Signing Most-Valuable Players
by DanUpBaby on Nov 9, 2009 1:00 PM EST
128 comments
There's no new news, which means it's time we go over some old news: the decision to sign Ryan Franklin to a multi-year extension stipulating that he was not allowed to record another out in 2009. That particular clause was the main problem with the Franklin deal in particular, but since we didn't know about that at the time I think it's the principle of the thing that's wedged so tightly inside the Cardinals fanbase's collective craw. This team's management does so many things correctly; it's identified free talent like Ryan Ludwick, it's signed Adam Wainwright to a long-term deal at actual wainwright rates, and its drafts have improved tremendously since the seeds of what's become the new regime were first planted.
But Ryan Franklin was the second time in as many years that the Cardinals broke, to their own detriment, what was originally a Branch Rickey tenet and has since become a Sabermetrics 101 truism: Don't sign a player at the top of his value! This shouldn't be a difficult thing to grasp because it's so categorically true as to be basically meaningless; if you sign a guy at the very peak of his value, things can only go downhill from there.
I've thought about these contracts assuming, above all else, that John Mozeliak is a rational, above-average general manager; most of them are at this point, so it might be worthwhile to consider who else has made these two moves in recent years, and where it's left them.
128 comments | 1 recs |
SBN Manager of the Year
by DanUpBaby on Nov 9, 2009 6:00 AM EST
301 comments
The cloud of white smoke your computer emitted last night might have tipped you off, but this year's SBN blogger awards are going to be revealed this week. They're just like the BBWAA awards, except that tomorrow's post isn't set aside for ragging on the choices. Yet. Stop the drumroll:
| Rk | Manager | Team | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jim Tracy | Colorado Rockies | 24 | 1 | 2 | 125 |
| 2 | Tony La Russa | St. Louis Cardinals | 3 | 7 | 10 | 46 |
| 3 | Fredi Gonzalez | Florida Marlins | 2 | 6 | 5 | 33 |
| 4 | Joe Torre | Los Angeles Dodgers | - | 9 | 2 | 29 |
| 5 | Charlie Manuel | Philadelphia Phillies | - | 3 | 5 | 14 |
| 6 | Bruce Bochy | San Francisco Giants | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| 7 | Bobby Cox | Atlanta Braves | - | 1 | 4 | 7 |
| 8 | Bud Black | San Diego Padres | - | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 9 | John Russell | Pittsburgh Pirates | - | 1 | - | 3 |
I think manager of the year is the one award for which the Manny Ramirez Postulate—"He came in halfway through the season, so obviously he was more valuable than the guy who was there the whole time"—might not be totally preposterous. Coming in at midseason is its own managerial tactic, as time-honored as the sacrifice bunt and getting yourself ejected from a listless blowout. The replacement, even if he's as establishment as Jim Tracy, must be the thrower-over of the money changers, out to—depending on his predecessor's style—either loosen or fire things up in the clubhouse.
As for our own Tony La Russa, it's his customary good showing, and it surprises me; I thought he'd had a fine season, but storyline-wise—and that's most of what we have to judge managers by, to be honest—he was less interesting than Tracy, the midseason replacement, Gonzalez, the exciting young manager, or Torre, who went to all the trouble of going from one gigantic media market to another.
In other news, you heard it here first: the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates is named John Russell.
During SBN Award week we are offering two threads for the price of one; expect the second piece around noon.
301 comments | 0 recs
Links ahoy
by vivaelpujols on Nov 8, 2009 6:37 AM EST
147 comments
I just saw "Men who Stare at Goats" last night. Weirdest movie ever. I laughed my ass off throughout the thing, but damned if I knew what it was actually about. Accordingly, I got home late last night, so I don't have time for a full post, but I have a couple of things that I wanted to link to that I thought you'd all enjoy.
