Reload: The Offseason Plan To Win in 2009
For years, I’ve been posting suggested offseason plans for the M’s, laying out potential moves they could make to improve the roster and try to build a winning team. This year, however, it’s a little different – the organization doesn’t really know what they’re going to do, since they don’t have a GM, and they seem to be leaning towards a rebuild. So, until we know what the decision on the GM is and what he feels like the team should do with this roster, there needs to be two sets of suggestions. Double the work for me, but hopefully, twice as much fun for you guys.
So, here’s part one – a step by step outline of how the organization could retool this winter and attempt to come back as a contender in 2009. There’s a ton of talent hitting free agency this winter and the M’s already have some pieces in place, so it’s possible, even coming off a disastrous season. Here’s one potential roster that could legitimately contend in the A.L. West next year.
And here are the moves that would create said roster:
Trade Jose Lopez, Wladimir Balentien, and Jarrod Washburn to the Brewers for Corey Hart and Brad Nelson
Sign Rafael Furcal to a 3 year, $40 million contract
Sign Milton Bradley to a 3 year, $36 million contract with a vesting option for a 4th season based on PA
Sign Reed Johnson to a 1 year, $3 million contract.
Sign Jeremy Affeldt to a 1 year, $4 million contract
Fairly simple – one trade, four free agent contracts, and a position change for Betancourt. I have a hard time seeing the Brewers turning down that offer (especially with how badly Hart finished 2008, and the fact that he’s arb. eligible this winter), and the contracts for Furcal and Bradley are calculated risks, offering guaranteed years and significant cash to guys with health questions. As far as make believe rosters, I think this one’s quite a bit more realistic than most of the ones I’ve proffered in the past. It requires the M’s to keep their payroll essentially even with what it was in 2008, but wouldn’t require the new GM to come in and demand to be able to trade prospects off for a win-now fix or for a budget increase to spend on veterans. This roster can be built with the resources readily available from day one.
Why would this team win?
Rough calculations put the offense at about +10 runs above average over the full season. Those projections assume a minimal rebound from Betancourt and Hart’s poor seasons, a slight uptick by Beltre and Ichiro, slightly below average production from Clement and Nelson, and Bradley only being a good hitter, not a great one. There’s certainly room for more in the offense – Hart turns 27 next year, and his power is legitimate, so a slightly better approach could lead to a big step forward. Clement could be quite a bit better than the projection, and Bradley might not regress nearly as far as this suggests.
The defense is also remarkably better. Lopez is essentially replaced by Furcal, a pretty huge upgrade with the glove. Ibanez is replaced by Hart, which is like driving by McDonalds and ending up at Mortons. Betancourt’s less of a problem at second base than at shortstop, and while Nelson/Clement won’t be very good over at first, Morse offers some potential as a solid glove there. Overall, this should be an above average defense, probably by the margin of +10 to +15 runs or so.
The pitching staff benefits from a potentially healthy Bedard, the importation of Affeldt to be the bullpen’s primary lefty, and a better back-end of the rotation with RRS, Morrow, and a version of Carlos Silva that can’t possibly be that bad again. Batista, Dickey, and Feierabend provide rotation depth to make up for the innings gap that the starting five will certainly leave, so there’s eight in house starting pitchers already around. Overall, this pitching staff is, much like the rest of the team, slightly above average. Depending on Bedard’s heatlh and the progression of Morrow and Rowland-Smith, I’ve got them at +10 runs above average, but it could jump to +30 if Bedard can pitch the whole season at peak level.
Put it all together, and you’ve got a team that looks like an 85-87 win team based on talent level. Good enough to be the favorite? No, certainly not, but a huge step back to respectability while simultaneously building to the future. No major prospects are sacrificed – Balentien is essentially replaced by Hart, a better version of the same skillset, and while Lopez is shipped off in favor of the older Furcal, Luis Valbuena gets to hang out in Tacoma and push Betancourt for the 2B job if he doesn’t improve.
The guys around which the franchise should be building are still here, and the new talented veterans give the team time to let their prospects develop while also keeping the fan base on board. The team gets younger and significantly more exciting, and the new additions create an opportunity for a playoff berth if enough things go right – Felix breaks out, Bedard stays healthy, Beltre has another monster contract year, whatever. They’re not the favorites, but they’re within striking distance, and there’s real upside on the roster.
Why would this team lose?
Easy – it’s brittle as hell. Furcal gets a huge contract for sitting four months in 2008. Bradley never plays more than about 75% of the season. Bedard’s coming off shoulder surgery. Morrow and Rowland-Smith enter spring training as starters for the first time in their careers. Those five guys are all major durability question marks, and they’re all being counted on. If more than one bites it, this team isn’t going to win. They have to stay healthy.
But what do you really lose by trying this roster out? Say Bedard doesn’t come back, Furcal’s back is still a problem, Bradley misses a bunch of time due to nagging injuries… they just get replaced by the kids you were going to play if you decided to rebuild before the year started, and you can still shop around guys like Beltre and Putz at the trade deadline if you want prospects in lieu of more draft picks.
