29 January 2012

Standing O for "Little O"


In the land of three-armed men, the two-armed man is unremarkable. Such is the lament for Omar Vizquel, a mere pipsqueak of a shortstop in a time of behemoth belters. Vizquel, at 45 years of age and 159 hits short of 3,000, signed a minor league deal with Toronto last week, presumably to tutor Blue Jay prospects.

Performing his ballet at short for Seattle, Cleveland and San Francisco, Vizquel presented as the latter-day Ozzie Smith, a glove-first, adequate-hitting middle infielder who helped his team to multiple World Series. But just as 5'9" Vizquel was gaining traction, 6'4" Cal Ripken was breaking records, 6'3" Alex Rodriguez was winning the batting crown and 6'3" Derek Jeter was winning championships. Throughout his career, as Vizquel approached the Hall of Fame bar for shortstops it moved higher and higher.

Vizquel fell short of the even the old standard for Hall shortstops regardless; he never flashed either the talent afield or with the stick of the Wizard of Oz. His .272/.337/.352 lifetime line in an era of inflated offense is actually 18% weaker than the average hitter. His magic at short -- soft hands, cat quickness, near perfection -- was enough alone to earn him stardom, but without power, he would have needed more seasons like 1999, where he hit .333/.397/.436 with 45 extra base hits and 42 of 51 steals for Cleveland. Only two other times in his career did "Little O" get on base 36% of the time, not nearly enough for someone with 80 home runs in 23 seasons. Vizquel pales next to ARod and Jeter.

(It's worth acknowledging, though not necessarily crediting, the defensive statistics that are somewhat underwhelmed with Vizquel's defensive prowess, granting him just 10-13 wins lifetime with the glove. That's less productivity than they credit to Ripken in just 17 years at short. Feh.)

With his defensive skills eroded and his offense drained of its adequacy, Vizquel's chances of cracking the Blue Jay lineup this year are slimmer than Tim Lincecum, and even then he almost certainly wouldn't make more than nominal appearances for the big league club. Vizquel hasn't been capable of above-replacement work since his triumphant valedictory with the Giants six years ago. So we'll take this moment to remember and appreciate the best fielding shortstop of the last two decades who accumulated 1000 walks, 1400 runs scored, 400 steals and 11 Gold Gloves, and came within one season of 3,000 hits.
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26 January 2012

He's A Prince But He's No Fielder


Time for all you Detroit Tiger fans to practice your cartwheels -- an athletic act that Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez can't replicate.

I know the folks in Motown are atwitter over the Murder's Row -- or duo, for now -- of Fielder and Cabrera in the wake of the nine-year, $214 million signing of Cecil's son. No doubt, that's some formidable pop in the middle of the lineup. You might say it's . . . sizable.

My hatred for this signing is sizable too. You might say Prince Fielder-sized.

Prince Fielder is a certified stud with the wood. The length of the commitment and the outlay required is not the problem; it's the cost of signing a 28-year-old, top-five slugger. The problem is that the Tigers have to take the field every half inning, and in that vein, they now have three Hummers in a gas-conscious world. Detroit plans to play Fielder at first and Cabrera at third and Jhonny Peralta at short. They might as well stick Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Jose Feliciano in the outfield because that is one ghastly defensive team.

At 275 pounds, Cabrera has all the mobility of a sofa-sleeper. Sixty pounds ago he staffed the hot corner for Florida -- in much the same way that Capt. Francesco Schettino "staffed" the Costa Concordia. His attempts to snare groundballs beyond arms length in 2012 will either be comic or tragic, depending on how hard you root for the White Sox.

In addition, he and Peralta (and keystoner Ryan Raburn) had better make good throws to first, because Fielder is ironically named. At 260 pounds himself, Fielder will be Cabrera's doppelganger across the infield. It won't get any better when V-Mart returns from a torn ACL -- probably next year -- because that guarantees at least two of the trio will have to play the field if the third DHs.

In short, Detroit now has three scary sluggers, but all three play the same defensive position -- none. Add to that a pitching staff that includes a Cy Young winner who is nearly certain to regress and a supporting cast that boasts Doug Fister and three guys whose records masked their mediocrity last year.

