Full disclosure: I planned on scribbling a post out concerning the Braves’ National League East chances before Tommy Bennett’s beard stole my thought and wrote its own piece on the matter. Since Bennett is smarter and more poignant, I switched my style up and will instead focus on the Braves’ reliance on medical tape.

The two feelings Bobby Cox is most familiar with are those of a crimson-flushed face and the sweetness of a baseball victory. Cox is the all-time leader in managerial ejections and fourth in managerial victories. Some would suggest Cox’s face should blush at the reality of the Braves’ run of excellence that included 14 straight division titles, 5 National League pennants, and a World Series victory. One hit in fourteen tries? Bobby Cox has benched players for less.

Such a streak is one we may never see again. Something else we may never see again after this season is Cox managing a baseball team. Joe Torre’s biggest nemesis during the 1990s has announced his intentions to retire from managing following the season. From which, Cox will ostensibly move into a comfy consulting job with the Braves. The retirement party might not take place until late October if the Braves live up to their potential, or perhaps more appropriately, stay healthy.

Perception suggests that Atlanta is dependent on injured players to the level of which T-Pain is tied to his autotuner. But maybe that’s off. After all, Billy Wagner missed most of 2009 and Takashi Saito’s elbow is a science fair project gone mundane, but the two relievers they are replacing (Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez) combined to miss most of three seasons over the last two years. Other key players like Troy Glaus, Tim Hudson and Chipper Jones are guys awfully familiar with their health insurance plans too.

The Braves have roughly $34M tied into those five, so serious time on the disabled list would be an issue beyond simply losing their best players. They are no strangers to this phenomenon however. Beyond the Boxscore compiled the seasons with the most salary lost by time spent on the DL and Atlanta’s 2008 season ranked third while their 2006 season ranked nineteenth.

CHONE still has the Braves edging the competition in the N.L. East and doing so despite modest playing time projections. Chipper is projected at 531 plate appearances (his previous three-year low is 534); Glaus at 462 (32, 637, and 456 since 2007); Wagner at 37 innings; Saito at 51; and Tim Hudson at 114. Hard to claim those are unreasonable, if anything they might be too conservative.

When it does come for Cox to walk away, there’s a chance the wheelchair in the clubhouse isn’t for him. There’s also a chance the division title crown is.

With no disrespect to Angel Guzman (and best of wishes to him on a speedy recovery and return to pitching), the most significant injury endured this spring has to be Russell Martin’s groin pull. The initial diagnosis is that Martin will miss a month and some change, casting doubt on being the Dodgers’ opening day catcher.

Not to get all poetic and artsy here, but … groin pulls are bad. Just read the Rotowire excerpt about Torii Hunter in which he hears “good news” about a “popping sound” stemming from the groin area and try to not wince. Especially for men who make their living off being able to bend and squat for hours at a time. Allow me to defer to those more qualified on what this injury could mean for Martin’s long-term health, and instead look at what this means for the Dodgers.

For one, those attending the Dodgers’ spring games will mostly see Brad Ausmus or A.J. Ellis behind the dish. Dave Cameron discussed Ellis here. The book on Ellis is simple: He walks quite a bit, catches, and offers little else in the way of baseball skills. The book on Ausmus is the Old Testament. He oozes seniority, so he’s Joe Torre’s new Joe Girardi. This duo is unexciting and rather uninspiring. The good news though, is that Martin missing a few games really isn’t a big deal.

That’s not to comment on the potential for re-irritating the injury down the road, just the initial timetable, and it’s not to say this is good news. It’s just not a huge deal. Say Martin misses 10 games to start the season. That’s something like 35-40 plate appearances. CHONE has Martin contributing 8 runs over 596 plate appearances, or 0.013 runs per plate appearance. Times 35, that’s a little under a half a run. That’s it over a 10 game stretch.

You have to factor in Ellis and Ausmus’ lack of contributions too and there’s the whole defensive aspect that I’m blatantly ignoring, but the reality is that Martin missing 10 games doesn’t change the landscape of the division much, if at all.

Part one dissected the claim and found that Davis attempting enough steals to successfully swipe 80 was improbable due to a number of factors. In part two, let’s focus more on the analytical side. I’m going to shamelessly steal an idea from Jeff Sullivan, but first some disclaimers and notes.

This process is going to blanket all steals attempts as being in equal in leverage. This is obviously untrue and affects how baserunners would approach certain scenarios. Certainly Davis is going to be more focused in and less willing to risk a caught stealing in the ninth inning of a tied game instead of the third inning when the A’s are up by four. Context is important, but it’s just not something I can accurately adjust for here.

