SB Nation User Blog: JinAZ

The Rolen Extension, by the numbers

JinAZ — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:10:27 -0000

With his new extension, Scott Rolen will be manning the hot corner for the next three years...provided he can stay healthy.

Browse more photos »

Overall reaction seems positive in the news thread. I wanted to run the numbers, though, just to see.

What the Reds are Paying:

Assuming the signing bonus is paid evenly over the three years ($1.7M/yr), and making some guesstimates about current and future WAR/$ exchange rates, the Reds are paying:

$7.7 M in 2010 @ $4.5 M/WAR = 1.7 WAR
$8.2 M in 2011 @ $4.7 M/WAR = 1.7 WAR
$8.2 M in 2012 @ $5.0 M/WAR = 1.6 WAR
Total contract value: 5 WAR over life of contract.

How Rolen Projects:

Offense: I averaged the CHONE and ZiPS projections for Rolen in 2010. That gives this projection: 463 PA's (66% playing time), 0.277/0.352/0.432 slash line, 11 HR, 0.347 wOBA, 4.8 RAA after park adjustments = 0.51 WAR. An aging but still effective hitter, at least when he's in the lineup.

Fielding: both Jeff Zimmerman's UZR/150 projections as well as CHONE's fielding projections have Rolen at 7 RAA per season. Fan Scouting Report had him at +18 runs last season (weighted average of his totals from TOR and CIN fans). Average of the three approaches puts him at 10.6 runs per season. Given the playing time estimates above, that projects him at 7 RAA = 0.75 WAR. Still an excellent defensive 3B.

Position Adjustment: +0.25 per full season for 3B, prorates to +0.17 WAR given the playing time estimates.

Replacement level: 2 WAR/season in the NL, which prorates to 1.3 WAR given the playing time estimates.

Overall, assuming 0.5 win/yr aging:

2010: 0.51 + 0.75 + 0.17 + 1.3 = 2.7 WAR
2011: 2.2 WAR
2012: 1.7 WAR
Total expected: 6.6 WAR

Given his age and injury history, you can argue that we should use slightly higher aging rates than this. You can also argue that free agent salaries are actually coming in lower than $4.5 M per WAR this year (though I think it's too early to make that call). Nevertheless, I think it's fair to say that this deal is, at WORST, a market-even deal....and most likely represents a nice little surplus. Congrats to the Reds on a nice deal.

Update 12/20/09: I noticed an error in how I was applying a park correction to his offensive projection. This has been fixed above. It did not change the conclusions, but did pull 0.2 WAR/season off of his projections. I apologize for being a dork.

Help plan my baseball class

JinAZ — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:32:30 -0000

Help plan my baseball class

I'm teaching a "science of baseball" class in the spring and am requesting advice while generating a topic/reading list.

Want to help me plan my baseball class? Topics and Links needed.

JinAZ — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:19:11 -0000

I teach at a small university, and this spring I'm going to be teaching a class on baseball. Here's the description I submitted this fall:

Course Title: The Science of Baseball

Description: Perhaps no other sport relies as much on tradition, hearsay, and loud opinion as baseball. But what is gained (or lost) when these claims are examined using a scientific approach? How do hitters watch the ball when it moves faster than human eyes can track? Do clutch hitters exist? Do steroids really help performance, and if not (or even if so) should they be banned? Why does a MLB bench player earn 10 times more money than a teacher? We will discuss these and other questions in light of studies from the exercise physiology, psychology, economics, and "sabermetrics" literature.

So, it's not a "sabermetric" class per se. But a big part of what we're going to do will be sabermetrics.

Given that next semester starts in a month and, beyond this description, I basically haven't started prepping the class, it's time to start putting together a battle plan. And I thought this might be where you folks could help.

More below the jump.

Background on the course

This class is being offered as part of our general education program. Each student at our university must take a 2-credit colloquium during their freshman year. Typically, these classes are based on professors' pet interests. This year, in addition to my baseball class, there's a class on the Twilight Saga, the works of C.S. Lewis, mankind's sense of invulnerability, etc.

Classes are small (15-20 students, max) and are designed to be discussion-oriented (lectures should be minimal). My class filled up quickly (popular, though admittedly not as popular as the Twilight class...but then, I doubt any class in campus history has been), so I can hopefully anticipate that most people took the class because they like baseball...though some might have taken it because it fits their schedule. However, I can assume very little in the way of basic math skills, much less background in sabermetric concepts.

Grades will be determined by a) a research paper, which can be either a novel study that a student does, or a review paper on a specific topic, b) "entry slip" writing assignments responding to each day's assigned readings, and c) participation in the class discussions.

Goals

My primary goal in the class is to have students practice using a scientific approach to advance their understanding of something (in this case, baseball). And, in my mind, that comes down to using logic and data as the basis for forming opinions, rather than other "approaches." It sounds simple, but this is a remarkably underdeveloped skill among many students entering (and even leaving!) college. A secondary goal is to get students up to date in modern research about baseball. I don't need them to be researchers, but they should be able to read Hardball Times or FanGraphs, for example, and understand what's going on. As a tertiary goal, this course designed is to permit me to play around with baseball all semester while simultaneously having a legitimate claim that I'm doing "work." :)

How you can help (should you be inclined to do so)

I have assigned two books (Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman & the Physics of Baseball by Adair), and we are definitely going to work through major parts of those books to start the semester. However, I would also like to generate a large list of topics from which students can choose so that we can target the class to their specific interests. Furthermore, for each topic, I'd like to get together a set of good readings--be they book chapters, journal articles, or online articles--that address the topic, ideally from several different angles (or in ways that come to different conclusions).

I've started this below. I've spent time on it, but it's still preliminary. I'd very much like suggestions for additional topics, as well as and especially links to good articles on topics. I'd especially like a) links to groundbreaking original articles (methods papers, etc) that are a cornerstone of our understanding of specific topics, and b) links to especially good, readable, and influential articles summarizing findings on specific topics (i.e. good review papers). Recent applied stuff might also be interesting to provide methods-in-practice examples, but for the most part, I want to go after the original, influential papers. As long as they're readable.

If this list turns out to be a resource that folks find useful, I may turn it into a small website of its own. Many thanks in advance!

NOTE/UPDATE: If the topic list is too large/intimidating to work through in entirety, please think about your "pet" interests and then focus on those items as you look skim through the bigger list. Not everyone can be an expert on everything!

Potential topic list

Baseball physics, biology, and psychology

How can we describe the different pitches that are thrown?

Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, excerpts from each pitch type.
I'd love to include some good pitchf/x stuff here, but I haven't kept up. Any nice, current primers? John Walsh had a good one early on at THT. Anything more recent?
Hardball Times 2009 by Fast (cliff lee turnaround; good example piece)

Why do breaking pitches break?

Physics of Basball by Adair, chapters 1,2,3,4

How do hitters make contact with a baseball (neuroscience-wise)? What happens when the ball hits the bat (physics)?

Psychology of Baseball by Stadler, chapter 1,2
Physics of Baseball by Adair, chapters 1,2,3,5,6

How do fielders track down fly balls?

Psychology of Baseball by Stadler, chapter x.
Physics of Baseball by Adair, chapter 7.

Myth, or Reality?

Do players go through hot & cold streaks?

Psychology of Baseball by Stadler, chapter 5 & 6
The Book by Tango et al, chapters 1 & 2
Cameron: http://ussmariner.com/2007/08/20/projecting-future-performance/

How valuable are batter/pitcher matchup numbers? And other small sample size questions.

