Praise For The Cashman

post from A Die Hard Yankees Fan on 06 February 2010 11:07:19 PM. © A Die Hard Yankees Fan

Bob Klapisch penned an article today about the challenges facing manager Joe Girardi as he and his Yankees defend their title. Mixed in the article was some praise for Yankees GM Brian Cashman:

In fact, there are enough baseball executives who think the Bombers are set to run off another mini-dynasty. They have the AL's most talented roster, they have a $200 million payroll and, most importantly, they're being governed more efficiently than at any time in the last 20 years.
?I think Brian [Cashman] has learned a lot about running a team,? said one rival executive. ?He's made some mistakes, but if you go around and ask people what they think of the Yankees, the answer you'll get is that they're intelligently run.?

Mixing young with old while rebuilding the farm system that was ignored for so many years. The quotes from the rival executive and Klapisch pretty much speak for itself. We've gotten back to that. The future looks bright. Thanks to Cash.

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Some Praise For Cash

post from Sliding Into Home: A Yankees Blog on 06 February 2010 10:05:30 PM. © Sliding Into Home: A Yankees Blog

Bob Klapisch penned an article today about the challenges facing manager Joe Girardi as he and his Yankees defend their title. Mixed in the article was some praise for Yankees GM Brian Cashman:

In fact, there are enough baseball executives who think the Bombers are set to run off another mini-dynasty. They have the AL's most talented roster, they have a $200 million payroll and, most importantly, they're being governed more efficiently than at any time in the last 20 years.

?I think Brian [Cashman] has learned a lot about running a team,? said one rival executive. ?He's made some mistakes, but if you go around and ask people what they think of the Yankees, the answer you'll get is that they're intelligently run.?

Having the highest payroll only gets you so far. What has put the Yankees in the position they're in right now is a sound plan for the future, something the Yankees were without during most of the 2000's. Mixing young with old while rebuilding the farm system that was ignored for so many years. The quotes from the rival executive and Klapisch pretty much state that. I haven't felt as good about the future of this team in a long time, and most of the credit should go to Cash. The team is in good hands.

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2009 NL West in Review: Pitching Staffs

post from Purple Row on 06 February 2010 08:05:13 PM. © Purple Row

David Zalubowski - AP

According to Fangraphs, this guy was more valuable last season than Randy Wolf, Matt Cain, Max Scherzer, Chad Billingsley, Barry Zito, Jason Marquis and Jorge de la Rosa.

View full size photo »

For nearly two decades, Rockies fans have dealt with national analysts and out-of-state fans dismissing the statistics for Rockies hitters, since you know, we play baseball on ~~Pandora~~ the moon. What has not yet seemingly caught on (unless purple glasses blind me) is an equal amount of credit given to Rockies pitchers for throwing half their innings at least thrice the altitude of all other teams.

Granted, park effects aside, the Rockies have never had great pitching. From 1993-2004, Colorado finished dead last in NL ERA all but twice, finishing a couple runs ahead of one team those two years. But those days are gone now. As has been hinted at and outrightly stated here on numerous occasions, the Rockies were sabermetrically elite in 2009.

Overall, Colorado had the 10th best ERA in Major League Baseball, 7th best in rotational ERA; so even ignoring park effects, Bob Apodaca's staff was impressive. The starting pitchers also finished 6th in FIP and 4th in xFIP. Due largely in part of the extremely stout back end of the rotation, our Rockies sat atop all of major league baseball in pitching WAR in 2009. Naturally, that makes the Rockies look awfully good against the rest of the division. The following table on Fangraphs' RAR (runs above average) shows why Colorado belonged in the postseason. Not only are the Rockies on top overall, but they also had the most value in the rotation AND bullpen.

TeamStartersBullpenBattingTotalCOL174.646.8-36.5184.9SFG158.143.4-39.2162.3LAD137.945.9-35.6148.2AZ133.236.1-33.9135.4SDP25.424.4-37.512.3

By the way, the Padres' numbers are not a misprint. They were THAT bad in 2009. For a more visual comparison and LOLPads, here's the above table graphed.

