Hey, if you’re looking for a coach to pile on, may I suggest Lamar Johnson?
Dudes with over 200 ABs
Ichiro: .314/.353/.437
Edgar: .295/.409/.500
Boone: .287/.358/.533
Winn: .287/.341/.416
Guillen: .282/.358/.398
Olerud: .268/.368/.385 (yeeech)
Cameron: .255/.343/.435
Wilson: .248/.282/.344
Davis: .245/.294/.399 (yeeesh)
McLemore: .230/.318/.316 (gag)
Cirillo .205/.281/.271 (am I the only person who remembers when everyone thought Johnson was so great because he was spending time working with Jeff and watching old video, and implying that no one had thought of that before?)
Now, there’s a way we can judge under/over performing. Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA system goes through baseball history and finds comps based on a set of factors including age, and then projects the player’s performance forward based on what all those other guys did. What it comes up with is a forecast that includes both best and worst case seasons, and the weights them by probability. So we see something like
Derek Zumsteg C R
90% .200 .400 .400
80% .180 .380 .378
..
10% .000 .050 .000
and so on, where 90% of all Derek-seasons should fall below that 90% line. And only 10% of my Derek-seasons should be on that 10% line or below it.
By comparing what BP’s fine PECOTA projection system projected for these guys and seeing what they actually did, we can start to make some guesses about effectiveness of coaching, because the projections take into account young player growth and old player aging. It also will give credit for coaxing good seasons out of modest players (like Price does).
Okay, so where does that put them on the PECOTA forecasts (and I’m approximating here)
Ichiro: 50th percent (little low on OBP, little higher on SLG)
Edgar: 75th percentile
Boone: 75th percentile
Winn: 50th percentile
Guillen: 90th percentile… while he’s been healthy
Olerud: 20th percent (the power disappearance is hard to match)
Cameron: 40th percent
Wilson: 45th percent
Davis: 40th pecrent (another weird match: PECOTA saw him having less AVG, more OBP, less slugging generally)
McLemore: 25th percentile
Cirillo: 25th percentile
What do we have here, then? The Ageless Edgar again is defying all projections. I think Boone’s projection is thrown off by his weird career path, but I don’t know, maybe the PECOTA-tron 2000 sees that.
Seasons hugely better than expected: 3 (Edgar, Boone, Guillen)
Seasons close to projections: 3 (Ichiro, Winn, Wilson)
Slightly below: 2 (Davis, Cameron)
Collapse: 3 (Olerud, McLemore, Cirillo)
At best, that’s a wash. If you agree with me that Edgar is pretty much beyond the effects of coaching, it’s bad.
Compare this to the kind of consistent improvements Lee Elia got from his players, and… well, you see where I’m going with this. That Johnson’s name hasn’t been brought up in connection with the team’s offensive woes baffles me.
Even after the awful loss on Tuesday, we managed to take 2 out of 3. And Anaheim looks like they’ve officially rolled over, so hopefully this weekend can lead to a nice little winning streak.
Also, judging from our inbox, there are a lot of people jumping on the “Bryan Price is overrated” bandwagon, seemingly frustrated with his inability to fix Freddy Garcia. I think people are losing sight of exactly what Bryan Price has built here. Under his watch:
Joel Pineiro became a frontline starting pitcher despite a history of mediocrity in the minors. He has outperformed all his projections.
Gil Meche developed into a quality starting pitcher after not pitching in the majors for three years and getting torched in his Double-A rehab last year.
Ryan Franklin has gone from bit-part 4A reliever into a useful starting pitcher.
Julio Mateo has gone from a bit-part 4A reliever into one of the best relief pitchers in baseball.
Rafael Soriano has emerged from being a prospect with a good arm into being one of the three or four most dominating relievers in the game.
Shigetoshi Hasegawa has gone from a contact-king middle reliever into a run-stopping machine.
Price has not exactly been handed an all-star pitching staff, but he’s maximized the return of nearly everyone on the staff. Freddy Garcia is frustrating, yes, but to lay that blame at the feet of Bryan Price is to suggest that he’s a miracle worker. Nearly the entire pitching staff is overachieving, and that has been true since Price took over as pitching coach. Lest we forget the days of Stan Williams, let us remember that we have one of the best pitching coaches in the game.
