There was something oddly fitting about both a statue of Bud Selig being unveiled and the final set of leaked MLB financial documents becoming public on Tuesday. Selig has said on more than one occasion that we’re witnessing the “Golden Era” of baseball, citing the economic windfall that has come to the league over the last decade. Revenue-sharing, a pride and joy of Selig’s, is at the center of the largest public release of club financial documents – leaked to Deadspin – that include the Pirates, Rays, Mariners, Marlins, Angels, and Rangers (see them all here).

In July of 2000, with the league claiming projected losses of $232 million for the 2001 season, Selig came before Congress with his Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics report, which at its heart states, “Proper competitive balance will not exist until every well-run club has a regularly recurring reasonable hope of reaching postseason play.” The report then went on to say that, “The limited revenue sharing and payroll tax that were approved as part of MLB’s 1996 Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association have produced neither the intended moderating of payroll disparities nor improved competitive balance. Some low-revenue clubs, believing the amount of their proceeds from revenue sharing insufficient to enable them to become competitive, used those proceeds to become modestly profitable.”

So, with each Collective Bargaining Agreement since, revenue-sharing has been increased, funneling money from the haves to the have-nots of the league in order to gain competitive balance. In 2009, $433 million in revenue-sharing moved from high-revenue clubs to those in need of assistance.

Along the way, sizable increases in the amount of “central revenue” has found its way into club coffers. The growth of national television money from ESPN, FOX Sports, and TBS which total approx. $660 million a year in rights fees funnel back to each of the 30 clubs. Add in annual dividend checks from MLB Advanced Media of $2 million, revenues from MLB Properties, international broadcast agreements, etc.,  and all clubs, large revenue-making, or not, have found extra money that can be used to help produce a winning product on the diamond.

Still, the field would remain unlevel without revenue-sharing tied to net local revenues, so with the leaked Deadspin docs having three clubs (the Pirates, Marlins, and Rays) that have received considerable amounts via the revenue-sharing system, the documents provide ammunition for clubs such as the Yankees and Red Sox when collective bargaining begins in earnest shortly after the World Series ends.

Parsing the documents, here’s how much revenue-sharing was either received or paid out for a given year:

Read the rest of this entry »

Before the season, it appeared that Jack Cust’s career with the Oakland Athletics was over. After a relatively unimpressive 2009 campaign (.342 wOBA, 0.9 WAR, 612 PAs), the A’s designated Cust for assignment at the end of Spring Training. Cust went unclaimed and seemed destined to rot in AAA Sacramento. But the Eric Chavez project ended as a complete failure (.268 wOBA in 123 PAs), resulting in Cust’s return to Oakland.

Cust’s return has been a rousing success. He’s still not making contact often (38.2% K/AB), but when he does, he’s making things happen. Entering play yesterday, Cust had a .267/.391/.436 slash line, and he added a 2/4 game with a HR against the Indians last night. With that home run, Cust has only 10 home runs in 278 plate appearances – not bad for the typical player, but Cust hit 84 HR in his first three MLB seasons. The low home run total marks a bit of a decline for Cust, and we can see that in his ISOs: .248, .245, .177, .169 from 2007 to 2010.

Despite this power drop, Cust’s 2010 wRC+ of 134 compares well with 144 wRC+ in 2007 and his 132 wRC+ in 2008 largely because Cust is having a remarkable amount of success on balls in play. His .386 BABIP is the highest mark of his career, besting the .355 mark which helped power his career year of ’07 and his solid career mark of .334. Naturally, this is a huge reason why Cust’s line looks as good as it does. My four factors method would project Cust’s line at a slightly above average .335 wOBA with his career .334 BABIP. If Cust’s average were 52 points below his career average instead of 52 points above, the method predicts a .303 BABIP, right around replacement level for a DH.

It shouldn’t be that surprising, however, that Cust is seeing relative large fluctuations in his BABIP, as he quite rarely hits the ball in play. In fact, the only player to put the ball in play less often this year is Mark Reynolds, whose 46.2% BIP rate is the only one besides Cust to be under 50% this year among players with at least 200 platte appearances. Reynolds is actually seeing the opposite kind of variance to Cust, as Reynolds’s .279 BABIP is 51 points below his career BABIP. Here is a spreadsheet with these BIP rate numbers for the whole league to date in 2010.

