Archive for ESPN Insider 2010

The Setup

It’s generally pretty easy to tell who is good at baseball. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that Joe Mauer’s .365 batting average last year was tremendous, especially for a catcher. Likewise, pretty much anyone can recognize greatness in Prince Fielder’s 46 home runs, Zack Greinke’s 2.16 ERA or Tim Lincecum’s 261 strikeouts.

However, as baseball fans, we were born with the desire to argue over whether one player is better than another, and these numbers do not lend themselves to easy comparison. Mauer doesn’t have an ERA, because he’s not a pitcher. The Giants don’t care that Lincecum failed to hit a home run last year. Even comparing offensive players to other hitters can be a problem; Fielder would be a disaster at shortstop, so stacking his numbers up against Troy Tulowitzki’s is comparing a massively large apple to oranges.

Thankfully, we now have a metric that allows for comparison among players across positions, and even between pitchers and hitters, totaling up all the things each does to help a team win, no matter what his particular skill is. Hitters, defenders, pitchers — everyone is graded on the same scale. This is why we love Wins Above Replacement.

The Proof

WAR, as it is often abbreviated, is fairly simple in theory. The idea is to take a player’s total contribution in creating runs (hitting and baserunning), as well as preventing them (pitching and defense), and then compare those totals to what a team would have expected to get if they had spent the league minimum on some randomly available Triple-A player (the so-called “replacement player”).

By measuring all contributions by the run value they create (or save), we can measure widely different things, such as strikeouts and home runs. For example, a single is worth, on average, about half a run, a stolen base is worth about 0.2 runs, and a strikeout takes away approximately 0.3 runs. So, if Derek Jeter is 2-for-4 with two singles, a stolen base and two strikeouts in a particular game, he has created approximately 0.6 runs on offense.

Because every action on the field affects run-scoring to one degree or another, we can then compare that total to other players’ performances, even if they didn’t have any singles, stolen bases or strikeouts. For example, if Mark Teixeira went 1-for-4 with a home run in that same game, he would create a very similar offensive value to Jeter’s, even though he had one fewer hit and made an extra out. His long ball was more impactful than any one thing that his speedier teammate did, and the trade-off between quantity and quality essentially cancels out.

We can apply this concept to all aspects of the game, not just offense. Each out created by a pitcher or defender also saves runs, and once we translate their numbers into a total of runs saved, we can then compare those numbers across positions. (Due to the particular challenges of quantifying a catcher’s defensive value, all catchers are assumed to be equally average behind the plate, so your favorite good defensive catcher will be underrated by WAR. This is the stat’s biggest flaw.)

Without getting into all the of the calculations — you can find a 14-part, in-depth series on how WAR is calculated in the glossary at FanGraphs if you’re curious — WAR then takes those total values of runs saved and created, adjusts for relative scarcity between different positions, and converts runs into wins over what a team would expect to lose if that player got hurt and had to be replaced by some veteran minor leaguer or journeyman bench guy.

That guy is the baseline because he represents the expected value that could be had for no real cost. For instance, a year ago, the Mariners signed Mike Sweeney to a minor league contract and gave him a part-time job as their designated hitter against left-handers. He made no real money, produced just a fraction of a Win Above Replacement, and is now looking for work again. At this point in his career, Sweeney is the epitome of a replacement-level player. He costs nothing, produces at a level good enough to hang around without being overly useful, and bounces from one club to another looking for work each year.

In reality, WAR could be named “Wins Above Mike Sweeney,” because players just like him are the baseline against which all players are compared.

The Conclusion

Bill James once said that if a metric always gives surprising results, it is probably wrong, and if it never gives surprising results, it’s useless. WAR succeeds marvelously on this account. In 2009, for example, it matches quite well with the players we would expect to have been the best (Zack Greinke, Albert Pujols, Tim Lincecum, Joe Mauer) and worst (Yuniesky Betancourt, Jose Guillen, Aubrey Huff), while surprising us enough to be useful (Ben Zobrist’s outstanding season, Jermaine Dye’s decline). Of course, given the small difference in WAR between Zobrist, Pujols and Mauer, along with the catcher-defense flaw in the stat, it is reasonable to conclude that Mauer was the most valuable every-day player.

