The Hardball Times and Fantasy Focus

White Flag?

John Brattain — 2008-11-20T04:35:00-05:00

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.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!

Do experienced players perform better in the postseason?

David Gassko — 2008-11-20T04:28:00-05:00

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     -0.361

What 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      -1.63

Here, 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.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!

Before the beginning, think of the ending

Jonathan Halket — 2008-11-20T05:04:00-05:00

In my previous article, I wrote about choosing fantasy league rules that increase the happiness (broadly defined) of the players in your league. In particular, I warned against using rules that were drawn from Major League Baseball rules without first thinking about the effects that they would have on your league’s competitiveness. This week, I want to pick up on this theme and discuss a particular problem that many leagues have: How to keep the last half of the season interesting.

To make things easy, let’s take a simple 12-team rotisserie league, where the winner takes all. By August, there will likely be several teams that do not have a realistic shot at winning, perhaps due to a key injury or a poor trade. Football season is starting, so some of the cellar-dwellers may stop updating their roster, leaving injured or inactive players on their active roster, and so on. Steadily, the inactive teams become less and less competitive. So while a team that starts the All-Star break in last-place in your league is probably still competitive in a few scoring categories, an inactive team will likely be at the bottom of most categories by the end of August.

What are the effects of inactive teams on the rest of the league? Inactive teams generally drop out of competition faster in the counting stats (like home runs) than in the average stats (like WHIP), since injured players don’t get strikeouts (for instance) but have a neutral effect on WHIP. Competitive teams with mediocre counting stats are rewarded, since they will move up in the standing. It is like you’re competing against 12 teams in the batting average category, but only eight in home runs. It can also make it a lot harder for teams to move up in the standings, as the last place teams are unlikely to overtake a top team in any particular category.

What rules can a commissioner use to try to prevent this fall in league attention? The key, of course, is to give something for the lower tier teams to compete for, that is, give them a reason to want to be in, say 10th place instead of 11th (and so on). For instance, keeper rules, which let teams keep some players for next season, may give a team a reason to remain active, searching for undervalued talent. But the best rules will be the ones that encourage competition without distorting other aspects of the league.

A much simpler incentive scheme than keepers is to make the reward system contingent on the place of finish. For example, instead of having a 10-team league where each manager puts in $10 and the winner gets $100, imagine each team putting in $55. Then let the first place price still be $100, but give the second place $90, third $80, and so on. The idea is to spread the difference in prizes enough so that no team will want to drop out.

Alas, this also means that each manager could lose a lot more money (4.5 times more in the example above). Many leagues may not want to have so much money (if there is any to begin with) at stake. Fortunately, there are other ways to incentivize.

A common rule in multi-year draft leagues is to set the draft order in reverse order of finish from the previous year. Last year’s stinker team gets this year’s number one draft pick. Most professional leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, etc.) have a version of this for their draft.

Using this rule is a terrible idea for most fantasy leagues. The fewer keepers your league allows, the worse the reverse draft order rule is. It is a good example of sacrificing fantasy competitiveness for the sake of verisimilitude. If it was hard to incentivize the lower tier teams to compete before, with a reverse draft order in place, you’d actually be encouraging teams to tank! Indeed, two years ago, I was in a league where I was one of the tankers-in-chief. In a league with no keepers, all teams start the next season with a blank slate and on completely even footing, so there's no reason to give the worst team from the previous year the first pick the following year—except perhaps out of pity.

I would encourage most draft leagues to get rid of the reverse draft order. Your league could revert to the same scheme that you probably used in the league's first year, determining the draft order by random lottery.

But why not use draft order to reward competitive teams? This past year, one of my leagues decided to adopt a more complicated NBA-style lottery to determine draft order. Instead of giving the teams that finished at the bottom the highest probabilities of getting the top draft picks, we gave the higher probabilities to the teams that finished near the top. Of course, you don't need something this elaborate; for instance, just make draft order follow the order of last year's finish rather than the reverse order.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!

TUCK! sez: File under “Duh”

Tuck — 2008-11-19T05:05:00-05:00

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BOB: Mark Cuban’s Troubles and MLB Network News

Brian Borawski — 2008-11-19T05:03:00-05:00

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.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!

