It’s funny where some teams like to spend money. The Arizona Diamondbacks organization is not able to spend a lot of money in the current economy yet General Manager Josh Byrnes recently brought back aging pinch hitter Tony Clark despite his 2008 line of .225/.359/.318 in 151 at-bats (108 games). His season was split between San Diego and Arizona, which could possibly help to explain his dismal .318 slugging percentage and .093 ISO (But the SLG% only increased from .307 to .333 with the move out of Petco Park).

At 36 years of age, it’s quite possible that Clark will continue to struggle in 2009. His line against right-handed pitchers was just .198/.354/.248, which makes him almost useless against them if this was not simply a one-year fluke. On the plus side, he did hit .273/.468/.477 with runners in scoring position, which is a situation he would face fairly often as a pinch hitter (at least one would hope). When there are no runners on base, though, Clark struck out a almost half of the time (41 times in 92 plate appearances).

Now the $800,000 that Arizona will pay the pinch hitter this season is not a ton of money in the grand scheme of things, but these moves do add up, especially for a club that does not have a ton of wiggle room in the budget. What makes matters worse is that the organization has some in-house talent that could possibly provide the same production – if not more – for half the salary.

Josh Whitesell has been around. He was originally selected by the Montreal Expos in the sixth round of the 2003 draft out of Loyola Marymount University. Despite solid minor league numbers, Whitesell moved slowly – one level at a time – and eventually was deemed expendable by the now Washington Nationals. Arizona gladly scooped him up prior to the 2008 season and the left-handed hitting first baseman had a nice season in Triple-A with a line of 328/.425/.568 with an ISO of .240 in 475 at-bats. He also posted rates of 13.5 BB% and 28.6 K%. The 26 year old earned a brief MLB stint with two hits in seven at-bats (and seven games). In those seven games, Whitesell walked one, struck out twice and slammed a solo home run.

He’s definitely earned a shot at a regular roster spot. Whitesell is cheaper than Clark, has more upside and creamed right-handed pitchers in 2008 at Triple-A to the tune of .342/.442/.602 in 342 at-bats. Admittedly, it is hard to know how a young player will adjust to a part-time role – and a high-pressured one at that. Whitesell, though, did well in 2008 with runners in scoring position by hitting .331/.438/.586. Truth be told, there are not many – if any – unimpressive numbers in Whitesell’s statistics from 2008. He deserves a shot, and Arizona could certainly benefit from replacing Clark with the youngster and allowing Whitesell to get his feet wet as a pinch hitter while also playing regularly at first base against right-handed pitching.

Now that we’ve worked through the logistics of the pitcher win value formula that we recently added here on FanGraphs, I figured it was time to answer the important question – how predictive are they? Since pitchers have historically been evaluated by ERA, the belief has been that they are wildly inconsistent from year to year. However, we know that ERA includes a bunch of non-pitcher variables, and since we’re using FIP, we shouldn’t have to worry about the variation in those external forces.

So, how well does a pitcher’s Win Value correlate from one year to the next? Better than I expected, honestly. I took all pitchers with at least 10 IP in 2004/2005, 2005/2006, 2006/2007, and 2007/2008, and found the following year to year correlations:

2004 to 2005: .62
2005 to 2006: .69
2006 to 2007: .67
2007 to 2008: .55

That’s not bad at all. ERA, for example, has a year to year correlation to itself of around .4. Clearly, the inputs of FIP are more stable than the inputs of ERA, but we knew that already. However, since FIP is a rate stat and Win Value is a counting stat, I’m a bit surprised at how well the win values hold up, since it requires a combination of similar performance and playing time.

As time goes on, I’m sure we’ll improve the formula and push the year to year correlations higher, but as it stands, Pitcher Win Values 1.0 do a pretty nice job of predicting pitcher value from one year to the next.

Mariano Rivera is perhaps the greatest closer of all time. In 2008, Rivera posted a 2.03 FIP, the best of his career as a closer, while recording 70.2 innings pitched. Given such, you would expect Rivera to be extremely valuable amongst all pitchers, not simply relievers. As it turns out, Rivera’s value was 4.2 wins, or the wins equivalent to James Shields and Aubrey Huff.

