This isn't exactly something easy to google so I figured I'd ask here :)

Hitter is generally easy.  ~2 is an average player, ~4-5 is all star territory, ~7+ is MVP territory.

SP though have the whole "#1, #2, #3, #4, #5" deal.  So, my question is, what's the WAR of a #1?  What's the WAR of a #2?

From playing around with calculating WAR (From Fangraph's primer), here's roughly what I came up with for a NL SP this season (off of 180 IP, which would be 30 starts at 6 IP per start.  I believe this is the equiv of 150 games played for position players, correct me if wrong, I tried to figure it out myself):

#5 = 4.60-5.10 ERA/FIP (0-1 WAR) (aka, bad bench player)

#4 = 4.60-4.10 ERA/FIP (1-2 WAR) (aka, good bench player)

#3 = 3.70-4.10 ERA/FIP (2-3 WAR) (aka, average starter)

#2 = 3.30-3.70 ERA/FIP (3-4 WAR) (aka, above average starter)

#1 = 2.50-3.30 ERA/FIP (4-6 WAR) (aka, all star)

Cy Young/ACE/whatever = Sub-2.50 ERA/FIP (6+ WAR) (MVP candidate)

That look about right?

My main reason for asking actually has to do with prospect grades.  I like John Sickel's system, but using projected WAR to give grades.  So for instance, for SP, it's roughly

#5 = C

#4 = C+

#3 = B-

#2 = B

#1 = B+

ACE = A

I guess the main that is it takes a 4.10 ERA to be the equiv of a average position player is just kinda hard to take.  For grading system, maybe something closer to

5/C = -0.5 - 0.5

4/C+ = 0.5 - 1.5

3/B- = 1.5 - 3

2/B = 3 - 4.5

1/B+ = 4.5 - 6

ACE/A = 6+

?

That'd instead give

5/C = 4.85-5.30

4/C+ = 4.35-4.85

3/B- = 3.70-4.35

2/B = 3.10-3.70

1/B+ = 2.50-3.10

ACE/A = Sub-2.50

Does that look better?

Obviously this is really objective, but I figured this would be a nice place for open discussion regarding it.

I'm working on a simple thing to try and project 2010 record

So, I figured I'd go with BtB's power rankings as a base line.  But something really jumped out at me.

For offense, it's simple, you use total projected runs when it comes to the bat (wRC).  Same with pitching, total projected runs given up by pitching.

But defense and base running are different.  You're only adding runs based off the average.  So (completely making up numbers), if a team is +10 defensively against the average, and the average is "20 runs", that's then +30 runs defensively. 

Now I understand that for a ranking basis, it doesn't really matter because every team is getting that 20 runs.  But on an individual team scale basis, I'd assume that's a rather big deal. 

Now I understand that you can't actually come up with "total defensive runs" because you can't calculate what the average is, you only know how players to compared to one another.  But then wouldn't that make more sense to then do everything else based off average? 

Or is this something like with Park Factors that I'm missing something obvious?

From what I've gathered, generally speaking people use weighted 3 year park factors.

My question is, why?

For one, we have a control: The park itself (Unless the team makes changes to dimensions/field/ect).

There are two variables I can think of that then come into play: Weather and actual baseball results.

Since the control is what we are measuring, wouldn't that mean that it'd be smarter to use the biggest sample size possible, since the other two variables can skew the results?  I mean, there's a reason home/away splits for a player aren't generally taken into factor, because there's huge random variance in it.  I mean yes, the park will effect the baseball results, but there's so much variance in baseball results and that's why we always use the biggest sample size possible.  And weather is going to be weather, again sample size ftw.

And yet people will say things like "Stadium Field Park played like a pitchers park this year, even though it was a hitters park last year."  The park itself didn't change though.  The results inside the park changed, sure, but the park stayed the same, the results changed because of other variables.  So what am I missing? Why use weighted 3 year park factors over the biggest sample size possible?

And just as a lesser question: What's the reason behind getting K% by K/AB instead of K/PA?  Fangraphs does K/AB but I don't really understand why they do that instead of K/PA (And other places, like statcorner, do K/PA).  Does it even matter?

Skipworth not included.

1) Mike Stanton

You hate to say a guy is a sure-fire allstar, but, it doesn't get much better than him.

Some will probably make something off his drop in HRs, how he didn't even eclipse 30 this year after hitting nearly 40 last year. He also had quite the power drop in Jax, putting up "only" a .224 ISO.

However, here's he's break down of park adjusted HR/FB (% of flyballs hit into the OF that go for HRs):

08 Greensboro: 27.22%
09 Jupiter: 26.76%
09 Jacksonville: 26.5%

I could only find one player in all of pro ball that beat Mike Stanton in Park Adjusted HR/FB%: Adrian Gonzalez, who blasted 40 HRs while playing half his games in PetCO (And who's park adjusted HR total falls at 55). That's just how legit Mike Stanton's power is as a 19 year old.

The only thing holding him back is his K's. So, what, his worst case scenario is putting up Russell Branyan's career line while playing above average defense in RF?

Meanwhile he tantalized us with a great Jupiter performance, where he only struck out 21.5% of the time. His May was especially amazing, finishing with a 0.79 BB/K, dropped his K% to 17%, and also launched 8 bombs (Park adjusted line for may: .309/.400/.734/1.134...with a .290 BABIP).

I think it's a bit much to completely hold onto one amazing month, and I think K's will still be a problem for him. Right now I have him at a:

.259/.346/.531/.877 line

That's while still striking out 1 in every 3 ABs, launching 40 HRs with 30 doubles, a .310 BABIP, and walking 11%. There might be room to grow in BB%, however outside of his Jupiter mastering of the strike zone, here's his uBB% for Greensboro and Jax: 9.5%, 8.9%. So I'm already putting him at improvement there based off his power.

Going then to defense, he has a very impressive career TZ/150 in RF of +15. He's even shown that he's right now an above average CFer, having a +5 rating in 200 chances. However, as he grows, his defense will go down and he will likely not be able to handle CF. Right now I have him at +7 runs defensively, but it will be interesting to see just how good he will be. I also have him at +1 on the basepaths due to his athleticism, and based off the fact he has not been stealing bases in the minors, so it'll likely be a wash for him.

All in all that would put him in the 4-4.5 WAR range over 150 games. If he becomes a Russell Branyan career-line like player, we're still talking about a 2.5-3.0 WAR player. His downside is basically that he becomes a slightly above average RFer. Meanwhile, if he starts getting in the mid 40 to 50 plus HR range, or he gets a better command of the strike zone like he did in Jupiter, he will be a top line power hitter in all of baseball.

2) Matt Dominguez

I'm going to focus more on why he's above Logan in Logan's section. For now, I'm just going to focus on why he's here.

I've constantly read that people are down on him for his Jupiter performance after what he did in Greensboro. This, to me, makes no sense.

Here is his park adjusted greensboro line: .296/.354/.472/.827
Park adjusted line for jupiter: .273/.343/.449/.791

36 point OPS difference, that's still pretty decent bit. However, there's also the fact that the FSL is a lot more of a pitchers park. He had a 132 OPS+ in Greensboro. Jupiter? 130.

His peripherals also weren't much difference. One of the main things was that he increased his walking (7.3% to 8.9%) while cutting his K's (17.9% to 15.9%). His park adjusted ISO barely showed a difference either, going from .177 down to .176. THere certainly was a difference in HRs, as even park adjusted them gave him a HR/150 of 26 in Greensboro, just 20 in jupiter. However, he also hit 2b's at a much higher rate. Really, the big difference between the minimal difference in OPS between the two years is that he had a .328 adjusted BABIP in Greensboro, but .298 in Jupiter. Meanwhile he went from walking at a below average rate to an above average rate, while cutting his K's, and keeping his power.

So, why are people disappointed in his Jupiter again?

Now his Jax performance was certainly quite bad. Even park adjusted it only rises it to a .196/.298/.340/.638 performance, good for a 79 OPS+. His power dropped (just 11 HR/150 and a .144 ISO), his BABIP was terrible at .236, and his K rate rose to 21% (the first time he's finished above the league average rate).

But that's looking skin deep. When he swung the bat, he was still making contact. Here's his % of times striking out swinging by league:

Greensboro: 13.7%
Jupiter: 13.2%
Jax: 12.3%

It has actually improved as he has gone higher.

The issue? He has struck out looking 8.8% of the time in Jax, compared to 3.4% between Greens and Jup. Combine the fact that he raised his BB% all the way up to 12.3%, and it shows he just wasn't swinging the bat much at all.

It's been said the jump to AA is the hardest jump a player will make, even harder then the jump to the majors. For now, Dominguez has a lot of adjusting to do to AA pitching. However, one thing to remember is that he was just 19 years old. Only 6 other hitters were of 19 years of age in the Southern league. Two of those only played in a dozen or less games (Brett Lawrie and Carlos Truinfel). The other 4? Mike Stanton, Starlin Castro, Jason Heyward, and Freedie Freeman. Yeah, I would say he's in good company.

Defensively, the book has been written a thousand times with the fact that scouts think he's already MLB ready with the glove. He saved 12 runs in just 215 chances for Jupiter this past season, for a TZ/150 of +20 runs. Adjusted for league, that puts him on par with a +14.5 ML defensive player. Even regressing 50% still puts him at +7 runs.

All together, assuming a bit drop in BB (8%), a bit up in K (19%), nothing special BABIP (.300), as well as putting him down for 22 HRs and 30 2b/3b (.168 ISO), that gives him a .262/.326/.431/.757 line. If we assume he's dead even on the base paths, and a +10 defender, that puts him at a 3 WAR player. If he can become a 25-30 HR player instead of a 20-25 HR player, that basically makes him an Adrian Beltre clone. It's hard atm to project him anymore than that though. However, he's downside is basically a Pedro Feliz-like player, meaning he's going to be starting somewhere.

3) Logan Morrison

So why so down on Morrison?

Mostly, there's the power shortage. Yeah, he had a HR/150 of 25 in Greensboro. But he also then became a line drive hitter, and has then put up a 17 HR/150 in Jupiter and 15 HR in Jax. 15-20 HR power just isn't very good at all. Yeah, there's the walks (Although he's not going to walk nearly as much as he did this year in Jax in the majors), yeah there's the good K rate. Yeah there's the above average ability for BABIP. He's going to be an above average hitter compared to the league.

But he's a first base man. The average 1b OPS this past season was .845. For this millennium, it's .836. First basemen are SUPPOSE to be above average hitters.

If we put him down for 20 HRs, 35 Doubles/Triples (.175 ISO, so asking him for an uppage based off age), 12% BB rate, 16% K rate, and a .320 BABIP, that gives him a .284/.375/.458/.833 line. Out of 19 qualified 1b's this past season, only two finished with a worse OPS.

Ontop of which, he hasn't really shown himself to be a good defender, at least going by Total Zone. For his career, he has a league adjusted TZ/150 of -10. Now the good news is it has been improving to the point of being positive this past season (-11 in Greensboro, -4 in Jupiter, +5 in Jacksonville), and the scouting report is that he's about average with poor range but good hands. But it's hard to really say anything but him being below average atm. And, being a big lumbering first baseman, it's unlikely he's a plus on the base paths.

So if we assume that .833 OPS, with -5 runs defensively, and -1 runs on the base paths, that puts him at just a 2 WAR. Not exactly impressive, is it?

Yes, you hope that that OPS starts sitting in the .850-.900 OPS range, you hope that he's around average defensively. This puts him to the 3-3.5 WAR range. But as of now, the power has not showed up. That's not to say it won't. I mean, a former Florida Marlins top first base prospect was only suppose to have 20 HR power, and he went on to hit 40 HRs in PetCO this past season. But until it happens, it hasn't happened.

This then gets us more to the point of Dominguez v.s. Morrison. The difference between Dominguez being a great defender at third and Morrison being a bad defender at first is somewhere between 25 to 30 runs. Going with the base line that 10 runs = 40 OPS points, that means that Morrison has to be out OPS Dominguez about 100 points to be as valuable as Dominguez is. So if Dominguez puts up a .750-.800 OPS, that means that Morrison has to put up his own .750-800 OPS. This kind of goes into the whole "1b's are traditionally overrated, 3b's are traditionally underrated" mindset.

Another major cause of concern: although it's a small sample size, Logan has not shown an ability to hit LHP. Throughout his career, his power is significantly worse (.183 ISO vs .136), he strikes out significantly more (21% v.s. 14%), and his walks are down aswell (9% v.s. 13%). His BB/K against RHP is more than double that against LHP (0.44 v.s. 0.97). It got even worse as he went to AA this past season and saw lefties that could actually throw breaking balls. He had nearly as many strike outs against LHP than he did RHP (21 v.s. 26) even though he only had 102 PA against LHP, 267 against RHP.

Now if he can still be a mid 700 OPS or so bat against LHP, than hey, he won't need a platoon. But he might end up being a platoon bat, which greatly lowers what his value is.

4) Jake Smolinski

Smolinski's line in his first season with the Marlins wasn't too impressive. He finished with a park adjusted line of .283/.379/.437/.816. The OBP certainly sticks out, but you'd love to see more power. Still, a .84 BB/K is very impressive.

Most have compared him to ROTY Chris Coghlan: Good approach, good BB/K, not much raw HR power but good gap power. Their Greensboro lines were certainly interesting in comparison.

JS/CC
BB%: 12%/14%
K%: 13%/12%
HR/150: 12/14
ISO: .154/.177
BABIP: .320/.354

The main thing that sticks out is the BABIP difference, as well as the gap power difference. The first though has a high luck variance, and for the second Chris Coghlan was two years older than Smolinski was this past season. Coghlan, 22 at the time, was a bit older than league average (21.7). Smolinski, 20, was below.

So the difference in power should lower in time. Still, overall he's a little weaker than CC, since ontop of the power he also strikes out a tick more and walks a tick less.

If we give him a 10% BB rate, 15% K rate, .130 ISO (11 HRs and 40 doubles), and a .310 BABIP, that gives him a .270/.348/.400/.748 line. Very solid for a 2b/3b, very less so if he's forced to move to the OF. For now, I'm assume he's staying in the IF though. Considering the scouting report on him isn't all too promising though, and his milb defensive numbers aren't too impressive, I currently have him at -3 runs. Overall, that would put him as a 2 WAR player. Real decent.

5) Gaby Sanchez

First thing I want to say is the final 3 really are interchangeable. They're all really bench bats/not very good starters.

Gaby Sanchez gets the nod here for his possible ability to play third base. If he can actually play the position fine (up to, say, -5 runs defensively), he'd actually likely make an average starter. This is in question though, as the Marlins have bounced him back and forth between 1b and 3b in the minors (62 games at 3b, 69 at 1b in '08. 41 at 3b, 45 at 1b this past season).

One of the more questionable things about Gaby has been his power. He burst on the scene by putting up a monster year in Greensboro, finish with a park adjusted line of .317/.447/.571/1.019 and a HR/150 of 33. His power almost completely disappeared the next year in Jupiter though, as his park adjusted ISO dropped nearly 100 points, and HR/150 was just 13. His park adjusted line wasn't all that bad though at .290/.378/.459/.837, good for a 134 OPS+.

Carolina saw a jump in power again. While Carolina helped him finish the double total he did, he still finished with a park adjusted ISO of .199, and improved his HR/150 to 21.

This past season in NO though yet again brings up questions. He finished with a park-adjusted HR total of 18 in only 370 PA, good for a HR/150 of 32. Even adjusting for the league, by comparing the PCL to the IL, puts him at a 16 HR total, or 28 HR/150.

So where do we go from here? Well, you choose the biggest sample size: his career. He now has a 22 HR/150 for his career. One thing to remember though is that he's constantly been old for the level, making the power he's put up a bit questionable. I'd probably say he's around a 15 HR power, or about ML average.

The rest is pretty cut forward: Awesome BB/K, not particularly good BABIP skills. Assuming a 11% BB rate, 15% K rate, 20 HRs/40 doubles (.155 ISO), and a .300 BABIP gives him a .266/.353/.421/.774 line.

CHONE almost completely agrees with me, with a .267/.354/.419/.773 line. All the peripherals are basically the same. Bill James? not so much. He calls for Gaby to have a massive .185 ISO, launching 15 HRs in just 406 PA (24 HR/150). However, he also had Gaby down for an upper .800 OPS before 09, and his system is known for being extremely optimistic on young players.

Definitely, he was originally thought to be a terrible defender at first base but has made a lot of progress, and the scouts view him as an above average defender although he might be closer to average at first. For now I'd assume something like +3 runs. On the base paths, he's actually pretty decent but again, like almost all players, it's more or less a wash.

All in all this would put him at a 1.76 WAR as a 1B. Not exactly impressive, but you could do a whole lot worse (like, say, Mike Jacobs). If he could manage to be a -5 defender at third, this would jump in his WAR up to 2.3. Total Zone thinks he could do that, but there's certainly a reason the Marlins haven't made him a full time 3b.

6) Bryan Petersen

What a mixed bundle of progressing and stepping backwards this past season.

First, the good. He lowered his strike rate by a ton. After striking out 19% of the time in 2008, he struck out just 13% of the time in '09.

The bad though? After being labeled a potential 20/20 guy after hitting a combined park adjusted HR total of 22 aswell as steal 23 bases, he'd hit just 7 HRs this past season, and finish with nearly as many CS as SB (13 for 25). He'd finish with just a .118 park adjusted ISO for the season. Still, there's some to like about his season line of .306/.377/.425/.801.

One thing to point out about his power outage: almost the entire outage happened at the beginning of the year, where he went over 70 days without a home run.

Since the game where he broke that drought, he put up a .317/.383/.484/.867 line in 206 PA, with a 19/16 BB/K and .323 BABIP. That's a .167 ISO, basically identical to what he did last season. He'd hit 6 HRs in that stretch, which would rate to 19 over 650 PA.