Yea, there’s some financial outlay, but none of it is guaranteed beyond where Silva and Johjima’s ugly extensions already take us, so it’s not prolonging the years of bad money on the books. If you go into a full scale rebuild, you’re not winning for 2-3 years anyway, so the money spent on Bradley and Furcal isn’t going to push back your timetable one single day. And if the team bombs while either or both of those guys stay healthy and productive, you have a couple new trade chips to hasten your rebuild.
The team has issues, but there are players available that can address those issues, and the team has the resources to get those guys in uniform. The Mariners don’t have to rebuild – with some good roster management, they can restock the major league roster without sacrificing the future. It doesn’t have to be an either/or, win now or rebuild situation. With an offseason like this, the team could win in 2009 and rebuild at the same time.
The larger issues
If I may, there’s a lot tied up in this whole Ichiro thing today and I think it’s important to tug them apart a little.
First, there’s the blind quote thing. I wish Baker would either name his sources or stop acting all coquettish about it (“You’d be surprised… could be a pitcher… name doesn’t start with a ‘Q’…”). If someone wants to give an incident like that on background, that’s fine, but if it’s important enough to run, it deserves a more detailed exploration. If the situation was so serious that the team thought Ichiro’s physical safety was an issue and called a meeting to work it out, that’s really quite disturbing.
The story’s now been flatly contradicted by at least two people who would have been around for it in Riggleman and Putz. And there will likely be others. If they’re all singing the same tune to protect Ichiro, doesn’t that at least undermine the clubhouse-v-players thing?
Beyond which, if there was a player looking to pick a fight with Ichiro, they’d have been thrown out or traded for John Mabry or something crazy, and it would have looked really weird. Unless it was Brad Wilkerson (hey, Blue Jays-Expos connection!) it’s fair to assume the threat of actual violence didn’t seem too serious.
We don’t know what happened. Some people do who are willing to put their names to it, and others don’t, and they’re probably afraid to shower with the team because there’s a big yellow streak down their spine which if spotted would guarantee at least one player does get in a fight. We can’t weigh that out.
So chalk the “was Ichiro going to get beat up?” to at best uncertainty.
Second, is Ichiro a bad teammate? Does he harm team chemistry? I don’t know. I wrote a whole thing on evaluating team chemistry and the short of it is that team chemistry, if it exists, can’t be predicted, evaluated, doesn’t seem to be significant and — as Riggleman said today — tends to be the product, rather than cause, of winning or losing. And we don’t know Ichiro personally, so I can’t speak to that either. And maybe contributing by quiet example in 2001 ticks the 2008 supporting cast off. But if there’s a real reason that Ichiro’s a bad teammate, we haven’t heard it yet, as Dave pointed out.
Third, is there resentment of the Japanese players? I don’t know that either. But I don’t understand how Ichiro would enter into this. Ichiro’s well-paid for being a good player. He’d certainly have received more on the open market, whether or not you think he’s worth the money. Johjima got a huge contract extension while sucking and then kept sucking. I think Washburn’s public tantrum about Johjima was ridiculous, but it’s still true that he, at least, and Bedard both didn’t like throwing to him for whatever reason. So I understand players might look at that contract deal and think “he only got that contract because the team has Japanese ownership ties”. But that’s not Ichiro. And if the resentment and hostility is really about performance and undeserved contracts, why Ichiro over Johjima?
I realized while writing that I do understand how Ichiro might enter into this. If they’re mad about that and think Japanese players get special treatment, well, Ichiro’s Japanese, why not hate on him, too? And that’s even beyond the general racial issues, which brings me to:
Fourth, is the clubhouse racist? This would hardly be the first time a team fractured along racial lines. Stuff a bunch of vastly talented people from diverse backgrounds speaking different languages into each other’s company for 162 games and crazy things happen. But if that was the case, you’d think we’d have seen symptoms of this a lot earlier. So we don’t know this one either.
Fifth, why Ichiro? There’s a Bill James line Gomez quoted in the comments I like: “Bad teams tend to focus all their frustration at their best players.” Ichiro’s clearly the best all-around position player on the team. Ibanez is by far the more productive hitter, and he’s done exceptionally well in important situations this year, but he’s terrible in the field. Felix can be electric, but he’s not the draw Ichiro is yet. We’ve seen this before, when players like Alex Rodriguez and even Ken Griffey Jr. were criticized for not doing enough to lead.
And yet it seems strange that Ichiro would be singled out for being paid while not performing, when there are other players are equally well-paid, but produce nothing. Silva was supposed to solidify the rotation and instead has been plagued by back trouble, talks trash about players to the press, and has had a season line so bad it’s painful to glance at. Why was there no blanket party held for him?
… unless Ichiro’s a bad teammate, to the point that his teammates find reasons to hate him.
… or it’s because the clubhouse is divided and there’s some portion that doesn’t like the Japanese players
Neither of which we can know.
Sixth, why is this important? Brewer argued that Ichiro being in a bubble was the team’s greatest problem. Which should let you know not to value his baseball analysis, because this is a team that can’t hit, pitch, or field, and a front office that spent vast sums of money on horrible players because they couldn’t tell the difference between good value and bad. They’ve lost a hundred games this year. There is no possible accounting, no matter how much value you want to put on a team “melding” or whatever chemistry term you like, that makes Ichiro or his personality or lack of leadership worthy of this kind of treatment.
