Best in the NL West

If I had a nickel for each time Rob Neyer inspired me to write something, well, let’s just say I’d have quite a few nickels. Recently, he’s been publishing (in weblog form, silly) a series which aims to determine the very best players at each position through the conclusion of the decade. It’s ambitious. It’s also doomed to failure, unless he’s learned a thing or two since the last time he tried. Anyway, I’d like to do something similar, but pare it way, way back.

We will start by including only those players who play in the National League West and trim if further by aiming for the best players now, not necessarily worrying so much about their future. To do this, I’m simply looking up the Fan Projections from FanGraphs, grabbing each player’s projected Wins above Replacement (WAR), and completing the circle by commenting on each selection. The fans projections seem a decent place to start to find some impartial (if also biased) judges. Sound like fun? Too bad. One final note: I’m doing position players now with the hopes to do pitchers later – just don’t hold your breath.

After the jump, we start with the most important position on the diamond, the catcher. We’ll continue in order of positional scarcity – meaning the relative supply of “good” players at each position. There are fewer good hitters that can also be good defensive catchers than any other position. Next is shortstop, and so forth.

Four Teams, Two Spots (and the NL RoY Race)

Buster Posey and Jason Heyward (and Jaime Garcia) are incredible rookies. For the purposes of this post, I’m going to focus on Heyward and Posey. Why? Well, I think they’ve done enough to be considered the top two candidates for the RoY award, and both are still in contention. This will help their chances, right or wrong. Furthermore, if only one of the two makes the playoffs that’s also really going to help either Heyward’s or Posey’s chances. This is still a really possibility, too, though both would get in if play ended at the end of yesterday – but to be fair, the Giants’ lead over the Padres is merely a ½ game advantage having played (and won) an additional game.

Each one of these rookies has been phenomenal in their own right. Heyward has played a nice right field and is hitting for solid average (.286), moderate power (.475 SLG) and is getting on base like a mad man (.401 OBP), something that rookies have rarely done. Buster Posey is hitting for an extremely high average (.324), getting on base at a very nice rate (.373) and hitting for much more power than could have been expected (.522 SLG), both this soon and also in terms of his long term potential. Furthermore, Posey is playing the integral position of catcher, and catching the staff with the best ERA in baseball no less. What’s more, the Giants have amassed an astounding ERA thus far in the pivotal September pennant race. Posey is thus far out OPS’ing Heyward .895 to .876, but this could change within a matter of days. Plus, Heyward has the slight wOBA edge given his higher OBP, 3.85 versus .382.

Counting stats wise, Posey has 15 HR and 61 RBI to Heyward’s 17/71. It should be noted, however, that Heyward has played in 35 more games than Posey (132 versus 97). The RBI’s are not of particular use in my opinion, but rest assured; they’ll be a factor in the voting. Also, Heyward has already struck out 118 times to just 46 for Posey. What I decided to do was to take their respective WAR’s from both Baseball Reference and Fangraphs to determine the relative value they’ve provided to their team. There seems to be consensus about Heyward but less so about Posey – this is common between the two sites as they use slightly different methods to arrive at their WAR figures.

Heyward:
BR = 4.6 WAR in 132 G
FG = 4.6 WAR in 132 G
WAR Average = 4.6

1 W per 29 games played according to Baseball Reference

1 W per 29 games played according to Fangraphs

1 W per 29 games played, average

Posey:

BR = 2.8 WAR in 97 G

FG = 3.9 WAR in 97 G
WAR Average = 3.35
1 W per 35 games played according to Baseball Reference
1 W per 25 games according to Fangraphs
1 W per 29 games played, average

Isn’t this interesting? On a per game basis, if we give 50% weight to baseball reference’s and 50% to Frangaphs’ figures, Posey and Heyward have provided the exact same WAR on a per game basis with 1 win every 29 games. Heyward has provided more cumulative WAR because he’s played in more games. My conclusion is this: Right now it’s more or less a dead heat. The voters are going to focus on counting stats and batting average. They are also going to put a great deal of weight on where their teams ended the season, in postseason or at home watching. Both of these players will have a great deal to do with how their teams finish. Still, they could both play horribly and both still get in, or both play phenomenally (a word that suits them both) and it end up that neither the Braves nor Giants get in. But this seems unlikely to me. In my humble opinion, if there was ever a year where a Co-NL Rookie of the Year award was appropriate, it would be 2010 with all the talent that has flushed the league this season. There’s probably (if not certainly) no right or wrong answer. I won’t hesitate to say it should be Posey – a biased opinion no doubt – but they’re singing a different tune down south, and have been so since their guy started breaking windshields in Spring Training. The fact that they played one another in the 2005 Georgia AAAA State Championship back in high school only adds to the intrigue.

