SB Nation User Blog: davelrogers

Next Years Pen; Fill in the blanks.

davelrogers — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:47:26 -0000

The Ray’s bullpen has been discussed at great lengths on this site and on (cringe) local talk radio lately, with many fans expressing concerns about the high leverage relievers in our bullpen.

This is no doubt a reaction to the string of late inning losses over the last few weeks, and that is understandable. Most people watch sports and have a very visceral reaction to a pitcher standing on the mound while the other team hopes around on home plate. This ability to invoke deep positive and negative sentiment in a fan base is what makes sports enjoyable and frankly, profitable.

But as a fan, or at least someone who wants to see there team become/remain competitive, we know that one should hope the managers of an organization act in a completely objective manner. This is not a new mindset for many of the readers and the curators of this site, but it has to be reinforced from time to time. Consider Billy Beane, notorious for having a bad temper, refuses to watch A’s games, fearing it would affect his objectivity. Good for him.

Refusing to react with emotion and whim often puts coaches and management at constant odds with its casual fan base. A typical fan, while slowing becoming more educated, often makes judgments based on observations in situations of high leverage (when it hurts the most), and uses small sample size. Egged on, no doubt, by local sports writers (who do the same), this leads to the types of negative reactions running wild amongst our fellow Rays fans. But they are not the enemy, (Kevin Youkilis and Jerry Bruckheimer are.)

So, my rant, redundant to most who read this site, leads me to the following: As we look forward to the next season, the two big areas that should be evaluated are the catcher and the bullpen. But a good to great bullpen, or at least the foundation for a great bullpen, exists. So after a rough few weeks, here is an update on the overall 2009 picture of guys that will be pitching for us next year:

JP Howell:

WAR: 1.1 WAR Value: $4.9MM FIP: 3.67 K/BB: 2.54

Not doubt, most of our fans see only the 5 losses and 8 blown saves and decide they want to ship Howell back to the Royals and bring in someone like Bobby Jenks or Brian Fuentes. Both, historically, very good relief pitchers, with a lot of saves, but not nearly as valuable as Howell this year, in what some are now calling an awful year.

Jenks: WAR .6 WAR Value: $2.7MM FIP: 4.10

Fuentes: WAR .2 WAR Value: $1.1MM FIP: 4.50

By the way, the list goes on (We could have brought in Fransisco Rodriguez, JJ Putz, Kerry Wood.)

Gant Balfour:

WAR: 1.0 WAR Value: $4.5MM FIP: 3.49 K/BB: 2.07

Grant has been really good this year. In terms of value, certainly in the top 25 for relief pitchers. I’ll take that same pitcher next year. I don’t think anyone expected an FIP of 2.22 again.

Lance Cormier:

WAR: 0.6 WAR Value: $2.8MM FIP: 3.86 K/BB: 1.75

Taking into account his lefty/righty splits, Cormier should be used in more high leverage situations next year. The season he is having this year is not the statistical anomaly one would think when you separate his career relief appearances from his days as a starter/spot starter.

These 3 make a cheap and solid, if not great, foundation to start next year. All who can be still used as a “closer” depending on the situation.

This leave four/five more spots:

One year we don’t need a LOOGY the next we need 3. The hope is we keep one next year.
Thayer should get a look, probably Sonny as well.

Considering salary, who could you see filling 3 spots in our pen via trade or Free Agency?

Rays Bullpen Splits

davelrogers — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:26:47 -0000

Last night, I spent a lot of time looking at the baseball reference splits page, and became a little obsessed. It’s a great site, with the downside being that there is no tRA or FIP data on this stie.

Some info I found interesting, in a numbers can tell a narrative way, are the: home/away; leverage, bases occupied, and times facing opponent splits.

I took a look at the most obvious pitching split (vs RH/LH hitting) for our bullpen, just to have a Manager-like reference sheet for the rest of the season. tOPS+ is just a measure of how that split matches up against his typical OPS. The smaller the number the better for a pitcher. 100 is the benchmark.

