Much Ado About Nothing

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. School and life are busy and there really isn't much baseball news going on.

There's the A-Rod press conference today, but I'll be in class when it starts (Women in 20th Century Literature) and probably when it ends (Spanish and Latin American Film). Honestly, I couldn't care less about the whole damn thing and I hope this is the end of the issue...but I know better. Maybe this will end it for Spring Training but as soon as the season starts, we'll hear the "A-Roid" chants on the road and the boos at home and the whole can of worms will be re-opened. My first reaction to everything was not anger, but rather disappointment. At this point, though, I'm way past caring about the PED issue in baseball. I am, however, pissed off that the NFL essentially gets a free pass on the same issue, but whatever.

In legit baseball news, there are some things I'll touch on.

1. This is ridiculous. If anything like this happens, the Yankees, Mets, Phillies, and Braves--and any team that had to give up a draft pick--should go absolutely nuts on MLB.

2. Ken Griffey appears to be headed to the Braves. This is good news for Yankee fans (especially me) because it means the Nady and/or Swisher to the Braves talks will die. Keeping both on the roster provides depth and insurance. We all know how big my man crush on Nick Swisher is; hell, I named one of my fantasy teams "Swisher's Biggest Fan."

3. After watching bits and pieces of that Baseball Tonight special on Sunday night, I have made it my goal to watch as little BBTN as possible this season. This is for a few reasons: a) I first tuned in when they were talking about the Rays. They listed Pat Burrell as a new acquisition (I think this is a great move) and they listed his BA (.250) and HR (33) totals next to his name. When will ESPN, the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" catch up with the times and stop using BA/HR/RBI as their "Holy Trinity?" Ugh. b) John Kruk and Buck Showalter both agreed that Joba Chamberlain should be in the bullpen, citing a few tired arguments. The first, by Kruk, was that Mariano Rivera won't pitch forever and the Yankees will need someone to close when he is gone. This just shows that the people at ESPN do absolutely no research. At all. There is someone being groomed for the future closer's job. His name is Mark Melancon. He will put an end to this stupid Joba to the bullpen debate. The second "argument," agreed upon by both Showalter and Kruk, is that Chamberlain can pitch in 60-70 games out of the bullpen rather than 25-30 as a starter, and thus "impact more games." This is dumb. If Chamberlain's a reliever, he'll pitch 1-2 innings a game. That way, he's only impacting 1/9 to 2/9 of a ball game. As a starter, he's impacting 5/9 to 7/9 of the game. Which is more valuable? If you say it's the former, that's like saying 2 quarters are worth more than 1 dollar because there's 2 of them, as opposed to 1 of the dollar. Anyway, it's just clear that the guys at ESPN have some work to do. Baseball Tonight is good for one thing--showing us highlights and getting interviews. In the words of Austin Powers, analysis is not their bag, baby.

3. In the Joba vein, there's this article by Joel Sherman in the New York Post. In honor of the fallen Fire Joe Morgan, I'm going to try and shred this post.

2. When it comes to Chamberlain's long-term role a question that is often asked is what is more valuable: 70 innings or 200 innings? I think that is a misleading talking point by those who want Chamberlain to be a starter.

No it isn't. 200 innings is usually more valuable than 70. Hell, an average 150 is about the same as a great 80. For a good summary of that article check here.

Now back to the 70/200 matter. You should really ask who is pitching the 70 and who is pitching the 200? For the champion Phillies, Cole Hamels' 227.3 innings were probably more valuable than Brad Lidge's 69.3, but were Jamie Moyers' 196.3. If you told the Red Sox, they could play this season with either Jonathan Papelbon or Josh Beckett, which do you think they would take? It is not a layup.

As someone in the comments pointed out, Moyer (39.7 Pitcher VORP) was more valuable than Lidge (26.5 VORP). Jamie Moyer had a slightly above average season in 2008 and was more valuable than the best reliever in the National League. Via FanGraphs, Moyer was worth 2.6 wins above a replacement player and Lidge was worth 2.2 WAR. So, 196.1 above average innings was worth more than 69.1 godly innings.

As for Boston having to make the choice between Beckett and Papelbon, they'd pick Beckett every time. I'm sure Mr. Sherman meant to say "slam dunk" instead of "lay up" so I'll correct him. It is a slam dunk, dude. Beckett is worth more to the Red Sox than Papelbon.