The Book by Tango et al, chapters 1, 3
Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 9-2
Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapter 4
Regression by Studeman: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/but-i-regress/
Regression by Wyers:http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-one-about-sample-size/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/content/article/whats-past-is-prologue/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/why-does-pujols-regress-to-the-mean/

Do clutch hitters exist?

The Book by Tango et al, chapters 1,4
Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 1-2
Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapter 6

How did steroids affect the on-field game of baseball? Did they?

Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 9-1.
The Baseball Economist by Bradbury, chapter 9

Fielding isn't really that important, is it?

Moneyball by Lewis, chapter 6 (the thing about Damon vs. Long)
Tango: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/tom_ay_to_tom_ah_to_j_ee_ter_pol_ah_nco/
Cameron: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/morgan-dunn
Brackenthebox: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/12/9/1192894/a-run-scored-vs-a-run-saved

Are scouts being replaced by statistics?

Moneyball by Lewis, chapter 2 (draft board discussions)
Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, "extra innings" by Perry
The Baseball economist by Bradbury, chapter 11
Something on the Fan Scouting Report, maybe my thing: http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/10/player-value-part-3b-comparing-of.html
Perry: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2250

Do umpire strike zones really vary all that much?

Could use some help here. I know there's been stuff on this, I just haven't kept up on it.

Speed guys add as much value with their legs as power guys do with their bats, right?

Anyone have a good article on this? Ideally using something like Dan Fox's EqBRR? I think John Walsh might have done some speed stuff at some point along with his arms stuff...? I don't want to just do SB's, it's gotta be all baserunning.

Players today just aren't as good as players in the past.

Between the Numbers by BPro (Silver's article has flawed methods, but good discussion)
THT Annual 2008(?) by Gassko (All-time pitcher rankings, adjusted for era difficulty)
Dan Fox: http://danagonistes.blogspot.com/2007/08/ankiel-and-bressler.html and http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5813 (subscription wall)

Evaluating Value

Why can't we just judge hitters on AVG/HR/RBI?

Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 1-1
Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapter 1
Posnanski: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/11/20/batting-average-home-runs-rbis/
Posnanski: http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/03/09/statheads-and-true-wins/
Moneyball by Lewis, chapter 6
BLee from RR: http://www.redreporter.com/story/2007/7/13/0523/81591
Cameron: The Joy of wOBA: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-joy-of-woba/
Perry: Measuring offense: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=2562&mode=print&nocache=1199295193

Why can't we just judge pitchers by W/L record, ERA, or save totals?

Bridging the Statistical Gap by Seidman, chapters 2, 3, 8
McCracken: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=878
MGL DIPS Revisited: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/lichtman_2004-02-29_0/
Wyers on DIPS: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/moving-past-dips/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a-second-look-at-situational-pitching/

How can we assess a player's fielding?

My crap: http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/10/player-value-part-3a-fielding.html and http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/10/player-value-part-3b-comparing-of.html and http://jinaz-reds.blogspot.com/2007/11/player-value-part-3c-fielding-catchers.html
Fielding Bible by Dewan and James, "chapters" 2 & 3 (Everett vs. Jeter, overview of plus/minus)
MGL's UZR series: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/lichtman_2003-03-14_0/ and http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/primate_studies/discussion/lichtman_2003-03-21_0/
Hardball Times Annual 2009, TZ article by Smith
Smith on Total Zone: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/total_zone.shtml
Shane Jensen & SAFE: http://stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~stjensen/research/safe.html
THT Annual 2008 by Tango ( WOWY Jeter)

How can we best estimate a players impact on scoring runs? Winning?

Tango: OPS isn't good enough: http://www.tangotiger.net/archives/artOPS1.shtml and http://www.tangotiger.net/archives/artOPS2.shtml
Patriot: Audacity of OPS: http://walksaber.blogspot.com/2007/08/audacity-of-ops.html
Run Estimators by Patriot: http://gosu02.tripod.com/id104.html and http://gosu02.tripod.com/id108.html and http://gosu02.tripod.com/id16.html and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/bases-and-outs-ad-nauseum/
Run Estimation by Wyers: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/what-are-little-runs-made-of/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/has-mauer-hit-better-than-teixiera-part-one/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/how-accurately-can-we-estimate-a-hitters-runs-part-2/ and http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/what-are-little-runs-made-of/ and Hardball Times 2010 Annual
Baselines by Patriot: http://gosu02.tripod.com/id77.html
Replacement level by Wyers: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/replacement-level-again/
Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 5-1 (replacement level)
Cameron: Replacement player - http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2009-replacement-level-right-field
Dave Cameron's Win Value Series: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/glossary/#winvalues
My crap on player value: http://www.basement-dwellers.com/search/label/player%20value
Jong's SABR 101 series: http://fanhuddle.com/statistics/
Studes on WPA: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-one-about-win-probability/
Tango on WPA/LI: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/unleveraging_win_probability
Patriot Talent vs. Value: http://gosu02.tripod.com/id11.html

Judging trades and free agent signings: how much money is that player worth, dollar-wise?

Something on Runs to Wins to $, perhaps by Tango?
Cameron: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/win-values-explained-part-six
Wang in By the Numbers: http://www.philbirnbaum.com/btn2007-11.pdf
Wang: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-bright-side-of-losing-santana/
Wang: Hardball times 2009 Annual
Diamond Dollars by Gennaro, chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8

How much does home park matter? How can we deal with that problem?

Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 8-2
Patriot: http://gosu02.tripod.com/id103.html
HitTracker: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/home-run-park-factor-a-new-approach/
boobs: http://www.redreporter.com/story/2007/7/12/3244/40014 (I'm not sure I can assign an article by a guy named boobs, but hey, it's a decent overview of basic concepts)
Tango (additive vs. multiplicative): http://www.tangotiger.net/parks.html

How can we evaluate managers?

MGL in Hardball Times 2009 Annual
Gassko in Hardball Times 2008 Annual

How should we decide end-of-season awards? Hall of fame?

Not sure on articles (recommendations?). Discussion would likely involve context-neutral vs. context-sensitive statistics, average vs. replacement baselines, and for hall of fame, peak vs. accumulated value. This might end up being a good way to pitch the player value discussions rather than a topic in and of themselves.

Game strategy

When is sacrifice bunting a good idea?

Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 4-2. (selected as a contrast to...)
The Book by Tango et al, chapter 1, 9
Red Menace: http://www.redreporter.com/story/2007/7/14/16325/3787 (readable, less depth)

Can we really just use win expectancy to answer our baseball strategy questions?

The Book by Tango et al, chapter 10 (bluffing in baseball)
Any other good game theory articles, especially ones not about sac bunting?

How can we best use our relievers?

The Book by Tango et al, chapter 8
Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 2-2

What is the best way to make out a lineup?

Baseball Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 1-3
The Book by Tango et al, chapter 5

Team-level analysis and front office strategy

This part could definitely use expansion, both in topics and article.

How can we best estimate team winning percentages?

Patriot on pythagenpat: http://gosu02.tripod.com/id69.html
Intro to the power rankings (incomplete): http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/5/27/889905/btb-power-rankings-through-tuesday

Should cities build stadiums for their local sports teams?

Baseball Between the Numbers, chapter 6-2
Anyone know a good original economics paper on this? I think I remember reading something by Zimbalist, but haven't found it yet.

How do teams make money?

Diamond Dollars by Gennaro, chapters 2 & 3
Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 6-1

Do teams cycle?

Between the Numbers by BPro, chapter 8-3
Anything else on this issue?

How do players age?

I'm thinking about using the Bradbury article & the Birnbaum/Tango responses as a way to discuss sampling bias.