Lance Cormier – RHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 1.49 OPS - .885 tOPS+: 103

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 1.18 OPS - .816 tOPS +: 96

So-so RH releiver, who has outplayed his career numbers this year. Which has lead him a some higher leverage situations this year. The good news is that he historically pitches better in high leverage spots.

I looked at his Staring/Relieving split differentials, and they are massive, mainly due to his ineffectiveness after his first time facing a batter. His tOPS+ goes from 89 after seeing a batter once, to 111, and then 189 the next two plate attempts. His career OPS looks subpar, but he’s been much better as a reliever.

Grant Balfour – RHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 4.80 OPS - .594 tOPS+: 94

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 3.63 OPS - .624 tOPS+: 105

He is what you expect against righties, but also pretty dreamy against left handed hitting. I didn’t expect his career numbers to be this strong. Also, he used to throw a changeup pretty often with the Twins though I’ve never seen it.

Randol Choate – LHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 0.80 OPS - .741 tOPS+: 109

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 2.68 OPS - .669 tOPS+: 89

For someone I thought was a pure Loogy, Choate has seen a lot of RH hitting in his career and he is not awful. He walks a ton of righties, but when they make contact they are not crushing him. Of our entire bullpen, I should say, I am most pleasantly surprised by his splits.

James P. Howell – LHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 2.26 OPS - .725 tOPS+: 103

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 2.00 OPS - .685 tOPS+: 92

Rightly, lefty, the drummer from Def Leopard, bring it on.

Here, the problem with using career numbers is that you would think Grant Balfour is a superior pitcher by looking at the data. Let us employ another set of splits:

As starter: SO/BB – 1.84 OPS - .825 tOPS+: 130

As reliever: SO/BB – 2.63 OPS - .571 tOPS+: 60

By the way: His high leverage tOPS+ is 83. He gets better as things get hairier.

As with most starters, his problem was with seeing batters the second and third time through the order. But with some experience and a move to the pen, he has been lights out against both sides of the plate.

This begs the question: If he had started in the pen, and put up these kind of numbers, with all the pitches he has, would he have been given a(nother) shot in the rotation? If he wasn’t so blatantly valuable in our bullpen, I would love to see him to start a game, just to see how it would pan out.

Brian Shouse – LHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 0.68 OPS - .865 tOPS+: 140

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 4.78 OPS - .595 tOPS+: 64

This is what I don’t get. He has always been a relief pitcher but he has faced righties and lefties about the same amount despite his glaring R/L split. Crazy effective against Larry’s as we know, blah against Rogers. Maddon has kept him in 31 times against righties this year and he has been awful (vs. 42 for lefties.) We should all wish for this to be discontinued with a quickness.

Dan Wheeler – RHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 3.91 OPS - .629 tOPS+: 76

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 1.75 OPS - .840 tOPS +: 133

The slider kills righties. Without it he is meh against lefties. His splits are worse than I thought given how he is used. This year has been really dramatic in difference. To be used with serious caution against strong left handed hitting, especially at Tropicana.

Jeff Bennett - RHP

Vs RHB: SO/BB – 2.06 OPS - .699 tOPS+: 83

Vs LHB: SO/BB – 1.10 OPS - .864 tOPS +: 126

ROOGY. Not great last night. Saving a spot for Sonny.

Troy Percival - RHP

Not Much to say. Just goto 1:58 of the following clip re: Baby D and see my feelings on Troy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9Sv7YGAcyw

Not much on the agenda tomorrow, so the plan is to see how these numbers hold up independent of fielding, and follow up.

Garza and Upton? If not Garza or Upton?

davelrogers — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:29:40 -0000

So many things are vs. each other these days. I'm pretty sure it all started with Alien vs. Predator. But not long after that you have Freddy vs. Jasons, then your Britney vs. Kfeds, your Cat vs. Dogs, and most recently Monsters vs. Aliens.

