Monday, December 5, 2011
The Rockies claim Jamie Hoffman
The Colorado Rockies have claimed Jamie Hoffman off waivers from the Dodgers. His Major League statistics are worthless, since he has played in just 14 games. However, he has played 344 PCL AAA games. There he has a .363 OBP, .822 OPS, 1.49 PPG, and 2.55 PAPP. He has a .270 Secondary Average, .159 ISO, and 1.935 O4S. These numbers are really anything special, especially when it is factored in that this is the PCL. When converted to the International League, his numbers are changed into: .333 OBP, .744 OPS, 1.19 PPG, and 2.8 PAPP. This adds up to a simple WAR of .83, hardly impressive. When converted to the Major Leagues, it is just a .287 OBP, .652 OPS, .79 PPG, and 3.37 PAPP. This is well below replacement level. Defensively, he is also poor with a well below average Range Factor and below average fielding percentage in the outfield. There is nothing to see here, move along.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Jeff Mathis for Brad Mills, The Toronto and Angel trade
I have already looked at Jeff Mathis and his value on this blog (in short, he is terrible at baseball, both defensively and offensively), so I will basically use this post as an evaluation of Brad Mills, the new Angels pitcher.
In parts of 3 seasons (but just 14 appearances and 9 starts) Mills has a -1.4 WAR. He has an awful 4.9 PE and a 2.33 Adjusted PE. He has an awful TR of 2.79. I am not sure I have seen a TR that low. His SIERA is 4.83, which is bad, but not as bad as a lot of his other numbers. He gives up almost 2 homers every 9 innings, and has a FIP - of 142. He has struggled with a .331 BABIP though. This obviously isn't a large sample size, so we should check out his AAA numbers. He has made 58 AAA starts in the PCL, and had a .503 PE with a slightly better FIP than ERA. Once adjusted for the difference in ERA between the PCL and International League, Mills PE is a -.597. According to the AAA metric, he has an expected Major League PE of 1.933 PE, which is serviceable, but by no means good. I guess he would replace Tyler Chatwood, who was just sent to the Rockies.
In parts of 3 seasons (but just 14 appearances and 9 starts) Mills has a -1.4 WAR. He has an awful 4.9 PE and a 2.33 Adjusted PE. He has an awful TR of 2.79. I am not sure I have seen a TR that low. His SIERA is 4.83, which is bad, but not as bad as a lot of his other numbers. He gives up almost 2 homers every 9 innings, and has a FIP - of 142. He has struggled with a .331 BABIP though. This obviously isn't a large sample size, so we should check out his AAA numbers. He has made 58 AAA starts in the PCL, and had a .503 PE with a slightly better FIP than ERA. Once adjusted for the difference in ERA between the PCL and International League, Mills PE is a -.597. According to the AAA metric, he has an expected Major League PE of 1.933 PE, which is serviceable, but by no means good. I guess he would replace Tyler Chatwood, who was just sent to the Rockies.
Rangers make minor league signings.
The Rangers signed 3 minor league players to minor league contracts:
Dusty Brown doesn't have enough major league statistics to be meaningful, so we will look at his AAA stats instead. All of his AAA time was spent in Pawtucket, an International League team, where he put up a .346 OBP, .92 PPG, and 2.78 PAPP, adding up to a 1.37 Simple WAR. According to our AAA metric, his expected offensive output in the Majors should be .300 OBP, .52 PPG, 3.35 PAPP and an O-WAR of -1.58. So obviously Brown isn't even a serviceable major leaguer.
Luis Hernandez has more major league experience than Brown (290 PA). There he had a .286 OBP, 56 OPS +, and .5 WAR (.8 D-WAR). He is slightly below average at second base, but is very solid at SS. His Offense has been poor though, with a .264 win percentage, 2.8 Runs Created per Game, and .121 Secondary Average. There seems to be nothing redeemable about his Major League Statistics, but what about his minor league numbers? He has spent parts of 6 seasons in AAA, mostly in the International League. His offensive numbers looked like this: .284 OBP, .604 OPS, 3.53 PAPP, and .81 PPG. So these are clearly below replacement offensive numbers. The only hope for Hernandez is that his defense will be good enough (as it has so far in his major league career, but D-WAR is terribly unpredictable) to make him a replacement or above replacement player.
