The Hardball Times -- Tom Meagher http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-23T08:50:15+00:00 The remains of the season: Los Angeles Dodgers http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-remains-of-the-season-los-angeles-dodgers/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-remains-of-the-season-los-angeles-dodgers/#When:04:21:15 Casey Blake; the afternoon after it ended, they traded for Manny Ramirez.

In August so far, after splitting a series against Arizona, the Dodgers have dropped two of three each in St. Louis and San Francisco before taking the first three of four against Philadelphia, leaving them at 61-59 on the season, tied with the Diamondbacks.

The trades for Blake and Ramirez make clear that the Dodgers’ objective is to win immediately, exchanging several strong prospects with successful careers to date for a combined 4-6 months of veteran play. While these moves may have strengthened the Dodgers’ chances, they are far from a sure thing to make the playoffs or even stay in the race. Let’s take a look at what they’ve done, what to expect over the remains of the season, and how the Dodgers can give themselves the best shot at a postseason berth and playoff success.

2008 To Date


Though the trend is subsiding, the media coverage surrounding the Dodgers has overwhelmingly tended toward grouping the team’s players into broad categories of young and old. To this point, it is clear that the Dodgers’ success has relied upon its younger players and its mediocrity has been imposed by the pricier veterans brought in by General Manager Ned Colletti.

Thus far, the team’s three best regulars—Russell Martin, Matt Kemp, and James Loney—as well as its three best pitchers outside of injured closer Takashi Saito—Chad Billingsley, Jonathon Broxton, and Hong-Chih Kuo—all came up through the Dodgers’ system, and all but Kuo are 25 and under and were drafted by current Assistant GM Logan White.

Martin is relying on solid plate discipline and has mostly matched his excellent 2007 season while continuing to log an astounding number of innings behind the plate. His lack of power has kept him from truly sparkling (.352 wOBA), but he’s really upped his plate discipline and has more walks than strikeouts.

Kemp and Loney have wOBA’s of .351 and .346, respectively, and although each had high expectations due to playing a bit over their heads when given playing time in 2006 and 2007, given their age and minor league records, it was reasonable to expect average production for their respective positions and they have delivered just that and a little more.

Loney’s hitting is dragged down a bit by starting against southpaws, but his plus range makes him a solid asset overall; if his power develops further, though, he’ll be good enough that L.A. won’t have to worry about platooning. Kemp, splitting his time between CF and RF, has earned plaudits for improved defense and is hitting well enough for either position. He has made the occasional over-publicized baserunning gaffe, but his 28 stolen bases in 36 attempts have made up for it.

Billingsley has come through with a dominant season, posting an ERA of 3.07, FIP of 3.05, and R/9 of 3.37. He’s improved his strikeout, walk, and groundball rates, and is just an out-and-out ace at this point. The Dodgers also have two young bullpen aces in Broxton and Kuo. Broxton has pitched quite well but has had some rough outings leaving him with a lousy strand rate (67.6%) that’s sure to increase; he’s pitched better than his 4.01 R/9, as his FIP is a career low 2.44.

Kuo has mostly baffled hitters, allowing two runs per 9 with a 1.93 FIP and a nice groundball rate across 10.2 innings as a starter and 56 innings in relief. While some hope the Dodgers might try out Kuo as a starter, his dominance in the pen and injury history will probably keep him in relief, but he is finally being used in high-leverage situations. Unfortunately, both converted one-run leads into walk-off losses this weekend in consecutive games in San Francisco, but tough moments in fielding were a bigger culprit than either’s pitching.

Beyond that core, the Dodgers have had solid performances from the youngsters who’ve gotten a fair amount of playing time. 26-year-old Andre Ethier, acquired from Oakland for Milton Bradley in one of Colletti’s first moves with L.A., has put up good numbers (.341 wOBA) and continues to demonstrate that he’s about an average corner outfielder.

20-year-old Clayton Kershaw pitched quite well in Jacksonville this season, and for the big club has now made 12 starts spanning 60.2 innings and 265 batters faced. His 3.71 R/9 has been a pretty nice addition, and while he’s walked almost five batters per game his good strikeout rate and groundball-inducing abilities have kept opponents from doing much damage (only four homers allowed). The scouting reports on Kershaw are so enthusiastic that it looks like he can keep up with his current pace, but how many innings and pitches the Dodgers are willing to put on his young arm this season will be a pretty big factor.

In the bullpen, two 25-year-olds with success in their 2007 AA debuts have made effective jumps to the majors. Cory Wade has a nice 2.56 ERA (3.25 R/9), but it’s the result of a .249 BABIP that figures to regress; he’s stingy on the walks but not striking out many batters for a reliever, resulting in a 4.11 FIP. Ramon Troncoso’s 4.32 R/9 isn’t so impressive, but it’s the result of a .346 BABIP; he’s got 27 K against 9 BB in 25 IP, and his extreme groundball rate (59.4%) has left him with no home runs allowed (2.23 FIP).

Another group of youthful players up from the L.A. system had less success this season. Blake DeWitt’s early success caused Manager Joe Torre to express some undue faith in the 22-year-old, and though he is a fine prospect he proved to be in over his head in his first stint above AA, hitting .257/.324/.364 in 309 PA for a .302 wOBA.

Meanwhile, 26-year-old Delwyn Young and 24-year-olds Chin-Lung Hu and Andy LaRoche combined for nearly the same number of plate appearances (314) with a .254 wOBA (.204/.282/.283), though the entire difference between DeWitt and this trio amounted to fifty points of BABIP and two home runs.

Young, who is out of options, has served as the team’s go-to pinch hitter and fifth outfielder, making starts when Juan Pierre andAndruw Jones were both out. Once Pierre and Jones were shoe-horned back onto the active roster, Young went on the DL with a minor injury. Hu’s struggles replacing Rafael Furcal were so bad that the Dodgers handed the position to Angel Berroa and optioned Hu to Vegas to make room for LaRoche. A month and a half later, the Blake trade sent DeWitt and LaRoche to the bench, and the Ramirez trade sent LaRoche to Pittsburgh and put Young’s return from injury on indefinite hiatus.

All in all, the Dodgers have had performances meeting reasonable expectations from all of their young players, and the disappointing fractional seasons of LaRoche and Hu have been balanced out by the sublime performances of Billingsley and Kuo.

Meanwhile, the large investments of money and playing time into free agent signings have had returns that are disappointing at best. The best production from veteran position players has come from two shortstop free agents originally signed prior to the 2006 season, Rafael Furcal (three years, $39 million) and Nomar Garciaparra (a two-year, $18.5mm deal after his initial one-year $8.5mm after incentives deal).

Furcal’s game is predicated on defense, control of the strike zone, and enough power to be ahead of the curve for his position. When the singles fell in for him in 2006 (.333 BABIP), it was enough to make him a legit down-ballot MVP candidate. In 2007, with Furcal playing hurt for much of the season, the singles rate fell off a bit and the power disappeared, one of the bigger disappointments in a mediocre season.

This season, he had rebounded with an outstanding start in April and part of May—a .449 wOBA with a .386 BABIP, .231 ISO, and more walks than strikeouts, all figures well above his career levels—before being sidelined by the back that sapped his 2007. While hopes are for a September return, Furcal’s back has dashed hopes with regularity. Furcal’s DL stint provided an opportunity for Garciaparra, who has missed most of the season to injury, to return to shortstop this summer. Nomar’s put up a nice .357 wOBA in his 95 PA, but he is presently back on the DL and whether his body (and Dodger pitchers) can tolerate more innings at shortstop is an open question. While Furcal and Garciaparra have both done enough to validate their 2006 deals, 2007-2008 could end up looking like write-offs.

While the veteran shortstops have played well when healthy, the other half of the double play combination has stayed healthy but relatively unproductive. Jeff Kent’s batting (.323 wOBA) has fallen off substantially from his production over the last few seasons, though certainly not enough to make an argument that he is “done” as a hitter. While he’s controlling the strike zone as well as he has in recent years, he has had a power shortage (not outage) and a paucity of singles though his distribution of batted balls has not differed much from previous seasons. His fielding at second base is bad enough that going forward he may no longer be an average player overall. Then again, visual reports on his fielding this season have been mildly encouraging after his much-maligned 2007 with the glove, and he has been pretty consistently productive over the past few months after an atrocious start to the season at the plate.

While Furcal and Garciaparra would inspire confidence if only they could make it back to the lineup, Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre can’t exactly say the same thing. Jones was an excellent hitter through 2006, and received the Colletti specialty (a short-term, high average annual value contract) after having a bad season in 2007.

Thus far, he has been atrocious (.241 wOBA), striking out in nearly a third of his plate appearances and scarcely displaying any ability to drive the ball. His vaunted defense has also failed to impress, although there has been talk that he has positively influenced Kemp in that regard. Pierre was signed to a five-year contract prior to last season (the only contract of over three seasons in length handed out by Colletti, though thankfully at half the yearly salary of Jones).

While Jones’ contract came on the heels of one season of bad hitting, Pierre’s came on the heels of two: Pierre’s wOBAs by season since 2005 have been .305, .318, .307, and now .291. While Pierre keeps himself in the very general vicinity of offensive productivity by making contact and being an excellent base thief, his token power seems to have all but disappeared in Dodger Stadium (which is an extremely stingy park for doubles and triples) and his batting average on balls in play—never much of a strength outside of 2004—isn’t straying north of the league average.

While perhaps we can expect production mildly better than what he’s done thus far in 2008, Pierre’s offense still figures to cost a team at least 10-15 runs or so over the course of a full season, and his weak arm tacks on another five runs. To be an average player, Pierre would need to be one of the best CF in the game range-wise or many leagues above the average LF; while he’s got good speed, complaints of his route-running and the fielding data don’t support the notion that he’s among the best.

On the pitching side, the Dodgers have gotten fine performances from Derek Lowe and Hiroki Kuroda. Lowe, the groundball artist whose free agent signing following an awful 2004 season was not particularly well-received, has quietly made his contract look quite good.

This season, he’s maintained his nice strikeout rate from 2007 and has the lowest walk rate since his amazing 2002. That hasn’t shown up in the runs column (4.58 R/9), though, as his opponents are hitting .228 on ground balls, a career high; if the defense behind him doesn’t tighten up, it figures to go down as the least of his four seasons with the team despite him currently posting his nicest FIP (3.42) since 2002. Kuroda, signed by Colletti this past offseason, has put up numbers similar to Lowe’s with a 3.77 FIP and 4.50 R/9. The signing is looking like a good one, but the jury is still out.

Meanwhile, two veteran starters have not worked out nearly as well. Brad Penny, who had some pretty nice overall success from 2005-2007, has been ineffective and missed time to injury. In 2005-2006, Penny had nice peripherals but allowed a lot of hits on balls in play to allow 4.25 R/9. In 2007, he cut a run off—down to 3.25—by yielding a home run to only 1% of his batters faced, but the strikeouts were down and the walks were up. This season, his strikeout and walk rates have further deteriorated and the HR and BABIP numbers have returned to their 05-06 levels. He returned from two months on the DL on Friday and gave up only one hit in five innings, but the velocity on his fastball wasn’t there, he gave up 3 walks and no strikeouts, and he was only on the mound long enough to run through the Giant’s weak lineup twice. Perhaps Penny can finish off the season strong, but it’s not evident that he’s going to be healthy and it’s not clear that he can still be an above average major league starter.

And then there’s the injured Jason Schmidt, who was ineffective in the six starts he made in 2007 and hasn’t managed any more than abortive rehab sessions in 2008; Torre admitted last week that he doesn’t figure to make it back to the bigs this year. The logic behind his 3 year, $47 million contract was that a short deal couldn’t be too much of an albatross, but so far it’s done little but make Colletti seem a truly ancient mariner.

Colletti’s best free agent signing has unquestionably been Takashi Saito, who has been one of the best closers in baseball since unexpectedly taking over for Eric Gagne in 2006. Unfortunately, Saito is out with an elbow injury and won’t be back before September. If he comes back healthy, the Dodgers have a pretty top notch shutdown bullpen, but even though they’ve still got a nice pen his absence would be a major loss in the playoffs.

Filling out the roster this season have been a number of castoffs acquired by Colletti. Angel Berroa leads the team in games started at shortstop; living off of his award-winning 2003 season and Allard Baird’s past optimism, Berroa has awful career defensive numbers and hitting that’s well below average even for his position (his .236 wOBA in 142 PA this season is worse than Andruw Jones’). Mark Sweeney, the veteran pinch-hitter and bench player, has hurt the team plenty in a small sample, and it’s difficult to accept the reasons for L.A. to stay the course with him. Luis Maza’s play has arguably been the most impressive of the middle infield scrub cavalcade, but he was DFA’d for Pablo Ozuna, whose abilities don’t substantially differ. Danny Ardoin took over as the backup catcher for Gary Bennett, and Ardoin is a bit of an upgrade both with the bat and behind the plate.

In the quest for a fifth starter, the Dodgers have turned to a few castoffs. 2007 waiver claim Esteban Loaiza was ineffective and then cut. Eric Stults—actually a home-grown 28-year-old—has had some very nice starts and has pitched well in Vegas, and at this point he’s probably legitimate fourth or fifth starter caliber.

