Off-Season Analysis
We got an email yesterday from someone wanting to know what I thought of the Francisco Rodriguez signing, and that made me realize that some of you may not know that I’m doing my non-Mariner writing over at FanGraphs now. It’s the same kind of analysis we do here, just on a league wide scale. Here’s some links to my take on the moves we’ve seen so far this winter:
Sabathia to NY – also includes notes about how this is a big time buyer’s market.
Tigers sign Adam Everett and trade for Gerald Laird, as well as folllow up piece on value of role players.
Stay away from Dunn, Ramirez, Abreu, Ibanez, and Burrell
Cubs sign Dempster and trade for Kevin Gregg
Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham to Washington
Mike Jacobs to KC – the comments thread on this is the worst in the history of the internet.
Really, if it’s happening in baseball, we’re writing about it at FanGraphs. The site is also the best resource on the internet for the kinds of statistics we favor, including wOBA, WPA/LI, and UZR. And it’s only getting better. If you’re not reading FanGraphs, you’re missing out.
Joyce, Larish analyzed
So, as Jason (!) noted below, and Baker blogged about the last couple of days, the Mariners and Tigers are almost certainly talking about a deal that would send J.J. Putz to Detroit. Speculation has the Mariners wanting some combination of prospects that would include Matt Joyce or Jeff Larish, as both are left-handed hitters with some power, and Zduriencik has made it no secret that his goal is to add some LH power to the roster.
Now, because both are guys that most non-Detroit fans will know little about, it’s easy to lump them together as similar prospects. They aren’t. Joyce is the far superior talent, and it’s not even close.
Larish is a 26-year-old with the classic first baseman skillset – significant raw pull power, a patient approach at the plate, and contact problems. He swings for the fences and his value lies in hitting the ball really far, hoping that it makes up for his lack of contact. His career minor league K% is around 25%, so he’s not Russ Branyan, but he’s going to strike out a lot. That lack of contact will keep his average in the .250 to .270 range, and even though he draws his fair share of walks and has power, that limits his absolute upside to something like a .260/.350/.500 player, and he’s only got about a 10% chance of being that good. Unless he developed into a plus defender (unlikely), that makes him an average player at best, and more likely he ends up having something like Eric Hinske’s career.
Joyce, on the other hand, has less power but a better spread of skills. Like Larish, he swings and misses a lot, and he won’t be a high average guy, but his significantly better athleticism allows him to provide real defensive value and a skill set that has room for growth. Tigers fans thought he was a pretty terrific defensive outfielder, and while the sample is way too small for it to have strong meaning, UZR agrees with their assessment. In many ways, he’s similar to Jayson Werth – an athletic OF with good defense, gap power, and enough walks to offset the strikeouts.
Honestly, I think Joyce has a better long term future than Wladimir Balentien, who I know many of you are still quite high on. The fact that he’s left-handed makes him a much better fit for Safeco, and his significantly better defense would be a welcome sight running around left field.
Honestly, I’d trade Putz for Joyce straight up, one for one. He’s probably something close to a league average corner outfielder right now (assuming that Tigers fans are right about his defense), at 24, with upside to get to a +3 or +3.5 win level. He’d also be under team control through 2014.
If the Tigers want to give the Mariners a package that includes Joyce and other stuff, it’s going to be a massive steal for the M’s. If it’s just Joyce, it’s still a great trade. If it’s Larish and stuff, then I’m less excited, but would still listen depending on what the other stuff was.
Tigers target Putz, Wood for closer vacancy
From the Detroit Free Press:
The team has shown interest in free agent Kerry Wood in recent days and had preliminary trade discussions with the Seattle Mariners about J.J. Putz.
Both right-handers have been targeted by the New York Mets, so Detroit officials may need to move quickly in order to have their pick.
Putz, 31, would certainly make for a compelling storyline if he were to become the Tigers’ closer: He grew up in Trenton and pitched at the University of Michigan.Â
Now, obviously there’d be a bit of a “selling low” factor with Putz, as last year wasn’t his best. At the same time, though, if you’re interesting in moving him–and he’s certainly one of the team’s most valuable trade parts–the time might be right. Putz makes a mere $5.5M next season, followed by a $9.1M club option (or $1M buyout) in 2010.
