SB Nation User Blog: Uncle Charlie

Looking for 2009 Projections

Uncle Charlie — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:16:15 -0000

On the prowl for projections for the 2009 baseball season...

I have found the following 2009 projections:

1. Bill James/BIS (posted at www.fangraphs.com)
2. MARCEL (posted at www.fangraphs.com)
3. ZiPs (posted at www.baseballthinkfactory.com)

Ron Shandler / Baseball HQ releases its projections this week. PECOTA usually releases after everyone else...

What I'm wondering in the meantime is whether anyone has links for the following projection systems:

1. CHONE
2. The Hardball Times (not sure what their system is called, but I think they have their own system)

If anyone could post those links, that'd be great.

The Answer at SS: Pennington?

Uncle Charlie — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:33:15 -0000

If there's one thing everyone seems to agree on, it's that the A's won't make the playoffs with Bobby Crosby as the starting shortstop next year. If there's one thing everyone can't agree on, it's who we should bring in to take Crosby's place... Here's my case for Cliff Pennington

For anyone who hasn't used it before, Baseball Musings has a great tool called "The Lineup Analyzer." Here it is: http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/LineupAnalysis.py.

Now, I haven't tested the accuracy of the lineup analyzer extensively, but from the little research I have done, I have found it to be a good rough estimator of the run-scoring potential of an offense (based on the individual players' OBPs and SLGs). For example, if you punch in the OBP and SLG for the A's starting lineup last season (Suzuki, Barton, Ellis, Crosby, Hannahan, Brown, Sweeney, Gonzo, Cust), the lineup analyzer estimates the A's would score 4.1 runs/game, or approximately 664 runs. In fact, the A's scored 644 runs last season... pretty close. I did backwards-looking calculations for a number of other teams for the 2008 season, and the lineup analyzer seems to get pretty close in terms of "estimating" what a team will score based on the individual players' OBPs and SLGs (within 0.10-0.15 runs/game).

So, I decided to take the current 2009 A's lineup and punch their projected stats (from www.fangraphs.com, which has posted the Marcel and Bill James projections for next season... I used the average of the two) into the lineup analyzer to see where we were sitting right now (of course, using projected stats adds significant amount of uncertainty to this exercise, but it's a fun exercise nonetheless).

Here are those results: Suzuki (347 OBP / 390 SLG); Barton (349 OBP / 400 SLG); Ellis (329 OBP / 398 SLG); Chavez (333 OBP / 436 SLG); Crosby (304 OBP / 365 SLG); Holliday (392 OBP, 546 SLG); Sweeney (346 OBP, 400 SLG); Buck (348 OBP, 448 SLG); Cust (383 OBP, 476 SLG)... ESTIMATED RUNS PER GAME: 5.03.

One thing I wanted to do was to see how much better/worse our offense would be with Cliff Pennington at SS. From what I've read in Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, Pennington is a plus-denfender at SS. Yet, most people seem to have him pegged as a utility middle infielder because he doesn't have the bat to hold down a major-league job.

As we all know, a run saved is as good as a run earned... in my mind, that means that a plus-defender at a key defensive position should always get a look (especially one who has historically put up good OBP numbers)... So, I plugged Pennington into the lineup for Crosby and, lo and behold, the A's were now projected to score 5.08 runs per game. Not a huge increase, but 8-10 more runs over the course of a season is another win or so... and every win counts.

But, the more important thing about this exercise was realizing how little Rafael Furcal's bat would actually help us for the amount of money we'd be spending on him...

Taking my new 2009 A's lineup (with Pennington rather than Croz at SS), I chose two separate paths...

