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.

Lincecum not complacent

There should be quite a few exciting storylines in Giants camp this spring and that’s leaving aside the most obvious one: it’s their first as defending champs (as San Francisco Giants). One of the most exciting among them will be the progress of a promising young first baseman named Brandon Belt. I say first baseman knowing that his road to the big leagues might be left field, though if I had my way, given the plus first baseman that he is, I might stick him at first and push Aubrey Huff to left. If you have not heard of Belt yet… where have you been?

Another story that’s likely to get plenty of play is that of the husky third baseman, Pablo Sandoval. Panda has been snapping pictures of himself all winter and showing off his slimmer figure; this is wonderful news for Giants fans to be sure. Whether or not that translates into on-field results remains to be seen. My gut feeling is that he is going to have a big year and will once again be a serviceable third baseman defensively. I won’t say a .330 average and near .400 weight on-base average (wOBA) is necessarily in the cards, but I think it’s a safe bet he recaptures some of that promise he catapulted onto the seen with in 2008 and 2009.

After the jump, here’s my favorite piece of info from camp so far, via Extra Baggs:

Lincecums and Poseys report

It’s pitchers and catchers day. Needless to say, that means today is a fantastic day.  In about one month’s time, my brothers and I (the proprietor of this weblog) will head to Scottsdale for my brother’s bachelor party. When we first made plans to do this trip, whether or not the Giants would even quality for postseason play was very much up in the air. Then the Giants won it all and the anticipation for our trip went from that for Cars 2 to Scream 4.

A couple of things of note – calling it worth mentioning is highly debatable – so far this spring are that Pat Burrell has switched from number nine to number five, Brandon Belt claims number nine and Miguel Tejada number 10, leaving number 35 for Travis Ishikawa. Yup, it’s clearly day one. I suppose it is also worth noting that Belt has arrived and thus is four days early. Also, when you walk into the clubhouse it is decorated with this.

I also wanted to provide a fantastic link to a piece written by Royals Review of SB Nation: Success and Failure Rates of Top MLB Prospects. Why? Because Brandon Belt will be vying for a job – this may or may not be true, as Sabean may want to store Belt in Fresno for financial reasons, or at least until the offense needs a boost – this spring and there’s an abundance of hype surrounding him.

Cubs fans can dream

Sorry, Cardinals fans, this is going to be painful.

Jason Rosenberg of It’s About the Money (IIATMS) recently had his day as the SweetSpot Czar. For one of his posts he chose to look at those teams with the financial wherewithal to sign Albert Pujols should he ultimately become a free agent after 2011. We’ll actually know the answer to this question very soon. If by February 16, when Pujols intends to arrive at spring training, the Cardinals do not have the best player in baseball locked up long term, he will in fact become a free agent five days after the 2011 World Series.

The list he puts together makes a lot of sense and I have my favorite from it. It might not be who you think.

After the jump, a look at the possible future (Warning: it will please some and incense others)...

Team WAR and team wins

So, the first time I did this, I made a little mistake. But I'm no quitter. I inadvertently only included postional player WAR the first time around, but now I've fixed it. But after fixing it, everything I said previously still pretty much stands. Keep reading:

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Rob Neyer answered some questions today for Camden Chat. It's all good stuff, and I just happened to file something for the Hardball Times on the Orioles before I read this. But something in particular piqued my interest:

Camden Chat: Newer statistics, particularly Wins Above Replacement, cause a number of disagreements on our site. What are the cracks in the WAR metrics that would allow a team to substantially outperform (in the win column) their total WAR over the course of a season?

Rob Neyer: Do they? I've actually never seen team WAR compared to team wins. Just off the top of my head, WAR doesn't account for baserunning (except for steals). Nor does it account for luck. And that's the big one. The vast majority of fans simply don't understand the degree to which luck impacts wins and losses, even over the course of 162 games.

As luck would have it, I was doing the equivalent of artist doodling a few weeks ago, otherwise known as screwing around with baseball stats and excel. Well, I did something that relates exactly to Camden Chat's question: what are the cracks in the WAR metrics that would allow a team to substantially outperform (in the win column) their total WAR over the course of a season?

