SB Nation User Blog: Trenchtown

A Take on the Matt Holliday Trade

Trenchtown — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:16:54 -0000

I predict three stars will be between this statement and my analysis

This being the internet, everyone and their mother wants the chance to give their two cents on everything, and I for one am not different. Looking around the blogosphere it seems that the general reaction is positive on the side of A's and negative from Cardinals' fans.

Well the first thing I want to look at it Matt Holliday as an upgrade for the Cardinals. The Cardinals left field this year has been an absolute mess. The birds have used 8 different players at the position (that's as many as they have had different starting pitchers this year.) Most of the playing time has been allocated to the recently departed Chris Duncan. Duncan was unable to replicate his past power potential, or batting average he displayed in the past. Add in his usual poor defense and wish him luck at producing at an above replacement level in Boston, something he was not able to do in St. Louis. Add in the Ankiels, the Stavinohas of the world and for the year the Cardinals have gotten a (approximately) .301 wOBA and an UZR of -7.3 out of the position, miserable by any standard short of the Cleveland Spiders.

Matt Holliday brings a lot of remedy to the situation. While his hitting has dropped off from the Colorado days, he has looked pretty good after a miserable April. Even without adjusting for that he is bringing a .368 wOBA and 125 OPS+ to St. Louis which would make him the 2nd best hitter on the Cardinals. Obviously Holliday has some upside over those numbers because of how badly he played the first month plus going from the AL to the NL I think projecting him to put up a .385 wOBA the rest of the way seems pretty reasonable. Add in the career +7.1 UZR/150 and you are looking at a 2.5-3 win bump for Cardinals going forward in a division where they lead by 1.5 games and are behind a couple teams if they were looking for the Wild Card. Holliday makes the Cardinals a good bet to make the playoffs.

There are also additional benefits that Holliday brings to the Cardinals, albeit less tangible ones. First there are the two potential draft picks for a Type A free agent should Holliday leave at the end of the season. Victor Wang at hardball times has been getting a lot of good blog press for predicting the value of these two draft picks at about 5 million dollars but I really don't like to think of it in those terms.

There is also a pretty good chance Holliday doesn't test the free agent market this year and accepts arbitration to reestablish his super-star value. Holliday probably ends the years as a 6+ WAR player which using the standard 4.5 million dollars per win formula would put his "value" at 27 million dollars a year. Let's get something straight, Matt Holliday will not make 27 million dollars a year salary as a free agent. He would not make that much in this economy, he would not make this much in a normal economy, he wouldn't make this much using whatever reasonable discount rate you use with net present value. I personally think Holliday was nuts to turn down the 20.5 million a year the Rockies offered because I don't think he will (or would have) get that anywhere else, I might be wrong, Boras and company obviously thought so, but especially now I think Holliday would get 17 million a year or so on the free agent market long term. So back to the reasonable chance of Holliday signing a one year deal or accepting arbitration (barring a Beltran-like playoff run) it looks like a good chance the Cardinals of getting a second year of Holliday at less then market value. Add in the possible positive spill-over effects of Holliday in the line-up adding another half a win or so Holliday's value to the Cardinals has a good chance of being significantly higher then just his straight production alone this year.

If you are still reading, I admire your attention span

Now on to the booty of the trade. Brett Wallace was a first rounder for the Cardinals last year out of ASU. He raked after signing last year and vaulted him to being the top prospect in the St. Louis system after the graduated Colby Rasmus. Wallace has come back down to earth this year while still holding his own up as high as triple a ball. Wallace is a good prospect but not without questions. First off is where does his bat really lie? He really hasn't produced great this year and his career minor league OPS is .856 which is good for 1st baseman and very good for a 3rd baseman, but his current AAA line is poor for a 1st baseman and a little above average for a 3rd baseman. At 22 he certainly has time to get even better though, so reading too much into his batting is probably going to lead to underselling his future bat.

Next of course is whether or not he will be able to handle 3rd base long term. There is no way to get around it, Wallace is big, listed at 6-2 235 he is going to be pressed stay at the hot corner (Thome was listed at 6'4" 220 and only lasted two full years at the position) and listed height and weight tends to have players as taller then they actually are and slimmer then they actually are. There are some that questioned whether Wallace would have been a 1st baseman in college were it not for first rounder Ike Davis also being on the team. Bigger guys have been able to handle the position in the past but I for one put him at 50/50 for playing more then a full big league season at 3rd and the chances of him playing it for the majority of his career at 10% or so. As a 3rd baseman he would be a much better prospect.

