Archive for Billy Buckner

What you’re reading when you’re reading these words is Carson Cistulli’s most recent submission to the All-Joy Team. If you’re unfamiliar with the project, then you’ll want to read the introductory posts (yes, plural!) some time before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

In the meantime, you’ll be fine knowing that this is an attempt to compile a 25-man roster of current players most capable of providing joy to the sabermetrically inclined.

After reaching some pretty frenzied heights in our most recent episode of All-Joy Team — i.e. the hit show that everyone’s talking about — today we take a more conservative, but no less legitimate tact.

For each of the five players below (1B, CF/LF, SP, RPx2), I’ve used leaderboards to some end. Of course, as a new season unfolds, this sort of search will produce different results, will identify new players as All-Joy worthy. Is that a problem? maybe you’re asking. To which I reply: absolutely not. Like with the seasons — that, or NBC’s late-night programming — change is the rule and not the exception for the All-Joy Team.

Regard:

1B, Brian Myrow, Pittsburgh (1,3)

One Method:

1. Go to the CHONE projections here at FanGraphs.
2. Sort all hitters by wOBA.
3. Find the first player to’ve recorded exactly zero MLB plate appearances last year.
4. Ta-da!

Alternatively:

1. Go to BP’s Minor League Equivalent Average page.
2. Painstakingly, copy and paste the Peak Translation hitting leaders for each league into your off-brand spreadsheet program.
3. Sort by EqA.
4. Find the first hitter over 27.
5. Hint: It’s also the only hitter over 27.
6. Ta-da!

The player upon whom you’ll settle in either case is Brian Myrow.

True Fact: If you confront Sean Smith about Myrow’s optimistic CHONE projection, he will stab you in the eye.

LF/CF*, Chris Heisey, Cincinnati (1,4)

The Method:

1. Go to the CHONE projections here at FanGraphs.
2. Sort all hitters by WAR.
3. Find the first player to’ve recorded exactly zero MLB plate appearances last year.
4. If he’s also a former 18th round draft pick, that’s even better.
5. Ta-da!

True Fact: Heisey is currently towards the bottom of a pretty crowded outfield depth chart in Cincinnati. His fate is also largely, tragically in the hands of Dusty Baker. Translation: Pray for him.

Note: Exact position TBD.

SP, Billy Buckner, Arizona (2,4)

The Method:

1. Go to the Pitcher Leaderboards for 2009 here at FanGraphs.
2. Set the Min IP to 50 and sort by name.
3. Export both the Advanced and Basic pages to CSV.
4. Attempt to open both documents by means of your off-brand spreadsheet program.
5. Wait like eleventy minutes for said documents to open.
6. Copy the data from the Basic stats over into the Advanced one.
7. Subtract xFIP from ERA for all players.
8. Sort by difference.
9. Find the first pitcher with an xFIP under 4.00.
10. Also, he can’t have won a Cy Young before.
11. Ta-da!

Quick Quiz: Can you guess the former Cy Young-er just above Buckner in ERA-xFIP?

True Fact: Billy Buckner once played for the Royals but escaped by means of an elaborate, Shawshank Redemption-type plan.

RP, Brandon League, Toronto (2,4,5)
RP, Kevin Jepsen, LA Angels (2,4)

The Method:

1. Actually, it’s identical to the Buckner method until Step 9. You just find the first relief pitcher instead.
2. Actually, Jepsen and League have basically the same difference (around 1.40).
3. Ta-da?

True Facts: League’s splitter was the toughest pitch to hit in 2009. Also, he was hand-picked by Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik, who is never wrong. Kevin Jepsen, for his part, throws what I’m prepared to call a “dazzling” cut fastball. Also, he made Jeter look silly in last year’s ALCS.

Commenter Derek mentioned last week that neither Dan Haren nor Brandon Webb had crossed our 30-ballot threshold, so this edition of our Fan Projection Targets goes out to him. Today’s targets, in no particular order, are: Dan Haren, Brandon Webb, and Billy Buckner. Now go project the hell out of them.

Haren cemented his place among the majors’ best starters last year, posting a 3.08 xFIP while topping 200 IP for the fifth consecutive year.

Webb, after having also having topped 200 IP for five consecutive years, pitched all of four innings last year while dealing with shoulder problems.

Though he had a 6.40 ERA last year, Buckner’s 3.95 xFIP suggests that he has the skill to succeed. He’s tentatively slated as Arizona’s fifth starter.

