SB Nation User Blog: tom s.

chaut stove season

tom s. — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 05:14:33 -0000

a special season is upon us. one we look forward to all year. this special season commemorates events of thousands of years past.

in the days of king solomon, solomon was both the king of the nation of israel and the general manager of the local team, the jerusalem stars. the stars had grown tired of being dominated by the philistines and amalekites in the eastern mediterranean league by their unholy brand of Base-Ba'al.

solomon saw an opportunity when phlebas the phoenician came on the free agent market, a highly-touted left fielder who made his name playing for the city of tyre.

phlebas was a fine fielder and an extraordinary hitter, yet his contract expectations were said to be enormous. he was rumored to want 19 million shekels each season over eight seasons. solomon checked his treasury, and though he was wealthy enough to afford to pay the 19 million shekels over one season, no one believed he could afford to pay phlebas the full eight seasons. in the face of arguments and predictions of financial doom from his advisors, solomon signed the eight-year contract for the full amount.

once phlebas took the field, a miracle occurred; the nineteen million shekels was mystically replenished each season, and phlebas was paid from the treasury over all eight seasons. never did the weight of the unprecedented contract hold down the development of the team. phlebas went on to win 2 MVP awards in that period and the stars clinched five championships in eight years.

the flags from those championship years flew proudly over the stadium grounds for a thousand years until the romans demolished the stadium in 70 A.D. to build a Super Target and a Bed, Bath, and Beyond on the site.

so much for flags flying forever.

in honor of this miracle, every year we celebrate chaut stove season - marked by the refrain "why is this jon heyman tweet different from all the other jon heyman tweets?" - every day for eight days or until the yankees have signed all the good players, whichever comes first.

well, the chaut stove is glowing red hot right now. a lot has happened in the last week or so.

the big news is the penny signing i think there's a lot to like about it. there's been some discussion about durability for penny. it's a real consideration, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. i bet penny throws more innings than lohse this year. he's been compared to two other recent signings in terms injury issues. some of this has revolved around one of my baseball pet peeves - lumping very different players together with the same qualifier. in this case "injury prone"; e.g., "why do the cardinals need another injury prone pitcher?" well, yes, penny is injury prone. but all injury prone pitchers are not created alike. check out these numbers.

Name	Age	3 season IP total	3 season IP avg	5 season IP total	5 season IP avg
Brad Penny	31	476	158.7	840.33	168
Randy Wolf	33	507.33	169.1	621	124.2
Rich Harden	28	293.67	97.7	468	93.6

while wolf has had two solid seasons in a row, he's also closing in on 34 and has had a number of seasons of poor durability in recent history. rich harden is just not regularly putting out the innings, though he clearly has a higher ceiling than either of the others. penny, by contrast is a pretty steady 160 inning man. when we say he's injury prone, that means he misses 6-8 starts a year usually. harden may have provided more value, but penny is the surer bet to meet your innings needs. as for wolf, i'm glad we're not paying him to be 36 years old.

nor does it seem that penny has lingering effects from his shoulder injury in 2008. consider that penny's average FB speed over his career has been 93.4 mph. last season it was 94.0 mph, his best EVER speed. penny's problems last year probably had little to do with the injury. he brought his K rate down a bit off his career K rate (5.66 k/9 v. a career 6.29). he did generate fewer of his hallmark groundballs (43.7 % v. a career 45.3%). he got unlucky with LOB (67.1%). he was also playing in boston in the toughest division in baseball for much of the season with some suspect defenders (mike lowell, julio lugo, youkilis at third) in the infield for a groundball pitcher (generating a .336 BABIP during his part season there). i'll leave more in-depth looks for the pitch f/x guys (guy?). but i think any hazard in taking him on is far outweighed from the good we're likely to see from him.

* * *

the penny analysis leads us to another question: where to next? well, i'm glad you asked. if you haven't been following the rants by our local grumpy robot over on futureredbirds.net, you've been missing a treat. bender's twin has put together position-by-position reviews of the team at catcher(focusing on backup), left field, and, his most interesting piece so far, third base.

azru makes an interesting case that freese projects by all measures to be a 2 WAR type 3b - not a bad piece for league min for the next three seasons. this makes investing in the series of 2.5-3 WAR free agents (beltre, crede, derosa, etc.) at third a pretty questionable business, since that extra win or so would come at a multi-million dollar price (as a quibble, i will say some folks could definitely call beltre more a 4 win player than a 3 win player). even so, it's important to remember that replacement value at third is not, for the cards, replacement value. if we pay for a free agent, we'll be paying for the benefit over and above a 2 WAR type performance from freese.

this raises the compelling question of how we can make the club better in other areas. the obvious one is in LF - matt holliday would be a substantial improvement (4 or 5 WAR) over internal options. however, while that may be a sensible place to spend gobs of money this year, it may not be over the next four, five, six years. there's a big step down to the next best LF options, probably mike cameron, then bay and damon, worth about 3 or 4 WAR (meaning a 2 or 3 WAR improvement over craig). i heard noises about damon wanting 3 years, which i have no interest in, and you probably know my thinking on bay.

the other obvious place to spend would be to fill the fifth starting role. one of the luxuries of having a farm with garcia and boggs coming out of it is that we could drop some money on a smoltz or a bedard or a duchscherer or a sheets in hopes of having a surprise key performance, yet not be totally stuck if the injured remain injured. smoltz seems like the most plausible of that list, though sheets has a higher ceiling. those options could plausibly offer a 2-3 WAR bump over a mix-n-match of starting pitching options.

note that with carpenter, penny, and lohse already in the rotation our memphis squad is sure to get plenty of calls; hoping that a squad headed by a guy coming off TJ surgery will cover all the needs created by injury and a full rotation spot may be wishful thinking. duncan has already made noises about not wanting to vest garcia with a spot if his inning count is going to be capped around 80 or 90 innings because of his recovery.

* * *

another big event this year was the rule 5 draft. i really like our results this year, even though they were greeted with some yawns on the boards. ben jukich was our major league rule 5 draft pick. once described as having the best curveball in the A's system, he remains a left-handed groundball artist (running a consistent 50% GB rate). he started 17 games for the reds AAA affiliate last year and appeared in relief numerous times. his K rates have run at 7.76 k/9(last year); 5.96; 7.19; 7.10; 8.41. his control has remained good since his promotion to the high minors: his bb/9 range from a low of 1.59 to a high of 3.50.

contrast him, say, with lance lynn - minor league career GB rate of 47.4%, career K/9 of 7.73, and he comes out looking pretty reasonable. major caveat - lynn is five years younger.

jukich is definitely no loogy, either. his splits show no strong bias towards batters of either handedness; he had an FIP of 4.52 to LHB and 4.19 to RHB this year.

i'm not saying jukich is any kind of sure thing; he's marinated far too long in the minors to say that. but he's never had a shot at the big show. my goal for him is brad thompson with at least two pitches, but i think he could be a sleeper candidate to show us even more. he's a groundball artist and a curveball specialist who's going to spend spring training with dave duncan, adam wainwright, and chris carpenter. if he's ever gonna shine, this is his big chance.

matt meyer is a similarly interesting type. he was taken in the AAA draft from cleveland, which means that we only need to keep him on the memphis roster, not the major league roster, all year to keep him. a perennial reliever, he's had k/9's from 7.94 to 10.80 over numerous levels, averaging out around 9 or so. meyer has NOT been a control artist, though, tossing out some real wild seasons, culminating in a 8.18 BB/9 at AA this year. he's very promising against lefties with a minor league career 10.62 K/9 and a 53% GB rate. he's actually remarkably similar to our internal loogy option - tyler norrick; a ton of K's and a ton of walks. this is another exercise in throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, but meyer seems like a pretty sensible thing to throw at the wall. tyler norrick, part II, is an almost cost-free pick up that can only help us.

