SB Nation User Blog: PaulThomas

Some statistical Solarcaine

PaulThomas — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:34:39 -0000

Ed's note: I was too distraught to write up a recap yesterday, and PaulThomas said almost everything I was going to say in the following post. Monty agrees with Paul and me; here's a quote from the CoCo Times:

"They shoot 70 percent in the second half and we shoot 27 (percent). I think that's the tale of the game. It's no more complex than that."

Cal now needs to win AT LEAST one more regular season game, and Thursday night's game against USC seems like the time to do it. Hopefully we will not look back on a season sweep to 7th place OSU as the reason we were kept out of the tournament. - CBKWit

People do still use that for sunburns, right?

I couldn't help but look at the stats from today's game, because I didn't feel like the Bears had played all that badly. And, turns out, they didn't.

Let's toss out the two ridiculous Randle heaves at the end of the game (although he's capable of hitting those). Other than those two shots, Cal took 50 shots in the game and made 17 of them. On the season, Cal's shooting percentage is very near 50%-- but let's call it 48% for ease of handling. That means Cal should have made 24 shots.

On the season the team's 3 point percentage is (now-- it dropped 1.7% just from this game alone) 44.1%. The Bears took 18 3s. Basically, they should have made 8 of them; in fact, they made 3.

Add up those missing points and on a normal shooting day, Cal wins this one easily, 73-65. I suppose you could dock Cal a few points for making more free throws than average, but Oregon State got a bundle of easy points off end-of-game FTs too.

Now, I know you can't just get up and say bad shooting = bad luck. But come on. You'd have a hard time arguing that the quality of looks the Bears got today was worse than average. Oregon State's defense was porous at best and Cal was regularly getting wide-open 3s. I'm not even going near the officiating, Oregon State's own shooting (highlighted by four second-half plays which would put any baller 80% of the way to winning a HORSE game) or anything else the team couldn't control. If Cal does what it normally does, HORSE shots or no, Oregon State goes down.

I hope Montgomery's message to his team was that sometimes these things just happen. The worst thing that could happen is for the Bears to overthink things. This isn't a game they need to explain away (unlike the first one). It just-- happened. One presumes Ben Howland is busy telling his team the same thing-- sometimes Taylor Rochestie scores 33 points. Accept it and move on.

TotalZone for Minor Leaguers

PaulThomas — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 06:25:50 -0000

This isn't going to be one of my really long rambles, just a quick look at some information which you may not have seen. Minorleaguesplits.com, which you should check out if you are at all interested in the A's minor league system, now includes a "defense" button for position players! This takes you to a page where defensive stats are calculated-- in runs-- using a primitive but reasonably effective method called TotalZone, developed by Sean Smith (of CHONE projection fame) to measure defense for players who played before modern fielding metrics. Turns out it also applies to minor leaguers.

Take this with a grain of salt, not for the gospel-- TotalZone isn't super accurate and I wouldn't get too caught up in the exact run measurements. It's more useful as a concept tool.

So what does it tell us about the A's prospects?

Aaron Cunningham: Looks like a defensive "tweener". He scores modestly well in a corner and modestly poor in center. Squares with my take on him, which is that his defense and positional adjustment should make him roughly league-average apart from his bat.

Sean Doolittle: Despite scouting reports touting him as an excellent 1B, did not score well on this metric at all... but conversely his limited work in right field has been excellent. I think I have to drop him a little on my personal prospect list, but it's encouraging that he's showing well at what's theoretically a harder position.

Chris Carter: Just give the man's glove to an RBI league, already.

Adrian Cardenas: Too little data to say much. Seems OK at shortstop so far.

Corey Brown: Appears to be able to handle center field competently. Combined with a plus arm, could be a net-positive defender.

Javier Herrera: Defense has declined from "good CF" to "average corner" since the injury problems.

Cliff Pennington/Gregorio Petit: Maybe there's hope for Cliff after all; he scores well on the metric (though he was very poor in the majors last year). Petit looks OK but not great, so he'll either have to improve his hitting or start transforming his tools into better defensive performance if he wants an MLB job.

Jeff Baisley: Seems very competent. Hitting will still make or break him.

Jack Hannahan: Can apparently play second base if needed. +13 runs there in 2006-2007.

Jermaine Mitchell: Looks like a defensive stud. If he can rediscover his 2007 stroke, could still be a very good player.

Matt Sulentic: Reports that his defense has improved are borne out here, so even a skeptic like me has to move him up the list some.

Big winners (relative to reputation/scouting report): Pennington, Sulentic, Mitchell, Brown

Big losers: Doolittle, Carter, Herrera

Should the A's take James Skelton in the Rule 5 draft?

PaulThomas — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:43:50 -0000

Should the A's take James Skelton in the Rule 5 draft?

Yes. But so should damn nearly everyone else, so the neutral saber-dork in me hopes he doesn't make it down that far.

Your Team Should Choose James Skelton in the Rule 5 Draft

PaulThomas — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 02:53:13 -0000

as long as someone else hasn't done it first, of course. Well, depending on who you are, it might be worth it to trade up to get him!

Skelton is the most attractive position player Rule 5 candidate I've seen in some time. Let me explain why.

1. Position: Position for players is like location for real estate. It's everything. It puts every offensive and defensive stat into context. Good catching is like beachfront property-- it's insanely valuable, especially if it isn't eventually going to slide into the sea (Mauer) and isn't so damp you can't really enjoy living there no matter how many bathtubs you put in (Posada). Stretching the metaphor still further, Skelton is the equivalent of a beachfront bungalow which is up for a foreclosure auction.