Playoff Picture …

It’s probably (really) safe to say the Reds and Phillies are in, and there are four teams fighting for the final two spots. Here are the opponents’ average run differentials (OARD), etc. for each of these teams.

Giants (OARD = 0.36), 6 Home 5 Away - @ CHC for 2. Lead division by ½ game, potentially ½ back of WC
Braves (OARD = 28.30), 6 Home 4 Away - @ PHI for 1. Trail division by 5 games, 1 game up in WC
Padres (OARD = 19.33), 7 Home 5 Away - @ LAD for 2. Trail division by ½ game, 1 game back in WC
Rockies (OARD = 21.50), 6 Home 6 Away - @ AZ for 2. Trail division by 2 ½ games, 3 ½ games back in WC

The Giants have themselves in nice position. For one, they currently lead the division. Also, they are only ½ back from the Braves (and zero in the loss column), which is another path to the playoffs should SD or COL catch them. That being said, position means nothing if they don’t play well and continue to pitch great while praying for a few runs.

(Probably) Inconsequential, frustrating‏

Yesterday’s game was pretty much a wash, because by all accounts Ubaldo was on his game. He probably wanted a little bit of revenge for the game in early July in which the Giants tagged him for 7. On that 7, by the way, the biggest blow was Ishikawa’s grand slam. Well, they showed that HR again yesterday. Not to taking anything away (well, maybe) but that was a Coors Field HR if I ever saw one. It looked like he popped it up behind second base and it barely cleared the fence. But I’ll take it!


Getting back to yesterday, there was a play that Bochy put on that has little defense, in my opinion. Bochy asked Burrel to steal second on back to back 3-2 pitches to Pablo Sandoval. On the first, Pablo fouled the pitch back which extended the AB. Kruk and Kuip mentioned how dead in the water Burrel would be if Pablo failed to make contact. Furthermore, that outcome is all the more likely with a strikeout pitcher on the mound. The next pitch came, Pablo swung and missed, and Iannetta gunned down Burrel like he was taking a slow stroll through the park to second base. Now I am all for trying to avoid hitting into double plays, but when the odds are stacked up against you with a strikeout pitcher and an extremely slow base runner, maybe it’s best not to kill possible rally’s this way. And anyone who knows Pablo has had difficulty catching up with blazing high fastballs should consider that as well.

Quick aside: A caller named “Regina” called Razor and Mr. T last night and wanted to know why the Giants play so poorly on midweek day games, she’d noticed. They pretty quickly dismissed her and went to commercial break, but I didn’t. I’ve noticed this trend as well; so much so, that I sometimes don’t even record the midweek day games because I know I’ll come home to a disappointing game, stomping or loss of some variety. How about the game early on where Lincecum was pulled while throwing a shutout and Wilson lost the game on a bloop single by Werth? How about the game last year where the ump blew the call and called Furcal safe, only to have Ethier ruin his win and shutout with a single – I can’t recall the outcome of the game. There was the game last year where the king-of-allowing-Rookie-walk offs, Bob Howry – I believe 3 of the 5 he gave up last year were of this variety – gave up a walk-off dinger in Cincinnati to Drew Stubbs. He could really pick his spots, couldn’t he? This could be ridiculous, but it seems they are terrible in daytime getaway games.

Not so fast

Dear Mr. Neukom, SOS.

-Giants Fans

When you take a look at the Giants’ projected 2010 lineup, something is glaringly obvious: they will be incredibly slow. What little speed they had in 2009 is either likely to get far less playing time in 2010 (Burris and Velez) or left via free agency (specifically I’m speaking about the sneaky fast Randy Winn who led the team in thefts). Other players on their roster have fallen out of favor with management or the manager for unknown reasons and look to either be moved or provide depth as a bench player. Of course I am referring to Fred Lewis. Lewis is one of the few Giants on the roster returning from 2009 that possesses speed, a patient approach with on base skills and the ability to play relatively decent defense (according to UZR despite most Giants fans belief he’s terrible). With that said, when the Giants mentioned players fighting for the final outfield spot for the upcoming season, Velez, Bowker and Schierholtz were mentioned. Schierholtz is the odds on favorite because of his ability to play a very quality RF. Unfortunately, Schierholtz has pretty horrid on base skills and at least at the major league level has never shown the power he displays in batting practice and he used to show in the minors. During the conversation of who’s likely to be fighting for the final outfield spot, Lewis’ name never came up. This has been pretty shocking to me because Lewis seems like the one Giant that could and probably should hit leadoff. I personally would be thrilled if the Giants would grab up Johnny Damon at this point but the likelihood of that is about as probable as the Giants suddenly welcoming Beane’s A’s to San Jose with open arms. While Damon’s weenie arm and average to below average defensive skills are likely to cost the Giants a few runs on defense, he’s also been a ridiculously consistent offensive presence who could add some speed, on base skills, and power at the top of the lineup. Again though, not happening.


