It’s the 2009 Hardball Times Baseball Annual
by Dave StudemanNovember 17, 2008
Second, it costs money to run this here website and we don't make enough from Internet ads to cover our costs. So the Annual helps to keep our creditors at bay. Without it, we'd be knocking on Henry Paulson's door.
It works pretty well, this combination of artistic striving and greed. In fact, we think this year's THT Annual is the best ever.
Now, I'm pretty sure I've said that every year—but this year it's empirically better. Why? Well, recently we asked what you liked and didn't like about previous Annuals. We listened and acted, and this version shows it.
• We boosted the amount of writing in the book, from 32 to 40 awesome articles. That's a 25 percent increase!
• We recruited even more of the best baseball writers we know. Guys like Rob Neyer, John Dewan, Joe Posnanski, legendary sabermetrician Craig Wright, Don Malcolm (the editor of the Big, Bad Baseball Annual) and many other fine writers all agreed to come on board.
• We revamped the format of our season review, putting more information into graphs and tables and allowing our writers more freedom to comment on each division.
• We better focused our statistics section, dropping the leaderboards and one of the Appendices (though you can still download all the data we've provided in the past). This freed up pages for the extra commentary and made the statistics more manageable.
Let me be clear about the THT Annual: it's an annual publication of great baseball writing. It's not just a synopsis of the previous year. Yes, the stats are all about the previous year, and we have one section devoted to a recap of the year. But the rest of the book is all about baseball, and the articles reflect the current conditions and understandings of this great game. As the book cover says, the Annual is filled with timeless commentary, great baseball writing and innovative stats.
Let me list some of the highlights for you:
• Joe Posnanski holds forth on the Hall of Fame class of 2013, which could include Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio, Sammy Sosa and Curt Schilling.
• Rob Neyer takes a close look at the spectacular mid-season trades of CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez and compares them to the biggest impact midseason trades of the past.
• Tim Marchman holds forth on the decline of pinstripes in New York this past year, on Wall Street and in the Bronx.
• Craig Wright contributes two terrific articles: one about the aging (or lack thereof) of Honus Wagner, and the other describing the awesomeness of Mike Piazza.
• Don Malcolm inspects the "anomalous superstar," based on an obscure baseball simulation from the 1970s.
• Mike Fast takes a close look at Cliff Lee's phenomenal turnaround, using PITCHf/x data.
• Steve Treder and Matthew Carruth have an in-depth look at the Tampa Bay Rays.
• Corey and Eric Seidman take a good look at the GM who just retired on top of the world, Pat Gillick. Corey and Eric use the "GM in a Box" format introduced by • Brian Gunn in the 2006 Annual.
• Tom Tango applies his WOWY analysis (that's With Or Without You) to catchers and investigates several interesting aspects of catcher usage.
• Sean Smith surveys the greatest fielders of the Retrosheet Era, including the usual and not-so-usual suspects.
• Phil Birnbaum wonders how players age, and takes a deeper look at the bizarre aging pattern of pitchers.
• Craig Calcaterra reports on the Mitchell Report and professional ethicist Jack Marshall follows with an in-depth essay on ethics in baseball.
• Rich Lederer wonders aloud about the save, its whys and wherefores.
• David Gassko analyzes player size and effectiveness through the baseball ages, and uncovers a surprising conclusion about small players in the Steroid Age.
• John Walsh inspects intentional base on balls—not the player who was walked, but the player who was "dissed." Which players were brought to bat most often after an intentional walk, and did they extract revenge?
• Roel Torres wonders how one becomes a baseball fan.
• Greg Rybarczyk (of Hit Tracker fame) has a great piece about home runs and ballparks, with a fascinating insight into Dodger Stadium and an early look at Citi Field.
• Anthony Giacalone takes a look back at 1968 and baseball's youth movement, 40 years later.
• MGL uses his linear weights to outline the most surprising and disappointing teams. And he nominates his own managers of the year and takes an early look at next year's teams.
• Will Leitch covers the "year in pointlessness," Richard Barbieri annotates the year in baseball, and I have 10 things I learned during the year.
In the name of space, I've left some people out. People like John Dewan, John Brattain, Sal Baxamusa, Colin Wyers, Craig Brown, Brandon Isleib, Derek Carty, Josh Kalk, Brian Borawski and Victor Wang also contributed tremendous articles covering a wide range of subjects. This book is chock full.
A few themes manage to emerge from this random submission of baseball musings. Pete Rose comes up three different times. Sisyphus is mentioned twice. Manny Ramirez's name is used a lot. Maybe you'll find other themes when you plunge in.
I've already written about this, but our stats will include the usual assortment of stats favorites along with our "patented" batted ball scouting stats. I'm rightly proud of the statistics in the second half of the book, which include a synopsis of top "stat facts" for each team and John Burnson's Playing Time Constellations. If you bought last year's book, you know what I'm talking about.
You'll find The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009 in bookstores, on Amazon and Peter Gammons' beach chair (inside joke). But please order it from ACTA Sports. We make very little money when you purchase the Annual from other sources—only a purchase from ACTA has a real impact on the piggy bank. If you must purchase it from Amazon, due to shipping costs or whatever, then please at least use this link. We make a bit more money that way.
But however you do it, buy the Annual now and make sure you get it quickly when it ships next week. I promise you won't regret it. If you're still not convinced, perhaps this invitation from Joe Posnanski's essay will do the trick:
So here's the deal: I won't mention any of that stuff. But if you want to insert caveats and cautions and scientific research into the article, I certainly approve. I find that the margins are an excellent place for such observations, but please feel free to scribble directly on my words. I would also recommend using a red pen because red ink tends to stand out. Perhaps most of all, I would recommend you purchase this book beforehand.
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
The Hardball Times
Chase Utley Out 4 to 6 Months With Hip Surgery
by Chris NeaultNovember 21, 2008
Send all injury-related questions or comments to
The Hardball Times
Chase Utley out 4-6 months: fantasy fallout
by Chris NeaultNovember 21, 2008
Send all injury-related questions or comments to
The Hardball Times
Consistency meter: Nick Markakis
by Paul SingmanNovember 21, 2008
Have any questions, comments, concerns, criticisms, or suggestions? Tell me about them here.
The Hardball Times
Season similarity scores
by Zach WatersNovember 21, 2008
In 2001, Ichiro Suzuki showed America a new style of baseball, a speedy, high average, low walk style of play never seen since...
Al Wingo?
Wingo had an interesting career. An alumnus of Oglethorpe University, he appeared in 15 games for Philadelphia as a 21-year-old in 1919. He acquitted himself well, with an OPS+ of 115, but he would make his next appearances as an outfielder in 78 games for Detroit five years later. As a 27-year-old in 130 games, the most playing time he would ever see, he batted .370/.456/.527, good for an OPS+ of 150 and a 12th-place MVP finish.
Together, those three seasons make Wingo into Ichiro's most similar age-27 player on the incomparable Baseball Reference. The problem is, the two players aren't particularly similar:
Player From To Yrs G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG SB CS OPS+ Ichiro Suzuki 2001-2001 1 157 692 127 242 34 8 8 69 30 53 .350 .381 .457 56 14 126 Al Wingo 1919-1925 3 223 649 134 224 47 15 6 96 94 56 .345 .428 .492 16 18 136
In a season's worth of at bats, Ichiro had 18 more hits, 13 fewer doubles, seven fewer triples, 64 fewer walks and 40 more stolen bases. The two players aren't actually similar at all.
The alert reader probably saw this coming. Ichiro, after all, was an internationally famous superstar the first day he stepped onto a major league playing field. Thhat day occurred when he was 27, due to his playing in Japan for much of the previous decade. Paradoxically, any player truly comparable to Ichiro should have so much playing time by age 27 that his career numbers wouldn't be comparable to Ichiro at all. It's not really a coincidence that his most similar player at age 27 was an outfielder who had a career year in his first real opportunity for playing time at precisely the correct age.
And yet, the question remains. When was the last time America saw a player similar to the 2001 Ichiro? Has any player ever had a truly similar year?
Deconstructing Bill
Similarity scores were introduced by Bill James in The Politics of Glory, a book examining the Hall of Fame selection process. James sought to bring order to a common Hall of Fame argument: If Player A is similar to Player B, who is in the Hall of Fame, then Player A should also be elected. In a characteristically insightful approach, James realized that what was needed was a way to fairly compare a player to every other player, find the most similar players, and describe how similar they were. If you can say that Player A is similar to Players B, C, D and E, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame, you're starting to make a very strong case for Player A's election.
Aside from their original purpose, Similarity Scores give an element of vivid detail to baseball statistics. Whenever I want to learn about a player I've never heard of, the first thing I do is look at his list of most similar players. Finding someone I already know about makes the player I'm investigating come to life. The point of looking at Similarity Scores isn't that the current system doesn't work, it's that the idea of Similarity Scores is such a good one that it's worth improving as much as we can.
As employed on baseballreference.com, similarity scores are calculated by starting at 1,000 points and subtracting...
{exp:list_maker}One point for each difference of 20 games played.
One point for each difference of 75 at bats.
One point for each difference of 10 runs scored.
One point for each difference of 15 hits.
One point for each difference of 5 doubles.
One point for each difference of 4 triples.
One point for each difference of 2 home runs.
One point for each difference of 10 RBI.
One point for each difference of 25 walks.
One point for each difference of 150 strikeouts.
One point for each difference of 20 stolen bases.
One point for each difference of .001 in batting average.
One point for each difference of .002 in slugging percentage{/exp:list_maker}In addition, there's a positional adjustment to account for players who spent their careers at different positions. In this essay, I will focus on batting similarity scores only.