Carlos Marmol acted as the Cubs eighth inning presence and was worth all of 1.5 wins. The currently unemployed Garret Anderson was also worth 1.5 wins. Ryan Madson just signed a juicy extension, but in 2008, he was equal to Edwin Jackson and Gregor Blanco. Of the 332 pitchers who completed at least 10 innings in relief, only 4 were valued higher than 3 wins (Rivera, Papelbon, Chamberlain, Fuentes), 17 finished with greater than 2 wins, and 55 with at least one win, leaving 277 relievers worth a win or negative value.

Of course that’s with our innings limit set relatively low, and bumping the threshold up to 50 innings results in 135 qualifiers. From there, we have the following results:

4+ wins: 1 pitchers
3+ wins: 3 pitchers
2+ wins: 14 pitchers
1+ wins: 47 pitchers
0+ wins:115 pitchers
Negative value: 20 pitchers

Or, in percentage form:

4+ wins: 0.74%
3+ wins: 2.22%
2+ wins: 10.4%
1+ wins: 34.8%
0+ wins: 85.2%
Negative value: 14.8%

Yes, you are reading that right; more relievers with 50+ innings had negative value than those who had 2+ wins, or “average” value from starting pitchers and batters. Also somewhat unbelievably, the 14 pitchers worth 2+ wins only averaged six additional innings than the 20 with negative value. Of course, there’s also the matter of which relievers would pitch tons of innings, seemingly either the very best or the worst would be turned to often. This is to say, set-up men and closers and mop-up men.

Stating that middle relievers are overrated is hardly groundbreaking, but I’m going to state it anyways: middle relievers are overrated.

Ryan Howard of the Philadelpia Phillies is no stranger to the arbitration process. After a Rookie of the Year 2005 season, an MVP Award in 2006, and a 2007 campaign in which he smacked 47 HR with a wOBA of .396, Howard set an arbitration record by jumping from $900K to $10 mil. This past season, his numbers declined quite a bit, but the numbers that tend to overrate players, such as HR and RBI, tell a different story. Despite his impressive output of 48 HR and 146 RBI, Howard saw his wOBA fall to .366 and his OPS drop almost 100 points to .881.

He played in all 162 games, amassing exactly 700 PA in the process. Combine the adjustments accompanying those playing time indicators with average first base defense and solid-albeit-declining offense and Howard was worth +3.1 wins in 2008. Even in a down year relative to his standards, the burly slugger proved to be over a full win above average. At fair market value, he would have earned $14 mil… which is an interesting number given that the Phillies submitted the same figure as their bid for his 2009 contract.

Howard disagrees, as he and his representatives submitted for $18 mil. The $4 mil difference between player and team is the largest gap of any arbitration-eligible player, and the only gap above $2 mil. Does Howard have a case here? Before even delving into the calculations, it seems the answer is yes, given that his offense will likely regress closer to the 2007 levels and his playing time isn’t going to diminish.

The three projection systems offered on our site see Howard capable of a wOBA between .380 and .410. Let’s settle on .395, essentially a midpoint. At that mark, Howard would produce +37 runs above average with the bat. Add in +22 runs for his 680 or so PA and -12.5 runs for a full season at 1B, and prior to defense, Howard is worth +46.5 runs. His defense has been right around the average mark according to both UZR and Dewan, though he certainly does not look average. However, even with a pessimistic -5 run defensive projection, Howard still projects to be worth +4.2 wins.

At $4.5 mil/win, Howard’s +4.2 wins commands a fair market value of $18.9 mil. He requested $18 mil. The Phillies submitted a figure that seemingly suggests Howard’s offense will not regress, and all other evaluative aspects held constant, perhaps even worsen. The likelihood of that occurring is very low unless he has some injury the public does not know about.

