Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 804: The Offseason Odds Movers

Episode Date: January 25, 2016

Ben and Sam banter about Mike Trout moonlighting as a weatherman, then discuss which teams have seen their World Series odds fall or rise the most since the beginning of the offseason.

When I asked the wise man, which was the way, he said, follow your heart and look for yourself. And come back and tell me what you have learned. Yes, I'm a move on. Ah, that's right, baby What was the update on that? Mike Trout went on a weather channel or something? He went on the weather channel to talk about the storm with his pal Jim Cantore. And he did a few minute spot just giving an update from Millville. Wait, so did he have any meteorological contribution or was he just describing what he saw? Yeah, he was really just describing conditions. He wasn't reading the radar or anything. describing conditions. He wasn't reading the radar or anything. Did he describe conditions using meteorological jargon? I wouldn't say he did, no. He really just brought enthusiasm to it. He was very enthusiastic.

He said, I think my favorite thing that he said was, obviously up all night, up every hour, checking the measurements. The obviously made that. Obviously up all night, every hour, checking the measurements. Who wouldn't be? Obviously, I don't know if we've mentioned it. I don't know if this is one of the Mike Trout ticks, but I believe that obviously is a Mike Trout tick. Right. Yeah. I think we've talked about that maybe with Pedro Mora, but yeah, well, he meant it this time. He was up all night. Cantori asked him about the power, whether power was down. And Prout had a friend from the power department who was just at his house telling him how the power department was handling the storm.

I like to imagine he just has this weather bunker set up with experts from from every field at his house while he's up all night every hour checking the measurements there's very there are very few things uh in weather that are easier to measure than snow like you don't really need any fancy equipment right yeah right yeah a ruler will make sure it's not a drift. A drift is like snow that has fallen from its landing spot. Yeah, or wind blew it into a pile. So I don't think that this rules out the fact that Mike Trout is a skilled meteorologist. But this sounds like they could have gotten an eight-year-old. Basically, yeah. To be enthusiastic about snow.

He brought the same childlike wonder to his segment that an eight-year-old basically yeah to be enthusiastic about he brought the same childlike wonder right his segment that an eight-year-old would have uh-huh okay yeah so he didn't really showcase his skills huh but he was fine okay he was overcome by the moment yeah what yeah no unscripted uh-huh and uh i wonder I wonder if he asked them or if they asked him. Well, he's been a Twitter friend of Cantori for a while, and he tweeted at Cantori, I think on Friday, tweeted a video of Trout driving through the snow, showing the snow falling through his windshield. So I would imagine that Cantori followed up on that tweet. It's been crazy for sure is also the most Mike Trout thing that you could say. And only audio, not video.

There was no stand-up. Right. No, that would have been great if they had gone to him live in his living room. All right. Well, I'm waiting. I don't know that this advances the storyline that much. No. I mean, we know that this is a thing.

It's a very – it's just – the thing about this know that this is a thing it's a very it's it's it just the thing about this is is i don't think it really necessarily lives up to what mike trout deserves because there's very little investment has has been made in it like he doesn't invest any particular effort into it right like he's just on the phone right you know i mean he's been up every hour checking the measurements yeah like in like a newborn baby make sure it's still breathing all right so is that all the baseball you consumed this weekend pretty much all right we're ready to talk sure all right so i wanted to talk about who won the offseason using the uh effectively wild approved measure of winning

the offseason which is the change in world series odds on bovada from uh the day after the world series to now and uh the thing i like about the day after the world series odds is that they uh presumably attempt to factor in who is likely to be going out and getting good players. And so it isn't just a matter of going, oh, well, this team signed three players, therefore they won the offseason. If the expectation is that you would sign three players, if everybody's looking at you and going, well, that's a buyer, I bet they'll buy, then you have a higher bar to clear because that should be baked in to the odds. And yet, teams don't follow their offseason plans necessarily,

and then sometimes their offseason is shaped as much by what their division rivals do or don't do as what they do or don't do. And so all sorts of things can change. And, of course, winning offseason uh does not necessarily mean that you've made great long-term franchise decisions but uh it does mean that you have increased your well at least the uh the perceived chances that you have of winning the world series this year uh so that seems like a good way to measure who won the offseason right if you're gonna if you're gonna do it can't think of a better way to do it no i

mean you could you could do it just purely based on projections or something if you had projections at the beginning of the offseason and projections at the end of the offseason which people generally don't have them at the beginning of the offseason well it's impossible to because you don't know who you're gonna lose i mean you've got free agents some teams have more players leaving for free agency than other teams. And your team is just not settled yet. Yeah, so this is a wisdom of the gamblers approach. Exactly. So I've got 30 Major League Baseball teams.