The whole thing – the stirred-up controversy, which I certainly bit on angrily, is exactly the sort of baseball coverage that drives me nuts. It’s the focus on the superficial: which players are “accountable” by being media-friendly, or who hangs out with who, the blind-source gossiping and speculation, all at the expense of what’s substantial and to me interesting — and what some of the other stuff Baker’s series is covering. How does an organization go so badly wrong? How do they recover?
It’s a weak story told because it generates a lot of controversy and traffic for the Times. And obviously, since they’re contracting out road beat coverage, they’re willing to run this kind of thing. I wish they hadn’t (bringing us back around to the first point). We’re now in a place where, as scraps put it while I was drafting this,
It’s coming down on Baker because he’s responsible for it. If the source won’t take responsibility, then it’s on Baker. We have to take Baker at his word, over Riggleman and now Putz. I’m not willing to do that.
Moreover, it’s not an important story for that very reason. If it’s Beltre and Beltre’s got something to say, we can talk about that (Beltre, lauded for playing through injury, Ichiro, supposedly resented). Or Silva or Bedard or who the hell ever. We can discuss whether they can deal with him or need to be traded, or if Ichiro has to go. But this is gossip, and common gossip at that.
Riggleman’s right: teams that lose a hundred games, particularly teams that go into a season thinking they’re contenders, have these problems.
I want to know whether or not the team is serious about playing Lopez at first, and whether that’ll affect their off-season strategy, and whether they’ve given up on LaHair (yes). Whether Ibanez might get offered arbitration, what the GM process will look like.
We’re a week away from the end of the regular season, and we haven’t read a good GM article in ages. Who’s on the list? Who’s available, and what other options are out there for candidates? That’s the kind of thing that’ll matter to the franchise. Because when they’re winning again, Ichiro will go back to being the weirdly-dressed, funny and sometimes foul-mouthed leader-by-example, all of this will be forgotten, and we won’t have to wonder which team personnel are fighting a proxy mud flinging contest in the press.
All of which is reason enough to hope they get this ship turned around.
Armstrong, Lincoln interfered, sucked when we had a GM
A quick reminder on how active Lincoln and Armstrong’ have been even with a sitting, non-interim GM, and the results. From this Times blog piece:
The first was on who engineered the Kenji Johjima contract extension. Lincoln told me that it was Allan Nero, Johjima’s agent, who first approached the M’s with the extension idea. After that, it was primarily the team’s owner, Hiroshi Yamauchi, Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong who did the deal. Bavasi had limited involvement in it.
It’s not just something with Lee and the interim title. And GM candidates will know this.
The trade value post
During yesterday’s game thread, I mentioned that I might try and crank out a giant trade value megapost, and someone mentioned “won’t you get depressed putting “no value” over and over?”
And that’s pretty much what happened. In response, I’m scaling back my ambitions.
Hitters with value:
Ichiro. Don’t. Just don’t. Ichiro’s why I tune in every game, why I still drag myself to Safeco to buy tickets. Don’t do this to me.
Ibanez. Including his defense, he’s a wash in spacious Safeco Field’s left, but you might be able to mitigate somewhat in a smaller park. Generally, though, you’re looking to move him to a team that needs a LH DH. His contract, in its last year at $5.5m, makes him an attractive pickup for a team that wants the stretch drive help. So who could use him? Unfortunately for our purposes, the teams you can see contending and needing an upgrade at DH are more likely to hold out hope for their current guys (like Sheffield, for instance). Similarly, I don’t see a team with an LF hole they might swap Ibanez in at.
Beltre. He’s got another year at $12m on his contract. Here’s a really interesting one to think about. First, we’ve been arguing for ages that Beltre’s been a fine signing, a bargain when compared to what his peers are getting, but because his defense is largely unappreciated and that first year was such a drop from his 04 it created this whole “Beltre’s contract was a bust” belief that seems to circle endlessly around the national baseball media circles. And we’ve seen articles with anonymous front-office types claiming he’s not a good pickup (or whatever) — though I’d encourage everyone to always heavily discount those kind of blind quotes for reasons that should be obvious — and if there’s a perception in front offices that he’s overpaid, that’ll affect his trade value.
Smart teams though will recognize the potential value and may see opportunity — you get him for the stretch and you get the 09 year which is still a good deal — and with so many teams out of the bidding, maybe it doesn’t take much. But then what teams are smart, need a third base upgrade, and willing to take on that kind of salary? I don’t see a good fit.
Lopez. This is very nearly the opposite of the Beltre argument. Now we’re looking for a team that likes the high average and doesn’t see (or doesn’t care about) the defensive questions. He’s got three more really cheap years if you count the team option (seriously, it’s $1.6m in 09, $2.3m in 10, and a $4.5m option for 11)(actually, it may be more than that, but that’s complicated and it’s still cheap). The problem is that you’re still looking for teams that need a second base upgrade. Cano’s collapse in New York might open that door, but it’s hard to believe that as unbalanced and crazy as that team is they’d give up on Cano like that. Would the Mets give up on Castillo as they try to get back into it? I don’t see a huge market here, either.
