Since the Rockies are toward the end of a four game set against the Braves, it seems like an appropriate time to bring up an old topic: Dan Uggla.  Despite doubling and hitting a home run on Tuesday night, Uggla has been terrible all season.  That's not a surprise; it's been well documented (see, for example, here, here, here, and here).

Now that the Rockies have acquired the suddenly Ruthian Mark Ellis, it's worth looking back at the highly speculated, but never consummated trade for Uggla.  However, a caveat: though I'm a believer in the value of objective statistics, I also believe that results will vary depending on circumstance.  A different hitting coach, more agreeable manager, different teammates, different perspective from the batter's box, distance from a beach, a bad night out at an overrated downtown restaurant... all of these things can affect the human side of players who lack the mechanical nature needed to reinforce good habits and expel bad ones. 

Regardless of how Ellis performs the rest of the way, I can say that looking back at my vociferous advocacy for an Uggla trade last winter is a source of great embarrassment.  Despite all of the above caveats, it's hard to see how Uggla performs better as a Rockie than a Brave.

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Having never seen him pitch, I can't claim to know a lot about Tyler Anderson.*  Keith Law poo-poo'd the pick, but I only trust his recommendations on cookware.  A big lefty with a couple of good pitches sounds like a fair deal to me, but the best quote I've seen on him comes from his high school coach in a story by the Salem Statesman Journal:

"He's an extreme competitor and an incredible hard worker," said Mike Gomez, his high school coach at Spring Valley High, in an interview with MLB.com."He's a warrior. For us in high school, he was a bit inconsistent ... he showed flashes of his brilliance. The coaching staff at Oregon did a great job of getting him to be consistent.

I'll leave it at that.  John Sickels of Minor League Ball is "very pro-Story" and I like to tell a story now and then, so we are in agreement. 

You can probably deduce the same things about these two guys from a Google News search as me.  Instead, let's take a look at the drafts of Rockies past...

*Despite going to a school that produced multiple early round disappointments for NL West Teams (Matt Antonelli, Jamie D'Antona), I never got into NCAA baseball. 

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It hasn't been a pretty month.  Seven wins and fifteen losses* have stunted the promise built in the first month.  No need to rehash the low moments, and it's no surprise that there were some unsustainable performances in March-April.  An important thing to remember is that over-your-head performances are usually necessary for great seasons. 

The interesting thing is that the over-the-head performances from hitters only brought the team up to middle of the pack offensive output.  In March-April, Rockies hitters posted a cumulatively mediocre .316 wOBA; middle of the pack for the NL.  They followed it up in May with a composite .321 wOBA, but that is heavily aided by the 14-3 drubbing of the DBacks. 

The hitters can law some blame a low BABIP relative to the rest of the NL - .280 in March-April wasn't particularly unlucky, but it was the fourth lowest in the league.  Similarly, .275 in May doesn't sound that bad, but it was, again, fourth lowest in the league.  The big difference for Rockies hitters has been patience.  They went from leading the league with a walk 10.2% of the time to a middling 8.4% walk rate. 

A lot of this makes sense when you think about individual hitters.  Cargo started slow; Herrera was hot.  Stewart/Lopez have been terrible; Iannetta was not.

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Chris Iannetta fascinates many at the Row, myself included - and I'm not easily impressed ("Wow!  A blue car!").  Few Rockies players have inspired as much disappointment, frustration or unabashed fandom as CDI, and his start to 2011 probably hasn't changed minds all that much.  The question seems to be, albeit through only 52 plate appearances (prior to Tuesday's game), what is more real: the .211 BA, or the .423 OBP? 

It seems highly probable that neither is real, and it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that 52 plate appearances is nothing.  Yet, I can't help be impressed with the .6 fWAR thus far on the season.  Still further, I'm perplexed 34% K rate.  Is our protagonist (antagonist?) doomed to be forever an enigma?  1.  Let's hope not.  2.  Let's talk about it ...

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A little fun fact before discussing the game: it had been almost four years and seven starts since Chad Billingsley had pitched less than five innings or allowed more than three runs against the Rockies. 