Next is something that I have not seen questioned in the media but is a concern for me. I have an acquaintance that actually plays for ASU and he told me stories that lead me to question Wallace's maturity. He told me that at least on a couple occasions Wallace and a teammate would come to practice drunk and the coached called him out for not working hard enough. The only thing I could find on his make-up was a blurb on Baseball America saying that he was great to interview so my concerns could be completely unfounded college kid stuff.

So after three paragraphs that probably show that I am not super high on Wallace I still want to reiterate that he is a great prospect, but these are the reasons I don't buy the Cardinal fan's reaction that giving up Wallace alone was too much for Holliday let alone other players.

The other two players I don't know much about other then other people's reports and their stat lines and I have never seen either of them play that I recall. Shane Peterson is out of Long Beach State. He has shown good plate patience but little power in his couple years in pro ball. He also is showing less power, batting average, and plate discipline every time he ascends a level in the system. Clayton Mortensen is a groundball pitcher with decent strikeouts, a little high of walks and a little too hittable while in the minors but is never the less is pretty much major league ready and has some upside as a back of the rotation starter.

So after all of this I have concluded that I like this trade for the Cardinals, I don't think that they overpaid to get what is probably the best positional player on the market. I think he is what they need to make sure they stay atop the Central. That being said I also like the trade for the A's. Those 3 wins above replacement weren't going to do them any good this year, they probably weren't going to get the value of Brett Wallace with compensation picks, they have some interesting corner outfielders who they can now take a better look at, and they got to save some cash. And of course there is always the chance that St. Louis gets creamed on this deal if Wallace turns out to be Prince Fielder or Aramis Ramirez, and Mortensen could end up being a Dallas Braden, and even Peterson could up being something more then 4th outfielder.

I guess the best way to put this is that I that I like this trade from the Cardinals standpoint, and I don't think there is anything to be mad about from the Oakland side of things.

Under the Radar Performers: Marco Scutaro

Trenchtown — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 05:06:16 -0000

So if you had to guess who was leading the American League in base on balls who would you pick? If you said Marco Scutaro it means you were cheating and guessing him because his name is in the headline. You would also be wrong (Carlos Pena is,) but Mr. Scutaro is in second place in the category. Now Marco's great year in part to a strong start might not be news to you depending on how much you follow baseball, but 9th best position player in baseball is just not something you expect to hear about Marco Scutaro because afterall, this is the same 33 year, whose been waived by two seperate teams, and traded for the immortals Graham Godfrey and Krisitan (Whose parents must have really hated to name him with a K) Bell.

So how is Marco Scutaro pulling this off? Well part of it can be attributed to the fact that its really only the 2rd year in his career that Marco Scutaro has been the number one guy. Last year Scuataro was shuffled around the diamond a lot because of injuries to Aaron Hill, John McDonald, and Scott Rolen. The only time prior to this year that Scutaro go was the man was way back in 2004 manning 2nd base for the Oakland A's. I personally suscribe to the idea that a player performs at his best when he is the everday guy and I think for the most part the numbers back that up.

Scutaro has been getting the job done with the glove and is 4th among qualified shortstops in UZR. His BABIP is up this year while his LD% is down; his infield fly ball % is WAY DOWN from his career average (Interesting side story, Mauer, Jeter, and Hawpe have yet to hit an infield fly this year, Mike Jacobs has hit 19.)

So can Scutaro keep this season up? When I started writing this I had the conclusion no before going through the numbers, now I am not so sure. After a home run happy start (5 homers in April, 1 since,) Scutaro is now 19% below his career HR/FB% while his FB% is up so he should actually being displaying more power than he has. He has already surpassed his single season walks record but he has already had pretty good discipline and I have a hard time believing in fluky walk rates for powerless middle infielders. His swinging% is down while his contact% is up across the board. His doubles might be a little flukey, his defense might regress a tick or two, but I would no longer be suprised if Marco ends up as a top 20 positional player when the year is said and done.