Let’s assume the league run environment is around 4.5. As Sullivan notes, that makes the run value of a stolen base roughly 0.19 runs and a caught stealing is worth approximately -0.45 runs. One failure is worth two-and-a-third successes in such an environment.

The above chart details the minimum amount of attempts needed at various success rates to reach 80 steals. The best case scenario is that Davis turns into one of the most efficient basestealers in league history and needs fewer than 100 steals to rack up 80. The worst? Davis is caught left and right, but still allowed more than the 120 attempts necessitated by his performance to reach 80. Let’s turn these numbers into run values.

The same overlay is in effect here. The colored cells represent the point in which Davis would have at least 80 steals. The green means positive, the red means negative; or, in other words, not worthwhile to give Davis the green light to such an excessive degree. To surmise both parts: Davis is highly unlikely to get 80, but barring a total decay of his stealing skills, he’d probably make it worth the A’s time by adding a few runs.

The real intriguing part of the chart is look at the contrast between high success rates with moderate attempts and moderate success rates and higher attempts. Stealing bases isn’t always about volume. Perhaps the real goal Henderson should set for Davis isn’t 80 steals, but an 80% success rate.

Rickey Henderson is not one for conservative claims. Not during his playing career and certainly not now. Henderson, working as Oakland’s baserunning instructor, recently said that Rajai Davis could steal 80 bases. It’s been a while since one player stole that many bases on his own throughout a season. Jacoby Ellsbury took 70 last year, Jose Reyes grabbed 78 in 2007, Scott Podsednik hit 70 during 2004, Tony Womack swiped 72 in 1999, Brian Hunter and Kenny Lofton stole 74 and 75 in 1997 and 1996, and so on. The last time someone took at least 80 bases was 1988, when Vince Coleman lead the National League with 81 and that Henderson guy took 93 in the American League.

Davis’ career high in steals is 41 and he’s stolen 93 bases in 333 career games. He’s been caught 27 times, giving him a 78% success rate. That means Davis would need to attempt roughly 103 steals, if and only if, it is to be assumed that his success rate would remain static to his career rate. The odds of that occurring are highly unlikely. Yes, it’s just a throwaway spring quote meant to inspire confidence in a player, and yes, I’m totally going to overanalyze it.

Let’s start with the historic data. Since 1961 (or Baseball-Reference’s “Expansion Era” filter) there have been 18 players who successfully stole 80 bases. They averaged an 83% success rate with the lowest individual success rate belonging to Omar Moreno (74.4%). This makes sense, both intuitively and numerically. Managers are not going to allow wishy-washy basestealers to attempt upwards of 100 grabs a year if it means being thrown out 30 or more times. For now, let’s say Davis is going to need something like 90-110 steal attempts to make this thing a reality.

There are a few conditions needed to actually steal a base – among which, actually being on base is the most vital and obvious. Davis’ career on-base percentage is .336. If you simply multiply his on-base percentage by his career plate appearances, then divide that number by his steal attempts, then you will find that he’s attempted a steal in roughly 40% of the times he’s reached base throughout his career. But that’s just not true because Davis has been used aggressively as a pinch runner.

Say Davis lives up to his ~.330 projected OBP. That would be pretty low, but not the lowest (or even close to it) in the 80 steals club. Vince Coleman stole at least 80 three times with an OBP of .320 or below; including 1986 when he stole 107 bases despite a .301 OBP. Moreno got on base about 30.6% of the time in 1980, and even Maury Wills only had a .330 OBP when he stole 94 in 1965. It’s doable, certainly, but that means Davis will need even more pinch running appearances and even more plate appearances.

Oakland has a stacked outfield depth chart and he happens to be right-handed, meanwhile they have a switch-hitter (Coco Crisp) and two lefties (Ryan Sweeney & Gabe Gross) also on the depth chart. He’s not starting most days. That didn’t stop Eric Davis (487 PA) or Ron LeFlore (587) from swiping more than 80, but those are the only two players with fewer than 600 plate appearances to do it.

As you can see, the odds are stacked against Rajai. That doesn’t mean the discussion is over though. Check back later for the answer. Mostly for the sake of blowing this totally out of proportion, but also showing something about the relationship between stolen base success rate and runs added.

Buster Olney’s profile of Mariano Rivera in The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty paints him as a quiet soul. He never chose that song so closely associated with his reign of excellence, yet he’s just the type who meticulously shaves his face with the precision of an assassin before taking the field, shedding weakness in those salted and peppered whiskers.