(and Clement, but they’re not trading Clement if they’re rebuilding)
Hitters with potential valueL
Betancourt. He’s young, undeniably talented, and can hit some — why, just look at last year’s line! Sure, his defense went from great to abhorrent, but pay no attention to that. We’d like to get out from under his contract before he puts some more weight on and gets even less mobile, and you, uh, you have a good conditioning coach and nutritionist on hand you think he’ll listen to. It’s a perfect match.
Reed. He’s had two great years in the PCL and he’s cuffed pitchers around since he came up, which might validate those performances in the eyes of some teams that would otherwise have dismissed him. There’s always some attraction too in former top prospects who seem to be coming back into glory. Plus, unlike Ibanez, he’s not defensively limited.
Hitters without trade value:
Sexson. Expensive and worthless. Even if they have some brain parasite that makes them deranged and impulsive, they’ll give up nothing.
Vidro. Expensive and worthless. Expensive and worthless. Even if they have some brain parasite that makes them deranged and impulsive, they’ll give up nothing.
Johjima. Expensive and no one’s going to trade for a catcher hitting this badly, just signed to an extension and in the process of losing his job.
Bloomquist. He’s a good enough spare part, but no team’s going to give up anything of importance when they almost certainly have someone somewhere in their system that can provide the same skills for free.
Oh yeah, and Burke.
Pitchers with value:
Felix. This is difficult for me to say, but this might be the best time ever to trade Felix. If the M’s can get a huge haul in blue-chip prospects, it’s worth thinking about. Felix is a tremendous talent, but we’re a couple years in seeing him at the major league level and in a way we’re asking the same questions we did about Garcia in the day. Felix’s best pitch isn’t his fastball, as we saw with Freddy, but over and over he chooses not to go with his best pitch to get outs, insisting on trying to throw the fastball. This year we’ve seen his game take a big step back in every way but the most widely accepted stats like ERA. I worry he’s not ever going to learn to harness his ability, and we’ll see exactly that Garcia path.
Yet the perception of Felix as a rising star is as strong as ever, and his superficially impressive stats make people drool.
Set aside plausibility for just a second and just consider this. Tampa Bay calls tomorrow and says “Did you read what Hank Steinbrenner just said about us? We’ve been up all night drinking Red Bull and planning revenge and we are going to mess that guy up. We’re making a run at this thing, and we want Felix. We’ll give up Evan Longoria, two of our ML-ready mid-rotation guys, and one of our top pitching prospects — take your pick. Come on, help us stick it to the Yankees.”
That’s how it was pitched to me. And If you’re like me, you didn’t have a ready answer, and you’re going to have a lot of confusing and dismaying thoughts for a while. I was surprised my answer wasn’t an immediate “no” when confronted that way, and the more I thought about it… I know, but there it is: the M’s are so deeply screwed right now, my worries about Felix are substantive enough, and his value is high enough that there are trades I’d make for Felix and, what’s more, those trades may well be out there this coming month.
Bedard. Sure, call him inconsistent, fragile, a baby, a horrible interview. He can pitch, and he can be a legitimate ace. Teams making the playoff charge may well look to that as a gamble with a huge potential payoff. Plus, you can always do the PTBNL thing, where they say “We’ll give up two decent prospects for him now. If he does well and we get to the playoffs where he does well, you can pick a guy off list A. If he does well and we miss the playoffs, list B. If he pitches horribly, list C.” Plus he’s cheap.
Pitchers with possible value:
Washburn. He’s got another year on his deal and he’s not very good but he’s left-handed, an innings-eater and so on, and there could be teams out there that get fooled into thinking he’s turned it around. Please, let there be teams that get fooled.
Pitchers with no value:
Batista. Not right now, that’s for certain.
Silva. There’s no rescue from this deal.
And I’m assuming that they won’t consider moving Morrow, and the young pitchers who’ve been effective in the pen (like Green, and Lowe) won’t be moved either. Rhodes possibly, but I don’t see that either.
Uhh, wow
From Larry LaRue – an interview with a pair of the coaches on the staff.
Coach A:
“You’ve got players in that clubhouse who should be team leaders – guys like Richie Sexson, Adrian Beltre, Erik Bedard, even Ichiro – who care only about themselves,†one coach said. “When your best players are hitting 50-60 points below their career averages and won’t take extra batting practice, what message does that send?
“You had kids at the park six hours before a game to work with (former hitting coach) Jeff Pentland one-on-one in the cage, and you had Beltre, who’d never do it. Pretty soon, the younger guys weren’t doing it, either.â€
“You had pitchers complaining about having to throw to (catcher) Kenji Johjima all spring, then saw him get a three-year contract extension in April,†the coach said. “You had guys watch Felix (Hernandez) work his (butt) off in camp and watched Bedard do the minimum – and Bedard was the opening-day starter.â€
Coach B:
“Arthur Rhodes started sitting on the bench when players were taking extra hitting, extra infield drills, and shouting, ‘Where’s Richie? Anyone seen Richie Sexson?’ because Sexson was never there,†he said.
“Then Bedard started setting his own pitch counts, and sitting in the clubhouse during games he didn’t start. Mac tried dealing with that – we all did. How do you make the highest-paid players on your team work harder if they decide they’re not going to?â€
Honestly, it’s not the substance of the quotes that get me that much – it’s that two people on the coaching staff were willing to say this stuff to a reporter on the record. Apparently they’re tired of being blamed for the failures of the team and are going to make sure the fans know that they’re not exactly happy with the group of guys they were given.
