It’s official: Bill Hall will get the majority of the playing time at third base. He left open the possibility of a change as the Brewers get further into the season, but for now, Hall will get the majority of at-bats during the regular season to try and prove that he’s an everyday player again instead of a one-year wonder.
Despite Hall hitting a paltry .225/.293/.396 last year at the hot corner, he still was an acceptable player, being above average due to good defensive numbers. Many of his peripheral numbers have stayed the same, with his lack of batting average being slightly BABIP-driven, meaning Hall should have a little bit of a bounceback year even if he hits at the level that he did last year.
But why has Hall struggled lately? Most of his peripherals are similar, but quite a few are not. Let’s compare some of Hall’s 2006 statistics (where he OPSed nearly .900) with last year’s (where he couldn’t even hit .700):
Hall 2006: 21.3 O-Swing%, 42.7 O-Contact%, 56.3 First Strike% Bill Hall 2008: 26.8 O-Swing%, 56.0 O-Contact%, 62.3 First Strike%
To translate, these statistics mean that Bill Hall swung much more at pitches outside of the strike zone, he made much more contact on those pitches outside of the zone, and he gets thrown many, many more first-pitch strikes than before.
Well what do these stats imply? A higher O-Swing% means that he’s swinging at more pitches outside of the zone. This is a simple byproduct of not being able to see the ball adequately enough to make a good jodgement on the ball. That’s bad enough in itself, but the increase in O-Contact% may look better, but is actually worse: balls that are hit outside of the zone aren’t hit nearly as well as those inside. For example, pitchers love letting the Brewers “feast” on sliders outside of the zone; if Hall happens to swing at one and make contact, he’s not going to get the power or contact that he really wants out of his swing. A higher O-Contact% means he’s hitting weaker balls that aren’t flying out of the park or being driven into the gaps; instead, they are popups or weak grounders.
An analysis on how incredibly important first-pitch strikes are is on The Hardball Timeshere (pt. 1) and here (pt. 2). They say it more eloquently than I ever would.
So if these stats have gone down, why am I still optimistic about Billy starting at third this year?
The key stats where he’s shown some regression since his 2006 year could also be partially blamed on his apparent inability to see the ball well. If he’s swinging on more balls outside of the zone, that’s most likely the case. I’ve noted it here before, but I think it’s really important that Billy got LASIK eye surgery during the offseason. Considering the problems he seemed to have in between at-bats over the past couple of years where he’d blink really violently, as well as him saying that he’s seeing really, really well since he’s gotten the surgery make me think that he can improve his plate discipline to the point where it could bring his hitting ability back to 2006 levels and make him a huge contributor to the Brewers. His confidence seems high to boot — his current injury is healing really nicely and is only a small sidetrack to his spring training.
LASIK has done wonders for other players as well. Take a look simply at Denard Span of the Minnesota Twins — in 2007 in AAA, he managed a mere .267/.322/.353 line. Then he had LASIK surgery. In 2008, he hit .340/.434/.481 before coming up to the majors and continued to hit on a roll. He claims that the eye surgery allowed him to see the ball much better and it made him a better hitter.
Bill Hall says he can hit much better. I’m really excited to watch him hit this year; if he can exceed projections, the Crew just might have a monster lineup.
New manager Ken Macha didn’t make many baseball statheads too pleased when he decided to set the spring training rotation with Jeff Suppan to lead off the spring training schedule. Hopefully this is only a spring training move — Macha noted specifically that this is only the spring training schedule and not necessarily the one that will begin the season, but beat writer Tom Haudricourt thinks that this will be the rotation throughout the year.
Certainly pegging your worst pitcher as your #1 starter throughout the season seems totally counter-intuitive, but in all honesty, I don’t mind the move. Ultimately every starter will get the same amount of starts regardless of who is where in the order, and Macha (a known managerial stathead) is smart enough to realize this — this move is ultimately nothing more than an attempt to take some pressure off the younger guys who aren’t yet sure full-season studs yet; Yovani Gallardo was injured the majority of 2007 and is only projected for around 100 innings this year and Manny Parra flamed out at the end of last year after reaching (and surpassing) that phantom “innings increase limit” that is supposed to protect pitchers from having a higher injury risk. These guys are still a season or two away from the spotlight yet, and since they’re all going to get the same amount of starts anyways, taking some spotlight off of them can do nothing but benefit the young studs.