* * *

as the resident old-man poster, i should say a couple words about the white rat, since i think i am the only one among the mods who clearly recalls that period.

whitey was one of many managers who PLAYED THE GAME - albeit, not very well - and a brick in the seamless wall of 130+ years of managers that do not include a single pasty-faced spreadsheet reader living in his mother's basement.

whitey and his teams made me fall in love with baseball. they were everything you have ever heard about them. lightning fast, thrill a minute. a bunt, a single, a stolen base. nobody swung for the fences but jack clark (who hit 22 HR in 1985 - imagine what would happen to a cleanup hitter who hit 22 HR today!).

if you went for extra bases it was on the speed of your legs, not the muscles in your arms. in 1985, willie mcgee slugged .503 . . . with just 10 home runs.

vince coleman stole more bases in 1985 that 19 of the 30 major league teams did last year. in 1986, he had an OBP of .301, reaching base 201 times; he stole 106 bases. he was caught stealing only 14 times. that's the whiteyball game plan; you get on base and 50%+ of the time, you're taking the next one.

it was nothing but fun to watch.

baseball is forever outlined for me in the bold lettering of 1985 Topps cards (succeeded by the miserable wood paneling 1986 sets), with 'the heat is on' playing in the background. i don't have anything really clever or interesting to say about whitey the man; i was way too young to see him as anything but the archetype of the grandfatherly silent manager i just assumed should and did run every club; i saw the similarly wise and wizened faces of sparky anderson and earl weaver grinning on my Topps cards. i was not in a position to appreciate what made him special.

in retrospect, though, i feel honored to have lived at a unique time in baseball history, watching a team run by a true innovator. somebody who latched on to the advantages of these gargantuan stadiums with thin layers of turf laid over concrete and 424 foot centerfield fences. whitey saw you could make a baseball bounce like a pinball, and that's what the games felt like -- flashing lights and rocket shots. an excitement that's different from what today's teams generate.

when his place in the hall of fame was announced though, i had no real reaction, and very little to say. in my head, he had always been there.

projections

tom s. — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 09:15:04 -0000

[unknown date] matt holliday contemplates getting all the money he deserves.

View full size photo »

i was showing my daughter for the first time the epic "a charlie brown christmas," and i was struck by a line that was delivered so poignantly, so humanly, so utterly childlike. the line is appropriate to both the holiday season and the baseball free agency season. the line called to mind matt holliday and everybody else gunning for the bigger dollars and the bigger years, often demanding sums that have nothing to do with their own needs or wants, but to demonstrate that they are more important than the next player in line (e.g., the rumor that linececum will demand a symbolic $23,000,001 in arbitration to show that he is more important than the best paid pitcher in baseball).

what matt is saying is: all i want is what i have coming to me; all i want is my fair share.*

and just as sally is right and yet so wrong at the same time, because looking out for her own self-interest (something that we all do and must do) clashes badly with the themes of the season, which is supposed to be about selflessness and giving, matt is both right and oh so wrong in baseball. right, in that the money may just go into the steinbrenners' pockets or the legendary dewallet should he agree to less than the ultimate penny he can squeeze out of his negotiating partner/opponent. wrong in that baseball, like christmas, is supposed to be above pettiness and above greed. baseball is about allegiances to a team, a team the player is supposed to sweat and bleed and struggle for; how do we reconcile that with the vision of a player pimping himself out to the highest bidder before the last out of the world series has settled in the glove?

baseball is supposed to be wholesome and american and all those things that wake adam dunn up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. is it an accident that the two most iconic peanuts associations are christmas and baseball?

mind you, i am not saying that matt holliday is a bad person because he likes money. i look at free agency and baseball contracts and know that that is how it will be, inevitably. you can call it "wrong" if you like; i won't tell you that you're wrong in return. but one might as well tell a five-year old that she's "wrong" to wish for toys and candy at christmas. it is simply the way the world is, and the best one can say is that we can look at it and wish it were different, and we are fools to devote any more effort to it than wishing.

if i die and go to the afterlife and discover that any deity resembles ayn rand in any fashion, i will surely have to answer for the sin that is this post.

* i read on the internet and therefore it must be true that the actress portraying sally in the christmas special was so young she could not read or memorize her lines, and therefore her lines were often read orally to her, leading to the endearingly choppy delivery of that iconic line.

Something common to many anti-saberites is the objection to projections. if a player is projected to have an OPS of .750 and he has an OPS of .700, was the projection "wrong"? well, no. or maybe yes, depending on your expectation. but people who design, develop, and promote projections would say "no." a projection is not a prediction of what will actually occur. it's a statement of the most likely outcome. nobody makes - or nobody should make - actual predictions about what will occur on the diamond over the course of a season. too much is left to chance in any one season to claim knowledge of an outcome. were it possible to play the same season over and over again with the same player, you would likely see widely varying outcomes from one season to the next.

to give a better analogy, a projection looks at a bellcurve of the likely outcomes and picks the outcome at the peak of that curve. a player could do better than the projection, or worse, in any given season. the claim is that the individual projection is the most likely outcome. take a look at this 2009 projection for albert pujols from baseballprojection.com.

Percentile	LW Runs	vs. Repl	Atbats	AVG	OBP	SLG
10th	25	41	435	0.297	0.400	0.522
20th	32	49	459	0.305	0.411	0.545
30th	40	58	486	0.313	0.419	0.568
40th	47	66	510	0.320	0.428	0.586
50th	55	75	535	0.327	0.438	0.604
60th	62	83	541	0.335	0.446	0.623
70th	68	89	545	0.341	0.455	0.642
80th	76	97	552	0.350	0.463	0.665
90th	83	105	556	0.356	0.472	0.683

i like the way this depicts the bell curve -- there's a top and a bottom percentile. in an unlucky 2009, albert could have racked up a .922 OPS. in a lucky 2009, albert could have managed a 1.155 OPS.

a lot of teams would take unlucky albert.

but the most likely outcome is something within a relatively narrow range on either side of the 50th percentile1.042 projection. when a projection is cited, they're not saying albert will hit 1.042, but that 1.042 OPS should be more or less in the middle of the field of possibilities, will be at the tip of that bell curve. remember also that albert is well known as one of the most consistent players in baseball, so a less ridiculous hitter might show more than the .230 variation in OPS between 10th percentile and 90th percentile.

below is a table of projected 2009 results and actual 2009 results. i could try to do a statistical analysis of the accuracy of the projections, but those already exist. if you're statistically inclined, you'll probably already have seen the statistical discussions of projections. if not, you probably would rather check out the raw data than have math on a saturday morning.

	PROJECTED 2009					ACTUAL 2009
Player	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	R150	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRAA
Albert Pujols	640	0.327	0.438	0.604	54	700	0.327	0.443	0.658	69.7
Brendan Ryan	411	0.265	0.324	0.357	-20	429	0.292	0.34	0.4	-1.8
Brian Barden	496	0.256	0.319	0.379	-18	114	0.233	0.286	0.379	-3.5
Chris Duncan	456	0.254	0.349	0.45	3	304	0.227	0.329	0.358	-5.6
Colby Rasmus	516	0.246	0.335	0.398	-9	520	0.251	0.307	0.407	-7.6
David Freese	495	0.267	0.329	0.433	-8	34	0.323	0.353	0.484	0.8
Jarrett Hoffpauir	464	0.269	0.349	0.37	-9	16	0.25	0.438	0.417	0.8
Jason LaRue	344	0.201	0.294	0.329	-33	112	0.24	0.288	0.327	-4.6
Joe Thurston	525	0.275	0.331	0.401	-10	307	0.225	0.316	0.33	-10.9
Khalil Greene	510	0.251	0.304	0.43	-12	193	0.2	0.272	0.347	-9.1
Matt Pagnozzi	262	0.205	0.26	0.283	-53	5	0	0.25	0	-0.6
Nick Stavinoha	476	0.276	0.317	0.401	-14	91	0.23	0.242	0.379	-4.7
Rick Ankiel	489	0.253	0.319	0.475	-1	404	0.231	0.285	0.387	-13.5
Ryan Ludwick	506	0.267	0.344	0.499	10	542	0.265	0.329	0.447	3.3
Shane Robinson	422	0.27	0.315	0.366	-20	26	0.24	0.231	0.28	-2.1
Skip Schumaker	495	0.285	0.341	0.395	-8	586	0.303	0.364	0.393	3.6
Troy Glaus	576	0.259	0.37	0.478	14	32	0.172	0.25	0.241	-2.7
Tyler Greene	492	0.221	0.274	0.336	-39	116	0.222	0.27	0.324	-5.5
Yadier Molina	436	0.272	0.333	0.39	-10	544	0.293	0.366	0.383	3.7

what's striking is that a lot of the actual numbers end up looking pretty good, relative to their projections. albert came in at his projection but for a 50 point bump in SLG (es aun mas ridiculoso!). colin rollinford underplayed his projection by 30 points of OBP, but otherwise did about what was projected. skippy picked up about 20 points of BA and OBP but otherwise matched the prediction perfectly. brendan ryan and yadi were better than predicted; chris duncan, rick ankiel, troy glaus, and khalil greene far worse. it's worth noting that the worst correspondences are between the projections and actual results of injured players. obviously, nobody projects rick ankiel to run into a wall. the correspondences for other uninjured players may be rough in some cases, but workable.

it's most interesting to me to look at the projections for the rookies. i would have expected them to be far less "accurate" than the MLers' projections since the MLers had more data in their datasets and extrapolating minor league data would seem more challenging. tyler greene's projection was eerily on point; brian barden's was not too far off; thurston's was too optimistic. but on the whole the projections were not obviously worse than those with substantial ML time. some like shane robinson or hoffpauir or matt pagnozzi just didn't get enough playing time to really draw any conclusion. the good results reassure me somewhat on projecting, say, david freese or allen craig in 2010. if freese actually puts up the ~.760 ops predicted for 2009 (here i assume the 2010 projection may be worse where it relies on an injury distorted 2009 season) in 2010 and plays +10 run defense, i'll be very pleased.

i present these numbers more for consideration and discussion than with any clear end in mind.