1. THE OUTSOURCING PLAN: Forget Pennington; sign Rafael Furcal (353 OBP / 408 SLG); keep the rest of the lineup the same... ESTIMATED RUNS PER GAME with Furcal at SS: 5.18

2. THE PENNINGTON/DUNN PLAN: Name Pennington starting SS; sign Adam Dunn (380 OBP / 512 SLG); replace Daric Barton with Dunn (and send Barton to AAA to learn LF, so he can take over for Holliday in 2010); keep the rest of the lineup the same... ESTIMATED RUNS PER GAME with Dunn: 5.30

Now, if the price for Furcal and Dunn is similar (say, 4 yrs, $48M), doesn't it make a more sense to spend our money on Dunn than it does on Furcal? And, that's before we even get to Furcal's balky back... or the fact that Dunn's two years younger than Furcal. Forget Furcal (who doesn't help us as much as we might think). Forget Tejada (who doesn't get on base and has lost most of his power). And forget Hardy (who will cost too much).

Focus on internal solutions to the SS problem. If Pennington can just be a 340 OBP / 340 SLG, we're better off getting his on-base skills and glove into the lineup and signing a truly big bat (like Dunn) who will put a charge into the lineup...

So, this is my projected lineup for next season:

Sweeney - CF
Buck - RF
Holliday - LF
Dunn - 1B
Cust - DH
Suzuki - C
Chavez - 3B
Ellis - 2B
Pennington - SS

After Furcal, Sign Sabathia

Uncle Charlie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:34:29 -0000

Assuming the A's sign Rafael Furcal, our next step should be to use the rest of our budget to sign CC Sabathia.

Let's start with the Furcal signing. Assume a four-year, $40mm-$44mm deal, which is what everyone has Furcal signing for right now. That would leave the A's with the following payroll numbers:

STARTING LINEUP: Suzuki (~$500K), Barton (~$500K), Ellis ($5M), Chavez ($11M), Furcal ($11M), Holliday ($13.5M), Sweeney (~$500K), Buck (~$500K), Cust (~$1.5M) . . . TOTAL: $44M

BENCH: Bowen (~$1M), Patterson (~$500K), Hannahan (~$500K), Davis (~$500K), Cunningham (~$500K) . . . TOTAL: $3M

ROTATION: Duke (~$3M), Gallagher (~$500K), Eveland (~$500K), G. Gonzalez (~$500K) . . . TOTAL: $5M

PEN: Ziegler (~$500K), Devine (~$500K), Casilla (~$500K), Blevins (~$500K), Gray (~$500K), Brown (~$500K) . . . TOTAL: $3M

In other words, we're currently sitting around $55M for our 25-man roster, with a decent enough offense (could use one more power bat, but not necessary), a decent enough bench (thin, but you can only ask for so much bench depth), a great bullpen, and a weak rotation beyond Duke (and possibly Gallagher).

According to everything I've read, Lew and Beane want to increase payroll to $80M this year. That leaves us with $25M to spend. Why not use that $25M to make a pitch for CC Sabathia?

1. He shifts everyone down a slot in our rotation, which puts people where they should be. Duke, as a #2, is strong. Gallagher, as a #3, is workable. Then let Eveland, Gio, Braden, and others fight it out for spots #4 and #5.

2. We have a wealth of up-and-coming pitching talent. Brett Anderson. Trevor Cahill. Michael Inoa. James Simmons. Vin Mazzaro. Gio Gonzalez. Josh Outman. Fautino de los Santos. To name a few. CC anchors the rotation for the next six years, and these other guys fill out the rest of the rotation cheaply.

With Furcal (and Holliday), I'd say we're a 79-to-84 win team. Add CC, and we suddenly become a potential 86-to-90 win team, i.e., a contender. CC doesn't hamstring us in the way he does other teams because we have so much young pitching that we can use for the next six years on the cheap.

To me, it's a no-brainer. Don't think it'll happen, but I think it should.

Deal and FA Pick Up

Uncle Charlie — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 07:33:32 -0000

Two moves for the A's.

Trade for Shea Hillenbrand.
Sign Eddie Guardado.

The Shea Hillenbrand idea has already been discussed here: http://www.athleticsnation.com/story/2005/10/26/153045/50. But, the Guardado move hasn't.

HILLENBRAND
Is Hillenbrand the "big bat" we need? Maybe. He's not the traditional "big bat" that has been talked about on this board (i.e., Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko), but he might be a good bat to complement the other players in the A's lineup.