I've got their odds from, I think, November 2nd or November 1st maybe. And their odds now. And I'm going to look at the players. maybe and their odds now and i'm going to look at the players i'm going to tell you the players that the teams that most changed their outlooks according to uh bovada and uh and then you can tell me what you think is interesting about those things all right all right should i should i guess yeah yeah of course you should guess so first first guess the bottom who who got the worst who lost the offseason and by way, it's sort of interesting. I don't know if this will be interesting to you, but 24 teams' chances got worse because the teams that got their chances got better, got much better.

All right. Which is odd. I mean, not odd, but notable. Yeah. Maybe the Angels? Also, hang on. Also, let me just back that up a little bit. It is also the case that the odds got worse for the better, just generally speaking.

If you bet on every team on November 2nd and then you bet on every team today, you would lose a lot more money today because they have watered down the odds somewhat, which is, wait, no, the opposite. Yeah, the opposite. They've gotten better for the better. So I guess maybe they, I don't know if that's a systematic thing or if they simply, uh, set the, uh, set the odds a little too unfriendly and they weren't getting the action they needed and they had to, uh, sweeten it a little bit. Uh, but the odds have gotten collectively better that no team will win it. Okay. All right. So I'm going to say team whose odds got worse by the most. I'll say the Cardinals. All right. Well, the Cardinals then. Yes. Not a horrible guess. The Cardinals odds were 18 to one, or sorry, 12 to one on November 1st, and they're 18-1 now. So your return on investment has gone up 50% if you waited.

Okay. You've got Lackey leaving. You've got Hayward leaving. You've got the Correa thing, which maybe just makes people negative about the Cardinals. But you also have the Cubs getting way better. I mean, you knew Lackey and Hayward were leaving. That's the great thing about this is that it was not a surprise that hayward and lackey hit free agency and they could have resigned them of course somewhat of a surprise that hayward left and went to a division rival

yeah but it's a fine guess it's a it's a fine guess uh the one not the correct one not the correct one they also they uh traded john jay for jed. Yeah, that was a big odds mover. Yeah, you're right. But probably I think that's a good trade for them for 2016. All right. Well. Anyway, though, let me just put it in perspective. They are the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8th tied for the 8th worst offseason loser.

All right. How about the Braves? The Braves tied with the eighth worst offseason loser hmm all right how about the Braves the Braves tied with the Cardinals they went from not in odds but in change they went from 100 to 1 to 150 to 1 uh-huh okay Angels uh the Braves by the way did though well no they uh they went from the second worst odds to now the worst odds. The Angels, you're getting closer. They're the fifth. They're the fifth, and of the teams that were considered, that I would say that you could consider in the upper half of teams going into the offseason, they are tied with one other team

for the biggest drop. They went from 20-1 to 33-1. And they might have been my guess, too. Because you do never know. I mean, if you're betting on what the Angels are going to do in the offseason, you generally have no idea. But you can't rule out that they'll go and sign three free agents. Right. And be the team that tries to win the offseason. And they really didn't.

They had a fairly quiet offseason. They basically got Anderson Simmons. That was their one big move. But, you know they were already pretty pretty okay at shortstop so it's not like even a massive upgrade for the short term necessarily all right the orioles no no that's just a bad one okay who'd the would the Orioles? Who'd they lose? Did they lose anybody? Chen. They lost Chen.

