SB Nation User Blog: hans

Offseason Moves Favor Cavs Thus Far

hans — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 06:25:35 -0000

So the Cavs missed out on Ron Artest, Trevor Ariza, and Charlie Villanueva. Well, so buttons. Let's take a look at what the team's (Boston and Orlando) the Cavs should be competing with for the East have done. There are many variables to be considered in evaluating how these offseason moves are going to affect the teams involved (playing time given to new players, playing time taken away from established players, adaptability to offense and defensive schemes, etc.), so I'm not going to claim this to be an exhaustive cumulative end all be all of evaluation. That measure I'm going to use is Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). I'm going to include the players Player Efficiency Rating (PER) and Offensive and Defensive Ratings from basketball-reference.com to add more depth, but it's the WARP that I'm going to fall back on in comparing what these teams really accomplished thus far.

What I want to bring to attention is the end results, the net gain/loss for these teams thus far. The Lakers for example have made the headlines in bringing in Ron Artest, a big name in the free agent market for sure, but the cost of bringing him in was the loss of Trevor Ariza, who then signed with Artest's former team the Houston Rockets. So what will this mean if Artest now is replacing Ariza's minutes next season? Does this end up as an improvement or a loss in production and even more importantly (because it is too often lost in the media hype) how much of an improvement or loss will this be?

The Boston Celtics

Received: Rasheed Wallace

Rasheed Wallace: 3.9 WARP, 14.9 PER, 107 ORtg 103 DRtg.

If the core of the team remains and is healthy (not a given) this is in my opinion the top competition in the East for the Cavs. (Orlando is right there next to them though). Adding Wallace and not losing a player yet (Glen Davis may go) has the Celtics looking pretty good so far.

3.9 WARP value gained.

Orlando Magic

Recieved: Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson through trade

Lost: Rafer Alson, Tony Battie, and Courtney Lee through trade; lost Hedo Turkoglu through free agency.

Vince Carter: 9.0 WARP, 19.3 PER, 112 ORtg 112 DRtg.

Ryan Anderson: 1.9 WARP, 13.6 PER, 108 ORtg 109 DRtg.

Anderson is a non-factor here as far as next season goes, he's a young (20 yrs old last season) forward who is at least above replacement level, but his PER is below average his defense isn't that good yet. Vince Carter is a very valuable player, but all of his value rests in his offense as this 112 DRtg is bad.

Rafer Alston: 4.3 WARP, 13.8 PER, 105 ORtg 104 DRtg.

Tony Battie: 0.3 WARP, 11.9 PER, 106 ORtg 102 DRtg.

Courtney Lee: 0.9 WARP, 10.8 PER, 107 ORtg 104 DRtg.

Hedo Turkoglu: 5.0 WARP, 14.8 PER, 107 ORtg 104 DRtg.

Alston's loss is mitigated by the return of a healthy Jameer Nelson (5.8 WARP last season) to run the point. The big loss of course is Turkoglu, who's defense (which has a lot to do with his size for his position) is simply not going to be replaced by Carter, but a point earned is about as valuable as a point allowed, so I'd expect to see more offense out of this team with a full season of Nelson and Carter. This won't be the top defensive team in the league (which Orlando was in team DRtg.) again. Each of the players they lost contributed on the defensive end, Battie and Lee are both good defenders, and although Alston gives a step to Nelson on the offensive end, he is equally good defensively.

10.9 WARP - 10.5 WARP = +0.4 WARP value gained

I'd like to point out here another reason why I chose to use WARP, a replacement level player (a player that is easily available to acquire but isn't all that good) is a 0.0 rated player in WARP, so even though Orlando is losing four players and only gained two thus far, this allows us to still compare the gains/losses by simply plugging in two replacement players in the roster and not having to worry about it effecting the results. The point isn't to argue over who the Magic eventually fill those roster spots with because we simply don't know for sure and I'm not interested in opinions or guesses here. All we know is if those spots need to be filled by the beginning of the year they will be filled with replacement players at the least.

The Cleveland Cavaliers

Received: Shaquille O'Neal by trade

Lost: Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic

Shaquille O'Neal: 10.7 WARP, 22.3 PER, 117 ORtg, 109 DRtg.

Shaquille is a major upgrade on the offensive end over the players he was traded for. His defensive rating last season was the highest he's had in his career; this could either be a fluke season or quick regression of his defensive skills because of his age. In terms of WARP he's the most valuable player acquired thus far this offseason.

Ben Wallace: 3.4 WARP, 12.2 PER, 111 ORtg 98 DRtg.

