SB Nation User Blog: Solanus

Don't blame the bullpen, blame the offense

Solanus — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:43:29 -0000

A few weeks back, I did a study where I looked at the bullpen through the lens of WPA and came up with a few conclusions. Izzy was absolutely brutal, to the tune of about 3 games in the standings; Franklin was just fine as long as he wasn’t trying to close games (and he wasn’t that bad compared to the alternatives); the two main lefties put a lot of runners on base, but Villone got away with it for the most part; and, a few other things. It also made me curious as to how our hitters did in similar situations, how the opposing relievers did against our guys.

The 2008 Redbirds started out hot; the day after Albert came scampering home from 2nd on Ankiel’s grounder, the Cardinals were 22-12, 10 games over .500. Unfortunately we suffered through a 2-8 slide immediately afterward, starting a chain of alternating good and maddening play. This was punctuated with the now infamous 7/12 T.E.S.S. game, an utter failure by the bullpen that took an 11-run offensive outburst against the Pirates & turned it into one of the most humiliating defeats I can remember.

But the Cardinals won the following day and came out of the All-Star Break with a satisfying 4-game sweep of the pathetic Padres, topped off with the highly-improbable walk-off grand slam by Aaron Miles. This was a rather important moment in the 2008 season: it was their 100th game, a nice round number to work with; the team was 14 games aboveboard, their highest mark on the year; and it was basically the moment where the bullpen stopped being the whipping boy and it was handed to the offense, namely in save-type situations.

The first half of the campaign was dotted with contributions from many of the position players. Schumaker had walk-off hits against the Astros, Cubs, & Rays; Ludwick won the VEB-Meet-&-Greet game versus the Rays with an extra-inning bomb; Duncan won a game with the Phillies by taking advantage of their awful defense at 1st; Glaus homers off the Mets to win it; Ankiel singles in two against the hated Cubs for the biggest WPA impact of the year (+0.727); & the aforementioned GS by Mini-Me. Of course, many of these were necessitated by (and several others were negated by) the bunglings of the bullpen.

The comparison that I want to do here is to look at the bullpen numbers in Save and/or “Pressure” situations (qualify for save or game tied or down by one) and put that up against our position players, or, more precisely, the opposition’s relievers. I don’t want to bother with posting the numbers in table format, but here are the grand totals:

STL Bullpen before-(and-including)-Miles’-Grand-Slam (BMGS): -3.186 WPA
STL Offense v Opp. Bullpen BMGS: +2.902 WPA

Now there is a bit of a symbiotic relationship between these two numbers. If the bullpen doesn’t blow as many chances as they did, the offense doesn’t get as many opportunities to save the day; if the position players don’t perform as well as they did, hitting game-tying and go-ahead hits, the relievers’ mistakes don’t have as much impact. But it is fairly obvious who was doing their job & who wasn’t.

Quick highlights:

Best 3 hitters: Glaus (+1.424), Pujols (+1.058), Ludwick (+.780). There were quite a few impact players BMGS - Miles (+.676), Skippy (+.461), & Mather (+.345 in 8 PA’s).
Worst 3 hitters: Ankiel (-.839), Stavinoha (-.409 in 8 PA’s), LaRue (-.375). Ankiel was actually worse than the pitchers (-.462 combined, in a lot fewer PA’s), despite having the best play of the year and basically getting all of the credit for Pujols’ mad dash against the Rockies (a difference of roughly +.400).
Lots of impact hits - 7 players had at least four RBI that either tied the game or put the Cardinals ahead (team total 42, Glaus 8, Ankiel/Luddy/Miles 5 each, Duncan/Pujols/Skip 4 each). Compare that to the bullpen, which allowed 48 decisive hits in the same period (led by Izzy’s 12)
Best 3 pitchers: Franklin (+1.777), Springer (+.662), McClellan (+.366); the only three to post positive WPA value.
Worst 3 pitchers: Isringhausen (-2.723), Flores (-.859), Parisi (-.772). Plenty of blame to go around - Thompson (-.739), Perez (-.456), Mulder (-.374).
Pitchers were allowing runs at a rate of over six per 9 innings and a WHIP of nearly 1.7

Something that I noticed with our bullpen & the opposition was that, as bad as our guys looked, the other team was nearly as bad, thanks to the game-saving heroics of the offense. If you combine Saves & Holds and compare that to the Blown Saves, the Cardinals converted 80.5% of their opportunities BMGS; our opponents - 81.0%. I think the biggest contributing factor to this whole mess was that St. Louis just played a lot of close games and they weren’t well equipped to handle that from the back end of the bullpen.

Now we come to the Milwaukee series that followed, a 4-game sweep by the Brewers that exposed both sides of our late-inning game. Franklin coughs up 3 runs in the 10th, McClellan allows a 9th inning, 2-out HR to Bill Hall, Sabathia shuts them down, & Franklin surrenders the 2-run shot to Braun; all the while the offense can’t put up more than 3 runs in any game and has just the game-tying Sac Fly by Skip in the opener as the only tally against Milwaukee’s bullpen. The late inning antics on both sides cost the team at least a half game each in the standings (bullpen -1.005, offense -.626).

From the start of that series through the end of the season (AMGS), the bullpen rights the ship and stops hurting the team, posting a WPA of -.011 (and that includes the MIL debacle). The offense staggers the rest of the way, reversing their success from the first half with a -3.098 showing.

Before I go through the lowlights, I wanted to bring up a statement that Tony LaRussa made during the 2nd half of the season. I don’t remember precisely when it happened, but I think it occurred after the bullpen had blown another game in the later innings & TLR countered by blaming the offense for the loss. We had seen many examples of the bullpen’s follies & the batting exploits of Albert & Co., and many of us blew off his comment as mere spin-doctoring. But I think that, after looking at these numbers, he might have been more right than we gave him credit for.

