premium blogad:
blogads:
advertisement:
sitemeter:
|
|
|
January 26, 2009
Bracing for Disappointment
I am a Mets optimist, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take an objective look at players who may regress in 2009 based on statistical indicators. Here are four such players, including our beloved ace. Johan Santana Santana was terrific in 2008, leading the league in innings pitched and ERA. He was worth even more than his $17 million salary. However, his FIP (fielding independent pitching) was 3.51, almost a full run worse than his 2.53 ERA. This was the highest differential in the league. A big reason for this was Santana’s 82.6% LOB% (left on base %), which led all of baseball and is almost certainly unsustainable. It’s not entirely fair to say that a high LOB% is a result of good luck, as better pitchers are generally more adept at stranding runners. Joining Santana in the top ten in this stat were Tim Lincecum, CC Sabathia, and Cliff Lee. His career LOB% is 77.3%, which is what we should expect it to regress to in 2009. Santana also posted his worst K/9 and K/BB since becoming a full-time starter, which is odd considering his switch from the AL to the NL. Combine all of this with the fact that he’s recovering from knee surgery, and it may be tough for Santana to repeat his outstanding 2008 season. Mike Pelfrey Much has been written this offseason about Pelfrey potentially falling victim to the “Verducci Effect,” which says that pitchers who experience a big jump in innings pitched from one season to the next will regress. Pelfrey threw 54 more innings in 2008 than 2007. Pitchers who succumbed to this in past years include Fausto Carmona, Justin Verlander, and Tom Gorzelanny, so there is evidence supporting the theory. It was necessary to have Pelfrey pitch every fifth day in 2008, as the Mets were in a pennant race. Nevertheless, I think he was abused at times. He was left in to pitch all nine innings during this game, despite the Mets having a 9-1 lead. He threw a season high 119 pitches during this game, which the Mets won 7-0. Pelfrey’s ERA also outperformed his FIP, and he didn’t display the strikeout ability he showed in the minor leagues. It may be a bit of a stretch to expect 200 high-quality innings pitched from Big Pelf in 2009. Daniel Murphy It’s safe to say that Murphy will not be able to repeat his exceptional 2008 small sample size performance next season. His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was an insane .386, while his career minor league BABIP is in the .310 to .315 range. The question is: how far will he fall? Conservatively, we can expect a line around .280/.355/.430, based on various projection systems. These are decent numbers, but nothing too exciting for a corner outfielder. Murphy didn’t look very graceful in left field, but he was slightly better than league average defensively based on UZR and the +/- system. Is that where he will play for the rest of his career? He is a third baseman by trade, but it doesn’t seem like he’ll get much playing time there. The Mets appear to view him as a first baseman, so maybe he could eventually develop into a Keith Hernandez- or Mark Grace-style offensive performer. Fernando Tatis If anyone thought Tatis could repeat his awesome 2008 performance (123 OPS+) there wouldn’t be nearly as much discussion about signing Manny Ramirez, Adam Dunn, or Bobby Abreu. Unfortunately, it looks like we may see a decent decline from Tatis. He’s 34 years old and his .338 BABIP in 2008 was a bit lucky. According to a piece at the Hardball Times by Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix, Tatis’s xBABIP (expected BABIP, which is based on factors like line-drive percentage, plate discipline and baserunning) was .317, which is 21 points lower than his actual BABIP. CHONE projects a .766 OPS with 15 homers for Tatis next season. The OPS seems a bit low, but I don’t think we can anticipate a repeat performance from Tatis in 2009. I believe Santana and Pelfrey will provide solid performances in 2009 even if they regress a bit. They should continue to be valuable members of the rotation for years to come. However, the corner OF spots are a big concern right now. For positions known more for offensive production, the Mets don’t project a dominant hitter in left or right. The recent signings of Cory Sullivan and Rob Mackowiak made no sense to me. Yes, they add organizational depth to the outfield, but is it quality depth? While they came cheap, costing $1.2 million before performance bonuses, I feel that the money would’ve been better spent on an impact player instead. $1.2 million is no small chunk of change for a team that may have only $10 to $15 million left to spend this offseason. Let’s hope Omar Minaya will at least consider Dunn once the rotation is finalized. 33 Responses to “Bracing for Disappointment”Leave a ReplyYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
|
Don’t forget the 4.5 million wasted on Tim Redding and Alex Cora. Combine those with your 1.2 million and that’s 1/4 of the contract that those unnamed GM’s think Sheets would be “lucky” to get. All over “brand name” depth.
I’ll take the over on Johan, a slight over on Murphy, a slight under on Pelfrey, and the under on Tatis.
So, we are to expect that his career LOB% will regress to the norms, but that his career K/9 and K/BB will not?
