The Best Example Of Bad Process Ever
2002: +4.9 wins, 12.8 Million Dollar Value, $4.7 Million Salary, +8.1 Million Net Value
2003: +4.7 wins, 13.3 Million Dollar Value, $7.4 Million Salary, +5.9 Million Net Value
December 8th, 2003: Mariners non-tender Mike Cameron.
Cameron had established a level of play worth something about $13 million a season in the two years leading up to his free agency. The M’s weren’t interested in giving him a raise from his $7.4 million, however, so they decided not to even bother offering him arbitration, where he might have gotten $10 million on a one year deal. Read that again – the Mariners non-tendered a guy who was coming off two +5 win seasons. They had no interest in bringing a +4.7 win player back on a one year deal at a below market rate. An interesting quote from the same linked article:
“I was really holding my breath on this one,” Mariners manager Bob Melvin said. “Re-signing Shiggy, as valuable and versatile as he is, was a priority for us.”
Re-signing the 35-year-old middle reliever coming off a season where he was exactly the same +0.75 win pitcher as always but fluked his way into a low ERA was “a priority”, but the team had no interest in bringing back the 30-year-old +4.7 win center fielder. The bullpen was important, defense was not. That bad process led to those terrible, franchise crippling decisions.
The first big move of Zduriencik’s career – to weaken the bullpen in order to strengthen the defense – shows that after five years of bad processes, we’ve finally got a GM who gets it. Huzzah for Zduriencik.
Mariners 2008 WAR – position players
The awesomeness of FanGraphs grows – David Appelman added the Win Value data we told you about on Wednesday to the leaderboards and team pages. For instance, here is the 2008 Mariners Position Player Win Values. Here’s an image for those of you who just want a sneak peak.
The M’s had four position players who could be described as significantly better than replacement level – Adrian Beltre, Ichiro, Jose Lopez, and Raul Ibanez combined for 11.8 wins added. The rest of the offensive roster combined for -3.3 wins, led by the trifecta of suck known as Jose Vidro, Wladimir Balentien, and Richie Sexson. As a whole, the Mariners got 8.2 wins from their non-pitchers, worst in all of baseball. A playoff caliber team would get between 25-35.
As for the new guys, Franklin Gutierrez was worth 1.7 wins last year (in 440 PA, no less), Endy Chavez was worth 0.8 wins (in 298 PA), and Russ Branyan was worth 1.2 wins (in 152 PA!).
Merry Christmas, dear readers
It’s pouring snow at my house again. I remember when Seattle was known for rain. Those were good days.
For Christmas I’d love to receive the presentation Zduriencik gave to the M’s during the interview process.
What do you want in the way of M’s-related gifts today? Read more
Hey! Where’s Carlos?
As Seattle endures another day of horrible weather we can’t dig ourselves out of, we shouldn’t lose sight of how this is a perfect example of what a selfish player Carlos Silva. He throws what, two good innings all year in a lost season and when the city could really use some clutch help, where is he? He’s probably holed up in some condo downtown, throwing bundles of hundred dollar bills into the fire to get the temperature up from 66 to 67, having fresh groceries flown in by helicopter (who are we kidding — he’s probably having trailers of Hot Pockets delivered, where a clubhouse assistant microwaves them in series so he’ll always have a warm one within arm’s reach, and as each gets just a little too cool it’s thrown off the balcony to the street where a gathered crowd of homeless people fight for their warmth and dangerous caloric value).
I’m not even saying that he needs to buy a snowplow and drive it around town helping out, though he certainly could afford to with all the money he made between pitching horribly and slagging his teammates. He could hire someone to drive it for him.
He doesn’t need to shovel snow off the sidewalks — don’t want him wrenching that back out again, inhibiting his non-existent effectiveness or something. Or for that matter, coning off closed streets. You could put a safety vest on him, use his presence to wave people away from the hills or something.
Now you might be saying “Derek, how can you reasonably expect Carlos Silva, who according to his ‘PLAYER FILE’ was born in Bolivar, Venezuela where the average low temperature never drops under 70 in a month, be expected to help pitch in here?”
And I would say “We’re hoping he’ll be an effective pitcher and good teammate next year, and he doesn’t have an experience with that, either.”
I’m sure right now hometown hero Willie “Clam-Clam” Bloomquist is out there icing streets down by hand with salt he buys out of his own pocket from markets as he goes, even though he’s a free agent and unlikely to return. Ichiro’s helping keep our morale up by filming inexplicable heart-warming Japanese game show episodes. Betancourt’s working on his defense by leading children’s clinics in snowball fighting, helping him get practice reps in throwing. Russ Branyan’s frantically trying to keep the walks clean around Safeco Field but not making much progress because the shovel only makes contact one out of every four digs or so… even Washburn’s helping the mayor’s office out with advice on how to blame this horror show of mismanagement on other people’s communication skills.
No Silva, though. But there’s always the chance the holiday spirit might still find him and the joy and charity in his heart will spur him to retire and free the M’s from his contract!
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY (dooo dooo doooo, do do do doooo-doooo, do do doooo, do do do-do…)
FanGraphs Adds WAR data
Merry Christmas everyone – as a Christmas present to baseball fans everywhere, David Appelman has added Wins Above Replacement data to all the player pages for every hitter in baseball. Not only that, but we’ve incorporated the per-year marginal Win/$ rate that MLB teams paid to acquire players in order to calculate a player’s true dollar value for each season going back to 2002.
I would say with all kinds of confidence that the Total Value Wins and the Dollar Valuations on FanGraphs are now the most accurate single number metric of player value available anywhere online. An example of how these can be used.
