Darren Says:

Date: November 11th, 2008.
Astral Time Travel Log #5929106

Oh shit yeah baby, you know you're gonna love the three finger surprise. These digits are the most experienced in all the astral planes. They've been everywhere in the symperiphemilax, from calling pitches for that douchefuck Steve Bedrosian to punching the shit out of a Geno's Steaks busboy for looking at Nicole. Baby we're gonna turn this Barnes and Noble into some unbelievable Kundalini energy...with my fingers. Writing this book is the best idea I ever had.

Indians more smarter than White Sox

linky.

Gavin Floyd

Earlier this week the White Sox gave Gavin Floyd an extension, effectively buying out his arbitration years plus one year of free agency. The structure:

'09: 750K
'10: 2.75M
'11: 5M
'12: 7M
'13: 9.5M/Club Option

There's a whole host of problems with this deal. First of all, Floyd has a touch over 2 years of major league service, meaning that he would have been a free agent following the 2011 season. Let's compare Floyd with another pitcher who is going the year-to-year route.

Player A

'06: 12-10 4.04 ERA, 166:75 K/BB, 180.2IP Salary: 327K
'07: 10-15 5.81 ERA, 133:85 K/BB, 176.2IP Salary: 380K
'08: 8-11 4.20 ERA, 113:69 K/BB, 201.2IP Salary: 405K
2009 Salary (Avoided Arbitration): 2.8M

Player B
'06: 4-3 7.29ERA, 34:32 K/BB, 54.1IP Salary: 330K
'07: 1-5 5.27ERA, 49:19 K/BB, 70IP Salary: 330K
'08: 17-8 3.84ERA, 145:70 K/BB, 206.1IP Salary: 400K
2009: 520K

You can probably tell that Player B is Gavin Floyd. The Nationals Scott Olsen is Player A. He has 1 more year of service than Floyd. Floyd was set to make 520K this season before signing the extension. Players going into their 4th season and beyond gain more flexibility in regards to what they receive in arbitration, but even if Floyd were to repeat his 2008 numbers (not gonna happen) he would make something similar next year to what Olsen is making this year. The 2010 and 2011 contract figures in his extension reflect pretty well what he would have made given the assumption that he continues pitching well (although if he were to sustain any elbow or shoulder injury the 5mil becomes more trivial, more on that later). So what we're really looking at is the 7mil figure for 2012 and the 9.5mil club option for 2013.

So is Floyd worth the gamble that he's worth $7 Million in 2012? Well last year Floyd was worth $11.3 million (per fangraphs). But Floyd's true talent level is far less than that figure. Using David Gassko's DIPS 3.0 formula, which calculates a pitcher's ERA based on the predicted outcomes of each batted ball, Floyd should have had an ERA of 4.31, nearly half a run worse than his '08 figure. Backing this up is the fact that 18% of the runs Floyd gave up (19 of his 107 allowed) were unearned, which is an unusually high number. Digging deeper, Floyd's Batting average on balls in play against (BABIP) was .268, significantly lower than his career line of .290 (league average in the AL was .304). Because the DIPS 3.0 statistic is a defense independent measure, it is reasonable to suggest that his ERA should have been even higher than 4.31 as the White Sox are a below average fielding team (-2.1 runs/150 in 2008), and play in a ballpark that inflates Home Runs.

Another potential factor for Floyd going forward is going to be his workload. Floyd now qualifies for the "Verducci effect" after logging 206.1 innings last year (30 more than his combined ML and AAA innings last year). I'm not sure how much to buy into this though, as he has been remarkably durable, averaging 171 innings per year over his professional career. Although I suppose you could argue he's had significantly more wear and tear than the usual 25 year old.

It's certainly possible that Floyd improves in the next few years, but why take that gamble if you have him locked up through 2011 anyways? While there is significant value to be had in buying out top young position player's arbitration years, top young pitchers often have more checkered injury profiles and are bigger risks. My problem with the Floyd deal is not that the White Sox will get the raw end. I'd say that Floyd has a fair shot to exceed in value the $15 million that is guaranteed over the next four years. In fact if Floyd is able to post an entirely reasonable 4.50 ERA over the next 4 years, he will be worth close to $24 million (per fangraphs WAR/$ formula). But Floyd would have exceeded his value even more had he gone year-to-year with the Sox without the risk. For the first time since the '94 strike, the financial future of baseball is in serious question. The effect of the struggling economy has yet to be seen in attendance figures, but it seems that teams have been much more conservative the past few months and are trending towards cheaper home-grown talent and bracing for a downturn. The 7 mil owed to Floyd certainly will not be a backbreaker (although it's a lot to pay for a #4 or #5 starter), but it could influence how the Sox decide to handle extensions for core players whose arbitration clocks run out around or before 2011, including Bobby Jenks, Carlos Quentin, and John Danks. All in all, the extension seems to be a case of buying high for the Sox, and an unnecessary risk.

i love jose oquendo

oquendo leaves pineiro off puerto rican rotation. apparently pineiro is still under the assumption he pitches well. ballsy move by oquendo here, he leaves off his own player for ian snell and jon sanchez.

