SB Nation User Blog: benfunke

Are there replacements for TPJ in the Royals' system?

benfunke — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:27:35 -0000

(aka Beating A Dead Horse)

Of course most of us think that pretty much any living human being would be a better replacement for TPJ, but other than Luis Hernandez are there viable options for stop-gap solutions?

But the reason this post really exists is to link to a great site

Minor League Splits dot com

which I haven't really used before, that gives Total Zone ratings (among other things) for many minor league players:

http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/cgi-bin/pl.cgi

Mario Lisson, 25 - career MiLB OPS .717, TZ R/150 at SS 8

Tug Hulett, 26 - .811, 7 (in his 4 games as a pro at SS he did not shine, to say the least, but he's been pretty good at 2B and decent at SS in the minors in limited PT, so maybe he shouldn't be written off at SS)

Irving Falu, 26 - .685 , 1 (he did have one season where his R/150 at SS was 16, but also one where it was -18)

Jeff Bianchi, 22 - .783, 10

Chris McConnell, 25 - .670, 7

for reference: TPJ's R/150 was 18 in his 2005 AAA season and -13 (!) in his 2006 AAA season, career OPS .647; maybe this speaks to the high variability (and suspect meaningfulness) of the Total Zone stat.

Well, that's not much in the way of immediate help as far as a defensive replacement, though all of these guys are decent defensively. Can we start a petition for LISSON NOW!?

DeJesus in Fangraph's "Defensive All-Stars"

benfunke — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:35:27 -0000

DeJesus in Fangraph's "Defensive All-Stars"

Surprisingly, no other Royals were mentioned.

Tony Pena Jr. has finally crossed back above the Tony Pena Jr. line

benfunke — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:58:03 -0000

Tony Pena Jr. has finally crossed back above the Tony Pena Jr. line

.105 !!!! but will it last?

P.S. Zips preseason prediction of .227 BA for TPJ -- what were they smoking?

J.P. Howell is mocking you

benfunke — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:10:35 -0000

J.P. Howell is mocking you

(please note that this post was penned by DRaysBay blogger RJ Anderson)

Howell's tRA: 2.73
but we counter with Farsworth's tRA: 2.87

CFer replacements

benfunke — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:38:16 -0000

Looking at teams with multiple centerfielders that would be theoretical trading partners to put a replacement (short term or long term) in CF for the injured Coco Crisp. I'm simply listing teams with two "quality" options on their 25-man (with around 100 ABs); if there are significant prospect players in AAA or on the 25-man with fewer ABs that would qualify, then I am probably going to miss them. I'm sure DM would want a good fielder first, but we'll trust that he'll let an overall positive WAR speak for the players' balance between hitting and fielding.

From what I see here, another team's prospect is probably a better fit if GMDM wants someone that can help now and continue to be a contributor down the road (seeing as how DDJ moving back to CF would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable).

Player, Age, WAR so far this season

P.S., my formatting got all out of whack, so bear with the uneven formatting and the emply data cells

Brewers

Mike Cameron, 36, 2.2, Cameron may be too old to be traded to KC, and if Gerut is his eventual replacement, then Gerut isn't moving either

Jody Gerut, 31, 0.1, Gerut seems like the light-hitting fielder GMDM prefers, $1.8M salary

Yankees

Melky Cabrera, 24, 1.0, $1.4M salary

Brett Gardner, 25, 1.6, $414k salary -- I don't know that the Yankees are looking to unload young talent, so they'd need something in return; I can think of several players we don't need, but are any of them players the Yankees (or anyone else) want?

Padres

Scott Hairston/Tony Gwynn Jr., the Padres have a lot of young OF talent in their system (such as Will Venable); I know they don't want to move Gwynn (legacy) or probably Hairston, but they do always want to get rid of salary, so maybe there are some options there (they traded Gerut not too long ago primarily to dump salary and open up ABs for the younger players).

