A while ago Tango wrote about the optimistic fan projections and I followed it up with a look at the fans’ playing time projections. I think the fan projections are very interesting and I wanted to look at another aspect before the season started. I wanted to see, broadly, how the fans’ projections compared with a computer-based system, like CHONE.

Here I plotted the FANS WAR projection versus CHONE WAR projection for each hitter with more than 15 fan projections. I use CHONE as the x-axis – not to say that I think it is the “independent” or “correct” variable, but just because one of them had to go on the x-axis. The red line is NOT the best fit line, but rather the y=x line. If the FANS and CHONE projected exactly the same values everything would fall along the line. Dots above the line are players whose FANS projection is higher and those below whose CHONE projection is higher. I added the names of a couple outlying points.

First off, there is a very strong positive relationship between the two projections: generally, players with a good FANS projection also have a good CHONE, and those with a poor projection of one have a poor one of the other. Not surprising, but reassuring to see.

Next, CHONE is more pessimistic than the FANS (or the FANS are optimistic). Most of the points fall above the line (FANS project higher WAR than CHONE). Interestingly, though, the FANS optimism (or CHONE pessimism) increases for better players. For below-average players (zero- to two-win players) there are a points below and above the line. But as you move up or right on the graph, almost all the players are above the line. The equation of best-fit line, FANS = 0.17 + 1.08*CHONE, bears this out. Since the slope is greater than one high-WAR players will have the greatest difference between FAN and CHONE projections. So the FANS optimism, relative to CHONE, is seen most in the best players.

Finally, I highlighted a couple outliers. The FANS really like Ian Desmond, Elvis Andrus and Evan Longoria compared to CHONE. The difference in each case is largely driven by a difference in defensive projection: the FANS think Andrus and Longoria will be elite defenders, CHONE thinks they will be just good; and the FANS think Desmond will be an average defensive shortstop, but CHONE thinks he will be quite poor. There were two players that CHONE liked considerably more than the FANS: CHONE likes Yuniesky Betancourt to be merely replacement level, while the FANS think he will be about a game worse; and CHONE sees Melky Cabrera as a three-win player while the FANS see him as a 1.5-win player. Finally I noted Troy Tulowitzki since he is one of the few superstars projected higher by CHONE than FANS. Again the difference is driven by defense. CHONE likes him to be an elite defender, while the FANS just a good defender.

Entering the Spring Training one of the more interesting narratives, on the face of it, was the battle between Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain for the Yankees’ fifth starter job. But all indications were that the battle was pro forma, and the job was effectively Hughes’s to lose. So yesterday’s announcement that Hughes had, in fact, won the job did not take many Yankee watchers by too much surprise. Still this leaves an interesting question: What happens to Chamberlain?

It seems the three most realistic options are: send him to AAA to work as a starter and be ready for a call up when a Yankee starter goes down with an injury; go to the pen as a long reliever so a potential transition back to the rotation is easier; or go to the pen as the 8th inning setup man to Mariano Rivera. Joe Girardi announced that Chamberlain will next pitch on Saturday and go just one inning. I am not sure how much stock one should put in that, but if anything that would indicate they are gearing Chamberlain up for option number three.

I think putting Chamberlian in the 8th inning role would be a mistake. As Joe wrote about yesterday, young pitchers need time to develop as a starter — to work on their command, secondary offerings and pacing. Chamberlain has not had that much time to work on those things as a starter, and the time as a starter has been interspersed with time in the pen. Still, Chamberlain has shown he can handle starting pitching. As a starter he has 92 innings in the minors with a FIP of 2.03, and in the majors he has 222 innings as a starter with an xFIP of 4.22.

Starters are much more valuable than relievers (last year’s most valuable reliever, Jonathan Broxton, was worth about as much as Nick Blackburn, Dallas Braden, John Danks or Brian Bannister). So if the Yankees want to get the most value out of Chamberlain — and based on the strict adherence to the “Joba Rules” it seems like they do — I think they would be wise to send him to AAA to keep working as a starter. Long term this helps his development as a stater and even short term it gives the Yankees a very good option when one of their starters goes down with an injury.