WAR is not perfect, but it does a very good job of grading an individual player’s contribution, crediting him for what he produces on the field. Replacement level is a good baseline that accounts for how the baseball market actually works, and it enables teams and fans to better evaluate contracts and trades. It takes into account all aspects of a position player’s game rather than just his obvious strength or weakness. And finally, it is measured on the scale of wins, which every fan can understand is the whole point of playing the game in the first place.

The Setup

Game Two of the American League Division Series between the Minnesota Twins and New York Yankees is remembered most for Mark Teixeira’s dramatic walk-off homer in the 11th inning. However, what happened in the top of that inning is more interesting.

After three consecutive singles loaded the bases with no outs, Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire elected to let Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez try to drive in the go-ahead run — despite the fact that they were each among baseball’s worst hitters in 2009. Both failed, as did Brendan Harris, and the inning ended without the Twins putting any runs on the board. They would promptly lose before getting another chance to hit.

Gardenhire’s reluctance to pinch-hit in such a critical situation, especially for Gomez, drew the ire of the Minnesota fans. But based on years of researching historical performance of pinch-hitters, it turns out that they’re not much good either. In fact, pinch-hitting is quite often the wrong idea, and Gardenhire was likely correct to discern that Gomez was his best chance to get the run home in that situation.

The Discussion

In 2009, major league pinch-hitters hit a combined .225/.315/.353, significantly worse than their starting counterparts, who hit .264/.334/.421. That’s not a one-year fluke or a recent development, either. In 1990, guys coming off the bench hit .224/.302/.316. In 1970, they hit .226/.313/.323. Way back in 1954, their performance was a pitiful .220/.315/.323. It’s not just that the average pinch-hitter is worse than a starter, but instead, there is evidence that pinch-hitting is just really difficult. Matt Holliday has a career .552 OPS as a pinch hitter compared to a .933 mark when he starts. Joe Mauer has a .693 OPS off the bench. Even Derek Jeter is hitless in his five attempts.

Baseball consultant Tom Tango, now in the employ of the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays, went through historical pinch-hitting situations in his book (appropriately titled “The Book”) and found that, even after accounting for the average pinch-hitter being of lesser ability and facing tougher pitchers in more important situations, pinch-hitters performed at a level roughly 10 percent lower than expected. That’s huge; a 10 percent penalty turns a .300 hitter into a .270 one. That reduction in performance would turn Evan Longoria into Skip Schumaker.

Pinch-hitters don’t share this fate alone. Designated hitters, who also spend a significant amount of the game spectating, suffer at the plate as well. Studies have found that regular starters relegated to the DH role end up hitting at a level about 5 percent worse. That’s better than pinch-hitters, but it does indicate that not being out in the field hurts players when they step up to the plate. Jim Thome, Frank Thomas and Jason Giambi, for example, all had significantly worse numbers than expected while at DH rather than first base, even after adjusting for the age at which they played both positions.

What makes pinch-hitting so hard? Repetition and routine are common agents to help calm nerves. It’s why you’ll see some ridiculous things in the batter’s box, such as Nomar Garciaparra’s infamous batting glove routine. It’s why coaches in golf stress pre-shot routines, and for every disturbance to mean a complete do-over of that routine. It’s why any athlete anywhere spends countless hours practicing. They are attempting to train their muscle memory and to develop grooves in the brain that focus on the specific task at hand and let them forget about anything else.

Pinch-hitters do not get the benefit of routine. Unlike relievers who first get to warm up in the bullpen, then warm up on the mound, and who dictate the action in the first place, pinch-hitting opportunities tend to spring up with less warning. At best, a player on the bench might get a heads-up in time to go into the cage and take a few hacks, but for the most part, he gets thrust right onto center stage sans warm up. That’s not a recipe for success, and the evidence suggests that even the best hitters in the world struggle to succeed in that situation.