General summaries of sabermetric ideas

Dan Fox's sabermetrics 101 post: http://danagonistes.blogspot.com/2004/04/sabermetrics-101.html
Grabiner Sabermetric Manifesto: http://www.baseball1.com/bb-data/grabiner/manifesto.html

Thanks to pur own Michael Jong and his glossary for directly or indirectly providing some of the links on this page. Others were cobbled together from internet searches and my own recollections of important articles.

The 2010 Hall of Fame Ballot, Graphically

JinAZ — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:47:37 -0000

The induction class for the 2009 Hall of Fame will be announced on January 6th. While Erik already looked at the most attractive new candiates for the Hall of Fame, I thought I'd take a tour through most of the rest of the ballot. Like Erik, I'll be using a mainstay graphical tool here at BtB, the WAR graph. The Excel template I threw together to make these figures can be found here.

In all graphs, we're plotting Rally's WAR for individual seasons ranked best to worst. The "HoF Zone" is a range that spans from the average Hall of Famer (specific to either pitchers or hitters) down to the 20th percentile Hall of Famer. Thanks to Sky Kalkman (the inventor), Jeff Zimmerman, Tom Tango, and Dave Studeman for driving the development of this graphical approach.

Let's start with pitchers, because there aren't as many on the ballot and the story is pretty straightforward.

There is absolutely no excuse for Blyleven to not receive unanimous support for the Hall. But you knew that.

Kevin Appier is the surprise to me, though. He's gotten very little attention in his first year of eligibility, but his 10 best seasons seem extremely worth of hall of fame consideration. In fact, his peak three years rate as above-average compared to hall of fame pitchers. He deserves consideration.

Jack Morris is the guy who will probably get a lot more attention than Appier. He's close, but at best, he's in the 15th percentile or so of Hall of Famers. Given all of the other eligible candidates who were much better that this, I tend to think that this isn't good enough.

Pat Hentgen had one really nice season. Lee Smith was a closer...I'm not sure if this is the best way to evaluate a closer, but it certainly doesn't make him impressive. Mike Jackson's line, not shown, is similar to Smith's.

Position players are below the jump

There are a lot of position players on this year's ballot, as is typical. I've opted to break them down into three sets of five. Here are the top five, to my eye.

This graph is admittedly kind of a mess. But the key point I'd emphasize isthat all five players are more or less in or above the Hall of Fame zone throughout most of their careers, meaning that their seasons rank very favorably with other already-inducted Hall of Fame players. There's enough criss-crossing that I wouldn't argue with any ranking of these players. I tend to put the most value on the top-10 seasons, and up-weight the top-5 seasons relative to others. So, for what it's worth, I'd put them: Alomar, Trammell, Larkin, Martinez, McGwire. But Alomar could just as easily be ranked last of the five.

Barry Larkin was my favorite player growing up, and so I've spent some time arguing his very strong case elsewhere. The only guy among these five that I think one could have a legitimate issue with is Mark McGwire, and it's entirely dependent on how you weight the steroid issue. To me, the steroid issue is one to focus on moving forward (prevention and abolition). But given all the uncertainty regarding how much of an effect performance enhancing drugs actually have on performance, and the fact that we probably still do not know a major fraction of the players who actively made use of the drugs, my preference is to not factor it into decision making...except perhaps as a tiebreaker.

Here are the next five:

Given all the hoopla surrounding his candidacy, I actually expected Tim Raines to look better than he does. I still think he's a good candidate and deserving of induction, but he's a below-average hall of famer. That's not a bad thing.

The other four--Murphy, Mattingly, Parker, and Dawson--are interesting in that they all peaked well, but fell off badly once you get past their five or so best seasons. My feeling is that Mattingly didn't peak high enough, and Parker fell away too quickly to deserve induction. Dawson and Murphy are borderline cases. Murphy had the better peak, posting above-hall of fame average numbers over his best three seasons. Dawson had better longevity. As I write this, I'd probably give Murphy the nod and not Dawson, but tomorrow I might go the other way, whereas two days later I might say neither or both should get in. I really don't know.

Here are five of the remaining hitters. Others, like Todd Ziele and Eric Karros, aren't shown as there's just no case to be had.

Ellis Burks looks a lot like Pat Hentgen--one really spectacular season, while the rest of his career is squarely in the Hall of Very Good. Robin Ventura hasn't gotten much attention, but he's basically skirting the 20th percentile of Hall of Famer's at the bottom of the HoF Zone. I'd probably say that he's very close, and better than some guys already in the hall...but that he's wouldn't quite get my vote. Baines played forever thanks to the DH, but was never a good enough player at his best to warrant consideration (yes, the DH hurts him here). Finally, Ray Lankford and Andres Gallaraga serve as nice examples of players that aren't really candidates for the Hall of Fame, but nevertheless had fine careers and should be celebrated.

Maybe I'm a big hall kind of guy, but my ballot would look like this: Blyleven, Alomar, Trammell, Larkin, Martinez, McGwire, Raines, Appier, Murphy. In that order. And maybe Dawson too.

You be the manager: where do you play these infielders?

JinAZ — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:14:03 -0000

I received this question in an e-mail today.

I manage and play on a men’s adult baseball team, basically a bunch of professors and grad students, so it’s not elite competition or anything.

We have two starting pitchers, one is a strikeout machine, very hard thrower, and when they make contact on him, it’s usually a fly ball (he’s fastball-change-curve). The other pitcher is a contact pitcher, throws five different pitches and variations on them (fastball-change-curve-splitfinger-knuckleball), and gets a large number of ground balls. The first essentially has an ERA roughly equal to his runs allowed, or what one would say is normal. The second pitcher, while having a lower ERA, gives up an inordinate number of unearned runs (he also doesn’t hold runners very well)—he puts more balls in play, and therefore there are a lot more chances for errors. The goal here is to cut down on unearned runs, if such a thing is possible.

The infield is composed (at present):

1B: poor range on ground balls and positioning, decent arm, excellent receiver of thrown balls at 1^st (he’s very athletic, just doesn’t move or position well on batted balls, particularly grounders)

2B: weaker (though not terrible) arm, not as much range as the SS and 3B. He’s also the oldest guy on the team, very athletic for his age, but he is in his 40’s. He gets to balls, just takes a long route to do so and often can’t do much with them when he does get there.

SS: good arm, good range, probably one of the best SS in the league.

3B: rocket arm, strongest on the team, lightning quick reflexes, good range, and probably it would be a push between him and the regular SS – he plays 3B because he joined the team after the SS (this is old-men baseball!, seniority comes into play)

If you were managing this team, would you shift the players in that infield according to the pitcher on the mound (with our strikeout pitcher, I think I’d keep things as they are)? Is there a greater benefit with a ground ball pitcher on the mound to having the best two defenders (the current SS and 3B) up the middle, and moving the current 2B to 3B? We would lose the sure-fire out on any ground ball at 3B, as well as the line drive outs that would go for extra bases otherwise with our current 3B’s arm and glove, but gain a more rangy defender up the middle who is the equivalent of a SS at 2B.

Ladies and gentleman, that's your question. What are your answers?

I'll post my response (for whatever they're worth) later today in the comments.

Sabermetric Review of the 2009 Reds, Part 4: Pitching

JinAZ — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:27:15 -0000

To recap thus far, 2009 saw the offense drop considerably, the fielding improve dramatically, with a net effect being that the 2009 position players were probably at least as good, if not slightly better than the 2008 Reds squad of position players.

