SB Nation User Blog: thegodfather

MLB Power Rankings 5-25

thegodfather — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:31:45 -0000

It's been about a week and a half since the last rankings, so here's round two. Same thing as last time. The power rankings are established using 50% current record, 25% strength of schedule (from ESPN), 15% run differential, and 10% recent performance.

SOS is used because even though it may not matter very much, those numbers cluster closely around .500 for every team. This brings all of the power rankings closer to .500.

Recent performance (last 10 games) is used because it's a power ranking. Power rankings are based partly on recent performance. It's only 10% though. This will gauge how a team has been doing lately which may indicate how they'll do in the immediate future. A team's recent performance may also reflect changes due to the addition or loss of a player due to injury.

Current record is used for obvious reasons. It's the simplest way to rank all 30 teams.

Pythagorean winning percentage is used because it's a good way to take run dfferential into account.

Team	Power	Wins	LW	Change
LAD	0.626	101	98.4	2.6
TEX	0.58	93.9	92.1	1.8
PHI	0.57	92.4	83	9.4
DET	0.57	92.3	87.2	5.1
STL	0.565	91.5	87.3	4.2
MIL	0.564	91.4	94.4	-3
NYY	0.564	91.4	73.4	18
BOS	0.555	89.9	93.4	-3.5
TOR	0.54	87.5	98.1	-10.6
ATL	0.535	86.6	81.1	5.5
SD	0.53	85.8	64.3	21.5
TB	0.529	85.7	79.2	6.6
NYM	0.527	85.3	92.4	-7.1
LAA	0.524	84.8	87.3	-2.5
CIN	0.509	82.5	91.6	-9.1
PIT	0.489	79.4	69.3	10.1
MIN	0.489	79.2	79.1	0.1
KC	0.489	79.2	85.7	-6.5
CHC	0.481	78	90.8	-12.8
SEA	0.471	76.3	72.8	3.5
ARI	0.463	75.1	63.7	11.4
COL	0.46	74.5	73.3	1.2
HOU	0.447	72.4	76.7	-4.3
SF	0.447	72.3	86.9	-14.6
CHW	0.444	72	73.6	-1.6
FLA	0.437	70.7	77.9	-7.2
BAL	0.431	69.8	73.4	-3.6
CLE	0.427	69.2	67.1	2.1
OAK	0.418	67.8	72.3	-4.5
WAS	0.351	56.8	65.7	-8.9

In case you're wondering, the total number of wins for all 30 teams was 1.5 too high last time, and it is 4.7 too high this time (2434.7 instead of 2430). The difference is negligible.

Luckily, the Cards pull a #5 ranking just ahead of the Brew Crew. Let's hope they can take at least 2/3 in Milwaukee after that ugly sweep. The Cubs are ranked somewhat low, but based on winning percentage they are only on pace for 83 wins. In case you're wondering, the Dodgers and Nationals are on pace for 110 and 46 wins each, respectively, based on WPCT. The Cards would be on pace for 98. As you can see, the rankings above paint a more accurate picture of what the end of the season may look like than simply WPCT*162.

MLB Power Rankings

thegodfather — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:49:38 -0000

Looking at the various MLB power rankings that websites do got me interested in how they come up with their lists. It seems pretty arbitrary, so I decided to come up with somehing a little less random. It's kind of like ESPN's Relative Power Index, but my formula is quite different. The idea is that the number assigned to each team will represent a projected winning percentage so that the rankings also project the total number of wins for the season.

I'll keep this simple. The four factors I use to rank each team are 50% current record, 25% strength of schedule (from ESPN), 15% run differential, and 10% recent performance. If you guys have any ideas about how I should adjust the formula, let me know. It wouldn't be hard for me to post these on a semi-regular basis through the rest of the season if there's interest. Let me know what you think.