Fantasy fallout: Ryan Dempster re-ups with Cubs

Derek Carty — 2008-11-19T04:01:00-05:00

Ryan Dempster took a big step forward in 2008, but can he sustain that level of performance in 2009? (Icon/SMI)

The first big free-agent signing of the off-season occurred yesterday as Ryan Dempster re-upped with the Chicago Cubs for 4 years and $52 million. Dempster moved to the rotation in 2008 after spending four years as a reliever and was tremendous with a 2.96 ERA. Here was his full fantasy line:

+------+------+-------+----+------+------+-----+----+
| YEAR | TEAM | IP    | W  | ERA  | WHIP | K   | SV |
+------+------+-------+----+------+------+-----+----+
| 2008 | Cubs | 206.7 | 17 | 2.96 | 1.21 | 187 |  0 |
+------+------+-------+----+------+------+-----+----+

Let's look a little deeper to see what we should expect in 2009.

Numbers

If you're new to THT Fantasy Focus and are unfamiliar with LIPS ERA, K/BB RI, or any of the other stats I'm using, check out our quick reference guide. These stats provide a much clearer picture of a player's talent, so it's well worth taking a couple of minutes to learn them.

+------+-----+----+----+-------+------+----------+-----------+------+------+---------+------+
| YEAR | AGE | G  | GS | IP    | ERA  | LIPS ERA | DIPS WHIP | K/9  | BB/9 | K/BB RI | xGB% |
+------+-----+----+----+-------+------+----------+-----------+------+------+---------+------+
| 2004 |  26 | 23 |  0 |  20.7 | 3.92 |     3.98 |      1.50 | 7.84 | 5.66 |   -0.13 |   53 |
| 2005 |  27 | 63 |  6 |  92.0 | 3.13 |     3.46 |      1.43 | 8.71 | 4.79 |    0.22 |   58 |
| 2006 |  28 | 74 |  0 |  75.0 | 4.80 |     4.40 |      1.48 | 8.04 | 4.32 |    0.18 |   50 |
| 2007 |  29 | 66 |  0 |  66.7 | 4.73 |     4.19 |      1.38 | 7.43 | 4.05 |    0.06 |   48 |
| 2008 |  30 | 33 | 33 | 206.7 | 2.96 |     3.87 |      1.28 | 8.14 | 3.31 |    0.35 |   49 |
+------+-----+----+----+-------+------+----------+-----------+------+------+---------+------+

While Dempster's 2.96 ERA was somewhat lucky, his 3.87 LIPS ERA shows that he did have a legitimately good season. A .288 BABIP, 77 percent LOB%, and a 7.7 percent HR/FB all helped his actual ERA to be nearly a full point lower than it would have been with neutral luck, but his strikeout, walk, and ground ball numbers were all very solid.

While this is a great sign for 2009, we need to be very careful not to get too enamored by Dempster's 2008 season and ignore the previous years, which were generally worse and came in relief innings. In fact, there are quite a few things that could give us pause in projecting an equally good season for Dempster next year.

The fact is, 2008 was one of the best year's of Dempster's career. His strikeout rate was higher than it's been in every year except 2000 and 2005 (when he was in the bullpen), and his walk rate was the lowest of his career. Where did that come from...and at the age of 30?

Looking at Dempster's PITCHf/x data, he doesn't seem to have improved any of his pitches. His fastball was still good, his change-up was still very good, and his slider was still kind of crappy. He did use the slider less frequently than in year's past, which likely helped to some degree, but there was very little overall change in Dempster's physical skills. Perhaps we'll do a more in-depth look at some of the mental pitching skills sometime in the near future.

There was a discussion at The Book Blog yesterday about the possibility of Joakim Soria moving to the rotation which can be applied to Dempster's move this past year. Quoting Tom Tango, "the rule of thumb is to add 1 run to convert to a starter (not a hard and fast rule)." While this isn't an absolute measure (as Tango noted), let's take a look at what Dempster's 2004-2007 LIPS ERA would look like if we applied this rule:

+------+-----+----------+
| YEAR | AGE | LIPS ERA |
+------+-----+----------+
| 2004 |  26 |     4.98 |
| 2005 |  27 |     4.46 |
| 2006 |  28 |     5.40 |
| 2007 |  29 |     5.19 |
| 2008 |  30 |     3.87 |
+------+-----+----------+

I also included his actual 2008 LIPS ERA (no adjustment needed since he spent the season as a starter) for easy comparisons. Here, we see that Dempster far exceeded what we would have expected for him at the start of the season. He jumped a full 1.32 points of ERA from 2007 to 2008 and 1.53 points from 2006. Those are huge numbers, and it makes me wonder — at the very least — how repeatable his 2008 line will be.