So what happens if we use James' system, but look at individual seasons instead of entire careers? That's easy enough to program. Instead of starting at 1,000 and subtracting points, though, let's calculate a ``similarity distance'' by starting at zero and adding points according to James' system. If we do this, the 10 most similar seasons to Ichiro's 2001 are:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Ichiro Suzuki 2001 30 192 34 8 8 56 450 .350 .377 .457 46.380 0.0 Sam Rice 1930 55 158 35 13 1 13 386 .349 .404 .457 38.820 14.3 Eddie Collins 1924 89 154 27 7 6 42 362 .349 .439 .455 57.320 16.4 Jack Glasscock 1889 31 155 40 3 7 57 377 .352 .385 .467 46.430 18.0 Bill Terry 1934 60 169 30 6 8 0 389 .354 .412 .464 39.230 19.4 Sam Rice 1925 37 182 31 13 1 26 422 .350 .385 .442 35.580 19.9 Rod Carew 1973 62 156 30 11 6 41 377 .350 .413 .471 51.850 20.0 Buddy Myer 1935 96 163 36 11 5 7 401 .349 .437 .468 53.200 21.4 Eddie Collins 1913 85 145 23 13 3 55 350 .345 .435 .453 58.010 22.2 Carson Bigbee 1922 56 166 29 15 5 24 399 .350 .405 .471 45.930 22.3 Charlie Jamieson 1923 80 172 36 12 2 18 422 .345 .417 .447 46.880 22.4
Kind of an unexciting list, isn't it? None of these seasons leap out and strike you as a great match for Ichiro. Looking through the list, we see that Ichiro stole 56 bases in 2001. In what's supposedly the most comparable season in history, Sam Rice stole only 13, and drew 55 walks compared to Ichiro's 30! Looking through these columns, we can see that there's a lot of variation in every column except two: All of the top 10 seasons are near-perfect matches in batting average and slugging percentage.
The problem here is that Similarity Scores are designed to compare long careers to one another—the kind of careers that might make it into a discussion about the Hall of Fame. For a career like that, it might be reasonable to give the same number of points to a single point of batting average as you do to five doubles. But over one season, five doubles is a lot, and a single point of batting average is nothing. For finding similar seasons, James' system is unbalanced toward batting average and slugging percentage. It almost always will find seasons which are perfect matches in these categories, with large variations in all other criteria. If we want to devise a similarity score that works well for a single season, we'll have to do something new.
What's the point?
If we want to devise a new system for similarity scores, we have to look at the idea of a point with a critical eye. In the last section, we saw that James' point system becomes unbalanced if we dramatically alter the length of the periods we're comparing. Presumably, the same kinds of problems would arise if we were trying to find comparable players to a player whose career was very short. Can we develop a system that works for any length of time?
Another aspect to consider is that the field of sabermatrics is a lot larger now than it was when James devised his original system. There are many more people using sabermetrics to answer many more questions. It would be nice to have a system that connects to the rest of what we know about sabermetrics. It's a less obvious problem than having bad matches for single seasons, but I have to admit that, as long as I've enjoyed using them, I have no idea what a point means in a Similarity Score. Are Similarity Scores consistent with the rest of sabermetrics?
At the level of a single batting event, they don't match up very well. Using Pete Palmer's linear weights formula, the runs created by a particular batter can be estimated by
Linear Weights runs= .47*1B + .78*2B + 1.09*3B + 1.4*HR + .33*(BB+HB) + .3*SB
-.52*CS - .26*(AB-H-GIDP)-.72*GIDP
We can now take the ratio of the run value of a single (.47 runs) and a double (.78 runs) to find that a single is roughly 60 percent as valuable as a double. But in James' Similarity Scores formula, a single counts for 1/15 of a point, while a double counts for four times as much (1/5 point as an extra double plus 1/15 point as an extra hit).
Let's make a table of the relative weights for the different batting events as compared to a single in Linear Weights vs Similarity scores:
Event LW SS 1B 1.00 1.00 2B 1.66 4.00 3B 2.31 4.75 HR 2.97 8.50 SB 0.64 0.75 CS 1.11 NA GIDP 1.53 NA out 0.55 0.2 (one plate appearance without a hit)
Pretty bad agreement!
Oddly, things become better if we compare the Similarity Scores ratio to the square of the linear weights ratio.
Event LW^2 SS 1B 1.00 1.00 2B 2.76 4.00 3B 5.33 4.75 HR 8.82 8.50 SB 0.41 0.75 CS 1.23 NA GIDP 2.34 NA out 0.30 0.2
The agreement here is much better, but still not great. It appears that Similarity Scores match up with square of the linear weights run value of particular offensive events. I suspect a lot of the disagreement comes a desire on James' part for a system that could be worked out easily by hand. In this age of ubiquitous computing, that's no longer an important consideration.
Run distance
We would like to construct a new system of Similarity Scores that weights different offensive events in a way that is consistent with Linear Weights. Ideally, we would like this system to be easily adjustable to the different offensive contexts seen at different points in the history of baseball. Fortunately, nothing could be easier. To find the distance between two points, you simply take the square of the difference in each dimension, add them up, and take the square root.
The only catch is that we have to use the same units for distance in every dimension we use in the calculation. It doesn't make any sense to add inches to seconds, even if inches is a perfectly reasonable distance in space and seconds is perfectly reasonable distance in time. Similarly, it doesn't really make any sense to add singles in one dimension to doubles in another. We'd like to use some common system of units in which both a single and a double can be expressed in a meaningful way. This is exactly what Linear Weights does.
If we use Linear Weights to convert Ichiro's 2001 season to the number of runs he contributed with singles, doubles, etc., we find that he produced...
30*.33=9.9 runs from walks 192*.47=90.2 runs from singles 34*.78=26.5 runs from doubles 8*1.09=8.72 runs from triples 8*1.4=11.2 runs from home runs 56*.3=16.8 runs from stolen bases
On the negative side, he lost...
14*.52=7.28 runs from being caught stealing 53*.26=13.78 runs from strikeouts 3*.72=2.16 runs from grounding into double plays 394*.26=102 runs from all other outs
It's now easy to calculate a "run distance'' using the distance formula given above. Because strikeouts, caught stealing, and grounding into double plays were not official statistics for all of baseball history, we'll leave those categories out of the calculation. Although it would be easy to adjust for different levels of scoring in different years, at the moment we'll just use the linear weights formula given above.
We can now search for the player seasons with the smallest distance from Ichiro, as measured in runs. The new top 10 seasons are:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Ichiro Suzuki 2001 30 192 34 8 8 56 450 .350 .377 .457 46.4 0.0 Juan Pierre 2004 45 184 22 12 3 45 457 .326 .368 .407 30.5 14.4 Ichiro Suzuki 2006 49 186 20 9 9 45 471 .322 .367 .416 32.6 14.5 Ralph Garr 1971 30 180 24 6 9 30 420 .343 .372 .441 32.2 14.9 Willie Wilson 1980 28 184 28 15 3 79 475 .326 .352 .421 38.3 15.3 Richie Ashburn 1951 50 181 31 5 4 29 422 .344 .391 .426 35.8 15.4 Steve Sax 1989 52 171 26 3 5 43 446 .315 .366 .387 25.0 15.9 Sam Rice 1920 39 170 29 9 3 63 413 .338 .377 .428 40.9 16.7 Matty Alou 1969 42 183 41 6 1 22 467 .331 .369 .411 25.0 17.0 Sam Rice 1925 37 182 31 13 1 26 422 .350 .385 .442 35.6 17.1 Frankie Frisch 1923 46 169 32 10 12 29 418 .348 .392 .485 47.3 17.8
These seasons match up much better with Ichiro's 2001 than the earlier list. Ichiro himself even appears in a later incarnation. It's a little distressing that all of these players drew more walks than Ichiro's 2001, but that's due more to Ichiro's own unusualness than anything else—there just aren't many 242-hit, 30-walk seasons to choose from. A related issue is that all of these comparable seasons are distinctly worse than Ichiro's 2001; this is more a list of "poor man's Ichiro'' seasons than true equals to Ichiro's 2001.
Barry Bonds also had an unusual season in 2001:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Barry Bonds 2001 177 49 32 2 73 13 320 .328 .510 .863 131.5 0.0 Mark McGwire 1998 162 61 21 0 70 1 357 .299 .468 .753 104.0 16.1 Mark McGwire 1999 133 58 21 1 65 0 376 .278 .425 .697 81.9 25.6 Babe Ruth 1920 150 73 36 9 54 14 285 .376 .531 .849 127.4 32.6 Babe Ruth 1927 137 95 29 8 60 7 348 .356 .486 .772 116.8 32.8 Babe Ruth 1921 145 85 44 16 59 17 336 .378 .510 .846 139.9 33.5 Sammy Sosa 2001 116 86 34 5 64 0 388 .328 .440 .737 99.4 34.8 Babe Ruth 1928 137 82 29 8 54 4 363 .323 .461 .709 97.5 36.1 Mark McGwire 1996 116 59 21 0 52 0 291 .312 .460 .731 79.5 38.0 Jim Thome 2002 122 73 19 2 52 1 334 .304 .445 .677 77.8 38.1 Hank Greenberg 1938 119 90 23 4 58 7 381 .315 .436 .684 88.1 38.6
No surprises here. There are no particularly good matches to a 73-home run season. Let's look at some particularly famous or unusual seasons.