A couple weeks ago Dave C. — in the followup to his call for questions — talked the effect one teammate can have on the value or performance of another. The idea being if the skill sets of players A and B are complementary maybe the value of player A and B together could be greater than the value of player A alone plus the value of player B alone. The value of a player could be context dependent. Similarly the value of a player could change based on his home park.

Some examples: the Seattle’s big ball park and good outfield defenders make fly-ball pitchers not as much of a liability for them as they would be for the average team; Cleveland’s infield defense is even more important to them than to an average team because of their ground-ball heavy rotation; ground-ball pitchers are worth even more to the Colorado Rockies because of their home park; and, most importantly, how Carson tried to construct his Rob Neyer-league team around the peculiarities of circa-1915 Fenway (not that it has worked out for him).

In each case you have a synergy in which the value of a player is enhanced by the context (his teammates or ballpark) he plays in. What got me thinking about this was yesterday’s current talent post about the Reds, where it seems there might be a synergy in the opposite direction. They Reds play in a tiny park that inflates home run rates by 12%, one of the highest in the league. In such a context fly-ball pitchers would be even worse than in an average context. But the Reds’s rotation is stocked with such pitchers. Aaron Harang and Micah Owings are extreme fly-ball pitchers, while Johnny Cueto and Bronson Arroyo have above-average fly-ball rates (although Arroyo was a little better last year). Homer Bailey has about average fly-ball rates. These fly-ball pitchers would be more valuable to the average team than they are to Cincinnati because of the additional HRs they should give up on their fly balls there.

Obviously you want the most talented players on your team and these synergistic concerns should be secondary, but it would be interesting to see whether one could quantify their effect. How many additional runs is each Harang fly ball worth in Cincinnati compared to if he were playing in the average ball park, or better yet in Trop in front of a Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton?

As Dave C. noted we are getting to the teams that have a shot at sneaking into the playoffs if a number of things break their way. The Tigers are such a team. With their talent, and with the benefit of playing in the AL Central, they have a non-negligible chance at post-season play. That is not say they should be considered the favorites in their division. In fact, most projection systems see them as a sub-80 win team and the third best, if not worse, team in the division.

On the position player side they have one true superstar in Miguel Cabrera, who, at 26, is an amazing player — producing five-plus-win seasons in four of the past five years. After that, though, the position player talent on the team is relatively poor. CHONE sees Johnny Damon as the best position player after Cabrera, which is not a ringing endorsement. Joining Damon on the wrong side of thirty in the Tigers’ starting lineup are Gerald Laird, Brandon Inge, Adam Everett, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen. These five guys, over half of the Tigers’ starting lineup, are not only declining but probably at best slightly above-average and, more likely, slightly below-average starters.

The starting lineup rounds out with two guys who have never had major league at-bats, Austin Jackson and Scott Sizemore. It is nice to have this young, cost-controlled talent, but that is for the next post on future talent; here, we are looking at current talent and, again, these guys are probably below-average major leaguers at this point. On a positive note, the Tigers have a solid fourth outfielder in Ryan Raburn, which is important with Damon and Ordonez in the starting lineup.

The rotation is probably a little better. Justin Verlander broke out in a big way last year and is a legitimate number-one starter. After that, Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello are talented young pitchers who would be assets in most rotations. But each is not without concerns, Scherzer for his health and Porcello for the likelihood of BABIP-based regression. And although only the best teams can boast good pitchers one-to-five, the bottom two-fifths of the Tigers’s rotation — two of Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis, Nate Robertson and Eddie Bonine — seems particularly suspect.

There is talent on the team for sure — Verlander and Cabrera are superstars — but the supporting cast has too many below-average players. The position players particularly are a mix of guys either whose peaks are a little too far off in the future or too far removed in the past — or guys who never had much a peak to begin with. As I said at the beginning, it is a team that should win around 80 games and will only make the playoffs if things break right.

I have finally joined the 2008 and got on Twitter. I cannot promise anything great from my feed, but I like how easy it is to follow baseball news and read other analysts’ passing thoughts. It has already paid off in the form of the idea for this post. This morning Sky Kalkman tweeted:

Andy Sonnanstine: trade bait, rotation candidate, bullpen filler, or AAA veteran?