Lastly, Yangervis Solarte has not played in the big leagues or even AAA. So we have no metric for Solarte, but it is still somewhat helpful to look at his numbers. Defensively, he plays just about every position (except 1st and Catcher), but isn't very impressive at any of them. In his 6 seasons in the minors, he has a .340 OBP, 1.752 O4S, and walks just 6.3% of the time. Nothing stands out here. I don't see any of these 3, besides maybe Hernandez's defense, helping the Rangers at all.
Dusty Brown doesn't have enough major league statistics to be meaningful, so we will look at his AAA stats instead. All of his AAA time was spent in Pawtucket, an International League team, where he put up a .346 OBP, .92 PPG, and 2.78 PAPP, adding up to a 1.37 Simple WAR. According to our AAA metric, his expected offensive output in the Majors should be .300 OBP, .52 PPG, 3.35 PAPP and an O-WAR of -1.58. So obviously Brown isn't even a serviceable major leaguer.
Luis Hernandez has more major league experience than Brown (290 PA). There he had a .286 OBP, 56 OPS +, and .5 WAR (.8 D-WAR). He is slightly below average at second base, but is very solid at SS. His Offense has been poor though, with a .264 win percentage, 2.8 Runs Created per Game, and .121 Secondary Average. There seems to be nothing redeemable about his Major League Statistics, but what about his minor league numbers? He has spent parts of 6 seasons in AAA, mostly in the International League. His offensive numbers looked like this: .284 OBP, .604 OPS, 3.53 PAPP, and .81 PPG. So these are clearly below replacement offensive numbers. The only hope for Hernandez is that his defense will be good enough (as it has so far in his major league career, but D-WAR is terribly unpredictable) to make him a replacement or above replacement player.
Lastly, Yangervis Solarte has not played in the big leagues or even AAA. So we have no metric for Solarte, but it is still somewhat helpful to look at his numbers. Defensively, he plays just about every position (except 1st and Catcher), but isn't very impressive at any of them. In his 6 seasons in the minors, he has a .340 OBP, 1.752 O4S, and walks just 6.3% of the time. Nothing stands out here. I don't see any of these 3, besides maybe Hernandez's defense, helping the Rangers at all.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Looking at the Taylor Teagarden trade
The Texas Rangers traded Taylor Teagarden to the Orioles for Randy Henry and a player to be named later.
Teagarden has a 1.5 WAR in 392 PA according to Baseball Reference. I found this quite surprising actually, especially because of his .286 OBP. Fangraphs actually has him slightly better at a 1.7 WAR. (Back to Baseball Reference) His O-WAR is actually 1.3 WAR. However, he has just a 1.561 O4S, 81 OPS +, and 4.2 Runs Created per Game. On the other hand, he has a .425 Offensive Winning Percentage (which, if you think about it, is above replacement), .280 Secondary Average, and .197 ISO. He walks below average, but has homers at a stunning 4.1%. He also has hit extra base hits at a larger percentage than average, and is a flyball hitter. He also sees a lot of pitches, evidenced by his 96.06 PPS (despite having a really poor OBP). However, Teagarden doesn't have a season's worth of Plate Appearances (even though he has appeared in parts of 4 seasons), so one could argue that the positive or the negative statistics are because of small sample size. It may be helpful to look at his overall AAA numbers, even though they are PCL numbers which is more offensively friendly than IL numbers. In 2011, the PCL had a .030 OBP advantage, .078 OPS advantage, .3 PPG Advantage, and .25 PAPP lower (and 1.10 higher ERA, for future reference when looking at pitchers). So we should take Teagarden's relevant numbers, which are .339 OBP, .807 OPS, 1.12 PPG, and 2.65 PAPP. This would be adjusted to .309 OBP, .729 OPS, .82 PPG, and 2.9 PAPP. These aren't very good numbers at all, and is even worse once ran through the AAA metric: 3.47 PAPP, .42 PPG, and .263 OBP. These are worse than his Major League statistics, and would certainly be below replacement. So someone arguing that Teagarden's Major League statistics will be worse once the statistical size gets larger has a very valid point. Even though he is out of options, he is not even arbitration eligible yet. So even though he won't be very good most likely, he won't cost any money.
