Well, that was easy. The Dodgers rolled through the Cardinals in the minimum three games and now face the Philadelphia Phillies for the NL Pennant in a rematch of last year’s National League Championship Series.

How did the Dodgers so easily defeat St. Louis? Clearly they must have wanted it more. Or perhaps have been seething for revenge ever since their defeat to the same club back in the 2004 NLDS. Except that was an almost completely different Cardinals team. And a nearly completely different Dodgers team for that matter as well.

The truth is, and this applies to pretty much all individual playoff series, even the seven-game variety, is that there’s no significant reason why one team triumphed. It’s way too small of a sample. Were the Dodgers the better team? Probably. It’s not a surprise that they won, but they also won the first two games by a combined three runs. Game Two was solidly in the Cardinals’ hands until Ryan Franklin, yes Franklin, not Matt Holliday, blew the lead. This was not as much of a thrashing as the 3-0 result by wins might have you believe.

The Dodgers didn’t shut down Albert Pujols or Matt Holliday. No, they won because Andre Ethier had a great series, Ryan Franklin allowed two walks, two fly balls and two line drives to the six batters he faced with a one-run lead and because Vicente Padilla of all people delivered a great start.

Unfortunately, and this can be the downfall of such strict statistical rigor, there’s not much drama in that explanation.

The San Francisco Giants possessed the worst offense in baseball this season. For outstanding efforts in offensive offenses, Brian Sabean was given an extension today. Manager Bruce Bochy was also extended — more on him in a bit.

Sabean’s team-building abilities are hard to get a read on. Sometimes he looks solid, like last off-season when he maneuvered quickly and concisely to land Jeremy Affeldt, Bob Howry, and Randy Johnson. He would also give Edgar Renteria a decent-sized contract which seems to be the lasting impression of those signings. During the season he likely overpaid for both Ryan Garko and Freddy Sanchez. The latter turned out to be injured all along, pouring salt on the open wound known as the collective fan base’s heart. Historically he’s signed some real stinkers: Aaron Rowand, Barry Zito, Dave Roberts, and Matt Morris; made a really poor trade for A.J. Pierzynksi, and also found some nice young talent.

It’s easy to excuse one year of down play, because bad breaks happen, but Sabean has never been able to build a strong lineup, even when he had Barry Bonds carrying the team on his back. Their .305 team wOBA in 2009 is supposed by a .309 wOBA in 2008; .311 wOBA in 2007; .319 wOBA in 2006; and .312 wOBA in 2005. That’s one heck of an ineffective offense despite the presence of the aforementioned Bonds.

The Giants main off-season goal is to eradicate the suck and implement some talent. Odds are, this plan includes Matt Holliday or Jason Bay (or, in the nature of Sabean-loves-old-player jokes: Ken Griffey Jr.) and depending on the contracts given, maybe adding an additional bat. It’s probably going to take more than one incoming talent to improve the lineup, but Pablo Sandoval, Holliday (at least, he should be the main target), and Buster Posey isn’t a bad start. Factor in the likely return of Sanchez and there’s some definite room for improvement.

On to Bochy’s return. It took him nearly half the season to figure out Pablo Sandoval was a better fit in the third slot than Randy Winn and even longer to realize that Aaron Rowand (boasting a .319 OBP for the season) was not the best choice at leadoff. Not that one can place all of the blame on Bochy — after all, he can only work with what he is given — but Carson Cistulli seemingly received more plate appearances for the Giants in September than Posey. Gaining trust in the young backstop is going to be vital to Bochy’s success, because like it or not, Wiki Gonzalez isn’t walking through that door.

If the Giants fail to address their run-scoring issues it would painstakingly represent another missed opportunity during the Tim Lincecum/Matt Cain era. Those guys and baseball as a whole deserve a shot to see what they can do in the post-season.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the much-maligned free agent pitching crop is about to get a lot stronger, with Tim Hudson set to join the ranks of those available for bidding this winter. The Braves and Hudson hold a mutual $12 million option on his 2010 contract, but with a strong finish to the season and not much competition on the open market, Hudson sees an opportunity to get a better deal now rather than waiting a year.

Is it the right call?

