Athletics prospect: Chih Fang Pan

Chih Fang Pan is a member of the Oakland Athletics and is playing for the Taiwan National Team against Major League players in the "Taiwan Series". 4.23 Range Factor at short (Elvis Andrus has a 1.5 D-WAR in 3 seasons with a Range Factor of about 4.46). Fielding percentage of .901 (Yuniesky Betancourt, a terrible fielder, has a .970 fielding percentage and a range factor of 4.25). Fielding statistics are not always helpful, but all signs pointing to Pan not being a good fielder. However, he does have a .386 OBP in both Rookie ball and A-ball. His OPS is .799, but he only walks 7.4% of the time. He has a PPG of 1.225, and a PAPP of 2.6. None of these numbers are that impressive for A-ball. He is only 20, and certainly could improve, but Baseball Cube rankings only give him a 35 patience, 17 power, and 60 speed.

Astros and Craig Tatum

The Astros signed catcher Craig Tatum. In his major league career, Tatum has a -.8 WAR in 3 seasons. He has played in just 100 games and 299 PA, and his statistics so far are very unimpressive:  3.06 ABPP, .46 PPG and 554 OPS. However, with so few games and plate appearances (and since he played baseball in college), the college metric may have him measured out to be better. According to the College Metric, his statistics should be 3.12 ABPP, .58 PPG, and .609 OPS. There really isn't any reason to expect him to get any better. He has a career OBP of just .291, walks about league average, and is a groundball hitter. His secondary average is a putrid .141, and his ISO sits at .041. His PPS is just 80.87, and he creates just 2.4 runs per game. Well maybe the Astros got him because he is a defensive catcher. Nope, a -.2 D-WAR. I am not sure why teams pick players like this up. My only guess is that they are hopeful his lack of success is just small sample size (that is why I pointed out how he should do according to the college metric, I think that basically rules out the small sample size.). The Astros aren't very good, and they have a problem at the catcher position, but this isn't going to solve it.

The Rangers, Cliff Lee, Beltre, and Napoli

Around the World Series, I heard a member of the Dallas media say that the Rangers used the money they would have spent on Cliff Lee and spent it on Beltre and Napoli and that is why they were in the World Series. So I wanted to look at the numbers.

They lost: 
Cliff Lee: 6.8 WAR 11 million dollars (will make 21.5 million in 2012)
Frank Francisco: 1.1 WAR 4 million dollars.

They gained:
Mike Napoli: 5.5 WAR 5.8 million dollars
Adrian Beltre: 5.2 WAR 14 million dollars.

The Rangers lost 7.9 WAR (at 15 million dollars), but gained 10.7 WAR (19.8 million dollars). So by signing Beltre instead of Lee and trading Francisco for Napoli (the most lopsided trade of the year), they gained 2.8 WAR at 4.8 extra million dollars, a 1714 WASP, meaning they got good return for the extra money they had to spend. Cliff Lee and Frank Francisco put up a 1898 WASP, while Beltre and Napoli put up a 1850 WASP, meaning the Rangers gained a slight efficiency with these moves.

In this article, I wanted to see if the Angels had any reason whatsoever to trade Mike Napoli. His 2011 .414 OBP, and 1.046 OPS were clearly career highs, and it is hard to imagine anyone would have predicted this. But how was he as an Angel? A .346 OBP, .831 OPS, and 2.14 WAR average in his 5 years in LA is nothing to sneeze about. In fact, every single one of those numbers are better than Vernon Wells numbers in Toronto. Just a straight up trade would have been a loss, and the Angels also sent Juan Rivera to Toronto. I know a big reason for the trade was Napoli's defense, but Vernon Wells also has a career negative D-WAR. Every year in LA, Napoli had an offensive winning percentage of over 50%, and he had a 2.61 PAPP. You just don't find catchers like that. He also had a really impressive 102.73 PPS.

As far as Adrian Beltre goes, he is a hard one to figure out. He has been a notorious contract year player, which made his 2011 season that much more surprising. In 2004 with the Dodgers, he put together one of the alltime great seasons, posting a 10.1 WAR. The next year, his first year in Seattle, he posted just a 1.9 WAR. He then followed up his last year in Seattle with a 1.1 WAR, then had a 6.1 WAR with the Red Sox the next year. One thing you notice about Beltre, a mediocre OBP at .329 on his career. A lack of patience becomes apparent, only walking 6.8% of the time, and seeing a league average 3.76 pitches per plate appearance (leads to about a league average 89.95). When this happens, BABIP and power becomes even more important.  In 2004, he had a 1.79 PPG, in 2005 it was 1.14 PPG. In 2009 he had a 1.07 PPG, but in 2010 was 1.4. You wouldn't think power would fluctuate that much, but in 2004 he hit a homer 7.3% of the time, but in 09 it was just 1.7% and for his career it is 3.9%. We saw this when we looked at Vernon Wells in a previous post, impatient hitters tend to be inconsistent, and I think that is what we see with Beltre.