Team	Power	Wins
LAD	0.608	98.4
TOR	0.605	98.1
MIL	0.583	94.4
BOS	0.577	93.4
NYM	0.57	92.4
TEX	0.568	92.1
CIN	0.565	91.6
CHC	0.561	90.8
STL	0.539	87.3
LAA	0.539	87.3
DET	0.538	87.2
SF	0.537	86.9
KC	0.529	85.7
PHI	0.512	83
ATL	0.501	81.1
TB	0.489	79.2
MIN	0.489	79.1
FLA	0.481	77.9
HOU	0.473	76.7
CHW	0.454	73.6
NYY	0.453	73.4
BAL	0.453	73.4
COL	0.452	73.3
SEA	0.45	72.8
OAK	0.446	72.3
PIT	0.428	69.3
CLE	0.414	67.1
WAS	0.405	65.7
ARI	0.393	63.7
SD	0.367	64.3

Hooker suspended

thegodfather — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:07:04 -0000

Hooker suspended

So much for one of our top young pitching prospects...

St. Louis Ticket Sales

thegodfather — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:39:58 -0000

This is just a sort of quick rundown of what I've noticed about Cardinal ticket sales up to this point on StubHub. There are some fantastic deals right now I'll link for anyone that's interested.

First off, I bought season tickets starting this year. I got awesome seats, third baseline in the infield field box section. Here's a Stadium Map. I'm selling most of the tickets on StubHub because I'm obviously not going to all of the games, not even close. This is likely what most people do who have these seats because they require that the ticket holders actually own a seat license for their seats. The location of the seats plus the license makes them very expensive. As recently as last year, I've bought tickets to the couple of games I went to from StubHub in the infield field box section. Two weeks in advance, these tickets would cost at least $150 each, usually more like $175 apiece. I'm not talking about Cubs games, just your standard games.

So, what's your point?

Cardinals tickets don't appear to be selling well on StubHub, which is the offical marketplace, as compared to other teams' tickets. As of now there are still 1605 opening day tickets left, and 3039 game 2 tickets left. These games both take place in the next week! For reference, here are some numbers for other teams, game one tickets remaining as of this writing, followed by game two. Keep in mind that many of the other teams' first and second home games take place well after the first Cardinals game.

St. Louis - 1605, 3039

Kansas City - 1224, 717

Cincinnati - 961, 177

Pittsburgh - 869, 4005

Houston - 1235, 995

Colorado - 1150, 361

Washington - 979, 481

I don't know if we can draw any conclusions from this, but it's at least a little scary. Does this mean that Cardinal fans just aren't going to come out to games this year like before? Is it all related to the economy? If so, why does it appear that other teams aren't having such problems? Is it because no major moves have been made recently? No playoff appearances for two years? Does this data mean nothing at all?

I don't know the answers. All I know is that I haven't sold a single pair of tickets yet and I'm worried I'm going to end up losing a large part of my investment in my season tickets. For those of you who buy tickets to individual games, this means you can get tickets really, really cheap. The face values on my tickets in the infield field box section range from $89 - $104 each. You can get infield field box tickets for under $40 each on StubHub now (excluding opening day). Here's the StubHub link if any of you are interested in going to one of these games. They are all great seats at incredible deals, well below face value.

Here is Memphiscub's related fanpost.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy or does it look like attendance could be really poor this year?

Hot Stove 1/13 -

thegodfather — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:47:43 -0000

First off, Ben Sheets. (Clears throat) The current hot stove post is over 430 comments so here is a fresh one. Recent developments include the ~~Cardinals signing Ben Sheets~~ Braves signing Derek Lowe and Kawakami. They now have a formidable rotation from which they may want to trade to bolster their offense... Nothing much seems to be happening on the Cardinals' front, but what else is new? Here is a poll for everyone, but keep in mind that the question is what will the front office do and not what do you want the front office to do. Just to get that clarification out of the way. Ben Sheets.

Poll

What will (not should) the front office do prior to spring training?

Nothing, move(s) will be made during ST

57 votes

Nothing, they are done

21 votes

Trade for a SP

47 votes

Trade for a position player

2 votes

Sign Looper

14 votes

Sign Sheets

67 votes

Sign Wolf

11 votes

Sign Garland

41 votes

Sign a lefty RP (Specify below)

3 votes

Other (Specify below)

3 votes

266 votes | Poll has closed

Joey Bombs, Meet Rick Ankiel

thegodfather — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:45:35 -0000

There has been a lot of discussion on whether or not we should trade Rick Ankiel. If not, should we extend him? He's got All Star potential, a great arm, and a fuzzy, warm story to tell the kids. Baseball, however, isn't all about heart warming stories. What we must begin to ask ourselves, is do we have someone who can make up for his production? The answer is yes, we have Joe Mather.

