Saturday, June 12, 2010

NL All-Stars: this one's worth at least a nickel

I did some more work on the analysis of these votes. Unfortunately, I didn't do said work until after I cast my first 25 votes. Even though I gave some dudes some undeserved recognition, it was a learning experience for me - I learned a lot more about traditional vs. meaningful statistics by evaluating these players two different ways than I could have by taking an online course.

For the first round, I used the MLB.com All-Star voting helper, which lists all the players from each position in a sortable chart. You can sort by At-Bats, AVG, HR, RBI, and SB. Keep that in mind when I say who I voted for.

For the next round of analysis, I delved a little deeper: all 3 "slash stats" (AVG/OBP/SLG), OPS, HR/RBI, BB/K, SB-CS, WAR (wins above replacement), and fielding runs above average. This is a good mix of mainstream and newfangled stats that covers pretty much all bases (offensive production, basepath prowess, and defensive skills).

Here's what I found:

NL 1B: Albert Pujols
Is there really any other alternative? Well, yes, actually. Adrian Gonzalez, while none of his at-the-plate (.978 to .908 OPS) or on-the-bases (6 to 0 SB) stats measure up, the Padres slugger plays good enough defense to outfield Phat Albert by 7 runs above average (+6 to -1). What does defense really matter? you might ask. Well, according to WAR, it makes a great deal of difference: Gonzalez currently has a 2.8 WAR with Pujols at 2.3 WAR. Pujols is a beast though; I stand by my choice.

NL 2B: Chase Utley
He's been caught stealing this year, for the first time since 2008. He doesn't blow his competition away in terms of power (.478 SLG to Dan Uggla's .505 and Kelly Johnson's absurd .550), or walks (they're all three hovering in the low 30s) - but in the middle of June, he's already got at least 20 fewer strikeouts than those other two. He's also 8 runs better in the field (+5 to -3 for both other guys). Total package: he's a good pick.

NL SS: Hanley Ramirez
If I had this vote to do over again, I would have absolutely picked Troy Tulowitzki. Even looking at the traditional stats, it was pretty much a toss-up. But when you factor in SLG (.493 to .473) and defense (+5 to -5; both stats in favor of Tulo), it's no contest. Oh, if I could turn back time...

NL 3B: Ryan Zimmerman
He's head and shoulders ahead of everyone else as far as I'm concerned. OPS over 1, just about as many walks as strikeouts (which makes for a .416 OBP, .45 points higher than his best competitor Scott Rolen). Rolen does beat the Z-Man in terms of SLG (.613 to .594), but Zimmerman gets bonus points for playing on the same team with Stephen Strasburg. So there.

NL C: Rod Barajas
Of all the choices I made in the first round of voting, this is the one I regret the most. Looking back, I can pinpoint two reasons for making this choice: home runs (there was just something so tantalizing about a catcher with double digit home runs (11) before the break) and Rob Neyer. The catcher for whom I should have voted - Miguel Olivo - plays for the Rockies. He had started the season barely ahead of Chris Iannetta on the depth chart, but with the general understanding Iannetta's a better player and that he would surely take over when he got his sea-legs back. This caused the sabermetric community to frame Olivo's situation as somewhat of a pretender to the throne.
I didn't want to honor someone like that with an All-Star spot. But look at the numbers, offensive and defensive: an OPS .140 points higher than Barajas (.944 to .803), and a difference of 9 fielding runs (+7 to -2). WAR backs up this new analysis: 2.1 to 0.8 in favor of Olivo. Never again...

NL OF: Andre Ethier, Jason Heyward, Ryan Braun
Even though the ballot lets you select three general outfielders, I usually like to try to pick one from each position. This year I didn't do that, plain and simple. Ethier was an easy pick, as he leads all outfielders in HR, even after missing significant time with a broken finger. His defense is a little suspect (-6), but his league-leading OPS (1.088) more than makes up for it.
I voted for Jason Heyward because I was enamored of his .400 OBP - .20 points higher than any other outfielder except Ethier (.422) - and his .510 SLG - surpassed only by Alfonso Soriano (.550), Jayson Werth (.552) and Ethier (.667!).
After Barajas and Hanley Ramirez, Ryan Braun's my pick that mystifies the most. I was looking too much at his AVG (.306) and his steals (11-0!) and not enough at his OPS (.859) or his defense (-9!). What can I say? I like players who hit for power and steal bases with high regularity (see my vote for Alex Rios).

