Free Agent Watch: Coco Crisp

I wrote an article a while back pointing out that the A's signings of Willingham, Matsui, and Fuentes (especially Fuentes, as he is a pricey reliever) didn't make much sense in the context of Moneyball, as they were all overpaid in the 2011 season, The Coco Crisp signing made even less sense. A guy with an average OBP who steals bases made very little sense according to Jamesian analysis and Beane's own philosophy. Crisp has walked just 7.87% of the time in is career, which is below league average. However, WAR really likes Crisp, as he has a 1.99 WAR average in his career, which is better than the average player needed to make the playoffs. In fact, 25 players with equal WAR as Coco Crisp would win 101 games. He is worth about 6 million dollars according to this metric. For the Athletics, he was actually slightly better, with a 2.9 WAR in 2010 (worth 8.7 million), and a 2.1 WAR in 2011 (worth 6.3 million). In his career, Crisp has a .330 OBP (slightly above league average) and 87.62 PPS (below average).In 2011, his OBP dropped to .314, and he had just a 82.07 PPS (league average is around 90). He walked just 41 times and had a Runs Created per game of about 4.3, very mediocre. He did steal 49 bases, while only being caught 9 times, a 84 percentage, meaning his stealing is worth it. His Secondary Average was .267 (.255 in his career), and an ISO of .130. The good news for Crisp is that his 2011 BABIP was .284, under average. If his BABIP was league average, he would have had an OBP of about .332, which is around his career average. So teams scared of his .314 OBP (assuming they want his .332), should take comfort, and perhaps it will drive his price down. Crisp is a good player with a lot of "tools" but not a leadoff hitter. Injury problems and the fact he played for the lowly Athletics may drive his price down some, and make him a bargain.

Moneyball Review: The 3 Unsung Heroes

A big reason the Moneyball A's of 2002 (and even the 2001 A's) were successful was because of their pitching. The movie focuses mainly on the bullpen when it comes to pitching, but the Athletics had an extremely talented starting staff, headlined by 3 young pitchers: Zito, Mulder, and Hudson. 2001 and 2002 were the first full seasons for Barry Zito (the first round pick in the 1999 draft), and he threw well over 200 innings both years. In 2001 he posted a 4.3 WAR and -1.578 PE. In 2002, he had a -1.036 PE and a 6.5 WAR. Because minimum salary was less than it is now, he posted a mind-blowing 49 WASP (you could even double his salary to adjust for salary changes and its still 99, which would make him one of the top in the league). Mark Mulder was the first round pick for the A's in 1998, and 2001 and 2002 were also his first two full years in the Majors. He was really impressive too, posting a 9.5 WAR, 109 WASP, and 1.129 PE over that time. Tim Hudson was the 6th round pick of the A's in 1997, and had already started 53 games by the time 2001 rolled around. In 2001 and 2002, Hudson was spectacular, posting an 11 WAR, 127 WASP, and -0.494 PE. The story of Moneyball is great, and Billy Beane changed the way many teams operate and forever revolutionized the way we evaluate baseball, but we aren't even talking about Pena over Hatteberg, Chad Bradford, and Rincon if the A's didn't have Zito, Mulder, and Hudson. They were high round draft picks that the Athletics hit on, giving them great starting pitching (and as the Rays are showing), that is how to best build a team with no money. You have to draft well, and you have to have starting pitching.

Moneyball Review: David Justice

One of the main players the Athletics brought in to replace Giambi and Damon was outfielder David Justice. Justice was clearly at the end of his career (he never played after the 2002 season), and the Yankees had declared he could no longer play. As the movie stresses, they even were paying half his salary. What the movie doesn't mention is that the Yankees originally shipped Justice to the NY Mets. Exactly a week later, the Mets shipped him to the Oakland A's for Mark Guthrie and Tyler Yates. Guthrie spent 1 year with the Mets, registering a -2.245 PE in 48 innings, earning a 1.4 WAR (he had a 0 WAR in 2001 with Oakland) and 1286 WASP. Yates didn't get into the majors until 2004, and only appeared in 21 games for the Mets. They weren't good appearances either, with a -1 WAR. This means the Mets got a grand total of .4 WAR in the trade. With the Athletics, Justice produced a 1.4 WAR, .376 OBP, 2.48 PAPP, 1.0 PPG, and 5000 WASP. The WASP isn't good, until you calculate that the Athletics only paid half of his salary, then his WASP is 2500 (below the Halladay Standard). Billy Beane and company took a chance on an aging player mainly because of his OBP, and it paid off.

Moneyball Review: Is Johnny Damon really overrated?