Babe Ruth's 1927 is surprisingly untouched by the steroid era:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Babe Ruth 1927 137 95 29 8 60 7 348 .356 .486 .772 116.8 0.0 Babe Ruth 1928 137 82 29 8 54 4 363 .323 .461 .709 97.5 11.1 Hank Greenberg 1938 119 90 23 4 58 7 381 .315 .436 .684 88.1 12.8 Jimmie Foxx 1932 116 113 33 9 58 3 372 .364 .469 .749 112.3 13.4 Mickey Mantle 1961 126 87 16 6 54 12 351 .317 .452 .687 89.4 14.4 Sammy Sosa 2001 116 86 34 5 64 0 388 .328 .440 .737 99.4 15.4 Ralph Kiner 1949 117 92 19 5 54 6 379 .310 .431 .658 81.0 15.9 Babe Ruth 1921 145 85 44 16 59 17 336 .378 .510 .846 139.9 16.2 Babe Ruth 1930 136 100 28 9 49 10 332 .359 .492 .732 108.8 16.2 Mickey Mantle 1956 112 109 22 5 52 10 345 .353 .465 .705 96.9 16.7 Hack Wilson 1930 105 111 35 6 56 3 377 .356 .454 .723 101.9 16.9
Ted Williams 1941: the last .400 season
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Ted Williams 1941 147 112 33 3 37 2 271 .406 .551 .735 112.1 0.0 Mickey Mantle 1957 146 105 28 6 34 16 301 .365 .515 .665 100.1 11.5 Ted Williams 1957 119 96 28 1 38 0 257 .388 .523 .731 93.7 13.3 Ted Williams 1942 145 111 34 5 36 3 336 .356 .496 .648 95.9 17.1 Babe Ruth 1926 144 102 30 5 47 11 311 .372 .513 .737 112.6 18.6 Babe Ruth 1932 130 97 13 5 41 2 301 .341 .487 .661 83.8 20.5 Ted Williams 1946 156 93 37 8 38 0 338 .342 .496 .667 98.1 20.8 Babe Ruth 1924 142 108 39 7 46 9 329 .378 .510 .739 117.2 20.9 Ted Williams 1954 136 80 23 1 29 0 253 .345 .515 .635 76.3 21.3 Babe Ruth 1923 170 106 45 13 41 17 317 .393 .542 .764 135.3 21.6 Jason Giambi 2000 137 97 29 1 43 2 340 .333 .475 .647 86.9 21.6
Rickey Henderson 1982, 130 stolen bases:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Rickey Henderson 1982 116 105 24 4 10 130 393 .267 .397 .383 61.5 0.0 Rickey Henderson 1983 103 109 25 7 9 108 363 .292 .411 .421 63.0 11.8 Arlie Latham 1891 74 108 20 10 7 87 388 .272 .361 .387 36.7 20.8 Jim Fogarty 1887 82 83 26 12 8 102 366 .261 .366 .410 46.1 21.0 Hugh Nicol 1887 86 81 18 2 1 138 373 .215 .335 .267 28.5 21.1 Rickey Henderson 1980 117 144 22 4 9 100 412 .303 .418 .399 63.3 21.1 Rickey Henderson 1988 82 131 30 2 6 93 385 .305 .395 .399 50.4 21.5 Billy Hamilton 1889 87 129 17 12 3 111 373 .302 .399 .395 56.2 21.9 Hub Collins 1890 85 100 32 7 3 85 368 .278 .382 .386 41.7 21.9 Tommy Harper 1969 95 105 10 2 9 73 411 .235 .350 .311 18.3 22.1 Rickey Henderson 1998 118 97 16 1 14 66 414 .236 .373 .347 29.9 22.2
I'll bet you didn't have Arlie Latham in the office pool. Hugh Nicol is a surprisingly good match in everything but home runs.
George Brett's .390 season in 1980:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist George Brett 1980 58 109 33 9 24 15 274 .390 .460 .664 72.8 0.0 Harry Heilmann 1922 58 104 27 10 21 8 293 .356 .429 .598 55.6 8.7 Bill Dickey 1936 46 97 26 8 22 0 270 .362 .424 .617 50.4 10.4 Joe DiMaggio 1939 52 108 32 6 30 3 286 .381 .444 .671 68.0 10.4 Goose Goslin 1928 48 110 36 10 17 16 283 .379 .439 .614 61.5 10.9 Rogers Hornsby 1923 55 104 32 10 17 3 261 .384 .455 .627 59.7 11.4 Mickey Cochrane 1931 56 106 31 6 17 2 299 .349 .419 .553 45.7 13.0 Hal Trosky 1939 52 90 31 4 25 2 298 .335 .404 .589 46.1 13.1 Mike Sweeney 2002 61 104 31 1 24 9 311 .340 .415 .563 49.7 13.4 Moises Alou 1994 42 85 31 5 22 7 279 .339 .399 .592 43.8 13.9 Rico Carty 1964 43 96 28 4 22 1 305 .330 .388 .554 37.3 14.0
I'm fascinated that Mike Sweeney, universally described as the best hitter the Royals have had since George Brett, turned in a season so similar to Brett's magnum opus.
For a season heavy in doubles, let's take Todd Helton's 2000:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Todd Helton 2000 103 113 59 2 42 5 364 .372 .467 .698 101.0 0.0 Carlos Delgado 2000 123 97 57 1 41 0 373 .345 .461 .664 92.2 10.7 Albert Pujols 2003 79 117 51 1 43 5 379 .359 .434 .667 85.1 11.1 Hank Greenberg 1940 93 96 50 8 41 6 378 .340 .432 .670 84.5 13.5 Frank Thomas 2000 112 104 44 0 43 1 391 .328 .437 .625 79.0 14.9 Derrek Lee 2005 85 100 50 3 46 15 395 .335 .418 .662 83.5 15.1 Albert Pujols 2004 84 97 51 2 46 5 396 .331 .414 .657 78.2 15.3 Frank Robinson 1962 76 116 51 2 39 18 401 .342 .415 .624 77.3 15.7 Lance Berkman 2001 92 97 55 5 34 7 386 .331 .423 .621 73.6 15.8 Todd Helton 2001 98 92 54 2 49 7 390 .336 .431 .685 89.2 16.0 Todd Helton 2003 111 122 49 5 33 0 374 .359 .461 .630 86.6 16.3
Surprising how many of those seasons came in a five-year window, isn't it?
Alex Rodriguez's best home run year brings back some memories for Seattle fans:
First Last Year BB 1B 2B 3B HR SB Outs BA OBP SLG LWRuns SSDist Alex Rodriguez 2002 87 101 27 2 57 9 437 .300 .385 .623 68.3 0.0 Ken Griffey 1997 76 92 34 3 56 15 423 .304 .382 .646 71.0 9.0 Ken Griffey 1998 76 88 33 3 56 20 453 .284 .361 .611 62.1 10.2 Sammy Sosa 1999 78 91 24 2 63 7 445 .288 .367 .635 64.0 10.6 Alex Rodriguez 2001 75 114 34 1 52 18 431 .318 .390 .622 72.1 12.0 Johnny Mize 1947 74 98 26 2 51 2 409 .302 .380 .614 58.6 12.2 Luis Gonzalez 2001 100 98 36 7 57 1 411 .325 .420 .688 88.0 12.3 Ryan Howard 2006 108 98 25 1 58 0 399 .313 .421 .659 79.8 12.7 Shawn Green 2001 72 100 31 4 49 20 435 .297 .371 .598 60.8 13.3 George Foster 1977 61 112 31 2 52 6 418 .320 .382 .631 65.1 13.6 Ken Griffey 1999 91 96 26 3 48 24 433 .286 .379 .576 60.5 13.8
Conclusions
Finding similarities between different players is one of the most interesting aspects of sabermetrics, but it has been sorely neglected as an area of research. In this essay, I have tried to put the concept of player similarity on more solid ground by introducing the idea of ``run distance'' between two different statistical records.
One advantage of looking at player similarity in this new way is that problems which were previously very difficult to address now become simple. For instance, a common complaint about Similarity Scores is that a mediocre player in a high offense era can show a superficial similarity to a much better player in a low offense era. It's not at all clear how this problem could be corrected using the traditional formula, but simply dividing the run value in each category by the number of runs per game scored in a particular park or league naturally produces a historically corrected Similarity Score. It would be similarly easy to construct a rate-based Similarity Score, where each category is divided by plate appearances, to account for seasons with differing amounts of playing time.
Improved Similarity Scores can help sharpen Hall of Fame debates by pointing out when a season is truly unique, or comparable to the greats of the past. Mostly, though, I hope that the improved Similarity Scores presented in this article will help the enjoyment of baseball statistics by pointing out the unexpected similarities and parallels in baseball history.
A lifelong Royals fan, Zach Walters is a graduate student in theoretical physics at the University of Colorado.
The Hardball Times
The currency of baseball
by Craig BrownNovember 21, 2008
"Pitching is the currency of the game"
Those words were said by Dayton Moore shortly after he was introduced as the Royals' general manager in June of 2006.
When Moore is looking to swing a deal, he certainly believes his words to be true. Since taking over, Moore has pulled the trigger on 20 trades—and 19 of them have involved pitchers. In those 19 deals, the Royals traded away a relief pitcher as the "key" player in 12.
The trend that continues. Since the end of the season, Moore has sent Leo Nunez to the Marlins for Mike Jacobs and this week traded Ramon Ramirez to the Red Sox for Coco Crisp.
Is there a method to Moore's madness? Here is a review of some trades he has made involving pitchers from his bullpen. Just for fun, I’ll supply a verdict at the end of each review to proclaim a “winner” where possible. Keep in mind that these trades are relatively fresh, so a team that is a “winner” today could be a “loser” at this time next year. Since many of these players reviewed within fall into the "journeyman" category and have moved on to yet another team, the Win Shares listed are the ones each accumulated while with his "new" club.
July 24, 2006
The Royals send RP Mike MacDougal to the Chicago White Sox for SP Tyler Lumsden and SP Daniel Cortes.
This was Moore’s third trade after less than two months on the job, but the first that involved moving a piece of his bullpen.