Right Field Bleachers wrote an incredibly interesting post about how the Brewers are making up for the void created by the departures of C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets by citing a much-improved bullpen and combining them with the projections of Yovani Gallardo and Braden Looper and coming up with the conclusion that the pitching staff is actually better off this year than it was last year with CC and Benny.
I like the logic train here, but I’m not yet sold. The post hasn’t taken into account the huge regression that Dave Bush is set to have — despite career-best statistics and clutch pitching down the stretch (and in the playoffs!) he still posted a 4.93 FIP and had a .245 BABIP (that was lowest in the majors among pitchers who have pitched a significant amount of innings), so it’s impossible to expect him to have another year as lucky as he had. He should regress a win — maybe two.
The link also counts on Gallardo to toss 180 innings next year, which is probably a little bit too much. Gallardo in 2007 threw nearly 200 innings, however, for the last few he was totally gassed and couldn’t pitch effectively. Compare that with him having to take 2008 off due to his injury, I don’t think he’ll have the endurance — nor will the Brewers want him to have the endurance — to pitch a huge amount of innings in 2009.
Projections outside of the ones that the Right Field Bleachers reference seem to be much more pessimistic, as CHONE and Marcel projections don’t have him topping 110 IP and seem to think he’ll reinjure himself. I’m not so sure he’ll go that low (barring an injury), but I think 180 innings might be a few too many to expect from a young stud coming off major knee surgery who the Brewers are — and should be — cautious with.
Welcome to the first of your two posts today. Check out all this new stuff! Remember, it’s all free to download and check out and not illegal to have!
Techno Luke Slater released a live mix he played in Glasgow in January. If you’re going to listen to any mix I post today — do this one. It’s 100% rad.
Surgeon released a live tracklist that he played in Leeds. More good stuff.
IDM
Pi.o.tr has a new release entitled Guarded. Cool album.
Idiot Dog Brain released a couple of tracks available for download on his website.
Ambient
Darren Harper released a variant of the Buddha Machine. For those unfamiliar with what the Buddha Machine is, here you go. This is actually a really, really cool variant.
The Orb
The Orb released a new track! OOPA is the name. very ambient and psychedelic, as that seems to be the way that The Orb is going today instead of the dub music that they seemed to hang onto.
On Monday I took a quick glance at four similar baseball players just by looking at their statistics and nothing else. Each player played the same position and therefore had the same normalized stats:
Chicks obviously dig the long ball, but let’s run a few comparisons, “mystery game” style. Check it out, using 2008 statistics:
Player A: .270/.341/.500, 25 HR in 492 AB, 123 OPS+, UZR/150 -7.1
Player B: .251/.339/.543, 48 HR in 610 AB, 124 OPS+, UZR/150 2.6
Player C: .276/.372/.507, 34 HR in 588 AB, 128 OPS+, UZR/150 -8.7
Player D: .247/.377/.494, 31 HR in 590 AB, 127 OPS+, UZR/150 3.8
Check out how similar these players are — you can’t guess who’s who without specifically looking up the statistics first. Without doing that, rank these players from who you’d most want and why, and I’ll lay out the same (putting contracts in mind) on my next post and explain why the three players who aren’t Ryan Howard are more desirable to have on your team than the big slugger himself.
Just for the record, if I were looking at these statistics by themselves, I’d rank the players, from best to worst, 4-2-3-1. Let me know what you think.
Those players, in order, were Adam Laroche, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, and Carlos Pena. I was a little bit surprised to see that Laroche was almost as good as the other “big three” first basemen in this category in terms of pure statistics, even though he lost quite a bit of value defensively for not being that good at first base.