He'd then go to the AFL, where he again showed that same power: He'd hit 3 HRs, 6 doubles, and 3 triples in just 101 PA (Which would again rate to 19 HRs over 650 PA), for a .221 ISO.

So is the power back? Well, plain and simple, the bigger sample size > the smaller sample size. But if he comes back to being a 20 HR threat, he's now a starting OFer at the ML level and jumps up this list.

I'm personally putting him between. I do not think at all he's the slap hitting .100 ISO guy he was this past season, but I think presumption to pencil him back in for a .150 ISO. So instead, I'm giving him a .130 ISO (35 2b/3b, 12 HRs). Combine with his good walk rate (9%), improved K rate (16%), and decent rate of hitting for BABIP (.310), this gives him a .267/.339/.397/.736 line. Not exactly threatening for a starting corner OFer.

However, he's also the only left hander that will appear on this list that does not have a platoon question about him. His BB/K, power, and BABIP are basically identical between the two hands.

He's defense also isn't particularly good. Scouts have labeled him an average defender, and his total zone basically backs that up. And while his baserunning took a step back this past season, he should still be a bit above average. If we put him at +2 at both of those, that puts him at a 1.36 WAR. So, bench bat needless to say. 20 HRs though starts pushing him around the 2.5ish WAR range though, making him a decent starting corner OFer.

7) Scott Cousins

And to wrap it up, Scott Cousins. Offensively, things aren't looking to promising. He walks at a below average rate (7.9% this past season, 8.3% in his career), strikes out at an above average rate (20.1% this past season, 20.8% in his career).

You would hope power could make up for it, but it doesn't look like that will be the case. While he does sit on a career park adjusted ISO of .185, and a HR/150 of 19, he's also regularly been old for the leagues. Ontop of which, he saw a power shortage this past season in Jacksonville, with a HR/150 of 15. While he still finished with a very good .189 ISO, that's also because he hit 11 triples. Since triples aren't exactly a representation of power but rather speed, if we change those to doubles, his ISO drops down to .166, a lot less impressive for a 24 year old in AA.

For now, it looks like he'll only develop into average power. There's certainly potential for more though, especially after what he did last season between Jupiter and Carolina. He'd finish with a park-adjusted ISO of .206, and HR/150 of 25 in 300+ PA.

If he can reach that kind of power production again, things would look a lot better for him.

Unfortunately though, things are what they currently are. Putting him down for 7% BB rate, 23% K rate, .310 BABIP, and 15 HRs/.151 ISO puts him at a .247/.306/.399/.704 line.

The good news, of coarse, is defense. The past three years, he has a TZ/150 of +14 runs in the OF, and that's not adjusting for time in CF (380 chances in CF, 528 in RF, 29 in LF). That's also not including his arm, which is a cannon. He should be about a +10 defender in a corner OF spot, and about average in CF.

He's also a good base runner, stealing 27 bases this past season and should be good for 10-20 SB a year. So about +2 runs on the base paths.

However, that's not enough to make up for his bat. With a .704 OPS, this would just make him a 1.14 WAR player. Certainly some room to hope for improvement, but he's looking more like he'll take the brett carroll defensive replacement OFer spot once Carroll hits arbitration.

Some (somewhat) good news though is he does look like he could become a .730-.750 OPS bat against RHP. While he has shown that he can hit the ball with the same authority v.s. LHP that he does against RHP, the problem is actually hitting the ball. Combined with his defense, this makes him a borderline average starter against RHP. Combine him with a, say, Brett Carroll, who is a borderline average starter against LHP, and you're looking at average production combined. This would not be an ideal situation but he still has some use as a starter even if his power doesn't pick up.

1) Mike Stanton

You hate to say a guy is a sure-fire allstar, but, it doesn't get much better than him.

Some will probably make something off his drop in HRs, how he didn't even eclipse 30 this year after hitting nearly 40 last year. He also had quite the power drop in Jax, putting up "only" a .224 ISO.

However, here's he's break down of park adjusted HR/FB (% of flyballs hit into the OF that go for HRs):

08 Greensboro: 27.22%
09 Jupiter: 26.76%
09 Jacksonville: 26.5%

I could only find one player in all of pro ball that beat Mike Stanton in Park Adjusted HR/FB%: Adrian Gonzalez, who blasted 40 HRs while playing half his games in PetCO (And who's park adjusted HR total falls at 55). That's just how legit Mike Stanton's power is as a 19 year old.

The only thing holding him back is his K's. So, what, his worst case scenario is putting up Russell Branyan's career line while playing above average defense in RF?

Meanwhile he tantalized us with a great Jupiter performance, where he only struck out 21.5% of the time. His May was especially amazing, finishing with a 0.79 BB/K, dropped his K% to 17%, and also launched 8 bombs (Park adjusted line for may: .309/.400/.734/1.134...with a .290 BABIP).

I think it's a bit much to completely hold onto one amazing month, and I think K's will still be a problem for him. Right now I have him at a:

.259/.346/.531/.877 line

That's while still striking out 1 in every 3 ABs, launching 40 HRs with 30 doubles, a .310 BABIP, and walking 11%. There might be room to grow in BB%, however outside of his Jupiter mastering of the strike zone, here's his uBB% for Greensboro and Jax: 9.5%, 8.9%. So I'm already putting him at improvement there based off his power.

Going then to defense, he has a very impressive career TZ/150 in RF of +15. He's even shown that he's right now an above average CFer, having a +5 rating in 200 chances. However, as he grows, his defense will go down and he will likely not be able to handle CF. Right now I have him at +7 runs defensively, but it will be interesting to see just how good he will be. I also have him at +1 on the basepaths due to his athleticism, and based off the fact he has not been stealing bases in the minors, so it'll likely be a wash for him.

All in all that would put him in the 4-4.5 WAR range over 150 games. If he becomes a Russell Branyan career-line like player, we're still talking about a 2.5-3.0 WAR player. His downside is basically that he becomes a slightly above average RFer. Meanwhile, if he starts getting in the mid 40 to 50 plus HR range, or he gets a better command of the strike zone like he did in Jupiter, he will be a top line power hitter in all of baseball.

2) Matt Dominguez

I'm going to focus more on why he's above Logan in Logan's section. For now, I'm just going to focus on why he's here.

I've constantly read that people are down on him for his Jupiter performance after what he did in Greensboro. This, to me, makes no sense.

Here is his park adjusted greensboro line: .296/.354/.472/.827
Park adjusted line for jupiter: .273/.343/.449/.791

36 point OPS difference, that's still pretty decent bit. However, there's also the fact that the FSL is a lot more of a pitchers park. He had a 132 OPS+ in Greensboro. Jupiter? 130.

His peripherals also weren't much difference. One of the main things was that he increased his walking (7.3% to 8.9%) while cutting his K's (17.9% to 15.9%). His park adjusted ISO barely showed a difference either, going from .177 down to .176. THere certainly was a difference in HRs, as even park adjusted them gave him a HR/150 of 26 in Greensboro, just 20 in jupiter. However, he also hit 2b's at a much higher rate. Really, the big difference between the minimal difference in OPS between the two years is that he had a .328 adjusted BABIP in Greensboro, but .298 in Jupiter. Meanwhile he went from walking at a below average rate to an above average rate, while cutting his K's, and keeping his power.

So, why are people disappointed in his Jupiter again?

Now his Jax performance was certainly quite bad. Even park adjusted it only rises it to a .196/.298/.340/.638 performance, good for a 79 OPS+. His power dropped (just 11 HR/150 and a .144 ISO), his BABIP was terrible at .236, and his K rate rose to 21% (the first time he's finished above the league average rate).

But that's looking skin deep. When he swung the bat, he was still making contact. Here's his % of times striking out swinging by league:

Greensboro: 13.7%
Jupiter: 13.2%
Jax: 12.3%

It has actually improved as he has gone higher.

The issue? He has struck out looking 8.8% of the time in Jax, compared to 3.4% between Greens and Jup. Combine the fact that he raised his BB% all the way up to 12.3%, and it shows he just wasn't swinging the bat much at all.

It's been said the jump to AA is the hardest jump a player will make, even harder then the jump to the majors. For now, Dominguez has a lot of adjusting to do to AA pitching. However, one thing to remember is that he was just 19 years old. Only 6 other hitters were of 19 years of age in the Southern league. Two of those only played in a dozen or less games (Brett Lawrie and Carlos Truinfel). The other 4? Mike Stanton, Starlin Castro, Jason Heyward, and Freedie Freeman. Yeah, I would say he's in good company.

Defensively, the book has been written a thousand times with the fact that scouts think he's already MLB ready with the glove. He saved 12 runs in just 215 chances for Jupiter this past season, for a TZ/150 of +20 runs. Adjusted for league, that puts him on par with a +14.5 ML defensive player. Even regressing 50% still puts him at +7 runs.

All together, assuming a bit drop in BB (8%), a bit up in K (19%), nothing special BABIP (.300), as well as putting him down for 22 HRs and 30 2b/3b (.168 ISO), that gives him a .262/.326/.431/.757 line. If we assume he's dead even on the base paths, and a +10 defender, that puts him at a 3 WAR player. If he can become a 25-30 HR player instead of a 20-25 HR player, that basically makes him an Adrian Beltre clone. It's hard atm to project him anymore than that though. However, he's downside is basically a Pedro Feliz-like player, meaning he's going to be starting somewhere.

3) Logan Morrison

So why so down on Morrison?

Mostly, there's the power shortage. Yeah, he had a HR/150 of 25 in Greensboro. But he also then became a line drive hitter, and has then put up a 17 HR/150 in Jupiter and 15 HR in Jax. 15-20 HR power just isn't very good at all. Yeah, there's the walks (Although he's not going to walk nearly as much as he did this year in Jax in the majors), yeah there's the good K rate. Yeah there's the above average ability for BABIP. He's going to be an above average hitter compared to the league.

But he's a first base man. The average 1b OPS this past season was .845. For this millennium, it's .836. First basemen are SUPPOSE to be above average hitters.

If we put him down for 20 HRs, 35 Doubles/Triples (.175 ISO, so asking him for an uppage based off age), 12% BB rate, 16% K rate, and a .320 BABIP, that gives him a .284/.375/.458/.833 line. Out of 19 qualified 1b's this past season, only two finished with a worse OPS.

Ontop of which, he hasn't really shown himself to be a good defender, at least going by Total Zone. For his career, he has a league adjusted TZ/150 of -10. Now the good news is it has been improving to the point of being positive this past season (-11 in Greensboro, -4 in Jupiter, +5 in Jacksonville), and the scouting report is that he's about average with poor range but good hands. But it's hard to really say anything but him being below average atm. And, being a big lumbering first baseman, it's unlikely he's a plus on the base paths.

So if we assume that .833 OPS, with -5 runs defensively, and -1 runs on the base paths, that puts him at just a 2 WAR. Not exactly impressive, is it?

Yes, you hope that that OPS starts sitting in the .850-.900 OPS range, you hope that he's around average defensively. This puts him to the 3-3.5 WAR range. But as of now, the power has not showed up. That's not to say it won't. I mean, a former Florida Marlins top first base prospect was only suppose to have 20 HR power, and he went on to hit 40 HRs in PetCO this past season. But until it happens, it hasn't happened.

This then gets us more to the point of Dominguez v.s. Morrison. The difference between Dominguez being a great defender at third and Morrison being a bad defender at first is somewhere between 25 to 30 runs. Going with the base line that 10 runs = 40 OPS points, that means that Morrison has to be out OPS Dominguez about 100 points to be as valuable as Dominguez is. So if Dominguez puts up a .750-.800 OPS, that means that Morrison has to put up his own .750-800 OPS. This kind of goes into the whole "1b's are traditionally overrated, 3b's are traditionally underrated" mindset.

Another major cause of concern: although it's a small sample size, Logan has not shown an ability to hit LHP. Throughout his career, his power is significantly worse (.183 ISO vs .136), he strikes out significantly more (21% v.s. 14%), and his walks are down aswell (9% v.s. 13%). His BB/K against RHP is more than double that against LHP (0.44 v.s. 0.97). It got even worse as he went to AA this past season and saw lefties that could actually throw breaking balls. He had nearly as many strike outs against LHP than he did RHP (21 v.s. 26) even though he only had 102 PA against LHP, 267 against RHP.

Now if he can still be a mid 700 OPS or so bat against LHP, than hey, he won't need a platoon. But he might end up being a platoon bat, which greatly lowers what his value is.

4) Jake Smolinski

Smolinski's line in his first season with the Marlins wasn't too impressive. He finished with a park adjusted line of .283/.379/.437/.816. The OBP certainly sticks out, but you'd love to see more power. Still, a .84 BB/K is very impressive.

Most have compared him to ROTY Chris Coghlan: Good approach, good BB/K, not much raw HR power but good gap power. Their Greensboro lines were certainly interesting in comparison.

JS/CC
BB%: 12%/14%
K%: 13%/12%
HR/150: 12/14
ISO: .154/.177
BABIP: .320/.354

The main thing that sticks out is the BABIP difference, as well as the gap power difference. The first though has a high luck variance, and for the second Chris Coghlan was two years older than Smolinski was this past season. Coghlan, 22 at the time, was a bit older than league average (21.7). Smolinski, 20, was below.

So the difference in power should lower in time. Still, overall he's a little weaker than CC, since ontop of the power he also strikes out a tick more and walks a tick less.

If we give him a 10% BB rate, 15% K rate, .130 ISO (11 HRs and 40 doubles), and a .310 BABIP, that gives him a .270/.348/.400/.748 line. Very solid for a 2b/3b, very less so if he's forced to move to the OF. For now, I'm assume he's staying in the IF though. Considering the scouting report on him isn't all too promising though, and his milb defensive numbers aren't too impressive, I currently have him at -3 runs. Overall, that would put him as a 2 WAR player. Real decent.

5) Gaby Sanchez

First thing I want to say is the final 3 really are interchangeable. They're all really bench bats/not very good starters.

Gaby Sanchez gets the nod here for his possible ability to play third base. If he can actually play the position fine (up to, say, -5 runs defensively), he'd actually likely make an average starter. This is in question though, as the Marlins have bounced him back and forth between 1b and 3b in the minors (62 games at 3b, 69 at 1b in '08. 41 at 3b, 45 at 1b this past season).

One of the more questionable things about Gaby has been his power. He burst on the scene by putting up a monster year in Greensboro, finish with a park adjusted line of .317/.447/.571/1.019 and a HR/150 of 33. His power almost completely disappeared the next year in Jupiter though, as his park adjusted ISO dropped nearly 100 points, and HR/150 was just 13. His park adjusted line wasn't all that bad though at .290/.378/.459/.837, good for a 134 OPS+.

Carolina saw a jump in power again. While Carolina helped him finish the double total he did, he still finished with a park adjusted ISO of .199, and improved his HR/150 to 21.

This past season in NO though yet again brings up questions. He finished with a park-adjusted HR total of 18 in only 370 PA, good for a HR/150 of 32. Even adjusting for the league, by comparing the PCL to the IL, puts him at a 16 HR total, or 28 HR/150.

So where do we go from here? Well, you choose the biggest sample size: his career. He now has a 22 HR/150 for his career. One thing to remember though is that he's constantly been old for the level, making the power he's put up a bit questionable. I'd probably say he's around a 15 HR power, or about ML average.

The rest is pretty cut forward: Awesome BB/K, not particularly good BABIP skills. Assuming a 11% BB rate, 15% K rate, 20 HRs/40 doubles (.155 ISO), and a .300 BABIP gives him a .266/.353/.421/.774 line.

CHONE almost completely agrees with me, with a .267/.354/.419/.773 line. All the peripherals are basically the same. Bill James? not so much. He calls for Gaby to have a massive .185 ISO, launching 15 HRs in just 406 PA (24 HR/150). However, he also had Gaby down for an upper .800 OPS before 09, and his system is known for being extremely optimistic on young players.

Definitely, he was originally thought to be a terrible defender at first base but has made a lot of progress, and the scouts view him as an above average defender although he might be closer to average at first. For now I'd assume something like +3 runs. On the base paths, he's actually pretty decent but again, like almost all players, it's more or less a wash.

All in all this would put him at a 1.76 WAR as a 1B. Not exactly impressive, but you could do a whole lot worse (like, say, Mike Jacobs). If he could manage to be a -5 defender at third, this would jump in his WAR up to 2.3. Total Zone thinks he could do that, but there's certainly a reason the Marlins haven't made him a full time 3b.

6) Bryan Petersen

What a mixed bundle of progressing and stepping backwards this past season.

First, the good. He lowered his strike rate by a ton. After striking out 19% of the time in 2008, he struck out just 13% of the time in '09.

The bad though? After being labeled a potential 20/20 guy after hitting a combined park adjusted HR total of 22 aswell as steal 23 bases, he'd hit just 7 HRs this past season, and finish with nearly as many CS as SB (13 for 25). He'd finish with just a .118 park adjusted ISO for the season. Still, there's some to like about his season line of .306/.377/.425/.801.

One thing to point out about his power outage: almost the entire outage happened at the beginning of the year, where he went over 70 days without a home run.

Since the game where he broke that drought, he put up a .317/.383/.484/.867 line in 206 PA, with a 19/16 BB/K and .323 BABIP. That's a .167 ISO, basically identical to what he did last season. He'd hit 6 HRs in that stretch, which would rate to 19 over 650 PA.

He'd then go to the AFL, where he again showed that same power: He'd hit 3 HRs, 6 doubles, and 3 triples in just 101 PA (Which would again rate to 19 HRs over 650 PA), for a .221 ISO.

So is the power back? Well, plain and simple, the bigger sample size > the smaller sample size. But if he comes back to being a 20 HR threat, he's now a starting OFer at the ML level and jumps up this list.