At age 29 with only a few years of hitting experience, Rick Ankiel is a valuable player. In 653 major league PAs so far, Rick has mashed 36 homers with 110 RBIs. I don't think anyone will argue about how much he will be worth to the team he plays for in 2009. The problem is, the Cardinals really need to consider the fact that he only has one contract year remaining. Is he worth signing to a long term deal? If not, should we trade him? If we do trade him, won't that hurt our offense? I don't want to pretend to have the answer to these questions, but I want to present an argument. Joe Mather, given regular at bats, will be at least as good as Rick Ankiel.

First, let's look at their AAA numbers (Rick's 2007, Mather's 2008):

Ankiel: 389 ABs .267/.312/.568 23.1 K% 0.28 BB/K .357 wOBA

Mather: 211 ABs .303/.395/.630 17.1 K% 0.89 BB/K .420 wOBA

Notes: Ankiel has more ABs and was still new as a hitter (Just so you know that I know)

Mather obviously put up some scary numbers in AAA. Based on my "concessions" above, you may doubt their relevance in relation to Ankiel. Here's another comparison, Rasmus 2007 in AA versus Mather 2007 in AA. (I know Mather is no Rasmus because Rasmus is younger..., but this still shows something)

Rasmus: 472 ABs .275/.369/.551 22.9 K% 0.65 BB/K .394 wOBA

Mather: 234 ABs .303/.380/.607 13.7 K% 0.91 BB/K .417 wOBA

Again, this cleary shows that Mather has some serious potential. He stuggled in his first stint in AAA in 2007, but rebounded in 2008. As opposed to Rick Ankiel, he also struggled in his first stint in the Show:

Mather 147 PAs .241/.306/.474 24.1 K% 0.38 BB/K .335 wOBA

Ankiel 190 PAs .285/.328/.535 23.8 K% 0.32 BB/K .364 wOBA

Rick's numbers show that he did not stuggle upon promotion to majors. Mather did. That line is well below Mather's past couple of years in the minors. We can almost certainly expect an improvement. His BABIP was only .258 in STL which we can expect to rise. Rick's 07 BABIP, on the other hand, was .317.

Is Joe Mather the next Cardinals great? Probably not. However, he is going to be a star player very soon. He has the potential to be better than Rick Ankiel. At age 26, he's got time to prove himself. He is under team control for longer than Rick Ankiel and he is cost controlled. Joe Mather is Rick Ankiel version 2.0. We can trade Rick Ankiel to address an area of need and the offense will not miss him. After all, we have Joey Bombs.

2009 Projection - How the Cards are an 83 Win Team

thegodfather — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:47:41 -0000

The idea of this post is to project the number of runs the Cardinals, as the rosters are currently constructed, will both allow and score in 2009. I first will use the lineup toy from Baseball Musings to project runs scored. Then, I will simply use ERAs for each pitcher on the staff over X innings to determine runs allowed. Finally, I’ll use the, albeit flawed, pythagorean expectancy formula to estimate the Cardinals’ record. I will use each of the Bill James and Marcel projections and I will also do a projection of my own. This is going to be a lot of numbers with tons of room for nitpicking. Hope you enjoy.

First off we need to look at the accuracy of the lineup toy. Here I've put in the OBPs and SLGs for each spot in the Cardinals' order from 2008. You can find these numbers on Baseball Reference. The toy says last years' lineup should have scored 5.268 runs per game, or 853 total runs. In actuality, the Cardinals scored 779 runs. That's a difference of -74 runs. In 2007, the difference was only -34 runs. I'll call the difference -50 runs from the toy's projection to actual performance for analysis purposes. Now the Cardinals' pythagorean records (W^2 / (L^2 + W^2) in 2007 and 2008 were 70-92 and 87-75, respectively, while the actual records were 78-84 and 86-76. Basically, this shows that the pythagorean records are not by any means exact, but they should be a decent estimate for most cases. Now comes the fun part.