The wiry (he’s listed at 6-foot-4 and 195 pounds) MacDougal was chosen by the Royals in the first round of the 1999 draft. In his first full big league season in 2003, he was the Royals' closer and picked up 27 saves with a 4.08 ERA, and was named to the AL All-Star team. He battled elbow issues in 2004 but was healthy enough to reclaim the closer role in 2005, when he posted a 3.33 ERA and 21 saves in 25 opportunites. It was his best season to date.
MacDougal’s slight frame and violent delivery caused many to speculate on his durability and the injury bug struck again: He missed the first three months of the 2006 season with shoulder soreness. He was able to reclaim the closer role upon his return in July. However, he appeared in just four games, throwing four innings of scoreless ball, before Moore shipped him to Chicago for a pair of prospects.
After the trade, MacDougal pitched well, with a 1.80 ERA with 19 strikeouts and six walks in 25 innings for the White Sox as a setup man for Bobby Jenks, earning a three-year deal with Chicago for $6.45 million. However, in the two seasons since then, he’s again been hampered by shoulder issues that have rendered him ineffective. While he's managed to appear in 70 games, he's thrown 59.1 innings with a strikeout rate of 7.7 per nine innings and a walk rate that tickles the stratosphere at 6.8 per nine, along with a 5.46 ERA.
Last week he was outrighted to Triple-A and removed from Chicago's 40-man roster.
At the time, Lumsden was thought to be the key to the deal for the Royals, but injury issues and poor performance have held him back. Last summer in Triple-A Omaha, he posted a 7.21 ERA in 107 innings with 62 walks and 44 strikeouts. He’s been passed in the prospect pecking order by Cortes, who is now regarded as the top pitching prospect in the Royals system. Last year he had a 3.78 ERA with 55 walks and 109 strikeouts in 116 innings in Double-A Northwest Arkansas.
Total Win Shares
MacDougal: 6
Advantage: Push. It's difficult to call this one in Chicago's favor after the Sox awarded MacDougal a three-year contract and pulled him off the roster before that deal expired. He hasn’t been a contributor since 2006 and his days in Chicago appear to be over. Lumsden was projected to be a fourth starter, but at this point it seems unlikely he will ever set foot in a major league clubhouse. This deal could shift to the Royals' favor if Cortes continues to advance.
July 24, 2006
The Royals send pitcher Elmer Dessens to the Los Angeles Dodgers for SP Odalis Perez, SP Blake Johnson and SP Julio Pimental.
That’s an interesting haul for a lone middle reliever. Besides, Moore convinced the Dodgers to pay almost half of the $16 million Perez was due at the time of the trade, which made the deal even more interesting.
Perez wanted out of LA and the Dodgers were happy to oblige. In his career, Perez had had two good years (2002 and 2004), with the remainder spent as a below-average starter. At the time of the deal, he was languishing in the Dodger bullpen with a 6.83 ERA. The Royals moved him back to the rotation and he made 12 starts with a 5.64 ERA. He made 26 starts the following year for KC and wasn’t much better, with a 5.57 ERA and 64 strikeouts and 50 walks in 137 innings. It was an easy decision when the Royals declined his option year and let him hit the free agent market following 2007.
Johnson and Pimental remain in the Royals organization, where both are considered fringe prospects after a rough year in Double-A.
Ten days after the trade, Dessens landed on the DL with a sprained ankle. He finished the year appearing in 19 games for the Dodgers with a 4.70 ERA and 16 strikeouts and nine walks in 23 innings. He was traded that offseason to the Brewers for Brady Clark.
Total Win Shares
Dessens: 1
Perez: 4
Advantage: Perez was a reclamation project who wasn't worth reclaiming, but this goes to the Royals by default. It looks like the prospects they received aren't going to amount to much, either.
July 31, 2006
The Royals send RP Jeremy Affeldt and SP Denny Bautista to the Colorado Rockies in exchange for 1B Ryan Shealy and RP Scott Dohmann.
Affeldt never had a defined role on the Royals and battled blister problems for almost his entire career in Kansas City. He would be in the rotation, get a blister, hit the DL, return as a set-up man, move to closer and then back to the rotation. Lather, rinse, repeat. After four and a half years and a career 4.77 ERA compiled over 42 starts and 142 relief appearances, he was the key player shipped to the Rockies.
Affeldt struggled for the rest of 2006, with a 6.91 ERA over 27.1 innings in Colorado. However, he turned things around and had the best season of his career (to that point) in ’07 as the set-up man with a 3.51 ERA and 1.4 K/BB ratio. He moved to Cincinnati as a free agent in ’08 and was even better with a 3.33 ERA and 3.2 K/BB ratio for the Reds. He recently signed a two-year, $8 million deal with the San Francisco Giants.
The Royals had used Bautista primarily as a starter without much success. In 20 appearances (19 starts), he had a 5.95 ERA with 45 walks and 63 strikeouts. He was toiling in Triple-A at the time of the trade and was a September call-up for the Rockies. After he appeared in 13 games (two starts) with a 9.39 ERA, Colorado traded him to Detroit last December. The Tigers, in turn, shipped him to Pittsburgh in June.
On the Royals' side of the ledger, Dohmann quickly washed out with a 7.99 ERA in 23 innings and wasn’t offered a contract for the following year. The key to the deal from the Royals' perspective was Shealy, who had shown promise in the minors, but was blocked by Todd Helton. The Rockies tried playing Shealy in right field, but that experiment was abandoned quickly.
Shealy hit .280/.338/.451 with seven home runs in just more than 200 plate appearances for the Royals immediately following the trade. He opened the 2007 season as the Royals' starting first baseman, but hit just .113/.186/.208 in his first 17 games before landing on the DL with a strained hamstring. He returned a couple of weeks later, but he never found his power, hitting just .269/.331/.353 before his hamstring flared up in June and he was shut down for the rest of the year.
Since then, he’s inexplicably fallen out of favor with an organization that is starved for power at the corners. While Shealy was hitting .283/.376/.503 this year in Triple-A, the Royals were playing Ross Gload at first. Shealy earned a September call-up and was named the Royals player of the month after he hit .301/.354/.603 with seven home runs in 79 plate appearances.
He enters 2009 out of options and battling for a position on the 25-man roster.
Total Win Shares
Affeldt: 6
Bautista: 0
Shealy: 11
Dohmann: 0
Advantage: Rockies. Affeldt was the only one of the four who did much of anything with his new team and his Win Shares came in one season, while Shealy's have been spread out over parts of three years. Like the MacDougal deal, this one could swing into the Royals' favor if they give Shealy some at-bats.
Dec. 6, 2006
The Royals send RP Ambiorix Burgos to the New York Mets for SP Brian Bannister.
Bannister delivered a surprisingly good 2007 season for the Royals, posting a 3.87 ERA, but followed that up with a stinker in ’08 with a 5.76 ERA. He’s neither as good as he was two summers ago or as bad as his numbers would indicate from last year. His xFIP over those two years is around 5.00, which gives us an idea of where he is talent-wise.
Burgos, meanwhile, has been a disaster for the Mets. He appeared in 17 games (with a stint in Triple-A) for New York before he was shut down with an elbow strain and eventually had Tommy John surgery. He missed all of last year, but had made some rehab appearances in the minors before he found himself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. First, in September, he was arrested for allegedly abusing his girlfriend. Then, in October, he was arrested in the Dominican Republic after a hit-and-run accident killed two women. He is currently out on bail.
Total Win Shares
Bannister: 13
Burgos: 3
Advantage: A clear win for the Royals.
Dec. 16, 2006
The Royals send RP Andrew Sisco to the Chicago White Sox for 1B Ross Gload.
The Royals plucked Sisco from the Cubs organization in the Rule 5 draft following the 2004 season. For a pitcher who had yet to throw a single inning above high-A ball, he did remarkably well in his rookie campaign in Kansas City. A tall lefty (think Randy Johnson, because that's what the Royals were hoping they'd drafted) he threw 75 innings with a 3.11 ERA and 142 ERA+, and was part of a successful trio that included MacDougal and Burgos in the back of the Royals' 2005 bullpen.
But he struggled the next season and the Royals sent him to Omaha with a 7.14 ERA in 44 games shortly after Moore took the reins as GM.
That winter, the Royals dealt him to the White Sox for the light-hitting Gload. Used in Chicago primarily as a spot starter and late-inning defensive replacement, Gload found himself as the Royals' semi-regular first baseman while Shealy has been injured or in Triple-A. Gload has hit .280/.317/.390 in just more than 700 at bats in two seasons in KC. With the Royals' acquisition of Mike Jacobs, he will likely see his playing time decrease.
Sisco opened 2007 in the White Sox bullpen, but after allowing 11 walks in 14 innings with a 8.36 ERA, he was sent to Triple-A Charlotte where he continued to struggle. He underwent Tommy John surgery last April.
Total Win Shares
Gload: 12 Win Shares
Sisco: 0 Win Shares
Advantage: Considering their dislike for the amount of playing time given to Gload, Royals fans are probably gathering their pitchforks to come after me. But considering what they gave up, the Royals clearly got the best of this deal.
July 31, 2007
The Royals send RP Octavio Dotel to the Atlanta Braves for SP Kyle Davies.
After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2005 and a disasterous stint with the Yankees in 2006, Dotel was signed by the Royals as a free agent to a one-year, $4 million deal that winter. It was the classic, low risk/high reward signing, in which the Royals were hoping Dotel could harness the formula that made him successful in Oakland and Houston, allowing KC to flip him at the trade deadline to a contender.