I'm personally putting him between. I do not think at all he's the slap hitting .100 ISO guy he was this past season, but I think presumption to pencil him back in for a .150 ISO. So instead, I'm giving him a .130 ISO (35 2b/3b, 12 HRs). Combine with his good walk rate (9%), improved K rate (16%), and decent rate of hitting for BABIP (.310), this gives him a .267/.339/.397/.736 line. Not exactly threatening for a starting corner OFer.

However, he's also the only left hander that will appear on this list that does not have a platoon question about him. His BB/K, power, and BABIP are basically identical between the two hands.

He's defense also isn't particularly good. Scouts have labeled him an average defender, and his total zone basically backs that up. And while his baserunning took a step back this past season, he should still be a bit above average. If we put him at +2 at both of those, that puts him at a 1.36 WAR. So, bench bat needless to say. 20 HRs though starts pushing him around the 2.5ish WAR range though, making him a decent starting corner OFer.

7) Scott Cousins

And to wrap it up, Scott Cousins. Offensively, things aren't looking to promising. He walks at a below average rate (7.9% this past season, 8.3% in his career), strikes out at an above average rate (20.1% this past season, 20.8% in his career).

You would hope power could make up for it, but it doesn't look like that will be the case. While he does sit on a career park adjusted ISO of .185, and a HR/150 of 19, he's also regularly been old for the leagues. Ontop of which, he saw a power shortage this past season in Jacksonville, with a HR/150 of 15. While he still finished with a very good .189 ISO, that's also because he hit 11 triples. Since triples aren't exactly a representation of power but rather speed, if we change those to doubles, his ISO drops down to .166, a lot less impressive for a 24 year old in AA.

For now, it looks like he'll only develop into average power. There's certainly potential for more though, especially after what he did last season between Jupiter and Carolina. He'd finish with a park-adjusted ISO of .206, and HR/150 of 25 in 300+ PA.

If he can reach that kind of power production again, things would look a lot better for him.

Unfortunately though, things are what they currently are. Putting him down for 7% BB rate, 23% K rate, .310 BABIP, and 15 HRs/.151 ISO puts him at a .247/.306/.399/.704 line.

The good news, of coarse, is defense. The past three years, he has a TZ/150 of +14 runs in the OF, and that's not adjusting for time in CF (380 chances in CF, 528 in RF, 29 in LF). That's also not including his arm, which is a cannon. He should be about a +10 defender in a corner OF spot, and about average in CF.

He's also a good base runner, stealing 27 bases this past season and should be good for 10-20 SB a year. So about +2 runs on the base paths.

However, that's not enough to make up for his bat. With a .704 OPS, this would just make him a 1.14 WAR player. Certainly some room to hope for improvement, but he's looking more like he'll take the brett carroll defensive replacement OFer spot once Carroll hits arbitration.

Some (somewhat) good news though is he does look like he could become a .730-.750 OPS bat against RHP. While he has shown that he can hit the ball with the same authority v.s. LHP that he does against RHP, the problem is actually hitting the ball. Combined with his defense, this makes him a borderline average starter against RHP. Combine him with a, say, Brett Carroll, who is a borderline average starter against LHP, and you're looking at average production combined. This would not be an ideal situation but he still has some use as a starter even if his power doesn't pick up.

And adding a guy who shouldn't touch a top 50 list but is still someone to keep an eye on

Brandon Tripp.

After hitting .288/.377/.531/.908 Bal's A team (Who's stadium is the equivalent of Jupiter), he'd hit just .236/.402/.698 for their A+ team in '08 (Who's stadium is the equivalent of Greensboro) and was released before the '09 season. The Marlins picked him up and stuck him in Jupiter. As a 24 year old in A+ ball, he should certainly be expected to hit well. And he did. He put up a park adjusted line of .288/.356/.470/.826 with a 24 HR/150.

Most impressively though is what he did to his K rate. After striking out 30.5% of the time in '08, he struck out just 23% of the time this past season. Still high, but much improved.

Another major thing is that Tripp, a left handed batter, has a major split in his career against RHP and it showed last year aswell. His park adjusted line against RHP? .307/.371/.518/.888, with a HR/150 of 31.

He certainly still has a long way to go, but the Marlins have always liked him and re-signed him quickly this offseason, so he'll likely get his due in the minors here. And he's someone to keep an eye on of possibly becoming a bench bat or possibly even a platoon starter down the road.

So we essentially already know what our '10 bullpen is going to look like. The question is, how can we expect these guys to perform next season?

First thing: Keep in mind the average RP arm is basically a 4.10ish ERA guy.

Who all is competing?  Right now we know:

Basically locks:
Matt Lindstrom (Either 1 option or out of options)
Leo Nunez (Out of options)
Brian Sanches (Out of options)
Dan Meyer (Out of options)
Renyel Pinto (Out of options)
Rick VandenHurk (Out of options)
Burke Badenhop (1 option left but very effective)

A bullpen consists of 7 relievers, normally two of which are lefties.  That above is 7 relievers, two of which are lefties.  However, Pinto may be traded (Hunter Jones, Taylor Tankersley, and Jay Voss (long shot) would likely compete for the last spot), as well as one or both of Lindstrom and Nunez.  For those two, in the minors we have Tim Wood, Ryan Tucker, Chris Leroux, Christhian Martinez, Jay Buente, Hayden Penn, Brett Sinkbeil, Garrett Parcell, and Kris Harvey [Roughly in order of what I'd assume the likeliness being they make the team].

I'm going to focus on the 7 above "locks", plus Tim Wood, who is the only one out of that group who has somewhat of a ML sample size and the probable favorite to replace an arm next season.

Brian Sanches

There's a lot to support that Sanches won't repeat his 2.56 ERA from this past season, and not just that fact that he's been a MILB journeyman. He finished the season with a FIP of 4.14, and very much less impressively an xFIP of 4.66.

One of the main problems was his BB/9; he finished the season with a 4.15 BB/9 and his MLB career walk rate now sits at 4.88 (Average is normally around 3.5). This is quite the far cry from his minor league numbers, where he's put up a 2.47 BB/9 since he was converted into a reliever back in 2004.

However, one of the more staggering numbers is his intentional walks given up. He led the team in IBB, which includes starting pitchers, while only pitching 56 innings.

Considering IBB's aren't a proper explanation of a players control, if we take that out from his BB rate, his BB/9 drops to a nice 2.89, a lot more around what to expect based off his MILB track record.

For his K rate, he finished with a 8.15 K/9 and now has a career rate of 8.01. So this will probably transfer over again.

His HR rates, however, are another matter. He gave up a FB exactly half the time, a staggering rate. His HR/FB of 6.2% is quite a drop in what to expect, and is why his xFIP is so high. xFIP called for him to give up 3 more HRs, or 1.28 HR/9.

So without a doubt, Sanches is not without his issues. He's the typical FB pitcher that is able to get by because of a good K/BB, but will never be great because of the HRs given up (You'll notice this will be a trend for our bullpen).

There is one thing though, as his MILB FB% since 2005 with just 40.3%, and his MLB career rate now sits at 45.9%. If we assume he's more around the mid 40's, this would have dropped his expected HR/9 from last season down to 1.12, a lot more respectable number (Average is normally around 1).

So if say next season he can put up a 8 k/9, a 3 BB/9, and a 1.15 HR/9, this would put him at a 4.08 FIP, or exactly league average. So, especially considering the fact he's cost controlled for two more seasons as well as the fact he can eat up multiple innings, he'll be a nice valuable reliever. There's certainly some cause for concern, especially with his HR and FB rates, but he was a nice pick up by the FO.

Dan Meyer

Basically the LHP version of Sanches.

His 3.09 final ERA was very nice, and his FIP of 3.87 showed that he pitched well. He also wasn't particularly beneficial of the HR, as his xFIP was just 4.14. However, his FB rate was still a massive 48.1%, and his HR/9 rate will likely continue to be in the 1.1-1.2 range.

There's also a pretty big concern about his BB rates. While he finished the season with an above average rate of 3.24, it was 4.30 in the second half. And considering that he is inside the strike zone at a league average rate, and gets swings outside the strike zone at a below average rate, well, he's probably closer to the 4.30 number than the 3.24 number.

We can simply call him league average though, which is about 3.50, but there is certainly a "Proceed with caution" sign attached to it. And his K-rate of 8.64 was very impressive, and only got better as the season progressed.

So even with a bump in BB and HR rates, his K rates should still perform at a good level, which again put him at around an average reliever. If we put him down for 8.5 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, and 1.15 HR/9, this puts him at a 4.14 FIP.

Leo Nunez

Want to talk HR problems? The biggest issue in Nunez's career came in full force last season. His 5.17 FIP was just horrible, though his 4.32 xFIP is a lot more caring. His FB rate was roughly his career rate (43%) but his HR/FB rocketed all the way to 15.1%. If he's able to fall back down towards his career rate of 10.9%, there's a lot more to like.

There's also a lot more to like about a dropping HR rate: more strike outs. While his career HR/9 sits at 1.34, his career K rate sits at 6.4. A guy always labeled to have good "stuff", it finally came to fuition this past season as he threw his change up more and his K rate rose to 7.86. It's simple: You strike out more players, less balls in play, less chance of a ball leaving the park.

If he's able to be an 8 K/9 guy, his career HR/9 rate would drop to a 1.26 rate. Still bad, but still an improvement.

However, with that increase change up usage came a drop in control, at his BB/9 rose to 3.54 while before this season it sat at 2.71. Part of that had to do with more than doubling his career IBB rates, but his uIBB% still rose as well, from 6.4% the previous 4 seasons to 7.59% this past season. So his BB rates should certainly lower from this past season, but will still likely be higher than his career rate. He'll probably be around a 3 BB/9.

So if we say 8 k/9, 3 BB/9, and a 1.26 HR/9, it still puts him at just a 4.24 FIP. Entering his first year of arbitration, the Marlins are likely better off trading him this off season while he's still considered a "young live arm", as well as having racked up 26 saves.

Matt Lindstrom

One of the main things to understand about Lindstrom's numbers this past season: He was injured in the WBC and never really fully healed, which really showed in his control. His BB/9 jumped to a whopping 4.56, while his career rate currently sits at 3.72, which is likely a lot closer to Lindstorm's true talent level.

You also know more or less what you're getting in his K rate: last season he finished with a 7.42 rate, while his career rate sits at 7.55.

One of the things that he has really benefited from though his HRs. He gave up a total of 3 in 07-08 combined. That number nearly tripled this past season (5), but that's also probably more around what to expect, with a 9.3 HR/FB rate this past season. However, he still gets GB's a decent rate, and a HR/9 of around 0.85 is probably about what to expect.

So if we say he's a 7.5 K/9, 3.75 BB/9, and 0.85 HR/9, that puts him at a 4.01 FIP.

One cause of concern though: Lindstrom's lowest BABIP in a season is .321, and his carer rate now sits at .332. He has only pitched 171.7 IP, but he also had a career LD% against of 19.7. If this is a trend that continues, that's means he's going to constantly perform above what his FIP would tell us.

Tim Wood

What an average name for what an average talent.

He hasn't pitched anywhere close enough in the majors to really get a grasp on him, but at the same time he's pitched basically what you'd have expected from the minors. What's interesting, thanks to Stat Corner, is put side by side his AAA numbers to his MLB numbers.

K swinging%: 18.2%/16.5%
K looking%: 2.84%/0% (Not a single K looking at the major league level)
Unintentional BB%: 8.52%/9.28%

So far, he's basically been able to translate from the MILB to the MLB. Will that stay? Can't say until he has more experience.

But for now, if we say he's able to be a average/slightly below average talent at striking hitters out, a average/slightly below average talent at walking hitters, and an above average talent at prevent HRs and XBH, well, we have an average to slightly above average RP.

Penciling him in for a 6.75 K/9, 3.75 BB/9, and 0.8 HR/9 puts him at a 4.11 FIP, and there's certainly room to grow in the K/BB. I especially think he can hit the generally-mandatory 2 K/BB ratio.

Renyel Pinto

Pinto is a real interesting case. His career FIP is a horrid 4.77 thanks to his abysmal BB/9 of 6. However, his career ERA in 214 innings is 3.70. This is thanks to a great strand rate (78.5%, average is normally around 70%), which itself is helped by a good BABIP (.270). And it's not without warrant, his career LD% against is just 16.7%.

He does strike out batters at an above average rate (Career 8.65), and gives up HR's at a league average rate (0.97), but his BB rate is just not acceptable. Since 2006, no pitcher who has pitched at least 150 combined innings has a higher BB/9. Not even Carlos Marmol, who is second at 5.85. Marmol though is also a similar case,where he's gotten by thanks to a high K rate, strand rate, and low BABIP and LD rates. Will these guys be able to sustain their good ERA numbers? It'll be interesting to see.

For now, there's only two things we know: The numbers say he's going to come crashing down, but at the same time he's still been able to get by.

Burke Badenhop

Badenhop gives us one major question: how does a sinkerball pitcher with sub-par stuff go from having a MILB K rate of 6.1 to having a K rate as a reliever of 7.3?

Well, there's one answer: Players struck out looking a massive 7.9% of the time against him. So his stuff was still sub-par, hitters just weren't swinging (Swingers swung at balls 41% of the time against him this past season. League average is 45%, or about 50 more swings).

If we drop his K looking% down to a more respectable 5%, his K/9 drops to a more expected 6.2.

That's not to bash on the Hopper though. His unintentional BB/9 was a terrific 2.07 as a reliever, and his 53% GB rate was 13th in the NL. He's still not going to walk people, he's still not going to give up many HRs.

If we put him down for a 6.25 K/9, 2.25 BB/9,and 0.75 HR/9, we're still talking about a 3.64 FIP for him. His conversion as a mop-up reliever to higher leverage situations should continue into next season, as he could end up being our best reliever next season after being our second best this past season (Behind Kiko Calero).

Rick Vanden Hurk

Nothing has been said yet of converting him to a BP arm yet, but considering he's 1) out of options, 2) does not go deep into games, and 3) we have a full rotation already, he's likely starting point next year is the bullpen.

What can we expect? It's hard to say when all he's done so far is start.

What we do know: He gives up a massive amount of FBs and a massive amount of HRs. His MLB FB% sits at 47.9%, HR/FB at 12.4%, and HR/9 at 1.57. You certainly hope these drop as a reliever, but we're still talking of hoping he becomes a 1.2-1.3 HR/9 guy.

What we do know: His new slider that he learned in the WBC from Bert Blyleven has really improved his control, although is did also hurt his K rate. He finished with just a 7.52 K/9 (9.6 K/9 previously), but just a 3.22 BB/9 (5.5 previously).

Again it's hard to say what we can really expect with him moving to the bullpen, but if we call him at 7.75 K/9, 3 BB/9, 1.25 HR/9, that basically makes him Leo Nunez. You really hope that the K rates can sky-rocket to their previous level while keeping his great walk rates, and you really hope something gets done about those HRs, but for now its hard to project anything more than an average reliever.

However, he certainly has major break out potential, and could finish the season closing out games.

to sum it up
sh*t ton of average arms, with a major need of Tucker/Ceda/possibly Leroux to really put it together and come up and an ace reliever.

Recap of stats: FIP, fielding indepentant pitching, takes away anything a fielder influences and just looks at the things a pitcher is soley responsible for (BB, K, and HR). xFIP tries to neutralize the HR aspect, as it’s normally not possible to sustain a very low HR/FB or a very high HR/FB (unless you suck).

though new stat this year with tERA which will help show guys with high LD% as frauds. While pitchers aren’t soley responsible to a ball after it’s put in play, they are responsible for what type of ball is put in play (GB, FB, LD, IFFB), so it assigns weights to those.

anywayz. only doing guys I actually find interesting.

of note

NOLA

Rick Vanden Hurk-
It’s the first time since he was a 19 year old in Jupiter in 2004 that he finished with less strike outs than innings pitched. It’s also easily the best BB/9 of his career, which led to him post a BB/9 of 3.66 in the show after having a career MLB BB/9 of 5.45, and you take that trade off all the time. Yeah he was probably lucky with HRs but oh well, he countered it by being unlucky in the majors

What’s interesting though is, at least at the ML level, he’s no throwing more balls within the strike zone. Instead, he’s getting more wiffs at balls outside the strike zone. Which you can basically thank that new slider to. It’s a very very good thing he throws that pitch now.

Tim Wood-
I hated him after ‘08 when he didn’t strike anybody out and I was like why are we protecting him but score one FO and no me. And he’s performing admirably at the ML level. Yeah, his strike outs aren’t too hot up here so far, but I love the control he’s shown up here, combined with his ability to get GBs ergo keep down XBH/HR. If the strike outs come, he’ll be good. If they don’t, he’s still serviceable.

Mobley took a big step back on K’s, and while FIP still likes him, tRA really doesn’t like him, and I’d almost always go with tRA. But looking like MILB journeyman really, which was really just affirmed after the whole Rule V thing last year. Penn was a lot better than I thought, Sink wasn’t as bad as his ERA showed by he’s still f’n bad. Buente had pretty solid numbers but with a BB/9 of 4.66 I aint that interested.

Jax:

West-At first glance of West’s HR/9 you’d say he was unlucky. But he wasn’t. His FB% rocketted this season and his GB% plummeted. That seemed to have corrected itself in his second stint in the majors but it’s definitely something to monitor

Thompson was pretty damn solid but right now I’d probably say you’d be expecting around a 4.5 ERA so about a #4. Great to have in ones system but far from something that makes or breaks.

The main thing about AA was the BP arms. Parcell and Voss are real real f***ing awesome. 60%+ GB rates for both, high K rates for both, great control for both. Voss is especially big since he’s a lefty. And Leroux finishing another great campaign. Our NOLA BP next year is gonna be stacked. Those 3, Wood, Tucker, maybe Ceda, Tank. sh*t. Now if only NOLA could build a rotation.

JupJup

Winters keeps on looking like a bit worse Volstad. Sanabia has been getting a lot of dap throughout the season but his numbers overall have been rather meh. Meanwhile, Jose Rosario finally found control and beat him across the board. What’s the story on Jose Rose, legit or smoke? Just 23.

