20/20 hindsight on Carl Crawford

Carl Crawford had an awful year in his first year of his huge contract with Boston. He played like a replacement player, with a 0 WAR and .289 OBP. Before the season he signed a 7 year 142 million dollar contract. Now it is quite obvious that his 2011 season was not deserving of that, that doesn't even merit an article. Because I wasn't blogging at the time the contract was signed, I want to look at his stats before 2011, and see if they merited the contract. 2010 was his best career season at a 6.1 WAR, worth 18.3 million according to the Halladay Standard (Crawford will get an average of 20 million a year with this contract). So even with his best year, it doesn't seem he is quite worth the contract. Another thing that should be mentioned is that in 2010, he tied his career high for BABIP, affecting his season for the positive, but making the season not very predictive. That is why we usually look at WAR average over the last 3 years. From 2008-2010, Crawford had a 12.6 WAR, or 4.2 WAR a year. This is worth 12.6 million according to the Halladay Standard. So certainly Crawford was worth big money, but not the big money the Red Sox paid him. However, when one starts looking at his offensive numbers, we start to realize just how profoundly average Crawford is. His OBP is just .333, matched with a very pedestrian Secondary Average of .266, and an Isolated Slugging of .148. Sure his OPS is + is 105, but his O4S is average at 1.773. These are hardly numbers that warrant a huge contract. It is quite clear that a good portion of his recent WAR is due to defense (for example, he had a 1.8 D-WAR in 2008). However, in 2011, even his defense wasn't very good, as he had a -.3 D-WAR. 2011's poor offensive season can hardly been blamed on BABIP, as it was .299 (that is a drop from his career average of .328, but .300 is league average). So what are the statistical explanations for his down year? He was never much of a walker (just 5.3% in his career), but he walked just 4.3% of the time in 2011 (compared to 7% of the time in 2010). As far as he swinging percentage breakdown, not much really stands out. He did swing at the first pitch just 25% of the time, compared to normal 36% of the time. There could be a couple of explanations for this, but I don't think this is really that big of a deal. He was actually more patient in 2011, earning an average 90.02 PPS compared to his very poor career number of 84.94. As far as his groundball/flyball breakdowns, the only thing that really stands out is that 15% of his flyballs stayed in the infield in 2011, way too many. Other than that, there isn't one thing you can point to and say "this is why he was bad". But in the end, the Red Sox gave way too much money to a player that wasn't all that good offensively to start with, and so far it has blown up in their face.

Durham Bulls metric: Minor Leagues

 I have been extremely curious as to what the difference between AAA and the Majors is. So here, in a relatively small sample, I set out to find some answers. I will use current Tampa Bay Rays players (along with a couple former ones) difference between their Major League careers and their AAA Durham Bulls career. Since Durham plays in the International AAA league, I think it will be safe to (currently at least) use the metric for all International AAA league players.

Wade Davis: In Durham: -1.642 PE, In Majors: 2.275 PE and .77 WAR a season

Carl Crawford: In Durham: 1.69 PPG, 2.55 PAPP, .335 OBP and 1.07 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.48 PPG, 2.5 PAPP, .333 OBP, and 2.74 WAR a season.

Delmon Young: In Durham: 1.54 PPG, 2.66 PAPP, .325 OBP, and .423 Simple WAR . In Majors: 1.17 PPG, 2.93 PAPP, .321, and -.1 WAR.

Jeremy Hellickson: In Durham: -4.86 PE, In Majors: .32 PE, and 4.2 WAR in 2011 (his only full season)

J.P. Howell: In Durham: -3.435 PE, In Majors: -.021 PE, and .45 WAR a season

Jake McGee: In Durham:  -6.713 PE, In Majors: -.986 PE, and .01 WAR a season

Jeff Niemann: In Durham: -.785 PE, In Majors: 1.3 PE, and 1.1 WAR a season

David Price: In Durham: -.699 PE, In Majors: -1.3 PE, and 3.33 WAR a season

James Shields: In Durham: -2.722 PE, In Majors: .24 PE, and 2.95 WAR a season

Andy Sonnanstine: In Durham: 1.182 PE, In Majors: 3.77 PE, and -.08 WAR a season

John Jaso: In Durham: .91 PPG, 2.74 PAPP, .356 OBP, and 1.81 Simple WAR. In Majors: .84 PPG, 2.83 PAPP, .340 OBP, 1.25 WAR a season

Reid Brignac: In Durham: 1.08 PPG, 3.03 PAPP, .316 OBP, and -.56 Simple WAR. In Majors: .63 PPG, 3.54 PAPP, .272 OBP, -.05 WAR a season

Dan Johnson: In Durham: 1.65 PPG, 2.19 PAPP, .412 OBP and 5.88 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.01 PPG, 2.74 PAPP, .334 OBP, .58 WAR a season.

Elliot Johnson: In Durham: 1.23 PPG, 2.75 PAPP, .325 OBP, and .09 Simple WAR. In Majors: .61 PPG, 4 PAPP, .257 OBP, .1 WAR

Ben Zobrist: In Durham: 1.38 PPG, 2.24 PAPP, .416 OBP, and 5.14 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.27 PPG, 2.56 PAPP, .348 OBP, 2.28 WAR a season.