Pitchers_medium

Note: For the hitters' series, I computed my own park effects to hitters' positional splits using Statcorner's component splits. Conversely, the numbers in this article are straight from Fangraphs, though rounding errors apply.

Take the jump for a closer look.

Starting Pitching

I counted fifty NL West pitchers who started a game. Not surprisingly, the NL Cy Young Award winner is in a class all by himself. Dan Haren was easily forgotten after he "faltered" in the second half, but his first half provided a LOT of value. Jimenez is a freak of nature robot that is half elastic titanium, half "gentile" shark and half pure awesomeness. The real interesting entry below is Jason Hammel, who went from Tampa Bay Ray, to reliever, to best back-end starter in MLB in six months, setting a Rockies record for K/BB in the process.

RankPitcherTeamWAR1Tim LincecumSFG8.22Dan HarenAZ6.13Ubaldo JimenezCOL5.74Clayon KershawLAD4.25Jason HammelCOL3.8~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~ ~46Walter SilvaSDP-0.447Josh BanksSDP-0.548Chris YoungSDP-0.549Cesar CarilloSDP-0.750Josh GeerSDP-1.5

Other interesting/counterintuitive notes from full ranking of all 50 NL West starting pitchers: (Note: even though batting RAR is included in the table, the WAR shown is strictly pitching value)

Yes, I'm serious about the bottom five. This is why the Padres' had the third least valuable pitching staff (via WAR) in MLB.
Jason Marquis and Jorge de la Rosa were hot on Hammels' heels, finishing sixth and seventh respectively.
With hitting RAR included, Jimenez is almost 2.0 WAR better than any starter, except Lincecum and Haren.
Much was made of Randy Wolf's crazy good irreplacable year and Chad Billingsley's disappointing year, but Billz still provided more WAR than Wolf.
The highest ranking Padre on the list is Kevin Correia at 12th. Ahead of Correia, there was four Rockies, three Dodgers, two Giants and two D-Backs.
Only three Padre starters were more valuable than Jose Contreras was for the Rockies as a starter, and all three have been jettisoned.

Relief Pitching

I knew the Rockies had stout starting pitching, but I'm shocked that Colorado's bullpen finished tops in bullpen RAR, ahead of the much ballyhooed Dodger pen. Again, this is before park adjustments too. Considering Street's rough April and the miserable couple months early in the season, you wouldn't expect Colorado to be 2nd in the NL.

While Street greatly carried Colorado, a quick glance at the full NL West WAR leaderboards show that the Rox were successful with depth.

RankPitcherTeamWAR1Jonathan BroxtonLAD2.92Brian WilsonSFG2.43Heath BellSDP2.04Luke GregersonSDP1.85Huston StreetCOL1.5~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~ ~72Will OhmanLAD-0.573Edwin MorenoSDP-0.574Scott SchoeneweisAZ-0.775Duaner SanchezSDP-0.776Luis PerdomoSDP-0.7

Points to note:

Huston Street wasn't as nearly valuable, at least sabermetrically, as you probably thought.
Not a single Rockie reliever was below replacement value in 2009. Well, except the two old men whose last name starts with an E. Still, they totalled just -0.2 WAR, significantly less than -0.8 WAR the wnd best Giants got from their below replacement level portion of the bullpen. The Padres brought up the rear at -3.2 WAR.
Despite having two relievers in the top four in the All-Star Heath Bell and underrated Luke Gregerson, San Diego also filled three of the bottom four slots and 7 of the bottom 12.
Rafael Betancourt and Matt Daley proved to be more valuable than the Dodgers' dynamic set-up duo in Ronald Belisario and Ramon Troncoso. Betancourt was also the most valuable mid-season acquisition, finishing tenth overall.
Jonathan Broxton is a beast. He was worth nearly double Huston Street and was more valuable than all but 11 NL West starting pitchers, including every single Padre.