*finally snell's nationality comes to light. he's from delaware? his given name was ian oquendo so possible relation?

snell and sanchez despite taking their lumps last year are probably better options than pineiro. i'm still a bit skeptical of the improvement in his walk rate. if it's real then the cardinals could really get some useful innings out of him. he posted a solid ground ball rate of 48.5% last year along with a very low walk rate of 2.1/Game. His era last year of 5.15 was more than likely a bit unlucky as his balls in play average was a bit higher (.318) than his career average (.302). to go along with that his xfip (4.43)was lower than the below replacement level era that he put up in '08.

you're no adam kennedy

today the cardinals released adam kennedy. the move is pretty shocking considering gm john mozeliak had seemingly committed to at least giving kennedy a chance to platoon, or win the job outright. kennedy's 4 million dollar salary will go down as a sunk cost, but can the cardinals replace his value? it's certainly questionable. kennedy was a plus defender last year, worth nearly 16 runs alone with his glove. the question about him has always been his offense. his plate discipline has been clearly declining as his bb% rate continued a three year slide from 8% to 5.8%. his increasing impatience has also led him to start swinging at worse pitches

outside of the zone swing %
08: 28.5%
07: 26.2%
06: 27%
05: 21.6%

kennedy isn't exactly aging gracefully. his defense was quite a surprise last year after posting mediocre numbers the past two. whether last year was an aberration who knows, but he more than likely was going to slip from last year's performance. i'm not ready to say it's a good move, because it completely depends on the personnel that he's going to be replaced by...and it doesn't exactly look rosy. the in-house candidates to replace him are joe thurston, brendan ryan, jarrett hoffpauir, skip schumaker, tyler greene, and brian barden. replacement level heeeeere we come!!!

there are still a few options left on the market that might be worth pursuing. orlando hudson would be a good fit, but word is the cardinals are out of money and hudson is still waiting out for multiple years. ray durham probably doesn't represent an upgrade over kennedy, but mark grudzielanek is still available.

if the cardinals are indeed serious about giving skip schumaker a shot to win the second base job, a guy like grudzielanek would be an excellent platoon partner. grudz registered two solid seasons defensively in 06 and 07 after slipping last year in an injury shortened year.

my biggest concern is that the cardinals decide to go with some combination of thurston/barden/ryan and it takes 300ab of utter turmoil to realize none of these players are the answer. if they go ahead and are able to sign grudzielanek on the cheap, at worst you have a league average player ready to go if the schumaker experiment doesn't go as planned.

i'm really hoping skip is able to adapt. it still sort of sounds like a pipedream. it's going take game action for anybody to find out if he can actually play, but i really like the move. the main reason is that it will open up a roster spot for colby rasmus, an excellent defender, and allow ankiel and ludwick to slide to positions where they can be pluses defensively. last year the cardinals defense was very good, a team uzr of +30.4 which was good for 6th in all of baseball. there could stand to be significant gains in the outfield if colby is the opening day cf and ankiel and ludwick man the corners. scouting reports have david freese as average to above average at third so he should be able to hold down the fort until glaus returns. khalil greene represents a very minor downgrade from cesar izturis. team defense will be particularly important for the cardinals, who play in a larger ballpark and will have a lot of balls put in play due to a rotation that doesn't miss a whole lot of bats.

grudzielanek certainly isn't a flashy option, but he would be valuable off the bench and a fine insurance policy. replacing the value kennedy provided last year is probably going to be a bigger task than a lot of cardinals fans realize.

Darren Says:

Date: July 14th, 1988.
Astral Time Travel Log #3014020

The name is Darren baby but you can call me Dutchie. What's that doll, you need a drink? Well let Dutchie take care of that. BEEEER MAAAN! (savage roar)

There you go sweetie.

Make sure you open your throat reaaal good when you drink that, it's good practice if you decide to let Dutchie take care of you.

