Archive for November, 2013

The Predictive Power of AFL Batting Stats: A Partial Study

Despite the fact that they are generally cited as probably providing little in the way of predictive power, the batting lines of prospects in the Arizona Fall League are also frequently cited by baseball writers in discussions of those same prospects. Nor is this entirely surprising: one wants to make some sort of comment about Kris Bryant, for example, who’s just finished his own AFL season with six home runs and a .727 slugging percentage. Even after noting that he recorded those figures in just 92 plate appearances, one is compelled to suggest that Bryant’s performance was impressive. And it was, certainly, within the context of the 2013 season of the Arizona Fall League.

The present author, attempting to behave somewhat responsibly, has produced statistical reports for the AFL this fall which utilize an offensive metric (called SCOUT+) that combines regressed home-run, walk, and strikeout rates in a FIP-like equation to produce a result not unlike wRC+. By isolating and regressing those metrics (i.e. not BABIP) which become reliable in smaller samples, one reasons, it’s possible to reduce the noise otherwise present in slash lines — and perhaps to better identify how performances from the AFL might inform future major-league production.

“How successful is this (theoretically) more responsible and (definitely) more nerdy attempt to measure AFL production, to the extent that it might hold within it some manner of predictive power?” one might, perhaps already has, wondered. “Not very,” appears to be the answer.

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Q&A: Michael Girsch, St. Louis Cardinals Assistant General Manager

The St. Louis Cardinals have a well-earned reputation as one of the best organizations in baseball. From scouting to player development to the Win column, they excel in all areas. The people putting the pieces together are a big reason why.

Michael Girsch, the club’s assistant general manager, is part of that brain trust. Working under GM John Mozeliak, Girsch is a perfect fit for a front office that integrates analytics into The Cardinal Way. The 37-year-old has a math degree from Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Read the rest of this entry »


Ian Kinsler as Shane Victorino

Today, there’s a lot of talk about Ian Kinsler’s decline. He just finished his age-31 season, and his power seems to be disappearing before our eyes. His ISOs over the last three years: .223/.166./.136, and that’s with playing half his games in Texas. There are signs that he might be slowing down too, as he was just 15 for 26 in stolen base attempts, not anywhere near his career 84% success rate heading into 2013.

Kinsler was still a reasonably productive player last year, but as a right-handed hitter who does most of his damage against lefties, a continuation of these trends might lead to Kinsler ending up as a very expensive platoon player in a couple of years. If the power starting to erode, or was a product of Texas’ ballpark, then Kinsler’s future value is going to depend on his baserunning and defense, both things we expect to evaporate as a player gets into his thirties.

Still, I can’t help but feel like I heard all these same arguments last year when the Red Sox signed Shane Victorino to a three year, $39 million contract. Because Victorino’s 2012 and Kinsler’s 2013 look pretty darn similar.

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Eno Sarris Baseball Chat — 11/21/13

11:42
Eno Sarris: See you at the top of the hour

11:59
Eno Sarris: Lyrics of the day are from a song dedicated to the simulations being run on the Rangers and Tigers right now

And I know I can leave in the night
Just a moment in time, a moment in time
Don’t be scared of what you find
In the night

11:59
Comment From Trey
Please justify the Reds signing of Skip Schumaker with something other than he can play multiple positions (but not well)…and why two years?

12:00
Eno Sarris: I… I can’t. Well… it’s cheap! And he’s got a glove. I suppose it gives them leverage perhaps in negotiations: we HAVE a second baseman to backup Phillips, we don’t need a second baseman back. Or Skip is the backup plan to Billy Ham at second base…

12:00
Comment From Jacque
Thanks for the chat despite the busy day you got going on.

12:01
Eno Sarris: Oh man I want to write about three posts right now. Going to write YET ANOTHER post about THE TRADE.

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Effectively Wild Episode 334: The Fielder-Kinsler Trade/Australia’s Asia Series Cinderella Story

Ben and Sam discuss the Ian Kinsler-Prince Fielder trade, then talk to Baseball South Australia’s Drew Samuelson about the incredible Canberra Cavalry.


Rangers Move Pieces Around; Outcome To Be Determined

The Rangers traded Ian Kinsler for Prince Fielder. You know this already. I’ve already written a post about this trade, in fact, detailing why I love this deal for the Tigers. If baseball trading were a zero sum game, this would mean that I hate this move for the Rangers, since a big win would have to be offset by a big loss on the other side. But baseball trades are not a zero sum game. There are mutually beneficial trades. The Rangers are now hoping this is one of those deals where both sides get better.

The Rangers had to move a middle infielder. They couldn’t go into 2014 with Jurickson Profar as a super utility guy behind Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler again. They had three starting middle infielders, and Kinsler wasn’t interested in becoming a starting first baseman, so shifting him over to make room for Profar probably wasn’t an option. Someone had to go.

So, in that sense, this deal is not quite as straight forward as it is from the Tigers perspective. Detroit turned a +3 WAR player into a +3 WAR player and saved a bunch of money in the process. For the Rangers, though, the context is the reason the deal got done, and simply comparing the value of the player going out with the value of the player coming in doesn’t work. This deal was made because of the other players on the roster, the ones not getting traded. So let’s try and sort this all out.