Yeah, and the Red Sox did a lot of stuff. Orioles didn't really bring in anyone new. I mean, the Reds? The Reds, yes. I'll just give you, the Reds are second in this. They're tied for second with two other teams. And the two other teams, the Brewers and the Padres, they all started at the same place, and are not now all at the same place they all went from 50 to 1 to 101

to 100 to 1 uh really yeah well they didn't do anything yeah but did anyone expect them to do anything no but there's always the chance they would and they didn't guess so maybe the the padres might be the one team that looks a little off in that group. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the Brewers, if you had asked me at the beginning of the offseason what their World Series odds were, they would have been probably the worst or second worst or something.

And now they still would be. I don't know. Yeah. They haven't moved my odds very much. So can I tell you the answer? Yes. It is the Rays. Huh. All right. So I don't know. Yeah. They haven't moved my odds very much. So can I tell you the answer? Yes. It is the Rays. Huh.

All right. So I don't know. I don't know exactly what anybody would have guessed with any of my first however many guesses I made. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what anybody expected the Rays to do this offseason. Can you name a thing the Rays did this offseason? They lost John chaso i think

they got hank conger yes they did that um oh they they got logan morrison oh yeah that's right they did the uh that trade with the mariners the trade with the mariners yeah so they have brad miller now uh-huh yeah so that's what the Rays did. I mean, there's, you know, you've got to figure that there's, you know, 40 decent free agents out there and some really good ones. And every time somebody signs one of these free agents, their chances go up and those odds have to come from somewhere, right? And so if the Rays aren't coming from anywhere. They signed Steve Pierce.

They did sign Steve Pierce. So, you know, I don't know. It's kind of why I picked the Orioles, because they didn't do much to improve themselves. That's true. It seems like, you know, other teams in the division got better. So I wonder why the Orioles don't go down and the Rays go down the most. Maybe because the Orioles could have lost.

Well, the Orioles were in a position where they could have lost Davis and Wieters. Yeah. And so if you're starting on November 2nd with the, say, 70% chance that Davis goes somewhere else and maybe 60% chance that Wieters goes somewhere else, then they get credit for signing 60% of Wieters and 70% of Davis. Yeah. So that's pretty good. Yeah, sure.

Okay. Yeah, the Razor. Anyway, that's not that. The bottom, not that interesting. Because there isn't really a team that fundamentally changed what they're doing this offseason. You know, like we talked about with the Central, where you didn't know what any of the five AL Central teams were going to do. And you could have made the case that any of them could have been buyers or sellers.

And they all kind of, nobody, for instance, nobody sold. None of them said, well, we're not going to do it. And they all pretty much made steps. And so there isn't really a team. You could argue that the Braves upped their level of selling for sure. But they were already such a long shot. And that's really it yeah all right so go to the fun side who won the offseason ben okay the diamondbacks the diamondbacks are third

the diamondbacks went from 50 to 1 to 20 to 1 all right yeah they seem like the sort of team that maybe bettors would respond to because they did things they did high profile things and the diamondbacks i mean they were a team that last for instance if last year they had had now ncr day taking ncr day away is it hurts them a little bit but so let's say that they were a team that last year had had had granky and had had shelby miller uh they would have been right there they might have you know They probably wouldn't have made the playoffs, but they would have been right there. And so you're taking a team that is an afterthought at 50-1.

They entered the offseason in the same place that the Brewers did, for instance. And you could have seen them just kind of limping into the season and dropping like the Brewers did. And instead they went and signed the best free agent available. So the Diamondbacks are a classic jump team, I think, where they're right on the bubble. Not only did they add a bunch of players, but they're right on that line where you don't know

whether they're going to be winning 68 or 90. And the offseason really tells you that. At least they're aspiring to 90. All right. Red Sox? Red Sox are just behind the Diamondbacks. So they went from 20-1 to 9-1, and they are now the AL favorites. Uh-huh.

Okay. And besides David Price, they got Craig Kimbrell. They got Carson Smith. But they also, I don't know, 20, doesn't 20, going into the offseason, well, you might, to 20 probably assumes that they were going to do some stuff because they usually do, especially when they are coming off a bad season and when they've managed to clear some payroll. But the Red Soxx were if you had

just looked at their roster on november 2nd they wouldn't have probably been anywhere near 20 to 1 right probably not like there's probably some expectation there that they were going to do the stuff and they did the stuff well uh how about last off season's big odds movers. The Cubs, did they move again? They did, Ben. Okay. They're the second, second on this list. The Cubs went from 20, sorry, 11-1 to 4-1. 4-1. 4-1.