Finally, I'd like to take a look at some of the cool new plate discipline stats up over at FanGraphs.

+------+-----+------+------+-----------+----------+-------+
| YEAR | AGE | K/9  | BB/9 | F-Strike% | O-Swing% | Zone% |
+------+-----+------+------+-----------+----------+-------+
| 2005 |  27 | 8.71 | 4.79 |      55.1 |     22.4 |  47.2 |
| 2006 |  28 | 8.04 | 4.32 |      59.4 |     22.7 |  50.7 |
| 2007 |  29 | 7.43 | 4.05 |      57.8 |     31.7 |  46.9 |
| 2008 |  30 | 8.14 | 3.31 |      57.8 |     28.5 |  49.4 |
+------+-----+------+------+-----------+----------+-------+

Eric Seidman recently posted an article with correlations for these stats. Here are the results we're interested in:

+------+-----------+----------+
| Stat | F-Strike% | O-Swing% |
+------+-----------+----------+
| K/9  |      0.19 |     0.28 |
| BB/9 |     -0.72 |    -0.49 |
+------+-----------+----------+

Essentially, F-Strike% (which is how often the pitcher gets a first-pitch strike on the batter) predicts walk rate very well and strikeout rate decently. O-Swing% (which is how often the pitcher induces swings on pitches outside the strike zone) predicts walk rate pretty well and strikeout rate moderately well.

If we look back up at Dempster's stats, though, we see that his F-Strike% didn't move at all from 2007 to 2008 and is right in line with his four year average. His O-Swing% actually decreased from 2007 to 2008 (though it was still better than 2005 and 2006). So while Dempster's K/9 and BB/9 both got better this year, these stats really don't support such drastic improvements.

I also included Zone% (which is simply how often the ball is thrown in the zone), which I assume correlates relatively well with walk rate since you can't walk a batter if you never throw outside the zone. This did improve from 2007, but it was worse than 2006 when Dempster posted a BB/9 a full-point higher (albeit with a lower O-Swing%).

Concluding thoughts

Overall, we have to give Dempster credit for what he did in 2008, but we must also use this information in conjunction with what he's done in the past and with what some of the underlying indicators suggest.

I would be much more comfortable putting Dempster down from something like a 7.8 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9. This, in conjunction with a 50 percent ground ball rate, would still allow Dempster to post an ERA in the low 4.00s. Just make sure you aren't fooled by that 2.96 ERA or even the 3.87 LIPS ERA, because the odds seem to be against a repeat of either.

Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 today!

Another look at Tim Lincecum

Josh Kalk — 2008-11-18T05:05:00-05:00

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.

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The 10 most interesting Rule 5 draft picks, 1967-1980

Steve Treder — 2008-11-18T05:04:00-05:00

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 Amos Otis and Bob Johnson, the Mets were happy to leave him off their 40-man altogether.

Here's what Zander Hollander had to say about Foy in the 1971 edition of The Complete Handbook of Baseball:

Has power and speed ... Erratic fielder with wandering concentration ... Has tendency to go to fat ... His attitude has been questioned along the way ... "I know some people say I'm lazy and lackadaisical," he says ... Could be his last opportunity to prove otherwise.

Ouch. The "wandering concentration" part was 1970s-media code for "higher than a kite," the most notorious instance of which was a 1970 game when a hard grounder was hit past Foy that he plainly didn't notice. 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

The opportunity with Washington would indeed be Foy's last; the Senators would lose patience and release him in July of 1971, and Foy's baseball career was finished at the age of 28, a terrific talent squandered. He died at the age of 46.

3. Cecil Cooper

Nov. 30, 1970: Drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals from the Boston Red Sox.

And you thought the Red Sox didn't properly appreciate what they had in Cooper when they failed to play him full-time in the mid-1970s, and then traded him away. Here they were failing to protect Cooper on their roster despite his having compiled a .338 batting average over his three minor league seasons.