Under the Rader Performers: Casey Blake

Trenchtown — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:40:19 -0000

While not as under the radar as Joe Crede, nor with additional likelihood of improving over his season to date, Casey Blake has quietly been a force for the Dodgers this year. The former Indians part-time player is hitting a very respectable .285/.366/.485 this year for the boys in blue.

Now Blake has been lucky to an extent, but nothing out of the realm of insustainability. His .851 OPS would be the tops for his career if the season ended today, but only by about a dozen points. His BABIP is sitting at .327 against a career of .307; his walks are up this year but not by leaps and bounds, his strikeouts are a tick under his career rate. On the defensive side of the ball for the career Blake is slightly below average at -2.3 a year. This year he is 2.9 above to date which is abnormal but not screaming for regression either. Overall, Blake has had a nifty little season

To date Blake's WAR sits at 2.6 wins, which puts him behind only Matt Kemp on the Dodgers squad (Manny will make knock him down to third in the not too distant future.) On a team that has succeeded with good all around effort Blake has certainly held up his share. And while Blake probably won't justify the trade for Carlos Santana and will be pressed to continue his performance through his contract expiration at the age of 37 so far Blake has done his job

Under the Radar performers: Joe Crede

Trenchtown — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:06:25 -0000

Without looking, how has free agent pick-up Joe Crede played this year? I knew he had been hitting for power, I knew his on base skills were still lacking, and I figured he was playing pretty good defense because he historically has been good with the glove. Well Mr. Crede is hitting .234/.297/.452, not the best line in the world by any means but there are some positives hidden in there.

First, Crede is walking at a rate he rarely has, and by rarely I mean he has a BB% of 8% against a career average of 6.0

Next Crede is sitting with a BABIP of .231; now that looks a lot worse then it is because Crede only has a career BABIP of .260 because he hits a lot of infield flyballs and his LD% for the career isn't particullarly good. But so far this year his LD% is up from the previous two years and his infield fly ball percentage is the lowest of his career. ZIPS projects his BABIP to be .252 but it should probably go even higher then that.

And we haven't even gotten to the best part yet. Crede is a good defender at the hot corner, as far back as UZR goes he has never rated below average and he has averaged 10.2 runs above average UZR/150 for his career. All in all he has been consistently one of the best defenders in the game. Well, this year he is kind of outstripping his career rate to the tune of already being 11.7 runs above average on the year ranking 4th overall in the game in runs saves and on pace for an incredible 24.8 UZR/150

So where does that put Crede for the season? Well FanGraphs has Crede has producing a 2.1 WAR so far putting him on pace to be a 4 win player as it, but with the improvements that could/should occur that could kick up another half a win or so. Regardless Crede has been the 4th most valuable player for the Twins this year behind Mauer, Morneau, and Nick Blackburn. The Twinkies are going to need a little help if they are going to make the playoffs, but if they do Crede's production will have been a big part of getting there, not bad for a guy who signed a 1 year, 2.5 million dollar base contract

Retraction: Blue Jays possible Scutaro trade value

Trenchtown — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:49:55 -0000

I am posting this because I believe that the argument I made during this fanpost (scroll down) was incorrect and I believe accountability is something sorely lacking on the internet and journalism in general. To the point, I was wrong about what I thought it would take to get Marco Scutaro from the Blue Jays. I believed that because of his journeyman status and career long journeyman production he could be had for Mark Lowe because of Lowe's pedigree and the Jay's relative lack of relief pitching depth.

What I incorrectly took into account was his free agent compensation level. For those of you who don't know a Tiger's blog reversed engineered the Elias Bureau free agent classification formula last year. USS Mariner recently posted the updated information here and low and behold Marco Scutaro was sitting at 7th overall in the 2B/SS/3B group (page 5) making him a Type A free agent.

This new information means that Scutaro's trade value is higher then I had it at because I believe that Riccardi also has this information as well as most GM's in baseball. However, I also believe a player like Scutaro holds a Juan Cruz or Orlando Cabrera situation where he would be a difficult sell on the free agent market because of that risk. It is possible a team does the whole Frank Catalanotto stupid signing with him but I don't think that is likely either. Regardless, I now believe an additional player would be necessary to acquire Scutaro. Depending on what Riccardi values that player would be anything from Rob Johnson to Noregia to Tyson Gilies or something beyond the Mariner's price range.