Obviously that changed today, as the Rockies ran up his pitch count (86 in three innings), strung together hits, and unleashed some power with men on base.  If not for a fortunate strikeout of Dexter to end the third, with runners on second and third, the day would have looked even worse for Billingsley.  

A lot of time was spent this winter talking about the lack of timely hitting in 2010, and the perception that individual batters popped up or struck out a lot in scoring situations.  Not too big of a problem here.   Especially impressive, the 3-4-5 hitters went 5-10 with two home runs, from Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzki.  Yeah, Helton's barely cleared, but both homers came with at least one occupied base.  Both Huson and Frazier noted Cargo's patience in not swinging at the last two borderline balls to start off the third.  Lead-off Walks + Home Runs = Success (no cheap winning references here).

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Before we resume discussing advanced pitching metrics, David Pinto posted that ESPN will being a lot more with advanced statistics on their programming this season.  It will be interesting to see how they integrate it: in a separate, brief segment, or in their typical shove-it-down-your-throat fashion.  It will also be interesting to see, since they contract with writers from both Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs, which advanced metrics they use for pitchers, batters and fielders.

SIERA

Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average, or SIERA for short, was introduced about a year ago by Baseball Prospectus (the link takes you to their glossary page where there are further links to the five-part introduction).  It's a lengthy introduction, but the authors, Matt Swartz and Eric Seidman, note that SIERA is a successor to Nate Silver's QERA, which has a "simple" formula: QERA =(2.69+K%*(-3.4)+BB%*3.88+GB%*(-0.66))^2. 

You can click over to BP for the SIERA formula, but essentially the authors attempt to unfold all of the individual components of QERA, apply an appropriate multiplier, and correct for the fact that GB% is actually a percentage of balls in play instead of a percentage of plate appearances (such as K% or BB%).  For ground balls, SIERA uses (GB-(FB+PU))/PA, which puts less weight on them.  SIERA is way more arithmetically complicated than the simple examination that follows, but hopefully this will be a helpful introduction (or re-introduction) to the metric.

What does that accomplish?

Taking a step back, let's recall the video referenced in the FIP and xFIP overview.  In that, FIP is said to track the pitcher, umpire, stadium and luck.  The use of HR in FIP's formula is largely responsible for it tracking the stadium and luck (xFIP reduces the presence of stadium and luck by using expected HRs).  SIERA, which at its core relies on Ks, BBs, and GBs, claims to go a step further by eliminating the effects of the stadium and luck.  It accomplishes this partially by treating GBs as a pitcher skill (as an Ubaldo lover, an idea I greatly appreciate) instead of considering HRs.*  Removing HR from the equation essentially eliminates the key park and luck factor, but HRs are still accounted for by the notion that high Ks and lots of GBs should result in fewer HR.  In particular, high Ks matter in limiting the possibility of HRs and XBH.  The umpire, by way of controlling the strike zone, is still accounted for in SIERA. 

*As stated in their introduction, HR/FB is highly variable from year to year and dependent on luck.   Also, as noted in BP's Part 1, there is an inherent unfairness in treating all HRs the same. 

On its face, SIERA does eliminate the effects of the stadium.  As far as I know, there are no park factors listed for ground balls.  However, there are park factors for walks.  I'm not a believer, but there's no denying that 1) less foul territory could allow for more opportunities to draw a walk (or other outcomes) by decreasing the opportunity for foul pop outs, and 2) the optics of a park, or perception as a difficult place to hit HR, could change a hitter's approach.  Yet, neither of those are necessarily borne out when you sort the park factors by BBs.  There are lots of favorable parks for HR in the top ten for walks.  In sum, SIERA goes further than FIP or xFIP in removing park effects, but might not entirely eliminate them.

It's a bit tough tough to say that SIERA completely eliminates defense and/or luck when ground balls are one of the three core factors.  In a vacuum, ground balls are always better than fly balls because they can't become fly balls.  There's (probably) less variation in trajectory and fewer potential landing spots (the ball has to touch the infield to qualify, and there's less space by volume in the infield than the outfield).  It's a little like the Woody Hayes saying in football, "Three things can happen when you pass the ball, and two of them are bad."  Three things can happen on a fly ball - a home run, batter reaches, and an out - and two of them are bad.  Only two things can happen on a ground ball: batter reaches or an out.