Giants

Aaron Rowand, 31, 1.8, $9.1M, pretty big salary to pick up for a guy who plays good but not great--sort of like adding another DeJesus who costs more

Andres Torres, 31, .8, could be a decent short term option at $400k salary (though he magically only became a +hitter when he moved to the NL

Nationals

Willie Harris, 31, 0.1, his WAR is dragged down by poor fielding this season, but last season he was rated as a very good fielder, $1.5M salary

Elijah Dukes, 25, -0.2, I can't see the Nationals giving up on Dukes's potential since he makes the minimum, and it's not clear whether he can be an everyday CFer from a defensive standpoint.

Chicago Cubs

Kosuke Fukudome, 32, 1.8, hitting and fielding well this season--but he makes $12.5M

Reed Johnson, 32, 0.4, has hit reasonably well but his fielding stats are below average, $3M (he has been injured with a sore back recently)

Unfortunately, TPJ has not yet rewritten Mendoza's line

benfunke — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:56:50 -0000

He's just ANOTHER Mendoza. It would at least be some sort of consolation prize if TPJ's futility were enough to be canonized as Mendoza's was (or at least be somehow remarkable by rivaling Bill Bergen (the worst hitter of all time) or Hal Lanier (the worst hitter in modern baseball)). But no, I would contend that TPJ has yet to amass enough PAs or a quite bad enough stat line to eclipse Mendoza (but Trey and Dayton are working on it). At least Bill Bergen is thought of as one of the better defensive catchers of all time. Rafael Belliard is the worst hitter I could find since Lanier with over 1800 ABs (granted, I didn't look for more than about 5 minutes), just presented for some perspective.

Hal Lanier 1964-73, 3940 PAs, OPS+: 49 -- high 75, low 38

Bill Bergen 1901-11, 3228 PAs, OPS+: 21 -- high 41, low -4

Tony Pena, Jr. 2006-09, 850 PAs, OPS+: 46 -- high 66, low 7

Mario Mendoza 1974-82, 1456 PAs, OPS+: 41 -- high 63, low 25

Rafael Belliard 1982-98, 2524 PAs, OPS+ 46 -- high 101, low 31

All stats from http://www.baseball-reference.com

Poll: Will Brayan Pena get to actually start at Catcher?

benfunke — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:23:46 -0000

Seems like several factors just may create the perfect storm for Pena to actually get a start:

-- He's put in the grunt work of sitting on the bench for 2+ weeks with only one start (in which the Royals won and he went 2 for 4, by the way)

-- Olivo has caught 9 games in a row without a rest

-- Olivo has shown that as bad as Pena's defense may be, it can't be that much worse.

Poll

Will Baryan Pena get to start at Catcher during this homestand?

Yes

29 votes

No

21 votes

I already have secret inside information that he's starting Thursday's game

10 votes

60 votes | Poll has closed

Things to do on an off-day involving Subjective Validation (aka why I love Jacobs's HRs)

benfunke — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:37:02 -0000

Things to do on an off-day involving Subjective Validation (aka why I love Jacobs's HRs)

"Subjective validation...Why? Because human beings are very good at finding meaning where there is none and giving significance to what is actually meaningless in itself. We are especially good at relating things to ourselves. Words, symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, and the like have no meaning in themselves. Human beings give them meaning and often we give them a personal meaning when none was intended....Sometimes [we] don't see what is right before our eyes. We see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. If our motivation is strong enough we can sometimes even bring the dead back to life or come to believe that mundane things about our lives are imbued with paranormal or supernatural significance."

has Mike Jacobs increased his K rate because he is being more patient?

benfunke — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:02:21 -0000

has Mike Jacobs increased his K rate because he is being more patient?

Now the reasons behind this is of course speculation, but Jacobs has his highest unintentional walk rate, 7.9%, since 2006 when it was slightly higher (and when he was in the NL); he also has his highest K rate (both looking and swinging), 28.6%, ever in his career.

