SB Nation User Blog: Graham

J.J. Hardy to the Twins

Graham — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:08:17 -0000

Carlos Gomez is the return. More later.

Later: Hardy is a guy that we'd all been hoping that the Mariners would make a play on this offseason to address the shortstop position, so it's a bit of a shame that he's been taken off the table so early and for what appears to be a fairly low price - one we doubtless could have paid. Gomez is a slightly below average centrefielder for league minimum, and the Brewers had top prospect Alcides Escobar waiting in the wings and a hole in CF with the departure of Mike Cameron, but I have a hard time thinking we couldn't have beaten that price.

In terms of money/talent, the deal makes a good amount of sense for both sides. The Twins get a big upgrade at shortstop, the Brewers deal from depth to cover a weak position (albeit not that well) for free, and have some more money to play with in free agency. As the return for a guy like Hardy, Gomez the talent is rather underwhelming, but the financial flexibility he provides is useful. Could/should the Brewers have gotten more for him? Yes. But they didn't, which is where this deal becomes weird from the Milwaukee side. They had an asset which had less value to them than to the rest of the league, but they sold him for his value to them rather than anyone else's, which is not the best trading strategy in the world.

On the Teahen --> White Sox Deal

Graham — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:46:17 -0000

Since this doesn't involve our team or division, let's be fairly brief:

The winner: Mark Teahen

The losers: Josh Fields (the other one), Chris Getz

Overview: Kenny Williams was so disappointed with Fields and Getz being unable to live up to their minor league numbers that he couldn't just non-tender the pair. Instead he paid $5 million to banish them to Kansas City. Harsh.

Moral: Do not disappoint Kenny Williams.

Beating a Dead Horse

Graham — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:18:31 -0000

Ridiculous calls from yesterday's game:

Swisher called safe when picked off at second in the top of the 4th, one out, Yankees up by three.
Swisher incorrectly called out for leaving the bag early on a sacrifice fly to end the 4th, Yankees up by three.
Robinson Cano called safe when out at third on a hilarious Swisher 1-2 DP, Yankees up by five.

It all evens out, you say? Well, using the THT Win Probability tool, we end up with the following changes in win expectancy due to bad calls from the umpires (Angels win ex is positive):

-4%
+10%
-1%

All in all, the umpires skewed game four of the ALCS in favour of the Angels by a non-insignificant amount - in fact, 5% WPA is almost as much as Albert Pujols contributed per game for the Cardinals (this is a silly comparison but it illustrates the point quite well).

The playoffs deserve better than this.

Kenji and the Mariners

Graham — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:56:37 -0000

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - ASSOCIATED PRESS

Kenji Johjima runs away from Seattle quite speedily.

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In late 2005, the Mariners found a solution to one of their more pressing problems: catcher. The season just prior saw Dan Wilson's career come to an end, Miguel Olivo fail to do much of anything as the supposed starter, and no fewer than five other catchers catching games for the team. Frankly, it was a bit of a mess.

Kenji Johjima fixed those problems. He gave the Mariners a legitimately above average starting major league catcher, and he did it for cheap. There was no need for protracted negotiations: a token visit to New York was the only indication that there was any interest on his part in other teams. He basically fell into Bill Bavasi's lap for the low cost of $5M dollars a year for three years, which was probably the best contract that Bavasi gave out with the team.

2005 saw seven catchers; 2006 featured three, and Guillermo Quiroz only got one game in. Johjima started 144 games and hit well, and not just for a hitter: .291/.332/.451 as a right hander in Safeco Field was by far the best offensive showing the Mariners had ever seen out of catcher. He went against the Dan Wilson grain behind the plate too, standing out with a bright red glove and a tendency to call pitches just to prove a point. Still, he wasn't a liability defensively (although he wasn't nearly as fluid as Wilson), and his bat went a long way in a season where not much else went right.

The Mariners won 88 games in 2007, a ten game improvement, but Johjima's numbers barely changed. He caught a few less games, hit for a little less power, but was basically the same above-average hitter that we'd enjoyed in the previous year. We were starting to take him for granted, too, and with Jeff Clement waiting in the wings perhaps forgot that our newest Japanese import had produced six WAR in two years.

2008 should probably have marked the end of his time with the Mariners, and it didn't start well, for the team or for Kenji. Crucial players got hurt, others fell apart, and Johjima managed a little bit of both, playing in many fewer games and battling a number of nagging injuries. His offensive numbers collapsed, and his relationship with the pitching staff grew ever more frayed. On top of that, he was signed to a three year, $24M extension that was so insane even Bill Bavasi didn't like it. Clement, meanwhile, was annihilating the PCL. To the team and fans, Johjima quickly became a liability.