These four players are very similar statistically, with about one total win being the difference between them (assuming they all had the same amount of PAs). However, their contracts appear to be wildly different. Check out what each of these players are getting paid:
Adam Laroche: 1 yr/ $7.05 million plus $10,000 in incentives for reaching PA plateaus Prince Fielder: 2 yrs/ $18 million plus $500k for reaching 500 PA Ryan Howard: 3 yrs/ $54 million with incentives for various accomplishments that could reach an additional $2.5 million Carlos Pena: 3 yrs/$24.125 million plus $25,000 for each Gold Glove
It’s incredible to me how much the media can change the face of a player simply by means of how much hype they give him. Howard is considered a first-class slugger in the majors because he can hit home runs and plays for a major market team. Alternatively, Carlos Pena had a higher OPS+ than Howard, was better defensively, and gets paid less than half of what Howard makes. The only real “knock” against Pena is that in 2008 he only hit 31 HR while Howard blasted nearly 48 hitting in an extreme hitters park in Philadelphia.
Let it be known too that Pena went nuts in 2007, putting up an incredible line of .282/.411/.627 with 46 HR and 172 OPS+ with some plus defense in first base as well. Since he plays in Tampa, though, he doesn’t get near the amount of media attention that he deserves.
The discrepancy in salary between these two players is an obvious choice when deciding who I’d rather want as a player. Considering Howard’s massive $18 million salary next year, I’d just as soon take the services of Adam Laroche because he costs $11 million cheaper, and I can make up for Laroche’s dropoff in production by signing someone else to fill in the gap somewhere else — an extra $11 million will be able to buy me some more wins somewhere else where there’s a market to upgrade. Or that $11 million can be put back into the system for next year in order to afford a cool free agent coming out. Or, I can try and lock up a pre-arbitration player. The possibilities with extra money are endless; $11 million to lose out on one extra win is a gamble I’d be quite willing to take.
I decided to take a look at some of the best values of some of the best players in the majors. I used Beyond the Box Score’s Top 50 Players in 2008 list and compared the salaries of players with how much they’re worth on the field. Just a few notes before I publish the spreadsheet:
– I sorted players by those in their arbitration years and those who have signed longer-term contracts. I did this because players in their arbitration years get smaller contracts than those who have proven themselves and are ready to become free agents. This is so that we’re comparing apples and apples; not apples and oranges.– Players who are in pre-arb years were omitted; the salaries are too similar. Of the top 50 players on Beyond the Box Score’s list, that means I’m skipping out on Josh Hamilton, Geovany Soto, Joey Votto, Carlos Quentin, BJ Upton, and Mike Aviles.– Because some players’ contracts are backloaded, I decided to normalize cost/win values by averaging the entire contract of the player in terms of price/year and finding out the cost/win that way in addition to the player’s contract in 2009.– Manny Ramirez hasn’t signed anything yet and I just estimated his salary at $20 million, since that’s the base number that gets thrown around a lot.– Chipper Jones’ salary isn’t disclosed, so I just estimated it based on what MLB Contracts said. Nothing scientific there.
One of the things that jumped out at me was the incredible value ballclubs are getting by signing pre-arbitration players to long-term contracts that translates to guaranteed money for the players when they are just one injury away from losing millions of dollars (see: Ben Sheets). Evan Longoria is the best deal among the top 50 players, and likely the world — at $120,000/win, he’s an incredible bargain, no matter what team you are. And he’s only 23. Considering his contract is a little backloaded, he still only costs $630,000 per win, and when you consider he didn’t play the entire season last year (which means his WAR over a full season would be higher) and you expect a 23-year-old to improve as he continues to make progress in the big leagues, he’s probably going to come cheaper than that. The Rays paid their superstar virtually no money to go out and add 5 wins above replacement.
With that said, it’s widely known at this point that the Angels are not the most efficient of spenders. They considered Gary Matthews Jr. enough of a talent to pay $10 million/year to OPS .675 and play terrible defense. Torii Hunter is the lone Angelic who appears on this list, proving to be an inefficient purchase, even though he adds 3-4 wins to their win total.
Of course these numbers aren’t perfect. I personally don’t expect Ryan Ludwick to repeat his 2008 performance since it seemed like a flukish year and I don’t trust an oft-injured player like him to repeat an entire season’s worth of good hitting. However, if it’s a good quick cost-benefit analysis for players where you’ve already evaluated talent levels on.