In his late season return, he showed absolutely no effects from the injury or layoff. His fastball averaged 90.4 MPH, the same velocity he’s shown since 2005. He still had tremendous sink on the pitch as well, generating a 62.2% GB%. His command was as good as always, and his strikeout rate was higher than any season since 2001. It may have only been seven starts, but Hudson showed that he’s still every bit as good as he was before the injury, and he was one of the better pitchers in baseball at his peak.

Besides John Lackey, there aren’t any pitchers on the market who can offer a better package of stuff, command, and ability to pitch. Lackey’s going to get a big contract, but Hudson’s a pretty similar pitcher when healthy. For a team who wants to add that level of starter without paying full price, Hudson is a terrific alternative.

For Hudson, opting out is likely the right move. He probably won’t get a $12 million in annual salary again, given his age and the fact that he’s only thrown 180 innings over the last two years, but teams will still be lining up to bid for a pitcher of his quality, and rightfully so. A three or four year deal at around $10 million per season will be a steal if Hudson is able to stay healthy, and that kind of contract is certainly more valuable to him than one more season at $12 million.

If the Braves can’t convince him to stay in Atlanta, this is bad news. For the other 29 teams, however, the free agent pitching market might be about to get a big upgrade.

On account of the Angels and Yankees don’t begin their ALCS match-up for like another 20 days, I was going to wait a bit on this. But seeing as Dave Cameron has already submitted his preview, and seeing how Dave is the boss of me, I guess it makes sense to drop this record.

Rather than look at the match-ups per se, I thought it might be interesting to look at a player who’s played for both teams: Bobby Abreu.

In particular, I’d like to try and answer a question that has been bothering me a little since these playoffs began.

The question: Is Bobby Abreu fast?

The answer: It’s hard to tell.

At first glance, you might say, no. Bobby Abreu doesn’t look fast. Or, at least he doesn’t fit our image of a speed merchant. He’s got a thick trunk, thick legs, and — not that it’s entirely relevant — a little bit of a pudgy face. Who among the games bona fide base stealers has Bobby Abreu’s body? Matt Kemp is bigger (6-foot-3, 226) and he stole 34 bases this year, but he’s also Abreu’s junior by 10 years. Hanley Ramirez? David Wright? Brandon Phillips? Mark Reynolds? They’re all near the same size, but all are at least five years younger and all stole fewer bases at lower success rates.

Abreu’s basic counting stats are those of a legitimate stolen base threat. Abreu stole 30 bases this year and has averaged 28.4 SB since 1998, when he became a full-timer with the Phillies. Over the same span, he’s averaged only 9.1 CS, good for a 75.8% success rate — above any break-even point you’d care to use.

Like Linear Weights? Using Tom Tango’s Custom Linear Weights matrix and supposing a league average run environment for every player (not ideal, but much easier for me), Abreu comes away with 1.96 SB Runs, good for 18th among 154 qualified batters. His SB Runs per attempt comes out to 0.052, good for 30th among the 80 qualified batters with at least 10 attempts. In other words, not elite, but still above average.

What’s another way we might evaluate speed? How about defensive range? Well, this is where it gets ugly for Abreu, who this year posted a -5.2 UZR/150. Not terrible, right? Sure, but that’s only because Abreu’s arm was worth 6.9 runs. His Range Runs above Average (RngR) was -13.8, PLACING HIM BEHIND BEHIND BRAD HAWPE… IN FEWER GAMES. Last year, it was worse: -29.0 RngR. Nor was his arm able to help so much, thus giving him a season-ending -25.3 UZR/150. Ick. That’s disgusting.

Finally, Speed Score might be another way to evaluate Abreu, but I’ll admit, I’m a little suspicious. Consider some of these Spd numbers:

Player		Spd
R. Ibanez	4.8
R. Howard	4.8
F. Gutierrez	4.8
H. Pence	4.5
M. Cameron	4.3

Any measure of speed that ranks Raul Ibanez and Ryan Howard either equal to, or above, Franklin Gutierrez, Hunter Pence, and Mike Cameron ought to be approached carefully. For what it’s worth, Abreu finished with a 5.6 Spd, above the league average of 5.0.