The Conclusion

That’s not to say pinch-hitting is always a bad idea. Pitchers are notoriously terrible hitters — to the point where nearly any capable major league position player will still be more likely to get a hit, even accounting for the pinch-hitting penalty. Had Gardenhire carried even a league-average hitter to come off the bench in the ALDS, that guy would have been a better choice to hit than Gomez, as the gap in talent would have overcome the expected decline in performance from the pinch-hitter. But Gardenhire did not have that guy on his bench, so as frustrating as it may have been for Twins fans, he made the right call.

Pinch-hitting is one of the most difficult things to do well in all of sports. Even good hitters fail routinely when asked to come off the bench and get a big hit late in the game. It isn’t as simple as comparing the batting averages of the two available options and going with the higher number. While inaction is always tougher to watch — and easier to criticize — it is often for the best. Pinch-hitting for the pitcher? Good idea. Pinch-hitting for your starting shortstop? You’d better have a legitimately good hitter available, and it still might not be the right call.

The Setup

Since Michael Lewis penned “Moneyball” in 2003, franchises have been branded either by their support or disdain for the philosophies that the book espouses. The Oakland Athletics were held up as the model organization, the team that won by ignoring the traditions of baseball and finding value in underappreciated assets — the most prominent of those at the time being slow, unathletic, career minor leaguers who draw walks to avoid making outs.

A’s GM Billy Beane was winning with teams full of players that old-school scouts had hated. From John Jaha to Matt Stairs, the A’s were the destination of choice for guys who could run about as well as the average fan in the seats. Where other teams saw a lack of bat speed, an inability to play defense and a body that would break down by age 30, Beane saw the ability to construct an offense that would score runs by stringing together a few walks and a home run.

This particular brand of baseball, dubbed the “Moneyball” style, was despised by those who had been taught that the game should be played by fielding your position well, bunting runners over and doing the little things that help your team win. But now, in an attempt to chase the current undervalued assets, the tables have turned. Teams that are using the nerd-stats approach that the A’s made popular have abandoned power-hitting oafs in favor of athletic defenders who can run like the wind.

The “Moneyball” teams are now building rosters that would fit perfectly into pre-spreadsheet baseball. Perhaps no team exemplifies this shift as well as the Boston Red Sox.

The Proof

With an Ivy League-educated general manager who hired stat maven Bill James as a consultant, the Red Sox have been one of the most visible sabermetric teams in baseball recently. They built teams around David Ortiz, J.D. Drew and Kevin Youkilis, showing that they valued the same traits the Athletics had earlier in the decade. When the Sox finally tired of Manny Ramirez’s antics, they devised a three-way trade to bring them Jason Bay, another player who fits that particular mold.

However, when GM Theo Epstein evaluated how to improve a roster that finished in second place in the AL East and lost in the first round of the playoffs in 2009, he did not conclude that the team needed more power hitters to supercharge the offense. Instead, he let Bay sign with the New York Mets and then reallocated the money to Mike Cameron and Adrian Beltre — despite the fact that the duo hit fewer home runs combined than Bay hit a year ago.

Neither Cameron nor Beltre can match Bay’s production at the plate, but they can run circles around him in the field. Defense is where Epstein saw an opportunity to improve in the most cost-efficient way, so out went the burly slugger with bad range and in came a couple of average hitters whose stardom is measured in Web Gems.

Epstein and James have traded on-base percentage for ultimate zone ratings, believing that the market has over-corrected and is now undervaluing a player’s ability to save runs in the field. They aren’t the only ones — the Tampa Bay Rays, Seattle Mariners, and yes, even Billy Beane’s Oakland Athletics are also on the bandwagon.

The results of this shift toward run prevention? The “Moneyball” teams are targeting the type of fast, athletic, fundamentally sound players that scouts have been drooling over for years. Tampa Bay, Oakland and Boston were all in the top five in stolen bases among American League clubs in 2009. Seattle finished eighth and then outbid everyone else in the league for speed-and-defense specialist Chone Figgins this winter. The Mariners also led the league in sacrifice bunts, and that doesn’t figure to change now that Figgins has joined the club and the team replaced power-hitting first baseman Russell Branyan with glove-man Casey Kotchman.