Now for the particulars:

Best 3 hitters: Brendan Ryan (that’s right folks; +.545), Glaus (+.466), LaRue (+.344). Pujols led the way with 4 impact runs driven in, but only a +.203 WPA & twice as many outs as times on base.
Worst 3 hitters: Miles (-.789), Ankiel (-.707; reached base twice, created 19 outs), Schumaker (-.617). You want more? Mather (-.490), Izturis (-.481), Stavinoha (-.380), Molina (-.343), Ludwick (-.260).
The offense went from scoring at 5.4 runs/9IP in pressure situations against the bullpen to 3.6 runs/9IP, with only 12 impact runs over the final 62 games. The bullpen improved from 6.1 R/9 to 4.3 R/9 and only 19 decisive tallies the rest of the way.
Something to keep in mind - over the entire season, Ludwick reached base 39 times compared to creating 64 outs; of those, 29 came via the strikeout. Others guilty of the same - Ankiel (66 outs, 28 K), Barton (12/8), Mather (18/8), Stavinoha (14/7), plus Lopez & Washington.
Best 3 pitchers: Thompson (another shocker; +.499), Garcia (+.434), Motte (+.383). To be honest, these guys had limited exposure and only combined for 48 outs.
Worst 3 pitchers: McClellan (-.669), Franklin (-.396), Izzy (-.307). Nearly a complete reversal of the best 3 BMGS (Springer was 4th at -.253); this appears to be a matter of mis-/over-use.
Taking another look at the problem from the perspective of Saves/Holds, our offense only forced 3 blown saves over the final 62 games (compared to 15 in the first 100). Our bullpen converted Saves/Holds at 86.9%, better than the league average.

I think we can safely say that Tony was rather correct in criticizing the offense for their poor play over the final 10 weeks. They were as much or maybe more to blame AMGS than our bullpen BMGS.

Hall of Fame Discussion

Solanus — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:57:44 -0000

Taking a look at the upcoming Hall Of Fame elections, I wanted to get an idea of what Jim Rice’s value was, who the similar players to him were, and whether those players are deemed HOF worthy. I used WPA & Win Shares to determine his comparables. I know that there are plenty of detractors for both of these stats, but I think they do a fair evaluation, even at a career level.

Anyway, I took the career numbers for WPA & Win Shares, plus the combination of the 5 best seasons for each. I also counted the seasons that met certain thresholds (+2, +3, +4, +5 for WPA; 20+, 25+, 30+, 35+ for Win Shares). I then narrowed the list to players with similar numbers and also similar types of player (OF-1B-DH). Here is what I came up with (NOTE – because WPA values only go back to 1973 on Fangraphs.com, I included players with careers from basically that point on):

	Years	WPA	Best	2+	3+	4+	5+	5 Best	CWS	Best	20+	25+	30+	35+	5 Best
Rice, Jim	74-89	22.65	6.57	6	3	1	1	18.11	282	36	7	4	1	1	142
Belle, Albert	89-00	26.04	5.36	6	6	4	1	22.16	243	37	6	4	3	1	149
Bonilla, Bobby	86-01	22.44	4.37	5	3	1	0	16.70	267	31	6	3	2	0	136
Canseco, Jose	85-01	26.70	5.76	8	2	2	2	19.15	248	39	4	3	2	1	134
Edmonds, Jim	93-08	30.89	5.85	7	7	2	2	22.25	301	36	8	5	2	1	152
Lynn, Fred	74-90	24.68	5.21	7	4	1	1	18.76	280	34	6	3	2	0	138
Mattingly, Don	82-95	22.84	4.84	5	4	3	0	19.38	263	34	8	5	2	0	148
Puckett, Kirby	84-95	25.60	3.65	9	2	0	0	15.64	281	32	9	5	2	0	145
Williams, Bernie	91-06	23.55	5.05	7	5	2	1	19.89	311	33	8	6	2	0	143
Alou, Moises	90-08	28.58	4.87	6	4	3	0	19.29	284	29	9	2	0	0	121
Beltran, Carlos	98-08	23.07	5.22	6	3	3	2	19.49	253	38	8	6	3	1	157
Burks, Ellis	87-04	23.47	4.22	7	4	2	0	18.23	246	28	6	1	0	0	118
Downing, Brian	73-92	24.98	3.36	8	3	0	0	15.52	298	25	6	2	0	0	117
Galarraga, Andres	85-04	28.74	6.14	9	5	1	1	19.13	251	27	5	3	0	0	120
Gibson, Kirk	79-95	23.45	5.00	7	3	1	1	17.32	218	31	5	2	1	0	121
Griffey, Ken Sr.	73-91	27.66	5.42	5	4	2	1	19.33	259	25	4	2	0	0	114
Joyner, Wally	86-01	23.67	5.13	6	3	1	1	17.36	253	25	6	1	0	0	112
Justice, David	89-02	25.37	4.12	8	4	1	0	17.67	233	29	5	2	0	0	120
Klesko, Ryan	92-07	28.23	5.45	6	4	2	1	19.65	234	31	4	2	1	0	122
Kruk, John	86-95	21.82	4.33	6	3	1	0	17.21	156	25	3	2	0	0	109
Lankford, Ray	90-04	21.35	4.82	4	4	2	0	17.36	227	31	5	3	1	0	129
Murphy, Dale	76-93	29.59	6.31	7	7	5	2	25.26	294	33	7	6	4	0	157
O'Neill, Paul	85-01	22.82	4.32	6	2	1	0	15.59	259	28	4	2	0	0	118
Vaughn, Mo	91-03	21.84	5.15	4	4	1	1	17.61	200	29	4	2	0	0	119

Looking at Rice, we can see that he isn’t perceived to have that many tremendous seasons. 1978 was amazing and

As The Rotation Turns

Solanus — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 04:25:54 -0000

Morning, everyone. My name is Solanus and I will be your substitute blogger for today. (As Mr. Borowsky is enjoying a well-earned break this week, I will be one of a few humble posters trying not to diminsh the good name Larry has built up so far.) My original plan was to show you kids a bootleg copy of Shrek 3 and call it a day, but apparently that goes against some sort of school policy. Rules suck!

