SB Nation User Blog: Suboptimal

Morosi says M's lead Figgins sweepstakes

Suboptimal — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:05:40 -0000

Morosi says M's lead Figgins sweepstakes

Chone to the Mariners for 4 years and $30+ million?

Ball four my ass. Seriously, the Angels should file a grievance.

Suboptimal — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:24:46 -0000

Ball four my ass. Seriously, the Angels should file a grievance.

A tale of three seasons

Suboptimal — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:23:30 -0000

In Phase I (April 6-June 11), the Angels had a mediocre offense and bad pitching. In Phase II (June 12-August 20), the Angels had an unstoppable offense and terrible pitching. In Phase III (August 21-now), the Angels offense has reverted to mediocre, but the pitching staff has gone nuts. Examine.

Game #s    W    L    PCT   XWL   RS/G   RA/G
1-59      29   29   .500  .463   4.66   5.02
60-119    44   18   .721  .613   6.66   5.29
120-138    9    9   .500  .631   4.50   3.44

Imagine if the Angels could put both the pitching and the hitting together for the stretch run: their expected win-loss record would be 19-5! A 102-win season isn't likely, but as it stands, the Angels could go .500 the rest of the way and still finish a strong 95-67. Their luck lately has been really tough, and saberheads will say Pythagoras is finally sneaking up on them, but it looks like overall, the Angels have already got the best of the old Greek again this year. Here's hoping their disastrous luck in the playoffs (an improbable 1-10 record in their last 11 postseason games) finally evens out in 2009.

Your chance to show up the statheads

Suboptimal — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:48:41 -0000

Tom Tango's defensive scouting report sample test. Multiple choice. Answer (A) - (D) to each of the following:

1. Chone Figgins' reflexes at third base are ____________

A. cat-like.

B. ninja-like.

C. spider-like.

D. girl-like.

Tom Tango's defensive scouting report needs our help

Suboptimal — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:08:54 -0000

Tom Tango's defensive scouting report needs our help

If you have a gripe with statisticians, here's your chance to show them what you think about the Angels defense. For the last several years, Tom Tango (co-author of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball) has compiled defensive scouting reports completely from fan input, creating one of the more dependable metrics publicly available. However, the Angels have received just 18 submissions this year (compared to 190 for the Mariners!). Want to tell the world about Erick Aybar's range, Chone Figgins' mancannon, or GMJ's total inability to distinguish flyballs from low-flying aircraft? More votes means more accurate reports. Surely we can do better than Seattle.

Rangers 3B Michael Young blows a tire

Suboptimal — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 05:21:36 -0000

Rangers 3B Michael Young blows a tire

The only Texas regular batting over .275 came up lame running out a ground ball in the second game of a double header with Toronto earlier today. The preliminary diagnosis is a strained left hamstring, a notoriously unpredictable injury which could put him out of commission anywhere from one week to the rest of the season. Pending an MRI tomorrow, this could be a serious blow to the Rangers' hopes of overtaking the Angels in September.

This occurred during the 9th inning of the Angels' 9-5 win in Baltimore on Monday. Watch Juan...

Suboptimal — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:16:31 -0000

This occurred during the 9th inning of the Angels' 9-5 win in Baltimore on Monday. Watch Juan Rivera nearly jump out of his shoes at 0:07.

K-Rod collapses at Fenway, taken to Boston hospital

Suboptimal — Sun, 24 May 2009 05:21:50 -0000

K-Rod collapses at Fenway, taken to Boston hospital

Back Spasms too painful for him to leave the park under his own power.

Angels DFA Daniel Davidson, Recall Fernando Rodriguez

Suboptimal — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 15:02:21 -0000

Angels DFA Daniel Davidson, Recall Fernando Rodriguez

Let the bullpen bloodletting begin.

Adam Dunn and the numbers

Suboptimal — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:12:18 -0000

With Pat Burrell signing with the Rays for $8 million a year, discussion is picking up about the other big bats left on the market. Some people would like to see Adam Dunn with the Angels as full-time DH. I want to offer my justification for why Dunn actually does not make sense for this team. I do a lot of math for a living, so I can't avoid explaining myself with numbers. If you're not interested in the details, just skip to the last few paragraphs.

Note: This is not intended as a promotion of Moneyball as an organizational philosophy. According to Fangraphs, the "Mathletics" came out $21 million ahead in value last year, and the Angels were $46 million in debt, but in the standings, the Angels finished 24 1/2 games ahead. My point is that if you like Adam Dunn because of his sabermetric qualities (ISO, OBP, K/BB), you have to use sabermetrics to look at the whole picture.

