Tribe Scribe

How did I do?

2007-11-18T18:23:00.000-08:00

Before the season, I predicted every team's record. Let's see how I did:

Yankees: ACTUAL 94-68; PREDICTED 91-71
Red Sox: 96-66; 91-71
Blue Jays: 83-79; 83-79
Rays: 66-96; 75-87
Orioles: 69-93; 73-89

Indians: 96-66; 91-71
Tigers: 88-74; 86-76
Twins: 79-83; 83-79
White Sox: 72-90; 78-84
Royals: 69-93; 66-96

Angels: 94-68; 86-76
Athletics: 76-86; 83-79
Rangers: 75-87; 81-81
Mariners: 88-74; 76-86

Phillies: 89-73; 90-72
Mets: 88-74; 88-74
Braves: 84-78; 85-77
Marlins: 71-91; 69-93
Nationals: 73-89; 51-111

Brewers: 83-79; 88-74
Cubs: 85-77; 85-77
Astros: 73-89; 80-82
Cardinals: 78-84; 78-84
Pirates: 68-84; 75-87
Reds: 72-90; 74-88

Diamondbacks: 90-72; 91-71
Padres: 89-74; 85-77
Giants: 71-91; 80-82
Dodgers: 83-79 82-80
Rockies: 90-73; 77-85

THE GOOD:

Well, I nailed the AL Central, more or less. My Indians-bias prevented me from picking the Tribe to win more games, but fundamentally they were closer to a 91-win team than a 96-win team. I thought the White Sox were going to be worse than most people thought, but even I didn't think they'd be THAT bad (kudos to PECOTA). I also nailed the NL East...except for Washington. Oops.

I think I also deserve some credit for calling the Blue Jays' and Cubs' mediocrity, and the D-Backs' ascent to the top of the division (although to be fair, they played over their heads). I also correctly predicted the Cardinals' demise and the Dodgers' poor roster management.

THE BAD:

The entire AL West was pretty terrible. I got the winner correct, but vastly underestimated them. I poorly predicted the rest of that division too - even though Seattle played over their heads, it's embarrassing to be wrong by 12 games.

Speaking of embarrassments: few people expected the Rockies to go to the World Series, but I was more down on them than most. This crow I'm eating is delicious.

I overestimated the Brewers and Astros - in hindsight, I'd once again pick the Brewers to win 88, but I'd change the Astros to win less. I don't know what I was thinking when I predicted the Giants to win 80 games.

THE UGLY:

Is it possible to be 22 games off in a prediction? Apparently it is, as the Nationals proved. I have nothing more to say about this.

Prediction update

2007-07-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

Before the season started, I made predictions for the record of every team in baseball, accompanied by some remarks. It's July 4, so it's a good time to take a look at how I'm doing so far.

AL EAST:

New York Yankees: currently 39-41 (expected 45-35). WHAT I SAID: 94-68, "I can see a lot going wrong for this team, but it’s so hard to bet against them." Must go 55-27 to meet my record. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: Sure enough, a lot has gone wrong. However, they're going to make things very interesting over the next three months.

Boston Red Sox: currently 51-31 (expected 50-32). WHAT I SAID: 91-71, "this team is loaded at the top, and with only a little bit of luck could win the division." Must go 40-41. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They had more upside than any team in baseball, and much of it has come through. However, they have not been lucky and have had several players underperform, quite a feat considering their current record.

Toronto Blue Jays: currently 40-43 (expected 42-41). WHAT I SAID: 83-79, "This record is not so much an illustration of my dislike of the Blue Jays, but rather it reflects the strength of the American League: someone has to lose some games." Must go 43-36. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They have rebounded from a slow start and have weathered some devastating injuries. They're a mediocre, unexciting team.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays: currently 33-49 (expected 32-50). WHAT I SAID: 75-87, "the Rays have a respectable staff at the moment (albeit one lacking in upside) that should keep them in enough games to let the offense come through." Must go 42-38. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They looked so good for so long before hitting a wall. They have disappointed me, but I still believe they are very close to being respectable.

Baltimore Orioles: currently 36-46 (expected 40-42). WHAT I SAID: 73-89, "offense won’t be terrible, but Tejada is on the decline and the rest of the over-the-hill veterans won’t make up for it." Must go 37-43. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They are simply a bad team with no future.

AL CENTRAL:

Cleveland Indians: currently 51-32 (expected 47-36). WHAT I SAID: 91-71, "The Tribe will survive on an excellent offense and underrated pitching staff. The starters are not amazing, but Sabathia is excellent, Westbrook very underrated, and there is definite potential amongst the Lee, Sowers, Miller, and Carmona group. However, I worry very much about Jeremy Sowers." Must go 40-39. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: Please direct a few props this way. The Indians are playing a little over their head and have a tough schedule in August and September. However, their starting rotation is intact and healthy for the first time all season, and Carmona is for real.

Detroit Tigers: currently 47-34 (expected 48-33). WHAT I SAID: 86-76, "A respectable season will be called a disappointment for a team which saw many of its offensive players perform near the top of their capabilities last season." Must go 39-42. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: Tigers' offense, and Justin Verlander, are much, much better than I expected.

Minnesota Twins: currently 42-40 (expected 43-39). WHAT I SAID: 83-79, "The Twins’ bullpen is outstanding, and Johan is incredible. But they are shooting themselves in the foot, giving many (or any) starts to Ponson, Silva, and Ortiz." Must go 41-39. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They weathered the storm of terrible veteran starters and now have their best pieces in place. However, a run similar to last season is unlikely.

Chicago White Sox: currently 36-44 (expected 34-46). WHAT I SAID: 78-84, "they can expect less from nearly every single offensive player on their roster, save perhaps Brian Anderson (although letting Erstad play is probably just as bad)." Must go 42-40. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: Can I get some more props here? Their offense has been weaker than even I expected, but I did see a huge regression coming. They have played better recently, and I think they are as likely as any team in baseball to exactly match my prediction.

Kansas City Royals: currently 36-48 (expected 38-46). WHAT I SAID: 66-96, "They will score some runs (even more when Billy Butler gets promoted) and appear to be at least kind of on the right track to respectability; however, they will still give up a lot of runs and should be on the wrong end of their share of embarrassments." Must go 30-48. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They're better than I gave them credit for, despite Alex Gordon. However, it does seem like they could hit a wall come September.

AL WEST:

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: currently 51-32 (expected 48-35). WHAT I SAID: 86-76, "Howie Kendrick and Casey Kotchman are strong contributors to a mediocre-at-best offense that relies heavily on Vladimir Guerrero. Their pitching staff will be what carries them in to October, with the underrated John Lackey leading the way." Must go 37-44. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: I don't think they're this good, but strong performances from unexpected sources, like Reggie Willits, have propelled them to a great record. Expect some regression.

Oakland Athletics: currently 43-40 (expected 46-37). WHAT I SAID: 83-79, "Perpetually solid Dan Haren is as low-risk as any starter in baseball, and Joe Blanton is solid if unspectacular. However, the back end of the rotation – while not terrible – is not good enough to support what is going to be a very bad offense." Must go 40-39. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: Their offense is a lot better than I expected, but even with fantastic performances from Haren and Blanton, their pitching isn't quite as good. They've been a bit unlucky win-wise so far, but have been a bit lucky with Haren and Cust as well.

Texas Rangers: currently 35-48 (expected 38-45). WHAT I SAID: 81-81, "You pretty much know what you’re going to get with this team, and that’s a .500 club." Must go 46-33. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. This team really is more of a .500 club, and should play better in the second half.

Seattle Mariners: currently 45-35 (expected 40-40). WHAT I SAID: 76-86, "The offense is okay, but not nearly good enough in the American League to be a threat, and the starting pitching will eat innings but get knocked around. That’s not a good combination." Must go 31-46. WHAT I'M SAYING NOW: They're better than I gave them credit for. But they're not nearly this good.

National League update will come soon.

Indians faltering through easy schedule

2007-07-04T10:41:00.001-07:00

In my last post I commented that the Indians had a very easy stretch in their schedule, starting June 5, for 54 games. The Tribe had lots of home games, and lots of games against bad teams.

We are currently 28 games into that 54-game stretch, and the Indians are not taking advantage. They are currently on a 6-game win streak; however, that has taken them to only 17-11 during this stretch. That is not good enough.

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that they are three games up in the Central, and 1/2 game behind Boston for the best record in baseball. However, after the next 26 games, the Indians' schedule gets brutally difficult: many games on the road, and many games against good teams. That means that the Indians can play the same "level" of baseball and see worse results, since their opponents are better.

Therefore, the Indians need a comfortable lead on August 3, when their schedule gets tough. And in order for that to happen, the Indians really need to take advantage of their next 26 games.

Upcoming schedule favors Tribe

2007-06-04T12:27:00.001-07:00

In baseball, who you play is nearly as important as how well you play.

This year, against teams that are currently under .500, the Indians are 18-9. Against teams that are currently over .500 (as well as the Yankees, as I'd be SHOCKED if they finished under .500) the Indians are 16-12. Certainly that is a good mark, but the Indians (rightly) win more against bad teams than they do against good ones.

With that in mind, let's look at the Indians' upcoming schedule.

First of all, the Indians are 19-6 at "home" (including Milwaukee), and 15-15 on the road. From now until August 2, the Indians have 34 home games and only 19 road games. That is, obviously, very favorable.

Of the next 53 games, 24 are against five of the six worst teams in baseball (Kansas City, Cincinnati, Texas, Washington, and Tampa Bay). 33 of the next 54 are against teams under .500.

Of the 19 games against teams over .500, THREE are on the road (and they're in Detroit).

So far this season, the Indians have played 28 games against teams over .500, and 27 against teams under. They have played 30 road games to only 25 home games (three of which weren't even at home). Despite this, they currently sport the fourth best record in baseball.

And now they embark on a 53-game stretch where they play 64% of their games at home; 45% against five of the six worst teams in baseball; and three road games against teams currently over .500.

The Indians need to take advantage of this stretch to build a very large lead in the Central Division. Because if they do not...well, as favorable as their next upcoming 53 games are, their final 54 games are brutally difficult.

Be patient with Marte

2007-05-26T08:46:00.000-07:00

Scouting and statistics are both important in baseball. While we can argue about the relative importance of each, there is no denying that they both play a role in determining which young players can be productive major leaguers.

Statistics can tell us that Dan Haren, whose ERAs at AAA were 4.93 and 4.15, would be a very good major league starter. Scouting can tell us that Hanley Ramirez, who had a .271/.335/.385 line with 6 homers at AA would be a very good major league shortstop.

Despite cases like these, it is usually true that scouting and statistics often agree on who can become a good or great major leaguer. This makes sense - in general, statistics are a reflection of skills - skills which scouting observes.

Baseball is an odd sport, where raw athleticism and strength or speed do not necessarily translate into "baseball abilities." However, when a minor leaguer has scouting "tools" and accumulates solid statistics as well, this is usually a reflection that his chances of becoming a productive major leaguer are quite high.

Which brings us to Andy Marte. In 2005, Baseball America had the following to say about him: "Marte’s ability to drive the ball to all fields with plus power is outstanding and getting better. He already shows patience at the plate. His glovework is also above average, as managers named him the best defensive third baseman and top infield arm in the Southern League. He oozes intangibles, showing impressive maturity for his age. Marte’s swing has a slight uppercut and can get a little long when he tires, but the Braves consider those minor problems. Still, his strikeout rate jumped in 2004. His trunk has gotten a little thick over the past two years and might need monitoring. His potential as an impact all-around player is unquestioned."

In other words, scouts loved Marte. Even Baseball Prospectus loved him, saying this in 2005: "The best prospect in baseball and a future superstar. As a 20-year-old toiling in the mostly hitter-unfriendly Southern League, Marte hit .269/.364/.525. In only 387 at-bats, he smacked 52 extra-base hits. He's got monstrous power and a broad base of hitting skills. In his prime, expect a few seasons of Adrian Beltre, circa 2004."

But what's more is that Marte's statistics backed up this high assessment of his game. At the tender age of 20, Marte put together a line of .269/.364/.525 with 23 homers in AA. Had Marte gone to college, he'd either be a college sophomore or in his first year of professional baseball; instead, he managed an 889 OPS at AA.

The Braves promoted him to AAA in 2005, and 21-year-old Marte hit .275/.372/.506 with 20 homers in a home park that depressed homers by 25%. He even reduced his strikeouts by 20% without losing any walks or power.

And then Marte was traded. Twice. He went from being one of the best prospects in baseball to a guy that two different organizations decided they didn't want. Of course, fundamentally this changed nothing about Marte; both the Braves and Red Sox had reasons for dealing him that were related more to the team's needs than to Marte himself.

With the Indians, at age 22 Marte went back to AAA. Keep in mind, a 22-year-old in AAA is still quite young. Marte's power declined slightly, and he lost some of his patience, leading to a line of .261/.322/.451 with the Bisons. Marte entered June of 2006 with two homers and 51 strikeouts, and proceeded to hit 13 homers and strike out 30 times in June and July, including a 1.057 OPS in June. He was then called to the Tribe, and underwhelmed for the second time in the majors, hitting .226/.287/.421 in 164 at-bats. On the bright side, Marte did not strike out more than he had in the minors (maintaining a steady rate of strikeing out in about 22% of his at-bats), and amassed 21 extra-base hits in 50 games.

Scouts love Andy Marte. At age 20, Marte posted an 889 OPS at AA. At age 21, Marte posted an 878 OPS at AAA. Yes, he followed it up with a 773 OPS at AAA, and underwhelming performances in the majors. However, Andy Marte is the rare minor leaguer who both scouts and stats love.

It is possible that Marte is simply one of those prospects that miss, for no apparent reason, like Carlos Pena or Ruben Rivera. However, this is very unlikely - and it is WAY TOO SOON to make judgments like that.

23 is the average age of players in AA. If Marte was currently in AA, he'd still be a good prospect. So the fact that he has struggled in the majors is not a terrible sign, especially given his stellar track record against AA and AAA pitching. Additionally, Marte has not been overwhelmed in the majors, as his strikeout rate and high amount of extra base hits attest to.

Scouts love him. Stats love him. This guarantees nothing, but it certainly increases the chances of Marte being a productive player. At age 23, there is still PLENTY OF TIME for him to figure it out. And chances are, he will.

Wedge under-utilizing roster

2007-05-22T11:33:00.001-07:00

It is May 21 and the Indians have scored more runs per game (5.56) than any other team in baseball. This is great; however, Eric Wedge’s handling of the roster has been less than adequate.

Mark Shapiro has found an inefficiency in the market for hitters: players with big platoon splits tend to be underpriced. Thus, for less than half of the price of Carlos Lee (865 OPS over the last three years), the Indians can have a left field platoon of David Dellucci (875 OPS against righties) and Jason Michaels (829 OPS against lefties). Never mind the additional money Lee will receive, or the fact that he will be under contract until he’s about 60 years old – the numbers suggest that a Michaels/Dellucci platoon should be as good as Lee this year.

The rest of the roster is structured similarly, buffered by Casey Blake’s versatility. However, often times this season Eric Wedge has made some strange decisions, with predictable results.

The Indians are weak against left-handed pitching. This makes sense: their two best hitters are lefties. Grady Sizemore struggles mightily against southpaws (his 688 OPS against them this year is right in line with his 669 OPS over the last three years). While Travis Hafner has handled lefties extremely well (912 OPS over the last three years), it’s still not as good as he’s handled righties (1.093 OPS).

David Dellucci and Trot Nixon are excellent, underrated hitters against righties (875 and 849 OPS, respectively, against righties the last three years). However, neither can even hold their own against lefties (605 and 620 OPS). Simply put, in order to maximize the Indians’ roster, these guys should receive only minimal at-bats against lefties, in strategic situations (such as against a lefty specialist in the 6^th inning it might be worth leaving them in so they can get one more at-bat against a righty later in the game).