Instead, I'm going to talk about our starting rotation and how Win Probability Added (WPA) sees them. If you've never been out to Fangraphs or, even better for Cards fans, erik's affiliated blog Gas House Graphs, take a look and learn a different way to view a baseball game. Where every out and hit are not measured the same. Where blowout homers and 3-run saves get the (lack of) credit they deserve. Where you can truly understand how much Pujols got jobbed by Ryan Howard last year. (Actually, David Ortiz got it much worse.)

Anyway, looking at the starts for each member of the rotation and the WPA value for each appearance, you can start to see a correlation between a pitcher's performance and how much blame/credit they should receive for a loss/win. Take Adam Wainwright, for instance:

Date	Result	Performance	WPA
Apr 6	W, 4-2 @ HOU	7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 R	+.350
Apr 11	ND, 3-2 @ PIT	6.2 IP, 7 H, 2 R	+.029
Apr 17	L, 1-6 v PIT	6.0 IP, 8 H, 5 R	-.238
Apr 22	ND, 12-9 @ CHN	5.1 IP, 12 H, 7 R	-.522
Apr 28	L, 1-8 v CHN	4.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R	-.164
May 4	W, 3-2 v HOU	6.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R	+.106
May 9	W, 9-2 v COL	6.0 IP, 9 H, 2 R	+.123
May 15	L, 7-9 @ LAN	2.2 IP, 7 H, 8 R	-.589
May 22	W, 9-4 v PIT	5.1 IP, 9 H, 2 R	+.101
May 27	L, 2-7 v WAS	7.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R	+.111
Jun 1	ND, 8-1 @ HOU	7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 R	+.291
Jun 7	L, 1-5 v CIN	6.0 IP, 8 H, 4 R	-.132
Jun 13	W, 7-3 @ KCR	8.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R	+.155
Jun 18	L, 3-5 v KCR	7.0 IP, 9 H, 5 R	-.183
Jun 23	W, 8-3 v PHI	6.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R	+.164
Jun 30	L, 1-5 @ CIN	5.0 IP, 5 H, 5 R	-.194

As you can see, there are games in which Wagonmaker is primarily responsible for the win (the two starts @ HOU) and others where it seems he did everything to make sure we lost (@ CHN, @ LAN). He also has a few where he did just enough to push us toward victory (pretty much anything with 2 runs allowed).
If you reassign wins, losses and no decisions based on how well each hurler pitched [+.100 or better = win, -.100 or worse = loss, in between = ND), here is how our starting pitchers look to date:

Pitcher	Wins	Losses	ND's
Wainwright	8	7	1
Wells	3	8	4
Looper	8	5	2
Reyes	1	8	3
Thompson	3	3	3
Wellemeyer	1	3	2
Keisler	0	2	1
Maroth	1	1	0
Carpenter	0	1	0

Wainwright picks up an additional two wins, Looper improves on his 6-6 record, and Wellemeyer displays a mark that actually befits how well he has pitched and not how well his teammates have saved his ass. (Looking at it this way, there isn't much difference between Welly, Reyes, and Wells.)

A by-product of looking at the rotation's performances is that I was able to break out the contributions from each component of the team. In the month of June, our starting pitchers posted a WPA of -1.908, which means they pitched badly enough that, by themselves, they would have pushed our record 4 games below .500, with the only positives being Maroth & Wainwright. The bullpen amassed a WPA of +.617, despite an absolute turd of a month from Flores (-.859). The starting lineup combined for +1.264 and the reserves (pinch hitters and such) won an extra game by themselves (+.573). An aside: the pitching staff, taking their turn at the plate, actually outperformed Adam Kennedy for the month (-.549 v -.702). Other notable players: Pujols +2.022, Encarnacion +.667, Cate +.496, Franklin +.668, Izzy +.475.

BTW, as I was trying to get these damn tables to format somewhat intelligently Monday night, someone (I think it was nycbirdo) commented saying that you didn't need WPA to tell you that AW's first start was good and his Dodger Stadium gig was awful. (I had to re-format and just dumped the previous diary.) Well, yeah, that's pretty obvious, but it is looking at his 4/11 start against the Pirates (where he surrendered the tying run in the seventh and left a mess for Springer to clean up) where WPA stands out. His mistakes that inning killed all the work he and the offense had done up to that point, and pretty much all of the credit is given to the bullpen and the pinch-hitting exploits of Chris Duncan. Or why his spoiled no-hitter against KC doesn't get the love from Fangraphs. Read up at the excellent Gas House Graphs to get a better understanding of how the concepts work when applied to Cardinals games.

Premier League Baseball, part 3

Solanus — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 06:53:55 -0000

This is the last portion of my hare-brained idea about MLB and European football leagues melding together (part 1 & part 2). If you've enjoyed it so far, I hope you continue to do the same. If you haven't, it'll be over soon.

The idea of transfer fees, applied to both the team-to-team transaction and the bonus to the player, is not as foreign a concept in MLB as you might think. In my initial post, I had made reference to Earl Averill, a HOF centerfielder whose career centered in the 1930's. The reason for this is that he was part of something that, had it worked out successfully, would have changed the way that player transactions worked for the next 78 years.