If all three return to his norms, his number of baserunners will go down — so even if his LOB% regresses, it shouldn’t have as big of an effect.
As for the knee surgery, a repairing a torn meniscus is not a big deal — between myself and four other guys I knw that have had it done, you bounce back pretty quickly — I was running 10 days after surgery.
Given that Johan had his surgery in Oct, I don’t think it will have any effect on his 2009.
That being said, he was pretty spectacular last year, and no matter what fancy numbers we throw out there, he is likely to fall off of that level — the question is how much?
Verlander is an interesting case because he is not a classic “Verducci Effect” guy. Also, as far as size and throwing motion, he is the closest comp to Pelfrey on this list.
Verlander had his HUGE bump in innings in 2006 — he threw 186 ML innings that year (I don’t know what he threw in 2005, but it was a pretty big jump).
Instead of falling prey to the Verducci Effect in 2007, he was EVEN BETTER. He threw 202 IP with vast improvements in his K/9 and K:BB ratios.
Verlander fell off the table in 2009, after two years of high innings as a 23-24 year old.
So, if we want to look at Verlander as a comp for Pelfrey, the cautionary tale would be to make sure he doesn’t throw 200 IP this year.
Maybe his K/9 and BB/9 will return to his ‘02-’07 levels (and believe me, I would love that) but indicators of decline are present. His BB/9 has steadily worsened, his velocity has steadily decreased, his contact %’s have increased, and even his first pitch strike % has worsened. Even with all this, he’s still one of the top 5 pitchers in the game, which says something about how great he is. As for the knee surgery - it doesn’t figure to be a big issue, but at the same time it’s not something that will boost his performance.
I think that’s the point of the whole writeup…
Nice article James.
For us optimistic fans (if any are still left after ‘07 and ‘08) maybe next time you can do one on players who are due for better years than last.
Great idea stel, I’ll take a look at the numbers and hopefully have something for next week.
I’m not sure Verlander is a victim of too many innings. I’m pretty sure he was constantly outperforming his FIP, by large margins and this year the Tigers had a terrible defender, so I’d say he’s actually the same pitcher just that the defense behind him has changed.
Some of it seems like it was due to fielding/his luck evening out but he did walk 20 more batters and K 20 less batters in the same # of innings as 2007.
I don´t think the Cora contract is bad at all. We needed backup for Jose, to give him a rest sometimes, and if Castillo can´t cut it Cora will likely be the starting 2Bman. I´d rather have him than Argenis Reyes (who wasn´t even under contract until last week) or Andy Green. It was a good signing.
Sadly, I think there are more Mets who belong on the list of “might contribute less in ‘09 than in ‘08.” Does anyone think it’s reasonable to expect this kind of health again?
Beltran - 161 G, Wright - 160 G, Reyes - 159 G, Delgado - 159 G
Due to his age and the vulnerabilities he revealed in the last few years, Delgado has to be considered a major risk to take a step back from 2008. Past performance reflects poorly on Stokes. And if Ollie returns, it should be noted that he vastly overperformed what you’d expect from his walk rate.
Those are stunning games played numbers Argon . . . It was a really weird season on the injury front.
Our All-Star caliber guys (Beltran-Wright-Reyes-Delgado-Santana-Wagner) basically made very game - except for Wagner.
A bunch of “next tier” guys who were expected to make contribute but not carry the team missed a ton of time: Moises Alou - El Duque - Church - Pedro - Castillo.
And our LF injury carousel was just bizarre: Moises, Pagan, Endy, Tatis. All in all I’d rather have last season’s injury profile than losing one of the core for 60 games.
If Stokes is anything more than the 5th man out of the bullpen Omar would have failed even worse than it appears.
I would prefer that Rock Cherry makes the team over Stokes — merely b/c his name is 100x cooler!
Delgado is a truly perplexing case.
There are basically one of two trains of thought re: Delgado.
1) He is in full bore decline and the second half of last year was a total aberration that will not be repeated; or
2) He had surgery in the 2006 and 2007 off seasons on his wrists and elbow (IIRC?) and didn’t start to get his full strength back until around June 2008.
If you subscribe to the first theory, well, you would believe that he is gonna suck.
If you subscribe to the second, you could believe that we could expect his 2009 numbers to be similar to his total year 2008 numbers — without the uber dominant second half.
I am note sure what to expect from him. I know he is a wrist swinger who generates all of his power with his wrists, so the optimist in me thinks he can have another decent year (.850+ OPS); on the other hand, he looked so lost early in the season, it is hard to put that all on weak wrists.
Oh — there is no way Delgado plays 159 games next year; at least he shouldn’t!
This team can’t afford one of the core players being down for any significant length of time (Wright, Beltran, Reyes, Santana). We could lose them for a week or three, but no significant length of time and still resemble the same team.
