Archive for August, 2011
Is Acquiring Hill Wise for the Diamondbacks?
The Diamondbacks traded Kelly Johnson to the Blue Jays on Tuesday, getting Aaron Hill and John McDonald in return. Arizona’s motives for the trade are questionable, as the deal could actually hurt their playoff odds.
Eno Sarris covered the deal from the Jays point of view, noting that free-agent-to-be Johnson will likely be used to extract compensatory draft picks this offseason. Johnson is mere percentage points from attaining Type A status — and prior to the trade, he was the highest-ranked non-Type A middle infielder. The Jays employed this tactic last season when it traded for Miguel Olivo on the day before free agency started and allowed him to walk. The Jays again are shrewdly exploiting the compensation system.
Add to that the idea that Johnson is a better player than Hill and the deal makes plenty of sense for Toronto. But does it make any sense for the Diamondbacks, who are in the thick of a divisional race?
Jays Ship Hill to Arizona for Kelly Johnson
by Eno Sarris
August 23, 2011
The Blue Jays shipped fan-favorite John McDonald and fan-hated Aaron Hill to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Kelly Johnson. Strangely, even though Hill is the only player with a possible contract currently in place for 2012, this deal opens up many possibilities for the Blue Jays and increases their flexibility.
Breakout Candidates for 2012
Predicting big things from up-and-comers has become chic as the information age has exploded, giving everyone from the Kevin Goldsteins of the world to the Brandon Warnes of the world access to minor league statistics. It’s easy enough to find a top 100 list, and predict greatness for guys like Bryce Harper, Mike Trout, or Shelby Miller, but today I’d like to take a peek at few less-than-established big leaguers who weren’t big time prospects whom I feel are good breakout candidates for next season.
Curtis Granderson’s Defense and His MVP Prospects
As expected, the campaign has begun in New York. Even prior to his inside the park home run on Sunday, Yankees scribes have started penning the case for their hometown man, Curtis Granderson, to win the AL MVP Award. The case makes plenty of sense from an old school perspective. Granderson is the best player on a playoff-bound team, and has generally outproduced his fellow playoff-bound peers at the plate. With 35 homers he trails only Jose Bautista, who won’t sniff the postseason. That he leads the league in runs and RBI furthers his case among those who actually vote for the award.
The statistically inclined audience tends to ignore most of the above factors. There are plenty of other issues at stake, such as how many runs the player created irrespective of his teammates. There’s also defense. That’s why WAR is often the place a statistically inclined fan will start the MVP conversation. Granderson doesn’t fare as well here, ranking fifth in the AL with 6.1 WAR. Worse, he trails four players in his own division. But WAR does contain a one-year sample of UZR, and we know that one year of UZR can provide misleading results. Is this the case for Granderson?
Rangers Or Tigers: Who Scares You More?
Justin Verlander is apparently dead set on making the rest of the 2011 season not that interesting. First, he decided to end any speculation about who might win the 2011 Cy Young Award by leading the league in nearly every pitching category you can think of, and then, he decided to help his team win enough games to make the AL Central race something less than a heated contest down the stretch.
Sure, there’s still more than a month of baseball left to play, but the Tigers have now opened up a 5 1/2 game lead over the Indians and White Sox, and recent injuries to the Tribe (most notably Travis Hafner’s potentially season ending foot problem) leave them looking like a bit of a long shot at this point. The Tigers haven’t won the division just yet, but assuming that they’ll join Texas, New York, and Boston in the playoffs is a decently safe bet at this point.
If we work off the assumption that those are the four likely playoff teams in the AL, then the interesting question becomes whether winning the AL East is a good idea or not. New York and Boston are currently slugging it out for the division title, but the loser is basically guaranteed the wild card spot, and so all they’re really playing for is home field advantage and the right to play the division winner with the lesser record in the first round.
One Night Only: Game Previews for August 23rd
August 23, 2011
What Matt Cain would look like with just a single, metal leg. And no head. Or arms.
Featured Game
San Diego (6) at San Francisco (3) | 22:15 ET
• Matt Cain has continued his trend this year of inducing lower-than-average BABIPs (.267) and HR/FBs (3.6%).
• He’s also, this season, posting what would be a career best strikeout differential (i.e. K%-BB%) of 13.8%.
• So, that’s in terms of Matt Cain.
• In terms of the Giants, who’re a game behind Arizona now, here’re their playoffs odds per Cool Standings and Our Mortal Enemy, respectively: 38.8% and 77.4%.
• And here are their odds per my wife, who’s watched precisely three innings of baseball this year: 47.0%.
MLB.TV Audio Feed: Giants Radio.
Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.8.
The following Game Scores include the new and improved playoff-odds adjustment, which you can learn about in your brain by clicking here.
The Rise and Fall of Third Basemen
by Eno Sarris
August 23, 2011
Offense is down around baseball, but the hot corner is suffering more than most. Consider this factoid, discovered in the process of deciding whether or not the Cubs should pick up the $16 million option on Aramis Ramirez: Shortstops are hitting .259/.312/.369 so far this year — and third basemen aren’t much better (.257/.317/.382). What gives?
Evaluating Pitchers as a Concept: Average, Replacement Level, or Just Totals?
Don’t read further until you’ve already participated in this thought-exercise Cy Young poll.
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The intent of this poll was to determine how the Fangraphs readers evaluated pitchers with different amounts of innings pitched. Basically, how does a reader balance better rate stats with lesser playing time stats?
The Pitcher X that all other pitchers were being compared to had a 13-4 W/L record, 2.00 ERA, and 153 IP. The league average pitcher has a 4.00 ERA. (You can presume that all the other missing stats would be consistent with that kind of W/L and ERA record.)