Stuff tends to fall by the wayside during the holidays, even for baseball blogs. Still, Hideki “Godzilla” Matsui’s retirement deserves a some attention. Even for Christmas Week, it seemed to pass quietly. So, about two weeks after the fact, here are some briefs thoughts on Matsui’s MLB career and some of his biggest moments at the plate.
Armed with a new measure for offensive volatility (VOL), I wanted to revisit research I conducted last year about the value of a consistent offense.
In general, the literature has suggested if you’re comparing two similar offenses, the more consistent offense is preferable throughout the season. The reason has to do with the potential advantages a team can gain when they don’t “waste runs” in blow-out victories. The more evenly a team can distribute their runs, the better than chances of winning more games.
I decided to take my new volatility (VOL) metric and apply it to team-level offense to see if it conformed to this general consensus*.
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.
1. Assorted Headlines for the Baseball Enthusiast
2. Graphs: Miguel Tejada’s Career in WAR
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Dominican Winter League
Assorted Headlines for the Baseball Enthusiast
Kansas City Sign Chavez, Tejada
The Kansas City Royals have signed outfielder Endy Chavez and infielder Miguel Tejada to minor-league deals, reports MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell. The latter will become an MLB deal worth $1.1 million, according to Dionisio Soldevila of ESPN Deportes (with credit to MLB Trade Rumors’ Edward Creech for collecting same information). Tejada, who enters his age-39 season, has been worth 43.8 WAR over his career, although only about one of those wins has come over the previous three seasons.
Remember when the Playstation 2 came out, and then Sony released a newer, smaller version of the original Playstation, called the PSone? After that, people started calling the original Playstation console the PSX, or Playstation X. Today, we are going back to the original console version of the De-Lucker, so grab your nearest mint copy of Final Fantasy VII and buckle in!
FanGraphs recently re-did how we calculate wOBA for all the players. In an effort to give base-running its own stand-alone category and run/win value, we reduced wOBA to a hitting-only metric and took out SB and CS. That’s where the problem with the De-Lucker 2.0.
DL 2.0 used the Fielding Independent wOBA formula, which includes stolen bases. In order to keep things parallel, we now must revert back to the Should Hit formula — essentially:
The De-Lucker part comes in when we plop an xBABIP in the place of yonder true BABIP. Jeff Zimmerman and Robert Boden (slash12) have been working on and promoting what I believe is the best xBABIP formula out there, so let us once again use that.
Beneath the jump: More caveats! All sorts of data! Downloadable Excel spreadsheets! Fewer video game references!
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Like many others, I’ve expressed some bewilderment on Twitter about how the Mets are handling their negotiations with R.A. Dickey. Dickey was one of the game’s best players in 2012, and the Mets were reportedly offering him the same kind of contract Joe Blanton just signed for, and have now improved their offer to make it equal to what Jeremy Guthrie just signed for. There’s a discount involved with signing an extension a year out from free agency, but the discount has to be reasonable, and these offers don’t strike me as overly reasonable. They don’t strike Dickey as overly reasonable either.
However, there’s a common retort from some folks whenever it is suggested that the Mets pay Dickey like a top-shelf starter. “It was just one year.” Here, see for yourself.
@redsoxbuzztap please stay away frm RA Dickey. He’s a one year wonder not worth the asking price!
— Greg Boucher (@gregjboucher) December 4, 2012
Though, I don’t think it is true. Bluejays do not trade J.P for R.A Dickey. One good year! Plus he’s 37.
— Jordon (@jordon_4) December 4, 2012
Not for a 38 yr old w/one good year RT @nydnharper Source says Mets could get speedy Dee Gordon & top pitching prospect Zach Lee for Dickey.
— DodgersBeat (@DodgersBeat) December 4, 2012
I really hope @bluejays don’t overpay for a guy that was good for one year (Dickey)
— Dustin Funk (@theFunkDust) December 10, 2012
Apparently, there’s this idea that pre-2012 R.A. Dickey was a worthless nothing, and after his fluke season, he’s headed right back to being a trick pitch sideshow. That idea is just hilariously wrong.