Likewise, the A’s should feature a mostly small-ball offense, especially with the addition of Coco Crisp to an outfield that already featured Rajai Davis and Ryan Sweeney. Beane now believes that having three center fielders tracking down every fly ball hit will make up for the fact that his three starting outfielders combined to hit 12 home runs in 2009.

The Conclusion

The age of the Giambi brothers is over. Sure, these teams would still love to have a middle-of-the-order thumper who can get on base and hit the ball 500 feet with regularity, but they aren’t going to pay the market price for power when similar value comes at a discount in another package. The value purchase now is to re-create the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals, a tremendous defensive team led by speed merchants who ran their way into the World Series despite a glaring lack of home run hitters.

Whitey Herzog, who managed that Cardinals team, would never be mistaken for a “Moneyball” disciple. But if Herzog were still putting together rosters in 2010, the teams that would most resemble what he would want are the teams that use statistical analysis to help inform their decisions. What was old is new again, and 2010 will be the year that the scouts and statheads finally come to an agreement on how a team should be built.

At 6-foot-10, Randy Johnson always has stood above the crowd. He doesn’t stand out just because of his height, though. When we line up all the left-handed pitchers the game has seen, Johnson is the first one we notice. His career is unmatched by that of any other left-hander, and he is the most dominant lefty ever to take the mound.

The career strikeout leaderboard for left-handed pitchers drives this point home. Johnson is the leader (and second among all pitchers behind right-hander Nolan Ryan) with 4,875 strikeouts. Steve Carlton is second, trailing Johnson by 739 punchouts despite pitching nearly 1,100 more innings than the Big Unit. In third place stands Mickey Lolich with 2,832 strikeouts, a mere 58 percent of Johnson’s career total.

There isn’t another MLB category in which one guy stands so far above his peers. Baseball has literally never seen anything like Johnson, a power left-hander who blew hitters away and single-handedly won games for his team. There had been some great left-handers before him, but none matched his dominance.

Carlton is within shouting distance of Johnson in career strikeouts only because of the number of innings he pitched. He never averaged more than a strikeout per inning in any season and led the league in K/9 only twice in his 24 seasons of big league action. Johnson, on the other hand, led the league in K/9 on nine different occasions and has the highest career strikeout rate per nine innings (10.61) of any starting pitcher in baseball history.

Sandy Koufax won’t show up on many career leaderboards because arthritis abbreviated his career, but he certainly had a great run of dominance from 1962 to 1966. In that five-year span, Koufax won 111 games, had an ERA 67 percent better than league average, struck out 9.4 batters per nine innings and won three Cy Young Awards.

If we are going to focus on Koufax’s best five years, though, we also must look at the best five-year run that Johnson had. From 1998 to 2002, the big man won 100 games, had an ERA 75 percent better than league average and struck out 12.3 batters per nine innings while winning four Cy Young Awards. Johnson’s peak was just as high as Koufax’s, but he had 22 years of longevity as well.

Warren Spahn, great as he was, was never the dominant force that Johnson was. He simply compiled tremendous career statistics through endurance, throwing 5,243 innings over 21 seasons. His career 3.09 ERA is nice, but only 18 percent better than the league average given the era in which he pitched. He had two legitimately tremendous seasons (1947 and 1953), but was more often just a good, healthy starting pitcher. Longevity is terrific, but it isn’t dominance. Spahn can’t hold a candle to Johnson’s peak.

Lefty Grove’s career is generally held up as the pinnacle by which all left-handers have been measured. With 300 wins and a career ERA that’s 48 percent better than league average, he’s certainly in the discussion for the best lefty of all time, but Grove got a lot of help from his defenders. He averaged just 5.2 strikeouts per nine innings for his career — above-average for the time, but not historically great.

Johnson dominated at a time when even flimsy middle infielders were driving balls out of the park with regularity, and he did it by sending them back to the dugout shaking their heads. The Big Unit stands alone as the best left-handed pitcher the game has seen.

Albert Pujols’ greatness is unquestioned. He won his second consecutive National League MVP award this year (his third overall), and this time around, he took home every first-place vote. He’s finished in the top four in MVP voting in eight of the nine years he’s been in the majors, and he hasn’t even turned 30. Yet there is another National League player who is just as valuable, if not more so, and receives none of the accolades. Seriously.