We'll start off with a very cool modification of WAR from Alex Krolewski at Beyond the Boxscore, called PZR Win Values. Before you read that, let me give you a brief history of what WAR actually is. The AR part of WAR stands for Above Replacement, and generally represents some minor league scrub who each team has. Think guys like Brad Thompson or Blake Hawksworth. You would expect such a player to put up an ERA of over 5 if he was in the rotation.
The W part stands for Wins, and it represents how much production over that replacement level player you can expect from a given player. Wins are calculated mathematically (you can read the
gory math details here), and are devoid of context (pitching to the score doesn't get you any cookie points). They can be calculated using a plehtora of run estimators:
ERA... you should probably know this one.
FIP... attempts to take out some of the aspects of ERA that are much less under a pitchers control, such as defense and timing. It relies on home runs, walks and strikeouts to rate pitchers. Despite it's simplicity, or maybe because of it, it is the most used defense independent pitching stat out there. Kincaid, over at 3-D Baseball recently wrote a two part series further explaining how it works, that I encourage you all to read.
tRA... is like FIP on crack, in a good way. It includes the basic elements of FIP, but also adds a pitchers batted ball numbers to give them more credit for inducing weaker contact.
There are others, but those are the main three. You can see problems with each of them however. ERA is too reliant on things that are mainly out of a pitchers control, like defense, and thus doesn't measure pitcher skill very well. FIP and tRA eliminate defense, but also timing, which can be a problem. A pitcher who gives up a walk then a home run, is just as valuable by these estimates as a pitcher who gives up a home run followed by a walk.
Enter PZR. PZR is a modification of of UZR, which is a stat developed by Mitchel Lichtman, a former consultant to the St. Louis Cardinals, to credit fielders with their defensive contributions on balls in play. UZR takes many, many parameters into account including how hard the ball is hit, the batted ball tendencies of the pitcher on the mound, the location of each batted ball and many others. You can read more about it here and here.
Anyway, PZR takes UZR inputs and applies them to pitchers instead. So instead of measuring feilding prowess, it measures how hard to field each pitches balls in play are. Once you get those numbers, you can adjust each pitchers ERA accordingly. That makes an adjustment for defense, while not taking out the timing aspect of pitching. If you use PZR modified ERA to calculate WAR, you get some very interesting results, as Alex demonstrated in the link above.
If anyone has any questions about PZR or WAR, speak up, and I'm sure we'll be able to help.
147 comments | 0 recs
November
by tom s. on Nov 7, 2009 3:30 AM EST
327 comments
It only believes
In a pile of dead leaves
And a moon that's the color of bone
T.S. Eliot thought April was the cruelest month, but that was because he left St. Louis and moved to London where April was one of eleven months when it mostly just rains. Also, whatever time he might have spent watching the Perfectos or the Browns in his youth he had clearly forgotten, because April is the month when baseball starts up again. In England, you just get to wait for cricket season, and do they even have spring training for cricket? I think they have to wait until the weather clears in July to get the one game of cricket in before the pre-autumn drizzle, because that one game takes three weeks to play.
April is a favorite month of mine, when things turn green and baseball reappears.
November is one of my least favorite months, right up there with February; November has slightly better weather and Thanksgiving, but February is pitchers and catchers reporting time. September and October are beautiful months, also some of the best months in the calendar. Falling leaves, cool and temperate weather that is such a relief from the heat and humidity of July and August. But by the time kids finish throwing up the remainder of their Halloween candy, the world turns to crap. Worst of all, no more baseball. Four solid months of no baseball. Mostly.
327 comments | 7 recs
La Russter's Millions
by DanUpBaby on Nov 6, 2009 6:15 AM EST
629 comments
I am seriously and late-breakingly jet-lagged, so I've got to make this quick; I've fallen asleep five or six times in the course of writing this sentence.