For the Rangers' side of the deal, Randy Henry hasn't pitched above A ball, but has a -1.16 PE in 75.2 Innings. He has only given up .6 HR/9IP and has only walked 1.7 every 9 innings. So he looks to be a very solid A reliever, but who knows how that will work out. The player to be named later will probably be announced after the Rule 5 draft, and it seems a lot of the merits of the trade will be determined after that. I don't really know how to evaluate this trade to say who "won", but I thought that the player evaluations (as with a long at the difference between the PCL and International League) would be helpful.
Teagarden has a 1.5 WAR in 392 PA according to Baseball Reference. I found this quite surprising actually, especially because of his .286 OBP. Fangraphs actually has him slightly better at a 1.7 WAR. (Back to Baseball Reference) His O-WAR is actually 1.3 WAR. However, he has just a 1.561 O4S, 81 OPS +, and 4.2 Runs Created per Game. On the other hand, he has a .425 Offensive Winning Percentage (which, if you think about it, is above replacement), .280 Secondary Average, and .197 ISO. He walks below average, but has homers at a stunning 4.1%. He also has hit extra base hits at a larger percentage than average, and is a flyball hitter. He also sees a lot of pitches, evidenced by his 96.06 PPS (despite having a really poor OBP). However, Teagarden doesn't have a season's worth of Plate Appearances (even though he has appeared in parts of 4 seasons), so one could argue that the positive or the negative statistics are because of small sample size. It may be helpful to look at his overall AAA numbers, even though they are PCL numbers which is more offensively friendly than IL numbers. In 2011, the PCL had a .030 OBP advantage, .078 OPS advantage, .3 PPG Advantage, and .25 PAPP lower (and 1.10 higher ERA, for future reference when looking at pitchers). So we should take Teagarden's relevant numbers, which are .339 OBP, .807 OPS, 1.12 PPG, and 2.65 PAPP. This would be adjusted to .309 OBP, .729 OPS, .82 PPG, and 2.9 PAPP. These aren't very good numbers at all, and is even worse once ran through the AAA metric: 3.47 PAPP, .42 PPG, and .263 OBP. These are worse than his Major League statistics, and would certainly be below replacement. So someone arguing that Teagarden's Major League statistics will be worse once the statistical size gets larger has a very valid point. Even though he is out of options, he is not even arbitration eligible yet. So even though he won't be very good most likely, he won't cost any money.