And again a ncie showing from BP arms, though not quite AA style. Jhan Marinez is just 20 and jumped from the GCL team to Jupiter. Steven Cishek (23) had a real nice season, Korpi (23) was solid. Kinda old for A+ ball but they’re also college draft picks so what can ya do. Battisto is 25 but he was also called up to AA than AAA (takes all the numbers into account but most of his IP were in Jup) so the FO seems to like him. Gunderson’s 24 and is the guy we got in the Kensing trade, was called up to NOLA for an appearance.

And while Kris Harvey got a lot of fanfare for turning into a RP, he wasn’t the only 24yo former high position player draft pick to turn into an RP this season. Jon Fulton joined him, and in fact pitched better than him.

Greeny’s Boro

First name that comes to attention is always gonna be Hand. Gotta love his upside, and he still logged in a solid year after his horrible first month. FIP still absolutely adores Kaminska but tRA not so much. Part of the issues is how many batters he hit (16), which FIP doesn’t take into account. That’s pretty surprising with the BB/9 he has. HBP doesn’t go back to last year so can’t say if he has a history of it. Johnny Dorn’s 23 so major meh. Graham Johnson was major meh but only 19. Sandy Rosy related to Jose Rose? He’s 23 so meh but he’s had good peripherals for awhile now, though also not much to go on haha, 40 IP in 06 but just 9 in 07 and 08 what’s the story morning glory on that?

To me the biggest name is Tom Koehler. Pretty old at 23 for that level but stellar year. With what Ramp had to say at the start of the year (http://floridamarlin…om-koehler.html), combined with his numbers, he’s shot way up much charts.

And while Peter Andre had a huuuuge year (don’t let his ERA in jupiter make you disbeleive, he still had outstanding peripherals), overall the BP wasn’t as impressive as other stops. Despite his ERA Yecker still looks like a decent RP spec, Evans logged in a good year but at 22 he’s kinda fringe age. Tood was 24 so yeah meh, Rodolfo’s 23 so also kinda eh but damn that is a nice line.

So yeah, same story repeat repeat not much SP but damn we got some BP arms.

Season ending top specs?

For me I’d have SP probably top 10 of

1-Hand
2-Winters
3-Kaminska
4-Koehler
5-Jose Rose
6-Sanabia
7-Graham
8-Sandy Rosy
9-Dorn
10-Dallas

Maybe Elih #9 or #10 instead but shrug. Wanna see what he does in Jax before really forming an opinion on him. I probably have Hand B-, Winters C+ but maybe B-, Kammy to Sanabia or maybe Koehler C+, rest C’s.

Nobody in short season ball for me (or recent draft picks), I want to see full season ball performance before forming an opinion. Doesn’t mean you have to follow that though.

RP

1. Tucker
2. Voss <-lefty
3. Leroux
4. Parcell
5. Wood
6. Ceda <- would be #1 but with his history of taking horrible care of his body, I don’t have much faith he bounces back well from a torn labrum
7.Andre <- to far away to rank above the guy who are basically ready
8.Jennings
9. Marinez
10. Cishek

Gotta love the RP depth man.
——————–
Somebody I forgot and I don’t know how I forgot is Dan Jennings

22yo guy who spent most of the year in Greensboro but also had limited time in Jupiter and Jax.

ERA: 2.15
tERA: 2.78
xtERA: 3.38
FIP: 2.30
xFIP: 2.92

Just another guy to love for our BP. And big points for being lefty

——————–

So here’s a nifty pic of how all our hitters did once you park factor their numbers. And it also shows how good their OPS is relative to their league. After all, a 900 OPS in a league that averages a 900 OPS isn’t good, but it’s amazing in a league that averages a .900 OPS.

Quick run down of the parks/leagues

NOLA: Pitchers park that’s real hard on HRs. Not Jupiter level but closer to Jupiter than it is average. However the League OPS is .758. NL OPS is .740 for reference.

JAX: Basically Neutral across the board but everything dips a dip towards pitching. League OPS of .711

Jup: Pitchers Park that’s absolutely terrible on HRs. League OPS of .684

Greensboro: Hitters Haven, is a HR launching pad. League OPS of .692

Jamestown: A lot is always made over Greensboro and HRs. Did you know that Jamestown is even more of a HR and hitters park? League OPS of .670.

GCL Rookie team: Plays it same park as Jupiter team does. League OPS of .652.

It’s funny that players go from Roger Dean Stadium (Jupiter’s park), which is so hard on HRs, to then absolutely launching pads in Jamestown and Greensboro, just to go back to RDS lol.

Anyway pic:

So it’s probably fair to say that the guy with the best OPS compared to his league had the most successful season yes?

Not surprisingly, this award falls onto the hands of Mike Stanton’s park adjusted 1.022 OPS.  He’d finish with the highest non-adjusted OPS in the league, with only two other players finishing above .900 (One being the Phillies Dominic Brown at .903, the other being 25 year old career OPS of .744 Robinson Chirinos at .915).

Marcell Ozuna would come in 2nd, with Logan Morrison in third, Kyle Jensen in 4th, and Brandon Todd/Ryan Curry basically tieing for 5th (though as 24yos in A+ ball, not so impressive), using a 200 PA minimum.

Some names that pop up that you probably haven’t heard of:

Wilfredo Gimenez - The real C of the future? He doesn’t have the fanfare, but he had the best production out of all the C’s in the minors this year. He put up a park adjusted line of .288/.361/.385/.745 with an amazing BB/K of 14/9 in 104 AB for the GCL team. He put up similiar numbers for the Dominican League affiliate last season. He also seems to have a strong arm, throwing out 40% of runners this season. His lack of power hurts but being just 18 years old, you hope he can grow into some, and you just have to love that BB/K.

Carlos Paulino - The GCL team wasn’t the only SS team to have a nice showing from their back stop. The 19 year out old of the DR put up a nice park adjusted line of .291/.340/.411/.751 for Jamestown. He wasn’t anywhere nearly as impressive as Gimenez, having the same power questions and only putting up a 11/27 BB/K in 141 AB, but you always like to see C’s perform well.

Brent Keys - Taken in this last draft in the 17th round, the 18 year old did a lot of things right. His park adjusted line would be .301/.399/.331/.730. Yes, the .030 ISO is very very bad, but he’d also put up a 28/20 BB/K in 163 AB, and he’s also very young. He also went 13 for 17 in stealing bases. There’s no fielding stats for GCL league, so not sure how he did there, but if he’s a plus defensive CF, there’s quite a few things to like.

Michael Synan - A 42nd round draft pick in 08, he’s put up back to back years of solid lines while not being old for the leagues. However, going by Total Zone, he an absolutely horrible fielder, scoring a -17 in LF for Greensboro this season. A move to first base could help things.

Terrence Dayleg-The 21 year old was the marlins 22nd round selection in this past years draft. He split time at SS and 3B for the GCL team. If he can stay at SS, he becomes interesting, but a lot less so if he’s forced to play 3B. He finished with a park adjusted line of .277/.377/.400/.777, .125 points higher than league average. One of the main things though is he also finished with a 16/18 BB/K. Being old for the league and a late round draft pick, he’s very meh at the moment, and it’s questionable if that BB/K holds up after having a 0.46 BB/K in college. But he could be someone to look out for if that BB/K is for real

As for BB/K, those that ended up being interesting you should already know or are already listed above so just a quick run down of who won and who lost.

1) Wilfredo Giminez, 1.56
2) Brent Keys, 1.40
3) Logan Morrison, 1.37
4) Chris Coghlan, 1.20
5) Brandon Turner, 1.05

And the losers

1) Jose Ceballos, 0.13
2) Isaac Galloway, 0.13 (”lost” by .009 points, and the only non-DR on the list)
3) Ernesto Manzanillo, 0.15
4) Jose Torres, 0.17
5) Joel De Los Santos, 0.18

Actually there is one name I want to bring up. Marquise Cooper finished with a solid 0.67 BB/K, striking out 19.3% of the time while walking 10.6% of the time. With his speed he should be able to hit for BABIP, and he should be able to hit for some power based off his body, so that’s looking good there even though overall his year sucked.

Speaking of DR though, I didn’t do them because there are no known park factors, but in terms of relative to league and BB/K, there is one name that does stnad out. Pedro Mendoza finished the year with a line of .314/.393/.366/.759 with a BB/K of 17/13 in 175 AB. The league average OPS was only .669, so his OPS was the equivalent of about a .840 OPS in the NL. 18 year old 3b.

recap of stats: FIP, fielding indepentant pitching, takes away anything a fielder influences and just looks at the things a pitcher is soley responsible for (BB, K, and HR). xFIP tries to neutralize the HR aspect, as it’s normally not possible to sustain a very low HR/FB or a very high HR/FB (unless you suck).

though new stat this year with tERA which will help show guys with high LD% as frauds. While pitchers aren’t soley responsible to a ball after it’s put in play, they are responsible for what type of ball is put in play (GB, FB, LD, IFFB), so it assigns weights to those.

anywayz. only doing guys I actually find interesting.

of note

NOLA

Rick Vanden Hurk-
It’s the first time since he was a 19 year old in Jupiter in 2004 that he finished with less strike outs than innings pitched. It’s also easily the best BB/9 of his career, which led to him post a BB/9 of 3.66 in the show after having a career MLB BB/9 of 5.45, and you take that trade off all the time. Yeah he was probably lucky with HRs but oh well, he countered it by being unlucky in the majors

What’s interesting though is, at least at the ML level, he’s no throwing more balls within the strike zone. Instead, he’s getting more wiffs at balls outside the strike zone. Which you can basically thank that new slider to. It’s a very very good thing he throws that pitch now.

Tim Wood-
I’m loving him. I hated him after ‘08 when he didn’t strike anybody out and I was like why are we protecting him but score one FO and no me. And he’s performing admirably at the ML level. Yeah, his strike outs aren’t too hot up here so far, but I love the control he’s shown up here, combined with his ability to get GBs ergo keep down XBH/HR. If the strike outs come, he’ll be good. If they don’t, he’s still serviceable.

Mobley took a big step back on K’s, and while FIP still likes him, tRA really doesn’t like him, and I’d almost always go with tRA. But looking like MILB journeyman really, which was really just affirmed after the whole Rule V thing last year. Penn was a lot better than I thought, Sink wasn’t as bad as his ERA showed by he’s still f’n bad. Buente had pretty solid numbers but with a BB/9 of 4.66 I aint that interested.

Jax:

West-At first glance of West’s HR/9 you’d say he was unlucky. But he wasn’t. His FB% rocketted this season and his GB% plummeted. That seemed to have corrected itself in his second stint in the majors but it’s definitely something to monitor

Thompson was pretty damn solid but right now I’d probably say you’d be expecting around a 4.5 ERA so about a #4. Great to have in ones system but far from something that makes or breaks.

The main thing about AA was the BP arms. Parcell and Voss are real real f***ing awesome. 60%+ GB rates for both, high K rates for both, great control for both. Voss is especially big since he’s a lefty. And Leroux finishing another great campaign. Our NOLA BP next year is gonna be stacked. Those 3, Wood, Tucker, maybe Ceda, Tank. sh*t. Now if only NOLA could build a rotation.

JupJup

Winters keeps on looking like a bit worse Volstad. Sanabia has been getting a lot of dap throughout the season but his numbers overall have been rather meh. Meanwhile, Jose Rosario finally found control and beat him across the board. What’s the story on Jose Rose, legit or smoke? Just 23.

And again a ncie showing from BP arms, though not quite AA style. Jhan Marinez is just 20 and jumped from the GCL team to Jupiter. Steven Cishek (23) had a real nice season, Korpi (23) was solid. Kinda old for A+ ball but they’re also college draft picks so what can ya do. Battisto is 25 but he was also called up to AA than AAA (takes all the numbers into account but most of his IP were in Jup) so the FO seems to like him. Gunderson’s 24 and is the guy we got in the Kensing trade, was called up to NOLA for an appearance.

And while Kris Harvey got a lot of fanfare for turning into a RP, he wasn’t the only 24yo former high position player draft pick to turn into an RP this season. Jon Fulton joined him, and in fact pitched better than him.

Greeny’s Boro

First name that comes to attention is always gonna be Hand. Gotta love his upside, and he still logged in a solid year after his horrible first month. FIP still absolutely adores Kaminska but tRA not so much. Part of the issues is how many batters he hit (16), which FIP doesn’t take into account. That’s pretty surprising with the BB/9 he has. HBP doesn’t go back to last year so can’t say if he has a history of it. Johnny Dorn’s 23 so major meh. Graham Johnson was major meh but only 19. Sandy Rosy related to Jose Rose? He’s 23 so meh but he’s had good peripherals for awhile now, though also not much to go on haha, 40 IP in 06 but just 9 in 07 and 08 what’s the story morning glory on that?

To me the biggest name is Tom Koehler. Pretty old at 23 for that level but stellar year. With what Ramp had to say at the start of the year (http://floridamarlin…om-koehler.html), combined with his numbers, he’s shot way up much charts.

And while Peter Andre had a huuuuge year (don’t let his ERA in jupiter make you disbeleive, he still had outstanding peripherals), overall the BP wasn’t as impressive as other stops. Despite his ERA Yecker still looks like a decent RP spec, Evans logged in a good year but at 22 he’s kinda fringe age. Tood was 24 so yeah meh, Rodolfo’s 23 so also kinda eh but damn that is a nice line.

So yeah, same story repeat repeat not much SP but damn we got some BP arms.

Season ending top specs?

For me I’d have SP probably top 10 of

1-Hand
2-Winters
3-Kaminska
4-Koehler
5-Jose Rose
6-Sanabia
7-Graham
8-Sandy Rosy
9-Dorn
10-Dallas

Maybe Elih #9 or #10 instead but shrug. Wanna see what he does in Jax before really forming an opinion on him. I probably have Hand B-, Winters C+ but maybe B-, Kammy to Sanabia or maybe Koehler C+, rest C’s.

Nobody in short season ball for me (or recent draft picks), I want to see full season ball performance before forming an opinion. Doesn’t mean you have to follow that though.

RP

1. Tucker
2. Voss <-lefty
3. Leroux
4. Parcell
5. Wood
6. Ceda <- would be #1 but with his history of taking horrible care of his body, I don’t have much faith he bounces back well from a torn labrum
7.Andre <- to far away to rank above the guy who are basically ready
8.Jennings
9. Marinez
10. Cishek

Gotta love the RP depth man.
——————–
Somebody I forgot and I don’t know how I forgot is Dan Jennings

22yo guy who spent most of the year in Greensboro but also had limited time in Jupiter and Jax.

ERA: 2.15
tERA: 2.78
xtERA: 3.38
FIP: 2.30
xFIP: 2.92

Just another guy to love for our BP. And big points for being lefty

——————–

So here’s a nifty pic of how all our hitters did once you park factor their numbers. And it also shows how good their OPS is relative to their league. After all, a 900 OPS in a league that averages a 900 OPS isn’t good, but it’s amazing in a league that averages a .900 OPS.

Quick run down of the parks/leagues

NOLA: Pitchers park that’s real hard on HRs. Not Jupiter level but closer to Jupiter than it is average. However the League OPS is .758. NL OPS is .740 for reference.

JAX: Basically Neutral across the board but everything dips a dip towards pitching. League OPS of .711

Jup: Pitchers Park that’s absolutely terrible on HRs. League OPS of .684

Greensboro: Hitters Haven, is a HR launching pad. League OPS of .692

Jamestown: A lot is always made over Greensboro and HRs. Did you know that Jamestown is even more of a HR and hitters park? League OPS of .670.

GCL Rookie team: Plays it same park as Jupiter team does. League OPS of .652.

It’s funny that players go from Roger Dean Stadium (Jupiter’s park), which is so hard on HRs, to then absolutely launching pads in Jamestown and Greensboro, just to go back to RDS lol.

Anyway pic:

So it’s probably fair to say that the guy with the best OPS compared to his league had the most successful season yes?

Not surprisingly, this award falls onto the hands of Mike Stanton’s park adjusted 1.022 OPS. It’d be the equivalent of a 1.11 OPS in the NL, making him the Albert Pujols of the FSL. He’d finish with the highest non-adjusted OPS in the league, with only two other players finishing above .900 (One being the Phillies Dominic Brown at .903, the other being 25 year old career OPS of .744 Robinson Chirinos at .915).

Marcell Ozuna would come in 2nd, with Logan Morrison in third, Kyle Jensen in 4th, and Brandon Todd/Ryan Curry basically tieing for 5th (though as 24yos in A+ ball, not so impressive), using a 200 PA minimum.

Some names that pop up that you probably haven’t heard of:

Wilfredo Gimenez - The real C of the future? He doesn’t have the fanfare, but he had the best production out of all the C’s in the minors this year. He put up a park adjusted line of .288/.361/.385/.745 with an amazing BB/K of 14/9 in 104 AB for the GCL team. He put up similiar numbers for the Dominican League affiliate last season. He also seems to have a strong arm, throwing out 40% of runners this season. His lack of power hurts but being just 18 years old, you hope he can grow into some, and you just have to love that BB/K.

Carlos Paulino - The GCL team wasn’t the only SS team to have a nice showing from their back stop. The 19 year out old of the DR put up a nice park adjusted line of .291/.340/.411/.751 for Jamestown. He wasn’t anywhere nearly as impressive as Gimenez, having the same power questions and only putting up a 11/27 BB/K in 141 AB, but you always like to see C’s perform well.

Brent Keys - Taken in this last draft in the 17th round, the 18 year old did a lot of things right. His park adjusted line would be .301/.399/.331/.730. Yes, the .030 ISO is very very bad, but he’d also put up a 28/20 BB/K in 163 AB, and he’s also very young. He also went 13 for 17 in stealing bases. There’s no fielding stats for GCL league, so not sure how he did there, but if he’s a plus defensive CF, there’s quite a few things to like.