However, the key reason that ground balls are considered better than fly balls is that they preclude the greatest danger (HRs) and are more likely to be converted to outs by the defense.   In that loose sense, SIERA still tracks a bit of defense.

We will go into how pitchers end up ranking (versus other metrics), but I want to discuss one more formulaic aspect of SIERA (and other advanced pitching metrics).  Follow over the jump, and then share your own thoughts, likes and displeasures with this crazy little metric...

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With the off-season mercifully winding down, and with a lot of new(er) faces on the site, it's an opportune time to go into two frequently mentioned advanced metrics: Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) and expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP).  This isn't tended to be an "us versus them" lecture, nor is it meant to condescend or browbeat. 

Is it rocket science?

Many people on the site seem fine with FIP and xFIP, and its use has come a long way since the first orientation was given on Purple Row in April '09.  It's not particularly new anymore, and the theory of Defense Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS), conceived and developed by Voros McCracken, has been around for about a decade.  McCracken and DIPS even have their own Wikipedia pages, and McCracken worked for the Red Sox for a time, which is pretty neat. 

Before we go further, I think it's important to share that I'm not a math guy.  I did fine with it in high school, but never much enjoyed it.  I took two math classes in college because it was the minimum to satisfy the core curriculum requirement: intro statistics, and intro calculus.  I scraped together a B in stats, and got a C- in calculus.  (In my defense, it was an 8 AM three times per week during a less responsible era in life.) 

FIP and xFIP rely on the same fundamental numbers that people use in the course of normal baseball discussion: HR, BB, HBP, K.  There's no magic, and the formula (which can be seen in the above link to the Fangraphs glossary) is pretty easy to grasp: HRs, BBs and Ks are appropriately weighted and divided by innings pitched, and a constant is added to give the final product an ERA-esque look.  It's only slightly more complicated than commonly referenced staples like OBP and SLG.  They do some interesting math stuff that wouldn't have occurred to me, but, even with my very limited abilities, I can understand it.

After the jump is a video - humorous, mildly insulting, but to the point - that illustrates how FIP works.  If you haven't seen before, you should watch it.  If you have seen it, you know it's worth watching again.

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Any review of Brad Hawpe's 2010 season is going to include a lot of questions.  Several immediately jump to mind, but the most important is: What happened? 

I don't intend for this to sound like a eulogy, but Hawpe was a very good hitter.  In a Rockpile comment somewhere, I once suggested that he was as good a hitter as Justin Morneau (doesn't mean it's true).  Coming into 2010, Hawpe had a career .875 OPS.  From 2007 to 2009, he had a .903 OPS.  In 2009, he came out to a .903 OPS.  That's where the offensive picture starts to crack.  As Jeff noted after the 2009 season, Hawpe's season line is greatly inflated by an all-star first half (.973 OPS); the second half performance did not match up (.813 OPS). 

Specifically, he was dragged down by a poor July (.763 OPS), but he didn't recover the first half form for the rest of the summer.  The July crash was at least partially BABIP driven, as he fell from ~.375 BABIP in the first three months to .311 in July.  However, even as his BABIP recovered in August (.389), his bat didn't entirely come back to life (.814 OPS). 

Digging deeper, there are a lot of troubling signs from the latter half of 2009.*  Despite monthly highs in HR/FB rate during August and September, Hawpe started hitting a ton of ground balls.  A ton.  A guy who has a career 1.12 GB/FB ratio was suddenly doing twofers on ground balls in July, and was still giving pitchers a break with a buy two GB, get one FB policy in August.  It came closer to normal in September, 1.36, but was still high (it dropped back to 1.00 while with the Rox in 2010).  