Journeyman Jason Johnson has had similar success in Vegas and seems the favorite to fill-in for Penny should he go down again. Chan Ho Park has had surprising success, especially in his (brief) outings as a starter (30/8 K/BB in 25 innings). His velocity is up 3-4 mph over recent seasons, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a top option either for high-leverage bullpen innings or starts because his strikeout rate just isn’t there (4.36 FIP on the season).

In the bullpen, Scott Proctor, acquired last summer for Wilson Betemit, wasn’t able to rack up the strikeouts without issuing too many free passes. He’s on the DL for now, but a return seems likely; Torre seems off the idea of Proctor being the 7th inning guy, so he probably won’t be pitching in many high leverage situations.

Brian Falkenborg took over his spot, gave up 8 runs in 11.2 IP, and was DFA’d, though he’s likely to stay with the organization and perhaps get a September call-up. Falkenborg hasn’t had success in any of his espresso shots with major league teams, but his solid numbers in the PCL the past three seasons suggest he’s about an average major league reliever. Joe Beimel has been the Dodgers’ LOOGy, and while he’s put up a disconcerting 20/15 K/BB and .339 BABIP in 32.2 IP, he’s surrendered zero home runs and somehow allowed only 1.93 R/9.

What To Expect over the Remains of the Season


The biggest change to the team is the addition of the two deadline sluggers. Both Ramirez and Blake are coming over from the AL, so their numbers get a five-run bump because of the competition level. Blake’s numbers suggest he’d be about a .340 wOBA hitter in Cleveland, so let’s put him down for .350. Ramirez was about a .400 wOBA hitter in Boston, and the park and league adjustments about cancel out.

Offensively, the Dodgers seem to be in pretty good shape, with projections of roughly .400 for Ramirez, .350-.355 for Martin, Kemp, Loney, and Blake, and .340-.345 for Ethier and Kent. Berroa is a .290ish hitter, but Furcal or Garciaparra would be in the .335-.340 neighborhood if healthy. The bench is not much help, though, with Sweeney, Pierre, and Jones the best available hitters. As a rough estimate, if the Dodgers’ hitters stay healthy and Berroa doesn’t log much more time, we can expect the team (outside of pitchers) to put up close to a .345 wOBA. Over 43 games, that’s about 15-20 runs above average.

In terms of pitching (as distinct from defense, which is pitching + fielding), if we assume Billingsley to be at 3.6 R/9, Lowe, Kuroda, and Kershaw at 4.1, and the fifth starter at 4.8 (it’s hard to say Penny figures to improve on that) and that they make all of their starts (I’ll give Kershaw and the fifth starter 5.5 IP per start and the rest 6.5), that’s about a 4.12 run average over 29 games; if we give the other 14 games to the bullpen at 3.5 R/9 and round up a bit, that’s a total run average of 3.9-4.0 runs per game.

In terms of defense, Blake is maybe -5 and Loney +5, Kent and Berroa/Garciaparra are likely in the -10 to -15 range, Ethier and Kemp are maybe average or +5 or so, and Ramirez is -15 to -20. Let’s call that a total of -35, or -.2 R/9. So the Dodgers’ overall defense (pitching + fielding) figures to be about .3 to .4 runs per game better than average. Combined with the offense, a healthy Dodgers team figures to be in the .550-.580 range, suggesting 24-25 wins over the remaining 43 games.

In terms of the schedule, the Dodgers have a fairly favorable one the rest of the way. The only teams still in the race they play are Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Arizona, and they’re done facing those teams after Sept. 7; over the last three weeks they only play San Diego, San Francisco, Colorado, and Pittsburgh. Then again, what really matters is the difference between the Dodgers’ schedule and the Diamondbacks’ schedule. Crossing out all of the games they have in common after Aug. 12 leaves 19 games apiece. L.A. has 8 home games (Phi-2, Mil-3, SD-3) and 11 road games (Phi-4, Was-3, Pit-4); Arizona has 10 at home (Fla-3, StL-3, Cin-3, SF-1) and 9 away (Col-2, Hou-3, StL-4).

Speaking in wins/game, if we were to assume that both Arizona and LA were .540 at home and .460 on the road and further assume that Philadelphia and Milwaukee are .540, St. Louis is .520, Florida .510, Colorado, Houston, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati .470, San Diego .450, and San Francisco and Washington .430, then the schedule favors Arizona slightly, an edge of 9.68 wins against 9.5 (.509 vs. .500). It’s close enough that the bigger factor will be which individual pitchers the teams end up facing.

What Can Be Improved


It looked for a bit like this section would have to cover the overwrought Pierre affair, but Joe Torre seems to have decided to go with a regular alignment of Ramirez-Kemp-Ethier in the outfield; the major playing time issues have basically been resolved, especially with Kuo pitching in high-leverage situations.

As far as upgrades to the roster go, it seems unlikely that the Dodgers will acquire a player through waivers this season. Notably, the Dodgers’ two July acquisitions have the entire balance of their contracts paid for by Cleveland and Boston, respectively, and Angel Berroa likewise has his salary on K.C.’s tab. Last Wednesday, Peter Gammons reported on Baseball Tonight that the Dodgers stalled recent Greg Maddux talks by insisting the Padres pay nearly all of Maddux’s remaining salary and refusing to offer a solid prospect.

Although it’s fair to be dubious about the truthfulness or significance of this report—perhaps the Dodgers were simply trying to lowball the Padres or just don’t want to spend until they know what Brad Penny will bring to the table—it suggests that McCourt has indicated to Colletti that no significant payroll can be added. Between the number of dollars invested in the DL and the complete failure of last season’s waiver wire salary dump pickup, Esteban Loaiza, it is a somewhat understandable stance for McCourt to take. The frivolity of the Loaiza acquisition was apparent at the time, and Colletti’s more recent partial defense of it only heightened that perception (“I had at least one of our scouts tell me that Esteban Loaiza was healthy and would help,” Colletti explained).

Oh yes, and the Dodgers’ decided (whether deliberately or otherwise) not to put in a claim on Adam Dunn. Simply putting in a claim on Dunn would have blocked him from the Diamondbacks and the "worst-case scenario" meant they’d have to pay him $4 million to (if L.A. truly believes Ethier and Loney are better than Dunn) be a huge upgrade over Mark Sweeney off the bench. $4 million doesn’t even buy an average win on the free agent market anymore, and it would seem a reasonable expense to prevent the competition from improving.

To be fair, the counter-argument is that Dunn doesn’t help the Diamondbacks all that much, but it’s not as if L.A. would have been likely to have to take on Dunn’s contract and even in the event that they did, they would benefit from the draft picks they’d get for offering him arbitration. L.A.’s apparent refusal to add any payroll is remarkable, as the team is making win-now moves ostensibly to boost their 2008 income but is unwilling to invest monetarily in the endeavor; the franchise is trading tomorrow’s talent (almost exclusively) for today’s dollars (almost exclusively), not exactly an encouraging development.

Barring a major injury, it’s likely that the only plausible waiver wire upgrade of significance for the squad would be a shortstop of some sort or, if Brad Penny does not inspire confidence, a fifth starter who would have to be an improvement over Jason Johnson or Eric Stults. The former seems unlikely, as Colletti seems fond of his two former Rookies of the Year despite neither really offering enough defensively, and presumably he will not feel the need to displace the recently acquired Pablo Ozuna. A healthy and offensively productive return from the DL for Garciaparra would probably ensure the Dodgers wouldn’t make an effort to overhaul the position.

If Nomar doesn’t hang on after coming back, chances are Colletti still won’t to try to improve upon Berroa, perhaps motivated by the Dodgers owing him no money. When there was speculation that Minnesota would try to unload the very cost-effective Adam Everett, reports indicated the Dodgers had no interest; given their equally poor hitting and Everett’s astounding advantage with the glove, the Dodgers are evidently so gung ho on Berroa that they are opting not to seek improvements.

Picking up Adam Everett or the equivalent could be unnecessary, though. Chin-lung Hu, whose hitting across three levels in 2008 was major league caliber, has a supreme defensive reputation and it appears he could help out immediately. Put on the opening day roster to serve as a bench player with half of the Dodgers’ infield ailing, Hu later became the primary shortstop when Rafael Furcal went down and didn’t come through with the bat. After being sent down to Triple-A, Hu revealed he’d been having eye problems, which likely factored into his near inability to hit. Since receiving treatment, he’s returned to Vegas and hit .307/.342/.400 in 79 PA, which is mildly encouraging but unimpressive in that run environment. Still, Hu is likely no worse with the bat going forward than Berroa and is probably a 2-3 win defensive improvement over a full season.

The Dodgers are more or less fielding the best team they’re going to field, but shortstop will be an open question the rest of the season.

Postseason Chances


The Dodgers are a team fairly well set up for playoff success, which is not to say that they are a team likely to have playoff success. But they don’t look to be too inferior relative to the Cubs, Brewers, Cardinals, Phillies, Mets, or Marlins (sorry, Drayton McLane). They have an ace, if not a top ace, in Chad Billingsley, and between Lowe, Kuroda, and Kershaw figure to have solid No. 2 types getting the remaining starts. Kuo and Broxton are high-K and arguably among the league’s 10 or 15 best relievers; Saito, if healthy, would make three. Those three—especially with Kuo being very strong in 2-3 inning stints—could really go places in October and no NL team has a better triad. If shortstop is fortified, the Dodgers offense will be competent at each position

All in all, it is not difficult to imagine the Dodgers reaching the playoffs and winning a series or even two or three. To Ned Colletti’s credit, he has put together a team that certainly can win in the playoffs; it’s just that the resources at hand as well as the resources already expended suggest standards that Colletti has not met.

Further, it is far from a foregone conclusion that the Dodgers will be healthy come the postseason given the advanced ages of Ramirez, Blake, and Kent as well as the advanced innings count for Russell Martin. Kershaw’s pitch/inning count on the season may get too high for the Dodgers to be willing to go to him, and if Kuroda or Lowe go down that could mean L.A. will have to rely on Brad Penny or even Stults, Johnson, or Park in the playoffs. If anything, the Dodgers can expect to have one or two or three major players taken off the table, and the depth behind them is adequate but not strong.

Conclusion


The Dodgers might be a hair ahead of the Diamondbacks, talent-wise, with Orlando Hudson out, so they are about an even bet to advance. And if they roll into October healthy, they’re an even bet or maybe even slightly better to advance in a series against an NL opponent. As frustrating as the team has been to watch play thus far and as frustrating as it has been to watch management give playing time to lesser veterans and fritter away intriguing prospects, it is hard to argue that they aren’t in their best shape in ages in terms of ability to succeed in the postseason.

It is even harder to argue that the Dodgers’ chances are not primarily the result of the excellence of the organization’s amateur scouting since Logan White took over in 2001, as it has been the source of the team’s best incumbents and the engine behind the dollar-free Blake and Ramirez trades. The Dodgers have finally converted Logan’s run into a solid shot a postseason glory, but with the cost in current dollars spent and future prospects dealt, and with the team a few not-improbable injuries away from being in only lukewarm shape, the team’s fans will be right to be angry if the cards don’t all fall into place.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2008-08-14T04:21:15+00:00 Giving Up The Long Ball http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/giving-up-the-long-ball/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/giving-up-the-long-ball/#When:04:03:15 FIP - an invention of Tangotiger and one of the stats we keep track of here at The Hardball Times - is a great quick way to gauge some of the luck involved in a pitcher's earned run average. FIP, inspired in part by Voros McCracken's DIPS work, looks at a player's walks, strikeouts, home runs, and innings pitched to quantify a pitcher's performance. Tangotiger first used FIP as a way of calculating defense-independent runs saved relative to average, but you can add a league normalizing factor to FIP to make it approximate ERA pretty well.

The reason why FIP is a very good quick and dirty estimation of a pitcher's talent level is because its components are less subject to random fluctuation than the other things that go into a pitcher's ERA like fielding and the timing of offensive events. Recently, Dan Fox took a look at the correlations for various pitching categories between 2003 and 2004. The correlation for batting average on balls in play is low while the correlation for strikeouts and walks is quite high. ERA has an okay correlation, but Fox found that a player's component ERA or DIPS ERA in 2003 correlated quite a bit better with 2004 ERA than ERA itself, with DIPS doing the best job of the three.

Because a player's defense-independent pitching numbers correlate so well with future ERA, there is a tendency (which has certainly had an effect on me) to look at a player's FIP in one season or even several seasons and use it as a pretty strong index of a player's performance in future seasons.

There is, however, a bit of a weak link in the predictive prowess of FIP. That weak link is a pitcher's ability to prevent home runs. In the correlations Dan did, a pitcher's home run rate correlated much better than batting average on balls in play, but nowhere near as well as strikeout and walk rates. This is not surprising, since we'd expect home runs allowed to have a pretty low correlation as there are so few of them; last year Jamie Moyer led the major leagues with 44 home runs allowed. While home run rate tends to stay in the same ballpark for any given pitcher, a player's home run rate in any season or even over a few seasons has much more room for substantial deviation from that player's true talent level than K and BB numbers do.

Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus has argued (subscription required) that a pitcher's groundball rate may in fact be a better predictor of home run rate in future seasons. A pitcher's groundball rate does not fluctuate too much from year to year, and pitchers with low groundball rates give up home runs much less frequently than fly ball pitchers. In fact, the reason that home runs correlate fairly well from year to year may be partially that they're a proxy for a pitcher's groundball/flyball rate.

So before you look at a player's FIP as a proxy for future ERA, you might want to consider whether that player's home run rate is unsustainable given the type of groundball/flyball pitcher they are. Of course, this lesson doesn't just apply to FIP. Even if you want to look at a player's 2004 ERA to approximate their 2005 ERA, you should keep in mind that the pitcher may have allowed home runs with fortuitous frequency.

Here are some players whose home run rates are probably set for a rise. Each one ranked in the top third of pitchers in non-infield fly balls per batted ball and in the bottom third for home runs per batted ball:

Erik Bedard
2004: 137 IP, 4.59 ERA, 4.39 FIP, 0.85 HR/9

There's some reason to believe Bedard may be an outlier. In 335.1 minor league innings, Bedard only gave up 9 home runs. While that's certainly impressive, he also typically accomplished that against younger competition and had very high strikeout rates; it was difficult to put the ball in play against him, much less put it over the fences. Now that he's in the major leagues and probably can't manage a strikeout per inning, he's probably set to see average or worse home run rates.

Joe Nathan
2004: 72.1 IP, 1.62 ERA, 2.40 FIP, 0.37 HR/9

As angry as it will make Aaron, Nathan is probably set for some decline. Entering 2004 with a career major league HR/9 of 1.21 in 266.1 innings, Nathan allowed only 3 HR despite being among the most extreme fly ball pitchers in baseball. While Nathan will almost certainly see a HR/9 lower than 1.21 because he strikes out a lot of batters now that he's a full-time reliever, it's unlikely that he can only yield one home run every 24 innings.

Giovanni Carrara
2004: 53.2 IP, 2.18 ERA, 2.69 FIP, 0.17 HR/9

After a disastrous 2003 season, Carrara eventually made his way back to the Dodgers in 2004. He was lights out. However, Carrara certainly had his share of luck in giving up only one home run over 53.2 innings. That was quite a reversal from Carrara's career major league 1.77 HR/9.

Rickey Bottalico
2004: 69.1 IP, 3.38 ERA, 3.51 FIP, 0.39 HR/9

Bottalico had a solid season with the Mets, and the Brewers picked him up this offseason for a mere $800,000. While Bottalico has done a respectable job avoiding the long ball throughout his career, he has done so by striking out a ton of batters. With his K rate in decline, don't expect anything approaching what he did last season. If you've picked up Botallico for your fantasy team in hopes that he'd usurp the closer role from Mike Adams, you may have too many problems for this to concern you, but it's there.

Dewon Brazelton
2004: 120.2 IP, 4.77 ERA, 5.11 FIP, 0.90 HR/9

The notion that things could get worse for Brazelton may be disturbing enough, so I'll refrain from much comment. On the bright side, He has had outstanding home run numbers in his minor league career, though the majority of those innings were compiled in the Southern League. Still, it's impressive that he only allowed one home run in 80.1 innings pitching for Durham.

* * *

Now, let's take a look at some players who might be due for a rebound. Each one ranked in the bottom third in non-infield fly balls per batted ball and in the top third for home runs per batted ball:

Greg Maddux
2004: 212.2 IP, 4.02 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 1.48 HR/9

At the tail end of a career with one of the most impressive home run rates in history, Maddux had never allowed one home run or more per nine innings pitched in any season in his major league career entering 2004. Leaving Atlanta and Leo Mazzone behind, Maddux' performance took a hit in Chicago. While Maddux won't reach the levels of dominance he achieved at his peak, his performance in 2004 was pretty much the same as it had been in his last three years in Atlanta, as his K, BB, and G/F rates all were roughly what they had been in Atlanta - in fact, his K/9 was his best since 2001 and above his career average. The only thing that changed was his ballooned home run total. While blaming the Friendly Confines - which helped a lot of balls over the fence last season - is tempting, Maddux actually allowed 19 on the road and 16 at home despite pitching a lot more at home.

Danny Graves
2004: 68.1 IP, 3.95 ERA, 4.84 FIP, 1.58 HR/9

Graves gets a lot of flak for being a perhaps mediocre pitcher who gets unfair praise for amassing 41 saves last season. One common slam is that, while he put up a 3.95 ERA, Graves had an ugly 5.14 run average. However, Graves has reason to expect a rebound. After a career of success groundballing it in relief - with the requisite low home run tallies - Graves was converted to a starter in 2003. The role didn't suit him well, and he put up a 5.33 ERA and a 3.20 K/9. His HR/9 shot up to 1.60. When returned to relief in 2004, Graves regained his ability to fan batters and displayed excellent control. That was masked, though, by 12 home runs. Expect Graves to bounce back (somewhat).

Brett Myers
2004: 176 IP, 5.52 ERA, 5.20 FIP, 1.59 HR/9

Myers might be a decent candidate for a breakout season. A groundballer with a solid K rate and improving control, Myers season was bloodied by 31 home runs. The Phillies used to play in a Veteran stadium but moved to rookie Citizen's Bank Park last season, and that probably played some role in Myers increased rate. Still, Myers gave up 15 home runs on the road in 102.2 IP, and he's unlikely to sustain a home run rate that high.

Matt Morris
2004: 202 IP, 4.72 ERA, 4.94 FIP, 1.56 HR/9

Underrated on the basis of one season. While his shrinking K rate is concerning, it didn't shrink by that much, and his BB rate was better than his career average. The only big change was a fat HR total after years of skinny ones. With the Cardinals' infield defense, expect a solid year from Morris in 2005. He probably won't match the great performance of 2001-2002, but he can do what he did from '97-'00 and in '03 again.

Nate Robertson
2004: 196.2 IP, 4.90 ERA, 4.76 FIP, 1.37 HR/9

Robertson isn't exactly young or promising, but his home run rate was a lot worse than you'd expect from a groundball guy in commodious Comerica Park. He had an undistinguished minor league career, so I doubt that he can match the 2.35 K/BB ratio he boasted last season. If he can, though, he's a nice sleeper.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-03-31T04:03:15+00:00 Five Questions: Texas Rangers http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-texas-rangers/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-texas-rangers/#When:04:05:15
"Come on, stop kidding yourself. We don't have a chance."

"You're crazy. This could be the year."

"Yes, in the sense that random chance dictates that any season any team could win the World Series. But I'd rather look at what's probable than what could happen."

"Fine. Maybe it's not probable that they'll make the playoffs or even have a winning record, but they're set up well enough that they could be really good if a few things break the right way."

"Okay, sure, they could turn out well, but it sure doesn't seem probable. I'm not sure what things are, you know, on the precipice of breaking the right way."

"You know, just some questions they have to answer."

"Like..."

"Well, for one, will they get decent production from their outfield and designated hitter?

""Sure, that's a question. It's a question with a two-letter answer."

"I mean, maybe things won't pan out, but I think it could break right. I think this is Laynce Nix's year."

"Frankly, I think 2002 was Laynce Nix's year. Sure, he hits for decent power for a centerfielder and all, but he just has no command of the strike zone. You'd think a player who strikes out as much as him would work in more than an occasional walk. His low batting average wasn't bad luck - he was fine on balls in play. He just strikes out a ton, and I don't see why that's going to suddenly improve."

"His plate discipline was a lot better in the minor leagues. He had a good amount of walks and his strikeouts weren't so bad. He's had fewer than 600 plate appearances at the major league level, so I'd say it's probably too soon to rule him out. He's still young."

"Yeah, he's still young now, but he wasn't a spring chicken relative to any of the leagues he's played in before the bigs, and he didn't dominate at any level. He's still got time to be a decent player, but it's hard to imagine that that will be this year."

"Well, this could be the year for Kevin Mench, too."

"That just doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, aside from ripping up A-ball at age 22, he's never put up a very impressive season at any league. I don't see why you could expect him to do much better than he did last season. In fact, he'll probably do worse since he got nursed so much and didn't have to face to many right handed pitchers."

"I don't know, he's still got plenty of potential. And besides, he was pretty good last season anyway. .279/.335/.539 is good, even for Arlington."

"Yeah, but it's not above average for a corner outfielder. And he's got the same problem all these jokers have got. He doesn't reach base. This is a team full of guys who hit the ball hard but can't be troubled to take a walk here or there."

"I don't see your point. Sure, they'd be better if all their hitters added another twenty, thirty points in OBP, but just because they don't doesn't mean the hitters or the offense in general is bad. Besides, maybe it's a good thing. I mean, the Angels won the World Series because they had a bunch of batting average guys who all got hot at the same time. Maybe a team that walks a whole lot can be depended on to be good because they minimize risk, but their upside isn't as big."

"I don't know about that, but I'd really prefer that they pick up some guys who can reliably get on base. Instead we re-signed Delluci, the only guy on the team who draws a lot of walks but who strikes out often enough that his OBP is below average, and picked up Hidalgo, one of the most inconsistent hitters in baseball. He's had two excellent seasons and a ton of mediocre seasons. His skill set as a batter is basically below average across the board, except that he's a pretty good power hitter every year and was a phenomenal power hitter in 2000 and 2003. I mean, there really isn't any reason to expect him repeat those seasons, and there's not even much reason to expect him to even split the difference. Plus, his strikeout and walk rates both got a lot worse last year."

"Okay, sure, but Hidalgo's only making $5 million, and he's one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball. He's a good gamble, and if he finds his power stroke again we're in nice shape."

"Yeah, sure, he's a nice bargain. But part of the problem is that we're told that the Rangers need bargains. They overspent for A-Rod and obviously for Chan Ho Park, and now they're using those signings as an excuse to have a low payroll, as if the problem was that they spent money rather than how they spent their money. For chrissakes, we've got a Barajas/Alomar platoon at catcher."

"Yeah, but we didn't need to spend for a catcher. We've got Gerald Laird."

"You're nuts. Laird's not a terrible guy to have, but there's no way he's worth planning around. He's had two averagish years, but his numbers look inflated because they came in the Texas League and the PCL. And he's already 25, so he's not some high upside guy who just needs a shot."

"Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with building around developing average players if they're cheap."

"Of course not, but the flip side is that cheap and average doesn't do much for you unless you also spend for a few legitimate stars. That's something the Rangers haven't done recently."

"Well, they kind of have. He plays second base."

"You mean Alfonso Soriano is a legitimate star?"

"I think he has been, and can be. He sure didn't play like one last season, but that's just one year. I mean, he was a terrific hitter for two seasons with the Yankees, and coming from a second baseman that's pretty valuable."

"Yeah, but his defense doesn't exactly say "second base" to me, and everyone's saying it's even worse this year with his injury. He's had two very good seasons as a major league hitter and two pretty average seasons. That's good, sure, but he's not really a star. I mean, he's a real one dimensional hitter; he hits a ton of fly balls and tries to hit them hard. There's not any real growth potential, given that he's already 29."

"Yeah, but that one dimension he does have is one that the ballpark aids greatly, and I think it's more likely that his relatively low homer total last season was a fluke than that his high homer totals with the Yankees were flukes."

"Nobody's denying that he's valuable. But it's ridiculous that the three highest-paid players on this team are Park, Soriano, and Hidalgo, although I guess A-Rod's still getting more from the Rangers than Hidalgo."

"Well, of course it's ridiculous. That's why it's so impressive that they're as good as they are."

"I don't know, it just seems like Soriano represents everything that's wrong with the Rangers. Not only is he obviously linked to the A-Rod fiasco, but he doesn't get on base and he's a terrible defensive player. This team has figured out that they'll benefit from fly ball hitters and groundball pitchers, which is smart. But then they've got the worst pair of defensive middle infielders in the league. Before, of course, they had a player who fit both strategies, hitting a ton of home runs and playing very good defense at shortstop. Sure A-Rod was overpaid, but his value to the Rangers was probably higher than it was to any other franchise, and what they got in return is pretty lousy, given the circumstances. As soon as they'd assembled enough talent around him that he would have mattered, they junked him."

"Yeah, but it does make sense for them to want financial flexibility. It's better to wait until your young players are ready before you go out and spend for help."

"Well, even if the youth infusion is a year or two away, you still need to make money and maintain fan interest in the interim. If the team doesn't win in the next two years, there simply won't be much money to spend in those seasons with payroll flexibility. And on top of that, your argument would imply that the young players aren't ready now, since they didn't do any offseason spending. Given that there's only a handful of impact prospects in the Rangers system, and none of them are even really slam dunks, it seems like this should be the time to pay a premium for quality, especially since the A's and Angels are completely loaded in the minor leagues."

"I don't buy that. This group - Blalock, Teixeira, Young - they're not close to their peaks."

"Is the Rangers' young offensive nucleus really set for a lot more improvement?"

"I think they are. I can't think of any team with a better set of three young infielders."