The rates at which useful catchers come along in Rule 5 are not high. Most teams hoard them desperately, obsessed with obscure injury scenarios. Yes, Jesus Flores was let go a few years ago-- and the Mets were roundly derided for it. Even though he hasn't been great so far, it was still a terrible decision for the Mets to leave him off their 40-man roster.

2. More position: Rule 5 is a funky gimmick. If you take a guy, you can't option him down for a year unless the team you took him from lets you. Normally, this is bad, because if he starts stinking it up you either have to give him back or effectively play a man short. A lot of Rule 5 picks are, for this reason, relievers-- you can always hide them in unimportant (low-leverage) innings.

Well, here's the awesome thing about catchers-- you can do the same thing! Everybody, even Russell Martin, has a backup at catcher in MLB. It's just physically impossible for anyone to play 162 games at the position. The position is tailor-made for snagging a catcher in Rule 5 and then hiding him where he only has to play 30-odd games during the season. If he works out, maybe you increase his playing time-- but even if he doesn't, you can keep him around without killing your roster. And he's only bumping your backup catcher off the roster anyway-- honestly, unless you're an Indians or Twins fan, did you actually care about that?

3. Age: James Skelton's career minor league stats look like this:

276 G 867 AB

253 H 45 2B 5 3B 13 HR

181 BB 179 K

.292/.416/.400/.816

This is a good line out of any catching prospect-- not a whole lot of power, but walking more than you strike out is a great indicator of success because it indicates a knowledge of the strike zone coupled with a strong ability to make contact with pitches when necessary. And there's some hints here that he might develop into a 10 HR guy-- a solid number of doubles and triples relative to home runs.

Still, it's not fabulous. What is (relatively-- we are talking about Rule 5 draftees here) fabulous is his age. Skelton just turned 23 about a month ago, and he's reached AA ball. One of the key predictors of how well a prospect will do is how old he was relative to the average player in the leagues where he was playing-- and for most of Skelton's career, he's been younger than usual. He's going to be that again in MLB next year, so it's nice to know he can hold his own (especially in terms of drawing walks and putting the ball in play) in tough environments.

Age again: The other great thing about scoring a young guy in Rule 5 is that even if he ends up kicking around the back end of your roster for a year and then getting optioned back to AAA to try again, he's still young enough to turn into something useful down the road! For some guys, mostly college draftees, Rule 5 is sort of their last gasp at having a big-league career. That puts a ton of pressure on them to do well, and baseball is, by its nature, not a game that normal people play all that well under pressure.

[Tangent: Want my take on why statisticians searching for "clutch" in MLB players can't seem to find it? In order to get good enough to stick in Major League Baseball, you have to be a freak in more than merely physical ways. I know I could never do it-- I'd still be seething about my first at-bat, if I struck out, when I went up for my second, which is no way to focus. The extreme selectivity of MLB tends to weed out the temperamental and mentally weak prospects, leaving a landscape that looks almost robotic when it comes to pressure situations.]

The great thing about taking guys drafted out of high school or signed from Latin America in Rule 5 is that there's some potential payoff down the road even if you don't end up with an immediately good player. Almost everyone picked in Rule 5 still has all three of his minor league option years left at the end of his Rule 5 year. This means you can keep Skelton around until he's 27 without letting other teams claim him on waivers, and see if he makes something of himself.

James Skelton has his drawbacks as a prospect. Obviously-- if he didn't, a. he wouldn't be available to pick in Rule 5, and b. he'd be Matt Wieters, who's good enough to force his team to trade a league average catcher for a pile of lame. He's not great defensively, I noted that he has little power, and all things being equal you might like that strikeout rate to come down a little (striking out a lot in the minors sometimes indicates that a player won't hit for average in the majors). But he's probably better than your backup catcher. He's almost certainly more valuable than your backup catcher, because he's available on the cheap for the next seven-to-ten years. If you're really hard-up, like San Diego, he might even be better than your STARTING catcher. And he's available for 50 grand.

Draft him, ye MLB GMs.

Kurt Suzuki is Good At Blocking Pitches

PaulThomas — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:11:37 -0000

Kurt Suzuki is Good At Blocking Pitches

Apparently those blocking drills in the bullpen last year paid off.

Staturday: Sussing the Short Stop Strategies

PaulThomas — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:17:42 -0000

Following the ~~wild~~ bitterly resented by any serious analyst success of the Projecting the Enemy series, I come now to bring you the next edition, dealing with the free agent shortstop class. Should the A's sign Furcal? Who's the best bargain? And what would the position look like if the A's don't sign anybody?

Warning: there is going to be a methodological shift in this post relative to the prior posts. Because this is about player acquisition and not about team projection, we need to compare players to replacement level, NOT to league average. (Replacement level hitting is about 20 runs below league average, although it's more like 30 runs for shortstops, who tend to suck at offense.) Average players have value, because there are not an unlimited number of them. So if you're wondering why Crosby used to be a minus and is now (barely) a plus, that's why.

If you're wondering where I'm getting these numbers, they're formed through a combination of: mental Marcels (a rough weighted average of the player's career with more emphasis given to the most recent years), the projections that have been released for the player (if any), a conversion scale which treats 5 OPS points as worth about 1 run over a full season, and fielding evaluations, principally Sean Smith's fielding projections and Revised Zone Rating (blame it on the fact that I'm too cheap/poor, depending on your opinion of me, to buy access to Plus/Minus).

