Archive for Raul Ibanez

The Yankees have acquired Ichiro Suzuki from the Mariners in exchange for pitching prospects D.J. Mitchell and Danny Farquhar. The Mariners are also paying approximately $4.5 million of the $6.7 million remaining on Ichiro’s contract, leaving the Yankees responsible for a fairly modest $2.25 million.

According to Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln, Ichiro had approached the club requesting a trade, reasoning that the Mariners are building for the future and it was best for the team if younger players were given more playing time.

Ichiro has also become a shell of his former self, posting a .289 wOBA last season and a .281 wOBA this year, both of which rank near the league’s bottom. Since the start of last season, only Cliff Pennington, Casey McGehee and Gordon Beckham have produced lower wOBAs. Trading him must have been very difficult, but it was much easier to justify, and downright responsible, from a production standpoint.

While Safeco Field clearly has a hand in his decline, he is simply nowhere near the same player fans are accustomed to seeing. He isn’t an everyday player anymore, but it would have been tough for the Mariners to play him sporadically given his importance to the team and the community. The Yankees don’t need him to be anything more than a part-time platoon player to make this deal work out, and for Ichiro, the realization that his days as a full-time starter are done is likely easier to stomach on a playoff contender.

While it’s somewhat shocking that the Mariners dealt their franchise player — especially since most signs pointed towards his retention next season — what he could potentially provide his new club is rather intriguing. In the appropriate role and under the right circumstances, he could really benefit the Yankees down the stretch.

Simply by not playing the majority of his games at Safeco Field, which has absolutely crushed BABIP and offense in general this season, Ichiro figures to improve his seasonal line. If his numbers at the plate with the Yankees resemble his current road numbers, and his terrific fielding persists, the Yankees won’t think twice about the money they’ll spend or the prospects they dealt. If they just acquired “Road” Ichiro, this is a darned good deal that bolsters depth in an important area.

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier in the week, we focused on the top two spots in the Phillies order. Specifically, the revelation that using Jimmy Rollins in the leadoff spot over Placido Polanco would only cost the team about 1.18 baserunners over the course of a season. The commenters pointed out, rightly, that this analysis ignored the slugging aspect of the two batters’ repertoires. Questions were also raised about the lefty-lefty tandem at the heart of the order. So, let’s dive right in and try to get this right by the numbers: A little moron, the Phillies’ batting order.

Remembering back to the LOOGY wonder that was Javier Lopez in the playoffs last year, you might over-rate the “problem” of batting lefties Chase Utley and Ryan Howard back-to-back. Lopez only pitched 4 1/3 innings, but his four strikeouts were memorable, and it seemed that he shut the duo down. But this wasn’t really a year-long problem. Yes, Howard has a nasty platoon split (.424 wOBA vs righties, .324 vs lefties), but Utley doesn’t. His work versus righties (.382 wOBA) is basically indistinguishable from his work against southpaws (.390 wOBA). Opposing managers can bring out their LOOGY for both guys at their own peril.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m nothing if not predictable. Why change a horse in midstream, the saying goes.

Roy Halladay, October 6, 2010

Roy Halladay, October 21, 2010

Yup, more strike zone plots from Brooks Baseball. And Carson’s out here pushing the limits in his previews. But these two game plots are pretty different, eh? Then let me blow you away with yet another strike zone plot, eh?

Looks like Halladay was having a little trouble locating low-and-away to left-handers, no? Or, at least low-and-away in general. In any case, it’s a nice way to show, in pictures, what it looks like to win “without your best stuff,” as the game stories most likely went today. Halladay grit and grissioned his way through the start while Tim Lincecum was the valiant loser, mostly because of some poor defense behind him.

Lincecum is not left-handed, and that probably helped lefties Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and the recently unbenched Raul Ibanez to a stunning 3-for-12 in game five. That group, along with Domonic Brown, is now a combined 10-for-51 with 7 walks and 3 extra-base hits, which sounds bad except the whole team is now batting .208. Perhaps the struggles of the left-handed batter from Philadelphia were overstated.

Raul Ibanez, though, that guy shook off his benching in a strong way. One of his two hits led to the first run of the game and started that third inning that featured all the little league defense a big-league audience could handle. Placido Polanco was the WPA champ on the offensive side for singling in the third run in the third inning (+8.5%), but somehow Ibanez sticks out.

It was a nice respite. Now, because of the Roy Oswalt Decision, the Phillies still face an uphill climb in game six.

First off, given some of the howling on twitter, it’s time for the obligatory strike zone plot. Let’s get it out of the way, thanks to Brooks Baseball.

It’s pretty ugly, but consistent enough. It was four or five inches too wide, or a half a foot if you count both sides. But there are plenty of triangles and squares out there beyond the box, so let’s not blame it all on umpire Wally Bell.

