Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

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Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by Ted » Fri Aug 16, 2019 11:14 am

So, I've been catching up on effectively wild episodes, and I'm in the pre deadline stuff. There are multiple mentions there, and elsewhere, about how deadlines naturally cause procrastination right up until the deadline, and such. The other point commonly made is that of course GMs want to wait as long as they can, because they then have more information. I was wondering if you guys think MLB front offices do this. Specifically, the cases of the Giants and the Mets are compelling. The Giants were predicted to be bad (70-92), had a surprisingly good record, which everyone thought was a fluke and they didn't sell. Now they have to be feeling bad. The Mets on the other hand, were supposed to be goodish (87-75), weren't, actually added, and now are happy. My supposition is that if they do, they are hurting themselves. We still have a couple bonehead front offices in MLB, and even more dumb owners who force their GMs to act sub-optimally, but here's my thoughts.

1) Pre season projections (real life, not OOTP) are pretty good these days. You have to think most front offices in MLB have even better models.

2) We know that teams and players are actually more likely to perform in line with the preseason projections over the remainder of the season than maintain a trend that is not backed up by the underlying performance numbers. (i.e. high babip for no reason or winning better than your run differential means you will likely regress, and this is much more common than things that signify real upward change in projections)

3) Because of this, I expect GMs have a very good idea of what their team actually is and changing trajectory with 60 games left in the season because you got lucky or unlucky is a really poor way to manage the odds.

I definitely operated that way with California. Before every season, I always decided if I was a contender or not. I was right probably 75% of the time. At least half the time I was wrong, it was due to injury or unexpected aging. The "solution" in those situations is easy. Sell. Punt the year, get better for the future. When I was unexpectedly good, I never added, and most of the time I'd either be a weak playoff team or miss the playoffs. I was almost always done adding well before the deadline (barring injury) and usually sold well before then as well to get to the early buyers when I can extract more value for a larger chunk of a partial season.

Either way, procrastinating doesn't make sense when looking to add. If you know from your preseason ideas that you are good enough to add, and you need to add, you should do it as early in the season as possible, so as to maximize the benefit. Players don't magically change who they are all that often, so similarly, "gathering more information" seems stupid. It seems like over analysis. It's possible that you add a very good player and he under-performs. It's possible you add a not great player having a hot season, and he stays good with your team. However, neither of those outcomes is as likely as the good player performs well and the bad player cools off.

I think what really happened this year is that everyone wanted to know if they could get Giants players, and they thought "There's no way this dipshit doesn't sell" and at the same time no one was sure if Syndergaard was available, and that's what really slowed things down.

Or maybe MLB teams are just operating inefficiently (which jsut seems horribly unlikely).

Thoughts?
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by Ted » Fri Aug 16, 2019 11:24 am

I guess the idea that's driving all this is that teams should know what they have. If you're waiting for players to play games to figure out what your team is (or what your players are), other people are way ahead of you and are making moves to improve while you're still figuring it out. (the pseudo exception here is bullpens in real life. OOTP bullpens are a bit more predictable.)
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by RonCo » Fri Aug 16, 2019 1:32 pm

Sometimes I think fangraphs thinks too hard. :)

There were several deals leading up to the deadline, so GM's were quite active. Some GM's do wait until the end to decide what to do with big decisions, but not most. And those that do can be argued to be in positions where they are giving random luck a chance to do its magic. That may or may not be a great way to operate, but it's human nature.

Anyway, as a rule, deadlines drive action more than they drive inaction.

That's my thinking, and I'll stick with it.
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by ThePreyingManta » Fri Aug 16, 2019 3:35 pm

I think a lot of it was the Blue Jays wrecking the whole SP market by trading Stroman for significantly less than he's worth. Speaking from the perspective of the Rangers (my team), the Stroman deal and a string of weak starts from Mike Minor led to a big drop in the potential market for him. When they saw that they couldn't get a big haul for him, they decided to keep almost everyone and try to be decent next year. I personally don't like that idea, but I do understand not trading someone if you don't get the deal you're looking for.

As far as the Stroman deal is concerned, I think the Mets saw a good deal and jumped on it even if it didn't make much sense at the time. I think it's always a positive to get good value no matter where you are in your team-building process.
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by Ted » Fri Aug 16, 2019 6:21 pm

Those are both solid takes. And I thought about my "dipshit" comment above regarding the Giants GM. I still think the Giants should have sold, but I suppose there's the issue of selling that to the fans. I'm not sure how long it would take the average fan to get over moving a player like Bumgarner and several other talents while they "had a chance to win". I'd have had no problem with it. I think the average fan is getting smarter, but I am in a bit of a sabermetric/analytics bubble.

Regarding the Stroman deal, it's funny how those always "wreck the market." I'm not disagreeing that they do, it's just odd. Everyone immediately came out and was like, "What the hell Blue Jays?" So if all the GMs agree it was a weak return, why does it move the market? Again, I know that it does, but it's a bit silly.
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by jleddy » Fri Aug 16, 2019 11:31 pm

Re: Bumgarner, keep in mind the eight-team no-trade list that he updated before the year in one of the most brilliant moves I've ever seen by a player, contract-wise. Bumgarner listed the following clubs:

Astros
Braves
Brewers
Cardinals
Cubs
Phillies
Red Sox
Yankees

Heading into 2019, that was a pretty good collection of potential playoff teams. Bumgarner didn't want to avoid those teams, he wanted to be signed to an extension to them before waiving them from his list and then allowing the Giants to then make the deal. I think it was a stroke of genius by Bumgarner to protect his best interest and dictate his market.

I believe these teams weren't interested in trading away prospects AND signing a 30-year-old to the extension he wants, so it really hindered San Fran's ability to move him. In the end, I'm sure the Giants will be happy to either try to re-sign him with a hometown discount (doubt that happens) or be okay with offering him a qualifying offer that MadBum will most likely decline, which will net the team a compensation draft pick.

In the end, I doubt the Giants were sitting on their hands and/or procrastinating, and simply found it difficult to find a willing trade partner.
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by RonCo » Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:28 am

He probably would have been happy to have the Giants buy him out of that clause, too.
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Re: Trade Deadline "Procrastination" and "Information Gathering"

Post by felipe » Sat Aug 17, 2019 9:49 am

Ummm...wtf are you guys going on about?

Giants are a shoo-in to make playoffs this year

Suck it!

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