I had sort of forgotten about Andy Sonnanstine, but the tweet reminded me what an interesting pitcher he is. Sonnanstine was worth over 3.5 wins for the Rays in 2008, but then things fell apart in 2009. Part of that was bad luck on his BABIP and HR/FB, but part of it was also based on his performance. Sonnanstine doesn’t strike out many batters or get that many ground balls, so he needs to have a great walk rate to succeed. That is what he did in 2008 — walking just 1.7 — but in 2009 it increased to 3.0, erasing much of his value.

The increase of walks was not from missing the strike zone — his pitches were in the zone just as much — but, rather, from batters swinging less often at his out-of-zone pitches. Here are those numbers by pitch type:

             O-swing        O-contact
           2008   2009     2008   2009
Fastball   0.23   0.23     0.83   0.80
Cutter     0.22   0.19     0.73   0.72
Slider     0.40   0.35     0.55   0.69
Curve      0.29   0.26     0.57   0.86

The rates on his fastball were essentially the same, but for his cutter, slider and curve the O-Swing rates were way down. This turned many more plate appearances into walks. Another big problem was that the O-Contact rate on his slider and curve were way up, although this was not responsible for the increase in walks it does show these pitches were easier to hit.

Interestingly Sonnanstine also threw his cutter much more often in 2009. According to my pitch classifications, it went from 28% of the time in 2008 to 44% in 2009. Mostly this change came at the expense of his fastball which went from 35% to 24%. It could be that hitters do better on the cutter after seeing it more often or because they are expecting it. But I do not see evidence for this on an at-bat level. That is there was no trend for batters to do any better on the second or third cutter they see in an at-bat than the first cutter they see in at-bats against Sonnanstine.

Getting back to Sky’s question, I think I would take a little from column a, a little from column b and a little from column c. That is start him off in the pen as a long reliever — since the Rays have five better starting options — but with the eye to trading him if anything of value comes along or moving him to the rotation if needed. He has a relatively small platoon split, doing fairly well against LHBs, so deploying him as a long reliever would be a nice way to leverage that talent. Also his very deep repertoire of pitches plays well as a long reliever where he might have to face batters multiple times. These skills also mean he might be better suited as a starter if he can get things back together, which might mean throwing his fastball a little more often.

Earlier today the Nationals announced that they have unconditionally released Elijah Dukes. Instantly speculation arouse as to whether the release was due to an another off-field incident, but the Nats told Ben Goessling that it was “strictly a baseball decision” and news of no such incident has emerged. Still you have to think that Dukes’s history of off-the-field issues played some part in the release. Eitherway it looks like the Nationals will go with some combination of Justin Maxwell, Mike Morse and Willie Harris in right. And, because of his defensive abilities, Harris probably does not represent much of a downgrade from Dukes, so the move will most likely not have much affect on the team’s outlook for 2010.

Dukes came over to Washington before the 2008 season and went gangbusters. He was worth nearly three wins in just over 300 PAs by hitting a 135 RC+ with good defense in right. But in 2009 everything fell apart: his walk numbers dipped (but were still good), his power fell off and his defense took a hit. As a result he played below replacement level.

At just 25, and with his minor league numbers and good 2008, it entirely possible that 2009 was just a hiccup and that Dukes could be on his way to a solid career as a Major League outfielder. So it is surprising that the Nationals, who are definitely not in win-it-now mode, do not take more of a chance on Dukes. Plus in spite of his poor 2009 and history of off-the-field problems Dukes would seem have at least some trade value, but Ben Goessling tweeted that Rizzo could not find any takers on for a potential Dukes trade.

The release is another twist in the career of a guy who has worlds of ability, and lately, at least, had seemed to be keeping himself out of trouble. Still he will most likely not be out of a job for long as his youth, cheapness and potential are just too much to be passed up all 29 other teams.

In terms current talent — ability to win games and potentially reach the playoffs in 2010 and 2011, irrespective of contract situation — the Houston Astros rank in the bottom fifth. The FANS project them to win just 72 games, and other projection systems, CHONE, THT and CAIRO, similarly see them as a low-70s team, if not worse.