Decent AAA LOOGY (Tyler Norrick?) and hazy AA pitching prospect (???) for Jeremy Hermida would have been an interesting play for these Cardinals for the same reason it was for those Red Sox—there has to be some plan to fall back on in the event of a failure to sign one of Jason Bay or Matt Holliday, and this particular ex-top-prospect—who hit a grand slam against the Cardinals in his first MLB at-bat—even coming up on five years since his day in the sun, is a solid low-risk choice. The usual encouraging splits apply: he could be platooned effectively (.792 v. .697) and he'll do better outside of TSFKA Pro Player (.815 v. .721.) Provided there's no pre-existing psychological condition rendering all of this wishcasting moot in five months, this seems like a good move.
The other marginal outfielder trade from yesterday—that one I don't like quite as much. We'll always have Moneyball, but what gives teams the idea that Mark Teahen hits enough to be a starting outfielder? As a rich man's Eric Hinske he might have a lot of value for a team with a fragile third baseman and a flexible outfield, but he only replaces Jermaine Dye inasmuch as he might have one of Jermaine Dye's bad years. Josh Fields is no prize, and I'm not sure what the Royals are going to do with him except play yet another third baseman out of his depth in left field while trying to get Alex Gordon going, but I'm not sure what problem Mark Teahen solves.
I've always had a soft spot for Hermida, and—well, I've always had a soft spot for Moneyball, at least. But yesterday's Bobby Abreu deal seems like a more likely eventual route for the Cardinals; if they don't get Holliday I just can't see the payroll staying as low as it is. So I have a question for you, the viewers: what does the Cardinals' last thirty million look like in the offseason? My guess right now, in the non-Holliday division, is that they spread it out; as much as I like John Lackey, I just can't see this organization giving up a first rounder for a guy who's basically the pitcher they thought Kyle Lohse was.
My guess: they spread it out among the team's current holes, in a way that is both useful and completely, unsatisfyingly boring. Jon Garland/J.J. Putz/Johnny Damon? Come on down.
629 comments | 0 recs
What the Cardinals can take from the Yankees, besides the luxury tax
by DanUpBaby on Nov 5, 2009 6:06 AM EST
656 comments
First, some briefs on yesterday's roster moves:
It's interesting to see the Brad Thompson perception gap—the RotoWorld box in the sidebar thinks he'll have no problem finding a job, even as a fifth starter; the Baseball Primer thread is remarkably positive, for BTF. But I think the average VEBer wrote off the artist occasionally known as WonderBrad a long time ago.
I'll always think of him as a better pitcher than he probably was and is; I'm as susceptible as anybody else to overvaluing a player when he gets off to a good start, and there were moments there in 2005 (it seems like it's been longer) where his weird sinker seemed like the makings of a uniquely valuable short reliever. But I'm hard-pressed to think of any team that's strapped enough for choice to give him a clear shot as a fifth starter coming off a year with a K/9 of 3.8.
Jarrett Hoffpauir leaves the 40 man roster—and, though this wasn't the Cardinals' intent, the organization—a victim of circumstance; without the Julio Lugo deal he might come into 2010 as the Cardinals' best free choice for Skip Schumaker's equally awkward right-handed caddy, but Lugo has a name and at least theoretically plays short. It's tough luck for the Cardinals; finding purchase on a big league roster is hard for backup infielders who can't play shortstop, but Hoffpauir, with his occasionally impressive bat and his consistently impressive BB:K ratio, has one more definable skill than most of these guys. (Being a Cardinals farmhand is apparently also a path to gainful MLB employment for these guys—Edgar Gonzalez and the poor man's Jarrett Hoffpauir, Mike McCoy, both saw big league time this year.)
In 2010 he would have had Lugo on one side and Daniel Descalso, who somehow failed to receive regular playing time in his 2009 AAA stint, on the other, though, so maybe it's best he's gone to an organization without a veteran playing for free and a prospect at second. (Which makes it even weirder that Joe Thurston didn't get the Brad Thompson treatment—hopefully he'll spend his Memphis summer working on his footwork rounding second base, not standing next to it.)
