Another set of simulations using projections
From the Replacement Level Yankees Weblog: using DMB and the CHONE projections, 1,000 seasons of Mariner baseball came out with the M’s finishing 83-79 and making the playoffs 20% of the time.
Many caveats and disclaimers apply, as with all these kind of things — check out the article for more.
USSM on KJR
Just a reminder that I’ll be on with the Groz at 2:20 pm today (and every Monday from now through the season) on KJR as we prepare for the MLB season to kick off tomorrow morning and for the M’s to get going next week.
Community Projections: Felix Hernandez
In the second of our reviews of how the USSM/LL community expects the Mariners pitching staff to do (Jeff Sullivan will be starting the hitter reviews shortly), we tackle King Felix. Data first from the 65 projections, then commentary:
Average Projection: 204 IP, 192 H, 31 2B, 4 3B, 19 HR, 55 BB, 197 K, 6 HBP, 56% GB%, 3.38 FIP
Optimist (snoss): 207 IP, 200 H, 32 2B, 7 3B, 13 HR, 58 BB, 232 K, 7 HBP, 52% GB%, 2.72 FIP
Pessimist (Gomez): 200 IP, 208 H, 34 2B, 3 3B, 21 HR, 57 BB, 173 K, 12 HBP, 61% GB%, 3.87 FIP
Dave’s Projection: 200 IP, 190 H, 30 2B, 5 3B, 20 HR, 44 BB, 196 K, 10 HBP, 60% GB%, 3.35 FIP
Jeff’s Projection: 203 IP, 193 H, 38 2B, 3 3B, 20 HR, 60 BB, 189 K, 4 HBP, 61% GB%, 3.56 FIP
Quick note – there’s actually two projections with a higher FIP than Gomez’s 3.87 (Trev is the highest at 3.99) but both of them project very low hit totals, so while they’re slightly more pessimistic about Felix’s abilities, they apparently thinks our defense is going to be amazing. Thus, I couldn’t in good conscience call them pessimistic projections, so Gomez gets the Nattering Nabob of Negativity award of the day.
One of the first things that jump off the page is the similarity of all the projections. No one projects a FIP higher than 4.00 and only seven people project a FIP below 3.00, leading to a large group of people all hovering right around the average projection without much variance. When people disagree, they do it in shades; a dozen strikeouts here or ten innings there. Interestingly, the optimists and pessimists mostly just differ on home run rate in small magnitudes, ranging from 15 allowed for the optimists and 22 for the pessimists. As we’ve talked about, home run rates have a lot of non-pitcher factors involved, so a lot of the difference here isn’t even disagreements about Felix’s abilities, but rather just how those abilities will translate over 35 starts.
Again, no one thinks he’s going to get hurt – the low IP projection was 175 innings, with the second lowest being 189. So you all think Felix is going to be a picture of health. That’s good news.
Overall, this is another optimistic projection, though not as extreme as Bedard’s. The 3.35 FIP will make Felix an easy all-star, but the hit projections mean that you guys think he’s still going to struggle with balls in play, and that makes it unlikely that he’ll post an ERA low enough to get in the Cy Young race, especially if Bedard’s as good as you all think. However, this projection still represents a strong step forward and would establish Felix as one of the game’s elite pitchers rather than just elite talents.
Fourth Outfielder
The M’s came to spring training with the fourth outfielder job up for grabs. The competitors – Mike Morse, Wladimir Balentien, Charlton Jimerson, and Jeremy Reed – have all displayed their various skills and flaws, and right now, it should be pretty apparent to the M’s that none of the four are the right fit. Morse is as much an adventure in the outfield as Ibanez, which isn’t surprising given his minimal experience. Balentien is better served playing every day in Tacoma. Jimerson just isn’t good enough to play a real role on a contender. And Jeremy Reed is left-handed, just like all three of the Mariners starting outfielders.
Really, the M’s fourth OF should be some combination of the following: right-handed (and,
thanks to Safeco, probably a gap hitter, not a power guy), ability to hit LHPs, strong defensively (ability to cover CF a huge plus), solid to plus baserunner, some modicum of plate discipline. The ideal fourth OF for the M’s would have all those skills, but a hodgepodge of most of them would do okay and be better than the internal options. Where would they find such a player at this point?
Well, Reed Johnson just got released by Toronto and is looking for work. Let’s look at the checklist:
1. Right Handed gap hitter?
Yep.
2. Ability to hit LHPs?
.308/.371/.462 career mark against southpaws.
3. Strong defensively?
Pretty much every metric has him as a very good defensive corner outfielder and average-ish in center.
4. Solid to plus baserunner?
Has some speed, but isn’t a huge asset on the bases. Probably not.
5. Modicum of plate discipline?
Career walk rate of 5.4%, K rate of 18.4%, while most projections have him at 6% and 19% respectively. So no, not so much.
An average projection for Reed Johnson would probably come out to .270/.320/.380 in Safeco, or something along those lines. That’s not a great player, but combined with above average defense and a skillset that fills in the gaps left by the M’s starting outfielders, he’d be an asset.
The M’s repeatedly say they’re serious about winning this year. If that’s true, they should immediately throw Miguel Cairo overboard and replace him with Reed Johnson.