Here's who else I considered:
Jayson Werth (mentioned above) has knocked the cover off the ball (10 HR, .552 SLG) and played an average right field (0 runs above average... but also 0 below). Matt Kemp has a lot of home runs (most of which he got early, so they're considerably less impressive now), but he's on-base less than 34% of the time (.338), he fields below average in center field (-4), and he's caught stealing as much as he's successful (9-9). Andrew McCutchen doesn't have high production stats (7 HR, 17 RBI), but that's mostly due to batting leadoff and playing for the Pirates. But look at the other facets of his game: 14-4 stolen base record and an astounding 13 fielding runs above average! Michael Bourn was in contention solely because of his speed and defense: 20-6 SB-CS and 11 fielding runs above average. He's what they call a "two-tool player."

If you've been paying attention to the patterns, you might notice that Wins Above Replacement (WAR) favors a good defender more than a fast guy (high SB) or a guy who has a talent for getting his bat on the ball (high AVG). With that in mind, here's how my contenders ranked in terms of WAR (an * represents those players for whom I cast my votes):

2.3 - Andrew McCutchen
1.9 - *Andre Ethier
1.9 - *Jayson Werth
1.9 - Michael Bourn
1.7 - Jason Heyward
0.9 - Matt Kemp
0.8 - *Ryan Braun

I'm really sad that I may have slighted a great all-around player like McCutchen, just as he was slighted last year in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. I promise to make it up to him next time around.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

AL All-Stars: My Two Cents

This week was all about the young kids: two high-profile prospects had their major league debuts, one decidedly more impressive than the other. Meanwhile the amateur draft is ongoing, with third round action taking place today. (There's a cool reminder on MLB.com urging people to keep watching by listing all the functional major leaguers who were drafted after the 30th round. Spoiler alert: there aren't many.)

But before I talk about the future stars, I want to take a moment to focus on the current stars.

A few weeks ago I started evaluating All-Star candidates from all the divisions. After getting one-third of the way through, I abandoned the project, due mainly to boredom and an increasingly busy work schedule. But luckily I've decided to revisit the 2010 All-Star game on a slightly more manageable scale: by voting!

Last week I did my part and voted 25 times for the players I deemed most worthy to represent their clubs in the midsummer classic. Once some of the statistics solidify, I plan on voting 25 more times from a second personal email, then 25 additional times from my work email, and 25 times apiece for whatever other email addresses I can scrounge up. It's not that I have particularly strong opinions about All-Star hitters (cuz fans don't vote on pitchers, they're selected by the managers) - I just like to know that I'm getting my voice heard.

So without further ado, here's my best guess at who should start for the 2010 AL All-Star Team:

AL 1B: Justin Morneau
I picked Morneau above Miguel Cabrera because of his rate stats: not only does he lead all AL first basemen in AVG, he leads the entire AL in OPS (and it's two component stats, OBP and SLG). Cabrera also has an impressive OPS and he's driven in a bunch of runs, but Morneau's got the edge in walks and defense - that's right, we can now measure this kind of stuff midseason! This year Morneau is 8 runs above average, Cabrera is 2 runs below average.

AL 2B: Robinson Cano
This one is pretty much a no-brainer. Leads all second basemen in traditional stats (.370 AVG, 12 HR, 45 RBI), has an OPS above 1, and is playing a pretty good second sack to boot. Not a hard decision to justify.