Sure, the Tigers will hit, but they won't catch and they won't run (49 steals last year and Austin Jackson had 22 of them) and their suspect pitching won't get any help. This combination of parts has Edsel written all over it and it's not due for an upgrade until V-Mart's contract expires in three years. Prince Fielder is a great pickup -- but not for this team.
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22 January 2012

Bitten By the BABIP Bug


One of the more controversial, but profound, insights of new analysis is that pitchers have relatively little control over whether batted balls that stay in the park are hits or outs. What we see as good pitching with our naked eyes is often a stew of defense and luck when put under the microscope. Pitchers may control whether batters swat flies or kill worms, but they don't control the placement of those batted balls three feet one way or the other, which is easily the difference between a hit and an out.
 
Generally, a pitcher can expect that batters hit around .300 on balls in play. The real distinction among pitchers is how often they fan batters, put them on base via walk or plunking and relinquish big flies. 

It's not a hard-and-fast rule; sinkerballers endure higher BABIPs but induce more double plays and allow fewer home runs. Some individuals, bat-breakers in particular, maintain unusually low BABIPs over long periods. Knuckleballers confound the whole system, but are rare enough to hold their convention in an elevator.

So when reviewing pitcher seasons, a quick look at opponent BABIP can sometimes suggest a disconnect between performance and results. CC Sabathia's 2011 offers a snapshot.

Sabathia is reliably a beast, even when bitten by the BABIP bug. In 2011, he anchored the Yankee staff with a 19-8, 3.00 line in 237 innings. He whiffed 230 batters and walked just 61. Imagine this: things didn't go his way.

Sabathia for his career pitched to an opponent BABIP of .292, which makes sense for a fly ball pitcher like him. After 2300 innings, you have to figure the statistical kinks have been worked out so that's the true measure of his work. But in 2011, batters hit .322 on balls in play against him. A change in his pitching mix or something else could possibly be at issue, but it's far more likely that a few unlucky bounces and/or an aging defense are responsible.

Had Sabathia's luck held out for his "normal" BABIP, he would have given up 21 fewer hits. His ERA would have dropped 26 points. Let's say he'd have won an extra game and lost one less. Now he's 20-7, 2.74 and not the fourth best pitcher in the league, but the second or third.

Or first. Because your 2011 Cy Young and MVP, Justin Verlander, in addition to pitching with his hair on fire, was unbelievably lucky.  His BABIP in 251 innings of labor was .237, nearly 100 points lower than Sabathia's and more than 50 points lower than his lifetime BABIP. A "normal" opponent BABIP for Verlander in 2011 means 39 more hits fall in, and his ERA balloons 54 points. Switch a couple of wins to losses and suddenly the runaway best pitcher in the league is 22-7, 2.94, a nearly identical record to Sabathia's.

(Jered Weaver, the #2 Cy Young votegetter, also enjoyed a skewed BABIP in 2011.)

An even deeper dive can tease out the discrepancies even further; there might be some explanation for a small part of Verlander's seemingly anomalous performance. It demonstrates, though, how much of the enthusiasm for Verlander as MVP might have been misplaced.

Ten years from now, the green eyeshades will have developed even finer tools for separating ability, defense and luck, and the conclusions we tentatively draw here might be reversed. Or vindicated. Still, the current state of the art reminds us that there's more to take into consideration than the usual pitching stats when analyzing pitcher value. It also suggests that Verlander, even maintaining his awesome level of performance, has little chance of repeating his 2011 results.
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19 January 2012

Making A Matusz of Things


The Baltimore Orioles have been among those constantly rebuilding teams ever since Jeffrey Mayer, now an adult, broke their heart. The O's have accumulated some talent over the years, but they have two major handicaps: the AL (B)East and their pitching staff.

In the last week, Baltimore's new GM, Dan Duquette, picked up a pair of semi-promising Japanese pitchers. If the pair lives up to their modest potential, they will immensely improve a staff that drove the team off a cliff in 2011.

The O's mound corp gave up 5.31 earned runs per game, last in the majors by a robust margin. Their only above-average pitcher, reliever Koji Uehara, notched a grand total of 141 outs.

How about Brian Matusz, the highly-regarded third year starter? In 2010, Matusz hurled 176 innings and struck out 143 batters. He went 10-12, 4.30 against tough competition, flashing the talent that made him the fourth pick in the '08 draft.