Sasha Pavlovic: -1.4 WARP, 8.6 PER, 102 ORtg 105 DRtg.

Ben Wallace was very productive on the defensive end despite being unable to show much in the Orlando series in this regard. But he's a very limited player at this point in his career and offers almost nothing on offense. Pavlovic was just a disappointment in that he never developed his game despite having the size to really solve the Cavs' need for a tall perimeter defender. He actually performed under replacement level on the year. What happens to Andy Varejao (5.5 WARP) will impact the team's end results for the offseason, but picking up a guy like Antonio Mcdyess (5.3 WARP) would mitigate that loss.

10.7 WARP - 2.0 WARP = 8.7 WARP value gained.

So we have Cleveland with a substantial gain thus far, Boston with its recent acquisition of Rasheed Wallace improve as well, and Orlando's move for Vince Carter helps them come out slightly ahead of break even, but much better than if they lost Turkoglu to free agency alone. I'll try to update this as the offseason progresses. At this point the Cavs are looking strong to repeat with the best record in the Eastern Conference, which I want to point out should be the goal result for this team from a roster composition standpoint, a lot of things can happen between now and the playoffs next season, the best accomplishment for the regular season is to secure home court advantage through the playoffs.

Where's Jhonny's Power?

hans — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:12:37 -0000

Where's Jhonny's Power?

David Golebiewski takes a look at Jhonny's new found love for groundballs and infield pops.

John Sickels American League Central Draft Impressions

hans — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:39:48 -0000

John Sickels American League Central Draft Impressions

Likes the White pick, but doesn't comment on him being moved to the bullpen. Given some time to let it sink in, what do you all think of the draft strategy of this team?

Sizemore Will Come Around

hans — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:28:01 -0000

Sizemore Will Come Around

This is more of a fantasy baseball piece, but the author looks at Grady's underlying numbers and finds that apart from being jammed too much and sucking on the basepath, he's been incredibly unlucky in the 'ole baBIP department.

Rest or Rust

hans — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:07:06 -0000

Rest or Rust

Takes a look at the impact of long layoffs between series. Interesting, read, basically there isn't much of an impact for heavy favorites as they advance.

Fausto FX (Updated through 5/20/09)

hans — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:54:36 -0000

APV wrote an excellent post recently comparing the Cleveland Indians performances thus far in the season to their pre-season projections. Fausto Carmona was one of the players highlighted who has performed far worse than projected. Initially slotted as the team's number two starter in the rotation, and having the lofty hopes of being the tribe's third consecutive Cy Young winner (who would have known it would actually be Carl Pavano?), he's struggled to be any sort of stabilizer in a rotation that badly needs a solid three starters until the back end sorts itself out.

The following is a look at Fausto's game logs with the use of Pitch F/X generated Pitch Sequence Labeled Strike zone Plots and traditional results to see if there is any support to the contention by some (most?) that he's starting to get back on track, which for the sake of this evaluation would mean improvement in throwing strikes, particularly early in the count. For the sake of time and space I skipped his second start against KC because it was pretty much the same as the first start.

4/8/2009 @ Texas

5.0 IP, 6 RA, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR, 7 H

7/11/5 (GB/FB/LD) 95 pitches

via www.brooksbaseball.net

He's pretty much everywhere but in the strike zone with his first pitches. Honestly its pretty incredible how consistent he was in throwing that first and even the second pitch for balls. Well, this looks like the baseline for terrible right here. He was able to get more grounders than fly balls, but the five line drives (and the homerun) are a pretty good indication that hitters were able to tee off on him being that most were in hitters counts throughout the game.

4/18/2009 @ New York

6 IP, 4 RA, 4 BB, 1 K, 2 HR, 6 H

11/12/6 (GB/FB/LD) 103 pitches

Well we see improvement in overall less extreme wildness, but he is still missing more often than not on his first pitches, did a better job with second pitches, but was leaving way way too many pitches over the heart of the plate which as we see by the 2 home runs, 12 fly balls, and 6 line drives, it was clobbering time! like someone was jamming the Sick Of It All song over the PA at that dump of a stadium. Ugh, and the 4 walks to 1 strike out...

4/24/2009 @ Cleveland vs. Minnesota

6 IP, 5 RA, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 HR, 8 H

14/4/1 (GB/FB/LD) 104 pitches

Progress! Look at how the pitches on the whole cluster near the bottom left corner (the low inside against RHB, low away against LHB). This is good, and is likely why he was able to garner so many groundballs and strike outs this game. He also benefited from his first and second double play balls of the season (probably a testament to how crappy our defense has been thus far). Fausto came apart in the seventh inning of this game as he suffered from some bad luck infield singles and poor defense, but overall this was a good sign.