After the 2001 season, the Athletics had to replace, as emphasized in Moneyball, Jason Giambi, Jason Isringhausen, and Johnny Damon. After Billy Beane hires Jonah Hill's character, we learn that Johnny Damon is "overrated" and not worth the money the Red Sox gave him. Now regular readers of the blog know that I am very much on the Johnny Damon bandwagon, so we will see if the numbers side with Moneyball's assessment, or what I have said in previous articles on Damon. First let's tackle the claim that Damon was not worth what the Red Sox paid him. In his 4 years in Boston, Damon's WASP's were as follows: 1542, 12500, 1818, 3437. So two years, he was very much worth it, had one really bad season, and was slightly overpaid his final year. This makes the claim that he is not worth it shaky at best. In Damon's one year in Oakland, his WASP was a very solid 2629, and he only made $150,000 less than he did in his first year in Boston. According to the main statistic of Sabermetrics, Wins after Replacement, he was very much worth his salary, contrary to the claims of Moneyball. The main problem Moneyball raised with Damon was On Base Percentage. In Oakland, it wasn't that good, at just .324. However, as you learn in statistics there are always outliers. Damon's Oakland season was certainly an outlier as far as OBP goes. His career OBP is .353. In Boston, it was .362, New York was .363, Kansas City .351, and Detroit .355. In his career, he has had a nice 1.4 PPG and a pretty good 2.52 PAPP in his career. I think this is one of the (few things really) things that Billy Beane's Moneyball A's got wrong (to be clear, they didn't resign Damon because they couldn't, not because they didn't want to. I am just referring to the notion that Damon isn't worth it).

Moneyball Review: Ricardo Rincon

Early on in the movie, Billy Beane tries to trade for Cleveland Indians reliever Ricardo Rincon. That is when he meets Jonah Hill's character as the trade doesn't go through. During the season, because the Indians are out of it, Beane is able to trade for Rincon. In the trade he gave up minor leaguer Marshall Mcdougall. Mcdougall never appeared in the majors for the Indians. Rincon, on the other hand, played for the Athletics from the middle of the 2002 season until the end of the 05 season. In that time he earned a 2.1 WAR and made about $3.9 million dollars. This gave him a very nice WASP of 1857. I guess there was a reason that Beane and company wanted Rincon.

Moneyball Review: Scott Hatteberg or Carlos Pena?

The face of Moneyball is Scott Hatteberg. Who can replace Jason Giambi? Hatteberg. Why? Because he can get on base. "Play Hatteberg" becomes the mantra of Billy Beane, much to the dismay of Art Howe, who wanted to play Carlos Pena. So who was right? Despite being one of the big decisions, if not the key decision of Billy Beane's moneyball A's, some have suggested that the move is actually antithetical to the principle of moneyball. In 2002, Carlos Pena was making just $202,000, while Hatteberg was making $900,000. Pena was also a much younger player, although this doesn't really matter to Beane. The first question is whether Hatteberg or Pena was better in 2002 for the Athletics. The answer is easily Hatteberg. Hatteberg posted a 2.7 WAR (he bizarrely had a .7 WAR on defense, when the big question was whether he could play first base, he obviously could), while Pena posted just a .4 WAR in his time with the Athletics. Carlos Pena played in 40 games, giving him a WAR per game of .01, while Hatteberg (played in 136 games) had a .02 WAR per game. Hatteberg post a 333 WASP (if you are unsure what any of these statistics mean, check the tabs above), while Pena had a 505. While both numbers are great, Hatteberg was better value, despite having a bigger salary. For what it is worth, Hatteberg was also better in his Athletic career than Pena's Tiger (Pena was traded to Detroit by the A's) career. The big number for Beane and the A's though was OBP (on base percentage), and in 2002 it wasn't even close. Hatteberg had a .374 OBP, and Pena had just a .302. Pena had a PAPP of 2.88, while Hatteberg had a better PAPP of 2.57. Pena's PPG was a bad .875, while Hatteberg's was a better, but still not great .99. So yes, it seems that Beane was right, the stats were on his side in the Pena versus Hatteberg fight.

Moneyball Review: Carlos Pena

Art Howe loved Carlos Pena in Moneyball

A point of contention during the whole movie of Moneyball is Carlos Pena. Manager Art Howe wanted to play Pena because he claimed that he was a better first baseman, while Beane wanted Hatteberg to play because he "got on base" (I will address Pena versus Hatteberg in another article). Beane ends up trading Pena away so Howe couldn't play him anymore. In reality, the Athletics sent Pena, Jeremy Bonderman, and Franklyn German to the Tigers, and got Ted Lilly, John-Ford Griffin and Jason Arnold from the Yankees, and much needed cash from the Tigers. In 4 years as a Tiger, Pena posted a 1.3 WAR. In his final year as a Tiger, he made 2.75 million and posted a 0 WAR, giving him a bad WASP of 5500. Jeremy Bonderman (who was originally the "player to be named later") spent 03-10 with the Tigers, posting a 5.6 WAR. However, he made 41 million in his time there, giving him a horrible WASP of 7380. Franklyn German spent 4 years with Detroit, but couldn't figure it out at a -.2 WAR. As far as the players the Athletics received, Ted Lilly played a year and a half with the A's, pitching 201.2 innings. He earned a 2.3 WAR in this time while making just $453,575 in that time (and part of that could be offset with the money the A's got in the trade), giving him a phenomenal WASP of 197.2. Griffin and Arnold never played for the A's in the Majors, but Lilly alone seems to tilt this trade to the Athletics. The Tigers got better overall WAR in the trade, but the Athletics got much more value.