BABIP is a fickle beast, and the fact that players such as Cust see even fewer balls in play than the average player makes it even more prone to wild fluctuations. This season, Cust is the benefactor. Next year, though, the A’s might get more of a 2010 Mark Reynolds BABIP than what they’ve seen from Cust this year, and then Cust may come crashing down to Earth if his former power doesn’t return.

This edition of One Night Only is brought to you by the unpopular imagination. Which, it’s kinda like the popular imagination, except with braces and stuff.

(NERD scores in parentheses. All times Eastern.)

Minnesota (7) at Texas (8) | 8:05pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Twins: Brian Duensing (6)
84.1 IP, 5.12 K/9, 2.03 BB/9, .249 BABIP, 53.6% GB, 6.3% HR/FB, 3.99 xFIP

Rangers: C.J. Wilson (3)
158.0 IP, 7.29 K/9, 4.04 BB/9, .257 BABIP, 49.9% GB, 5.3% HR/FB, 4.30 xFIP

Opening Statement
These are the same teams as last night. And, owing to tomorrow night’s matchup between nerdthrobs Francisco Liriano and Cliff Lee — well, it’ll probably be the same teams tomorrow night.

So sue me.

That said, there are some other sweet games tonight — which, you can see NERDed the eff out at the bottom of this document.

On C.J. Wilson’s NERD Score
It’s too low, probably. Here’re four reasons why I’m saying that:

1. NERD weighs xFIP pretty heavily. Wilson’s got a 4.30 xFIP, which is merely league-average-ish for a starter. But he also throws a cut fastball, which generally suppresses home runs at a better rate than the league-average of 11% HR/FB. Thus, his 3.66 FIP might actually be more representative of his talent here. Or, maybe 4.00 would be a fairer mark. In any case, it’s probably something lower than 4.30.

2. Wilson’s been crazy good this month — and crazy dominant in his last two starts. His line over those two starts (at Baltimore and home versus Boston) looks exactly like this: 16.1 IP, 20 K, 2 BB, 21 GB on 35 BIP (for a 60% GB rate, exactly). That gives Wilson about a 2.10 xFIP over his last two starts.

3. Wilson’s conversion from reliever to starter is still interesting as a narrative — especially if, as seems to be the case, he’s still figuring out what it means to be a starter.

4. While Wilson doesn’t have the nerd cred of a Brian Bannister or Max Scherzer, he appears to be a genuinely enthusiastic and thoughtful person — or, at least that’s what I’d guess from his Twitter feed. In the world I want to live in, thoughtful and enthusiastic people are successful.

On Denard Span, Jason Repko, and Center Field
The Twitters have recently served as a home to a number of Twins fans who’re saying they’d like to see Jason Repko take over for Denard Span in center field — at least on a temporary basis.

At first blush, it seems like a local, very enthusiastic fanbase overreacting to a run of bad luck on the part of one of their better players. Span has slumped lately, slashing .234/.280/.299 (with a .269 BABIP) during the month of August. His season numbers — .267/.336/.352, .296 BABIP, .317 wOBA, 98 wRC+, 2.2 WAR — really aren’t bad, although they’re underwhemling relative to last year’s .359 wOBA (122 wRC+).

Meanwhile, here’s what Repko’s done through 73 PA this season: .246/.319/.477, .283 BABIP .341 wOBA, 114 wRC+. His contact skills are poor, as his low batting average and 24.6% strikeout rate suggests, but otherwise he’s hit pretty well.

Span and Repko, The Remix (Featuring D.J. Parker Hageman)
In any case, I wanted to ask someone about this whole Span/Repko situation — someone who follows the Twins closely and is both (a) saber-friendly and (b) kinda foul-mouthed.

Viva la Parker Hageman of Over the Baggy.

To Hageman I posed this question: “Who should start center field in this game and why?”

Here’s what he said (minus some terrible comments about my mother):

With the Rangers’ CJ Wilson being one of the more lethal left-handed killers in the game, the Twins will certainly contemplate resting slumping center fielder Denard Span in favor of Jason Repko. Repko is very capable of spelling Denard, if for one night only.