He broke the bank last year around this time, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him repeat the feat. He more than earned the $10 mil last season despite largely being overrated. We tend to forget that overrated does not necessarily mean “bad.” Howard had a down year compared to what he had shown himself capable of, but he was by no means a scrub. If his projections come to fruition and he produces +4.2 wins, even his submitted figure would not properly value his contributions.

Of course, we have been using a 40/60/80 modifier here for players eligible for arbitration, meaning Howard would make 80% of his FMV right now. 80% of $18.9 mil = $15.1 mil. Howard is only entering his second arbitration year, so he really should be closer to 60%, but I do not think he is currently on the 40/60/80 track, completely. Suffice it to say, 80% simply is more realistic.

It’s closer to the Phillies side of things but in between both figures. The ideal situation would see the two sides settle, but I cannot see that happening.

I’m not sure exactly how the arbitration judges think, but if you couple the idea that his offense will regress and improve to the tune of ~+4 wins, and that he finished second in MVP voting (hey, maybe that matters to them), this could easily tilt in Howard’s favor again.

I am almost getting tired of writing about these. Yesterday, after a weekend full of rumors indicating that the two sides were close and a deal inevitable, Nick Markakis and the Baltimore Orioles officially agreed to terms on a six-year, $66.1 million contract.

Markakis was entering his first arbitration year so this contract buys out all three and three free agent years, with a mutual option on a fourth. That’s a lot of open market years and before even looking at the numbers, the value of the salary is sending me alert bells that this is going to be a team-friendly deal.

The projections want to knock some of Markakis’ offensive improvement in 2008 off and peg him closer to his 2007 level, which for a six-year projection seems fine to me. We also want to scale back his plate appearances to account for the possible, perhaps even likely given the contract’s duration, chance that he will miss time at some point. Assuming Markakis sticks in right field, we also have a decent sample size to now estimate his defense, +2 runs per 600 PA, and given his young age, it shouldn’t deteriorate much over the time period in question.

That leaves us with a calculation of +20 runs for replacement, +2 runs for fielding, -7.5 for position and about +23-24 runs for hitting. Totaling those yields ~37 runs above replacement, 3.7 wins and 16-17 million in value. 10% for long term security and the free market six year total is $90 million. Of course, given the 40/60/80 nature of arbitration, the Orioles are not buying Markakis at six years worth of value, but rather at 4.8 years. Given that, the expected value for the contract is $72 million. Actually less than I first thought. It’s still a good deal for the Orioles, but it’s not much of a steal and given that Markakis gets to wrap up a tremendous amount of financial security, you can hardly fault him for taking a slight discount. All in all, looks like a win-win.

Arizona GM Josh Byrnes has had, for lack of a better description, an interesting offseason. In 2008, the Diamondbacks ~$66.2 mil payroll rose above heights not seen since the 2005 season. The team led the division for most of the season before crumbling down the stretch, necessitating some personnel moves in order to ensure such an event does not repeat itself. With a mix of veterans signed to longer deals and young, productive players still under club control, few roster spots are actually available, however.

Compound that with the supposed lack of payroll flexibility and Byrnes finds himself in a tricky situation. How can he upgrade the team if a) certain players with plenty of value like Orlando Hudson, Adam Dunn and Randy Johnson cannot be retained, and b) he only has $4-$6 mil to spend? Sure, upgrades can be made in that ballpark of cost, but it is much tougher. In the current market, though, perhaps things would be a bit easier.

Unfortunately, he has been turned down a few times, most recently by both Randy Wolf and Jon Garland. The exact terms of the deals offered to these Type B free agent starters are not known, but according to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, Garland’s offer included two option years. In speaking to Nick, I also learned that the Diamondbacks generally do not give out incentive-laden contracts.

If the team did favor the incentive-laden deals, one could surmise that both pitchers were offered such contracts. In Wolf’s case, the deal may have featured a lower base salary with incentives for playing time given his recent injury history. His deal may also have included options that automatically vest if a certain games started threshold was met. In Garland’s case, the options may have automatically vested based on games started and innings pitched totals. This way, if he became ineffective, the team can easily cut ties with the righty.