[Quoting an excerpt from The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract]
Late in the 1928 season, with the Pacific Coast League pennant race still several weeks from the finish line, Averill opened the paper on his way to the game, and read that he had been sold to the Cleveland Indians for a reported $50,000. He was to be "delivered" the following season.
"Do I get any of that money?" Averill asked his manager.
"No," replied the manager.
"Well then, I'm going home," replied Averill. And he did.
The [San Francisco] Seals immediately went to work on Averill, attempting to convince him that he had no right to the money. Averill said that right or wrong, if he didn't get part of the money, he had no intention of reporting to the Indians.
This got the attention of Judge [Kennesaw Mountain] Landis. Judge Landis - this may be surprising to younger readers, who have been taught to regard Landis as an ogre - Judge Landis said that Averill's demand sounded reasonable to him, and further, that baseball should adopt some sort of legislation by which, whenever a player was sold, the player himself would get a cut of the proceeds.
That went nowhere. Landis in this respect was forty-five years ahead of his time. His proposal, had it been adopted, would have done much to alleviate the stresses put on the game by free agency. Bowie Kuhn, at the outset of the free agency era, created and unilaterally imposed a policy by which star players could not be sold from team to team. This was an ignorant, bone-headed, destructive policy which had no foundation in anything except that Kuhn hated Charlie Finley, and saw that he could drive Finley out of the game by denying him the right to sell his players. What Kuhn should have done, if he had been thinking about the best interests of the game, is adopt Landis policy: rule that players could be sold for whatever they would bring, but 30% of the money had to go to the players. Had he done this, the effect would have been to allow the rich teams to acquire more of the best players, as they do now. But this policy would have allowed the rich teams to strengthen themselves without inflating the salary structure, and would have allowed the weaker teams, the Montreal-type teams, to remain financially competitive by profiting from developing young players.
Averill eventually got a $5000 bonus and a good salary to report to Cleveland.

Allowing the sale of players from team to team, which would apply up and down the entire baseball ladder, would be a boon for the ownership groups that excel in acquiring & developing talent to profit from it. And the money flowing from the top of the system to the lower minor leagues, I think, would help ensure that the structure remained solvent.

-----
My original thought as to how the current minor league structure would be affected by this paradigm shift was that a smaller developmental organization would still exist for each MLB franchise, with the remaining operations set free to handle their business independently. I now see that this logic was flawed, as it would allow the ML teams to hoard young talent in their D-leagues. It would also prevent the top indy-league squads from making the transition from promotion/relegation yo-yos to actual contenders within the 2nd division, as they wouldn't have the talent to compete with the real squads.

So I would say, limit the majors to 10 overflow players per team; five could be loaned out to minor league squads, the other five would be for short-term DL stays and "healthy scratches" similar to the NHL. (Players placed on 60-day trips would allow for additional player purchases; player suspensions, though, would count against the overflow list.) One thing to note with "the other five": they would probably need to be fairly veteran players, as they would need to fill in for the ML team, while getting little or no opportunity for regular work.

-----
OK, so now you have a flood of unaffiliated minor league operations and a similar deluge of free agent minor leaguers - how does this work? Two problems to start with: the teams will eventually have to be sorted into AAA, AA, etc., leagues; and some sort of structure to prevent the market saturation from driving salaries into "poverty"-levels.

It almost seems easier to view the necessary alignments of teams and leagues, and just assume that it figured itself out - as we said in school if we didn't understand something, "Just push the button and make believe." Because you might have 150 different operations all bidding on the same talent pool, with different levels of financial commitment. And it might take 15+ years to shuffle all of the leagues into some semblance of order.

I think one option that they could use is to have the individual leagues set a minimum investment level (similar to how expansion franchises make their bids, except they get to keep most of their money), which would be used to determine their starting places in the baseball hierarchy. If the owners have, say, $75M or $100M ready to dump into their operations (or already invested into their current setup, maybe), they qualify as an initial member of one of two 16-team "AAA" leagues; $50M gets them an invite for "AA", etc.

This brings us around to the other quandary - the players. With the structure formed as to which independent operations can really afford to own the best talent, set up a random dispersion draft with the top leagues getting first dibs. Limit each club to 30 players and then move down to the next rung. As for salaries, use a slotting system for initial contracts; the pre-determined amounts could be based on current pay levels, but it would exist only for the first season or so, after which supply-&-demand takes over.

-----
With the shift in thinking about developmental teams, the free agent draft seems to have lost its relevance (yet another idea shot to hell). But the vacuum left in its passing would be filled by unfettered capitalism; all of the top players could be scooped up by MLB franchises, their revenues dwarfing those in the independent minor leagues. At this point, I want to bring in the concept of overflow loans and the limitations regarding them.

As I mentioned before, the majors would have 5 spots available on their overflow roster for players that can be loaned out to the minors. These players would get the experience of playing every day, instead of languishing on the bench because they're not actually ready for that level of competition. The minor league teams holding these "loans" would be improved by using these higher quality athletes to supplement their current roster. But the majors could abuse this by snatching the top couple rounds of the draft, so to speak.

To ensure that the minor leagues get a shot at all but the very best amateur talent, put a limitation on how long a player can remain in reserve status. A two year maximum would spur the ML teams to use those spots for players who are almost ready to contribute or for the fast-risers coming available to the open market - a Ken Griffey Jr., a Mark Prior (hindsight notwithstanding).

To prevent minor league operations from abusing the loan option (basically having their entire roster comprised of no-cost-to-me ringers), the leagues could implement a limit of five loaners per team. And because the loan option would be a one-year contract only, there shouldn't be a real issue with a team, being propelled mainly due to borrowed talent, shooting up through the ranks of the leagues using hand-me-downs. At worst, they would be shot down the next year in the higher league when their talent level doesn't come close to the competition.

NOTE: I have no idea how this change in the draft would affect college baseball, as I don't know how you could put any kind of restrictions on thepurchase of amateur talent.