I'll be dividing this into three sections: free agents, trade acquisitions, and stopgaps. To wit:

Stopgaps

Bobby Crosby (10 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) $5.25M

Hey, we know this guy. He sucks. OK, probably not as much as we like to think he does. But still-- 1 win above replacement is awfully mediocre. He's roughly getting paid what he's worth on the market.

Gregorio Petit (5 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) $400K

Petit isn't totally inept with the stick-- he's had a few solid seasons in the minors-- but his offense is very batting-average based and young players who rely on hitting for average often struggle in their first exposure to big league pitching. So I wouldn't expect wonders. We can safely ignore his MLB numbers from last year as a small-sample fluke.

Defensively, he has the potential to be quite a bit better than average, but right now he's somewhat erratic in his jumps and throws. Again, ideally this is something he could work out in time. I say ideally because Petit appears to be loathed by the front office, who basically did everything they could last season to prevent him from getting consistent playing time.

Cliff Pennington (0 RAR offensively, -5 defensively) $400K

I'm sorry, I simply do not see how Pennington's high minor league walk rates are going to translate to the majors. We've seen what happens to guys with no power-- outfielders cheat way in on them and pitchers just throw gas constantly. Next thing you know you're hitting .194 and getting a ticket back to the minors. Or playing 80 games for the Mariners, I guess. Well, that's not all that hard to do, really.

Free Agents

Rafael Furcal (35 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) 4 years/$55 million

Furcal has been a bit erratic in recent years, but prior to that he had a pretty consistent period of being average at the plate, adding a number of runs with his legs, and being solid in the field. I'm basically figuring that this will continue; he has a career EqA of .271 and if he's healthy there's no reason to expect him to be far from that mark. He is a health risk, so any putative contract needs to build in an insurance policy against a relapse of chronic back problems.

Orlando Cabrera (25 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) 2 years/$18 million

Cabrera's a pure batting-average hitter, with the result that he's had a few fluky-good and fluky-bad seasons while hovering somewhere around "sucky" overall, albeit better than an average shortstop. His glove is good enough to hold down shortstop for another few years, but starting to fray a little. Next year is going to be his age 34 season, so there's a serious collapse risk here.

Edgar Renteria (30 RAR offensively, -10 defensively) 2 years/$15 million

Renteria used to be quite a good player, but his range has really fallen apart lately in the field. At the dish, he has better secondary skills than Cabrera and can take a walk, but he was dismal in 2008 and may not ever recapture the form he showed in 2007 for Atlanta.

One thing I will say-- his AL/NL split looks much more interesting than it is. It simply is not the case that hitters can hit in one league and not in the other. Moving leagues might cost a guy a few runs here and there, but it does not turn him from All-Star to chump.

Cesar Izturis (5 RAR offensively, +10 defensively) 2 years, $5 million

Izturis probably flashes the best glove of any of the free agents this offseason. Unfortunately, the guy cannot hit at all. Neifi Perez, the bete noir of sabermetricians everywhere, has a career OPS some 30 points HIGHER than Izturis does.

Then again, he doesn't look much worse than Renteria and he's going to be a lot cheaper...

Adam Everett (-5 RAR offensively, +10 defensively) 1 year, $2 million

There was a time not long ago when Adam Everett was a fairly crummy but not unacceptable hitter who was also the best defender in all of baseball. His 2006 was interpreted by some fielding metrics as having been as much as 40 runs above average, which is the fielding equivalent of Bondsian. What happened? Well, the Oakland A's happened, actually. A pop-up (natch-- this is the A's we're talking about here), an ugly collision with Carlos Lee, a badly broken leg, and suddenly Everett's tenuous grip on MLB regular status was broken.

He's no longer a realistic option as a starter, in my opinion. His defense is still quality but no longer ridiculously insane, and he's lost what little juice his bat once had.

Nick Punto (10 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) 2 years/$6 million

The 2007 Twins made the mistake of giving Nick Punto 150 games of play; the 2008 Twins cut that back to 99. Note the correlation with those teams' respective winning percentages.

Someone's going to give him some money to be a utility man, but it doesn't need to be the A's.

Omar Vizquel (-10 RAR offensively, +10 defensively) Retire

In case you didn't notice the giant fork sticking out of Vizquel's back: he's done. His goose is cooked. He's no longer capable of making contact with a quality MLB fastball, and I think pretty much everyone recognizes this, even notorious veteranophiliac Brian Sabean. Signing Vizquel would be closer to necrophilia at this point.

Trade Targets

J.J. Hardy (40 RAR offensively, 0 defensively)-- 2nd year arb

Smith likes his defense more than many, but it's certainly no asset. Hardy has a nice bat for a shortstop, though. The problem with him is not his play, which is very good, it's what he's likely to cost. It's hard to see the Brewers moving him for a package that doesn't include one of Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson.

Clint Barmes (20 RAR offensively, +5 defensively)-- 1st year arb

Barmes is one of the most notorious hackers in baseball, but he has some power and knows his way around a glove, which is more than can be said for most of the guys on this benighted list. Surprisingly, he actually turns out to be a decent option. The problem is that the Rockies are liable to ask for something legitimate in trade for him, and he's just not worth that much. He'll be 30 next year.

Omar Quintanilla (10 RAR offensively, +5 defensively)-- 2nd year pre-arb

Hey, here's a blast from the past. The ex-A's farmhand has been viewed as a bust for some time, but has slowly but steadily improved his offense while projecting as a plus fielder. It would have been nice if Beane could have snagged him as a throw-in in the Holliday deal, but no such luck. He's younger than Colorado compatriot Barmes, so there's still some (OK, not much) upside left in him.

