Archive for arizona diamondbacks

The Arizona Diamondbacks seem to have quite a few players who have either under- or outperformed the baseballing community’s initial assessments of them. Of course, this isn’t true of all the D-Backs — I mean, Augie Ojeda is probably right about where you’d expect him to be — but still, to this author’s mind, it does appear as though the team possesses quite a few players who were misread initially.

Which is why, for this edition of Current Talent — and to appease that part of the brain that looks for patterns in everything — we’ll look at three categories of D-Back: the Outperformers, the Underperformers, and then the Other Guys.

Outperformers

There were big concerns about Mark Reynolds‘ contact rates and major league position. A 2007 injury to Chad Tracy solved the latter; as for the former, well, it turns out that if you hit 44 homers and take some walks, you’re okay. How could wunderkind Justin Upton outperform his pedigree? Pretty easy, actually; by being better than these guys: Bryan Bullington, Delmon Young, and Matt Bush. Those are the three Number One Picks before Upton.

Dan Haren was, at one point, traded for Mark Mulder. Now he’s basically a lock for about 200 innings of low-3s FIP. Back in the day, Brandon Webb was an eighth round pick out of Kentucky. Before last year’s injury, he was a constant threat for the Cy Young. That’s what a sinkpiece and an outpitch will do for you. (Although, it needs to be said, the injury is of great concern right now.) Chad Qualls received the Heath Bell treatment for some years. Now he’s en route to becoming a Proven Closer. Like Bell, he’s got sweet groundball numbers.

Underperformers

It’s almost definitely unfair to deem an underachiever somone who’s projected by CHONE to post a 2.8 WAR, but shortstop Stephen Drew hasn’t yet become the player that the prospect maven community expected. Slightly above average isn’t bad, mind you, but that wasn’t the original assessment. “Left fielder” Conor Jackson was hailed for his excellent plate discipline — and it’s true, he’s has always had pretty excellent numbers as far as that goes (10.2% BB rate versus 13.0% K rate). Thing is, if you play corner outfield — and your name’s not Ichiro — you should probably jack a donger every once in a while. “Power-speed combo” must’ve been thrown around like a million times about center fielder Chris Young before he made his debut. Unfortunately, people said the same thing about Corey Patterson, too. Like Patterson, Young hasn’t really figured out how to get on base, and his career 91 wRC+ shows it.

Starter Edwin Jackson appears poised for a career as a league-average innings-thrower. That’s worth something, for sure — just not what we expected. Ian Kennedy will get an chance immediate chance to prove himself in the D-Backs’ rotation this spring. His 43/37 K/BB ratio in 59.2 major league innings bears little resemblance to the 273/77 K/BB in 248.2 minor league ones.

Other Guys

Miguel Montero seems to have successfully banished fellow catcher Chris Snyder to the role of back-up. Both are offensive pluses. Adam LaRoche will play an average-ish first base and hit like Albert Pujols — starting in mid-July. Second baseman Kelly Johnson got taught a lesson in random variation last season as his BABIP plummted to .247. That’s unlikely to happen again.

On the bench you got Ryan Roberts, who’s not bad at all, backing up non-shortstop infield positions; the lovable Augie Ojeda ready to fill in for Stephen Drew; and 23-year-old Gerardo Parra, The giant and powerful Brandon Allen might make an appearance at some point.

Billy Buckner posted a 3.95 xFIP last season, largely on the strength of a groundball rate (48.8%) that far surpassed his previous major league numbers. He’s poised to pick up many of Webb’s lost innings. Rodrigo Lopez and Kevin Mulvey represent a name you thought you’d never hear again and a name you may never hear again.

Finally, like many teams, the D-Backs have a bullpen. In this case it’s not the beacon of excitement. Juan Gutierrez has some of the proverbial giddy-up on his fastball (94.8 mph last year) and his slider came out to 3.00 runs per 100 pitched. Aaron Heilman is meh-worthy and Bob Howry throws a straightball. Clay Zavada and Zachary Kroenke are LOOGY-types, but only one has the facial hair of a medieval knight. Bobby Cox attempted to detach Blaine Boyer’s arm in Atlanta. Let’s hope it still works.

