Tigers make big signing

The Tigers made big news on Tuesday, signing a huge big ticket free agent to a 9 year 214 million dollar deal. However, this post isn't about Prince. The Tigers also signed Warwick Saupold, an Australian Pitcher who was pitching for the Perth Heat in the Australian Baseball League. In 70 innings this season, he had an ERA of 1.41 and WHIP of .93. This projects to about a 3.53 ERA in the MLB according to our minor league and ABL metrics. However, the previous year for Saupold was much less pleasant. In the 2010-2011 season, he had an awful 5.52 ERA in 44 innings. Is this just a case of things evening out with larger sample sizes, or was there another explanation. Just on the surface, while he still got more groundballs than flyballs, he had less groundballs last season than this season. He gave up 5 homers last season, while he only gave up 2 this year. Strangely, he had a better strikeout in his bad season than his good season. This would suggest a bit of BABIP luck, but also the factoring of the difference in flyballs and homers. So which Saupold will the Tigers be getting? That is very hard to predict, but one would figure that the more recent season should hold more weight, and that his improved groundball and home run rate is probably not flukey. That is to say, there seems to be a genuine improvement from the previous year to this season. So it would make sense to call his 2011 season that projects to a 3.53 ERA his ceiling. However, we could create a "floor" for Saupold, using his average from his 2 seasons in the ABL. Overall, he has a 3.00 ERA in 114 innings, which is not quite a full season. This projects to an ERA over 5, meaning a below replacement pitcher. This is a wide range of projections, and keep in mind its a relatively small sample size. While I like his home run rate (.55 HR/9IP overall), his lack of strikeouts are concerning. His best hope is to make it as a groundball pitcher who pitches to contact. While there are some decent pitchers in the MLB, they are highly volatile (for the most part) and not in the elite category. Even though the ERA projection projects a ceiling of middle rotation, I would say the ceiling is likely back of rotation or long reliever. However, even if that happens and he has some success down the road, it would be a nice pickup for the Tigers, and may make some MLB franchises take the ABL more seriously.

Is Josh Hamilton Overrated?

Over the past 3 years, including his MVP year, Josh Hamilton has a 4.03 WAR average, worth 12.1 million. He will make 13.75 million in 2012. Hamilton has a career .366 OBP. To give you an idea of how that fits in with the league, there were 29 players (that had the minimum amount of plate appearances) with equal or better than .366 OBP in 2011. This list includes the ones you might expect like Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, but also includes guys like Alberto Callaspo and Casey Kotchman. However, it is not as if Hamilton sucks at getting on base, as one assumes that each of the 30 teams have 13 hitters, Hamilton would still be in the top 8%. Hamilton was also the OPS leader in 2010, and has a career OPS of .909, which would have been 16th in the Majors in 2011. His PAPP is very solid at 2.4, and his PPG is really nice at 1.61. Known for exciting defense of plays and disregard for his own safety, he has an under average fielding percentage and slightly above average range factor. In 2011, he cost the Rangers at least 3 runs with his fielding overall, and in his career is actually worth -1 run defensively, meaning he slightly hurts his team in the field. His 2010 MVP season should have alarmed some people, as he had an absolutely unrealistic .390 BABIP. It should have been pretty obvious that he could not repeat that season in 2011. His Secondary Average and ISO are both pretty good at .336 and .234 (these two were both about the same in 2010 and 2011, perhaps showing that these statistics are more reliable and less fluky). His career Runs Created per game is impressive at 7.5, giving him an Offensive Winning Percentage of .688. Certainly everyone would like to have him in their offense. There are certainly flaws in Hamilton's offense game though, as he walks slightly less than league average and sees less pitches per plate appearance than average. This is concerning because not only do you think a dangerous power hitter should be able to walk and make a pitcher work more than normal, but it also means inconsistency. Players that are able to walk and see more pitches are almost always more consistent hitters, and for Hamilton consistency seems to be somewhat a problem. One year he is one of the leagues best, the next, he is just above average. So to answer the question, yes Josh Hamilton is a bit overrated. There is no question he is an exciting player, and that he is an above average player, but he simply does not belong in the class of Ryan Braun, Albert Pujols, and the leagues best players.

