Reliever Trade Value

[NotMuchTime]

Originally Posted by Dodgerblue

I understand that relievers aren't so valuable. That doesn't mean that I should be able to get all of the good ones for absolutely nothing.

I completely agree with you. Having the best bullpen is way too easy. It should be impossible to trade multiple players, that have no chance (according to potential rating) of seeing the majors, for ANY player in the majors (reliever or otherwise) unless it's a salary dump. I'd still like to see ratings mimic the way it's really done. I think it would solve a lot of issues.

[RchW]

What type of league? I don't find good RP easy to get in fictional leagues. If anything the AI is too quick to lock them up at higher than market salaries.

As for trading/shop player I never see good RP or CL. Just the usual dregs overpaid fragile and unbalanced ratings.

[landru22]

I've always noticed that when I shop a reliever, I rarely get any interest.

[ttaka808]

It's not that easy to acquire the top closers in the game, especially the ones that are young and cheap. I just tried trading for Corey Knebel and Cody Allen and they needed my top prospect to make it happen.

[Dodgerblue]

Originally Posted by ttaka808

It's not that easy to acquire the top closers in the game, especially the ones that are young and cheap. I just tried trading for Corey Knebel and Cody Allen and they needed my top prospect to make it happen.

Try offering like 4 bad prospects and then make this trade work. I myself have done it for Cody Allen.

[Dodgerblue]

Originally Posted by landru22

I've always noticed that when I shop a reliever, I rarely get any interest.

Agreed, and that is because the AI undervalues them.

[tcoots423]

Originally Posted by koohead

Perhaps it's the real life GMs that are out of whack with their valuation of relievers? For every Mariano Rivera and Bruce Sutter, there are countless Jesse Orosco's and Danny Farqhuar's (ie, pitchers who have a couple solid years but no longstanding consistency). Maybe it's OOTP that has it right? I don't know. even in OOTP I find myself settling on a closer and probably keeping him around a lot longer than I should, but cycling through MRs year in and year out.

I agree.. You shouldnt get Giles and Capps and so on for nothing, but ive signed a lot of the "top" relievers and hoped my bullpen would be great and half of them i get rid of after one season because AS USAUAL.. unless the pitcher is an ALL STAR/HOF type pitcher (starter or reliever) they dont have consistent great numbers.. they can go from a sub 3 era season to a 5 plus era season really fast! Thats why i ONLY pay for HOF/AS talent (Kershaw, Bumgarner)..

[Hammercraft]

Relievers are cheap IRL. Getting a top-notch closer with high endurance is an expensive prospect, but you can argue that teams were heavily overpaying for what they got. Even if they're studs and have a great season, you're only going to see 3 WAR out of it. An every day player with average offense and a good glove can produce the same. Getting two good prospects for a closer? It's a steal. Even guys fairly reliable and experienced like K-Rod flop around from team to team without much urgency.

[tcoots423]

Originally Posted by Hammercraft

Relievers are cheap IRL. Getting a top-notch closer with high endurance is an expensive prospect, but you can argue that teams were heavily overpaying for what they got. Even if they're studs and have a great season, you're only going to see 3 WAR out of it. An every day player with average offense and a good glove can produce the same. Getting two good prospects for a closer? It's a steal. Even guys fairly reliable and experienced like K-Rod flop around from team to team without much urgency.

Hes a Tiger now .. blew his first save tonight

[Hammercraft]

Originally Posted by tcoots423

Hes a Tiger now .. blew his first save tonight

Yeah I saw that I enjoyed him as a Brewer, and I enjoy it equally when we trade him away. They don't call him TPOT for nothin'

[tcoots423]

I feel as though now and days there arent as many true closers. Great ones... no Eric Gagne, Mariano, Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, Troy Percival.. and so on.. Closers flame out fast now n days.. only guy i think has been great is Wade Davis...

[injury log]

OOTP has always undervalued relievers.

There seems to be a misconception in this thread that you can evaluate relievers by WAR. It's not even clear how to calculate WAR for relievers - do you just evaluate the pitcher's performance (independent of the score), or do you measure how much the reliever's performance helped the team actually win?

If a reliever puts up the same stats as Clayton Kershaw in 1/3 of the innings, is he worth 1/3 as much as Kershaw? Usually no. The reliever can pitch all his innings when a great performance would be extremely valuable, in one-run games. Kershaw can't do that - his Manager has no way to know before he pitches if the game will be a 15-0 game or a 1-0 game. So a lot of Kershaw's great innings aren't worth very much. But if the Manager isn't an idiot, the great reliever's innings are all worth a lot. Some reliever WAR calculations incorporate these leverage effects to account for this difference (and doing that is debatable - is it a mopup reliever's fault his Manager doesn't use him in close games?), but I suspect OOTP WAR does not.

But the even more important reason great relievers are more valuable than WAR suggests, at least to contending teams, is because of the playoffs. Your best relievers can pitch more often in the playoffs because of all the days off. And playoff innings are the most valuable of all. WAR will underestimate the value a reliever brings to a playoff team, because it will underestimate how many innings that reliever can pitch in the playoffs.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by tcoots423

I feel as though now and days there arent as many true closers. Great ones... no Eric Gagne, Mariano, Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, Troy Percival.. and so on.. Closers flame out fast now n days.. only guy i think has been great is Wade Davis...

But Davis has not been a full time closer until now.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by injury log

OOTP has always undervalued relievers.