The current A's lineup is stacked with high-OBP guys who don't get a lot of hits. The A's were 6th in the AL in runs this year, 3rd in BB and 10th in hits. Hillenbrand had 173 hits this year, which would have led the A's in that category (and his BABIP was .310, so his .290 AVG was supported by skills, not luck).

Seems to me adding a hitter like Hillenbrand, who brings a tempered swing-first attitude to the plate would add something to this offense that it is currently lacking -- a guy who moves guys around the bases two or three at a time, rather than one at a time. Hillenbrand had 267 total bases last year, which would have put him second on the A's behind Chavez. This is the kind of hitter we need in our lineup... We don't have the money for a big bat (unless we want to sacrifice other areas of the team), but we can't afford to try to patch up our glaring offensive weakness (the propensity to leave runners stranded) with another Bobby Kielty or Keith Ginter.

Anyway, I'm picturing a lineup that looks something like this...

2b Ellis
cf Kotsay
dh Hillenbrand
3b Chavez
ss Crosby
1b Johnson
lf Payton
rf Swish
c Kendall (our "2nd leadoff hitter")

GUARDADO
The M's just declined Guardado's team option for 2006, which would have paid him $6.25M. He has a player option for 2006 for $4.25, but it looks like he'll opt for free agency.

I'm not sure whether he'd want to come back in a set-up role, but over the last five years you'd be hard-pressed to find a more consistently good relief pitcher. 3:1 K:BB ratio. Sub-3.00 ERA the last four years. He has been dominant against lefties over the last three years (.470 OPS) and decent against righties as well (.687 OPS). I know, we've had our problems with former Seattle southpaws... but Guardado is basically a sure thing when he comes out of the pen, and Arthur Rhodes was clearly having problems before he came to Oakland.

Of course, we'd have to worry about the Yankees, Red Sox, and every other big market team coming in and swarming over the left-handed RP... but you never know what motivates a guy. Maybe he wants to stay on the West Coast (he was born in Stockton). Maybe he doesn't want to play in NY or Boston. Maybe he wants to help the A's win the World Series.

The addition of Guardado would make our pen pretty darn nasty: Street, Guardado, Duke, Calero, Kennedy and Cruz. That's a good pen, with lots of options and matchup advantages.

Plus, if we got Hillenbrand (who will probably cost about $5M next year), we'd have enough money to offer Guardado a two-year $10-11M contract (which is probably his approximate market value based on the fact that he's declining a $4.25M option and the M's declined his $6.25M option). Based on what I've read in other diaries, I think that puts us at about $62-65M total payroll... which is right where we should be.

Arizona

Uncle Charlie — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 18:03:52 -0000

Hey -- we're headed down to Phoenix this weekend to see the A's play. It's my first time going to see the Elephants play in the desert and I'm wondering if anyone on the Nation has good ideas for places to hit after the games.

We're looking for good bars with A's crowds (read: if I see some donkey ass in a Barry Bonds jersey or a Kirk Gibson jersey at my bar, I'll probably toss a barstool at his forehead). We are also looking for restaurant suggestions, bars, watering holes, taverns, pubs, corner stores (where you can buy alcohol), kegs lying on the side of the street and anywhere else where I might be able to get a beer, while sitting next to a fellow in green and gold.

Let me know if you've got any good ideas. Maybe we'll see you down there. I'll be the one lying face down on the bar with my credit card hanging out of the elastic of my boxers.

A's outVORP Angels

Uncle Charlie — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 02:12:45 -0000

STARTING LINEUP
C: Kendall 26.5 / Molina 4.2 -- A's (22.3)
1B: Hatteberg 15.9 / Erstad 4.0 -- A's (11.9)
2B: Ginter 19.6 / Figgins 14.6 -- A's (5.0)
3B: Chavez 47.9 / McPherson 23.2 -- A's (24.7)
SS: Crosby 32.5 / Cabrera 17.8 -- A's (14.7)
LF: Byrnes 22.0 / Anderson 24.0 -- Angels (2.0)
CF: Kotsay 26.7 / Finley 20.9 -- A's (5.8)
RF: Swisher 14.7 / Guerrero 60.4 -- Angels (45.7)
DH: Durazo 30.8 / Kotchman 21.1 -- A's (9.7)

TOTAL: A's dominate by over 46 runs.