Chase Utley, the Phillies’ star second baseman, has never finished higher than seventh in the MVP voting since he arrived in Philadelphia, but has contributed more bang for the buck than any other player in baseball. At FanGraphs, we have a metric that encompasses a player’s total contribution on the field, called Wins Above Replacement. WAR, as it is often abbreviated, combines a player’s value at the plate and in the field to give a better overall picture of a player’s worth. (In layman’s terms, “replacement,” as defined by stat guru Tom Tango, represents “the talent level for which you would pay the minimum salary on the open market, or for which you can obtain at minimal cost in a trade.” Mike Sweeney, who signed a minor league deal in early 2009 and produced 0.2 WAR for the Mariners, is a good example of a replacement-level player.)

By putting all players against a similar baseline, we can compare their value side by side, pitting defensive wizards against burly sluggers and finding out who actually contributes more to helping their team win. Since entering the league in 2005, Utley has added 37.9 wins above what a league minimum player would have provided, which is a tremendous total that represents his offensive prowess and Gold Glove skills at second base. Middle infielders who can hit as well as Utley are rare breeds indeed, and when you factor in his incredible baserunning — 23-for-23 in stolen bases last year! — he grades out as the most complete player in baseball. From that Wins Above Replacement total, we can use a wins-to-dollars conversion based on how teams have historically valued wins in the free-agent market on a yearly basis. Considering how good Utley has been since the Phillies gave him the second-base job, his performance on the field has been worth $154 million. That’s about $31 million a year in production.

Top Value Since 2005

Player	        WAR	Value	Salary	Net
Chase Utley	37.9	$154M	$25M	$129M
David Wright	29.6	$119M	$14M	$105M
Hanley Ramirez	24.9	$106M	$7M	$99M
Grady Sizemore	27.3	$108M	$10M	$98M
Albert Pujols	40.4	$164M	$66M	$98M

In exchange for that performance, the Phillies have paid Utley a meager $25 million in salary, leaving $129 million in surplus value. Pujols has been ever so slightly better on the field, producing 40.4 wins and $164 million in raw value, but St. Louis has paid him $66 million over the past five years. The $41 million difference in salary more than outweighs the 2.5 difference in wins produced on the field, allowing the Phillies to extract more value from Utley than St. Louis got from its superstar. And remember, Utley didn’t land a permanent job in the majors until 2005. He has had 2,269 fewer plate appearances to work with, and still managed to get himself within shouting distance of Pujols’ value for the decade. Once you adjust for games played, in fact, Utley grades out slightly higher. Utley has produced a net value of just over $35,000 per plate appearance, compared to $28,000 per trip to the plate for Pujols. While Utley hasn’t been at the top of the game for quite as long, once you account for salary, he’s been the most valuable player in baseball since his arrival in the big leagues.

The difference may only grow over the next few seasons. Pujols has two years remaining on the seven-year, $100 million contract he signed in 2004, but you have to believe that the Cardinals will give him a massive extension before his contract expires. He is due $16 million in each of the next two years, and the average annual salary of his next deal will surely exceed that. Utley, meanwhile, is under contract through 2013 at $15 million per year — less than half of what he’s worth on an annual basis. He may not have the trophies or the gaudy home run totals of players like Pujols or Alex Rodriguez, but Chase Utley is right there with the very best players in the game. When you factor in that the Phillies have him under contract at rates that don’t even come close to his true value, he rises above the rest as the real Most Valuable Player in baseball.

Over the past decade, fans have witnessed some astonishing offensive performances. We’ve been spoiled by Joe Mauer’s 2009, which was one of the best seasons by a catcher ever. Alex Rodriguez hit more than 50 home runs as a shortstop — twice. We’ve seen the crowning of a new home run king. Historic stuff. You could assemble a dream lineup from some of these single-season achievements, so why not indulge in a little fantasy?

There are plenty of stats we could look at to determine who had the best season at each position, but a good catch-all number is weighted Batting Runs above Average. It’s based on a FanGraphs stat called wOBA, which sums up a player’s production in a single number.

