Andre Ethier has been a keystone in the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup during their playoff runs over the last two years. He has been an above average hitter since reaching the major leagues in 2006, but in 2008 he took a major step forward, becoming a legitimate offensive star. His 53.3 wRAA since 2008 ranks 24th in the major leagues.

Over the last two seasons, there are 10 players within 6 wRAA of Ethier’s 53.3. Of these players, the average WAR is 8.4, or 4.2 per season. Evan Longoria leads this impressive pack of players at 12.6 wins, having contributed 37.7 runs of defensive value.

At the bottom of the list is our subject, Andre Ethier. As he plays the corner outfield positions, he already starts out with a position adjustment of -13.9 runs. Combine that with a -21.7 UZR over 308 games in the outfield, and Ethier has cost the Dodgers 35.6 runs with the glove.

Ethier’s first two seasons suggested some defensive talent. Over his first 271 games (212 starts), Ethier compiled a +6.5 UZR in the outfield. Of course, this is not the only example of a UZR sample of this size showing a significant deviation from the following two seasons. However, we can ask: what changed?

First of all, let’s look at the biggest component of the statistic: range. Ethier showed fantastic range in 2007 after showing average range in 2006. His range fell off a cliff then in 2008 and 2009, at -6.6 and -6.9 runs, respectively.

Similarly, Ethier’s arm looked fantastic in 2006, at 6.8 runs in merely 92 DG (defensive games adjusted for attempts). He has not shown that skill since, and his arm dipped below -5 runs above average this season. It is possible that his arm was better suited to left field – his ARM in 154 DG is +4.1 in LF vs. -6.9 in 371 DG in RF.

It appears that we have two major outliers skewing his results from 2006 and 2007. Ethier’s +6.8 ARM rating may have been a product of both his time in left field as well as random variation in the statistic. Since his move to playing primarily right field in 2007, his arm has rated as nearly 10 runs below average, the ninth worst overall mark over the past three years.

The other outlier is Ethier’s +5.2 range score in 2007. Ethier has never showed the skills of a fast player. He’s been caught stealing (16 times) nearly as many times as he’s stolen a base (17). His 32 infield hits since 2007 is nearly average among qualified players, and he’s only attempted one bunt since 2007 and didn’t get a hit on. As mentioned above, Ethier’s range score in 2008 and 2009 was a combined 13.5 runs below average, a far cry from his excellent 2007 mark.

Ethier now has a sample of 371 DG in RF and 525 total OF DG. That’s a sample of roughly 3.5 total seasons and roughly 2.5 RF seasons. A better guess than looking at last year’s -15 season is to look at his career as a whole. Ethier now has a -4.4 UZR/150 for his career, but a -6.8 UZR/150 in RF. The Fan’s Scouting Report rates Ethier as a roughly average fielder. Given these two sources of data, we can conclude that Ethier is probably a below average fielder, but probably not as bad as 2009 would suggest. A conservative projection would probably call Ethier a -3 to -5 run fielder in RF going forward.

This is not to say that Ethier has not been a valuable player for the Dodgers. His 7.6 WAR since 2007 place him in the top 100 position players in the league. With 30 teams, players of Ethier’s talent level are difficult to find and are an asset for any team.

By any team measure, the Boston Red Sox have been one of professional sports’ most successful teams since 2003, the beginning of GM Theo Epstein’s tenure. With two World Series titles and playoff appearances in six out of seven seasons, Epstein has made it difficult to criticize his acquisitions in Boston.

Still, despite their success, Red Sox fans have found a few moves to complain about. One of the more notable is Boston’s acquisition of J.D. Drew prior to the 2007 season, which has once again surfaced in the Boston media now that the Red Sox season is over. According to Cot’s Contracts, the deal was a five year deal for 70 million dollars. Entering 2007, Drew was a premier talent. In the four years prior to 2007, Drew compiled a wOBA of exactly .400 and a +23 UZR. Over these four years, Drew put up 18 WAR, good for 4.5 WAR per year. Drew was performing at an all-star level.

At the time, 4.5 WAR per year translated to roughly $17 million per year on the free agent market. Given the length of the deal, $70 million over five years seemed like a perfectly reasonable contract for the Red Sox to offer given their position on the revenue curve.