Let's make no bones about it, 2008 absolutely sucked. He was barely above replacement for the season, which is impressive considering how low the bar is set for catchers, and he was part of the reason that the Mariners plummeted to a dismal 61-101 record. But perhaps it's worth remembering that over the first three years of the deal, Johjima provided almost $25M in value to the franchise in addition to the benefits of increased exposure in Japan. Kenji was an extremely valuable player over those first three years.

He was actually not too bad this year, either, managing 1 WAR in 71 games. But he had lost the confidence of the fans as well as his manager and his pitchers, and nothing short of a miraculous performance was going to bring those back. The starting catcher job grabbed hold of Rob Johnson and wouldn't put him down, and Kenji was left as an $8M backup catcher on a team which desperately needed the money. Others can give you more information about the details of Kenji's pitch calling vs. Rob's, but I'd fairly confidently say that Johjima was the best catcher on the roster in 2009, and had a good shot at repeating that feat in 2010 until he opted out of the deal a few hours ago.

It's wonderful news that Kenji is no longer on the books as far as the rebuilding effort goes. But don't forget what an excellent acquisition he was in the first place, or the years of good service he gave to the Mariners. To give up the money when he didn't have to was a wonderful thing for Johjima to do, and I hope he finds employment in Japan and has many more years of baseball ahead of him.

Thank you, Kenji Johjima. Thank you for both your time as a Mariner and the graciousness you showed in ending it.

Bye, Kenji

Graham — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:48:12 -0000

Larry LaRue breaks the news that the best catcher in franchise history is opting out of his contract and going back to Japan. Sounds like the real deal, too - Zduriencik is holding a press conference in a couple of hours to discuss it.

Thanks for the years of service, Kenji. I'll miss the silly red glove and the powerpitch swing. Good luck in Japan.

Can't talk too much about the impact of all this now but this isn't a big surprise. Dave's been talking about the possibility of Johjima heading home for the past couple of months. This should free up some significant money for next year, but it comes at the cost of more Rob Johnson.

Matthew's Update: According to Shannon Drayer, no other confirmation yet, there is no buyout. The Mariners owe him no money.

Graham's Update: Section changed to great news. Party time!

Calling Balls and Strikes Correctly (Without Robots)

Graham — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:40:43 -0000

Umpires aren't perfect. Nor do they pretend to be. Nobody disputes this fact - blown calls are currently part of baseball. I can't imagine that many people think that this is a good thing, either, despite the outcry over the possible dehumanisation of the game that comes with instant replay and (horror) the possibility of computers calling the strike zone. Getting a call wrong while arbitrating the highest level of competition of a major professional sport simply cannot be a good thing. Umpires may be right 95% of the time, but we are capable of improving that, and it seems to me that we probably should.

Calling for an end to umpires is not a reasonable answer, though. The men behind the plates screaming for balls and strikes have become so entrenched that the sport would seem frankly silly without them. I trust pitch f/x, but not to the point where I want to see a monitor behind the plate calling balls and strikes. And I'm not even a baseball purist. Grown men start foaming at the mouth over suggestions like doing away with umpires to get the call right, or instituting replays on questionable calls, and guess what? The people who think that way are the ones who matter.

Fortunately, "robots" is shorthand not for "we want robots to make the calls" but "we would like greater accuracy from the people making the calls". There are ways of increasing accuracy without compromising 'the human element', or slowing the game down for replays. Here's an idea: pitch f/x as a tool for umpires, rather than being the judge and jury of ball/strike calling.

How? Well, home plate umpires already wear masks. This gives us a really easy way of giving them quick information without compromising whatever else they're focusing on. Frame their field of view with LEDs, throw a wireless receiver in there, and a lightweight battery. Now write a program that takes pitch f/x data, translates it into ball/strike/borderline (i.e half a ball diameter off the black) calls, and transmit it to the umpire in real time. You could do this with minimal lag - I doubt anyone would notice the difference if umpires reacted solely to the colours the inside of their masks flashed at them. But the beauty of this plan is that they wouldn't be reacting solely to the colours. They could use their own judgment on borderline calls, they could request that their strike zone be different with lefties and righties, etc etc etc. They could use pitch f/x as a guide to help them call the strikezone as they see fit.

Who does this hurt?

The fans wouldn't notice, and they wouldn't have to be upset over as many blown calls. Pitchers would see a more consistent zone, as would hitters. Umpires would still have freedom to call their own strike zone, and I think they'd be happy to have a tool that improved their accuracy. We'd still see zones widened on 3-0 counts and we'd see pitchers throwing perfect games be given the benefit of the doubt.

This would not be a difficult thing to do. I'm pretty sure that given a month with a pile of electronics and a computer being fed data from the pitch f/x source I could rig up a prototype mask that would do exactly as I've described above. With the resources MLB has, it would be simple to get something like this plan set up for trials in next year's AFL.