The Rays began life after James Shields in earnest with their first transaction since the big move Wednesday. The club is reportedly close to inking pitcher Roberto Hernandez — formerly and better known as Fausto Carmona — to a contract. Terms have yet to be revealed, but given his struggles the last two seasons — a 5.41 ERA and 1.8 K/BB in 202 innings — and his suspension for faking his identity, one would imagine the Rays’ commitment is minimal.
Just two years ago, though, Hernandez posted a 3.77 ERA and 4.11 FIP in 210 innings — a more than useful piece. The Rays will try to wring that value out of Hernandez’s current form, although likely in a different role.
In the wake of the Kansas City and Tampa Bay trade from Sunday night, many have speculated upon — and Jeff Sullivan has considered with something not unlike aplomb — how Wade Davis might perform in his return to the starting rotation (i.e. the role he’s likely to assume with the Royals). As Sullivan notes, Davis was a not particularly excellent starter from 2009 to 2011. Then, he (i.e. Davis, not Sullivan) was a considerably above-average reliever in 2012. One is compelled to wonder, naturally, if Davis learned something from his year as a reliever that will aid him as a starter — or, alternatively, if he was merely benefiting from the sort of improvement one sees while working out of the bullpen.
That, as I say, is something a person would wonder. It is not, however, my ambition to meditate on that question at the moment. One reason is because Sullivan mostly did that. A second reason is because the answer (see: “we don’t know”) merits only so much attention.
Instead, what I’d like to examine here — with the aid of, like, 10 or 50 animated GIFs — is what Davis’s likely ceiling is. What, in other words, does Wade Davis look like — and what, in particular, does his repertoire look like — when he is being the best possible Wade Davis.
The Tampa Bay Rays may be great at pitching and defense, but they do not score many runs… Right? MLB Trade Rumors thinks so:
The Rays could address multiple needs by dealing a top-of-the-rotation starter. Their offense ranked 18th in MLB in runs scored, so there’s clearly room for improvement.
-Ben Nicholson-Smith, 10/31/12
ESPN suggested just as much:
…[Justin] Upton would give Rays a badly needed presence in the middle of their lineup.
-Buster Olney, 11/11/12
And even in the sabermetric sphere, we tend to hold that axiom:
Alas, the Rays’ hitting was an entirely different story, as they finished just 11th in the league in scoring. Yes, they certainly were undone by crummy luck in close games. But the crummy luck might have gone largely unnoticed if the Rays had scored 30 or 40 more runs.
-Rob Neyer, 10/27/12
But the consensus does not gel with the very leaderboards that ranked them the No. 8 MLB offense in 2012, according to wRC+. The disconnect between popular perception and the reality of their past and future production comes from two key sources: (1) Three especially cold months of run production in 2012 and (2) the under-appreciated pitcher’s haven, Tropicana Field.
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Episode 285
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes all baseball — and, in particular, the part of baseball concerning the James Shields-for-Wil Myers (etc.) trade. Also: the Dodgers. Also-also: how the guest refuses to read the host’s work even once.
Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.
You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.
Audio after the jump. (Approximately 44 min play time.)
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Were you to read FanGraphs, and only FanGraphs, you might be led to believe there’s only one opinion one might have on Sunday’s trade between the Rays and the Royals. And that one opinion would be “that’s a bad trade, for the Royals.” Indeed, many feel that way, but many also do not feel that way, for reasons I won’t bother to get into. Those people don’t write here. While there’s a spectrum of thought on the deal, though, there’s one thing all opinions have in common: Wade Davis is kind of the forgotten guy. James Shields is the rotation ace the Royals were after. Wil Myers is maybe the top hitting prospect in baseball, and the other prospects are other prospects. But Davis is in there, and the Royals have plans for him. Big plans. Starting plans!
In 2012, Davis lost a spring-training rotation battle to Jeff Niemann, and shifted to relief. As a reliever, Davis came to excel, but all along there was talk the Rays still saw him as a starter long-term. Now Royals property, it appears as if Davis will be looked at as a starter. The Royals’ press release announcing the trade, at least, referred to Davis as a starter. This is a re-conversion that’s probably worth exploring.