4-1. 4-1 to win the World Series. Wow. Yeah. No team should ever be four to one, right? No team. You could maybe make the case that a team should be four to one on the eve of the playoffs. Like once you've already made the playoffs?

Right, exactly. Yeah, right. Maybe. I'm not even sure that. No. Yeah, so last offseason, I don't remember what the Cubs went to, but I think maybe we both thought that it was a little over-optimistic how much their odds improved. As it turns out, I guess not really.

But yeah, 4-1 just seems like something no team should ever be. Just because of how crazy the playoffs get. Even if you think they are certain to make the playoffs it's still aggressive how right yeah i wonder how certain they are to make the playoffs like i wonder what vegas's odds of them making the playoffs are yeah especially as a division i mean they're still in the toughest division to win outright right even with the Cardinals losing those two guys, even with the Pirates not really doing much, that's still probably the division that you would have to bet on the second place team winning the most games. Okay, well, I've got a couple other possibilities.

Are the Mariners on here? The Mariners, well, all 30 teams are on here right in case you were worried no the mariners are the opposite ben the mariners are actually just slightly better than the angels and i wonder yeah what you thought about that so the mariners actually mariners went from 25 to 1 to 40 to 1 and so they actually are they improve or they got almost as worse by these expectations as the angels proportionately and they are actually still underdogs to the angels according to these and uh there was a there was a lot of action and i know it seemed like there was a mariner's move every day yeah and for a while like when jerry would make a move there'd be like the sort of there'd be like almost preller comps like he comes into this new organization and then he immediately makes like you know 30 moves and there'd be like the sort of there'd be like almost preller comps like he comes in to this

new organization and then he immediately makes like you know 30 moves and look at him he's making the team his own but there were much smaller moves than preller did and if you really like step back and look at it it's not like he really added a lot of all-stars he tried he made a lot of moves that you know would hopefully make them a couple percent better. But I don't know. Adam Lind. You underrated Adam Lind once. His newsworthiness.

Yeah. You trying to get me to do it again? Yeah. Is that your goal? Yeah. Yeah. They got Aoki, who you love. They got Martine.

They got… Ionetta. They got Martin. They got... Ionetta. Ionetta. They got Wade Miley. They got Nathan Carnes. They got Adam Lind. Leonis Martin. They got Steve Clevenger.

They got Steve Ciszek. They got Joaquin Benoit. They got Evan Scribner. They got... Re-sign Viva Kuma. Yeah, they got Vidal Nuno. I mean, they have half of a new team but but then also if i just put all those guys on a team and said how good's this team you'd be like well who else do they have yeah and the good news is they also have you know they they

have cano and they have cruz and they have felix and they have seager and they have good players so they're they could be a good team it's just that if you if you take out the players they swapped out for who they swapped in, it kind of looks like, oh, it's great. Without spending any more money, they added two or three wins or something like that. Yeah. But it's not a huge splashy offseason. It's more wantity over flash.

Yeah, and DePoto was hired, I think, a few days before you pulled the odds. So if there was any movement from that. You think there was a DePoto was hired, I think, a few days before you pulled the odds. So if there was any movement from that. You think there was a DePoto bump already? You think they'd already baked in the DePoto bump? Maybe. All right. How about the Giants? There you go, Ben.

Giants, really? Number one. There you go. And I wonder if, I mean, you know, we know that these are based in reality and they're also based in part on the movement of the bettors. And I wonder if the bettors just revolted. Like if the Giants hadn't done anything, I wonder if they would have improved just because the bettors liked betting on the Giants for some odd or even reason. But they went from 20-1 to 6-1.