* * *

i am pleased to see mudflap will rejoin the team in 2010. the gotay signing is unexciting but harmless at worst.

i do want to take a moment to wish aaron miles well. coming off a tough - though in keeping with the theme of this post well-recompensed - year of injury, divorce, and ineffectiveness in a new and suddenly cold baseball town, aaron has landed on his feet, near his california home, with a rebuilding team in a low-stress environment. no one there will hate him for not being mark derosa. while aaron was a passable second baseman on his best days, he seemed like a legitimately nice guy. good luck, grit.

[edit - if people are still having trouble seeing the second half of the chart, here it is]

ACTUAL 2009
Name	G	PA	H	AVG	OBP	SLG	wRAA
Albert Pujols	160	700	186	0.327	0.443	0.658	69.7
Brendan Ryan	129	429	114	0.292	0.34	0.4	-1.8
Brian Barden	52	114	24	0.233	0.286	0.379	-3.5
Chris Duncan	87	304	59	0.227	0.329	0.358	-5.6
Colby Rasmus	147	520	119	0.251	0.307	0.407	-7.6
David Freese	17	34	10	0.323	0.353	0.484	0.8
Jarrett Hoffpauir	8	16	3	0.25	0.438	0.417	0.8
Jason LaRue	51	112	25	0.24	0.288	0.327	-4.6
Joe Thurston	124	307	60	0.225	0.316	0.33	-10.9
Khalil Greene	77	193	34	0.2	0.272	0.347	-9.1
Matt Pagnozzi	6	5	0	0	0.25	0	-0.6
Nick Stavinoha	39	91	20	0.23	0.242	0.379	-4.7
Rick Ankiel	122	404	86	0.231	0.285	0.387	-13.5
Ryan Ludwick	139	542	129	0.265	0.329	0.447	3.3
Shane Robinson	11	26	6	0.24	0.231	0.28	-2.1
Skip Schumaker	153	586	161	0.303	0.364	0.393	3.6
Troy Glaus	14	32	5	0.172	0.25	0.241	-2.7
Tyler Greene	48	116	24	0.222	0.27	0.324	-5.5
Yadier Molina	140	544	141	0.293	0.366	0.383	3.7

the help that hurts

tom s. — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:32:56 -0000

by Al Behrman - AP

I am the greatest!!! Suck it, Ryan.

View full size photo »

as we enter the horse latitudes of the baseball posting seasons -- doldrums occuring somewhere between the first scent of pumpkin pie and the hangover from new year's -- it is time to give some attention to a factor sometimes overlooked.

we toss around the term "replacement value" as a kind of an insult. in reality, a replacement value player has his role. a team with an ample supply of replacement value players on the bench and in the minors has a real asset. like someone who runs the mile in 7:30 flat, it's easy to forget that lots of people don't reach that unimpressive level.

players accruing value below replacement level are not hard to find. here is a quick sampling of some of the worst players of 2009 in terms of negative value.

Name	Team	WAR	Dollars
Yuniesky Betancourt	- - -	-2.1	($9.6)
Jose Guillen	Royals	-2.0	($8.8)
Brian Giles	Padres	-1.6	($7.1)
Alexi Casilla	Twins	-1.4	($6.2)
Delmon Young	Twins	-1.3	($5.9)
Aaron Miles	Cubs	-1.3	($5.7)
Aubrey Huff	- - -	-1.2	($5.2)
Conor Jackson	Diamondbacks	-1.1	($5.0)
Mike Aviles	Royals	-1.0	($4.6)

these players run the gamut from the injured and ailing (Jackson & Aviles), the inept (Betancourt), the unlucky replacement value player (Miles), the player with yet-unrealized potential (Young), to the player with such a monstrously bad contract that the club continues to put him out there in the vain hope that he will somehow garner a return on the investment (Guillen). the Guillen performance reminds me of a Monty Python sketch about sheep that are attempting and failing to fly; the effort was tolerated by the shepherd, despite the fatalities among the flock, because of the "enormous commercial possibilities" should the sheep succeed.

both of the two least valuable players in MLB are on the Royals. coincidence?

it is worth noting that I have excluded from the list above the negative offensive performance of pitchers. most pitchers hit below replacement value. fangraphs tracks their value as pitchers separately from their value as hitters. i simply don't think that the negative offensive performance of pitchers is sufficiently worth concerning ourselves about in these discussions; it's worth keeping in mind for exceptional cases, but just not worth concerning oneself over. even reasonably good hitting pitchers will likely rack up a negative value with the bad. micah owings led all ML pitchers with an astounding 2.3 runs above replacement value with the bat. 90% of all pitchers were worth between 2 runs above replacement value and 4 runs below replacement value in 2009.

now, let's take a look at how teams fared in accumulating negative value in 2009 -- you can probably guess who's number one.

the teams are ordered by lowest overall position player WAR for the team. there's some correlation between overall team performance and negative performance by some members of the team, but not as strong as you might think. playoff teams like the Angels made it to October even though the contingent of the incompetent, led by gary matthews jr., did their best to halt the Angels progress.

Team	Negative WAR (position players)
Royals	7.4
White Sox	4.1
Astros	3.1
Mets	2.6
Giants	2.4
Cubs	3.5
Pirates	1.7
Reds	1.6
Orioles	1.8
Diamondbacks	3.1
Padres	4.4
Nationals	1.8
Athletics	3.7
Braves	4.4
Rockies	1.0
Cardinals	2.8
Marlins	0.7
Indians	2.4
Mariners	2.8
Blue Jays	1.3
Tigers	1.8
Twins	3.1
Rangers	1.6
Dodgers	0.6
Brewers	1.3
Red Sox	1.2
Phillies	1.4
Angels	3.1
Rays	1.5
Yankees	1.5

so, what does the accumulation of negative WAR indicate?

first off, probably every team will inevitably accrue some negative WAR from position players. that's just the nature of the game. somebody is going to be injured. some replacement value player is going to have bad luck. it happens. the table above indicates that few teams managed to lose less than a win to negative value players. almost half the teams (13) racked up between one and two wins worth of negative value.

however, some common themes arise in those teams with more than two wins' worth of negative value: a major theme was bad players on expensive contracts. my inclination is to think that high levels of negative WAR are probably an okay proxy for bad general management.

the correlation isn't 100% - most of the value lost to the cardinals from less-than-replacement value players came in the form of khalil greene and chris duncan and nick stavinoha. most folks thought khalil had at least a reasonable chance of doing okay here; the outfield was seen as a strength in the off-season. is mo really a bad gm because he didn't stock up on OF talent while we were deliberately moving a player OUT of the outfield because it was too crowded in the OF?

still, the preponderance of terrible players with inflated contracts on the teams with high negative values from position players can't be ignored. too many clubs throw good value after bad by letting those failing players come back and back again, hoping that this is the time he's going to turn around.

the other area of concern would be bad managing. the gm can set you up with a team, but the manager is the one who makes out the lineup, decides who sits and who doesn't. overexposing a sub-par player by starting him too often could be a serious weakness among managers; overplaying an aging vet long past his prime may be a vice of a manager as much as signing him is the vice of a GM. the concept of sunk cost hasn't yet been popularized among MLB execs and managers.

