SB Nation User Blog: oxforddave

Will Carroll

oxforddave — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:36:29 -0000

Will Carroll

Will Carroll (7:24:45 PM PT): Every time I see Casey Blake play third, I think to myself that he ranges to his left about as much as any 3B I've seen. Is there any stat that would tell me if this is actually the case?

Is there any wonder why I take everything I hear from Will Carroll with a box of salt? (Quote is 3/4 of the way down in the chat)

Cliff Lee As Closer?

oxforddave — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:43:57 -0000

Right now it appears that the tribe's six best pitchers are starters ( in no particular order: Laffey, Sabathia, Lee, Westbrook, Byrd, Carmona). Suppose the Indians make the post season, with these 6 still thriving. The typical thing to do in the post-season is go with your 4 best and make the 5th a long man, or leave him off the roster. But, as of now, the 5th and 6th best starters are better than *any* of the tribe's relievers, and probably by quite a big margin. So making the worst of these two into long relievers, seems a horrible waste.

Seemingly a better option would be to make two of them into high leverage guys in the post season. But which two? History tells us that Carmona is a bad idea. Westbrook and Laffey don't strike out enough, and Byrd gives up way to many homers. That leaves Sabathia and Lee. To me, CC is suspect under pressure, tending to overthrow the ball. Could, would, or should the tribe make Lee the closer in the playoffs?

Thinking about this, one thing is certain. Adam Miller will be on this team as a reliever later this year.

Tejada's age

oxforddave — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:17:07 -0000

Tejada's age

I thought this stuff was over. Anyone else doubt Marte's age?

2008 MLB Payrolls; Guess Who is #2

oxforddave — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:35:38 -0000

I read in the local paper this morning about MLB payrolls. I was surprised to find the Tigers second. Here are the numbers of the top teams.

1 (1) Yankees $209,081,579

2 (9) Tigers $138,685,197

3 (3) Mets $138,293,378

4 (2) Red Sox $133,440,037

5 (4) Whi Sox $121,152,667

6 (5) Angels $119,216,333

16 (23) Tribe $78,970,067

1) the three teams the tribe is competing with for 3 playoff spots are 1,2, and 4 in payroll. 2) It is not just a Yankees-Red Sox duopoly anymore. 3) The Tigers have really jumped; a Tigers fan told me that this is because now there is a salary cap in hockey, so Illitch is spending his cash on the Tigers instead of the RedWings. 4) Even though the Tigers have been the main competition for the tribe the last 2 years, I've never really despised them like the Yankees and Red Sox, as they were kind of in the same boat as the tribe. Not anymore! I can now despise them for their unfair competitive advantage.

Inge or Crede?

oxforddave — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:25:05 -0000

As I see it, third base is the biggest concern for the tribe in 08. Blake's defense is horrible and he is not getting any younger. Marte could be good defensively, but I've seen alot of balls eat him up, and he is never going to hit.

The white sox may be looking to dump Crede, and the tigers may want to trade Inge. Both of these guys would be huge upgrades defensively (especially Inge), and the tribe may have 3 groundball starting pitchers. Both haven't hit much recently (and will never hit for average), but they both have power. Is there anyway the tribe can get one of these guys? I think they can be had cheaply, and possibly even cheaper as the season progresses (and one or both of them is stuck on the bench). Probably the best thing to do is wait, hope 3B isn't a disaster, and be ready to act.

I know teams don't like to deal with division rivals. Have teams ever used another team as an intermediary to get around this (e.g. the tigers trade Inge to the pirates, who turn around and deal him to the tribe)? Poor defense was a big reason for the poor 06, I'd hate to see it again in 08.

PECOTA and the tribe

oxforddave — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 03:25:32 -0000

The PECOTA predictions from Baseball Prospectus are out. Here are my few takes on where the computer regressions may differ from conventional wisdom on key tribe members.

Hitters

PECOTA says that Jhonny Peralta is the 2nd best position player on the tribe in terms of WARP for 2008 and has the 2nd best career upside. It has always liked Jhonny partially because the skewed defensive metrics BP has. Still, Jhonny deserves much more love than he usually gets.

PECOTA loves Asdrubal Cabrera. For prospects it likes Carlos Rivero. Grady still has Barry Bonds as his #2 comparable.

PECOTA gives Hafner only 28 dongs. Ouch.