Can we conclude anything? Hard to say. The naked eye and some of the numbers suggest a player with average speed at best. The stolen base numbers suggests a talented base stealer. Maybe the reality is that Abreu relies more on guile than pure speed to steal his bases and that, for some reason, said guile doesn’t translate to the field. That’s a strange conclusion, I think, but the most reasonable one considering.

In Game Two of the upcoming ALCS, Jered Weaver will face the Yankees in Yankee Stadium. Facing the Yankees anywhere is a tough task this year — they lead the league in HRs and BBs, but are in the bottom five in strikeouts. Usually players, and teams, with lots of walks and home runs also strike out a lot. Not the Yankees, they have all the good without the bad. At least part of the reason for all those HRs is that the new Yankee Stadium seems to be quite HR-prone, particularly for left-handed batters.

So Weaver is up against a tough opponent. The added issue for Weaver is that he is one of the most extreme fly ball pitchers in the game. Over half of his balls in play are fly balls, second among starters to Ted Lilly. The big culprit is his four-seam fastball, off of which 62% of balls in play are fly balls. Those fly balls are especially dangerous against a team with the Yankees’ power in a park like the new Yankee Stadium.

When I looked at Lilly I saw that his four-seam fastballs are higher up in the zone than the average four-seam fastball, probably explaining his fly ball rate. Surprisingly, this is not the case for Weaver’s.

What is striking about Weaver’s fastball is the amount of “rise” it gets. That is, the number of inches less it drops than expected from gravity — due to its backspin — as it travels to the plate.

It looks like even though his four-seam fastballs end up at about the same height as average four-seam fastballs, the added “rise” causes them to be hit in the air more often. An added benefit of this is that he has a high IFFB%, but the HRs will come, too.

Jered Weaver is a very good pitcher who gives the Angels a solid chance to win in Game Two, but his fly ball tendencies will make him prone to HRs against a team with lots of power in a HR-park. The Angels really didn’t have much choice, though; Scott Kazmir gives up tons of fly balls, too, so switching Kazmir to Game Two and Weaver to Game Three in Anaheim, a larger park, would make only a slight difference.

Jonathan Papelbon: 2 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 1 K
Joe Nathan: 2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 2 K
Huston Street: 2 2/3 IP, 6 H, 4 R, 3 BB, 1 K
Ryan Franklin: 1 1/3 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 1 K

Total: 8 IP, 18 H, 11 R, 8 BB, 5 K

That’s the combined performance of the closers for the four teams who got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs this year. The complete inability for teams to shut the door in the ninth inning was by far the overriding story of the division series match-ups. The Red Sox, Cardinals, and Rockies were all eliminated in games where their closers had a final meltdown on the mound, snatching defeat from the jaws victory.

Of note is that the two teams that entered the playoffs with the most questions surrounding their closers – the Phillies (Brad Lidge) and the Angels (Brian Fuentes) – were able to skate through the first round without any problems, as the supposedly reliable closers (non-Mariano Rivera division) were the ones who ended up having problems.

St. Louis perhaps should have seen this coming – Ryan Franklin isn’t anyone’s definition of a relief ace, and his first performance was about as fluky as it gets. Trusting him with the game on the line isn’t really wisdom, regardless of what his seasonal ERA was. He’s still Ryan Franklin, after all. The other three, however, have been among the best relievers in the game for years.

There was no reason for the Twins to be concerned about Joe Nathan. Papelbon’s command got worse this year, but he was still blowing hitters away. Street posted the best BB/K of his career, and looked to re-establish himself as an elite closer. All three were proven closers. And all three were significant reasons why their teams are sitting at home right now.

Everyone knows this by now, but relief pitchers are just remarkably unreliable. That point was driven home with emphasis in the first round. Don’t pay premiums for the mystical powers of a ninth inning reliever. The guys who have proven they “have it” can implode at the worst possible time, too.

Over the winter, the Baltimore Orioles signed right fielder Nick Markakis to a six year, 66.1 million dollar contract, covering Markakis’s arbitration years and first three years of free agency, and including a $17.5MM mutual option for another. It appeared that the Orioles may have been locking up a perennial all-star. Markakis posted win totals of 2.0, 3.8, and 6.2 from 2006 to 2008. He showed tremendous improvement each year, with wOBAs increasing from .346 to .366 to .389 each year, and flashed a solid glove in RF, with a total UZR of +20 over the three seasons.