Michael Synan - A 42nd round draft pick in 08, he’s put up back to back years of solid lines while not being old for the leagues. However, going by Total Zone, he an absolutely horrible fielder, scoring a -17 in LF for Greensboro this season. A move to first base could help things.

Ryan Keedy-Drafted by the Cubs in the 16th round of the ‘08 draft, he was released? earlier this season after hitting only .236 with no extra base hits in 89 ABs for the cubs A+ affiliate. He absolutely torched it with us though. Being a 1b, he’ll have to continue that success to go anywhere. However, he’s also 23 years old.

Terrence Dayleg-The 21 year old was the marlins 22nd round selection in this past years draft. He split time at SS and 3B for the GCL team. If he can stay at SS, he becomes interesting, but a lot less so if he’s forced to play 3B. He finished with a park adjusted line of .277/.377/.400/.777, .125 points higher than league average. One of the main things though is he also finished with a 16/18 BB/K. Being old for the league and a late round draft pick, he’s very meh at the moment, and it’s questionable if that BB/K holds up after having a 0.46 BB/K in college. But he could be someone to look out for if that BB/K is for real

As for BB/K, those that ended up being interesting you should already know or are already listed above so just a quick run down of who won and who lost.

1) Wilfredo Giminez, 1.56
2) Brent Keys, 1.40
3) Logan Morrison, 1.37
4) Chris Coghlan, 1.20
5) Brandon Turner, 1.05

And the losers

1) Jose Ceballos, 0.13
2) Isaac Galloway, 0.13 (”lost” by .009 points, and the only non-DR on the list)
3) Ernesto Manzanillo, 0.15
4) Jose Torres, 0.17
5) Joel De Los Santos, 0.18

Actually there is one name I want to bring up. Marquise Cooper finished with a solid 0.67 BB/K, striking out 19.3% of the time while walking 10.6% of the time. With his speed he should be able to hit for BABIP, and he should be able to hit for some power based off his body, so that’s looking good there even though overall his year sucked.

Speaking of DR though, I didn’t do them because there are no known park factors, but in terms of relative to league and BB/K, there is one name that does stnad out. Pedro Mendoza finished the year with a line of .314/.393/.366/.759 with a BB/K of 17/13 in 175 AB. The league average OPS was only .669, so his OPS was the equivalent of about a .840 OPS in the NL. 18 year old 3b.

Hi. :D

Quick summary: I'm trying to predict future team performance and I was using wOBA (The formula at http://www.insidethebook.com/woba.shtml ).  However, when comparing the OPS/run totals to OPS/run totals that actually have occurred, my run totals were way higher.  For instance, the one I have up right now is a .764 OPS.  Teams generally scored between 770-800 runs with that OPS.  wOBA said they would finish with 827 runs, quite a bit higher than what past results have said.

I have a friend who basically only uses Extrapolated Runs so I decided to try that out.  Same results, 827 runs.  Except I had excluded GIDP from XR since I didn't project them (wasn't needed for wOBA after all).  Well, once I gave the team the average amount of GIDP (~130), that lowered their XR down to 779, a hell of a lot more reasonable number.

So given that XR and wOBA had the same results without GIDP, and that XR then had reasonable results after including GIDP, the easy conclusion is that the issue with wOBA was GIDP.

Is there a wOBA formula that takes GIDP into account?  On Fangraphs I believe I've read their wOBA takes base running into account but they've never actually said how.  On your power rankings you use BP's base running, but I believe that doesn't take into account GIDP either.

So, yeah, what's up?

<3Danke sehr.<3

so lets talk platoons

well more appropriately splits.

One of the misconceptions about splits is that people look at OPS as the final answer. That is far from correct. The problem is that, mostly against LHP, we have a very small sample size to go off of. BABIP can completely skew results. ISO has it's own luck factors as well. That means, the best thing to look at is actually the BB/K rates to see if a lefty can handle a lefty, if a righty can handle a righty. If a player has BABIP skills, if a player has power, that's going to translate regardless of hand. That just comes into play after hitting the ball. What a player needs to do is be able to see the ball well, and BB/K is the best thing we have to tell us that.

This is without a doubt my biggest rage when it comes to people saying Boni is better against LHP. Sure, he has a .700 OPS against them compared to a .562 OPS against RHP. He also has a .396 BABIP against LHP, while just .268 against RHP. And his BB/K? 0.19 (6/39) compared to 0.44 against RHP (27/62).

Something else to remember is that almost always there is going to be a decent size split between hands for players. Sure, there are the Coghlan's of the world who hit both hands equally well, but they're rather rare. The most important thing is, can this player his this hand well enough? This comes more into play for RHB. It's not so bad to platoon a LHB, cuz most
pitchers are RHP (I think it's something like you'll face 75% RHP? I don't know exact number). But if a RHB can only hit LHB, they're not going to get much play time.


Gaby Sanchez



Now Gaby had been a target of this constantly because of his OPS against RHP has constantly been lower than LHP. This season was more of the same, as he put up a 1.031 OPS against LHP but just a .776 OPS against RHP. For his career, he has a 1.006 OPS against LHP, .822 OPS against RHP. And BABIP does play a big part.

So he's BB/K is barely different. There isn't that drastic of a difference in power, as he still had average to above average power in the minors against RHP. The biggest difference was BABIP. This wasn't unwarranted though. He had just a 16.8% LD rate against RHP, while it was 19.7% against LHP. He also hit a lot more pop ups against RHP (16% of FBs, compared to 11% of FBs against LHP).

So, we can assume he'd have something like a .280-.300 BABIP against RHP, while having a .310-.330 BABIP against LHP.

This is rather problematic though. If we assume a rather bad case scenerio (.280 BABIP, .140 ISO), that'd just be around a .250/.320/.390/.710 line. Which should be far, far from a corner infield spot. And the ISO might go even lower. A .300 BABIP does knock him into the mid 700s, but I think it's very unlikely he gets that high.

He would absolutely mash LHP though. We're talking about something, like, .300/.375/.485/.860 (.320 BABIP, .185 ISO) with room to grow. Makes him a good bench bat, especially considering our other 1b option is....

Logan Morrison



Unfortunately, Logan has done far to prove he can handle LHP, as he has just a 700 OPS against them. Here's an amazing stat for you: He has over 100 more ABs against RHP than LHP. He has only 4 more strike outs against RHP than LHP. That just shows you how drastic the difference is.

While there does seem to be a minor BABIP difference, it's just that, minor. He still hits just as many LDs against LHP than he does RHP, he'll still produce a good BABIP against them. And his power shows not much of a difference at all. It all comes down to strike outs. It's even more drastic this season: He's striking out less than 13% of the time against RHP, which is just crazy. His strike out rate against LHP is almost double though, at exactly 25%.

So can he handle MLB pitching? Well, if we assume the K rate goes up even more against MLB (let's say 27%), while still mainting a good walk% and good enough power (9% BB, .155 ISO, .320 BABIP), he'd have around a .260/.325/.415/.740 line. That's not necessarily platoon material, but it's also not good. And that could go way down if his BABIP this season wasn't a fluke (given his LD%, it should be), same with his power numbers. But both of those also have room to grow if things start to translate. I wouldn't start him a platoon, but I'd also have a short leash with it.

He is going to be Double D Tit awesome though against RHP.

Matt Dominguez

Are you scared that his name's brought up?

Don't be. It's something to follow but not something to worry about.



As we can see, the only difference has been power. It has been a DRASTIC difference in power, which is a bit worrisome, but there is also some luck involved with power and we still don't have that good of a sample size with him. And this season it's dramatically smaller (just a 63 point difference). And he's still also at least showing enough power that he'll still handle RHP. I mean, worse comes worse he becomes Ryan Zimmerman circa 2007-2008. That's still ballin.

And there's also Scott Cousins but I had already covered him earlier in the year.  Cliffnotes: Strikes out way too much against LHP and will very very likely need a platoon.  Everything else is same line though, and he should be good against RHP with awsm defense.

If a player isn't mentioned, it means two things: Either there's not enough of a difference to worry about, or they're non-factors and not worth putting time into (If only Jameson Smith had the power he was suppose to have coming into the draft and could then become John Baker 2.0. Le Sigh). Actually there is a third option: It's Kyle Skipworth and he's showing a rather drastic split but he's so much of a project now that we can't take too much from him atm.

Tonight, Hanley went 3-3 with 2 walks, raising his season line to .365/.428/.575/1.003

It is now the latest that Hanley has broken the 1.000 OPS barrier.  His previous late was set this year on May 19th.  Before that, it was May 5th, 2007.

It should also be noted that Hanley has a career September OPS over 1.000.  Only once in his career did he not finish over 1.000 for the month, where he only had a .970 OPS in 2007.

It's a very special mark if he's actually able to do it.  Only 3 shortstops in the history of the game have finished with a OPS over 1.000: Alex Rodriguez (4 times), Nomar Garciaparra (2 times), and Arky Vaughn (1 time, and holds the record for highest OPS for a SS at 1.098).  It's also only been done once before by a Marlin player, Gary Sheffields monster 1996 season.

There can be a serious case made that Hanley is the MVP if the season were to end today.  And, for as rare as a SS finishing with a OPS over 1.000 is, he'd be the first one to win a MVP award along with it.

I figured this would probably be the best place to ask.

The only place I've found online that even gets into is fangraphs.  However, they very rarely ever actually gave formulas, it's mostly just words, which is very annoying.  Would be so much easier and efficient if they just posted the formula then explained the variables.

But I digress.

At -> http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/pitcher-win-values-explained-part-seven

He does give the basic formula for SP, which is (((18-AIP) * LRPG + AIP * FIP)/18)+2)*1.5

Where

AIP=Average IP per start

LRPG=Leage's average Run Per Game

and FIP=Fielding Independent Pitching.

This is the part that should be different for RP.  Afterall, you can't have an average IP per start for RP lol.  But what's the formula for this part for RP?  The rest should all be the same, outside of the league average win percent added for RP, but that's addressed in an earlier posted (.470%).

So Cody Ross's name has come up a lot in trade talks, which is no surprise considering how well Maybin is doing in NOLA and the fact that Cody will be in his second year of arbitration after the year. Although the Marlins could fit him in, he likely will not be here next season. Ontop of which, he's likely our most valueable trading chip. So what exactly is his value?

First you have to understand how good he is.

(Note: I compiled these numbers during the ASB, not going to re-do it all as it should barely have changed)

He took over the CF job for the Marlins in 2008. Since then, he has posted a .810 OPS and 17.1 wRAA On defense, he has a 9.7 UZR and a 9 plus/minus. Very good numbers. He has not been too good on the base paths though, which is normally expected out of a CFer, with only a 0.2 EQBRR. All togeather, this is a total of 27 runs going by UZR and 26.3 going by plus/minus.

Looking at CFers with atleast 120 games played (roughly 50% of games) since then, his 27 runs with UZR rank him 8th out of 26, and his 26.3 runs with plus minus rank him 7th. Needless to say, he's been one of the leagues better CFers.

Sorted by Offense+BR+UZR:



Sorted by Plus/Minus:



However, this also gives advantages to guys with more PAs and Innings. If we rate offense, base running, and fielding to a 150 game sample size, this is what we get

For UZR:



And Plus Minus:



As you can see, Cody is one of the better CFers in the league. By adding then runs for replacement level and positional (+24 runs total), we're talking about a 4 and a half win player, which is very good.

Of other interestings notes, since 2006 Cody Ross has the ISO of any CFer at .233. He ranks 23rd in all of baseball during that time period, ahead of guys like Burrell, Chipper, Holliday, and Morneau.

And dating back to 1901, he has the 9th highest career ISO of any player with atleast 50% of their games in CF. We're talking about one of the most powerful CFers of all time. Certinaly not Mantle or Griffey level, but still very impressive.

The team that trades for him also wouldn't just be getting a rental; he's under team control until after the '11 season. He's making 2.225m this season and will likely make around 3.5-4m in arbitration this coming offseason.

So, then, what exactly is his value?

Most likely, it's around what McClouth got. Although going by statistics, McClouth is worth one less run then Cody, you have to remember that not everybody goes off statistics and McClouth won a gold glove. There are also reports that there were those in Atlanta's office that wanted COdy instead because they thought they could get him for cheaper. I think it's safe to assume that McLouth's haul is a good comp though, which was 3 borderline C+/B- minus guys.

However, the Marlins really do not need depth, as they have one of the deepest minor league systems and not many ML holes to fill. So at that point, you're hoping for something more along the lines of one B spec and one C+ spec.

So then, who could be matches?

Cincinatti Reds: They're currently running Taveras out in CF and as you can see, he's very very bad. However, they have supposedly been more interested in Hermida. Though, with Bruce being really the only impressive OFer left there, getting both probably wouldn't be unheard of.
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

New York Yankees: If they aren't sold on Brett Gardner's production, he could be a fit for the Yanks. Gardner is also currently on the DL, leaving the CF job to Melky.
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

Kansas City Royals: While they did trade for CoCo Crips this past offseason, we can see above that he's not exactly impressive, and they have been making moves to be better now. However, Cody's below average career OBP of .324 might be too high for Dayton Moore.
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

Detroit Tigers: WIth Grandsen, Cody would move to a corner spot, but they could use the OF help
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

Chicago White Soxs: They just traded for Mark Kotsay, just enforcing how much they could use Cody
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

Seattle Mariners: They've shown they're defense first, and Cody is a very good defensive player. He'd play LF, and would put up a lot better offense then Endy Chavez (as it'll likely be his again next season) and Ryan Langerhans, while not being much worse defensively.
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

Oakland A's: They have a good amount of OFers, but only Davis can play CF like Cody and Cody is vastly supperior on offense.
Baseball America's top 10 | John Sickel's top 20

A couple other fits would be San Deigo and Cleveland but both seem to have given up not just on this year but next year aswell. The Twins could also be a fit, but that would involve them giving up on both Gomez and Young, which is unlikely.

And what are the Marlins needs?

3rd baseman: Currently Chris Coghlan, Emilio Bonifacio, and possibly Gaby Sanchez are the only ML-ready 3b options. We need a real 3rd baseman badly.
ML-ready starting pitcher: Anibal Sanchez is injured again, Andrew Miller is struggling again. With guys such as John Koronka, Graham Taylor, and Hayden Penn getting starts, the need screams badly.
And possibly catcher. Although Baker has done a nice job, fact remains he's aenemic against LHP and has very questionable defense.

However, that's basically it. The Marlins are completely covered in the OF; they have Maybin for CF and Stanton for RF, and something should emerge out of Cousins/Carroll/Petersen/Raynor/et al for LF. There's also the possibility of Logan Morrison moving to LF if Gaby Sanchez pushes him. Which, then moving to first base, there's Gaby Sanchez and Logan Morrison. You also have to look at the fact that with the current market, FA LF/1B are very cheap. At second base, the Marlins have both Chris Coghlan and Emilio Bonifacio. SS there's a guy by the name of Hanley Ramirez, and the bullpen is loaded with young cost controlled guys aswell as several projectable bullpen arms in the upper minors.

And out of the teams above, none of them really have an attainable ML ready good 3B option. So the focus on Cody will probably be pitching. And there's just too many interesting names to name for that.

Logan Morrison

Logan is a very, very interesting case study, in that he's changed a lot in basically every single year he's been in the minors.

For a back story, he was drafted as a draft and follow by the Marlins in 2005. He ended up signing in May '06 and was just another player as an 18 year old in the GCL and NYPL.

'07 was a breakout of sorts. He was by no means a prospect house hold name, but several places like Future Fish (Ranked #23) and John Sickels (Ranked #17) rated him as an interesting power prospect. As a 19 year old, he hit 24 HRs in Greensboro with a HR/FB of 16.8%. However, that was the only thing he did well. His batting AVG was a poor .268 thanks to a BABIP of .293. He's K% was barely acceptable at 22%, and his walks weren't impressive for a power spec at only 9%. Overall, you'd hope for something like



Basically, Mike Jacobs. And unsurprisingly, Jacobs had a similar MILB career to Logan's 06 numbers.

Then '07 happened. His power numbers decreased, his ISO dropped 50 points, he only hit 13 HRs with a HR/FB of 10.4%. Power is expected to drop from Greensboro to Jupiter but, for being a power prospect, it was really on the high end.

And yet he was vaulted to being one of the best prospects in baseball. He still walked at 10% but dropped his K's down to 16%, but he also had a massive .374 BABIP. This was not unwarranted. His LD% in Greensboro was only 13.5%. But in Jupiter, it was a massive 21.1%. He went from being an power prospect to being a line drive contact hitter. However, a .374 BABIP is huge, especially with someone as slow as he is. Certainly, there are people like Miguel Cabrera who are able to sustain high BABIPs while being slow thanks to just how well they hit the ball, but you cannot expect somebody to be a player of that caliber. At which point you're basically expecting something around



The biggest thing to understand with his HRs is he has a very high GB% that hovers around 50%. With 20 HRs there, that's still a 14% HR/FB rate assuming a 31% FB rate.

Then the AFL happened. He .404/.444/.667/1.111 with 5 HRs in 107 PAs, showing power again. And the lack of walks was far from concerning: when you're hitting .404 and only strike out 14% of the time, that shows you're not getting a lot of balls/bad pitches.

In '07 he showed power, in '08 he showed average (and then showed the same power in the AFL). But he never showed a great ability to walk. Not bad, but not exactly good either. Then '09 happened and made him the complete hitter. He's currently leading all of pro baseball outside of possibly short season leagues in walk% at 21%, with only 1 less walk then game played in AA.

I don't know how unprecedented it is, but having a guy walking at an average rate to having the best walk percent in all of baseball is quite a huge jump.

His BABIP has taken a large step back, at just .289, but he's still hitting a ton of LDs (22%) and GBs (52%) showing that it's very likely an aberration. He still has his BABIP skills.