Adrian Beltre, since joining the Mariners:
2005: +2.4 wins, $8 million value
2006: +4.8 wins, $17.8 million value
2007: +2.7 wins, $10.9 million value
2008: +4.1 wins, $18.3 million value
Over those four years that Beltre has been a Mariner, he’s been worth $55 million. He has been paid $52 million. The contract has returned a net value of about $3 million so far, and obviously, Beltre is a pretty valuable asset at the moment. There is no way – none – to describe the Beltre signing as anything other than a success. It’s been a good deal for the Mariners in total, and it continues to be a great deal for them going forward.
Anyway, I’d encourage you to check out the FanGraphs player pages to see how much each player contributes in terms of wins and dollars. And don’t worry, this data will be up on the team pages and leaderboards shortly, and yes, we’ll be adding win values for pitchers too.
ESPN reports Teixeira to Yanks
That’s a great fit for the Yankees, really. They’ve got the money to spend and it pays off for them. This should be a huge upgrade and help their drive to improve run prevention too.
Plus it means the M’s don’t have to see him 20 games a year.
Dave vents about this move over at Fangraphs. I’m not in favor of a salary cap, but at some point, MLB has to do something to bring the Yankees back into line with the rest of the game.
Miguel Batista
With Christmas a couple of days away, we’re going to see a lull in terms of news for the next while. So, I thought this would be a good time to take a look at a few players on the roster, and what we should expect from them in 2009 versus what they gave us in 2008.
I’ll start with Miguel Batista, who was about as bad as a pitcher can be last year. He had the worst walk rate in baseball, putting 6.38 men on base via the free pass per nine innings. His terrible command led to a disastrous 6.23 FIP, and he was a failure of massive proportions. He performed worse than what you’d expect by calling up a Triple-A arm and handing them innings.
At 38 years old, coming off a horrible season like his ’08 campaign, most people are ready to chalk him up as a guy whose career is just over. However, I’d like to point out the following.
Miguel Batista, 2000: 65 IP, 5.10 BB/9, 5.10 K/9, 2.62 HR/9 (!), 7.57 FIP
Miguel Batista, 2001: 139 IP, 3.88 BB/9, 5.81 K/9, 0.84 HR/9, 4.48 FIP
In 2000, Batista was the worst pitcher anyone has ever seen. He allowed 19 home runs in 65 innings, walked as many as he struck out, and was a bigger disaster then than he was last year. He rebounded in 2001, became a quality pitcher, and then proceeded to rattle off seven pretty successful season. We’ve seen Batista implode and rebound before. Of course, he wasn’t 38 before, so maybe his decline was age related?
It doesn’t look like it. His average fastball in 2008 was 91.4 MPH, down just slightly from the 92.2 MPH fastball he threw in 2007. Age related decline is usually more about losing stuff than about losing command, and while Batista’s stuff has regressed, it didn’t disappear entirely. Even with shaky command, an average fastball of 92 with decent movement is still a pretty good pitch.
With the glut of starting pitcher options combined with Batista’s experience in the bullpen, I’d say it’s extremely likely that he’s going to end up as part of the bullpen this year. That can only help – most pitchers get a +1 to +2 MPH boost on their fastball when they move to relief full time, so it’s not hard to see Batista getting right back to that 92-93 MPH fastball he had a few years ago if he’s only throwing 20-30 pitches per outing.
Being used in relief will also increase the proportion of right-handed hitters that he faces, as Wakamatsu will have the advantage of bringing him in in situations where there are several RH hitters in a row. As a starting pitcher, he didn’t have that luxury, and left-handed batters have always presented problems for Batista. By using him in situations where he can avoid the toughest LH bats, one of his main flaws will be neutralized.
As a right-handed 7th or 8th inning guy, there are quite a few reasons to think Batista can be an effective pitcher in 2009. There’s no chance he’ll be worth the $9 million the team owes him, but that’s a sunk cost, and is out the window at this point. As a guy with potential to be a league average reliever, he’s still a contributor to the roster. In fact, Miguel Batista is one of the reasons that I’m fairly optimistic about the bullpen in 2009, despite the loss of Putz and Green.
Don’t let 2008’s performance cloud your judgment. Miguel Batista still has some life left in his fastball, and a move to the bullpen could be just what he needed to regain some usefulness.
Another Awesome New Stat Site
Sean Smith, the creator of the CHONE projection system, has built his own site to house his projections, and he’s made it remarkably cool in one week’s time. For instance, check out Raul Ibanez’s expanded player page.
At the top, there’ his offensive projection for 2009. His total line comes out to +7 runs per 150 games played, compared to an average hitter. Below that, he lists the confidence level percentiles, showing a range of potential performances. Below that is his six year forecast. And, my favorite part, his user selected defensive ratings – you simply pick whether you think Ibanez is going to be an Excellent defender, a Good defender, an Average Defender, a Poor Defender, or a Putrid defender, and the corresponding win values and dollar values are listed for you.
Anyway, check it out. Sean’s site has a bunch of cool stuff on it.
Angels Walk Away From Teixeira
The Angels announced today that they are pulling out of the bidding for Mark Teixeira. They’ll spend the money they were going to give him on, I don’t know, Adam Dunn or something.
This is a pretty big deal, honestly. The Angels just aren’t that good without Teixeira. They weren’t great even with him, and he was an absolute monster for them down the stretch. Yes, they’re getting Kelvim Escobar back and their rotation is still going to be terrific, but their position players leave a lot to be desired.
The AL West doesn’t have a juggernaut anymore.
The pressing question right now
Are heavily snow-laden trees in frozen turf more or less likely to fall down or snap in a windstorm compared to unladen trees in water-saturated turf?