And why is there no chance the Giants are signing Damon? Well, I have run through the Giants’ 2010 payroll thus far and by my count it’s near $100 mil or even slightly over depending on Lincecum’s arbitration hearing, despite Bill Neukom recently saying something to the effect of, it’s definitely gone up but he doesn’t believe it will be $100 mil. While I don’t want to pretend that I know the Giants’ finances better than their managing general partner, I do know how to add salaries and that payroll is projected to be about that. Maybe they are more confident than I am that they can actually convince an arbiter that Lincecum is worth $2 mil less than Ryan Howard was worth 2 years ago. I’m very curious to hear their logic as taking those two figures to a hearing certainly seems like a fool’s errand to me.

Allow me to get back to the why. While Sabean promised to let the market develop on players this offseason, I don’t believe he followed through. For starters, Sabean declined Freddie Sanchez’s $8 mil 2010 option only to ink the second baseman for 2 years and $12 mil, i.e. more guaranteed money. Sanchez was coming off knee surgery (and now is coming off the more serious labrum surgery). Sanchez won’t even have to earn that $12 mil with performance incentives because it’s all guaranteed. I did like the DeRosa signing which was essentially the same as Freddie Sanchez’s, 2/ $12. The next 3 singings are what have me concerned. Sabean picked up a utility player for $3.25 mil (bringing back Uribe), a first baseman who belongs as a DH for $3 mil and brought back “that ship has sailed” Bengie Molina for $4.5 mil despite having the far cheaper and conceivably more productive rookie Buster Posey. That’s a total of $10.75 mil guaranteed. Furthermore, calling Huff a DH is probably giving him a lot of credit considering his offensive performance in 2009. Huff certainly fits the part of a DH with his lack of defensive prowess, but there are a plethora of players that were available late that would be far more productive as a DH (Thome and the still available Dye come to mind). While I do think it’s likely Huff will out hit Ishikawa, I also think it’s likely he’ll give the surplus of runs he produces with his stick right back with his glove. So instead of upgrading significantly with an everyday player, Sabean continued with the 2009 blueprint of trying to patch together a lineup with scotch tape. The Giants have a ton of players that could be useful utility players and can play pretty much all over (albeit in many cases not well*), but aren’t necessarily suited to play every day.

*Huff has played all over in his career with little success.

I’ve touched on the fact that they aren’t as good defensively in previous posts. When it also seemed apparent to me they were quite slow, I decided to try and examine that assumption – the mother of all F-ups – because an assumption is just that until it can be proven. I took all of the projected starting lineups for the NL West and averaged their top 8 hitters’ (excluding the pitchers spot) projected OBP and speed factor using Bill James’ projections on FanGraphs. This is what I got:

Giants
Spd – 3.31
OBP - .331


Dodgers
Spd – 4.04
OBP – .360


Diamondbacks
Spd – 4.59
OBP - .350


Rockies
Spd – 4.50
OBP – .360


Padres
Spd – 4.38
OBP - .341

What we can clearly see from this is that the Giants still appear to lack the ability to get on base at a league average rate and are by far the worst in the division. Exacerbating that problem is the fact that when they do manage to sneak their way on base, they are going to have to go station to station to score runs.  While my method for examining their relative speed and OBP for 2010 isn't exactly bullet proof, it does provide some pretty significant evidence that the Giants won't be terribly swift.  After all, Bill James' ( a pretty smart guy) projections are based on past performance. The Dodgers have the second worst average speed factor in the division and still have greater than a 20% advantage in that category. The back breaker of course is the fact that the Giants also have a serious power outage since the departure of Barry Bonds. A team that can’t get on base, runs like a team full of catchers and can’t play for the three run dinger probably isn’t going to score many runs. So if the Giants pitching staff felt they were carrying the load last year, they will probably feel more of the same this year and the defense behind them projects to do them a lot less good, too.

Sabean is out of money for the upcoming season and he’s running out of time. He may have fooled the business man Neukom thus far, but it appears his days are numbered. Frankly, he was very lucky with the timing of Peter McGowan’s departure. Neukom probably didn’t want to make such a big splash, especially coming off of a very successful season with the huge turnaround from ’08 to ’09, but if Sabean’s rosters continue to be less than impressive despite the young infusion of talent provided to him by John Barr and Dick Tidrow, Neukom will show him the door and find a new CEO. If a man who once ran the very successful Microsoft can’t understand the benefit that is the wealth of statistical information currently available to evaluate players and which Sabean ignores, who can?