

It starts getting interesting on Tuesday:

November 18 is the deadline for players to accept or decline qualifying offers and the deadline for teams to set their 40-man rosters to protect players from the Rule 5 Draft. 

Speaking of the Rule 5 draft, has anyone seen Liston lately?  I don't think he has posted since the summer?

 

No, I haven’t. I hope he’s OK.