Chin-lung Hu (0 RAR offensively, +5 defensively) 1st year pre-arb

Hu delivered a shipment of Fail to the Port of Los Angeles in 2008. He's apparently had an issue with blurred vision; not mentioned by our sources is whether sunscreen was involved in any way... in any event, any A's trade for him needs to be predicated on the notion that they can fix this issue, because he was almost unbelievably bad at the plate this year.

Brent Lillibridge (0 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) 1st year pre-arb

It is, again, hard to overstate the magnitude of Lillibridge's offensive faceplant this season. A .630 OPS... in Triple A? Ouch. The good news is, the Braves can't seriously believe in him at this point... and with Yunel Escobar apparently sticking around, they have no particular reason to need him. Still, he's a reclamation project at this stage.

Miguel Tejada (30 RAR offensively, 0 defensively) 1 year/$13 million

Consecutive years with a sub-800 OPS make it fairly clear that Tejada isn't the player he once was (feel free to speculate as to why that is...), and his dipping power rate is troubling. Also problematic is the weird cratering of his walk rate last season, which dropped by half. As such, I find myself less optimistic about a bounce-back than I thought I would be. Still, at about a .750 OPS and still able to handle the position defensively, Tejada would be a plus option at shortstop.

John McDonald (-10 RAR offensively, +10 defensively) 1 year/$1.9 million

Don't blame me, grover asked me to look him over. McDonald is something of a uniquely bad hitter in that not only does he have no power and little speed, but he's a fly-ball hitter. In Major League Baseball, hitting non-home run flies is not a good strategy. Also not a good strategy: playing John McDonald in your lineup.

If anyone has any additional trade targets of choice, let me know and I'll run the numbers.

Projecting the Friendlies: A's

PaulThomas — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:13:30 -0000

Yes, we've rolled around to the point at which I actually go out on a limb and say things about the current A's roster. Nice things? Well, I don't know yet, to be honest. Incidentally, I'll be updating the prior three fanposts on the rest of the division, mostly to reflect the gold mine of information which can be found in Sean Smith's defensive projections, here and here. They're unreliable for very young players, so unfortunately they won't do wonders for the A's, but they're a great assimilation of the defensive information we know about guys who've been around a while. The usual caveats: I'm assuming NO transactions other than guys going back and forth to the minors and options being exercised (which isn't an issue for this year's A's). Let's roll.

C: Kurt Suzuki (+15 runs offensively, +5 runs defensively)

Suzuki actually made substantial improvements with his hitting this season which were swallowed up by the fact that he was very lucky in 2007 and a little unlucky in 2008. I look for him to continue improving to slightly better than a league average hitter (which is great for a catcher). He was very good at throwing out basestealers this season, and gave up fewer passed balls in 2008 than 2007 despite catching more than twice as many innings.

1B: Daric Barton (-15 runs offensively, +5 runs defensively)

I'm assuming Daric was a little unlucky this year and makes a little progress going into next year, but overall I think he'd be well served to spend another year in AAA. Learning third base, if possible.

2B: Mark Ellis (0 runs offensively, +15 runs defensively)

+15 is a conservative estimate of how much Mark Ellis is worth to the team. It's hard to overstate just how much of a bargain his new contract is. Carlos Lee is about equally valuable and is earning three times as much money.

SS: Bobby Crosby (-10 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

Can we say what you see is what you get from Crosby at this point? The guy has a career 82 OPS+. That's the definition of a black hole, folks. 10 runs below average for a shortstop is almost hard to believe.

3B: Eric Chavez (-5 runs offensively, +5 runs defensively

The above numbers are adulterated by 1/3 of a season of Jack Hannahan, as I don't really feel like I can count on a legitimate full season from Chavez at this point. I have Chavez at 0/+5 and Hannahan at -15/+5, hence the above. (Yes, there's some rounding error in there.) Still, there's fairly good evidence that 3B is not the utter black hole that people make it out to be. With that said, if the A's can acquire a third baseman and move Chavez to first (and Hannahan to Sacramento), that would also be an option.

LF: Matt Holliday (+35 runs offensively, +10 runs defensively)

I'll say this about Holliday, the guy is a damn good baseball player. Problem is, he's a damn good baseball player who's only on the team for one season.

CF: Ryan Sweeney (0 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

Ryan Sweeney moves to projected CF status with the Holliday trade. He's still roughly a league-average player.

RF: Travis Buck/Aaron Cunningham (-5 runs offensively, +5 runs defensively)

Aaron Cunningham could use another period in AAA, I think. Unfortunately, Travis Buck is made of porcelain and cannot possibly be counted on for a full season's production. I have them roughly splitting time.

DH: Jack Cust (+10 runs offensively)

This line is starting to become tired, but: if you think Jack Cust is a bad hitter, I hate you and find you stupid.

So the A's position players aren't actually so bad. Unfortunately, the pitching's not going to look so hot.

SP: Justin Duchscherer (+10 runs) I think we have to write in 7 starts of Gio Gonzalez here. Duke himself is probably worth about 15 runs above average in 150 innings, but I'm assuming the other 50 innings are as bad as he is good, so that drops him to a +10 on the season.

Incidentally, I think Gio will be fine in the long run; I expect him to have a good half-season in AAA and be mediocre in MLB next year, then start improving in MLB starting in 2010. Patience, people.