Dotel missed the start of the season with a strained oblique, but after he posted a 3.91 ERA and 11 saves in 24 appearances, the Royals found a taker in the Braves. The plan was for the Braves to use Dotel as a setup man to closer Bob Wickman. However, Dotel appeared in only five games before hitting the DL with a triceps strain. He returned in September, but threw only 7.2 innings for the Braves before signing with the White Sox as a free agent.
Davies has been inconsistent since moving to Kansas City, which doesn’t surprise those who have followed his career. In 32 starts for the Royals in the year and a half since the trade, Davies allowed 20 home runs in 163 innings and has posted a 4.86 ERA.
But a strong finish—a 2.27 ERA and 4:1 K/BB ratio over his final five starts—has the Royals hoping he can contribute meaningful innings as a No. 4 starter next year.
Total Win Shares
Dotel: 0
Davies: 8
Advantage: The Royals still have their guy and he is penciled in for the back of their rotation in 2009.
March 26, 2008
The Royals send RP Jorge de la Rosa, as the player to be named later, to acquire RP Ramon Ramirez.
The Royals added de la Rosa in a deadline deal in ’06 that sent Tony Graffanino to the Milwaukee Brewers. Control (lack of it, to be precise) had always been an issue, but early in 2007 he seemed to find a groove and had a 3.59 ERA and just 12 walks in his first 57 innings. Then he stumbled and over his final 72 innings (sandwiched around a stint on the DL with a strained elbow) his walk rate ballooned to 5.1 BB/9 which helped him to a 7.59 ERA over that stretch.
Out of options and a longshot to make an overhauled pitching staff in 2008, he was sent to Colorado to complete the deal that brought Ramirez to the Royals.
Just as in KC, de la Rosa moved between the rotation and the bullpen. At times showed promise while other times he was incredibly frustrating. With a walk rate of 4.3 BB/9, free passes continue to be an issue.
Meanwhile, Ramirez became a key cog in the Royals bullpen, allowing just two home runs in 71 innings with a 2.64 ERA and strikeout rate of 8.8 per nine innings. His success would allow Moore to facilitate his latest deal, for Coco Crisp.
Total Win Shares
De la Rosa: 5 Win Shares
Ramirez: 9 Win Shares
Advantage: The Royals clearly got better production out of Ramirez and have turned him into a starting center fielder.
Conclusion
The moral of this story: If you’re a reliever employed by the Kansas City Royals, don’t get too used to your surroundings and be on friendly terms with a moving company. Moore has shown a willingness to move his middle relievers frequently, resulting in a couple of useful players.
For the Royals' GM, trading middle relievers has been largely a low-risk/low-reward proposition. To this point, all the relievers (except Affeldt) he sent packing have been unable to move their careers forward. The players he has received have been mostly role players themselves. While a couple of inexpensive, back-of-the-rotation starters or a late-inning defensive replacement certainly have some value, these aren’t moves that are going to define him as a general manager.
These trades also have been good for the Royals because they have been able to fill the holes they have created in the bullpen. Waiver wire pickups like Robinson Tejeda and Horacio Ramirez and free agent signings like David Riske and Ron Mahay have given the Royals some solid bullpen innings the past two years. Moore is using his relief corps as a revolving door of arms, a springboard to talent to plug other holes on his club. And because he's proven adept at stocking his bullpen with some decent arms, his trades haven't hurt or put undue stress on his team. (Some who have watched Gload hit the last couple of years may disagree.)
He’s upped the ante the last two weeks with the acquisitions of Jacobs and Crisp. For the first time, he’s adding some salary while moving players who figure to make much less money. While most of those who follow the game roundly panned the Jacobs deal, the reaction to the Crisp acquisition has been lukewarm.
The most interesting thing to come from those deals isn't how the new Royals will perform. Rather, it's how Moore will replace those innings out of his bullpen.
Final note
I didn't cover all the trades Moore has made involving relievers, just the "key" deals. You may be thinking that I omitted the J.P. Howell for Joey Gathright deal that was Moore's first trade as a GM. While Howell's performance clearly puts that trade in the "win" column for Tampa Bay, Howell was never a reliever in the Royals' organization. Aside from two appearances out of the bullpen in Rookie ball, he had been a starter until this season.
Craig writes about the Royals at Royals Authority and fantasy baseball at Heater Magazine. He welcomes all questions and comments via e-mail.
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Position-adjusted stats
by Dave StudemanNovember 20, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
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2009 Oliver projections
by Mike FastNovember 20, 2008
Mike Fast is a Kansas City Royals fan who enjoys investigating baseball questions using PITCHf/x data. He welcomes questions and comments via e-mail.
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CC’s choices
by Dave StudemanNovember 20, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
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Hey, Bobby!
by Dave StudemanNovember 20, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
The Hardball Times
White Flag?
by John BrattainNovember 20, 2008
There are rumblings that the Toronto Blue Jays may simply punt on 2009. With the injuries to Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum and the likely departure of A.J. Burnett it may be that absent a significant infusion of cash, there is no way the Jays feel they can compete with the still rising (and current AL champion) Tampa Bay Rays, the wealthy and organizationally solid Boston Red Sox and the major reloading of the New York Yankees.
On top of the yawing gap in the middle of the starting rotation there is no bona fide DH to speak of (too early to know if Travis Snider is ready to be a full time masher); the middle infield is uncertain while Aaron Hill continues to recover and the shortstop position still undecided; the infield corners could be excellent defensively and competent offensively or they could fall off a cliff; and while Rod Barajas occasionally wields a hot stick, nobody would consider Toronto catching to be upper-echelon.
Factor in the weak Canadian dollar and an uncertain economy it may be that the Jays decide to take a mulligan on 2009 and looking to 2010 and beyond to make a run. Indeed, while J.P. Ricciardi occasionally involves himself in the verbal version of the Calgary Stampede with his male bovine heaving exploits, his recent comments in the Toronto Star may be an indication that the Blue Jays are getting a head start on “wait ’til next year” proclamations.
Regarding the Jays futile attempts at retaining A.J. Burnett, Ricciardi opined: “If it doesn't work out, we're going to have to step back and see which direction we're going to go." Let’s consider the implications of this; there is (if the ol‘ torero is to be bull-ieved) that there is no back up or fall back position: make a run at Burnett and if that fails it’s time to rethink the strategy for 2009 since, "No, I don't think there's anything out there that we can get involved in at this point that makes any sense for us."
When one considers the following: A.J. is often injured and only pitches 200 innings if he’s pitching for a contract and he is the sole pitching target when there are three spots open in the starting rotation (two if David Purcey is given a job there).
Why?
We've got growing concerns about what's happening in the world … It would be foolish of us to stick our heads in the sand and say, `We're not affected by any of this.' Our payroll hasn't been adjusted, but everyone is aware of what's going on."
While every team in the AL has to deal with this I guess only the Jays are going to let it decide their chances next season.
I find it odd that they might be willing to pay $15 million a year for Burnett but not take a cheaper flier on Jon Garland. Some may turn up their nose at that option feeling he’d get shelled pitching against the beasts of the AL East regularly, but over the last three seasons Garland has a 4.40 ERA against the Red Sox, Rays and Yankees (slightly lower than league average amount of runs scored).
He was about the AL median in 2006 against the Jays' rivals, was roughed up a bit in 2007 but pitched superbly (3.18 ERA) against them last season. Garland has thrown at least 190 innings in each of the last seven seasons so he’s durable, he’s coming off a sub-par year so he’d be cheap(er) and require less compensation plus he gives up a lot of ground balls (better than Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch in that regard) and few walks (a BB/9 of 2.29 since 2006) which means the Jays infield defense gives him a huge boost and not insignificantly they’d never have to face him. Garland has only been beaten by Toronto twice in 11 career starts—he faced them three times last season and posted a 3.15 ERA in 20 innings.
The fact that Ricciardi has declared Burnett was the only option means that the front office has decided (if J.P. is being truthful) that if A.J. doesn’t re-sign then they're punting on aught-nine.
I suppose after 15 years of falling short, one more won’t hurt. After all, the Pittsburgh Pirates are working on year 17 and it hasn’t triggered the apocalypse.
However, this much is certain: 2009 should be Ricciardi’s final year as GM of the team.
Since he was hired in November, 2001 contraction candidates Minnesota Twins and Oakland A’s have combined for seven 90-win seasons and an equal number of postseason appearances; the Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, the Tampa Bay Rays and [insert name] Angels have won their inaugural pennants (Angels won it all in 2002); another contraction candidate (the Florida Marlins) won a World Series; a team that arrived in the league in 1998—the Arizona Diamondbacks—copped a pair of division titles; and even one of the most moribund franchises in major league history (Philadelphia Phillies) have won back-to-back division titles and their second World Series in over a century-and-a-quarter.
Also of note, the Boston Red Sox won two world titles after an eight decade-plus drought and the Chicago White Sox ended a similar run of futility. The Detroit Tigers finally put it all together after a 20-year postseason hiatus, the Brewers just ended a quarter-century-plus absence and getting back to the Angels; there was a time when they were considered among the most inept teams in the sport (when Disney does a movie where divine intervention is required to win … well, that’s pretty bad) have only missed the postseason twice during the Ricciardi era.
The point is, a lot of these teams looked hopeless at various points, some so much so that they were targeted for extinction, yet all of them managed to put together a team that made it to October despite significant obstacles. Some of the teams had poor leases and stadiums, others were considered small (or poor) markets, still others rose from the unique challenges of expansion. Yet those obstacles were overcome and success achieved.
It is not that Ricciardi is incompetent; after all, he assembled the best pitching staff seen in the sport in two decades and a very solid defensive unit. He certainly has his strengths, yet those weaknesses negate them. At some point, a good GM has to recognize that the time is now yet Ricciardi is perpetually locked in “future” mode as in “he won’t mortgage/jeopardize the future.” At some point, a team looking to contend has to be able to discern a window of opportunity has opened and that there is enough talent on hand that it’s time to go for the gold.
