Times to First: Part 6

1. Tony Abreu (Royals): 4.27

2. Jeff Keppinger (Rays): 4.23

3. Alex Rodriguez (Yankees) 4.49

4. Chris Stewart (Yankees): 4.21

5. Matt Joyce (Rays): 4.28

6. Chris Dickerson (Yankees): 4.07

7. Jose Tabata (Pirates): 4.25

8. Carlos Quentin (Padres): 4.64

9. Shane Victorino (Dodgers): 4.27 (3.93 on a bunt)

10. Cameron Maybin (Padres): 4.02

11. Matt Kemp (Dodgers): 4.24

12. Jose Iglesias (Red Sox): 4.09

13. A.J. Ellis (Dodgers): 4.57

14. Mark Kotsay (Padres): 4.40

15. Josh Willingham (Twins): 4.32

16. Evereth Cabrera (Padres): 3.80 (on a bunt)

17. Jay Bruce (Reds): 4.43

18. Desmond Jennings (Rays): 3.80 (on a bunt)

19. Luke Scott (Rays): 4.38

20. Elliot Johnson (Rays): 3.78 (on a bunt)

The New Matt Kemp Contract

A Barry Bonds type 10 (!) WAR in 2011. This is worth an A-Rod type contract at 30 million a year according to the Halladay Standard. Over the past 3 years, he has averaged a 6 WAR. This is worth 18 million dollars, but he got a 8 year 160 million dollar deal, worth about 20 million dollars a year. So if you take his average over the past 3 years, the Dodgers overpaid him. However, according to his 2011 season, he is being underpaid. So which is it? Kemp has a career OBP of .350, but in 2011 that number soared to a .399 number. In fact, before 2011, his career OBP was just .336, very unimpressive. His Secondary Average jumped from .296 in 2010 to .434 in 2011, and his ISO went from .201 to .262. In 2010 he had a Runs Created per Game of just 4.4 to 8.6 in 2011, as his Offensive Winning Percentage rose from .478 to .771. These jumps are staggering enough (I could go on, for example his OPS jumped from .760 to .986) that if they happened 10 years ago, there would be serious accusations of steroid use. So why were 2010, where he was an okay offensively and bad defensively (according to D-WAR) outfielder, and 2011, where he certainly deserves the MVP, so different? Our old friend BABIP. In 2010, his BABIP was a touch lower than league average at .296, while in 2011 it was a monstrous .380. So obviously a big key to his success in 2011 was BABIP, but was it BABIP luck or was he just legitimately hitting the ball harder? One important thing to look at is walks of course. For the first time in career, he walked above league average. There are two ways to look at this: 1. Because he was either hitting the ball harder or experiencing some mad BABIP luck, pitchers pitched him more carefully, giving him more walks or 2. He has changed as a hitter and is more patient. There is a lot of belief, and I admittedly think this thinking has a lot of merit, that number 2 is not possible. As a fully developed adult playing at the highest level of baseball possible, one does not change the way one sees the ball and develop more patience the thinking goes. This is shown by pitches per plate appearance, probably the most predictive and consistent offensive statistic. To confirm this kind of thinking, Kemp's Pit/PA was 3.96 in 2011, while it was 3.91 in 2010. This is above average, but certainly not a drastic change. So now on the issue of BABIP, Kemp has always been a flyball hitter, but it was slightly more so in 2011 (.62 GB/FB to a career .73). His line drive percentage was the same as it has been his whole career, as was his infield flyballs. However, a greater percentage of his flyballs left the yard at 14.8%, compared to his 10.8% career average. Since he played in the same ballpark the whole time (his OPS +, an Adjusted OPS that accounts for ballpark factors where 100 is average, jumped from 106 in 2010 to a league leading 171 in 2011), one simply has to conclude that he is at least hitting his flyballs harder. However, he only hit 11 more home runs in 2011 than 2010, even if all those 11 less HRs turned into outs in 2010, it would not affect OBP all that much. So one has to conclude that there was a lot of BABIP luck to go along with him hitting the ball harder. Paying a player after an amazing season is always risky, one cannot rely on Kemp putting up these awesome numbers (a PAPP of just 2.04). However, Kemp has a shot of at least being good enough to meet the Halladay Standard in his 20 million dollar a year deal (he needs a 6.7 WAR a year) most years. It is just really risky, especially for a team that is supposed to be bankrupt.

Pitches Against Starter Metric

It is common baseball wisdom that the earlier you get a starter out of the game, the better chance you have to win. So here I will try to establish a metric that shows how good a team or player is at accomplishing this feat. A team needs to get at least 6.67 pitches per out to get the bullpen after 6 innings (assuming the starter goes 120 pitches). So of course we have to factor pitches per plate appearance, but we also have to factor OBP. Usually the relief pitchers are not as good as the starters, except the set up man and closers for most good teams. So the goal would be to not let the starter go more than 6 innings. You can use this metric to grade players by seeing how many pitches it takes them to get out 18 times. For example, for Robinson Cano, you take his .349 OBP and multiply it by 18. This gives you 6.282, meaning in 18 plate appearances, he will reach 6.282 times. So you add that to 18 to get 24.282. Then multiply it by his pitches per plate appearance (3.34 for Cano). This is only 81.1, meaning it would only take a starting pitcher 81 pitches to get through 6 innings of a Cano only lineup (and the pitcher would clearly still be in the game). Matt Kemp would cause a pitcher to be at 99 pitches through 6 innings. This is also a way to judge the quality of lineups. For example, the Brewers lineup in game 4 of the ALCS Morgan (.357 OBP, 3.69 Pit/PA), Kotsay (.329 OBP, 3.58 Pit/PA), Braun (.397 OBP, 3.93 Pit/PA), Fielder (.415, 3.79), Weeks (.350, 3.84), Hairston (.348, 3.86), Betancourt (.271, 3.16), Kottaras (.311, 3.81), and Wolf (.177, 3.56). This gives you a 2.955 OBP and 33.22 pitches. Because it is 18 outs, multiply both numbers to get 66.44 pitches and 5.91 OBP. Because the OBP is 5.91 you multiply that by the average Pit/PA for the 9 batters (3.69) to get about 21.81. Add that number to the 66.44 pitches to get 88.25 pitches as the final number through 6 innings. So the Brewers lineup is better that Robinson Cano but not as good as Matt Kemp, according to this metric. This pitches against starter metric I really like and will keep using.