He's also showing a lot more raw power, having a HR/FB of 16.7%. Still, over 650 PA he'd only be on pace for 18 HRs, thanks to only hitting a FB a fourth of the time (25.2%).

At this point, he truly is the completely package. He walks, he doesn't strike out, he hits for average, he hits for power. There is basically no hole in his offensive game.

Now the difference between him being a very good hitter and being one of the best in the league comes down to his GB and FB rates. If he can turn ~10% of his GBs into FBs, it basically adds about 5 HRs. And when you consider that he is a slow runner, the decrease in GBs should not put that much of a damper on his BABIP.

Now to his other aspects. Scouts describe his defense as "Good arm, good hands, bad range." To me, this generally speaks below average. Now yes, the fact that fielding stats have yet to gauge how good a 1b is at catching throws to him, it's doubtful it adds a significant amount, and lack of range is not a good thing. Total Zone rated him at -5/150 last season, which would put him at about -10 at the ML level. I definitely don't expect him to be that bad. Running wise, well, he's slow. He shouldn't cost us much on the bath paths but slow is slow.



What most likely happens: His lack of FBs keeps him from really breaking out in the HR department, but his high HR/FB still allows him to hit a lot. His LD and other abilities allow him to be in the upper 1/4th in the league in BABIP, but his speed keeps him from being in the elite category. He walks, he doesn't strike out, basically he is your prototypical mid-.800 OPS hitter

Best case scenario: Speed be damned, his ability to hit the ball puts him at the upper echelon of BABIP. He's able to drop his GB% and raise his FB%, allowing him to break the 30 hr cusp. This new found power then allows him to walk more, and he's patient enough to take the walks not not strike out. He'll likely always K too much to be the next Albert Pujols, but everything else here is basically Miguel Cabrera reincarnated.

Worst case scenario: He just hits too many GBs to hit for above average power. His ability to hit BABIP is still good, but as he faces better pitching and defenses it only becomes good and not great.

Due to playing first base, and not exactly being impressive there or on the base paths, his WARs aren't that impressive given his OPS. There is the chance he moves to the OF (about +5 runs), but I'd expect him to be about 5 runs worse out there, essentially nulling the positional bonus.

Gaby Sanchez

Well, he’s finally up.  And he gets to ride the bench.

Regardless, I figured he would be best to post up now so fans can know around what to expect from it.

Coming up through the minors, he’s been known as a line drive contact hitter with good patience but questionable pop.  Unsurprsingly, this shows up in the numbers.

While at first glance you might look at the numbers and say "Hey, those are very similiar power numbers to Maybin" (.175 ISO, 16 HRs for Maybin), they infact come to those numbers very differently.  The first thing to understand is age relative to league.  Maybin, at 22 years old, is still growing.  Gaby, 25, is basically in his prime years now.  The second thing is their HR/FB rates (Or, % of times a FB goes for a HR).  Gaby’s HR/FB is 9.6%, whereas Maybins is 14.3%.  This shows that Maybin has a lot more raw power.

The other thing with Gaby is the park factors.  Greensboro, the Class A affiliate of the Florida Marlins, is a hitters park in a hitters league.  Jupiter, the Class A Advance affiliate of the Florida Marlins, is a massive pitchers park in a pitchers league.  So, unsurpsingly, power numbers for hitters are normally high in Greensboro but take a massive drop when they go to Jupiter.  This happened to Gaby; after posting a .286 ISO and 17% HR/FB in Greensboro, he went down to .154 ISO and 6% HR/FB.  Carolina is a rather nuetral park, and he posted pretty impressive .200 ISO although just a 9.8% HR/FB.  His ISO mostly came from doubles, as he finished the year with 42 doubles and 1 triple (29% of his hits).  Unfortunately, this number should lower as he reaches the majors due to better offense.  Normally for a prospect, you hope that doubles turn into home runs as their body fills out and they gain more power.  But again, with Gabys age, there is not much room for more power projection.  That means the balls will stay in the ball park, and better defensive players will track down more of those balls.

To make a comparision to another former "old for his league, question his power" Marlin is none other than Josh Willingham, who didn’t get to AA until 25 and AAA until 26.  Willingham has had quite a career, with a MLB ISO of .212 and HR/FB of 14%.  However Willingham showed a lot more in the minors then Gaby did.  Take a look at Hammer v.s. Sanchez(Note: the former Class A affiliate with Kane County, but it’s park factors are similiar to Greensboro, meaning it’s a hitters park.  NYPL, where the Short Season affiliates are, are mostly neutral.  Also, HR/FB data only goes back 2005)

As can be seen here, Willingham had a continual power improvement from ages 23-26, posting a .275 ISO in that time spawn.  Sanchez, meanwhile, actually took a step back, only posting a .172 ISO.  An absolute huge difference.

There’s also a worry about Sanchez’s LHP and RHP splits.  He has crushed LHP (.963 OPS) but hasn’t fared that well agaisnt RHP (.831 OPS).  This is mostly do to a big BABIP difference.  There isn’t much of a power difference (.204 ISO and 10.3% HR/FB against LHP, .169 ISO and 9.2% HR/FB), nor BB/K difference (1.10 BB/K against LHP, 0.93 against RHP).  Basically about what you’d expect for most players.  However, he has a .356 BABIP against LHP and a .318 BABIP against RHP.  This is fueled by a 20% LD rate against LHP while only 17% against RHP.  Will it even out, or is it something we need to expect?  Just won’t be something we know until he’s up here and does his thing.

Defensively, he was once considered a horrible defensive first baseman but made huge improvements and won the gold glove award for the southern league.  However, I have my doubts of just how much he improved, and although I do expect him to be better than average, I don’t expect him to be great.  Base running wise, he’s not a big lumbering firstbaseman but he isn’t fast either, but he’s suppose to be a smart base runner.

So with all that being said, projection time

As you can see, these just really aren’t impressive WARs.

What most likely happens: He displays basically average power, keeping around the same HR rate but losing some doubles to better defenses.  It also allows him to still keep a solid BB rate, but overall he’s nothing special.  The biggest problem being the position he plays, with the average 1B OPS normally hovering in the .800-.850 range.  He could still have a career ahead of him, Doug Mientkiewicz took a very similiar career line of .271/.360/.405 and had a long career.  However, Mientkiewicz was also worth 10+ runs on defense.  If Gaby can get to that level, he could duplicate Mientkiewicz’s career. The biggest problem with this for Gaby is that he has Logan Morrison breathing down his neck.  And while there are rumblings of moving Morrison to LF, it then becomes a question of "Do you want Gaby Sanchez at first base, or Scott Cousins/Bryan Petersen/John Raynor/ect in the OF?  With how cheap 1B/LFs are on the FA market now, is is worth spending that extra 5 mil to get a mid .850 OPS bat?".  Unfortunately, he’ll probably be a 1B/3B back up, and the fact that he was called up to ride the bench just kind of affirms it.

Best case scenerio: He’s a late bloomer and his HR/FB raises, turning those doubles into HRs.  This is certainly possible, some players took a long time to hit their power peak.  It’s just, unfortunately, rare.  His power though is really the only thing keeping him from being an slightly below average to average player and being a good player, everything else though he already does well.

Worst case scenerio: He doesn’t develop the HR power, and a lot of those doubles start turning into outs, dropping him to the high-end power of a slap hitter.  This is already happening in AAA.  Last year a hit went for a 2B/3B 28.7% of the time, this year just 13.6%.  Pitchers then pound the zone, dropping his ability to take a walk.  If this happens, he’s probably not even a major leaguer.

It should also be noted that a lot of things depend on how well Sanchez can field third base.  If he can field 3b at a neutral level, that’d basically add 1 win to his WAR, turning him into a good player.  Big difference between a .770 OPS 1b and a 3b.  But this is again a question of how good he is defensively, and a lot of scouts don’t think he can handle the position well enough to play everyday.

My assumption is that the Marlins played him so much at 3b in AAA to see if he could handle it.  If he could, he’d ursup Bonifacio.  If he couldn’t, he’d ride the bench.  And we’ve now seen what happened.  Again, just an assumption, but there would be no reason to have him riding the bench if they viewed him as a starting player still.

Addendum: Gaby Sanchez and defense

I just came across the Total Zone defense stat.

You can read about it here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/totalzone-takes-on-the-minors/

While far from perfect and it gets the usual "fielding stat caveat" I think this is huge and I’m sad I didn’t see it when it came out.  And on the major league level, it surprisingly correlates well to other fielding statistics.

Gaby Sanchez follows basically what scouts have said.  in ‘06 he was in fact horrible.  in 49 games he has -5, Meaning he’d be about -15 over a full season.  In ‘07 he played exactly neutral defense for the league at +0.  And then in ‘08 he was +5 runs and +11 over /150.  However, defense in leagues is not relative to one another.  As you go up, defense gets better.  The difference in AA 1b and a MLB 1b is about 4 runs over 150 games (8 runs over 500 chances, 150 games = about 250 chances), meaning his +11 /150 goes down to +7, which is still very good.  I’ll still stand by the +3 I had him at but he very well could be Doug I’m not looking up how to spell his last name right now.

However, the more surprising thing is how it rates his 3rd base defense.  He was at +8 runs at third, +19 /150.  Now this is a small sample size and very unlikely he’s that good.  To get a correlation of .5 for IFers, you need about 350 chances, and he was only at 155 last season.  But this showed he very well could be neutral defense at third, and like I said that would be a huge plus for him and would turn his bat into an everyday player.

Logan Morrison

Logan is a very, very interesting case study, in that he's changed a lot in basically every single year he's been in the minors.

For a back story, he was drafted as a draft and follow by the Marlins in 2005. He ended up signing in May '06 and was just another player as an 18 year old in the GCL and NYPL.

'07 was a breakout of sorts. He was by no means a prospect house hold name, but several places like Future Fish (Ranked #23) and John Sickels (Ranked #17) rated him as an interesting power prospect. As a 19 year old, he hit 24 HRs in Greensboro with a HR/FB of 16.8%. However, that was the only thing he did well. His batting AVG was a poor .268 thanks to a BABIP of .293. He's K% was barely acceptable at 22%, and his walks weren't impressive for a power spec at only 9%. Overall, you'd hope for something like



Basically, Mike Jacobs. And unsurprisingly, Jacobs had a similar MILB career to Logan's 06 numbers.

Then '07 happened. His power numbers decreased, his ISO dropped 50 points, he only hit 13 HRs with a HR/FB of 10.4%. Power is expected to drop from Greensboro to Jupiter but, for being a power prospect, it was really on the high end.

And yet he was vaulted to being one of the best prospects in baseball. He still walked at 10% but dropped his K's down to 16%, but he also had a massive .374 BABIP. This was not unwarranted. His LD% in Greensboro was only 13.5%. But in Jupiter, it was a massive 21.1%. He went from being an power prospect to being a line drive contact hitter. However, a .374 BABIP is huge, especially with someone as slow as he is. Certainly, there are people like Miguel Cabrera who are able to sustain high BABIPs while being slow thanks to just how well they hit the ball, but you cannot expect somebody to be a player of that caliber. At which point you're basically expecting something around



The biggest thing to understand with his HRs is he has a very high GB% that hovers around 50%. With 20 HRs there, that's still a 14% HR/FB rate assuming a 31% FB rate.

Then the AFL happened. He .404/.444/.667/1.111 with 5 HRs in 107 PAs, showing power again. And the lack of walks was far from concerning: when you're hitting .404 and only strike out 14% of the time, that shows you're not getting a lot of balls/bad pitches.

In '07 he showed power, in '08 he showed average (and then showed the same power in the AFL). But he never showed a great ability to walk. Not bad, but not exactly good either. Then '09 happened and made him the complete hitter. He's currently leading all of pro baseball outside of possibly short season leagues in walk% at 21%, with only 1 less walk then game played in AA.

I don't know how unprecedented it is, but having a guy walking at an average rate to having the best walk percent in all of baseball is quite a huge jump.

His BABIP has taken a large step back, at just .289, but he's still hitting a ton of LDs (22%) and GBs (52%) showing that it's very likely an aberration. He still has his BABIP skills.

He's also showing a lot more raw power, having a HR/FB of 16.7%. Still, over 650 PA he'd only be on pace for 18 HRs, thanks to only hitting a FB a fourth of the time (25.2%).

At this point, he truly is the completely package. He walks, he doesn't strike out, he hits for average, he hits for power. There is basically no hole in his offensive game.

Now the difference between him being a very good hitter and being one of the best in the league comes down to his GB and FB rates. If he can turn ~10% of his GBs into FBs, it basically adds about 5 HRs. And when you consider that he is a slow runner, the decrease in GBs should not put that much of a damper on his BABIP.

Now to his other aspects. Scouts describe his defense as "Good arm, good hands, bad range." To me, this generally speaks below average. Now yes, the fact that fielding stats have yet to gauge how good a 1b is at catching throws to him, it's doubtful it adds a significant amount, and lack of range is not a good thing. Total Zone rated him at -5/150 last season, which would put him at about -10 at the ML level. I definitely don't expect him to be that bad. Running wise, well, he's slow. He shouldn't cost us much on the bath paths but slow is slow.



What most likely happens: His lack of FBs keeps him from really breaking out in the HR department, but his high HR/FB still allows him to hit a lot. His LD and other abilities allow him to be in the upper 1/4th in the league in BABIP, but his speed keeps him from being in the elite category. He walks, he doesn't strike out, basically he is your prototypical mid-.800 OPS hitter

Best case scenario: Speed be damned, his ability to hit the ball puts him at the upper echelon of BABIP. He's able to drop his GB% and raise his FB%, allowing him to break the 30 hr cusp. This new found power then allows him to walk more, and he's patient enough to take the walks not not strike out. He'll likely always K too much to be the next Albert Pujols, but everything else here is basically Miguel Cabrera reincarnated.

Worst case scenario: He just hits too many GBs to hit for above average power. His ability to hit BABIP is still good, but as he faces better pitching and defenses it only becomes good and not great.

Due to playing first base, and not exactly being impressive there or on the base paths, his WARs aren't that impressive given his OPS. There is the chance he moves to the OF (about +5 runs), but I'd expect him to be about 5 runs worse out there, essentially nulling the positional bonus.

Gaby Sanchez

Well, he’s finally up.  And he gets to ride the bench.

Regardless, I figured he would be best to post up now so fans can know around what to expect from it.

Coming up through the minors, he’s been known as a line drive contact hitter with good patience but questionable pop.  Unsurprsingly, this shows up in the numbers.

While at first glance you might look at the numbers and say "Hey, those are very similiar power numbers to Maybin" (.175 ISO, 16 HRs for Maybin), they infact come to those numbers very differently.  The first thing to understand is age relative to league.  Maybin, at 22 years old, is still growing.  Gaby, 25, is basically in his prime years now.  The second thing is their HR/FB rates (Or, % of times a FB goes for a HR).  Gaby’s HR/FB is 9.6%, whereas Maybins is 14.3%.  This shows that Maybin has a lot more raw power.

The other thing with Gaby is the park factors.  Greensboro, the Class A affiliate of the Florida Marlins, is a hitters park in a hitters league.  Jupiter, the Class A Advance affiliate of the Florida Marlins, is a massive pitchers park in a pitchers league.  So, unsurpsingly, power numbers for hitters are normally high in Greensboro but take a massive drop when they go to Jupiter.  This happened to Gaby; after posting a .286 ISO and 17% HR/FB in Greensboro, he went down to .154 ISO and 6% HR/FB.  Carolina is a rather nuetral park, and he posted pretty impressive .200 ISO although just a 9.8% HR/FB.  His ISO mostly came from doubles, as he finished the year with 42 doubles and 1 triple (29% of his hits).  Unfortunately, this number should lower as he reaches the majors due to better offense.  Normally for a prospect, you hope that doubles turn into home runs as their body fills out and they gain more power.  But again, with Gabys age, there is not much room for more power projection.  That means the balls will stay in the ball park, and better defensive players will track down more of those balls.

To make a comparision to another former "old for his league, question his power" Marlin is none other than Josh Willingham, who didn’t get to AA until 25 and AAA until 26.  Willingham has had quite a career, with a MLB ISO of .212 and HR/FB of 14%.  However Willingham showed a lot more in the minors then Gaby did.  Take a look at Hammer v.s. Sanchez(Note: the former Class A affiliate with Kane County, but it’s park factors are similiar to Greensboro, meaning it’s a hitters park.  NYPL, where the Short Season affiliates are, are mostly neutral.  Also, HR/FB data only goes back 2005)

As can be seen here, Willingham had a continual power improvement from ages 23-26, posting a .275 ISO in that time spawn.  Sanchez, meanwhile, actually took a step back, only posting a .172 ISO.  An absolute huge difference.

There’s also a worry about Sanchez’s LHP and RHP splits.  He has crushed LHP (.963 OPS) but hasn’t fared that well agaisnt RHP (.831 OPS).  This is mostly do to a big BABIP difference.  There isn’t much of a power difference (.204 ISO and 10.3% HR/FB against LHP, .169 ISO and 9.2% HR/FB), nor BB/K difference (1.10 BB/K against LHP, 0.93 against RHP).  Basically about what you’d expect for most players.  However, he has a .356 BABIP against LHP and a .318 BABIP against RHP.  This is fueled by a 20% LD rate against LHP while only 17% against RHP.  Will it even out, or is it something we need to expect?  Just won’t be something we know until he’s up here and does his thing.

Defensively, he was once considered a horrible defensive first baseman but made huge improvements and won the gold glove award for the southern league.  However, I have my doubts of just how much he improved, and although I do expect him to be better than average, I don’t expect him to be great.  Base running wise, he’s not a big lumbering firstbaseman but he isn’t fast either, but he’s suppose to be a smart base runner.

So with all that being said, projection time

As you can see, these just really aren’t impressive WARs.