With that out of the way, the big news: the Yankees have finally beaten the Curse of Clay Bellinger. It was a tough road, but I can only hope that they have enough footage of Jimmy Fallon running out onto the field to properly commemorate those long years in Fever Pitch 2. What did these Yankees do that the Cardinals can emulate, multi-billion dollar payroll aside?
656 comments | 0 recs |
My Maudlin' Career
by the red baron on Nov 4, 2009 2:29 PM EST
368 comments
I didn't really realise it last week, but just the other day it sort of hit me when I looked at the date: I just celebrated two years of writing for this wonderful site. My very first front page post was on Halloween of 2007, and seeing as how we are now in the glorious month of November in Year of Our Lord 2009, that's two damned years I've been cluttering up the interwebs with my peculiar ramblings. And so, seeing as how I am the sort of person who simply cannot resist nostalgia or making lists of things, I thought I would go back through all the things I've written here at VEB and pick out my favourites. It also doesn't hurt, of course, that very little is actually going on in Cardinal land at this particular moment.
So I started rolling back through all my past posts, and something began to become apparent as I did: I'm sort of a depressing dude. Most of my stuff I think is really pretty good tends to be of the wistful, sad, and slightly bitter emotive variety. Don't get me wrong; the idea I am a bit of a bummer is not exactly news to me, as people have been telling me that my whole life. However, it was a bit surprising to see the proof staring me so clearly in the face.
Regardless, I am proud to bring you my personal Best Of collection out of sheer arrogance and hubris. (And also maybe a little because I was interested to see if I've gotten any better at this, but mostly the gigantic ego thing.) In reverse chronological order (I think):
- Reflection -- recent post about the end of our season
- Talk Talk Talk-- the very first chat I tried
- Drafting a Masterpiece-- reviewing the first day of the 2009 draft
- Swingin', and Not Just Dick-- there is, in fact, a toaster involved in this post
- Life Lenses-- in which I discuss the departure of Adam Kennedy
- God Bless Us, Every One -- Christmas 2008
- The Team Stripped Bare By Its Suitors, Even-- an interesting hypothetical, and my favourite title
- Good Bye, Halcyon Days -- mourning for last summer, and my second favourite title
- Not With a Bang, but a Whimper-- Jason Isringhausen
- Saturday Morning Coming Down-- a discussion of Mark McGwire and me forgetting how to spell the word rhythm
And, just for funsies, my first main page story, and the very first diary I ever put up here.
Hopefully you don't find this too very self-indulgent, though I'm certain it probably is.
As for the current news of the day:
I am of the belief the Yankees' strategy of using only three pitchers and throwing them on short rest is going to backfire on them. We already saw A.J. Burnett get crushed pitching on three days' rest, and I'm honestly expecting something similar from Pettitte tonight. I still expect the Yankees to win in seven, because I do believe CC Sabathia will roll pretty much no matter what and Cole Hamels seems a bit lost in the wilderness to me, but I also think New York has made the series much tougher than it needed to be. Historically we can see pitchers tend to struggle on short rest, regardless of the era in question (relatively speaking, of course; if a pitcher is usually going on three days' rest, then two days' rest hurts hime), and I think Girardi has weakened his team's position unnecessarily. What do all of you think? I know this concept of only needing three starters in the playoffs has been Fritz' pet peeve for a while now; we now get to see just how viable such a strategy really is.