In those 200-or-so innings for a starter how many would you define as game-on-the-line high leverage? With someone such as Lidge or Papelbon or Rivera, just about every pitch they throw in a season is in a game-deciding moment. That is why the 70/200 thing doesn't work for me. I can just as easily say would you rather have a pitcher impact 60 games (like a reliever) or 30 games (like a starter).

I'd say most of them are game-on-the-line high leverage situations because by the time closers come in, the game is already determined. For this, I'm gonna head to the WPA Calculator. By typing in the situation that would happen at the beginning of the game--no outs, none on, top of the first, visiting team batting and the scored tied--we see that the home team wins 54% of the time, so basically a toss up. Now, I'm gonna put a classic save situation in: top of the ninth, the home team up by one, no one on, no one out. In that situation, the home team wins 86% of the time. As great as Mo is, when he comes in to the game, it's usually already determined.

As for the 60/30 thing, see above. 30 games of even average to slightly above average pitching is better than 60 games of light's out pitching. Hopefully this year, Joba absolutely dominates and shows all the people who think he should be in the bullpen where they can stick it. You don't waste a great talent like Chamberlain in the bullpen. Cashman and Co. have it right.

Xavier Nady Gets a One Year Deal

The Yankees have signed Xavier Nady to a one year deal worth $6.55 million.

This probably means that the X-Man will not be traded by the Yankees--at least not before the season starts. This is good for the Yankees because it will provide them with outfield depth. Nick Swisher should still start over Xavier Nady but that's something I've touched on before. The alignment on Opening Day should be Damon/Gardner/Swisher with Matsui as the DH if the pitcher is right handed and Nady if the pitcher is left handed. Nady on the bench means greater flexibility in giving the aging Damon a day off in left field if he needs it or allowing the Yankees to shift Swisher to CF if Gardner starts to stumble too much at the plate. This kind of roster flexibility is going to be something new for the Yankees, even though Joe Girardi juggled the lineup a bit much last year. This time, though, if he does, it will be for good reason and he'll have more than suitable replacements. The infield bench is still looking pretty weak but there's still time for that to be ironed out.

If Nady were a free Agent, he'd be valued at about $7.71 million. That projection comes from using his Marcels offensive projection combined with his CHONE defensive projection, using the same math as my "What's A Player Worth" post. So it appears that the Yankees will be getting a good deal for Mr. Nady, if he lives up to his performance.

And, I've got to talk about it because it needs to be touched on. Today seemed unreal to me. As cliche as it may sound, today was an event four years in the making. From the moment his keynote speech at the 2004 DNC ended, I knew Barack Obama would be President one day--I just didn't think it'd be this soon. The election of a black man to the office of the Presidency is nothing short of historic and monumental. I'm a very cynical person and wasn't sure if the American people could do what they did on November 4th but they did and my faith in a people was restored.

We still have a long way to go in this nation in terms of race relations, but today, the most hopeful I've known in quite some time, we reached a peak. At the risk of sounding silly, I will always remember what I was doing when Chief Justice Roberts swore in Barack Obama: standing in front of my TV in my college apartment, hands on my head, shedding tears of joy because for the first time in years, I've felt hopeful for the future of my country.

Baseball Goings On

Alright there's a decent amount of stuff to talk about so let's get right to it.

First, there's Andy Pettitte. He seems to have rejected the Yankees one year, ten million dollar contract offer. If I'm Cash, I call his bluff and say "Alright, Andy. You said Yankees or retire. You have the offer. If you want to leave it, fine. Have a nice retired life." The Yankees can definitely live without Andy Pettitte, as I said in my last blog post.

CHONE has projected Andy Pettitte at 9-9, 167 IP, 185 H, 15 HR, 54 BB, 125 SO, 5 HBP, 87 R, 80 ER, 4.31 ERA. That's a decent season. Decent. This would be nice for the Yankees to have, but there is no doubt in my mind that some combination of Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy, Alfredo Aceves, and possibly Phil Coke (who is getting a shot as a starter in Spring Training) could replicate those numbers, or something close to it.

But of course, I'm not Brian Cashman and this decision isn't in my hands. Chances are the Yankees could give Andy a little Yankee-bonus and raise their offer. In fact, according to those very same CHONE projections, Andy is worth 2.3 Wins over Replacement, which according to CHONE, is worth $10.1 million. I'm assuming the organization has this information and that could be why they're not budging. However, I"m more than certain they'd be willing to up the offer to $11 million, to which I wouldn't be opposed. But, I'd rather have them yank the offer off the table.