It's possible that Matusz died and was replaced on the hill by Rosie Ruiz last season. Or that his evil twin, an accountant with no discernible baseball talent, tied him up in a basement back home in Phoenix while he took Brian's starts in the rotation. Whatever the truth, the person alleging to be Brian Matusz started 12 games last season and averaged four innings and five runs per start. He went 1-9, 10.69, the worst ERA for any pitcher with 12 start ever. Ev-uh.

You can find your own numeric fun with Matusz's 2011, including the 18 homers he relinquished in 49 frames, one less than in the previous 176.

Matusz is on a short leash in 2012, but then so are all his litter mates. Baltimore will audition anyone who can fog a mirror in Spring Training in an effort to avoid the basement in a tough division and to develop some arms while they continue to develop Adam Jones, Matt Wieters, Nick Markakis and some other promising everyday player properties.
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15 January 2012

Diving Deeper In the BABIP Pool


A pitcher throws a pitch and it's strike three. Bully for him. He shares the credit with no one, except perhaps the batter, who deserves the entirety of the blame. It's part of what makes baseball largely a team game of individual performances.

Or, the batter takes ball four. The blame-credit dispensation is switched. Demerit pitcher and no one else. Credit batter alone.

Same hurler and hitter, but this time the bat makes contact and the ball sails into the warm, starry night. The moundsman can't blame his defense for a home run, unless it bounces off Jose Canseco's noggin and over the fence.

Walks, HBPs, Ks and home runs are all simply mano-a-mano events. When we examine the records of the combatants, we know exactly who did what by the result. Other kinds of results leave much more room for error because defense and luck play significant roles. 

Surely a pitcher who induces lots of pop-ups has the right to expect to pile up the outs. Those that drop between fielders are the exception, rather than the rule. Conversely, serving up a barrage of line drives is likely to lead to a quick hook.

Which brings us to Vernon Wells. The man with the toxic contract hit a miserable .218/.248/.412 for his 26 million,187 thousand, five hundred dollars in 2011. Wells isn't worth that money in three good years, but with that line he wasn't even worth a roster spot. You might espy a Major League Baseball-worst BABIP of .214 and conclude that he's ripe for a 2012 rebound. Alas, a deeper dive into his record and the kinds of balls he hit suggests that he suffered more from too many pop-ups and dribblers than from bad karma for his inflated paycheck.

With 86 punchouts in 529 plate appearances, we could expect Wells to bat .234 with his career BABIP of .282. But Wells was making weak contact in 2011, resulting in fewer line drives, more infield rollers, fewer ground balls, more shallow pops and more flies in general than his career average. In fact, he lined just one-eighth of his fair batted balls, the lowest percentage of his career. 

All this suggests Wells had no business batting much above .218, and unless he discovers a performance-enhancing formula, will have to stave off the effect of turning 33 since the last season. Mark Teixeira, now he's another story.

The slugging Yankee first-bagger suffered the third worst BABIP in baseball last season at .239. Teixeira hurt himself by pulling the ball too much, but hit just .215 on ground balls and just .646 on line drives. League average for each is about .320 and .750 respectively. Expect him to improve on his .248/.341/.494 in 2012, scary as that is.

Here's the list, courtesy of Baseball Reference, of the hitters who qualified for the batting title with the lowest BABIP in 2011. Expect most of them to improve at least their batting average and on base percentage next season.

Rk Player BAbip Tm PA AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Vernon Wells .214 LAA 529 505 110 15 4 25 20 86 .218 .248 .412 .660 *789/D
2 Alexis Rios .237 CHW 570 537 122 22 2 13 27 68 .227 .265 .348 .613 *8/D
3 Mark Teixeira .239 NYY 684 589 146 26 1 39 76 110 .248 .341 .494 .835 *3/D
4 Evan Longoria .239 TBR 574 483 118 26 1 31 80 93 .244 .355 .495 .850 *5/D
5 Ian Kinsler .243 TEX 723 620 158 34 4 32 89 71 .255 .355 .477 .832 *4D
6 Kurt Suzuki .244 OAK 515 460 109 26 0 14 38 64 .237 .301 .385 .686 *2/D
7 Casey McGehee .249 MIL 600 546 122 24 2 13 45 104 .223 .280 .346 .626 *5/3D
8 Dan Uggla .253 ATL 672 600 140 22 1 36 62 156 .233 .311 .453 .764 *4
9 Yuniesky Betancourt .259 MIL 584 556 140 27 3 13 16 63 .252 .271 .381 .652 *6
10 Carlos Santana .263 CLE 658 552 132 35 2 27 97 133 .239 .351 .457 .808 *23/D

Batters do have some ability to affect BABIP; Ichiro in his productive years regularly batted .350 on balls in play. Wells, on the other hand, hits just .282 lifetime even when he's not striking out. Here are the guys with highest BABIP in 2011.