I don't much care for the Iwamura deal from the Pirates' side of things; it just seems like they're still treading water. Dave Cameron disagrees with me, for whatever it's worth.(I also forgot Jack Wilson got traded to the Mariners; the perils of writing in a hurry, you know.) I do wish like hell whoever it was who started stumping for Ben Zobrist a couple years ago had more pull with the front office; the guy could have been had for a song as recently as last season, now he has to be considered untouchable. Interestingly enough, VEB has been right in wanting to acquire both Jayson Werth and Zobrist at various points in time before they broke out. I know there were some here last year (myself included), who would have liked to see Johnny Mo try to pick up Huston Street on the cheap while he was struggling. I remember the advocacy of several posters (again, myself included), for a deal that would have brought Cliff Lee to the Cards after his disastrous 2007 campaign. (In fact, Lee was one of my personal crusades that offseason.) I believe the idea was to move Scott Rolen for Lee and possibly try to get Jhonny Peralta involved somehow with other inducements going from St. Louis to Cleveland. I was a big fan of Carlos Quentin, and I know jillsinmo (who seems to have largely disappeared, sadly), stumped for him for awhile as well. My point? If you happen to work in the Cardinals' front office and are reading this (and I know you guys are), you may want to take a good hard look at any buy-low guys we come up with this offseason. Our track record is remarkably good.
Of course, if you had listened to us last year, we might very well have signed Ben Sheets for a lost season, so at least make sure you look at the X-rays first.
My predicition, guaranteed to be right, for Game 6 tonight: Phillies 7, Yankees 3. Pedro goes 5 inning, giving up 2 runs on 6 hits and a walk. JA Happ relieves him and holds the Yankees down. Pettitte gets knocked around, failing to get out of the third inning and giving up 5 runs.
Have a lovely day, everyone.
The Baron's Playlist for the 4th of November, 2009
"Lovelier Girl" -- Beach House
"Jesus Walking on the Water" -- Violent Femmes
"Mr. Tough" -- Yo La Tengo
"Pale Blue Eyes" -- The Velvet Underground
"These Days" -- Nico
368 comments | 0 recs |
Keeping the Seat Warm
by azruavatar on Nov 3, 2009 11:52 AM EST
653 comments
I have nothing uniquely insightful to post today so this is more of a holdover until/unless someone else chimes in.
This World Series has been interminably boring. I detest 3 hour 30 minute games. I've watched AJ Burnett with envy for the last few years wondering if the Cardinals regret not being able to seal that signing in 2006. Last night was certainly a catastrophe for him but he's been a very good pitcher (when able to take the mound).
There's a small part of me that wonders if the Cardinals wouldn't have been better served with Cliff Lee than Matt Holliday. There's a confirmation bias that is hard to avoid in evaluating that situation and more pitching may not have dispelled the fact that we simply couldn't hit our way out of a paper bag but it seems like a reasonable question especially when looking at 2010.
If the Cardinals can't sign Matt Holliday, would it be prudent to re-sign Joel Pineiro? I have no idea what kind of money he's going to be offered and the Cardinals already have some significant dollars locked up in their starting rotation. Also, I'm not sure I've fully recovered from my revulsion of the first Pineiro contract.
Also, Tuesday threads are .gif free threads. Enjoy!
653 comments | 0 recs
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
St. Louis
|
91 | 71 | .561 | 0 | Lost 6 |
|
Chicago
|
83 | 78 | .515 | 7.5 | Lost 1 |
|
Milwaukee
|
80 | 82 | .493 | 11 | Won 3 |
|
Cincinnati
|
78 | 84 | .481 | 13 | Won 2 |
|
Houston
|
74 | 88 | .456 | 17 | Lost 3 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
62 | 99 | .385 | 28.5 | Lost 2 |
(updated 11.9.2009 at 5:31 PM EST)
Certain photos copyright © 2009 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
Most Commented
What the Cardinals can take from the Yankees, besides the luxury tax
by DanUpBaby 4 days ago
656 comments | 0 recs
Keeping the Seat Warm
by azruavatar 6 days ago
653 comments | 0 recs
La Russter's Millions
by DanUpBaby 3 days ago
629 comments | 0 recs
My Maudlin' Career
by the red baron 5 days ago
368 comments | 0 recs
November
by tom s. 2 days ago
327 comments | 7 recs