What most likely happens: He displays basically average power, keeping around the same HR rate but losing some doubles to better defenses.  It also allows him to still keep a solid BB rate, but overall he’s nothing special.  The biggest problem being the position he plays, with the average 1B OPS normally hovering in the .800-.850 range.  He could still have a career ahead of him, Doug Mientkiewicz took a very similiar career line of .271/.360/.405 and had a long career.  However, Mientkiewicz was also worth 10+ runs on defense.  If Gaby can get to that level, he could duplicate Mientkiewicz’s career. The biggest problem with this for Gaby is that he has Logan Morrison breathing down his neck.  And while there are rumblings of moving Morrison to LF, it then becomes a question of "Do you want Gaby Sanchez at first base, or Scott Cousins/Bryan Petersen/John Raynor/ect in the OF?  With how cheap 1B/LFs are on the FA market now, is is worth spending that extra 5 mil to get a mid .850 OPS bat?".  Unfortunately, he’ll probably be a 1B/3B back up, and the fact that he was called up to ride the bench just kind of affirms it.

Best case scenerio: He’s a late bloomer and his HR/FB raises, turning those doubles into HRs.  This is certainly possible, some players took a long time to hit their power peak.  It’s just, unfortunately, rare.  His power though is really the only thing keeping him from being an slightly below average to average player and being a good player, everything else though he already does well.

Worst case scenerio: He doesn’t develop the HR power, and a lot of those doubles start turning into outs, dropping him to the high-end power of a slap hitter.  This is already happening in AAA.  Last year a hit went for a 2B/3B 28.7% of the time, this year just 13.6%.  Pitchers then pound the zone, dropping his ability to take a walk.  If this happens, he’s probably not even a major leaguer.

It should also be noted that a lot of things depend on how well Sanchez can field third base.  If he can field 3b at a neutral level, that’d basically add 1 win to his WAR, turning him into a good player.  Big difference between a .770 OPS 1b and a 3b.  But this is again a question of how good he is defensively, and a lot of scouts don’t think he can handle the position well enough to play everyday.

My assumption is that the Marlins played him so much at 3b in AAA to see if he could handle it.  If he could, he’d ursup Bonifacio.  If he couldn’t, he’d ride the bench.  And we’ve now seen what happened.  Again, just an assumption, but there would be no reason to have him riding the bench if they viewed him as a starting player still.

Addendum: Gaby Sanchez and defense

I just came across the Total Zone defense stat.

You can read about it here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/totalzone-takes-on-the-minors/

While far from perfect and it gets the usual "fielding stat caveat" I think this is huge and I’m sad I didn’t see it when it came out.  And on the major league level, it surprisingly correlates well to other fielding statistics.

Gaby Sanchez follows basically what scouts have said.  in ‘06 he was in fact horrible.  in 49 games he has -5, Meaning he’d be about -15 over a full season.  In ‘07 he played exactly neutral defense for the league at +0.  And then in ‘08 he was +5 runs and +11 over /150.  However, defense in leagues is not relative to one another.  As you go up, defense gets better.  The difference in AA 1b and a MLB 1b is about 4 runs over 150 games (8 runs over 500 chances, 150 games = about 250 chances), meaning his +11 /150 goes down to +7, which is still very good.  I’ll still stand by the +3 I had him at but he very well could be Doug I’m not looking up how to spell his last name right now.

However, the more surprising thing is how it rates his 3rd base defense.  He was at +8 runs at third, +19 /150.  Now this is a small sample size and very unlikely he’s that good.  To get a correlation of .5 for IFers, you need about 350 chances, and he was only at 155 last season.  But this showed he very well could be neutral defense at third, and like I said that would be a huge plus for him and would turn his bat into an everyday player.

Copy pasteeeeeeee

If you ask a fan who the Marlins top prospects are, they would likely know.  They would know that Michael Stanton has a lot of power and a lot of strikeouts, that Cameron Maybin has 5 tools, and so forth.

But what exactly does this mean in terms of production?

Generally speaking for hitters, you are who you are.  Unlike pitchers, whos stats can be deceiving, a hitter periphally will be around the same in the majors as he is in the minors.  These being walk percent, strikeout percent, batting average of balls in play, and isolated power.  With these four pieces of information, you can say what a hitters BA/OBP/SLG line will be.

Now they won’t perfectly transfer over.  Walks will normally go down and strikeouts up as batters face pitchers with better control and stuff.  Power doesn’t normally cap until a player is in the 25-27 range and age relative to league is important to consider.  A 25 year old with a .200 ISO in AA is not the same as a 20 year old with a .200 ISO on the same team.  The hope for a young hitter that hits a lot of doubles but not HRs is that those doubles then turn into HRs as his body progress.  However, power isn’t automatically going to go up.  Better defenses mean less doubles and triples for the ones that do stay in the park, which is big factor for guys with low power/high speed.  Improved defense (aswell as pitching) also means that a hitters BABIP almost always goes down from minors to majors.

Something to understand though is that batting stats can be a smoke screen as well.  Just because a guy walks a lot in the minors does not mean he will walk a lot in the majors.  For example, David Eckstein walked 13% of the time.  But in the majors he has walked at only half of that at 6.5%.  Why is this?  Lack of power, as can be seen by his.076 MLB ISO and .097 MILB ISO.  Because of his lack of power, pitchers in the majors attack him more, and you can only walk if you’re thrown balls.  Like wise, Dan Uggla’s walk% has improved because of his increase in power.

There is more to being a good player than just hitting and that’s with defense and baserunning.  And with those, we can only assume what a player will be based off scouting reports.  In the case of BR, it does not have that big of an impact; most players are between - and +1 run with the best being in the double digits and the worst being in the negative double digits.  We also can get a rough estimate of how “baseball fast” a guy is thanks to the Speed Score stat.  With defense, generally speaking a guy is statistically around what he is in the scouting reports.  There’s certainly some variation, but we can only go off what information we have at the time.

Now, with all of that said, let’s begin.  I’m going to start with Cameron Maybin, who will probably be up in the majors again soon.  He was disapointing in his time up at the start of the year but has been lighting it up in New Orleans as of late.  First allow us to look at his minor league line.

As we can see, he walks a good amount but also strikes out a lot.  He has above average power with a 0.175 ISO but also only averages 16 HRs over 150 games.  His BABIP is very high as to be expected from somebody who hits a lot of GBs and with his speed.

The main thing to understand with Maybin is his groundball rates.  One of the things scouts loved about him is that he has the potential to sit in the 25-30 HR range.  The problem is he has a career GB% of 56% and it’s 57% this season.  Guys with that high of GB rates just don’t hit for that kind of power.  If he’s able to get into the low 50’s, he can be a 20-25 HR guy asome hitters have been able to.  But most likely he will sit in the 15-20 HR range.  There is the chance he reworks his swing and starts living up to his power potential, but most likely this will not happen.

The one positive of his GB rates is that, with his speed, he should always have a high BABIP.  No, it won’t be his .400 MILB number, but it should sit in the mid 300’s.  But even with his high BABIP his K rates will keep him from hitting for a very good average as he’ll likely continue to strike out more than once every 4 AB.  A positive to look at is the fact he’s only striking out 19% of the time in AAA this season, showing that he has the potential to get his K rate down.

Defensively it’s no surprise that he is considered a plus defender with his speed aswell as having a plus arm..  His routes could still use some work but his speed has been able to overcome these mistakes.  In his limited time in the majors, the numbers back this up; He has a +2.3 UZR (+15 in 150 games) and a +4 Plus Minus (+18/150).  That’s a small sample size and he likely will not continue to be that good, but he is still expected to be a very good defensive centerfielder.  Likewise, his base running is expected to be a positive.  He hasa 7.2 MLB speed score after posting a 7.3 speed score in the minors.  He steals a good amount of bases (34 SB over 150 games) at a high rate (79% success rate).  In his limited time, he has a posted a 3.7 EQBRR (or Baserunning Runs), which translates to 13 runs over 150 games.  Like defense, it likely won’t continue to be that high, but he should continue to create a lot of runs on the base paths.

Taking all of this into consideration we come to:

What most likely happens: He still strikes out too much to have a good average and hits to many groundballs to have anything better than an average ISO.  His mid .700 OPS will likely piss off a lot of Marlin fans because of what was traded to get him, but his defense and baserunning still allows him to be a well above average player.  He will likely be a 4-5 win player throughout his career, which is normally a top 5-7 CFer in all of baseball.

Best case scenerio: His GB rates fall down to the low 40’s, allowing for his power to really break out.  His pitch recognition really improves and doesn’t strikeout nearly as much.  A 8-9 win is where the best players land; if he’s not the #1 CFer, he’s #1A.  I need to stress that this likely will not happen.  It’s possible, the Marlin’s own Hanley Ramirez is an example of a player that went from being a mid-50% GB hitter in the minors to a low-40% in the majors, hence why he’s hit for so much more power.  But you can not bank on a player being Hanley Ramirez.

Worst case scenerio: He’s just not able to improve his strikeout rate and his GB rate is too much to overcome, as his lack of power this year in AAA is for real.  He essentailly becomes a (on the high power end) slap hitter with defense and speed, allowing him to still be a good enough CFer but also very replacable.

If you ask a fan who the Marlins top prospects are, they would likely know.  They would know that Michael Stanton has a lot of power and a lot of strikeouts, that Cameron Maybin has 5 tools, and so forth.

But what exactly does this mean in terms of production?

Generally speaking for hitters, you are who you are.  Unlike pitchers, whos stats can be deceiving, a hitter periphally will be around the same in the majors as he is in the minors.  These being walk percent, strikeout percent, batting average of balls in play, and isolated power.  With these four pieces of information, you can say what a hitters BA/OBP/SLG line will be.

Now they won’t perfectly transfer over.  Walks will normally go down and strikeouts up as batters face pitchers with better control and stuff.  Power doesn’t normally cap until a player is in the 25-27 range and age relative to league is important to consider.  A 25 year old with a .200 ISO in AA is not the same as a 20 year old with a .200 ISO on the same team.  The hope for a young hitter that hits a lot of doubles but not HRs is that those doubles then turn into HRs as his body progress.  However, power isn’t automatically going to go up.  Better defenses mean less doubles and triples for the ones that do stay in the park, which is big factor for guys with low power/high speed.  Improved defense (aswell as pitching) also means that a hitters BABIP almost always goes down from minors to majors.

Something to understand though is that batting stats can be a smoke screen as well.  Just because a guy walks a lot in the minors does not mean he will walk a lot in the majors.  For example, David Eckstein walked 13% of the time.  But in the majors he has walked at only half of that at 6.5%.  Why is this?  Lack of power, as can be seen by his.076 MLB ISO and .097 MILB ISO.  Because of his lack of power, pitchers in the majors attack him more, and you can only walk if you’re thrown balls.  Like wise, Dan Uggla’s walk% has improved because of his increase in power.

There is more to being a good player than just hitting and that’s with defense and baserunning.  And with those, we can only assume what a player will be based off scouting reports.  In the case of BR, it does not have that big of an impact; most players are between - and +1 run with the best being in the double digits and the worst being in the negative double digits.  We also can get a rough estimate of how “baseball fast” a guy is thanks to the Speed Score stat.  With defense, generally speaking a guy is statistically around what he is in the scouting reports.  There’s certainly some variation, but we can only go off what information we have at the time.

Now, with all of that said, let’s begin.  I’m going to start with Cameron Maybin, who will probably be up in the majors again soon.  He was disapointing in his time up at the start of the year but has been lighting it up in New Orleans as of late.  First allow us to look at his minor league line.

As we can see, he walks a good amount but also strikes out a lot.  He has above average power with a 0.175 ISO but also only averages 16 HRs over 150 games.  His BABIP is very high as to be expected from somebody who hits a lot of GBs and with his speed.

The main thing to understand with Maybin is his groundball rates.  One of the things scouts loved about him is that he has the potential to sit in the 25-30 HR range.  The problem is he has a career GB% of 56% and it’s 57% this season.  Guys with that high of GB rates just don’t hit for that kind of power.  If he’s able to get into the low 50’s, he can be a 20-25 HR guy asome hitters have been able to.  But most likely he will sit in the 15-20 HR range.  There is the chance he reworks his swing and starts living up to his power potential, but most likely this will not happen.

The one positive of his GB rates is that, with his speed, he should always have a high BABIP.  No, it won’t be his .400 MILB number, but it should sit in the mid 300’s.  But even with his high BABIP his K rates will keep him from hitting for a very good average as he’ll likely continue to strike out more than once every 4 AB.  A positive to look at is the fact he’s only striking out 19% of the time in AAA this season, showing that he has the potential to get his K rate down.

Defensively it’s no surprise that he is considered a plus defender with his speed aswell as having a plus arm..  His routes could still use some work but his speed has been able to overcome these mistakes.  In his limited time in the majors, the numbers back this up; He has a +2.3 UZR (+15 in 150 games) and a +4 Plus Minus (+18/150).  That’s a small sample size and he likely will not continue to be that good, but he is still expected to be a very good defensive centerfielder.  Likewise, his base running is expected to be a positive.  He hasa 7.2 MLB speed score after posting a 7.3 speed score in the minors.  He steals a good amount of bases (34 SB over 150 games) at a high rate (79% success rate).  In his limited time, he has a posted a 3.7 EQBRR (or Baserunning Runs), which translates to 13 runs over 150 games.  Like defense, it likely won’t continue to be that high, but he should continue to create a lot of runs on the base paths.

Taking all of this into consideration we come to:

What most likely happens: He still strikes out too much to have a good average and hits to many groundballs to have anything better than an average ISO.  His mid .700 OPS will likely piss off a lot of Marlin fans because of what was traded to get him, but his defense and baserunning still allows him to be a well above average player.  He will likely be a 4-5 win player throughout his career, which is normally a top 5-7 CFer in all of baseball.

Best case scenerio: His GB rates fall down to the low 40’s, allowing for his power to really break out.  His pitch recognition really improves and doesn’t strikeout nearly as much.  A 8-9 win is where the best players land; if he’s not the #1 CFer, he’s #1A.  I need to stress that this likely will not happen.  It’s possible, the Marlin’s own Hanley Ramirez is an example of a player that went from being a mid-50% GB hitter in the minors to a low-40% in the majors, hence why he’s hit for so much more power.  But you can not bank on a player being Hanley Ramirez.

Worst case scenerio: He’s just not able to improve his strikeout rate and his GB rate is too much to overcome, as his lack of power this year in AAA is for real.  He essentailly becomes a (on the high power end) slap hitter with defense and speed, allowing him to still be a good enough CFer but also very replacable.

The first thing that would need to be done to understand if BC could be a good starter or not is to project what his future line would be.

First thing to understand his his plus feature in his offense is his power.  He has a career MILB ISO of .213 (ISO = Isolated Power, SLG minus AVG).  His MLB career ISO is only .106 but we're also talking about a grand total of 133 PAs.  He does have poor contact rates which will hurt his power numbers but he's also in the prime of his career...but he also plays in a pitchers park.  Projections have him at around .170-.175 ISO, so let's go with .175.

Next part is OBP, or walk%.  His MILB walk% is 6.8% and his MLB walk% is 6.8%.  Yeah.

The problem next is average.  He has a bad MILB average (.259), a horrible MLB average (.220), bad BABIPs, bad K%, bad contact%, the list goes on.  Plain and simple, unless some drastic change happens, he will not hit for average.  Projections have him as being a .230-.240 hitter.  Because we're marlins fans and we want to be optimistic lets say .240.

That would put up at roughly a .240/.295/.415 line, or a .710 OPS.

I've said it before but I think he could more or less be our Franklin Gutierrez.  Gutierrez has a career line of .260/.314/.408/.722.  Better contact but less power.  However, Gutierrez has been a good player because of his defense, throughout his career he's been worth 5.9 wins.  His career is about 2 seasons worth of stats, so he's worth roughly 3 wins over a season, which is very good.

The problem though is that Brett Carroll is not Gutierrez defensively.  Carroll has a plus arm and plus range, but Gutierrez has possibility the best OF range in all of baseball.  A more apt comparision for Carroll is probably Alex Rios.  There might be better ones out there but he's the best I can think of at the time.  Plus, Rios is a pure RFer.  Rios

Rios in his career has a 14.3 UZR/150 (or, in other words, he rates to have a 14.3 UZR in a 150 game span).  He save 6.9 runs with his arm, 6.9 runs with his range, and 0.5 runs by not creating errors.

The problem with Carroll's career fielding numbers is that it's such a small sample size.  He has less than 300 innings played in the OF.  I mean, just one season is a small sample size when it comes to fielding stats.  Regardless, he has a career 34.5 UZR/150.  7.4 of that comes from his arm, 26.4 comes from his range, and 0.7 comes from preventing errors.  Now that range will come down a lot, but his arm and error should rate out about the same.

So now we have Brett Carroll's projected offensive line (.725 OPS) and his projected defensive line (+14 runs).

The problem ofcoarse being the insert Fielding Stats are far from perfect statement here.  They only show probably 30-50% of the picture.  It's by no means definitive.  However it's a lot better than blindly grabbing at the dark.

His offense would be worth around -2 to -5 runs compared to the average player depending on just where exactly he falls.  It's probably at about -3.  With his defense, that means he's now at +11 runs.  Take on the worth above a replacement level player (18.3) and positional adjustment (-6.5) and carroll would be worth 22.8 runs, or about 2.3 wins, over a replacement level player.

This is basically around the same worth of a .800 OPS neutral defenseive RFer, meaning his defense is worth nearly .100 OPS points.

By no means a star but still a good starter.  And it does give us the ability of, moving CC to the IF, trading Hermida, ect without worrying about who'd start.  It doesn't seem to me like BC will get that privledge but he would probably do well enough in that roll.

Going by runs created

If Uggla played the way he's "suppose" to (career line of .258/.338/.481), he'd add 8 more runs. If Cody did (.255/.315/.476), that's 9 more.

If ricky pitched the way he was suppose to (FIP 4.34, career ERA 4.49), we'd have 16 less runs against.

