Notebook: Eddie Rosario Finds a New Home

Very smart move by Cleveland. They just replaced Lindor’s offensive contribution. With Francona’s firm direction and a change of scenery, Eddie’s bat could really, really pop. 2-3 game-winning HR’s against us each year!

Lindor is a slightly better hitter, plays a premium position, and plays it *much* better than Rosario does his non-premium position.

 

While Cleveland needed a corner OF (for like three seasons running) and Eddie fills that role just fine, he is in no way, shape, or form a replacement for anything about Lindor, who is better at pretty much everything baseball.

Rosario was the better player in 2020, so in the "what have you done for me lately?" department, Rosario's $8M salary is much nicer than Lindor's $22M.

 

I can only guess as to how a player needs to perform in order to earn $22M, but I would assume Lindor would have to return to his 2018 form in order to be worth it. Rosario, on the other hand, just needs to keep doing what he's doing.

 

I would call this a pretty good replacement, if you want to call it that. Of course. Lindor plays a much more valuable position in the field

B-Ref had them tied in rWAR last season while fangraphs had Lindor a full win higher in fWAR.

 

And it was a shortened season that had Lindor well down from his typical offensive season and Rosario a tick above his typical offensive season, which is to be expected in a season that short under such conditions, and it’s probably not a good indicator of future performance. I put much more stock in the 2018-19 numbers which tell us Lindor is a significantly better hitter and a vastly better player.

 

Now in dollars to performance, that’s a rather different argument but something well outside a field performance comparison, which was the initial comment I responded to.

 

I am guessing Eddie will be extra dialed in against the Twins.  He has always been one that would seem to like the pressure on him.  It will be fun to see him plenty against us.  Hope he does not haunt us. 

I never fully understood why so many believe Rosario is a better player under pressure. We can all certainly agree that Eddie is an intense player but given his plate discipline, or rather lack thereof, I'm not sure an "amped up" Eddie is a good thing and could make a minor argument the opposite is true.

 

Career OPS+ of 100 as a baseline for the following career stats (lower is worse than overall career line, higher is better than overall career line):

 

RISP: 98

Bases Empty: 102

Men On: 98

2 outs, RISP: 85 (yikes)

Late & Close: 104

High Leverage: 91

 

All of those "clutch" stats have Rosario as a worse hitter than his career line, excluding Late & Close. 

 

Which makes sense as a spectator who has watched Rosario for many seasons. While he certainly had some very memorable moments, I also remember watching him miss a head-high fastball before walking back to the dugout or rolling over on a bad first pitch in a critical situation countless times. Guys with little to no plate discipline certainly get a lot of opportunities to make an impression - which Eddie must have done for many here - but when combined with all those bad, mostly forgettable plate appearances, his numbers in the aggregate suggest he was mostly neutral in critical situations and pretty bad in a few critical situations.

What is definition of "high leverage"? I agree with you that he is not clutch. I was mostly pointing out that he appeared to like the pressure on him, which I would argue the late and close is the pressure I was meaning. Hitting middle of order much of last few seasons he had many chances with 2 outs and RISP, but that in first inning is not a pressure situation I would argue. I mean you have 8 more innings to score. I full agree he his optics were he was better than his numbers suggest. However, I still feel the numbers you site back up my pressure point. He would fail many times early in games in similar situations, but as your numbers point out, he was a little better in late game close situations. I have never been an advocate to keep him around.

High leverage is based on Win Probability Added, meaning the win expectancy of the game based on a single plate appearance. A PA in the second inning of a 6-0 game is extremely low leverage while the game literally rides on a two out, bases loaded PA in the ninth inning behind by one run, making that PA worth *a lot* in WPA.

 

And Rosario didn’t fare particularly well in high leverage situations, meaning that he didn’t perform very well in plate appearances that dictated the outcome of a single game.

 

Eddie's OPS+ in "High Leverage Situations" last year was 99, which is right at average. I have not looked, but I imagine this places him in the top 3-4 of the players on the team.

 

When you lose your #3 player, you feel it.

You're looking at his 2020 stats, where High Leverage was a meager 39 plate appearances. His career number is a fair amount lower at 91, using a sample size of 539 plate appearances.

 

And I don't think anyone here is undervaluing Rosario's bat - he's pretty good offensively and maybe slightly above average for a corner outfielder - but offense is only part of the game and Rosario is pretty bad at the other half. If Kirilloff (or Larnach or Rooker or whomever) can post an OPS+ around 100 and play better defense, they're likely of a similar value to the Rosario we've seen the past couple of seasons.