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Tigers Exchange Albatross For Good Player, Get Even Better

(I decided to break this deal down in two separate posts, because there are too many angles to fit it all into one. Texas fans, we’ll talk about this deal from the Rangers perspective in a separate article.)

The Detroit Tigers were a very good baseball team, but with Omar Infante heading for free agency and too much money committed to other players to keep him around, they had a hole at second base. They also had too many designated hitters, with Victor Martinez’s presence forcing both Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera to play the field even when they really couldn’t. With Cabrera’s body breaking down in September, it became pretty clear that something had to give, and an obvious solution was moving one of their DHs could open up some money for them to fill their second base hole.

Instead of making a series of smaller transactions that accomplished that goal, the Tigers instead just found a way to directly exchange Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler, filling their hole at second base, freeing up their DH logjam, and saving enough money to potentially keep the rest of their core in tact. This is a pretty fantastic start to the off-season for Dave Dombrowski.

Before we get too much further into the commentary, let’s break down the specifics of what swapping Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler actually works out to.

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Fielder, Kinsler Involved In Blockbuster Trade

This evening, Jon Heyman broke the story that the Detroit Tigers are on the verge of sending Prince Fielder to the Texas Rangers for Ian Kinsler. We don’t have all of the details yet, so there could be more to it, but at the very least, it is a very, very interesting trade. Dave Cameron will have more on this later, but let’s take a brief look now, shall we?

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A-Rod Storms Out Of Arbitration, But Relief In Court Unlikely

Alex Rodriguez stormed out of the arbitration hearing today on his appeal of Major League Baseball’s 211-game suspension after the arbitrator, Frederic Horowitz, denied Rodriguez’s request to call Commissioner Bud Selig as a witnesses.

Rodriguez’s outburst is just the latest twist in the on-going drama between him and MLB. And it suggests that Rodriguez and his attorneys believe that the arbitrator will uphold the suspension, at least for some number of games. But Rodriguez is unlikely to get the help he wants from a court — to either stop the arbitration or overturn Horowitz’s final ruling.

Let’s review how we got here:

MLB suspended Rodriguez on August 5 for violations of the the Collective Bargaining Agreement and Joint Drug Agreement between MLB and the Players’ Association (or MLBPA). MLB charged Rodriguez with using banned substances over a period of years and with attempting to obstruct MLB’s investigation. MLB suspended Rodriguez for the remainder of the 2013 season and all of the 2014 season, which amounted to 211 games.

Rodriguez immediately appealed his suspension to baseball’s arbitrator. That gave Rodriguez the right to continue playing baseball until the arbitrator issued his final decision.

The hearing on Rodriguez’s appeal got under way on September 30 at MLB’s offices in New York. Even though Rodriguez is, essentially, the complainant — as he is challenging the commissioner’s suspension — MLB has the burden to prove that Rodriguez used substances banned by the JDA and impeded the investigation, and that the 211-game suspension was justified.

Over the course of several weeks, MLB put on the testimony of Anthony Bosch, the owner of the now-shuttered Biogenesis Clinic; Dan Mullins, MLB’s lead investigator, and Rob Manfred, MLB’s Chief Operating Officer. Rodriguez’s lawyers had the opportunity to cross-examine these witnesses and did so. There were charges and counter-charges of secret meetings, witness tampering, purchasing stolen documents and more. The appeal hearing was adjourned in mid-October, and set to resume on November 18. In early November, the New York Times detailed the aggressive tactics used by both sides during MLB’s investigation and Rodriguez’s appeal in this story.

A few days after the Times story, Rodriguez sued MLB in New York state court for interfering with his contract with the Yankees and with other business relationships. Rodriguez accused MLB of doing everything in its power (and some things beyond its power) to paint him as the poster boy for the steroid era, to push him out of baseball and ruin his reputation. The complaint — which you can read here — previewed Rodriguez’s attack on MLB’s tactics and the appeal process, and tried to lay the groundwork for Rodriguez to overturn the arbitrator’s final ruling. But Rodriguez didn’t ask the state court to stop the appeal hearing.

MLB removed Rodriguez’s complaint to federal court on the theory that Rodriguez’s allegations and his claims are governed by the CBA and JDA, and thus pre-empted by federal labor law. MLB then filed a motion to dismiss Rodriguez’s complaint on the same grounds (copy here). MLB also argued that Rodriguez had failed to “exhaust his remedies” by filing a lawsuit before the end of the appeal hearing. Rodriguez, for his part, filed a motion to remand the case back to state court (copy here). The federal judge presiding over the case — Judge Lorna A. Schofield of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York — has not yet ruled on these motions.

Which brings us to today’s developments.

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Free Agent Depth Charts

A few weeks ago, we provided some links to a few different custom leaderboards, which allow you to sort and compare free agents to your hearts content. These are super useful for seeing how various players on the open market have done in the past, but the leaderboards don’t contain future projections, which is mostly what we care about when discussing what kind of contracts a player is going to sign or whether a team should pursue one free agent over another.

So, today, I’m going to let you in on a little secret that you may or may not have noticed: we now have a free agent depth chart, complete with 2014 Steamer Projection data, so you can compare available free agents at each position to each other based on their forecasts for next season. These depth charts reveal some pretty fun facts, so let’s walk through a few of them and see why I’m going to be using this page regularly.

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