2008 was the Jays window but Ricciardi was concerned about the future. Think about it: is there anyone that thought if A.J. Burnett had a good year that he wouldn’t opt out of his current contract? Burnett was red hot after the arrival of Gaston, Roy Halladay was having one of his best seasons and overall, as mentioned, the team had the best pitching seen in 20 years. What kind of damage could a one-two punch of Halladay and Burnett done in the postseason? Dustin McGowan was gone, Shaun Marcum not yet injured and the bullpen, while occasionally nerve-wracking was the best in both leagues and the defense was superb—all that was required was a bat or two.
However, the future had to be protected, Marcum becomes injured, Burnett opts out, the Canadian dollar drops, the economy is knocked off its moorings and the future is so bright that the club is talking about simply punting a season or two and possibly rebuilding.
When it’s time to pull the trigger, will Ricciardi be able to do it? Can he be trusted to discern that the iron is hot and it is time to strike? Arizona was vulnerable and the Dodgers made a move, the NL wild card was up for grabs and the Brewers took a shot, the Yankees were scuffling, the Rays inexperienced and the Red Sox in turmoil plus having an injured David Ortiz and Ricciardi worries about the state of the team in 2011.
He’s like Buck Showalter: he can get a team only so far but someone else needs to be put in place to get to the next level.
Ricciardi has done some good work for the Jays but his utility to the club has peaked. In a sense he was a lot like the lineup early last season—he couldn’t recognize that the first pitch of the at bat (the present) was the time to take his big cut instead preferring to work the count in hopes that sometime in the indefinite future the perfect pitch (perfect circumstance) would materialize.
It’ll be depressing if the Jays pass on 2009 but after last season, I hope Ricciardi will not be the man making the big decisions in 2010-11 otherwise that window will close while he worries about the Jays in 2016.
Tune in every Wednesday at 4:40 PM EST on ESPN 1450's The Mike Gill Show and Fridays at 5:40 PM on “The Locker Room with Kevin Williams” on Fox Sports Radio 1310AM and 1160 WOBM-AM where I'm a weekly guest. For a distinctive Canadian flavour you can read my coverage of the Toronto Blue Jays (as well as other baseball matters) at Sympatico/MSN Sports. Also be sure to check out baseball’s hottest blog as mentioned by the voices inside my head: The Progenitor of Severe Gluteal Discomfort. Please forward all flames, complaints, whining, accusations about my mother, inferences of habouring an Oedipus complex, demands to engage in coprophagy before shuffling off this mortal coil, and anatomically impossible suggestions here.
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Do experienced players perform better in the postseason?
by David GasskoNovember 20, 2008
Last week, I examined whether experienced teams win more often in the playoffs, and found that the answer appeared to be that indeed they did. The overwhelming response I got, however, was negative. Take a look, for example, at Mitchel Lichtman’s (MGL) comment on Ballhype:
I'm still not buying your conclusion until I see “why?” At the very least, I want to see how players with lots of experience did in the postseason relative to their regular season as opposed to players with little experience. The assumption (if you buy David's conclusion) is that players with postseason experience will "outplay" their lesser experienced counterparts during he post-season[…]
For example, if it could be shown that players with more experience simply perform better than expected in the postseason, then our inquiry is pretty much over. If not, then we'd have to dig deeper on a team level, which has a lot more noise in it. David, you started with something very noisy (team-level win loss records, or series records, which is even more noisy).
A lot of comments I received were similar to this one. Now, I do think that the team numbers might show us some effect that won’t appear in individual statistics, but I will admit that if experienced teams win more often in the postseason, experienced players in all likelihood perform better in the playoffs as well.
We’ll start with hitters, for whom my metric of choice is weighted on-base average (wOBA), a statistic which expresses a player’s total offensive output on a scale that resembles on-base percentage. Here is, since World War II, the average drop-off from a player’s regular season wOBA to his post-season wOBA, based on the number of times that player had previously been in the playoffs:
Experience PA wOBA_Diff
0 22928 -0.033
1 15505 -0.032
2 10402 -0.031
3 6355 -0.036
4 3361 -0.047
5 2083 -0.019
6 1254 -0.026
7 727 -0.016
8 407 0.019
9 179 -0.123
10 76 -0.044
11 47 0.081
12 4 0.071
13 1 -0.361What this table tells us is that 22,928 plate appearances, players with no prior post-season experience saw a 33 point drop-off in their wOBA in the playoffs. That number holds true for the next few years, but you may notice a sort of inflection point at five years, where the drop-off falls to just 19 points. Here is the data broken out by whether a player had five or more years of playoff experience, or less:
Experience PA wOBA_Diff <5 58551 -0.033 5+ 4778 -0.021
Players with 5+ years of postseason experience see their wOBA drop by 21 points between the regular season and playoffs, whereas players with fewer than five years see a drop-off of 33 points. That difference is statistically significant.
It is also cherry-picked. Since I only picked my cut-off point after running the numbers, traditional concepts of statistical significance go out the window. Instead, all I can truly say about this gap is that it’s interesting. Actually, I’ll say a bit more in a moment, but first let’s look at the pitchers.
Here is a table similar to the one I just presented for hitters, but using runs allowed per nine innings (RA) instead of wOBA.
Experience IP RA_diff
0 6549 0.42
1 3847 0.28
2 2289 0.31
3 1396 0.42
4 821 0.37
5 436 0.10
6 320 -0.71
7 138 0.48
8 150 -0.47
9 90 0.00
10 30 4.68
11 27 -1.63Here, a negative number is good in that it means that a pitcher allows fewer runs in the playoffs than in the regular season. Pitchers with no playoff experience, for example, see their RA rise 0.42 points in the playoffs. Again, five years of experience looks to be an inflection point, and here’s what happens if we split the players up into two groups: Those with less than five years of playoff experience and those with five or more.
Experience IP RA_diff <5 14902 0.36 5+ 1191 -0.08
Again, there is a significant gap between the two groups—whereas pitchers with less than five years of playoff experience see their RA rise by 0.36 points, those with five or more years actually see their RA decrease by 0.08. In all, that’s almost a half-a-run gap.
But once more, the numbers are cherry-picked, and so there is no statistically valid conclusion to be made. Still, I have to ask, what does this all mean?
It is not, for sure, proof that players with a lot of postseason experience do better in the playoffs (relative to their regular season performance that is) than players who do not have all that much experience. It is, however, evidence.
It might be weak evidence, and for many, it will likely be unconvincing. Certainly, I wonder why it would take five years worth of postseason experience for this effect to show up. However, the effect is there: Players with five or more years of playoff experience perform significantly better in the postseason than their less-experienced counterparts. That is a fact.
It may be cherry-picked, and maybe in your opinion it is worthless, but it’s all I’ve got.
David Gassko is a former consultant to a major league team, and a writer for Heater Magazine. He welcomes comments via e-mail.
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Before the beginning, think of the ending
by Jonathan HalketNovember 20, 2008
Jonathan Halket is graduate student in New York. He welcomes questions and comments here.
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Life of Boswell
by Dave StudemanNovember 19, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
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Scott Karl interview
by Dave StudemanNovember 19, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
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TUCK! sez: File under “Duh”
by TuckNovember 19, 2008
Feedback and inquiries (original artwork, commissions, etc.):
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BOB: Mark Cuban’s Troubles and MLB Network News
by Brian BorawskiNovember 19, 2008
Mark Cuban Charged For Insider Trading
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban for insider trading earlier this week. It seems he got a tip from someone inside the company Mamma.com and sold his shares before the stock dropped nearly 10 percent the next day. In the process, Cuban avoided losing nearly $750,000 by getting out early.
Some of you may wonder what this has to do with baseball. Well, Cuban was one of the people bidding to buy the Chicago Cubs. My guess is that with the looming charges, Cuban is now out of the running. Word was that the league wasn’t going to let him buy the team anyway, but this provides a convenient excuse to push him out.
Coming This January
Baseball fans will get their baseball fix early in 2009 because on New Year's Day, the MLB Network goes live on high-definition television. In an interesting interview the MLB Network senior vice president of distribution, affiliate sales and marketing talked about how the current economy would affect the network. He also discussed briefly how the network hopes to expand the number of televised games from the initial 26 it’s already got on its schedule.
I’m interested to see how the network does. The debut of the station will take place in over 50 million homes; that will be the biggest debut ever. There are usually growing pains as new networks weed out what works and what doesn’t, but I’m looking forward to how everything develops.
The MLB Logo Debate
Two years ago, a Wall Street Journal article gave credit to Jerry Dior, a 76-year-old graphic designer, for creating the current MLB logo. MLB has failed to confirm whether Dior was the man behind the design, but since the time the article ran, another person has come forward and taken credit for the design. James Sherman, a comic-book artist, has since said that the credit should go to him.
In an interesting interview at ESPN.com, Paul Lukas caught up with Sherman and Dior. In the interview, Sherman was taken out of the equation and confirmed that he didn’t design the current logo, but that he worked on something similar about 10 years after the logo was designed not knowing that the current logo existed. The discussion with Dior was a lot longer and while there’s no way for sure to prove he’s the designer, he definitely makes an interesting case.
Dodgers Reach For the Moon At Glendale
At historic Dodgertown, the team’s highest-priced spring training ticket was $20. Now that the Dodgers are moving into their new Glendale, Ariz. facility in 2009, they’ve decided to raise their prices a little. OK, make that a lot.
Of the top seats, 692 have a $90 price tag. Fortunately, you get more than just a great view. If you pony up for the $90, you get free parking which would normally cost $10, a $20 coupon for food, beverages and merchandise, a premium souvenir as well as complimentary sunscreen, water and fancy towels. The cheapest in-stadium seat is $18, but if you want to rough it and sit on the lawn, you can get in to watch the game for $8.