As you know, draysbay has a favorite vs.: Edwin vs. Sonny (and more recently its ugly little siblings: Edwin vs. Neimann; Edwin vs. Price; Edwin vs Jesus.)

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately: Instead of speculating on what we should have done last year; lets use some wild cogitation and, if your willing to add any, a few numbers, to decide what should we do in the next two years.

By my reckoning Matt Garza and BJ Upton are the two players most urgent and important to extend. My apologies to Howell, Bartlett, and Zobrist. (Deductive reasoning have me bidding a tearful farewell to Pena and CC by 2011.)
With both Garza and Upton coming up on arbitration years in 2010, can we work out an extension for both before they get to pricey? I hope so, but If not, who is more important to this team, and who do we make a priority?

WARP vs. Salary expectations:
Using years past and a bit of guesswork, Garza averages out being worth between 2.2 and 2.5 wins a season goinf forward. Upton is closer to 3.8 - 4 wins above replacement (and almost 6 above Mets new savior,Jeff Francoeur). Can you imagine if he wasn't so freaking lazy?

When you remove salary considerations, the player you want to keep right now is Upton. But since we are not the Yanks, Sox, or Angels, and signing the best players despite salary is not an option, it would be helpful to know what there respective agents might be requesting on a per annum basis. Very limited research on my part has come up fruitless, so if anyone has any numbers regarding negotiations throw them in here and lets start the discussion.

WARP vs. our actual replacements:
Upton Replacements: Jennings, F Perez, Ruggiano maybe Joyce with meh feilding. How many wins above replacement can one of these player give us in CF? I don't know enough about baseball to speculate, but my hopes are for Jennings to continue developing power and patience and be a possible 2 WAR guy (if not to replace Upton then to replace Crawford.)

Garza Replacements: Favorites Davis, Hellickson, Neimann, Sonnenstein (long shot McGee). If Davis takes Neimann's spot next year after hitting the bullpen in September call ups this year, then its up to Neimann and Sonny to take over here.

I feel a lot better with Garza every 5 days that one of these guys, but I start feeling better if we are slotting them at 4 or 5 iwhen Price starts bring a third pitch and moves up.

Trade/Supplemental Pick Value:
What will each be able to get in their last arb year via trade? How many sandwich picks are they worth if we are having a good year and we want to hold on to them through the playoff?

If your argumentative juices are flowing and you don't want to waist them on Jackson, i'ld love to discuss....

DRAYS BAY shirts

davelrogers — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:31:49 -0000

DRAYS BAY shirts

Are these shirts gonna happen any time soon? Do you need someone to spearhead this operation?

Jeff Niemann. More than a Trade Piece.

davelrogers — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:08:36 -0000

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Before Price. Before Shields, Sonny or Garza. Before there was any sliver of hope; there was, at least, the idea of a top of the rotation starter in 2004, first rounder, Jeff Niemann.

Massive, national championship winning, first round draft pick, Jeff Niemann. Way back in '04 and '05, the reports of the fastball, and especially the nasty slider, were plenty to make me think of a better rotation with him as the Ace, or maybe #2 behind Kazmir.

When I first starting checking in on Drays Bay, it was to get updates on Niemann. Oft injured but still tantalizing, he was some hope where there was not much else to look forward to.

Then, something happened. Pitching prospects started popping up all over the place, Jeff missed some games, and guys we never really saw coming, like Shields and Sonny became top notch MLB pitchers. So he somewhat fades to black and today seems to be a potential trade piece or bullpen piece. All the while, he has become healthy and has really pitched lights of in the minors. For most other teams, this guy would be their top pitching prospect. For us (or some of us) we can't wait to see what we can get in a trade for him, or if he would be a decent closer.

I'm here to say no, or maybe I'm hear to say wait. I want to see what he can do in the rotation for a few months. I know we are in a hurry to see Price, but lets see what we have in the Big, Red, Lumberjack looking mother first.

Pitching is so valuable. I would love to avoid a knee jerk trade of a guy who looks like a MLB ready pitcher, with some potential to be a 2 or 3, because we can't find the room in the rotation. All the while we are in a frenzy to get up our 2007 first rounder.