Desmond Jennings: In Durham: 1.53 PPG, 2.3 PAPP, .375 OBP, and 3.4 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.35 PPG, 2.488 PAPP, .351 OBP, 2.2 WAR

Matt Joyce: In Durham: 1.49 PPG, 2.19 PAPP, .404 OBP, and 5.11 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.11 PPG, 2.58 PAPP, .345 OBP, and 1.75 a season

Justin Ruggiano: In Durham: 1.63 PPG, 2.36 PAPP, .362 OBP, and 2.53 Simple WAR. In Majors: .55 PPG, 3.39 PAPP, .262 OBP, and -.2 WAR

B.J. Upton: In Durham: 1.69 PPG, 2.21 PAPP, .391 OBP, and 4.48 Simple WAR. In Majors: 1.37 PPG, 2.48 PAPP, .342 OBP, and 2.41 WAR a season.

Pitchers: In Durham:  -2.46 PE Average. In Majors: .7 PE Average, 1.59 WAR a season. Average pitcher going from Durham (or International League in AAA) would add 2.53 to their PE. WAR is not particularly helpful because the correlation between PE and WAR is skewed, because both PE (the lower the better) and WAR (the higher is better) are lower for pitchers.

Hitters: In Durham: 1.44 PPG average, 2.34 PAPP average, .365 OBP average, and 2.67 Simple WAR average. In Majors: 1.04 PPG average, 2.91 PAPP average, .319 OBP average, 1.18 WAR average. So on average, a player loses 1.49 from there simple WAR to their Major League WAR, lose .046 from their OBP, add .57 to their PAPP, and lose .40 from their PPG. So, for now at least, this is how we judge players in the International AAA league.

Johnny Damon, the Rays, and the Red Sox

As the Rays continue to try to run down the Red Sox in the Wildcard, we should constantly reminded of the difference in salary between the two teams. The Red Sox have a payroll of 160,000,000 (the third highest), while the Rays have the second lowest payroll at 42,000,000 (a difference of 118,000,000). Johnny Damon, who got his 200th steal last night, is the highest paid Ray, at $5.2 million. If he was on the Sox, his former team, he would be (about) the 12th highest player. Since Damon left, the Red Sox have had all kinds of failed big money out-fielding projects. The most egregious has been J.D. Drew, who has done absolutely nothing this season with a WAR of -.2. He has a WASP (Wins above replacement and salary per) of 5303 since joining the Red Sox, while Damon has a much better WASP of 2080 this year. The Red Sox also gave big money to Carl Crawford (a former Ray) this year, as he is making over 14 million this year. He has been utterly terrible this year as well, with a negative WAR, giving him a him a horrific WASP of 31200 (about 16 times larger than Damon's, and smaller is worse). Once again we are shown the difference between the big teams and small teams. That the Rays are able to compete at all is just a testament to that organization.

Why you should be impressed with the Tampa Bay Rays

The Tampa Bay Rays are just 3 and a half games back from the Red Sox, with the Yankees a game and a half behind them, in what is widely considered the best division in baseball. Why write an article about a third place team? Well lets crunch some numbers:

The Yankees have a payroll of 197 million dollars, the Red Sox (third in the rankings) have a 160 million dollar payroll. The Tampa Bay Rays have just a 42 million dollar payroll, the second lowest in the majors. That means that the Rays are competing with teams that have over 4 times their payroll. Johnny Damon is the highest paid player on the Rays, but if he played for the Yankees, he would be the 11th highest paid player.

This past offseason they lost Matt Garza (one of their top starters), Carlos Pena (starting first baseman and a power hitter), Rafael Soriano (closer), Joaquin Beniot (setup man), and Carl Crawford (clearly their best player, and stud outfielder who could run, hit, and field). To make matters worse, Soriano and Crawford went to division rivals Yankees and Red Sox. This doesn't even mention the Manny Ramirez debacle, who was their second biggest acquisition in the offseason (their first being Johnny Damon), only to not hit in the first couple weeks off the season, fail a steroid test, and then retire.

They aren't without players, David Price is a Cy Young caliber pitcher (James Shields is having that kind of season currently), Damon is solid, Matt Joyce is having an All Star Season, Sam Fuld is an incredibly fun player to watch, and Evan Longoria is starting to feel it, and when he is on, he is one of the best in baseball. However, when your going up against A-Rod, Adrian Gonzalez, Jon Lester, and C.C. Sabathia, its hard to call the Rays “loaded” in any sense.

Joe Maddon may be the smartest man to ever don a managerial uniform. I remember when he was hired, the Rays had not had any success whatsoever in franchise history. I remember some analysts insisting that he would be the guy that could turn it around because he was that good. I exhibited my cynical skepticism and insisted "Lou Pinella couldn't make them good, neither can this guy". My ignorance and wrongheadedness should be enough to disqualify me from writing any posts on baseball.

Call me back in August and we will judge whether this article was worth writing or not, but the Rays are having a heck of a season so far, and people should be impressed. If the Rays continue to stay in the race, then Maddon has to be manager of the year for the AL.

Bold Prediction: The United States Government, with nothing better to do, shuts down this blog for being so misinformed.