The talent on the current roster is underwhelming. There are probably only four players who can be considered solidly above average (projected to be worth over 2.5 wins): Lance Berkman, Hunter Pence, Roy Oswalt and Wandy Rodriguez. Berkman and Oswalt, 34 and 32, respectively, almost assuredly have their best years behind them and are more likely three- or four-win rather than five- or six-win players. Also Berkman might not even be ready for opening day, with upcoming surgery to remove loose particles from his knee. Pence is a good, three-win corner outfielder. Rodriguez had a great 2009 with a sub-four FIP and over 200 innings pitched. He is arguably the team’s best player and a four-win season is with in the realm of possibility. These four guys are good players, but none is a true superstar, and collectively they form too small a core of good players.

After those four players, Carlos Lee and Michael Bourn are both projected at about two wins each by CHONE, with the FANS a little more optimistic. With Pence they form an okay outfield. But after that there is little talent on the roster. Joining Berkman in the infield is all-glove, no-bat Pedro Feliz; not-much bat, not-much glove Kaz Matsui; and Tommy Manzella, who is projected to play just below replacement level. If Berkman misses some time he will be replaced by another near-replacement leveler Chris Shelton.

The back three-fifths of the rotation is slightly more inspiring. After Rodriguez and Oswalt the Astros will go with Brett Myers and two of Bud Norris, Brian Moehler and Felipe Paulino. As Carson pointed out Paulino and Norris pitched fairly well last year, with xFIPs of 4.10 and 4.38, respectively, and even with likely regression, they would form a not terrible back end of a rotation. But the Astros might go with Moehler, who is likely a worse pitcher. The bullpen, led by Brandon Lyon and Matt Lindstrom, and bench are poor.

This is a team with just very little talent. The team lacks a top-tier superstar, has few solidly above average players, and is going to start too many at- or near-replacement-level players in 2010. There are few teams, maybe just one or two, with worse talent or a smaller chance at reaching the playoffs in 2010. And the talent on the team in the second half of 2010 and 2011 could be even worse as a trade of Oswalt or Berkman, or both, is not a bad idea – except for the meddling owner may not allow it.

Wrapping up my series on first-pitch aggressiveness I am ready to address the second question I put froward in Monday’s post: to see whether it first-pitch aggressiveness against good pitchers pays off. Before I do that, though, I want to address a suggestion from the comments section of Monday’s post who wanted to see Monday’s chart broken up by batter quality.

I took Tango’s suggestion:

Right, what the others have been saying. Chipper is a career .400 (wOBA) hitter. I’d rather see five charts with the breakdown at those levels:
.380+ hitters
.350-.380
.320-.350
.290-.320
under .290

Here are the z-swing rates for these five groups of batters for first pitches and subsequent pitches by pitcher xFIP. The color of the line indicates the group with the lightest gray the worst hitters and black the best. The dotted lines are for first pitches and solid for all others.

Sorry that the graph is a little cluttered, but that is the point. There is noclear relationship, if I had included the standard errors for these lines the five first-pitch ones would overlap completely and the five subsequent-pitches ones would as well. All five groups have pretty much the same swing rates and no clear trend depending on the xFIP of the opposing pitcher. So Jones’s first-pitch aggressiveness against good pitchers is unique compared to not only the average batter, but also compared to his peer group of very good batters too.

Ok now we can turn our attention to how this behavior affects the result of an at-bat. I break at-bats into one of four groups: those with first pitches in the zone and swung at, in the zone and taken, out of the zone and swung at, and out of the zone and taken. For each group I calculate the wOBA of the at-bat and plot against the pitcher’s xFIP. Color indicates whether the pitch was in the zone, black in the zone and red out. Line style whether the pitch was swung at, solid swung at and dotted taken.

First look at the first pitches out of the zone (red). There is a huge difference, no matter at the quality of the pitcher, in the result of at-bats when these pitches are swung at or taken. The difference between starting an at-bat 1-0 versus out-of-zone contact or starting 0-1 is great, even against poor pitchers. I think this goes a long way in explaining batter’s low swing rates on first pitches. Batters cannot tell for sure whether the pitch will be in the zone, and better to not swing.