-----
That's pretty much the whole thing. We could take a look at how this would have looked had we started it 5 years ago, 25 years ago, 50 years ago. Imagine how the relationship between the Yankees and the KC Athletics in the 50's would've looked, if the Bombers would have purchased players like Roger Maris instead of pawning off their "scrap" minor leaguers in trade. Imagine how the Branch Rickey-led Cardinals would have fared if they hadn't been supplied by a limitless farm system. Imagine how Curt Flood would've been judged if he had been simply a notation on the transaction wire. Imagine if the hundreds of farmhands that languished in the minors for years had forced the hand of the teams that trapped them and were given the opportunity they so richly deserved. Run with those ideas, take them to their logical conclusions, and answer the numerous what-ifs this topic has brought up.

OK, that's it. I've run out of ideas. My intentions here were simple: spur some intelligent discourse about how our great game works & give us something to think about until the games actually start. I hope I've done both. Thank you.

Premier League Baseball, part 2

Solanus — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 04:59:43 -0000

In a vacuum, in an ideal world, where the people who head MLB can pass unilateral changes - for the good of the league - without running it past the greedy owners and the intractable players union, a two-tiered major league system could work. A place where inefficient and wrongheaded ownership groups are shuffled out of the deck, and better-run organizations get a chance to rise to the top. Where fans can see top players compete on a daily basis and not be subjected to scrap-heap reclamation projects starting every fifth day.

Now we know that's not going to happen; too much self-interest, too many complications, too many people gumming up the works. But it's interesting to ponder the possibilities. As we continue this thought-provoking exercise, we need to look at how the system would work as a whole and which teams get dropped to Junior Varsity.

Pay No Attention To The Mess Behind The Curtain
The EPL uses a system of two 20-team leagues (actually, several divisions but we're mostly concerned at this point with the top two); I think MLB would be served best by splitting out the top 16 teams for the 1st division and combining the remaining 14 squads with two strong independent minor league operations. Soccer has three teams move between the divisions; for my example below, I used two teams for promotion/relegation.

Without going into a lot of detail as to how the minor leagues would be affected, I would suggest that the top independent organizations have a chance to be promoted to the majors once every five years. You would determine which 2nd division team had the worst record over the previous 5 seasons and replace them with a well-run operation. This would prevent a one-year wonder from being promoted well beyond their ability or a one-year blunder from getting the death sentence unjustly.

As for the schedule, I kept the same 162-game structure, but this adds another wrinkle - how do you arrange the teams? Well, one solution would be to have each team play roughly the same amount of games against the other 15 squads. But you end up with an ungainly arrangement where only the best and worst teams have anything worth fighting for, and the rest of the league is plagued with disinterest. So, switching to two conferences of 8 teams each would be a lot better? Not necessarily, due to uneven competition between conferences and the arbitrary decisions required to make the whole thing work. Picking the lesser of two evils, I say split the teams into two groups and let them fight it out.

The Fear Of Relegation
We have to determine which clubs get relegated to the 2nd division prior to the 2006 season. The easiest way would be to grab the teams with the 14 worst records in 2005 and throw them into the pit. The biggest problem with this is the assumption that this whole process would just be turned on with a flick of a switch. The teams in the league should & would be given an opportunity to adjust to this new line of thinking, and those that failed to adapt would be relegated. It would obviously take a few years to implement the changes.

I ran through a process where, starting with the 2000 season, teams with the four worst records would be placed on probation and could only be taken off if they had one of the top two overall records among those on probation in the next year or later. This would continue until the 14-team quota is reached.

2000: The four worst records are designated for probation- CHN, PHI, MON, TB (I picked TB arbitrarily over fellow 69-win teams MIN & PIT, mainly because I figured they're never going to escape anyway.)

2001: Of the four teams on the list, the Cubs & Phillies win the most games, so they escape. Of teams not on probation already, the four worst teams (PIT, BAL, KC, DET - same deal for DET as TB, at least until 2006) get the scarlet "R".

2002: The Expos and Pirates (with just 72 wins) lose the designation and four more teams (MIL, SD, CHN, TEX) get lumped in with the unwashed masses.

2003: The Cubs yo-yo once again, escaping along with the Royals. The Mets, Indians, Reds, & Rockies are placed on the relegation list (which is now up to ten).

2004: Texas and San Diego return to the fold after 89/87-win seasons, while the Royals, Mariners (3 yrs after 116 wins), D-Backs (3 yrs after WS win), & Expos (another arbitrary decision over Toronto) slip beneath the waves.

2005: Decision time - Cleveland and the Mets get out just in time, while four NL clubs (PIT, LAD, SF, CHN) round out the initial 14 team relegation.

Premier League:
ATL, BOS, CHA, CLE, FLA, HOU, LAA, MIN, NYN, NYA, OAK, PHI, SD, STL, TEX, TOR
2nd Division:
ARI, BAL, CHN, CIN, COL, DET, KC, LAD, MIL, PIT, SEA, SF, TB, WAS + two promotions from the independent minor leagues

If we follow the same line of thinking for the 2006 season, the teams with the two worst records not currently in relegation are the Indians (is the bungee cord still attached?) and the Marlins; the Tigers aren't participating in the World Series in this universe, but they do escape relegation, along with the Dodgers. (NOTE: The Marlins being demoted makes four consecutive NL WS participants (NYN, ARI, SF, FLA) who are relegated exactly three years afterward.)

But what happens if we look at 2006 using each team's record versus the teams in the Premiership and those in relegation? This would seem to make more sense, as it would be easy to pad your record with games against lesser competition. Using that logic, among teams in the second division, again the Tigers post the best record against the rest of the dross, going 37-16 (.698 win%); the Dodgers repeat as well, with a 61-32 mark (.656).
On the other hand, the Premier League race yields a surprising result. As before, Florida is one of the two teams sent down, winning only 40% of their games (34-51). The other relegation victim had profited much from the bottom feeders, compiling a 61-48 mark on its way to a 3rd straight division title in the real world in 2006. But competing against just the other first division teams, they only won 22 of 52 games.
That team - your 2006 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals!