Unfortunately for Baltimore, this success would not carry over into the 2009 season. His wOBA regressed back to its 2006 total, and his defense slipped below average for the first time in his career. As a result, Markakis saw a 40 run swing in his value, posting 1.9 wins, nearly identical to his rookie season.

What’s behind the fall? On the offensive side, we see a fall in nearly every major statistic. Obviously, wOBA, OBP, and SLG fell. Looking at some component statistics, we also see a fall in BB%, ISO, BABIP, HR/FB%, and LD%.

That’s a pretty exhausting list, and certainly explains a 20 run drop in offensive production, but what explains the drop in these component statistics? To get to the heart of the matter for Markakis, we have to look at his plate discipline statistics.

Markakis has shown the ability to post high BABIP numbers throughout his career. With no other discernible increase in ability, a BABIP gain in 2007 led to a gain for Markakis. Then, in 2008, he began to swing at fewer pitches overall and fewer pitches in the zone. This led to a large increase in walk rate. We can also infer from this that his LD% and thus BABIP rose, because pitches in the zone are easier to hit hard than those out of the zone. This led to his fantastic .389 wOBA and an all-star caliber six win season.

His swing rate remained relatively constant in 2009, but it was because of a rise in O-Swing% and a dip in Z-Swing%. As a result of this, his BB% and LD% both returned to 2007 levels. However, this time, Markakis’s BABIP returned to a number more consistent with his 2006 level, based on his batted ball profile. As such, his overall hitting line was very similar to that of his rookie year – above average overall, but not anywhere near all-star levels for a corner outfielder.

Still, this bat would play at a high level with Markakis’s 2006-2008 fielding stats. Whereas a UZR in the +5-+10 range, as his 2006-2008 play suggested, would have placed Markakis at a 3-3.5 win level, his roughly -5 UZR this year reduced him to a merely average outfielder. The problem was a precipitous drop in RngR, from 4.2 in 2008 to -11.1 in 2009. None of his offensive speed stats suggest anything that would cause a 1.5 win drop in range over the course of the year. This may be one of those one-year drops we can see in UZR much like we can see a 2 month slump in hitting. At this point, it’s best to assume that Markakis’s true fielding talent lies somewhere near the +3 UZR/150 he’s posted through 4 nearly full seasons at RF.

If Markakis can find a way to fix whatever caused him to swing at more pitches out of the zone and fewer pitches in the zone, he should be able to return to his 4 win level of 2007 or above. Even if he does not, his prior fielding numbers suggest that he will at least return to an above average level now. The contract that the Orioles signed Markakis to is team-friendly enough that even at the bottom end of this projection, the production the team receives out of Markakis may equal the salary paid. The Orioles and their fans shouldn’t be worried unless his light hitting continues for another season.

The Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Colorado Rockies by the score of 5-4 on Monday night to take the best-of-five National League Division Series (NLDS) in four games. It was certainly an exciting end to the series with Colorado storming back to take the lead by the score of 4-2 in the eighth inning, with a three-run explosion. Unfortunately, yet another veteran closer blew up as Huston Street gave up three runs to the Phillies in the ninth inning.

Both starters were solid: Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez went 7.0 innings and posted a WPA of .133. Philly’s Cliff Lee went 7.1 innings and posted a WPA of .276. Offensively, Jayson Werth and Ryan Howard led the way for Philadelphia. Werth drove in two runs, plated once and posted a WPA of .397. Howard, again, made the most of one hit in the game – a double – and he drove in two runs and scored once. His WPA was .320.

Offensive MVP: Ryan Howard
Howard led the team with six RBI in the NLDS, and he also scored three runs. He heated up throughout the series, posting WPAs each game of .007, .115, .208, and .320.

Pitching MVP: Cliff Lee
Lee pitched a total of 16.1 innings out of a possible 18.0 frames, saving the bullpen and giving the team a great opportunity to win both games, which it did. He posted WPAs of .397 and .276.