I don’t consider either of those contracts are wastes. We definitely needed a better quality backup for up the middle and while the contract was a bit high the savings wouldn’t have been 2 million. As for Redding, we needed that depth in the starting rotation/long relief and that was worth the 2.5 mil.
Of all the players you mentioned, Tatis has to be considered the most likely one to regress, given that his 2008 was totally out of line with his prior performance the previous 7 years. I didn’t have a problem with the contract Tatis got, but I’m uncomfortable with the Mets counting on him to be a platoon starter. We really should be looking for another right-handed bat to platoon with Murphy. Rocco Badelli would have been a great fit, but he signed with Boston.
Alex Cora has almost 3000 at-bats and boasts a career OPS+ of 75. Just among players who are still free agents and could be qualified as second basemen without a stretch (i.e. not players like Nomar), Ray Durham, Mark Grudzielanek, Orlando Hudson, and Juan Uribe are all better bets to be productive players. If you need an all-glove shortstop to back up Reyes there are plenty of Argenis Reyes’ at shortstop in the minors who would love a chance, and there is also this novel idea of “not carrying three catchers on the bench all season even though we rarely pinch-hit with Ramon Castro” to create a roster spot for such a player.
Or we could give 2 million to someone with a career 75 OPS+ because Omar/crew is scared to bring in a second baseman who would make Castillo look bad and then act like that’s a good signing because he can play shortstop too. Your call.
Eh, sorry for double posting but I missed this.
Same thing as with Cora. Jason Jennings is still a free agent, Josh Fogg is still a free agent. Jon Lieber. Esteban Loaiza. Braden Looper (okay, we all know he’s not coming back). Odalis Perez. Mark Redman. Josh Towers. Kip Wells. Jamey Wright. These are just players that are similar to Redding, not ones that are actually better, which there are also a lot of. It’d be one thing if Redding was durable, but he’s never thrown 200 innings in a season. 2.5 million was an overpay.
Hey Sweetlew, how long has it been since you and I had a discussion here? It’s gotta be 2 years or more…
So, where’d you get that “generates all his power with his wrists” idea? I mean, wrists are vital for anyone who hits the ball hard, don’t get me wrong, but Delgado is a big dude with a big, full-body swing. He takes the kind of rip where an oblique strain wouldn’t surprise me.
I’m inclined to believe that the “it wasn’t a big deal” comments about his surgeries were true. He still had tape measure power when he made contact, and I never saw him wincing and rubbing his wrists.
I’m much more with you on the “he looked so lost” bit. When Carlos was out of sync, he was TOTALLY out of sync. Guys in A ball could have had their way with him. All hitters go through slumps, but most baseball people say “good hitters minimize their slumps, and know how to fight their way out of them”. I can’t help but view an 18-month slump by a veteran as a really, really bad sign.
Mr. McCown (is that Future, or a different McCown?), I’m with you. I’d be happy to have Cora and Redding on the team for the contracts we gave Mackowiak and Sullivan. If that wouldn’t do it, well, Lieber and Odalis throw strikes, and Grudz is better than Cora in almost every way…
Fortunately, I really doubt a $4mil overpay is going to prevent us from signing Sheets. If we deem him healthy and agree on years, it’d be insane to let AAV derail a deal.
It’s a little unfair to say Redding isn’t durable because he’s never pitched 200 innings in a season, as he’s averaged 180+ the last 3 seasons between majors and minors. Not bad for a #5 starter at all.
$2.25 million was absolutely not an overpay. If you put any credence into wins over replacement, he was good for 1.1 last year, worth $4.8 million. He projects a similar performance in 2009. A good signing if you ask me, which could turn out to be a bargain.
Now I’m double posting - this all said, I think the Cora deal was kind of an overpay, and I was pushing for Odalis Perez earlier this offseason. But for $2.25 million I see nothing wrong with Redding’s contract based on the Mets needs and where he’ll fit in.
The Mackowiak and Sullivan signings are just mind boggling to me, considering Church, Murphy, Tatis, Anderson, Reed and Pagan are already in the organization.
I can’t for the life of me remember which blog it was, but someone on either AA or metsblog wrote a long comment about signing like Mackowiak and Sullivan that made them make sense. Basically because of, for whatever reason, our inability to build any type of depth in our farm system we have to sign guys like Mackowiak and Sullivan for organizational depth, where as most teams have prospects, even fringe/mediocre ones ones who fill those roles we basically have little to no one even fringe major league ready who we could call up in a pinch like that. Especially now that Murphy is in a semi starting role and Carp, not that anyone wanted to see him playing in the outfield anyway,we basically have Evans and F-mart, who we hope they don’t rush for any reason, and I can’t even think of anyone else. I’d have to look at the AA and AAA rosters.