Additionally, the Indians’ roster is built so as it’s easy to sit both righty-mashers against lefties. Jason Michaels is the logical replacement in left field, as he can OPS 829 against lefties. Casey Blake and his 836 OPS versus lefties can play right field. That leaves Andy Marte at third base against lefties; in Marte’s short major league stint he has struggled, but he has hit lefties pretty well (722 OPS against lefties in the majors, 894 in AAA).

Thus, against lefties, the Indians lineup should look something like this:

Sizemore – CF

Michaels – LF

Hafner – DH

Martinez – C

Peralta – SS

Garko – 1B

Blake – RF

Barfield – 2B

Marte – 3B

Wedge should not be afraid to use Dellucci and Nixon off of the bench late in the game as well.

The lineup against righties, then, should be somewhat like this:

Sizemore – CF

Nixon – RF

Hafner – DH

Martinez – C

Garko – 1B

Dellucci – LF

Peralta – SS

Barfield – 2B

Marte – 3B

Garko doesn’t have any platoon splits, so by batting him fifth you don’t lose much offensively but allow left-handed-hitting Dellucci to be sandwiched between two righties. If you insist on playing Casey Blake against righties it won’t kill you, but we know exactly what type of player Casey Blake is, and it is underwhelming, while Andy Marte has a LOT more upside.

Trot Nixon has 31 at-bats against lefties this year. David Dellucci has 18. Jason Micheals has 39 at-bats against righties (more than against lefties!). The Indians’ outfield is aligned to maximize potential by exploiting platoon splits; however, Eric Wedge has done a poor job of utilizing these players so far.

First pitch key for Carmona

2007-05-18T14:10:00.001-07:00

Fausto Carmona is off to a fast start. Through seven starts, Carmona is 5-1 with a 2.55 ERA. Last season, Carmona went 1-10 with a 5.52 ERA. What’s changed?

The short answer, surprisingly, is not that much.

After a tumultuous 2006 season, Carmona made the Indians this year originally due to Cliff Lee’s spring training injury, and did not pitch well in his first start, allowing six runs in 4 1/3 innings against Chicago.

However, since then Carmona has been amazing. In six subsequent starts, Carmona has an incredible 2.05 ERA. Something seemingly changed. Right?

There is little doubt that Carmona is a better pitcher now than he was last year. However, the numbers suggest that he really is not that much better. This is possible for two reasons: 1) last year, he was very unlucky, and 2) this year, he has been very lucky. Both years he has, essentially, been the same pitcher. However, there is one key element that Carmona has added this year: throwing more first-pitch strikes.

Last year Carmona allowed a whopping .336 batting average on balls in play – far higher than the league average of .300. This year, however, his BABIP is .233, far below league average. This year, Carmona has stranded 84% of the runners that have gotten on base. Certainly, this has to do with his inordinately low hit rate, as well as additional luck which figures to regress to the mean (last season, Carmona stranded 70% of all runners).

Last year, Carmona’s main strength was his ability to induce ground balls: 59.6% of balls in play were hit on the ground. This year, Carmona’s ground ball rate has risen to an extraordinary 62.6%. For comparison, fellow sinker-baller Jake Westbrook’s ground ball rate last season was 60.8%.

While Carmona’s strikeout rate remains dangerously low – and is much lower than it was last year – he has managed to reduce his walk rate. In fact, while Carmona is much the same pitcher as he was last year, there is one clear aspect where he has improved: throwing strikes.

Thanks to baseball-reference’s, handy pitch data, we can ascertain that this season, Carmona has delivered 58% of his first pitches for strikes, well up from last year’s total of 54%. He has thrown 63% of all pitches for strikes, rather than 62% last year. 17% of all plate appearances result in an 0-2 count (as opposed to 14% last year), and only 6% result in a 3-0 count (down from 7% last year).

For Carmona – as for most pitchers – throwing the first pitch for a strike drastically changes an at-bat. This season, in all plate appearances in which the batter has had an 0-1 count, batters have hit .161/.186/.237. In all plate appearances in which the batter has had a 1-0 count, batters have hit .352/.440/.521. Last year saw a similar trend: after 0-1 counts batters hit .231/.293.299, whereas if Carmona’s first pitch was a ball batters hit .383/.474/.625.

While Carmona is mostly the same this year as he was last year, the key difference is not just his reduced walk rates and ability to throw more strikes, but his ability to throw first pitches for strikes. While 58% first-pitch strikes is a large improvement over 54%, it still stands much room for additional improvement. For example, fellow Indian CC Sabathia’s first-pitch strike rate this season is a whopping 69%.

Think of it this way: if the first pitch Carmona throws is a strike, all batters turn into roughly equivalent of me, who never even played high school baseball, trying to get a hit against him. However, if the first pitch is a ball, all players suddenly become Tony Gwynn.

Carmona was unlucky to be so bad last season; however, the silver lining is that his poor performance as a closer caused the Indians to turn him back into a starter, where he is more valuable. This season, he has been very lucky to prevent hits on balls in play (how many great plays has Josh Barfield made with Carmona on the mound?) and to strand runners that do reach base. However, Carmona has also shown improvement in his ability to throw strikes – especially first-pitch strikes – which may be the most important thing for him, as a 539-point-difference in the OPS of hitters against him after an 0-1 count as compared to a 1-0 count can attest to.

Sizemore is not a leadoff hitter

2007-05-14T10:28:00.000-07:00

I know people are beginning to get on Sizemore about his batting average, so I wanted to take a look at it.

Batting average is highly correlated with line-drive percentage. The more line drives you hit, the higher your BA will be. Of course, if you do not put the ball in play (aka strikeout) you cannot get a hit.

Last year Sizemore struck out in 20% of his plate appearances, a high number. Of balls put into play, 34.2% became hits. However, based upon his line-drive percentage, we would have expected only about 31.8% of balls put into play to become hits. In essence, what that means is that Sizemore was "lucky" to receive 11 more hits than he "should have". Had he not been lucky like this, his batting average would have been .273.

This year, Sizemore has struck out in a scary 28% of his plate appearances. That means his battting average should fall---but not from last year's "actual" average of .290, but rather from last year's "expected" average of .273.

In addition, Sizemore's line-drive percentage has gone down. His actual batting average on balls in play this year has been .297, while his expected is .288. In other words, despite his low batting average this year, Sizemore has not been unlucky.

So what does this mean?

1) We should keep in mind that a player with Sizemore's speed should beat his "expected" batting average by a little because he can leg out a few infield singles that a player like Victor Martinez would not get

2) Simply put, the more strikeouts you have, the lower your batting average will be. Last year Sizemore struck out a lot, this year he's striking out too much.

3) Sizemore's declining line-drive percentage isn't a big problem...except when it's coupled with his rising strikeout totals. Something might be off in Sizemore's game.

However, Sizemore has not been caught stealing this year (in 12 attempts) and has walked a ridiculous amount of times. My guess is that he is actively trying to hit for more power---at the expense of some line drives. He is seeing far more pitches per at-bat than he did last year, but his percentage of strikeouts that were called versus those that were swinging is the same as it was last year.

Also interestingly, Sizemore is swinging at less pitches than ever before, and making contact with even fewer. So compared to the rest of his (short) career, Sizemore is A) Not swinging as often, and B) Not making contact as often when he does swing.

SOME CONCLUSIONS:

1) SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!!!!! I know it feels like the season has been going on for awhile, but in reality often times even a full season's worth of statistics can be misleading (like Peralta in 2005...or Peralta again in 2006). So a month and a half's stats can be even more misleading.

2) Sizemore is seeing lots more pitches. This leads to many more walks---but also more strikeouts, as he's getting deeper into counts.

3) Sizemore is actively trying to hit for more power. This would explain his lowered line-drive percentage and his lowered contact rates. However, his slugging percentage is really low, too.

4) Something might be wrong with him, physically.

I really think it's mainly #1, perhaps with a bit of #2 and #3. I don't think anything is wrong with him physically. And I do think that he will not bat .290 again---I've said that since the off-season. However, I find it unlikely that he will continue to hit .239 as well.

There are people---many people---who think of Sizemore as a lead-off hitter. He's not. Just because he's batting there doesn't mean he fits the mold. This is a power hitter with speed. He's not a guy who will hit .300 every season, he's much more of a .260-280 hitter. However, the speed is real (he's gotten caught stealing less and less each year), and the power is real as well. Now, if he can show that the walk-rate is legitimate, his being a .269-.280 hitter won't matter at all. This guy is not Kenny Lofton, he's not Johnny Damon. He's much more like Andruw Jones, without the same calibre of defense. That might not sound as good, but Andruw Jones has 348 homers by age 30 and is probably going to go to the Hall of Fame.

People need to stop thinking of Grady as a leadoff hitter, and they need to start thinking of him as a power hitter with speed. And truthfully, that is more valuable.

Examining the Tribe's hitters' BABIP: Team and individual

2006-12-22T14:04:00.000-08:00

Last season, the Indians’ batting average on balls in play (BABIP) as a team was .327. The American League average for BABIP was .308; no other team was even higher than .319. In other words, the Indians were extremely lucky in BABIP last season. Nearly every single player who had a significant amount of plate appearances posted a BABIP better than league average---in fact, of players with at least 100 PAs, only Aaron Boone (.288), Eduardo Perez (.275), Todd Hollansworth (.265), and Andy Marte (.265) were below average. That means that Choo (.412), Shoppach (.387), Broussard (.371), Martinez (.345), Inglett (.344), Sizemore (.342), Gutierrez (.336), Luna (.333), Garko (.333), Peralta (.329), Hafner (.326), Blake (.325), Michaels (.320), and Belliard (.317) ALL had above-average BABIPs last season.

However, before we get too worried that many of the Tribe’s hitters were extraordinarily lucky last season, let’s take each’s BABIP in the context of the individual hitter. For hitters, BABIP does not hover around .300 in the same way it does for pitchers---generally, some hitters have higher or lower BABIPs. The key in judging “luck” for hitters is to look at other factors---ground-ball/fly-ball ratio, line drive percentage, and BABIP in other seasons---to try to find aberrations.

Because they have limited major league experience, we have little with which to judge Choo, Shoppach, Inglett, Gutierrrez, Luna, and Garko. Likely most of them were fairly lucky (especially Choo and Shoppach), but it’s possible some of their BABIPs were legitimate. Ben Broussard seems like a clear-cut case of being lucky---his previous season’s BABIPs were .320 and .287; his BABIP with Seattle after the trade was .279. I’m most interested in the players who will have a significant role with the Tribe next season, namely Sizemore, Martinez, Peralta, Hafner, Blake, and Michaels.

Let’s start with Grady Sizemore. Before I get into the details, I would like to stipulate that I’m a huge Grady Sizemore fan. I think his excellent 2006 is just the tip of the iceberg, and Sizemore has a chance to be a very special player.

However, it would appear that Sizemore received an inordinate amount of luck in 2006.

In 2006, Grady Sizemore hit the ball in the air, a lot. In fact, 46.9% of his balls in play were fly balls, compared to 31.2% in 2005. This is excellent for hitting for power---ground balls cannot possibly become homers, and rarely become doubles or triples. However, while fly balls are more likely to be extra-base hits, they’re also more likely to be outs, generally. Sizemore also had a lower line-drive percentage in 2006 than he did in 2005; in 2006 19.8% of his balls in play were line drives, versus 24.3% in 2005. Line drives, as you might imagine, are more likely to become hits than regular fly balls---in fact, line drives become hits approximately 75% of the time. So Sizemore hit more balls in the air (which are more likely to become outs), but a lower percentage of line drives. And yet, Sizemore’s BABIP increased from .335 in 2005 to .342 in 2006. Yes he’s fast, but speed has little influence in whether fly balls or line drives fall for singles or are caught for outs.

Sizemore’s increased fly-ball percentage bodes well for his power---his homer total increased in 2006 despite Sizemore having fewer of his fly balls become homers than in 2005 (only 12% of his fly balls in 2006 became homers, versus 15.1% in 2005). However, coupled with his drop in line-drive percentage, it does not bode well for Sizemore’s batting average. More fly balls means more extra-base hits and more outs.

Of course, Sizemore still strikes out a lot---20.4% of his plate appearances in 2006 ended with a strikeout, in 2005 it was 18.7%. However, his minor league track record suggests that this is something he can improve on---as a 22-year-old in AAA he struck out in only 15.2% of his plate appearances, and as a 21-year-old in AA only 13% of his plate appearances ended in a strikeout. Thus, Sizemore can negate the likely regression in his batting average by simply putting the ball in play more often, and his track record suggests he is capable of making this adjustment.

Furthermore, Sizemore could once again improve his line-drive percentage. If Sizemore improves his line-drive percentage and maintains his fly-ball percentage, his batting average would likely stay around .290 while his power numbers continued to increase. If he can strike out less, too, there’s no telling how good he can be as soon as next year. However, in 2006, he was a little lucky.

Victor Martinez does not have the benefit of relying on his fleet feet. His BABIP rose for the second consecutive year, from .290 in 2004 to .327 in 2005 and .345 last year (incidentally, his batting average has followed suit, from .283 to .305 and .316). However, Martinez’s line-drive percentage has also risen each season, from 16.8% to 20.6% and finally 21.6%. His strikeout rate has remained stable, around 12%, and his walk rate has also remained stable, around 10%. Martinez has been remarkably consistent over the last three years, except each season he’s hitting the ball harder. It’s likely a .345 BABIP still has some luck, but it upon examining these other factors, it may very well be legitimate. (Incidentally, Martinez hit 34.4% of his balls in the air last season, up from 31.8% the year before. However, only 9.4% of his fly balls became homers, down from 14.4% and 12.6% the previous two seasons. It’s possible that Martinez’s power numbers will spike next year; if healthy, 25 homers is not out of the question).

Time will tell if Jhonny Peralta’s 2005 season was a career year. Remarkably, his 2005 and 2006 seasons do not look that different---his ground-ball rate remained fairly steady (45.5% in 2005, 47.6% in 2006). His line drive percentage was also consistent, 19.5% in 2005 and 18.8% in 2006. Peralta’s 2005 BABIP was an exceptionally high .349, but his 2006 BABIP was .329, also fairly high. So what changed?

Well, Peralta walked less, struck out more, and had over 10% less of his fly balls become homers. Peralta’s walk rate fell from 10.2% to 8.9% of his plate appearances, while his strikeout rate rose from 22.5% to 24.1% of his PA. In 2005, 19.6% of his fly balls became homers, whereas in 2006 only 9.4% of his fly balls became homers.

While this is tough to read, it appears to suggest that the “real” Jhonny Peralta lies in the middle. His ground-ball and line drive percentage didn’t change much; and while his walk rate fell and strikeout rate rose, neither changed by a hugely significant amount. In 2005 an inordinately high amount of his fly balls became homers; in 2006, an inordinately low amount became homers. It is likely that Peralta will improve a fair amount upon his production in 2006, but not nearly to the level of his production of 2005.

When you look at Travis Hafner’s numbers, you begin to realize how amazing he is. When you look deeper at Hafner’s numbers, you realize that he’s even better than you thought. Interestingly Hafner’s walk rates have increased from 2004 to 2006 (11.8% to 13.7% to 17.7%) while his strikeout rates have been relatively stable (19.3% to 21.3% to 19.6%). His line-drive percentages have gone up every year since 2004 as well, from 18.6% to 20.2% and then 21.2%. His home-run rate has gone up each season as well, from 4.9% of his plate appearances to 5.7% and then 7.4%. This has coincided with an increase in the percentage of fly balls that become homers, from 18.6% to 26.8% to 30.7% However, Hafner’s BABIP has gone down each season, from .356 to .349 and then .326. In 2004 43.5% of his balls in play were fly balls; that number fell to 36.5% in 2005 and went back up to 40.2% in 2006.