"Well, I really don't see how Mike Young is going to improve on what he did last season. He never showed that sort of power before in his career, and while he might continue to improve his plate discipline, he's also already 28 so some of his other skills should be fading."

"Well, at least his defense should improve now that he's used to shortstop again."

"I don't know, it should probably improve some, but he was really bad last season."

"But Teixeira's only scratched the surface so far. He's only had two seasons in the bigs, and he made a huge improvement in the second one."

"Okay, but he's not very young either. He's 25 in April, which is obviously young but is also right in the peak, so it's not like he's got unlimited growth potential. But while he was obviously much better in 2004 than 2003, the difference is partially due to chance. His talent in those seasons was probably somewhere in between the numbers he actually put up, and so while I think he'll keep improving for another year or two, he's already close to his ceiling."

"Maybe, but it's a pretty darn good ceiling. And I think Blalock is set to break out. He drew a lot more walks last season and he's only 24."

"Okay, but he also struck out a lot more last season, which means he was more patient at the plate but not any more effective. His ratio of unintentional walks to strikeouts stayed the same. I'm pretty concerned that his strikeout total increased by so much while his power numbers didn't see any improvement."

"Yeah, but sample size, man. Just because the power didn't show up last year doesn't mean it won't show up soon. It's good that he's becoming more patient, and more walks and fewer strikeouts will be on the way. He's still learning. In another couple of years, he should be awesome."

"True, but I don't really think that waiting for Blalock to go from good to excellent really justifies the Rangers dwelling on the threshold."

"Yeah, but the fourth and fifth piece of that nucleus aren't even around yet."

"Oh, man. Are Kinsler and Gonzalez really that special?"

"I think they are. I mean, look at what Kinsler did last year. He dominated two levels in just his first full pro season."

"Well, we're definitely not going to see what he did at Clinton again. That .441 BABIP isn't coming back, and he's not gonna hit a home run every 20 at bats again either. Those are major Texas League numbers."

"Okay, but I think it's fair to expect what he did at Frisco. Great plate discipline, low strikeouts, above average power, a lot of line drive singles. He wasn't old for Double-A, so he could really be special."

"Fair enough, although we should be careful about getting so excited about that OBP - he had 15 HBP in 320 plate appearances."

"Sure, but I don't think there's any question that he's really good, considering he's a middle infielder. I definitely wouldn't mind if he's brought up soon, maybe to let Soriano slip over to DH."

"I don't know about that. As distasteful as Dellucci is, Kinsler probably won't hit much better than him this year. And given that Kinsler's just now learning second base and that I've heard his defense wasn't all that good at short, he might not be a very big upgrade over Soriano's D. If he really is that good, I don't think it makes sense to start his service clock so early."

"I see your point, but I really think he's special, special enough that he'll succeed at any level at this point. But anyway, we might have a better DH candidate anyway, with Gonzalez."

"This argument really bothers me. He's just not all that good. The only aspects of his performance that were above average last season were his strikeout rate and his batting average on balls on play. This is a guy who's put up an isolated power above league average in only two seasons of the five he's played."

"Yeah, but he's been young at every level. And he's been league average or slightly better at every stop, except for his first PCL trip. I think after another half-season at Oklahoma he'll be ready to take over as the DH."

"Well, he's been young at every level because he's probably been promoted too aggressively. I just have a hard time getting high on any first baseman who hasn't shown solid power since 2002."

"He's still young though, and even if the power never grows in fully, he's still going to be a solid player with some power and a very nice batting average."

"But isn't it, I don't know, there's something about this organization. They've got a hitter's ballpark, and all their guys are coming up through the Texas League and the PCL. I think there's definitely an issue with - well, at least with fans, if not with management - with thinking that Rangers' hitters are better than they are."

"Well, sure, that might be the case, although Frisco and Oklahoma are both better parks for pitchers relative to their leagues. But I'd like to see some evidence that that's really a problem before I assume it to be. And besides, it's probably better that our pitchers get used to good hitting environments. You know, we haven't even talked about the pitching yet --

Will the pitching be able to match what it did in 2004?"

"Only if Illusion Warehouse has another special on smoke and mirrors."

"Yeah, but I think Hersheiser might be their major supplier, so they should get a discount. Really, I don't know why there's such an impression that the Rangers pitching last season was so fluky. Drese was better than expected, obviously, but I think his command was a whole lot better last season, and that's probably the result of a change in approach, rather than luck. He doesn't strike anybody out anymore, but that change was accompanied by a drop in walks. He's just keeping the ball down and getting groundball outs, not giving up the long ball. Doing all the things a pitcher should do in our ballpark."

"While I'll certainly grant that he was improved, it's probably both: he took a step forward last season, but he also had a lot of luck."

"All right, but aside from Drese there wasn't anybody who exceeded expectations by much. Aside from his terrible 2001 season, Kenny Rogers has consistently done what he did last season every year for a long time. And what Cordero did was in line with his previous two seasons. Mahay was pretty close to what he'd done before, and Almanzar was really good in the minor leagues in 2002 and 2003."

"I don't know. Frankie Francisco was way too good for someone with such poor control. For a flyball pitcher, his low home run rate was fluky, too."

"First, I don't think it's fair to say he has poor control. He walks a lot of guys, yeah, but it's because he tries to strike out anything with legs. And his home run rate per inning was low, sure, but his home run rate per batted ball wasn't too fluky. That many walks and strikeouts will make the home run per nine low."

"All of that might be true, but it still doesn't change the fact that any of the Rangers starters would be hard-pressed to find a job with a third of all major league teams, besides maybe as a fifth starter."

"Come on. What about Dominguez?"

"I'm not sure he's ready, although sure, he's a good guy to have, though he's probably more of a swingman than a full-time starter. Maybe him, but that's it."

"No way. Chris Young might not have pitched much above Double-A, but his peripherals have been solid at every level, and the only thing that did him in in Texas was a home run rate way above his established level in the minor leagues. That should come down."

"Okay, he's not chopped liver, but he's a fly ball pitcher in Arlington. There's not a lot of room for him to lower that home run rate."

"What about Ricardo Rodriguez? He hasn't put it all together yet, but it wasn't long ago that he was a top prospect."

"Except he probably shouldn't have been thought of as a top prospect because he lied about his age. Since he's reached Double-A he's lost his strikeout power and he's skidded by on luck and pitcher's parks. He doesn't have very good control, so his only real value is in keeping the ball on the ground."

"Yeah, but he's good at that. Just because these guys aren't perfect, or maybe even average, doesn't mean they're valueless."

"Of course it doesn't, but there are an awful lot of rough spots. Not to mention Chan Ho Park."

"Please don't. What about Joaquin Benoit? His ERA's been so bad that he probably gets underrated, but he'll be just fine if he doesn't give up so many home runs. Yeah, he's a fly ball guy, but he gets a lot of pop-ups and his strikeout rate is nice and strong. I see him pulling it together."

"Yeah, although that's really one of the Hersheiser guys. I don't know if his control can be as good as it was last season. And his success is still contingent on keeping the ball in the park, which means he's just kind of the wrong kind of pitcher for this ballclub."

"It's not like they can just pick and choose whether to have fly ball guys or ground ball guys. We're talking about pretty much freely available talent here, and they've done an admirable job picking over the scrap heaps."

"Of course, but should they really need to depend on the scrap heaps?"

"No, they shouldn't, but they've done a decent job operating on limited resources. Once you take out Park and A-Rod, they've got one of the smallest payrolls in baseball, and the fact that they've got at least a little shot at making the playoffs on that is impressive."

"In a sense, sure, it means they've done some good things. But overall, I'm just not impressed, and this is not a winning ballclub."

"It might not be a winning ballclub, but they've got enough going for them that I'm excited to see how it all pans out. And if not, we've still got Thomas Diamond."

"Yeah, there's always Thomas Diamond."

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-03-25T04:05:15+00:00 Five Questions: Milwaukee Brewers http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-milwaukee-brewers/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/five-questions-milwaukee-brewers/#When:04:05:15 Bud Selig. Sausage races. Losing records since 1992. No playoffs since 1982. The Milwaukee franchise has spent the better part of the last decade taking its cues from Al Roberts in Detour.

In 2004, fate seemed finally to upturn its stern frown and cast hope upon our Milwaukee's perennial losers. In January, Brewers ownership announced that the team was up for sale. A year later, the sale of the club to Mark Attanasio had been finalized, ending the reign of the Selig family.

In addition, the Brewers showed promise on the diamond. After finishing their sweep of the Rockies on July 1, the Brewers had won 14 of their last 21 and boasted a 41-34 record. This being the Brewers, mediocrity hit: the Brewers lost 60 games from July 2 onward, nearly matching Arizona's 61 losses over that span, and finished with an unsightly 67-91 record.

With an oft-touted influx of young talent in the wings and with several high-profile moves over the winter, many Milwaukee fans may finally have valid reason for optimism. How optimistic should they be?

1. Was the improvement in the Brewers' starting pitching last season for real?

Last season, Ben Sheets finally fulfilled his considerable promise. Sheets received only one third place in NL Cy Young voting despite besting winner Roger Clemens in ERA, K/9, BB/9, Innings Pitched, and FIP. That Sheets was set for a good year shouldn't have been in question, as his mediocre ERA's in his first three seasons masked his good peripherals and outstanding control, and his game showed clear yearly improvement.

Nonetheless, Sheets' 2004 season exceeded any reasonable projection and was simply off the charts. Sheets struck out more than a batter per inning and issued fewer walks (32) than he had games started (34). Sheets' only Achilles' heel was the long ball, but even then Sheets posted better home run rates than the average NL pitcher, both on a per inning and per plate appearance basis, despite pitching in a somewhat home run friendly ballpark.

Sheets is not likely to match his phenomenal season, but his outlook is still extremely good. Sheets pitched through back spasms in 2004, and reports indicate that that problem is behind him, which has led some to speculate that he could be even better in 2005. That's not a realistic expectation, as even matching his 2004 performance is an unrealistic expectation for any pitcher. But it's pretty impressive that the only thing working against Sheets is that he was so good in 2004 that he'll be hard-pressed to repeat that performance.

Meanwhile, journeyman Doug Davis experienced a breakthrough year in 2004. Davis spent much of his twenties shuttling between Texas and the Rangers' Triple-A affiliate, and the unfavorable run environments he pitched in obscured that he was doing a decent job. In 2003, the Rangers put Davis on waivers and he was claimed by the Blue Jays. Davis made 12 starts for Toronto but walked more batters than he struck out, and he was released at midseason. The Brewers snatched him up, and the move paid off: in 8 major league starts for the Brewers in 2003, Davis put up a 2.58 ERA. That ERA was largely smoke and mirrors, though, as Davis' peripherals were not too pretty. Davis' Milwaukee performance showed promise, though, as it mirrored his performance in his solid 2001 season.

Entering 2004, Davis was given a regular job in Milwaukee's rotation and had a very good season. In 34 starts, Davis threw 207.1 innings with a 3.39 ERA. Davis was helped out with a little luck on his way to putting up his impressive run average, but his peripherals didn't lag too far behind so there's no obvious sign of imminent collapse. As is the case with Sheets, a sizable chunk of his improvement is often attributed to the tutelage of pitching coach Mike Maddux, whose reputation is rapidly growing larger. If Maddux is truly responsible for Davis' improvement, then Davis seems a good bet to repeat his solid performance. Even if that improvement proves illusory, he'll still be a decent starting pitcher, as his inflated ERA's in Texas don't indicate his true talent.

A big part of the Brewers' first half success was the pitching of Victor Santos. Through the end of July, Santos was pitching excellently, with a 3.66 ERA in 105.2 innings and a solid 81:35 K/BB ratio. Most importantly, Santos, despite being a heavy fly ball pitcher, had allowed only six home runs to that point. Over the season's final two months, however, Santos couldn't keep it together, allowing 22 walks and a whopping 12 home runs against only 34 strikeouts in 48.1 innings.

Part of the reason for Santos' late season problems was lingering soreness in his middle finger from a blister and split nail, which also altered his throwing schedule. Additionally, his innings total crept up higher than the level he'd been accustomed to in recent seasons, and he also admitted that he developed several mechanical problems in the second half. Santos didn't pitch in winter ball this season for the first time in years, so there's reason for optimism that he can repeat his first half and not his second half.

The flip side of that, though, is that Santos hasn't looked too sharp in spring training. In any event, Santos is not at all likely to match his microscopic home run rate in the first half. Still, if he can regain the command and control he showed in the first half, he should be a productive pitcher in flyball-pitcher-friendly Miller Stadium.

Also in the rotation this season will be Chris Capuano, who had a miserable stint in the big leagues last season. Capuano's prospects look good, though, as he put up a very good strikeout rate coupled with decent control. The only thing holding Capuano back was an obscene number of home runs; if Capuano can keep the ball in the park and improve his control a bit, he'll be a solid starter.

The last spot in the Brewers rotation is reportedly a toss up, with Wes Obermueller, Gary Glover, Jorge de la Rosa, and Ben Hendrickson reportedly in the running. Obermueller is an underwhelming and undesirable possibility, a groundballer who elects not to strike out anyone without displaying particularly good control or ability to keep the ball in the yard. Glover demonstrates no ostensible ability to be within spitting distance of an average major league pitcher. De la Rosa has more potential than Glover or Obermueller, but he's struggled enough that it's hard to see him having a successful season at this point. The best option is likely Hendrickson, a groundballer whose future depends on his ability to improve his control.