*This is also a good example of where granular statistics sometimes fail.  In May '09, Hawpe put up a 26.4% LD rate.  After dipping in succeeding months, it rose back to ~23.5% in August and September.  At first glance, I'd be led to believe that Hawpe was recovering something.  However, reconsider the August '09 BABIP: .389 BABIP + 26% LD shouldn't come out to just an .814 OPS.  The 41% K rate in Aug-Sep didn't help, but it's also possible that not all line drives are created equal, and that Hawpe's Aug-Sep line drives were not of the scorching, to the wall variety.

Worse yet, over 2009, Hawpe put up a GB/FB ratio to the pull side, where he's generally gone to more than center or opposite, 5.62, that was more than twice the ratio in 2007 and 2008, 2.02 and 2.48.  In 2010, the ratio increased to 7.00  That's either a slower bat, or a lot of failed attempts at the Baltimore Chop.  It follows that, again to the pull side, his ISO dropped from .415 in 2008 to .218 in 2009 to .173 in 2010.  Not good.  There was a corresponding drop in BABIP, which is unsurprising because of all the grounders.  It's clear Hawpe lost a lot when attempting to pull the ball.

So, enough with the bad signs.   Eulogies Reviews should be at least a little positive.  It's not really worth talking about his defense at length, but for what it's worth, in 2010, Total Zone says Hawpe was +3 in 522 RF innings.  UZR/150 says he was much improved in 2010, though still -10.   Now that we're on the positive track, let's find more things that went right in 2010...

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They call him Big Country, but I think that's a disservice to the original (at least for my age group) Big Country, Bryant Reeves.  Reeves has seven inches and up to 30 pound on Eldred.  Those of you who are college basketball fans over the age of 20 may remember Reeves breaking a backboard during practice for the 1995 Final Four.  He was a large man.

Is this relevant?  Based on size alone, I'm not sure he's earned the nickname.  Does he earn it on his power?  Eldred is known for being a minor league slugger.  He's hit a home run once in about every 15 at bats in the minors.  It's better than the minor league rate of sluggers Joe Koshansky (1 in ~17), Jack Cust (1 in 19) and Carlos Pena (1 in 20), but not quite as good as Russell Branyan (1 in ~13).  He definitely has some power (30 HR, .566 minor league SLG in 2010).

In 2010, Brad Eldred made 27 plate appearances for the Rockies.  He struck out 10 times in 24 at bats.  Sure, it's a small sample size, but he's struck out in 39.6% of his 260 major league at bats.  In 3004 minor league at bats, he's struck out 30.4% of the time. 

He strikes out a lot, but is that all there is to him?  To his 2010 appearance with the Rockies?

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A few weeks ago, Mike Axisa at Fangraphs took a cursory look at who would serve as a replacement for Huston Street in the event of an injury.  Jeff discussed this at the time, but I want to take a closer look at how the three people mentioned have performed in different situations. 

Last off-season featured a variety of hypothetical arguments about who should fill in, but with Street and Betancourt healthy, plus Lindstrom, the team is long on late-inning experience (for what that's worth).  This off-season's closer picture is (so far, knock on wood) much better than last year. 

Continue with me as we get an idea of whether Betancourt, Lindstrom and Belisle deserve to be the first three mentioned as replacement closers...

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Much is said, here and elsewhere, about how to increase competition within MLB.  Plans range from floating divisional realignment to restructuring the luxury tax and revenue sharing to imposing a salary cap.  There is a lot of background discussion of various ideas below the jump, so if you're not interested either look for the ---ALL CAPS--- disclaimer for the discussion of the plan, and look for the bolded part for the actual plan.

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David Pinto at Baseball Musings made a good point about the Rockies' development of players in regard to Hawpe:

I’ll also note that Hawpe is 31. Like so many Rockies, he came to the majors late, already in his prime at age 25. This served the Rockies well, as they were able to capture these primes cheaply, and have these players spent by the time they became free agents (see Garrett Atkins). Holding players in the minors is a good way for smaller markets to save money and still compete, but it also means it’s tough to build a good, long-term team.