If that seems overdramatic, well, it is. Bear in mind, grizzly ol’ Mariano’s job is to throw a ball at speeds in upwards of the mid-90s a few times every other night while holding a polar demeanor. His allure is entirely dependent on the amount of hype and dramatization one applies to the situation. It’s a rough life, for sure, if one that pays well and has lead to a life of luxury and high-end endorsement deals.

That’s not an insult to Rivera. He does his job better than just about anyone ever has. Sometime down the road, perhaps long down the road, someone will do it better, but for now, Mariano is the high water mark. Using him as such when it comes to reliever evaluations is hardly new. Using him as the only thing that matters when it comes to reliever evaluations is silly. However, there is at least one thing to be gained from Rivera’s career, and that’s this: Phil Hughes’ season was of teeth-rotting quality out of the pen last year.

Hughes as reliever posted some incredible numbers. He struck out a little under a dozen per nine innings, had a 1.40 ERA and 1.83 FIP, struck out 65 batters while allowing a total of 43 baserunners, and did all this in 51-and-a-third innings. A respectable single season sample size for a reliever, albeit one small by regression standards. It’s because of that (and something else coming up in a moment) that makes Hughes’ ascent to Firpo Marberry in 1926 status a bit premature.

Ignoring that Hughes is a starter-turned-reliever with a highly capable atlatl on his right side, he’s also looking for his second straight sub-2 FIP season. And it’s just probable. Remember that foolish idea of comparing a reliever’s ability solely to that of Rivera? Yeah, well put on the dunce cap and follow this moron off the cliff.

When the Yankees turned Rivera into a full-time reliever in 1996, he posted a 1.88 FIP in 107 innings as a set-up man. A year later he became the closer and his FIP shot up to 2.96. Rivera has yet to post a FIP under 2.00 despite coming absurdly close in 2008 (2.03). Rivera has posted nine straight seasons with a FIP under 3. His career high for consecutive seasons with a sub 2.5 FIP is a trick question, because he’s never actually accomplished that feat.

That also means he’s never done back-to-back sub-2 FIP seasons. Only three pitchers with at least 40 relief innings have FIP of 2 or lower in back-to-back seasons. And only Rob Dibble has three consecutive seasons. The others are Octavio Dotel and Eric Gagne (the full list resides after the jump). The most insane number is that we’re talking about 20 seasons worth of data and only 32 occurrences.

Yes, FIP likely underrates Rivera. He does things we can’t quantify. Things like limiting contact, mind control, and possessing spice-richened hair follicles. His job is not always boring, but much like bull fighting; entertainment’s apex is reached only when the matador is on the ropes. That’s not a situation Rivera finds himself in often though and wasn’t one Hughes found in 2009. Hughes almost certainly won’t replicate that success in 2010. Pick any reason as to why. At the end of the day, it’s not just because he pitched worse. Even Rivera couldn’t top the odds.
Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Klaasen has written the most about Hank Blalock this year. In January he wrote:

Hank Blalock: -3 hitting, -2 fielding = 0.3 WAR. Do you really think Blalock’s going to play 150? Six years ago, it seemed like he and Mark Teixeira would be torching the AL West for years to come. Tex is a superstar in pinstripes, while Blalock looks like he’s done. I’d say he’ll be lucky to get a major-league deal, but you never know.

And in February:

Hank Blalock
Career Split: 21.8% (1060 PA v LHP)
Regressed: 15.4%
CHONE projected wOBA: .328
Estimated wOBA vs. RHP: .342
Estimated wOBA vs. LHP: .291

It may seem like Hank Blalock was good just a couple years ago, but it’s really been six. He has even a bigger split than Delgado, but he’s also not as good of a hitter in general. A .342 wOBA part-time DH can be useful, but not often.

With that in mind, here’s the book on Blalock: He’s an above average hitter against right-handed pitching and a sub-par fielder at either corner base with a history of injuries who figures to come pretty darn cheap*. Naturally, the Marlins and Rays are reportedly interested. Since the Marlins still play in the National League, Blalock figures to be under consideration as a first baseman. The Fish’s first base depth chart looks like this:

Gaby Sanchez
Jorge Cantu
Wes Helms
Logan Morrison

Cantu figures to start at third and Morrison is probably going to the minors for a little more seasoning, which leaves Sanchez and Helms as the main competition. That means Sanchez is the Marlins’ first baseman. Here’s where it gets interesting though. If the Marlins really want to maximize on the margins, then adding Blalock and placing him in a platoon with Sanchez could make sense. Minor League Splits has Sanchez with a 1.000 OPS against lefties in 469 at-bats and a .824 OPS in 1,288 at-bats versus righties.