There was a time....at least to me.....when Niemann was Price. Get excited for this guy; we will get to Price soon enough.

Might Dunn have been worth 2 Million more a year instead of Burrell?

davelrogers — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:15:50 -0000

Might Dunn have been worth 2 Million more a year instead of Burrell?

Before the sudden depriciation in contracts to typically high priced free agents, I would have loved to lock up Dunn at 2/20. In the "new" market could we have been better off with Dunn or does the FO like to have some (if even very little) positional flexibility in Burrell?

The with either player stikeouts are going to drive you nuts. The walks though. MMMMMmmmmm the walks.... oh yeah and homers.

Would someone take a moment to explain "Velociraptor Jesus" to me. I'm trying to tie David Price...

davelrogers — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:38:30 -0000

Would someone take a moment to explain "Velociraptor Jesus" to me. I'm trying to tie David Price in with the tenents of intellegent desing, but I still can't figure it out.

Yankees v. Rays - The bandwagon grows

davelrogers — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:20:54 -0000

Yankees v. Rays - The bandwagon grows

I'm heading out to tonights game 2 of the double header, I hope the weather doesn't get in the way of the game.
I have, for 4 years now, gone and seen the Rays every time they come to town, but this is the first time I have seen multiple people around they city with Rays caps or shirts on.
This is all very unusual for me, in fact 4 drunk girls came into my building 20 minutes ago wearing Rays gear. I'm not sure they notice I was wearing a Rays hat, as it is the old green variety, but they were all excited to drink for 2 hours and get back up to yankee stadium. What exactly is going on?

Manny to the Dodgers per CNNSI

davelrogers — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:29:34 -0000

Manny to the Dodgers per CNNSI

CNNSI

Opinion Subject to Change by 4pm today.

davelrogers — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:01:46 -0000

Typically I prefer reading the site to posting on it, but I wanted to take a look at a few things before the trade market winds down today.

If the Boston 3 way deal goes through today, I am pretty sure our front office will be much maligned for doing nothing to improve the team, while Boston and New York seem to have upgraded their respective squads (though in NY's case I don't know how effective it will be.)

I think it is wise to remember, though, that these kind of player come at a significant price. If there is one thing the Rays front office has shown us since they have taken over, it is that they are able to correctly value talent at all levels. They know what the price/value should be of these players on the trade market (Jason Bay, Nady, Tex, and Dunn), and I believe know more or less what they are willing to put on the credit card for them ( in terms of future valuable major leaguers).

So, an offer is on the table from the Rays, which is positive. The Boston deal could get in the way, which is life. If we get Bay at the right price, we will all be very happy, but we should all hope Friedman and co. resist the temptation to up the offer/payment beyond what they have valued the incoming asset at. This would be the worst case scenario even more so if it involves too much pitching.

We shouldn't be shocked if something came completely out of left field (or hopefully right field) if the Bay trade falls through, see the Wigginton deal form last year. That is the perfect example of another team overpaying for a player (Ty) that a few other teams were interested in.

There are those who think we are wasting roster spots and that we have "to much pitching" waiting to come up before 2011. They ask "Why not trade some pitching you can not have ten starters?" If one looks at the odds (I have not), we are going to have injuries in our rotation over the next 2-3 years. Players will be out for months (Kazmir early this year) while some will possibly be out for a year or two (countless numbers of pitchers with Tommy Johns). We can not assume that all of our prized minor league prospects will turn out ot be stars or even front of the rotation pitchers. I would be happy if a few of them are. I wouldn't want to trade a player from that few for a year and a half of any outfielder in the majors, and neither do the Rays.

If we look at our abundance of outfield prospects 2 years ago we are shown a perfect example of an area of strength becoming a serious deficiency. That can not happen with our pitching strength, it is even more valuable.

So in conclusion, staying level headed is imperative if we want to succeed long term, and the Rays know this.

Thoughts?