 

My over-arching point is that the Twins are likely a better team with Happ (or Simmons, choose either) and Kirilloff for the same money as Rosario. 

 

There are two fielding positions that are considered acceptable to place poor fielding players when you want their bats in the lineup: 1B and LF. Eddie was at one of those two positions. Left fielders have the worst defensive stats in the game, since first basemen get all those putouts. Even the best defensive left fielders rank near the bottom of leaguewide defense.

 

In most years, Rosario had a positive dWAR. I'll take that any day from a left fielder.

Using baseball's historical position usage isn't a great argument, as we've found out baseball was really wrong about fielding for a really long time. The fact that baseball put bad fielders at the corners for decades didn't change that it was a bad idea or that huge gains couldn't be found by using more athletic players at those positions, as we've seen most smart teams utilize in the past few seasons. Players like Delmon Young just don't make it in MLB anymore because they require monster offensive stats to compensate for their defensive incompetence. Manny Ramirez would be a dedicated DH/1B today because he's losing so much value in the field with his -30 (!!!) UZR/150 numbers.

 

Outside of one season (2019), Rosario wasn't a terrible fielder but he was pretty bad. All I'm saying is that the 2021 Twins will need less offense from LF because their starting left fielder is going to make up some ground defensively from what Rosario has brought to the team in recent years.

 

Just plugging in Cave is probably worth somewhere around half a win defensively and Cave is actually pretty similar offensively to Rosario, though Jake needs to be protected against lefties much more than Eddie so some kind of platoon would need to be used. Rosario's OPS+ from 2017-2020 is 114 and Cave's career OPS+ is 107. Outside of the required weak-side platoon, we can reasonably expect Cave to be similar in value to Rosario in 2021, never mind the potential gains we could see from one of the top minor leaguers if one of them hits the ground running. After all, Keith Law has Kirilloff ranked *seventh* in all of MLB on his prospect list.

 

The definition makes sense, but my follow then, how is it compared to late and close then?  I mean, there must be overlap right?  So he performed better on late and close, but worse on high leverage?  So the conclusion to me that is drawn is when he was facing high leverage earlier in games say, 6th or 7th inning he would fail, which was very common based on eye test.  But, when he got chances late in games he did better. 

 

Personally, I do not think WPA should be used for hitters as a measuring stick.  I think it is good for relief pitchers, but when an average hitter fails 75% of the time give or take a few percent, if they get a hit in those high leverage spots 1 out of 4 they should be average, in my mind.  I find it difficult to measure how much a hitter adds compared to others.  Also, I find WPA for early parts of games very misleading because it uses a metric of games played out under normal circumstances.  However, you new know how a game will play out should the outcome of the previous situation change.  

 

For example, 1st inning 2 out bases load.  Guy hits a grand slam that most likely increases WPA a decent amount.  Where if they get a single and score 1 run it only less, both did a good job of getting a hit, but one gets better reward.  What if the guy that got the single fouled off 5 3-2 pitches that were nasty, where the grand slam guy got a meatball down the middle, and the single never had a good pitch to really hit?  Which one performed better really?  Also, it is just the first inning, we have no clue how the game will be played differently the rest of the way based on the outcome.  Teams will hit differently, be managed differently, so on and so forth.  Later games when outs are limited I think it is easier to measure, but to reward 1 guy for hitting a meatball well more than a guy who had a great at bat but limited what he could do because the pitcher did better job is kind of counter productive to me.  

 

Just like any other stat WPA only is a small story to everything.  That all being said, I agree with the point that Eddie was overrated by Twins fans generally. 

I agree on WPA and hitters, actually. But I'm not the one who brought up pressure and clutch performance, either. It's not something I really believe in for hitters so my point was to show how it's mostly bunk, not because I believe Rosario is either clutch or un-clutch.

 

Regarding Late & Close versus High Leverage (WPA), you're missing the most important component: weighted plate appearances. Late & Close treats all late and close PAs the same. High Leverage weights the most important PAs and grades them according to expected outcome versus actual outcome. In the same inning, one can see PAs of wildly different values based on score and situation.

 

Late & Close would judge these two PAs identically.

 

- Eighth inning, no outs, down by two runs, bases empty.

 

- Ninth inning, two outs, down by one run, bases juiced.

 

Whereas High Leverage would grade those two PAs *very* differently.

 

I can't say I disagree with your premises, they are solid. 

I still believe the Twins will miss Rosario. 

And it's entirely possible that happens, it's just my belief this is a very low risk gamble... but it's not entirely without risk.

 

Then again, there's also risk of Rosario significantly regressing in some capacity so keeping him comes with its own risks.