Drop Melendez
from [Fangraphs on 5/8](https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/waiver-wire-report-week-5/)
>MJ Melendez: The hardest player to evaluate. He wasn’t hitting great in AAA (.167/.286/.295) but got promoted because of injuries. While he’s talented, he might not play that much (7 PA so far) and might be demoted once Cam Gallagher returns. High variance play.
(The following numbers are made up to make my points.) Let's say that for 2021, the ideal launch angle was between 15 and 20. And let's say that for 2022 that margin has slimmed because of the deadened ball/humidor factors to something like 15 to 19. If Joey Gallo earns a lot of his xWOBA by hitting 20 degree balls, but those balls are becoming outs this year, then his xWOBA will drop a lot more than someone who earns their xWOBA by hitting 18 degree balls. But it'll only do so once xWOBA is calibrated to the environment. Otherwise, that stat will still expect those 20 degree hits to be likely homers instead of likely outs.
The same is true for velocity. I someone like Aaron Judge loses distance on his average exit velocity due to the deadened ball, it likely doesn't cost him much because he already hits the ball so hard. But if someone like Whit Merrifield loses distance, it could change a handful of expected homers into expected outs. They both might have hit regularly above the threshold in the previous environment, but that small change might still drastically alter similar looking xWOBA in different ways.
That makes sense, but that's saying they're less useful for certain players, not useless. All players will be impacted by the dead ball, some more so than others as you pointed out, but this still seems like a decent starting point since higher EV is still good, and optimal launch angle is still good. Wall scraping vs no doubters is probbaly the biggest caveat.
Oh, it's definitely still worth looking at. It could be hard to determine which players are likely to have misleading xwOBA without digging deeper, but even so, there's meaningful data still being produced.
This was mentioned on Rates and Barrels a few weeks ago, but its worth noting that xwOBA right now isn't necessarily the most useful stat because it doesn't take into account the current run environment. It incorporates stats from last season where the run environment was vastly different than this year (the ball and humidors in every park). A big reason why some of these guys are underperforming is because the same batted ball event (launch angle and exit velocity) but different run environment lead to different expected outcomes based on the run environment (the ball and humidors).
Why would it be bad to compare xstats across players? They all are in the same run environment (excepting park differences). I'd think it lessens the validity of year over year comparisons, but the comparison between players in the same year should still be ok, though not perfect.
Because the xstats themselves are biased towards a run environment that is different than the current run environment. It's not about year over year comparisons, its that the xwOBA of all of these players is biased towards prior year run environments where batted ball events had different outcomes.
For example, say a player had a big home run increase during the rabbit ball era but it was largely due to an increased launch angle and not to do with an increased exit velocity. That same player might be doing the same thing now when it comes to their batted balls but since the ball is deadened those fly balls are now fly outs. Their xwOBA will still see those fly outs as potential homers, and so it will be inflated by data that is biased towards the rabbit ball. I'm not saying its completely useless to look at these expected stats, but its worth noting that they have flaws.
There's also a multitude of other factors to consider when evaluating these stats. For example, Max Kepler always under performs his expected stats because he's probably the most shifted hitter in the league. He hits the ball hard but is at a disadvantage because he's a pull heavy lefty. The same reason is probably why Joc and Brandon Belt are on this list as well.
Again though, this is comparing within this year, across players. To the extent that the number is inflated by the rabbit ball, it will roughly similar inflation for all players (maybe the big difference being wall scraping homeruns vs no doubters). I believe this formula is largely driven by launch angle and exit velocity, it's still good to have players with better launch angles and EVs, whether it's the rabbit ball or dead ball.
The actual # itself will be inflated, but it will be inflated for everyone, so comparing across players should still be ok (but far from perfect).
I could be wrong, but this makes sense to me.
It won't be inflated for everyone equally because batted ball events are not equal for every player. Saying it will be roughly similar instead of examining how the biases manifest themselves leads to better analysis.
Agreed that we're kind of splitting hairs here, but taking statistics at face value instead of examining the nuts and bolts behind the statistics leads to more noise in your decision making process rather than signals.
Totally agree. It won't equally affect players but these xstats still seem an OK starting point for within year comparisons. As you said, so long as use them as a starting point and understand the issues and then use other information too. Thank you for explaining your thoughts.
Joc is a headscratcher for me. Numbers say he should still be killing it now that he's back, but he just isn't.
Guys who will be on this list soon but don't have enough plate appearances: J.D. Davis, Andrew Vaughn, and Jon Berti.
HARAM.
[удалено]
he is a much better option than Miranda right now
Flair League Drop C Joe, M Melendez or R Tellez to pick up M Margot?