ROTATION
Zito (30.6) v. Colon (25.8) -- A's (4.8)
Harden (23.8) v. Washburn (18.1) -- A's (5.7)
Haren (17.7) v. Escobar (33.9) -- Angels (16.2)
Blanton (14.1) v. Lackey (16.8) -- Angels (2.7)
Meyer / Yabu (15.3) v. Byrd (17.7) -- Angels (2.4)

TOTAL: Angels are better, by about 10-11 runs.

PEN
Dotel (27.7) v. K-Rod (27.0) -- A's (0.7)
Cruz (14.3) v. Donnelly (15.8) -- Angels (1.5)
Calero (15.9) v. Yan (12.4) -- A's (3.5)
Rincon (6.1) v. Shields (25.0) -- Angels (18.9)
Bradford (12.3) v. Gregg (16.2) -- Angels (3.9)
Street (14.7) v. Dunn (6.4) -- A's (8.3)

TOTAL: Angels are better, by about 11-12 runs.

I didn't count the team's respective benches, but my guess is that the benches are about even. In other words, using the most objective evidence we have available, this is a very, very, very close race (assuming no major injuries) and not a landslide like Ray Ratto would have you believe.

Win Shares?

Uncle Charlie — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 18:04:24 -0000

I was reading through the Bill James Handbook last night and I started reading the Win Shares section and was a little confused by something. Maybe some of you fellow AN folks can help me out.

James says that Win Shares is a way of calculating the overall contribution that a player makes to his team -- offensive, defensive, and pitching. Fine. Here's the confusing part. He says that a player's win shares will not be affected by the quality of his team -- that a great player on a bad team will have as many win shares as a great player on a good team. So, to me, that sounds like everyone is essentially normalized and treated as thought they were on an equally-good team.

Then, James goes on to say that if you take the number of games a team wins in a season and multiply it by three, you will get the sum of the win shares for all of the players on that team in that season. So, for example, the A's won 91 games last year -- we multiply that by 3 and we get 273; if we take the sum of the win shares of all of the players on the A's last year, the total will be 273.

So, what I don't understand is, how can it be that a player's win shares aren't affected by the quality of the team he's on? If Jason Kendall is on the Pirates and they win 72 games, isn't the number of win shares that can be allocated to Kendall more limited than if he is, say, on the A's. The A's won 19 more games last year, meaning that there were an extra 57 win shares to be distributed among their players. How can it be that the quality of a player's team does not affect the number of win shares that are allocated to him?

Why Byrnes-for-Cameron Makes Sense?

Uncle Charlie — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 21:49:20 -0000

I'm not a big fan of dealing Byrnes, but here's why it makes sense.

It's not about the offense: Byrnes last year: .283/.337/.467. Cameron last year: .231/.311/.479. Cameron had a pretty good second-half last year which probably more accurately reflects his true hitting ability: .248/.322/.567 (SLG a little higher than we should expect, but BA and OBP were about right). Byrnes gets a few more hits, Cameron gets a few more dongs.

It's not about the money: Unless the Mets agree to pick up a significant chunk of Cameron's contract, this trade would cost the A's money. In theory, the deal could be Byrnes and Hatteberg for Cameron and a prospect or two, but I don't think that's happening (esp if the Mets are trying to get Delgado). The Mets won't agree to pay Cameron $5M a year to play for the A's (which would make this deal a wash for us, but which would make little sense if the Mets were trying to clear room for Delgado), so we'd probably be looking at taking on some salary in this deal.