That’s a lot of numbers. What it suggests is this: Hafner is striking out the same amount, walking more, and hitting the ball harder. However, his BABIP has gone down, dropping 23 points from 2005 to 2006. It is likely that not as many of his fly balls will become homers next season (he led the entire AL in this category, by a whopping 4.1% over the second place man, David Ortiz). However, it is also likely that more of Hafner’s balls in play will become hits, suggesting that a rise in his consistent batting average (.311, .305, and .308 the last three years) could be in store, which when coupled with his consistently improving walk rate should boost his already-amazing OBP even more. As a side note, Hafner played in only 129 games last year and yet hit 42 homers; if his homer rate does go down somewhat but his health allows him to play 150 games, it’s quite likely that he’ll still surpass his 2006 homer total.

Casey Blake was essentially the same player in 2006 that he was in 2004. His walk rate was about the same (10.2% and 9.9%), his strikeout rate was nearly identical (20.8% and 20.4%), his home run rate was virtually unchanged (4.1% and 4.2%). In that pesky 2005 season, Blake struck out the same amount (19.9), but walked less (7.4%) and homered less (3.9%). His BABIP in 2005 was also significantly lower than in 2004 or 2006---in 2004 it was .312, then .268 in 2005, and .325 in 2006. Interestingly, in 2004 39.8% of his balls in play were fly balls; this spiked to 42.4% in 2005, and then fell back to 36.6% in 2006.

In the past three seasons, we’ve seen two Good Casey Blakes who were virtually identical, and one Bad Casey Blake who was less patient, less powerful, and less lucky. It’s looking like the 2005 version was more of an aberration; however, next year Blake will be 34 and could begin to decline. It’s reasonable to expect some slippage from Good Casey Blake, but probably not to the level of Bad Casey Blake.

Jason Michaels had never been an every-day player before 2006; thus, we must take a comparison of his 2006 season to the previous two seasons with a grain (or ten) of salt. That being said, Michaels’s ground-drive percentage has remained consistent since 2004 (40.0%, 40.7%, and 39.6%). His line-drive percentage has fluctuated but remained in the same range, from 20.5% in 2004 to 24.6% in 2005 and 22.7% in 2006. His BABIP was .345 in 2004 and .350 in 2005, but fell to .320 in 2006. What changed?

Well, Michaels did. Or perhaps he was exposed because of playing every day. Either way, he walked significantly less than he had in previous years (12.1% in 2004, 12.8% in 2005, and 7.8% in 2006). His strikeout rate was smack in between his previous two seasons’ (23.1% in 2004, 13.1% in 2005, and 18.4% in 2006).

Despite maintaining a similar ground-ball and line-drive percentage, Michaels walked significantly less and had a much lower BABIP. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that he was exposed to many more right-handed pitchers than he had been in the past; perhaps accounting for the fall in the walk rate. However, it would appear that the decrease in BABIP has more to do with bad luck than it does playing every-day, considering his line-drive percentage remained stable. Hopefully facing more lefties will cause him to find his old patient ways; this, combined with some regression on balls in play would make Michaels’s OBP above-average and make up for his lack of power.

On a team-wide level, the Indians’ BABIP of .327 is extremely high---as I said earlier, it is much higher than any other major league team. Thus, it is quite likely that a lot of this has to do with luck---lots of balls that the Indians were putting in play were simply evading fielders. However, we should remember that the Indians have some excellent hitters who hit the ball hard when they put it in play, thus increasing the chance that the ball will become a hit. Their team line-drive percentage was .207, second in baseball behind Minnesota (.214) and just ahead of the White Sox (.201), Boston and Texas (.200 each). In other words, a high team BABIP is to be expected, but the Indians’ BABIP was still higher than normal, even given their line-drive percentages.

The Indians are very likely to experience some regression in their BABIP as a team. Hopefully, this will be made up for by increased power, especially from Sizemore, Peralta, Martinez, Marte, and left-field platoon of Michaels and Dellucci. The Indians will not have problems scoring runs, but they will probably not experience the same amount of luck on balls in play that they experienced in 2006.

I will be out of town for a couple of weeks, and will not post again until 2007. Happy Holidays everyone!

Playing the odds

2006-12-21T14:59:00.001-08:00

Nothing in baseball is certain---that’s what makes the sport so fascinating. However, in the course of my writing and discussing baseball, I tend to make statements which sound a lot like certainties. For example, I’m confident that the Indians are going to be a very good team next year, and could win the Central Division. This is far from a certainty, of course. My purpose in making this statement is twofold: 1) I think the Indians are going to be better than most people expect them to be, and 2) I think they have an excellent chance of winning the division, or winning 90+ games, or whatever other standard you choose to invoke. By no means is this a guarantee; in fact, the odds that they will not win the division are pretty high. I acknowledge this in making the statement, and I make the statement anyway. When I make statements of prediction such as this one, I do so with the understanding that there’s a good chance that I’m wrong, however THERE’S A MUCH BETTER CHANCE THAT I’M RIGHT.

Take, for another example, a list of players that I was very high on entering the 2006 season. By “high on,” I mean I expected these players to improve a lot and/or play produce a lot better than they had in the previous season---from a fantasy baseball perspective, I thought these guys were undervalued:

CC Sabathia

Brandon Webb

Felix Hernandez

Jake Peavy

Grady Sizemore

Jeremy Bonderman

Javier Vazquez

Jake Westbrook

Vernon Wells

Ramon Hernandez

Jonny Gomes

Matt Holliday

Ryan Howard

To be sure, I was wrong on a fair amount of players---namely Hernandez, Peavy, Vazquez, and Gomes from that list. I spoke with the same amount of “certainty” about King Felix dominating the league or Javy Vazquez reverting to his Montreal-form that I did about CC and B-Webb being on the brink of stardom. That’s because in each of my assessments, there’s a good chance that I’ll be wrong---however, with enough assessments of, say, a 70% chance of being right, I’ll have a competitive advantage (for the purposes of fantasy baseball) over others. My being wrong about Peavy does not negate the thought-process behind it, when that thought-process produced many correct results.

Even now I feel I must add another qualification: I do not necessarily believe my way of thinking is the best way to analyze baseball. To my current knowledge, I believe it’s the best way, as well as the most accurate way someone in my position can analyze and predict. The more data you have access to, the more knowledge you accrue, the more you learn about different aspects of the game, the better you will be as an analyst. As such, I have limited baseball experience---no scouting experience with only a modest understanding of scouting----and I have access only to publicly-available statistics and information. Furthermore, I have the constraints of analyzing baseball as a hobby rather than a profession (something I hope will change in the future), meaning I am not able to dedicate as much time to it as I would like. Moreoever, I know I have much to learn about statistical analysis in addition to the vast arrays of knowledge one can acquire simply by working in or playing baseball.

That being said, I am going to continue believing what I believe until someone shows me that I am wrong, or shows me that there’s a better alternative. This does not mean I’m close-minded; just the opposite: I am always on the lookout for new ideas, and I am especially intrigued if these new ideas run contrary to what I currently believe. Does Chien-Ming Wang represent a new way of succeeding as a major league pitcher? What can we learn from examining Wang? I hope to acquire additional information all the time; occasionally, it supplants my old beliefs, but usually it supplements these beliefs and sometimes reinforces them.

What I am humbly trying to say is this: I recognize all that I do not know. I want to learn more, to understand better, and to improve. This is a continual goal for me. In the meantime, I will use the current knowledge I have to the best of my abilities when analyzing the game of baseball. My being wrong could constitute an incorrect method or misunderstood beliefs; however, my being wrong could also simply represent the relative chance of being wrong in any one instance, given the luck and variation involved with the sport. That’s why baseball is my passion: because, as Yogi Berra said, “in baseball, you don’t know nothing.” And there’s so much to learn.

The Other Chris Young

2006-12-18T16:19:00.001-08:00

After the 2005 season, Javier Vazquez demanded a trade out of Arizona. Vazquez wanted to be closer to his family, who lived on the east coast. The Diamondbacks obliged, as they were required to do, and dealt Vazquez to the White Sox in exchange for Orlando Hernandez, Luiz Vizcaino, and minor leaguer Chris Young.

Why should you care? You should care because Chris Young is about to become a superstar.

It’s good to be a baseball player named Chris Young. The other Chris Young (well, the first, the one most people have heard of) is a 6-foot-10 pitcher for the San Diego Padres, who excelled in PetCo Park, unsurprisingly, due to his solid K/BB ratio and his tendency to give up fly balls, which often became outs due to the Padres’ outfield defense, and rarely became homers, due to the Padres’ outfield dimensions. Most people know of Christopher Ryan Young, the pitcher.

However, far fewer people know of Christopher Brandon Young, the outfielder. This Chris Young, set to open the 2007 season as the Diamondbacks’ center fielder, has largely flown under the radar, even among people who closely follow prospects. In order to understand why I’m so high on him for this season and beyond, let’s examine Young’s track record so far.

Young, who will be 23 during the 2007 season, was drafted by the White Sox in the 16^th round of the 2001 draft. He played rookie ball in 2002 and 2003, showing some power and some speed---statistics at such a low level are basically irrelevant. In 2004 he moved up to low-A ball at Kannapolis, posting a line of .262/.362/.505 in 465 at-bats. Young managed 24 homers, 31 doubles, and had 31 steals (in 40 attempts). Young also received excellent ratings in center field---Baseball Prospects rated his CF defense as a +7 for the season. On the down side, Young struck out 145 times---meaning that 43% of the outs he made were strikeouts, an astronomically high number, especially considering he was facing rather unpolished pitchers. However, Young’s combination of speed, power, patience, and defense still made him an intriguing prospect; after all, he was only 20 years old.

There is one interesting element to add to Young’s season at Kannapolis. Young hit 24 homers as a 20-year-old, which is excellent (even with his high strikeout totals). However, according to three-year weighted minor league park factors (http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/34611/), Kannapolis was a tough park to hit home runs in: it deflated homers by 24%---the same amount that PetCo Park deflated homers (much to the benefit of Pitcher Chris Young). Basically, had Young played in a neutral park (let alone a park which favored hitters), he could have expected to hit 24% more homers at home, without doing anything differently.

In 2004, the White Sox bumped Young all the way to AA, bypassing high-A ball. Young spent the season with Birmingham, posting a line of .277/.377/.545 in 466 at-bats as a 21-year-old. Young amassed 26 homers, 41 doubles, 32 steals (in 38 attempts), walked four more times than he had in 2003, and struck out 16 less (although Ks still accounted for 38% of his outs). In other words, after a very solid season a Low-A ball in 2003, Young skipped a level, was extremely young for his age, and improved his OBP, SLG, homers, doubles, steals, stolen-base efficiency, walks, and struck out less.

All of this sounds pretty good. Let’s incorporate one additional factor: yes, in 2003 Kannapolis was a tough home ballpark to play in. However, in 2004 Birmingham made Kannapolis look like Coors Field. Birmingham’s home ballpark depressed home runs by a whopping 45%. It’s almost twice as hard to hit a home run in Birmingham’s park than it is in Kannapolis’s home park.

And yet Young, at only 21 years of age, managed 26 homers (in only 126 games). Extended to a full 162-game season of 600 at-bats, that amounts to a total of 33 homers, despite playing half of his games in a park where homers are depressed by 45%.

Had Young played 162 games in a neutral ballpark in 2004 and hit homers at the same pace, he would have amassed over 40 homers, in addition to over 40 steals and excellent patience at the plate.

Yes, Young did not play 162 games, but the idea is that while his AA season was good on the surface, when you consider the circumstances---bypassing High-A ball, being only 21 years old, and playing in such a tough ballpark---it’s an incredible season.

Credit Arizona GM Josh Byrnes with landing such a valuable player in exchange for Vazquez, despite having no choice but to trade Vazquez (additionally, the White Sox paid his entire salary).

In his first season with Arizona, Young suffered a broken wrist in spring training, delaying his start to the season. Once he recovered, Young was sent to AAA Tucson. He played in 100 games for the Sidewinders, totaling 402 at-bats. There was some concern that Young’s injury would have a lingering effect on his bat-speed and thus his power. It’s possible that the injury did affect him, but Young nonetheless once again put up a stellar line of .276/.363/.532 as a 22-year old. He hit 21 homers, 32 doubles, and had 17 steals (in 22 attempts). What’s most interesting about Young’s 2006 season was that he basically eliminated his one weakness: strikeouts.

After striking out 145 and 129 times in the previous two seasons, Young struck out only 72 times in 2006, despite facing AAA pitching. What’s especially impressive is that the decrease in strikeouts did not have any effect on his patience (he still walked 51 times) or his power (57 extra-base hits). Considering that Tucson’s home park is neutral for homers and Young managed “only” 21, it’s possible that his wrist injury was indeed bothering him, and yet he still managed an 895 OPS as a 22-year-old at AAA.

Young was then promoted to the majors and appeared in 29 games, totaling 70 at-bats. He posted a modest line of .243/.308/.386, hitting 2 homers and stealing 2 bases (in 3 attempts). He walked six times (walks accounted for 8% of his plate appearances at the ML level, versus 11% at AAA, 13% at AA, and 12% at A). However, he struck out only 12 times (Ks accounted for only 23% of his outs at the ML level, versus 24% at AAA, 38% at AA and 43% at A).

Young’s defense was also very solid at AAA and earned good reviews at the major league level, allowing him to all-but-secure the CF job in 2007.

Chris Young (the hitter) has put up excellent raw numbers in every season in the minor leagues. His numbers look even better when you factor in that 1) he’s always been young for his league; 2) he’s played in two very tough home parks on hitters; and 3) he’s consistently improved his one weakness, strikeouts, without sacrificing his patience or power.

So what can we expect from Young in 2007 and beyond? Well, PECOTA was high on Young even before the 2006 season---it projected an 852 OPS, 25 homers, and 19 steals for 2007. I imagine the projection will only improve considering how well Young handled AAA pitchers in 2006 (incidentally, the pre-2006 PECOTA had Young’s OPS rising to 924 with 30 homers by 2010). ZIPS’s 2007 projection for Young is an 861 OPS with 29 homers and 15 steals.

Last season, only five major league center fielders managed an OPS of at least 850 (one of them, Gary Matthews Jr., is highly unlikely to match this in 2007). Young’s career OPS in the minors is 859. Furthermore, Young (for a change) will be playing in one of the best hitter’s parks in all of baseball: from 2003-2005, Arizona’s park increased homers and doubles by 14% each; in 2006 it increased homers by 34% and doubles by 10%. Presumably he will also be fully recovered from any lingering ailments related to his wrist injury.

Granted, the major leagues are unlike the minor leagues---Young will be facing the best pitchers day in and day out. However, minor league numbers usually translate very well into the majors, especially for a young player with excellent tools. Chris Young is everything a smart 21^st-century baseball team could ask a prospect to be, and has as good of a chance as anyone in the game to be a legitimate superstar, perhaps as soon as 2007. Soon, that tall pitcher in San Diego will be the other Chris Young.

Major League IV: Seattle Mariners

2006-12-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

Bill Bavasi, the General Manager of the Seattle Mariners, must love the movie Major League. Bavasi is obviously attempting to worsen the Mariners in any way possible, in a secret effort to cause the group to unite and prove everyone wrong. If this is not Bavasi’s Master Plan, I have no explanations for why he still has a job.

The Mariners’ two latest moves have been met with a resounding “HUH?!?” by the baseball community, and for good reason. However, these two moves are not the only questionable moves Bavasi has made. Let’s examine.

1) Signing Adrian Beltre. Beltre’s OPSs with the Mariners have been 716 and 792---directly in line with his OPSs in every other season except for 2004. Yes, he was excellent in 2004, but few people believed that Beltre had indeed found a new level of ability. Steroid speculation abounded (fairly or unfairly), but more likely was that Beltre simply had a career year in 2004. It’s sure looking that way now.

2) Keeping Willie Bloomquist on the roster. Perhaps Mike Hargrove is more to blame than Bavasi for this one, but Bavasi deserves some blame. Bloomquist is almost adequate (almost) as a utility defensive replacement; however, there is no excuse for his accumulating exactly 500 at-bats over the last two seasons. His OPSs have been 622 and 619 over those seasons, and it’s not like his defense is the best in baseball. Bloomquist might be a small mistake in terms of wins and losses, but he’s a big mistake in that it was easily avoidable.