Free Agent Watch: Russell Branyan

In 2011, Branyan played in just 68 games for the Diamondbacks and Angels and registered a -.2 WAR while making 1 million dollars. His OBP was just .295 and his OPS was just .665. While his PAPP was 2.92, his PPG was just .47. However, he walked 12.32 percent of the time, well above league average, and he homered 3.4% of his plate appearances, again well above league average. Even with his awful OBP, he still had a PPS of 95.1. After having a 1.8 WAR in 09, and a 2.4 WAR in 2010, one quickly scrambles to figure out what happened. It seems to be the usual suspect, BABIP. His BABIP was just .244 in 2011, which is mindblowingly low. His career BABIP is .296. With his career BABIP replacing the his 2011 BABIP, he would have had a .359 OBP, and even if his Slugging somehow didn't change, he would have a more acceptable .729 OPS. This makes us want to look at his career numbers. He trots this line out: .329 OBP, .814 OPS, 2.63 PAPP, and 1.03 PPG. Excluding the average OBP, these are pretty good numbers. The deeper you go, the better they get, with a 5.7 Runs Created per Game, and a .565 offensive winning percentage. Even better is his Secondary Average (.394), and Isolated Slugging (.254). He walks 11.86 percent of the time and homers 5.7% of the time. Add this to a 97.36 and you have a very good offensive player. Defensively, he isn't very good at a -.7 career D-WAR. Because of his pretty bad 2011 season, Russell Branyan will be significantly undervalued. However, it seems his 2011 season was due to his lack of Plate Appearances (just 146), and his terrible BABIP luck. He doesn't have a great OBP, but he walks like crazy and is a big time home run hitter. He is a ball crusher, who is also a pretty efficient hitter as PAPP shows. It would be absolute insanity for a team to sign Prince Fielder or Albert Pujols when there are solid 1^st Baseman like Branyan and Overbay laying around basically to be underpaid. Using Simple WAR and our adjusted OBP and OPS (but basically unrealistically not changing PPG or PAPP, we can predict at 1.56 O-WAR for 2012 (if we replace the PPG and PAPP with his career numbers for those statistics we get a 2.24 O-WAR).

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.

Too early to call a bust?: Josh Vitters

Josh Vitters has started off hot in the Arizona Fall League, hitting 2 homers and driving in 8 in only 5 games. He is hitting .381, but he hasn't walked yet, and this seems to be a symptom of his career.  Vitters was a first round pick in 07. He has a career .319 OBP in minors. His OPS is just 758, and his PPG is less than impressive at 1.18. Because he isn't a guy who walks, his PAPP is worse, at 3.03.  He isn't any good out in the field either, with a fielding percentage of only .923. He is really terrible at 3rd base. At a .970 fielding percentage, Yuni Betancourt has a career -1.7 WAR on defense from 2005-2011. Vitters is better at first base with a .983. However, Mitch Moreland of the Texas Rangers is at .995 at first and still has a negative defensive WAR. His range factor is only 2.23 at third. At first, it is better at 7.44, but that is still not good. Even Ryan Howard, considered a horrible first-baseman, has a range factor of 9.41, and Prince Fielder has a 8.99.
He is never been past AAA. Taken 3rd overall in that draft, he has seen the first and second pick, David Price and Mike Moustakas, already have success in the big leagues. Some guys taken right after him, Matt Weiters, Matt LaPorta, and Ross Detwiler have also had success in the Majors. It doesn't like Vitters is ready to take the next step either, as his OBP in AA is .313. It is not like he can make up for it with great power either, with just one bomb every 35.4 PA. People wonder why the Cubs aren't good, it is because they don't draft well. It is hard to build a team, even with their payroll, if you don't draft well.

Playoff Preview: Brewers and Cardinals

I really have thought that the Brewers were the best team in the National League outside of the newly eliminated Phillies, and they have a complete team (outside of holes in their fielding), so I will go with them before statistics.

For the Cardinals, the starting rotation should look like: Carpenter (.11 WAR per Start, .07 PE), Lohse (.083 WAR per start, 1.66 PE), Garcia (.028 WAR per start, .34 PE), and Westbrook (3.91 PE, Negative WAR).  Their bullpen maps out with these guys: Rhodes (2.95 PE, -.6 WAR), Rzepczynski (1 WAR, -2.07 PE), Dotel (-4.04 PE, .9 WAR), Jackson (1.38 PE, 3.8 WAR), Salas (-3.93 PE, 1 WAR), Mclellen (3.23 PE, negative WAR), Motte (-3.15 PE, 1.6 WAR), and Boggs (.3 WAR, .43 PE). They will probably run out this lineup (in no order): Jay (.01 WAR per game, 2.92 PAPP, .63 PPG), Berkman (.036 WAR per game, 1.5 PPG, 2.21 PAPP) , Holliday (.033 WAR per game, 1.48 PPG, 2.4 PAPP), Pujols (.037 WAR per game, 2.33 PAPP, 1.7 PPG), Freese (1.1 PPG, .019 WAR per game, 2.71 PAPP), Furcal (.028 WAR per game, 2.855 PAPP, 1.12 PPG), Schumaker (.005 WAR per game, 3.05 PAPP, .63 PPG), and Molina (2.71 PAPP, .99 PPG, .028 WAR per game).