Next, there's the Jason Giambi signing. I think this move could win the A's the division again. A 3-4 combo of Matt Holliday is probably the best 3-4 combo in the AL West, now that Milton Bradley has left the Rangers for the Chicago Cubs on a three year, $30 million deal--more on that later.

Giambi's deal is for a shockingly low $4.5 million with a $5 million option for 2010. Now, I know Giambi is aging and not what he was when he was first in Oakland or even in New York, but he's worth more than that, IMO.

By my calculations, the same as the ones found here, Giambi will be worth $7.38 million as a DH and $8.33 million as a first baseman. So, like usual, Billy Beane is getting a discount.

On another note with the Giambi signing, for the last few years, every time the Yankees played in Oakland, the (hundreds of) fans in attendance would chant "STEROIDS" while Giambi came to the plate. Every time I would hear this, I would think to myself "Don't these dumb fucks realize that Giambi was taking steroids when he won an MVP in 2000 and was robbed of one in '01?" Morons. They'll start cheering for him again, though; that I'm sure of.

The next thing I'd like to touch on is the signings of Milton Bradley in Chicago and Pat Burrell in Tampa Bay. I think both signings are great for each team. Bradley and Burrell are underrated hitters and the argument could be made that both players were signed uner market value. The only thing holding back Bradley's value is his health. He's only played 140+ games ONCE in his career.

For what it's worth, Bradley projects to be worth $19.14 million next year:

21.7 runs above average - 7.5 (corner OF pos. adjustment) + 5 (corner def. projection)/10.5 (runs per win) + 2 (replacement level adjustment) x 5 (millions of dollars, value of win)

So the Cubs are definitely getting a huge discount on Mr. Board Game (lame joke, I know.).

As for Burrell, he made $14 million last year alone. Now, he's signed a two year, $16 million contract with the Rays. That's $8M a year. Burrell just took a $6M pay cut. Damn. Burrell's value this year projects to be worth $10.57 million in 2009. The Rays just made another great move after trading Edwin Jackson for Matt Joyce.

What does all of this have to do with the Yankees? Directly, not much; they're not in the market for a corner outfielder. However, indirectly it matters. Burrell and Bradley getting relatively below market-rate contracts for their services means that Brian Cashman anticipated the market tremendously when he didn't offer arbitration to Bobby Abreu. Abreu would've won way too much money through arbitration than he will probably get through free agency. Bobby Made $16 million in 2008 and his performance was valued at $5 million. This year, in the outfield, he projects to be worth 7.52 million (that -11 CHONE defensive projection really hurts) and 8 million flat as a DH. Funny, the deal Pat Burrell signed is exactly what Bobby Abreu should get.

Lastly, there's Mark Teixeira. I watched his press conference on Tuesday and was absolutely pumped. Tex seems genuinely elated to be here and I cannot wait for him to hit the field in pinstripes. Like he said, we should all go give his wife Leigh a big hug for convincing Mark to come to the Bronx!

Ramblings on Robbie

While the chatter has calmed down in the mainstream media, every so often it pops up that the Yankees should consider trading Robinson Cano. Well, this just isn't a very smart. Yes, he had a crappy year last year, but he picked it up in the second half:

First Half: .246/.285/.358/.643
Second Half: .307/.333/.482/.815

Cano is more than capable of putting up those numbers from the second half for an entire season; hell, it looks an awful lot like his 2007 season. So why did Cano have the jump? His BABIP jumped from .252 in the first half to .320 in the second. That big jump led to a lot of hits. Now, that doesn't tell the whole story, of course. Cano had a line drive percentage of 19.4 this season, which is a good mark. He also had the most line drives in his career with 104. However, he also had a career high mark in fly balls at 178 which translated to a career high fly ball percentage of 33.2%.

Based on those numbers, it appears that Cano had trouble getting on top of the ball. When a player hits a fly ball, the chances of it becoming a hit are pretty small. That career high fly ball percentage shows that Cano was probably dipping his shoulders or not driving with his lower half while at the plate. Hopefully, he and Kevin Long have worked this out with a new stance.

Since I'm big on projections and what not, let's see what CHONE has for Robbie in 2009.

