Johjima’s press conference
“I’m still a free agent.” — summary
Pic here and also from reader Toshio, this more-detailed summary:
1. Johjima said clearly that he will chose the team based on living environment for his family. Then, he said his wife “really liked Seattle”.
2. Johjima will visit only one more city in this trip (I guess that
would be NY).3. Johjima’s agent said the M’s are only the team that has made an offer so far, and that the offer is better than his current one in Japan (500 million Yens / year: $1 is 100-120 Yen, I think. So that would make $4.2-4.5 mil / yr).
MLB, players reach new agreement on drugs
New penalties: 50 games for the first test, 100 games for a second test, and a lifetime ban for a third (which may, in practice, only last two years). Details are scarce, but it does not appear to address the “Mike Morse double-jeopardy” problem, where players can be punished repeatedly under both minor and major-league testing plans and suspended each time.
New testing: amphetamines will finally be tested for.
This alone is a huge story, and despite the focus on increased penalties, will have by far the greater impact. It’s just as large as the deal to begin steroid testing, or the follow-up agreement on penalties and treatment for “drugs of abuse” like heroin.
To put this another way: amphetamine abuse is as widespread as the most hysterical anti-steroid advocate believed juicing was. We are much more likely to see a significant and measurable performance decline by players in general from this than we were from even the most rigorous steroid testing regimen. I’m a little surprised that this came without a decrease in schedule length or larger rosters.
The new problem is testing for amphetamine abuse. It’s a lot tougher to detect than steroids, though some versions of the story say there are also going to be more frequent random tests. It’s also on a different penalty schedule than steroids: testing positive for amphetamines leads to more testing. A second result gets a 25-game suspension, and then a 60-game suspension for a third test (fourth positive test? new Cadillac).
Even limited testing of modest effectiveness will change the risk/reward calculation players are making before games, and that may have effects far more wide-spread than I’ve seen anyone mention yet. This is huge.
Monday’s Mariner news
PI: “Hargrove says language barrier not an issue to courting Jojima”
DMZ: “Seattle PI runs longest sub-head ever”. Also in that article, Eddie Guardado runs a poker tournament.
Sunday, the Times ran The Mariners meet with Jojima
Yup. On MLB.com, there’s a story that the M’s want to acquire a pitcher. There, I’ve just spoiled the whole article for you.
Schwarz on PECOTA in NYT
Don’t miss officially endorsed Alan Schwarz writing about Nate Silver’s PECOTA player forecast system in the New York Times. Read it quickly, before it falls behind the terrible “Times Select” wall of paid content.
Leone moves on
In case you missed it — Justin Leone signed a minor league deal (scroll down) with the San Diego Padres last week. Leone was a favorite among many M’s bloggers, but to be honest, he was never going to get a shot in Seattle. Whether or not he deserved much of one given his age and performance last season is another issue. I wish him well in San Diego, though he’s of course now stuck behind both Vinny Castilla and Sean Burroughs.
M’s Close to Jojima Deal
The News-Tribune reports that the M’s are nearing a deal with Kenji Jojima for two years, $8 million with an option for a third year. This confirms what we’ve been hearing, that Jojima’s already looking for a home in town.
If the report’s accurate, I give this deal my full endorsement.
Ichiro traded for magic beans!
Ichiro to New York! Griffey to Seattle! Cuban vampire baby pitcher throws 104mph escapes to Costa Rica, Yankees interested!
It’s baseball off-season time. We’ve already seen a huge amount of hysteria around a dumb New York Post rumor that Ichiro’s available, in particular, so I wanted to offer this:
– writers have to write about something
– front offices are trying to work deals
– front offices use the writers
This is important to remember. Let’s say your team wants to pick up Player A. You might spread rumors he’s looking to get out, wants to play for a contender, whatever, and that the team’s thinking about trading him.
Then you let the rumor mill churn for a bit, and you call up the other team and say “I read you might be shopping Player A. What would you want for him?”
Some teams are hoooooooooooooooooorrrible about this. Both New York teams, with the city’s massive media, are the worst. Some random under-assistant to the guy who stocks the vending machines thinks they should go get Felix Hernandez, and bam! It’s in the tabloids: “A Yankee front office source confirmed the team is interested in trading for Mariner pitching prospect Felix…”
If you follow baseball for long enough, you’ll get a feel for what other teams do this, and for that matter, what other teams use the media for (character assasination, for instance, rather than rumor-mongering).
And think about sourcing. Baseball’s a small game, and information gets around, but “an NL scout” knows as much about what Bavasi & Co. are talking about as you or me: zippo.
Which is to say, there are a couple questions you should ask when you come across these rumors:
– Does this rumor make any sense?
– Reading the rest of the article, is it well-written and thought-out (do it have a bunch of players going to teams that don’t need them, for instance)?
– Is the writer known and generally dependable?
– Is the paper known for good coverage or sensationalism?
So..
Larry Stone or Morosi writing that the team’s considering whether they should try to move Ichiro is worth something.
The NY Post writing that Ichiro wants to go to New York because he wants to win a World Series is worth *nothing*.
A random internet site filled with half-crazy trade speculation (Delgado traded to Arizona in a 12-player, eight-team trade that sends Jamie Moyer to the moon!) is worth nothing.
Don’t waste your time on worthless rumors. Don’t waste other people’s time on worthless rumors. Thanks.