SP: Sean Gallagher (-5 runs)

I'm not sure what to make of Gallagher. His stuff looks great, but he kind of got hammered last year, especially after coming to Oakland, when his control basically fell apart. Part of that might be the shoulder injury he had. If he's over said injury fully, he might be a little better than this. ZiPS has him at about a 4.2 ERA next year, which is solid, but keep in mind that's playing in the Coliseum in front of the Oakland defense.

SP: Dana Eveland (-5 runs)

Kind of the same thing as Gallagher, right? Guy puts up great minor league numbers, shows up at MLB level, suffers inexplicable deterioration of command and walk rate, looks really uncomfortable on the mound, etc.

SP: Dallas Braden (-5 runs)

The delta of .44 runs between Braden's ERA last year and his FIP is pretty typical of Oakland pitchers. It's important not to look at pitchers' numbers in a vacuum. It's also important to account for luck. Braden's made a case for himself over the last two years as a decent #4/#5 starter, but you'd never know it from his 2007 ERA. Well, your ERA would be bad too if your teammates inexplicably converted 6% fewer balls in play into outs than they do for your teammates, and 45% of your baserunners came around to score (a typical number is 25%).

SP: Josh Outman (-10 runs)

Smith is out as the fifth starter, making it more likely that Outman will get the job while the team turns to a depth guy like Kirk Saarloos as the long reliever.

Bullpen: 0 runs

This may seem low, but I'm being very conservative here. Casilla was bad after he came off the DL. Andrew Brown was REALLY bad after he came off the DL, which is weird considering that he went on it with appendicitis. We read about an appendicitis case in Torts class where the guy inexplicably woke up with a busted shoulder and sued (it involved this weird doctrine called res ipsa loquiter, and I'm probably at least a sentence past the point where anyone cares). Maybe that's what happened to the BFP (big friendly pitcher) this season...

Given the fact that he's basically been unhittable in the minors since moving to the pen, I'm going out on a limb here and calling Andrew Bailey for the last bullpen slot.

Devine +5 Ziegler +5 Blevins +5 Bailey 0 Brown -5 Casilla -5 Saarloos -5

I'm open to any critiques of those numbers, though.

Overall: +55 runs, 86-76, +25 runs scored, +30 runs allowed

The Holliday trade represents a short-term upgrade of about 4 wins for the team. Next year, maybe not so much, depending on how much Carlos Gonzalez improves his game.

There are still holes on this roster that need to be filled for the A's to compete this season. First base, shortstop, and starting pitcher, to be specific.

Projecting the Enemy: Mariners

PaulThomas — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:21:12 -0000

It must be a tough time to be a sports fan in the state of Washington. The Mariners just lost 100 games with their $100 million payroll. The Seahawks are, as of me writing this paragraph, 2-5, which while not technically out of contention in the fetid cesspool that is the NFC West, is pretty gosh-darned close. The basketball team just up and left for Oklahoma City, of all places, after trying and failing to extort a huge cash giveaway from the citizens. As in most extortion situations, the failure to reach a bargain has probably left both sides worse off... but somehow my sympathies lie more with the good people of Seattle than with Clay "Bad Faith Effort" Bennett.

And the college football. Holy Christ, those are some bad teams. Washington State might be the worst BCS conference team I've ever seen. Counting their win over Division 1-AA Portland State, they've been outscored 443-111 on the season. That 443 was accomplished in 9 games, which means their defense is giving up a cool 49 points a game. I tried to calculate their Pythagorean record, and my calculator, I kid you not, spat out one of those numbers with an "e^-2" at the end of it.

As for Washington, well, Washington State is the team of the two with an actual win this season. The Huskies also have a lame duck coach (ironically, Oregon, which ought in some sense to have a "lame Duck" coach quite often, has the longest tenured coach in the Pac-10).

So, while things are pretty bad-- as bad as I can ever remember, really-- right now around here when it comes to sporting success, thank your deity of choice that you are not in Seattle.

I apologize for the rambling intro-- suffice it to say that I come to bury the Mariners, not to praise them.

C: Kenji Johjima (0 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

Mariners fans can thank the chauvinism of the team's Japanese ownership for the fact that Johjima is now under contract for THREE more seasons, at a price of about $8 million per. He's 32, so he's not getting any better. The pitchers hate him. The rest of the team basically hates him. The only good news is that he figures to regress to the mean offensively. In prior years he was actually a pretty good catcher, and I'm giving him something of a pass on this horrible year, but my intuition tells me he'll be worse than I'm projecting him at.

1B: Bryan LaHair (-20 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively)

Took me a while kicking around the roster to even find this guy. It seems safe to write in replacement level performance at 1B for the Mariners. It never ceases to amaze me how any team cannot manage to find at least acceptable offense (or at least the promise thereof, eg Daric Barton) at first base. And yet the Giants and Mariners seem to make quite the habit of it.

2B: Jose Lopez (-10 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

I was under the impression that Lopez's defense was criticized often, but apparently it's not half bad. The offense, though? Bad. I know he had a good year this year, but it's mostly due to a spike in batting average and he has a ton of mediocrity to regress to.

SS: Yuniesky Betancourt (-5 runs offensively, -10 runs defensively)

If Betancourt could actually field his position, he'd be a perfectly acceptable shortstop. And, in fact, that's what the Mariners thought they were getting when they signed the guy. Apparently, however, he has become a fat slob with extremely limited range-- kind of a younger (hence less excusable) version of Juan Uribe. This middle infield is a suckfest and it's signed through 2010. Incidentally, in their combined careers spanning approximately 7 full seasons, Lopez and Betancourt have 147 walks. That has a lot to do with those negative numbers in the offense column...