Wilson has been one bad mofo against left-handed opponents this season. He’s viciously struck out 28% of all same-sided opponents faced while keeping them to a .105 batting average, currently baseball’s best in this split. That’s cold-blooded. Interestingly enough, Span has actually fared better against his southpawed-kin this year. Still, that is against human left-handers, not CJ Wilson.

Meanwhile, the right-handed hitting Repko has been a wonderful spare part for the club. His output is a reflection of sample-sizing, as he is frequently a strikeout waiting to happen, but he has contributed when needed. What’s more is that he has supplied more ball-shagging abilities than the Kardashian sisters, giving the Twins an above-average defender in Span’s absence.

Resting Span in this contest would be the least sadistic thing to do. After all, considering he is suffering from a well-documented case of walk depression, sending him to the plate against Wilson would qualify as a form of abuse, right?

If I Had My Druthers
• There would be an actual movie called C.J. Wilson’s WAR.
• Tom Hanks would play C.J. Wilson in it.
• Colby Lewis would also play C.J. Wilson.

Also Playing
These games are very likely playing at some kind of sporty channel near you.

pNERD = Pitcher NERD
tNERD = Team NERD
Game = Time and Average NERD for Game
* = Estimated NERD

Alfonso Soriano hit a three-run home run last night out of the seventh spot in the lineup. If that last part did not make you say, “Huh?” then either you follow the Cubs or Soriano is on your fantasy team. As it turns out, Soriano had hit sixth most of the year for Lou Piniella, but since Mike Quade has taken over, the star left fielder has taken a demotion in the order. That isn’t the only difference between Quade’s lineups and those of Piniellia either. Here is the batting order from Quade’s first game at the helm:

2B Blake DeWitt
SS Starlin Castro
CF Marlon Byrd
3B Aramis Ramirez
1B Xavier Nady
RF Tyler Colvin
LF Alfonso Soriano
C Geovany Soto

Piniella had access to Dewitt for three weeks and never batted him higher than seventh, save for two exceptions. Quade has batted him leadoff in both of the games he has managed. The switch is a heck of a change in fortune for Dewitt and a peculiar – not necessarily right or wrong, but peculiar – change for a new manager to make, which led me to wonder: have other interim or new managers this season added a personal flare to the lineup cards immediately after becoming boss?

The answer is going to be subjective in each case because I did not do anything mathematical– i.e. weigh at-bats by lineup slot before and after – to arrive at the answer. My process might weaken the case but this is more trivial than serious. Here are the findings:

Arizona
In: Kirk Gibson
Out: A.J. Hinch

Mr. Gibson took over for the 80th game of the season. Up until then, Chris Young had not led off all season. Since, he’s led off every game but 10, with Stephen Drew leading off the last five. The only other significant and steady change has occurred lately with Kelly Johnson and Justin Upton switching spots, although that too has occurred only recently.

Baltimore
In: Juan Samuel, Buck Showalter
Out: Dan Trembley, Juan Samuel

Double points awarded to the Orioles for killing two birds with one show this season. Trembley met the axe after 54 games and Samuel after 51 more, leaving Showalter to manage the last 21. Samuel quickly moved Miguel Tejada from fourth in the lineup to second; a move that totally makes sense given Tejada’s proficiency in reaching base. With the exception of some new names, the only notable move is Showalter batting Nick Markakis second, something that started a few days before his arrival.

Florida
In: Edwin Rodriguez
Out: Fredi Gonzalez

Gonzalez hit the unemployed waters following game 70, and if he is following along, he would’ve noticed the same lineup most days until Chris Coghlan’s injury. Since then, Hanley Ramirez has moved to leadoff while Logan Morrison bats second and Gaby Sanchez third. Jorge Cantu’s departure meant Dan Uggla could beat cleanup. Cody Ross’s departure left Mike Stanton batting fifth.

Kansas City
In: Ned Yost
Out: Trey Hillman

Yost was toasted – get it? – and promoted after 35 games. Hillman’s final lineup included Scott Podsednik at the top and Jason Kendall at the bottom. At first, things looked like standard protocol for the Royals’ lineups, then, oh so suddenly, Yost batted Jason Kendall second once. And again a little over a week later. Then, Yost began batting Kendall second daily. From June 1 until Monday night, Kendall has batted second in all but nine games. Not the best of ideas considering one has to Photoshop Kendall on base in order for the image to exist.