GIven what we’ve seen from Zduriencik so far with respect to building a cheap 1B platoon, I have little doubt he could cobble together an effective bullpen–closer included–without plunking down $14.6M over two years for a proverbial “proven” closer.
I’m certainly not looking to trade him, but if you can turn Putz into a young position player and give yourself $14.6M to spend while at the same time not hurting the bullpen too much, more power to you.
Oh and Ibanez is gone
Declined arb, says the PI, Times, and everyone else.
We knew he would, and if he didn’t, he’d be a nice enough fit at DH next year (though they’d have to work out the playing time issues) etc.
Still, Ibanez was one of the best pickups Gillick made. At the time, we carped about signing him ahead of the arbitration deadline, giving up a pick when the Royals had no intention of offering it (but then, Gillick didn’t like his high picks and wanted to punt them, soooooo…). Gillick & Company said he had a swing tailor-made for Safeco Field, that he was going to hit great, and I was skeptical. I thought they were wrong, more properly. It’s turned out the M’s were absolutely right and I got to admit I was wrong over and over and over (and I couldn’t have been happier about that).
What the team does to replace his production will be one of the most interesting tests of the new leadership. Given their work on patching first base, though, you have to be optimistic right now.
M’s sign Chris Shelton
Seriously, I think Jack Z understands how to build a pretty sweet 1B platoon for no money. The M’s have inked Chris Shelton, and he now becomes the frontrunner to be Branyan’s platoon partner at first base. That should be a productive duo for basically $2 million bucks.
Go Jack Go.
UZR clarified
Okay, so, Derek beat me to the announcement that we’ve started carrying UZR data over at FanGraphs. It’s pretty awesome, and hopefully, if you’re not already reading FanGraphs every day, you will start.
Leading up to the launch, I wrote a few articles about understanding defensive statistics and practically applying them. Not to be too self promoting, but I think you should read those. Defensive statistics cannot be viewed the same way as offensive statistics, and I try to make that clear in those posts.
For instance, in the comments of the last two sections, we’re seeing a lot of stuff that refers to Betancourt as “the worst defensive infielder” because his UZR/150 was -14.7 last year. However, you simply can’t make a claim like that. Here’s why:
1. UZR had Betancourt at -15 runs below an average shortstop in 2008. Shortstops are far and away the best defensive players in the game. His peer group is great defenders, which is just not true for 2B, 3B, or especially 1B. A -15 mark at SS is not the same thing as a -15 mark at another position.
2. Sample size – you cannot make concrete statements about a player’s true talent defensive level based on one season’s worth of data. Realistically, you need about 2,000 to 3,000 innings to eliminate enough of the variance to make a good judgment call. On it’s own, Betancourt’s -14.7 doesn’t mean an awful lot, and it certainly can’t be stated that he’s definitely the worst defensive SS in the game. He’s almost certainly below average, and he did have a poor defensive season last year, but don’t get carried away with valuing players based on a single season’s rating.
The fact that we have publicly available UZR data is a huge breakthrough, but please, use the data properly.
Fun with UZR
Following up on the previous post.
Worst UZRs! I sorted qualified, reverse on UZR…
A couple of outfielders, including Nate McLouth (didn’t he win…) and then bam! Betancourt is the worst infielder. Two notches down, Ibanez is not far behind on the overall leaderboard. Then Jose Lopez is below average, and Beltre’s about the tenth-best fielder.
Fangraphs has UZR go go go
For the last couple of years, one of the most frustrating things about discussing defensive stats has been knowing that UZR’s out there, one of the best defensive stats you can use to evaluate players, and yet really hard to get your hands on. Who was the best left fielder last year? I may have no clue unless MGL decides to post the top five guys in a comment thread somewhere.
But now! Fangraphs and MGL present UZRs, freely available to all. It’s a little different because it uses a different data source, but — wow, Ibanez is just wretched. If you thought… wow.
Playing with Marcel
You can read more about Marcel projections here. They’re dead simple: it’s the last three years of data, weighted, with aging.