For my part 3 preview (which I’ve started by the way!), I’m going to do a spreadsheet on all current Brewers and how they can project to do for the 2009 season using this analysis. Using Beyond the Box Score’s cost-per-win analysis to use Milwaukee’s current payroll to determine who’s worth it and who’s not.
Anyone want to undertake the task of doing this for the entirety of MLB?
Starting now, on Tuesdays I’m going to put together a little roll of electronic mixes of various genres and types that have recently been released. They’ll always be sorted by genre, and they’re all free to download and distribute, so no worries about this being taken down. If you have something you want me to post, email me at cody at czwief dot com, and I’ll check it out!
Detroit techno new stuff
Echospace – Talking Shopcast Mix: Here’s a little thing released by Echospace last month that’s pretty darn good. You can check out a full interview with the artist here talking about his mix and about a host of other stuff.
David Powers released a few tracks he mixed on Abelton Live. This one’s nothing special, but that doesn’t make it a good listen!
IDM new stuff
Zeno remixed a B1t Crunch3r song, all dubstep-style. It’s cool. Dubstep really is an underrated genre. Even those who aren’t fans of reggae can appreciate it.
David Powers released a little something, which I’m a huge fan of. More dubstep/techno. Sounds great.
Yovani Gallardo wants to pitch in the World Baseball Classic next month but is waiting to hear back from the Brewers to determine how comfortable they are with the idea before Gallardo makes his final decision. He would pitch for Mexico, naturally, and final rosters have to be sent in by the 24th, so final decisions have to be made by then.
Gallardo should be back to near 100% from his torn ACL which he suffered in a game last year and has only pitched four innings ever since. He says the knee is back to 100%, and by now he should be ready to start pitching with a moderate to full workload, as a knee problem for a pitcher isn’t nearly as concerning as an elbow or shoulder problem.
I’ve always been a proponent of the WBC, even though it doesn’t get nearly the amount of media attention that it should. Huge stars like Albert Pujols tend to exaggerate injuries and treat the WBC as if it’s a second priority with the WBC, and with the exact science of workloads that pitchers are bound under, most pitchers are discouraged from pitching in order to ensure that during MLB’s season, that player can be healthy and productive for the maximum amount of time. The only risky pitcher I can think of off the top of my head who is going to risk his overall health is perennially-gassed pitcher Justin Verlander. Gallardo doesn’t seem to be the type of pitcher who’s often injured or fatigued, so I’d encourage him to play in the WBC.
With that said, it’s still going to be fun to watch. Even if it interferes with spring training.
Hey, check this out. Here’s Jayson Stark:
Before the Phillies signed Ryan Howard to a three-year, $54 million extension, the two sides talked seriously about a five-year deal in the neighborhood of $110 million.
I don’t think I could name one other player in the majors today who’s so grossly salivated over in the media than Ryan Howard. Chicks obviously dig the long ball, but let’s run a few comparisons, “mystery game” style. Check it out, using 2008 statistics:
Player A: .270/.341/.500, 25 HR in 492 AB, 123 OPS+, UZR/150 -7.1
Player B: .251/.339/.543, 48 HR in 610 AB, 124 OPS+, UZR/150 2.6
Player C: .276/.372/.507, 34 HR in 288 AB, 128 OPS+, UZR/150 -8.7
Player D: .247/.377/.494, 31 HR in 290 AB, 127 OPS+, UZR/150 3.8
Check out how similar these players are — you can’t guess who’s who without specifically looking up the statistics first. Without doing that, rank these players from who you’d most want and why, and I’ll lay out the same (putting contracts in mind) on my next post and explain why the three players who aren’t Ryan Howard are more desirable to have on your team than the big slugger himself.
Just for the record, if I were looking at these statistics by themselves, I’d rank the players, from best to worst, 4-2-3-1. Let me know what you think.
Tomorrow, I’ll be making a post about music. I’ll give you mix upon mix to download (legally!) and share with yourself or your friends. Sorted by genre. Hours and hours of sweet nectar.
Lastly, this is the funniest thing you’ll ever see:
We’re getting pretty close to the day where pitchers and catchers report for duty and people start anticipating the first day of spring instead of dreading the upcoming remaining month or so of cabin fever people in the upper midwest tend to experience.