In: Daren Brown
Out: Don Wakamatsu

The most recent of managerial firings (as opposed to retiring), Wakamatsu was given a pink slip after 112 games. Brown has not messed with the top of the order, leaving Ichiro Suzuki and Chone Figgins along, but moved Jose Lopez to third for a two-game span and then flipped to Russell Branyan, with Lopez batting cleanup instead. Brown’s biggest change is playing Matt Tuiasosopo as much as possible; he of a career .218 on-base percentage in 166 plate appearances and so-so Triple-A numbers.

I would classify Quade, Gibson, Samuel, and Hillman as making significant changes in the order with Brown on the verge. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that new managers, particularly of the interim variety, shake things up. Managers being fired generally are not running the optimal lineup out there (that or the team is void of talent) which means the new manager’s job is to ghost-ride the whip until the offseason when an even newer manager is hired. So, what’s a tinker here or there hurt? Maybe it motivates the players, maybe it doesn’t. In the end, Brown and Quade aren’t risking their managerial futures by playing with the controls a little.

It’s that time of year again! Tangotiger is running his annual Fans Scouting Report. Please take a moment and fill out scouting reports for the team of your choice!

Picking up where I left off last time…

Norichika Aoki (OF, Yakult Swallows, 28) – In a post-Ichiro, post-Matsui NPB, Aoki reigns as the consensus top hitter. I’d actually go so far as to say that he”s the best pure hitter Japan has produced since Ichiro. Aoki is a line drive hitter with occasional power who uses the whole field. He’s also a disciplined batter, walking about as often as he strikes out, which is rare in Japan. Aoki is short and somewhat stocky at 5’7.5, 182 lbs, but is a good runner with tremendous range in the outfield. The only knock on his game is his rather weak throwing arm, which may limit him to left field at the MLB level. For video, I dug up some batting and fielding highlights and a breakdown of his swing on YouTube.

Hiroyuki Nakajima (SS, Seibu Lions, 28) – Nakajima gets my vote as Japan’s second best hitter, behind Aoki. Nakajima doesn’t quite match up with Aoki’s pure contact skill or plate discipline, but is still very good in both categories and adds a bit more gap power to the equation. Nakajima is a back-leg hitter, with a big stride that he will occasionally shorten up. On the turf, Nakajima plays a solid shortstop, among many good shortstops in his league. The best video I could find of Nakajima was this one, of him hitting an opposite field home run off Dicky Gonzales (I know, not the best competition). Also of note in the video, you can see that he’s made friends with teammate Dee Brown. The high-five routine they do after home runs shows up on Japanese highlight shows.

Wei-Yin Chen (LHP, Chunichi Dragons, 25) – Last offseason, Chen was probably the more outspoken about wanting to be posted than any other NPB player. Chen is Taiwanese, but signed with Chunichi as an amateur out of high school, apparently without any provisions to make him a free agent if he and the team can’t agree to a contract during the annual negotiations (as veteran foreign players who sign from 3A or Korea usually do). This is an unusual situation, but not unprecedented, as the first couple postings for Dominican players the Hiroshima Carp had signed as amateurs, including current Giant Ramon Ramirez. Chen does appear to be serious about MLB, as he hired agent Alan Nero last offseason, and I expect him to push to be posted again this year.

Chen features NPB’s top lefty power arsenal, primarily throwing fastballs and sliders, while mixing in occasional forkballs and the random big, loopy curve. His fastball reaches 95 mph or so, but usually sits around 90-92, while his slider breaks in on righthanded batters and sits in the 85-87 range. Chen has been letting his pitches get up in the zone much more this season, and is showing more of a flyball tendency than he did last year.

The Chen video I have is two hours of game footage from his August 17 start, against Seth Greisinger and the Giants. The video occasionally switches to a Yokohama game, but still gives you a better sense of what Chen throws than a 10-minute highlight reel will.

Since September 1st, 2009, Jose Bautista has played 152 games and received 647 plate appearances. That’s one season’s worth of playing time. In those 152 games, he has launched 50 home runs. It’s time to stop wondering when he’s going to go back to the hitter he used to be. He’s not going to. He has taken a step forward.