And 6-1 is the second best in baseball it's just behind the cubs and that it's like double the dodgers it's like more than more than twice as good as the dodgers and that's really the big interesting takeaway uh well there's i guess that's a interesting takeaway but there's also an interesting takeaway in that the cubs and the giants are the two teams at the top of this. And, you know, people will probably, I keep using the phrase win the offseason and win the offseason is a sarcastic, it's almost an insult these days. It's a, you know, you can't win the offseason. And, and the teams that, that quote unquote win the offseason often underperform like the Blue Jays that one time and like the Padres and like the White Sox and like the Mariners in the Sean Figgins offseason. And there's all sorts of

examples of teams that, you know, made this huge push and we all freak out for nine days in December because they're signing all the good players and then they're, you know, still flawed teams and maybe it's not always the best thing in the world to add the big stars and so on. So you have probably the world will remember the Diamondbacks. This is being the offseason that the Diamondbacks won the offseason. And the Diamondbacks will probably not win the division. And then it'll be another data point and they'll win the offseason crowd. But really, there are two teams, the Giants and the Cubs, that did the most to change

their odds. And in one case, you have the Cubs who did it at practically no cost to their future. There's very little in terms of adding excessive liabilities, liabilities, excessive contract obligations in the future, other than the one. But he's going to opt out anyway. And they didn't trade a bunch of prospects to go get guys they didn't deplete i mean really they didn't really trade any did they trade any young player for somebody who wasn't just as young i mean starling cast was

the only guy that they moved right yeah and so they managed to win the offseason without really doing anything whatsoever to hurt their chances in even 2018 or 2019, which is a remarkable thing, really. And then you have the Giants, who probably won't be seen as the win-the-offseason team because they were already a contender. And it was maybe a little bit quieter, as quiet as it can be when you sign three very good and fairly expensive veterans. But they did probably hurt their long-term chances, or at least risk them, right? I mean, Samarja is a lot of money committed, and there's no guarantee that he's going to be good even this year, let alone five years from now. And Cueto is a big gamble because he might be awesome, he might be a bargain, he might opt out after two years, or he might have been broken last summer and they might end up stuck with a guy who has, you know, shoulder surgery in June and is never good again.

And this is, you know, a Zito type deal. So they won the off season, but probably, probably at least risking great expense to their future whereas the cubs did it uh in a pretty amazing and i like this is we've spent a lot of time praising the cubs i think uh and so this is just another example of it but uh that's sort of what struck me is like a the giants i was surprised to see how much the giants and b it just puts into perspective uh how impressive the cubs continued to do this, that they were able to add so much without doing anything to hurt themselves in the future is like an amazing task. So what was the change in the Dodgers' odds?

The Dodgers went from 12 to 14, which is actually not really any change at all. Right. So little change in the Dodgers, big positive change on the Diamondbacks. Yeah. I assume the Rockies didn't really move. That's correct. And maybe that's why the Padres dropped. That's probably why. Someone had to.

Someone had to. Okay. So I wonder if there was, was there a perception that the Giants weren't going to do anything and it was a surprise that they did things that they signed Spann and Samarja and Cueto I guess that was surprising sort of it could be I I don't know I I tweeted the beginning of the offseason or just actually I think just a few days before Samarja got signed that the last player okay so what was it oh the last like non-sabian right here sabian basically re-signs all his guys but hadn't really got signed a player to a big contract in forever like the zito deal was forever ago and since zito i think the only john the only free agency had signed for

more than 10 million dollars in total commitment in like seven years were Tim Hudson and Edgar Renteria. And so I wouldn't have bet that they would get certainly three guys who were more of a commitment than that. And yeah, I mean, I'm pretty surprised by their offseason. I would have thought maybe one. They just haven't really done that. And they already had a fair amount of money committed. They were, it's not like they had a bunch of money coming off the books or anything like that. And you know, they've got guys who are locked up, but those guys who are locked up get raises automatically. And so there's this sort of sneaky way that their payroll goes up without you noticing it over the years.

And so I think that part of it is probably that they added, you know, three guys in particular, two guys to bolster a rotation that wasn't very good last year. But probably my guess is just that there was some pent up love for the Giants and that the odds makers didn't anticipate that. People didn't look at the calendar, didn't realize it was an even year coming up. I already made that joke. Well, you mentioned even. As a joke. It was subtler.

See, that's the point. It was subtle. Okay. So I don't know. I mean, I was surprised this morning when I looked at this. I also, though, told my dad yesterday that it wouldn't surprise me if the Giants roster this year is projected to win more games than any Giants roster in this recent run of good teams. Like, I think that this is...