It’ll be interesting to see how many of these seats they sell with the state of the economy. While things could turn around before March, it’s not likely and my opinion is, spring training revenue is going to take at least a marginal downturn in 2009.
Salem Avalanche Changes Name
The Salem Avalanche recently became a Boston Red Sox affiliate and with the change in affiliation comes a name change. Now, the team will be called the Salem Red Sox and the hope is that the Red Sox brand gives the team a boost as far as revenue is concerned. Prior to their affiliation with the Red Sox, Salem was the Carolina League affiliate for the Houston Astros.
Brian Borawski is a member of SABR's Business of Baseball Committee and writes about the Detroit Tigers at his own website, TigerBlog. He welcomes comments, questions and suggestions via e-mail.
The Hardball Times
Fantasy fallout: Ryan Dempster re-ups with Cubs
by Derek CartyNovember 19, 2008
Derek Carty is a student in New Jersey who loves Fantasy Baseball. His articles can also be found at FOX Sports, and he was a contributor at Rotoworld this past season. He was the champion of the FOX Sports Experts Fantasy Baseball League this past year. He welcomes questions via e-mail.
The Hardball Times
New Fangraphs stats
by Dave StudemanNovember 18, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
The Hardball Times
Who’s embarrassed?
by Dave StudemanNovember 18, 2008
Dave is the manager of the Baseball Graphs website.. Comments about this article can be sent to him through the miracle of e-mail.
The Hardball Times
Vote for Cameron!
by Mike FastNovember 18, 2008
Mike Fast is a Kansas City Royals fan who enjoys investigating baseball questions using PITCHf/x data. He welcomes questions and comments via e-mail.
The Hardball Times
Another look at Tim Lincecum
by Josh KalkNovember 18, 2008
 |
| Tim Lincecum throwing his two-seam fastball (Icon/SMI) |
During the last offseason, I gushed over Tim Lincecum and his incredible tools. Now that Lincecum has taken home the Cy Young award, I want to do my first rewrite of a player, to look at Lincecum's evolution this year and how he went from an excellent pitcher to the best pitcher in the National League.
First, though, a small correction to the previous article. Tim Lincecum's fastball is actually a two-seamer, not a four-seam fastball. Despite being able to throw his fastball in the mid-90s and with a ton of vertical "rise," Lincecum does not use four seams. Big thanks to Icon for this excellent picture showing Lincecum's fastball. You have to look closely, but once you see the seams, it is easy to tell this is a two-seamer. For more on fastball grips check this site.
Really, whether it is a four-seamer or two-seamer doesn't matter because of the excellent action of the pitch. Here is a look at the movement of Lincecum's pitches.
Lincecum's fastball averages 95 mph, which is overpowering, but he combines that with 11 inches of vertical movement and only three inches of horizontal movement. The small horizontal movement is because Lincecum throws his fastball from almost completely over the top. Because his fastball has little horizontal movement, it is effective against both right- and left-handed batters. Pitchers who throw more sidearm generally specialize in similarly handed batters. The overpowering speed is great, but the movement of the pitch makes it so much better.
For off-speed pitches, Lincecum throws a change-up, slider and curveball. While the change-up and curveball were holdovers from last year, Lincecum added a slider this year—about two sliders in 100 pitches. Lincecum had thrown a slider in college, but it was scrapped when he was drafted. You can see why Lincecum didn't use his slider often—it has almost no horizontal movement, which is important.
Lincecum's curveball is a very hard one, averaging 80 mph, similar to Ben Sheets'. Also like Sheets, he gets good vertical drop, and that combination is absolutely deadly. Here is a look at Lincecum's average fastball and curve from the side.
Because of its speed, Lincecum can hide his curve extremely well. His curveball's hump is absolutely tiny and he is letting it go from exactly the same release point. That gives a hitter no clue that the pitch is coming. But fooling hitters is only part of the equation. You then have to have the pitch drop enough so the hitter is swinging over the curve. That is where the vertical movement comes in; you can see the result with the huge differential when the pitch reaches home plate. That combination is what makes the pitch so effective.
As good as Lincecum's curve is, I don't feel it is his best off-speed pitch. That pitch is his change-up, which has identical horizontal movement to his fastball with about half a foot less vertical "rise." In addition, Lincecum has an excellent speed differential of almost 11 mph. That is extremely strong. When you look at his change-up and fastball, you see an even more devastating combination than his curveball/fastball.
There isn't any way for a hitter to identify the change-up here until the ball is right on top of him. If his change-up had different horizontal movement than his fastball, hitters could use that, but again, Lincecum's change-up has identical horizontal movement. This is one of the best change-ups in the world right now and you hear almost nothing about it. The scary thing is Lincecum just started throwing this pitch when he signed with the Giants. Whoever taught Lincecum his change in the Giants organization deserves a huge raise.
Usage
While Lincecum's pitches are electric, plenty of pitchers have electric stuff. What made Lincecum the best pitcher in the National League this year was how he used those pitches. Last year, he used his curve a little more than his change-up and used it mostly as his strikeout pitch. This year, Lincecum used his change-up more often and with two strikes much more frequently. As I mentioned last week while writing about Brett Myers, breaking pitches that move away from the hitter tend to be more effective than breaking pitches that move toward the hitter. For a right-handed pitcher, this means more change-ups to left-handed batters and more curveballs to right-handed batters. Lincecum absolutely followed that pattern this year.
Type RHB LHB Curve 18 7.5 Change 11 27 (all values in percent)
Notice that Lincecum still throws some curves to left-handed batters and some change-ups to right-handed batters. He can get away with that more than other pitchers because he throws over the top and his change-up and curve have less horizontal movement. Pitchers like Myers who have more horizontal movement with breaking pitches need to be more careful about this. This means that right-handed batters can't just forget about Lincecum's change-up and focus on his fastball and curveball. Just another thing for hitters to worry about when facing Lincecum.
Conclusions
I hope this article has convinced you that Tim Lincecum is far more than just his 95 mph fastball. While speed is great, Lincecum's movement on his pitches is also excellent. Lincecum's off-speed pitches mesh incredibly well with his fastball and this year he threw the right pitch for the situation time and time again.
Not only is Lincecum blessed with great stuff, but clearly knows how to pitch and that is a deadly combination. Expect him to be one of the best pitchers in the league for many years to come.
Josh Kalk is a physics and math geek who can also be found blogging at http://www.baseball.bornbybits.com/blog/blog.html. He enjoys good conversations about baseball and can be reached at .
The Hardball Times
The 10 most interesting Rule 5 draft picks, 1967-1980
by Steve TrederNovember 18, 2008
So far, we've discussed some intriguing Rule 5 picks from 1903 to 1940 and from 1941 to 1966. Now we're ready to pick up where we left off.
But first, let's quickly review just what the Rule 5 draft is.
How it works
In its early years, the Rule 5 draft was held at the immediate conclusion of the regular season, at the end of September or the beginning of October. In the modern era, it takes place during the MLB winter meetings.
To be eligible for the draft in its current form, a player:
{exp:list_maker}Is not included on the 40-man roster of the organization holding his contract
Has been in the minors and/or majors for at least four years, if he was signed after his 19th birthday
Has been in the minors and/or majors for at least five years, if he was signed before his 19th birthday {/exp:list_maker}Rule 5 has always included a provision designed to encourage teams to draft carefully: For the entire first season after he's drafted, the Rule 5 pick must remain on the drafting team’s 25-man active major league roster. If his team wishes to farm him out during that season, first it must offer him back to the club from which he was drafted, and that team has the right to take him back for the waiver price. Very often, however, the player’s original organization doesn't have room for him, and declines the offer, and the drafting team then becomes free to handle the player as it would any other.
During that first season, Rule 5 draftees can be traded or sold to a new team, but the new team takes on the restriction of being unable to send him to the minors without first offering him back to the team that lost him in the draft.
Minor league teams also can participate in the Rule 5 draft (indeed in the early years of the arrangement, with minor league teams operating independently from parent major league organizations, this portion of the Rule 5 draft was a very big deal). As the draft currently is structured, Triple-A teams can draft any player eligible from Double-A, and Double-A teams can draft any players who are eligible from Single-A, in both cases for a nominal fee. Players chosen in the minor league part of the draft don’t need to be offered back to their original teams for any reason.
The drafted
Clearly, the manner in which the Rule 5 draft is set up means that first-tier players typically aren't involved; teams rarely allow their stars and top prospects to be left unprotected off the 40-man roster. The great majority of players drafted under Rule 5, today and in the past, have been long-shot prospects (and in past decades many were major league-level role players as well, but the advent of free agency rendered that practice obsolete).
But not all Rule 5 draftees are destined for oblivion. Occasionally over the years—maybe more often than occasionally—a genuine star, even a superstar, has emerged from the Rule 5 process. In this series we’re identifying those cases, and examining as well those situations in which a Rule 5 draftee didn’t turn out to be much of a player, but his story is intriguing nonetheless.
10. Elrod Hendricks
Nov. 28, 1967: Drafted by the Baltimore Orioles from the California Angels.
The Orioles in the 1960s, '70s and early '80s—well, heck, actually since late 1954, when Paul Richards took over and methodically built the organization atop the small pile of dog poo that had been the St. Louis Browns—were about as consistently intelligent an operation as the sport has ever seen. Their sound wisdom wasn't manifested only in getting the big things right—trading for Frank Robinson, promoting Earl Weaver, and so on—but also in being clever and resourceful when filling secondary needs.