I need to decide who will be on the Cardinals' 25 man roster, and I'm doing the projections based on the same 25 guys being on the team the whole year. The outfield is a logjam, so I'm going to stick with our best guys but leave Mather in AAA instead of Barton. My reasoning for this is if Ankiel gets traded, then Mather would be the one who would be most likely to replicate his production. Here goes nothing:

C - Molina, LaRue

1B - Pujols

2B - Kennedy, Miles

3B - Glaus, Freese(!)

SS - Greene

OF - Ludwick, Ankiel, Schumaker, Rasmus, Barton

SP - Carpenter, Wainwright, Wellemeyer, Lohse, Pineiro

RP - Perez, Motte, Franklin, Kinney, McClellan, Miller, Thompson

That's my idea of what the roster may look like as of now. The Carpenter pick doesn't mean for a full season, I have him down for 100 innings. I put Miles in there because who knows who our utility infielder will be at this point. I'm not saying this roster is what I want, just what I think it may be, except for the Freese pick, but it's my fanpost so I'll do what I want! ;)

First I'm going to talk about the pitching because those stats are much simpler. When the IP totals didn't match last year's totals I added in "replacement" innings with a 5.00 ERA. I'm not sure what the generally accepted replacement-level ERA is, but because there are so many innings left in some cases, I thought a 5.00 ERA would work. These innings should be covered by another starter yet to be acquired or Mitch Boggs/Brad Thompson who should all be capable of a 5 ERA or (hopefully) better. For the unearned runs total I used 60. Last year's total was 48 and the defense shouldn't be too much worse this year. This goal of this portion of the exercise is to find to total runs allowed. Without further ado:

	--------Marcel------------			-------Bill James--------			---thegodfather-------
	IP	ERA	Runs	IP	ERA	Runs	IP	ERA	Runs
Carpenter	66	3.75	28	45	3.34	17	100	3.3	37
Wainwright	135	3.67	55	150	3.8	63	200	3.4	76
Wellemeyer	149	4.08	68	200	4.15	92	195	4	87
Lohse	176	4.27	84	191	4.41	94	195	4	87
Pineiro	130	4.92	71	142	4.63	73	140	5.05	79
Perez	46	3.91	20	48	3.9	21	65	3.49	25
Motte	31	3.77	13	31**	3.77**	13	65	3.54	26
McClellan	63	4.07	28	63	3.77	26	67	3.67	27
Kinney	29	3.88	13	29**	3.88**	13	52	3.55	21
Thompson	79	4.5	40	67	4.58	34	75	4.65	39
Franklin	72	4.19	34	79	4.36	38	79	3.8	33
Miller	51	4.32	24	47	3.96	21	40	4.25	19
Replacement	427	5	237	362	5	201	181	5	101
Total	1454^	4.43	715	1454^	4.37	706	1454^	4.07	657
Unearned*			60			60			60
Total			775			766			717

Next, I have constructed a table with each of three projection systems that include OBP, SLG, and PAs. Bill James uses ABs so I changed the table accordingly. W. PAs represents "weighted plate appearances." I used the projected Marcel totals and compared them to last year's PA totals. I then used a percentage to weight the projections so that they totaled up to the same number as last year. Both the Bill James and my own predictions already equaled the same total as last year (with a little tinkering of course).