For all the talk of how similar Madison Bumgarner and Joe Blanton were going into the game, it’s somewhat prescient that they both failed to get out of the fifth inning and that they both left having given up three earned runs. On the other hand, the journey was not necessarily so similar. Bumgarner does use his left hand, and he did strike out six and allow only one run to score while he was on the bump, while Blanton struck out three and was directly responsible for all of his runs. It wasn’t all bad for Blanton – all of his balls in play were counted as groundballs – but it since the starters played to a standstill on the scoreboard, the advantage goes to the hometown pitcher.

Phillies fans can’t even blame the randomness of coming through in high leverage moments in this one – there were eight moments with a leverage index over one last night. The Phillies batters came through in two of them, and the Giants batters came through in two of them. It may seem that the Giants were more ‘clutch,’ but that would probably just be because they came up last. To the home-fielders went the spoils.

At this point, some of the blame must rest squarely on the Phillies’ stars. In this game, Chase Utley put up a -10.8% in win probability by going one for five and not coming through in some key moments. That comes on the heels of a -12% in game three (0-for-4), +3.8% in game two (0-for-3 with two walks), and a -1.8% in game one (1-for-3 with a walk). It’s obviously just a poor four-game stretch for a great secondbaseman, but it’s also bad timing for that stretch. The same could be said for Jimmy Rollins (.267, 1 extra base hit) and Jayson Werth (.250, 1 extra base hit).

The larger pattern is one of struggles for all of the left-handers on the team. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, the recently benched Raul Ibanez, and young Domonic Brown are a combined 7-for-39 with 7 walks and 3 extra-base hits, and most of that is Howard’s production. Maybe it’s not a surprise given the left arms of Jonathan Sanchez and Madison Bumgarner, but Javier Lopez looms as a large acquisition for the Giants in this series. He has three big holds and gave up his first run Wednesday night. His lefty sidearm release has been hard on the lefty batters, and that makes sense given the difference in release points vis-a-vis a regular right-hander.

All this said, it was a great game. The WPA graph does a good job showing the rollercoaster that was Wednesday night. Fans of baseball were satisfied, if not fans of Phillie baseball.

The three-year deal given to Raul Ibanez prior to the 2009 season was puzzling at the time given the length of contract weighted against the veteran’s age (He’s about to turn 38 at the mid-point of the contract). Ibanez, though, laid those concerns to rest with an outstanding ’09 season in which he posted a 3.9 WAR and slugged 34 homers.

This season has been a different story. He’s currently hitting .253/.356/.404 in 177 plate appearances. Ibanez’ wOBA has slipped from .379 last season to .325 in ’10. He’s currently being paid $11.5 million and will receive the same amount in 2011. He also has a full no-trade clause in his contract.

The good news for Phillies fans is that the veteran is currently hitting much better in May than he did in April; his wOBA has increased from .308 to .341. However, Ibanez has a .640 OPS against left-handed pitching. His OPS, in comparison, is .805 against righties. Like many left-handed hitters, Ibanez has hit right-handers much better over the course of his career.

At this point, it might make sense for the club to consider platooning the former Mariner. With turning 38 soon, Ibanez’ body would probably benefit from the added rest. Unfortunately, neither back-up outfielder – Ben Francisco nor Ross Gload – has been overly effective this season. Francisco is currently hitting .219/.265/.281, while Gload is batting .241/.241/.448 in an almost strictly pinch-hitting role.

The best solution can found down in triple-A in the form of former No. 1 draft pick John Mayberry Jr. who, at the age of 26, has never been given a fair shot to stick on a MLB roster. The 6’6” 235 lbs outfielder is currently hitting .288/.354/.494 in 160 at-bats. Against left-handers, though, he’s hitting .333/.383/.500. The Stanford alum also has a track record of success against left-handed pitching, as seen by his career line of .283/.355/.495. Mayberry could also potentially spell Ryan Howard from time-to-time, as the big first baseman has also been struggling against southpaws (.696 vs .880 OPS).

At the cost of just Francisco or Gload, it’s really not a big risk for the organization to give Mayberry a chance. Adding his prowess against left-handers could help the club when facing some of the tougher left-handers in the league. With the Phillies club in first place in the National League East, the instinct may be to leave things well enough alone. However, it’s a long season and the club’s hold on first place is anything but secure. This move has the potential to make the team stronger with little downside.

Throughout the offseason I wrote three separate posts here discussing the idea of the Phillies signing Raul Ibanez to man leftfield everyday. My feelings were not ambiguous in the least: as both a Phillies fan and an analyst, I did not support the move for several reasons. Ibanez was essentially just as poor as Pat Burrell on the defensive front, did not produce enough offensively to overcome these defensive shortcomings, and would begin his Phillies tenure at 36 years old. On top of that, the contractual terms of three years at a dollar figure in excess of $30 mil just seemed like way too much of a commitment.