There seems to be a misconception in this thread that you can evaluate relievers by WAR. It's not even clear how to calculate WAR for relievers - do you just evaluate the pitcher's performance (independent of the score), or do you measure how much the reliever's performance helped the team actually win?

If a reliever puts up the same stats as Clayton Kershaw in 1/3 of the innings, is he worth 1/3 as much as Kershaw? Usually no. The reliever can pitch all his innings when a great performance would be extremely valuable, in one-run games. Kershaw can't do that - his Manager has no way to know before he pitches if the game will be a 15-0 game or a 1-0 game. So a lot of Kershaw's great innings aren't worth very much. But if the Manager isn't an idiot, the great reliever's innings are all worth a lot. Some reliever WAR calculations incorporate these leverage effects to account for this difference (and doing that is debatable - is it a mopup reliever's fault his Manager doesn't use him in close games?), but I suspect OOTP WAR does not.

But the even more important reason great relievers are more valuable than WAR suggests, at least to contending teams, is because of the playoffs. Your best relievers can pitch more often in the playoffs because of all the days off. And playoff innings are the most valuable of all. WAR will underestimate the value a reliever brings to a playoff team, because it will underestimate how many innings that reliever can pitch in the playoffs.

I never use WAR to evaluate RP.

[Painmantle]

It really has nothing to do with weather anyone in this thread uses WAR to evaluate relieves or not, or how valuable or usless anyone actually believes they are. OOTP can only see Numbers, weather those are Ratings ,Tangible Stats or WAR it really doesn't matter, in basically every possible system of rating players known to the baseball world, Relievers have least value of any player category and that is reflected in OOTP.

I am not a computer programmer, but I understand the basic concept of physics and Newton's 3rd Law,

"for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

And it is my opinion that trying to force OOTP to do an unnatural thing as far as baseball stats and ratings are concern, which is pick and choose which relievers are more valuable than others or put more value on relievers in general when no system in the world suggest that is true. Will just create more problems than it fixes.

[Assos]

I will be the first person to admit I rarely sign relievers and most are home grown. They are let go after 6 years of service mostly unless I feel attached to one. I guess I view relievers like OOTP

[Painmantle]

Now, if OOTP wanted to create some new traits for Manager, and coaches where they put more value on relievers than the Numbers suggest, we might have something that would be feasible, but that is opening a whole new can of worms

[injury log]

Originally Posted by Painmantle

And it is my opinion that trying to force OOTP to do an unnatural thing as far as baseball stats and ratings are concern, which is pick and choose which relievers are more valuable than others or put more value on relievers in general when no system in the world suggest that is true.

We have tons of evidence about how MLB teams value elite relievers. Open market free agent salaries for top relievers are around $12m - $13m per. We have four recent trades of elite relievers (Kenny Giles, Aroldis Chapman, and Craig Kimbrel twice) which establish how real teams evaluate top bullpen arms. San Diego gave up BA's #34 prospect in baseball and a supplemental 1st rounder for Kimbrel. Boston gave up BA's #52 and BA's #56 prospects in baseball for Kimbrel.

OOTP is either valuing relievers as real life teams do, or it's not. The game is either right or it's wrong, and this is testable. Newton's third law has nothing to do with it.

[Assos]

Here's the thing about the OP, it references Ken Giles. Giles is now the setup man in Houston. One can claim that Houston overvalued him for his pitching. The question is could he be a one or two year wonder? Houston was clearly dumping some failures in Appeal. The sample size is too small in this case. Does the game look at closers differently than just you run of the mill reliever? Run of the mill relievers are a dime a dozen, but a lock down closer is something that might be valued more? Or are they? Past season have shown a lot of closers have changed hands for various reasons. Chapman went for peanuts if you value closers. I know for outside reasons, but even the first trade, pre story, was not that great and Andrew Freidman is not know for giving away talent.

[Painmantle]

Originally Posted by injury log

We have tons of evidence about how MLB teams value elite relievers. Open market free agent salaries for top relievers are around $12m - $13m per. We have four recent trades of elite relievers (Kenny Giles, Aroldis Chapman, and Craig Kimbrel twice) which establish how real teams evaluate top bullpen arms. San Diego gave up BA's #34 prospect in baseball and a supplemental 1st rounder for Kimbrel. Boston gave up BA's #52 and BA's #56 prospects in baseball for Kimbrel.

OOTP is either valuing relievers as real life teams do, or it's not. The game is either right or it's wrong, and this is testable. Newton's third law has nothing to do with it.

And once again, OOTP doesn't see names, there are of course exceptions to every rule, and frankly 12-13mil isn't an "elite" salary. Plus your trade examples were all within the last 4 months, hardly enough time to justify saying it should be built into the AI of OOTP17. My comment about Newton's law was based on the many times I've seen a Programmer (Not just OOTP) try to accomplish something with the AI that had unintended consequences elsewhere in the game.

I stand behind my comment that systems that Rate baseball players do not value relievers, mostly because their stats are not quantitative enough to justify high value and there isn't a system out there that gives much credit for Saves. So the fact that OOTP doesn't value relievers highly really should not be a shock to anyone. I hope they can figure out how to code it to make the people who want it happy, I personally don't believe it to be broke, and think the chances are pretty good that it is nearly impossible to replicate. Baring new player traits like "Clutch Performance" or "Killer Instinct"

I mean how exactly would anyone who believes it need fixed suggest it be coded with regard to which Ratings and/or stats make one reliever more valuable than another in a sea of relievers with very similar numbers?

Who knows, maybe "Leverage Situations" being included in OOTP is a step towards that direction.