This fits in with the point yesterday that the Rockies failed to recognize the proper time to trade both Hawpe and Atkins.  As older players when they became full-time players, they weren't going to be the typical 28 year old big-time free agents no matter how good they became.  This meant that the team controlled their peak seasons (26-28) rather cheaply, but that there was a high probability they'd experience age-related decline as they approached free agency (in their cases, at about 30-31 instead of 27-28).  

As a consequence, there was a high probability that it would be hard to trade them and recoup value if they began to decline, or that, even if they performed well, they'd be too old to reach free agency (and get draft picks back) before becoming expensive road blocks for cheaper, as-good-or-better prospects.  

(Part of the supposition I'm basing this entire opinion is that the team could have gotten by with Dex/Smith/Cargo/EY2/Murton, etc.  I'm aware that, in hindsight, the injuries and growing pains that have occurred made this a tenuous proposition, but Hawpe didn't add much to the OF this year aside from stellar April hitting, and thus, even with the way things have gone, Hawpe's absence wouldn't have changed the current outcome.)

No matter what, Hawpe and Atkins were going to get paid more money for declining performance.  With a record payroll of $84M this year, the Rockies were due for an influx of cheap talent and a purge of older, more expensive players.  It didn't need to be a Marlins-type burn the house down turnover, but over the past couple of years they should have recognized that the roster needed to be turned over a bit in order to a) be flexible, and b) not end up with a bloated, older payroll.  

If it feels like it was too soon for Hawpe to go, it's because it was: we saw the best of him because he came up as a ready-to-go player, but we didn't get to see that much of him because he came up at a later age.  If that's how the team does business, it's smart, but they need to be able to deal with the back-end of that method.  And that means putting the fans through a little bit of pain in order to sustain a winner.

The other day, the idea that George of the Rose could be looking for three and $36M was discussed.  A lot of people expressed dismay that he might leave, or get too expensive.  Some said he would be worth the $12M/year.


But how much can the Rockies afford to spend on their pitching staff?  I was thinking, on the way home and without the numbers, that the starting staff budget would preclude signing DLR for that much.  The money would be tied up in Cook and Jimenez.  Then I actually looked at the numbers.

2010-2012 salaries:
Cook: $9M, $9.25M, $11M (mutual option)
Baldo: $1.25, $2.8M, $4.2M (2013:$5.75 option, 2014: $8M
Francis: $5.75M, $7M

So that's 2010: $16M, 2011: $19M, 2012: $15.2M

If JDLR has a great year, could the Rockies squeeze in another $12M to the starters' budget starting in 2011?  Maybe not at that salary, but at 3/$24M, it's pretty reasonable (assuming another jump in performance in 2010).

In 2012, the Rockies only have $42.933 committed with low-level arb increases and only Street and JDLR to worry about as FAs.  By 2013, the Rockies only have Tulowitzki's $10M, the $8M option on Baldo, and Hammel's 4th year of arb. 

I'm excited by this huge amount of flexibility, and that in three years, they are only obligated to players you should be obligated to: a top-tier shortstop and a front-end starter.  Nice situation to build around over the next two years.

How has the Rockies' front office consistently misjudged demand for their own players, and mishandled the approach to trading them?  All off-season the price was ridiculously high for Garrett Atkins (starter and prospect, or multiple (grade) A+ prospects) given last year's relatively poor showing, and according to Jayson Stark, now they are seeking a "quality young starter" in return for Jeff Baker.

I realize their are bargaining strategies, but when the team is repeatedly asking for a front-line starter in return for players who do not merit that kind of value - which applies to Baker, especially - it demonstrates that O'Dowd may have no bargaining skills, and the Jennings trade was sheer luck.  Besides playing mediocre defense at a couple of positions other than first, what makes Baker any difference than the waivered Joe Koshanksy?  Nothing, and, as a hitter, Koshansky has at least as good of a track record as Baker.

Instead of demanding a "quality young starter," which is, to say the least, unreasonable for a utility infielder, perhaps the front office should consider doing some scouting and asking for a decent minor league infielder who could solve the second base problem in a couple of years.

