WBC sensation Snelling signs with Padres
Hated rival Padres sign former Mariner! Snelling vows “great vengeance, furious justice” during June games.
Move comes as tickets for the June 23-25th series at Safeco Field become available! USSM event frantically planned!
Seriously, good for Chris, good for the Padres, may this be the season he goes nuts on the league.
M’s Defense And The Fielding Bible
You may have already seen Baker’s post about John Dewan ranking the Mariners as an above average defense in 2008, according to his Defensive Runs Saved metric introduced in the newly published Fielding Bible II.
I don’t have tons of time to walk everyone through why Dewan is wrong – and, I should point out that The Fielding Bible is a really good read with lots of great stuff, and that BIS has been instrumental in bringing advanced defensive measures to the forefront of baseball, so this isn’t in any way an attack on him or the the book – but there’s some problems with his Defensive Runs Saved metric.
If you want to read some more in depth conversations about some of the issues, here and here are good places to start.
But, for those of you who would prefer a short summary, here’s the basic problem – Dewan/James calculated that each play made in the OF is worth about .56 runs, while play made in the infield is about +.75 runs (numbers are from memory, I don’t have the book in front of me right now, but they’re close). I think that’s just demonstrably wrong. We know, thanks to linear weights, that the value of an out is about -0.27 runs, and the value of a single is +0.47 runs, so making a save on a play that would have otherwise gone for a single is worth ~+.71 runs. However, the run values of doubles and triples are .77 and 1.04, respectively, so turning potential extra base hits into outs is more valuable than turning singles into outs.
Obviously, a great majority of doubles and triples come on fly balls to the outfield, and because of that, there’s almost no way to realistically conclude that a play saved on the infield is worth more than a play saved in the outfield. But that’s the conclusion that Dewan/James came to, and part of why they have the Mariners rated as above average – infield defense is significantly more important in their system than outfield defense, and so by reducing the the value of the M’s weakest link (OF defense), it serves to make the M’s look better than they were.
There’s also positioning issues in how Dewan ended up calculating his +/- ratings, as can be seen best in his Chase Utley numbers. Because Utley shifts towards the first base bag to make up for Ryan Howard’s ridiculous lack of range, he gets to far more balls in the 1B/2B hole than most second baseman. Dewan doesn’t adjust for this, and gives Utley credit for a +32 rating to his left (compared to +6 straight on and +8 to his right). Because of how Dewan is measuring plays saved (based on normal positioning for all players across the league), Utley would look worse defensively by his system if the Phillies just got a better defensive first baseman and Utley shaded back towards the 2B bag to play a more normal second base. Giving Utley credit for Howard being awful isn’t really what we are trying to do.
There are some other issues (he’s not using context neutral numbers, James’ new Defensive Misplays is pretty subjective and all plays are weighted evenly), but those two are the big reasons why Dewan’s Defensive Runs Saved doesn’t line up with the other advanced defensive metrics. And, to me, they’re problems, not enhancements.
The UZR data that we publish at FanGraphs is based on the play by play data collected by Baseball Info Solutions. It’s the same data, but a somewhat different (in my opinion, better) methodology for converting that data into runs saved. As you know, UZR had the Mariners at -21.6 runs for 2008, thanks mostly to a -16.8 rating from their outfielders. This is, honestly, the more reliable number to use. It’s based on exactly the same data, and the discrepancies between the two systems lie mostly in some assumptions made by Dewan that I would consider fairly questionable.
So, don’t make too big a deal out of this, and don’t buy into the rhetoric of the M’s defensive upgrades only getting them from a 62 to 64 win team. Right now, this is a ~79 win team, and an improved outfield defense is a significant part of why the team will be a lot better this year than last.
M’s Sign Chad Cordero
Apparently the M’s weren’t all that impressed by the closer candidates they had in Peoria, so they’re importing a new one – Stone says they’ve signed Chad Cordero to a minor league contract. He’s still rehabbing his shoulder and trying to get his strength back, so he won’t be in the mix for the opening day roster – they’re looking at him as a mid-year boost.
Here’s Cordero’s FanGraphs page – as you can see, he was a strikeout/flyball guy when he was healthy, and a borderline relief ace. While the M’s have a collection of guys who fit situational relief work, Cordero has no career platoon split, and in his prime was a quality closer.
Whether he can recover from labrum surgery and get back to throwing 89 again is up for grabs – he was throwing 83 last year before going under the knife, and he’s not a major league pitcher at that speed. But, on a minor league deal, this gives the M’s some upside in the ‘pen. If he comes to camp and shows the stuff that he used to have, the team could have added a nice upgrade to the back of the bullpen. If he’s still throwing 83, then they haven’t lost anything.
Another no risk pickup with some upside by Zduriencik. Good job by the M’s here.
Oh, and since it’s kinda relevant and both GMs involved have moved on, here’s a fun Chad Cordero related story. At the USSM meetup in Tacoma a few years ago, Bavasi was giving us the rundown on some of the things that he tried to do at the trade deadline. He talked about trying to get Mark Loretta and such, and somehow, the topic of Jim Bowden came up. Bavasi kinda smiled and said something to the effect (not a direct quote) of “you know, I called Jim about their closer, Cordero – he asked for Clement and Morrow. I hung up. I haven’t called back”
Guys, guys — four balls gets you to first base
I know, it’s spring training. But the M’s lost to Texas today and whiffed six times while taking one walk.