3) Signing Carl Everett. Okay, Everett doesn’t believe in dinosaurs. That’d be alright if he could still hit. However, once again against many analysts’ opinions, Everett was signed to DH during the 2006 season. Perhaps Kenny Williams gave him a Darwinian pep-talk before sending him on his way, but Everett ended up hitting .227/.297/.360 line in 308 at-bats as a DH before being cut.

4) Trading Shin-Soo Choo and Asbrudal Cabrera for Ben Broussard and Eduardo Perez. Bavasi acquired the Indians’ first base platoon of Benuardo Perssard in exchange for two AAA minor leaguers. Sure, Choo probably wasn’t a center-fielder and couldn’t hit lefties; but Choo was a solid right-fielder and did destroy righties. Sure, Cabrera was a miserable hitter in 2006, but he was a 20-year-old in AAA, having skipped AA, and profiled to have plus-plus defense at shortstop. Broussard and Perez, meanwhile, were both playing well above their abilities; even if they maintained their pace after the trade, the Mariners were going nowhere fast in 2006 with or without Perssard.

5) Trading Rafael Soriano for Horacio Ramirez. This was a real doozy. How do you think the conversation went with John Schuerholz? “Hey John, this is Bill. How about I give you Rafael Soriano for Adam LaRoche, Andruw Jones, and Tim Hudson. No? Okay, then how about Soriano for Horacio Ramirez.” Rafael Soriano is an extremely dominant reliever when healthy, as evidenced by his 177 strikeouts (and only 53 walks) in 171 major league innings. While injuries are a concern, he appears to have set his arm troubles behind him (for now), and is recovering well from the literal and psychological head injury after getting hit by a Vladimir Guerrero line drive last season. Meanwhile, Ramirez had one span of 9 starts in 2004 where he posted a 2.39 ERA, despite walking 30 and striking out 31 in 60 innings. His career K/BB ratio is 248/200, and he gives up 1.12 homers per nine (65 in 521 innings). And now he’s moving to the American League. It’s not a good idea to trade Rafael Soriano at all; I can’t possibly believe that Bavasi couldn’t have gotten a LOT more if he had looked. Can you imagine what Cleveland, Boston, Florida, or Arizona would have offered for Soriano? Certainly more than Ramirez.

6) Trading Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto for Jose Vidro. Bavasi’s latest masterpiece. Jose Vidro was an excellent player in his prime, but he is no longer able to play second base, and his hitting has been in noticeable decline for some years now, with his OPS going from 867 to 821, 763, and 743 since 2003. The Mariners will also be picking up $12 million of the $16 million that Vidro is owed over the next two seasons. It’s bad enough that they’re adding him and paying him $12 million to DH, but they also gave up two potentially valuable pieces. Snelling, a sabermetric favorite, is more fragile than Terrell Owens’s ego, but when he’s healthy he can flat-out hit. Fruto had a 55/21 K/BB ratio in 45 innings in AAA last season, giving up only one homer (and then struck out 34 in 36 major league innings), and throws hard. Vidro is likely to be no better than replacement-level for a DH (if even that “good”), and the Mariners gave up two youngsters with significant upside for the right to pay him $12 million? Ouch.

7) Signing Jose Guillen. Guillen posted a sparkling 674 OPS last season, granted in a pitcher’s park. However, it’s not like Safeco favors hitters. Guillen is going to be 31 years old, and his poor plate discipline suggests that the decline might be real. It’s not like Guillen makes up for his lack of hitting by having a great personality…

8) Signing Miguel Batista. Batista was solid out of the bullpen for Toronto in 2005, posting a 54/27 K/BB ratio. However, the previous season his ERA was 4.80 as a starter and his ratio was 104/96. Sure enough, back in the rotation in 2006 with Arizona, Batista’s ratio was 110/84 in 206 innings. While Arizona’s park favors hitters significantly, such a poor ratio (especially such a poor K rate) does not figure to serve Batista well in the American League.

Sure, it’s easy to second-guess moves in hindsight. The key is looking at whether these moves were seen, at the time, to be mistakes. If they were seen to be mistakes, and turned out to be just-as-big of a mistake as most people expected, well…it was a mistake (for example, it’s hard to fault the Red Sox front office for making the Josh Beckett trade---try to find someone who didn’t at the time at least think it was fair for both teams).

For the record, I will give him “credit” for signing Richie Sexson, Jarrod Washburn, and Kenji Johjima. However, it is not full credit or anything close; I still believe that the $88 million spent on Sexson and Washburn could have been spent in a much better way (keep in mind, in the 2004 and 2005 offseasons $88 million could buy a lot more than it does now). Johjima was enough of a no-brainer to take credit away from Bavasi (they had no other plausible options for catcher), and the Ichiro!-effect made it a lot easier for the Mariners to get a deal done. This was no genius on Bavasi’s part.

The Mariners won’t be awful in 2007; however, with better management they would likely to be able to compete for what’s expected to be a relatively weak Western Division. King Felix can only take them so far.

Getting defensive

2006-12-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

Defensive Efficiency Rating (DER) measures the percentage of balls in play that are converted into outs by a team’s defense. The better the defense, the higher the team’s DER, and the lower their batting average on balls in play (BABIP) against. DER + BABIP = 1.

In 2006, the Indians were 25^th in baseball, posting a DER of .686---meaning their BABIP was a very high .314 (remember, league average is generally around .300). This would explain a lot of their pitching problems in 2006, especially considering that they were 29^th in pitching strikeouts (only the Royals had fewer). So the Tribe had a ton of balls in play and an inordinate amount of them became hits. That’s not a good recipe for success.

However, in 2005, the Indians ranked 3^rd in DER, at .720 (meaning their BABIP was .280). Their 2005 pitching staff was pretty similar to their 2006 staff; more importantly, their 2005 and 2006 defenses were very similar.

Grady Sizemore (CF), Casey Blake (RF), Jhonny Peralta (SS), Ronnie Belliard (2B), Aaron Boone (3B), and Victor Martinez (C) played most of both seasons at their respective positions. The main change came in left field, where Jason Michaels replaced Coco Crisp; however, Michaels was a centerfielder by trade and had a reputation of being a solid defender. So what happened to raise the Indians’ BABIP from .280 to .314 in one season with basically the same defense?

Well, there are a couple of possibilities: 1) the pitching staff got tremendously worse; or 2) the defenders simply did not perform as well.

Let’s examine the first idea first. Surely, the Indians’ pitching was not nearly as good in 2006 as it was in 2005. In 2006, their staff ranked 6^th in the AL with a 4.41 ERA. The starters were 3^rd in the league with a 4.31 ERA, but the relievers (as you likely know) were awful, finishing 11^th in the AL with a 4.66 ERA.

In 2005, the Tribe was tied for first in the AL with a 3.61 ERA. Their starters were 5^th, with a 3.96 ERA, and their bullpen was 1^st, with a 2.80 ERA. Despite Kevin Millwood’s departure and Jason Johnson’s awful stint in 2006, the Indians’ starters remained very good, thanks to CC Sabathia’s improvement, Jake Westbrook’s regression to the mean (in a good way), and Jeremy Sowers’s strong performance.

The bullpen was definitely a lot worse. However, “worse” does not necessarily equal giving up more hits on balls in play; as we know, generally this is a luck-based statistic. Therefore, while the bullpen was definitely worse, this does not account for the change in BABIP from 2005 to 2006.

More likely, it would seem that the Indians’s defense in 2006 was a lot worse than their defense in 2005. If this is true, we’d expect to see a significant difference in the BABIP’s of pitchers who were on both the 2005 and 2006 staffs. Let’s see:

(2005 BABIP is listed first, then 2006 BABIP)

CC Sabathia: 284-291

Jake Westbrook: 287-322

Cliff Lee: 277-296

Bob Wickman: 269-292

Rafael Betancourt: 294-273

Jason Davis: 325-345

Fernando Cabrera: 277-293

As you can see, of the pitchers who logged a significant amount of innings in front of both defenses, only one (Betancourt) had a better BABIP in 2006. It looks as if there was a significant difference in defense.

How did the defense get that much worse? Two reasons: 1) many of the players performed a lot worse in 2006 than they did in 2005; and 2) Coco Crisp performed much better in 2005 than Jason Michaels did in 2006. Let’s evaluate.

Baseball Prospectus offers a defensive stat called Fielding Runs Above Replacement (FRAR). This is defined as “A fielding statistic, where a replacement player is meant to be approximately equal to the lowest-ranking player at that position, fielding wise, in the majors. Average players at different positions have different FRAR values, which depend on the defensive value of the position; an average shortstop has more FRAR than an average left fielder.” Thus, it is important not to compare the FRAR of two different positions, but it can be important to compare two different players at the same position.

We can look at FRAR and hopefully see what changed in the Tribe’s defense from 2005 to 2006.

I will list the player, their position, their 2005 FRAR, and then their 2006 FRAR

Grady Sizemore (CF): 17-19

Casey Blake (RF): 18-10

Aaron Boone (3B): 15-2

Jhonny Peralta (SS): 34-46

Ronnie Belliard (2B): 33-15

Ben Broussard (1B): 7-2

Victor Martinez (C): 22-7

Coco Crisp (LF) 2005 only: 22

Jason Michaels (LF) 2005 only: 1

Some other notable numbers:

Andy Marte (3B) 2006 only: 7

Ryan Garko (1B) 2006 only: 1

Josh Barfield (2B) 2005 only: 32

It looks as if Casey Blake, Aaron Boone, Ronnie Belliard, and Victor Martinez suffered considerable declines in their defense from 2005 to 2006 (interestingly, Blake, Boone, and Belliard are all on the wrong side of 30, and Martinez, while only 27, has been catching for awhile). Furthermore, it would appear that the downgrade from Coco Crisp to Jason Michaels was considerable.

So what does this mean going forward? Well, first of all, it is reasonable to assume that, like last year, the Indians won’t walk many batters in 2007 (they finished with the second fewest walks of any team in 2006). Paul Byrd and Jeremy Sowers rely on not walking anyone; CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, and Jake Westbrook all have very modest walk-rates. No one in the bullpen has huge problems with walking too many batters. On the flip side, only CC has an above-average strikeout rate, while Westbrook, Byrd, and Sowers all strike out very few hitters. Plus, the bullpen has many pitchers who rely on batters putting the ball in play. All in all, the Indians pitching staff can expect a lot of balls to be put in play again next year.

Thus, their defense is going to be extraordinarily important. If the Tribe can curb their apparent bad luck and get back into the top half of DER, their pitching staff should improve tremendously, as they will give up far fewer hits.

Are they likely to improve in 2007? For starters, it’d be tough to get much worse. Even if their defense was legitimately bad, it’s tough to maintain a 14%-below-average rate over two seasons; some regression to the mean is likely due. Furthermore, several of the culprits of poor defense last season---Belliard and Boone---are going to replaced by younger players who are likely to be better defenders (Barfield and Marte). Although Jason Michaels was a poor defender in 2006 for the Tribe in left field, he was quite solid in 2005 for Philadelphia in center field, so there might still be hope for him. Grady Sizemore and Jhonny Peralta actually improved from 2005 to 2006, and the Indians have challenged Peralta to improve his defense even further. Casey Blake is likely on the decline, but his potential replacements, Shin-Soo Choo and Franklin Gutierrez, both have excellent defensive reputations.

The Indians are unlikely to be as bad defensively in 2007 as they were in 2006. If they regress to the mean even a little, they will improve a lot; there remains a chance that not only will the defense improve, but it will be well-above average. Either way, the Tribe’s defense is unlikely to be as big of a liability next year.

A lesson taken to Hart

2006-12-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

In the early 1990s, Indians General Manager John Hart acquired many young, talented players, such as Kenny Lofton, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Albert Belle, Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga, and more. He then signed them to long-term contracts, guaranteeing the player a good payday in return for a long-term commitment.

Mark Shapiro worked under John Hart, and has taken this lesson to heart (pun intended). Last season, the Indians were, for all intensive purposes, an 89-win team, according to their expected win total. The only players they lost were Aaron Boone, Ronnie Belliard, Bob Wickman, Eduardo Perez, and Ben Broussard---and they received decent returns on Belliard, Wickman, Broussard and Perez in trades.

Thus, the Tribe is left with a very young team that essentially was worth 89 wins last season. The scary thing is, this bunch of Indians is locked up for a LONG time. Here is a list of their roster. Accompanying each player is their (age) in parenthesis, and then the last year they're under contract for. For example:

Grady Sizemore (24) 2012

Means that Grady Sizemore is currently 24 and cannot become a free agent until after the 2012 season. Here's the rest of the team (in alphabetical order, mostly):

Josh Barfield (23) 2011
Rafael Betancourt (31) 2009
*Casey Blake (33) 2007
**Paul Byrd (36) 2007
Fernando Cabrera (25) 2011
Fausto Carmona (23) 2011
Shin-Soo Choo (24) 2012
Jason Davis (26) 2010
David Dellucci (33) 2009
Ryan Garko (25) 2012
Franklin Gutierrez (23) 2012
Travis Hafner (29) 2008
Joe Inglett (28) 2012
Cliff Lee (28) 2010
Hector Luna (26) 2010
Andy Marte (23) 2012
Victor Martinez (27) 2010
Jason Michaels (30) 2007
Jhonny Peralta (24) 2011
CC Sabathia (26) 2009
Kelly Shoppach (26) 2011
Jeremy Sowers (23) 2012
Jake Westbrook (29) 2007
**Joe Borowski/**Aaron Fultz/**Roberto Hernandez are all signed only for 2007

*Arbitration-eligibe after 2007 season
**Club option for 2008

The key thing to note is that while the Indians might have seven free agents after the 2007 season, arguably only one is of any importance (Jake Westbrook), while every single other one is fairly easily replaced. Furthermore, many of these players have club options which would keep them under control for 2008 as well, if exercised. Additionally, none except Westbrook are going to be expensive to retain, should the club want to keep the player. Finally, these seven free agents will clear approximately $24 million off of the books, meaning the team will have $24 million to spend without increasing payroll by one cent.

After 2008, Travis Hafner will be a free agent. However, no one else of the current roster will be a FA. Thus, the Indians should have the financial flexibility to make a very significant offer to keep Hafner.

Notice how many of the Indians' key players---their best players, who are likely to get even better---are signed through 2010 or beyond. Not to mention additional youngsters who are likely to make an impact in 2007 and 2008 (and all of whom will have six years before they're eligible for free agency) such as Adam Miller, Trevor Crowe, Tony Sipp, Chuck Lofgren, and Brian Barton.

The Indians could theoretically go into a shell for three years and maintain a competitive team throughout that span. Of course, they won't, and will likely improve the team during that span. Furthermore, because they haven't handed out any ridiculous contracts this offseason, they are more likely to be able to keep Travis Hafner, one of the few players who would be worth the astronomical amounts of money it would take to keep him around.

Not only are the Indians good, they're also young and they're all going to be around for a long time.

This is just another piece of evidence showing why Mark Shapiro is one of the very best general managers in the game.

Thanks to Rotoworld for their excellent up-to-date salary and contract information.

Dissecting Bullpen Usage

2006-12-04T16:42:00.000-08:00

Bullpens are tricky creatures. They're awfully fickle, largely because of the extremely small sample sizes involved, and the self-selection of matchups created by managers. Furthermore, "traditional" stats---even the more advanced ones like K/BB ratio or basic ERA---often don't measure a reliever's true effectiveness. Consider the following scenario:

The Indians lead 3-2 in the 8th inning when CC Sabathia runs out of gas. Eric Wedge leaves him in two batters too many, and Sabathia gives up consecutive line-drive singles to begin the 8th. The opposing team has runners at first and third base, with no outs. Wedge brings in Reliever A.

Reliever A proceeds to give up a fly-out, then gets a ground-ball double play. However, the fly-out just deep enough for the runner at third base to score. The pitcher's raw line looks very good: 1 inning, o runs. Did he do his job?