2. Who's the next Danny Kolb?

The Brewers' two best relievers last season were Danny Kolb and Luis Vizcaino; the former was acquired for free after having been cut in spring training and the latter was acquired for Jesus Pena. The two combined to pitch 129.1 innings with a 3.41 ERA. Picking up good relief pitching on the cheap has not been a problem for the Brewers.

This past offseason, both Kolb and Vizcaino were traded. Kolb was exchanged for Atlanta's flamethrowing Jose Capellan. It's hard not to grow weary of any trade involving Atlanta and pitchers. Their excellent reputation in finding solid pitching talent and maximizing its potential by way of Leo Mazzone should make any team think twice about whatever talent the Braves may be seeking in trade. Conversely, it also casts doubt upon any pitcher the Braves would be willing to part with.

Still, it's hard to imagine Mazzone helping Kolb even more than Maddux already did. Moreover, the Braves' decision doesn't necessarily reflect the talent of the pitcher but rather the type of the pitcher; it's pretty reasonable to expect Atlanta to think it can utilize Kolb's solid control better than Capellan's raw talent. The reason the Braves were willing to give up on Capellan was perfectly clear to all sides: he's got a fantastic fastball, but lacks outstanding control and a decent second pitch. That's just not Atlanta's kind of pitcher, but he's the kind of high-yield bond the Brewers can benefit from investing in.

The Brewers' biggest weakness figures to be their bullpen, apparently entrusted to luminaries like Derrick Turnbow, Ricky Botallico, Justin Lehr, Mike Adams, and Matt Wise, in addition to whomsoever loses out on the final spot in the rotation. The Brewers might need to keep some dental records handy, because there's not much to distinguish any of these pitchers. Adams was good last season, and if that's attributable to the influence of the Brewers' staff he looks solid moving forward, but he didn't have a good history prior to 2004. If some of these guys turn out to be diamonds in the rough in the Kolb mold, then this may not be the weakness it appears to be. And of course, Brooks Kieschnick could always break out as a dominant relief ace.

3. How much will the acquisitions of Carlos Lee and Damian Miller help?

The Brewers made two moves this offseason that clearly signaled the team was willing to add payroll. Catcher Damian Miller was signed to a notably inexpensive contract, and left fielder Carlos Lee was acquired from the White Sox for Vizcaino and Scott Podsednik.

Miller is a major upgrade over the catchers the Brewers played last season. Gary Bennett and Chad Moeller hit for a combined .215/.276/.313 last season. While Miller is no offensive force, he has a long track record of being within spitting distance of league average, which is pretty good production for a catcher. On top of that, Miller is an excellent defensive catcher, and replacing most of the Moeller/Bennett playing time with Miller should add something in the neighborhood of an extra three of four wins. The long-term prospects of this acquisition aren't stellar since Miller is already 35 years old, but even with a moderate decline Miller still figures to be an average major league catcher. Ideally, Lou Palmisano will develop well enough to be a viable replacement when Miller's contract is up.

Lee is a slugger coming off a career year. Lee is no superstar, but he's an above average corner outfielder whose defensive improvement last season made him one of the best left fielders in the AL. Acquiring Lee came at a fairly stiff price for Milwaukee. Podsednik is almost certain to not repeat his stellar rookie season, but he's also unlikely to be as unproductive as he was in 2004. Between his speed and ability to draw walks, Podsednik should probably be a close to average centerfielder over the next couple of years while earning very little. While adding Lee certainly is an upgrade, the upgrade likely improves the team only by two wins or so, a fairly marginal upgrade for taking on an extra $7.5 million in salary and losing a valuable reliever in Vizcaino.

Lee's acquisition and Podsednik's departure push Brady Clark into the centerfield job. While Clark had a fine season last year, driven by a .385 OBP, it's not clear he can repeat it. Clark's improvement was due almost entirely to a huge increase in his walk rate. While Clark drew a lot of walks in the minor leagues, he did so at a very advanced age against much younger competition, so there was reason to expect the skill to dissipate once he reached the majors. In his brief time with the Reds in 2001, his walk rate stayed high. But in his limited playing time in 2002 and 2003, his walk rate fell off a cliff before returning to previous levels in 2004. If Clark simply altered his approach in '02-'03 and is capable of being an on-base machine, then the Brewers won't miss Podsednik. Though there's reason to doubt that Clark will be an excellent defender at centerfield, he should at least be helped out by having two defenders (in Lee and Geoff Jenkins) who were excellent in 2004.

4. What's the haps with Fielder, Weeks, and Hardy?

One of the best hitting prospects in baseball is Prince Fielder, who has managed to show an outstanding ability to smack the ball combined with phenomenal command of the strike zone. Fielder was one of the best hitters in the Southern League last season at age 20 and figures to start 2005 in Triple-A. While no one doubts that Fielder will soon be one of the better hitters in baseball, there are concerns over his rough defense at first base and alleged lack of athleticism.

Fielder's major league counterpart is Lyle Overbay, a solid but thoroughly unspectacular hitter with a track record of solid batting averages and on-base ability but generally lacking power. Overbay flashed outstanding doubles power in 2004, but isn't a solid bet to sustain what the performance from what looks to be his career year. Factoring in his apparently exceptional defense, Overbay is a decent placeholder until Fielder is ready, and is good enough that the Brewers have no reason to start Fielder's service time clock in 2005. However, Overbay's advanced age and lack of power as a first baseman will make him difficult to get a good return on in trade when the day comes to hand over the keys to Fielder.

Rickie Weeks was the acclaimed second pick in the 2003 draft after a dominant college career at Southern University. On the basis of an outstanding but very brief professional debut in A-ball, Weeks charted near the top of numerous prospect lists last season. His stint in Double-A last season dropped his stock considerably, as the only gaudy number he put up was his HBP total, a skill that many doubt will translate well up the ladder. Still, even if the HBP are expunged from his record he would have put up an on-base percentage and slugging percentage that were both above league average. While Weeks no longer has the sheen of a future Hall of Famer, 22-year-old second basemen who put up above average seasons in Double-A are relatively few and far between. If he can improve his defense, his offense should be sufficient to make him a very good player.

Weeks' major league doppelganger is Junior Spivey. While Weeks is good enough that he could eventually be the much better player, Spivey is an oft-underrated player whose offense has typically exceeded that of the average second baseman. While Spivey is no all-star, the Brewers have no reason to hasten Weeks in order to displace him.

J.J. Hardy is the most likely of the three to make an impact in the major leagues this season. Hardy held had an excellent offensive season in Double-A while only 21, and was hitting well in Triple-A last season before suffering a labrum injury in retribution for the Richie Sexson trade. While there's no reason to doubt Hardy's ability to make contact, his success will depend on whether he can import his outstanding walk from 2003 and whether the solid power he's displayed in the minor leagues will carry over despite his shoulder problems. If Hardy shows no lingering effects from the injury, his offensive projection is comfortably above average for a major league shortstop. On top of that, Hardy has drawn rave reviews for his defense, so his margin for error with the bat is a little greater.

5. Will the NL Central be soft enough for the Brewers to contend??

Overcoming the Cardinals, Cubs, and Astros will be a formidable task. While it could be said that all three have taken a step back, none of them are hemorrhaging talent as of yet. Each has major injury concerns in the rotation, the Cardinals are unlucky to be as dominant offensively as they were last season, the Astros have probably downgraded in the outfield and at second base, and the Cubs have major OBP issues. That having been said, each team has a pretty clear advantage over the Brewers in talent, and outside a lot of fortuity in the way the division's injuries shake down it's very unlikely that the Brewers will make a serious run.

But if everyone lives up to expectations, Brady Clark manages to repeat his 2004, Geoff Jenkins stays healthy, Russ Branyan reaches base often enough to be productive, the Brewers aren't affected by their lack of depth, and the bullpen finds itself performing capably, they've got a reasonable if distant shot at making the playoffs. In any event, they've got a good chance of breaking the elusive .500 threshold.

In Conclusion

The Brewers have what it takes and are finally moving in the right direction, but they're going to need a lot more hard work and at least a little luck to become a perennial contender. Their strategy of developing outstanding young talent, finding decent fill-ins at the major league level, and stocking the organization with quality coaching and managerial staff should soon pay dividends, if it isn't already.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-03-23T04:05:15+00:00 All Batted Ball Types, All The Time http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/all-batted-ball-types-all-the-time/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/all-batted-ball-types-all-the-time/#When:04:05:15 took a look at how some players fared relative to their line drive rates. Today, I'm going to try to take it a step further.

A player's line drive rate doesn't only affect the player's Batting Average on Balls In Play. For one, over 2% of line drives become home runs. For another, line drives are much more likely to become doubles and triples than either fly balls or groundballs. So even if the same percentage of LD, GB, and FB became hits, each batted ball type would not be equal.

With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to take a look at which players performed better and worse than their batted ball type numbers would indicate. To do this, I took the rate at which LD, GB, and FB became singles, doubles, triples, and home runs. Next, I used this data to calculate expected singles, doubles, triples, and home runs for each player.

Before I show you which player's had the biggest differences, let me make something clear: the difference between a player's results and expectations in this survey is in large part a measure of skill. The hang time and distance of any batted ball is dependant on the hitter, so players may (and almost certainly do) hit ground balls, line drives, and fly balls harder or softer than is typical. In addition, faster players will convert more outs into singles, more singles into doubles, and more doubles into triples. So outperforming expectations from batted ball types indicates good power and/or speed. Keep in mind, though, that luck will still play a role.

One more note: no park adjustments were made in this article. That's one of the next steps.

First, let's take a look at the top hitters by extra hits per batted ball, minimum 400 plate appearances:
Jason Bay       .086
Jim Edmonds     .082
Manny Ramirez   .081
Melvin Mora     .080
Barry Bonds     .075
Ichiro!         .075
Adam Dunn       .075
Jason Varitek   .066
Travis Hafner   .066
Mark Bellhorn   .063
Not an unfamiliar list by any means. Most of these guys are excellent power hitters, with the speedy Ichiro! the lone exception. However, it could certainly be said that a lot of these hitters had career years in 2004. Here are the bottom ten:
Jason Phillips  -.080
Scott Spiezio   -.068
Desi Relaford   -.062
Orlando Cabrera -.059
Rafael Palmeiro -.053
Craig Counsell  -.049
A.J. Pierzynski -.045
Todd Walker     -.042
Brad Ausmus     -.040
Placido Polanco -.040
A lot of catchers and middle infielders here. Some of these players have a long history of being poor hitters, while others like Pierzynski, Polanco, and Palmeiro are pretty good hitters who had seasons out of line with their recent performance.

Now, let's take a look at those who hit more home runs per batted ball than expected:
Barry Bonds     .086
Adam Dunn       .072
Jim Edmonds     .069
Jim Thome       .067
Sammy Sosa      .059
Manny Ramirez   .053
Adrian Beltre   .049
Jason Bay       .045
Paul Konerko    .045
Mark Teixeira   .045
This may be the least surprising list I've ever seen. Eight of those players ranked in the top ten in the league in home runs per batted ball. Here are the bottom ten:
Eric Young      -.037
Brian Roberts   -.035
Alex Cintron    -.031
Chone Figgins   -.031
Orlando Cabrera -.030
David Eckstein  -.030
Chad Tracy      -.029
Craig Counsell  -.028
Jason Kendall   -.028
Cesar Izturis   -.028
A veritable who's who of middle infielders, with everybody's favorite HBP machine (Kendall) thrown in for good measure.

How about the most doubles and triples per batted ball?
Mark Bellhorn   .043
Lyle Overbay    .042
Travis Hafner   .040
Matt Holliday   .039
J.T. Snow       .035
Jim Edmonds     .034
David Ortiz     .030
Orlando Hudson  .029
Aaron Rowand    .029
Royce Clayton   .028
An interesting mix. We have a pair each of Rockies and Red Sox, which probably has a lot to do with Fenway and Coors Field - anytime Royce Clayton shows up on a list of positive offensive achievements, you can probably guess there's a ballpark at fault. This list also includes J.T. Snow's alien abduction performance, which was perhaps aided by his figuring out that SBC Park yields a lot of doubles. It should also be noted that part of the "skill" here comes from having well-hit fly balls stay doubles instead of becoming home runs, which helps explain Clayton and Hudson. That also establishes how remarkable Jim Edmonds' season was, as he shows up in the top ten for both this list and the home run list.

Here's the bottom 10:
Alex Cora       -.034
Placido Polanco -.033
Scott Spiezio   -.029
Steve Finley    -.027
Pat Burrell     -.027
Desi Relaford   -.027
Aaron Miles     -.027
Paul Konerko    -.025
Edgardo Alfonzo -.025
Brad Ausmus     -.025
An eclectic mix. Konerko and Finley both hit a bunch of home runs that probably brought down their doubles total. Cora perhaps also belongs in that category, as he hit 10 home runs but only 9 doubles and 4 triples.