That also isn't then including the fact that Cody and Uggla would have more PA and Ricky would have more IP.

That would then put us at 176-156 RS-RA instead of 159-172. We currently have a .461 Pythagorean win % (16-19 current record, 74 win season). If they were right, we'd have a .560 (19-16 current record, 90 win season).

When it comes to our offense, we knew what we were getting out of Boniacio and we knew there was a decent sized chance Maybin would fail. We knew Anibal and Miller were questionmarks. Optimistically, we could look at us as being a mid-90's team. Looking at those 4 to fail, we'd probably be a mid-80's team.

Having all 4 of those fail, plus having 3 good regulars have the bottom taken out beneath them is what's put us on this slide.

If Uggla goes back to .800+, cody goes back to 800+, Ricky goes back to sub-4 the rest of the way, we should still be fine. Some breaks go our way and we'd be better than fine. And based off how they're "doing" (cody and uggs hit LDs and such, Ricky still King and not BBing guys, ect), I think they can go back to those things.

Maybin:

FanGraphs has these awesome sections on their player pages that #1) shows the amount of what pitches a player has seen and #2) showing the rate a player swings, his contact, and if he's swinging at stuff out of the zone or in the zone.

For all the talk that Maybin shouldn't hit 8 because he won't see fastballs:
He has seen a FB 57% of the time. Emilio, in the #1 spot, has seen a FB 60% of the time. The ML average last year was 60%. In other words, he is seeing a ton of FBs. Someone who doesn't see FBs is Dan Uggla, who has only seen 50% FBs for the second year running now. Or Miguel Olivo, who has only seen a FB in the mid-40's for several years now

The main thing is that, when it comes to secondary pitches, Maybin is seeing a slider 30% of the time. The ML average last year was 15%. So he's seeing double the amount of sliders than a normal player.

Now it should be noted that there is still "noise" here. 24% of the pitches Maybin has seen has been untrackable. At the end of the season, this goes down to the 1-2% range. Small sample size is hurting here.

Also, to all the "Maybin just gets junk" thing

58.8% of the pitches he has seen have been in the strike zone. 51% is the ML average.

Now for the real problem:

Maybin has swung at things outside of the strike zone 25.7%. The ML average is 25.5%. He's doing fine here.

Maybin has swung at things inside the strike zone 72% of the time. The ML average is 65.5% of the time. This normally wouldn't be an issue, but why it is:

Maybin's rate of making contact with balls inside of the zone is just 75%. This is really, really bad. The ML average is 88%.

In other words, he is not hitting the pitches he is suppose to be hitting. He is having major contact issues.

So yes, it seems the issue is still that he can not recognize sliders from fastballs.

The problem is, he's now in a league where pitches can now throw sliders for strikes.

Looking at these numbers, I severely doubt he'd be approached any differently at any other spot in the line up.

He has a whopping 71% first pitch strike rate. The ML average is 58%. That means that, out of his 31 Pas, only 9 have been 1-0 counts, 22 times he has started 0-1.

This also doesn't appear to be just a thing that has only just now started happening. In both his '07 and '08 call ups, he's been around the same in contact rates. His career contact of balls in the strike zone is just 78%.

AAA definitely might not be the worst idea in the world if he continues to have problems (obviously you don't make a move based off of 11 games). He needs to be able to recognize the difference between a FB and a slider if he wants to have ML success. Though also unfortunately, the only way to learn a ML slider is the have experience in the major leagues. Growing pains suck but as is said a billion times, not everybody is Hanley and Cabrera.

Nolasco:

the problem definitely isn't throwing strikes. Last year, 67.6% of his pitches went for strikes. His previous two starts, he threw for a strike 67% of the time. Tonight he threw for a strike 69% of the time.

He's also still within the strike zone around the same rate.

He just seemed to have a problem finishing guys off. Like the Lannan AB. Which shouldn't carry over throughout the season.

He had a .467 BABIP on the night and now has a .380 BABIP on the year.

He's still not walking guys. He showed tonight he can still K guys, with 1k per IP. HRs are always going to be a problem but HRs are always going to be a problem with FB pitchers.

Sitting back and actually observing the numbers, I'm a lot less worried about Ricky.

Pinto:

I'm sure most of you know what FIP is, but just a quick reiteration, FIP looks at the three main things a pitcher is responsible for (K's, BB's, HR's) and shows what his expected ERA would be. It's not perfect; GB pitchers normally out perform their FIPs due to their ability to limit all XBH [as FIP only looks at HRs and not 2b/3b/ect]. Absolute dominant guys like Pedro out-perform their FIPs because their harder to get base hits off of, and hittable guys underperform their FIPs, as FIP goes under the assumption that every pitcher is around the .300 BABIP threshold. It takes away the defensive factor, it takes away "luck" (i.e. broken bat singles or hard line drives right at guys, which should equal themselves out over time but often don't in small sample sizes), it helps show what exactly a pitcher does to help his own cause.

But anyway, going back to Pinto.

Pinto has had a pretty good ERA in the majors so far at 3.92, just barely below the league average ERA. But his FIP is all the way up at 4.78, nearly a full run above and very very poor.

A lot of people point to the start of last year as saying hey, Pinto figured it out. Fredi over worked him, hence why he was horrible at the end. And ERA would show as much. First two months of the season, he finished with a 1.57 ERA. He'd post a 7.71 ERA the rest of the way.

And he was definitely overused. Through the four months of the season, he appeared in 58 games, 53% of the games the Marlins played. If he was around the entire season, he'd have thrown in 86 games with 112 innings. No doubt, obscene and stupid.

The issue though is, was he actually good at the start of the season?

The first two months of the season, he finished with a 4.77 FIP even though he had a 1.57 ERA. How? Just a .188 BABIP, extremely low, just 5 hits per 9 innings.

But he wasn't striking people out. He'd finish those two months with just a 6.30 K/9, and he was still walking a ton at 5.50 per 9. It was really a tale of two months (in April, he K'd at just a 3.85 rate per 9, but also walked at only a 2.89 rate. But then May came, his K's came back at a 9.17 rate, but so did his walks at a 8.60 rate).

Without a doubt he was overworked last season, and that showed in his regression in the later months. But I'm also willing to say a lot of that was normalization.

His K-rate has gone down every season. His hr-rate has gone up every season. His BB rate went down in '07 compared to '06 (although that's no compliment considering his '06 bb rate was 8.19), but it went up again last year.

Yeah, he K's a lot. But he also gives up a ton of HRs. He also gives up a ton of walks. Both of which shows up in the minors as well.

And for being left handed, he also a 4.64 FIP against left handed batters, barely better than his 4.86 FIP against right handers. While part of that has to do with his huge HR rate against LHB (1.41 HR/9), if we normalize that to the rate to be expected out of him (1 hr/9, or 6 HRs over his career), he still has a 4.14 FIP, well below what an average reliever would do, let alone an average left handed pitcher against a left handed batter.

I mean yeah, his K rates are obscene. He's just 26 years old. He is left handed. My problem is right now, he is set up as the #1 go to left handed pitcher. And that to me is a problem.

I mean, let's look at our bullpen. Out of our 7 pitchers, we have 3 things we have faith in to atleast be around average (Lindstrom, Nunez, Kiko), and 4 that we're worried about (Pinto, Kensing, Meyer, and Penn).

To me, if you only have one left hander in your top 5 bullpen, you want your #6 guy to be left handed, and you're #7 guy is then just a right handed long relief option. And if Pinto was our #6 guy, that'd be great. Let him see if he can work out his stuff there.

But Pinto isn't. He's, what, our #4 at the moment with Kensing #5? That right there is the fault with our bullpen. Kensing is basically in the same boat as Pinto: Bunch of K's, bunch of walks, bunch of HRs, carer FIP of 5.17 with a 4.79 last year, but just 26 years old if he could figure out his control he'd be ace. Put him as the #7 guy and money. Have him as your #5 guy and f***.

Right now we have 4 out of option, high upside former good prospect still young with something to prove players, perfect molds of #6 and #7 guys. The upgrade in the bullpen consists of either two of those breaking out, or replacing two of them.  And considering Pinto is arbitration eligible at the end of the season and Kensing will be in his second year of arbitration, and Meyer/Penn still have starting possibilities, they're easily the guys to point to considering how we have to run things.

Right now I'm just real pissed we didn't sign Ohman. If things "work out", Proctor is healthy this season and replaces Kensing in late May/early June, or one of Tucker/Ceda/whoever figure it out in AAA. But outside of Tank figuring it back out, we have no LOOGY, anywhere. And we're probably going to have to give up another Gaby Hernandez this year to fix the problem.

I sure as hell hope Pinto (And Kensing) prove me wrong this season but I really don't have much hope.

xFIP:

xFIP is an interesting stat that tries to normalize HR/FB numbers as well as taking park into account.  Because of this, it should do a better job of matching future results than FIP does.  Basically, it does what I did with the post about Lindstrom's HR rates.  League average is 10%, and it's normally in a 8.5-12.5% range.  Since, afaik, xFIP doesn't take past history into account, it should be a little off since it likely rates off 10% though not sure.  Available at Hardball Times.

Notables from last year:

Lindstrom-
xFIP: 4.24
FIP: 3.13
ERA: 3.14
HR/FB: 2.4%

Andrew Miller-
xFIP: 4.63
FIP: 3.96
ERA: 6.54
HR/FB: 7.6%
Bolding for emphasis since a big deal was made out of his FIP by a lot of people, myself included.  So kinda ehh to that, never noticed his HR/FB earlier.

Badenhop-
xFIP: 4.47
FIP: 5.10
ERA: 6.08
HR/FB: 18.7%
Yeah, likely not going to repeat that HR/FB lol.  He should still be in the upper-tier of HR/FB though do to his lack of stuff and still be around a 5 FIP.

Anibal-
xFIP: 4.54
FIP: 4.83
ERA: 5.57
HR/FB: 17%

Leo Nunez-
xFIP: 5.15
FIP: 3.75
ERA: 2.98
HR/FB: 4.2%

Volstad-
xFIP: 4.77
FIP: 3.75
ERA: 2.88
HR/FB: 4.7%
Like Andrew, I never actually paid attention to his HR/FB, so this basically explains why projections are so hard on Volstad and can't really blame them.  But his GB rates should hopefully improve (58% in the minors, just 52.6% in the majors), and his control should improve aswell considering how good it was in the minors.  Give him a 58% GB rate (which would be a 0.65 HR/9), a 2.7 BB rate, and a 5.5 K rate, we're talking about a 3.82 FIP, then keeping in mind that FIP is generally over for GB pitchers since it doesn't take other XBHs into account, and yeah, I think we're good here.

The projections have been hard on the Marlins. Chone has them going 75-87. THT going 72-90. PECOTA, just 70-92.

So what gives?

Simply: Starting pitching.

Either they view major injuries, or it's flawed due to the lack of pitching all of them have the past two years.

Let's actually look at how many starts these places are projecting. For Chone:
Ricky Nolasco: 25 GS
Josh Johnson: 17 GS
Chris Volstad: 26 GS
Andrew MIller: 22 GS
Anibal Sanchez: 16 GS

In other words, it views every single SP for the Marlins going down with an injury some time during the year.

Chone projects the Marlins starting 5 to only make 3/5ths of their starts this season, 106 games. Chone has Tampa Bay's starting 4, not starting 5, starting 4 (Kazmir, Shields, Garza, Sonnanstine) as finishing with 10 more starts than the Marlins starting five (116).

If that happens, if Josh Johnson only gets 17 starts, Nolasco misses a fourth of this starts, ect, yeah, the Marlins are going to struggle. I doubt anybody will argue otherwise.

So what are the chances that actually happen? Well, it's certainly possible.

Ricky Nolasco is coming off an elbow injury, which held him to only 4 starts in 2007. Yet he pitched a massive 212.1 inn last year, a 191 inning jump.

Josh Johnson is coming off Tommy John Surgery, which had him miss most of 2007 and half of 2008.

Anibal Sanchez is coming off shoulder surgery, which had him most of 2007 and 2008.

Andrew Miller has had chronic tendinitis in his right knee the past couple of years, which held him out two months last season.

So yeah, that doesn't look to bright. Going by Will Carroll's system:

Ricky Nolasco: Red Card
Chris Volstad: Red Card
Josh Johnson: Yellow Card
Andrew Miller: Yellow Card
Anibal Sanchez: Yellow Card

Again, not looking to bright.

The point though is, if you're going to use the projections to say why the Marlins will disappoint in 2009, realize that it's because of injury. Not because of lack of skill.

By giving the marlins starting pitchers 80% of their GS, their projected W/L jumps into the mid to upper 80's. In other words, if things fall the Marlins way (A healthy starting rotation, Maybin and Gaby Sanchez not falling on their faces, ect), they will be serious NL East title contenders.

If the starting rotation suffers those injuries, yeah, they'll lose 90 games. That goes for ANY team.

The team is significantly better than last season though.

Rotation

Starting with the rotation, since that's what we've been talking about so far. Here is a list of players who started for the Marlins last season while waiting for players to come back from injury and Volstad to pass super 2 status:

Andrew Miller - 20gs (5.63)
Mark Hendrickson - 19gs (6.24)
Anibal Sanchez - 10gs (5.57)
Burke Badenhop - 8gs (6.75)
Ryan Tucker - 6gs (8.38)
Rick VandenHurk - 4gs (7.71)
Frankie De La Cruz - 1gs (6.00)

That makes up 68 starts. That is 42% of the season.

Out of that list, only Anibal Sanchez and Andrew Miller come back to the starting rotation. And Andrew Miller actually had a fantasic FIP (4.00), and Anibal Sanchez was rusty with control but showed major promise with K’s, and all the FIP projections have him at around 4.30.

If the starting rotation stays healthy, this is a HUGE upgrade. I’m talking MAMMOTH. No, Volstad is not going to put up a sub-3 ERA again. He’ll likely be around what other GB pitchers are, mid-3 ERA in lucky years and low to mid 4 in unlucky years, settling around a 4 ERA total. But that’s one pitcher. Look at all the trash getting dumped. 42% of the starts!

Defense
Due to a horrible 2007, the Marlins' defense is greatly underrated. A +25 plus/minus, 6.1 UZR. It finished above average last season, and should improve this season.

Starting in the OF. The Marlins OF finished 4th going by plus/minus, with +36. They finished 13th in UZR, 6.2. And this should get significantly better. Cameron Maybin, who's still a bit rough around the edges but still should be one of the better fielders, is essentially replacing Josh Willingham. Cody Ross, who was one of the best defensive CFers last year, moves to RF. Jeremy Hermida (about average going by Plus/Minus, a bit below average going by UZR) moves to LF, where he'll hopefully be above average.

One of the best upgrades they'll make in the OF is by replacing Luis Gonzalez with Brett Carroll. Last season, Luis Gonzalez finished with a horrible -23.4 UZR. That means that, without Gonzo, the marlins finish with a 29.5 UZR. They replace him with Brett Carroll, who was the second best defensive OFer in the Marlins' Minors last season behind Maybin.

When it comes to the IF

The MI finished 8th in UZR (8.8) and 6th by plus/minus (+17). A lot of this has to do with Alfredo Amezaga and Robert Andino getting 300 IP last year backing up average defensive players in Uggla and Hanley. These numbers will probably fall in '09, unless Uggla and Hanley miss chunks of time again. But again, we're talking about two league average defensive players backed up by a defensive stud in Amezaga.

Now comes another reason why the defense will greatly improve: corner IF.

The marlins finished 4th worst there by plus/minus, with a -28. They finished 5th worse going by UZR, with a -8.9. They're now replacing Cantu's -6.2 UZR with Emilio Bonifacio. They're replacing Mike Jacobs -11.1 UZR. This is a combined -20.

Again, you take this out of their UZR from last year like Gonzalez, we're now talking about a 49.5. This would be third best in all of baseball last season. And this isn't including the OF shift. This isn't including Cantu at 1b (Career 3.8 UZR/150) or Emilio Bonifacio, who projects to be an above average defensive player. And when Gaby Sanchez is up, he projects to be an above average defensive player.

This is going to be a great defense, one of the best in the leagues, and one that greatly improves off of last season.

Offense

A lot of people talk down the offense. They got rid of Mike Jacobs, Josh Willingham. Dan Uggla won't be as good. Ect. Ect. However, it's not looking at the big picture, just individual instances.

At catcher, a platoon of John Baker and Ronny Paulino is replacing a .664 combined OPS last season. Even if both of them only perform at a mid to upper .700 OPS against their respective hands (Baker against RHP, Paulino against LHP), we're talking about a 100 point OPS upgrade at the position.

Jeremy Hermida is a year off of a .870 OPS and projections have him at round an .800 OPS, nearly another 100 point upgrade.

At second, yeah, Uggla is likely to regress about 50 OPS points. Hanley, Cantu, Cody, all of their peripherals show no slow down, they're basically a push.

When Gaby comes up, he probably will put up a low OPS. But even if he puts up like a .340/.430/.770 OPS line, that's still better than Mike Jacobs' .299/.514/.812 OPS line of last season due to the importance of OBP. With Emilio starting for the first two months, which wasn't originally projected, it'll be about a .100 OPS drop. But that's likely just until Gaby is past Super 2 status.

Maybin is also a wildcard and is very hard to predict. He could very well put up a low .700 OPS or a low .800 OPS.

So yes, there are drops at some spots, but there are upgrades at others. PECOTA projects us to be just 1 less run than last season. With Emilio starting at third, the offense will probably go down, but still, we'll be somewhere around where we were last year.

So the starting rotation greatly improves
The defense greatly improves
The offense stays roughly the same

The bullpen is certainly a worry, and will likely be below average. But bullpens are also now for their volatile nature. So, we'll see what happens.

Either way, it's very exciting be a Marlins fan at the moment. Read through this post, there is no homer. All of it is fair, statistical facts. It just comes down to a healthy rotation.