What about the 2009 pitchers? Since the fate of a pitcher in the boxscore is directly tied to the fielders playing behind him, we need to adjust for fielders. Here are three ways of doing that, and how the last several years of Reds pitchers have fared using each approach:

Here's what is shown above:

UZR-adj Runs Allowed is straight-up runs allowed (park adjusted), with UZR-based team fielding factored out. For example, this year, UZR rates the Reds as a +53 fielding team. So, I added 53 runs to the runs allowed total to "simulate" what would have happened with an average-fielding team.
FIP-based runs allowed uses team FIP to estimate runs allowed per game, and then extrapolates to the full season. FIP stands for "fielding independent runs," and uses K, BB, HBP, and HR rates to estimate runs allowed independent of a teams' fielders or context. I park-adjusted K, BB, HBP, and HR rates.
tRA-based runs allowed is straight-up pRAA from statcorner, summed for starters and relievers. It is based on tRA, which is billed as a sort of "FIP on steroids." It uses K, BB, and all batted ball rates (LD, FB, GB, HR/FB, all park adjusted) to estimate runs allowed in a manner that again should be independent of fielders or context. I am unclear if pRAA is based on tRA or tRA* (tRA* is the regressed version).

As you can see, the UZR-adjusted number is more volatile, which makes sense given that it's based on actual runs allowed and thus is subject to all kinds of "luck" (not to mention the volatility of a fielding stat!). The FIP and tRA stats, on the other hand, basically parallel each other, with pRAA being consistently more negative about the team than FIP. These two stats do largely the same thing (though with somewhat different input data and methods), and in my experience are usually within spitting distance of each other. So while I'm not surprised to see them running parallel, I am surprised to see such a large quantitative difference between them in RAA. It seems to me, at least over the last four years, that the "real" data (UZR-adjusted runs allowed) have more closely matched FIP, which makes me more inclined to believe FIP. Maybe pRAA is using the wrong baseline (I'm comparing to all NL pitchers), or is more severe in its park adjustments? (fwiw, while I still like tRA, I am much less enamored with it--and much less ready to ditch FIP--than I was, say, 6 months ago. This is just the latest reason).

Anyway, looking at each line individually, you can see that all three statistics point to the same thing: pitching fell off a bit this year. And, if you look at just the FIP or tRA lines, it was in its worst state since Bronson Arroyo's arrival in 2006. What happened? Obviously, the Volquez injury was huge. But that's not the only story here. Player by player breakdowns below the jump.

The table is sortable if you click in the header.

Name	IP	pLI	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	HR/F	GB%	BABIP	ERA	FIP	WARra	WARfip	WARhit	WAR
Aaron Harang	162.3	0.9	7.9	2.4	1.3	12%	35%	0.339	4.21	3.96	2.5	2.7	0.0	2.7
Bronson Arroyo	220.3	1.0	5.2	2.7	1.3	12%	45%	0.270	3.84	4.63	4.5	2.0	-0.2	1.7
Johnny Cueto	171.3	0.9	6.9	3.2	1.3	11%	42%	0.296	4.41	4.63	2.3	1.5	0.1	1.6
Francisco Cordero	66.7	1.9	7.8	4.1	0.3	3%	41%	0.301	2.16	3.10	2.8	1.6	0.0	1.6
Nick Masset	76.0	1.1	8.3	2.8	0.7	10%	54%	0.250	2.37	3.25	2.4	1.2	0.0	1.2
Arthur Rhodes	53.3	1.5	8.1	3.4	0.5	5%	41%	0.249	2.53	3.10	2.0	1.1	0.0	1.1
Homer Bailey	113.3	1.0	6.8	4.1	1.0	9%	43%	0.306	4.53	4.38	1.4	1.3	-0.3	1.0
Micah Owings	119.7	1.0	5.1	4.8	1.4	11%	37%	0.286	5.34	5.53	0.4	-0.1	1.1	1.0
Jared Burton	59.3	0.9	6.8	3.5	0.8	6%	43%	0.314	4.40	3.75	0.3	0.5	0.0	0.5
Daniel Ray Herrera	61.7	0.8	6.4	3.5	0.7	9%	50%	0.309	3.06	3.91	0.5	0.4	0.0	0.5
Josh Roenicke	13.3	0.2	9.5	2.7	0.0	0%	47%	0.355	2.70	2.03	0.4	0.4	0.0	0.4
Matt Maloney	40.7	0.9	6.2	1.8	2.0	13%	34%	0.282	4.87	5.16	0.5	0.1	0.2	0.3
Carlos Fisher	52.3	0.5	8.3	5.3	0.7	7%	44%	0.316	4.47	4.02	0.3	0.3	0.0	0.3
Paul Janish	2.0	0.0	13.5	9.0	9.0	50%	50%	0.726	49.50	14.99	-0.1	-0.1	0.3	0.2
Edinson Volquez	49.7	1.1	8.5	5.8	1.1	14%	45%	0.231	4.35	4.99	0.8	0.3	-0.2	0.1
Robert Manuel	4.3	0.2	4.2	2.1	0.0	0%	33%	0.329	0.00	2.97	0.2	0.1	0.0	0.1
Kip Wells	46.3	0.9	4.9	4.3	1.0	11%	49%	0.232	4.66	5.15	0.6	0.1	-0.1	0.0
Ramon Ramirez	12.3	0.6	5.8	2.9	1.5	11%	37%	0.183	3.65	5.03	0.2	-0.1	0.0	-0.1
Pedro Viola	7.0	0.4	6.4	3.9	2.6	18%	38%	0.253	5.14	6.43	0.0	-0.1	0.0	-0.1
David Weathers	38.0	1.6	6.4	4.0	1.7	15%	43%	0.200	3.32	5.23	1.0	-0.3	0.0	-0.3
Justin Lehr	65.3	0.9	4.6	3.9	1.9	16%	40%	0.277	5.37	6.09	0.4	-0.3	-0.1	-0.4
Mike Lincoln	23.0	0.7	3.5	7.4	2.7	23%	44%	0.283	8.22	8.75	-0.6	-0.7	0.0	-0.7

Notes on table: pLI is an indication of the leverage of the situations in which a pitcher pitched. pLI = 1 on average, pLI=2 when situations are twice as influential on game outcome as usual, pLI=0.5 when situations are half as influential on game outcome as usual. FIP is Fielding Independent Runs, with park adjustments for each coefficient (see above). WARra is Wins Above Replacement based on actual runs charged to a pitcher (park adjusted). It is calculated following Tango's methods, including the leverage adjustment. WARfip is WAR based on FIP. WARhit is an overall hitting assessment, which will be different from the last post because I discovered I was using much too low of a position adjustment for pitchers (sorry!). WAR is the sum of WARfip and WARhit.

Bronson Arroyo had the best season of the group based on traditional stats, and is our official 2009 Reds Pitcher of the Year. Clearly, he's the only one who topped 200 innings, and that has a lot of value in and of itself. Harang, in contrast, seemingly had another sub-par season, at least by his standards. This was especially true with respect to durability: thanks to his appendix, he only reached 162 innings this season, his lowest total since 2004.

But as Slyde showed recently, the major driving factor behind the differences in these two pitchers was actually some combination of fielding and luck: Harang's batted balls became hits 34% of the time compared to just 27% with Arroyo. In fact, if you look at his peripherals, Harang had a better strikeout rate (by a lot), a better walk rate, and an equivalent home run allowed rate (with identical HR/F rates) to Arroyo. Based on this, and despite his much lower innings total, Harang comes in as the more valuable pitcher this year...by a full win...over Arroyo!