And remember, this was a coaching staff assembled for their experience and leadership – “the best coaching staff we’ve ever had” according to Chuck Armstrong in spring training. As you can see, their leadership is impeccable. Hooray experience…
Friday random jealousy
From Jerry Crasnick’s ESPN chat:
Jacob (Brooklyn): U.S.S. Mariner will revolt if they trade Ichiro. They can’t do that.
Jerry Crasnick: (12:23 PM ET ) Jacob, Heck, at this point, maybe the club should just hire the staff of the USS Mariner blog and let them make all the roster moves for a year. I’d be all for it.
Hee hee hee. Thanks, Jerry.
Jay wrote us to point out Ken Rosenthal says the Japanese players are resented. Wheeeeeeeee, good to see the clubhouse turning on the one fielder making the greatest overall contribution. Why can’t the team pick on overpaid, useless players like Vidro, or Silva, or Washburn, or… you get the point.
Larry Stone, covering for Baker on the Times blog, files a long report on McLaren’s farewell comments in which McLaren confirms clubhouse issues
“I think we have a good group of guys. I think there’s a little tension and friction in there, a little jealousy. That’s for those guys to work out on their own. We (the coaching staff) tried to, and we weren’t very successful. I think they have to do that on their own.
The jealousy bit present in both pieces is interesting. We’ll see how that plays out, but while I can understand players looking at, say, Johjima’s extension with incomprehension, Ichiro’s contract is the least of the team’s problems. This reminds me of Texas blaming Alex’s contract while Chan Park and the rest of their free agent mistakes escaped notice.
What’s tonight’s lineup going to look like? I can’t remember the last time I was this curious about who would play where and bat in what order.
They’re tanking
They’re sending Balentien down to see if he can play center after being bad defensively in right. To do so, they’re moving Ichiro back to right, creating a hole in center they’d fill with Reed, who is the only other player on the roster who can defend in center. But they’ve also been working him out at first, to replace Sexson, who they’ve turned from a three-outcome power threat into a taller, fitter clone of 2007 Vidro who still can’t play defense.
The roster spot opened up by sending Balentien down will be filled by Jeff Clement, one of the best hitters in the organization, sent down after a 50-PA trial didn’t work out (and replaced by the shorter and one year regressed designated hitter version of the singles-hitting first baseman). Clement is a catcher, but he can’t play catcher because the team already has two, one of which was just signed to a lucrative three-year extension and who hasn’t hit so far this year. They could play him at designated hitter, but that would displace the designated hitter they already have who isn’t hitting.
The could also solve the team’s outfield defense problem by putting the team’s outfield defense problem at designated hitter, so he needs to remain a designated hitter who stands in the outfield and lets balls drop around him and never gets a defensive sub.
A possible solution is to play Clement at catcher and move the recently-signed catcher to first, where they’re also thinking about playing the good defensive center fielder.
The M’s position players, for your amusement
DFA Vidro: DH
DFA Sexson: ?
2B Lopez: 2B
SS Betancourt: SS
3B Beltre: 3B
DH Ibanez: LF
CF/RF Ichiro: RF
UT Bloomquist: CF/UT
UT Cairo: UT
OF Reed: 1B/OF
C Johjima: C/1B
C Burke: C
There’s no rational explanation for what the M’s have done with their lineup this year, or their promotion decisions, their playing time decisions — and yet we all know they’re savvy baseball people who’ve been around the game forever. There must be a reason.
Stephen Strasburg
This is the best-executed plan we’ve seen from the Mariners since they bid for Ichiro.
2008 Win Values
“We have to analyze the talent we see and assign the proper value to it.” – Neil Huntington, Pittsburgh GM, in an article published yesterday.
The Pirates are the newest team to hire a GM with a strong belief in quantifying value. Not surprisingly, Huntington came out of Cleveland, an organization that has been using their intellectual advantage to win games for years. One of the basic fundamentals of the methods adopted by teams like Boston, Oakland, Cleveland, San Diego, and Arizona is the belief that all players have a quantifiable on field effect that can be summed in a win metric that allows for proper valuation. Evaluating talent is huge, but so is properly valuing performance – they go hand in hand, and doing one without the other is a wasted opportunity.
So, that’s what this post is about – valuing talent in terms of wins. I’ve taken the best approach to win analysis available and applied it to the Mariner roster, taking a projected performance for the upcoming year and converting that into a win value that factors in both run production and run prevention, with necessary adjustments for the position being played, the role the player will be used in, and the environment they call their home field. In the end, this allows us to size up the entire roster in terms of what we expect their on field contribution to be this season, how much that contribution is worth, and how much value they are adding to the franchise in 2008.
The starting spot for analysis of position players is offensive production. Every outcome of every plate appearance has an average run value that we can assign to that event, allowing us to convert an overall projected batting line into a run production number. This concept is known as linear weights, and is accepted as the best method for quantifying offensive value. If you want to read more about linear weights, here’s a three part series that covers the concept and shows how it works. There are a few different linear weight run estimators out there; I chose to use Weighted On Base Average (wOBA for short) because the math is the easiest to follow in getting from runs to wins.