The heart of baseball - calling balls and strikes - could be officiated better for not much more cost and without taking away from the beauty of the game. Why not give it a shot?

BA on Ackley in the AFL

Graham — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:46:50 -0000

BA on Ackley in the AFL

Some quotes from our top prospect. Pretty sure the article is not behind the subscribers-only wall.

Thought Experiment

Graham — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:15:06 -0000

Pitchers A and B strike out 22% of the batters that they face and walk 7% of the batters that they face. They play on teams with DERs of 0.715 and 0.676 respectively, allow no home runs, and no hit batsmen. Can you tell me the K/9 and BB/9 of each?

A: 8.4 K/9, 2.6 BB/9

B: 8.8 K/9, 2.8 BB/9

Let's stop pretending K/9 and BB/9 are defence-independent. No, it's not a big deal, but we should still be looking at these things as a percentage of batters faced rather than depending on outs.

Throwaway Lines - How Franklin Gutierrez Has Been Even Better Than You Think

Graham — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:34:03 -0000

More photos » by Elaine Thompson - AP

Hint: It's not just that he's remarkably good-looking.

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Tom Tango's recent blog post on the arguments against Joe Mauer for MVP is a pretty good read, which is hardly surprising given the author. Buried inside that post is the following nugget:

However, if you bring clutch into the discussion, all of a sudden, you are introducing Franklin Gutierrez, who has been sensational in the clutch.

Well that's interesting. Guti's been a good approximation of a league average hitter this year, which combined with his outstanding outfield defence has put him on pace for a five WAR player. Now, a five win guy is an All-Star calibre player, and Guti's year has been by all accounts a total success. But might he be even better? bRAA considers his batting statistics without context: a walk off grand slam is worth the same as a solo home run in a blowout. Most of the time, this is close enough to reality that it doesn't effect things one way or another. However, in Franklin Gutierrez's case, most of his offensive contribution has come with the game on the line. How much?

According to Fangraphs, he's been clutch enough to add something like three wins to his line this year.

Three wins from clutch hitting? Holy crap. That's enough to take Guti from being a league average bat and the best defensive outfielder in the world to being Justin Upton's bat combined with the best defensive outfielder in the world. Three clutch wins is the best in the American League by more than a win and a half.

Guti's not just been a five win player this year - what he's done for the team pushes him up to almost eight(!). That's... I have no more words to describe how good he's been.

Oh course, it's worth noting that his defence probably won't hold up, and that clutch hitting isn't a skill. So while it's nice to have what appears to be a legitimate MVP candidate on the team, one wouldn't really expect him to provide nearly the same value next year.

Still. Eight wins. Eighty runs! Thanks to Tango for pointing this out.

Some More Washburn

Graham — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:04:29 -0000

Graham's Note: I'm going to be joining Jeff in out-of-town-land this afternoon, but before I leave I wanted to throw a tiny little post up to tide everyone over (for a little while at least). After all, who doesn't like looking at Jarrod Washburn's numbers?

So we've spent a reasonable amount of our August gloating that someone took the Jarrod Washburn bait and even gave us a shiny prospect in return. After all, we said, the Tigers should have expected this. Washburn has been a bad pitcher, and four months of superficially great numbers shouldn't have given their front office amnesia. But now things are getting silly: Washburn was taken out of his last start in the first inning, having given up four runs in one inning to the Royals (caveat: his knee was swelling up). Not even Carlos Silva managed such a feat this year. So just what's going on with Washburn? Is he pitching the same as with us, but getting unlucky? Is his defence screwing him over?

Table 1: Comparison between Jarrod Washburn's advanced statistics in Seattle and Detroit (2009 only).

Nope. Not the defence. Washburn's gotten worse by a lot in every meaningful category. Strikeouts are down by almost a third. Walks are up by a factor of 1.25. His home runs per ball in air rate has more than tripled. His runs allowed and innings pitched for each of his starts have spiked/been in freefall:

Figure 1: R/9, R, IP for each of Washburn's starts in 2009.

This isn't regression. It's not even close. Those numbers are utterly, utterly abysmal. For those of us expecting Washburn to go back to being normal Washburn in Detroit, we were almost as wrong as the folks thinking he was going to be good. One might have expected him to give up five or so runs per nine and be his usual back of the rotation self. Instead, he's put up a tRA over eight with the Tigers. Damaged goods? His knee has been a problem all year, but it's starting to get worse, which might have something to do with it - I doubt, however, that that's the whole story or he wouldn't have lasted as long as he did in Seattle, where he reportedly was in so much pain that he couldn't walk between starts. I'm at a loss. Washburn just shouldn't have been this bad, and while the situation is beyond hilarious, it's a bit baffling.