You might say that it's the move to the AL or maybe hitting against more lefty pitchers that has raised his K rate, but you wouldn't expect his BB rate to increase as well. My theory is that Seitzer talked him into being more patient (his pitch/PA is a career high this season), but the unintended consequence is that he's K'ing more, too.

He's swinging at fewer pitches (44.6%) than ever in his career, but he's also taking more strikes and fewer balls than ever.

Already looking towards next season's roster and payroll

benfunke — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:06:05 -0000

Partly extending from Retro's fanshot of an blog article by Mellinger, I was questioning Mellinger's claim that the Royals don't have much salary coming off the books for 2010. On one hand, $28 million of the $76 million from 2009 is able to be cut (without trades). But on the other hand, much of that $28M would be needed for arbitration for players such as Teahen, Bannister, Hochevar, Davies, Gordon, and Butler.

<A chart is after the break. > I listed the 2009 and 2010 salaries as they stand, with my estimates for what 2010 arbitration amounts would be (rough, rough estimates just to get a feel for the overall team salary number) if those players were offered arbitration. In my estimate below, Crisp is not extended for 8M, and a number of less-than-stellar players are not re-signed, such as Jacobs, Mahay, and HoRam.

In the end, it depends on what the team wants to do with the more expensive arbitration players (and Coco); there isn't a whole lot of flexibility if DM feels the need to keep Teahen, Bannister, Davies, and Buck/Olivo. Then again, if you replace Teahen with a more affordable utilty player (Bloomy 2.0) and use AAA guys in place of Banny and Davies, then there's another $6M or so. Also, trading high on Farnsworth wouldn't be so bad, either.

(Buck and Olivo each stand to make 3M+ next year, so I have a wishful thinking scenario that involves releasing/trading both of them with some new face as the starter and BPena as the backup.)

Hypothetical arbitration numbers are in bold, along with Crisp's 500k buyout, which would be paid if they don't extend his contract.

	2009	2010
Guillen, Jose	$12,000,000	$12,000,000
Meche, Gil	$11,400,000	$11,400,000
Crisp, Covelli	$6,083,333	500,000
Farnsworth, Kyle	$4,250,000	$4,500,000
Mahay, Ron	$4,000,000
Greinke, Zack	$3,750,000	$7,250,000
DeJesus, David	$3,600,000	$4,700,000
Teahen, Mark	$3,575,000	4,000,000
Jacobs, Mike	$3,275,000
Buck, John	$2,900,000
Olivo, Miguel	$2,700,000
Cruz, Juan	$2,250,000	$3,250,000
Ramirez, Horacio	$1,800,000
Bannister, Brian	$1,737,500	2,300,000
Hochevar, Luke	$1,725,000	2,400,000
Bloomquist, Willie	$1,400,000	$1,900,000
Davies, Kyle	$1,300,000	1,900,000
Bale, John	$1,200,000	1,500,000
Soria, Joakim	$1,000,000	$3,000,000
Wright, Jamey	$800,000
Waechter, Doug	$640,000
Gordon, Alex	$457,000	1,000,000
Tejeda, Robinson	$437,000	640,000
Aviles, Mike	$424,500	640,000
Butler, Billy	$421,000	1,000,000
Pena Jr., Tony	$425,000	640,000
Callaspo, Alberto	$415,500	640,000
Pena, Brayan	$405,000	640,000
Maier, Mitch		640,000
Barrera, Harry
Hulett, Tug		640,000
Ka'aihue, Kila		640,000
Lisson, Mario
Lowery, Devon		640,000
Pimentel, Julio		640,000
Rosa, Carlos		640,000
German, Esteban	$196,721
Gobble, Jimmy	$221,312
Gload, Ross	$1,500,000
Peralta, Joel	$157,377
TOTAL	$76,446,243	$69,640,000
	difference:	$6,806,243