If the roster doesn't change at all, here is a simplified projection of playing time at third base, left, and right:

LF: 50% Rivera, 50% Figgins

RF: 50% Guerrero, 50% Figgins

3B: 100% Wood

DH: 50% Rivera, 50% Guerrero

According to career statistics on Baseball Prospectus, this is about how I'd expect these players to do in the field:

Rivera: (14 FRAR in LF) * 50%= 7 FRAR

Guerrero: (4 FRAR in RF) * 50% = 2 FRAR

Figgins: (14 FRAR in LF) * 50% + (10 FRAR in RF) * 50% = 12 FRAR

Wood: (22 FRAR at 3B) * 100% = 22 FRAR

This adds up to 43 FRAR. At the plate, I'll assume:

Guerrero: 60 BRAR

Rivera: 30 BRAR

Figgins: 25 BRAR

Wood: 0 BRAR? 20 BRAR? 40 BRAR?

Just how well Brandon Wood will do is anyone's guess, I'll call it w. Adding it up, I get (115 + w) BRAR. Adding the offensive and defensive contributions gives (158 + w) RAR for a team without Dunn.

I'm going to suppose, like others have suggested, that the Angels would use Dunn as a full-time DH to compensate for his horrific defense. Now the playing time breaks up like this:

LF: 100% Rivera

RF: 100% Guerrero

3B: 100% Figgins

DH: 100% Dunn

I'll use the same assumptions for fielding performance (Figgins has been a slightly below average 3B in his career), which have to be adjusted for different playing times:

Rivera: (14 FRAR in LF) * 100% = 14 FRAR

Guerrero: (4 FRAR in RF) * 100% = 4 FRAR

Figgins: (17 FRAR at 3B) * 100% = 17 FRAR

The total is 35 FRAR. Now for the offensive numbers:

Guerrero: 60 BRAR

Rivera: 30 BRAR

Figgins: 25 BRAR

Dunn: 35 BRAR

This assumes that Dunn repeats his performance last year. This adds up to 150 BRAR, and the total of both offensive and defensive contributions is 185 RAR. The amount of production that Dunn adds to the team is:

185 RAR - (158 + w) RAR = (27 - w) RAR

The general rule is that 10 extra runs equals 1 marginal win, and 1 marginal win is worth $5 million to a franchise. Adam Dunn's total worth to the Angels would be:

(27 - w) RAR * (1 win/10 RAR) * ($5 million/1 win) = $(13.5 - w/2) million

Actually, it's about $450,000 less than that, because I'm assuming that Wood stays on the roster as a backup even if the Angels sign Dunn.

For fun, I'll make this more complicated. Scioscia likes to cycle Guerrero in and out of the DH spot because of his injury risk. I'll suppose that for every game Guerrero spends in the outfield, there's a 0.1% chance he sustains a season-ending injury. This means there's an 15% chance he gets hurt for some period of time if he plays 162 games in the outfield, and an 8% chance if he plays 81 games--believable numbers to me. If Vlad goes down, GMJ plays right field, who I will (very generously) say is an average hitter and average defender. That's a loss of 40 BRAR and a gain of 10 FRAR, so it's a 30 run hit in total: the equivalent of $92,500 per game in value. Adding up all of the risks (I'm skipping the math) means that playing Vlad as a full-time outfielder carries about $900,000 in risk. The price of the risk comes off of Dunn's salary. Rounding it off, I have:

Value = $(12 - w/2) million

This formula is a quick way to decide Dunn's worth depending on Brandon Wood's performance. He cannot be worth more than $12 million, because w cannot be negative (if Wood hits below replacement level, he gets replaced). If Wood has a good rookie season and hits about average (w = 20), then Dunn's value drops to $2 million. If Wood does great (w = 40), then Dunn should pay $8 million to play for the Angels.

So how much faith do you have in Wood? To get a sense of what this means for Dunn, I'll suppose that Wood has a 40% chance of totally flaming out, a 40% chance of doing well, and a 20% chance of doing really well. If I got to play next season 1000 times over, how much money should I bet on Adam Dunn and expect to come out ahead?

($12 million) * 40% + ($2 million) * 40% - ($8 million) * 20% = $4 million

Now, inventing all of these numbers may seem silly, and I've arbitrarily chosen what factors to consider and what to disregard (like the effect of Dunn behind Vlad in the order, which I believe is minimal). That's why I'm just a fan posting on a blog, not an actuary or an investment banker. But if Tony Reagins came to me and asked how much Adam Dunn was worth to the Angels, I would tell him about $4 million. Spend any more money than that, and you're playing a losing game. There's only one trial, so you might luck out, but I don't like the odds.