Either way my apologies to seattlebruin and olesalty who might have had a better read on the situation then I did whether or not they took this information into account

Salud

The Steve Phillips Challenge

Trenchtown — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 21:43:00 -0000

So this all started after I was trying to explain to one of my good friends that ESPN baseball analysts are terrible and I showed him the USS Mariner article about where Vegas evaluated all of the ESPN and Pecota analysts and only Pecota, Rob Neyer, and Keith Law beat a projection where every team went 81-81

This link can be found here

So last night him, a couple other of my fraternity brothers and I went through all of the major league teams and projected their wins for the coming season and wrote them down to evaluate at the end of the year to see if A: we could beat the null projection of everyone at 81-81 and B: to see if at the very least we could beat Steve Phillips.

I figured this was something the Lookout Landing community could get behind too so if you want to submit your projections on teams for the coming season in this thread I will record them in excel and we can play against Steven Phillips and ourselves to see who had the best projection come the end of the season.

I will put my projection in the comments but one quick note of advice is that there are 2430 wins up for grabs in a normal season so you might want to adjust your projections to meet that number

Good Luck on the Steve Phillips Challenge!!!!!!!!

Broussard, Mediocre Player, Great Baseball Guy

Trenchtown — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:45:52 -0000

Good ole' BP unfiltered has a mini-interview of Ben Broussard, currently languishing in AAA Scranton for the Yanks

http://baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=892

He may not be very good, but he gets the whole baseball is nothing personal and seems glad just to be playing the game

It was going to be the first time in my career that I was given an opportunity to play every day, but it didn’t work out. The team got off to a bad start, and they had to do what they had to do. That’s just the way that baseball works.

I wouldn’t care if I was in A-ball right now; I just want to play baseball. I love the game and I love getting out here and getting dirty and being around the guys in the clubhouse.

so you just have to have thick skin and a short-term memory. You just have to believe in yourself. But I have nothing bad to say about any of them.

Good luck Ben and I hope you find talent you never had before and end up getting another shot at starting someday

Guess the Prospect

Trenchtown — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 18:41:49 -0000

I was an outfielder picked in the first 5 rounds out of an east coast college. My progression through the minors was slow due to splitting time between baseball and playing in the NFL. I broke camp with my Major League team at the age of 25 before being sent back down mid-July after struggling. It wasn't until I was 28 that I claimed my first full time job with a 20/20 season. My major league and minor league numbers were incredibly similar and I played in parts of 15 major league seasons. I was a solid power/speed player with solid batting average but poor plate discipline .

who am I?

Wlad Balentien

Trenchtown — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:03:32 -0000

So what do you all think he is going to do next year? It looks like he has little shot of breaking camp with the big league team and will be sent back to AAA starting the year at the age of 23.

Here is some things to ponder
2005 539 PA 160 strikeouts 29.7 K% 6.1 BB% 49.6 XBH%
2006 522 PA 140 strikeouts 26.8 K% 13.4 BB% 45.1 XBH%
2007 544 PA 105 strikeouts 19.3 K% 9.9 BB% 37.4 XBH%

The trend of strikeouts dropping at every level is encouraging and I expect to drop moderately next year to 16% or so since he will be repeating the level. The walks look above average but nothing special. The Extra base hits in 2005 and 2006 looked pretty special and 37% is still nothing to sneeze at.

So what does everyone think Wlad has in store for this year? Will he have a killer spring and take Wilkerson or Ibanez's job (pushing Raul to DH)? will he rake the first couple months and force himself on to team late May, will he have a credible consolidation year and be poised to take the starting job in 2009, or will he regress

Reggie Willits

Trenchtown — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:17:41 -0000

I am a Mariner fan and hate all things Angels with a passion, but I am intrigued by Reggie Willits. His contact and plate discipline were excellent, but his power was non-existent. At 26 his power potential is pretty much fulfilled, but can a hitter really succeed with his skill set? I mean, at some point don't you just have pitchers throw it right now the pipe a la Sean Burroughs strategy knowing the worst that can happen is a single? I was just wondering if anyone thought he could could have a prolonged career hitting .290/.390/.340 or something similar. Just guess searching for comps using BR the best I could really find was Julio Cruz. Their secondary skills are pretty similar, but Cruz rarely hit .250 let alone .290; What do you all think?