	----------Marcel---------------------				--------Bill James---------			-------thegodfather-------
	OBP	SLG	PAs	W. PAs	OBP	SLG	ABs	OBP	SLG	PAs
Mol	0.333	0.378	482	502	0.329	0.37	473	0.34	0.38	483
Puj	0.429	0.591	588	612	0.443	0.633	575	0.445	0.628	650
Ken	0.332	0.368	413	430	0.332	0.368	348	0.325	0.375	400
Gla	0.358	0.466	564	587	0.367	0.49	539	0.365	0.49	600
Gre	0.291	0.408	477	497	0.294	0.408	581(!)	0.295	0.415	550
Lud	0.356	0.523	542	564	0.351	0.528	540	0.357	0.55	600
Ank	0.334	0.483	463	482	0.324	0.504	502	0.34	0.51	485
Sch	0.349	0.409	516	537	0.35	0.398	405	0.349	0.404	475
Ras	.331**	.422**	400*	416	0.331	0.422	472	0.347	0.45	485
Bar	0.35	0.419	290	302	0.359	0.4	115	0.35	0.39	300
Fre	.323*	.415*	250*	260	.329*	.432*	239*	0.342	0.45	325
LaR	0.294	0.352	314	327	0.322	0.37	154	0.3	0.35	210
Mil	0.33	0.365	449	467	0.334	0.372	360	0.33	0.355	420
W/o P			5748	5983^			5303^			5983^
P***	0.206	0.225	387^	387^	0.206	0.225	333^	0.206	0.225	387^
				6370^			5636^			6370^

*Exact science of guessing used (no projections)

**Bill James/Marcel numbers used rather than guessing

***For pitcher #s I used the 2008 data

^Also 2008 totals

Now here is where the real fun begins. I took each player and made a vague attempt to guess how many PAs they would get in each spot in the lineup. As you will notice, it's really not accurate, but I think that it is good enough. There was no way I would have been able to predict all of LaRussa's lineup madness. I'm leaving out the table with all of the PA numbers because I think it's unnecessary for you to read. I took the individual player PAs divided by the total per each spot in the lineup (2008 data) to figure a percentage. Here they are:

	---------------------------------------Marcel------------------------------------
Lineup	% of PAs for Lineup Spot	OBP	SLG
1	Sch 69, Ras 3, Bar 15, Ken 13	0.344	0.406
2	Ank 58, Ras 21, Gre 5, Mil 16	0.331	0.448
3	Puj 83, Lud 17	0.417	0.579
4	Lud 60, Ras 20, Ank 7, Fre 13	0.345	0.486
5	Gla 81, Gre 11, Fre 8	0.348	0.456
6	Mol 70, Ras 9, LaR 7, Mil 12, Fre 2	0.33	0.379
7	Gre 53, Bar 11, LaR 15, Mil 21	0.306	0.392
8	P 60, Bar 4, Gre 3, Mil 12, Ras 3, Fre 15, Gla 2, Mol 1	0.241	0.296
9	Ken 52, Bar 13, LaR 28, Mil 7	0.324	0.37
	---------------------------------Bill James------------------------------
Lineup	% of PAs for Lineup Spot	OBP	SLG
1	Sch 57, Ras 9, Bar 13, Ken 14, Mil 7	0.346	0.378
2	Ank 71, Ras 24, Mil 5	0.326	0.478
3	Puj 93, Lud 7	0.437	0.626
4	Lud 77, Ras 16, Fre 7	0.346	0.504
5	Gla 86, Fre 14	0.362	0.482
6	Mol 76, Ras 21, LaR 3	0.329	0.381
7	Gre 93, LaR 4, Mil 3	0.296	0.405
8	P 59, Mil 9, Gre 3, Ank 4, Bar 4, Ras 2, Fre 19	0.257	0.262
9	Ken 44, Mil 37, LaR 19	0.331	0.37
	----------------------------------thegodfather---------------------------------
Lineup	% of PAs for Lineup Spot	OBP	SLG
1	Sch 61, Ras 6, Bar 20, Ken 13	0.35	0.392
2	Ank 57, Ras 24, Mil 15, Fre 4	0.34	0.467
3	Puj 88, Lud 12	0.43	0.616
4	Lud 70, Ras 14, Ank 7, Fre 9	0.353	0.526
5	Gla 83, Gre 7, Fre 10	0.358	0.482
6	Mol 69, Ras 19, LaR 8, Mil 4	0.338	0.39
7	Gre 75, Bar 11, LaR 7, Fre 7	0.305	0.411
8	P 60, Bar 4, Mil 12, Gla 1, Ank 2, Ras 3, Fre 14, Ken 4	0.256	0.302
9	Ken 43, Bar 7, LaR 17, Mil 33	0.324	0.365