Basically our front offices fail necessitated more fail.
ArgonB-
Sadly, I heard this point made on FAN after the season ended by Francesa..we actually received almost a historic level of contribution from “core” players in 2008 and still didnt win the division. So it is reasonable to expect some fall back.
However, Beltran, did not have a career year, and DW and JR can be expected to improve based on their ages. CD will probably regress, but his decline was so severe, if it was a harbinger of things to come, his second half really makes no sense. What does make sense is that he finally learned to adjust to what pitchers were doing to get him out - basically, better plate discipline and handling the inside fastball better by going up the middle. It took time, and he responded to the change of managerial scenery and relaxed a bit.
If we had a corner OF, Danny would be our Carlos insurance, Tatis too (tho CD evidently was furious at Willie for platooning him last year)..I think Jerry handles these things better..
But, bottom line, we have been a right handed bat short for 2 years..and signing 2 minor leagure scrub OF - both lefties - makes very little sense to me, especially given the lack of payroll expansion, even with our new and obvious revenue sources. This is Wilpon conservatism, and it could be worse. They are not gamblers.
And we need more than a little luck to emerge as a class team this year…
On the bright side, at least we didnt hire “class act” Joe torre as our manager…
Oh I agree, it won’t stop us from signing Sheets. But, the fact that the Mets are, IMO, essentially on a budget (see: not chasing multiple FA’s at the same time) means that they have obviously decided that players like Alex Cora and Tim Redding are smart uses of money as compared to Ben Sheets. That’s a problem.
Also, me as Future? Que?
In a vacuum, signing Tim Redding for 2.25 million can be justified. When there are tons of people like him that still don’t have jobs, some of which will probably be able to be had for NRI’s and split contracts as spring training nears, it is a very dumb signing.
You’re right, he is more durable than I thought. But the fact that most of his minor league organizations regarded him as fodder and he was only able to get a shot in Washington (which has essentially been an open audition pitching staff since the Vazquez trade) with that huge park helping him in 2007, is just as damning, is it not? WARP is a neat little stat, but when you get into quantities like 1.1 wins, aka the performance someone like Tim Redding can bring, you will always have a pretty good chance of coaxing that kind of performance out of someone on a minor league deal.
Lastly, and I know about the shoulder problems, I would have given Pedro Martinez 2.25 million (or even 4. or 6 million.) before I gave Tim Redding 2.25 million. At least that move had a high upside. Tim Redding’s upside is a lucky .270 BABIP making him Jeff Suppan.
Pedro for $6 million over Redding for $2.25 million? To each his own I guess.
I personally would have liked the Mets to have added a few more dollars and grabbed Rocco Baldelli instead of the two recently acquired lefty no hit outfielders. Baldelli is only 26 and would be a perfect three outfield position defensive upgrade along with a solid righty bat off the bench. Baldelli claims that he was mis-diagnosed and perhaps may become the player he was. Either way, he is far better than the other two scrubs, not to mention Jeremy Reed.
I can understand them not wanting to take the risk on Baldelli, it’s possible he was mis-diagnosed but if he wasn’t then asking him to play the field even on a semi regular basis would be a huge issue. I can see why it makes a lot more sense for an AL team to take the risk than us. But there are still plenty of at least more proven utility outfield/1b/3b type players sitting on the market who will probably sign for peanuts that I think would have made more sense than those two if they’re looking for somewhat quality depth.
That being said I think the Cora deal was an overpay. Considering other than last year, which was way above his career numbers and in a very small sample size, his bat hasn’t been much less painful than Awful Reyes’s, and Awful Reyes is cheaper and like 7 years younger. And like someone else said there are plenty of no hit short stops wandering the minors if getting a back up to play ss was that big of an issue.
You know what it is? It isn’t that these recent deals have been awful, or that they’re going to ruin are season. It’s just that moves are being made and those moves aren’t great. You look around baseball, and there are great moves being made. You look at some of the players left out there, and know there will be bargains to come. How long has it been since Omar made a great move or grabbed a bargain?
He might deserve some props for negotiating the Johan trade with the Twins… but really, letting the Twins choose between a compensatory draft pick and Gomez/Humber/Mulvey/Guerra doesn’t take genius.
Ah well, at least there’s a small chance that Garcia will wind up being a steal…
There’s a Chris McCown here who used to go by the handle “Future”. I wondered if you were the same person, and using “Rivers” for some reason I missed. Guess not. :)
Oh, I am the same McCown.
But I have never gone by Future, haha.
Oops! Maybe Future was Chris McSomethingElse. Hey, did you write that submission for the article contest a couple years ago where it’s the future and all these former Mets are at a bar? Maybe that’s how I equated you with “future”…