There's no better illustration of this than the case of Ellie Hendricks. Recognizing the potential value of this guy in 1967 was an act of shrewdness: Hendricks was about to turn 27, and since signing with the Braves in 1959 he'd passed through three north-of-the-border organizations, as well as playing four seasons in the Mexican League; his entire experience as high as Triple-A consisted of 13 games, in which he'd batted .222. But Orioles GM Harry Dalton saw something in the bush-league catcher that others didn't, most obviously the Angels, who owned Hendricks's contract at this point and had just as much need for what he had to offer as did Baltimore: Both teams could use some help behind the plate.
And once drafting him, Orioles manager Weaver made careful, proportional use of Hendricks, adroitly deploying him in a platoon role that took advantage of his strengths and minimized his weaknesses. Thus Baltimore smartly leveraged the Rule 5 process to cheaply acquire an asset who would provide solid service for several years.
The 18-year-old Hendricks appears in Pat Jordan's hauntingly wistful memoir of his minor league career, A False Spring. Jordan presents Hendricks as a not-very-likeable Nebraska League teammate, something of a grinning bully. This should be understood within the context of both (a) the skillful manner in which Jordan reprises his experiences though the lens of youthful unsophistication with which he perceived the world back then, and (b) the fearfully insecure manner in which the equally young Hendricks must have been engaging with his 1959 Nebraska environment, very far from the Caribbean in every way. Hendricks would be, in his major league playing career and in his nearly 30-year-long coaching career, unfailingly popular.
9. Bill Plummer
Nov. 28, 1967: Drafted by the Chicago Cubs from the St. Louis Cardinals.
On the same day the Orioles were drafting Hendricks, here we see another team doing something, well, odd.
The Cubs in 1967 were categorically not in need of help behind the plate: Their catcher was 25-year-old Randy Hundley, the NL's Gold Glove winner, one of the most exceptionally durable catchers in history, and at that point in his career a solid hitter.
Thus what purpose Cubs GM John Holland perceived in drafting Plummer is difficult to fathom. Not only had this soon-to-be-21-year-old catcher not yet risen as high as Triple-A, in Plummer's three seasons in the Cardinals system he'd compiled an aggregate batting average of .219 in 639 at-bats. Moreover, in addition to Hundley the Cubs already had two competent young catchers on their roster, proven capable of providing major league backup work: Johnny Stephenson and John Boccabella.
Plummer's uselessness on the Cubs' roster in 1968 could hardly have been made more vivid by manager Leo Durocher, who despite having Plummer on the roster all season long used him in a grand total of two games.
No, seriously, two games. As in one-two. That's it.
The grand total Plummer 1968 workload would add up to three innings, and two (uh-huh, two) plate appearances. Meanwhile Hundley was setting major league records with 160 games behind the plate, and 156 catching starts.
The Cubs' retention of Plummer on the big league roster for the entire 1968 season succeeded in preventing the Cardinals from taking him back (whether they would have done so if offered the opportunity is another question), but beyond that it represented as complete a waste of a roster spot as has ever been perpetrated.
But wait, it gets weirder: In the following offseason, the Cubs finally were able to make some use of Plummer, by packaging him along with a couple of other prospects in a trade to the Reds, in exchange for Ted Abernathy, a very good relief pitcher. That's right, the Reds, whose catcher was 1968 Gold Glove winner and Rookie of the Year Johnny Bench. What's more, Cincinnati also had a perfectly good, young backup catcher on hand in Pat Corrales. And what's even more, Cincinnati at that point was a heavy-hitting ball club struggling with pitching depth.
All of this strangeness might have turned out to make some sense if Plummer was a diamond in the rough, who would eventually emerge as a star, or even a solid journeyman. But no, when he finally was ready for the major leagues a few years later, Plummer would prove to be one of the weakest-hitting backup catchers of any era, delivering a career batting average of .188 in 892 at-bats, with an OPS+ of 53.
8. Jody Davis
Dec. 8, 1980: Drafted by the Chicago Cubs from the St. Louis Cardinals.
But here's an example of the Cubs being smart. At this point they did have room for another catcher, and Chicago GM Bob Kennedy looked past the injury-marred season Davis had suffered in the Cardinals organization in 1980, and instead focused on the strong performances he'd presented in the Mets system, steadily climbing up their ladder in 1976-79, before having been traded to St. Louis.
Davis would prove to be an exceptionally good bargain. By 1982 he'd be the Cubs' first-string catcher, and become one of the best backstops of the 1980s, a durable, consistent, well-rounded performer, winning a Gold Glove and making two All-Star teams.
7. Roy Foster
Dec. 1, 1969: Drafted by the Seattle Pilots from the New York Mets.
Rare is the player who produces a major league career OPS+ of 112 in 337 games; hitters that good tend to play a whole lot more than that. But this guy's career was pretty much a study in abnormality.
Start with the fact that he played regularly for six seasons in the low minors, racking up 2,485 at-bats, but producing just 48 home runs and a bland .268 batting average. This lackluster offensive performance from a corner outfielder caused his first organization (the Pirates) to release him to a second (the Mets). Then all of a sudden, on his first exposure to Triple-A pitching, Foster hit .281 with 24 homers in 438 at-bats.
But this didn't persuade the Mets to include Foster on their 40-man roster following their 1969 championship season, and the expansion Pilots nabbed him in the Rule 5 draft. Yet the Pilots (in the hasty process of becoming the Milwaukee Brewers) wouldn't see fit to keep Foster on their roster. Instead, on the brink of the opening of the 1970 season, GM Marvin Milkes decided his fledging ball club would be better off by trading Foster to Cleveland in exchange for two over-the-hill veterans, Russ Snyder and Max Alvis.
Well, while Snyder and Alvis were petering out in 1970, Foster was hitting with serious power for the Indians, winning the starting left field job and earning second place in the AL Rookie of the Year balloting. Foster followed it up with a sophomore season in which he hit not quite as well, but pretty close.
Nonetheless, following the 1971 season Indians GM Gabe Paul traded the 26-year-old Foster to the Rangers. And then just before Opening Day of '72, Paul made another trade to get Foster back. In this season Cleveland manager Ken Aspromonte chose to deploy the right-handed-hitting Foster in a strict platoon-based backup role: He batted Foster just 32 times against right-handed pitching, with 137 PAs against southpaws. In this mode, Foster hit well in his rare starting assignments (OPS+ of 120), but was bad when pinch-hitting or otherwise filling in, at .152/.250/.152 in 37 games.
The next season Foster was farmed out, and hit poorly in Triple-A. By 1974 he was in the Mexican League, and would never make it back to the majors.
6. Willie Upshaw
Dec. 5, 1977: Drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays from the New York Yankees.
A fledgling expansion team would seem to be precisely the sort of organization for which Rule 5 was made to order: a low-cost, low-risk method to import talent. Here we see rookie Toronto GM Pat Gillick, in one of his first moves just days after assuming the role, taking good advantage.
Gillick's performance in constructing the Blue Jays almost from scratch (he inherited a one-year-old baby of a franchise with a 54-107 record) was one of the best, and the concept that summed up his approach was "patience." He never panicked when the going was rough, always stuck with his master plan of building with home-grown young talent. The going did get quite rough, and Gillick attracted critics (most notably Bill James in the early 1980s Abstracts) who complained that he was being too patient. But in the long run the organization Gillick created was solid to the core, and from 1983 through 1993 the Blue Jays never won fewer than 86 games, while capturing three division titles, two pennants, and two World Series titles.
There's little better example of Gillick's patience than his handling of Gene Upshaw's young cousin. The 21-year-old Willie the Blue Jays drafted hadn't yet played as high as Triple-A, and clearly wasn't ready to make much of a major league contribution. But Gillick took the long view, keeping Upshaw on his big league roster throughout 1978, and then allowing him two seasons of Triple-A development. Gillick kept his cool as Upshaw struggled through the 1981 season in a utility role, and his patience was finally rewarded when Upshaw blossomed in 1982. He was never a great player, and his peak didn't last very long, but for several years Upshaw was a solid all-around first baseman, one of the keys to the breakout success of the Blue Jays in the 1980s.
5. Willie Hernandez
Dec. 6, 1976: Drafted by the Chicago Cubs from the Philadelphia Phillies.
Since the Cy Young Award was instituted in 1956, there have been only seven instances in which its recipient was also voted as his league's Most Valuable Player. To say that Willie Hernandez, pulling off this rare feat in the American League in 1984, was the least talented among the pitchers to do it is to stretch the concept of understatement to its limit. (Okay, here are the rest of them, so you can cash in on this slam-dunk bar bet: Don Newcombe in 1956, Sandy Koufax in 1963, Bob Gibson and Denny McLain, both in 1968, Rollie Fingers in 1981 and Dennis Eckersley in 1992.)
But that isn't to say that the screwball-specialist Herndandez didn't put together one hell of a great season in 1984. If ever a relief pitcher might genuinely deserve the Cy Ypung and/or the MVP, a season in which he works 80 games and 140 innings with an ERA+ of 204 (and zero unearned runs allowed on top of that) would seem to rise to the challenge. And while that performance was crazily superior to anything else Hernandez did, he was, over the rest of his 13-year major league career, a solid, if unspectacular, relief pitcher.
Nabbing him in the Rule 5 draft was another sharp move by the Cubs' Bob Kennedy. Hernandez had been a starter in his three minor league seasons in the Phillies system, and while he'd gotten hit fairly hard in Triple-A in 1976, he'd been quite effective the previous two years. And the one factor he'd consistently presented was a splendid strikeout-to-walk ratio, an attribute that's almost unfailingly a predictor of pitching success. Through nearly his entire career, slick K/BB marks would be an Hernandez signature.
4. Joe Foy
Nov. 30, 1970: Drafted by the Washington Senators from the New York Mets.
Just a year after believing they'd be better off with Foy on their roster than with