We'll talk about the minors, the draft, and player transactions at the end of next week.

Premier League Baseball?

Solanus — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 04:29:57 -0000

Those of you that have frequented this site over the past year may know me for coining such terms as Bi-Polar Betty, Sophie, & Wagonmaker, coming up with the strangest analogies (here & here), and having an unnatural fascination with all things WPA (too many to link all of them). I live behind enemy lines in Waukegan, IL, and have been a jack-of-all-trades in the job market, working in such diverse fields as medical textiles, chemical processing, fast food, outboard motors, retail, and nuclear power.
I don't write for a living & I've never run a blog, so this is my first official post; a big thanks to Larry for giving me this opportunity.

The other night, I happened to catch a Deutsch Bundesliga (German soccer) match between Bayern Munich and Bochum. Bayern Munch is a perennial powerhouse, while Bochum generally bounces between the first and second divisions within the DBL's two-tiered format. Watching this got me to thinking - what would Major League Baseball look like if it was switched to a similar system? A format where the best teams compete in the first division and the lesser squads battle to be promoted to where the big money resides. A format where quality players can be sold between teams, meaning well-run, small-market franchises don't end up watching their young talent walk away. Plus a few other wrinkles while we're in the mood. (I will use the English Premier League for reference.)
After a few hours mulling it over, I realized two things: there's no way I can think long and hard enough to think this all the way through on my own; and this would be a great way for everyone on VEB to kill some productive work hours on a Friday.

A quick synopsis of the Barclays English Premier League (or EPL):
The EPL is the world's most watched sporting league and most lucrative football league, followed by over a billion people. It is widely regarded as one of the best leagues in the world along with Spain's La Liga & Italy's Serie A.
The league was formed in 1992 from the top division of The Football League and is currently contested by twenty clubs. The EPL was started as a response to the top clubs wanting to break away from the rest of The Football League, trying to capitalize on an upswell in the popularity and financial viability in English soccer in the late 80's.
Other European leagues use a similar system to the EPL; there have been 61 different clubs which have participated in Serie A over the last 75 years, with only Inter Milan participating in every season. (Check out Wikipedia's EPL page for further information.)
Obviously, the point of the EPL is to ensure that soccer fans have an opportunity to see the absolute best in English football (and to optimize the money making potential for its best clubs).

How would the MLB system work?
In much the same way, with the only changes (from the EPL structure) being how many teams are in each league and how many move between the leagues. This may appeal to some ownership groups, upset that the lesser teams are siphoning off their profits. This may also appeal to fans who believe that the talent pool has been unnecessarily watered down.

How does the media money work?
The EPL is working with a structure that gives roughly 80% of the money to the Premiership clubs and 20% to the second division. This would probably need to be adjusted (60-40 or 67-33) to help make the MLB structure work (and palatable to the relegated ownership groups). There would also be better stadium, advertising, and associated revenues within the first division. This difference in money and exposure would be an incentive to the 2nd division clubs to push hard to finish at the top of their league.

What teams are relegated to the second division?
Sure to be a much discussed topic; this would be dependent on organizational philosophies. Obviously, teams like the Yankees and the Red Sox, with significant revenue streams, would be able to afford the highly-prized prospects and the young established stars of the 2nd division that are available for sale. Poorly run franchises like Tampa & Kansas City would be doormats of the lesser league. The Twins pose an interesting problem, in that they are a well-run organization that churns out prospects, but resides in a small market. Can they play well enough to stay with the big boys or do they take the profitable route & sell off their young studs? At the opposite end would be teams like the Cubs, well funded but historically less than proficient. Two good discussion points: look back at the 1994 Expos, and the 1997 & 2003 Marlins with their resulting fire sales.

How would free agency & trades work?
Trades would work as they always do, but free agency would be dramatically altered. The EPL (and many other football leagues) use a transfer process where a player is sold from one team to another. This ensures that teams that are good at developing their own players are able to profit from it, instead of watching their homegrown talent leave with only a draft pick as compensation. I'm not sure if is part of their program already, but a percentage of the transfer fee could be given to the player as a further reward for their good play. (See Averill, Earl for historical significance.) Obviously, any player dropped from their club would become an unrestricted free agent and not subject to transfer rules. (One note: unchecked capitalism has resulted in the record for transfer fees in the league skyrocketing from £3.75M in 1993 to £30M in 2006 - how this would be affected by a NYY/BOS-fueled salary escalation is intriguing.)

How does this affect the minor leagues?
I think this could really open up the current structure. The major league teams in both divisions would be limited to three levels of developmental squads, as they would still need injury flexibility and to be able to generate their own talent. But by limiting their pool of available players, the resulting wave of free agents can be scooped up by now-independent minor leagues that can develop those players and sell them to MLB for profit. Also, free up the larger AAA cities - give them a chance to develop their own legacy, not dependent on MLB handouts. (It might open up a situation where a minor league powerhouse, akin to the Baltimore Orioles of the 10's-20's, could supplant a poorly run 2nd division major league franchise. It is a radical possibility, but I think it could ultimately be healthy for the game of baseball.)

How does this affect the draft?
To prevent a 1950's Yankee-style dynasty, where they scoop up the cream of the available amateur talent, or a bonus-baby bidding war, the draft should remain. But it could be adjusted to give a significant advantage to the 2nd division clubs. Give them two passes through the draft order before the Premiership gets a crack at it, and give them an additional round every 4th or 5th. But with the reduced developmental league roster space, limit the draft to 35 players per team. This entire system works well in two ways: it gives a boost to the 2nd division clubs and frees up more players to sign with independent minor leagues.