AL SS: Elvis Andrus
I couldn't vote for Derek Jeter. I just couldn't. The sole reason for that: I don't think he's having a better season than Andrus. Elvis gets on base more (.397 to .349), steals more (18 to 6), hits better (.311 to .299), and fields better (although neither fields particularly well: -1 to -6). Jeter hits more home runs (6 to 0) and has played for longer (15 full seasons to 1). In terms of WAR (wins above replacement - a complicated formula that figures how much better a particular player is than an average Triple-A hitter), they're basically equal: 1.2 for EA, 1.3 for DJ. I stand by my choice, if for no other reason than web gems.

AL 3B: Evan Longoria
Of all hot-cornerers, only Adrian Beltre has a better .AVG, but Longo beats the pants off everyone in terms of OPS. He's out-produced his closest competitor (10 HR, 46 RBI to A-Rod's 8 and 43), and he's out-ran the field by half (10 SB, Nick Punto has 5 and doesn't bring much of anything else to the table). He's got the total package, and he's got my vote.

AL C: Joe Mauer
I voted for Mauer mainly on the strength of his batting average and his MVP season last year. Not a strong foundation, I know. I thought Jorge Posada might have deserved a spot due to his power bat, but his availability is questionable due to injury (which has also limited his playing time), so I was torn. I also like Kurt Suzuki (despite his on-base inefficiencies) and Victor Martinez (despite his defensive inefficiencies). But despite all this deliberation, Mauer still has the highest WAR of the group (1.8). So sabermetrics backs me up.

AL DH: Vladimir Guerrero
Since the game's in an AL stadium, we get to vote on a starting DH! (But only for the AL team; this might change in future years, as the DH-in-the-All-Star-Game is expanding to all stadiums.) This is another no-contest: David Ortiz and Jose Guillen and Andruw Jones all brought their home run sticks this season, but their peripherals don't compare: he's the only full time DH candidate with a WAR over 1.0.

AL OF: Ichiro Suzuki, Nelson Cruz, Alex Rios
I like Ichiro's AVG/OBP/SB combo. Even though he's fielding below average, his presence on the basepaths makes him a force to be reckoned with.
Nelson Cruz also as questionable availability due to injury, but I just couldn't resist voting for that monstrous OPS (1.134!). He's also a perfectly average defender, so you don't lose anything there.
Alex Rios won't win a starting spot. He's not a big enough name. But look at that power/speed combo: 12 HR, 18 SB, while playing a perfectly average centerfield, which is a new position for him. Despite his lack or recognition, Rios actually has the highest WAR of all the outfielders I considered in WAR (2.2).

The only outfielder with a higher WAR is Seattle's Franklin Gutierrez (2.6), which is mostly because his defense (9 runs above average) is good enough to offset his anemic bat (.794 OPS)... and because he hasn't yet been caught on the basepaths (7-0 in steals).
Here are the others I considered: Jose Bautista, who somehow leads the majors with 18 HR. He doesn't get his bat on the ball nearly enough (.246 AVG), but he walks a ton (39), and his raw power has earned him a WAR of 2.0.
Vernon Wells, who has found some long-missed power (15 HR, 40 RBI). His defense is still a pretty sorry sight (-8), and his OBP is subpar.
On the other end of the spectrum, Carl Crawford is as good in the field as Wells is bad (8 runs above average). He's got very little power, but he makes up for a lot of that deficit with real good speed.

It's a weird crop of outfielders this year. But I suppose I stand by my choices. If Cruz's return doesn't look promising by the time I get around to voting again, I'll probably replace him with Bautista or Wells.

My picks for NL All-Stars later in the week.

Monday, June 7, 2010

New Manager Watch: Baltimore Orioles

Woo, it's draft day! I'm gonna wait until some of the dust settles for commentary, since I'm not liveblogging. Instead, I'll pick up on a piece of news from a few days ago.

In the midst of an abysmal season, the Baltimore Orioles fired their manager (Dave Trembley) and replaced him with a rookie (Juan Samuel). The problems with the Orioles this year don't have much to do with the way they're managed: new ace Kevin Millwood hasn't won a game (0-6), their first basemen and shortstops have hit a combined zero (0) home runs, and Ty Wigginton is the club's lone offensive producer.