Because they are not normally in favor of such deals, it appears more likely that both pitchers were offered salaries lower than they would liked. And, they were both likely offered option years in their contract as opposed to guaranteed years. Someone like Garland, who has routinely logged 190+ innings in 32+ starts, may have wanted guaranteed seasons to protect himself. That way, if he repeats his 2008 season, or worsens, at least he doesn’t have to worry if his option will vest.

If the salary aspect of these offers become available, we will know if the deals were rejected due to money or if the lack of guarantee dissuaded the hurlers. Based on fair market values, Garland projects to about +2.7 wins next season at $12.1 mil. Wolf looks like a league average, +2.0 win pitcher, with a FMV of $9 mil. The current market may depress their values, but if the Diamondbacks only have $6 mil to spend, they would really need to convince a player like Garland that the absolute best deal he will receive is half of his fair market value. A negotiating tactic like this should work more with an injury-prone pitcher like Wolf, but given his rejection, apparently not.

It will be very interesting to see how much these pitchers were offered as well as where (and for what) they end up signing. Neither is an elite talent, but both have value. Garland declined arbitration because he felt he could command a higher fee than the $12 mil earned last season. Wolf was not even offered arbitration because the Astros felt the $10 mil he would command carried with it too much risk. Regardless, both players consider themselves well above the reported amount of money the Diamondbacks have left to spend.

It seems weird when two pitchers turn down the same team in the same week, but under these circumstances, it at least makes some sense. Still, they may regret their decisions when the marketplace for such players continues to dwindle and the Mets, the only team reportedly interested in either, shore up their staff.

So, we’ve walked through the pitcher win values formula, and they’re now available on the leaderboard and the team pages going back to 2002. As a wrapup, let’s take a look at some final win value housekeeping notes.

If you sum up the 2008 win values for the position players and the pitchers that we have here on the site, you’ll notice that we’re handing out 583 wins to position players and 445 wins to pitchers. That’s 1,028 marginal wins – 57% of them are earned by position players and 43% of them are earned by pitchers. You know that whole “good teams are built around good pitching” thing? It’s bunk. Position players are more valuable than pitchers.

With a league wide total of 2,430 wins available every season (81*30) and 1,028 of those being distinguished as wins above replacement level, that means that the average team is 34.26 wins above replacement. 81 – 34.26 = 46.74. That’s what our numbers say a true talent replacement level team would have won in 2008. Just shy of 47 wins, or a .289 winning percentage, is the replacement level we’re using. It will vary slightly from year to year, but the .290 to .300 win% range is what is generally accepted as replacement level.

Over the last four years, Oliver Perez has been worth a total of 2.5 wins in nearly 600 innings. And he wants $12 million a year for five years. Maybe he’s the left-handed Gil Meche, and he’s going to turn the corner immediately after signing a big contract, but there’s about a 5% chance of that being true and about a 95% chance that he’s the most overrated pitcher in baseball.

As mentioned in yesterday’s article about Rich Hill, the Chicago Cubs organization is facing tough decisions on young players who are all out of minor league options. The club has already sold low on outfield prospect Felix Pie, who was dispatched to Baltimore for a No. 4 or 5 starter and a minor league pitcher. Infielder Ronny Cedeno is another player that is currently on the bubble, and he could very well find himself traded before April 5.

Due to the club’s lack of depth in other areas on the big league roster, any trade would probably have to bring back minor league talent, which would help the somewhat barren system. If the Cubs cannot find suitable trading partners for Cedeno, or for Hill, the organization may want to find a way to work the players onto the 25-man roster. Pie had the greatest trade value of the three players and the organization could only get Garrett Olson back for him.

Cedeno has the chance to be at least an average Major League starting middle infielder. He wowed a lot of people at shortstop while coming up through the minors but has not been quite as consistent at the Major League level and his range has been hampered at times. Cedeno, 26, spent a fair bit of time at second base in 2008 and looked solid, making only two errors in 273 innings.