* * *

well worth checking out is a WAR projection for 20 top free agents by jeff zimmerman. health doesn't play a role, which is why troy glaus makes the top ten.

still, the list makes an interesting case for some names - joe crede needs to go write jeff a check for explaining why you should mention him in the same breath as chone figgins and adrian beltre. it has something to do with UZR/150's from the past four seasons of 13.6, 23.9, 7.6, & 23.4. i could get interested in someone who's likely to take only 300 PA's with david freese holding the fort behind him.

i'm a little concerned with some of the results. mike cameron at 2.0 war seems rather pessimistic. worth a read, though.

* * *

in case anyone is interested in following the birds playing winter ball, here's a brief summary. of the contingent playing in arizona, tyler henley has been the only silver lining for the org, putting out a respectable .300/.358/.500 line. dismal results from descalso, anderson, and jones have left the org looking bad in surprise, az. mark hamilton took up with the dominican winter league but was asked to return to the U.S. after struggling at the plate. word is he was getting some reps in the outfield. jon jay flashed the only other real offense, but down in the venezuelan league where the competition is even more variable than in arizona. still, a .418 OBP looks good against any competition.

cardinal pitchers haven't been faring any better. mike parisi's arm still works, making him look like a memphis starter this year, but "adequate" seems like parisi's middle name here. he's still pretty far down the depth chart. minor league free agent evan maclane carried his 2009 success in memphis into the dominican winter league. still not clear if the cards will bring him back this spring to fight walters, ottavino, lynn, parisi, and maybe hearne for a slot. i'm proud of how well maclane did; at the same time, i'm not sure he belongs in the rotation as a non-prospect with those names ahead of him.

* * *

if you want to know what i've been up to, this is what i made over the holiday. mine looked nothing like the picture, but tasted pretty good. it ended up not nearly as airy as it should have been.

* * *

in a related item which i didn't read until after writing this whole thing, posnanski gives out his lvp awards to yuni betancourt and milton bradley. while the betancourt award for the AL is hard to contest, it seems like a disservice to the nl winner; bradley wasn't even least valuable on his team by WAR, much less the whole of the NL. he was in fact the seventh most valuable position player on the cubs by WAR.

* * *

this news item cracks me up. good for you, ross.

* * *

now that november is over, i need to know: was it as bad as i said it would be?

Poll

how bad was your november?

it was as bad as you said, tom.

30 votes

it was even worse.

23 votes

i don't know what you are talking about; i had a great month.

57 votes

the month isn't actually over yet; it could still get worse.

59 votes

i wanted to vote for one of the options above, but my blood sugar is still so high from eating all that pie, the lethargy prevents me from reaching higher than this option.

89 votes

258 votes | Poll has closed

the bullpen

tom s. — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:03:18 -0000

November 18, 2009 - St. Louis sportswriter Jeff Gordon reacts to the news that both Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright were passed over for the Cy Young award in favor of 15 game winner Tim Linececum.

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before i get into discussion, i would like to say that I do not believe that the bullpen is the biggest issue for the cards in 2010. last season, there was much kvetching about the failure of the GM to get a closer. the cards could do much better to work on improving their defense, their offense, or replacing joel pineiro's contribution to the rotation. writing in the abstract here, before i really formulate any conclusions, i'd have to say i care less about our bullpen than most areas of the club. still, i think it's worth looking at what we have.

here is a table showing the bill james projections for the cards' bullpen in 2010.

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	FIP
Kyle McClellan	66.0	7.09	3.68	1.93	3.82
Jason Motte	56.0	10.93	3.86	2.83	3.45
Ryan Franklin	61.0	4.87	2.80	1.74	4.75
Dennys Reyes	46.0	7.43	4.30	1.73	3.86
Blake Hawksworth	54.0	6.33	3.33	1.90	4.82
Trever Miller	46.0	8.80	3.52	2.50	3.99
Mitchell Boggs*	75.0	6.00	4.32	1.39	4.78

*mitch boggs was predicted to start 10 games and to make 12 appearances from the bullpen.

I was frankly surprised by these projections - many of them were not nearly as bad as i had thought -- mcclellan, motte -- and some were far worse. miller had an excellent 2009, but james sees him coming back to earth. franklin is projected to fall off a cliff and have the cliff fall down on him after he lands.

more surprising, though, is that this looks to be a tolerable bullpen performance overall. in 2009, the team average FIP was 4.30. here, only franklin, hawksworth, and boggs are projected to turn in a less impressive performance.

something which shouldn't be surprising to anybody is that the whole bullpen has an appalling tendency towards walks; franklin projects the only real impressive bb rate, one totally subsumed by the 4.87 k/9 right next to it. control should be the gospel for mason to preach this spring.

not as bad as i had thought, but not inspiring at all. in case anybody is wondering, bill james didn't even give josh kinney a projection for 2010. which sounds about right after managing a stunning 0.73 k/bb rate in stl in 2009.

for jd - smoltz has a bill james projection making 10 starts, with no relief appearances. sorry.

given that we sold off our right-handed relief staff like hail-damaged ford focuses in the middle of "cash for clunkers II" in 2009, there's not too much to look forward to in 2010. eduardo sanchez is the most intriguing name, posting a 3.44 FIP at springfield in 2009, with a 10 k/9 rate. fernando salas had a year basically lost to injury in 2009; he's only a year removed from a 2008 AA stint with a 12.16 k/9 rate and a 1.95 bb/9 rate. if he returns to his 2008 condition, he could definitely help the club at mid-season. a couple of pitchers in the system with lots of gas but no control - francisco samuel (11.14 k/9; 8.68 bb/9) and adam reifer (9.31 k/9; 4.47 bb/9) - are lurking as well; samuel enjoys not only a distinctive bb/9 rate, but is the only one yet mentioned who is on the 40-man.

adam ottavino deserves a mention as also being on the 40-man; he also has shown terrible control (5.13 bb/9). he's likely to start the season as a starting pitcher in memphis. look for him to be retooled as a reliever if he struggles in a starting role. matt scherer was outrighted from the 40-man to make room for adam after a fine but uninspiring season (6.11 k/9; 2.20 bb/9).

here's a quick look at a group of free agents and their 2010 bill james projections.

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	FIP
Russ Springer	58.0	8.22	2.79	2.94	3.87
Kiko Calero	64.0	9.42	4.22	2.23	3.47
Rafael Soriano	79.0	10.25	2.85	3.60	3.20
Kevin Gregg	65.0	8.31	3.74	2.22	4.04
Billy Wagner	62.0	10.89	2.47	4.41	2.65
Mike Gonzalez	78.0	10.62	3.92	2.71	3.20

only the really expensive, type A pitchers project to be a huge boost. calero looks like he could be well worth a look, producing only slightly less well than the braves' tandem.

And now, as a parting gift, in case anybody felt any waiver wire remorse . . . .

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	FIP
Brad Thompson	64.0	4.22	2.53	1.67	4.91

We'll miss you, PK.

holliday overload

tom s. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:40:30 -0000

St. Louis Cardinals Reliever Ryan Franklin enjoys an off-season snowstorm while vacationing at the War Drobe Mountain Lodge in Spare Oom, Colorado on November 8, 2009.

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just like i can't get used to christmas carols at the grocery store before thanksgiving, the MAJOR LEAGUE DRAMA of WHERE WILL HE SIGN? is starting to get goddamn old. and there's still a week left before he goes on the market. front page articles everyday on what admittedly is probably about the only interesting baseball topic in st. louis right now have begun to wear me down. right now, i no longer really care. i just want the damn thing over. i know i should care. i know we're talking about what could be one of the top twenty-five players in baseball (13th among position players by WAR in 2009), and we're probably talking about a 9-figure contract that could hamstring the club for the next 5, 6, or more years if done wrong. i know all this. i just can't read another article whose basic theme is the same thing we've been batting around since we stopped yammering about "HFS (tm) BRETT WALLACE AND MORTENSON?"

he's going to cost a lot of money.

like a lot of money. a metric shit-ton. like maybe the household income of 2,500 ordinary american families. since each family has an average of 2.6 members, that's a decent size town - like a population the size of Brentwood, MO. do the cards have that much money? probably. is that the best way to spend it? uhh . . . the cheap answer is it depends on the years and the actual dollar amounts. the real answer is i have no clue whatsoever. there's no question he's better than everybody else on the market -- claims from the Bay camp notwithstanding: the Bay camp, incidentally, IS the Holliday camp. i'm a big fan of some of our rising OF prospects, an issue i rarely see discussed on the boards in relation to the holliday signing, and, while none of them look like a 6 WAR player like holliday, i could easily stomach a year of mike cameron with allen craig cameos, followed by a year of DJTools, henley, and craig running wild in the OF at league min, allowing us to spend some money on retaining albert and getting some needed high-ticket players.