Having fun with the numbers yet? At this point my head (and calculator) were about to explode. Finally I took the percentages and multiplied them by each player's OBP and SLG. I added each of them up to come up with the total for each position (listed in table above). These values are what I used to calculate runs per game on the lineup toy at Baseball Musings. I took off 50 from each total based on the fact that the lineup toy has overrated the offense the past couple of years. Here are the results:

Marcel 794 runs scored - 50 = 744

Bill James 825 runs scored - 50 = 775

thegodfather 843 runs scored - 50 = 793

Once I had the runs scored, I used Bill James' pythagorean formula to figure out the estimated W-L totals. Warning: they aren't pretty.

Marcel 78-84

Bill James 82-80

thegodfather 89-73

Now it's time to reflect. These results are obviously just rough guesses. There are a million things that I could have done differently (that you are more than welcome to point out). What this does tell us, however, is that the Cardinals, as currently constructed, are not a 90+ win team. Sure, if there are no injuries, Carpenter comes back, and everybody puts up career numbers, they will easily be a 90 win team. Honestly, we all know that's not all going to happen.

So what can be done to improve the team? If you look at the projections for our bullpen, it looks like it could be a strength. Let me rephrase that, our bullpen could easily be a strength without adding a "proven closer." The starting rotation, on the other hand, is weak. Based on the numbers, a starter is what the team needs.

Sorry this post was so long but I wanted to show you all of my information. Thanks to RunninRedbird for helping me with my own pitcher and hitter projections. They are optimistic but I don't believe too much so. Hope you found this interesting.

References: Baseball-Reference, Fangraphs, Baseball Musings

The Business of Baseball

thegodfather — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:45:09 -0000

When I first began researching for this fanpost, I intended to present an argument for which team would go down as the best team of the decade (2000-2009). I figured it had to be between the Red Sox and the Cardinals, but that it would all come down to 2009. I soon realized that it is actually the Yankees who have by far the most wins over the past 9 seasons. I know that wins wouldn’t have been the sole determinant, but that fact alone got me thinking. My focus, or lack thereof, had been shifted drastically.

I began by creating a spreadsheet of all 30 teams’ W-L totals for the past 9 years. I also found the winning percentages. In order, the top 5 winningest teams over the past 9 years are the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Athletics, and Braves. It was nice to see that the Cards had indeed been the model for the NL. I also threw in the number of total playoff appearances (PO), league titles (LCS), and World Series titles (WS). At this point in my research, I still didn’t know what I was looking for.

	Wins	Losses	PCT	PO	LCS	WS
NYY	862	592	0.593	8	3	1
BOS	825	632	0.566	5	2??	2??
STL	822	635	0.564	6	2	1
OAK	815	641	0.56	5	0	0
ATL	806	650	0.554	6	0	0
LAA	803	655	0.551	5	1	1
CHW	778	681	0.533	3	1	1
MIN	776	682	0.532	4	0	0
SFO	767	688	0.527	3	1	0
LAD	767	691	0.526	3	0??	0??
PHI	757	700	0.52	2	0??	0??
HOU	758	699	0.52	3	1	0
SEA	752	706	0.516	2	0	0
CLE	751	707	0.515	2	0	0
NYM	745	711	0.512	2	1	0
ARI	735	723	0.504	3	1	1
TOR	730	727	0.501	0	0	0
FLA	724	732	0.497	1	1	1
CHC	724	733	0.497	3	0	0
SD	694	765	0.476	2	0	0
TEX	689	769	0.473	0	0	0
COL	677	782	0.464	1	1	0
CIN	673	785	0.462	0	0	0
MIL	661	796	0.454	1	0	0
WAS	652	805	0.447	0	0	0
DET	643	814	0.441	1	1	0
BAL	634	822	0.435	0	0	0
PIT	619	837	0.425	0	0	0
TB	610	845	0.419	1	0??	0??
KC	607	851	0.416	0	0	0

At this moment I was full of animosity toward Boston and New York (weird, right?). I thought that it was ridiculous how they won all the time but, as we all know, they just spend a ton of money to do it. This is when, finally, I decided to attempt to rank all of the teams by how effectively they use their payroll. Meaning, who gets the most wins but doesn’t spend more than they should have to in order to get them?