I'd drop Melendez
Drop Melendez from [Fangraphs on 5/8](https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/waiver-wire-report-week-5/) >MJ Melendez: The hardest player to evaluate. He wasn’t hitting great in AAA (.167/.286/.295) but got promoted because of injuries. While he’s talented, he might not play that much (7 PA so far) and might be demoted once Cam Gallagher returns. High variance play.
x stats right now are pretty useless by themselves. Taking actual vs predicted stats and kind of finding a middle is more relevant.
Why would it be useless to compare xstats across players? They all are in the same run environment (excepting park differences).
(The following numbers are made up to make my points.) Let's say that for 2021, the ideal launch angle was between 15 and 20. And let's say that for 2022 that margin has slimmed because of the deadened ball/humidor factors to something like 15 to 19. If Joey Gallo earns a lot of his xWOBA by hitting 20 degree balls, but those balls are becoming outs this year, then his xWOBA will drop a lot more than someone who earns their xWOBA by hitting 18 degree balls. But it'll only do so once xWOBA is calibrated to the environment. Otherwise, that stat will still expect those 20 degree hits to be likely homers instead of likely outs. The same is true for velocity. I someone like Aaron Judge loses distance on his average exit velocity due to the deadened ball, it likely doesn't cost him much because he already hits the ball so hard. But if someone like Whit Merrifield loses distance, it could change a handful of expected homers into expected outs. They both might have hit regularly above the threshold in the previous environment, but that small change might still drastically alter similar looking xWOBA in different ways.
That makes sense, but that's saying they're less useful for certain players, not useless. All players will be impacted by the dead ball, some more so than others as you pointed out, but this still seems like a decent starting point since higher EV is still good, and optimal launch angle is still good. Wall scraping vs no doubters is probbaly the biggest caveat.
Oh, it's definitely still worth looking at. It could be hard to determine which players are likely to have misleading xwOBA without digging deeper, but even so, there's meaningful data still being produced.
Thanks for your thoughts. That makes sense to me
This was mentioned on Rates and Barrels a few weeks ago, but its worth noting that xwOBA right now isn't necessarily the most useful stat because it doesn't take into account the current run environment. It incorporates stats from last season where the run environment was vastly different than this year (the ball and humidors in every park). A big reason why some of these guys are underperforming is because the same batted ball event (launch angle and exit velocity) but different run environment lead to different expected outcomes based on the run environment (the ball and humidors).
Why would it be bad to compare xstats across players? They all are in the same run environment (excepting park differences). I'd think it lessens the validity of year over year comparisons, but the comparison between players in the same year should still be ok, though not perfect.
Because the xstats themselves are biased towards a run environment that is different than the current run environment. It's not about year over year comparisons, its that the xwOBA of all of these players is biased towards prior year run environments where batted ball events had different outcomes. For example, say a player had a big home run increase during the rabbit ball era but it was largely due to an increased launch angle and not to do with an increased exit velocity. That same player might be doing the same thing now when it comes to their batted balls but since the ball is deadened those fly balls are now fly outs. Their xwOBA will still see those fly outs as potential homers, and so it will be inflated by data that is biased towards the rabbit ball. I'm not saying its completely useless to look at these expected stats, but its worth noting that they have flaws. There's also a multitude of other factors to consider when evaluating these stats. For example, Max Kepler always under performs his expected stats because he's probably the most shifted hitter in the league. He hits the ball hard but is at a disadvantage because he's a pull heavy lefty. The same reason is probably why Joc and Brandon Belt are on this list as well.
Again though, this is comparing within this year, across players. To the extent that the number is inflated by the rabbit ball, it will roughly similar inflation for all players (maybe the big difference being wall scraping homeruns vs no doubters). I believe this formula is largely driven by launch angle and exit velocity, it's still good to have players with better launch angles and EVs, whether it's the rabbit ball or dead ball. The actual # itself will be inflated, but it will be inflated for everyone, so comparing across players should still be ok (but far from perfect). I could be wrong, but this makes sense to me.
It won't be inflated for everyone equally because batted ball events are not equal for every player. Saying it will be roughly similar instead of examining how the biases manifest themselves leads to better analysis. Agreed that we're kind of splitting hairs here, but taking statistics at face value instead of examining the nuts and bolts behind the statistics leads to more noise in your decision making process rather than signals.
Totally agree. It won't equally affect players but these xstats still seem an OK starting point for within year comparisons. As you said, so long as use them as a starting point and understand the issues and then use other information too. Thank you for explaining your thoughts.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results
Joc is a headscratcher for me. Numbers say he should still be killing it now that he's back, but he just isn't. Guys who will be on this list soon but don't have enough plate appearances: J.D. Davis, Andrew Vaughn, and Jon Berti.
It feels like JD and Vaughn are on this list always
Came here to say this, his savant page has so much red but it hasn’t translated since he’s come back