the holliday contract will just be a huge leap; a decision that could make or break a franchise for years. and i am so sick of talking about it.

so, interestingly enough, is mo. the discussion has gone from dewitt saying that they wouldn't have traded for him without intending to resign him to mo saying that he'll basically make a take-it-or-leave-it offer to holliday - which he has not yet made - and that he feels sure he can find other options in the free agent market.

probably the varying themes expounded by the club reflect efforts to curry favor with particular audiences; in the case of dewitt's july optimism, whipping up enthusiasm in the ticket-buying public; in the case of mo's recent comments, an effort to tamp down the flame of boras's wild teixeira comps. it's hard not to believe there's a kernel of real holliday fatigue behind mo's comments, if for no other reason than i'm feeling that fatigue myself. but surely it's tedious to go through the weeks of window dressing just to get to the point where you know the game will come down to money and years.

a brief request: we are hitting hot stove season. everybody has a thousand and one ideas (in a typical off-season, it would be a million and one, but the free agent market sucks and we have nothing much to trade) about what direction the club should go this off-season and which players to sign and which players to trade.

please Play Nice.

you'll probably start to see designated hot stove threads cropping up on the sidebar. when they appear, please put all trade and free agent talk in there. if everybody puts in their personal fanpost about why we should give up yadier molina in a four-way trade with the mariners, the astros, and the l.a. clippers that will result in miguel tejada moving to point guard by mid-december, the fanposts will be dropping off the main page after a day and a half.

if you are new, welcome. we love new members. and no, you don't have to have a phd from the academy of the hardball times to express your opinion on these pages. all we ask is that if there's a catch-all hot-stove thread, please use it. it helps if you show that you have thought the trade or signing through carefully, and asked yourself whether the other team would accept the trade or the player would accept the offer. if somebody disagrees, that's healthy - not a personal attack (hopefully). if a poster says "he's too old/too bad at defense/too injury prone/doesn't play professional baseball but is in fact a character actor from 1970's sitcoms," then think about their point. agree or disagree, but support what you're saying in your reply. or acknowledge that your point is unsupported and is just your opinion.

if you are not new, please remember that you were once new, too. if somebody floats an idea that seems dumb to you, offer constructive criticism - while that term may be overused, think "will this point educate the poster and make him want to come back to this site to learn more, or would a reasonable poster think you're making fun of him?" please also keep an eye on the groupthink/ganging up. if somebody has already pointed out that jermaine dye plays defense like a rutting yet visually-impaired musk ox, don't pile on. if somebody's made the point, move along and make a new one.

/lecture

weekly tidbit roundup -

fangraphs had a neat analysis of david dejesus as a legit trade target. someone for the cards to keep their eyes on. a good defender with a decent if somewhat inconsistent bat. capable in left; sub-worthy in center. hits from the wrong side to sub for colson rimbaud, but could platoon with craig. not sure what they'd be looking for in trade. if mike aviles doesn't look like he'll be ready for the season, tyler greene (or possibly the starting SS at the high school nearest the stadium in kansas city) could be a decent SS option for them over yuniesky betancourt. it probably takes more than tyler to get this done -- the salary dumped is not enough to make KC desperate. not sure where else we go to sweeten that pot without giving away some essential players.

early in the week, dave cameron had a hard-to-argue-with explication of why mike cameron (sign MIKE CAMERON) is significantly better (and cheaper in terms of money and picks) than jason bay (BOOOOO!!).

i thought this was a nice rundown of the limitations of WAR. i've been guilty of at least some of these WAR crimes on more than one occasion. read the comments, too, nerdbra.

if you're not sick to death of the titular individual, this might be interesting.

do you stay up late nights wondering what exactly is the average and replacement value wOBA for each position? put that ambien down. no, seriously, put the ambien down.

Poll

What is the maximum you would pay to land Matt Holliday?

4 years, $78M

146 votes

5 years, $95M

455 votes

6 years, $110M

385 votes

7 years, $126M

68 votes

I have a kidney I probably could spare

28 votes

What do I have to pay people to stop talking about Holliday?

133 votes

1215 votes | Poll has closed

November

tom s. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:35:40 -0000

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

FILE -- This is a 2009 file photo showing St. Louis Cardinals baseball player Yadier Molina. A New York sports marketing firm has sued St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, saying he snubbed their agreement to make appearances and sign autographs. Steiner Sports Marketing's lawsuit, filed Friday, Oct. 13, 2009, in New York, says the sports memorabilia company had a contract with Molina dating to October 2006. Molina explained that he simply got tired after walking 3 blocks from 57th Street and had to stop and have a rest. Al Hrabosky stood across the street and criticized him for lack of hustle. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

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November

It only believes

In a pile of dead leaves

And a moon that's the color of bone

T.S. Eliot thought April was the cruelest month, but that was because he left St. Louis and moved to London where April was one of eleven months when it mostly just rains. Also, whatever time he might have spent watching the Perfectos or the Browns in his youth he had clearly forgotten, because April is the month when baseball starts up again. In England, you just get to wait for cricket season, and do they even have spring training for cricket? I think they have to wait until the weather clears in July to get the one game of cricket in before the pre-autumn drizzle, because that one game takes three weeks to play.

April is a favorite month of mine, when things turn green and baseball reappears.

November is one of my least favorite months, right up there with February; November has slightly better weather and Thanksgiving, but February is pitchers and catchers reporting time. September and October are beautiful months, also some of the best months in the calendar. Falling leaves, cool and temperate weather that is such a relief from the heat and humidity of July and August. But by the time kids finish throwing up the remainder of their Halloween candy, the world turns to crap. Worst of all, no more baseball. Four solid months of no baseball. Mostly.

That's why I've sought assistance from the king of all things cool, Tom Waits, to introduce the month.

November has tied me to an old dead tree

Get word to April to rescue me

November is cold rain running down your back, because there's that little spot of bare skin on your neck between your collar and your hat. November is a puddle of slush lurking at the edge of the curb, waiting to flood the shoe of the pedestrian stepping carelessly from the sidewalk. November is freezing rain. November is driving to work in the dark and driving home in the dark and wondering if the sun actually rose and set in the interim, or if the sun was just too depressed today and stayed in bed like you wish you had. Unless of course you live in one of those unnatural places where "winter" is the season when the temperature doesn't get above 75 degrees at midday. You are spoiling a good gloom with your suntans and your cheery smiles.

So if you want to love me

Darlin don't refrain

Or I'll just end up walkin, in the cold Nov . . .

All right, who let Axl Rose in my post? That is the wrong November song. Axl, don't you have a fifteen-year album project to work on? Better get that started and leave my thread alone.

For baseball fans, November is a particularly painful moment at which the trade and free agent markets are just too open, too uncertain. Too much can happen. Write all the paeans to Carl Crawford you like, you may find out tomorrow that the Rays picked up his option and the Cards never had a chance. December - yeah, December, the market has started to put itself together. GM meetings and the Rule V draft early in the month. A few names start signing. January, the market starts to fall in line and lots of signings take place. In November -- you know nothing. November is the awful uncertainty about everything except FOUR MORE MONTHS without baseball.

No prayers for November to linger longer

You know what you get in November? Jason LaRue. Jason LaRue is going to be offered a contract in November. Or not - which means that in 2010 we get to watch Matt Pagnozzi ground out weakly every 5 to 7 days while not looking like he has come to fix some young woman's 1970's-era cable box. The only thing worse than signing Jason LaRue in November is NOT signing Jason LaRue in November.

The month began with a drama-free World Series, which ended in a Yankees victory.

This off-season doesn't really even look like much fun. In a couple weeks we're going to find out if Matt Holliday truly appreciates fruit-filled pastry or was just stringing us along (signs point to "stringing us along"). If he doesn't sign then we probably look forward to a quiet offseason of signing a fixer-upper of a starting pitcher and either signing Mike Cameron (SIGN MIKE CAMERON), some aging half-bat who can't field, or some cheap non-entity to play LF. We really have nothing in the way of major trade chips right now, so we can't look into any exciting trades.