But the Cardinals, despite their interest in the young first baseman, would decide that they couldn't squeeze him onto their 1971 roster, and when they offered Cooper back to Boston just before Opening Day the Red Sox were sharp enough to grab him. But for that, the Cardinals might have subsequently faced the "problem" of having Cooper and Keith Hernandez at the same time.

2. George Bell

Dec. 8, 1980: Drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays from the Philadelphia Phillies.

Bell's career might be seen as a study in how to extract the greatest possible notoriety from a good-but-hardly-great talent.

First, just his name. When he arrived in the majors, the Dominican Bell was going by his given first name, "Jorge." But he soon made it know that he preferred to be called by the English-language form of the name, "George," both in spelling and pronunciation. (For reasons that remained George's alone: His younger brother Juan Bell, also a major leaguer, would not request to be known as "John.")

George-not-Jorge Bell was a solid, productive big league ballplayer, but unexceptional in every regard. He was a corner outfielder with a capable glove, but no defensive standout (though the Blue Jays toyed with him as a third baseman, and it's interesting to ponder how he might have progressed at that position). He ran well but was no speedster, he hit for a nice average but never threatened to be a batting champ, and he had fine power but not tremendous power—well, except for one season.

That exceptional season was 1987, when the 27-year-old Bell suddenly clobbered 47 home runs, far more than he'd ever hit before, or would ever hit again. This achievement (particularly when combined with his league-leading RBI total of 134) was enough to gain Bell the American League's MVP award, despite the fact that the Blue Jays had collapsed in the season's final week, blowing a 3.5-game division lead by losing their final seven games, with Bell managing just three singles and one RBI in 27 at-bats.

And though Bell had enjoyed a splendid season overall, there were several players in the AL that year who'd produced better ones, including Wade Boggs and Mark McGwire, and especially including the best player on the Detroit team that surpassed Toronto in that closing week, Alan Trammell. Thus Bell gained the distinction of being one of the lesser-talented players to ever capture an MVP, in one of the least equitable elections.

But Bell had another historical footnote left to capture: In 1992 he was the guy for whom the White Sox would trade the toolsy 23-year-old Sammy Sosa, despite the fact that by that time Bell was 32, no longer helpful as a defender or baserunner, and just a so-so DH.

But before any of that, Bell was one of several fine young talents (along with Willie Upshaw, and another guy we'll meet next time) that Pat Gillick cleverly brought to Toronto via the Rule 5 draft.

1. Darrell Evans

Dec. 2, 1968: Drafted by the Atlanta Braves from the Oakland Athletics.

Charlie Finley's performance when acting as his own GM with the A's was generally brilliant, but even Finley's extraordinarily sharp eye for talent missed some. Here he not only allowed the 21-year-old Evans to be drafted out of his organization, but then early in the 1969 season Braves GM Paul Richards decided not to keep Evans on the Atlanta big league roster, and Finley declined the opportunity to take him back.

Oops. Handed this chance to develop Evans, The Wizard of Waxahachie made the most of it. If anything Richards was too patient with Evans, as the young left-handed-hitting third baseman methodically shredded International League pitching in 1969, '70 and '71, hitting .318 with 33 homers and 131 walks in 759 at-bats. Evans would, of course, go on to become probably the single most underrated player in baseball history, a major star the mainstream media and fans failed to perceive. But the Hall of Merit wouldn't overlook him, electing Evans on the first ballot.

Next installment

We'll take the tour right up to the present day.

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Season review: starting pitchers

Paul Singman — 2008-11-18T05:01:00-05:00

It's November and every hitting position already has been recapped. Don't think I forgot about the men on the mound; their turn is right now. Let's start with that chart, slightly modified:

En masse

+------+-----+------+------+--------+
| Year | SPs | ERA  | FIP  | WPA/LI |
+------+-----+------+------+--------+
| 2004 |  91 | 4.24 | 4.30 |  0.574 |
| 2005 |  99 | 4.04 | 4.12 |  0.469 |
| 2006 |  88 | 4.34 | 4.35 |  0.582 |
| 2007 |  89 | 4.17 | 4.30 |  0.722 |
| 2008 |  97 | 4.08 | 4.18 |  0.531 |
+------+-----+------+------+--------+

In a majority of the hitters' charts, 2006 was a great offensive year, with 2007 and 2008 below it in terms of production. That trend is reflected in the pitchers' stats, whichever one you focus upon. The one major outlier is under WPA/LI, which is WPA with the Leverage aspect removed, in 2008 when a .200 point reduction in the stat occurred. Remember that a lower ERA and FIP is better while inversely a higher WPA/LI is better. Both ERA and FIP agree that pitchers have gotten better over the last couple of years; why WPA/LI disagrees I would like to know.