However, Drew only averaged 470 plate appearances per season dating back through 2003, and had a similar career average. He sustained DL stints every year of his career in St. Louis (1999-2003), and then was sent to the DL again by a hit-by-pitch in 2005.

Injury issues in 2007 limited Drew to 1.3 wins. Although he played in 140 games, he did spend time on the DL and it can easily be argued that his limited offensive and defensive production were due to the hamstring injury, an injury that can linger. That argument is only supported by Drew’s production in 2008 and 2009. Although he didn’t reach 550 PAs in either season, he played fantastic baseball when he was in the lineup, with wOBAs of .400 and .389 respectively and a total UZR of +16 in RF, combining for 8.7 WAR.

The Red Sox have paid Drew 42 million dollars in salary so far. It did indeed look bleak after Drew accrued only $5.5 million in value in 2007, but his fantastic years in 2008 and 2009 have been worth $39.3 million dollars. Right now, we have Drew as being worth slightly more than his contract, echoing Epstein’s response, “he’s actually come out to a tick more than $14 million per year.”

What needs to be understood here is how valuable 450 or 500 plate appearances of J.D. Drew really are. When healthy, Drew excels both at the plate and in the field. As such, even when limited to 2/3 of a season, he comes out more valuable than players that stay healthy. Take, as an example, Michael Young. Young’s misadventures in the field have been well documented, and as a result, despite averaging nearly 700 plate appearances per season since 2002, he’s only accrued 20.5 wins, due to a staggering UZR of -88.4, compared to Drew’s 29.8 in nearly 1600 fewer PAs.

Especially given the ability of the Red Sox to replace Drew with players like Rocco Baldelli, Drew’s play is invaluable. With his all-star skill set, Drew looks set to produce for the Red Sox through the remainder of his contract. The injuries will happen. The Red Sox are a good enough team to deal with them, and Drew is a championship-quality player while healthy.

The Cleveland Indians’ managerial hunt ended on Sunday, as they hired former Washington Nationals skipper Manny Acta. Acta will replace Eric Wedge, who in six seasons as manager of the Indians compiled a .495 winning percentage and reached the playoffs once (in 2007).

Acta managed for two and a half years in Washington, managing teams with very little in terms of talent. Over his tenure, the Nationals played putrid .385 ball, including a 59 win season in 2008 and a 26-61 record at the time of his firing in 2009. Despite his poor record, Acta has a fantastic reputation around the game with young players. As Cleveland enters the Manny Acta era, they will need these talents as they attempt to build around established players like Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo with prospects like Matt LaPorta and Carlos Carrasco.

Other candidates for the job included former Mets and Chiba Lotte Marines manager Bobby Valentine, Indians AAA manager Torey Lovullo, and Dodgers hitting coach Don Mattingly. Valentine is the only other candidate with ML managerial experience (Mattingly has never managed a professional team). Valentine reached one World Series with the Mets in 2000 but has an otherwise unimpressive record, with a .510 career winning percentage, and was ousted as part of the Steve Phillips era in New York. With Cleveland in the middle of a rebuilding period, he may not have fit well with their current personnel.

The most interesting thing about Acta besides his reputation with young players is his affinity for statistical analysis. In an interview with Squawking Baseball after the 2007 season, Acta told of his disdain for the sacrifice bunt early in games, and how Baseball Prospectus was among his favorite baseball reading.

More importantly, though, Acta’s openness towards statistics will not lead to tension between the manager and the front office. Mark Shapiro and his staff certainly are not stuck in the dark ages with regards to new forms of analysis. Would a manager like Bobby Valentine or Don Mattingly have conflicted with the front office in terms of player acquisitions, or perhaps on in-game strategies? It’s hard to say for sure. Acta, however, seems to have the perfect profile for a team looking to rebuild and willing to use advanced analyses.

Although Cleveland has pieces to build around, they do not appear to have the talent of a competing team as of yet. With the hiring of Manny Acta, the Indians have somebody who has both a great reputation among baseball men and an appreciation for the analytical part of the game that has created winners in Oakland and Boston, and is currently turning a franchise around in Seattle. Acta won’t bring the Indians to contention by himself, but he’s the right man to guide the ship.