I am going to more throw out some names and such that may be or may not be worth keeping eyes on.

The Nats (team of 1,000 outfielders) declined the option on Austin Kearns. Kearns had a very rough year turning in a .298 wOBA and a slash line of .195/.336/.305. Actually, two rough years - since he had a weak 2008 too. Weird, weird line both years, though. He managed a fine 15.5% walk rate (and that .336 OBP would look nice on this team if the rest of the line wouldn't). Behind the BB rate are even more impressive discipline levels - he swung at only 18% of pitches out of the zone UP from 15% last season. His BABIP over the last couple years: .258 and .251, yet his LD% was a solid 18.7% and 21.1%. He injured his thumb in the middle of the season on a HBP, which may also explain some of his funk. You can't blame the nats for not wanting to pay $10M for that.

Is it possible to have two solid season of just wicked batted ball luck? I don't see why not - he had about a seasons worth of PA's over the two seasons. He managed a career 9.8 UZR/150 in RF, so he's no slouch in the field. He comes with his own history of character issues, too. I imagine my level of interest would depend on cost. I don't think I'd say I'm stumping for him, but if we could pick him up for a reclamation project piece, he's got good tools to build upon. You wouldn't have to see much of a BABIP rebound to get that OBP into a very nice place. In the race of replacement value OF, I'd say he clearly has a better ceiling than, say, a Rick Ankiel with poor plate discipline but more power. I wouldn't want him as our sole option in LF, but if we had him and Allen Craig and maybe another decent LF option -- something is going to stick to the wall.

This JJ Hardy story continues to intrigue me in a "what were they thinking?" sense. fourstick said they traded JJ Hardy -- one of the best defensive SS in the business -- for basically Jon Jay. I agree with that comp. Elsewhere I saw commenters wondering why JJ hadn't ended up in Boston, rich in starting pitching and needy in the SS position. MLB Trade Rumors has an answer of sorts - that the Brewers demanded either Clay Buchholz or Daniel Bard and wouldn't budge. The notion that you would stick to a demand for two of the top prospects around and then settle with another team for a replacement value player is completely bizarre. It's like going to Tony's with a $20 bill, demanding the duck, and when they refuse to sell you a $40 duck entree for $20, spending the whole thing on a day old loaf of bread.

Detroit seems to be putting Placido Polanco on the free agent market. I could be more excited if he weren't Type A.

Matt Leach is on the Cameron bandwagon. Elsewhere talk of Dye. Oh please no.

Bah. This is what November gives you. Wisps and teases and ultimately heartbreak.

November seems odd

You're my firing squad

November*

* FYI, I wrote most of this earlier this week. Now I see online it's going to be 72 degrees in St. Louis tomorrow. Don't worry. It's just November playing a trick on you, softening you up. Enjoy it, you bastards.

Putting UZR to the Test

tom s. — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:34:36 -0000

More photos » by Jeff Roberson - AP

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Joel Pineiro sits alone in the dugout during the fifth inning and considers whether he would rather move to New York, Cleveland, or Milwaukee, after being pulled out of Game 3 of the National League division baseball series against the Los Angeles Dodgers Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in St. Louis. "As long the money's good, I can go anywhere. Not Detroit, though," he said later. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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First off, can I start by saying that chase utley is the second-best position player in the NL? This should not be a surprise, but apparently utley's talent came as a great shock to numerous national broadcasters and sportswriters this week. Last week, I'm not sure you could have gotten 30 percent of them to vote for him as the most valuable position player just on the phillies.

My aim this week is to start a series of posts about defensive metrics. I have a few simple thought experiments to look at their effectiveness. UZR (as the primary tool available to us) is probably not as well understood as it might be. I know that many posters are skeptical of UZR, others want to take it with a HUGE grain of salt, still others probably buy into it as a matter of faith rather than rigorous evaluation of the existing work on it. I confess that I often fall into the latter category.

In a humble moment I would like say I often learn just enough to understand the very basics of a theory. From that point. I trust that people (ones I know are much smarter than I am) are unlikely to lead me astray. The scientific method it's not.

since I'm not the kind of expert saberologist that has turned his second computer into a SQL machine dedicated to running sabr analysis, the only thing I have to offer is that maybe I can - by working this stuff through for myself - bring along others who are on the same level as I am. FYI - my sabr MO ends at the point of downloading some stats in excel off of fangraphs. I have no idea if anybody has done this or something like it before, so I apologize in advance if it's redundant.

I want to take a couple team stats and compare them today: team E-F and team UZR. UZR you are probably familiar with, even if you don't understand it well. E-F is ERA minus FIP. ERA you know. FIP you probably know too; basically Fielding Independent Pitching is an index of those pitching outcomes totally in the control of the pitcher: walks, strikeouts, and home runs. The index is scaled to the ERA scale.

If FIP is truly "fielding independent," then earned runs minus what is fielding independent should leave you . . . well, fielding. And some luck.

So, first let's try the old standby. Let's look at the teams with the lowest E-F and their corresponding fielding percentage.

Team	E-F	E-F Rank	Field %	Field % Rank
Mariners	-0.52	1	0.983	21
Reds	-0.45	2	0.985	11
Dodgers	-0.38	3	0.986	6
Giants	-0.3	4	0.985	12
Cubs	-0.27	5	0.983	22
Phillies	-0.2	6	0.987	3
Tigers	-0.18	7	0.985	13
Cardinals	-0.16	8	0.985	14
Rangers	-0.1	9	0.982	25

This looks completely random. There's no correlation in any direction, even just by an eyeball test, between E-F and fielding percentage. Out of the best nine teams by E-F, two are in the top ten teams in fielding percentage, three are in the bottom ten, and four are in the middle ten.

Team	E-F	E-F Rank	Field %	Field % Rank	UZR	UZR Rank
Mariners	-0.52	1	0.983	21	85.4	1
Reds	-0.45	2	0.985	11	52.5	4
Dodgers	-0.38	3	0.986	6	1.1	14
Giants	-0.3	4	0.985	12	52.6	3
Cubs	-0.27	5	0.983	22	-19.2	20
Phillies	-0.2	6	0.987	3	29.6	7
Tigers	-0.18	7	0.985	13	45.1	5
Cardinals	-0.16	8	0.985	14	-17	16
Rangers	-0.1	9	0.982	25	33.2	6

Adding UZR to this table, on the other hand, shows something completely different -- the top nine teams in E-F include 6 of the top 7 teams in team UZR (the Rays, 2nd in the majors in UZR, were 14th in E-F). Three outliers - with less than top tier UZR - in the top nine are the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Cardinals. I'm not the type to give a statistical estimate on the degree of correlation. Still, I'm inclined to eyeball this table and say this is good evidence that UZR means something.

One of the exceptional teams that jumps out though is the home team. The cards have a pretty ordinary team UZR but a good E-F. Could be it's just luck. On the other hand, the cards' staff finished with the best GB percentage in the majors. Consider that UZR is a measure of defensive runs above average. So, if the balls the cards' staff put in play have a higher likelihood of turning into outs even with an average defender in the field, the staff might yet outperform the FIP without having above average defense. It could also just be luck; the Cubs and Dodgers finished with unimpressive groundball rates. I have no explanation other than luck for the Cubs' and Dodgers' staff E-F numbers. Even for the cards, my explanation is just a suggestion, a hypothesis, rather than an assertion that GB% explains the home team's appearance in the table.

E-F and UZR don't tell the whole story: some pitching skills not reflected in FIP like groundball rate may distort the results, so will dumb luck. But it's remarkable in some ways to combine a conventional run-counting stat like ERA with an advanced stat like FIP derived just from strikeouts, walks, and homers, and find a strong correspondence with a fielding stat that's measured by looking at ball trajectories on the field. The source material for all three stats are very different.

A last note, for anybody who wonders -- I used team UZR and team E-F just because they're extremely easy to work with. Team stats are a very blunt instrument; they will not give you much specific information, but they're good for finding broad trends. Trying to break down individual pitchers' E-Fs with particular defensive configurations behind them, etc. would require several guys much smarter than me and the secret 800 terabyte SABR Sam Adams-proof server farm Bill James is building under the bleachers at Fenway (I predict it will all end in tears when Papelbon sneaks into the computer room, accidentally puts a virus onto the servers when trying to download a solitaire app with pictures of naked women on the cards, and the Red Sox servers become the world's most powerful spambot, crashing internet service up and down the Eastern Seaboard). This little thought experiment has nothing to do with whether UZR properly apportions credit for good defense on the small scale, as between the SS and the 3B on the same team. The point is simply that UZR has something at its core, some real defensive truth that fielding percentage doesn't.