Yes and no. His ERA will go down. Someone will cite that he has the ability to generate double-play ground-balls. And yet, the game is now tied. It doesn't matter who the tying run is charged to, the thing that matters is that it scored at all.

Thus, bullpens, while certainly fickle, aren't even able to be evaluated easily. Baseball Prospectus has some some excellent advanced statistics which more properly evaluate a reliever's contribution. However, there does not appear to be an easy way to measure or predict the advanced-statistic using traditional stats of any sort. Beyond the pitchers that are obviously very good, there are some that contributed more or less to their team than their raw statistics would suggest.

So how do you maximize your bullpen's effectiveness? What kind of pitcher do you want to bring in the game in the 8th inning of the above example? Intuitively, it makes sense to me that you want a reliever who's going to strike a lot of batters out. While many teams see the value in these types of relievers, I believe they are vastly misused. Here's how:

Using the above example, you want the reliever who you bring into the game in the 8th inning to be able to strike a lot of batters out. You don't just want any kind of out in that situation, you want a strikeout; any other kind of out risks tying the game in the form of a sacrifice fly or the like. Only with a strikeout can you guarantee that the runner from third does not score. Furthermore, because the score is close, the situation is very important, even though it's not the 9th inning. This is the ideal situation where teams should use their "closers" (who tend to be their best reliever, and probably the one most likely to get a strikeout).

Most teams bring in their closers to work the 9th inning. Usually, they bring in the closer when no one is on base, at the beginning of the inning. The closer needs to get three outs, but it does not matter how he gets these outs---in this situation, a strikeout is no more valuable than a ground-out or a fly-out. Thus, it's a waste to use your best strikeout-pitcher in this situation. Furthermore, wouldn't you want your best pitcher in the game when the game is most likely to be won or lost, such as in the situation above? If you choose to "save" your closer for only save situations, you are likely costing yourself some games which are lost prior to becoming save situations in the first place.

The best bullpens are the bullpens that teams stumble on to accidentally. The 2006 Tigers are a perfect example of this. Their closer, Todd Jones, was arguably their third or fourth best reliever, and he did not record many strikeouts. However, he did record outs anyway, and thus earned saves. However, their best relievers---and the relievers most likely to record a strikeout---were the set-up men, led by Joel Zumaya. Zumaya and company oftened preserved precarious leads in the 7th and 8th innings, thus leading to more save opportunities for Jones. Had their roles been reversed, Jones and Zumaya could have had the exact same amount of "personal success," but it would have translated to fewer victories for the Tigers as a team.

My hope is that something similar occurs with the 2007 Indians. I am very high on Fernando Cabrera. Witness his track record:

In his first full season as a reliever, in 2004 with AAA Buffalo, Cabrera pitched 75 innings, posting a 3.38 ERA, while striking out 92 and walking 42 (and giving up only 57 hits). The strikeout and hit rates were very encouraging, the ERA was solid (although remember how this can be misleading) and he walked too many. He also gave up 9 homers.

In 2005, also with Buffalo, Cabrera continued his dominance, and improved his control. He pitched 51 innings, allowing only 36 hits, a mere 3 homers, and struck out 68 while walking only 11. His ERA was 1.23. That's dominance.

With the Indians in 2005, Cabrera struck out 29 in 30 innings and allowed only one homer, posting a 1.47 ERA.

However, in 2006 Cabrera faltered. Despite his struggles---5.19 ERA, 12 homers allowed in only 60 innings---Cabrera's stuff remained in tact, as evidenced by his 72 strikeouts. He walked 32 and gave up 53 hits.

Much of Cabrera's problems were at the beginning of the season, possibly stemming from his participation in the World Baseball Classic.

Cabrera has the stuff and track record to be a very dominant reliever, striking out well more than one batter per inning and giving up few hits. He walks too many, but has shown the ability to improve on that. Furthermore, he's only 24 years old.

Cabrera is the ideal candidate to bring in the above 8th-inning scenario. If the Indians are lucky, Cabrera could be the key cog in a much improved bullpen.

Building a Better Bullpen

2006-12-04T16:12:00.000-08:00

The Indians recently signed lefty Aaron Fultz to a one-year, $1.65 million contract, and righty Roberto Hernandez to a one-year deal worth $3.5 million. Both deals include club options for 2008. Reports are also that the Tribe is close to signing Joe Borowski to a one-year deal, with terms currently unknown.

None of these three guys are particularly good, although each has the chance to be pretty decent. However, the key is that every one of these deals is only for one year. When you don't have much money to spend, the best way to minimize your risks is by handing out short-term deals. That way, if the player falls off of the planet before pitching one inning, your losses are minimal, and you maintain enough flexibility to deal with problems that arise in the future.

The Indians' bullpen is a lot better with Borowski, Fultz, and Hernandez in the mix, although there is no guarantee that any of them will duplicate the success they've had recently.

The key for the Indians is regression to the mean...in a good way. Nearly everyone in their 2006 bullpen performed well below their capabilities and track records---especially Rafael Betancourt and Fernando Cabrera. Is it reasonable that both of these pitchers, especially Cabrera, will improve in 2007. Cabrera has a chance to be one of the best relievers in the AL. Furthermore, there are enough live arms in the group that includes Tony Sipp, Ed Mujica, Tom Mastny, Jason Davis, et al that a few of them will have solid years.

Last season a lot went wrong with the bullpen, but the group is a lot more talented than they showed. A little regression to the luck (and maybe even a little good luck, for a change?) and the Indians' bullpen could even be a relative strength in 2007.

David Dellucci and the joy of splits

2006-11-30T14:19:00.001-08:00

The Indians are about to sign outfielder David Dellucci to a contract, reported to be worth $11.5 million over three years. The deal is likely to be announced at the winter meetings once Dellucci passes a physical.

Dellucci, 32, is a left-handed hitting left fielder with a career line of .263/.348/.449, for a career OPS of 797. Dellucci has posted OPSs of 880 and 899 over the last two seasons with Texas and Philadelphia, hitting 42 homers in 699 at-bats (granted, in very homer-friendly parks) and posting OBPs of .367 and .369.

So what’s the catch? Why isn’t a hitter of Dellucci’s caliber getting a longer contract worth more money? Well, for one thing, Dellucci tends to hit a for a low batting average (.263 career), even though his OBP and SLG are stellar. More importantly, Dellucci has extreme platoon splits; in other words, he’s a MUCH better hitter against right-handed pitching than he is against lefties.

In 2006, when Dellucci had an OPS of 899, all but 20 of hit at-bats were against righties (incidentally, his OBP was .375 against righties, and .292 against lefties). In 2005, Dellucci had only 33 at-bats against lefties, and had a poor 706 OPS. From 2004-2006, Dellucci has 949 at-bats against righties, compared with 81 against lefties. His OPS is 875 against righties, but only 605 against lefties.

If only the Indians had another left fielder capable of hitting left-handed pitchers. He wouldn’t even have to be able to hit righties, Dellucci can take care of that. If only…

Jason Michaels’s 2006 season with the Indians looks pretty bad. Michaels posted a measly 717 OPS---bad for any hitter, but downright awful for a left fielder. However, this is misleading: Michaels was terrible against right-handed pitchers, managing only a .252/.312/.354 line, for an OPS of 666. However, against lefties Michaels hit .291/.341/.450, for an OPS of 799. The reason his overall OPS is only 717 is that Michaels had 305 at-bats against righties, while only 189 against lefties.

Furthermore, over the last three seasons, Michaels has an 829 OPS against lefties, including a .385 OBP (in 403 at-bats) and a 720 OPS against righties.

If used correctly, the combination of Jason Michaels (against lefties) and David Dellucci (against righties) in left-field is going to be a very productive hitter.

This got me thinking about platoon splits. The Indians have no set right fielder going into 2007 either. However, the candidates are fascinating, because of their platoon splits.

Shin-Soo Choo was solid in his debut with the Tribe. He seems to be a much better hitter against right-handed pitchers than against lefties. In the majors, his OPS was 836 against righties, as compared to 628 against lefties (granted, in only 18 at-bats). His minor league splits back this up further: in AAA Choo absolutely destroyed righties to the tune of .361/.433/.578 (that’s an OPS of 1.011, kids), while he struggled against lefties, batting only .192/.256/.218 (for an OPS of 474). Now that’s an extreme platoon split. If only there was another right-fielder Choo could platoon with…

Franklin Gutierrez’s 2006 season with Buffalo was encouraging, but not incredibly impressive. Gutierrez hit .278./.373/.433 with the Bisons, which is solid for a 23-year-old. He then stunk it up with the Indians in limited action. However, his platoon splits reveal something interesting: Gutierrez was much better against lefties than he was against righties. With Buffalo, Gutierrez hit .320/.413/.583 against righties (996 OPS) and only .269/.362/.378 against lefties (740 OPS).

Let’s review. Left-field candidates’ 3-year OPS splits:

Jason Michaels: 829 vs lefties, 720 vs righties

David Dellucci: 605 vs lefties, 875 vs righties

Right-field candidates’ 2006 AAA OPS splits (I cannot find more detailed minor league splits, unfortunately):

Shin-Soo Choo: 474 vs lefties, 1011 vs righties

Franklin Gutierrez: 996 vs lefties, 740 vs righties

A couple of caveats: 1) these numbers are taken from a fairly small sample size, especially Choo’s and Gutierrez’s, 2) past performance does not guarantee future success. Certainly helps, though.

It is likely that Casey Blake will get the majority of at-bats in right field. While this wouldn’t be a terrible thing, the Indians are better of letting Blake serve as a super-utility-man, playing right field, first base, and third base as needed, while letting Choo and Gutierrez split most of the at-bats in right field. Both Choo and Gutierrez are better outfielders than Blake, and their extreme success against either lefties or righties suggests that they could form a potent platoon.

The key now is for Eric Wedge to maximize his roster. I’m sure he’s well aware of these splits; he needs to manipulate game situations to benefit the Indians. If he is able to do this, and the four aforementioned players continue to have reasonable success as they have in the past, the Indians could have two very productive platoons to add to their already explosive lineup.

Analyzing Jeremy Sowers, Part III

2006-11-28T18:00:00.000-08:00

It is quite likely that you are at least skeptical of Voros McCracken’s DIPS theory (or perhaps you simply don’t believe it). Perhaps Sowers is simply an exception, assuming the theory is even true on the first place.

One theory put forth as a possible explanation of “exceptions” to the DIPS theory is that pitchers who strike a lot of batters out might also be able to get lots of weakly hit balls that are easily converted into outs. Whether or not this is true, it surely does not relate to Sowers. Sowers’s stuff is barely even average. His fastball sits around 88, and he lacks any plus-plus pitches. Furthermore, his strikeout rates reflect this---in an at-bat, Sowers is not overwhelming a hitter with his stuff.

Sowers struck out only 3.57 batters per nine innings, a figure that ranks him third-to-last in all of baseball. The only pitchers who struck out fewer batters were Carlos Silva (who had a 5.94 ERA, a walk rate much lower than Sowers’s, and generated 30% more ground balls than fly balls) and Chien-Ming Wang (who survived on his ability to generate 306% more ground balls than fly balls).

Okay, so Jeremy Sowers is not a power pitcher. If you’ve ever seen him pitch, you don’t need me to tell you this. Perhaps we can compare him to other “crafty” or “finesse” pitchers who seem to thrive on getting weakly-hit balls. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Jamie Moyer come to mind as pitchers that fit this mold. In fact, I’ve even heard Sowers compared to Glavine. Here are their BABIPs for the last three seasons:

Maddux: .261, .299, .290

Glavine: .284, .288, .318

Moyer: .268, .296, .327

Fairly random, and once again, all higher than Sowers’s BABIP. Furthermore, despite his reputation of being “crafty”, Tom Glavine has struck out 5.38 batters per nine innings. Glavine’s career BABIP-against is .282. Although he does seem to be good at controlling balls that are put in to play, his BABIP is still significantly higher than Sowers’s. Maddux’s career BABIP is .283. Moyer’s is .284. All are very good. All are much higher than Jeremy Sowers’s .256 with the Indians, or .263 with Buffalo.

So what do we make of a pitcher who doesn’t strike anyone out and gives up far fewer hits than we expect him to? In short, he was lucky. The sample size was small, and over a longer period of time regression to the mean would occur, and Sowers’s ERA would be a lot higher. This might indeed be the case.

However, Sowers’s track record is still short. ERA aside, his 2005 and 2006 were very different years: he was legitimately excellent in 2005, striking out many, walking few, and giving up few homers. In 2006, he also gave up few homers, but he didn’t strike out as many and walked more.

Sowers will certainly survive on his command and control (yes, these are different). He’s likely an exception to the general rule that power pitchers are the best kind of pitchers. However, his apparent ability to prevent balls in play from becoming hits is at least somewhat of a fluke. Thus, in order to maintain success going forward, he will need to preserve his ability to prevent homers, and increase his ability to strike batters out. If he is able to do this, he will likely be a very good #3 starter in the majors, a guy who you can expect to pitch 200 innings and maintain an ERA of around 4.00-4.50 (perhaps a little bit better if he can really improve his K-rate).

However, because much of his 2006 was attributable to luck, Sowers is a prime candidate for the infamous Sophomore Slump, which, in actuality, is regression to the mean. His long-term prognosis is excellent, but I fear that expectations are going to be unjustly high for 2007.

Analyzing Jeremy Sowers, Part II

2006-11-27T08:23:00.000-08:00

Before proceeding with my analysis of Jeremy Sowers, I would like to take a brief detour. One of the more interesting and controversial theories in sabermetrics was put forth by sabermetrician Voros McCracken. McCracken’s Defense Independent Pitchig Statistics (DIPS) theory suggests that “major-league pitchers don't appear to have the ability to prevent hits on balls in play.” In other words, pitchers can control whether they strike a batter out, walk a batter, or give up a home run; however, if the batter makes contact with the ball (but it remains in the park), the pitcher has no control over whether the batted ball becomes a hit or an out.

This makes sense intuitively on one level. How often do we see a hard-hit line-drive fall into a well-positioned fielder’s glove? How often do we see a weakly-hit blooper drop over the shortstop’s head? Surely there is some luck involved. However, to say that all pitchers do not have control over any batted balls does not make sense. Surely some pitchers can induce weakly-hit balls (which are then converted into outs) more often than other pitchers. Right?

Wrong. Pitchers are able to control strikeouts, walks, and home runs (as these tend to correlate strongly from one year to the next), but not hits allowed. McCracken suggests that the league average for BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is around .300, and any significant deviation from this figure is due mainly to luck. For individual pitchers, BABIP does not correlate from year-to-year. In other words, a pitcher’s BABIP in one season does not suggest or predict his BABIP next season.

McCracken’s theory has been written about a lot. The theory has also been tweaked a lot, but the general idea remains: pitchers cannot control whether balls in play become hits or outs.

With that theory out of the way, let’s continue with our evaluation of Sowers.

In 2005, Sowers was legitimately excellent. His overall K/BB ratio was an impressive 145/28 in 153 innings. He also gave up only 13 homers. In short, he did everything you hope a pitching prospect would do: he kept the ball in the yard, struck out almost one batter per inning, and walked virtually no one.

In 2006 Sowers’s ERA while at Buffalo was 1.39. No pitcher is this good, no matter who he is. Obviously, there was some luck involved to keep Sowers’s ERA at such a miniscule level. However, beyond that, Sowers’s indicators were very poor at Buffalo, especially in comparison to his stellar 2005 numbers.

Sowers struck out only 59 in 97 innings, a strikingly low figure of 4.99 strikeouts per nine innings. While this by itself is worrisome, Sowers’s excellent control seemingly worsened, leading to 29 walks (or 2.68 per nine innings). To his credit, he only gave up one home run, an excellent sign. So how did Sowers manage to post a 1.39 ERA? One thing really stands out: if you were going to get a hit against Sowers, it was going to be a single. Period. Opposing hitters slugged a paltry .287 against Sowers. For comparison’s sake, anemic-hitting Jason Tyner’s career slugging percentage is .315.