I expect the Brewers to use Gallardo (.08 WAR a start, -1.85 PE), Grienke (-3.21 PE, .056 WAR per start), Marcum (-.11 PE, .1 WAR a start), and Wolf (1.78 PE, .1 WAR a star) as the starting pitchers. Their bullpen will probably include Saito (.2 WAR, -2.23 PE), Rodriquez (-3.48 PE, 1.4 WAR), Axford (-5.22 PE, 1.8 WAR), Loe (-.62 PE, 1.2 WAR), Hawkins (1.17 PE, .7 WAR) De La Cruz (.1 WAR, -.23 PE), Narveson (1.5 WAR, 1.36 PE), and Dillard (-1.01 PE, .3 WAR). Their lineup will look something like this: (in no order) Morgan (.018 WAR per game, 2.9 PAPP, .97 PPG), Braun (2.07 PAPP, .05 WAR per game, 1.9 PPG), Hart (2.52 PAPP, .03 WAR per game, 1.33 PPG), Lucroy (.003 WAR per game, 3.066 PAPP, .84 PPG), Fielder (1.52 PPG, .03 WAR per game, 2.24 PAPP), Weeks (.025 War per game, 2.6 PAPP, 1.3 PPG), Betancourt (.007 WAR per game, .91 PPG, 3.43 PAPP), and Hairston (.6 PPG, 2.94 PAPP, and .024 WAR per game).


The statistics show that the Brewers have the much better starting pitching. The bullpen is split, with the Brewers being more efficient, but the Cardinals a better WAR. The lineups are very even, all the statistics are close, the PAPP and WAR going to the Cardinals, while PPG going to the Brewers (but all by very small margins). So it is easy to call the lineups and bullpens a draw, and focus on the difference in starting pitching that favors the Brewers. So both the statistics pick and my pre-pick is the Brewers.

Series Review: Diamondbacks vs Brewers

If you remember, I had the Brewers winning before statistics, and then picked the Diamondbacks to win the series after the statistics. I said in the article that the numbers didn't pick a clear winner, but since the Diamondbacks had the better lineup (which sort of surprised me, and they had equal starting pitching), I leaned towards them. It seems that I should have stuck with the Brewers. This was a very close, exciting series with the exclamation mark put on by a walk-off hit in the 10th inning by Morgan in game 5. Perhaps the biggest tilt in the Brewers favor was the Gallardo/Kennedy match-up. Kennedy was a slightly better pitcher this year says the numbers, yet Gallardo outdueled him in the series (4.26 ERA for Kennedy, and 1.29 for Gallardo in the series). The Brewers had the better bullpen, and it showed. For the Diamondbacks, Putz was pretty mediocre and gave up the series winning hit, Ziegler was awful, Hernandez was alright, while Shaw was really good. For the Brewers, everyone was pretty much lights out, even Axford was good overall. When looking at the lineups, the first thing you notice is that Ryan Braun hit out of his mind (4 doubles, with OBP of over .500) He even out performed his awesome statistics. Fielder had a key homer in game 1, and walked a few times. Surprises were Betancourt and Hairston, with low statistical ratings but huge series's. This more than made up for Rickie Weeks' lackluster series. Arizona's lineup didn't do too bad, other than Parra was pretty miserable (even with a good performance in game 5).The Brewers had better pitching overall, in both starters and bullpen. That is why they won the series.

Pre-Statistics picks: 3-0
Statistic picks: 0-3
Teams with bigger payroll: 2-1

Playoff Preview: The Brewers and Diamondbacks

The playoffs are here and it took the most exciting night in recent baseball history to get here. So what I am going to do in my playoff previews is reveal my biases (say who I would pick before looking at the numbers), then use the same numbers I use in other articles to grade players to predict a winner. To be clear, without the numbers, I predict a Rangers/Phillies World Series, with the Phillies winning in 5 games. In this series, I think the Brewers pitching is better, and cancels out similar lineups, so I have the Brewers. But here we go:

I expect the Brewers to use Gallardo (.08 WAR a start, -1.85 PE), Grienke (-3.21 PE, .056 WAR per start), Marcum (-.11 PE, .1 WAR a start), and Wolf (1.78 PE, .1 WAR a star) as the starting pitchers. Their bullpen will probably include Saito (.2 WAR, -2.23 PE), Rodriquez (-3.48 PE, 1.4 WAR), Axford (-5.22 PE, 1.8 WAR), Loe (-.62 PE, 1.2 WAR), Hawkins (1.17 PE, .7 WAR) De La Cruz (.1 WAR, -.23 PE), Narveson (1.5 WAR, 1.36 PE), and Dillard (-1.01 PE, .3 WAR). Their lineup will look something like this: (in no order) Morgan (.018 WAR per game, 2.9 PAPP, .97 PPG), Braun (2.07 PAPP, .05 WAR per game, 1.9 PPG), Hart (2.52 PAPP, .03 WAR per game, 1.33 PPG), Lucroy (.003 WAR per game, 3.066 PAPP, .84 PPG), Fielder (1.52 PPG, .03 WAR per game, 2.24 PAPP), Weeks (.025 War per game, 2.6 PAPP, 1.3 PPG), Betancourt (.007 WAR per game, .91 PPG, 3.43 PAPP), and McGehee (3.38 PAPP, negative war, .82 PPG).

The Diamondbacks will probably use Kennedy (.167 WAR per start, -1.84 PE), Saunders (2.83 PE, .079 WAR per start), Hudson (.35 PE, .076 WAR per start) , and Collmenter (.1 WAR per start, .95 PE) as starters. Their lineup will look something like this (in no particular order): Upton (.027 WAR per game, 1.55 PPG, 2.46 PAPP), Young (.032 WAR per game, 1.3 PPG, 2.66 PAPP), Parra (2.52 PAPP, .013 WAR per game, .88 PPG), Goldschmidt (.002 WAR per game, 1.38 PPG, 2.47 PAPP) , Hill (2.67 PAPP, 1.41 PPG, .053 WAR per game), Bloomquist (2.95 PAPP, .97 PPG, Negative WAR), Roberts (3.1 PAPP, 1.32 PPG, .024 WAR per game), and Montero (.033 WAR per game, 1.21 PPG, 2.71 PAPP). Their bullpen will include Zeigler (1.2 WAR, -.98 PE), Putz (-4.48 PE, 1.7 WAR), Hernandez (-3.59 PE, 1.3 WAR), Paterson (-1.1 PE, .3 WAR), Owings (.89 PE, .1 WAR), Miley (2.88 PE, .2 WAR) and Shaw (.2 WAR, -1.01 PE).

As far as starting pitchers go, the Diamondbacks have a better WAR, while the Brewers have the better Pitching Efficiency. The Brewers have the better bullpen in both Pitching efficiency and WAR. The Diamondbacks actually have the better lineup in all 3 categories used above. Perhaps this is disappointing because the statistics don't seem to pick a winner in this series. However, the stats clearly show that it is the Diamondbacks, not the Brewers that have the better lineup, and that makes me pick the Diamondbacks post-numbers.

The obligatory Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder article

Everyone who follows baseball knows, Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder will be free agents at the end of the season. In the past 4 years, Pujols has registered a 31.8 WAR, a 27.4 offensive WAR and a 3.8 defensive WAR. That means his average year (in the past 4 years) is 7.95 WAR, 6.85 O-WAR, .95 D-WAR. He is making 16 million dollars this year (with a 5.3 WAR) and has a WASP around the Halladay Standard at 3018. However, if he made 16 million in his average year, his WASP would be a solid 2013. His average year merits a 23.8 million dollar a year contract according to the Halladay Standard. Prince Fielder is a slightly different story. His WAR in the past 4 years is 15.9, 17.9 O-WAR, -2 D-WAR. He is making 15.5 million this year, (and with a WAR of 4.7) making his WASP pretty bad, at 5741 (Carlos Pena of the rival Cubs is slightly more efficient). His average WAR is 3.975, 4.475 O-WAR, -.5 D-WAR. According the Halladay Standard, his average season deserves 11.925 million dollars. Back to Pujols, since the minimum wage for Major League players is at $400,000, if he ends up making 23.850 million dollars, that would be equal to 60 minimum wage players. It would be nearly impossible to argue that Albert Pujols is worth 60 players, even minimum wage bubble players. Think about it, would you rather bring Albert Pujols to spring training, or 60 pre-arbitration major and minor league players?  The 60 players would only have to equal a .1325 WAR a piece to equal Pujol's production. Unless your a big money team with no worries about money or efficiency (especially because of injuries, can you imagine paying Pujols 23 million to sit on the DL because he tore up his knee in spring training?), it would be just goofy to sign Pujols to what he is worth.