LF, RF, and designated hitters, with age, by wOBA
—
Manny Ramirez, 37, .389
Bradley, 31, .384
Dunn, 30, .372
Burrell, 33, .369
Abreau, 35, .357
Alou, 43, .351
Thomas, 41, .345
Ibanez, 37, .344
Daryle Ward, 34, .342
Juan Rivera, 31, .332
Greg Norton, 37, .339
Griffey, 40, .333
Hinske, 32, .330
Floyd, 37, .328
Luis Gonzalez, 42, .324
Anderson, 37, .319
Trot Nixon, 35, .311
Jacque Jones, 34, .310
Emil Brown, 31, .310
Michaels, 33, .303
Payton, 37, .295
Wilkerson, no, just no.
Some disclaimers to start this off: because it’s based on historical data, the number you see there might be (and sometimes is) the result of injury-ridden seasons that may or may not happen, platoons that you’d have to find the other half off, and on and on and on.
Lot of crappy-fielding outfielders on that list. Let’s group that out a little.
Players who shouldn’t wear gloves, with age, by wOBA
—
Manny Ramirez, 37, .389
Bradley, 31, .384
Dunn, 30, .372
Burrell, 33, .369
Abreau, 35, .357
Thomas, 41, .345
Ibanez, 37, .344
Daryle Ward, 34, .342
Greg Norton, 37, .339
Griffey, 40, .333
Hinske, 32, .330
Floyd, 37, .328
Luis Gonzalez, 42, .324
Anderson, 37, .319
Average-to-bad fielders
—
Alou, 43, .351
Juan Rivera, 31, .332 (I’m not confident about this placement)
Trot Nixon, 35, .311
Emil Brown, 31, .310
Plus outfielders, with age, by wOBA
—
Jacque Jones, 34, .310
Jason Michaels, 33, .303
Payton, 37, .295
I did that from memory and a quick scanning of historical PMR, because I had the PMR page up for something else, so feel free to throw your own disagreement in there. I tried to lean towards using the last few years, but that has limitations.
That’s a lot of players who can’t field their position, and there aren’t that many teams looking for DHs. Some of those butchers will end up in the field where their defense will drag down their offensive contributions. But they’re going to get paid for their bats. Go through that list and think about who might get paid what. The bargains aren’t going to be the guys with lead gloves. Unfortunately, looking at the available players, you also see that if the M’s want to improve their defense in left field by upgrading through free agency, there’s not a lot for them to shop for.
Clement, DH, and roster construction
I should have brought this up in the Hinske post, but I wanted to focus largely on the player and thinking about how to look at free agent possibilities.
How the team decides to use Clement will have a big difference in what they look at in off-season acquisitions, and they’re not really going to know that until they’re into spring training probably.
Say Clement’s knee is great and they decide to play him at C/DH, trying to keep him a viable C option with Kenji the primary backup. A 2/3rds split in favor of Johjima would get him into about fifty games behind the plate, then you put him at DH the rest of the time.
Tada! There’s your lefty DH, essentially — there’s not enough playing time left to justify buying even a Hinske-esque DH. You still have to find someone, preferably right-handed, to pick up DH starts against left-handers (and that assumes that you’re pushing Clement behind the plate against some of them), and it’d be nice if that person could cover some other roles as well.
Is fifty games enough, though, if you really want to have Clement be the catcher of the future? Or is it possibly too much? I know the knee surgery went about as well as possible, but we don’t really know how well he’s going to hold up to any catching workload (much less how he’ll endure long-term).
You see the problem. And using Clement as the DH on the same day as Johjima catches puts a lot of pressure on the team to carry a third catcher on the bench, making the team:
DH: Clement vRHP, ? vLHP
C: Johjima/Clement/?
1B: Branyan vRHP, ? vLHP
2B: Lopez
SS: Betancourt
3B: Beltre
LF: ?
CF: ?
RF: Ichiro!
Assuming they carry 12 pitchers to start the season, they have five spots to fill two starting positions, probably a backup outfielder, possibly another catcher (depending on Clement’s use), a utility player, a platoon partner for Branyan and then another solution for Clement-as-DH.
Now, you might already be thinking “what about finding some utility infielder who can really, truly field up the middle, and using them to swap Lopez or Betancourt into DH for our severe groundball ptichers?” or “What if we find a third catcher who is an only-break-glass-in-case-of-catcher-need guy, can cover first, and is a decent hitter against lefties and off the bench?” or something similarly wacky.
And I would say “a Shawn Wooten-type? Now that is interesting…” and probably go make myself some coffee and forget about it as I got distracted looking through minor league free agent lists. That’s why I love the offseason.