.300/.340/.468/.808, 16 HR, 79 RsBI, 29 BB, 65 SO in 556 AB. That's very good for a 2B

Now let's work something out like I did in my last post and project his worth via Marcels batting projections and CHONE defense.

Cano projects to be 4.6 runs over average. Adding the positional adjustment (+2.5), that number goes to 7.1. Cano's CHONE defensive projection, 0, it stays the same. Divide by 10.5 and add 2 for the replacement adjustment and you get about 2.70 Wins Above Replacement. Multiply that by five and that's 13.5. Cano projects to be worth 13.5 million dollars. Cano is being paid $6 million for 2009. That's a big value.

So, yeah, don't trade Robbie. He's good, he's young, and he'll probably easily out play his salary.

What's a Player Worth?

With the Yankees recent splurge on free agents and trades, there are a lot of people talking about who's overpaid, who's underpaid, responsible spending, irresponsible spending, and the like. For that reason, I'd like to take a look at the Yankees two acquisitions on the offensive side of things: Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira.

To do this, I'll be turning their projected runs above average using Marcels projections for hitters and their CHONE Defensive Projections.

My method will be the same as found on my friend Mike's blog Fire Jim Leyland. For an example of how these calculations work, go to this post. An example:

Lets run through an example. We'll use Curtis Granderson. His RAA in my table comes out at +15.7. His CHONE defensive projection has him at +13 runs. That makes him now at +28.7 runs above average. He gets another 2.5 run boost for being a Centerfielder, which puts his RAA at 31.2. Divide that by 10.5 and you get 2.97 Wins Above Average. Add in another 2, and he becomes 4.97 Wins Above Replacement in 2009. That equates out to being $24.85 million. His 2009 salary is currently just $3.5 million, a difference of $21.35 million -- quite the bargain.

10.5 is roughly the amount of runs that equal one win and the two is used because a replacement player is two runs worse than an average player. To get the dollar amount, you multiply by five (millions of dollars), which is the approximate value of a win The positional adjustments Mike talks about are as follows:

Catcher: +12.5 runs
Shortstop: +7.5 runs
Second Base/Third Base/Centerfield: +2.5 runs
Left Field/Right Field: -7.5 runs
First Base: -7.5 runs
DH: -17.5 runs

Let's run through the numbers for Mr. Swisher first. On the Marcels spread sheet, we can find that he will be worth 5.8 runs over average. If we want to project Swisher as a corner outfielder, we find his defensive projection on the CHONE site and find that in the corners, Swisher is projected to be a +5 defender. Thus, our equation becomes:

5.8 (runs over average)-7.5 (postiion adjustment) = -1.7+5 (projected defense) = 3.3/10.5 +2 = 2.31 Wins over Replacement. So, as a corner outfielder, Nick Swisher projects to be worth 2.31 Wins over Replacement Player. Multiply that by five to get the dollar amount Swisher's 2008 performance projects to be and you get: $11.55 million dollars. A quick trip over to Cot's MLB Contracts and we find that Nick Swisher will make $5.3 million in 2009. So if Nick Swisher plays to his projection as a corner outfielder, the Yankees are saving $6.25 million on him.

If you want to make Swisher the CF, switch the positional adjustment (+2.5) and the defensive projection (-2) and he comes out at 2.50 wins over replacement, but only because CFs are harder to replace than corner OFs. Still, his dollar value there would be $12.5 mil, a money saver for the Yankees.

Projecting Swisher at first is more or less a moot point because of Tex, but for shits and giggles, he'd be 1.36 WAR, or $6.8 million. Still a "money saver," but less valuable than if he were in the OF.

Now, we come to the big boy. Mark Teixeira. The Yankees just gave him an eight year, 180 million dollar contract, with an AAV of $22.5 million. That's going to be hard for Tex to match, from a standpoint like this. Let's see how it works out. Via the Marcels spreadsheet, Teixeira will be 28.2 runs over average this year. So:

28.2 - 12.5 = 15.7 + 6 (projected runs at 1B) = 21.7/10.5 + 2 = 4.07 WAR x 5 = 20.35. So, Tex's value projects to be $20.35 million this year. According to Cots, Mark will make a flat $20 million this year. So, the Yankees will, in fact, be paying Tex .35 million dollars less than he projects to be worth. It's a small number, but the Yankees are "saving" with Tex.