2010 is not exactly a banner year for free agent catchers. Bengie Molina will enter the hot stove league as the only type A catcher available*, according to Cot’s Contracts 2010 free agents list. Bengie Molina has been a standby in the league for years, but he will be 35 for most of the 2010 season.

*Assuming the Red Sox pick up Victor Martinez’s $7M 2010 option

Bengie’s career has been a model of consistency. Since 2003, he’s put up 14.8 WAR, for an average of 2.1 WAR per season, and has always stayed within the 1.0 to 3.0 WAR range. Keep in mind, however, that our catcher WAR on FanGraphs doesn’t take defense into account. We can be relatively certain that he is not the gold glover of 2002 and 2003, though. His CS% has dropped from 40%+ from 1999-2003 to 32% for his career now. Also, the elder Molina doesn’t excel on the bases, and WAR doesn’t include non-SB baserunning, depressing his value even more.

Given Molina’s age, production, and previous contract (6M in 2009), it’s hard to imagine the Giants offering Molina arbitration, especially with Buster Posey almost ready. As such, he likely won’t have the dreaded type-A tag that doomed Orlando Hudson to a contract with a base salary of only $3.38 million.

So what can he expect? With his wOBA dropping below .310 for the first time since 2002, it’s fair to say 2009 was a down season. His BABIP of .273 was only 8 points below his career average. Still, a catcher with a wOBA of .308 is still valuable on the free agent market. However, teams will be taking into account the fact that Molina is aging and his defensive value will only drop as the years go on.

Jason Varitek, with a similar 2008 to Molina’s 2009, received a 5 million dollar contract. Molina might be able to expect something similar, but he doesn’t have the “captain” moniker to aid him. Still, he does hit for power – his .177 ISO ranked 3rd in the majors this year. If he can avoid injuries and provide near-average defense, his power will make him a 1.0+ win player, with a 4 million dollar contract or more on a one-year deal. Plenty of teams will have needs at catcher. The question is which one wants Bengie.

Carlos Guillen was not happy with his role last season. After accruing 17.2 wins as Detroit’s SS from 2004-2007, he has since spent games bouncing between 1B, 3B, LF and the DL. Guillen’s move off of SS came in the wake of a -10 UZR season at SS. Although he put up 1.2 WAR in limited time in 2008, his wOBA dropped 30 points and he lost even more time to injury in 2009. As such, the Tigers saw themselves left with the very definition of a replacement player.

This leaves the Tigers with a dilemma. Although it’s not likely that Guillen’s true talent has dipped below replacement level, it certainly is not at the six win level of 2006 and probably not at the three win level of 2003, either. With Ryan Raburn waiting in the wings, it makes little sense to commit to a 33-year-old declining hitter over the team-controlled player. Unfortunately, Guillen’s contract calls for $13 million in both 2010 and 2011.

Naturally, Jim Leyland’s response was to name Carlos Guillen the starting left fielder for 2010. The Tigers, having reached a 163rd game playoff with the Minnesota Twins this year, likely have playoff aspirations.

Their best bet to reach the playoffs, of course, is to field the best team. Ryan Raburn put up a .378 wOBA last year vs. Guillen’s .328. Guillen ranks as a 2.46 in the Fan’s Scouting Report, and has a -3 UZR in a small sample. Raburn only ranks slightly better, and has a +1 UZR in LF in a 110 game sample – again, not big enough to draw conclusions. The 50 point wOBA difference is akin to the difference between Lance Berkman and James Loney, and there’s no reason to believe Guillen’s defense outweighs this copious gap in offensive production.

The counterpoint is that Guillen’s BABIP was a precipitous .267 in his shortened 2009. With a career BABIP of .325, this is especially low, and we should expect regression. The question is, though, can Guillen recover from injuries at age 33, learn how to play a relatively new position, and put up a wOBA over .350 like he has in the past?

It seems like a rather large gamble to take for Detroit. Raburn is young but has very solid minor league numbers to support his first ML season. Apparently, money talks. This is just yet another example of the veteran with the big contract getting playing time over an equally skilled or possibly better young player because the team is unwilling to cut its losses and admit its mistake.

At 343-466, the revival of baseball in Washington D.C. has not gone as planned since the relocation of the Montreal Expos in 2005. Two straight 59 win seasons certainly signal a rebuilding era ahead for a team that in 2005 held a playoff spot for 38 games in June and July and was within 4.5 games in August.