Offensively, Cedeno is still a work in progress. He spent the majority of 2006 as the Cubs’ starting shortstop but hit just .245/.271/.339 with an ISO of .094 in 534 at-bats. Cedeno then spent the majority of the 2007 season in Triple-A where he hit .359/.422/.537 in 75 games.

In 2008, Cedeno had a chance to play a number of positions for the Cubs and showed improvements with the bat over the 2006 season by posting a line of .269/.328/.352 with an ISO of .083. Now obviously those numbers do not set the world on fire, but Cedeno showed the ability to make adjustments and improvements while also not playing every day, which can be tough for a young player.

Cedeno’s walk rate improved significantly between 2006 and 2008 and more than doubled from 3.1 to 7.7 BB%. His strikeout rate held close from 20.4 to 19.0 K%, which is still a little high for a player of his skill set (ie. zero power). Cedeno also does not show an aptitude for stealing bases, having stolen just 15 in 25 attempts in 329 MLB games.

Both the Bill James and CHONE projection systems feel Cedeno is going to show more improvements in 2009 by hitting .277/.324/.393 and .281/.332/.412, respectively. Marcel, meanwhile, sees the Venezuelan taking a small step backward.

There are a number of clubs that could benefit from a middle infielder that possesses some potential upside with the bat, as well as solid defence. Teams that could use Cedeno at shortstop include the Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, Oakland Athletics, Cleveland Indians, and San Diego Padres.

Here is a comparison, offensively, of some of the players being considered for starting gigs by the teams listed above – all of whom are at least two years older than Cedeno.

.269/.328/.352 | $0.8 M | Ronny Cedeno (Chicago NL)
.267/.332/.356 | $1.1 M | Marco Scutaro (Toronto)
.265/.289/.429 | $1.3 M | Wilson Betemit (Chicago AL)
.284/.344/.382 | $4.0 M | Nick Punto (Minnesota)
.237/.296/.349 | $5.3 M | Bobby Crosby (Oakland)
.265/.343/.349 | $0.9 M | David Eckstein (San Diego)

How out-of-whack do the Punto and Crosby 2009 salaries look? Those teams could certainly benefit by taking a flyer on Cedeno, who has the chance to surpass each and every one of them offensively. He’s probably already a better fielder than any of those Major Leaguers- and he’s also the least expensive player on the list.

In talking about how we calculate pitcher win values, we’ve covered FIP, differences in replacement level for each league and role, run environments, the dynamic runs-to-wins conversion, and park factors. What we haven’t done is walked through an example, from scratch, of how the pitcher win values are calculated. That’s what we’re going to do today.

We’ll use Felix Hernandez as our guinea pig. In 2008, he threw 200 2/3 innings with a 3.80 FIP as a starting pitcher in the American League. Remember, we noted earlier that the league average runs per game in the AL was 4.78 last year, so we rescaled Felix’s FIP to make 4.78 equal league average. Adding in a park adjustment for a half season in Safeco Field (with a park factor of .96), we get a 4.28 neutral park FIP scaled to RA for Felix’s 2008 season.

Now, we have to figure out the runs to wins conversion based on Felix affecting the run environment he pitches in. To do so, find his innings pitched per start (6.5), subtract that from 18, and multiply that by the league average runs per game. Then, we add to that those 6.5 innings multiplied by his park adjusted FIP, and divide that by 18, and then use Tango’s +2*1.5 runs to wins converter. So, the formula for Felix would be ((11.5 * 4.78 + 6.5 * 4.28)/18)+2)*1.5, which would give us a run environment of 9.90 runs per win. So, for every 9.9 runs he saves, he gets credit for one win.

His 4.28 FIP is 0.50 runs per nine innings better than league average. What does Felix’s 4.28 FIP translate into in terms of win%? 0.50 divided by 9.90 equals .050. Add that to .500 and we get .550, making Felix a .550 win% pitcher. Remember, an average pitcher would post a .500 win%, and a replacement level starting pitcher would post a .380 win%. So now we subtract .380 from .550, and we get Felix as .17 wins better than a replacement level starter every nine innings.