Finally, let's take a look at singles. The top 10 in extra singles per batted ball:
Ichiro!          .101
David Newhan     .066
Adam Everett     .061
Juan Pierre      .052
Melvin Mora      .047
Aaron Miles      .047
Luis Castillo    .046
Ivan Rodriguez   .045
Erubiel Durazo   .042
Marcus Giles     .041
The top name should surprise no one. The list is dominated by speedsters, but it may also suggest that Pudge and Durazo were supremely fortunate last season.

The bottom 10:
Jason Phillips     -.044
Luis Gonzalez(Ari) -.041
Vinny Castilla     -.040
Michael Barrett    -.039
Mark Teixeira      -.036
Todd Walker        -.034
Tony Batista       -.034
Ramon Hernandez    -.033
Dmitri Young       -.033
Chipper Jones      -.032
An awfully slow bunch. Frankly, I'm getting tired of seeing lists with both Castilla and Batista. How rough was Jason Phillips' season? He had fewer singles than his batted ball types would suggest, but he also had fewer doubles, fewer triples, and fewer home runs. Perhaps he's hitting a healthy combination of infield pop-ups and weak ground balls or perhaps he just had the unluckiest season in baseball.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-03-18T04:05:15+00:00 Another True (Outcomes) Hero http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/another-true-outcomes-hero/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/another-true-outcomes-hero/#When:04:05:15 True Outcomes Hero for his refusal to put the ball in play. His strict adherence to the principles of hitting for the Three True Outcomes -­ the strikeout, the walk, and the home run -­ was music to the ears of many baseball fans.

Things are not all rosy for True Outcomes heroes, however. In a world where batting average continues to be overvalued, sluggers who hit for tremendous power and who get on base often but let their average slide will often face resistance. One such slugger is Russell Branyan. Once lauded as the ultimate modern day True Outcomes Hero, Branyan is spending March fighting for his first full-time major league job with the Brewers.

Branyan, a left-handed hitting third baseman and occasional outfielder, was selected out of high school in the 1994 amateur draft by Cleveland. Branyan struggled in rookie ball, but Cleveland elected to promote him to low-A for his first full professional season. Branyan spent two seasons in the Sally League, and his power numbers were phenomenal. He hit one home run every 13 at bats and notched a whopping .296 Isolated Power. However, Branyan also showed poor command of the strike zone, striking out once every 2.7 at bats. His unimpressive .264 average in two seasons at the Sally League was not what the Indians were looking for.

In 1997, Branyan was promoted to high-A Kinston, where he simply tore the cover off the ball with a .290 batting average and a .663 slugging percentage. On top of that, his plate discipline showed improvement, with his strikeouts down and his walks up. Promoted late in the season to Double-A, however, Branyan couldn’t keep his batting average up, hitting only .234. Nonetheless, his overall production was fine due to the grace of the True Outcomes, as he walked at an outstanding rate and hit a home run every 12 at bats.

In 1998, Branyan adjusted to AA, tearing through pitchers to the tune of a .693 slugging percentage. Unfortunately, his season was cut short by injuries.

Promoted to Triple-A for 1999, however, Branyan fell apart. He struck out 187 times in 395 at bats, putting up a putrid .208 batting average. He managed only 40 singles, but offset that with 42 extra base hits, including 30 home runs. While he continued to draw walks prodigiously, he didn’t do it with enough frequency to save his season. Given a brief audition in the big leagues at midseason, he failed to impress.

Given a second shot at Triple-A at age 24, Branyan managed to improve his power numbers and create a little extra distance above the Mendoza line. Called up to the big leagues on May 31, Branyan made a big impression, smacking six home runs in his first twenty-three plate appearances. Splitting time as a fill-in at DH and in the outfield, he finished his first significant stay in the majors with an excellent .238/.327/.544 line.

In 2001, Cleveland’s third baseman, Travis Fryman, started the season on the DL. Demonstrating faith in our hero, the Indians gave the starting third base job to Branyan, and he did not let them down. In the Indians’ game against the Yankees on June 2, Branyan hit his 12th home run of the season, raising his seasonal line to .247/.333/.549. Things were going well for Branyan. Unfortunately, this game also marked the return of the injured Fryman, who pinch hit for Branyan in the eighth inning.

On the basis of Fryman’s excellent 2000 season, Branyan’s spot in the starting lineup disappeared. This left precious little playing time to Branyan, as Marty Cordova and Juan Gonzalez were having very good seasons in the outfield corners while Jim Thome and Ellis Burks had excellent seasons at first base and DH. Branyan only managed 175 plate appearances over the remainder of the season, and he atrophied to the tune of .216/.297/.418, finishing the season at a disappointing .232/.316/.486. Meanwhile, Fryman couldn’t be dislodged from the starting lineup despite hitting only .263/.327/.335.

In 2002, Branyan looked to finally have his shot, as the departures of Marty Cordova and Juan Gonzalez via free agency left left field open. Unfortunately for our hero, nothing went right. Branyan performed terribly, and on June 7, with Branyan hitting .205/.278/.379, Cleveland flipped him to Cincinnati for Ben Broussard. Cincinnati, with its characteristic glut of outfielders and Sean Casey and Aaron Boone at the corners, had no starting job for Branyan, who ended up playing primarily when Casey was injured.

In the little playing time he had with the Reds, he acquitted himself very well, hitting .244/.349/.516. Unfortunately, Branyan also injured his shoulder with the Reds. In December 2002, he had arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder, and he wasn’t healthy again until June.

Upon his return, there was no abundance of playing time. For the next two months, Branyan saw mostly pinch-hitting duty, and in 76 plate appearances was hitting .226/.368/.484. Finally, a starting spot opened for Branyan when the Reds traded Aaron Boone to the Yankees at the trade deadline. There was much rejoicing, but it was to be short-lived; in his second day as the starting third baseman, Branyan suffered a high-ankle sprain and missed most of the ensuing month. Perhaps not fully healthy, Branyan slumped in September and finished the season hitting .216/.322/.438.

The Reds, not confident in Branyan’s ability to stay healthy and perhaps not fans of his offensive approach, elected not to offer Branyan arbitration in the offseason, making him a free agent. He agreed to a minor league contract with the Braves, but Atlanta wasn’t too taken with him. The Braves decided to hand their third base job to the underwhelming Mark DeRosa and relegated Branyan to Triple-A. After less than a month, the Braves decided to unload Branyan to Cleveland for a player to be named later, who turned out to be the supremely unimpressive journeyman minor league reliever Scott Sturkie.

Playing once again for Buffalo, Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate, Branyan hit .288/.374/.591 in 366 plate appearances. The Indians weren’t too interested in giving him a major league roster spot, though, as corner infielders Casey Blake, Ben Broussard, and Lou Merloni were each in the midst of career years.

Finally, on July 26, Branyan was dealt to Milwaukee for future considerations. The Brewers immediately called Branyan up to the major league club to take over for the slumping Wes Helms. Over the balance of the season, Branyan started the majority of Milwaukee’s games at third base and hit a tasty .234/.324/.525. Having once again demonstrated that he can adequately handle major league pitching, our hero seemed poised to finally be rewarded with an everyday job.

Sadly, that everyday job may prove illusory. Reports indicate that Brewers manager Ned Yost remains infatuated with Helms, and Helms arrived at spring training as the Brewers' obligatory "in the best shape of my career!" guy. In addition, the charred remains of prodigal son Jeff Cirillo are in Brewers camp, and Brewers intelligentsia has proclaimed that there's a three-man race between Cirillo, Helms, and Branyan for the hot corner.

Helms is certainly talented in his own right, and Cirillo himself was once an excellent player. However, Helms is unlikely to repeat the 2003 performance that his proponents tout, and even then he only hit .261/.330/.450. Meanwhile, Cirillo is three years removed from his last decent season. Branyan's potential is clearly northward of either of his competitors.

The sensible move is to make Branyan the regular starter and to trot out the right-handed Helms on days when the opposition starts a southpaw. Unfortunately, there's reason to doubt that Yost and the Brewers will do so.

All that True (Outcomes) Believers can do now is hope Milwaukee comes to its senses by rewarding our Hero with the starting job he so richly deserves.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-03-10T04:05:15+00:00 The Home Field Advantage http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-home-field-advantage/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-home-field-advantage/#When:04:03:15 changed over time, with home teams in the .530-.540 win-percentage range in recent years.

What’s responsible for home-field advantage? Ad hoc explanations abound – road-weary players under-performing due to fatigue or lousy bedding, fielders and pitchers accustomed to the particular of their particular ballpark, umpires playing to the crowd, the emotional impact of the fans. But if we’re interested in why home-field advantage exists, we need to know what it’s composed of.

Obviously, home-field advantage is in part a park-specific phenomenon; the home field advantage for the Rockies will differ considerably from the home field advantage of the Marlins. In addition, it’s easy to measure the value of home field advantage, but it’s much more difficult to decipher how much of an observed home field advantage came from leveraging the particularities of a park’s features by acquiring players who fit the park best. The distinction between observed home field advantage in the past and likely/potential home field advantage in the future is crucial.

In order to determine the home field advantage created by each individual park, we should first determine the typical home field advantage and then express each park’s advantage relative to the average advantage. I’ll be looking at the effects of each individual park in future articles; the purpose of this article will be to establish the average home field advantage.

Using STATS batted ball data, interleague play excluded, I’ve compiled the observed home field advantage factors for 1999-2004. I used the same methodology as in my Dodger Stadium article, so if you’re not sure what any of this means, check that out. The only difference was that I put $GB ahead of $LD in the events chain this time.

These are the numbers as expressed from the point of view of the home team’s batters – in other words, how many times the home team’s batters are hit by pitches divided by how many times they were hit by pitches on the road.
             $HBP  $foul    $BB     $K    $gb    $ld
NL          1.016  0.984  1.070  0.945  0.992  1.014
AL          1.068  0.987  1.079  0.960  0.992  0.996

Groundballs   out            $h    $xb    $3b   $roe
NL          0.985         1.047  1.078  1.063  1.016
AL          0.989         1.033  1.037  1.019  1.028

Flyballs      out    $hr    $h     $xb    $3b   $roe
NL          1.000  0.987  1.007  0.975  1.099  1.097
AL          0.999  1.013  0.988  0.995  1.158  1.182

Linedrives    out    $hr     $h    $xb    $3b   $roe
NL          1.015  1.054  0.994  1.051  1.161  0.972
AL          1.020  1.114  0.993  1.007  1.172  0.778
And because the distinction between line drives and fly balls gets hairy, check out all airballs:
Airball       out    $hr     $h    $xb    $3b   $roe
NL          0.998  0.991  1.005  1.019  1.114  1.064
AL          1.004  1.026  0.989  1.003  1.164  1.075
Home teams are more likely to reach base on groundballs, and they’re also more likely to turn any hit into a double or any extra base hit into a triple. In the NL, airballs actually saw a tiny homefield disadvantage in terms of home runs, but that was offset by slightly fewer outs. In the AL, it was reversed, as some extra home runs were offset by extra outs. There also was an advantage on foul outs, but it’s not really significant.

The most overwhelming factor, however, is walks and strikeouts, as has been observed previously. Home teams are much more likely to draw walks and much less likely to strike out.

The effect of walks and strikeouts clearly trumps the other effects of home field advantage in significance. I used Base Runs to estimate run scoring for the NL and AL home and road offensive numbers. Combining Base Runs and outs, I then used Pythagopat to determine the resulting win percentages for the home teams. To demonstrate the relative impacts of the various components, I grouped the effects into four categories – groundballs, airballs, balls and strikes, and foul outs – and saw what the home team’s win percentage would look like if every other effect was neutral. In other words, if home field advantage affected only groundballs and left airballs, balls and strikes, and foul outs unaffected, how often would the home team win a game between two completely equal teams?
'99-'04             NL W%   AL W%
No Change          0.5364  0.5279
Groundballs        0.5115  0.5085
Airballs           0.5025  0.5001
Balls and Strikes  0.5219  0.5192
Foul Outs          0.5004  0.5004
Since we’re just using Base Runs, baserunning isn’t included (although James Click looked at that angle for Baseball Prospectus). The impact of foul outs is pretty minimal, though consistent. In the NL, airballs had some impact while in the AL, they had none. The impact of groundballs was a big deal in the NL, but fairly small in the AL. The impact of balls and strikes reigned supreme, constituting about two thirds of the total home field advantage. Here too the NL saw a slightly bigger home field advantage.

These results certainly had me wondering why the NL saw a bigger home field advantage. To see if the variability in the sample was obviously responsible, I checked the numbers for 1999-2001 versus 2002-2004:
'99-'01             NL W%   AL W%
No Change          0.5304  0.5243
Groundballs        0.5095  0.5051
Airballs           0.5028  0.4992
Balls and Strikes  0.5187  0.5187
Foul Outs          0.5004  0.5004

'02-'04             NL W%   AL W%
No Change          0.5426  0.5316
Groundballs        0.5147  0.5109
Airballs           0.5023  0.5010
Balls and Strikes  0.5252  0.5195
Foul Outs          0.5003  0.5003
Looks like it’s probably partially a sample issue. However, it may also have something to do with the NL having more parks and more extreme parks. It’s also interesting the extent to which home field advantages have risen pretty much across the board in comparing these two three-year periods. I won’t venture to guess why at this time.