4/29/2009 @ Cleveland vs. Boston

6.2 IP, 2 RA, 4 BB, 3 K, 0 HR, 5 H

15/6/1 (GB/FB/LD) 114 pitches

A second start in a row where he's able to direct his pitches towards the lower left corner of the box. We see that he was getting more of the plate this time, but was also much more wild (wide?) on a few pitches, and missed up and left more than once on first pitches, and low and right on second pitches. This could explain the terrible K:BB. He was also facing one of the premier teams at working counts and walking often. He was successful due to gaining a majority of groundballs from his balls in play. But we see one problem that has continued through all of his starts....high pitch counts. He doesn't make it out of the seventh inning and burned through 114 pitches. Whereas Cliff Lee is the master of spotting that fastball on the corner as repeatedly and accurately as my father's ability to call out a pepperoni stick buried in a bag of fresh groceries brought into the house for unpacking, Fausto doesn't really know where that damn sinker is going to end up and struggles to repeat the results from pitch to pitch.

5/4/2009 @ Toronto

6.2 IP, 4 RA, 1 BB, 3 K, 0 HR, 8 H

10/16/4 (GB/FB/LD) 96 pitches

Fausto looks as though he may taken part in some afternoon "turnin' on" and cream corned wrestling at the townhomes in Kent for May Day, cause he sure wasn't getting those groundballs like usual. His fastball was rising, thankfully he was able to keep those high pitches either off the plate to left or on the outer half of the plate vs. LHB. Fausto's undoing was hitting Aaron Hill in the 7th inning following a Marco Scutaro single. After a ground out that moved both runners over, a Vernon Wells single brought both of them in and summed Tony Sipp from the bullpen. Hill was Carmona's third HBP of the season. We don't see much improvement on getting first pitch strikes, but he did a better job of correcting himself and pitching to contact (but not the GB% we hope for!) to avoid giving too many free passes. This graph looks more like his 4/24/2009 start than that the 4/29/2009 start. A step back overall, but a better pitch efficiency.

5/9/2009 @ Cleveland vs. Detroit

6.2 IP, 2 RA, 6 BB, 4 K, 0 HR, 4 H

12/6/3 (GB/FB/LD) 112 pitches

Wildly effective? He's now strung together three consecutive starts without giving up a homerun and is getting double digit outs via the groundball five consecutive starts, but his control is back out of whack. He's keeping the first pitches low in general, but often too low, and he's all over the place with his out of zone pitches. He's been good at avoiding tossing up meatball pitches over the heart of the plate (I bet Jeremy Sowers' graph would be a single blue dot in the middle of the box!), but once again his pitch count catches up to him and he can't get out of the seventh inning. Glass half full people will say he's reached the 6.2 IP mark in his last three starts, surely that's progress right?!, but the problem is he's not making it out of the seventh inning and those 6.2 IP comes with runners left in scoring position for one of our fabulous relievers to inherent.

Fausto appears to be on the right track in achieving the low left corner of pitching zone regularly, but his control has been up and down over his last four starts. He's really getting by on his "stuff" and not with control or strategy. Its been mildly effective, mostly because of the suppression of homeruns, but consistently inefficient due to high walk rates. Obviously this is true of any starter, but until Fausto can gain some control over his fastball/sinker and get first/second pitch strikes consistently I find it difficult to believe that he's going to achieve any modicum of consistency of results and demonstration of pitching deeper into games.

Updated with 5/14/09 game below.

5/14/09 @ Tampa Bay

5.1 IP, 5 RA, 3 BB, 2 K, 0 HR, 4 H

11/8/5 (GB/FB/LD) 82 pitches.

Fausto got pinched by the ump in that last inning, you see those green dots within the box on the right lower side...yeah those should have been called strikes and two of them occurred in the sixth inning. Overall, we see that his greatest skill thus far is the avoidance of home runs as its now four straight starts without giving up one of them. Control is really doing him in, even if you ignore the umps screw ups. Of the 82 pitches thrown only 48 (58.5%) went for strikes. Its nice to see most of the blue dots (balls in play) collect along the left vertical bar, those are more likely to turn into weak grounders by LHBs or jam jobs to RHBs. He had four pitches down the middle of the plate that were put in play, he's going to want to avoid that. More walks than strikeouts is not a good sign though, he's almost at a 1:1 mark, thats really really bad. I want to be positive about him, but he's not pitching any better than he did last season up to this point in the season.