Big Shoes

tom s. — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:36:08 -0000

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan watches a caterpillar during the fourth inning in Game 3 of the National League division baseball series Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

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As you may have guessed from the position in which this post appears, I will be filling in on Saturdays to take part of the role that chuckb played. I was very honored to be considered for the role, and even more surprised. I'm not the sabermagician that chuckb is, and i probably don't have the baseball smarts that many posters do. I certainly have never played the game (beyond a grade school level) and, if that disturbs you, I guess you should probably just skip down to the comments area.

I want to start out by recognizing the contributions of chuckb (nee houstoncardinal). Chuck has a long history of putting together very strong articles, showing a thorough understanding of the game and a dedication to backing up his opinions with statistical analysis. If I can be a quarter as infomative as chuck, I will be very happy.

I also officially assume the role of grumpy old mod for the board since (I think?) I am the only one on the wrong side of thirty. Or at least the side closer to Social Security. So, get off my lawn!

* * *

In the doldrums of May and June, the popular epithet for the Cardinals was "Albert and the seven dwarves." The name fit because Albert was in the throes of one of the best half-seasons (I am tempted to write "the best half-season, but then I recall the consistency of Albert's ridiculousness and must write "one of the best") and the remainder of the team ranged anywhere from at or slightly above league average on offense (rasmus, skippy, yadi) to well below (ryan, the two-headed third baseman of mediocrity, slumpwick, the two-headed leftfielder of mediocrity, kaheel, and Tyler Robinstav - a melange of replacement value rookies).

The team improved offensively down the stretch - mostly through addition (holliday, lugo), subtraction (duncan), and regression to a norm (ludwick). Of course, the titular tongue-in-cheek epithet was knowingly one-dimensional; it omitted the substantial defensive contributions in key roles: shortstop, catcher, centerfield.

But, not being prone to lament a rough end to the season, let the 2009 funeral meats coldly furnish forth the marriage table for 2010. There's a lot to like about this team for next season and beyond.

The $100M+ elephant in the room rhymes with "fat collie play." Whether he signs or not probably depends a great deal on two things: how much he wants to stay in St. Louis and whether dewitt wants to increase the budget to do so. Even a discounted holliday would really limit a low-$90M cardinal team. A full-price holliday could be tolerable on a budget that goes well beyond $100M. The fans did their part this year, cresting the 3M attendance mark, even in a very tough economic year. As the economy heals, the prognosis for 2010 attendance shouldn't be worse than 2009, and probably better.

Planning for a vacancy to arise in the LF market in St. Louis is not a pessimistic step. If we are not going to build a team around two players probably worth 12-14 WAR between them for next year, let's think about a different tack: build a team of albert pujols and a field of league average (or better) players, with the depth and flexibility to make sure we don't end up with replacement-level voids on the field. The perennial cry is for a "big bat," a masher, an all-star. and, don't get me wrong, i like all-stars. but holliday is really the only legit all-star option we're looking at. rather than blow our wad on one all-star (especially if he's not so all-starry), think about depth and flexibility.

Our net team position player WAR this year was 18.9 -- basically middle of the road (only the yankees and the rays broke 30 WAR). Seven position players each worth 2 WAR and a 7-8 WAR first baseman would get us past this year's mark. Of course, achieving that number also means avoiding negative WAR; the vacuums of value (primary suspects - K. Greene, N. Stavinoha, chris duncan).

Last year, we had a few great peformers and some uninspiring showings. Only five players produced 2 WAR or better for the cardinals. Guess who ranks 8th for the team in WAR?

First base
Albert Pujols (8.4 WAR in 09)
The cornerstone. The Mang has been stellar since he sprang, fully formed, out of Mark McGwire's skull in 2001. No reason not to expect a 7+ WAR performance here . . . Except . . .

Depth
Should the unspeakable happen, the cards could look at mark "I make nick johnson look durable" hamilton. Also, the intertubes are abuzz with talk of some Free Allen Craig character. There's nobody who will play like the Mang, obvs.

Catcher
Yadier Molina (3.4 WAR)
Molina was the second most valuable position player last year, even though WAR does not account for catcher defense, which I hear he's pretty good at. I have no reason not to think he's less than a 2.5-3 WAR player next year.

Depth
Again, an ugly proposition. Larue is not a long-term backup, even if re-signed. He does quite well as a "spell yadi once every five-to-seven days" guy. Odds are pags jr. or bryan anderson gets a long look should yadi hit the dl. Expecting more than replacement value there is wishful thinking, though the club has sent anderson to the AFL for winter work. See your local futureredbirds.net for AFL updates. [In an unrelated AFL story, the danup-mancrush curse strikes again. Derrek Goold tweets that Gary Daley gave up seven runs in one-third an inning for Surprise.]

Shortstop
Brendan Ryan (3.2 WAR)
Our months-long national nightmare was over when ryan took on the ss role this spring. His defense will not likely slump next year, but his bat could. I think he'll be a 2+ WAR player with his D, but doesn't walk enough to maintain value that doesn't rise and fall with his BABIP. Watch for falling wOBA next eleven months.

Depth
They call him Hoolio. Truth is his play was never that bad, theo epstein just couldn't take the way Lugo looked at him. Lugo's defense has become apallingly bad, eating up his decent offensive value. I have to think that julio: brendan:: larue: molina. Not too awful to make a spot start, but should brendan hit the DL, we should see tyler greene brought up. Tyler was a bit of an enigma this year. He hit very well at memphis, poorly at the ML level. UZR hated his defense, which was puzzling. I'm willing to chalk it up to SSS, but will eye it nervously next year.

Left field
Matt "Beltre'd" Holliday (2.8 WAR)
It's somewhat depressing that the fourth-most valuable cardinal only spent two months with the team. He's likely to be a 5-6 WAR player next year. He's already been discussed ad nauseam by mid-October, so that's all I've got to say about him. I do want to say something about a frequently discussed alternative. Please just say no to jason bay. While he might well be better than average, he is a prime candidate to be overpaid this offseason. He amassed over three WAR last year, his offensive value sapped by horrendous defense. His high-value MVP days are gone. Let another team tie themselves down to him and give up a first round pick.

Depth
One reason why I am so appalled by the Bay talk is that we have a couple of internal candidates who could be at least average - allen craig or (if healthy) joe mather. Anecdotal evidence says craig is decent in left, and mather was once a very decent defender (caution -- mather had a -9 TZR rating in his short time in RF in 2009). Jon Jay may get a look as LH depth/defensive substitute. Tyler Henley and DJ Tools are not far off - another reason not to tie the team down to a long contract for a just okay LF.

Center Field
Colby Rasmus AKA cody ramos AKA corky ramirez AKA boromir velazquez (2.3 WAR)
Razzle dazzle made the bigs and got a fair amount of playing time. His defense was all that was promised and his hitting . . . showed promise. Seriously, work out a little, bulk up, and try to find a good diet in the offseason, cody. i easily expect improvement next year. With a full season in center, we'd be looking at a 3 WAR player even with no offensive improvement.

Depth
Ugh. Um, jon jay, shane robinson. . . . Ludwick could cover CF in a pinch. Mather if healthy wouldn't be a disaster. Skippy is not a CF. Our depth here leaves something to be desired. A RH option who could face LHP in lieu of corey rundell would be a nice bonus.

Right Field
Ryan Ludwick (1.7 WAR)
Luddy had maybe the most perplexing season (unpleasant surprise division) of anyone. His season makes me feel like there's a certain element of futility to these crystal ball sessions. Hard to project and injury prone, I would expect him to rebound, but i say it with trepidation.

Depth
In the AAA championship game, brian barden played RF. Does that tell you what our RF depth is? Or what kind of confidence we have in craig's arm or jay's arm? Henley is our only real RF prospect - a decent one, but he's yet to even play a game for memphis. Another area of serious depth concern.

Second Base
Skip Schumaker (1.2 WAR)
Skippy adapted as well as could be expected, and better than I expected. The good news is that his defensive statistics match up with popular perception - appalling early in the season and close to average later on. The outlook for skippy is good - if he defends like he did at the end of the season he'd gain a full win in value over the course of 2010, which would make him average. Luckily, his offense has been consistent, so we can readily look for improvement. Skippy's dedication and hard work are admirable. I am accepting gloating letters, skip.

