Instead I will say my feel for the statistical gestalt and the stuff Happ exhibits have makes his value more than what his FIP labels him. This is essentially what all the other contrarians are saying on this blog. Not saying you don’t have a point (and it certainly stimulates good discussion/analysis), just there is considerable room for debate.

Ironically, I was thinking exactly along your lines before the trade deadline, but once trading Happ no longer gave us Halladay for the rest of 2009 plus 2010, I thought giving up Happ would be too much. 2 improved shots at being WS champs yes, one- no. Like the Lee trade much better, doubt anyone we gave up, excepting Marson, will ever amount to much.

I thought Halladay missed some starts last half of 2009, I might be wrong. He seems to be a freak capable of a tremendous workload, not sure if all those miles on him mean anything.

I do not agree the Yankees have a good mix of homegrown plus FA. Jeter and Rivera are their only great homegrown players, they came up 15+ years ago, and even a blind squirrel… After that Posada is good, Cano is good for one year. No one else of note. They are a sub-.500 team without CC, A-Rod, and Tex. Even worse without Burnett, Damon and Matsui. Phils- they won in 2008 with no FA of consequence.

Lastly, because so many things can still happen that will blow up your season even if you make all the sacrificing, short term moves to win (see 2007-2009 Mets) PLUS it is often that the best team doesnt win away, I actually think the math is on the side of those who emphasize keeping and developing their own talent. Perhaps the Bosox and their acquistion of Beckett worked and a Halladay deal could work similarly for the Phils (but for only 1 year). Although I imagine it would be interesting to see how good the Bosox would be with Ramirez at SS. The Yankees dont count here because there is obviously no ceiling to their spending. However, one might judge that given what they’ve spent over the last 9 years they’ve underachieved.

- Which metrics don’t you feel are good predictors? And do you specifically think they are poor predictors of Happ, or of pitchers in general?

- The Phillies are in win-now mode. They were two wins away from a World Series last year and are primed to make yet another run at it in a weak National League. Passing up golden opportunities in favor of long-term goals is, in my opinion, not the way to go.

- Halladay has not shown susceptibility to injury. He has had four straight seasons with 31+ starts and 220+ innings.

- There’s no need to sign Halladay long-term beyond that. He’ll be a Type A free agent and can sign with the Yankees or Red Sox, or whoever else wants him. Frankly, I don’t want the Phillies to sign him to a long-term deal.

- There’s a balance between young, cheap talent and proven, expensive talent. The Yankees are a great example. A lot of their talent is home grown (see: Jeter, Cano, Rivera, etc.) and, like the Phillies, have shown recent resistance to trading away that young talent (see: Hughes, Chamberlain). But when they have seen an opportunity to make a significant upgrade, they’ve done so (see: the Marte/Nady trade).

The Phillies, at this point, want to minimize risk. Happ, like it or not, is a risk because what he did in 2009 is likely a mirage and it is unclear what he will provide for the team going forward.

The upgrade from Happ to Halladay is, on average, a 5-WAR improvement with a conservative estimate. In the 2010 playoffs, 11 to 19 games, the duo of Lee and Halladay would give the Phillies as close to an automatic ~6 wins as you can get.

I was a member of SABR in its early days and very much see the value of SABRmetrics. And I laugh at people like Conlin who disparage the quantitave arguments because “Sabremetricians never played and don’t understand the true game.” I just don’t think Happ’s valuation and whether we should trade for Halladay should be argued primarily on 2009 FIP or WAR, and I have a philosphical issue with trading away a lot of young talent, whether you feel it is proven or not, for short term solutions. One, in this instance I don’t see the some of the SABRmetrics as good predictors, especially for Happ. Two, trading away very young players who have already performed well in the bigs in addition to top prospects for a one year player is not the way to run a franchise and have long term success. Three, I said predict not calculate. If I value other more traditional statistics then I could calculate Happ would perform better than Halladay or Hamels, but I am not doing that. In Happ I see a good pitcher who is developing into a better pitcher, and in Halladay I see a great pitcher who is likely to put up similar #s in ’10 as he did in ’09, but is beginning to show susceptibility to injury. Four, I feel that although paying Halladay for 2010 is not too difficult, paying him beyond that is, and there is no way the Phillies will pay whatever the Dodgers, Mets, Angels, Boston, or whoever will pay for him. And if you were to pay him that money you can say goodbye to half of those FAs eligible by 2013.

Finally, I would reiterate that unless you are the Yankees, you must give enough young talent a chance to succeed (and be cheap labor) as you cannot sustain a team on free agency. In this respect, I admire the Braves’ braintrust and pity the Mets’.

Let’s not go overboard on hypotheticals that are unlikely to be realized.

4.50 FIP guys are a dime a dozen. The Phillies can call someone up from the Minors, trade a fringe Minor Leaguer, or simply sign a free agent as they did with Pedro Martinez.

I don’t mean to throw Happ to the curb, as there is the chance he improves. I’m not advocating that Happ needs to be off the team; I’m simply saying that if we can make a significant upgrade as with Roy Halladay, it needs to be made.