Despite using On Base in the term, it’s a valuation of total hitting production. It gets its name from the fact that its scaled to look like on base percentage, so if you’re familiar with what a good/bad/average OBP is, you also know what a good/bad/average wOBA is. .300 is lousy, .340 is average, .400 is awesome. wOBA is presented in detail in The Book, written by Tom Tango, Andy Dolphin, and Mitchel Lichtman.
The formula for wOBA is wOBA = (0.72 BB + 0.75 HBP + 0.90 1B + 0.92 RBOE + 1.24 2B + 1.56 3B + 1.95 HR) / PA. Pretty simple – the multiplication is performed according to run values of each event scaled to look like OBP (in this case, the ratio of one to another is more important than the actual multiplications). Singles are worth a bit more than walks, but less than doubles, which are worth less than triples, and nothing is worth more than a home run. Nothing scary here. The only thing wOBA doesn’t account for is baserunning, so I’ve made manual adjustments for the necessary players who extract value from their legs.
So, all you have to do is have the data for those categories, and wham, you have wOBA. Once you have that, you can simply compare a player’s wOBA to the league average wOBA (AL average is .338, but I used .334 to account for Safeco) to get his offensive production above or below average. Note – this is not position adjusted – we’re just comparing hitters to hitters right now. Once you have the difference, you can divide that by 1.15 (wOBA’s relation to runs), multiply by a full season plate appearance estimate for each role (I used 700 for starters, 250 for bench players, both of which get reduced to 85% of that total later on, since we don’t project anyone to play 162 games), and then divide by 10.5 to convert from runs to wins. After you’ve done that, you’ve got an offensive win value compared to league average.
That’s step one. From there, it’s easy. You take your offensive wins and adjust for each position using what we know about the defensive spectrum. Catchers get +1.5 wins, shortstops and center fielders get +1 win, second baseman and third baseman get +0.5 wins, left fielders and right fielders get no position adjustment, first baseman get -0.5 wins, and designated hitters get -1.0 win. This positional scale adjusts for the quality of each player’s peers while also ensuring that we don’t make bad assumptions based on the league average line of any one position during a season. We can say with 100% certainty that it’s harder to play shortstop than to play second base, as almost every second baseman is a shortstop who got moved to the easier position at some point in their life, so we don’t ever want to assume that the average second baseman is better than the average shortstop. If we used league average offensive production by position as the comparing baseline, the values wouldn’t be fixed, which is why I prefer the defensive spectrum adjustments.
Okay, so now you have your position player’s offensive performance relative to league average and adjusted for position. Two steps left before we have our final win value. First, we don’t necessarily want to compare all players to league average in valuation methods. What’s a league average player worth? How easy is it to find one? These aren’t intuitive answers, so average doesn’t make for a great baseline. Instead, we want to compare the players to what we’d expect a team to be able to get from a league minimum player that could be acquired with little to no effort. For instance, yesterday the Mariners signed Greg Norton to a minor league contract. He might make the team, he might not, but guys of his quality are always available. He’s the walking definition of replacement level, so we want to compare our first baseman/designated hitter types to what they’d give us over Greg Norton type players. We know these players are worth about $400,000 (league minimum salary, basically), so it gives us a better starting spot for the final valuation.
The freely available talent guys historically perform, as a group, at a level about two wins below average over the course of the full season. Or, said another way, a team full of these league minimum guys would win about 50 games per season. It’s hard to do much worse than 50-110, even if you’re not trying to contend.
So, in addition to the position adjustments, we add a replacement level adjustment of +2 wins for each position. This means that the adjustment is now +3.5 for catchers, +3 for shortstops and center fielders, +2.5 for second baseman and third baseman, +2 for left fielders and right fielders, +1.5 for for first baseman, and +1 for first baseman. So, if you have a catcher who is a league average hitter, you’d say he’s about +3.5 wins offensively, while the exact same hitter would only be worth +1 win if he was a designated hitter. (Note – this is why moving Jeff Clement to DH/1B is not worth it until the Mariners are 100% certain he really can’t catch in the majors).
Okay, so, after all that, you’ve got your offensive win value compared to replacement level and adjusted for position. However, position players don’t just hit – they field, too. So, we have to build in a defensive performance adjustment. While the general range between the best and worst defenders at a position in any given year is about 50 runs (that is, +25 for good and -25 for bad), we want to be a lot more conservative in projecting defensive performance. So, for these purposes, I’ve set the upper and lower bounds at +15/-15, with most players falling in the -5 to +5 range. In other words, besides the exceptionally great or terrible defenders, this adjustment isn’t going to make a massive impact. Personally, since there is no defensive metric that contains all knowledge yet, I looked at UZR, PMR, RZR, Dewan’s +/- (when available), and eyeballed a realistic estimate based on inputs from all four. Then, you simply divide the runs saved/lost estimate by 10.5 to convert to wins, and add the defensive performance to the offensive performance you’ve already ascertained. And that’s your win value.