The groundball advantages – as well as the advantages for extra base hits, triples, and foul outs – can be explained pretty intuitively, as fielders from the home team are more familiar with the environment of the ballpark. Since there does not appear to be a substantial or universal trend in the number of airballs that are caught or go for home runs, it’s unlikely that the issue is that fatigued visiting ballplayers aren’t hitting the ball as hard. This is probably an issue of familiarity.

The balls and strikes, on the other hand, are more difficult to explain. Are umpires really helping out the home team? Are pitchers more familiar with the pitching mounds at home? Are visiting batters having a harder time seeing the ball or reacting to it? Is fatigue affecting the results?

It may be significant here that the total number of balls in play (bip) per plate appearance (pa) does not differ much – the home/road factor for bip/pa was 1.0079 in the NL and 1.0002 in the AL. That leads me to believe that the major change in walks versus strikeouts is related to judgment of whether a pitch is a ball or strike – either the batter’s poor judgment, induced by lack of familiarity with the hitter’s backdrop, or the umpire’s judgment, giving better calls to the home team. Whether that speculation is accurate, I’m not in a position to say.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-03-02T04:03:15+00:00 An In-Depth Look at Dodger Stadium’s Effects http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/an-in-depth-look-at-dodger-stadiums-effects/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/an-in-depth-look-at-dodger-stadiums-effects/#When:04:05:15
On top of that, even 81 full games of data are far from an optimal sample size. 243 full games of data is a sub-optimal sample size. In addition, new parks are often introduced into the league and different teams visit different parks with differing frequencies and at different times season to season, which is of significance since weather plays a substantial role in how many runs are scored in any given game. As such, measuring park factors gives us a rough idea of the park’s value to the run environment, but doesn’t quite answer the question of the park’s true talent level, so to speak. It is with these caveats in mind that I now embark on a journey to elucidate the impact of Dodger Stadium on the baseball games it hosts.

You’re surely familiar that Dodger Stadium is typically regarded as an extreme pitcher’s park. Its one-year park factors, based on runs per game at home divided by runs per game on the road, have been .908, .868, and .825. That sample is pretty small, so suggesting that Dodger Stadium has become less severe as a pitcher’s park over the last three seasons is premature and likely inaccurate. It is, however, a sample that suffices in making the point that Dodger Stadium favors defense and hurts offense.

The Dodgers have been a pretty good team recently. Over the past three seasons, they’ve gone 141-102 at home and 129-114 on the road. That has a significant impact on the park factor that one computes for them. If you use the typical method based on runs scored and allowed, home and away, you make Dodger Stadium look more like a pitcher’s park. Why? Because the Dodgers are making more of their road games last nine full innings and making fewer of their home games last nine full innings, and fewer innings means fewer runs. If Dodger Stadium were completely neutral, any 2002-2004 park factor based on counting stats will make it appear to be more of a pitcher’s park. A sliver of Dodger Stadium’s reputation as a pitcher’s park can be attributed to Los Angeles only having ten seasons under .500 in 43 years at Chavez Ravine.

The effect of that particular bias has been significant. Using runs scored, Dodger Stadium has a park factor of .86 for the Dodgers’ offense and .87 for the Dodgers’ defense. Prorate to runs per out, however, and the park factor has been .92 for the Dodgers’ offense and .83 for the defense. The difference between those two figures is what we typically call home field advantage.

To get a better idea of what Dodger Stadium’s impact is, we need to look into how it suppresses run scoring. And here it’s important to consider that the same issue that makes Dodger Stadium appear to hurt runs slightly more than it does in park factors applies to other types of park factors. The park factors tracked last season by ESPN, for instance, only measure each offensive event by the ratio of counting stats, not by the ratio of the event’s frequency. Instead of measuring home runs per at bat, it’s measuring home runs per game.

If you look at that data, you’ll see that Dodger Stadium had an extreme park factor for walks last season. If there is a disparity in walks, we would expect a disparity in hits and home runs; fewer walks mean more opportunities for all the other offensive events. As such, it is more illuminative to consider the frequency of each offensive event in the context in which it occurs. That is to say, we should break things down into walks per plate appearance, strike outs per at bat, home run per at bat minus strikeout, hits per ball in play, and so forth, an approach familiarized by Voros McCracken and Tangotiger. This will then isolate the effect that Dodger Stadium has on each kind of event.

We can do even better than that, though, with batted ball data. To capture each event’s frequency, I’ve broken down each event into this chain: IBB, SH, Foul Out, HBP, BB, K, Line Drive, Fly Ball, Ground Ball. To calculate the frequency of a strikeout, K is divided by (K+LD+FB+GB) for $K. For $LD, it’s LD/(LD+FB+GB). I’m not completely confident that this is the best way to divide things up, but if the data is used correctly that shouldn’t be an issue. Within each type of batted ball, the chain is HR, Outs, Extra Base Hits, and Triples, with a separate reached on error calculation ($ROE = ROE/(ROE+Outs)). Foul outs have been removed from the fly ball totals.

Here are the observed park factors for 2002-2004, based on STATS Inc. data, and excluding interleague play (the last column, "r/o", is the park factor for Base Runs (David Smyth’s run estimator) per out for each type of batted ball):
            $foul    $bb     $k    $ld    $fb    $gb
Offensive   1.261  1.011  1.002  1.059  0.963  1.027
Defensive   1.288  0.892  1.086  1.051  0.908  1.070
Total       1.274  0.951  1.044  1.055  0.936  1.048

GB            out    $hr     $h    $xb    $3b   $roe    r/o
Offensive   1.018      -  0.933  0.941  0.411  1.048  0.869
Defensive   1.040      -  0.867  0.779  div/0  0.970  0.728
Total       1.029      -  0.900  0.860  0.647  1.009  0.798

FB            out    $hr     $h    $xb    $3b   $roe    r/o
Offensive   1.019  1.160  0.773  0.996  1.038  0.350  1.002
Defensive   1.005  1.325  0.763  0.914  0.320  0.840  1.128
Total       1.012  1.242  0.768  0.955  0.679  0.595  1.065

LD            out    $hr     $h    $xb    $3b   $roe    r/o
Offensive   1.267  0.681  0.925  0.912  0.728  0.817  0.675
Defensive   1.124  0.698  0.966  0.699  0.528  0.854  0.808
Total       1.196  0.689  0.945  0.805  0.628  0.836  0.742
Dodger Stadium has benefited Dodger pitchers significantly in walks and strikeouts. It has been neutral for Dodgers hitters, so it’s easy to speculate that Dodger Stadium has a tough hitter’s backdrop that Dodger hitters get used to. In addition, it has, as expected, greatly increased the number of foul outs.

Dodger Stadium has been very tough on ground balls. Many more grounders are converted into outs and the number of extra base hits and triples is reduced. Thus, ground ball pitchers should benefit a great deal from Dodger Stadium, as some preliminary research has indicated. Don't flip out about that 'div/0' in the triples column; there were only nine groundball triples in the data sample and none of them happened to have been allowed by Dodger pitchers on the road.

In the past, I’ve theorized that Dodger Stadium was a better park for fly ball pitchers because it reduces the number of doubles hit. That appears to be absolutely wrong, as while it does reduce the number of doubles on fly balls it does so by turning them into home runs; for the number of fly balls that become doubles, triples, and home runs combined Dodger Stadium has been neutral. By turning extra fly balls into home runs, Dodger Stadium increases the run value of a fly ball.

Most surprising, though, were the results for line drives. Can Dodger Stadium really be severely increasing the number of line drive outs? Not likely. Given that the park factor for line drives was 1.055, it’s fairly clear that the STATS scorers at Dodger Stadium have called more balls line drives than average. So whether the number of line drives that become home runs at Dodger Stadium is a result of the park’s dimensions or is due to the scorers at Chavez Ravine calling more home runs fly balls, I’m not sure. I can’t think of any method that tries to divide up the excess fly balls, so let’s take a look at the numbers if we combine line drives with fly balls:
air           $hr     $h    $xb    $3b   $roe    r/o   outs  xbh/air
Offensive   1.026  0.932  0.891  0.844  0.422  0.877  1.038    0.955
Defensive   1.142  0.980  0.712  0.419  0.862  0.979  1.002    0.847
Total       1.084  0.956  0.802  0.632  0.642  0.928  1.020    0.901
Once again, foul outs were removed from this calculation. As we would probably expect, Dodger Stadium hasn’t had a substantial effect on the number of line drives and fly balls that were caught for outs. It has turned a lot of balls into home runs, though, and Dodgers pitchers have been the main victims. At the same time, however, it’s reduced the overall number of extra base hits considerably, even when including home runs (that’s the xbh column at the end). The major difference between the rate of extra base hits on balls in play for Dodgers hitters and pitchers is not surprising, as that’s one of the more sizable areas of home field advantage in general.

Based on this data, then, it would appear that the extra base hits Dodger Stadium takes away are on balls with lower hang time, as the effects on line drives – though ostensibly including tweener balls that were classified line drives but may have been fly balls elsewhere – were much more severe than on fly balls. This makes some intuitive sense, as fly ball doubles would tend to result from balls that are simply hit far enough from fielders that by the time they’re fielded the batter’s already close to second base. Conversely, line drive doubles are probably much more dependent on funny bounces and wall angles, the kind of shenanigans Chavez Ravine’s very clean layout doesn’t tolerate.

Furthermore, while this evidence is far from conclusive on the matter, it lends some minuscule credence to the notion that Dodger Stadium keeps sharply hit balls from going over the fence but helps loftier fly balls turn into home runs. As such, this may be further evidence that groundball pitchers should benefit more from Dodger Stadium, as Robert Dudek’s excellent article on hang time in the THT Annual indicated that the fly balls that groundball pitchers give up tend to stay airborne for less time, as the fly balls they allow will often result from “mistake” pitches. Incidentally, recent Dodger signee Derek Lowe was one of the pitchers observed for Dudek’s study.

So how much of an impact on overall scoring does each component have? To give a rough idea, I ran the numbers for what Dodger Stadium would look like if I normalized each major component of the park’s impact on scoring. To do this, I set up all the offensive totals as a function of each $component, and to isolate the effect of one $component or group of $components I substituted the away value for that component into the home calculations. I divided the park’s effects into four categories: Foul Outs, Backdrop, Groundballs, Airballs. For foul outs, I normalized the $foul component. For Backdrop, I normalized $hbp, $bb, and $k. For Groundballs, I normalized groundball $h, $xb, $3b, and $roe. For Airballs, I normalized $hr, $h, $xb, $3b, and $roe for line drives and fly balls, excluding foul outs.

So here’s a rough idea of what Dodger Stadium’s Base Runs per out would be if it played as perfectly neutral for foul outs, hitter’s backdrop, groundballs, and airballs:

image

Now, here’s what it looks like the other way around – if everything is normalized except the component in question:

image

The overall impact of airballs is largest, though for the pitchers groundballs and hitter’s backdrop had a bigger impact. Clearly, the impact of foul outs has been, on the whole, fairly small. This might seem counter-intuitive at first, but when you consider that the loss of a foul out simply turns into another plate appearance and 68.8% of all non foul out PA’s at Dodger Stadium became outs anyway, it’s not hard to grasp that the overall impact is fairly marginal.

A story which may have evaded the notice of most non-Dodgers fans this season is the renovation at Dodgers Stadium. Seats have been removed from the outfield while new seats have been added where there used to be foul ground around the infield and behind home plate. It’s unclear, to me, that this should have any substantial effect on Chavez Ravine’s scoring environment aside from a reduction in the number of foul balls caught for outs. Actually, it should marginally affect the frequency of runners advancing on passed balls and wild pitches, but that’s beyond the scope of this research.

I’ve seen speculation that this renovation will have almost no effect; I’ve also seen speculation that this will turn Dodger Stadium into a neutral park or even a hitter’s park. The data I presented above certainly suggests that the impact will not be too large. Using my normalization model, I found that Dodger Stadium would have a park factor of about .92 if there were no foul outs recorded whatsoever. That’s clearly a figure in need of salt, as I imagine having no foul ground would impact the pitcher-batter confrontation in other ways. What that really measures is what things would look like if every foul ball was dropped.

How many foul outs can we expect to see next season? Using the seating chart at Dodgers.com, it looks like Dodger Stadium will have about 40% as much foul ground next season. If we assume the number of foul outs is directly proportional to the amount of foul ground – an assumption I can’t back up, but one I feel comfortable making nonetheless – that reduces the park factor for foul outs from 1.274 to 0.510. Using the above normalization method, that would bring the park factor for base runs per out up from the observed .866 to .899. That’s certainly a significant change, but it’s also a change small enough that random sample size noise will make it largely invisible.

The poster boy of sorts for the Dodger Stadium renovation is Derek Lowe, whose four year, $36 million signing this offseason surprised most sabermetrically-inclined onlookers. I’d prefer not to engage in idol speculation on how Lowe will perform with the Dodgers. However, we can fairly easily take Lowe’s performance record in Boston and translate it to a 2005 Dodgers context.