I'm actually a bit concerned about Arroyo. His strikeout rate dropped considerably this year. Although he was improved in the second half, my pet belief is that Arroyo's success depends largely on his strikeout rate. Then again, he's shown large fluctuations in strikeout rate in the past, so hopefully this is just a blip. The Reds need him to be a 2-win pitcher next year if they're going to do anything.

Johnny Cueto had by most accounts a very successful season. He started strong, but seemed to taper off as the season wore on, perhaps due to workload: he pitched in both winterball and the WBC last winter, which is far too many innings for my comfort. I'd like to see him get back into the 8+ k/9 range where he was in 2008--if he does, he could be a force.

Homer Bailey had a heck of a turnaround season. Citing some changes in his delivery that occurred during the offseason, Bailey started slow, but then something seemed to just "click." The result was a tremendously successful final few months of the season. I still don't know if what we saw was real or not, but I sure hope it was. Given his playing time, he probably has the biggest error bars around his projection of any pitcher on this team, and perhaps across the entire league.

Micah Owings has probably the most interesting row on the list. As a pitcher, he wasn't very impressive. Low strikeout rate, VERY high walk rate, and low ground ball rates do not tend to lead to success. But the amazing thing is that he was able to couple that replacement-level pitching performance with hitting that clocks in right at league average. The result? A 1 WAR pitcher. You can do worse from your #5 starter. Or long reliever/pinch hitter. Whatever he is these days. Fascinating player.

Speaking of the bullpen, it sure looked excellent this year. Cordero, Rhodes, and the revelational Nick Masset combined for sub-3 ERA's and low-3 FIP's. Jared Burton (FIP 3.75), Danny Herrera (seems like the screwball works, at least on lefties), and Carlos Fisher (scary walks) also performed adequately in middle relief. If Bill Bray comes back strong following Tommy John, this could be a great young relief core moving forward. Well, minus Rhodes, because he's old.

Speaking of old, Cordero's line looks a little shaky from where I sit. His strikeout rate has gone from 12 k/9 in 2007 to 10 k/9 in 2008 to 8 k/9 in 2009. His walk rate was about where it is supposed to be, but his home run rate is artificially low, thanks to an extremely lucky HR per Fly Ball rate of 3%. I don't know if it's related, but he threw a lot more fastballs this year than last (63% vs. ~50% in prior seasons)...maybe the slider wasn't working as well as it used to? The Reds owe him two more seasons at $12M per year.

Overall, this wasn't a terrible pitching staff. But it also wasn't a pitching staff that featured any fantastic individual performances. And the rotation wasn't as strong as it has been in recent years, especially with injuries to Edinson Volquez and Harang. Volquez apparently thinks he will be back mid-next season, which could be a nice shot in the arm if the team is able to do anything with the first half. We'll see.

...

Wrap up and looking forward: So, that's your 2009 Reds. Fun in April and September, utterly forgettable in between. I don't know where this team is going, honestly. There are some good parts here. There are solid, steady contributers in Votto, Rolen, Phillips, Harang, and Arroyo. And there is youth with some nice upside in Bruce, Bailey, Cueto, Stubbs, and Volquez (when he returns). And there's more help on the way in Frazier, Alonso, and Leake. But it's also a team that is seeing some key players, especially pitchers, start to show signs of aging.

Given this, I wonder if 2010 is the year with the best window for success? And if so, can the cash-strapped Reds do what they need to do--plugging holes, mostly--to put themselves in a position to take advantage of some good fortune if it arrives?

CHONE fielding projections

JinAZ — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:02:52 -0000

More photos » by Al Behrman - AP

Drew Stubbs is very good at running down baseballs.

Browse more photos »

We linked to Jeff Zimmerman's UZR projections a few weeks back, but here are CHONE's fielding projections. Even though they use a less granular measure (TotalZone instead of UZR), the thing that makes these unique is that they involve both major and minor league data. That makes them MUCH more reliable for young players with little or no major league experience. They also include catching stats, which I like.

Here are your Reds, with numbers given in runs per season compared to their position:

C Hanigan +7
C Hernandez -1

1B Votto +0

2B Phillips -3

3B Rolen +7

SS Janish +5
SS Cozart +2
SS Valaika -18

CF Stubbs +11
CF Taveras +7
CF Heisey +3

OF Bruce +2
OF Gomes -6
OF Dickerson +9
OF Balentien +5
OF Frazier +1
OF Dorn -2

Only one that seems drastically off the mark is Phillips, but for some reason the CHONE system seems to be consistently very tough on Phillips, both on offense and defense. Interesting ratings on Heisey, Balentien, Valaika, and of course, our man Mr. Stubbs.

Keep in mind that the SS & CF positions have much better fielders than 1B/RF/LF, and so +0 at SS/CF means someone is a better fielder than a +5 fielder at 1B/LF/RF. In fact, here's the currently accepted defensive spectrum over at insidethebook.com, which seems to work very well.

C +12.5
SS +7.5
CF/2B/3B +2.5
LF/RF -7.5
1B -12.5

This is largely based on studies of players who play multiple positions. It works best (i.e. is most predictive) within the infield and within the outfield, but other factors come into play when going infield to outfield and vice versa that affect these numbers (lefties can't play 2B/3B/SS, for example).

Anyway, the way to read this is, for example, to say that someone who is an average-fielding shortstop moving to second base will, on average, be roughly +5 runs above average at his new position. Or, an average left fielder moving to center field will tend to be about 10 runs below average (catchers are their own animal, and are getting a bonus here for not only being a challenging position but also suffering a hitting drop-off specifically because of their position...but no one is saying that Hanigan would be a gold-glove shortstop).

These position differences are the basis for the position adjustments used in the WAR calculations for position players.

Sabermetric Review of the 2009 Reds, Part 3: Fielding & Total Win Values

JinAZ — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:32:22 -0000

As demonstrated in the opening article, the 2009 Reds fielding was a massive improvement over the 2008 team fielding. Like we did with the offense, lets go position by position:

The above plot is strictly based on UZR data (except for catchers, which use "my" catching stats based on sb/cs/pb/wp/e rates). But you can see that there was a small dropoff in both Votto's and Phillips' fielding scores, but nice upticks at catcher, 3B, and CF....and GARGANTUAN improvements at shortstop, left field, and right field. In each case, a massively sub-par fielder (Keppinger, Dunn, and Griffey) at each position was replaced with one or more well above-average fielders.

What does this do to overall value? Here are batting above average + fielding above average totals for each position:

Granted, this is strictly using UZR data. But wow--we're seeing net improvements at virtually every position. The only dropoff was 3B. We're even seeing improvements in LF, where the Reds essentially traded an offensive juggernaut in Dunn for players who could actually catch the ball. I think if Dunn had played the entire 2008 season with the Reds, those bars would be close to equal. That's pretty amazing. Despite the dropoff in offense, at least by these measures, the move to a fielding-oriented team over the past year really did work: the 2009 squad of position players was better than the 2008 squad, almost across the board. This is not what I expected to see when I started this.

Player by player breakdowns follow below the jump

The following table summarizes fielding data for each player, and combines the fielding data with offensive data to get a total win value statistic. Here, whenever possible, I'm including both UZR and Fans Scouting Report data (pro-rated to playing time, converted to runs). Specifically, UZR data is being "regressed" onto Fans data. The overall fielding estimate for regulars is close to the average of UZR and FSR. But for more part time players, where UZR becomes less reliable, I'm weighting the FSR data more heavily than UZR (up to 10% UZR, 90% FSR). For players who do not have FSR data, I'm assuming a fans value of league average. The overall approach is admittedly a bit quick and dirty, but it mitigates a lot of the problems with using single-season UZR data by combining those data with less volatile scouting data. I'm pleased with the results.