You can check out what I did below  for the 2010 season (I'll also add it to my box.net tool on the right hand side, so you can get your hands on the actual spreadsheet). Basically, I looked at win and loss records, run differentials, pythagorean wins and losses and ... WAR. I grabbed each teams WAR from FanGraphs, figured out what replacement was (basically 81 wins minus the average team WAR, which ends up being 45*), then added their team WAR plus replacement to find out how many wins their WAR totals would have predicted. I then calculated the delta between their WAR and actual number of wins -- this is essentially the question Camden Chat was asking.

*Note that the first time I did this a replacement level team would win 60.79 games. That's too many, and I knew this. But I forged on. Now that it's 45, I'm very comfortable I've done this right -- until someone tells me I'm wrong, of course.

If you take a look, you'll find that the Diamondbacks really underperformed in the win column versus their WAR total. That is no shocker to me, as their bullpen was truly atrocious and that will cost you a ton of games. Another team that posted an excellent WAR but turned in a rough season was the Brewers. I'm thinking their additions of Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke may push them to the top of the pile in 2011. Finally, the Phillies were the team that were the "luckiest." I don't know what the implications are of that, but Rob mentioned base running and they've been excellent each season in that. Davey Lopes was one of the most efficient base runners around, and he's modeled the Phillies after himself. Unfortunately for them, he's gone next season.

Something I noticed after getting it right was the Rays. They are technically the second "luckiest" team. I think this jives with the fact that base running (non-stealing bases gained and lost) isn't accounted into the WAR caclulation. I know for a fact that Carl Crawford is a dream in that particular category, and I do believe the Rays were known for it in general. Oddly, it was this very thing that cost them big time against the Rangers when they were bumped in the first round.

I never really knew what to make of what I created, but here it is for your pleasure. I personally think it might give us some insight into which teams might be closer to contention. Also, I think it certainly shows which teams know there way around the bags. That said, draw your own conclusions.

Sources: FanGraphs for WAR

The difference between Ehire Adrianza and Jose Iglesias

Prospects may or may not interest the average baseball or Giants fan. That being said, the recent shortstop adventures of the Giants might make this a bit interesting. I mean, the Giants have been ancient at the position for a long while now.

They started the trend in 2005 when they signed Omar Vizquel who was 38. He was pretty excellent as far as near-40 shortstops go, though. He was worth 2.7 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) in 2005, 3.7 in 2006 and 2.1 in 2007. He even won a gold glove in each of his first two campaigns (deserving or not, but at least more so than Derek Jeter’s 2010 honor).

But by the time 2008 came around, the jig was very much up. He got the bulk of the playing time, but his .550 OPS left something to be desired. Ivan Ochoa and Brian Bocock saw some playing time too, but their offensive abilities actually made Vizquel look like Alan Trammell.

Smitten with their recent success regarding prehistoric middle infielders, the Giants jumped on Edgar Renteria as if he were the greatest thing since sliced bread. He got two years, $18 million. The results were mixed – which is a new development. Up until about, oh, the World Series, Rent was the butt of many jokes – that happens when you’re worth less than half a win (0.3) the first year of your ill-advised contract and are injured the majority of the following season. But when Renteria took Cliff Lee just over the wall in Texas (not to mention C.J. Wilson in San Francisco): Boom! Sabean had instant validation.

Baseball, my fiancé and I

What you are about to read was inspired by a post from The Common Man of The Platoon Advantage. After reading the post and watching the xtranormal clip, my fiancé said:

Wait, is this about you? He sounds exactly like you.

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Often times, I’ll ask my fiancé what her day looks like in the morning before I leave for work. When she’s done telling me, it strikes me that her day sounds more like that of a taxi driver. She goes to what seems like eight different places each day, most of which aren’t exactly a stones throw away. Rather, they are multiple cities away. And here’s the thing: it’s not like she gets to drive there, drop a drunken couple off, and then quickly pick up another. No. Inside those destinations, she’s training, studying, learning, and working – providing therapy for those that need it most. Also, she’s not paid.

What, you say? I’ll tell you. She’s not paid because my fiancé is training to be a doctor of clinical psychology. If you didn’t know or have not heard, becoming a doctor is hard work. It involves taking courses, writing and defending a dissertation, getting too little sleep, and giving up 40-plus hours of your week for little or no monetary compensation. In her case, it also involves playing Play-Doh with children while they talk about their feelings. Adults* too (minus the Play-Doh).