One thing to be aware of before we get started with the actual lineup: All these guys are, for the most part, middle-of-the-order hitters. Don’t get too hung up on actual batting order. Most studies of batting order show that even using the optimal 1-9 slotting, you’re going to gain only one or two wins.

Here we go now with the ultimate all-decade, all-value, all-production lineup. In case you doubt its value before we begin, consider this: If we plug this lineup into David Pinto’s lineup analysis tool, we learn the dream team you’ll discover below would score an average of nine runs per game. That means a team with this lineup could have the woeful 2003 Detroit Tigers as its pitching staff and still win 115 games.

Ready? Let’s go.

Batting first: Carlos Delgado, 2000, 1B

Whew. This was a close one. Delgado’s greatest competition, surprisingly, was not Albert Pujols — it was Jason Giambi. Giambi won the MVP in 2000 and was slightly better in 2001, hitting for an insane .342/.477/.660 line. Giambi’s 2001 is just a sliver better than Delgado’s in terms of batting runs above replacement — 102.8 BRAR to 102.6 — but the edge goes to Delgado because he started every game at first base. Giambi played 17 games as the A’s DH. Delgado hit .344, drew 123 walks and slugged for an absurd .664; he would hardly be your prototypical leadoff hitter, but in 2000 he did have a healthy .470 on-base percentage.

Batting second: Sammy Sosa, 2001, RF

While Slammin’ Sammy is remembered best for the summer of ’98, this was Sosa’s finest season. Unfortunately, no one outside of Chicago seemed to notice, because of what Barry Bonds was doing in San Francisco. Not only did Sosa top 60 home runs for the third time, but he also enjoyed career highs in batting average (.328) and walks (116).

Batting third: David Ortiz, 2007, DH

When you think Ortiz, you probably think “clutch” first. This wasn’t his most clutch season, but it was arguably his most productive; he hit 54 homers in 2006, but in 2007 he hit .332 instead of .287 and posted a similar slugging percentage.

Batting fourth: Barry Bonds, 2001, LF

His single-season slugging, on-base percentage, walks and home runs from ’01 are simply untouchable, barring an unforeseen superhero coming onto the scene.

Batting fifth: Alex Rodriguez, 2007, 3B

A-Rod hit .314/.422/.645 with 54 homers and ran away with the MVP; he enjoys the distinction of setting single-season home run records for two different positions (shortstop and third base).

Batting sixth: Alex Rodriguez, 2001, SS

This certainly might pose a logistical challenge, as human cloning hasn’t yet reached this level of sophistication. Seriously, though, the only competition for A-Rod was A-Rod. 2002 Rodriguez and 2001 Rodriguez were very close. He hit more homers in ’02 (57) but hit for a higher average with more doubles in 2001. He had 82 batting runs above replacement in 2001, 80 in ’02.

Batting seventh: Joe Mauer, 2009, C

Mauer was like vintage Mike Piazza with the bat — and he won a Gold Glove to boot. Mauer finally had his long-anticipated power breakout (28 homers) and hit for an astounding .365 batting average. Babe Phelps is the only catcher to qualify for a batting title with a higher average, and he only had 319 at-bats back in 1936 for the Dodgers. One can only wonder what Mauer would have done had he not missed the entire month of April.

Batting eighth: Jeff Kent, 2000, 2B

Kent won the MVP, edging out his teammate Barry Bonds even though Bonds actually had the better season. Bonds had more wins above replacement, 8.7 to 7.9. Kent set personal bests in a number of different categories, including slugging (.596) and on-base percentage (.424). Even in this age of offense, you do not often see this type of production from a middle infielder. You could argue he was more of a first baseman posing as a second baseman, but regardless, this was quite a remarkable season.

Batting ninth: Jim Edmonds, 2004, CF

Edmonds, Scott Rolen and Pujols formed “MV3” in this year — each player had an MVP-caliber performance in 2004 and the Cardinals won 105 games, only to be swept by the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. Edmonds hit .301 despite striking out 150 times, but he slugged .643, drew 101 walks and won his fifth consecutive Gold Glove.