Thursday, June 18, 2020
Floating Replacement Level
This discussion is easier to think of it for hockey: When Sidney Crosby goes down, his 22 minutes gets picked up by the other 11 forwards (1 minute each) and the 13th forward (11 minutes). So basically, Crosby gets replaced by 50% an average Penguins forward and 50% the bubble player.
On the other hand, when the 12th forward goes down, his 11 minutes gets picked up totally by the 13th forward. Same thing with the six defenders, or with the goalie.
When it comes with baseball, the concept of chaining would also apply, BUT NOT AS MUCH, as Patriot describes very well here (look for the section titled Chaining). In hockey, players are much more fluid in terms of giving out playing time. There's 120 minutes to give out to the defenders. When one guy goes down, everyone below him steps up a bit, getting a couple more minutes, and the 7th player slides into the 6th slot. With baseball, it's somewhere between goalie and defender: not as rigid as a goalie, but not as fluid as a defender. You could slide someone up the batting lineup, but you wouldn't necessarily slide the regular 2B to SS. It would be too unfamiliar.
And so, in the Crosby example, where you could argue it's basically half way between average and bubble, in baseball, it's going to be much closer to the bubble line, even for the top-end player. And so we kinda take the lazy way out and apply 100% the bubble player. But don't think that's RIGHT. It's just EASY and close enough. Be careful in applying the concept to other sports like hockey or basketball.
If you want a thought exercise: if your active roster was 40 players or 100 players in MLB, NHL, or NBA, would you take the LAST player as the bubble player? No. Then we can see how the easy way we applied on a 25-player roster is the WRONG way. It won't be close enough to right. It'll be close enough to wrong.
So, you just have to be careful to understand WHY we made the choices we made, and see how it can apply to your circumstances.