(Girl burps, vomits uncontrollably, then strips and rolls around in said vomit)

WOW, YOU ARE A TRUE PHILLIES FAN!

gangbang in word form

after thinking...a while, i think i have to give this a shot. i've come to the realization that i spend entirely too much time looking up useless information about baseball to not get at least something productive out of it.

*i'm pretty sure it was looking up gene tenace's career lines vs. pitchers page that made me realize it. he had a .312OBP lifetime against nolan ryan despite being 2/32 (with one hr). tenace's ability to draw a walk was cartoonish. his career batting average was .241 with an on base percentage of .388. add in that he won a ring with the cardinals in '82, made a cameo appearance in an episode of the simpsons, and his given name is an exponentially more badass "fury", i think i have a new favorite player.

my biggest problem with writing and the reason i've never been able to do it before is format. quite simply i detest the idea of it. but lately i've become infatuated with joe posnanski's blog. joe is an immensely talented writer and his site is about the only blog i've ever read that captures his random thoughts, remains coherent, and truly feels like a conversation with a friend. i have the utmost respect for him and hope to carry some of that here. my hope is to use this as an outlet for my baseball ramblings. god knows i need somewhere to combine my love of the game, its players, statistics, and our fearless leader darren daulton.

anyways, lately all i've been able to think about is how undervalued defense still is. it's undervalued on all levels; by the average fan, by the metric community, and by major league teams.
*evidence 1a
evidence 1b
evidence 1c
evidence 1d
raul ibanez receives 3 year 30 million deal, in his age 37 season. ibanez will benefit from being able to hide in the smaller park in philadelphia, but that's not really a point in his favor. according to justin's total runs, he was worth -17 runs above replacement. when looking at the outfield market this year, it appears the phillies have made a gross misstep considering similar players (big bat/bad d) have either signed for a short-term's pittance (burrell) or are still available (adam dunn, ken griffey, bobby abreu, garret anderson, moises alou).

i know that this is a transition that will eventually happen as defensive statistics become a) more reliable, and b) get their deserved exposure on mainstream stat sites. defensive statistics have really come a long way in a very short time period. as recent as 5 years ago about the only fielding statistic available was errors. while conventional and simple, there is a glaring hole in the error stat. by reaching the ball, the player at least did something positive. what about the balls a player did not get to that he should have? play by play metrics like john dewan's +/- system, ultimate zone rating, and revised zone rating solved this problem and have finally quantified defense, showing that a run saved is truly as good as a run earned.

*my question is what is preventing these new statistics from hitting the mainstream? i think a bit of it has to do with the culture of fantasy sports, but there is also a natural tendency to ignore defense. in a simplistic sense, you can't score or negate runs while playing defense, making it difficult to quantify value the same way you can quantify offense.

several "sabr" teams are starting to take advantage of the defense market inefficiency. the shining example of this was the 2008 tampa bay rays who improved from 941 runs allowed in 2007 to 671 in '08 with virtually the same pitching personnel. the example next year will more than likely be the seattle mariners under new gm jack zduriencik. they replace richie sexson at first with some combination of russell branyan (who came up as a third baseman and moves to the right in the positional scale) and chris shelton, both of whom certainly can't be worse. the outfield is where the real change will happen. the aforementioned raul ibanez gets replaced, ichiro moves back to rf full-time, and defensive whiz franklin gutierrez takes cf. gutierrez was worth 21 runs above replacement defensively last year (per justin's total runs formula). if the m's decide to go with some sort of platoon in left field involving endy chavez they could see even more defensive gain and quite possibly the best defensive outfield unit in the majors. the mariners aren't the only defensive-minded team out there, the red sox, blue jays, athletics, cubs, royals, and cardinals have shown a strong tendency towards cheap defensive investments (marco scutaro/john mcdonald-tor, cesar izturis-stl, jack hannahan/rajai davis-oak, coco crisp-kc). all of these players were underrated by the market and came cheaply.

*scutaro per justin's formula was morth 35 runs above replacement (20 fielding, 11 batting, 3.4 for positional adjustment). to put that in perspective it's better than vlad guerrero, derek jeter, carlos guillen, and miguel cabrera did last year.)


the shift in the market has cost slugging first basemen and outfielders millions of dollars this offseason. a pat burrell or adam dunn-type slugger goes for 10+ million/multiyears a year or two ago, but now are settling for one year deals because teams now realize that a defensive liability can severely limit overall production.

darren to follow...