Depth
Hoolio is skippy's primary backup/platoon partner. To all accounts lugo's 2b defense is awful. His offense was quite good, but I doubt he turns in more than a one win performance in a platoon/utility role. Jarrett Hoffpauir seems to be english for julio lugo; terrible glove and good bat that only marginally offsets the other. Plus lugo brings the crazy eyes. daniel descalso is a good prospect but could not make his springfield success translate to memphis in a short aaa stint. He's also left-handed and won't be a platoon partner to skippy. We'll likely see him in 2011 barring more disappointment.

Third base
If you guessed that brian barden was the eighth most valuable player for the cards (a statisically insignificant fraction of a run better than derosa), you win. Third base in 2009 was a vast cauldron of suck where joe thurston reigned supreme at replacement value until the arrival of mark derosa and his amazing wrist that goes pop. That was the only thing going pop at third base after may day. Third base is clearly a spot for great improvement. Derosa as the 3b candidate awakens a great sense of "meh" in me. His two main virtues are a) playing subprime defense at several positions and b) hitting for some power. The former is likely to get more subprime from age. The latter could be hampered by his wrist injury.

The club shows no sign of interest in troy glaus. Assuming figgins goes back to the angels, beltre could be a prime FA target. david freese recently received Mo's benediction as the prime candidate (which probably means that spending cash will be directed at LF and the rotation). The good news is he'd probably defend like brian barden (+14.9 UZR; before citing sss to me, check barden's minor league defensive stats). The bad news is he may hit like barden too. odds are freese hits a little better and is about a 2 win player. For my money, if derosa is at best a win better than freese, I'd rather spend the 5-7M elsewhere and get the comp pick when he signs with the cubs for three years and $30m. That said, if we're not coughing up the money for Holliday, a hard charge after a FA 3B could be a good way to upgrade.

Depth
Freese is second string depth if he's not the starter. At some point, the club may have to swallow its misgivings and give craig a shot. Descalso could conceivably act as a third-string option, as could a healthy joe mather or a resigned brian barden. Otherwise . . . I give you joe thurston, ladies and gents.

>Exit, pursued by a bear.<

>Enters again, winded.<

I think the 2010 picture is not a bleak one, especially in the context of our division. I am most concerned about the depth, more than the starter any particular position. I don't see any starter who looks like a less-than-league-average type (count me a little skeptical about freese). While we're never going to have a replacement albert pujols on the shelf - nor should we aspire to that - more depth and particularly more flexibility could make this team much more competitive. 2009 should also be remembered as the year of the Dry Powder; our ability to forecast gaps on the squad from our vantage point in the off-season is limited. We should retain the organizational flexibility to make moves to address sudden needs that arise mid-season.

We have very poor outfield depth right now - I would guess craig and a healthy mather could approach league average. Jay is probably a less than average prospect with most of his value being defensive. Henley is hard to project with no time yet at AAA. That is why a player like Mike Cameron holds so much interest for me. A perennial 4 win player, he can play a corner respectably and could sub for an injured colby in center. We have poor RF depth, having few strong-armed outfielders. We can't go into 2010 without legit replacements at two OF positions while playiong two starters with injury histories.

The infield poses a similar, though not as dire, problem. Quite frankly, I just don't think lugo is good enough to be the infield backup. His defense is bad and his offense is likely to regress. Maybe his knee mends this off-season and his defense improves. But a good RH infielder to split time with skippy at second, hopefully one who could also backup the other infield spots, could save us a lot of heartache. tyler greene could be that guy if he learns some plate discipline. It kind of breaks my heart that derosa had his wrist injury because he could be a really good answer in that role. I just hate to throw money at an older player with a serious injury. Felipe Lopez could be another option, but he'll be very expensive coming off a career season. Unfortunately, the free agent market is parched in many of our areas of need, and our capacity to trade has taken a hit.

The need for depth and flexibility manifests itself in this fact: we lost a total of 2.7 WAR from sub-replacement value position players in 2009. More than half of that lost value came from Khalil Greene and Nick Stavinoha. By lacking appropriate replacement value players, the Cards lost the equivalent value of a better than replacement value player. Now, obviously almost any team is susceptible to having a sudden injury that leaves a less than desirable player in a key spot. Even the yankees caught a below-average performance from cody ransom (not related to our cody ransom) after a-rod got injured. but a deep team, managed well, would likely lose about a win to below replacement players. our lack of depth - and to a certain extent, mismanagement - cost us almost 3 wins. the good news is i don't see many khalil greenes or stavinohas getting a lot of playing time in 2010: lugo, tyler greene, and pagnozzi could be reasonable candidates to play at or below replacement value.

Thank you for reading this far. My apologies for any lack of flash. As I get accustomed to your fancy "tables" and your "icons" and your "twitters," I may get more adventurous in my layout. And I think I have preprogrammed this to appear early saturday. if this appears mid-friday afternoon or sunday evening or in the Sheboygan Daily Press, i'm probably doing it wrong. My apologies, good people of Sheboygan.

RISP myths and the 2009 Cards

tom s. — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:53:03 -0000

I really don't have any faith that anybody is really "clutch." I think clutch is more a myth than a real phenomenon. But recently -- and after a record-setting LOB game, unsurpisingly -- much muttering about poor performance with runners in scoring position has been heard. I wanted to throw some numbers out there.

The Cards as a whole have done well with RISP, hitting better with RISP (team OPS .764) than with no one on (.738) or with a man on first (.747).

Here are the stats with RISP for the top 19 players on the team -- below these 19 are only real bit players (e.g., Brian Barden) and pitchers.

1 Albert Pujols .361 .556 .697 1.253

2 Jarrett Hoffpauir.500 .667 .500 1.167

3 John Smoltz.500 .500 .500 1.000

4 Ryan Ludwick .323 .373 .582 .955

5 Khalil Greene .353 .419 .529 .948

6 Matt Holliday.317 .406 .512 .918

7 Nick Stavinoha .308 .333 .577 .910

8 Julio Lugo .250 .355 .417 .772

9 Joe Thurston .269 .390 .373 .763

10 Chris Duncan.231 .364 .397 .761

11 Yadier Molina .305 .404 .344 .748

12 Colby Rasmus .252 .304 .407 .710

13 Mark DeRosa .200 .345 .333 .678

14 Skip Schumaker.250 .353 .310 .663

15 Brendan Ryan .242 .302 .337 .639

16 Chris Carpenter .176 .222 .412 .634

17 Troy Glaus .222 .300 .333 .633

18 David Freese .286 .267 .357 .624

19 Rick Ankiel .194 .281 .245 .526

As you can see, our 3-4-5 hitters (Albert, Holliday, Luddy) have hit excellently with runners in scoring position. Even past those team leaders, lots of role players (molina, duncan, lugo) have hit reasonably well with RISP. Of the players with substantial playing time, only DeRosa, Schu, Ryan, and Ank have really disappointed.

Again, I am convinced that performance with RISP is more a sample size issue than anything else, but to say we haven't hit well with RISP is just not correct.

I can't find a month by month team split for RISP but our leading producers have done reasonably well in August and September. Ludwick had a weak Aug. (OBP .300/ SLG .296) but a good Sept. (.333/.536). Pujols had an okay Aug. (.452/.409) and a sick Sept. (.563/.952 - yes, that is a .952 SLG with RISP, not a typo). Holliday had the reverse, with an excellent Aug. (.341/.618) and an okay Sept. (.357/.405).

Anyway, there are some legit complaints about this team. Hitting with RISP is not one.

SHELBY MILLER IS A CARDINAL!

tom s. — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:04:13 -0000

The long awaited moment, via tweet (courtesy matt leach)

RT @JonathanMayoB3 Source tells me Shelby Miller has indeed agreed to terms with #stlards. No. 19 pick in #mlbdraft will indeed get $2.9 mil2 minutes ago from web

That's a little more than twice the slot. It's an exciting time to be a cards fan. The team had a very good draft this year. They signed a higher-ceiling pitcher than I can remember. They paid large sums for Wagner Mateo, as well.

Poll

Will Shelby Miller turn out to be:

a dud?

9 votes

a victim of injury?

17 votes

a high-velocity, no-control reliever?

36 votes

the next Cardinal Ace?

203 votes

265 votes | Poll has closed