Pitchers, shown in italics, receive a massive position adjustment in recognition that a replacement pitcher is an average hitting pitcher. Note that these values still don't get you to pitcher WAR, but they will shortly. The table is sortable if you click in the header.

Name	PA	hitRAR	UZR	FSR	Field	PosAdj	WAR
Joey Votto	544	53	-2	4	1	-9	4.9
Brandon Phillips	644	22	7	16	10	2	3.8
Chris Dickerson	299	7	8	7	8	-2	1.4
Jay Bruce	387	8	8	7	7	-4	1.3
Ryan Hanigan	293	0	7	6	7	5	1.2
Drew Stubbs	196	5	8	4	5	1	1.1
Jonny Gomes	314	18	-9	-6	-7	-3	1.0
Scott Rolen	162	4	3	5	4	1	0.9
Micah Owings	58	2	0	0	0	5	0.8
Laynce Nix	337	6	7	1	3	-3	0.7
Juan Francisco	25	4	1	0	0	0	0.5
Wladimir Balentien	125	5	5	-1	0	-1	0.4
Paul Janish	292	-7	12	5	7	3	0.3
Matt Maloney	15	0	0	0	0	1	0.1
Darnell McDonald	111	1	1	0	0	-1	0.0
Ramon Hernandez	331	-1	0	0	0	2	0.0
Daniel Ray Herrera	4	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Jerry Hairston	340	1	-1	-2	-2	1	0.0
Arthur Rhodes	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Jared Burton	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Nick Masset	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Ramon Ramirez	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Carlos Fisher	1	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Mike Lincoln	2	-1	0	0	0	0	0.0
Kevin Barker	36	0	0	0	0	0	0.0
Drew Sutton	76	-1	2	0	0	0	-0.1
Kip Wells	16	-3	0	0	0	1	-0.2
Danny Richar	9	-2	-1	0	0	0	-0.2
Johnny Cueto	59	-8	0	0	0	5	-0.2
Edinson Volquez	19	-4	0	0	0	2	-0.3
Aaron Harang	54	-7	0	0	0	5	-0.3
Justin Lehr	28	-5	0	0	0	3	-0.3
Corky Miller	69	-3	0	-1	-1	1	-0.3
Edwin Encarnacion	165	-1	-6	-3	-4	1	-0.4
Craig Tatum	77	-6	1	0	0	1	-0.4
Homer Bailey	43	-9	0	0	0	4	-0.5
Adam Rosales	266	-5	1	-1	-1	0	-0.6
Bronson Arroyo	76	-13	0	0	0	7	-0.6
Willy Taveras	437	-15	8	-5	1	1	-1.5
Alex Gonzalez	270	-17	2	-1	0	3	-1.5

Notes on table: hitRAR is the wRAR number from the offense post. UZR is FanGraphs' fielding statistic, shown in units of runs. FSR is from the fans scouting report, converted into runs. Field is a composite of the UZR and FSR columns, with roughly equal weighting for a player like Phillips or Votto who played most of the season, and more weighting to FSR as playing time gets lower and lower. PosAdj is a position adjustment, in recognition that there are differences in fielding quality among different positions (i.e. it is easier to be an average fielding left fielder than an average-fielding center fielder). WAR is wins above replacement, and is based on the sum of RAR, Field, & PosAdj, converted from runs to wins.

I don't think there was much doubt of this, but Joey Votto was clearly the most valuable position player but a full win. After him, however, was Brandon Phillips, who by my numbers was pushing close to being a 4 win player. OBP be damned, that's a quality asset, folks--worth almost $17 million on the free agent market!

Below Phillips, we have a pretty big dropoff to the 0.5-1.5 WAR players: most of the outfielders (including Stubbs for his fabulous September), the quality part-time performance of Ryan Hanigan, and twoish months of Scott Rolen. As a group, this set of players put up very good rate stats (average WAR/700 PA for this group is ~3.5), but none accumulated more than 400 PA's. A lot of the reason for that is injury, but it was also about leveraging strengths. The left field "platoon" worked pretty well, perhaps because it prevented overexposure of guys like Dickerson to same-handed pitchers.

The player with the third-most PA's on the team, this year, however, was Willy Taveras. And if you are going to complement Dusty on his use of players like Nix, Dickerson, and Gomes in LF, you have to come down equally hard on his use of Willy Taveras. Taveras just had a miserable season. He still has decent wheels, but he went through mind-blowingly long stretches without getting on base. He didn't walk much, didn't hit much...he even struggled with his fielding as indicated by his harsh FSR rating. I have him at a full 1.5 wins below replacement, tied for worst with the anemic Alex Gonzalez (who, to be fair, got there in 160 fewer PA's than Taveras). I call Taveras "Corey Patterson, without the power."

Other bad (replacement-level or worse) performances came from Ramon Hernandez (I expected him to be an upgrade over Bako--he wasn't), Jerry Hairston (the magic was gone this year, but at least the guy got a ring), Edwin Encarnacion (did we all get it wrong on this kid, or is there more to come?), and Adam Rosales (he hustles well enough, but you still have to hit to stay in the big leagues).

A few other players of note: Ryan Hanigan had a heck of a year. He hit like an average replacement player, but that's an asset when you can catch--especially when you're an elite defender like he apparently is. Both his objective catching statistics and his Fan Scouting agree that he was awesome behind the dish this year. All of those combined for more than 1 WAR from a guy who played less than 50% of the time. .... Paul Janish held his own at shortstop after Gonzalez departed, despite not playing much during the first half of the season. He's not a great long-term solution, but you can probably do worse than letting him play every day. ..... Jonny Gomes, as we discussed before, was the worst fielder on the team, and this pretty severely cuts into his value. ..... Micah Owings, based on comparisons to other pitchers, added an extra 0.8 WAR to his overall value with his hitting skills. We'll tack that onto his value in the next piece. By the same token, unusually bad hitting performances, even compared to other pitchers, pitchers, will take a half-win or so off of Arroyo's and Bailey's overall value. Hitting does matter for pitchers!

Overall, despite the fact that only two players broke 500 PA's, what's amazing about the 2009 team is that the overall contribution of all of these mixed and matched players resulted in an improvement over the 2008 squad, despite a dramatic switch from an offensive-oriented club to a fielding-oriented club. Were they great? No. But they were improved. If nothing else, it's something to build on for next season.

I'll leave you with this graph, showing batting, fielding, and overall WAR (all courtesy of FanGraphs, not my stuff) for the past several years:

Year	Batting	Fielding	WAR
2006	-8	-26	+17.2
2007	+5	-41	+16.9
2008	-72	-43	+9.0
2009	-110	+53	+14.0

...maybe improvement over the 2008 team isn't worth bragging about.

Next time: Pitching.

Sabermetric Review of the 2009 Reds, Part 2: Offense

JinAZ — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:38:08 -0000

A late season surge helped prevent a historically bad offense, but nonetheless, relative to average, the Reds fell off 26 runs in 2009 to 71 runs below average (after park adjustments). It was the worst Reds offense since the 1997 team (95 runs below average). On a team level, where did this offensive dropoff come from? Let's go position-by-position:

Notes: Batting runs are the "Batting" stat from fangraphs, which are park-adjusted for us, and include all players at each position on the '08 and '09 Reds teams. Players playing multiple positions had their offenses pro-rated based on innings played at each position.