If you trade a cheap valued player to acquire someone expensive, you’ve lost the ability to upgrade elsewhere.

The Phillies don’t have a lot of pressing needs. Spending half or 60% of their remaining payroll space on Roy Halladay isn’t going to severely hamstring them, especially considering the upgrade from 1.5 WAR to 7.5. Halladay, by the way, will make $15.75 in 2010 and was worth $33 million free agent dollars. He is a hell of a bargain theoretically.

I will predict in 2010 he will be worth 2-3 wins more than Happ.

What went into your prediction? No offense, but I think you just completely made that up.

Happ, even with his great season in ’09, was only worth 1.8 WAR. Roy Halladay, in a tougher league and certainly a much tougher division, was worth 7.3 WAR in ’09 and 7.4 in ’08, and has averaged about 6 WAR per season since ’02.

Phils need to (try to) pay Howard, Victorino, Werth, Hamels, Ruiz when their current contracts are up.

A) Acquiring Halladay doesn’t hamstring them from doing this.

B) They don’t need to pay all five players. Howard, Victorino, and Ruiz are all expendable.

Werth is a free agent after next season.
Howard and Victorino are gone after the 2011 season.
Ruiz and Hamels are free agents in 2013.

That’s a long time from now and Werth is the only player tangentially related to an acquisition of Roy Halladay.

But using a comparison of Hamels to Happ to argue Happ should be traded because he is currently overvalued is a specious and flawed polemic.

1. Even if you devalue Happ by emphasizing certain Sabremetrics, his stats are still too good (and superior to others) unless you choose to exclusively focus on a couple of select stats.
2. Happ is exactly what every team wants, a very cheap SP who projects as a 3 or 4 at minimum with a decent shot at a #2.
3. We are not the Yankees, so filling the roster is a zero sum game. If you trade a cheap valued player to acquire someone expensive, you’ve lost the ability to upgrade elsewhere.
4. Lastly, and I don’t I know why I don’t hear this more often, I would not trade Happ straight up for Holladay. In part because of #3 above, and because Holladay would be with us for 1 year and $20 million. I will predict in 2010 he will be worth 2-3 wins more than Happ. There is no way Holladay signs on with the Phils after 2010. Phils need to (try to) pay Howard, Victorino, Werth, Hamels, Ruiz when their current contracts are up. I prefer to pay and keep our homegrown guys as opposed to paying FA whores. After this year, I would feel dirty spending my way into being more competitive.

If Happ could be the headliner in a deal for Halladay, I’ll drive him to Toronto. For that matter, I’d have no problem including Happ in a deal with Taylor or Brown and Drabek, especially if you can lock Doc up with an extension. However, I think Alex Anthopolous would sooner keep Doc all year and net two first round picks than trade him for a deal headlined by Happ. He, too, probably has enough of a grasp of sabremetrics to expect Happ to regress, especially in the AL East. Therefore, if the premise is trade Happ for Halladay, I agree. If the premise is just a general “use Happ as trade bait”, let’s not go too far and under-value him.

H,

If I told you that Livan Hernandez would be in the Phillies’ rotation in 2010, you would probably be disgusted, and rightfully so.

He had a 4.44 FIP in 2009, just one one-hundredth of a point higher than Happ’s projected 4.43 FIP in 2010.

You’re right, even a 1.5 WAR player — as Happ is projected to be — has value. And you’re right again that Happ will come cheap.

But if you have the means (and the Phillies do) to upgrade from a 1.5 WAR pitcher to a 7.5 WAR pitcher, then you do it. Roy Halladay will be paid about $16 million in 2010. He was paid $14.25 in ’09 and was worth $33 million in free agent dollars. Halladay is a very, very solid investment, especially for a team that is looking for immediate upgrades as opposed to longer-term solutions.

BABIP on ground balls: .237
BABIP on fly balls: .138

Source: BBref

strikeout pitchers generally allow more fly balls and line drives than ground-ball pitchers

I ran a quick correlation using 2009′s data. The r-square, which shows how much of X is caused by Y, is a very low .077. Basically, that means that ~8% of a pitcher’s strikeout rate can be explained by their line drive rate. It’s meaningless.

There’s a similar correlation (.079) between K/9 rate and ground ball rate.

If you watch the Phillies, Happ’s fastball/changeup/curveball all dip hard at the plate, causing ground-balls. Hamel’s fastball and curveball don’t dip nearly as hard as Happ’s, therefore causing more flyballs.

Happ’s FB% in 2009: 43%
Hamels’ FB% in 2009: 39%

Using Pitch F/X data from FanGraphs, here’s the pitchers’ average vertical movement on each of their pitches (the lower the number, the lower in the zone the pitch is)…

Happ FB: 12.2
Hamels FB: 12.5

Happ CH: 10.5
Hamels CH: 8.2

Happ CV: -2.0
Hamels CV: -3.8

If you watch the Phillies, Happ’s fastball/changeup/curveball all dip hard at the plate, causing ground-balls. Hamel’s fastball and curveball don’t dip nearly as hard as Happ’s, therefore causing more flyballs.