Updated with 5/20/09 game below.

5/20/09 @ Kansas City

6.0 IP, 4 RA, 4 BB, 3 K, 0 HR, 6 H

16/4/1 (GB/FB/LD) 107 pitches

Fausto fails to reach seven innings. His control continues to be all over the place (I posted a comment in the comment section showing his release point data for this game), but did a great job of keeping the pitches down in the zone and received tremendous results in recording 16 GBs to only 4 FBs, and kept that nil in the HR column for a fifth game in a row. When he misses the zone he missed by alot and the problem once again with Carmona was wasting pitches. I don't know what the coaching staff is trying to do, I'm hoping they aren't satisfied with his numbers thus far. He needs to be able to strike out hitters, whether that is with changing pitch selection on two strike counts or simply pitching with better command of his sinker. He continues to get by on pure stuff with little command. He's simply not showing any improvement over his last few starts.

The Existential Wedge

hans — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:31:47 -0000

Fear not those of you defenders of Wedge from the heathens' call for his head. Do not shed a tear if that axe falls, the firing range fires, or the screw pierces the mine sweeper with the echoing of Quaid’s voice screaming “Screw you!”, for Wedge would not want you to. It is in his firing that Wedge will become his full potential, his actualized self. To keep him from this is tantamount to showing a child a box of Malley’s chocolate covered macadamia nuts and withholding them above the child’s head, out of his reach while you devour each beautifully created piece in front of him.

The great Gestalt psychiatrist Fritz Perls would look upon those demanding Wedge remains unfired and decry, “Living a life that is not based on the truth of oneself, in this world leads to feelings of dread, guilt and anxiety. Through his firing he will come to the foreground, be completed, and can disappear into the background anew and whole”. Rollo May, an existentialist, would argue that only through failure can Wedge achieve personality development of authenticity and individuality, and what greater failure than being fired can there be for Wedge? May would go on to say, “Sooner or later the person recognizes, through failures, that commitments cannot be made forever and that the relationship between principles and any particular persons or events is problematical.” Through his firing he will gain a greater perspective, new perceptions.

Much like the vision of Banquo’s ghost forces Macbeth's attention, so does the ghosts of Lou Pinella, Billy Martin, Joe Torre, Charlie Manual in a unison of angels’ voices stating, “Because he is fired, he can be re-hired!”. So fear not the firing of Wedge, because it does not mean he will fade away into The Abyss starring Ed Harris. Like a child only being given the option of riding the “up” Power Tower at Cedar Point, we are holding Wedge away from the ultimate experience. His firing would not preclude him from being the manager of the Cleveland Indians, but only from being a better version of himself!

Just because the millions of paupers over at the Cleveland.com message boards are immune to understanding that changing the manager in baseball is about as effective in improving a team’s performance as using a comb over to hide their St. Anthony of Padua hairdo. An immunity that is much like Kevin Youkalis’ immunity to not smelling like unwashed cattle that have been force fed gold covered chocolate statues of Douchebag PEDrioa’s MVP trophy. Do not consider their cries for Wedge’s firing as reason to denounce such a move, rather see that in a round about way they are the bird and Wedge’s self-actualization through being fired is Fabio, a chance occurrence in time and space bringing them together for an immaculate explosion.

I’ll leave you to consider that a bomb only truly exists when it detonates, a swingline when it is applying a staple to paper, a Red Sox fan when popping his collar, a Celtic fan when complaining that the league is out to get them, a flower when it blooms, a butterfly when it emerges from the cocoon, Andrew shaking Weglarz’s hand down in spring training in 2011, the buff guy when he plays the sax, and finally Wedge when he is allowed to be fired!

Prospect Retro: Cliff Lee

hans — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:30:30 -0000

Prospect Retro: Cliff Lee

John Sickels takes a look at Cliff Lee's rise through the minors.

"In certain cities, you can hear people heckling you from the stands," Sizemore said. "There are so...

hans — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 03:57:49 -0000

"In certain cities, you can hear people heckling you from the stands," Sizemore said. "There are so many people screaming in New York, it's just noise. They were loud today, too -- until when we went up 10-1."

Here

Teams who've won 65 games go on to win the championship 11 out 13 years

hans — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:52:06 -0000

Teams who've won 65 games go on to win the championship 11 out 13 years

"History says such teams have an excellent chance of winning NBA championships. Eleven of the 13 65-win teams have won titles. But there never have been two 65-win teams in the same season."

I think it just says something for how good a team has to be to win these many games and how much better this team is than the group of opponents it plays in the playoffs on average.