3B: Adrian Beltre (+5 runs offensively, +15 runs defensively)

Finally some pluses. Adrian Beltre is a defensive stud who is tasked with making up for Betancourt's feeble range in the hole and somehow manages to accomplish that, while still doing a pretty decent job on balls hit to the "normal" third base zone. He's also surprisingly young considering how many years he's been in MLB. Next year will only be his age 30 season. If this sounds like a sales pitch, well, it is one.

RF: Ichiro (+15 runs offensively, +5 runs defensively)

Did I just rate Ichiro the same as Adrian Beltre? Hm. Yes, I believe I did. Well, Mr. Overrated, you deserve it... you could easily be 10 runs better than this if you played the correct position and got the memo that fouling off ball fours in an attempt to get more base hits is not the correct strategy.

CF: Jeremy Reed (-15 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

I like the concept of Jeremy Reed, but the execution blows. He's sort of the Mulholland Drive of outfielders.

LF: Wladimir Balentien (-10 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively)

I did not see this season coming, I have to say. Balentien put up great minor league numbers at every step-- good power, decent plate discipline, not a great glove but tolerable. This year he was quite possibly the worst player in MLB. He continued to mash in AAA and he's just 23, so I'm not bailing on the guy yet, but he's clearly a work in progress on both sides of the ball. I'd actually love to see the A's buy low on him as part of a Beltre deal.

DH: Jeff Clement (-10 runs offensively)

Seattle has handled Clement very poorly, I think, but the guy has a pretty solid bat if they give it time to come around. His upside is far higher at catcher (think about it-- the difference between a DH and a C is about 25 runs!), but "Nintendo Power" Johjima is blocking him.

Pitching

SP: Felix Hernandez (+20 runs)

Hernandez hasn't quite lived up to the hype, but that doesn't mean he isn't a good player. He's still crazily young-- next year will be his age 23 season; he's on pace to become a free agent at 26. Could he be the first pitcher to break the $200 million mark? I wouldn't bet against it.

SP: Erik Bedard (0 runs)

Bedard, himself, is a great deal better than this. But he's almost assuredly going to miss time next year and he's pretty likely to miss a LOT of time, and the fill-ins (hello, R.A. Dickey...) are not very good. And there's some chance he will return with diminished stuff or suffer a relapse.

SP: Brandon Morrow (+5 runs)

I'm pretty high on the ex-Golden Bear, and once again I have severe criticisms of how he's been handled by Seattle. The decision to put him in the bullpen last year essentially crossed a year of development time off for virtually no return. Seattle, as we shall see, does not lack for solid bullpen arms.

SP: Jarrod Washburn (-5 runs)

Washburn was his standard somewhat lame self this year. No particular reason to expect any change in status. Still difficult to believe how much money he got based on one fluky-good season in 2005.

SP: Carlos Silva (-15 runs)

Silva, likewise, had a few good years in the middle part of the decade, but 2 of his last 3 seasons have been putrid, festering eyesores. Last year he was probably the worst starting pitcher in baseball. I don't see him as that bad going forward, but I'm sure as hell not optimistic either.

Bullpen: -5 runs

Last year the unit was right around league average, and I figure more Putz will largely cancel out less Morrow. I don't see a ton of reinforcements waiting in the wings, but Roy Corcoran, Sean Green, Putz and Ryan Rowland-Smith are pretty solid. Cesar Jimenez looks promising. The reanimated corpse of Miguel Batista is probably somewhere in here as well, but I'm not sure I'd characterize that as a plus.

Overall: -50 runs, 76-86

This is weird. The Mariners don't actually look that bad. Let me see if I can suss this out. They lose Ibanez, but that was less of a loss than it appears (him to Balentien is about 2 wins-- Ibanez should not ever play the field again in his life). On the other hand, I'm not forcing them to play Jose Vidro at DH, Richie Sexson at first, or Miguel Batista in the rotation... or, God help us, Miguel Cairo anywhere. Throw in some healthy regression from guys like Silva and Johjima and... eh, there's still some gap between my perceptions and what this projection is telling me. I chalk it up to the "Bill Bavasi is just that stupid" factor.

Still, I think it's a tear-down. The two best players are also two of the highest paid. Beltre's contract is about to expire, and he's edging toward the point where players tend to decline a bit; meanwhile Ichiro's new deal should take him well into his years of decrepitude. They need to move Beltre and Washburn for what they can get, pray Bedard gets healthy and do the same for him. Lopez should definitely have a ticket out of town this offseason. Score a few prospects, claim a few guys off the waiver wire, and stink it up until the farm system spits out a few more quality players.

Projecting the Enemy: Rangers

PaulThomas — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:06:46 -0000

On to the second in our four-part introductory series on what to expect in the AL West next year. The Rangers could be interesting, as they have a great offense that's dying for some pitching help. And they have pitching in the minors, but it's a ways off from the majors. John Sickels had a thread up on the Rangers not long ago-- it's interesting reading.

Once again, our task is to figure out what the Rangers figure to do with their team "as is," to provide a baseline to measure subsequent moves against. Let's roll!

C: Gerald Laird/Taylor Teagarden (-5 runs offense, 0 runs defense) A bit of editorializing on my part here, but it's unavoidable. The Rangers have 4 catchers. I think they'll pick Teagarden as the long-term solution and trade Saltalamacchia before his value completely evaporates. Laird is roughly a league average catcher. Teagarden may well be more than that in the long haul, but right now I don't think he is. His bat will drag down the offense a little.