Let’s walk through it with Ichiro. I’ve got him projected for a .345 wOBA in 2008 (this is an optimistic projection, honestly, and only a slight step back from his 2007 performance), which the math then converts to +3.09 wins for a center fielder. I add in +0.5 wins for his defensive performance, and that gives us Ichiro as a +3.6 win player compared to a freely available center fielder. I’ve also added +.15 wins for his baserunning prowess, which brings him to +3.75 wins. Or, put another way, if Ichiro got hurt in spring training and was replaced by some combination of Willie Bloomquist and Jeremy Reed for 2008, we’d lower our win expectation for the team by about 3.75 wins.
How much is a win worth? Well, MLB as a whole is paying about $4.4 million per win above replacement in the free agent market, and we know a league minimum player makes about $400,000, so (Win Value * 4.4) + .4 will give you the player’s dollar value in terms of wins added for the upcoming season. Keeping with the Ichiro example, we have him as a 3.75 win player, which is worth about $16.9 million in on field performance. Ichiro just got a contract extension for $17 million per season, which included adjustments for factors beyond his baseball skills, including his marketing appeal. So I’d say the model worked pretty well here, eh?
Because Ichiro’s salary is higher than his dollar per win value, he’s listed on the chart as having a negative value of $100,000. That doesn’t mean we think Ichiro is overpaid or less valuable than Jamie Burke – it simply means that he’s a fairly compensated star, and not a major bargain. It’s rare that teams have bargains at the top of their payroll, though, so that’s not really a knock against Ichiro. However, it does mean that, if given the choice between trading Ichiro and trading Yuniesky Betancourt, I would trade Ichiro – it would be easier to replace his performance with the $17 million that became available than it would to replace Betancourt with the $1.25 million that became available if he was traded.
So, in terms of 2008 asset value (not on field value – please note the distinction), I’m comfortable saying that Yuniesky Betancourt is more valuable than Ichiro. That might sound like heresy, but considering there are only a handful of teams that can afford Ichiro’s contract and nearly every team in baseball would love to have Betancourt on their team, it reflects reality.
Okay, enough setup – let’s get to the table. Here are the position players projected wOBA, their associated win values, their dollar per win value, and the value difference between that and their actual salary. All dollar values are in millions.
| Position Player | wOBA | WAR | WAR $ | Salary | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johjima | 0.320 | 2.29 | $10.48 | $5.20 | $5.28 |
| Sexson | 0.335 | 0.32 | $1.81 | $14.00 | $(12.19) |
| Lopez | 0.305 | 1.25 | $5.90 | $0.50 | $5.40 |
| Betancourt | 0.305 | 1.62 | $7.53 | $1.25 | $6.28 |
| Beltre | 0.335 | 2.67 | $12.15 | $12.00 | $0.15 |
| Ibanez | 0.345 | 0.75 | $3.70 | $5.50 | $(1.80) |
| Ichiro | 0.345 | 3.75 | $16.90 | $17.00 | $(0.10) |
| Wilkerson | 0.325 | 0.76 | $3.74 | $3.00 | $0.74 |
| Vidro | 0.325 | 0.41 | $2.20 | $6.00 | $(3.80) |
| Reed | 0.295 | -0.06 | $0.14 | $0.40 | $(0.26) |
| Morse | 0.315 | 0.05 | $0.62 | $0.40 | $0.22 |
| Bloomquist | 0.290 | 0.00 | $0.40 | $1.00 | $(0.60) |
| Burke | 0.295 | 0.20 | $1.28 | $0.40 | $0.88 |
| Norton | 0.315 | 0.05 | $0.62 | $0.40 | $0.22 |
A quick peak at those numbers before we move on to the pitchers.
Betancourt, Johjima, and Lopez, as a group, project to be just a bit below average. The M’s total cost for those three – $6.95 million. There aren’t too many other teams in baseball getting that kind of quality production for next to no money at those up the middle spots. While they’re all flawed players in their own way, they’re also three of the most valuable assets this organization has.
Hey, look, even projecting an offensive step back for Adrian Beltre, he’s still worth his contract. Hey national media – get a clue; the guy is a good player who is worth every dime he’s being paid.
Richie Sexson, even with a significant rebound projection, is still terrible, and his contract is a boat anchor. A +0.3 win player making $14 million at the easiest position on the diamond to find talent? Ouch.
Total wins above replacement for the position players? +14.1 wins. 14 wins out of 14 players who cost about $66 million in payroll? That’s… not good.
Okay, let’s move on to the pitchers. The process here is easier, so I’ll spend a lot less time explaining it. For starters, I developed a defensive-independent line (because, remember, we’re already counting defense in the position players) adjusted for Safeco, which gave me innings pitched and runs allowed. I then compared this to league average (4.60 ERA, park adjusted) and replacement level (5.52 ERA, park adjusted), divided the difference in projected runs allowed by 10.5 to convert to wins, and wham, you have your win value. For relievers, I built in a leverage factor as well, to account for the fact that every run J.J. Putz saves is more valuable than an average run saved.