On first pitches in the zone there is not quite as much difference, but the size of the difference expands as the pitcher gets better. So not swinging at a first pitch in the zone against a good pitcher results in a great deficit (versus swinging at it) than not swinging at a first pitch in the zone against a poor pitcher. This would suggest that swinging at first pitches more often against good pitchers is a good idea. But only if you have a good idea whether the ball will be in the zone or not, because the disadvantage of swinging at a first pitch out of the zone is just so great.

I think this is the reason Jones is well poised to exploit this difference and swing so often on first pitches against better pitchers. Few batters have his ability to swing at balls in the zone and not those out of the zone.

Last week I looked at Chipper Jones’s first-pitch aggressiveness. This aggressiveness is a little surprising because Jones has extraordinary plate discipline, with more walks than strikeouts in his career. Jones explained it as a way to not get behind good pitchers. It turned out this was the correct, as Jones swung more often against first pitches in the zone from low-xFIP pitchers than high-xFIP pitchers. On subsequent pitches in the zone this relationship was lost and he swung at a relatively constant rate.

This result led to a number of natural questions the two most pressing: how does this compare to other hitters and how much of a role does it play in Jones’s success?

Here I address the first question. I repeated the graph from Thursday for all batters rather than just for Jones. That is, I looked at the Z-Swing rate (swings at pitches in the zone) for first pitches and subsequent pitches based on the pitcher’s xFIP. The curves are below with standard errors indicated. For comparison, I added Jones’s curves as dotted lines but omitted his standard errors to keep the graph from being too cluttered.

There is a striking difference. The average hitter swings much less often at first pitches than all others, but with no discernible trend based on the quality of the pitcher. This is very different from Jones’s first-pitch curve, which drops off rapidly as the pitcher xFIP increases. On subsequent pitches, the average hitter’s swing rate increases compared to his first-pitch rate, but again has little relationship with the xFIP of the pitcher. Here, Jones is not different than average.

So it looks like the average batter is not making the same effort as Jones to not get behind the best pitchers. This is surprising. I thought we would have seen this trend — just to a lesser extent — with all hitters, but that is not the case. Tomorrow I will look at the effect this has on at-bat results.

Yesterday, I looked at an exchange between Jon Sciambi and Chipper Jones concerning how often the latter swings at first pitches. Some commenters bristled at the idea of a broadcaster giving hitting advice to Chipper Jones. I don’t disagree with that take That was never Sciambi’s intention, and, anyway, what I found interesting about the interaction was more the idea that, when a player is confronted with these new metrics – especially a player as good as Jones – there is the possibility that his response can give us deeper insights into the game. Again quoting Jones’s response to ‘Duk:

“There are certain pitchers, quite frankly, that you can’t get behind,” Jones said. “You want to be aggressive and the first hittable fastball that you get is the pitch you want to put in play. Because they’ll bury you if they get ahead of you. You can’t let them do that.

So instead of saying, “He is swinging too often at the first pitch,” we can say, “Huh, maybe this is part of the reason for his success.” This take was well articulated by Tangotiger over at The Book Blog.

Taking that tack we can look at how Jones approaches at-bats against different pitchers. Here I looked at the rate Jones swings at pitches in the zone separated out as first pitches and all others based on the opposing pitcher’s xFIP. Standard errors of the fit curves are indicated.

The results are just as Jones said; against pitchers with a low xFIP, presumably the certain pitcher he was referring to, he is just as likely to swing at a first pitch in the zone as he is to swing at subsequent pitches in the zone. But against average-or-poor pitchers he swings much less often at first pitches in the zone than subsequent pitches in the zone. So Jones’s aggressiveness on first pitches is seen just against better pitchers.

The obvious question is the extent to which other hitters show this same trend, and, if they don’t, how much it factors into Jones’s success. More generally, it raises questions about how hitters respond differently when facing good pitchers. The converse, how pitchers pitch differently to the good hitters, has been examined, but I am not aware of studies on this.