This is in further comment to FlyAway's comment in the Thursday Rockpile:

In my opinion the Rockies faulure as a team with runner in scoring postion is what spelled their offensive doom in 2008. Ianetta did well with RISP and I think Barmes did OK. However, I have been unable to find that stat, if anyone can help me find that I would appreciate it.

For understanding the necessity and value of a slugger, htiting with RISP cannot be underestimated. And the best way to do measure whether someone is a slugger (without just counting HRs) would probably be to measure SLG with RISP. The best way to measure the necessity of a slugger would be OPS with RISP. A combined high OPS with RISP for middle of the order hitters lessens the necessity for a true "slugger." If one of the first or second hitters can get on base, and either a) gets to second by a hit or steal, or b) is advanced into scoring position by the third hitter (either by b1: an out, or b2: a hit or walk, a walk generally being as good as a single and better than a SAC), that brings up the 4th hitter with a man on 2nd or 3rd with one or two outs. Having 1 and 2 hitters with a good OBP, and hitters in the 3-5 spots with good OPS (and thus the ability to advance the 1 or 2 hitters with a walk or a hit) will eliminate the need for a Manny or Ortiz-esque slugger.

With that in mind, here are the 2007/2008 OPSs with RISP for the Rockies hitters with an established level of power (20+HRs):

Atkins: .869/.680 (PA: 219//215)
Hawpe: .989/.893 (PA: 194/165)
Helton:  .946/.825 (PA: 214/98)
Holliday: .947/.867 (PA: 226/173)
Tulowitzki: .778/.724 (PA:199/123)

There are caveats to this (high BABIP, etc, for some), but I don't think sample size really matters for this. There is no way of knowing how many opportunites there will be year to year, and there aren't going to be that many. Even if they do matter, everybody but Tulo and Helton in '08, had over 150, which is a healthy sample for this type of situational statistic.

This also accentuates what is obvious to Rockies fans: in 2008, the 1-2 hitters did a terrible job compared to Taveras/Matsui in 2007. Also, Helton had a .491 OBP (!) with RISP in 2007, pushing runners along and creating a lot of extra RBI opportunities for Atkins and Tulo. Given their high OPS in both years, Hawpe and Holliday combining for 82 fewer appearances with RISP is horrible for the team. Some of that is situational, and some of that is Hurdle's failure to manage the lineup. The players didn't help themselves with 54 to 189 point drops in OPS from '07 to '08.

For a glimpse of a team that was balanced and successful, the '08 3-5 hitters for the TB Rays:

Upton: .811 (179 PAs)
Pena: .940 (202 PAs)
Longoria: .783 (162 PAs)

The Rays scores 774 runs, the Rockies 747. Pena had the highest SLG with RISP at .524. Compare that to Holliday at .469, it can't account for 27 runs. One of the real differences was Atkins hitting 100 points worse than Longoria (comparing lowst OPSes) in 40 more PAs. Also, Upton got on base at a .400+ rate with RISP, giving the two top power guys another opportunity to drive in a runner.

This isn't to say that in a good lineup, one person couldn't be Hurclean and put the team on his back, as David Ortiz is percieved to do from time to time, and Manny appeared to do for the Dodgers after his trade. The 1-2 hitters matter a lot. Assuming they are equal, however, the trick is to have people who can hit or get on base with RISP over a season, not just hit 50 HRs.

Anyway, I don't know how this stacks up against the Dodgers post-Manny, or the Red Sox all year long, but for the Rockies, clearly the answer is having multiple hitters capable of getting on base at a good rate in the heart of the order. The team has tried the bomber mode (1993-1999) and the speed and small ball mode (2000-2006). Having one person crush HRs (and eat up payroll) doesn't matter that much for this team - kind of like the Reds with Dunn, or the Yankees with A-Rod. And speed and playing to win 1-run games doesn't help much either. People need to be able to get on base and hit, not necessarily hit HRs. So, if the Rockies have a repeat of 2007 it's going to have to happen with fewer HRs and higher OBPs, espcially from the 1-2 spot. And, with Holliday gone, Atkins is also going to have to hit a lot better with RISP.