For the Rangers' side of the deal, Randy Henry hasn't pitched above A ball, but has a -1.16 PE in 75.2 Innings. He has only given up .6 HR/9IP and has only walked 1.7 every 9 innings. So he looks to be a very solid A reliever, but who knows how that will work out. The player to be named later will probably be announced after the Rule 5 draft, and it seems a lot of the merits of the trade will be determined after that. I don't really know how to evaluate this trade to say who "won", but I thought that the player evaluations (as with a long at the difference between the PCL and International League) would be helpful.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Free Agent Watch: Hiroyuki Nakajima
Reportedly the Rays are interested in Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima. In 2011, he had a .354 OBP, .787 OPS, and 1.849 O4S. From 2007-2010, Nakjima had a .389 OBP, .880 OPS, 1.49 PPG, and 2.39 PAPP. This means that his simple WAR per season was 4.32. Through the Japanese hitting metric (a rough calculus using previous players who have come from Japan to the majors. This is supposed to give us an estimate of how good the player will be in the MLB), Nakajima would have a .356 OBP, 1 PPG, and 3.13 PAPP. This would be about a 1.96 Simple WAR, worth not quite 6 million dollars. He walks about 9.4% of the time, and homered 3.2% of the time. That is very impressive for a shortstop. His Isolated Slugging is all that impressive at .178, but he does have a nice Secondary Average of .306. That is him offensively, but what about defensively? Well defensive statistics from Japan are always tough to find, and Baseball Reference only has his 2007 defensive statistics. In that season, he had a .968 fielding percentage and 4.30 Range Factor. In 2011 in the Majors, league averages for shortstops were .971 fielding percentage and 4.39 Range Factor. So if Nakajima's statistics on defense are reliable, he (at least that season) is a bit under average defensively. However, this probably shouldn't affect his value too much, as one could quickly say he is a replacement fielder. Either way, it appears Nakjima is a SS that can give you a WAR close to 2, so if someone signs him for 4 to 5 million dollars a year, it would make a lot of sense.
NBA Salaries: which players are underpaid and which are overpaid
I don't really watch basketball, in fact, I don't even like basketball. However, since all my attempts at statistically understanding football have been on hold (just an interesting note, I did find that there is no correlation between running the ball and winning. In fact, the correlation seems to be negative.), I wanted to look at the efficiency of many basketball contracts (my interest was perked up by the claim by many in the NBA CBA negotiations that the mid-level players were vastly overpaid. I was also interested because the Dallas Mavericks have 5 players, not including free agents Chandler and Barea, scheduled to make over 7 million dollars in the upcoming season). I was a little surprised (again, I don't pay attention to basketball) that basketball seems to have some good sabermetric statistics. These include PER (Player Efficiency Rating), VA (Value Added), and EWA (Estimated Wins Added). These, especially the latter two, work like WAR (Wins Above Replacement) in baseball, in fact VA is basically Runs Created above Replacement (instead its points in basketball), and EWA is just WAR. So we will use EWA here.
In 2010-2011, the top 10 players according to EWA (according to ESPN) was (listed with their 2011-2012 salary, in millions):
Using WASP formula (check the pages above if you don't know what that is), Westbrook (284), Love (276), and Rose (368) are the best deals above. Because of the difference in EWA and WAR in baseball, one cannot simply import the Halladay Standard that we use to evaluate baseball contracts. If we did, Lebron James would be worth an absurd 77 million dollars. Lebron James is probably not the right example to hold to a standard, since it is widely understood that James took less money to join the Heat. Instead, I think Kobe Bryant (1357 WASP) is probably a better measuring stick. For convenience sake, we will round the Bryant standard to 1400. The other 9 players are all below the Bryant standard. The median EWA for NBA players is about 2 to 2.1, worth about 2.8 million. The average NBA salary is just over 5 million. So according to the Bryant Standard, the Median player is probably overvalued (this is simply fact, I am not arguing that the billionaire owners have a point in that the players are overpaid. The owners are, after all, the ones that signed the contracts, and it is pretty obvious that the new CBA really hurts the players. Because their are fewer players on basketball rosters than baseball rosters (usually about twice as much), basketball players deserve to be paid more it would seem (since their are half as many games in a basketball season, the ratio should probably be 1.5)). Along with the Bryant Standard, we also now have what I will call the Median Standard, which is 5 million dollars for 2 EWA, a 2500 WASP. Any contract that is above this standard is a bad contract for the team (again, its the teams fault if they pay a player more than he is worth, not the player).