I'd like to find someone out there who thinks starting pitchers have gotten worse over the last few years, because the position is as deep as it has ever been. The number of pitchers in 2008 who threw at least 150 innings, had an ERA at or below (the arbitrary) 3.75, and compiled at least 150 strikeouts was 24. The same number in 2007 is 21, and just 12 in 2006. Whether you consider that manipulating the data or not, if you looked for yourself it would be tough to argue that the starting pitcher position has gotten shallower over the past three years.

To me, that means I will take pitchers late in drafts. I know that there so many philosophies on when to select pitchers in drafts or how much money to allocate for them in auctions. Whatever I suggest with be agreed upon by some people and disagreed upon by many others. Therefore, I am not going to go into as much detail as I did in the other reviews on my general drafting strategy when it comes to pitchers. What I will say is that I never draft elite pitchers. Players you will never find on my team after a draft: Johan Santana, Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, or any other pitcher typically taken in the first five rounds. I laugh when someone takes a pitcher in the first round, but again, that is just my opinion. Let's move onto those risers and fallers.

Individuals

The Risers

Some pitchers who were "risers" in 2008 have been talked about ad nauseum already. I'll create a little list of those pitchers and then talk more in-depth about more less-noted pitchers:
{exp:list_maker}Cliff Lee
Justin Duchscherer
Ryan Dempster
Ervin Santana {/exp:list_maker}
Ricky Nolasco came out of nowhere to post a 3.58 ERA in 2008. The 26-year-old certainly gets his share of strikeouts, at 7.88 per nine, but most impressive was Nolasco's control. His BB/9 was 1.78, good for 10th in the majors! I took a quick glance at his minor league walk rates and while they were good, they were never that good, and pitchers' walk rates usually do not go down as they move up in the minors. Nolasco had a great season, but I question whether he will be able to replicate his success.

With more walks than strikeouts, Fausto needs to spend more time looking at the strike zone than his glove. (Icon/SMI)

Edison Volquez had the tough job of dueling it out with Josh Hamilton, with whom he was swapped for in the offseason, and Volquez at least made it competitive with a 3.21 ERA and more than 200 strikeouts.

It is important to note that Volquez perhaps became fatigued as the season wore on; there is a dramatic difference between his first and second half splits. His first half ERA was 2.29 and his second half ERA was more than two points higher at 4.60. I'm not such a strong believer in second half splits, but for a young pitcher under Dusty Baker who saw a significant workload increase—as Volquez did—it is something to keep your eye on.

The Fallers

One-year wonder Fausto Carmona was terribly awful in 2008. Not much of a strikeout pitcher even in 2007, Carmona survived by keeping his walk totals down and inducing ground balls. In 2008, the screws completely came off. His already low strikeout rate dropped to 4.33 per nine innings and his BB/9 rate rose to 5.22(!), meaning he gave up more walks than he got strikeouts. Simply inexcusable.

Josh Beckett had a somewhat disappointing season: His ERA rose from 3.27 to 4.03 in 2008. An article by Peter Bendix at Fangraphs a couple of days ago shows how literally nothing changed between Beckett's 2007 and 2008 peripheral stats. Expect his ERA to hang out closer to 3.27 than 4.03 in 2009.

After three years of a 3.70-3.80 ERA, Aaron Harang's ERA shot up a full point to 4.78 this past season. What stands out is the full loss of a point in K/9, the half-point gain in BB/9, and the increasing number of fly balls he is allowing. I don't think an ERA under 4.00 can be expected from Harang anymore, but I also do not agree with those who think Harang's ERA with be close to 5.00 next year either. Low to mid 4.00s sounds about right to me.

Javier Vazquez had teased fantasy owners for several years from 2004 to 2006, posting great K/BB ratios, and yet he could never get his ERA below that 4.00 mark. In 2007, Vazquez finally accomplished that feat (something he did regularly earlier in the century when in 2007 his ERA dropped to 3.74). But then he went back to disappointing again in 2008: His ERA jumped back up to 4.67. Give me a crystal ball and I might tell you what Vazquez's ERA will be in 2009, but even that would be risky.