Those splits obviously will not translate on a 1:1 basis to the majors and those numbers are unadjusted and spread across various leagues and hitting environments. The question the Marlins have to answer is this: Does Sanchez have any more room for development? It’s a simple cost-benefit analysis. The cost in adding Blalock is (possibly) negatively affecting Sanchez’ development, while the benefit is helping the overall team dynamic.

Given that the Marlins have already offered Blalock a minor league deal, maybe they’re just trying to get the best of both worlds.

Read the rest of this entry »

On a hypothetical list of achievements that players would like to accomplish on opening day, what is the topper? Is it starting in center field for the Atlanta Braves as a 22-year-old? Or facing the World Series champions on national television. No? Then how about working a 3-1 count in his first Major League at-bat before hitting a rocket the opposite way for his first career hit and home run? Jordan Schafer lived all of it. 11 months later, he’s living off those memories.

Why? Because the dream start quickly gave way to night terrors. Schafer would rack up a total of 195 plate appearances for the Braves. He would make outs in roughly 69% of them. He would pop another homer along the way, but his ISO was a woefully unimpressive and uncharacteristic .084. He did walk a fair amount, nearly 14% of the time, but he also struck out nearly 40% of the time. In fact, he reached base via hit or walk 61 times and fanned 63 times.

Now, that is bad, but it’s fewer than 200 plate appearances as a 22-year-old who had never played in a Triple-A game. 200 plate appearances isn’t much to judge anyone off, especially not players that young trying to adjust to the scene. The problem is that Schafer’s 2009 issues didn’t end there. He went to Triple-A for a handful of games before having season-ending wrist surgery; giving him fewer than 600 plate appearances since the 2007 season ended.

The Braves are pretty stacked in outfield depth. There’s Jason Heyward, Nate McLouth, and Melky Cabrera. There’s also Eric Hinske, Matt Diaz, and Gregor Blanco. Obviously if Schafer performs the Braves have to find a way to squeeze him into the lineup, but each of the first three are under team control for at least an additional two seasons. Maybe they’ll make room for him by moving Cabrera before he becomes expensive, but remember that he’s only two years older than Schafer.

There’s almost no way Schafer is going to start for the Braves anytime this season (barring mass exodus or tragedy) and it’s just another example of how quickly outlooks can flip in baseball. Heck, just ask another former Braves’ outfield prospect who looked like a natural earlier on.

Because Craig Calcaterra is a smart guy, he’s written a lot of smart things over time. Yesterday he wrote something glaringly smart about Barry Zito at Hardball Talk:

But there’s every reason to think that he can be a useful part of the Giants rotation for the next several years. He’s durable, reliable and if last year is any indication, he’s showing that he can learn to pitch without his young man stuff. Indeed, he even flashed some genuine brilliance in a couple of starts against the Rockies late in the season. Plus, seeing he’s lefthanded, there’s every reason to think that Zito could chug along for many, many more years and wind up with well north of 200 wins.

That doesn’t make him an ace or anything, but the mere fact that Brian Sabean decided to grossly over pay him doesn’t render him a punchline.

Calcaterra is right. Zito will never be worth the contract or the hype. He did actually pitch decently last season too, posting a xFIP of 4.46 which is an improvement over his previous seasons of 5.34 and 4.98 pitching. Calcaterra is also right about the unfair criticisms Zito has received due to his personality. The very same surfer dude persona that was treated like the antidote to pressure is now the poison.

This isn’t really about Zito, though, even if he does play the role of Mister Misunderstood convincingly. The truth is that any time a player signs a big deal he’s opening himself up to unfair criticism. As if Zito should have known better than the people paid to make the baseball personnel decisions and told Brian Sabean, “No sir, I’m not worth this contract. Halve it, then I’ll sign.” Beyond the money, players really can find burdens placed upon their shoulders by outside influences at a startling rate.

The media turned David Eckstein from a short dude who can ball into a 152 centimeter messiah with a heart made of titanium baseballs that pumps pine tar and Gatorade. Carlos Silva might be fat, but nobody found his spare tire damning until he began receiving paychecks that grossly overestimated his worth. Yuniesky Betancourt is really bad at baseball, but any player who asks for his removal from the lineup is begging to be taken out of the game in an entirely different manner.