They’re not the highest strikeout team, but they’re the lowest walk team (Colorado took five today). They take one walk for every four times they K. The Reds, who as I write this lead baseball in spring training strikeouts, are at 1:2.5.
Strikeouts aren’t so much worse than other outs that they alone should be cause for concern. But they’re just hacking and missing so far this spring training, and I’m starting to get a little concerned about the approach.
An Announcement
So, this column isn’t really baseball related, but I thought you might all enjoy it anyway.
Yes, this is a regular thing. Yes, I’ll be writing about baseball for them this summer.
Yes, I’m excited.
Wow
The Netherlands just beat the Dominican Republic… again. The powerful D.R. team is out of the tournament, as a Dutch team led by Eugene Kingsale and Randall Simon advance.
Wow. This is… wow.
Morrow Has Setback
Larry Stone fills us in on Brandon Morrow not feeling very good after today’s bullpen session. For the second time in a row, his scheduled Cactus League start on Friday has been scratched, and at this point, he’s questionable for opening day.
At this point, it’s probably likely that Ryan Rowland-Smith will move into his rotation spot, and Morrow starts the year on the DL. Even if it’s not a serious injury, there’s no reason to rush Morrow to be ready for the first week of the season, and the team has the depth to let him take it slow.
Let’s hope it’s nothing that lingers long term. But for now, we probably take Morrow out of the projected starting rotation, at least to start the year.
The M’s rotation, projected
In tinkering with the projection setup for next season, I noticed something… odd that I wanted to share.
Here’s the ZiPS projections for the M’s rotation candidates next year, in terms of quality-per-inning:
Bedard
[gap]
Felix and Morrow
[gap]
Batista, RRS, Washburn, Silva
Here’s the same for PECOTA:
Felix, Bedard
[small gap]
Morrow
[small gap]
RRS, Washburn
[gap]
Batista, Silva
And on and on:
Marcel: Bedard, Felix, Morrow, RRS, Silva, Washburn, Batista
Bill James: Felix, Bedard, Morrow, RRS, Washburn, Silva, Batista
CHONE: Bedard, Felix, Morrow, RRS, Silva, Washburn, Batista
It’s generally assumed that it’s Rowland-Smith and Batista who’ll head for the bullpen. But strictly in terms of who’d help the team most in the rotation, everyone who’s taken a crack at this seems to think at least RRS should be ahead of Silva, and possibly ahead of Washburn.
Now I get that maybe the team wants to try and start Washburn as the most tradeable of the three bad starter contracts right now. But Silva… the contract’s a done deal, they’re paying him either way. If the objective is to put the best team out there, Rowland-Smith certainly shouldn’t be counted out yet.
M’s report loss in 08, no evidence forthcoming
According to Pravda, the M’s managed to lose money last year, as reported in their annual report…
The report, released at Monday afternoon’s quarterly meeting in Seattle, reflected a $4.5 million loss during the fiscal year that ended October 31, 2008.
…which isn’t up on the PFD site.
The M’s pay almost nothing for the lease of Safeco Field. Their rent is so low it’s absurd. Even if you buy the $121m in claimed payroll, and you figure it takes… $50m to run operations, the farm system, keep the Moose in anti-flea medicated shampoos, that’s ~$170m.
FSN pays them at least $30m for broadcast rights. KOMO paid them $10m. They probably made $12m from the Fox/TSN TV deals. I don’t know how much MLBAM is paying out, so drop that for a second. They probably get $3-4m from the DirecTV deal… none of this counts any cut the commish takes for his slush fund, btw, I’m just trying to sketch this out.
The M’s drew 2,329,702 in their home games last year. What do you think they made in revenue per ticket? $25? Okay, so that’s $60m there. Between concessions, parking, advertising, luxury boxes, club seats licenses, and whatever, they probably cleared another $60m in profit.
Wait, we’re profitable already. What just happened? How are they supposed to have lost money, exactly?
Also, despite the headline, note that there’s no link to the report, and the M’s haven’t put it up in the “press releases” section for your perusal.
AL West Champion Odds
While Derek tinkers with the ZIPS projects on Diamond Mind, I figured I’d offer up my non-computerized, untested, totally subjective guess at the probabilities of each team winning the division this year. This is updated with the latest news that Ervin Santana will start the year on the DL for the Angels and that Justin Duchscherer’s perpetual arm problems might keep him from starting on Opening Day for the A’s.
Again, this is just my estimate, based on looking at the teams as they stand today.
Angels: 35%
A’s: 25%
Mariners: 20%
Rangers: 20%
The Angels are the best team in the division, but they aren’t great. The A’s have improved themselves, but their rotation is a massive question mark. The Rangers have some interesting pieces but are probably a year or two away. Despite a Mariner roster that has a lot of questions, there’s a decent sized door to the playoffs that the M’s could walk through.