Free Agent Watch: Andruw Jones

Andruw Jones has had a long big time career. He has a career OBP of .339, .827 OPS, 1.43 PPG and 2.57 PAPP. He has a PPS of 91.59, secondary average of .362, and a .247 Isolated Slugging. He has also walked more than 10 percent of the time, and has been one of the best defensive players in the past decade plus. One would think all this to add up to someone making at least 10-15 million dollars a year. In fact, no. The Yankees paid a grand total of 1.5 million dollars for Jones in 2011. He also played in just 77 games, He registered a .9 WAR, and over the past 3 years, he has a .933 WAR average, worth about 2.7 million dollars. In 2011, he put up a very solid .356 OBP, and .851 OPS. This doesn't mention his great Secondary Average of .400, or his awesome 104.95 PPS (he had a career high 4.3 pitches per plate appearances, but he has been close to that number before). His PPG was just .95, but his PAPP was 2.49. He again walked more than 10 percent of the time. He seems to have somewhat changed as a hitter, and for the better. He does not have the power and production he used to have, but he has become more efficient. He is no longer the great fielder he used to be and is relegated to corner outfield, but he still had a .1 D-WAR. He probably can't be counted on to play every day, but can certainly play more than the 77 games the Yankees let him play in. It is hard for someone to play in the Big Apple and be underrated and undervalued, but Andruw Jones may accomplish just that. The age will scare a bunch of people off, but he is a great 1-2 year solution to a corner outfield problem.

How We did Week 8 NFL Picks

Big D in Bold. I in italics

Giants survive Dolphins
Steelers frustrate Patriots
 Excuse: This one surprised me a little bit. Contrary to what many people have been saying, the Steelers have not been playing well. 
Bills dropkick Redskins
Eagles embarrass Cowboys
Chiefs surprise Chargers
Excuse: The Chargers look bad. It is almost like they are coached by Norv Turner.
  
Big D: 2-3, 26-14 overall
I: 3-2, 26-14 overall

Free Agent Watch: Joe Nathan

Joe Nathan once was one of the more dominant late inning relievers in baseball. He has registered a 22.1 WAR in 11 years. This is a 2.01 WAR average, worth 6.027 million a year according to the Halladay Standard. His metrics are gaudy at a -3.42 PE (-2.81 adjusted PE), and a TR of 12.13. However, the 2011 season suggests something totally different, as he put up a 0 WAR, with a (-.48 PE, -1.04 adjusted PE, still a really nice number) and a very pedestrian 8.83 TR. Certainly not the same Joe Nathan.The injury that cost him his 2010 season clearly had a big role in his bad 2011 season. We can obviously rule out him being a 6 million dollar pitcher. The real question is, at a 0 WAR in 2011, is he worth anymore than minimum wage? His BABIP doesn't help us at all, as his 2011 number was almost identical to his career number (and still significantly below league average). His FIP suggests he was slightly better than his ERA suggests, but was still average at best. He still didn't give up many base runners, but struggled with home runs unlike he had ever had in his career. This is clearly a sign that he was simply a different pitcher in 2011. Again, we are faced with the question of predictability. Is any of this predictive? Also, how are other teams going to react to Nathan's free agency? Are teams going to view Nathan as the dominant late inning man he once was, or treat him as the average at best reliever that he was in 2011. If the answer is the latter, he could actually be undervalued and a steal for some team, if he ever puts it back together. At this point, I don't know of a real way to predict whether a pitcher will return back to form, but all the essential metrics that we usually look at say that he was not near the pitcher he once was. We did see Bartolo Colon bounce back in 2011 when he clearly looked done, but the Yankees paid him minimum salary and he was extremely low risk. That has to be the route with Nathan.

Winter League Update: Jerry Sands

Jerry Sands is not looking real good in the Dominican Winter League right now. In 13 games, he has an OBP of just .302 and an OPS of .706. He does have a 1.08 PPG, and an okay 2.61 ABPP. The big thing you notice is that he is suffering from a .242 BABIP. He is walking 9.4% of his At-Bats which isn't bad. In 2011, he split time between the majors and AAA. Since the Dodgers AAA team is in the PCL and not the International League, our metric won't apply to him because the 2 leagues are so different. However, he had a .344 OBP, .931 OPS, 2.11 PPG, and 2.43 PAPP. He was certainty a powerful hitter in AAA, just not crazily efficient, but it still equals a 2.69 WAR (just for fun, according to the International metric, he would have a 1.2 O-WAR, 1.71 PPG, .298 OBP, and 3 PAPP). In the Majors, he had a 0 WAR (.3 O-WAR, -.3 D-WAR) in 227 PA. Despite struggling OBPs in the Winter League and AAA, his OBP in the majors was a .338, with a .727 OPS. He had a .87 PPG, and 2.87 PAPP, numbers that aren't terrible but aren't impressive. He walked 11 percent of the time, with a Secondary Average of .263, and offensive winning percentage of .496. He is an under average home run hitter, and only had an ISO of .136. Because he sees just over 4 pitches per plate appearance, his PPS is pretty good at 97.06. His BABIP was a little high at .319, and if that evens out, then it would hurt Sands' above average 2011 season. When looking at his minor league numbers, it seems probable that his power will develop at the major league level.