I added up each team’s payroll for the past 9 years and added it to the chart. As expected, the Yankees and Red Sox ranked 1-2 in average annual payroll. I didn’t know exactly how to reduce the broad concept of “effectiveness of payroll management” to a single number, or, better yet, how to find that number. First I tried just total payroll over 9 years divided by total wins ($M/Win). This method didn’t work, because while it gave over-spenders like NY poor ratings, it gave terrible teams like KC good ratings simply because they don’t spend much.

I tried probably 5 more methods total, and I will spare you the explanations, before I settled on $M/Win>60. Everyone in baseball has heard something to this effect: “Every team wins 60 and loses 60; it’s the other 42 that count.” I took that literally. I took the 9-year payroll divided by total wins minus (9*60). Basically, I decided that the first 60 wins of every season for every team are “free” since all teams win 60 games (Please don’t cite examples to the contrary, I know already. Over time, teams will all average at least 60 wins.). This formula worked. Here are the results, sorted by my fancy new stat:

	AVG W	AVG Payroll ($M)	$M/Win	$M/Win>60
OAK	90.6	51	0.56	1.7
FLA	80.4	35	0.44	1.7
MIN	86.2	49	0.57	1.9
STL	91.3	84	0.92	2.7
CLE	83.4	63	0.75	2.7
CHW	86.4	75	0.87	2.8
LAA	89.2	86	0.96	2.9
ATL	89.6	92	1	3.1
SFO	85.2	79	0.93	3.1
HOU	84.2	74	0.88	3.1
PHI	84.1	76	0.9	3.2
TOR	81.1	67	0.83	3.2
SD	77.1	56	0.73	3.3
ARI	81.7	73	0.89	3.4
WAS	72.4	45	0.62	3.6
BOS	91.6	116	1.3	3.7
SEA	83.6	87	1	3.7
MIL	73.4	50	0.68	3.7
COL	75.2	59	0.78	3.9
CIN	74.8	57	0.76	3.9
LAD	85.2	100	1.2	4
CHC	80.4	86	1.1	4.2
NYY	95.8	163	1.7	4.6
NYM	82.8	104	1.3	4.6
TEX	76.6	76	1	4.6
PIT	68.8	43	0.63	4.9
TB	67.8	38	0.56	4.9
KC	67.4	44	0.65	5.9
DET	71.4	72	1	6.3
BAL	70.4	72	1	6.9

What this shows is a very arbitrary ranking of teams by the effectiveness at which they “bought” wins (Low number is good). As I expected, Oakland and Minnesota are ranked very high because they spend little money but still manage to win. I was surprised that Florida was ranked so high, but after all, they do win a lot of games for their very low payroll. Using this value and my own insight, here’s my 1-5 for the top organizations when it comes to maximizing value while still winning games:

1) Oakland – Easy pick here. 5 playoff appearances averaging a 91 win season every year for a measly $51 million a year. The Athletics organization has done an outstanding job at putting together a winning team while still being profitable.

2) Minnesota – 4 playoff appearances and an 86 win average for $49 million a year. I’ll buy it.

3) St. Louis – OK, I’m biased. So what? 6 playoff appearances, 2 league titles, and a World Series championship while averaging 91 wins a season is pretty darn good for $84 million a year. Especially when the Cardinals have been (arguably) the best team in the NL over the last 9 years.

4) LA Angels – Another winning franchise that doesn’t pay a ton to do it. 5 playoff appearances and a championship, averaging 89 wins a season for $86 million a year.

5) Florida – Hard pick here. I didn’t like giving a losing team so much credit, but seriously, $35 million a year and they still average 80 wins?!?! They don’t have any fans, so they aren’t making money, so the fact that they can field an 80 win team consistently is amazing. Did I mention the WS title?

So, next time the Cardinals don’t try to sign that big free agent, or make that blockbuster trade, just remember how smart the front office has been. Baseball is a business; owners are in it to make money. The fact that the Cardinals have been able to be profitable while fielding some really outstanding teams this decade is really amazing, and the organization’s leaders deserve some credit.