Former GM Jim Bowden didn’t put the Nationals in a position to win, as acquisitions such as Lastings Milledge (which was not necessarily a bad deal, but a poor result), Austin Kearns, Emilio Bonifacio, and Wily Mo Pena combined with poor prospect development (outside of Ryan Zimmerman, of course) to result in some very poor teams on the field in the nation’s capital.

The quality of the new leadership in Washington, captained by Mike Rizzo, remains to be seen. One thing is for sure. Come 2011, he will not be able to make the excuse that he was hamstrung by the signings of the previous regime.

The Washington Nationals should be expected to field a payroll of approximately 60 million dollars once again, after actually increasing their payroll 6 million dollars over the 2008 team. This offseason, $14.35 million will come off the books in the form of Dmitri Young, Nick Johnson, Joe Beimel (who was traded to the Rockies at the deadline), Wil Ledezma, Josh Bard, and Julian Tavarez.

Certainly, that is not enough to allow the Nationals to spend their way into contention. In 2010, however, a veritable flurry of contracts will expire. In fact, the only non-arbitration, non-minimum contract dollars the Nationals have committed in 2011 are to Ryan Zimmerman. This time, it’s 22.5 million dollars, via Adam Dunn, Cristian Guzman, Austin Kearns, and Willie Harris.

By 2011, the Nationals will be free of all the moves made in the Jim Bowden era. Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper (we assume) will be in the organization and possibly even in the majors. Jordan Zimmermann showed potential before his injury and Ryan Zimmerman is one of the best players in the majors. Nyjer Morgan is a tremendous fielder, and Ian Desmond is a bright spot as a SS prospect. Now what remains to be seen is if Mike Rizzo can put a competitive team around these core players.

The Florida Marlins’ left fielder Chris Coghlan has received rookie of the year consideration from quite a few sources this year, on the wings of his impressive .372 wOBA rookie season. This puts him at the top of the rookie class this year for the entire major league. Despite poor marks by UZR at an unfamiliar position in LF, Coghlan’s 2.4 WAR still ranks among the best in the league by a rookie.

Another less heralded rookie for the Marlins saw significant time at the other corner outfield position this year. Brett Carroll played 73 games (32 starts) in RF and also saw time in 43 other games (15 starts) in the other outfield positions. His batting line of .306/.383/.689 OBP/SLG/OPS (.302 wOBA) did not elicit the kind of fanfare as Coghlan’s season. However, Carroll played excellently in the field, rating as a +13.8 outfielder between all 3 positions. With positional adjustments, Carroll was worth +10 runs in the field. Overall, Carroll was worth 1.2 wins in a mere 158 PAs and 513 innings in the field. Over a full season, that’s a nearly 3-4 win player.

The Marlins certainly have a pair of talented players here, but each has his downsides. Coghlan’s performance is entirely built on his batting and Carroll’s on his fielding. We know that sample sizes of a single season, for both offense and defense, can lead us astray. What can we say about these two players?

For Coghlan, much of his success was built on a .366 BABIP. Coghlan carried a .326 BABIP through his minor league career, which doesn’t suggest that he will be able to sustain a high number like some players (Ichiro Suzuki, Matt Kemp) have. His ISO is slightly below average and his BB% is right around average. His minor league numbers don’t suggest that his walk rate or ISO should rise, as his minor league ISO sits at an unimpressive .153, and his walk rate at 11.8%. Coghlan’s profile resembles that of a league average hitter, which would struggle to sustain his poor glove in LF.

However, it is unlikely that he will remain in left field. Coghlan’s natural position in the minors was 2B, and his defensive reputation there is far better than in LF. Minor League Splits has his most recent defensive seasons as well above average, but the sample sizes are small and must be taken with a grain of salt. Still, simply moving from LF to 2B adds a full win to his defensive value, and numbers and scouting both suggest his marks should improve there.

Carroll, on the other hand, has a season built almost completely on 530 innings of UZR, a very small sample. However, looking at the Fan’s Scouting Report, ran by Tom Tango, the fans rated him as the 2nd best right fielder in the league, only behind Ichiro Suzuki. Again, due to the low amount of votes for Carroll, there is a high standard deviation on the rating, but it only supplements his UZR in declaring him an excellent fielder.