I’m not saying he’s going to keep hitting home runs at this pace, which is an unrealistic assumption even for the game’s premier power hitters. But we should recognize that Bautista has made changes to his offensive approach, and not assume that he’s simply getting lucky with balls flying over the wall.

Here are his flyball rates over the last three years.

2008 – 38.8%
2009 – 42.1%
2010 – 53.6%

You don’t have to look too hard to spot the pattern. Bautista has made a conscious decision to adjust his swing to gain more loft. In fact, if you saw the swing he took on his second home run last night – which was aided by some anger about being thrown out earlier – you can see exactly why Bautista is no longer hitting the ball on the ground.

He has a pronounced uppercut and he swings about as hard as humanly possible. These are not cheap home runs he’s hitting. Take a look at his home run charts from Hit Tracker.

There are a couple of squeakers on there, but for the most part, he’s been hitting bombs like the two he drilled last night. If we look at his HR/FB rate, you can see that his frequency of getting balls to clear the wall isn’t that unusual: 21.5 percent of his flyballs have left the park this year, which still ranks him behind Joey Votto (25.7%), Carlos Pena (23.7%), and Adam Dunn (21.7%). Over the past three years, five players have averaged a HR/FB rate of 21.5% or better, which isn’t exactly uncharted territory.

Bautista will likely never have a year like this again, but there’s no reason to think he’s going to revert back to the version we saw before last September. He has made changes that can stick, even if not quite to this degree, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Bautista hit 30 to 40 home runs each of the next several years.

A statistically minded baseball fan typically does not have to go far to find criticisms of the defensive metrics available. Certainly, some of that criticism is valid – defensive metrics are by no means perfect, and they particularly have flaws when looking at single seasons of data. This piece at Baseball Prospectus (subscription required) by Colin Wyers does a fantastic job of framing the problems and biases involved with defensive metrics, as well as a possible answer.

One issue presented with defensive metrics I believe is invalid, however, is the idea that inconsistencies in defensive ratings from year to year somehow render defensive systems useless, whether it be UZR, TotalZone, +/-, or any other stat. The idea seems to be based on a traditional baseball idea that while pitching and hitting can slump, speed and defense both tend to hold constant. According to this idea, seeing a player post UZRs of -3, +6, -9, and then +2 in four consecutive seasons would represent a problem with the metric as opposed to simply the ups and downs of single season. Such fluctuations in wRAA aren’t uncommon, but such things can be explained away by hot streaks and slumps over the course of multiple seasons.

Sky Andrecheck analyzed the idea of “defense doesn’t slump” last year. Based on the idea that the distribution of probabilities of outs on balls in play is bimodal – that is, most are either sure hits or sure outs – the standard error for fielders is smaller than that for hitters.

From an individual player’s standpoint, the average fielder has about 500 balls in play in his area over the course of the season (of course, this varies by position, and we can adjust accordingly) . Using the numbers above, we see that the average fielder has a standard error of about .23*SQRT(500) = 5.14 outs over the course of a season. This means that he is prone to make about 5 or so more or 5 or so less plays in a season than his true talent would usually call for. This corresponds to a difference of about 4 runs in a season. While this is fairly small, it does show that random variability can play a part in a fielder’s performance just as it can for hitters

Sky’s work, to me, effectively proves that we should expect some variability in defensive abilities. There’s also another element to the variation we see in defensive metrics that he doesn’t look at, and that’s the physical and mental aspects of the game. If a player tweaked his hamstring but doesn’t tell his manager, we could see a decrease in his range that would be unexplained by the information available. If a player is uncomfortable in a certain park, for whatever reason, he could slump if he receives an abnormal amount of chances at that park in that season. There are probably a multitude of other reasons as well.

The issue of chances is likely one of the reasons that we don’t typically recognize fielding slumps. I posed the question of why slumps can’t occur on defense on twitter, and the omnipresent Colin Wyers pointed out that it is “because a player’s ability to get to a batted ball informs our thinking about whether or not he should have made a play.” A player who is slumping on defense won’t get to balls that he may have gotten to normally, and that’s terribly difficult for fans to point out. Announcing crews aren’t going to have convenient stats like “Prince Fielder has one hit in his last 24 at bats” for defense.