What is this deal about?: It's about our pitching staff. During this offseason, we lost Mark Mulder (2:1 groundball-flyball ratio) and Tim Hudson (2.5:1 GB-FB ratio). Meanwhile, the two guys we kept are Barry Zito (.8:1 GB-FB ratio) and Rich Harden (1.3:1 GB-FB ratio). We also added Dan Haren (1.2:1 GB-FB ratio). I don't have the stats on Meyer or Blanton, but neither strikes me as an extreme groundball pitcher.

In other words, a LOT MORE flyballs will be flying out to our OF next year than last. I love Byrnes energy, but the guy tracks flyballs like he was sensing the position of the ball with sonar. My guess, an OF of Byrnes (LF), Kotsay (CF) and Swisher (RF) costs us 0.20-0.25 runs per game next year vs. an OF of Swisher (LF), Cameron (CF) and Kotsay (RF).

Kotsay used to play RF in Florida, and he's certainly got the arm to play RF (he led the league in OF assists last year). Between Cameron and Kotsay, many of those potential extra-base hits to the gap would end up being long outs in McAfee Network Associates Coliseum of Alameda County in Oakland (is that the new name of the stadium this year?).

Non-Tenders

Uncle Charlie — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 17:41:47 -0000

I know we just dealt Hudson and Mulder to lower our payroll and make us more competitive from 2006-2010. But, we still want to be competitive this year, right?

Here are two signings we should make: (i) Wade Miller; (ii) Josh Phelps. Both of those guys just got non-tendered by their respective teams.

Miller
Miller's season ended last year in June because he had a frayed rotator cuff. He opted not to get surgery, instead deciding to rehab it beginning in December. This makes him a risk, because the injury could relapse; but, it may be a risk we can afford to take.

Miller probably is not ready to go at the beginning of Spring Training. I say we give him the type of contract the Yankees gave Jon Lieber. To wit: come pitch for us for one year, re-establish yourself as a good pitcher in a pitcher's park, and then go sign your big free agent deal at the beginning of 2006.

Miller was projected to make about $4M in arbitration this year, so I say we offer him: 1-year, $3-4M; and, we give him the same promise the Marlins gave to Pudge (not to tender him a contract at the end of 2005 so that interested teams won't have to compensate us if they sign him).

Miller gets: A pitcher-friendly park to re-establish himself in, and in December 2005, he gets to sign a three-year, $24-30M deal (depending on how well he does with us) with some other team.

A's get: A good #3-pitcher to bolster the rotation, another veteran pitcher to allow one of these three youngsters (Haren, Meyer or Blanton) a little extra time in the minors, money comes off the books in 2006.

Phelps
Made $320K in 2003, $340K in 2004; probably would have made about $800K this year if he had been tendered a contract. Why not give this kid a 2-year, $2M deal (or something in that range)?

There is no doubt he can hit a ton. His problem is, he strikes out too much and he's too inconsistent. I know, I know... we've got Dan Johnson, we don't need no Josh Phelps. Well, I'm just throwing it out there. This guy averages 28 HRs per 550 ABs; he would provide good pop off the bench. It's just a question of how much he wants and how much Billy can drop on him.

Roster with these two --
C Kendall, Melhuse
1B Hatteberg, Phelps
2B Ginter, Ellis
SS Crosby
3B Chavez
LF Byrnes, Kielty
CF Kotsay
RF Swisher, Thomas
DH Durazo

SP Harden, Zito, Miller, Meyer, Blanton
RP Dotel, Cruz, Calero, Bradford, Duke, Rincon

Trade Idea

Uncle Charlie — Tue, 14 Dec 2004 19:12:32 -0000

If we are looking for another big bat, why not deal Hudson or Zito to the White Sox for Konerko... here's what I envision:

ChiSox give up: Konerko, Marte, Garland
A's give up: Hatteberg, Rincon, Hudson

I'm not sure how the dollars work out (or how long each person is signed), but we'd get a big right-handed bat, they'd get a left-handed bat and the "ace" they've been trying to get all winter.

Someone may have already mentioned this idea, but it just came to me while I was taking my morning coffee break.