His batting stats may rise, as well. He was plagued by a .286 BABIP and shows no reason not to expect an average .300 BABIP with his skill set. He’s not going to walk very much, but he provides average to above average power with an ISO of .149 and a minor league ISO of .223, and if the ball bounces his way next season his wOBA will inch closer to average. He won’t outslug guys like Matt Holliday, of course, but his hitting shouldn’t keep him off the field.

Coghlan and Carroll represent two very key pieces in building a young club. Both players should be quite productive in the years to come, and at a minimal cost to the Marlins.

In 1973, the owners of the American League adopted Major League Baseball rule 6.10, which allows any league the option to use the Designated Hitter rule. Ever since, fans of each league have argued the superiority of said league’s rules. National League fans prefer the more strategic, small ball style that stems from the pitcher batting, and AL fans prefer the offense that results from batting nine major league caliber hitters instead of eight.

One question that arises with this difference in rules is how much spread in batting production we see between the two leagues. The natural assumption is that pitcher hitting is relatively even between teams, as most pitchers are generally equally poor at hitting. With DHs, we would assume that we can see the wide variation that we see with all other positions.

Is this true, though? Let’s look at some data. PBWRAA is “pitcher batting weighted runs above average,” given that the average pitcher wOBA in 2009 was .164.

First, with NL pitchers, we see a roughly 20 run difference between the Pirates and the Cubs. This is a significant difference on a team level. Having Carlos Zambrano (.305 wOBA) and Sean Marshall (.242 wOBA) over players like Charlie Morton (.115 wOBA) and Ross Ohlendorf (.071 wOBA) can be a two win swing just with the bat. This is what makes Zambrano so much more valuable in the NL – his 3.95 career FIP isn’t ace quality, but with a .305 in 65 PAs as a pitcher, he contributed eight runs with the bat, nearly a win worth of production.

Similarly, Milwaukee Brewers fans likely will not soon forget how terrible Ben Sheets handled the bat during his tenure with the club. With his .096 wOBA, over that same 65 PA sample with Zambrano, he would have accrued four runs below average, for a difference of nearly 1.2 wins. That essentially offsets the roughly 10 run difference between 180 innings of Sheets (3.56 FIP) and Zambrano (3.95).

Now, let’s take a look at the spread in DH hitting.

Here we see a spread of 45 runs. However, the spread in wOBA is only 80 points vs. 63 points for the pitchers. This is because the DHs see nearly twice as many plate appearances as the pitchers over the course of the season. Taking this into account, the spread between leagues is much lower. We shouldn’t expect the inclusion or exclusion of the DH to result in any more or less parity. In other words, the difference between Hideki Matsui and Jose Guillen is similar to the difference between Cubs pitchers and Pirates pitchers at the plate. It’s also worth noting that only one team this year was below average in their league-specific category and made the playoffs – the Red Sox at -2.23 DHwRAA.

Draw your own conclusions from this data. This is not meant to endorse either rule system as better than the other, but instead to provide a comparison of the two rule systems.

As we looked at yesterday with John Lannan, inducing ground balls is a great way to overcome other flaws in a pitcher’s repertoire. Lannan’s ERA stands nearly a run below his career FIP because of his high ground ball rate. Similarly, Joel Piniero had his best season in at least six years, and he achieved much of his success via an astounding 60.5% ground ball rate.

Johan Santana, on the other hand, is a pitcher who has no problems striking batters out. Although he has slipped some in recent years, his career K/9 stands at 9.12, meaning he strikes out over a batter per inning on average. He doesn’t struggle with walks either, giving up almost a whole walk less than average, both in recent years and in his career.

However, Santana does not excel in inducing ground balls. His 35.7% ground ball rate last season ranked sixth in the major leagues. Clearly, Santana is a great pitcher, as his 3.38 career FIP, 3.60 career tRA, and 42.4 WAR in the win value era (second only to Roy Halladay) suggest. This begs the question – if inducing ground balls is so essential to pitcher success with guys like Lannan and Piniero, how come it doesn’t seem to affect Santana?