Basically, I think that there’s plenty of reason to believe that defense slumps, and although we don’t really know the magnitude, I also don’t see why it wouldn’t be near that of the slumps we see for batters, or even greater due to the fact that all defensive chances aren’t created equal nor distributed at a regular schedule. Similarly, I would imagine that defense sees hot streaks as well – perhaps my focus on poor fielding is because I’m a pessimist. Regardless, as our ability to evaluate defense evolves, I predict that we won’t look at fluctuations in defensive metrics as a sign of incorrectness, and instead we will learn to accept that, for whatever reason, it’s not fair nor reasonable to accept that a player is the same quality defender against every ball in play in every game in every season.

Today’s edition of One Night Only is gonna make you sweat.

Sorry about that.

(NERD scores in parentheses. All times Eastern.)

Tuesday, August 24 | Minnesota (7) at Texas (8) | 8:05pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Twins: Carl Pavano (6)
174.0 IP, 5.17 K//9, 1.50 BB/9, .285 BABIP, 49.6% GB, 9.1% HR/FB, 3.91 xFIP

Rangers: Colby Lewis (6)
155.0 IP, 8.94 K/9, 2.90 BB/9, .291 BABIP, 37.9% GB, 7.9% HR/FB, 3.86 xFIP

Opening Statement
I feel like you’re judging me because I picked this game. You’re like, “Oh, what, Colby Lewis pitches and you just automatically pick that game?!? Do you even know that there’re like twenty-nine other teams, Cistulli — and like, I don’t know, three-hundred other starting pitchers?”

Listen, okay: stop judging me with your judgments. Because, you know what? You know who else got judged with a lot of judgments? Jesus*. That’s who.

So, cram it.

*It occurs to me that you might think I mean Jesus of Nazareth. Actually, no; I’m talking about this guy Jesus I went to high school with. Great guy, but short. So a lot of people judged him on that. But he was really just like you. Unless you’re tall, I mean. In which case, he wasn’t like you at all.

Opening Statement, Version 2.0
This is just one of three games today with a Game NERD in the 7s. Here are the others:

• Florida (Josh Johnson) at New York Nationals (R.A. Dickey), 7:10pm
• Arizona (Rodrigo Lopez) at San Diego (Clayton Richard), 10:05pm

But Why I Picked This One
Because, I don’t care, I’m not gonna watch Rodrigo Lopez pitch.

But Why I Picked This One, Version 2.0
Because the Twins and Rangers are in first place.

And also, the Rangers almost no-hit the Twinkers last night.

And also, I SCREAM FOR COLBY LEWIS.

On Carl Pavano and the Moustache Situation
The internet has found out that Carl Pavano has a sweet moustache. “Which moustache?” maybe you’re asking (because this is your first time ever near a computer). This one:

Wait, that’s Hercule Poirot. This is what I mean:

Breaking News
I’m the sort of guy to get breaking news. So when I wanted to get a big story on these moustaches, I went to one of my trusted sources — i.e. Bryz of Off the Mark.

I was like, “Hey, Bryz: tell me something I don’t know about this whole moustache situation.”

He was like (and I quote):

Pavano took the field during his second-to-last start at Target Field to the tune of the Super Mario theme. Whereas Mario throws only one type of fireball, Pavario throws as many as four: two-seam fastball, Vulcan change (Pavario calls it a fosh), four-seam fastball, and a slider. Based on pitch type linear weights, these pitches are just as deadly as Mario’s fireball.

Pavano’s mustache has the ability to perform inception, causing you to want to grow a mustache. It’s certainly worked on Twins mascot T.C.

Good work, Bryz. Top shelf.

Finally, An Actual Fact
Minnesota is second in the majors in park-adjusted weighted runs above average (wRAA), and first in Batting-plus-Fielding WAR.

If I Had My Druthers
• Colby Lewis and Carl Pavano would make a second version of C+C Music Factory.
• This version wouldn’t be a band, at all, but an actual factory.
• Said factory would supply jobs to un- and underemployed Americans.

The Rest of Tonight’s Games
Are here:

pNERD = Pitcher NERD
tNERD = Team NERD
Game = Time and Average NERD for Game
* = Estimated NERD