All Assumptions-Are-Dangerous Minor League Free Agent Team

Jeff — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:07:19 -0000

Dave at Fangraphs passed along a link to this year's crop of minor league free agents. A popular thing to do with this information is pick out a handful of guys that would make interesting and potentially worthwhile pick-ups. This is not that. This is a full team made up of guys who, years ago, were supposed to go on to do some big big things, only to end up on the fall 2009 list of mlFA's. Consider this just another reminder that you should never ever ever take a prospect's future for granted.*

C: JR House
1B: Ryan Shealy
2B: Josh Barfield
SS: Antonio Perez
3B: Dallas McPherson
LF: Wes Bankston
CF: Joe Borchard
RF: John-Ford Griffin
DH: Josh Phelps

BENCH-C: JD Closser (does Ben Davis still count?)
BENCH-INF: Eric Duncan
BENCH-OF: Dave Krynzel
BENCH-UTIL: Donnie Murphy

SP: Jerome Williams
SP: Greg Miller
SP: Kenny Baugh
SP: Humberto Sanchez
SP: Bobby Brownlie

RP: Jose Capellan
RP: Wes Littleton
RP: Casey Fossum
RP: John Van Benschoten
RP: Chad Orvella
RP: Clint Everts
RP: Andrew Brown

If there were a 26th spot, I'd give it to Dee Brown, but it would just be so damn easy to include him that I had to find an alternative. Also among the free agents are formerly established Major Leaguers like Chris Capuano and Chad Cordero, along with the astonishingly driven Jolbert Cabrera. Jolbert just wants to win. Come on, Yankees. Take the plunge. Win one for Jolbert.

If there were a 27th spot, I'd give it to Mark McGonigle, because, really? McGonigle?

* never take any player's future for granted

Ghost of Greg Vaughn: Rays DH History By The Numbers

Tommy Rancel — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:25:17 -0000

Easily the hottest topic during this Rays offseason has been adding a "front-line bat." Going into the off-season we did not know if this would come in the form of a right fielder or a designated hitter. The acquisition of Matt Joyce cleared that up and the Rays will most likely add a DH from the following group: Jason Giambi, Milton Bradley, Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn and Bobby Abreu. There are also less likely possibilities such as Ken Griffey Jr., Garret Anderson or Rocco Baldelli.

Over the course of the last 11 years the DH has been a revolving door like many other positions with the Rays. But unlike third base, which now belongs to Evan Longoria, or the rotation that has four to five starters who should be together for a while, the DH spot remains wide open. Thinking back on the Rays history, they've never really had a DH that served as a DH in a true sense. When people think of a designated HITTER, they think of David Ortiz and Edgar Martinez not Robert Fick, Al Martin and Greg Vaughn. I wanted to take a look back at the production the Rays have received from a position that is all about offensive production.

For most of the Rays 11 seasons they did not have a primary DH. Only six times have they had one player with over 240 ABs in the position. If a player had 240 ABs I used him as the primary DH for that season, otherwise, I took the top two or three or even four (2004) players in terms of ABs for the position and came up with the average for that season. Here are the results.

Year	Player	AB	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
98	Sorrento	286	0.228	0.311	0.391	0.702
99	Canseco	319	0.271	0.363	0.547	0.910
00	Canseco	305	0.259	0.383	0.456	0.839
01	Vaughn	283	0.216	0.317	0.357	0.674
02	Platoon	267	0.167	0.284	0.290	0.574
03	Platoon	432	0.266	0.345	0.417	0.762
04	Platoon	334	0.187	0.277	0.333	0.610
05	Platoon	322	0.279	0.362	0.479	0.841
06	Gomes	352	0.202	0.314	0.403	0.717
07	Platoon	323	0.236	0.340	0.375	0.715
08	Floyd	240	0.271	0.348	0.458	0.806
Avg		3463	0.235	0.331	0.410	0.741

Nothing pretty about most these numbers especially compared to the American League averages for DH over the same time frame, which is represtend here:

Year	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
98	0.277	0.36	0.466	0.826
99	0.278	0.365	0.476	0.841
00	0.276	0.361	0.463	0.824
01	0.26	0.34	0.446	0.786
02	0.264	0.342	0.439	0.781
03	0.26	0.349	0.439	0.788
04	0.263	0.345	0.445	0.79
05	0.259	0.338	0.44	0.778
06	0.264	0.349	0.469	0.818
07	0.268	0.355	0.447	0.802
08	0.256	0.339	0.435	0.774
Avg	0.266	0.349	0.452	0.801

And for the side by side OPS comparison

Year	TB OPS	AL OPS
98	0.702	0.826
99	0.910	0.841
00	0.839	0.824
01	0.674	0.786
02	0.574	0.781
03	0.762	0.788
04	0.610	0.79
05	0.841	0.778
06	0.717	0.818
07	0.715	0.802
08	0.806	0.774
Avg	0.741	0.801

As you can see the Rays DH's have only been above league average four times. Jose Canseco was above average in 1999 and 2000. The Jonny Gomes/Josh Phelps platoon worked out pretty nicely in 2005 and Cliff Floyd was above average in 2008.

The other years? Pretty awful. The Rays finished at least .100 points below average in five of the remaining seven seasons. In fact, just look at the 2002 platoon of Greg Vaughn and Steve Cox, who combined to finish .207 points below league average to see how bad the DH has been at times. It's not a question if the Rays add a Dunn, Burrell, Giambi, Bradley or Abreu that they will be an upgrade, but the significant amount of upgrade, however, could be pretty staggering.

SB Nation - Josh Phelps

All Assumptions-Are-Dangerous Minor League Free Agent Team

Ghost of Greg Vaughn: Rays DH History By The Numbers