After reading all of that, we still haven't asked two big questions. First, could this actually work? Theoretically, yes. It's based on a formula that has worked in the past for the world's most popular sport and for its most popular leagues. It is a perfect opportunity to overhaul many aspects of MLB, to filter out the less than desirable portions of this organization. And it would put the best possible product out onto the field. Realistically, there are so many variables, so many strong personalities, & so much resistance to change, that it seems impossible to make even minor changes, never mind a much needed cleansing of the sport. And the total amount (and depth) of change is so daunting that it's easier to think of this premise as if it has already figured itself out.
Second, would it actually improve the sport? I really don't know; the tremendous amount of upheaval required to pull off this change in philosophy and operation has the potential of destroying many franchises, and baseball as a whole. Taking longtime minor league teams and setting them adrift in a "sea of independence." Relegating franchises that have been operating for more than a hundred years, while potentially steering them towards financial ruin. Freeing thousands of young players into a saturated market, where there's no guarantee of proper compensation or a decent chance at making the major leagues. Maybe in the end, this whole shift in thinking and doing things will be productive, but the health of the sport could be touch-and-go in the interim.
Whether it would improve anything or if it would work at all, this is certainly a useful exercise to look at our grand game from a different perspective. To question whether MLB is doing things in the best way possible.

I figure that's enough of a rolling start to get the creative juices flowing. Next week, I want to take another look at the general system, how the money works, and the relegation of certain teams, using the collected comments of the VEB community as a springboard for further discussion. The following week, we can do the same for player transactions, the draft, the minor leagues / developmental squads, and any other useful topics that come out of the conversation.

Performance vs Results, re WPA

Solanus — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:13:26 -0000

Previously I have looked at starting pitcher performances and how they compare to their W-L records (read this and this).

If the daily WPA value is +.100 or higher, the starter is credited with a Win.

If the daily WPA value is -.100 or lower, the starter is credited with a Loss.

If the daily WPA value is in between, the starter receives a No Decision.

After tabulating the rest of the majors, I figured that I would pass on my findings. (Whether or not you'll find this information interesting is open for debate.)

Notable pitchers whose performance was much better than their record:

Jake Peavy - 17-7 (WPA) v 11-14 (actual)

Aaron Cook - 12-8 v 9-15

Kelvim Escobar - 14-7 v 11-14

Nate Robertson - 15-6 v 13-13

Mark Hendrickson - 8-9 v 5-15

Roger Clemens - 11-2 v 7-6

Ben Sheets - 10-3 v 6-7

C.C. Sabathia - 15-7 v 12-11

Chris Capuano - 14-8 v 11-12

Jarrod Washburn - 12-11 v 8-14

Notable pitchers whose performance was much worse than their record:

Randy Johnson - 12-16 v 17-11

Chien-Ming Wang - 16-12 v 19-6

Steve Trachsel - 9-10 v 15-8 (Danger, Walt Jockety! Danger!)

Ryan Madson - 3-8 v 8-5

Freddie Garcia - 12-11 v 17-9

Carlos Zambrano - 13-11 v 16-7

Joe Blanton - 10-13 v 16-12

The big winners:

20 wins - Santana (20-8)

19 wins - Halladay (19-8), Carpenter (19-10)

18 wins - Zito (18-9), Lowe (18-10)

17 wins - Oswalt (17-4), Peavy (17-7), Webb (17-8), Bonderman (17-11), Millwood (17-11)

.750 win% (10+ wins) - Anibal Sanchez (11-1), Clemens (11-2), Liriano (12-2), Oswalt, Chris Young (15-4), Sheets (10-3), Jered Weaver (12-4)

As a team, the Cardinals starters compiled a 61-54 actual record and a 67-60 WPA record, meaning no net gain. The Yankees were helped by a strong offense and bullpen, pulling up their WPA record of 61-60 to an actual record of 74-40, a 16.5 game improvement. San Diego, by comparison, killed their record by 11 games, going from 69-40 down to 58-51; the majority of the cause is probably the run-dampening effects of Petco, as their bullpen was top notch.

Wainwright = Wagonmaker

Solanus — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 16:48:22 -0000

This is a complete aside. I saw somewhere that Wainwright is the term given to a medieval wagon maker, wain being Old English for wagon.

I was kind of curious if anyone knew the etymology of the last names of some of our players. Isringhausen, Pujols, Taguchi, Spiezio, etc.

Factually-correct and comedic attempts are appreciated in equal amounts.

WPA stats since trading deadline

Solanus — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 16:32:15 -0000

As we all know, the Cardinals are 7 games under .500 since the July 31st trading deadline. I've been tracking the play of the Redbirds all season, using Win Probability Added (courtesy of Fangraphs). As has been noted before, this is an excellent system to find out who is helping the team win and who is helping the team lose.

Batter info: (only offensive numbers, no defense, thru 9/25)

Belliard -0.750 Aug / -1.113 Sep (god awful! on a per-month basis, one of the worst players in the league))

Bennett 0.728 / -0.310 (bouyed by 1.036 pts in 4 games)

Duncan 0.651 / -0.109

Eckstein -0.367 / 0.359

Edmonds -0.024 / 0.236

Encarnacion 0.008 / -0.185

Miles 0.287 / -0.499 (over-extended, maybe?)

Molina -0.039 / -0.118

Pujols 0.474 / 1.418 (as valuable as Belly's been destructive)

Rodriguez -0.010 / 0.212

Rolen -0.080 / -1.173 (horrid September)

Spiezio -0.257 / 1.006 (2nd best player in Sep)

Taguchi -0.449 / 0.107 (used less in Sep => more effective; hmmm)

Vizcaino -0.196 / 0.239 (basically useless until his last 2 games)

Wilson 0.261 / 0.029

Just for giggles - PITCHERS: -0.321 / -0.840 (Jabba's been worse than the pitchers!)