*I wish Jose Canseco would do some therapy. It could help him immensely.

Guess what, though? She loves it. More importantly, the people get better. They get better because she has the time to listen and care. I take great pride in being attached to someone who genuinely wants to make this planet a better place.

The most important note of the Giants' offseason?

The San Francisco Giants' Fanfest was held yesterday, and it looked an awful lot like the 3 month reunion of the World Series parade. So soon? I guess so. The traffic that the event ultimately saw has the Giants considering making this a two day event next season, whether or not they defend their World Series title.

But the most interesting piece of information to come out over the weekend was perhaps something that came out the day before, Friday's Media Day. In fact, it may (or may not be) the most important piece of information to come out regarding the Giants this offseason: in addition to dedicating this offseason to improving his physical condition -- an endeavor that it at least appears he has been quite successful in --Pablo Sandoval claims he has worked some with one Barry Bonds to improve his plate discipline.

In that sentence, the word "some" becomes the key. To what extent Pablo has sought guidance from Bonds is unknown. What's more, it's not all that clear how much of ones plate discipline (or complete lack there of) can be improved by the tutoring of another, even if the teacher happens to be the Greek God of plate discipline.

Matt Cain: still not just lucky

First off, let’s clarify. I like FIP and xFIP, and think they are wonderful tools that perhaps don’t tell us what actually happened on the field, but how well most pitchers pitched and how well they will in the future.

Secondly, I don’t want anyone to get the impression I think Cain is great. It’s pretty clear I don’t think he’s lucky. Tim Lincecum and Felix Hernandez and Roy Halladay are great. Matt Cain is very good. There’s a lot of room to debate that, but neither party will truly win until we’ve seen what 2011, 2012 and 2013 look like for Cain. But anyway, what he’s not is Joe Blanton.

Dave Cameron provided a dissenting opinion and great analysis over at Fangraphs on the subject after my original post. Here’s what he did:

Below are 10 pitchers who, from 2002 to 2007, had the lowest HR/FB rates in baseball, who have thrown a similar number of innings to Cain, and have thrown at least 100 total innings in the last three seasons. The first section is their 2002-2007 IP and HR/FB rate, with the second section being their 2008-2010 IP and HR/FB rate.

 —CLIP—

Group: 11,351 IP, 8.6% HR/FB – 4,202 IP, 9.9% HR/FB

The league average HR/FB rate is uaually around 10.6%. As a group, the ten best big time home run suppressors from 2002 to 2007 were only marginally better than average at that same skill from 2008 to 2010. Sabathia and Zito bucked the trend and actually lowered their HR/FB rates over the last three seasons. So it’s certainly possible Cain could continue to post low HR/FB rates going forward. After all, he does pitch in a pretty good pitcher’s park and his career HR/FB rate is better than any of the pitchers in this sample, so maybe there is something to David Pinto’s theory about how his fastball moves.

Matt Cain ignores xFIP, again and again

Matt Cain is pretty darn good, I mean, right?

Bill at Crashburn Alley doesn't think so. He recently said Cain "... may be one of the most overrated pitchers in baseball (though you can’t fault him for pitching to the strengths of his home ballpark)..." Is this true? It wasn't just Crashburn Alley that brought about this post; Cain's worth is bandied about constantly, at least in my experience.

If we're to simply look at his FIP and xFIP, a lot of people would say Cain has been lucky. Really lucky. Boy, he's been lucky with that home rune rate, it must be because he pitches at AT&T. Boy, he's been lucky with his batting average on balls in play (BABiP). It must be because of spacious AT&T.

Cain made his debut in 2005, but his first full season didn't come until 2006, when he'd throw 190.2 innings. He'd arrived. All said and done, he posted a 3.5 WAR (Wins Above Replacement) and finished with a 4.15 ERA and 13 wins. His FIP (fielding independent pitching) was 3.96 but his xFIP (adjusted FIP that pushes the home run per fly ball (HR/FB) rate to league average) was just 4.54. Perhaps it was just beginners luck.