One of the reasons for this could be Sowers’s ability to generate ground balls. Pitchers who generate a lot of grounders (such as Chien-Ming Wang, Derek Lowe, Jake Westbrook, and Brandon Webb) tend to allow fewer extra-base hits, as ground balls cannot become homers, and rarely become anything other than singles. This might make sense, except for one little fact: Sowers is not a ground ball pitcher. In Buffalo, he allowed 156 ground balls and 137 fly balls. With the Indians, Sowers allowed more fly balls than ground balls.

Nonetheless, whether they were fly balls or ground balls, they weren’t finding holes when they were put in play. In Buffalo, Sowers’s BABIP was .263---meaning that 26.3% of the balls put into play became hits. That’s a low number, although not incredibly low. Let’s compare it to other starters on Buffalo; presumably they were playing in front of the same defense. Five other pitchers who started games for the Bisons (Rob Bell, Fausto Carmona, Jake Dittler, Jeremy Guthrie, and Jeremy Stanford) posted BABIPs of .284, .342, .321, .273 and .277, respectively. All higher than Sowers’s BABIP. Furthermore, the BABIP for all of the International League was .305.

To sum up: Sowers gave up an unusually low amount of hits; when he did give up hits, they were almost always singles. This is a good recipe for success; however, it does not suggest future success against better hitters at the major league level.

Sure enough, after giving up one homer to AAA hitters, Sowers surrendered 10 homers to MLB hitters in approximately the same amount of innings. His slugging-percentage-against rose to .392---still a low number, but much higher than he had given up at Buffalo. However, Sowers’s apparent ability to prevent balls in play from becoming hits persisted: his BABIP against was .256. The Indians’ defense was not good in 2006, witness the BABIPs of their other starters: .294, .322, .296, and .318 for Sabathia, Westbrook, Lee, and Byrd respectively.

Tomorrow I will finish my look at Jeremy Sowers by suggesting what this analysis means for the future. Was Sowers just REALLY lucky in 2006? Is he an exception to the DIPS “rule,” a la Tom Glavine or Jamie Moyer? (Hint: not even Glavine or Moyer are exceptions to the DIPS rule.)

Analyzing Jeremy Sowers, Part I

2006-11-26T17:17:00.000-08:00

It’s too bad that Daisuke Matsuzaka will be considered a “rookie” in 2007; otherwise, Indians pitcher Jeremy Sowers would be a shoo-in for the Rookie of the Year award. Right?

Well, Delmon Young notwithstanding, not so fast. While Sowers’s 2006 performance gives hope to a bright 2007, his underlying indicators suggest otherwise. I will do my best to analyze Sowers and assess his prospects for the future.

Jeremy Sowers was selected by the Indians as the #6 overall pick in the 2004 draft. At the time, Sowers was viewed as a polished pitcher whose ceiling was not necessarily that of a #1 or #2 starter, but who had an excellent chance of being a solid major league pitcher. Beyond that, Sowers was not expected to need much more seasoning in the minor leagues.

Sowers soon proved that he was nearly a finished product. His began his professional career at age 22 in 2005 at High-A ball in Kinston, where he made 13 starts. Sowers had a 2.78 ERA and 75/19 K/BB ratio in 71 innings, giving up only 5 homers and 60 hits. His performance soon earned him a promotion to AA Akron, where his dominance continued. Sowers again made 13 starts, this time posting a 2.08 ERA and 70/9 K/BB ratio in 82 innings, whilst allowing only 8 homers and 74 hits.

Expectations were justifiably high for Sowers as the 2006 season began. He started the year with AAA Buffalo. Sowers made 15 starts at Buffalo, and posted a ridiculous 1.39 ERA in 97 innings (he allowed only 15 runs!). Sowers struck out 54, walked 29, allowed only one home run and gave up only 78 hits. His performance (and Jason Johnson’s terrible pitching) enabled the Indians to promote him to the big leagues.

With Cleveland in 2006, Sowers made 14 starts and finished with a 3.57 ERA in 88 innings. He struck out 35, walked 20, and gave up 10 homers and 85 hits. After the all-star break, Sowers’s ERA was a phenomenal 2.72, the second-best in the AL during this span (behind Johan Santana).

Tomorrow I will look at the underlying indicators of Sowers's performance, which suggest that we can attribute much of his success in 2006 to luck.

Trades are a two-way street

2006-11-23T10:16:00.000-08:00

Most fantasy leagues have that one player who consistently makes annoying trade proposals. The trades are annoying because they’re always lopsided in his favor, but not blatantly so. Usually this type of deal involves him giving up three or four decent players in exchange for one superstar. The total production of the decent players may well exceed that of the star; nonetheless, it is still a lopsided deal which you would never accept.

Alas, these types of potential trades are not limited to fantasy baseball. Indeed, many fans---especially those of big market teams---like to believe that similar deals could occur in real life. Witness Mets fans consistently spouting the idea of packaging together spare parts that they don’t want (Lastings Milledge, Aaron Heilman, and a “prospect”) in hopes of obtaining Dontrelle Willis. Sorry, Mets fans: the Marlins can do a lot better if they want to trade Willis.

In this piece (cited by ESPN’s Buster Olney), the writer, John P Lopez, presents a logical, reasonable argument for why the Astros should not sign Carlos Lee. He illustrates a tough paradox that the Astros are facing: either they can choose not to sign Lee (probably a smart move) and continue to be called “cheap” or “not committed to the fans;” or they can sign Lee and likely waste a lot of money. This level of in depth thinking and recognition of the complication of issues is unusual for sports-writing.

However, Lopez then suggests that rather than sign Lee, the Astros should trade for Toronto’s Vernon Wells or Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford. He makes the same argument that Mets fans make: let’s piece together several admittedly-pretty-good players Lopez suggests Jason Hirsh, Adam Everett, and Chris Burke) and offer them in exchange for a superstar. After all, the guys we’re giving up are pretty good. Who cares if they will suit the needs of the team receiving them?

I will probably return to this point other times, as it’s a personal gripe of mine, but I will say it once and for all: if you want to trade for a star player, you’re going to have to give up a lot of talent. If you feel comfortable offering a package of three players for a star without hesitation, then chances are this is not even CLOSE to a good enough package. If you really want to pry a player like Vernon Wells or Carl Crawford loose from their teams, you’re going to have to give up so much talent that it hurts.

In order to receive Josh Beckett (and Mike Lowell, the “salary dump” who outperformed Beckett last year), the Red Sox gave up the 2006 NL Rookie of the Year, a rookie pitcher who threw a no-hitter, and another two prospects who struck out more than one batter per inning in the minors. Yes, this is an extreme example, considering how quickly the players the Marlins received became good (as well as how poorly Beckett pitched). However, this is the type of trade “big-market” teams are going to have to expect to make if they want to get stars from small-market teams---especially if those stars aren’t too expensive (this is especially true in the case of Carl Crawford---his contract is affordable by anyone’s standards, even Tampa Bay’s. They have no NEED to trade him).

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing for your team; after all, to get good players you have to give up good players. But you cannot hope to throw together several “pretty-good” players and hope it’s enough to get you one star player. Just like in fantasy baseball, trades don’t work like that.

Matsuzaka Math

2006-11-22T17:51:00.000-08:00

The Boston Red Sox spent more money for the right to try to sign Daisuke Matsuzaka than the Royals, Pirates, Rockies, Devil Rays, and Marlins spent on their entire 25-man rosters in 2006.

Furthermore, Matsuzaka himself has not received one cent of the money; his agent, Scott Boras, will seek to extract every nickel from the Red Sox’s already-depleted pockets.

How can this possibly work out well for the Red Sox? I would argue that winning the rights to Matsuzaka---even at such an exorbitant sum of money---is a smart decision for the Red Sox. Here’s why.

Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the Red Sox sign Matsuzaka to a contract. Both the Sox front office and Scott Boras (and, by extension, Matsuzaka himself) have too much to lose by simply walking away. While both sides could potentially have a lot of leverage should they choose to play hard-ball, it is unlikely that Matsuzaka will return to Japan next season. Thus, the sides will come to a reasonable (if you can call salaries in baseball “reasonable”) deal before their deadline.

As such, it’s likely that, when all is said and done, the Red Sox will end up spending around $100 million on Matsuzaka, including the posting fee and his contract, which likely will be for no longer than 5 years. How can this possibly make sense?

First of all, there is the baseball aspect of this deal. From all accounts, Matsuzaka is one of the “best 5-10 pitchers on the planet” according to Keith Law. A conservative estimation is that Matsuzaka would rank amongst the top dozen American League starters (Kenny Rogers and Nate Robertson tied for 11^th best AL ERAs in 2006, with a 3.94 figure). However, it’s much more likely, as evidenced HERE, that Matsuzaka will be better than that. His 2005 Japanese League statistics were translated into their Major League equivalents by more than one person, and each came up with approximately a 3.40 ERA (see THIS and THIS). That would have ranked fourth in the AL, behind CC Sabathia and ahead of Mike Mussina.

Matsuzaka is likely to be a legitimate #1 starter---a workhorse who will post one of the best ERAs in the league. He will complement the Red Sox’s staff perfectly. With Matsuzaka anchoring the rotation, every other starter will move back one slot. Curt Schilling is a solid #2 starter; Jonathan Papelbon, if healthy, is likely to be an excellent #3; Josh Beckett will probably at least be a solid #4; Tim Wakefield is a serviceable #5. The Red Sox’s rotation, previously a question mark, will have morphed into a legitimate strength, with the potential of being the best staff in the AL.

Furthermore, Matsuzaka is only 26 years old. While his arm has already logged many innings in Japan (apparently, rumors of his 250-pitch complete game as an 18-year-old are true), he has also never broken down. Additionally, scouts are confident that his body-type and work-ethic will allow him to maintain his health, at least for the foreseeable future.

While is seems likely that Matsuzaka will be an excellent starter for at least the next couple of seasons, it still seems unreasonable for the Red Sox (or any team) to spend $100 million on him, especially considering his contract is unlikely to be longer than 5 years. Think about this: if Johan Santana were a free agent, what kind of contract would he expect to receive? Johan has a career 3.20 ERA in over 1,080 innings. He’s struck out more than one batter per inning in his career. He’s won two Cy Young Awards, and should have won a third. He has no injury concerns, and is only 27 years old. Would anyone give Johan a 5-year contract for $100 million? Maybe, maybe not. And Johan is indisputably the best pitcher on the planet (and is a good bet to remain so in the near future).

Thus, if the best pitcher in the world might not receive the same contract that Daisuke Matsuzaka will likely receive, how can the Matsuzaka contract make sense?

Firstly, let’s get one thing straight: the Red Sox are rich. They can cry about the “Evil Empire” as much as they want, and they certainly cannot spend like Steinbrenner’s Yankees, but they are rich. Beyond being rich, however, they are vastly flawed. Their 2006 season was a disappointment, no question, but the Red Sox were not even as good as their 86 wins suggest. Their third-order adjusted standings http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php suggest that the 2006 Red Sox were “truly” only an 82-win team. Certainly there was bad luck involved---mostly of the injury-related sort---but nonetheless, the Red Sox are very flawed going in 2007 (especially considering the relative strength of the AL in general). However, they lack in any significant bargaining chips (Manny Ramirez is another story) with which to improve themselves via trade. Thus, they must turn to the free agent market. In addition to prices being wildly out of control, there are very few, if any, worthwhile players on the market at just about any price. Forget his $17 million salary---would even a reasonably priced Alfonso Soriano fix the Sox’s problems?

In other words, the only way for the Sox to improve their team going forward is in the free agent market; however, money aside, there are few (if any) logical pieces for them to add. Furthermore, if they’re going to add anyone, they’re going to have to overpay, because of the state of the market. Thus, it becomes apparent that it makes a lot of sense for the Red Sox to guarantee themselves the rights to Matsuzaka. The reason is twofold: A) The Red Sox have to do something, and their only real options are free agents, and B) They’re going to overpay for whomever they get. Thus, for a rich team like the Red Sox, it makes sense that if you’re going to overpay, you might as well get the absolute best available. The marginal increase in dollars spent from an Alfonso Soriano to a Daisuke Matsuzaka is more than made up for by how much each would help the team. Not spending money isn’t an option for the Sox; thus, might as well get the one player on the market who would significantly improve the team.

But wait, there’s more. Matsuzaka is the first Japanese star the Red Sox will have. As such, he will open a revenue stream that was previously unavailable to the Sox. Having a Japanese star will virtually guarantee that every one of Matsuzaka’s starts will be broadcast in Japan, letting the Red Sox generate new revenue from the selling of Japanese advertising. Furthermore, they will expand their market for Red Sox merchandise, as well as increase demand for Red Sox tickets (not that demand was lacking beforehand). All of these are measurable increases in money, of which I’m sure the Red Sox are well aware of the specific projections.

However, what cannot be calculated in dollars is the Red Sox staking their claim in Japan. The Sox, a very progressive and smart organization, will likely use this signing as a way of expanding their entire organization into Asia. They will create many more Red Sox fans and will greatly improve their prospects of landing future Japanese imports. Furthermore, they (correctly) recognize that the game is shifting more and more to the Asian market in general. They want to be at the forefront of this, and the Matsuzaka signing not only symbolically represents this---it also gives the Sox a decided leg-up on the competition in the future.

Oh, and also: they didn’t want the Yankees to sign him.

If Josh Barfield plays poorly, will he earn the nickname "J-Barf"?

2006-11-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

Back on November 8, the Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres made an interesting trade. The Indians sent 3B/1B Kevin Kouzmanoff and reliever Andrew Brown to the Padres in exchange for 2B Josh Barfield. Let’s break down this deal.

THE PLAYERS:

Josh Barfield was drafted out of high school in Texas. He is now 6 feet, 185 pounds. Son of former major leaguer Jesse Barfield, Josh spent 2006 as the Padres regular second baseman, accumulating 539 at-bats over 150 games. Barfield’s line of .280/.318/.423 was solid by any standard, especially for a rookie who played half of his games in PetCo Park. His home/road splits illustrate just how tough a park it is for hitters; Barfield hit .241/.279/.361 at home, but .319/.355/.484 on the road (keep in mind, the NL West has two other parks that are tough on hitters: San Francisco and Los Angeles. Furthermore, Coors Field was not its normal hitter’s haven in 2006). Barfield also hit 13 homers and stole 21 bases in 26 attempts.

Barfield’s line in 2006 is exactly what we would have guessed his rookie season would look like, judging by his minor league number. At AAA in 2005 he hit .310/.370/.450 with 15 homers and 20 steals (in 25 attempts). Thus, while Barfield has only one season’s worth of a “track record” at the major league level, his minor league statistics suggest that 2006 was well within his abilities as a hitter.

Defensively, Barfield used to have the reputation as a rather mediocre defender. However, most reports I’ve read seem to indicate that Barfield has made strides recently, and is now at least average, perhaps slightly above average. He possesses good athleticism and decent range, as well as an excellent arm.

Barfield’s plate discipline has never been a strong suit: last season he struck out 81 times while walking only 30 times. In 2005 in AAA his K/BB ratio was 108/52. However, he’s shown the ability to hit for solid average in the minors---despite being young for his league at every stop along the way, Barfield’s career minor league batting average is exactly .300. While batting average is a fairly volatile and luck-based statistic, Barfield has shown a consistent ability to hit for an above-average batting average.

Kevin Kouzmanoff put up some incredible statistics in 2006 in the minor leagues. However, he it will be tough for him to overcome his legacy of being the first person ever to hit a grand slam on the very first pitch he saw in the major leagues (not that this is something he’d like to forget).

Kouzmanoff, currently 25 years old, was drafted by the Indians in 2003, and he has done nothing but hit since joining the Indians’ organization. When healthy, that is. Various ailments---usually having to do with his back---limited him to 68 games in 2005 and 110 games in 2006. In 2006, Kouzmanoff started the season in AA Akron, where he hit .389/.449/.660 (in a pitcher’s league no less!), earning a promotion to AAA Buffalo. In Buffalo, Kouzmanoff continued raking to the tune of .353/.409/.647. He accumulated 22 homers and 28 doubles in a mere 346 at-bats between the two levels, and had a K/BB ratio of 46/33.