The Reds had a nice uptick at 1B and 2B thanks to improved offensive seasons by both Votto and Phillips. But there were major dropoffs in offense at 3B, SS, and LF. 3B was largely due to the massive underperformance of (and injury to) Encarnacion and subsequent powerless debut by Scott Rolen. At SS and LF, the story is a bit more nuanced. The Reds had guys who were essentially playing out of position at those positions in 2008 (Dunn, Hairston, Keppinger), but in 2009 were replaced by guys who didn't hit as well but contributed significantly better fielding (Janish, Dickerson, etc). Also, given how much time Paul Bako got in 2008, I was surprised to not see better offense from our catchers. But then I looked again at the 2009 catchers' hitting stats and it all made sense again. More on the individual players below.

For the individual player stats, there are a few flourishes that distinguishes what follows from what you'll find at Fangraphs, for example (which is my primary data source). First, everything's park adjusted. This is a big deal for Cincinnati, which is a moderate hitter's park (5 year regressed park factor has climbed to 1.04!). Second, the last three columns include not only the hitting information, but also full baserunning info from BPro. This includes not only stolen bases, but also things like advancing 1st to 3rd on a single.

Here are all individual Reds player performances for 2009. The table is sortable if you click in the header. I've italicized pitchers to make it easier to ignore them if you wish to do so.

Name	PA	BB%	K%	GB%	LD%	FB%	EqBRR	BABIP	AVG	OBP	SLG	ISO	wOBA*	wRAA*	wRAR*
Joey Votto	544	13%	23%	39%	22%	39%	-0.3	0.372	0.322	0.414	0.567	0.245	0.411	38.3	52.7
Brandon Phillips	644	7%	13%	50%	17%	33%	3.0	0.284	0.276	0.329	0.447	0.171	0.339	5.3	22.3
Jonny Gomes	314	9%	30%	34%	20%	46%	-0.1	0.309	0.267	0.338	0.541	0.274	0.367	10.1	18.4
Jay Bruce	387	10%	22%	39%	13%	49%	0.0	0.221	0.223	0.303	0.470	0.247	0.324	-2.1	8.1
Chris Dickerson	299	13%	26%	50%	22%	29%	-1.9	0.360	0.275	0.370	0.373	0.098	0.325	-1.2	6.7
Laynce Nix	337	7%	26%	38%	20%	43%	1.1	0.272	0.239	0.291	0.476	0.237	0.321	-2.7	6.2
Wladimir Balentien	125	12%	25%	47%	18%	35%	0.5	0.325	0.264	0.352	0.427	0.163	0.345	1.6	4.9
Drew Stubbs	196	8%	27%	42%	21%	37%	-1.3	0.325	0.267	0.323	0.439	0.172	0.328	-0.4	4.8
Juan Francisco	25	13%	33%	57%	29%	14%	0.3	0.615	0.429	0.520	0.619	0.190	0.503	3.8	4.4
Scott Rolen	162	12%	15%	46%	16%	38%	-1.5	0.291	0.270	0.364	0.401	0.131	0.325	-0.7	3.6
Micah Owings	58	2%	35%	43%	17%	40%	-0.1	0.333	0.259	0.281	0.537	0.278	0.333	0.2	1.7
Darnell McDonald	111	5%	30%	47%	18%	35%	0.7	0.361	0.267	0.306	0.400	0.133	0.312	-1.8	1.2
Jerry Hairston	340	6%	15%	34%	24%	42%	-0.5	0.273	0.254	0.305	0.397	0.143	0.303	-8.1	0.9
Kevin Barker	36	9%	28%	54%	25%	21%	-0.1	0.375	0.281	0.333	0.375	0.094	0.292	-1.2	-0.2
Daniel Herrera	4	33%	50%	100%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.333	0.000	0.000	0.229	-0.4	-0.2
Arthur Rhodes	1	0%	100%	0%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	-0.006	-0.3	-0.3
Jared Burton	1	0%	100%	0%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	-0.006	-0.3	-0.3
Nick Masset	1	0%	100%	0%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	-0.006	-0.3	-0.3
Ramon Ramirez	1	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	-0.006	-0.3	-0.3
Carlos Fisher	1	0%	100%	0%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	-0.006	-0.3	-0.3
Ryan Hanigan	293	13%	12%	48%	24%	27%	-1.4	0.289	0.263	0.361	0.331	0.068	0.298	-8.2	-0.5
Matt Maloney	15	8%	42%	86%	14%	0%	0.1	0.429	0.250	0.308	0.250	0.000	0.262	-0.9	-0.5
Mike Lincoln	2	0%	100%	0%	0%	0%	0.0	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	-0.006	-0.6	-0.5
Edwin Encarnacion	165	15%	27%	41%	14%	46%	-2.8	0.250	0.209	0.333	0.374	0.165	0.295	-5.1	-0.7
Drew Sutton	76	10%	30%	37%	19%	44%	-0.6	0.289	0.212	0.297	0.348	0.136	0.280	-3.3	-1.3
Ramon Hernandez	331	10%	12%	49%	19%	32%	-3.1	0.274	0.258	0.336	0.362	0.104	0.295	-10.1	-1.3
Danny Richar	9	11%	13%	57%	14%	29%	-1.3	0.286	0.250	0.333	0.250	0.000	0.105	-1.8	-1.5
Kip Wells	16	0%	36%	67%	33%	0%	0.2	0.143	0.091	0.091	0.091	0.000	0.090	-3.3	-2.9
Corky Miller	69	14%	25%	28%	21%	51%	-0.5	0.214	0.179	0.299	0.250	0.071	0.247	-5.0	-3.2
Edinson Volquez	19	0%	50%	75%	13%	13%	0.0	0.125	0.063	0.063	0.063	0.000	0.050	-4.6	-4.1
Adam Rosales	266	10%	20%	45%	16%	40%	0.3	0.246	0.213	0.303	0.317	0.104	0.278	-12.0	-5.0
Justin Lehr	28	4%	36%	77%	8%	15%	-0.7	0.143	0.091	0.130	0.136	0.045	0.090	-5.9	-5.1
Craig Tatum	77	9%	15%	45%	12%	43%	0.1	0.175	0.162	0.250	0.221	0.059	0.213	-7.8	-5.8
Paul Janish	292	9%	16%	37%	19%	44%	0.7	0.247	0.211	0.296	0.305	0.094	0.271	-14.9	-7.2
Aaron Harang	54	2%	26%	74%	9%	18%	-1.4	0.176	0.149	0.167	0.234	0.085	0.141	-8.9	-7.5
Johnny Cueto	59	6%	37%	74%	4%	22%	0.2	0.207	0.130	0.184	0.130	0.000	0.151	-9.2	-7.6
Homer Bailey	43	0%	45%	75%	10%	15%	-0.1	0.143	0.079	0.079	0.079	0.000	0.062	-10.0	-8.9
Bronson Arroyo	76	0%	44%	35%	21%	45%	-0.3	0.200	0.113	0.113	0.161	0.048	0.108	-14.7	-12.7
Willy Taveras	437	4%	14%	47%	17%	36%	3.6	0.277	0.240	0.275	0.285	0.045	0.259	-26.9	-15.4
Alex Gonzalez	270	6%	15%	36%	18%	46%	-1.4	0.231	0.210	0.258	0.296	0.086	0.229	-23.7	-16.6

Table notes: Most stats were pulled or calculated from those at FanGraphs. Most should be self-explanatory. EqBRR is Dan Fox's baserunning stat from Baseball Prospectus. wOBA* is an all-encompassing offensive stat read on the same scale as OBP. It is based on wOBA listed at fangraphs, but then park adjusted and further adjusted to include EqBRR baserunning information. wRAA* is runs above average, based on wOBA*, and so is park adjusted and includes EqBRR. wRAR* is based on wRAA*, plus a 2.0 wins/700 PA modifier (the difference between an average hitter and a replacement hitter). wRAR* does not consider position--that includes pitchers! We will apply position adjustments when calculating win values in a subsequent post.