Predicts Andy Marte to be 50 OPS points less than Casey in 2008. Doesn't think much of Marte or Barfield (both with OBPs sub .310).

Pitchers

CC is in the top 5 pitchers, but gives CC a much higher attrition rate (14%) than the other top guys (Santana 3%, Peavy/Webb 8%). Something to think about when talking long term deals. Take this with a grain of salt as PECOTA has a hard time finding comparables for CC.

PECOTA loves Laffey. Basically says he is equal to Westbrook already in 2008.

PECOTA is not high on Carmona; it still thinks he is good, but expects a decent drop off. Only a top 30 pitcher in the majors, not top 10. Maybe it is the innings jump which it doesn't like (which would be reasonable). Laffey, Carmona, and Westbrook all have very high ground ball rates. Infield defense will be very important.

PECOTA hates on Sowers and Byrd. It doesn't like pitchers with what it considers no stuff.

Anyway, these are my takes on the numbers. It will be interesting how things shake out.

Secret Sauce and Betancourt

oxforddave — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:22:40 -0000

Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus has put up the leaders in his "secret sauce" for 07. http://baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=548 . Historically, what matters in the playoffs is having a) a pitching staff that throws alot of K's, b) a good defense, and c) a good closer. These relative quantities make up the "secret sauce".

How does the tribe make out? Not so well, but I think 2 of the tribe's quantities are misrepresented in a short series, and the third can be adjusted. For a) the tribe has power starters in 4 of the 5 games, so there short series staff is much more powerful than the regular season staff. For b) the tribe defense isn't that great, but pitchers like Byrd don't make it look much better and his pitching frequency will go way down in the playoffs.

As for c). Borowski's relatively low WXRL (wins above replacement) give the tribe a low number. But Betancourt is 2nd in the majors in WXRL. If he was the tribe's closer, they would jump to second in the AL playoff teams in this metric. Instead they are last.

Metrics are metrics, and don't determine winners. But Betancourt and Perez need to pitch the highest leverage innings in the playoffs. If the high leverage innings are the 7th and 8th, I am fine with seeing Borowski in the 9th. But if they are the 9th, one of those two will hopefully be out there.

ALDS A or B?

oxforddave — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 15:15:46 -0000

The question was going around on which teams will play in which AL Division Series. Apparently the AL team finishing with the best record gets to pick whether they play in series A or series B.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/09112007/sports/yankee s/playoffproblem.htm

The importance is that in series B, a team can use three pitchers on regular rest, as there is an extra rest day. For series A this cannot be accomplished.

Pitching Health

oxforddave — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:07:19 -0000

It seems to me that one of the least mentioned but perhaps most important part of the Indians success recently is keeping their pitchers healthy. When was the last time you saw a Indians pitcher with an arm issue? It seems like every other team has 3-4 guys on the DL with shoulder/elbow issues. I guess Matt Miller has had elbow issues the last couple of years, but he is not exactly held a big role. Wickman before that. But there has been no problems with the starting pitching besides abdominal issues (which I will take all day over elbow/shoulder issues) since I don't know when. They've even managed to keep reclamation projects like Howry, Wickman, and Elarton healthy.

Is the tribe just better than everyone else, or are they just lucky? If it is the former, this is HUGE, and in my opinion the most important thing that Shapiro and is staff have accomplished.

I hope I'm not jinxing anything by mentioning this, but in my mind it is a big deal, and I never see it getting any play in the media.

Scoreboard watching

oxforddave — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:41:35 -0000

As far as I am concerned, it is never to early to scoreboard watch. But sometimes I get confused on which teams to root for (or, more importantly, against). For instance, if the Yankees are playing the Twins, who do we want to win to improve the Tribe's chance of making the playoffs?

Luckily, the postseason odds at baseball prospectus
give us some insight. Using them, I have created this handy dandy list, that can be referred to as necessary. As we want the tribe to make the playoffs, this list is in descending order on who we wish to lose the most.

Tigers
Yankees
Twins
A's
Mariners
Angels
Red Sox
Blue Jays

For instance, the A's are about to play the Yankees. In this series, we want the A's to win as they are lower ranked than the Yankees. Note that the White Sox have been so bad, they are not even on the list anymore! (The Red Sox and Blue Jays are barely on the list, and probably can be ignored).

Finally, as the standings change, the list changes, and I will update it periodically.