But when a team struggles, one of the classic strategies is to oust the guy in charge rather than enter into a full-on roster overhaul. Which got me thinking about how well the practice has worked out in the past. I did some digging and here's what I came up with.

Since the start of the Wild Card Era (1994), 51 teams have replaced their managers mid-season. The obvious first question is: How well did these teams fare? Of the 49 teams that have played complete seasons (we're not counting the '010 Orioles or Royals, both of whom underwent managerial changes this year), only 12 finished with overall winning records (24.4%). Of those 12, six made it to the playoffs. Of those six, only two have won playoff serieses: the '04 Astros beat the Braves before falling to the Cardinals in the NLCS, and the '03 Marlins took the World Series against the Yankees.

How did the new managers compare to the guys they replaced? 37 out of 49 replacements led their teams to better records than their predecessors, for a pretty impressive 75.5% success rate. Beware of sample size alert here, because I didn't do as dutiful due diligence as I might have. I didn't count the replacements who managed just one or two games before being replaced themselves - six teams of the 49 (12.2%) used three managers in a single season. The Royals have done it twice and counting - 2010 is still relatively young after all.

Who have changed their managers in this way? Four teams have changed managers four times in this span: the Reds, the Royals (and counting), the Astros, and the Blue Jays. Three teams have changed three times: the Brewers, the Mariners, and the Orioles (and counting). The pattern does not continue, with eight teams changing two times - I'm counting the Expos/Nationals as one team for the purposes of this exercise. Nine teams have had one change. I haven't listed them all to avoid just rattling off all the teams.

If you've been doing the math, you'll see that not every team has undergone a mid-season managerial change. The following six teams have been well-managed enough to avoid replacing their skippers on the fly: the Yankees, the Twins, the A's, the Braves, the Padres, and the Giants.

When did these mid-season managerial changes occur? Well, they mostly occurred in 2002, when seven teams changed the man in charge. That's 1/7th of the total changes over the 16 year span I'm measuring. The next most changes-per-year is five (2001). Then six years had four managerial changes ('09, '08, '07, '05, '04, and '96). Two years had three changes, four years had two changes, and one year had one change. Only in 2006 did no teams find it necessary to fire their manager in the middle of the year.*

*When counting the number of managerial changes per year, I'm counting the number of teams that changed their managers rather than the number of actual managerial changes.

Who has been replaced the most? That honor goes to Phil Garner who was unseated three times ('07 Astros, '02 Tigers, and '99 Brewers). Three managers have been replaced twice: Jimy Williams , Buddy Bell, and Bob Boone. Five managers have done double replacement duty: Pete Mackanin, Joe Maddon (both for the Angels), Jim Riggleman, Jerry Narron, and Jack McKeon.

I'm not going to list everyone here, but this is an interesting statistic: there are an astounding 21 managers who have both replaced someone and have been replaced. Some of that is because a guy replaces someone, fills the position for several years, and then is replaced himself (e.g. Clint Hurdle, Dave Trembley). Some of it might be because some people just have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

What can we learn from all this? Questionable. It's more trivia than evidence for anything. The factors that go into making a team perform well or poorly are so expansive and encompass so much more than just the manager that you can't really pin a dramatic turnaround or collapse on just the man in charge. But it was at least fun for me to sift through the stats to mine some percentage sound-bytes.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Back to Baseball

Wow, it's been a while.

In the days and weeks and month since I've last posted, a lot has happened in the great sport of baseball. Another perfect game (after this one). An absolute gem that would have been the season's third perfect game, were it not for a blown call (the key players have since kissed and made up). A baseball legend has left the show (and not a moment too soon). A future star is on the verge of making it to the show. And a top prospect is just days away from making his first splash.

I've also attended two games (this one here and that one there) that I haven't had a chance to write about. But I've been so frazzled and busy with other things that I haven't even had time to vote on the All-Star game. I couldn't even tell you who's in first place across the divisions.

I don't have much to say here now. I just want to acknowledge the news, put some words up here and hope that posts will beget posts.

So in conclusion, loyal readers, keep watching for my contributions to the blogosphere, but don't hold your collective breaths.