So who are some notable undervalued players?:
Blake Griffin: 355
Dirk Nowitzki: 1266
Eric Gordon: 451
Ramon Sessions: 500
Luis Scola: 1035
JaVale McGee: 333
Greg Monroe: 412
Dorell Wright: 528
So there are plenty of good deals out there. Most of the above are what we would call upper middle class type players (excluding Dirk), but they are (for the most part, excluding Dirk of course) making under average salary. Of course there are overpaid players as well, here are some:
Brenden Haywood: 10892
Antawn Jamison: 3015
Richard Jefferson: 3867
Brandon Roy: 6791
Marcus Camby: 3560
Carmelo Anthony: 3367
Chauncey Billups: 5462
I found this interesting, let me know what you think.
In 2010-2011, the top 10 players according to EWA (according to ESPN) was (listed with their 2011-2012 salary, in millions):
| 1 | LeBron James, MIA | $16.0225 | 25.7 | ||||||||||
| 2 | Dwight Howard, ORL | $17.8854 | 22.7 | ||||||||||
| 3 | Dwyane Wade, MIA | $15.512 | 21.3 | ||||||||||
| 4 | Kevin Durant, OKC | $13.604 | 19.9 | ||||||||||
| 5 | Derrick Rose, CHI | $6.993707 | 19.0 | ||||||||||
| 6 | Kobe Bryant, LAL | $25.244 | 18.6 | ||||||||||
| 7 | Chris Paul, NO | $16.359805 | 18.3 | ||||||||||
| 8 | Russell Westbrook, OKC | $5.082415 | 17.9 | ||||||||||
| Pau Gasol, LAL | $18.71415 | 17.9 | |||||||||||
| 10 | Kevin Love, MIN | $4.609,704 | 16.7 |
Using WASP formula (check the pages above if you don't know what that is), Westbrook (284), Love (276), and Rose (368) are the best deals above. Because of the difference in EWA and WAR in baseball, one cannot simply import the Halladay Standard that we use to evaluate baseball contracts. If we did, Lebron James would be worth an absurd 77 million dollars. Lebron James is probably not the right example to hold to a standard, since it is widely understood that James took less money to join the Heat. Instead, I think Kobe Bryant (1357 WASP) is probably a better measuring stick. For convenience sake, we will round the Bryant standard to 1400. The other 9 players are all below the Bryant standard. The median EWA for NBA players is about 2 to 2.1, worth about 2.8 million. The average NBA salary is just over 5 million. So according to the Bryant Standard, the Median player is probably overvalued (this is simply fact, I am not arguing that the billionaire owners have a point in that the players are overpaid. The owners are, after all, the ones that signed the contracts, and it is pretty obvious that the new CBA really hurts the players. Because their are fewer players on basketball rosters than baseball rosters (usually about twice as much), basketball players deserve to be paid more it would seem (since their are half as many games in a basketball season, the ratio should probably be 1.5)). Along with the Bryant Standard, we also now have what I will call the Median Standard, which is 5 million dollars for 2 EWA, a 2500 WASP. Any contract that is above this standard is a bad contract for the team (again, its the teams fault if they pay a player more than he is worth, not the player).
So who are some notable undervalued players?:
Blake Griffin: 355
Dirk Nowitzki: 1266
Eric Gordon: 451
Ramon Sessions: 500
Luis Scola: 1035
JaVale McGee: 333
Greg Monroe: 412
Dorell Wright: 528
So there are plenty of good deals out there. Most of the above are what we would call upper middle class type players (excluding Dirk), but they are (for the most part, excluding Dirk of course) making under average salary. Of course there are overpaid players as well, here are some:
Brenden Haywood: 10892
Antawn Jamison: 3015
Richard Jefferson: 3867
Brandon Roy: 6791
Marcus Camby: 3560
Carmelo Anthony: 3367
Chauncey Billups: 5462
I found this interesting, let me know what you think.
NFL Picks: Week 13
Big D in Bold. I in Italics
Eagles versus Seahawks
Falcons versus Texans
Steelers versus Bengals
Cowboys versus Cardinals
Saints versus Lions
Chargers versus Jaguars
Eagles versus Seahawks
Falcons versus Texans
Steelers versus Bengals
Cowboys versus Cardinals
Saints versus Lions
Chargers versus Jaguars
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