This April, Ibanez hit .359/.433/.718, with seven dingers and a .487 wOBA. Defensively, he has a +2.5 UZR rating in 20 games out in leftfield. All told, Ibanez produced +1.5 wins, over 60 percent of the +2.3 wins he recorded last season. Despite his sheer awesomeness in the opening month of the season, my stance has not changed and I once again feel compelled to reiterate the difference between disliking a player and disliking a transaction or acquisition.

I have no issues with Raul Ibanez as a person. He seems like a good guy for this type of Phillies team and his numbers this month have instilled confidence in just about every Phillies fan. At the time of the signing, my pessimistic sentiments stemmed more from the contractual terms and the process of the move as opposed to the player brought in. Though the severity of the depressed free agent economy could not necessarily have been predicted, the beginning of the offseason did have a different feel and several analysts suggested that the commitments both monetarily and with roster space would not be as vast as years past.

Ibanez is not going to keep up this pace for the entire season. Dave Cameron got to watch him intently over the last several seasons and aptly summed the experience up by saying Ibanez will go on stretches during which he hits like Babe Ruth and performs average offensively in between these spurts. His defense also is not very likely to stay in the positive given his true talent level in this regard. It could, but a betting man would be wise to stick to the most probable outcome.

Overall, Ibanez has been incredible for the Phillies so far, but solely evaluating the product of a move and not the process is in no way the best analytical route to take. A combination of the two is really the most accurate since the product cannot be ignored but the process is at least equally important. Signing Ibanez to this deal when other similar players signed for very low-risk contracts was not wise from a financial standpoint.

He is not a bad player and I still root for him throughout each plate appearance, but while Ibanez has instilled confidence in fans thus far, GM Ruben Amaro did not instill the same confidence in at least this Phillies fan at the time of the signing.

One of the big decisions for first-year GM Ruben Amaro, Jr, is whether or not he will retain Pat Burrell. Burrell is a three true outcomes hitter who plays poor defense at a corner outfield position. There are plenty of those on the market this season, driving down the price. In many other off-seasons, players like Burrell and Adam Dunn would likely command $14 mil or so, while now it appears more likely that they will earn something in the $10-11 mil range. Regardless of the exactitudes, Burrell’s love for the city and the market surplus of like-players means he could be had for a lesser fee.

His defense stinks, though, and he would be better-suited to serve as a DH for an AL team. Though Burrell has been one of my favorite players for years, if he were to sign elsewhere and the Phillies could replace him, perhaps with a slightly less productive hitter but more solid defender, this Phightins phan would not be particularly upset. I would, however, be upset if Amaro let Burrell go elsewhere and signed one of the other good-hitting, no-defense corner outfielders to replace him.

According to Jayson Stark, this may come to fruition, as the defending champs and Raul Ibanez seemingly have strong mutual interest. As Peter Griffin would say, this really grinds my gears!

Before even looking at the numbers, let it be known that Burrell is 32 and Ibanez is 37. Players like these two do not age particularly well, and yet the Phillies seem more willing to give a multi-year deal to someone five years older than their “current” left-fielder. I’m sure Ibanez is a standup guy and a positive influence in the clubhouse, but it isn’t as if Burrell is Sidney Ponson/Milton Bradley attitude-wise. For this to even make sense, Ibanez would have to project much better offensively, and at least a little better defensively.

Burrell’s 2009 Marcel wOBA is .369 to the .344 of Ibanez. This translates to +19 runs offensively for Burrell and just +6 for Ibanez. Both are likely to play the whole season, so we dock 7.5 runs for an adjustment. Meanwhile, Burrell would get +17 runs to adjust to value above replacement while Ibanez would get +18 runs. Now, we move onto defense. Both of these guys have been either the worst, or among the worst, defensive left-fielders over the past two seasons.

A rough UZR projection has them both at around -12 or -13 runs defensively for 2009. If we consider them both to be -12, then Burrell is, all told, +16.5 runs above replacement. Ibanez… is +5.5 runs. Translated to wins, we’re talking about +1.65 wins vs. +0.55 wins.

I have nothing against Ruben Amaro, Jr. Heck, I played baseball with his nephew and his brother even donated bases and balls to a league my father and I used to run. He will have to forgive me, though, for failing to understand why he would pursue a player worth over a full win less and who is five years older than a player he could likely easily re-sign. If you do not want Burrell back, fine, but do not replace him with someone less productive than he and much older in baseball terms.

Even if this deal were just for one season, I still would not like it, because it isn’t as if the Phillies have a top-tiered prospect waiting in the wings to take over the position. If you do not plan on re-signing Burrell, it makes no sense to sign someone with similar skills that is less productive, older, and almost as, if not equally, costly.