And on it goes. Being a player has its own set of perks. Achieving what so many dream about and so few accomplish must be exhilarating. Sometimes clouds do creep into sunny spring days, though, and this seems to happen for players more than anyone else in the game. Managers, umpires, and front office personnel get theirs too, but the players are the main attraction and praise, like criticism, finds them as easy receptacles. That’s life and it won’t change.

One thought in conclusion: Should we really mock players for making prudent financial decisions when we praise management for doing the same?

The star of spring training thus far has to be Jason Heyward. Before the exhibition season begins there’s only so many actions that can create hype. Going on a fastball-crunching, executive car-battering frenzy during batting practice is one of those actions. Media and fans are like are swooning over this guy, which makes it time for the Braves to think about their future and Heyward’s role in that future by glancing at Evan Longoria’s situation from 2008.

No, not the demotion to the minors, but by making sure Heyward buddies up with Eric Hinske and discusses the finer points of ballplayer finances. Generally, having the stud rookie talk with a former stud rookie whose most notable accomplishment in the last 12 months includes a $5,000 tattoo seems like a recipe for disaster, but remember what Hinske did for Longoria? If not, a refresher:

“He told me don’t pass up the chance to make your first fortune,” Longoria recalled with a smile. “I trust everything he says and I definitely took that advice.”

Longoria, of course, signed a six-year, $17.5M extension that could reach nine-years and more than $30M if things stay on course. That deal is the Heyward of contracts and a large reason why Longoria has been named the most valuable asset in baseball two years running by this site. Obviously Hinske’s words may not capture Heyward’s (or his agent’s) heart quite like they caught Longoria, but Heyward has the makings of a special career. With such, the Braves should pull out the big guns and have Hinske attached to Heyward’s hip all spring.

If nothing else, maybe the snake on Hinske’s back can intimidate the youngster into doing some inking of his own.

The esteemed Joe Posnanski wrote about the ultimate spring training story in a post artistically named, get this, The Ultimate Spring Training Story. Posnanski’s muse was Kyle Farnsworth and his attempt at rejuvenation by joining the rotation. Posnanski might be the greatest baseball writer alive not named Peter Gammons, but he might have missed the boat on this one, because Farnsworth’s teammate is probably more deserving of such a title.

Luke Hochevar is not what one could describe as irrelevant. Not yet, at least. His career has been a mixture of highs and lows. In 2005 the Los Angeles Dodgers drafted Hochevar (out of the University of Tennessee) with the 40th overall pick. Agent Scott Boras drove a hard bargain – so hard that Hochevar himself removed Boras as his agent at one point, signed another agent, agreed to a deal, then walked away and rehired Boras. He would not sign with the Dodgers and would go 39 picks earlier the next year, as the Kansas City Royals chose him first overall. That was over Tim Lincecum, Evan Longoria, and Clayton Kershaw, amongst others. Hochevar received a $3.5M signing bonus and joined the Royals’ minor league system weeks later.

Fast forward to present day and Hochevar has made 51 appearances in the majors with career statistics of: 284.2 IP, 183 SO, 97 BB, 36 HR, 4.54 xFIP, and a 4.67 tERA. That’s not quite as poor as his 5.88 or 13-26 win-loss record suggests, but it’s still not first overall pick material. Avoiding bust status isn’t the reason Hochevar is the ultimate spring story, though; oh no, it’s because someone needs to ask him how it felt to lay claim to probably the weirdest season in the Majors last year. Behold his monthly splits:

May: 11.2 IP, 2.31 K/9, 5.93 xFIP
June: 33.2 IP, 4.01 K/9, 4.69 xFIP
July: 31.1 IP, 9.77 K/9, 3.03 xFIP
August: 34.2 IP, 8.31 K/9, 4.03 xFIP
Sept/Oct: 31.2 IP, 6.25 K/9, 5.03 xFIP

Enough’s been written about how granular 40 innings is, but talk about some extreme data points. Hochevar went from striking out nobody to striking out mostly everyone. The natural reaction to such a polar shift is to look for the variables that changed. Here is his pitchfx usage chart, which seems to suggest he began using his curve more and his slider less. Which shouldn’t make him more effective, considering his curve was the worst pitch in his arsenal (per run values per 100 pitches) and his slider was the best.

So, like Dave Cameron did last week, allow me to question the Royals fans (and Dave Allen) out there: What changed in July that caused Hochevar to transform from Livan Hernandez to Tim Lincecum for a two month stint? Or, did nothing change and Hochevar’s data simply suffered from the same sample size issues that his May and June did?