As you’ve almost certainly read by now, former Arizona outfielder Eric Byrnes signed with the Mariners this past Friday after having been previously released by the Diamondbacks. There’s plenty to read about Byrnes’ current abilities (for example here, here, here, and my favorite here). Briefly: he’s an oft-injured 34-year old outfielder with a bad bat and a good glove. He’s probably 0-0.5 WAR, but at the league minimum, it’s a virtually risk-free signing.

What is more interesting is that the Diamondbacks are still on the hook for almost $11 million dollars of the last year of the three-year, $30 million dollar contract to which they signed Byrnes in 2007. During Byrnes’ disastrous, injury-plagued 2008 and 2009 seasons, many a snide comment about “grit” and “veteran leadership” was made about Arizona’s decision to lock up a corner outfielder in his early 30s during a “career year,” especially since they then traded Carlos Quentin, who immediately started mashing for the White Sox.

It is easy (and fun!) to mock a decision after it has obviously turned out badly. The more interesting question is how the contract looked when it was signed — hence my occasional series of “Contract Retrospectives.” Step into the time machine…

We all remember where we were when we heard heard the big news: Rosie O’Donnell was forced off of The View. But that shouldn’t overshadow other happenings from 2007: The Phoenix spacecraft left for Mar’s North Pole. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, inspiring millions of children all over the world to read and have terrible literary taste. Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” made us all wonder if we would be better off dead. And on August 7, Barry Bonds, ever the narcissist, hit home run number 756, deliberately overshadowing Byrnes’ contract signing on the same day.

What were the Diamondbacks paying for? The market was very different “back in the day.” During the 2007-08 offseason (Byrnes contract was for 2008-2010), the estimated market price for a win above replacement was about $4.4 million. Figure in 10% annual salary inflation and a half-a-win a season expected decline, and one gets this chart. Looking across the top row of the chart for years and and then down for closest figure to Byrnes’ contract, you will see that 3 years, $28.7 implies a 2.5 WAR player for 2008. Add in the $400,000 per year league minimum (“replacement salary”), and you have a nearly perfect match with Byrnes’ contract.

Was 2.5 WAR a reasonable expectation? From the standpoint of 2007 (it’s difficult to split up the season for “retrojections”), from 2004-2007 Byrnes had put up WARs of 3.4, 0.6, 3.3, and 4.0. The four year average is about 2.8, and the three year average is about 2.4. So Arizona wasn’t (necessarily) sucked in by Byrnes’ 2007 performance. Let’s break things down a bit more precisely.

In past installments, I’ve done my own, deliberately crude “retrojection.” This time I’ve utilized archived projections from CHONE, ZiPS, and everyone’s favorite monkey, Marcel. Converting Byrnes’ projected 2008 lines to the appropriate linear weights, over a full season (700 PA), CHONE projected +16 runs, ZiPS projected +14 runs, and Marcel (ever the pessimist) projected +5 runs. The simple average is about +12 runs. Arizona’s ballpark is very hitter-friendly, so the adjusted value of those projections is about +7/700 PA.

Fielding is more complicated, since Byrnes played multiple positions. Fortunately, the adjustments for CF(2.5) and RF/LF (-7.5) is meant to reflect the relative difficulty of the positions. Thus, I simply added Byrnes’ UZR fielding runs to his positional adjustment for each season to get a “position neutral” fielding rating. After weighting, regressing, and adjusting for age, the projected 2008 position-neutral defensive value for Byrnes is +3 runs (i.e., average in CF, +10 on the corners).

Putting it altogether: +7 offense +3 fielding + 20 NL replacement level = 3 WAR times 85% playing time = 2.6 WAR. Pretty much right on the money.The Quentin issue aside (and it isn’t has if he had torn it up prior to the trade), perhaps one can quibble over details such as the no-trade clause. Still, while the contract looks bad now, it was right in line with the market at the time it was signed.