In my most recent dispatch, I — once I got past the crap — I looked at a couple of pitchers in Gio Gonzalez and Felipe Paulino whose Regressed tRAs (see: tRA*, courtesy of Matthew Carruth’s and Graham MacAree’s StatCorner) suggest a level of skill considerably beyond what their 2009 numbers might otherwise indicate.

Here are three more tRA* surprises from the 183 starting pitchers who recorded at least 150 xOuts (xFIP and xFIP rank — also out of 183 — in parentheses):

55. Garrett Mock, 4.55 (4.25/62)
In 54 career major league appearances, Mock has only 18 starts. Fifteen of them came last season in a total of 28 appearances. Here’s something strange about Mock: Despite being jerked around between levels and roles, he’s actually posted great peripherals these past two years. In addition to the strong 2009, he posted a 4.77/3.90 (tRA*/xFIP) in 2008 and, in 155.2 combined minor league IP over the last two seasons, has 144 K, 38 BB, a ground-ball rate around 45% and a line-drive rate below 20%.

Nor was this a case of being exposed as a starter, either: Mock posted a 18.4% K-rate and 10% BB-rate as a starter versus only rates of 9.5% and 12.7%, respectively, as a reliever (albeit in only 63 opponent PAs).

In this case, the culprit appears to be BABIP, which checks in at a robust .347 over his first 132.1 MLB IP. That might be bad luck. It might be that Mock’s BABIP-prone (although that’d still be high). Also, it could just be what happens when you play for the Washington Natinals Nationals. However it is, Mock’s 3-10, 5.62 season probably isn’t representative of his talents.

58. Billy Buckner, 4.58 (3.77/29)
Who the what?! In the event that you’re not acquainted with Buckner — which, I don’t entirely blame you — here’s a brief summary: He was drafted by the Royals out of the University of South Carolina in 2004. He made his debut with said depressing franchise in August of 2007. In December of that same year, he was traded to Arizona for Alberto Callaspo. Overall, he’s had a few decent minor league seasons, posting a K per IP every now and then, but nothing very promising.

Last year, however, Buckner showed signs of life, producing his best-ever minor league FIP, a 3.31 mark, on the strength of an 8.39 K/9 and 3.93 BB/9 in 103 IP (13/16 GS/G). Moreover, his major league returns, distributed predominately over two month-long call-ups (5/22 – 6/26 and 9/3-10/2), were excellent: 77.1 IP, 64 K, 29 BB, 48.8% GB, 21.3% LD. The line drives are a touch high, maybe, but not dangerously so. And like Mock, he excelled as a starter, recording a 19.1% K-rate and 7.8% BB-rate over 320 opponent plate appearances.

His 4-6 record and 6.40 ERA are unlikely to get him any attention, but a 63.% LOB-rate, 16.7% HR/FB, and .347 BABIP all suggest that Buckner is better than that.

63. Mitchell Boggs, 4.61 (4.67/121)
Boggs is a little bit different than the two other guys here, because he actually benefited from some good luck last year. His HR/FB came in at a friendly 5.7%, his ERA was a perfectly reasonable 4.19, and he did it all with an underwhelming 46/33 K/BB situation going on. Of course, those numbers are mitigated largely by his ugly .366 opponent BABIP. Anyway, whatever his apparent success, though, you’d be hard-pressed to say he was highly regarded — a fact to which his multiple demotions can attest. Nor did St. Louis ever really find a specific role for him, as his 9/16 (GS/G) split suggests.

What we can say about Boggs is that, given his peripherals from last season, there appears to be a chance of him becoming a useful starter in the Cardinal mold. His starting and relieving K/BB were almost identical (1.40 v. 1.38), as were his GB%s (both right around his season mark of 52.7%). If that doesn’t necessarily correspond with your impression of Boggs over the season, here’s why, probably: His opponent BABIP was .389 when he started versus only .292 when he relieved.

Ideally for Boggs, he’ll continue to develop in the direction of his last four starts, over which period he posted a 58.0% GB-rate and 12.3% BB-rate. Which is to say, he’s not Joel Pineiro yet (60.5% and 3.1% in those cats, respectively). But then again, before last year, not even Joel Pineiro was Joel Pineiro.

How well do you think Mock, Buckner, and Boggs will perform in 2010? Enter your Fan Projection here.