Moneyball Review: Chad Bradford

As promised, this is part of a series I am doing off some of the moves found in the movie "Moneyball". Firstly, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite pitchers in the past decade or so, Chad Bradford. In the movie, Jonah Hill's character notes that Bradford was overlooked because people didn't like his strange delivery, which I have always loved personally. Jonah Hill's character claims that Bradford is worth 3 million dollars. This is a very large claim, since he made $170,000 with the White Sox in 98. In his last year with the White Sox in 2000, Bradford posted a WAR of .3, which is clearly not worth $3 million dollars a year. However, he did this in only 13.2 innings! If the White Sox gave him about 50 innings (more or less average for a reliever) in 2000 (assuming he pitched with the same success) he would have posted about a 1.14 WAR. This means (according to the Halladay Standard in WASP) he would have been worth $3,409,091. In 2000, his ERA was 1.98, with a 2.04 FIP (Fielder Independent ERA, tries to take fielders out of the equation), gave up no home runs, left over 70% of runners on base, and walked just one person. The movie doesn't really stress trade details on many players (which is probably a good thing for cinema sake), and doesn't mention that he was traded to the Athletics from Chicago for catcher Miguel Olivo. Olivo, unlike Bradford, is still in the Majors, but has bounced around and is playing for the Mariners. He played in pieces of the 2002, 2003, and 2004 seasons for the White Sox, playing in 166 games. He was really mediocre, posting a .5 WAR in that time, and was shipped off to Seattle. Bradford, on the other hand, was pretty nice for Oakland. He played for them from 01-04, pitching 248 innings with an ERA of 2.70, and a WHIP of 1.23. He averaged about 65% groundball outs, and picked up 61 holds in 02-04. His total WAR was 3.9 and he only made 1.7 million during that time (a far cry from the 3 million dollars a year he was worth), giving him an amazing WASP of 436 over that 4 year period. After the 04 season, he was traded to the Red Sox for Jay Payton. Payton's OBP wasn't all that great as an Athletic (.302 in 05, .325 in 06), but he was a formidable player, posting a 2.3 WAR in his 2 seasons. He made 6.25 million in his two years as an A, giving him a solid 2717 WASP. Bradford only spent 05 with the Red Sox, posting just a .5 WAR. Certainly the trade for Bradford, and then even the trade sending Bradford away, were trades that worked out greatly for the Athletics. Some of these moves seem quite magical, but they made sense when you looked at the numbers. When you do that enough times, you get movies made after you.

Moneyball review: Part 1

Over the next few days (or weeks, who knows) I will be posting about Moneyball the movie. Most of the posts will be about the actual trades Billy Beane made at the time, and will try to use some of the same methods (along with some of my own) they used to see if the moves actually worked. However, I would like to give a short review. I am no movie critic, and have no skill grading acting, so I am just giving an opinion. With that said, if you consider yourself a baseball fan, you need to watch this movie. It is now my favorite baseball movie. They used a nice mixture of actual game-footage and simulated acting for game moments, and its the best I have seen in a sports movie. Because it's based on real life events, we don't get the crummy storylines included in many sports movies. The players are real, and the story-line is (mostly, at least) real. Great job on research to not only know all the players involved with the A's but also the players on other teams (I was caught in quite a few "o yeah, I forgot about that" moments, such as that Raul Ibanez played with the Kansas City Royals for a time). For those not baseball fans, it is a good underdog story, with slight political overtones, its the rich versus the poor, the fortunate versus the not so much. Whether sportsy or not, its a good story-line, the good guy doesn't necessarily win, and life is complicated. Of course, the cast is very good as well, headlined by Brad Pitt (for the female viewer, there are many scenes of him working out, and probably one two many closeups of his chest area) and Jonah Hill. A minor complaint might be that Carlos Pena looks nothing like Carlos Pena in the movie, although that is really hard to cast (Jeremy Giambi didn't look like Giambi either). Other than that, there is not a lot to complain about. There are some kind of soft, mushy moments, but they don't over do it, and they seem appropriate. I think everyone should at least give this movie a chance, and I will give it an A-.