We’re also getting pretty close to the day where Corey Hart could get ripped apart by the organization that employs him in an effort to save a million dollars. Hart is asking for $3.8 million while the Brewers offered $2.7 million; the hearing date is either the 17th or 18th — no more than a week away.
Hart is a career .277/.323/.485 hitter who finished 2008 below those numbers (mere .300 OBP) due to an absolutely miserable September (.173/.192/.245) that nearly “helped” Milwaukee choke away their playoff birth. Hart’s stats last year may not imply that he’s worth the $3.8 million he’s asking for, but when looking a little deeper, I wouldn’t mind the investment either way as long as certain circumstances happen.
Hart has never been a patient hitter with his tiny walk rate (4.2% in ‘08, only 27 walks in 612 ABs), but he’s always been able to make up for that with a little extra meat in his swing. For the second straight season in 2008, he hit 20 homers, and with that big frame, has potential to amass more power as he gets older and works his way into the big leagues for good.
But his 2008 was a big regression in more than just his initial stats. His ISO shot down over 50 points into 2008 and his OBA went way down to .327, which is essentially league average for MLB — far below average for a supposed power-hitting corner outfielder. He was just barely above replacement level — with a 0.28 WPA, he wouldn’t deserve to be paid as much as even Milwaukee’s offered him. One main thing, to me, was the root of all Hart’s problems in the majors last year:
Outside swing pct. measures the percentage of balls outside the zone that Hart swung at. 2006 can be considered a bit of a small sample size, but Hart’s consistently swinging at more pitches he shouldn’t be and that makes anyone a terrible hitter. Pitchers adapted to him by throwing him less fastballs that he could jump on and threw him a steady diet of sliders that dove low and outside and he bit every single time. Instead of taking some time off and calming himself down, he decided to add fuel to the fire right about at the point where Milwaukee began panicking last year about their playoff slide.
I’m not going to sit there and walk, though. I’ll eventually find it, and hopefully we’ll still be in it.”
So if Hart is such a poor hitter, why am I advocating him to be part of the team next year? Simple: because a great majority of his flaws can be corrected. Manager Ken Macha hinted when he was hired that he tends to delve a bit into statistical analysis and should be able to see the value in taking a walk and being patient. Pitchers throw Hart first-pitch strikes — whether he swings at them or not — more than almost any other hitter in the majors. If Hart can adjust his swing, tempo, and patience, he has the potential to take all of that early pressure off of him and he can become more relaxed of a hitter.
This just depends on whether or not hitting coach Dale Sveum will teach Hart to walk and not hack and whether or not Hart buys into the system. If Hart can take first pitches and be more selective at what he swings at, he can make a huge improvement in his swing and power and become an elite talent in the major leagues.
$3.8 million for a one-win player isn’t a bad bet either, and we can at least assume that Hart will attone for his miserable September and have a bounceback year anyway. Projections have him at about a .275/.330/.480 player, which makes me think he has nowhere to go but up. If Hart can harness his ability to take a pitch or two, he has a legitimate chance at becoming an elite hitter on the Brewers instead of an overrated corner outfielder. With the patience comes the higher on base percentage as well as the respect from pitchers who will start throwing more fastballs to Hart that he can send to the gaps. It all depends on the coaching he receives in spring training — he needs to drop the hacker mentality.
Over the next few days I’m going to start compiling a list of legitimate Brewers websites — blogs, official sites, or whatever — on the linkroll to the right of the page. If you have one, or you know of one that I’ve missed, e-mail me at cody@czwief.com or comment with the link on this post; I’ll certainly put it up on the linkroll. I want to create a nice little database here of everything Brewers-related, so that I can easily read everything instead of using bookmarks and other links.
There’s a messy situation developing in Milwaukee which everyone’s surely heard of. Ben Sheets will get surgery on his right elbow to repair a torn flexor tendon (something which shouldn’t be surprising), so he’s not going to be able to pitch again until around August. The problem with that is that Sheets wants the Brewers to foot the bill for the surgery and they’re inevitably going to have to do it whether they like it or not.