There was an ommission in today’s ESPN pitch-by-pitch Game Log. The 7th inning should read:
—
TEXAS 7TH
Gil Meche pitches to Michael Young
Pitch 1: ball 1
Pitch 2: strike 1 (foul caught by D Zumsteg)
Pitch 3: in play
M Young flied out to center.
Gil Meche pitches to Hank Blalock
Pitch 1: strike 1 (looking)
Pitch 2: strike 2 (swinging)
Pitch 3: in play
H Blalock flied out to center.
Gil Meche pitches to Alex Rodriguez
Pitch 1: in play
A Rodriguez flied out to center.
0 runs, 0 hits, 0 errors
Texas 2, Seattle 7
—
M’s won, I made a nice catch — I’m one happy fan tonight.
A note for those of you in the eastern time zone (or you pacific time zone people who get up way too early on weekends); I’m going to be live on Baseball Prospectus Radio on Saturday at 6:25 a.m. pacific time. We will be taking phone calls, so if you’ve got a prospect or two that you want to talk about, feel free to call in.
Thanks, Arthur
Mariners Notebook: Rhodes admits injury
“It was tough at first to throw; it was hard on the landing,” Rhodes said. “I think now maybe I should have gone on the disabled list. I’ve been pitching on it, and it hasn’t healed.”
I’m not a doctor — nor do I play one on television — but I said at the time he should have gone on the DL to get his ankle healed up. Sure it would have been rough without him for two weeks, but at least we’d have him 100% now. Instead, the only left-hander in the pen won’t be quite right the rest of the season. Injuries like this, which cause a pitcher to change his mechanics or motion to compensate, are the sort of thing which lead to arm injuries.
Well, a win tonight. And it only took 129 pitches from Joel Pineiro to do it! In fairness, he was working on seven days rest. But 129 pitches? Soriano hasn’t pitched since Sunday. Mateo threw 5 pitches last night. Rhodes only threw 3. Sasaki hasn’t pitched since Friday. Given that it was a save situation, I’m surprised he didn’t use Shiggy. But this is classic Melvin — when something bad happens (like Tuesday night’s loss), he overreacts huge in the opposite direction.
Boston and Oakland both won, so there’s nothing doing in the standings.
Oh, and I think this is about the best news I’ve read all day: “[Mark] McLemore, who is a free agent at the end of the year, has expressed an interest in returning to Texas according to the Dallas Morning News.” So, uh, good luck with that.
Tomorrow…
Anaheim (Scot Shields; 4-4, 2.97 mostly in relief) at Oakland (Rich Harden; 4-4, 4.80), 12.35pm
Texas (Mickey Callaway; 1-6, 7.28) at Seattle (Gil Meche; 14-10, 4.08), 7:05pm
Boston idle (home vs. White Sox starting Friday)
Yet another botched bunt (two by Wilson — the so-called “best bunter on the team” — in less than a week).
C’mon guys, this isn’t rocket science.
You know, the “power outage” jokes got really old, really fast. Rizzs has just used about 14 variations of it since Boone homered. The power is back! The power outage is over! I’m an uncreative nitwit!
Oh, and, while I’m here, I’d like to let everyone know that we’re sorry if we don’t answer your emails. We currently have 70 emails sitting in our inbox, and we simply don’t have time to respond to them all. They all get read, however, and we try to respond to as many as we can.
Oh, and as to the Mariners thanking “the best fans in baseball” — Seattle doesn’t have the best fans in baseball, as clearly shown every time Alex comes up to bat.
I come here not to defend Box, but to bury him
Given a game-winning situation with Olerud, who can’t hit lefties and hasn’t.. um, almost ever… and a lefty pitching, where one hit/run will win the game, why not pinch-hit for Olerud (this season, .243/.327/.309 v LHP) with:
C-B Ben Davis (.278/.333/.556 v LHP)
Pat Borders, C-R, who hit .348 with 12 doubles, a triple, and a homer, 7 BB and 11 K in 83 AB v LHP at Tacoma
Chad Meyers, UT-R, who hit .314 with 5 doubles, a triple, and a homer, 8 BB and 10 SO in 86 AB v LHP at Tacoma
Jamal Strong, OF-R who hit .278 with a double, triple, and homer and 6 BB, 6 SO in 36 AB v LHP at Tacoma
Bleah. What a dumb move that was.