Rk Player BAbip Tm PA AB H 2B 3B HR BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Matt Kemp .380 LAD 689 602 195 33 4 39 74 159 .324 .399 .586 .986 *8/D
2 Adrian Gonzalez .380 BOS 715 630 213 45 3 27 74 119 .338 .410 .548 .957 *3/D9
3 Emilio Bonifacio .372 FLA 641 565 167 26 7 5 59 129 .296 .360 .393 .753 65789/4
4 Michael Bourn .369 TOT 722 656 193 34 10 2 53 140 .294 .349 .386 .734 *8
5 Michael Young .367 TEX 689 631 213 41 6 11 47 78 .338 .380 .474 .854 D534/6
6 Alex Avila .366 DET 551 464 137 33 4 19 73 131 .295 .389 .506 .895 *2/D5
7 Miguel Cabrera .365 DET 688 572 197 48 0 30 108 89 .344 .448 .586 1.033 *3/D
8 Hunter Pence .361 TOT 668 606 190 38 5 22 56 124 .314 .370 .502 .871 *9
9 Alex Gordon .358 KCR 688 611 185 45 4 23 67 139 .303 .376 .502 .879 *7/3
10 Dexter Fowler .354 COL 563 481 128 35 15 5 68 130 .266 .363 .432 .796 *8

How about Dexter Fowler, whose .354 BABIP still left him hitting .266. When his luck runs out, so will his MLBPA union card. On the other hand, we've seen this before from Miguel Cabrera and Adrian Gonzalez. Cabrera's just 18 points above his lifetime mark of .347, which is why a) the bronze sculptor in Cooperstown is practicing carving Cabrera's face and b) no one is suggesting a fall to earth in 2012 for him.

We'll look at pitcher BABIP-against next time, and see who may be fixing to soar or belly-flop next season.
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13 January 2012

Hall of Infamy, Embarrass, MN


I've been asked by several readers to comment on Hall of Fame voting. I have nothing new to add, including that I have nothing new to add. I think Barry Larkin, a slick fielding shortstop who combined pop and pizzazz for 15 years was a slam dunk. 

Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines clearly belong, in my opinion. Unless someone demonstrates that Bags was using, that's really a non-starter. Edgar was one of the greatest hitters of all time despite losing two-three seasons at the start of his career to Mariner mismanagement. Raines, as I have noted previously, is one of the best outfielders of all time, but he excelled in the overlooked elements of the game (walks, OBP, stealing percentage, non-flashy defense) and not in the over-valued (batting average, RBI) while playing in lousy hitting environments and on teams that were home in October.

Larry Walker, Jack Morris, Fred McGriff, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Bernie Williams Juan Gonzalez, Tim Salmon and Brad Radke were variously terrific players who, in my mind, didn't rise to the exceptional levels required for Cooperstown. Morris particularly, who appears poised to enter the Hall next year or the year following, is over-appreciated because he pitched for superb teams that pumped up his win total and had a signature World Series performance. For whatever you think it's worth, Morris posted a mediocre 1.8 K/BB ratio and is credited by seamheads with a 4.54 "fair run average," i.e., what his ERA should have been in a neutral ballpark with average defense and luck stripped out. Even without sabermetric adjustment, his 3.90 ERA was just five percent better than average for his career, hardly the standard of the Hall of Fame.

Three players on the ballot induce head-scratching. I don't remember Alan Trammel as a HOF-caliber player, but the retrospective statistical line suggests he deserves support. When in doubt I like to err on the side of caution, leaving Trammel to consort once again with his double-play partner, Lou Whitaker, on the sidelines. The same for Lee Smith, who excelled for eight different teams, each of which was happy to let him go. Relievers are a tough lot to evaluate because they pitch so little. In my book, Smith should console himself with $120 million in career earnings.