Pitcher stats:

Carpenter 0.640 / 0.111

Marquis -0.830 / -0.331

Mulder -0.819 / n/a (in just two starts)

Reyes 0.035 / -0.059 (league average)

Suppan 0.525 / 0.537 (best starter)

Weaver -0.390 / 0.212

Isringhausen -1.052 / -0.661

Looper 0.313 / -0.670

Wainwright 0.323 / 0.018

Flores 0.227 / -0.466

Hancock 0.040 / -0.121

Johnson -0.094 / -0.131

Kinney n/a / 0.362 (our most effective reliever in Sep)

Sosa 0.232 / -0.500

Thompson 0.077 / 0.116

Put simply, each half point means a game in the standings. So that means, with Cardinals being 5 games under .500 in September,

the offense is 2 games under (mostly due to the pitchers at the plate)

the starting pitching is almost a full game over .500

and the bullpen, with its late collapses, is 4 games under.

The offense, minus the pitchers, was averaging 1.2 games over per month before September, so they are playing well below average.
The starters were averaging over 0.3 games over per month, so they are playing above average.
The bullpen was averaging over 1.6 games over per month, so they are WAY below average.

Fangraphs Updated

Solanus — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:41:34 -0000

For those of you that are interested, David over at Fangraphs has updated his site and he now has WPA data all the way back to 2002. That includes daily game graphs and season totals, and should have soon fully integrated game logs for each player, plus much more.

Here are a few snippets for each year:

2002 (rotation +853.7, bullpen +811.1, batting -64.8 / +351.6 not counting pitchers)
-    Pujols (341.3), MattyMo (280.2), & Izzy (299.4) led the team; Rolen posted a 134.7 in 55 games; Simontacchi (189.8) & Andy Benes (175.0) surprisingly effective
-    Matheny (-129.2) & Robinson (-128 in <200 PA's) were the team anchors on offense; the three rookies, Pearce & the two Smiths, combined for -168.8 in 23 starts; no real ciphers in the bullpen
-    NL MVP: Bonds (983.1), Walker (610.9), Vlad (557.4); NL Cy Young: Gagne (683.9), Randy (661.2), Smoltz (581.5); AL MVP: Thome (604.3), Giambi (557.3), Bernie (498.0); AL Cy Young: Koch (496.5), JC Romero (458.0), Percival (452.8) [top starter: Pedro (431.7)]

2003 (rotation +201.1, bullpen -109.9, batting +308.8 / +605.8 not counting pitchers)
-    Pujols (571.9), Woody (211.1), & Izzy (187.7) topped each group; JD (293.3 in 100 games) & Jimmy (280.7) excelled as well; Hitchcock & DeJean combined for +137.5 in 56 innings [too little, too late]
-    Matheny (-266.6), Simontacchi (-153.1), & Fassero (-136.1, bullpen only) earned Waste of Flesh honors; Borbon Jr. (-47.3, 4 IP) & Wilson Delgado (-102.9, 77 AB) exhibited excellent suckitude-per-game-played ratios [Note: Fassero was actually break even as a starter.]
-    NL MVP: Bonds (750.6), Pujols, Helton (539.6); NL Cy Young: Gagne (731.4), Schmidt (553.2), Prior (510.1); AL MVP: Delgado (658.4), A-Rod (493.5), Giambi (442.9); AL Cy Young: Loaiza (539.6), Pedro (518.2), Foulke (473.4)

2004 (rotation +838.9, bullpen +938.3, batting +622.8 / +1041.2 not counting pitchers)
-    MV3: Pujols (575.6), Edmonds (521.4), Rolen (376.5); Carpenter (278.7) & Izzy (374.2) paced the pitching staff - every starter had a positive WPA & all of the front six in the pen were +50 or better
-    Matheny (-171.0) & Edgar (-164.8) were the worst hitters; erm, ah, um ... pitchers stink at batting? (What did you expect? We won 105 games.)
-    NL MVP: Bonds (1267.8), Berkman (576.9), Pujols (575.6) [note: Drew (487.5, 7th)]; NL Cy Young: Lidge (616.6), Gagne (607.6), Smoltz (551.7) [top starter: Schmidt (477.6)]; AL MVP: Sheffield (495.7), Mora (458.2), Manny (451.6); AL Cy Young: Nathan (569.6), Santana (553.0), Rivera (504.5)

2005 (rotation +1166.1, bullpen +650.6, batting +83.3 / +500.8 not counting pitchers)
-    Pujols (358.6) not nearly as dominating as I thought he was; Edmonds (269.9) & Walker/Sanders (700 PA's = +369.5) still solid; Carpenter (547.7) & Mulder (339.7) set the example in the rotation; Izzy (252.9) & Al Reyes (248.4) spearheaded a bullpen that had its top 6 at +50 or better
-    Diaz (-145.2), f'in Cedeno (-101.4) [I don't think his name can be said any other way], & Mahoney (-89.5) provided plenty of suck-for-the-buck; no real complaints among the starters => Morris' -43.9 is still respectable; Burger King (-162.9) made sure his save chances were flame-broiled
-    NL MVP: Chipper (521.4, 109 games), Delgado (486.2), D. Lee (437.9) [Andruw (306.2)]; NL Cy Young: Clemens (680.6), Willis (638.6), Pettitte (587.4), Carpenter [Note: Houston's Big 3, Roger / Andy / Roy (506.8), all topped +500]; AL MVP: Ortiz (847.6), A-Rod (572.9), Hafner (474.8); AL Cy Young: Halladay (487.3, 19 starts), Santana (485.6), Street (410.2)

I'm sure I can keep myself busy there for a few months at least. (I have a simple job with a lot of free time for web browsing.) If you're interested in a different take on what Valuable means, take a look.