1B: Chris Davis (+15 runs offense, -5 runs defense) I'm being generous with that defense mark, folks. Davis is apparently a horrendously poor third baseman, and even moving him to 1B which is much easier, he's probably well below average. That said, his offense is studly and figures to get better from here. Note: Once again, I'm projecting offense relative to the position. Chris Davis is about 25 runs better than a league average hitter, while the average 1B is about 10 runs better than the average hitter.

2B: Ian Kinsler (+25 runs offensively, -10 runs defensively) Another guy who should take up a second job in a slaughterhouse-- he's a butcher out there. Again, it doesn't matter enough to make him a bad player. What I'm trying to figure out is why a guy with 26 steals scores so poorly on fielding range. I wonder if he'd benefit from a positional change. BTW, off-topic, in case you're wondering why I think the A's need to keep Adrian Cardenas at all costs, it's because Kinsler is the guy he might eventually turn into.

SS: Michael Young (+10 runs offensively, -10 runs defensively) Young was pretty lousy at the plate this year, but he made up for it by being unusually effective with the glove (for him). I don't think either of those trends will continue; he should go right back to being his old overrated, vastly overpaid, good-offense-bad-defense-overall-average self.

3B: Hank Blalock (0 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively) I gotta be honest with you, I'm not sure what to put here. Blalock has been hurt for much of the last two seasons, although he's still pretty effective when he plays. But he's also getting pricey and the Rangers may not bring him back. Then there are the replacements... yuegh. Travis Metcalf is lame at best, and Ramon Vasquez has to be on the way out, right? Right? There is invariably a large element of guesswork in doing these, so take it up with Rangers management or God if you don't like this assessment.

LF: Nelson Cruz (+5 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively) Another questionable pick. Marlon Byrd was the best of the Rangers group this season, but he's 30 and probably won't be this good going forward. Cruz came up and just mashed the ball in September after a blisteringly hot season in AAA. He really did suck the last 3 years; his career OPS+ is still below 100. So I don't know what to make of him. I'd give him league average corner OF offense (about a 105 OPS+) but it easily could be 20 runs higher or lower. I haven't heard good things about his defense. Why am I giving the team +5 if I think Cruz is average? I think that because of the number of options the Rangers have here, that they will ultimately get plus offense out of the position.

CF: Josh Hamilton (+30 runs offensively, -10 runs defensively) Hamilton really needs to move to right field long-term. He's badly overstretched in center and I think he'd be much better in a corner where he can rely on his instincts rather than his speed (which is not outstanding). It might up him from +20 to +25 or better. That said, the guy has put up a high-800s OPS two years running. Hard to argue with that.

RF: David Murphy (0 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively) Ho-hum. Nothing to see here. Murphy is one of those guys you have to have, and really don't want to be paying more than a few million for. The Rangers aren't, so they're fine on that front.

DH: Max Ramirez (-10 runs offensively) I mentioned that I think Saltalamacchia is going to be dealt off. That leaves 3 catchers, and Ramirez is pretty clearly the worst defensively of the group. He can really hit, but it's going to take a little while for it to show up at the MLB level. Keep in mind that that -10 is accounting for a 15 run penalty for DHing, meaning that I actually like him to be a little better than league average with the stick next year, probably around a .780 OPS in Texas.

Just an overall comment before we move to pitchers-- this defense is f***ing terrible. No wonder their pitching looks bad. They were probably 50 runs below average this year, and it doesn't look like they'll be improving much next year, although perhaps the arrival of Julio Borbon and Elvis Andrus by 2010 will help balance things a little.

Vicente Padilla (0 runs) Padilla hasn't been theoretically league average for a couple of years, but his numbers are really depressed by that horrifying defense, which has to be accounted for in every pitcher's numbers.

Kevin Millwood (-5 runs) This is why you don't give big contracts to pitchers just after they come off a fluky good season. He was weaker than Padilla this year and has had one good year since 2003. Incidentally, my brain thinks he and Jake Westbrook are the same player. I'm constantly confusing the two.

And here's where we get into nightmare-ville. I'm sort of assuming they go with the young "talent," but I'm not sure it matters that much.

Matt Harrison (-10 runs) Young, but not actually very good (at least not yet). Harrison is an extreme control specialist, but I don't think that's going to play very well in Texas where he's going to be gopherball-prone.

Eric Hurley (-10 runs) Hurley's another solid pitching prospect who's gotten some shouts from BA, but again his minor league numbers just don't predict that he'll be more than a mid-rotation guy and it will probably take him a year or two to settle into that role.

Scott Feldman (-15 runs) They might be better off going with Marty Feldman, since at least his creepy lazy eye might weird the hitters out enough to throw them off their game. Except, Marty Feldman is dead. Well, just adds to the creepiness, amirite?

Bullpen (-15 runs) The Rangers pen was, once you account for the park and that godawful defense, not that bad this year, and it'll probably be reinforced with some decent pitchers from the losers of the SP battle who will fill out the middle relief roles. Still, I'm not predicting anything particularly fantastic here.

Net: -30 runs, for a predicted record of 78-84. Within theoretical range of the Angels, but it's going to be tough with this kind of pitching and defense. They have a little money to spend, but not much; they can probably upgrade one position but I see no realistic way their predicted record is going to rise to better than 81 wins or so. The Angels are still the team to beat.