Joey Votto is the clear winner of the best offensive player award, despite missed time due to illness. The guy just had an incredible season. His 0.372 BABIP is a source of concern, however--that's almost certainly the result of some good luck, which will (at least) pull down his on-base stats. But he doesn't have to have an 0.372 to be a fine hitter. I'll happily take his CHONE projection in 2010 and every year thereafter...though, maybe with a few more PA's.

The often maligned (at least in the blogosphere) Brandon Phillips comes in as the second most valuable hitter, at least relative to replacement level. Yes, he's a free swinger, and yes, he's misplaced hitting 4th on a team. But he's proven to be an extremely durable, consistent hitter with good power and the ability to add to value with his baserunning game. He, along with Taveras, contributed the most on the basepaths this year (+3 runs overall).

Jonny Gomes comes in third, and I'm sure this is why so many are enthusiastic about re-signing him (despite his fielding problems). His 0.274 ISO was the highest of any hitter on the team, and second only to the incomparable Micah Owings.

But from here, we just drop off a cliff. I find it flat-out shocking that only three hitters crossed the 10 RAR plateau on this Reds team. In 2008, we had seven players top that plateau, with Jay Bruce essentially #8. There just wasn't much good hitting talent--or at least good hitting performance--on the team this year. In contrast, we had five hitters at least 5 runs below replacement level (Rosales, Tatum, Janish, Taveras, and Gonzalez; this is offense only). Now, some of that was made up for with glovework. But even so, this is a miserable offense. All I can say is thank goodness for Joey Votto. Can you imagine what this team would have been like without him?

A few other hitters of interest. I've read a lot of optimisim about Jay Bruce, with many pointing to his 0.221 BABIP as something that won't happen next season. I hope they're right, and I was glad to see the power there from him, but I worry about his line drive %. Those things can fluctuate, and Bruce is young and tremendously talented. But a bust-out season next year isn't guaranteed from where I sit......Micah Owings lived up to his reputation and had a terrific year at the plate for a pitcher, often serving as our top right-handed pinch hitter. And keep in mind the pinch hitting is measurably more difficult that hitting when you're already in the game, so Owings is probably better than he showed. He didn't walk much, and I wonder if that eventually will catch up to him as pitchers learn to exploit his weaknesses.....Drew Stubbs showed surprising power in his September call-up, but his on-base skills weren't as evident, walking only 8% of the time. There was some talk that he'd modified his swing upon arriving in the big leagues, but I haven't seen confirmation of that and I'm skeptical. Honestly, I think he just got lucky. I have very little idea of what he'll hit next season.....Juan "El Nino Destructor" Francisco hit the crap out of the ball in his 25 PA's, even walking at a nice clip. But 0.615 BABIPs tend to decline, and I have almost zero confidence that he's actually big league ready.....Lowest walk rate by anyone on the team with more than 100 PA's? Our leadoff hitter, Willy Taveras. I kind of miss Norris Hopper.....How bad was Ramon Hernandez? And manning 1B when Votto was out, no less! I argued last spring that a combination of Hernandez and Hanigan would be a massive upgrade on last year's catching. As the graph at the top of the page shows, however, it wasn't. Not that Tatum or Miller helped much on that front.

Next time (probably after the holidays): Fielding, and combining fielding value with offensive value to get position player win values!

Sabermetric Review of the 2009 Reds, Part 1: Overview

JinAZ — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:40:30 -0000

Let's start by comparing this year's team to the other Reds teams of the '00's:

Blue line is runs scored above average, red line is runs allowed "above" average (positive = good), and the green line is overall runs above average (RSAA + RAAA). The latter stat will track pythagorean W% very closely. All data are park adjusted using Patriot's 5-year regressed park factors.

We all know this, but the last good Reds team was Griffey's first year and Jack McKeon's last. After that, Bowden's ragtag assemblages stopped working, and the Reds bottomed out in 2003-2004. A combination of Dan O'Brien, Wayne Krivsky, and Walt Jocketty oversaw the 2004-2009 teams, which have tended to come in somewhere around 55 runs below average (expected 74 wins or so).

What's fascinating to me about these teams over the last five years is that they've gone about posting their marginally below-average records in such different ways. The 2005 team was, by a massive margin, the most unbalanced team in Reds history in terms of runs scored and runs allowed (next closest were the 1944 & 1976 Reds teams, but the disparity of the 2005 team was 30% larger). The defense (pitching + fielding) made a huge comeback in 2006 with Arroyo's fluky season and one of Harang's best, but the spectacular 2005 offense largely evaporated, especially over the last two months of the year.

2007 saw the offense rebound but the defense slide. But over 2008 and now 2009, we've seen a steady shift in a team that is becoming more focused on pitching and fielding, and less on offense. 2009's team ultimately had the best run prevention of any team since 2000. What's that? You don't think of the 2000 club as a team with great pitching & fielding? I didn't either. But NL teams scored 5.0 runs per game that year compared to 4.4 runs per game this year. So, you can more or less subtract a half-run from each pitcher's ERA in 2000 to compare them to this year's run environment. It was a different world!

2009 Season breakdown begins after the jump.

By the numbers:

Record:	78-84, 0.481 (10th in NL)
Runs Scored:	647 (15th in NL)
Runs Allowed:	695 (9th in NL)
Pyth Record:	76-86, 0.467 (10th in NL)
Offense:	0.308 wOBA* (last in NL)
Pitching:	4.47 FIP* (13th), 4.51 tERA (12th)
Fielding:	+59 Runs (1st in NL)
*eRS:**	629 (15th in NL)
*eRA:**	730 (9th in NL)
Component Record:	70-92, 0.432 (13th in NL)

(Notes on table: everything's park adjusted to the degree that this is possible. wOBA is a comprehensive offensive rate stat on OBP's scale, and reports properly weighted impact of all hitting events as well as complete baserunning from BPro; FIP and tERA are both fielding-independent measures of pitching quality, on the same scale as ERA; Fielding is based on UZR and THT's team fielding stat, as well as "my" catching statistic; eRS and eRA are estimated runs scored and allowed based on offensive and defensive statistics, and Component Record is simply a pythagorean record based on eRS and eRA).

Non-statspeaky summary of table: offense was lousy, pitching wasn't great either, but the fielding was freaking awesome. Overall, a below-average team. And they might have been a bit lucky, too.

How the season unfolded.

Here's the Reds' sparkline, courtesy of the Hardball Times. If you haven't seen these before, "upticks" mean a win, "downticks" mean a loss, red games are close, and black games in this case are (as I set it up) won by more than three runs. I've added a few notes reflecting my personal feelings about the team over the course of the season.

I swear, the Reds do this to me every year. They start out kind of decent, then collapse, only to pick up again at the end of the season when it's hard to find the motivation to watch them. Even so, it was hard not to be at least pleased by their performance over last week and a half of games. I guess that's what playing Houston & Pittsburgh will do for you, though.

Here's another look at the same thing, again from Hardball Times.

Cardinals sure exploded in August, eh? And, living in PA, I have to also sympathize with poor Pittsburgh...

As much as I enjoyed the Reds' ascent back into mediocrity in September, I can't help but think that they might have done little more than negatively affect their position in next June's amateur draft...

In future installments, we'll look at the 2009 Reds players: hitting, fielding, and pitching. Stay tuned!