Gord Ash and other Brewers insiders seem pissed — Tom Hardicourt keeps calling it a “mess,” and in general it’s a sticky situation, as both sides are (and should be) considerably frustrated with the other. Sheets passed up $12 million to not do anything except rehab until August, and has since found his value plummet due to his long list of medical problems to the point where nobody wants him anymore. The Brewers have to pay for a pitcher’s surgery that they’re not going to ever use in the future. They have to fix a broken product for someone else, and because of that, they lose two draft picks they would have gained if the top-notch free agent signed somewhere else.
What to make of this “mess?” Milwaukee should quietly shut up and pay for Benny’s surgery and try to keep him under the radar for the duration of his rehab. The Brewers have nothing to lose at this point by signing Sheets around the time his rehab is done to a cheap contract. I’m thinking something like 2 years, $7 million, with the salary backloaded for 2010. This assumes he can come back for the last two months of 2009. Here’s why I like this idea:
1) At this point in time, it’d be buying low on Sheets. His value has plummeted so much over the past couple months that signing him would be really cheap — especially for a pitcher who is as good as Sheets. The risk is low ($7 million dollars is nothing more than the Brewers have paid for Sheets in the past) and the reward could be high. If he can pitch 150 innings of ball in 2010 and help the Brewers for a month or two in ‘09, then that price tag will be more than worth it because you know he’s going to put up wonderful numbers while trying to help the Brewers get back to the playoffs.
If Sheets does flame out and my predictions of more elbow and arm problems plaguing Sheets for the rest of his career, then it’s a definite loss, but it’s not as terrible of a risk as one might think. Friendly reminder here that Eric Gagne made $10 million last year and decided to be a terrible pitcher.
Considering that a win is going to be worth about $4 million this coming year, a 2-year, $8 million contract would mean that Sheets needs to be worth about 20 runs above replacement level in order to make the deal worth it. Ben’s WAR (wins above replacement) every year since 2002:
In 2007 he threw 141 innings of injury-plagued, OK baseball (OK by Ben Sheets standards). If he throws 141 innings of good baseball over the next two years, he will be well worth the risk. Anything more is icing on the cake and would help soften not only the up-and-coming animosity between Sheets and the Brewers but will also get the Brewers back on the right track in terms of pitching. The only question is whether or not he would accept that kind of contract.
2) Considering his current status, I think he should accept it. He might still be bitter over refusing Milwaukee’s arbitration offer, but he’d be stupid not to take two years of guaranteed money considering how ready his body is to explode. You see it more and more among players these days — Ryan Braun for example decided to skip all of his arbitration years and take guaranteed money at a discounted rate from the Brewers. Evan Longoria is another recent example — and neither of these two guys have been especially injury-prone.
Guaranteed money for a guy like Ben Sheets would definitely be worth it since he’s going to be unemployed either way until August, and if he can muster a league-minimum salary this year (hey, it’s better than nothing) and know that he can earn another $7 million or so the next year, well, he’d be giving away even more money at this point. Even if Sheets’ rehab goes wonderfully and he pitches the last month and a half of 2009 pitching for a different club and goes back into the pitching market, I don’t see him getting much more money than $8 million per year anyways, since no team ever anymore will sign him to a long-term deal due to his extensive medical history. It’s guaranteed money for a not-guaranteed arm.
3) So what if my optimism is wrong, and Sheets is the next Mark Prior?
Then it’s an $8 million loss and a risk that in hindsight the Brewers shouldn’t have taken. These same risks have been taken with guys like Prior, Kerry Wood, or Mark Mulder and they’ve turned out horribly. With other injury-prone pitchers, like Rich Harden, taking risks on these guys banking can turn out well. It would suck if he didn’t turn out, but then again, it would suck if Sheets stuck the cost of his surgery on the Brewers and then the Cardinals got him for the stretch run in August and September.
I’m mad about the Super Bowl, so no thanks on the NFL. I can’t stand Pittsburgh and the last play was an incomplete pass, not a fumble. Not that the Cardinals would have won, but tack on 15 yards for the unsportsmanlike conduct, and when you think about how Larry Fitzgerald is the only receiver who you know can make that Hail Mary catch, well, it’s a little disappointing. Ken Wizzenhunt sounded clinically depressed in the postgame interview.
So many people have called this offseason for the Brewers a total loss. I don’t agree with that. Continue reading →