After making an excellent first impression on the very first pitch he saw, Kouzmanoff slumped to .214/.279/.411 in 56 at-bats with the Tribe, and had a recurrence of some of his back issues which cut into his playing time. Kouzmanoff is a third baseman by trade, although the Indians tried him out at first base during the Arizona Fall League this year. According to reports, Kouzmanoff is a decent third baseman, but perhaps not a long-term 3B, and certainly not an above-average defender (some say he’s actually well below average at the hot corner). Although he has hit at every stop in the organization (his career minor league line, in over 1500 at-bats, is .333/.396/.561), he’s also been old for his league at every stop as well.

Andrew Brown has appeared in nine major league games in his career, but has been traded for a major leaguer three times. The Atlanta Braves drafted Brown in 1999 out of high school in Florida. Brown has had injury concerns throughout his career---after appearing in 42 innings as an 18-year-old, he had surgery and missed the entire 2000 season before returning for 62 innings in 2001. The Braves then included him, along with Brian Jordan and Odalis Perez, in a package to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for slugger Gary Sheffield.

Brown made 11 starts as a 21-year-old for the Dodgers in 2002, striking out more than a better an inning, but posting a 4.11 ERA due to walking 4.4 batters per nine innings. However, he once again injured himself, and missed the entire 2003 season (well, he pitched one inning). Paul DePodesta’s Dodgers then included him, along with Franklin Gutierrez, in the deal with Cleveland which sent Milton Bradley to Los Angeles.

Brown spent 2004 as a 23-year-old in AA with Los Angeles and Cleveland. He continued to strike out a lot of batters---125 Ks in 117 innings---but he still walked too many (50) and was surprisingly hittable, leading to ERAs of 4.66 and 4.02.

In 2005 the Indians decided to shift Brown to the bullpen, in order to maximize his value and curtail any future injuries. The result seemed promising: Brown stayed healthy, and had an excellent 81/19 K/BB ratio in 69 innings for AAA Buffalo. His ERA dropped to 3.36.

In 2006, Brown repeated Buffalo, with interesting results. He once again managed to stay healthy, and his ERA dipped all the way down to 2.60. However, his K/BB ratio sunk to 53/36 in 62 innings.

Brown, at 6 feet 6 inches and 230 pounds is an intimidating figure on the mound. For most of his career his fastball came in around 97-98 MPH. However, in 2006 his velocity was down to 94, and his control issues returned.

WHY IT’S A GOOD DEAL FOR CLEVELAND:

The Indians were able to address a gaping hole in their lineup without giving up anyone who figured into their 2007 (or later) plans. Josh Barfield is not only a credible everyday second baseman (with upside well beyond that), but he’s also going to make the minimum salary for another two years, and will not become a free agent for another five years. Cheap players are great; cheap players who are productive are the key to a small market team’s success.

If Barfield mirrors his 2006 statistics he will be an almost-exact replica of Ronnie Belliard during his tenure with the Tribe. However, Barfield is 23, has a track record of success in the minor leagues, and spent 2006 playing half of his games in a hitter’s wasteland. While a sophomore slump (which is just a layman’s term for “regression to the mean”) is not out of the question, Barfield is likely to maintain his production, and has a significant chance of improving.

Furthermore, while Brown and Kouzmanoff could very well end up being good players, neither was going to get a chance to play in Cleveland. Kouzmanoff was behind Andy Marte on the 3B depth chart and Ryan Garko on the 1B depth chart---he had more value in a trade than he did to the Indians. The Indians had soured on Brown due to his loss of command and decrease in velocity; plus, Brown was out of options and unlikely to make the team. Rather than risk losing him for nothing (a la Brandon Phillips), the Indians decided to get some value out of him by trading him.

WHY IT’S A GOOD DEAL FOR SAN DIEGO:

The Padres addressed a significant need of their own: third base. Kouzmanoff has proven that he is a legitimate hitter. While he does have decent home run power, he has excellent gap power, a quality which will suit him well in spacious PetCo. The Padres consistently have excellent bullpens, and obtaining guys like Andrew Brown is the exact reason why. For all of his faults, Brown’s upside is significant: it is reasonable to project him as a very solid 7^th or 8^th-inning reliever in the near future. If you collect several guys like Brown, chances are one or two of them will pan out.

However, by filling their void at third base, the Padres have created another at second. While there are several decent veteran fillers on the market (Mark Loretta, Ronnie Belliard, Adam Kennedy), I have to wonder if the downgrade from Barfield to any of the aforementioned veterans will be offset by the upgrade from Russell Branyan to Kevin Kouzmanoff at third base. Yes, Kouz has hit at every level, but he’s not a very good third baseman, and has lingering injury concerns. Furthermore, much of his value is against left-handed pitchers (whom he CRUSHED in 2006, hitting .436 against them in AA and a ridiculous .500 in AAA), and he is far less proven (and is also older) than Josh Barfield.

CONCLUSION:

Overall, it’s a good deal for both teams. However, there are many more questions as to the Padres’ motivation than the Indians’. In the end, though, I remember something I read in an interview with Atlanta Braves GM John Schuerholz.

“My view [on trades] is that when you make a deal, the most important thing is to make your team better. The next most important thing is to make the other team better...because if you do that often enough, there's going to be a lot of guys lined up to do a deal with you.”

No Morneau!

2006-11-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

If you read any relatively enlightened baseball analysts---such as ESPN's Rob Neyer or Keith Law, or Rotoworld---you will probably have heard the arguments as to why Justin Morneau is such a poor choice for the AL MVP.

And, needless to say, I agree. My argument for why this is so would not differ much from any of the aforementioned people's argument. He was the third best player on his own team, let alone less of a valuable commodity than many other AL players.

The question is, should we even care anymore? Many people fret about these awards, even though they really do not mean much---players would probably gladly trade them for team achievements, and they have no lasting impact on much of anything. Yet, personally I always hope the "best" candidate wins, or at least one of the best (Albert Pujols was a more deserving candidate than Ryan Howard, but at least Howard was fairly deserving too).

I think Rob Neyer said it best in his ESPN chat today: "The up-side is that there's clearly still plenty of room in my business for young men who enjoy facts."

Whenever I get discouraged because I think baseball has evolved enough that people with my viewpoint are already very prevalent, I can remember that Justin Morneau was voted as the 2006 American League MVP.

Juan and only

2006-11-20T17:57:00.001-08:00

What do Luke Scott, Josh Bard, Mark Teahen, Josh Willingham, Rich Aurilia, Esteban German, Kenny Lofton, Wes Helms, Chris Duncan, Jose Valentin, David DeJesus, David Ross, Brandon Phillips, Mark DeRosa, Casey Blake, Greg Norton, Emil Brown, Ty Wigginton, Marcus Thames, Ryan Theriot, Andre Eithier, Aaron Hill, Ryan Church, Jose Lopez, Jamey Carroll, Stephen Drew, and Mark Grudzielanek all have in common?

They are part of the group of 141 major league baseball players who had a higher VORP in 2006 than Juan Pierre (and keep in mind that VORP takes into consideration at-bats).

You might think that this is a fluke. Perhaps Pierre had an unusually poor season. Let’s see.

First of all, he was playing for the Chicago Cubs, who play in a pretty good hitter’s park. He hit .292/.330/.388, stole 58 bases and was successful in 74% of his base-stealing attempts. His career line is .303/.350/.377, with a SB success rate of 73.6%. It would appear that Juan Pierre, in 2006, had a very Juan Pierre-like season.

Thus, the Los Angeles Dodgers have decided that the approximately 142^nd-best player in major league baseball is worth $45 million to them over 5 years. Pierre is going to be 30 years old in August. Accordingly, not only is he unlikely to improve, he’s also likely to begin his decline during the contract. His 2004 line of .327/.374/.407 is looking more and more like a career year. Furthermore, he will be going from Wrigley to Dodger Stadium, which will not help his batting average. Without a solid batting average, Pierre is an even worse player, considering he doesn’t walk much and has zero power. Pierre is generally considered an average defender in center, nothing special, but nothing wrong with him either. Will this still be the case three or four years into his contract?

After losing JD Drew, the Dodgers have, in essence, “replaced” his contributions to the team with Juan Pierre, a FAR inferior player, for a similar cost (and more years). For those wondering, Drew was 59^th in VORP in 2006.

It remains to be seen whether the strong farm system that Ned Colletti inherited (thanks to Logan White) and solid core of players including Brad Penny, Derek Lowe (thanks to Paul DePodesta) will catapult the Dodgers into success, or whether Colletti’s valiant attempts at dragging them down into mediocrity will overcome their surplus of excellent young players.

Desperation is a poor quality for a decision-maker

2006-11-19T16:15:00.001-08:00

Desperation can cause men to make some crazy decisions.

Witness the case of Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry.

For all intensive purposes, if the Cubs do not succeed in 2007, Hendry will likely be jobless. Thus, his thought process has less to do with the overall success of the franchise in the long-term, and more to do with making sure the team is competitive in 2007. This is no small task, considering his Cubs won a mere 66 games in the weakest division in baseball.

Alfonso Soriano, while certainly a good baseball player, is also an incredibly overrated player. I will give credit where it’s due: in 2006, playing in an extreme pitcher’s park, Soriano was incredible. He had a career high in homers (46), walks (67), OBP (.351) and SLG (.560). He stole 41 bases (although was caught 17 times), and played an acceptable left field (but don’t let the outfield assists fool you---everyone was testing him, so it makes sense for him to accumulate a lot of assists).

However, one season does not a player make. Soriano is 30 years old, in the middle of his prime, and unlikely to improve much more. He is, however, likely to decline with age. Furthermore, 2006 has all of the makings of a career year. His career OBP is a lowly .325. With Texas in 2004 and 2005, he was downright abysmal away from Arlington, posting a line of .224/.265/.374 in 2005. Lest you think this was a fluke, his 2004 road numbers are very similar: .244/.291/.444.

Thus, not considering the length of the contract, Soriano is unlikely to be that good even while he remains in his prime. Plus, when you consider the fact that he will be under contract, at $17 mil per season, for eight seasons…well, it makes you glad that you’re not a fan of the Lovable Losers.

On the plus side for the Cubs, it looks as if they intend on making Soriano a center fielder. Assuming he can do an adequate job, this will maximize his value, as it is a lot harder to find solid-hitting center fielders than it is to find solid-hitting corner outfielders. However, if the Cubs decide that Soriano is better suited to left, he will doubly hurt them, as he will likely take at-bats away from the underrated Matt Murton.

The Cubs will have a formidable lineup in 2007, and it’s not like they’re a poor team financially. They should at least contend, which is not saying much considering the weakness of the division. However, given the Cubs’ financial might, it seems that they could have improved themselves just as much (if not more) than by taking the huge financial risk of signing Alfonso Soriano.

Especially since he’s really not that good in the first place.

I'm back, and ready to write!

2006-11-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

After a brief (okay, prolonged) absence, I am back and hoping to update this blog fairly regularly now. Luckily for me, it looks as if baseball is going to give me a lot to discuss and dissect, in addition to the multitude of moves that have already occurred during this off-season.

I hope to take an in-depth look at the Cleveland Indians, my favorite team, but I am more of a BASEBALL fan than a CLEVELAND fan. As such, I will often detour to discuss recent transactions made by other teams, or other random thoughts, anecdotes, and ideas that enter in to my head.

As you will likely see upon reading my ramblings, I take a very sabermetric approach to my studies of baseball. This is not to say that I believe statistics are the be-all and end-all of baseball analysis---they're absolutely not. I'm sure that one of my later entries will revolve around my frustration about the misinterpretation of the sabermetric Bible, "Moneyball," as well as the portrayal that sabermetric geeks like myself often receive (I have no problem with the term "geek"---I most certainly am one---but my beliefs about and attitudes towards baseball are often misrepresented.)

As a final note to my new "first entry" (the only reason I did not create a new blog is because I could not think of an appropriately clever name that is better than "Tribe Scribe"---I'm sure in time I will do so, and then I will likely create a new blog. Suggestions are welcomed.), I would like to give you some details of my background. As there is no way for me to "prove" these details, I will take a page out of Jack Bauer's book and say that you're just going to have to trust me.

I am currently a college student, studying at Tufts University and currently spending a year abroad in London. I have worked and interned for the Cleveland Indians and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, although not (yet) in a baseball operations department. At Tufts, I founded the nation's first (we think) baseball-analysis club, called BAT (Baseball Analysis at Tufts, clever name I know). In our first year, we brought in such speakers as New York Times columnist and Baseball America writer (and ESPN contributor) Alan Schwarz; Boston sportswriters Chris Snow, Gordon Edes, and John Tomase; ESPN contributor and Providence Journal reporter Sean McAdam, and more. We also we fortunate enough to have the god-father of (and the man who coined the term) sabermetrics, Bill James, come to Tufts as well.

I, along with a fellow Tufts student, conducted a research project about then-Braves and current-Orioles pitching coach Leo Mazzone, investigating whether or not his reputation as a premier pitching coach was justified. The short version of our findings (which were highlighted later in the New York Times) is that indeed Mazzone significantly improved Braves’ pitchers during his tenure with Atlanta (lest you think his brilliance has more to do with having quality pitchers and less to do with his teachings, we adjusted for age of pitchers, and compared pitchers only to themselves, thereby negating any advantage Mazzone might have had for working with top-flight pitchers such as Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine). We conducted the same analysis on other pitching coaches with similar reputations---Johnny Sain (Mazzone’s teacher), Dave Duncan, Mel Stottlemyre, and Rick Peterson. Interestingly, none of these man’s performance was even close to that of Mazzone’s, and only Stottlemyre could boast even a small improvement for his pitchers.

I was also fortunate enough to present our findings at the 2005 SABR Convention in Toronto, where I met such “celebrities” as Bill James, Rob Neyer, and Gary Gillette. If you are interested in reading more about, please click here or here.

I hope you enjoy my blog, and please feel free to leave comments or e-mail me, at peterabendix@gmail.com.

2005's "true" White Sox and Indians

2006-01-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

In 2005, the Chicago White Sox won the Central Division and the World Series. The Cleveland Indians failed to even make the playoffs. But were the Indians the better team?

At face value, the answer is no. Baseball is about winning games and eventually winning championships. The White Sox won more games than the Indians, and won the championship. They were the better team.

However, available evidence indicates that baseball teams have the ability to score runs and prevent runs; they do not have the ability to win games. Winning (and losing) stems from scoring and preventing runs---no team inherently possesses the ability to win close games (I'm sure I will be receiving a counter-argument from Ozzie Guillen any day now...).

The "Pythagorean theorem of baseball" (so named because it contains several squared terms) predicts a team's wins and losses based on its runs scored and runs allowed. There are deviations from this predicted record, but the theorem remains true on a large scale, and all available evidence indicates that there are no factors other than luck that cause a team to under-perform or over-perform their projected record.

In 2005, the White Sox scored 741 runs and allowed 645. The Indians scored 790 and allowed 642. That's right: the Indians were better at scoring runs, and the two teams were basically even at preventing runs. The White Sox's Pythagorean projected record was 91-71; the Indians' was 96-66.

But wait, there's more. Sometimes actual runs scored and runs allowed are not indicative of a team's ability to score or prevent runs. For example, some teams hit an unluckily high amount of solo home runs based on how many base runners the team had. This results in a lower amount of runs scored than normal. Also, sometimes pitchers can be lucky or unlucky in a similar way.

Baseball Prospectus accounts for these other elements of luck with "Third Order Pythagorean" standings. Once these adjustments are made, here are the projected 2005 standings:

Chicago White Sox 87-75
Cleveland Indians 98-64

Basically, in 2005 the White Sox were incredibly lucky, and the Indians were unlucky.

What does this mean? Obviously, it changes absolutely nothing for 2005---the White Sox are still World Champions, and the Indians still failed to make the playoffs.