Of course, as mentioned above, Santana’s basic peripherals are incredible. With the amount of outs that Santana gets via the strikeout, his batted ball profile has a much lower impact than with a guy like Lannan (3.9 K/9) or Piniero (4.4 K/9). Also, with a low walk total, the impact of hits on balls in play is lower due to having fewer runners on base for those hits.

The fact that Santana’s peripherals make him a good pitcher isn’t terribly interesting to us here. That’s the crux of the DIPS theory behind FIP. However, tRA, based on batted balls, doesn’t see an issue with Santana due to low GB% as it does with players like Ted Lilly (34.5% GB, 5.12 tRA, 4.45 FIP) or especially Aaron Harang (38.0% GB, 4.98 tRA, 4.10 FIP)

Here, we see two major things come into play. First is line drive rate. As we hit upon with Lannan yesterday, the NL BABIP on line drives is .718. Giving up line drives is an almost sure way to give up hits. Santana, despite the fact that he doesn’t give up many ground balls, has a career line drive rate that is nearly average. Aaron Harang, on the other hand, has a career LD% over 2% above the average – significant for a statistic that has a range under 9% for a single season.

Also, Santana’s infield fly rate is one of the highest in the league. His 16.4% rate led the majors by 1.5%, and his 13.3% career rate is in the top 10 since 2002, the beginning of our batted ball data. The league BABIP on infield flies is miniscule. After a strikeout, the next best way to insure an out is to induce an infield fly. Santana has repeatedly been above average in this statistic since 2002. As a result, the true problem with fly balls – their penchant to turn into home runs – is minimized by this ability to induce weak contact on balls in the air. As such, Santana’s career HR/FB is below average, and has effectively cancelled out the sheer number of fly balls he gives up, resulting in an average HR/9.

With the amount of HRs and line drives Santana gives up limited, and the amount of essentially automatic outs he induces via the infield fly, Santana’s low amount of ground balls has no impact on his incredible peripherals, making him still one of the best pitchers in the game today.

The Washington Nationals finished 2009 with 103 losses. Suffice to say, they were not a good team. Much of the blame can be placed upon the shoulders of the pitching staff. According to StatCorner’s version of tRA, the starting rotation alone was nearly 100 runs below average. Our own measure of runs above replacement using FIP has the Nationals at roughly 62 runs below average.

John Lannan was the only pitcher for the Nationals to accrue over 110 innings pitched this year. Once again, Lannan’s results defied advanced pitching statistics. For the second straight year, Lannan posted an ERA+ over 110 despite a K/BB well below 2.00. With his inability to strike batters out, Lannan has posted FIPs nearly a run higher than his ERA.

Lannan’s best quality as pitcher is his ability to induce ground balls. According to StatCorner, 41.6% of plate appearances against Lannan resulted in ground balls, against a league average of 31.8%. However, despite the fact that tRA accounts for batted ball profiles in its calculation, Lannan’s tRA+ was under 90 for the second straight year.

Then why are Lannan’s results so much better than the advanced statistics suggest? Let’s take a look at what’s happening with Lannan’s batted balls, compared to the league. Shown below is Lannan’s BABIP splits compared to the NL average for 2009. League averages have remained relatively constant (within .005) over the last two years.

This trend of low BABIPs on every split is similar for his entire career – slightly lower BABIP on ground balls, slightly higher on FB/LD. His defense in 2008 was slightly above average at +9 UZR, and in 2009 it was poor at -27 UZR, and yet the BABIPs remained very similar. If it’s not defense, what is the cause of Lannan’s success in this extremely variable category? This is where I believe that Hit F/X data can really come in handy – is Lannan actually allowing weaker balls in play? Is he merely lucky with the spray angles of balls hit in play against him? Is there something else I’m not taking into account here?

Two seasons is not enough of a sample to say that Lannan has some sort of special talent regarding balls in play. The question that needs to be answered here is whether or not there’s something repeatable about the apparently poor quality of balls put in play against Lannan. If it is repeatable, Lannan could be an incredibly valuable asset going forward, as he doesn’t reach arbitration until 2011. If it’s not repeatable, then the Nationals are looking at yet another back of the rotation starter with a minimal impact at the major league level. It’s not often that pitchers with K/BB ratios as low as Lannan’s succeed. As the sample size grows, 2010 will be a very interesting year for both the Nationals and Lannan.