Plug
For those interested, I wrote a guest article for the Baseball Analysts blog run by Rich Lederer and Bryan Smith, with the topic being King Felix. It’s probably nothing new to you guys, but you might enjoy it anyways. And if you don’t, well, it’s free, so don’t complain.
Also, for the three of you that can’t get enough of my writing, I’ve got an article in the Hardball Times 2006 Annual, which I’ve been told will begin shipping next week. The THT annual contains a bunch of statistics and data that you simply cannot get anywhere else, such as hit type data and some interesting analysis that they’ve done off the information collected by Baseball Info Solutions. Plus, you get to read my article. So it obviously gets my totally unobjective recommendation.
Early Free Agency News
Three quick tidbits.
First, from MLB.com: the M’s are among several teams expressing interest in Esteban Loaiza. The others are the Royals, Indians, Rangers, Mets and Rockies.
Next, from the NYT‘s “at least the Mariners get an ‘expected to contend’ mention” department:
It seems as if every team in baseball has contacted Darek Braunecker, the agent for starter A. J. Burnett. Burnett lashed out at Marlins management toward the end of the season, and he is not considering a return to South Florida. The Blue Jays, whose pitching coach, Brad Arnsberg, once worked with Burnett with the Marlins, are considered a leader, but the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers are also expected to contend for his services.
Finally, the M’s are one of three teams to inquire about trading for Carlos Delgado. The Orioles and the Mets are the others. The saving grace: “With any scenario, the Marlins likely would be asked to pick up some of that money.”
We’ve discussed the merits and drawbacks of each of these moves before. Whatever happens, it doesn’t look like a do-nothing offseason. Like the Chinese curse says, may you live in interesting times.
The Importance of Defense
One of the things we’ve been talking around, but have never said outright, really, is how wrong we used to be about the importance of defense. The statistical community, 5-10 years ago, believed that defense was a very minor factor in the game, and that you could evaluate the worth of a player by looking at his offensive line, and then making a minor adjustment for defensive value. Players like Darin Erstad and Rey Ordonez became sabermetric whipping boys as the main analysts of the day railed on the franchises that gave them playing time that they apparently didn’t justify through their at-bats.
However, as we’ve begun to come up with ways to quantify defensive performance, at least at a blunt level, we’ve realized that we were wrong. Badly wrong. Defense is a huge, huge part of baseball. To steal a quote from Bill James, much of what we call pitching is really defense. For all intents and purposes, the Chicago White Sox are world champions because they were a team of terrific defensive players who weren’t so awful at hitting or pitching that it would offset the strength of the team.
Clearly, if you’ve been reading our posts for the past few years, you’ve seen a change in the way we evaluate players. I stumped for Pokey Reese (well, a healthy one, anyways) for two years. The support of the signing of Jacque Jones is largely based on his defensive abilities and the effect he would have on the team’s pitching staff. However, it seems to me that the importance of defense is still underestimated by most fans. In fact, while I think our readers represent the upper tier of intelligent fans, I’d say that I would expect that most of you underestimate the importance of defense as well. We see this manifest a lot in the comments, when people suggest doing whatever it takes to bring in “The Big Bat”, including terrible ideas like shifting Richie Sexson to left field.
I’ve been trying to think of a good way to explain just how important defense on a team level can be in a way that would make sense and still be understandable. While there’s some good defensive work being done, most of it deals with mathmatical theory of regression analysis and other non-interesting reading material that I’ve slagged through. But, tonight, Chris Dial introduced his “method” of evaluating defense over at Baseball Think Factory. It’s not that tough a read, and it makes a lot of sense, especially if you’re familiar with some of the previous work that’s been done in this field. Now, there’s still enough problems with individual defensive stats that I’m not linking to this to back up any claims about a specific player, and I’m not saying that his numbers are the answer. I haven’t even given them more than a cursory glance. However, there was one table that jumped off the page at me that I’d like to share, and hope its importance sets in.
Position AvgZROps Runs/play Runs/Season AvgZR* Runs/Season
Perfect Average
1B 281 .798 224.24 .870 195.09
2B 507 .754 382.28 .822 314.23
3B 430 .800 344.00 .783 269.35
SS 532 .753 400.60 .835 334.50
LF 348 .831 289.19 .861 248.99
CF 462 .842 389.00 .888 345.44
RF 365 .843 307.70 .873 268.61
Essentially, what this table tells us is how many runs an average player at each position saves over the course of the season. The baseline it’s compared to is zero, so don’t freak out because the numbers are huge. Essentially, what this is saying is that if you played a season with just 8 fielders and left everyone in their normal spot but eliminted the shortstop, you’d give up an extra 335 runs. If you punted the left fielder, you’d “only” lose 249 runs.
The difference between the positions should jump out at you. Center Field is the most important defensive position in baseball. It is way, way more important than right or left field. Think of it this way; an average center fielder will have the opportunity to save his team 70 more runs than his average right field teammate. Holy crap. 70 runs!
Defense isn’t something to be looked at as a minor factor in player analysis. We certainly haven’t discovered the key to perfectly evaluating the abilities of each player, but we should all be past the point of thinking that the vast majority of a player’s value is tied to what he produces with his bat. What he can do with his glove is far from insignificant, and needs to be considered.
In other words, just say no to Richie Sexson, left fielder.