What it does change is 2006 projections. Statistical variation (luck) tends to regress to the mean. If you are particularly lucky one season, chances are you will not be as lucky next year. The White Sox's 99 wins (and the Indians' 93 wins) did not represent the true of abilities of their 2005 teams. In other words, if you play the season over again, with the same players producing the same results, Chicago will not be as lucky, and Cleveland will not be as unlucky. The 2005 Indians had a true ability of 98 wins, not 93 wins. The 2005 White Sox had a true ability of 87 wins, not 99 wins.

As I said, this changes nothing for 2005, but does alter projections for 2006. Because the White Sox's "true" ability was 87 wins in 2005, 87 should be the base from which we judge improvements or downgrades. Furthermore, the Indians' base should be 98 wins.

The 2005 White Sox were baseball luckiest team. This luck will not continue.

Is Jake Westbrook the Indians' best starter?

2006-01-08T23:50:00.000-08:00

Indians righty Jake Westbrook is an interesting case study in how much luck factors into a pitcher’s season. For all practical purposes, Westbrook’s 2004 and 2005 lines were identical. Westbrook faced the exact same amount of batters each season, gave up the exact same amount of homers, walked three less in 2005 and struck out five more. That’s as identical as two seasons can be. Yet his 2004 ERA was 3.38, while his 2005 ERA was 4.49. He gave up a ton of groundballs each season. Even his batting average per ball in play (BABIP)---much of which is out of the pitcher’s control---was very similar (.276 in 2004 versus .290 in 2005). What did Jake do differently?

For all intensive purposes, Jake himself did nothing differently. His “skills” (homers, walks, strikeouts) were exactly the same. Let’s look further at some of the factors that Jake cannot control.

**Defense: The Indians ranked third in baseball in defensive efficiency. Ronnie Belliard and Jhonny Peralta were among the best at their positions defensively, and Aaron Boone was above average. Ben Broussard was merely average. Overall, the Indians were excellent defensively, especially on the infield. Thus, Westbrook’s higher BABIP is strange.

**Line Drive Percentage: Westbrook ranked 11^th out of 44 qualifying AL starters in lowest line drive percentage (line drives tend to fall for hits more often than regular batted balls). Hitters do not often hit line drives off of Westbrook; this furthers the idea that Westbrook’s amount of hits given up in 2005 is abnormally high.

**Homers per fly ball: Westbrook was the worst of the 44 qualifying AL starters in homer per fly ball ratio (this ratio is park adjusted). 19% of the fly balls that Westbrook allowed (and remember, Jake allowed the fewest fly balls per ground ball of any pitcher in the AL) became homers. This is an extremely high percentage---research has shown that pitchers average an 11% HR/FB ratio, and any deviation is mostly attributable to luck.

**Left-on-base percentage: Westbrook was third worst in LOB%, which measures the percentage of base runners who come around to score. A mere 62.9% of Westbrook’s base runners failed to score (for comparison, both Cliff Lee and Scott Elarton stranded 72% of their base runners, while Kevin Millwood ranked 2^nd in the AL, stranding 79% of his runners).

All of these factors played a large role in Westbrook’s higher 2005 ERA. If we delve even further into Westbrook’s stats, we see that he was the anti-Kevin Millwood in terms of “clutch pitching.” Overall, opposing batters hit .265 against Westbrook. However, with runners on base, batters hit .298 against him. Furthermore, although Westbrook had 130 fewer at-bats against him with runners on base, Westbrook allowed 11 of his 19 homers to occur when runners were on base. With runners in scoring position, batters hit .304 against him. With a runner at third base, the opposition hit an absurd .542. Opposing batters hit .360 with runners at first and third, .353 with the bases loaded, and a crippling .333 with runners in scoring position and two outs. In 2004, opposing batters hit .255 overall against Westbrook, but a mere .233 with runners in scoring position and .200 with runners in scoring position and two outs.

Westbrook is just now entering his prime. We can reasonably expect similar IP, BB, and K in 2006. However, we can also expect less home runs, less hits, and less of the runners who do get on base scoring. These are three very important factors that influence ERA, and Westbrook got very unlucky in all three facets in 2005. Furthermore, we can expect a regression to the mean in terms of batting average in clutch situations as well as the amount of homers that occur with runners on base. Thus, although a return to the 3.38 ERA of 2004 is unlikely, Westbrook has a very good chance of bettering his 2005 ERA, perhaps by a fair amount.

Jeremy vs Jeremy

2006-01-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

Indians lefty Jeremy Sowers looks like the real deal. Sowers, the Indians’ first-round pick out of Vanderbilt, began his professional career at high-A Kinston. In 72 innings, Sowers had a 2.78 ERA and a 75/19 strikeout/walk ratio. He also induced 1.65 groundballs per flyball, an excellent amount.

Sowers earned a promotion to AA Akron, where he pitched 82 innings. With the Aeros, Sowers had a 2.08 ERA and a 70/9 K/BB ratio. He induced 1.38 groundballs per flyball---not as good as at Kinston, but still very good.

Sowers looks like he can be a solid #3 starter at the major league level, and he looks to be ready perhaps by mid-2006. But then again, wasn’t the same thing said about another Indians prospect named Jeremy a couple of years ago?

Jeremy Guthrie was the Indians’ first-round pick out of Stanford in 2002. Guthrie, like Sowers, was drafted out of college more for his polish than his ceiling (in other words, the Indians understood that they probably didn’t have an ace, but they thought they had a guy who was not far from being a #3-4 starter in the big leagues).

Guthrie, like Sowers, dominated AA Akron in his first professional season. In 62 innings with the Aeros in 2003, Guthrie had a 1.44 ERA and a 35/14 K/BB ratio. In hindsight, Guthrie’s miniscule strikeout-per-inning-pitched ratio (5.03 K/9) should have been a warning sign, but many (including myself) lauded over the excellent ERA.

Guthrie was promoted to AAA, where he pitched 96 innings. Guthrie stumbled at Buffalo, posting a 6.52 ERA and a 62/30 ratio. Despite his poor performance, many were still high on Guthrie---feeling about Guthrie the way many today feel about Sowers. However, despite sharing a first name, there are telling differences between the Jeremys.

First of all, Guthrie is older than Sowers; Guthrie completed a Mormon-mission before going to college, so Guthrie (24) was older than Sowers (22) when the Indians drafted him. Age is a huge component of minor league development, as a younger player has more time to develop and improve. Secondly, Sowers has struck out more batters per nine than Guthrie at every level. Furthermore, Sowers’ K/BB ratio is a lot better than Guthrie’s ever was (strikeouts per nine and strikeouts per walk are both excellent indicators of future ability for minor league pitchers, even more so than ERA). Finally, Sowers induces a lot more groundballs than Guthrie, meaning that Sowers is a lot less likely to give up homers or extra-base hits.

Overall, Jeremy Sowers and Jeremy Guthrie may look similar on the surface, but once we look deeper, we realize that Sowers is for real, while Guthrie never was.

Coco Crisp: more than just a name

2006-01-06T23:28:00.000-08:00

Coco Crisp has had to prove himself at every level. Scouts have never particularly liked him, and his minor league statistics have not been very worthy (not to mention having such a silly-sounding name). Coco was included as the “Player to be Named Later” in the Indians’ trade of Chuck Finley to St Louis (the main “prize” of the trade was Luis Garcia, who I believe is now out of baseball).

Coco hit .301/.365/.428 at age 23 for AA New Haven before he was traded to Cleveland in 2002. Coco’s draw was his speed, as he stole 26 bases (and was caught 10 times). He managed only nine homers---but more disturbingly, he tallied only 16 doubles and one triple. Crisp profiled as a fourth outfielder/pinch runner, at best.

He proceeded to hit .360/.434/.511 in 56 games at AAA Buffalo in 2003. He also stole 20 bases. However, again Coco had only one homer, 19 doubles, and 6 triples. Still, those were very solid offensive numbers, especially for a 24-year-old. Crisp benefited from the Indians’ rebuilding effort, and was called up to the majors. Many believed that Coco’s offensive numbers in AAA were a fluke, and that he still didn’t profile as a regular in the big leagues.

Coco did look overmatched in 99 games, hitting .266/.302/.353, and adding 15 steals. He showed some flashes of being a decent leadoff hitter, and the Indians didn’t have any better outfield options at the time (especially after Milton Bradley was traded). The Indians still viewed him as trade-bait or a 4^th outfielder.

In 2004, the Indians gave Alex Escobar and Jody Gerut the chance to win the center field job. Escobar was terrible, and in May the Indians sent him to AAA, moved Gerut to right, and stuck Crisp in center. Coco continued proving his doubters wrong. He put together a fine season, hitting .297/.344/.446 with 20 steals. However, Coco added a new twist to his skills: he belted 15 homers and 21 doubles.

Even with his fine performance in 2004, many still weren’t sold on Coco as a true every day player. Scouts and fans alike continued to expect Coco to slide into mediocrity, eventually settling in as a 4^th outfielder. As many of you certainly know, Crisp had another excellent season in 2005, coupling stellar defense with a .300/.345/.465 offensive season. He ran less, but was more successful, stealing 15 bases while being caught six times (still far too many caught stealing, though). Crisp hit another 16 homers---the most he’d ever hit at any level. However, in 2005, Crisp belted 42 doubles---18 more than the previous year---while keeping all of his other offensive numbers intact.

Coco has developed surprising power in addition to his batting skills and speed. His dramatic increase in doubles bodes extremely well for his 2006 season, as with his continued maturity and improvement (Crisp is still just 26 and hasn’t yet reached his prime), a lot of those doubles will turn into homers. It is very reasonable to expect 20-25 home runs from Coco in 2006.

The one caveat with Coco is his on-base skills. Throughout his career, Coco has usually hit for a high average, but has not walked that often. This is not a problem, so long as Coco’s batting average remains as high as it has been the last two seasons. While this is certainly likely, batting averages are prone to fluctuate a lot due to luck. If Coco has a particularly unlucky season---dropping his average to, say, .260-.270---Coco’s inability to draw many walks will render him somewhat of an offensive liability, as his OBP would likely be around .310 or so.

Throughout his entire career, Coco has encountered doubters and repeatedly proven them wrong. Soon, he will be known for more than just his name.

Small market teams are teams too

2006-01-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

Even before Johnny Damon turned Benedict Arnold, I heard the rumblings. Murmurs around Bean-Town about potential replacements for Damon, should he choose to leave. Corey Patterson, Joey Gathright, Jeremy Reed. Coco Crisp.

Coco Crisp?! Surely this must be a figment of some Sox fan’s wishful thinking. But the more sources I heard the Crisp rumor from, the more I thought it was a possibility. Furthermore, I heard that Bronson Arroyo or Matt Clement would be going the other way.

First of all, this is ridiculous. The Indians have eight starting pitchers and Coco won’t be eligible for free agency for another three years. He’s just entering his prime, plays excellent defense, and has proven himself for two full years at the plate.

While I scoffed at the silliness of the deal from the Indians’ point of view, I was amazed at how it was treated in Boston. A lot of Bostonians used the same points I made above as rationale why this trade would happen: Coco’s entering his prime, has proven he can hit, won’t be a free agent for awhile, and could likely handle center field for the Sox. They failed to realize that it was these exact points that would prevent this trade from occurring.

Many people in big-market cities where the team is consistently good view other, smaller cities simply as farm teams for the big cities. They are right to a small extent---Florida sold off all of their players this off-season (although they made a lot of smart baseball moves…more on this another time). However, Florida is the exception, not the rule---they are facing extenuating circumstances regarding their ballpark. Big-city fans look at a smaller-market team and simply pick off the players they want from that team. Then, they find the players they like least from their own team and decide that’s who will be traded (hence Clement or Arroyo for Crisp).

The only way the Indians will deal Crisp to the Red Sox is if they get blown away by the value they are receiving…in other words, if the Red Sox offer Andy Marte. Other than that, Cleveland has absolutely no reason to trade Crisp, no matter how well he might fit at Fenway. The Indians are not here to serve other teams; rather, they will use their players to beat other teams.

The strange case of Kevin Millwood

2006-01-04T20:25:00.000-08:00

After losing out on Matt Clement, Carl Pavano, and Jon Lieber, Indians General Manager signed Kevin Millwood to a one-year contract worth $7 mil prior to the 2005 season. The deal was relatively low-risk (one year contract) for the Indians and filled their void in the rotation. For Millwood, the deal offered a great stepping-stone to a more lucrative contract. As it turned out, both sides got what they wanted.

Kevin Millwood had a lot of bad luck in 2005. He led the entire American League in Earned Run Average, posting a 2.86 ERA. He pitched for a team which won 93 games and scored a lot of runs in the process. Yet somehow Millwood managed only nine wins. Why? Millwood was very unlucky.

In Millwood’s 11 losses, the Indians scored 13 total runs. They scored more than two runs ONCE. Furthermore, Millwood had many other games in which he received a no-decision while receiving minimal run-support.

Teammate Cliff Lee won nine more games despite having an ERA a full run higher. If Millwood had Lee’s run support, he easily would’ve won 22 games.

In terms of wins and losses, Millwood was extremely unlucky. However, in terms of runs allowed, Millwood was very lucky.

In 2005, Kevin Millwood had the uncanny ability to pitch incredibly well with runners on base. Here are some examples:

Overall, opposing hitters hit .251 against Millwood

With the bases loaded, hitters were 0-for-15 against Millwood

With runners on second and third, hitters were 3-for-20 (.150 batting average)

With runners in scoring position and two outs, hitters were 10-for-84 (.119 average)

Overall with runners in scoring position, hitters batted .194 against Millwood

If opposing hitters hit .251 against Millwood with runners in scoring position and with the bases loaded, Millwood would have given up a LOT more runs.

That’s all well and good, but what if Millwood somehow inherently possessed the ability to pitch better with runners on base? What if Millwood was a “clutch” pitcher?

If so, Millwood would have had similar splits in previous years. Let’s see:

In 2004, opposing batters hit .289 with runners in scoring position against Millwood.

In 2003, the average was .274

2002: .232

2001: .282

2000: .297

1999: .241

1998: .255

1997: .270

As we would expect, Millwood’s batting average against with runners in scoring position fluctuates around his overall average, .250. Simply put, in 2005, Kevin Millwood got very lucky to put up a 2.86 ERA.

Given how few runs Millwood gave up in 2005, he was unlucky to receive only nine wins. However, he was very lucky to give up so few runs in the first place.

Percival off the market

2004-11-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

The Indians' search for a reliever got a little tougher today. Troy Percival signed with the Tigers for two years and 12 mil. While I'm sorry to see him not go to the Indians, I believe they made the right decision when it comes to Troy. He's getting old now, and he only had one K per save, not IP last year (52 games, 33 saves, 33 Ks).
This also sets the bar for relievers. The Tribe will make a STRONG push after Armando Benitez now. Should they give him 3 years? It might be worth it to get him...
Benitez would really stabilize the bullpen for next year. If he had been with them this year, they very well might have won the division.
If they get Benitez, it will also allow Bob Howry, Rafael Betancourt, David Riske, Matt Miller, Jeremy Guthrie, Fernando Cabrera to fall back into roles they're more comfortable with. Add a reliable lefty and you have yourself a decent bullpen.

No more Omar...

2004-11-14T17:00:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco Giants signed Omar Vizquel to a 3-year deal worth over 12 million. My initial reaction was "What a terrible contract!" Not for Omar, of course.

IF the Giants get the exact same production out of Omar that the Indians got this year, it MIGHT be worth it. That's a huge if. He's 37. His OPS last season was .741. Excluding his career year in 1999, his OPS was not higher than .760. So, assuming age or injury is not a factor, we still assume his OPS to be .730-.750.

On the fielding side, Omar's range factor and zone rating have been significantly lower ever since the '90s. He's not the defensive master he once was.

Don't get me wrong: Omar is a solid player. But will he stay healthy? If he does, will age take its toll on him? I smell the potential for a baaad contract...