Next up: Mariners. Just to fill everyone's schadenfreude quota.

Projecting the Enemy: Angels

PaulThomas — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:53:51 -0000

This is the first in a multi-part series on how the A's should approach next season. That question-- to keep selling, to start buying, etc-- is profoundly affected by what the other teams in the division figure to do. So the first step is to figure out: how many wins is it gonna take next year?

We start with the hated enemy, or as some would have them be known, the Slegna. Believe it or not, and I know that many of you don't believe it, but all I can do is present the numbers-- the Angels were not a good team this year. They were an 84-game winner which happened to outplay their true talent by an enormous margin of about 16 games. The exact details of how they did so are somewhat unimportant here, though, because what we're after is how good the 2009 Angels will be, and that won't be the same team as the 2008 version.

The great advantage of this kind of analysis is that it's modular. If they suddenly convert to Beaneian offensive philosophy, get rid of Garret Anderson and sign Adam Dunn, we can instantly adjust their LF projection and come up with a new projected win total for Anaheim. I know this doesn't account for team chemistry, "intangibles," or the fact that Adam Dunn doesn't like baseball. Tough. You got a way to account for those, let me know.

Lineup:

C: Mike Napoli (+15 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively)

The Angels love Jeff Mathis. I mean, love, love, love the guy. How else (other than injury) can you explain playing him over a guy he is vastly worse than for more than half the season? Still, I think the game is up for him. I expect Napoli to get about 2/3 of the starts here. That adds up to a good catcher position, though Napoli isn't good defensively.

1B: Kendry Morales (-20 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

No Mark Teixeira, or even Casey Kotchman. Morales is mediocre offensively and defensively for a first baseman. ZiPS likes him more than his MLB numbers justify; I think he'll be a little worse and put up about a .720 OPS, which is bad for a 1B.

2B: Howie Kendrick et al. (0 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively)

Kendrick has enough of a track record of niggling injuries at this point that it seems safe to write in replacement level production for the spot for a third of the season. Kendrick is significantly above average offensively for second base, but once you adulterate him with the filler that will be standing in for him, this position looks a lot less secure.

SS: Erick Aybar (-10 runs offensively, 5 runs defensively)

Why they like this guy, I can't tell. He's pretty good defensively, but he can't hit a lick and ZiPS is even more bearish on him than his line from this year would show. However, we again have to account for replacements. Maicer Izturis is a better player. Overall I expect the Angels to get a slugging-heavy high-.600 OPS in this spot, which isn't good.

3B: Chone Figgins (-5 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively)

This position was a catastrophe for the 2008 Angels. Figgins is not really an offensive force and is frankly bad defensively at the position. He appears to be afraid of the ball (hey, I would be) sometimes. They'd really do better putting him in the outfield, but I'm not complaining.

LF: Garret Anderson (0 runs offensively, -5 runs defensively)

Yeah, I think he's coming back. No, it doesn't make sense from a business perspective. But I think there's just enough arrogance in the Angels front office that they think they can withstand having him, just as the Red Sox thought they could withstand having Bill Buckner playing first base at the end of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

CF: Torii Hunter (15 runs offensively, 0 runs defensively)

Credit where credit is due: Hunter is a very good offensive center fielder. We don't have to give him credit for being great defensively, though (he isn't). In fact, he's slipped to being slightly below average, though I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt on rounding error.

RF: Gary Matthews (-10 runs offensively, 5 runs defensively)

Sorry, ZiPS. You tell me Matthews is league average. I tell you these are pernicious lies. Matthews has a career OPS+ of 94 and he was worse last year. He makes up for it a bit with a plus glove in corner OF, but not enough.

DH: Vlad (15 runs offensively)

Vlad's offensive dominance isn't going to change, but having him DH (and/or play the field, which he is no longer capable of doing competently) really eats into that.

Add these up and you get an offense which is about 10 runs below average. That actually seems a little optimistic to me, because the Angels were 10th in the AL in runs this year and Teixeira isn't around to pull up the second half numbers anymore. I think the difference is partly health-based, as the Angels were a bit unlucky this year with injuries.

Pitching

John Lackey (15 runs)

Did you know Lackey had a 92 tRA+ this season? Weird, huh? He was actually really lucky this season. I think it's a fluke (albeit one of those weird flukes which is masked by another fluke so that everything looks normal) but I also think he's past his prime a little.

Ervin Santana (15 runs)

Talk about randomly turning your career around. I'm still not a total believer, but I'm converted enough to give him a +15, which is damn good.

Jered Weaver (5 runs)

Just not that good. His 2006 really looks fluky at this point.

Joe Saunders (0 runs)

REALLY not that good. Once in a while a strikethrower will have a season where he just has a really low BABIP and looks like a good pitcher. Often these seasons lead to regrettable contracts (see: Silva, Carlos).

Who Knows (-20 runs)

Knows really hasn't done much in his career, so you figure they have to replace him on the market somehow.

Bullpen: (15 runs)

Missing K-Rod, but the Angels still have some additional good relievers. I have to say, it's a little weird how Darren Oliver suddenly got good at age 38. He is, however, a free agent to be.

Overall: The Angels project out as a team that's about 20 runs above average. In common parlance, that's about 83-79. Rule of thumb is that you have a shot if you can get within 6 wins of the opposition (baseball is random, game of inches, insert your cliche here) so right now it looks like the A's need to get to 77 wins to be vaguely competitive. This is going to change, however. I don't see them going with Dustin Moseley as the #5 starter.