Pitchers in the Batter's Box

It might seem silly to consider offensive value for pitchers when comparing them to each other. After all, they all suck nowadays, so there can't be too much separation. However, consider this:

Two Rockies pitchers had more plate appearances than Omar Quintanilla.
The difference in value between Randy Wolf and Kevin Correia on the mound was smaller than the difference in value between Jorge de la Rosa's bat and Dan Haren's bat. In effect, if DLR hit like Haren, he would be the 4th most valuable pitcher in the division, ahead of Clayton Kershaw.
The range in value from top (Chris Young) to bottom (Jon Garland) was 1.24 WAR.

Keep in mind, negative value essentially gets a boost from less plate appearances, so many of the "leaders" just didn't have as many chances to suck. Here are the Batting Rankings. Other conclusions:

Other than Jon Garland, who spent the entirety of his career in the AL until 2009, the worst two hitting pitchers were Rockies. Fangraphs was not impressed with Jason Marquis' reputation.
Translating batting RAR into a rate, Ubaldo Jimenez was the ninth best hitting pitching in the division (SSS).

That's it for today. My apologies for the wide gap between articles. I'll wrap up the series sometime next week, compiling all of what we learned in a maddening, loosely accurate statistical fracas.

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February 6 2010 Demolition Images (Part 2)

post from Demolition of Yankee Stadium on 06 February 2010 07:26:44 PM. © Demolition of Yankee Stadium

Photo Credit: Redmills (Photobucket)

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olition-images-part-2/

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How Much is Joe Mauer Worth

post from Bronx Baseball Daily on 06 February 2010 06:38:00 PM. © Bronx Baseball Daily

Rumors circulated on Tuesday that Joe Mauer had signed a 10 year, $200 million extension with the[...]

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Mets 2010 Relievers Ryota Igarashi and Kelvim
Escobar

post from The Mets Report on 06 February 2010 06:31:12 PM. © The Mets Report

One of the biggest changes we?ll see as Mets fans this year will be in the bullpen. Of course, Francisco Rodriguez is still at the back of the pen. But there are some big changes in front of him. Last season the Mets acquired J.J. Putz in a trade before the season and that sealed [...]

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The Five Best Free Agent Hitters Left On The
Market

post from The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on 06 February 2010 05:51:09 PM. © The Ghost of Moonlight Graham

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in less than two weeks. Can you believe it!!! It seems like yesterday the World Series was being played.Despite the fact that spring training starts in less than two weeks, there are still a lot of quality major league hitters who still have not found a home. Due [...]

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1901 DMB World Series Poll

Please take a second to participate in the 1st DMB World Series Poll. Click the team you think will win and the # games that it will take. The poll will close on Tuesday 2/9. I?ll play the 1st game of this series that night.Will it be the Pittsburgh Pirates winners of the NL Pennant, [...]

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2000 Fleer Club 3,000 Paul Molitor

2000 Fleer – “Club 3,000″ – Paul MolitorDate of entry into “Club 3,000″ – September 16, 1996The Story – On the road in Kansas City, Molitor’s big day came in front of just 16,843 fans. At the age of 39, and still an every day player for the Minnesota Twins, Molitor was still as sharp as ever. On [...]

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Coke Finds Trade A "Blessing In Disguise"

From B.J. Hansen:

"The trade was definitely a shock because I grew up in the Yankees system," says Coke. "At the same time, it is more than likely a blessing in disguise."

The Tigers are considering moving Coke from the bullpen to the starting rotation next season.

"When I go back there I'm going to make sure I give it everything I got and see if I can lock down that job," adds Coke. "If not I can always go back to the bullpen and contribute there."

"I'm not really worried about it, as long as I have someone give me a ball and tell me to ?go get em,'" says Coke.
Yes, Coke did give up alot of homeruns but he was a valuable part of the pen down the stretch. I wish him good luck in Detroit.