Then there's Mark McGwire, who appears headed to the Hall of Infamy. (Where would that be housed -- Devil Lake, N.D.? Needles, CA?) Absent the scandal, his .394 OBP/.588 SLG, 583 homers and 1317 walks would constitute a shoe-in candidacy regardless of sloth on the basepaths and foibles afield. I tend to lean towards leniency in the steroid debate -- and after all, Big Mac never broke a baseball rule -- but it's hard to argue that any career benefited more from artificial muscling than his. I remember shaking my head at McGwire crushing a one-handed, opposite field home run on a pitch that fooled him during his magical 70-home run season in 1998. With respect to his Hall candidacy, I shake my head still.

And that's the dilemma confronting voters beginning next year when Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa enter the fray along with McGwire and Rafael Palmiero. If voters are not of the mind that any cheating automatically disqualifies a player, how will they weigh the depth of misconduct -- much of which is unknown -- against the record of achievement. Bonds is the most despised of the group, yet we know that he began taking after he had already earned his Hall pass.

So to deliver on the opening promise of not offering anything new here, the Hall voters will have to navigate a winding whitewater river with one oar and no map over the next few years. Whatever they decide about steroid-tinged players, it will be better-reasoned than their votes to put Jack Morris in the Hall of Fame.
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08 January 2012

Runs, Hits and Errors: The Temple of Doom


Yeah, I know. We're running out of headline ideas for this series, which checks the rearview mirror to see if 2011 brain drizzlings produced as promised. Today we examine the third quarter of 2011.

Ryan Voglesong produced exactly as promised in this post of July 5. The 34-year-old refugee of the Japanese leagues claimed an All-Star berth with a 6-1, 2.13 start to the season. I noted that Lady Luck was driving that train and would soon depart. Sure enough, Vogelsong went 7-6, 3.26, almost entirely because his luck-fattened BABIP of .262 bounced back to a more normal.309 in the second half.

The same post touted Doug Fister's All-Star quality despite a 3-9, 3.02 first half in Seattle. A deadline trade to the Tigers unleashed the gods of fortune on Fister, morphing his 3-12, 3.33 for the Mariners into 8-1, 1.79 in Detroit.

That kind of improvement was more than a good luck injection. True, the obscenity of poor run support in Seattle turned into a windfall in Detroit, batters hit just .245 on balls in play there and a bevy of unearned runs in the second half trimmed a 2.44 RA into a spiffier-looking ERA. But the 27-year-old righty also stopped issuing free passes (just five in 70 innings) and fanned more batters (from 5.5 to 7.3 per nine innings). It's fair to say that the real Fister was more like the 3.33 ERA of the first half and the 8-1 won-loss record of the second half.

This mid-summer review dismissed the Pirates' quick start, which had left them a game out of the division lead as the last 70 games loomed. It also cautioned anyone awaiting a mid-season acquisition in exchange for prospects not to hold their breath. Pirate brass vindicated this assertion by sticking with the plan to develop youngsters for contention in 2012 and beyond. Pirate players added their vindication -- going 18-38 in August and September and landing 23 games behind the Brewers.

The Pirates ended with bottom-three hitting and below average pitching, but only three of 19 players with 100+ at bats were over 30. Hurlers over 30 accounted for 34 of the staff's 1,449 innings. The Bucs are the team of the future. The subject of an upcoming post is, it's time for the future to arrive.

With 20-20 hindsight, what do you make of this post? It correctly observed that the Braves and Red Sox weren't competing with the Phils and Yanks respectively, but with whoever might be next in the Wild Card parade. It incorrectly observed that the Wild Card race was all but concluded. Well, their extraordinary collapses were simultaneous lightning strikes, so I'm cutting myself some slack on that one. The underlying point remains.

Dan Uggla provided some fodder for discussion here, after a first half that featured slugging but no hitting and a miniscule BABIP. Better luck gave him a .296/.379/.569 line in the second half. We proposed that he'd end the year with a .227 batting average. It finished at .233. You go, Dan! Another example of perspective not possible with the antiquated tools used by Fox national baseball coverage, your local team broadcast, and Associated Press mid-season recap or a former athlete doing commentary on ESPN.

The third quarter was a good one for observations about the game. Next week we revisit Q4