Factoring in his actual innings pitched, we get .170 * 200.67 / 9, which comes out to 3.8 wins. That’s his wins above a replacement level starting pitcher, or what we call his win value for 2008. Remember, though, these are context neutral win values. Actual wins contributed to a team’s ledger will also be affected by how each pitcher performed with runners on base, as well as the performance of the defenders behind the pitcher. There are going to be cases where a pitcher has a much better (or worse) context neutral win value than you might expect if you’re used to looking at his W-L record or his ERA.

That does not mean these win values are “wrong”. We’ve removed the situational context of the pitcher’s performance, just as we do for hitters. Pitchers can either underperform or outperform their win values with extreme performances in “clutch” situations. We can measure the differences in these situational performances by looking at a pitcher’s WPA or WPA/LI and comparing it to his Win Value. For too long, we’ve lacked a resource for context neutral win values for pitchers, having to settle for situational win values that include a lot of variables. These pitcher win values offer us a great opportunity to explore more of what is in a pitcher’s control and what is not.

In 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen posted a 3.55 ERA and a 4.18 FIP, quite an accomplishment considering the 2007 version had a collective 6.16 ERA and a 5.31 FIP. The turnaround was lead by breakout seasons from Grant Balfour and J.P. Howell along with overstated performances from veterans Dan Wheeler, Troy Percival, and Trever Miller. We’ve seen the ugly and the good with the Rays pen over the last two years, but what will 2009 hold?

As personnel goes, the Rays are likely to move Chad Bradford’s salary prior to the season’s genesis. Bradford was acquired last August and runs a pretty coin for a team on a budget. All told the Rays would spend nearly 10 million if they keep Bradford, Percival, and Wheeler, that’s roughly a sixth of the team’s total payroll spent on three relievers. Often-injured Percival will likely be the “closer” while Wheeler, Howell, and Balfour act as set-up men. Joe Nelson is the only addition that most people are going to recognize, but the Rays have done a decent job of stockpiling low-risk, medium reward relief types, including Rule 5 draftee Derek Rodriguez, Randy Choate, and most recently Lance Cormier.

The pitcher most susceptive to regression appears to be Wheeler. A .202 BABIP (career BABIP is .298) will undoubtedly rise, compounding Wheeler’s homerun tendencies. Even worse, Wheeler saw his strikeout rates and velocity plunge while his walk rates took a minor spike. Wheeler’s CHONE projected 3.98 FIP seems overly optimistic at this point. Howell also seemed to have some BABIP luck and his line drive rate seems unsustainably low.

The most unpredictable pitcher on staff could be Balfour. Throughout his career, Balfour highlighted impressive strikeout rates, but diminished them with outrageous walk totals. Balfour had spent most of 2007 in the minors and was designated for assignment in spring training last season. Naturally, he went unclaimed, and would report to Triple-A Durham. After a Percival injury, Balfour would be called upon and excel in a “relief ace” role. CHONE calls for a 3.22 FIP, and that seems like a decent midpoint.

Nelson and Cormier are unlikely to replicate their 2008 seasons either. Of the improvements, Cormier’s seems more plausible as a sincere progression. Heavy implementation of a curveball seemed to coincide with his success. Meanwhile Nelson saw an increase in groundballs while seemingly not changing anything. Perhaps the difference is the contextual usage of his “Vulcan change-up” rather than the total usage.

Some other names that could pop up in the Rays pen next year include Jason Childers, Jorge DePaula, Dewon Day (assuming he clears waivers), Jeff Niemann, Mitch Talbot, Dale Thayer, Juan Salas, and James Houser. If that seems like an excessive amount of reserve relievers, well, that’s because it is. The Rays have stacked the top of their system with largely interchangeable relievers that share common traits, like producing groundballs and avoiding walks. Basically, they have a ton of seemingly average relief arms at their exposure if disaster strikes.

It’s fair to say the Rays pen won’t feature a top tier relief corps, but there’s no reason to believe they won’t be in the middle of the pack again in 2009.