Hypothetical situation: a 25-year-old second overall pick who has compiled a 3.74 ERA through his first 399 career innings pitched. This pitcher sounds excellent, right? Right. The player I am referring to is Justin Verlander, selected ninth among starting pitchers in this year's drafts. Verlander outplayed his xFIP in both 2006 and 2007, but in 2008 it caught up to him and his ERA rose to 4.84. As is a common theme among pitchers on this list, Verlander saw his K/9 level fall and his BB/9 level rise significantly. I have reserved emotions about 2009.

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Examining the Matt Holliday trade

Victor Wang — 2008-11-17T17:23:00-05:00

Introduction

For a big trade like this, I usually examine the surplus values exchanged in the deal and see who came out on the top. The Matt Holliday trade is a bit more complicated than a typical trade, however, because the trade was made relatively early in the offseason. Due to this, both teams have the opportunity to do a lot more with the pieces they acquired.

The Rockies' intent is pretty clear. They are in a rebuilding mode and trying to acquire as much young, cheap talent as possible. The A's intent may not be as clear. Holliday is a player who clearly makes the A's a better team for 2009. However, he's going to be a free agent after the 2009 season, so it's not as clear how he helps them in the long term. But Holliday does provide the A's with plenty of options. I'm going to take a look at these, and how they likely influenced the A's decision-making.

Decisions, Decisions

The A's first decision was made when Billy Beane traded for Holliday. After that, two basic events can result: the A's contend or they don't. From there, they can either keep Holliday or let him go, as in this picture:

Let's look at these possible situations:

A's Contend

Let's say the A's are able to pick up Rafael Furcal and Jason Giambi from free agency and a couple of their young starters perform better than expectations. They start the season out well and are in the playoff race at the trade deadline. At this point, their most likely option is to keep Holliday and go for the playoffs.

Baseball Prospectus 2008 calculates the value of reaching the playoffs as $40 million, given the inflation that will have taken place by 2009. Let's say they have a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs if they are in the race by the trade deadline. Then their net value would be $20 million plus the $10 million value of the draft picks they would get from Holliday leaving as a free agent when the year is over.

However, they also have the option of trading Holliday. For example, Billy Beane might see a desperate contender at the trade deadline and flip Holliday without hurting his team's playoff chances. If he's able to do this, then they would get value from making the playoffs along with the value of the prospects. To keep it simple, let's say they'd get $20 million in surplus value, about what the Braves received in return for Mark Teixeira.

The latter scenario is clearly far less likely than the former. For now we'll say that the chances of the first scenario is 90 percent and the chances of the second scenario is 10 percent.

A's Don't Contend

Now let's say that the A's young pitchers struggle in the big leagues, and they are outbid for their free agent targets. They struggle through the first half of the year and are clearly out of it at the trade deadline. In this case, the most likely event would be that they trade Holliday at the deadline. Let's give them the same $20 million in surplus value as we did in the earlier scenario and give them an 80 percent chance of trading Holliday if they don't contend. If no one is willing to trade for Holliday, the A's would be forced to keep Holliday and get the $10 million value of draft picks. With an 80 percent chance of the first outcome, the second outcome would have a 20 percent chance.

Where We're At

If we say the A's have a 50/50 chance of contending and add in an approximation of Holliday's surplus value, we can figure out the expected value of the Holliday trade. The figure above each decision is the probability of that outcome occurring and the number below each outcome is the value of that outcome:

Conclusion

Given the scenarios I laid out, the average value of acquiring Matt Holliday would be $30 million. Note that this is not what I think the actual value of the trade is, I simply inserted what I thought were reasonable values. Admittedly, I didn't exactly use precise values here. This is just an example of the proper process to evaluate the value of the trade. If you believe you can estimate better values and probabilities, insert them into the decision tree and see what you come up with. For example, you could probably come up with more accurate playoff chances for the A's by running a season simulation. You could also make different assumptions of the value of prospects the A's would receive if they traded Holliday.

I doubt the A's went through a process exactly like this, but they probably did similar calculations. The beauty of this trade for the A's is that it leaves them with plenty of options.

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