Why am I using ERA when I have railed against it for so long? Because it’s easy for everyone to understand, and, because it’s already scaled to runs, we don’t need to show FIP or anything more fancy. The inputs I used to get my defensive independent ERA were more sophisticated than just looking at previous ERA and adjusting, so please don’t assume that I’m bowing to conventional pitcher analysis here. I’m just presenting it in the most palatable form I can. Okay? Good. Here’s the pitcher projections.
| Pitcher | ERA | WAR | WAR $ | Salary | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bedard | 3.32 | 4.43 | $19.90 | $7.00 | $12.90 |
| Felix | 3.55 | 3.96 | $17.80 | $0.50 | $17.30 |
| Silva | 4.41 | 2.20 | $10.08 | $12.00 | $(1.92) |
| Batista | 4.57 | 1.85 | $8.56 | $9.00 | $(0.44) |
| Washburn | 4.73 | 1.46 | $6.83 | $10.00 | $(3.17) |
| Ramirez | 5.40 | 0.14 | $1.01 | $2.75 | $(1.74) |
| Putz | 2.31 | 2.63 | $11.97 | $3.40 | $8.57 |
| Morrow | 3.45 | 1.03 | $4.91 | $0.40 | $4.51 |
| O’Flaherty | 4.32 | 0.25 | $1.50 | $0.40 | $1.10 |
| Green | 4.05 | 0.53 | $2.71 | $0.40 | $2.31 |
| Rowland-Smith | 4.20 | 0.30 | $1.74 | $0.40 | $1.34 |
| Baek | 4.20 | 0.30 | $1.74 | $0.50 | $1.24 |
| Lowe | 4.80 | -0.04 | $0.23 | $0.40 | $(0.17) |
Pitching staff notes.
Bedard is really good. I’m happy to have him on the roster. Go Erik Go.
Felix is one of the biggest assets in baseball. A +4 win player making, essentially, the league minimum? I’ll take two, please.
Silva’s basically projected right at league average for a starter, with Batista a half win worse and Washburn about a win worse. For the last 60% of a rotation, it’s not bad, but man, did it come at a high price. $31 million for 5 wins? Such is the price of trying to build a rotation through free agency.
Horacio Ramirez is projected to pitch 110 innings, but he basically is a stand in for all starts made by guys not in the current rotation. That includes Baek, Feierabend, Rohrbaugh, whoever. Same thing with Mark Lowe’s 30 innings pitched at the bottom of the bullpen – he’s being used as a proxy for the reliever du jours.
J.J. Putz, still awesome. According to this, he’s the fifth most valuable player on the team and the third biggest value.
Brandon Morrow got a pretty nice projection as a setup man. I made it clear that I didn’t think he was cut out to start in 2008, but I think he’s got a good chance to become a quality 8th inning guy this year. That’s still a monumental waste of a #5 overall pick, but hey, at least he’s contributing something.
The pitching staff as a whole adds up to +19 wins above replacement. Thanks to Erik Bedard and projected improvement from Felix, the pitching staff is now the strength of this club.
Now, let’s take a big picture look at the team as a whole.
The team defensive-independent ERA comes out to 4.12. Over 1430 innings, that’s 654 earned runs allowed. Now, remember, we’re dealing with ERA, not RA, so we have to adjust for unearned runs that bump the total up, and this doesn’t account for defense either. Last year, the team allowed 60 unearned runs, and our projections have the team’s defense being worth about -15 runs, so we need to add about 75 runs to that total. That means this analysis projects the M’s to allow about 725 runs.
Offensively, if I plug my projections into a markov chain, I get about 735 runs scored. A team that scores 735 runs and allows 725 runs will post a .507 win%, or a record of 82-80 in a full season. How does this line-up with my WAR estimates?
+19 for the pitching staff and +14 for the position players = +33 for the roster. Since we’ve got replacement level set at about 50 wins, that gives the M’s something like an 83 win roster.
82 wins if you use projected RS/RA. 83 wins if you use WAR. I’d say win values work pretty well.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about the potential opportunities for this club to beat these projections, and what we need to be rooting for if we’re going to be better than an 82-83 win club.
Putz peril, Morrow earns notice, White wishful
Putz’s elbow “tightened” up after his bullpen session yesterday. Yeagh. Times.
Echoing Dave’s notes yesterday, Brandon Morrow’s performance is praised by Johjima in the PI, and others carried the tune.
Also in the PI, Sean White wants to make the team.
In what is likely really good news for the M’s, the Rangers put Sosa on their 40m, and seem likely to go into the season relying on him for offense. Woooo! Chances of that panning out… 10%? 12?
Mark Shapiro agreed to a 5-year extension in Cleveland. Not that I wish them ill, but I’m hoping they don’t go through the rest of the front office and make those guys offers they can’t refuse.
Update! Cuts! Looks like C Rob Johnson’s headed to minor league camp, which at this point pretty much means you’re assured Rivera’s the backup catcher this year. I don’t think Burke or Johnson are going to be given a realistic chance.
Also tossed off the team: IF-R Garciaparra, IF-R LaHair, IF-R Navarro, OF-B Wilson, OF-R Balentien
I’d rather win with uncertainty
Horacio Ramirez believes in conviction.
Ramirez wasn’t crazy about his control, but only one pitch really bothered him, a 3-2 curve that former Mariner Mike Cameron hit for a single with one out and a man on base. Even so, Ramirez said he called for that pitch himself, shaking Johjima off several times.
“I’d rather throw the wrong pitch, but a pitch I throw with conviction,” Ramirez said. “That makes it right.”
Geoff Baker on Gookie Dawkin’s name.
In divisional news, Michael Young gets a 5y, ~$80m extension from the Rangers.