I'm not sure. I'll be interested to see what the projections say. But I think this might be the best team that they've ever had, or not ever, but the best team that they've had in the post-Bonds era going into a season, which isn't to say that they'll win more games than they've ever won or that they'll win more World Series than they've ever won or anything like that.

But just from the pre-opening day outlook, it seems like a team that's better than any that they've had in a long time. And a lot of this will hinge on whether Duffy is actually good. He was such an unexpected spike in performance. And whether Panic is as good and whether Crawford is on an upward trajectory or whether this was a career year and that he's going to regress. But if those three guys are good, above average major leaguers, they have probably the second best offense in baseball, I think.

And then now they've got a rotation. So it is a good team with a bad bullpen. And that's not bad. Okay. Can you send me that list? Yeah. All right. I will put it on the Facebook group so that if we didn't mention your team,

you want to check your team, you can go there and check it. One more that I'm curious about or that I was interested in. The Astros' odds basically didn't move. They got slightly worse from 14 to 18, which relative to everybody else's puts them actually in the upper half of winning the offseason. And that sort of surprised me, not because the Astros aren't a very good contender.

They are. I think they are the favorites in the AOS. I'm glancing. They are. I think they are the favorites in the AOS. I'm glancing. Yeah, they are. They're the favorites in the AOS, and I think that that is probably appropriate. But I would have expected going into the offseason the Astros to do more than they did,

and maybe it was just that they got their big free agent acquisition at the trade deadline in Carlos Gomez, maybe. But it seemed like they're a team that, you know, as we talked about with my random Chris Davis digression the other day, that would have had room and cause to be more active. They are a very good team, but they're also a team that you could easily see, you know, underperforming their Pythagorean record this year and winning 83 games and missing the playoffs by, you know, by just a small handful. And so why not get better? So I was a little surprised that the Astros odds didn't move because I would have thought the expectation would have been that

they would go out and do more than they did. And I'm still somewhat surprised that they didn't. But do you think that they will have jonathan luproy when the season starts have they been no you have him no so far as i know they have not however it makes sense uh it is their second weakest position probably they are a team that obviously values framing as we've seen and luproy is not only a very good hitter when he's on, but an elite framer. He is not expensive, at least in dollars. Who knows what he would cost.

And the Brewers GM was their assistant GM, not a year ago. And so it would seem to make some sense that they would have a good channel of communication there. And, you know, Luke Roy wants out, and this seems like an opportunity. Seems like the perfect time for the Astros to make their big move for the offseason. So I am saying it makes sense,

and now I'm asking you, will it happen? Well, I would still take the field or no one getting him over any one team getting him, but I guess the Astros are as likely or more likely than anyone else. Yeah. Okay. Would you? I mean, obviously, you're not going to say they're going to have him.

It wouldn't make any sense to say he's 50% or more likely to go to one team when there are no rumors. But I'm still going to say it. I'm flipping this coin and i'm i'm calling it without looking i'm saying he is gonna be an astro so anyway the coin land yet i'm not sure what i honestly the analogy doesn't i don't even know where i am in this analogy yeah they i laid the analogy down and then someone put a blindfold on me and spun me around right and i and i ended up in a different analogy altogether which is this this one, the blindfold one. Okay. All right.

I guess it's just that no one else in the division really did anything, right? Oh, yeah. That's a good point. We just talked about the Mariners doing some things but not really improving their outlook significantly. And then the A's and the Rangers and the Angels didn't have active offseason. Yeah, that's a good point. The A's got theirs went down. The Rangers went down.

Angels went down a lot. By more than the Astros. Relative to the other four teams, the Astros did win the offseason in the AL West. And maybe that's because of Giles or maybe it's just because they have a better outlook and they didn't need to make as many improvements and everybody decided that the other teams needed to and didn't. All right.

All right. So you can go to the Facebook group, look at the rest of those odds, if you'd like, at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. You can send us emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com and you can rate and review and subscribe to the show on iTunes. Please support our sponsor, The Play Index. Go to baseballreference.com. Use the coupon code BP and get the discount price of $30 on a one-year subscription.

We'll be back tomorrow.