To make the translations, I used Lowe’s batted ball data (GB, FB, LD) and his TBF, HBP, BB, and K data. I applied park adjustments for Dodger Stadium. I did not use his actual single, double, triple, home run, and reached on error data. For the park adjustments, I used the values from this study, regressed to reflect the sample size, and applied them to the league averages for results of batted balls. I also used the Dodgers’ total park factors rather than the defense-only park factors to account for homefield advantage differential (in other words, to reflect that part of the defensive park factor is poorer defense on the road). I also assumed Lowe would face equal numbers of batters at home and on the road. I added in adjustments for double plays and the Dodgers defense; I based the Dodgers defense on regressed UZR data, with a +20 value for the Dodgers infield and +8 for the outfield (with Drew in center and Bradley in right).

Keep in mind, this is just based on batted ball classification (grounder, fly, line drive), not the distance or speed of batted balls. Salty salt salt salt.

Here are Derek Lowe’s numbers, translated for how they’d look in 2005 with Los Angeles. Note that this is run average, not earned run average. The baseline for RAA and RA+ was the league average starting pitcher, for whom I made the same translation for playing in Dodger Stadium with the same defense (the resulting RA was 4.42):
        RA  RA+     IP  RAA
2002  3.26  135  213.1   27
2003  3.72  119  213.0   17
2004  3.91  113  200.1   11
If Lowe can put up 11 RAA over 200 innings he’s probably worth the $7.5 million he’s owed in 2005, considering the size of the Dodgers’ payroll and their chances at the playoffs. And if he does that, I’d bet some team would be willing to give up a little too much for the right to pay the majority of the $28.5 million remaining on his contract. Paul DePodesta inking Lowe may be a move that we look back upon as very, very shrewd.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-02-17T04:05:15+00:00 Magglio’s Millions http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/magglios-millions/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/magglios-millions/#When:04:03:15
Now that we can state unequivocally that the Tigers have done something terrible, let’s move on and consider why the Tigers have volunteered themselves for the full Samuel Taylor Coleridge treatment. Clearly, this contract has its roots in the Tigers incompetence in evaluating and projecting baseball talent. I look at Ordonez and see a player who's just below average defensively and hangs out on the hitter’s side of the defensive spectrum; while his offense projects to be worth about two and a half wins above average, overall he’s only worth about one and a half wins per season above the average right fielder. And that’s assuming he’s fully healthy.

In general, an average full-time player is worth $4 million and each additional win is worth about $2 million. Those baselines would lead us to believe Detroit is paying a $7-$8 million premium for Ordonez for this season alone. Factor in that Ordonez is on the wrong side of the aging curve, and the Tigers figure to be paying at least a $70 million premium over seven years to get Ordonez.

Now, the Tigers do get an out clause. If Ordonez’ left knee injury recurs and causes him to spend 25 or more days on the disabled list in 2005, then the Tigers can void the rest of the deal. The best case scenario for the Tigers is if Ordonez has a great season but misses a month to his knee injury, leading Detroit to cut ties with him in the offseason. In that case, Ordonez would be worth his $6 million salary, and reportedly his $6 million signing bonus would be nullified.

Given that it’s unlikely that a recurrence of his knee injury would cause at least 25 days to be spent on the DL but not keep him sidelined for a much longer period of time, that’s not a best case scenario anybody can reasonably expect. As such, the out clause is probably more likely to figure as a question of whether the Tigers throw away a few million in one season or a ton of money over five to seven seasons. The Tigers will be on the hook for $63 million for 2006-2009 with another $30 million in gaudy club options for 2010 and 2011 which become guaranteed if Ordonez meets somewhat modest playing time thresholds.

You may quibble with the notion of calling that the best case scenario since Ordonez could always break out and be a top 5 player over the life of the contract, but the odds of him doing so aren’t substantially larger than the odds of any other possible acquisition having a breakout of roughly equal proportion. Ordonez does not have any unique upside.

On top of that, the Tigers don’t really have a need for a slow, right-handed corner outfielder. They already have Craig Monroe, Bobby Higginson, and Rondell White on hand, and if Detroit would platoon Higginson and Monroe then they’d have average overall production at right field due to Higginson’s very good defense. Since they’re not likely to find any actual takers for Higginson and his bloated contract, Ordonez’ actual value added is quite low.

Now, this could mean the Tigers will move Higginson to center, where he’d be an adequate defender, and would essentially be paying for the difference between Ordonez and Alex Sanchez. That puts the upgrade more on the order of four or five wins, so $12 million for 2005 is close to reasonable. Two problems, though. First, it doesn’t appear the Tigers will do the right thing anyway; they’ll likely use this as an opportunity to bench Higginson out of spite. Failing that, White could be traded with Higginson moving to left to platoon with Monroe.

The upgrade from White to Ordonez is ~3 wins though, with the $9 million salary difference likely not worth it since White will probably yield the Tigers some variety of bilge water in trade. We’ll probably see more of Alex Sanchez and his high batting average and stolen base totals since his extreme lack of plate discipline (not to mention power) doesn’t influence the Tigers’ thinking too much. And in any event, the specter of Nook Logan still looms.

Second, there’s still the matter of all the future seasons when Ordonez will be overpaid by nine or ten million dollars. The specifics of the Tigers situation in 2005 can make Ordonez worth the cash, but we cannot expect his relative value in future seasons to be nearly so high.

So in terms of performance analysis, the Tigers have done a cringe-inducing job. But let’s make peace with that; the Tigers don’t seem to get how to evaluate talent. The interesting topic, for me, is the merit of the economic strategy behind the move.

The Tigers also spendthrifted themselves into a 2 year, $12 million deal with Troy Percival. Perhaps ironically, the Percival deal would have been about what Ordonez deserved. Percival’s value, on the other hand, isn’t a safe bet to be worth half of that. Given that the Tigers have said in the past that they’re willing to overpay for talent because they need to, this should come as no surprise. The question is, how willing should they be to overpay?

To answer that question, we need to know where the Tigers budget would go if not spent on player contracts. If Detroit doesn’t donate $105 million to Magglio Ordonez’ favorite causes, what happens with that money? More to the point, who determines what happens to that money?

By appearances, it seems the Tigers have set a high payroll threshold and are sticking to it even if it means overpaying both now and in future seasons. At face, this seems like an inefficient way to distribute the organization’s resources; why invest in winning now at 40 cents on the dollar when that same money could be spent to improve the team in the future?

There is something to be said, however, for having top-down budgeting. If I were to own a major league team, I’d certainly be skittish leaving the decision of how to allocate all of the team’s money to just the general manager. GM’s have a lot on their plate, and expecting them to make the decision about how to allocate all of the team’s resources is problematic, in part because expecting them to do the research to allocate it properly may be too much of a burden and in part because general managers will base the decisions on their own interests rather than the team’s interests. If a GM of a middling team wants to hold on to the job for a few more seasons, the GM will probably overspend for marginal talent and atrophy the farm system. If a GM of a different middling team wants to hold on to the job for a few more seasons and can’t attract enough talent, the GM might just dump the money into the farm system and say the team is investing in the future since his hands were tied. It’s just as easy to overspend on young talent and misallocate development resources as it is to overspend on free agents, doing little to help the team in the long-run and punting the short-term.

That being said, it’s absolutely ridiculous to set budgetary limits without conducting extensive research on the value of the investments in question, and I suspect that that’s the case with many organizations in baseball and probably the Tigers.

The Tigers do appear to be investing a good deal in player investment. Hiring David Chadd as scouting director should improve things, and the Tigers have several Latin American academies and have a history of being less than stingy with bonus money. Certainly, spending for Magglio Ordonez isn’t preventing them from investing in player development; it’s taking away money that could be added to the amount spent on player development.

Let me ask a practical question here: if, as we’ve established, we don’t think much of the abilities of the Tigers to properly evaluate major league talent, why should we expect them to be much better at doing it with younger players? If you give Detroit $20 million to spend on player development and say “Do with it what you will; all that matters is that you spend it,” there’s nothing inherent about investing in player development that makes it so that money will be spent more efficiently than the money allocated to Magglio. If a team’s not willing or unable to research the type of return a Magglio Ordonez will bring, than how are they going to be able to research the return they’d get on coughing up extra cash for a “tough sign” fifth-round pick with first-round talent? How are they going to be able to research the returns they’d get on hiring a dozen amateur scouts away from other teams or building a new academy somewhere? You can blow ten million dollars on player development just as easily as you can blow ten million dollars on 31-year-old right fielders.

So if the Tigers are locked into converting their money into baseball capital, they are almost certain to face diminishing marginal returns. That begs the question: why don’t they just invest that money outside of baseball and save it for a less rainy day? Why not just hold onto it and then spend big time when they’re set up to contend? If limiting the investment options to just baseball won’t provide much return, broadening the domain of investment should do the trick, and eventually that capital can be converted back to baseball when the value of a baseball investment will be stronger.

If the Tigers did that, then in a couple years when their homegrown talent is ready, they can, theoretically, buy up all the big free agent pieces and make a nice run.

There are a few problems with that approach. For one, it doesn’t matter when you overspend for a player; if the Tigers hypothetical peak is 2007, then they’re already paying for that extra piece. In Ordonez they bought the piece that, hypothetically, will put them over the top in 2007, but signed the contract two seasons prior to the payoff. Now, there’s no question that choosing your players to overspend for a few years prior to when you’ll need them is problematic. But then again, the market may escalate in the near future, so there’s certainly something to be said for loosening the purse strings early.

In addition, there’s evidence that if the Tigers waited until the moment was upon them they wouldn’t be able to acquire those players; they treated this offseason as the moment to overspend, and they haven’t been able to sign anybody to an ostensibly reasonable deal. You might blame that on players who simply don’t want to live in Detroit for whatever reason, but there’s certainly reason to believe that had the team already established itself as a “contender” that some of the marquee free agents would have signed with the Tigers. Put another way, there’s probably a Detroit premium in play whereby Detroit will always have to overspend, but there’s also a premium that losing teams have to pay to acquire free agents. A winning team can probably get better value in free agency, so winning now does generate interest.

So while Detroit going out into free agency with $20 million to burn this offseason has entailed overspending for marginal talent, Detroit going into free agency with $70 million to burn in a few years would almost certainly entail even more overspending for marginal talent.

Detroit is probably also on the limited no-trade clause all-star team, so it’s not like they can just save up now and take on the contracts of Jason Kendall types in the future. To get to the point where Detroit can leverage their monetary advantage effectively, they’re going to have to leverage it inefficiently for a while first.

Furthermore, this probably is The Moment for the Tigers. They underperformed their Pythagorean record last season, and based on components they were roughly a .500 team last season. While we should expect some regression from that because a number of their players had very good seasons, they’re certainly not out of it in the AL Central. The Twins figure to be the best team in the division, but the difference between the Twins and the Tigers is small enough that signing Ordonez can significantly impact the Tigers’ ability to make the playoffs or improve attendance in September. With the collective “no great shakes” aura of the White Sox, Royals, and Indians, gambling on the chance that the Twins stumble is pretty reasonable.

Looking at the future of their division, this season looks like the best time for Detroit to make a run. Cleveland has a lot of young talent, and in a year or two if its ownership decides to start spending they could make a pretty strong run. Similarly, Minnesota has a stocked farm system and their best players are all a few years shy of their probable peak. In addition, the Tigers farm system is probably several years away from being strong, so if the Tigers give up on the major league level now they’re stuck with doing so for several years. As such, it’s hard to fault the Tigers for wanting to win now while their window of opportunity is still open.

The Tigers don’t have a lot of options. Their club as currently composed is built to win now, even if it’s not built in a way that’s likely to win now. If they trade Ivan Rodriguez or Carlos Guillen or Dmitri Young for prospects, is it really likely that they’ll add long-term value? Perhaps, but it’s not a slam dunk by any means, and in so doing they cost the team wins and thus money in the short-term. Less money now means smaller budgets in the future.

So all told, my hunch is that the Tigers are going for the right strategy and have simply chosen a lousy way to execute it. Going 7 years/$133m for Carlos Beltran, for example, would cost an extra $4m per but would be worth the difference since he roughly projects to be worth about two wins over Ordonez. Similarly, Adrian Beltre, J.D. Drew, and Placido Polanco would have been superior options, and I bet the Tigers could have had Drew for the deal they gave Ordonez, Polanco for much less, and Beltre for not much more. And someone like Matt Clement would be a better fit too.

As it happened, though, the Tigers didn’t succeed in getting any of those guys, and they didn’t have much choice in the matter of Magglio Ordonez. The Tigers hands were tied in a number of knots, and while they deserve extraordinary castigation for being in the position they were in there wasn’t a lot they could do once they were in that position.

Only God and Scott Boras know why the Tigers thought that bidding $15 million per season instead of $10-$12 million per was necessary. But if the Rangers or Mets ended up giving Ordonez $65-70 million over five years, it wouldn’t do anything to help the Tigers solve their many problems.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Tom Meagher 2005-02-09T04:03:15+00:00