That’s all I got. I didn’t exactly know what to do with all of this information, but I think it’s interesting. Hope you thought so too.

The...Wisdom? Of the Pitcher Batting Eighth

thegodfather — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:32:58 -0000

First time posting anything on VEB so here goes nothing!

As we all know, Tony LaRussa has elected to bat the pitcher eighth through the 2008 season. This idea is not new to St. Louis and the fans have grown used to it. In all likelihood, it’s not going to change anytime soon either. However, I really still wonder whether or not this is a practical strategy. My gut says it is not. Logically, the more the pitcher comes up to bat, the worse, right? . . . Right?

The basis of the pitcher hitting eighth theory is that it will give Albert more at bats with runners on. I’m going to say, without any evidence to back it up, that this part of the idea probably works. Albert will step into the box with runners on more often with a position player batting ninth. Nonetheless, one must examine the consequences. How many more times will the pitcher come to bat with runners on?

I realize, in presenting this argument fairly, that I must point out that the 8 spot in the lineup is not always the pitcher. Obviously, sometimes it is a pinch hitter or in the event of a double switch, a position player. Now that I’ve got the disclaimer out of the way, let’s move on.

Here is a table of useful stats (from baseball reference):

	PAs	OBP	OPS	RBI	R
Batting 1st	737	.345	.735	56	103
Batting 2nd	709	.358	.835	92	117
Batting 3rd	701	.435	1.044	115	103
Batting 4th	691	.340	.832	104	98
Batting 5th	675	.359	.822	102	76
Batting 6th	661	.347	.742	77	62
Batting 7th	638	.350	.747	58	58
Batting 8th	618	.251	.546	52	37
Batting 9th	596	.317	.635	36	67

As you can see, the argument in Tony’s favor is that the 9 spot has scored 67 runs, which is more than the 6, 7, or 8 spot. Tony would likely say (of course, not in so many words) that this is because Albert has the chance to drive in the 9 place hitter. If you look only at this, then yes, go ahead and bat the pitcher eighth. Here’s a list of reasons NOT to bat the pitcher eighth:

- The 8 spot with its .546 OPS has 22 more plate appearances than the 9 thus far in the season. That’s 22 more than anyone should want.

- The 8 spot has 16 more RBIs in those 22 more PAs. Noticing the 89 point OPS difference, that means that the 8 spot comes up with runners on much more often than the 9 spot. That’s not good when pitchers hit eighth. (I know this should be obvious since the pitcher “hits” before the 9 spot comes up, just making an observation)

- The idea of a “double lead-off” only works when the 9 spot hitter gets on base. The 9 spot this year gets on base at an anemic .317 clip with a pathetic .635 OPS. If these hitters get on, it’s a single, and with our most common leadoff hitter being Skip “Groundball to Second” Schumaker (2.9 G/F ratio, 17 GIDP), the so-called double lead-off is bad idea.

- The 1 spot in the order grounds into the most double plays (21) of any spot in the lineup. A pitcher batting ninth could (and should) sacrifice the runner to second, eliminating the double play opportunity. This also means more RISP opportunities for the top of the order (and, of course, the reinstated 8 place hitter).

- Albert Pujols doesn’t get pitches to hit with runners on. He has 218 ABs with runners on and 103 with RISP. In comparison, Ryan Howard has 287 and 169. Lance Berkman has 248 and 132 (Stats from ESPN). After all, why make the overall lineup weaker if it isn’t going to help Albert much at all.

In conclusion, I see no logical reason to bat the pitcher eighth. Maybe Tony LaRussa has some sort of secret he’s not telling us, but I doubt it. The man is a baseball genius, but this is not one of his better ideas. I say next season he should swallow his pride (hah, like that’ll happen) and resume batting the pitcher ninth. That is the most productive way to construct a lineup. What do you guys think?

Poll

Is the pitcher hitting eighth a good strategy (would you do it if you were manager)?

Yes

36 votes

No

34 votes

Maybe...I don't really know

12 votes

82 votes | Poll has closed