Baek pitches today
Baek’s had a great spring training. Despite the headline at MLB.com (“Watch live as Baek makes case for rotation”) there’s just no way his performance against the Angels today (at one) could get him to crack the rotation unless coupled with an unrelated injury to one of the starters.
If you’ve been around for a while, you know I like Baek, especially in that I’d rather throw a 5th starter job to someone like him over spending $kajillion to fill it with an inferior option. I still can’t bring myself to cheer for an injury to get him a chance, though.
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate it.
Situational hitting
If stressing the value of situational hitting and scoring the runner from third throughout spring training didn’t do any good, doesn’t that mean
– the manager doing the stressing and training was ineffective
– the players are all too inept to pick it up
or
– situational hitting isn’t a skill?
A game tonight! On TV! Against the hated Padres!
Woo-hoo! At seven!
Other then that, a couple random cuts. This will only really get interesting when we get down to the decisions like Dickey v Baek, Norton v Morse.
Community Projections: Erik Bedard
The results are in, and now that we’ve collected the data, we’re going to begin publishing the results of the 2008 USSM/LL Community Projections. You all had your chance to be the prognosticator, and now we’re aggregating the results into a blog reader consensus. In order to get through all the reviews more quickly, I’m going to handle the pitchers here and Jeff’s going to do the hitters over at Lookout Landing.
The first pitcher we’re going to review is the shiny expensive new guy from the great white north; Erik Bedard. It’s no secret that the majority of us weren’t particularly thrilled about his acquisition, thanks to the high cost of giving up Adam Jones, but we’ve made it no secret that we’re happy that Bedard is a Mariner. I’ve called him one of the five best pitchers in the American League, and even that may be an understatement of his abilities. Especially if the readers are to be trusted. Here are the results of the Bedard projection.
Average of 74 entries: 197 IP, 174 H, 29 2B, 4 3B, 17 HR, 59 BB, 210 K, 6 HBP, 47% GB%, 3.17 FIP
Optimsitic Entry (wcf51): 211 IP, 161 H, 17 2B, 2 3B, 11 HR, 41 BB, 233 K, 9 HBP, 62% GB%, 2.38 FIP
Pessimistic Entry (panev): 208 IP, 167 H, 25 2B, 2 3B, 22 HR, 30 BB, 115 K, 8 HBP, 54% GB%, 4.02 FIP
Dave’s Entry: 190 IP, 197 H, 34 2B, 5 3B, 18 HR, 44 BB, 184 K, 4 HBP, 48% GB%, 3.25 FIP
Jeff’s Entry: 188 IP, 171 H, 27 2B, 3 3B, 17 HR, 59 BB, 196 K, 6 HBP, 47% GB%, 3.40 FIP
Really, this is a pretty remarkable group of projections. You guys couldn’t love Erik Bedard any more if he was carrying your baby. The absolute worst projection in there has him pitching at the level of 2007 Fausto Carmona or Justin Verlander. The reigning pessimist in the crowd thinks he’s going to set a career high in innings pitched and be one of the 10-15 best pitchers in the league. And that guy’s out on an island of negativity!
More than 1/3 of the projections (26 of the 74) had Bedard posting a FIP of below 3.00. The list of pitchers who have posted a FIP below 3.00 in the American League in the last four years reads like this: 2005 Johan Santana. That’s it – it’s happened once in the last four years, but 26 of you think Bedard’s going to pitch at that level. Nine of you think he’s going to be even better than Santana was that year. That’s nearly as many as people that projected he’d post a FIP worse than 3.50 (11 did that, by the way). A 3.50 FIP would still have ranked fourth in the American League last year (3rd if you don’t include 2007 Bedard, since he can’t finish behind himself).
The people who are optimistic about Bedard think he’s going to have a hall of fame season and stay healthy. The people who are pessimistic about Bedard think he’s going to have an all-star season and stay healthy. And absolutely no one thinks he’s going to get hurt and miss more than a few starts.
You might all hate the trade, but good gravy, you guys love the guy we got back. The next time anyone decides that readers of this blog revel in negativity, I’m just going to point them to this projection. Negativity isn’t even in the zip code. This is an all out Erik Bedard love fest. If he’s as good as you guys think he will be, he’ll be on the very short list of Cy Young contenders at years end.
Zombies to pursue Ichiro for his delicious brain
Doctor: “Ichiro has a very fine prefrontal cortex”
I… hee hee hee. Thanks to msb for the pointer.
Thrill to the sight of Bob Melvin!
Yup, if you’ve got MLB TV, you can see the late game against the Diamondbacks at 4. Pretty exciting.
Other than that, not a whole lot going on, is there?
It’s speculation over news, but Jim Callis at BA wrote about the signs the draft slotting system may fall apart. This would be huge if it happened — especially since the M’s would likely be one of the last teams to abandon it in a year that appears to be talent-heavy. Their continued loyalty to the Selig line could be particularly costly.
There was a ridiculously cool interview Jonah Keri did with the A’s assistant GM on ESPN that I wanted to link to but they’ve apparently made it disappear, presumably to be flown secretly to a minor third party site to be tortured or something.