Honorable Mentions:
Colorado’s most consistent hitter, despite the overall losing effort in the series, was young outfielder Carlos Gonzalez. In 17 at-bats, he hit .588/.632/.882 with 10 hits in four games. He also stole two bases, walked twice and struck out just once. Gonzalez had at least two hits in each game.

Veteran catcher Yorvit Torrealba had a big impact on the series as well, posting WPAs of .021, .213, -.132 and .321. He also played solid defense and did a nice job with his game calling. Torrealba led Rockies hitters with five RBI in the series and was second to Gonzalez in total bases with 10.

It’s now onto Los Angeles, where Philadelphia will face the Dodgers on Thursday night. The starters have not been announced yet, but lefty Cole Hamels is expected to get the ball in Game One of the National League Championship Series (NLCS). The two teams faced off in the 2008 NLCS, as well, with Philly coming out on top and eventually winning the World Series.

Remember, way back in the day, when Felipe Lopez was talked about as a future superstar? Shortly after the turn of the decade Lopez became the toast of the Jays’ middle infield prospects*. He would make his major league debut in late 2001 and spend the next 500 plate appearances in Toronto, batting an unimpressive .240/.293/.399. Before turning 23 years old, he would be dealt to Cincinnati in a four-team trade and begin his career as a bit of a journeyman. In 2006, Washington traded for him, then released him in 2008. He landed on his feet with the Cardinals, then became a free agent and signed with Arizona. Earlier this year he was traded to Milwaukee and he’s put up the best line of his career: .310/.383/.427.

You didn’t misread that, Felipe Lopez reached base more than 38% of the time this season in 680 plate appearances. In mid-May he will turn 30-years-old and his defense is usually pretty unremarkable, so what makes Lopez’ second career 4.6 WAR season any different from the first time he accomplished it way back in 2005?

A lot.

In 2005, he walked 8.9%, struck out 19.1%, possessed a .195 ISO, .327 BABIP, and .360 wOBA. Since then his power has gone missing; even this year his ISO is only .118. The biggest difference between 2009 and 2005 is the amount of skill retention you would expect moving forward. His BABIP this season is a robust and almost certainly unsustainable .360. His career average BABIP is .323, and only once before has his seasonal BABIP finished above .330 – last year, .331. He is walking more than 10% of the time and his strikeouts are slightly down, but otherwise this appears to be the same hitter he was last year.

No GM should be silly enough to pay Lopez like a five-win player, but it’ll be interesting just how much some weigh 2009 over 2007 and 2008.

*Seriously, the system was loaded back then. Other names appearing in the system: Michael Young, Cesar Izturis, and Brent Abernathy. That’s not a bad stable of talent at all.

Last weekend, David Appelman posted the year-to-year correlations for UZR and wOBA by chances and plate appearances. The latter had a R^2 value of 0.30 for players with at least 500 plate appearances in both 2008 and 2009. Without a baseline as to how other offensive statistics fare, this seems like a pretty weak correlation. I similarly took all 101 batters with 500+ plate appearances in both seasons and ran the correlations on their batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage to figure out where wOBA’s R^2 ranks. Here are the results:

Batting average: 0.1975 (0.444 R)
On-base percentage: 0.3673 (0.606 R)
Slugging percentage: 0.3653 (0.604 R)

Interestingly, OBP and SLG were nearly identical while BA shows just how volatile it is on a year-to-year basis. wOBA ranks just behind the two slash stats that make up OPS, so why do we use wOBA if it’s presumably less predictive on an individual basis than either of those components? Because it correlates to runs scored better than OPS. I ran the team production numbers versus runs scored and found these relationships (both R):

OPS: .958
wOBA: .960

This is why we use wOBA. It might not have the year-to-year relationship that OBP and SLG do, but it correlates with team runs scored about as well or better than anything else around. Now these numbers are not adjusted for park or league and are in their raw forms.

(For fun I used the equation given to estimate each team’s run totals in 2009. The unluckiest teams: Mets, Yankees, Astros, Mariners, and Nationals; the luckiest: Athletics, Angels, Giants, Dodgers, and Twins. Deeper analysis may or may not reveal something about those teams.)